[Closed] Recent Viewing Part II

You're right. Can you imagine anyone releasing such high-brow stuff for children these days?

(I can picture the board meeting at DreamWorks Animation. "Hey guys, we've got two films on the table, let's pick which one to do. The first is a timeless story, set to music by Prokofiev..." "Wait a sec Jeff, tell 'em about the other one first." "It's about three kids who like to fart and is full of references to American Idol and takes the piss out of Disney. We'll get Hans to find someone from his sweatshop to throw some random notes together and then we'll get those suckers to buy the album by putting his name on the front." "YEAH! SOLD!")

I tried to see this movie again.

Leaving aside, i don't think it's a bond movie. and leaving aside it's too cold for my taste, what really worries me is a action movie is so boring. I even finished by second viewing, I could care less about the plot or the action.

Howl's moving castle (Miyazaki)

Not the masterpiece Spirited away is, but still a really great work of art and Imagination.

The plot is not very clear, but who cares when the whole thing it's so full of imagination and tender characters?

I saw Mononoke Princess and Spirited away again these days. Today I will see Porco Rosso.

Cool! Yes, Bourvil's character was one of the more interesting ones in that film.

Unclear plot... that's the problem I also had on Howl. The same can be said of Ponyo. Great imaginative scenes, good lines, stunning visuals, but Miyazaki left them unorganized!

But Porco Rosso is a great movie, Jordi. I highly recommend it for everyone. It's a great adventure, romance and drama for grown-ups.

Millers Crossing

Double crossing gangsters black humoured grotesque characters with a running hat theme.....

Superb Coen Brothers film

Vicky Bicky Barcelona (or something)

I *cannot* believe critics all over the world have fallen so in love with this film?
Woody Allen's latest is chockfull of every single (annoying) pifall the aged comedian has dropped into these last...oh...thirty years or so. In a halfhearted attempt to make dialogue more "naturalistic" the characters are encouraged to stammer and stutter their way through the dialogue, making them more sound like drug addicts than anything else. The pointless voiceover tells us things better shown (or even things we can in fact already see or deduce ourselves, thank you so very patronisingly much) and shows it being a bvery lazy storytelling device in that.

The interaction nor the characters are very interesting (I would have much prefered had the narrative focused on the turbulent relationship between artist Juan Antonio and his psycho wife). As it is, it was WAY too much yuppie non-talk and semi-interesting pop-psychological chit-chat as we've seen in basically ANY Allen film.
It's really just every Diane Keaton - Woody Allen onscreen scene revisited again, except now in a Spanish surrounding rather than a upscale New York setting.

Javier Bedem and Penélope Cruz are very good, but Johansson and Hall as the title characters are wasted. It's not that the acting is bad, but the characters are annoying and unbelievable, so there's really very little to work with for them.

2 out of 5

The soundtrack exists of pre-existing music, with Albéniz' beautiful Granada and the oft-repeated folk tune Entre Dos Aguas as wonderful and very topical standouts.

4 out of 5

Ack! I want to watch this once it's available in Netflix. Been waiting a long time.
I like the simple comedies that he used to do sometime back. Love and Death, Deconstructing Harry, Small Time Crooks... Heck, I even liked Scoop! Perhaps it's a side effect of years of watching Bolly.


Saw last night...

Gloria (1980)
Gena Rowlands plays a former-gangster now protecting a kid whose family has been killed by the mob. It's not the taut thriller you might expect at first glance. It's more of a slice-of-life thing. Except that there are too many cycles of "meet the mob, escape, sleep" kind of routine. I got bored by the time it ended.
Conti's score is nice and saxy. I did pick up the Varese cd when it released. Time to open it and listen.

Not nearly hot enough to make up for what ultimately amounts to a very poor film in every respect.

Hmmm...well, to be honest Allen very seldom elicits a different instinctive reaction from me than to be slightly annoyed. Vicky Bicky Barfie just about did that.

Because Allen's style ceased to be funny or relevant somewhere in early seventies, when neuroticism was still funny.

I disagree.
I found the style in Chicky Flicky Bustarama way too reminiscent of his earlier "neurotic" storytelling.
When stripping that, the main characters were pastiches at worst, boring at best and the supporting cast directly out of Sex And The City or Will And Grace.

The only interesting dynamic was between Juan Antonio and María Elena...and that was sadly underexposed to the point of cliché.

A waste of time, effort and talent.

Yyyyyyyyyeah.
That must be it.

Only in Greece