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- Nausicaa
- I used to hate anime, but I'm liking Miyazake. This was sweet.
- Die Another Day
- My concession to mainstream movies is James Bond (though I missed the
last one). This was fun, though the Iceland surf scene was silly. But I
do like seeing cold places. And I do like Bond.
- The Ring
- So I had to watch it. And I did. And both Ed and I were creeped out.
Yay.
- Secretary
- I had to see this alone because it was an alone kind of movie to see.
I knew that any comments that would jar me would jar me too much, and I
just couldn't risk that. And I'm glad I saw it alone, because in some
ways it was good for me (and in some ways it might not have been).
- Let's talk about the movie apart from my personal reactions first. It
was beautiful. It was sweet. It is how a love story should be---not
about predetermined ideas of what one person should be like to another,
but about compatibility. Compatability is important. It was lovely to
have that in a movie.
- My personal reactions: I cried. I cried because it was sweet, which I
almost never do, so that was good. I cried because it hit home, the
cutting and the pain and all that, because that's what I'm like, too. I
cried because I'm not sure I'll ever feel that again, and that possibility
scares me, me being too fucked up by certain other stuff to ever enjoy
that again and dammit, that would really really suck. (It makes me weepy
even typing this now, in an awful self-pitying way that I have to stop
with this particular chain of elaboration).
- This is probably the first movie that I would want to own.
- Following
- Wow. Chris Nolan's first film. All detached and told in weird order
and stuff. Great great great.
- Das Experiment
- Great except for the girlfriend, whose purpose I couldn't figure out.
She seemed just thrown in there. Moritz Bleibtreu, the actor who played
Tarek, was oh so hot (though his character, who was supposed to be
a rabble-rouser, did get a little annoying). The movie started off tame,
and got increasingly frightening. I liked that.
- Karmen Gei
- A South African retelling of Carmen. Karmen was hot hot hot, and
everyone keeps falling in love with her. The movie was incredibly
sensual (much as I hate the overuse of that word). The ending was a
little sudden.
- Viva Las Vegas
- Ooh! So cheesy! So non-tension-filled! Such an abrupt ending! But
because of beer and picnic and freeness and Elvis, so very very very good!
- Stormriders
- Free at the Freer Gallery, and just really really weird. So
many characters! Such crazy fighting! Characters like Wind and Cloud and
Lord Conquer and Frost, Mud Buddha, Muse, Whispering Prince, Fire Monkey,
and Firearm Yu.
- Shaolin Soccer
- This is really the most hilarious movie I've seen all year. I am
buying it for my parents.
- Blood: The Last Vampire
- Wow, some amazing animation in there. And a great atmosphere of
dread.
- 13 Conversations about One Thing
- Ever seen a movie that could've been great, just great, and was
instead only pretty decent, but feels only so-so because of the potential
it wasted? This was that movie.
- Minority Report
- Pretty decent, I was surprised. The special effects were employed
pretty well, and plus it was nice seeing a high-tech apartment look so
messy. Felt like home. Though I saw the twists coming because I'd
read too many reviews. Oops.
- Y Tu Mama Tambien
- Really good! But it at least partially led to the awful hangover I
had the next day, so not completely good. The movie made beer far too
appealing for a Monday night.
- The Piano Teacher
- Not as gruesome as I'd thought it would be! I'd heard that there were
people who fainted at this movie, and now I think they were just wusses.
Sure, there was that bathtub scene, but still, it wasn't all that
bad. And it's not even like I haven't experienced similar things myself
(back in my more frequent self-piercing days.) The actress who played
the piano teacher was pretty amazing--reminded me of a female John
Malkovich, with her weird eye flitters and stuff. The actor who played
the student was in Funny Games, I think, which was an earlier movie made
by the director of The Piano Teacher. TPT was tamer than Funny Games,
btw.
- Murderous Maids
- Wow. I have to admit, I mostly went to see it because it seemed so
sordid. And it was--a true story about two incestuous maids who kill their
mistress at the turn of the century. But it was also amazingly acted and
directed, too. Plus it had all these class-commentary elements a la
Gosford Park and stuff. And a great depiction of the older sister,
Christine, falling apart, and the younger sister, oh-so-earnest Lea,
following her. The actress who plays Christine, btw, looks much like a
young Helen Mirren.
- Insomnia (1997 version)
- Is Norway really like that? All earth-toned blues and greens? Because
that's how this movie (set in Tromso, I think) was. I spent more time
admiring the colors (so many shades of my favorite colors!) than the
movie. Not that the movie was bad -- it was great as well, with its hints
of how the protagonist has a problem with the truth, and how his lies and
the author's lies are parallel. But Insomnia wasn't as intense as
Murderous Maids. The colors and the scenery, though, were just amazing. I
want to go to Tromso someday.
- Frailty
- Serial killers for God! Oh yes! I adore this stuff! Ending! Great!
- All the Oscar-nominated short films and animated shorts
- Because I don't make a big deal out of the Oscars, this is the first
year I've seen all the movies in a category. And now I've seen them in
two categories, even! Here's what I think:
- Animation: None of these were all that amazing, in my
opinion. Fifty Percent Grey was kinda one-joke, as was Stubble Trouble
and For the Birds. For the Birds had the advantage (to me) of being extra
cute. Strange Invaders was kinda creepy, but was Blake's favorite. Me, I
liked Give Up Yer Aul Sins, a little girl's telling of the story of John
the Baptist, the best. Yes, I like cute.
- Shorts: A Man Thing was terribly morose. Speed for
Thespians (Blake's favorite) was amusing, in a jarring kind of way. Copy
Shop seemed to be there more for the special effects than anything else.
Gregor's Greatest Invention made me weepy, and prompted me to call my
grandma. And The Accountant was my fave.
- Storytelling
- Can't say too much about the context, because I hate to jinx things,
but hey, good stuff. Fun, mean humor. And I can't imagine a better
place for "The State I Am In."
- In the Bedroom
- Also not so surprising, because I'd read too many reviews about the
movie. But well acted. There was one disturbing part about the movie --
my family doctor had the same name as the protagonist and looked kind of
like him too.
- Gosford Park
- Enjoyable to watch, though I'd read too many reviews for the movie to
be entirely surprising. It was definitely nice to see Clive Owen again --
I was worried I'd never see him again after Second Sight was over. He's
just beautiful. As is Helen Mirren. And that Kelly MacDonald, who played
the protagonist.
- Here's the disturbing part -- you know the upstairs/downstairs thing,
and how people inhabit the same building but live in different worlds?
It's scarily similar to the separation between the attorneys here and the
legal assistants. I really don't like it -- the separation I mean. I
don't know what to do, though.
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Yeah, I enjoyed this tons. Because, yes, I like Wes Anderson. Helps
that the music was great.
no
- I'm Coming Home
- Eek, a slow and mildly depressing movie about an aging actor, with a
weird cameo by John Malkovich. I fell asleep watching it. Plus the guy
next to me pissed me off by moving his arm (which was on the armrest) into
my space. Argh!