I caught this in the theater and was stunned at how well this film was thought out. There is lots of dialog ("boring," as some would call it) but I think it's paced really well for the 120+ minutes it is. The realist in me thought the ending was a bit too happy, but director Phil Alden Robinson wanted it way.

Paramount really pulled out all of the bells and whistles (compared to other Paramount releases) for this one with the extras. Some dumbed down "making of the effects" videos are included, as well as a couple of other featurettes focusing on the casting and production of the film.

I think the audio track contains the record for the highest number of "pan around the room" flybys for aircraft. It's a "neato" effect, but I thought it was a bit overused.

Directed by Jaume Balagueró
Screenplay by Jaume Balagueró and Fernando de Felipe
Photography by Xavi Giménez
Music by Carles Cases

Main Cast: Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Iain Glen, Giancarlo Giannini, Fele Martínez

Apocalyptic haunted house movie.

This echoes a multitude of previous spooky films - HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (visual effects); 13 GHOSTS (architectural importance of house); THE SHINING (increasingly loony dad); THE OMEN trilogy (cosmic geography); plus the stories of H.P.Lovecraft (evil awaits the predicted moment when it can take over the world) - but DARKNESS is impressive in its own right.

It does get a bit tricksy, throwing images and ideas around for mere effect rather than for any logical reasons, but I still liked the film. Well no, I didn't really "like" it, because it's actually quite depressing by the time the whopper of a sobering Oh My Gawd ending comes round - not half as much fun as its aforementioned influences.

Undoubtedly intriguing though, very well done (interesting "darkness" and "water" allusions, and interesting handling of the family relationships... do they really love each other?). And genuinely scary in places, if you can suspend disbelief.

Directed by Norberto López Amado
Screenplay by Jorge Guerricaechevarría and Javier García Sánchez, from the novel by Javier García Sánchez
Photography by Néstor Calvo
Music by Bingen Mendizábal and Borja Ramos

Main Cast: Carmelo Gómez, Icíar Bollaín

A police inspector investigating missing persons becomes obsessed with the theory that they've disappeared into another dimension, but can be seen by sensitive children.

My second spooky Spanish movie of the weekend, and as equally derivative as DARKNESS. This time the spirit of THE SIXTH SENSE is evoked (and the screenplay is based on a book called Los Otros - "The Others" - though I imagine it predates the Amenábar film). And again, like DARKNESS, it succeeded for me of its own accord. And if you find the premise hard to swallow, you could still take the movie as a character study of one man's descent into madness (the idea of which outspooks the spooks themselves). In many ways, the films flaws are also its virtues - it's sombre and sedately paced, but the poker-facedness of the approach is respectful to the genre.

KIRK: "Oh let them have their fun, I did a few crazy things in my youth too!!"

As far as I can see, all that these so called "rebellious youths" are doing is having the kind of sing song that a Christian Youth Leader would feel the urge to join in with. Oh, how times have changed!!
Chekov meets a female Alien who has as bad a grasp at pronouncing the English language as he does. They gaze longingly into each others eyes "Vot do you Vant from me?" "I vant wery much to see more of you! Basically, Checkov's school of speaking with a Russian flavour is pronounce all V's as W's, and all W's as V's!! Oh, and dont forget to shout out "CapTIN" at every available opportunity.
Anyway, I lost track of the storyline through all the laughing out loud and I was cooking Dinner at the same time. Needless to say though, that this particular episode had dated badly but was fun to watch in a CAMP kinda 60's retro way!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Camillu:
Amelie
Psycho
Requiem for a Dream
Hot Shots!

Was highly impressed by the first 3. I can never get enough of the 4th

---

Psycho? Mark, Please say this was the original and not the pointless remake!

A week back I saw Ozu's THE RECORD OF A TENEMENT GENTLEMEN and although the pace was slow, it was still easy to watch because it had a linear narrative to follow. Godard's film has a narrative or rather pieces of a narrative you have to put together in your head but it isn't really a linear narrative and that makes the film difficult to watch. I was just restless and wanted the thing to end and it's only 97 minutes.

But what was interesting was, during the film, I found myself taking notes on my ticket stub. I hadn't done anything like that in years. It was a kind of reminder that while dramatic narratives, straight-forward stories, are easy to get caught up in and follow, they seem to be missing any depth. There's a conflict and people try to solve it and they either do or they don't the end.

With Godard, since there's no dramatic situation, there's no predictability, and perhaps no entertainment or easy time. But, because Godard films are not like other movies, they can breakthrough to you in ways a classical film can't. And when the film was over, I felt differently than I usually feel coming out of a movie theater and in a positive way. This is the reason why I love Godard or "tolerate" him because he represents an alternative use of cinema space that has a good effect on me. Some might say that a rotten apple is an alternative to a pile of good apples but why would you want it. But I like to see Godard's "rotten apple" as an orange that got in with the apples.

But that doesn't mean he isn't a little rotten: Godard's leftist logic takes him to these strange contradictory positions. All Americans are "pain-in-the-ass" rude jerks whose only purpose for living seems to be making deals for profit. Godard is angry that the Americans want to buy the story of French Resistance workers to make into a movie. The Resistance people sell their story so they won't lose their farm. Godard is ok with that, so it's the Americans who are the villians. Godard reminds us that while SCHINDLER'S LIST made a fortune, Schindler's widow lives in poverty. I'm sure the resistance people are glad the Americans came to call and would rather Godard shut-up, but never mind that.

Godard questions why the Americans want the story in the first place since they're going to add love scenes and conform it to Hollywood structures. He concludes that Americans have no history, no memory, and so they have to purchase the memories of others. I suppose this is a poetic metaphor because if it were taken literally, it's preposterous. Americans may not have the length of history and memory as Europeans, but we certainly have stories to mine and tales of resistance of our own. We don't need to borrow stories from the French Resistance to tell American stories of resistance.

The rest of the film deals with many of the same Godardian themes as a number of his lastest films have been about: young people wanting Hollywood movies over other kinds of films [Breton children in peasant costume wanting people to sign a petition to have THE MATRIX dubbed into Breton so they can see it not realizing that it will invade their isolated culture.], young people having no idea who figures from the past are ["Victor Hugo said, Do You know Victor Hugo?"], etc. The film contains a scene that shows up in many guises in other Godard of someone trying to get another to do something that that person simply refuses to do. It's the scene of resistance, of someone not going along with the culture. But Godard doesn't get it: to include a scene of someone exercizing their freedom requires a world where people are free which they wouldn't be under the extreme Left Godard supports. Only the freedom of the system we have allows for people to reject it or for Godard to make the films he does. Under a system of central control of the economy, Godard wouldn't be able to get equipment and film stock and his resistant characters would have to work where they were told.

And yet, even if Godard gets his politics wrong and makes "unwatchable" films, I still seem to find something hypnotic about the films and their style themselves. IPOL turned out to be no exception to this: despite the content I disagreed with, I was just as fascinated as always with how he puts his films together and just as surprised by how I see the real world around me as if I were stoned when I come away from the films. Godard is on the far margins but you can't help but to reconsider the world you live in after you've visited the moon.

Wasn't impressed either by the Edward Shearmur score. It sounded thud-thud clang rat-tat-tat-tat average to me, but at least it was dubbed in at a decent level, which is good, but here it only accentuated its own shortcomings.

REIGN OF FIRE (UK/ Ireland 2002)

Directed by Rob Bowman
Screenplay by Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka and Matt Greenberg
Photography by Adrian Biddle
Music by Edward Shearmur

What can I say? It's Bond... James Bond. Other than that...

• Madonna's song sucked.
  
• I hates the Title Montage.
  
• The movie was very loud, almost reminded me of seeing Armageddon. Why do these movie producers think that loud=good? It doesn't. It was almost too painful to sit in the theater.
  
• Didn't care for the "speeded-up" action sequences. Stuff was happening too fast on the screen for the eye to process.
  
• John Cleese as Q is great.
  
• Halle Berry makes a great Bond girl, and so does Rosamund Pike.
  
• Great double-entendres and other lines.
  
• Perfect Monty Python reference.
  
• Moneypenny steals the ending great.
  
• Great chase scenes, but the ice chase was a tad too long, and the aircraft effects were kind of cheesy, even for Bond.
  
• I was able to find 6 references to other Bond films (remember, there is supposed to be an "homage" to the other 19 films in this one).
  

I agree Kevin. This happened to me recently during a screening of "The Mummy Returns"...it was UNBEARABLY LOUD!! I managed to last an hour and a half of sonic onslaught (there's hardly any let-up in this movie) but in the end sense and valuing my hearing prevailed and I ended up leaving the Cinema. I couldn't hack another minute of it! It was physically painful.
It turned out that it was just that this particular movie was so darn LOUD!! A few weeks later I went to see JP3 and it was fine.

Gae

I guess this movie wasn't a really good "audio" experience for me. The little brats behind me would not shut up.

interesting experiment of a movie.
I seriously thought that some of the dialogue for this movie could have been right at home in a Star Wars movie. not that that's a criticism, cuz 50s cheese is what it aims for and hits the bullseye.
I didn't expect the f- word.

do I miss the point in calling it cheesey?

good movie though, just odd after being pelted with Michael Bay-influenced crapola for so long.