Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[Groggy]

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - 8/10

[Groggy]

1. The Wrestler (9/10)
2. The Dark Knight (9/10)
3. Revolutionary Road (9/10)
4. Frost/Nixon (8/10)
5. Gran Torino (8/10)
6. Slumdog Millionaire (8/10)
7. Appaloosa (8/10)
8. Man on Wire (8/10)
9. Shine a Light (8/10)
10. Burn After Reading (7.5/10)
11. Iron Man (7/10)
12. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6.5/10)
13. Tropic Thunder (6.5/10)
14. The Reader (5/10)
15. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (5/10)
16. Hancock (5/10)
17. Rambo (4/10)
18. Jumper (2.5/10)

My list right now is:

Australia - 9/10
Slumdog Millionaire
Doubt
Valkyrie
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - 8/10
Frost/Nixon
Changeling
The Dark Knight - 7/10
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
The Other Boleyn Girl
Kung Fu Panda
Tropic Thunder
Milk - 6/10
Quantum of Solace
The Bank Job
Bolt
Twilight - 4/10
Be Kind - Rewind - 3/10
Rambo
The Reader
W

[PowerRR]

Milk - 8/10
Surprisingly good, despite being about queers. Sean Penn was very good, and I fear for Mickey Rourke's Oscar win that he completely deserves.

1. The Wrestler (9/10)
2. The Dark Knight (9/10)
3. Revolutionary Road (9/10)
4. Frost/Nixon (8/10)
5. Gran Torino (8/10)
6. Slumdog Millionaire (8/10)
7. Milk (8/10)
8. Appaloosa (8/10)
9. Man on Wire (8/10)
10. Shine a Light (8/10)
11. Burn After Reading (7.5/10)
12. Iron Man (7/10)
13. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6.5/10)
14. Tropic Thunder (6.5/10)
15. The Reader (5/10)
16. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (5/10)
17. Hancock (5/10)
18. Rambo (4/10)
19. Jumper (2.5/10)

[ShortFuse]

Anyone seen Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil?

[PowerRR]

Cobra Verde - 8.5/10
One of Herzog's best. As for his collaborations with Kinski, I'd only put it behind Fitzcarraldo.

[moviesceleton]

Cobra Verde - 8.5/10
One of Herzog's best. As for his collaborations with Kinski, I'd only put it behind Fitzcarraldo.

I didn't get Cobra Verde. Kiski is crazy as ever and that makes the movie worthwhile but besides that it was just one big to me.

Once (2006) - 7/10
To quote Polanski: It looked like the cameraman was masturbating. I thought it was going to be another "cute indie movie"...which it kinda was but there was something real also. And a nice uncliched ending.

[Groggy]

The Greatest Game Ever Played - 6/10 - Pretty standard underdog sports pic about the 1913 US Open, with a pre-stardom Shia LaBeouf giving a pretty good performance as Francis Ouimet (lacking his usual annoying mannerisms). Stephen Dillane gives probably the best performance though as Harry Vardon. Not bad, but nothing special; it might get some credit for making a golf game mildly interesting though.

[dave jenkins]

Cobra Verde - 8.5/10
One of Herzog's best. As for his collaborations with Kinski, I'd only put it behind Fitzcarraldo.

Sadly, you overlook several points. First, Kinski had some kind of a run-in with Thomas Mauch, the photographer of Aguirre and Fitzcaraldo, who Herzog had intended to use, but so couldn't. His fall-back camerman, although very good, couldn't quite give the film the necessary Herzog feel. Second, Herzog was adapting a Bruce Chatwin novel, and although he made changes in it to suit himself, I can't help feeling that his scenario is more constrained than it would have been if he'd been using more of his own original ideas. Also--and this is something Herzog has spoken of himself--Kinski's performances, while entertaining, were not always scene-appropriate.

But there is a more profound problem, and it is one you notice as soon as the setting switches from South America to Africa. In the earlier scenes, when Kinski is being the mad bandit, he is on form and working well. But as soon as he becomes a company man, he's out of place. Even more to the point: when he goes to Africa, he's exceedingly out of place. That's Herzog's point, that Africa is this really, really strange place, it is madness on a continental scale, and therefore 100 times stranger than any performance that Kinski can muster. Herzog's Africa just dwarfs Cobra Verde, makes him insignificant. Herzog needed a straight man there, to serve as our guide, and to provide contrast. If everybody is  mad, then no one is, and there is no point to the exercise.

No, although Cobra Verde provides its share of entertainment, I'd have to say it is a failure. It's the least of the Kinski-Herzog collaborations, and lesser still than Kaspar Hauser or Heart of Glass.

[PowerRR]

Well, I can't say I looked as deeply into it as that... but I did feel it was generally more interesting and well-constructed than many of Herzog's other films.

Doubt - 8.5/10
One of the best films of the year, great all around. Although not my primary choices, I wouldn't mind if all three swept acting Oscars. I still prefer Ledger over Hoffman, Winslet (only good part about The Reader) over Streep, and possibly Tomei over Amy Adams.

1. The Wrestler (9/10)
2. The Dark Knight (9/10)
3. Revolutionary Road (9/10)
4. Doubt (8.5/10)
5. Frost/Nixon (8/10)
6. Gran Torino (8/10)
7. Slumdog Millionaire (8/10)
8. Milk (8/10)
9. Appaloosa (8/10)
10. Man on Wire (8/10)
11. Shine a Light (8/10)
12. Burn After Reading (7.5/10)
13. Iron Man (7/10)
14. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6.5/10)
15. Tropic Thunder (6.5/10)
16. The Reader (5/10)
17. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (5/10)
18. Hancock (5/10)
19. Rambo (4/10)
20. Jumper (2.5/10)

[Groggy]

Doubt - 8.5/10
One of the best films of the year, great all around. Although not my primary choices, I wouldn't mind if all three swept acting Oscars.

 

[Kurug3n]

Im Not There

[moviesceleton]

There is no such thing as an "original" cut, cuts of different lengths were prepared for different markets. The general release cut for the US market was the 135 minute cut. In Europe, I gather, most saw the 150 minute cut. The new extended cut, available on the R1 DVD, runs 172 minutes. I do not yet know all the differences between these 3 cuts, or if there is yet a 6 hour ur-version waiting to emerge. Anyway, did you watch a version that was closer to 2 hours long or 3?

It was the 2-hour cut. Which version did you see? Or have you seen it yet?

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - 8/10
The climax isn't the most successful one. I had seen it on its own before, though.

[Groggy]

The Last Command - 7/10 - Medium-budget pre-John Wayne Alamo picture with Sterling Hayden as Jim Bowie. A bit talky and certainly made on a much slimmer scale than Wayne's picture, but still worth a look; nice action scenes and photography is fine when the characters step off the studio sets, and the dialogue scenes are tolerable if a bit draggy (at least it characterizes Santa Anna and the Mexicans, however broadly, unlike Wayne's film). Nice supporting cast including Arthur Hunnicut, Richard Carlson, Slim Pickens, Ernest Borgnine, J. Carroll Naish, Morris Ankrum and Otto Kruger, and a very pretty Anna Maria Alberghetti as the requisite love interest. Worth watching for Western buffs, but most of all it reminds me I need to revisit The Alamo soon.

[moviesceleton]

For a moment I thought you meant this The Last Command: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019071/ It's a good picture, too. I haven't seen the one you're talking about.

Romper Stomper (1992) - 6/10

[Groggy]

Moving right along: although I'm a big fan of Hitchcock films generally, Shadow of a Doubt has never done much for me. In fact, I find watching it such a chore, last time I screened it I promised myself "never again."

Pretty sure it's your aversion to Joseph Cotten.