silenthiller119 wrote:Rewatched 21 Grams a few days ago.

Terrific film from a very talented director. You should rent/borrow Amores Perros if you haven't seen it. He's a really good storyteller. Haven't seen Babel, but hope to catch his new one Biutiful before it goes out of cinemas here.

I watched Fucking Åmål for the first time in years the other day and forgot how much I liked the film. It's a great coming of age film about two girls growing up in a small town in Sweden.

2GAT123 wrote:I watched Fucking Åmål for the first time in years the other day and forgot how much I liked the film. It's a great coming of age film about two girls growing up in a small town in Sweden.

That's on my list.

Can't remember where, but I read some discussion about it a few months back and noted that it sounded like something I would enjoy. Thanks for the reminder. Other thing that I have to watch at the moment is All About Lily Chou-Chou (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297721/). Heard excellent things about it.

blu wrote:That's on my list.

Can't remember where, but I read some discussion about it a few months back and noted that it sounded like something I would enjoy. Thanks for the reminder.

No problem. It's a tremendous film.

Fucking Åmål didn't stick with me as much as Moodysson's other work, Lilja-4-ever did. Comes highly recommended to you.

I have heard good things about Lilja-4-ever. I'll look into it.

For me, FÅ made the leap from good film to great film after watching it a third time. By then, I wasn't reading as much as I was watching, which allowed me to see the whole of what was going on with the characters. There are so many visuals that are overlooked in the race to read dialogue.

My latest:

• Rewatched and re-evaluated Batman Begins. A better film than I thought first time around, but still (I think) not at the level of the Burton films, though the Nolan films are a horse of a different colour, so to speak.
  
• The Nicole Kidman vehicle Rabbit Hole. Kinda pointless - not that great at all - the most interesting element of the film felt like it wasn't fully explored.
  
• Aliens made me wish that James Cameron was still making that kind of action film instead of his experiments with 3D smurfs.

Watched this tetralogy (had to look up the term) of films blending reality with illusion:

The Science of Sleep (7/10) - Gondry's follow-up to the awesome "Eternal Sunshine", however he seemed to be only rehashing old ideas: quirky, shy man rejected by dream girl and retreating into delusions. Did only work for me, because I could identify with the character… partially
The Fall (7/10) - Stunning cinematography and beautiful location shots, though the story didn't really suck me in. A fusion of Baraka and Tarkovsky - I heared it's redeeming to watch it again with the director's commentary...
Stranger than Fiction (7/10) - Another piece of aspiring German director Marc Forster. Comedy actor Will Ferrell going serious, but didn't fully satisfy. Why was I thinking of "I Heart Huckabees" all the time? Probably because of Dustin Hoffman playing the psychologist.
Synecdoche, New York (8/10) - Kauffman at his darkest - and that's only his debut as a director. Very depressive piece but I liked the distorted way of story telling though I can see it when people say it was overdone. Candidate for the recommended movie list

blu wrote:Black Swan.

I really wanted to love it, but just didn't quite for some reason. Can't quite put my finger on the reason that it's a good film but not a great one. Some of the themes are definitely comparable to MD, but I think perhaps it just lacks a deftness of touch at key moments. Portman is terrific, mind.

Saw it last week and it didn't quite work for me either (7/10). I am pretty certain it was because of the lack of depth to the story. As in all of Aronofsky's work, the protagonist has to deal with some kind obsession, be it number theory, eternal life or stardom. In Black Swan we have this one layer: [spoiler] [/spoiler]Perhaps I am just looking for a rational and it really was just that I am not that much into ballet.
That being said, the lesbian sex scene was the hottest thing I ever encountered in a mainstream media.

As another side note, the film very much reminded me of The Tenant with all the paranoia and schizophrenia going on plus the grand finale.

I agree with Bob's comment about Black Swan not really developing the character as much, so we must assume a lot. But I feel it is similar to that in Blue Velvet as well in that we don't know too much about Jeffrey's character either. I wouldn't compare this film to Blue Velvet as much but it did that "discovering the dark side" for me.

Hanna

[bbvideo]t[/bbvideo]

Is good.

Sorta 'Leon' meets 'Bourne' meets 'Run Lola Run' (for the pace and soundtrack rather than the structure of RLR). Lots of fun. Recommended.

A Malick. What do you expect there to his latest film? Bombastic, arg long nature shots. Resonant scenes that melt away. Metaphors aside, the soft breeze. But Rege debuts're usually more common, same-but different. This is how "Badlands" as a sensitive, pleasant and einwirksamer road movie. Again for a wonderful and highly professional directorial debut staging. However, his full 90 minutes (very uncharacteristically short length) relaxed narrative. Sounds great to the recorded music and a dreamy atmospheric Voice Over by Sissy Spacek. Overall, a very important and exciting, and probably more sensitive film. 8/10

The Descendants.

Hm. Reminded me of a Coens film but missing a bit of the charm. Clooney is Clooney, it's a really pretty film, but I read one review saying that perhaps the entire focus of the film should have been the Robert Forster character and I totally agreed with that. He ate the film up in the scenes that he was in.

You won't lose much on DVD.

The_Lyncher wrote:A Malick. What do you expect there to his latest film? Bombastic, arg long nature shots. Resonant scenes that melt away. Metaphors aside, the soft breeze. But Rege debuts're usually more common, same-but different. This is how "Badlands" as a sensitive, pleasant and einwirksamer road movie. Again for a wonderful and highly professional directorial debut staging. However, his full 90 minutes (very uncharacteristically short length) relaxed narrative. Sounds great to the recorded music and a dreamy atmospheric Voice Over by Sissy Spacek. Overall, a very important and exciting, and probably more sensitive film. 8/10

That's exacly the last film I saw. I thought it was a good film, but it didn't touch me particularly, and it didn't have a impact on me. Not on the same league of Mulholland Drive by any means. Anyway, that's only the second Malick I saw, and I liked Tree of Life better.

L'appartement (1996)

I always loved this film, but hadn't watched it for years. It is just as special this time around, and now the parallels with MD are apparent. The overall dream-like mood is something both films share. I'ts strange that the director has failed to follow up such an accomplished debut. Although the Hitchcock references and stylistic touches are all there, the film is truly original and feels unique. I can't praise it enough. One of my favourite films. 10/10.