Not quite as bad as I expected. It looked great...

pusher

it's directed by nicholas winding refn who's gone on to hollywood with the much talked about ''Driver''. A danish movie that looks at what a life of crime might actually be like. no real big scoop: danish movie makes life look like endless struggle! that being said i loved the way it captured the performances rather than making sure everything looked peter perfecto. there are sequels.

six more enjoyable than cliffhanger

Night Of The Hunter - 1995
''You hit Daddy with a hairbrush!''
Finally got around to watching this. My expectation were not quite met, but that's my fault for having them in the first place. I feel like the film lost momentum half way through and from the point in which the kids leave on their boat, I lost interest to a degree. The scenes of the drowned mother are fantastic, though - really painterly, and Robert Mitchum is incredible (except for that scene where he runs up with cellar stairs after the children with his arms outstretched - was just too schlocky!)

pusher trilogy gets worse as it goes on unfortunately, but Refn's film Bronson is pretty awesome.

fyi it's Drive...

thanks BCWC, my bad. yeah that bronson movie is pretty ace, outstanding performance by tom hardy. now we can all say ''i've seen bane's dick!''

six more enjoyable than cliffhanger

i finally saw paul on the weekend.

loved it. wish simon pegg was my boyfriend.

Watched ''The Beaver'' with Mel Gibson & Jodie Foster last week. Gibson was actually good! A quirky yet very insightful look into depression. Bought mrs smoke to tears as it cut pretty close to home.

& I've just put Paul in the DVD player!

Visitor Q

&

American Beauty

Didn't love American Beauty, but it was enjoyable enough. Some moments were hilarious. Others pretty cringe worthy - like the plastic bag teary eyed video watching. ugh....
Visitor Q isn't much like anything I've seen before. Pretty intense viewing. May take a while to process.

oh man, I love Visitor Q. A LOT.

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

your enjoyment of this film will depend on what you thought of the first one. there's some good action and ritchie busts out a LOT of different camera tricks to varying degrees of success. RDJ has a winning screen presence and looks like Heath Ledger's joker at one point.

about the same enjoyable than cliffhanger

Miss Bala - Gerardo Naranjo (2011 Mexico) So this new one looks at poverty and fame via a beautiful young woman who dreams of becoming a beauty queen but instead gets caught up in a Mexican gang war. Some exception looking shots but on the whole full of motivation holes and way too unbelievable. Mexico's Academy award submission lacks the sass of Naranjo's last flick Voy a Explotar (I'm Gonna Explode). 3 stars

it was based on a true story though wasn't it Boston? Not that that makes real life events seem any less credible. Think it's got a chance at Best Foreign Film Oscar?

Last Friday I saw Dawn of the Dead at Westgath cinema's midnight Cult Vault thing and it was excellent. I love Cult Vault, may it exist for a long time and continually draw a weird mix of people to see underappreciated films like this.

Kiss Of The Spiderwoman.

Disappointing. Interesting that Sonja Braga couldn't speak a word of English and learnt all of her lines phonetically, though. But that was probably the only interesting thing about this movie, although Hurt's performance was up to his usual standards.

Yeah, loosely based on miss Sinaloa 2008. I don't think it will win.

Voy a Explotar would be a cool band name

horrible bosses! it sucked!!!

young adult. supremely good.

I started watching Hesher last night, but fell asleep. Loved the punctuations of 15 second Metallica/Motorhead snippets. Also love JGL. Not hard, really. Looking forward to seeing the rest. Rainn Wilson was great as the depressed father, too. Nice to see him in a role that's not completely ridiculous.

Decided I'm going to make a trip on Feb 9th to Elsternwick to see Shame. Really the only film I can think of at the moment that is worthy of making the journey out there (I received a free double pass to the Classic as a gift.)

I watched the 2011 version of Jane Eyre the other day. It was ok. Also watch Serenity. It too was ok. I'm not much of a movie watcher, but thats ok, too.

Rainn Wilson was great as the depressed father, too. Nice to see him in a role that's not completely ridiculous.

wilson is very good in super, but that's a semi-ridiculous film. he's good in peep world too.

he always seems to be playing the same guy, sort of autistic or maybe just dim-witted

we saw that one he did with anthony hopkins as the murderer. it was pretty shit but not woeful. movie logic taken to the most ridiculous extreme.

three worse than cliffhanger

This Ain't California - 2012 - really fun film about skateboarding kids in 1980s GDR. Try not to read anything about it before watching. 3.5 stars.

Ace in the Hole - brilliant.

i've wanted to watch that for ages, stirfry. the front page is also pretty amazing

It's incredible slothman.. Gonna check out the front page now.

hope i haven't got your hopes up too high!

Is that the Kirk Douglas/Billy Wilder Ace in the Hole? Top flick, that. Brilliant screenplay.

Never, sloth. Thanks for the recommendation! Looks good..

It's that one Grantley, and it's THAT good.

The other one that blew my mind recently was Le Trou (The Hole), a French film.

Haven't seen much Jodorowsky but was just refreshing my memory about his failed attempt in the '70s to film Dune, starring Dali and Welles.

the documentary about that failed attempt is also showing at directors' fortnight - jodorowsky's dune.

here's the list of films for directors' fortnight.

GoMA have got a Claire Dennis thing coming up
http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/current/claire_denis

looks terrific!

far more comprehensive than the denis season we had at the melb-cteq last year.

the documentary about that failed attempt is also showing at directors' fortnight

Oh wow, I didn't realise, just a coincidental musing…

I'm glad a few of you enjoyed The Hunt. I keep thinking about it.

The Hunt was very well-made but made me incredibly angry. It's such a dicey issue to make a film about but very ballsy to do so. Obviously the topic is complicated but it's nice to see a film argue against hysteria and panic in these regards. Especially in an age where the public at large love to harrass and seek to destroy people on the flimsiest evidence or tangential relation (see: Sunil Trepathi's family in the after the Boston Bombings or the poor guy who shared a name with Andrew Bayley who received phone calls and death threats in the wake of that whole case.

So while I can certainly say I didn't enjoy The Hunt, I'm glad it exists.

was that a spoiler right there?

I don't think I spoiled anything not given away in the film's synopsis. I hope I didn't. Sorry.

have you heard about the dude from boston names Steve Bartman? he's a guy who went to catch a ball at the red sox game and there was confusion about what was out or in or whatever. the up shot is that the red sox lost that game and EVERYBODY in boston blamed him. looking at how many people dressed up like him for halloween might seem kind of funny now but i'm sure at the time it was pretty fkn horrible for him.

there's an ESPN 30 for 30 about it that's pretty fascinating. (that 30 for 30 boxset i got is six better than cliffhanger. some are better than others but the best ones are real memorable sport documentary. spose it helps if you're into that sort of thing to begin with)

moribunderast - I think it may have been an accidental spoiler.

or perhaps i am reading too much into the allusions you made between the film and those two recent cases. carry on.