movies

[Maclowery]

I watched a copy of Expendables 2 at, um, my friend's house. I guess I enjoyed the first one - I think I watched it 2 times anyway, but I don't remember much.

But, holy crap, the second one was just so, so, so stupid. It was probably a 90 minute movie, and I (I mean my friend and I), watched the whole thing in about 15 minutes, fast-forwarding through buckets of uninteresting action scenes and bizarrely boring chit-chat. I certainly wasn't expecting much of anything, but I would rather watch an actual corny 80s action movie like American Ninja 4 rather than that steaming heap.

Oh, Snow White and the Huntsman was forgettable. I was surprised by it, a bit. I thought the action scenes were ScyFy channel stupid with terrible choreography and CGI, but I really did enjoy a lot of the Guillermo Del Toro-style fantasy critters. There was a long and rather boring scene in a Fairy Vale that had a lot of really cool images. The Twilight chick was hot (I like skinny pale brunettes) but awful, Thor was awful, and Charlize Theron screaming was really tedious.

Anyway, after those two disappointments, I finally finished the Coen Brothers' version of True Grit, which I enjoyed.

[The Third Man]

Finally saw The Master yesterday afternoon. It's definitely stuck in my mind, if nothing else. Like There Will Be Blood, it's got that weird push-pull between epic and intimate character study that makes it hard to pin down on first watch, and I have little doubt that it will benefit from a second viewing with a road map in mind. It's usually difficult to tell what PTA is driving towards without the benefit of hindsight. Not that I expect it to scale the heights of TWBB - and if I had to guess, it won't leapfrog Boogie Nights or Magnolia for me either, but that just means it's not as great as three movies I absolutely adore. I'll just echo thrill's thoughts re: Phoenix and PSH, they were phenomenal. And as skilled as Malick and Tarantino are, if a better-looking film comes out this year, I'll be impressed.

[JackofDiamonds]

From a completely unrelated Grantlandarticle this morning:

I don't know if I like or understand the game of football better than I did a month ago. But I don't feel like I look as much like an impostor when I walk in a place like this. I am another Sunday Ticketer drinking the heart out of a fine desert midmorning, posted up on a barstool between a guy with richly inky James Liptonian facial hair and a young couple drinking childlessly and cheering for Green Bay.

Everything else I've ever been into has brought me closer to people exactly like me. Indie-rock shows full of dudes who could be my stunt double. Comic-book stores full of Life Model Decoys. A few weeks ago after a midnight showing of The Master I looked up and to the left from the urinal and it was like looking into the accordioned infinity of a hotel-bathroom mirror — nine guys with glasses and beards, peeing and thinking about their dads.

[The Third Man]

Oh holy hell. Mulholland Drive is playing on Thursday night at 7:30 as part of Webster's film series. I'm seriously tempted to take off work a couple of hours early and drive straight to STL to see it.

[The Third Man]

JL et al - can anybody confirm for me that Webster's film series shows actual prints, and isn't projecting a blu-ray or some crap? Because if so, yeah I'm doing this.

[ghostrunner]

Only if you admit this is to see Laura Harring's unblurred lady parts.

My only bad memory of this movie is having to manually fast forward three times through the same first half of the movie to get past a bad sector on the DVD, all because David Lynch doesn't believe in chapters. Jerk.

[The Third Man]

I'm doing it to see Naomi Watts'. Good enough?

[JL21]

JL et al - can anybody confirm for me that Webster's film series shows actual prints, and isn't projecting a blu-ray or some crap? Because if so, yeah I'm doing this.

For the most part, they show prints. I think they have done Blu on occasion. But if you ask them, they're very honest about it. I'd contact them via their email and ask if there's a specific film you're curious about.

The program for the Classic French Film Festival actually had the format in each film's synopsis.

[The Third Man]

Fortunately (in this case), MD doesn't even exist on region-1 blu-ray. But yeah, good call, I'll shoot them an email.

[Vidor]

"Mulholland Drive", history's happiest combination of high cinematic art and hot lesbo sex.