Ulzana's Raid

Excellent western by the guy who directed Kiss Me Deadly.

The last days of the world

Cocaine Cowboys

I loved this even more than I expected to, and I expected to love it a lot.

weird coincidence, i was just reading about that movie this morning!

marco rubio (florida) --> cocaine mouth --> griselda blanco

Watch it, seriously. Griselda Blanco needs a film made just about her. Amazing stuff.

death and the maiden

really good! one of my favourite polanski films I think.

That is because Jack Sparrow ruined Johnny Depp. Dude used to be a creative and innovative actor until he essentially combined his characters of Raul Duke and Sam from Benny&Joon and has lost all of his talent and become a caricature of his former characters. Some director is going to eventually have the balls to step up and say, "Johnny, can we get a bit less of the Jack Sparrow and a bit more Depp variety please?"

God Bless guys like Brad Pitt for evolving past their key roles. What if Brad was always stuck in Tyler Durden or Tristan from Legends of the Fall? Lame.

Personally, Lincoln aside my favorite actor of the past few years has been Daniel Day Lewis, I mean Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood are like Bram Stoker's Dracula epically well produced films yo!

He has a similar problem to Leonardo Di Caprio (who I much prefer) in that he just can't pull off really adult roles. He's good at playing slightly smug/quirky 20 somethings, and that's it.

I also like Leo and I think that he has overcome his inability to play more mature roles in the past few years. Yes, ALL of his roles still rely on some sense of boyish charm, but an in all I think that Leo has better avoided type-casting and stuck in the same character as has Depp. Again, I still think that Brad Pitt is the gold standard in variety of good acting in the past 20 years. What is hilarious is the all these 1990s teeny-bop heart throbs have all evolved into more serious acting careers than I think anyone would have expected twenty years ago. I mean, its not like Freddy Prinze Jr or Jonathan Taylor Thomas ever evolved into legitimate films ;)

The Untouchables

I'd convinced myself that I didn't like this and I can't work out why.

Some of his recent films are up there with his best. There different sure, nut I like that. I like to see a director actually evolve and change. In fact I'd say the only rough period he really went through was the late 90's early 00's. Once he did Melinda and Melinda he found his mojo again I think.

And if you disagree with me I will tell you to suck my big, fat one and I will storm off and never come back here again.

This is the big difference between old Woody and new Woody:

He always took chances. Only they used to pay off.

His eighties work is golden, classic after classic.

The whole decade starts off with STARDUST MEMORIES. Love it or hate it, it was a risky film to make.

Then there's:

MIDSUMMER
ZELIG
B DAN ROSE
PURPLE
HANNAH
RADIO
SEPT
ANOTHER WOMAN
CRIMES

(Add some seventies work, and HUSBANDS and BULLETS from the 90s, and it's pretty obvious how damn good the guy really is when he tries.)

It's hard to think of another director who banged out so many great films year after year. For a decade. At least. Amazing.

And they are all what I would call "original."

He still has good ideas: "What if we tell the same story as a comedy and then as a tragedy?"

But Old Woody would've made a great flick out of this concept. New Woody is happy enough to have come up with concept, but can't be bothered to really explore it or squeeze out the potential. I think that explains my frustration with his past two decades of crap-to-mediocre stuff.

And by the way, I wouldn't be so upset at the decline in quality if I didn't love his work so much, if it wasn't so important to me when I was growing up surrounded by wasps and gentiles. He used to be a hero, and it hurts when heroes fall.

3:10 to Yuma

A solid Western but I'm never sure how seriously I can take Glenn Ford when he plays a villain; he just seems like one of those inherently likeable people. Although in fairness the movie ends up playing on that very thing. Some great dialogue, too - as you'd expect with Leonard's connection.

- "Safe! Who knows what's safe? I knew a man dropped dead from lookin' at his wife. My own grandmother fought the Indians for sixty years... then choked to death on lemon pie."

Curious to see the remake, now.



Super Fly

Probably the best of the Blaxploitation stuff I've seen so far.

The Mack is better ;)

jacques tati WAS A FUCKING GENIUS

this is my 2nd monsieur hulot movie-- first i watched his holiday move (les vacances de monsieur hulot). it was hilarious. "mon oncle" however is fucking SUPREME. it's just. damn. damn damn damn. wow.

Not sure how many knew but Hulu was making several films from the Criterion Collection available to stream for free over the weekend. I heard about it but then didn't end up watching anything until tonight. I bypassed all the international films and ended up just watching "Jubilee" cause I had never seen it before and I wanted to see another movie featuring Nell (Columbia) Campbell.