What Movie Did You Just Watch? ... And Robin

[MJW]

I just re-watched Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH, in anticipation of the new Blu-ray release on 3/29. I wanted to see if I liked it enough to warrant an upgrade, and so far, I'm still undecided. I guess only time (and the price) will tell...

Keeping with Bluth's work, I have now moved on to Thumbelina.

[avonleastories95]

I have recently watched the forgotten Disney classic Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. This movie needed some time to grow on me, but it is now one of my favorite Disney Live Action movies. It really captured the magic of Disney and has done it in a superlative way!
On Par for tommorow: Mary Poppins

[dvdjunkie]

As a family we watched So Dear To My Heart starring Bobby Driscoll. This is truly a very good, heartwarming film with a good cast and a great mix of live-action and animation. One of those you just have to watch it at least once a year kind of films.

[Victurtle]

First half of Fantasia.... I fell asleep

[Lazario]

First half of Fantasia.... I fell asleep

I think it's the music, personally.

[carolinakid]

I watched Mulligans and Latter Days....loved them!

[dvdjunkie]

Watched Salt - the Director's Cut on Blu-ray, and think that this is the way the movie should be watched. The "Extended" version has a totally different ending, which spoils everything before it, so for now I am going to watch only the "Director's Cut" or the "Theatrical" version of this film.

[Goliath]

Sarajevo, my love! (2006)

Strange... this title seems to be not existing on IMDb, so I can't post the original Bosnian title. Anyway, it's a drama film about the lives of a single mother and her daughter in the Bosnian capital after the Balkan wars. But inside themselves, the wars are far from over. Interesting topic, somewhat boring execution. Not too special.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (2008)

Second viewing within half a year, I think. That doesn't happen often with me, but when a movie is this good, I'll make an exception. Excellent character portrait of a woman who has spend 15 years in prison and now returns back into society, living with her sister and extended family. Wonderful feel-good movie; I can't really explain why, but it's like I'm there, with the characters. You crawl into the story at the beginning and you don't want to get out until the end. Strong performance by Kristen Scott Thomas.

[TheValentineBros]

The Green Hornet.

I actually liked it. Seth Rogen did a good job as the Green Hornet, to be honest.

[littlefuzzy]

I tried to post this a few hours earlier, and lost it because of a net hiccup. I'm too tired to do much tonight.

Since my last post, I've watched another handful of films.


Aces Go Places V - The Aces are being framed for stealing the Chinese Excalibur (a bronze sword found with the Terracotta Army), as well as The Terracotta Army itself (or a portion of it.)

Screwball '94 - The Hong Kong version of Porky's, with LOTS of nudity. They even steal the shower gag from Porky's. This has a 400 year old horny ghost, to boot.

Zapped Again! - A sequel/partial remake of Zapped (kind of like Teen Wolf Too), A guy gains telekinetic powers from chemicals, and uses them to wreak havoc with the clothing of the coeds.

Enter the Phoenix - When a triad boss dies, his gay son lets his friend pretend to be the son instead, and run the triads. Produced by Jackie Chan, he has a cameo for a few seconds.

Camp Cucamonga - This 1990 TV movie about summer camp has tons of 80s-90s sitcom stars in it.

The Party Animal - Lots of fans on this, I'm not one of them. It's probably the first dark comedy with slapstick I've ever seen... Lots of T&A, but most of the movie felt like they were trying too hard to be funny/edgy/whatever.

[Mooky]

Sarajevo, my love! (2006)

Strange... this title seems to be not existing on IMDb, so I can't post the original Bosnian title. Anyway, it's a drama film about the lives of a single mother and her daughter in the Bosnian capital after the Balkan wars. But inside themselves, the wars are far from over. Interesting topic, somewhat boring execution. Not too special.

I believe this is the movie you're referring to: Grbavica, winner of 2006 Berlin Film Festival.

[dvdjunkie]

Bored to death by the Grammies, so we fired up the Junkie Home Theater popcorn machine, and sat back and watched And Now For Something Completely Different...!" from Monty Python. Just an hour and a half of fun with some of the best comedy ever. "The Dead Parrot" sketch will live on forever as well "Twit of the Month". Just plain good entertainment.

[BelleGirl]

Lettters to Juliet
A feel-good movie of the romantic kind. The message: true love does exist! Through a very old letter written to Juliet in Verona (where heartsore girls paste letters to Juliet on a wall at her house) an older English lady is reunited with her Italian lover from 50 years ago, and a young woman finds out that her true love is not the man she was engaged with.

Once in a while it's nice to believe that such things may happen to you.. It hasn't happened to me yet

[jpanimation]

All-Star Superman (2011) 7/10 - not bad, far from the worst of the DCAU features and Superman's death is handled much better then in Doomsday. The story is good but sloppy. The episodic nature of the comic run which this is based doesn't translate that well into a feature (well, at least not while they're dead set on handicapping these release with a 75 minutes or less policy). The overarching story is handled very well but the vignettes which make up the majority of the movie just seem random, out of place, and rushed. Insignificant characters just come and go with you often asking yourself "what was the point of that?" Like every DCAU title, this could've benefited from an extended runtime of at least 15 minutes. If you're like me, you may not like Superman because of how perfect and indestructible he is and how goofy or alien some of his foes are. While this story does a good job of humanizing some of the characters, giving some down-to-earth problems, it's still chock full of those goofy elements that just turn me off. The characterizations are spot on but the voice acting is very weak. Superman is mostly wooden and unsympathetic, Loise often feels out of character with her deliveries. Lex was decent but I just don't see the point in them recasting these roles for every movie with celebrities that just don't do the characters justice when they could get the original voice actors to reprise their roles for a fraction of the cost and with better result (that's what the fans want, the original actors and these movies are made almost exclusively for the fans). The movie as a whole suffers from the weak performances. Also, the animation is still not that great. I feel like Young Justice has better animation and since that is an animated series and this is a DTV feature, I'd expect a little more. The score is great throughout, that excellent theatrical quality Christopher Drake brought to Under the Red Hood is here, but with the Superman flare. It's just I was a little disappointed to hear him poaching parts of his score from James Newton Howard (a motif almost note-for-note was taken straight out of his King Kong score). Still, while not as good as Under the Red Hood (which if you remember had flaws of it's own), this movie is still worth checking out.

This next one was on HDNet Movies and seeing it was only a painful reminder that Warner has yet to release it on Blu:

The Iron Giant (1999) 8/10 - still an excellent movie. I love the 50s sci-fi nostalgia, the characters, the story and even the message. The tacked on ending is still a little corny, I remember thinking this when I first saw it in theaters, but it's just such a good film. Now if only Warner would get off their asses and give this movie a proper home video release, preferably on Blu-Ray, instead of treating it like some second rate DTV tie-in. They already missed it's 10 year anniversary and any kind of tie-in with Brad Bird's Pixar success.

[Duckburger]

Next batch, the ones I've seen since last week. Short list.

Conviction - 20th Century Fox
This was alright. Hillary Swank, Sam Rockwell, and Minnie Driver were great. The story is incredible, and based on a true story. Some people will do everything for their family, just goes to show. Not amazing or anything, but still good enough.

Sleeping Beauty - Disney
Repeat viewing. Still beautiful, still one of my favourites. Story isn't the best, and the main characters are pretty one dimensional, but aside from that it's amazing. The animation is some of the best I've ever seen, and continues to amaze me with each viewing. The Blu-ray restoration is also absolutely breathtaking.

Vanishing on 7th Street - Magnolia
Crap. Plain and simple. Which is disappointing, since I had high hopes for this movie. The ideas of shadows taking you away in the dark is awesome --not original per se, but also not overdone 'till the point of annoyance. An apocalypse brought on by shadows, basically. Aside from that the plot is not cleared up at all, nor is the reason why it's happening explained. It has religious influences, but doesn't explain why. The ending is dumb, and doesn't explain anything nor does it make sense in any way. The acting is largely wooden, overly dramatic, and unconvincing. The script --especially the first 20 minutes-- is even worse than the people cranking the lines out.

Easy A - Sony
This was a very funny movie, also very heartfelt near the end. The fake sex scene was genius. Emma Stone kind of reminds me of Lindsay Lohan from 5 years back, only even better. She's very likable. A lot of cool references to past teen movies. And a great soundtrack. Definitely recommended to everyone who likes teen movies, especially those of John Hughes.

[TheSequelOfDisney]

Out of the Past

I liked this one more than Double Indemnity even though I was (and still am) kind of confused about the $40,000. What did Kathy have to do with it? She obviously took it because of the deposit slip, but where did the money go? Plus this is the first film that the main character visibly died (it's kind of iffy in Double Indemnity and Spade was definitely alive at the end of The Maltese Falcon). I feel like this film flowed a lot better even though it had the film noir flashback/voice-over that Double Indemnity had. I don't know. I just liked it better even though I'm still kind of confused.

Coming up next Monday is Chinatown.

[Goliath]

I believe this is the movie you're referring to: Grbavica, winner of 2006 Berlin Film Festival.

Yes, thank you! Strange, it doesn't list "Sarajevo, my love!" as the English title. I wonder how that did wind up in my tv guide... Maybe they translated the French Canadian title into English? Anyway, how did you find it on IMDb?


Das weisse Band (2009)

Also known as 'The White Ribbon'. Michael Haneke's latest won two Oscar nominations and a truckload of other awards, but I'm not sure why exactly. Sure, I can see it's a highly disturbing and unsettling tale about a series of gruesome incidents involving little children in a closed, claustrophobic and strictly religious German village at the beginning of the 20th century; and it's really a big accomplishment how Haneke makes you feel the threatning atmoshpere that lies over everything that happens there; and it's filled with a great cast of actors...

But it's so sloooooooooooooooow! Good Lord, is this thing slooooooooooooooow! Did I already mention it is sloooooooooooooow?

[jpanimation]

Saving Private Ryan (1998) 8.5/10 - since I had only seen this once years ago...and my library had this on Blu-Ray...and I remember loving this movie...I had to snag it and see if my high opinion is justified. It certainly is! I still love this movie and it's probably my second favorite of Spielberg's right after Jaws. It's just such a character piece, despite being bookended by 20-30 minute action scenes, and that really is what Spielberg does best. The nearly 3 hour runtime just flies by, very entertaining.

[Mooky]

I believe this is the movie you're referring to: Grbavica, winner of 2006 Berlin Film Festival.

Yes, thank you! Strange, it doesn't list "Sarajevo, my love!" as the English title. I wonder how that did wind up in my tv guide... Maybe they translated the French Canadian title into English? Anyway, how did you find it on IMDb?

Check my location ... It was pretty big over here when it came out since it initially caused quite an uproar due to its heavy subject. I also agree with your assessment of the movie - I actually find it to be quite good with strong performances from the two leads, but it's delivered in a slightly sloppy manner and bogged down by unnecessary side stories. It also should have explored its topic much further because the movie felt incomplete, which might actually be director's weak point: her second movie was also criticized for not delving more into another controversial theme (this time it was religious awakening vs. secularity).

[Goliath]

Check my location ... It was pretty big over here when it came out since it initially caused quite an uproar due to its heavy subject. I also agree with your assessment of the movie - I actually find it to be quite good with strong performances from the two leads, but it's delivered in a slightly sloppy manner and bogged down by unnecessary side stories. [...]

Aaah, that explains how you found it. Interesting information you add. Was the film succesful in Bosnia? Did it cause a public debate about the issues presented in the movie?