Comments for we like to watch

Comment on utter crap by Chris

Chris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:45:21 +0000

And in the same year as Ghost Town, another piece of shit. All I’ll say in favor of The Invention of Lying is that it really should have been called The Invention of Religion. The politics were quite provocative, for an American audience.

Comment on utter crap by arnab

arnab — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:39:23 +0000

the invention of lying: what the fuck, ricky gervais? collecting paychecks already?

Comment on enjoyable crap by arnab

arnab — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:37:27 +0000

knowing is a lot better than i thought it would be which is not to say it is good. but it’s moody, nice to look at (directed by alex proyas) and has a couple of stunning disaster scenes–in particular, one of an airplane crashing across a highway. cage is oddly restrained (which might be a bad thing) and the film held my interest almost all the way to the climax at which point i realized i was only 45 minutes in and there were still another 75 to go. still it’s not too tedious even if [mild spoiler alert]……………………. the end seems to involve the rapture. in a postmodern touch the dvd extras includes a small feature on millenial thinking which debunks the exact kind of person who would be likely to be sucked into this film.

Comment on Dexter by gio

gio — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:11:29 +0000

not yet. trying to get into True Blood, because i’m doing vampires in class. simon’s watching Mad Men. wow, kris goes to bed at 8:30! that’s early. (oh shite, i just realized you posted this more than a month ago.)

Comment on Avatar by john

john — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:57:48 +0000

A really fine piece on Avatar is in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books. It’s not only one of the better things I’ve read on Cameron’s film, but one of the better pieces of film criticism I’ve read in a while. I say this in part because Mendelsohn (who wrote the piece) argues along similar lines I argue (see above). His is the piece I wish I could have written.

Check it out here.

Comment on Shutter Island by reynolds

reynolds — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:23:37 +0000

Ted Levine was a glimmer of what the film might have been–batshit crazy, and way (way, way, way) more fun. I was startled by how goddamned boring the whole thing was.

By the by, I kept waiting for Von Sydow’s patients to suit up in white and black for hockey to the death.

Comment on Shutter Island by michael

michael — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:33:10 +0000

er….huh? I watched this last night and I’m still exhausted. (SPOILER) unfortunately, any half-aware horror/asylum genre reader will have seen the “twist” coming by the first 20 minutes here and the rest of the 6 hrs duration must be spent seeing how it unravels. certainly, good acting, Scorsese’s dynamic touch and superb editing make it watchable enough, but a bit enervating. I am suprised to see Max Von Sydow again—the guy has looked the same for about 30 years now (at least since Strange Brew and still makes an impression. Ted Levine’s bit on violence was my favorite part. Go ahead, try to bite my eyeball!

Comment on Oscar nominees have been announced by michael

michael — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:21:59 +0000

No, I think the academy loves people playing broken-down drunks. I am increasing my Oscar chances by playing a mentally challenged, paraplegic and alcoholic leader of a resistance group against the Nazi’s. It’s called Auschwitz and Rye . Look for it.

As for New Orleans, that’s yesterday’s news. I think for an animated film to have a chance it must be Pixar or Pixar-like at this stage. A princess and a frog is hopelessly retro. Roy Disney got a shout-out during the death montage–that’s as far as the academy is willing to go.

Comment on Oscar nominees have been announced by john

john — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:05:50 +0000

Speaking of ambivalence, does anyone have any thoughts about Disney’s “disenchanted” night? A few years ago, one would have thought that a New Orleans-themed animated cartoon would have ridden the post-Katrina wave to the Oscar stage for Best Song. And fuck, the Saints won the Super Bowl! So wha happen? Just a bad score?. I dunno. To be dissing the Night Tripper, I don’t know. That seems, well, untimely.

But I remember thinking, as I watched the ceremony, “shit, the Academy loves Country music.”

Comment on Oscar nominees have been announced by john

john — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:05:02 +0000

Hmmm…what I got from that story was ambivalence (”appeared to be planned in advance”). Which is what I felt. That it was neither obviously staged nor obviously random only made it seem weirder. I got the Baldwin stink eye thing. But what I’m talking about is something else. But I’ll let it go, for fear that I’m letting on that I’m the one who has a Clooney thing.