An Still-Entirely-Redundant (But More Useful than Expected) Viewing Log for 2006

That's where I stopped it, actually. Using "The Carny" in that situation was just such an obvious move that it was the last straw for me... and I love that song, too. Maybe I'll try the film again some other day, but I knew it was time to turn it off when I realized that I was actually hoping Meg Ryan would turn up looking all dewy-eyed.

No, dude, see "Brokeback Mountain". Anne shows 'em off in that too, plus that film's actually good.

Naw, he's pretty much on my shit list now. All form, no function -- somehow, he's Japan's weird answer to Michael Bay.

Well, I was watching it with friends, so there's that. Believe me, if I'd been on my own, it would have been half an hour and out.

Again, part of my bailout is attributable to the time at which I started it (1:30 AM, if I'm not mistaken). But also, I'd just suffered through "Secuestro Express" and I didn't have the fortitude to make it through a(nother) film that wasn't any good.

"Inept" being the key word. Sorry, but I'm not convinced Jonathan J. has any business being near a camera. Plus, it looks unforgivably awful next to the '70s films it's emulating.

No, "t" stands for TV. Those are episodes of the Showtime series "Masters of Horror". They're mini-films, an hour long each (long enough for feature-length), but since they're TV movies they don't count. Thus the demarcation.

I think it's amazing, honestly. I'll give it another watch in the next couple days (to see if we can't get rid of that minus)... but even if it doesn't improve significantly, I feel confident in proclaiming this one of the five best films I will see this year.

Yep - New Directors/New Films, the companion series to the New York Film Fest. Three films next Sunday too, of which I'm most excited for "13 Tzameti". ND/NF is generally a crapshoot these days, but every now and then something like "Half Nelson" (or "The Day I Became a Woman", or "Darwin's Nightmare") sneaks in.

Naw, fest day! "Kirikou" and "Crimes" were watched on the train (it's an hour-twenty ride); the other four were seen in a theater. Which still isn't as impressive as last August 17, when I shoehorned six theatricals into one day... but it's still not bad. :-)

'Cause two outta threeeee, ain't baaaad... :-)

It's like the world's longest Aphex Twin video. Except retarded.

Lion's Gate put out a two-disc version of "Three... Extremes." The second disc has the full-length "(Chicken &) Dumplings." It's almost exactly like the "Extremes" version, except that it's longer. Ooh boy.

Also... wow, Nostalgia Kza bringin' back the Fruit Stripe! Haven't thought about that stuff in forever and a goddamn day.

I've seen all of 'em, save for Miike's still-unreleased "Imprint." "Cigarette Burns" is the best of the lot, though "Dreams in the Witch-House" and "Sick Girl" are also solid. The rest range from decent to mediocre, with the exceptions of "The Fair-Haired Child" (really stupid) and "Dance of the Dead" (unspeakable).

I don't quite get the hostile reviews "The Proposition" has been picking up -- it's good. (Not as good as "Down in the Valley," though -- holy shit.)

Also...

1) Heh... nah, just digging out from underneath some other stuff that needed my attention first.

2) I wasn't planning on seeing it at all... right up until you gave it that 84. Now I have to.

Oddly enough, that was my intention, sort of. I was gonna do a whole "Intruder" week, what with the two I had from Netflix, the two from Greencine and the one that's been stuck in my backlog for two years or so. But it ended up being more of an "Intruder" every-couple-of-days thing... :-)

But, man, is there ever nothing at all to I Spit On Your Grave.

I do, obviously, disagree. I think of the film as a proto-Haneke sort of thing - "Funny Games" without the overt hectoring.

Then again, you didn't much care for "Funny Games," if I'm not mistaken...

Well said. I don't know about "Steinbeck-like"... mostly because I don't know about Steinbeck.

The silent communication between Hannay and the farmer's wife is marvelous. It might be (probably is, I guess) because he started working in silent pictures but Hitchcock's silent set pieces are fantastic.

I'm shocked (SHOCKED, I tells ya!) at how purely entertaining "I Kiss You Then I Shoot You" was. Maybe the best example of Hollywood pop-trash since... well, hell I dunno. I'd say "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," but I don't wanna see you go apoplectic... ;-)

I thought what was really scary was director John Moore's conviction that adding footage of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina would lend weight and gravity to his retarded oogy-boogy devil movie.

I thought it was great for about forty minutes. Then it kept going. Still, I'm not sorry I saw it, and Jena Malone's voice makes me wanna go take a cold shower.

Yeah, you might wanna give that a pass -- the turtle flaying is an abhorrent stretch of celluloid.

I think I have to agree with Messr. Henderson when he calls "Holocaust" 'artful enough to demand serious critical consideration, yet foul enough to christen you a pervert for even bothering.'

I did have some red wine I was sipping, but I think a heavy cloud of intoxication may have made "Izo" even more difficult to complete. I was torn between wanting to see it again so that maybe I could understand what the hell Miike was getting at and never ever wanting to see it again ever.

Believe it or not, this was only the second time and the first in roughly ten years.

Oops. Thanks for the heads-up.

I think that's where the difference lies -- I can excuse the rampant silliness of "Signs" and "Unbreakable" because Night starts out by grounding the silliness within a concrete reality. Indeed, that seems to be the entire point of the former: what would superheroes and supervillains be like if they existed in the modern-day blue-collar world, if there was nothing outsize about them? (Also, I'm perfectly willing to give "Signs" an enthusiastic recommendation despite idiocy like "Swing away" because it works so perfectly on the visceral level to which it aspires.)

Also, I doubt I could give any film with the Balaban character a passing grade. I don't take it as an offense, as way too many thin-skinned critics have -- I just think it's really bad writing, that's all. I will give it credit, though -- for a film with so many flaws, it's definitely stuck in my head. Especially that last shot, which is nothing short of pure poetry. Compare that to something like "Superman Returns," which I remember almost nothing about already except the best laugh line of the year and Kate Bosworth taking an inhuman amount of abuse.

That's the thing. I actually really like Bergman. I like him a whole hell of a lot. But I'm singularly unimpressed by "Shame" -- as the society in the film falls apart, so does the film. I don't think it has anything to do with the spiritual content or lack thereof... I just think Bergman's retreading material he covered about as well as anyone could with "The Silence." I had a similar reaction to "Through a Glass Darkly."

"Manderlay," on the other hand, is a strange and flawed film, and the subplot with Bryce's erotic fantasies was ill-advised. But I think there's enough there that I can recommend it -- it's still a troubling and thought-provoking film.

And I know it's not something I should admit to, but I've not yet seen any Tarkovsky. I have "The Mirror" coming up on my Greencine queue, so we'll see.

I wouldn't suffer through it if I couldn't bitch about it... :-)

Yes, I can only surmise that the Dread Pirate was appropriately drunk when he saw this. It's the only thing that could possibly explain his high grade.

It's not just unfunny -- it's deliberately unfunny. I have to wonder what the point of making a comedy and intentionally not putting any laughs in it is.

The TV spots are better simply because they're shorter. Take the trailer, and imagine that caffinated-ferret approach stretched to eighty minutes. It's all a bit much.

Funny thing is, I was sitting at about a B myself (which, if I understand our grading systems correctly, is somewhat less satisfied than your B) until the last sequence. Then it all clicked: Oh my God. These guys have been in on the joke the whole time. Fucking brilliant, man.

Also, including John Waters was great. Having him show up five minutes after Danger Ehren eats cow poop was even greater. Knoxville and Co. are definitely cannier than anyone's giving them credit for.

Apparently, everything is better than All the King's Men... :-)

Bugger! I do that sometimes. I have this condition, you see...

And sorry -- Killer's Kiss is obsessively detailed and rich but dull as ass.

That's a pretty sharp way to sum it up -- if you took Lady Vengeance and replaced the main character with a logic-breakingly intelligent and cunning androgynous 14-year-old girl, you'd get Hard Candy.

Is it ever. It ate up my entire weekend, cost me a day of work, gave me food poisoning and kept me from seeing Inland Empire... but it was so totally worth it. I think sitting through this makes up for the fact that it's the first film I've seen this month.

I thought it was generally pretty crummy, but every now and then it would do something so awesome (i.e. the little kid gettin' et whole right in front of his screaming mom, or the chick getting to the truck safely, only to abandon the others and drive away) that I had to give it respect.

Too busy getting high off this rock.

I've only seen his newer films, no Volver yet, but i like them all, but from what i heard La Mala Educacion is a rehash of La Ley del Deseo, and he has been repeating himself for a while.