Disjointed Batman thoughts (with tons of spoilers) after the jump. To be clear, I talk about lots of stuff that happened in the movie, so if you haven’t seen it yet and want to be surprised, do not read the rest of this.
Hey, Common Sense Dancing did it again. EW has another list up, of “the New Classics”–movies of the last 25 years. The ones I’ve seen are in bold, the ones I’ve seen and loathed are in bold/italics (spoiler alert: the movies I hated are Hoop Dreams, Drugstore Cowboy, and Napoleon Dynamite). Enjoy this fascinatingself-indulgent look into my likes and dislikes. (The last 90 movies, and my thoughts on the list, after the jump.)
1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as INCREDIBLE. But it was pretty good. Ed Norton is always good, and he was good in this. Tim Roth is always good and a little weird, and he was good and a little weird in this. Liv Tyler played the same sweet, soft-spoken, boring woman she has played in every movie since that one about the record store. I didn’t find the CGI Hulk particularly realistic, but the action scenes were pretty kinetic and fun to watch.
That said, it wasn’t that great a movie, and I blame it all on the purple-pantsed beast himself. I think Hulk, at least in this incarnation, is just not a very interesting character–he’s a very powerful behemoth, but he has no personality (and even if he did, he couldn’t articulate it). And although he is very very strong and pretty nimble, in this movie so is his adversary. So it’s just two bigass monsters ramming into each other, which just isn’t that exciting.
But I very much agree with this review from Slate–more than anything else, The Incredible Hulk was a great teaser for the upcoming Captain America, Iron Man, and Avengers movies (also, they’re making a Thor movie!). As someone familiar with a number of the characters and plot points Marvel is taking from the comics, it was enjoyable to see some long-term threads get introduced, and it will be gratifying to see them pay off in the next few years of summer blockbusters.
Also, Tiger Woods is ridiculous. Anyone think Mediate has a chance tomorrow?
I already posted this here, but what the hell. Enjoy the redundancy.
I saw the new Indy movie, and it was good!
It wasn’t great, but it was certainly enjoyable and well-made and not in any way a depressing mistake that spoiled the legacy of the films that came before it (looking at you, Phantom Menace…).
Be warned: SPOILERS OF DOOM after the jump.
I saw Cloverfield. I wrote some stuff about it here (spoilers ahoy).
- Renaissance Faire meets March of the Penguins
- La Boheme meets the Snorks
- Halo 3 meets Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals
- The British Open ‘83 meets Resident Evil: Extinction
- The Home Shopping Network meets Ultimate Fighting Championship
- Walk the Line meets Revenge of the Nerds
- Speed meets Speed 2 (try to get Dolph Lungren)
- Spongebob Squarepants meets Sling Blade
- CSI: Miami meets Antiques Roadshow meets Ugly Betty
- Finding Private Ryan meets Adventures in Babysitting
- Meet the Press meets Bumfights
First, this:
Then, this:
I love techno viking.
A friend of mine from middle and high school was the assistant director and producer of a movie called Manda Bala, and I went to a screening in Cambridge on Friday. It’s a documentary about Brazil, tying together government corruption, kidnapping, and frog farming in a thoughtful, powerful, and convincing way. It won a jury prize at Sundance earlier this year, and after seeing it myself I can definitely understand why. It’s funny at times, but is at its heart a serious and at times gruesome look at the effect of Brazil’s enormous economic inequality. If it’s showing in your city, I highly recommend that you get out there and see it.
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