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• Henry V (1989) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  purchase stromectol online 2009-10-10
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• Hero (2004) 3.5/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

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• Hide and Seek (1999) 1/5

  2011-01-02 12:27

  

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• Highway 61 (1991) 4/5

  2008-11-26 22:34

  

  One of my favourite Canadian movies. Writer Don McKellar is a small-town Ontario barber who ends up on a road trip across the US with roadie Valerie Buhrgear and a corpse in a coffin, pursued by a creepy bingo-playing American who thinks he's Satan. The directing and story-telling are maybe a little sloppy and low-rent in places, but the movie has a charmingly offbeat DIY attitude a lot of 16mm heart. Director Bruce McDonald would team up with McKellar again to make the brilliant gen-X TV series Twitch City.

  2008-11-26
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• His Girl Friday (1940) 3.5/5

  2006-09-09 11:41

  

  Howard Hawks, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are all great, but this film still has that kind of untra-stagey kind of feel Hollywood movies had in the 1930s -- lots of tripod-mounted two-shots and jarring edits, and very sharp dialogue recited very fast, very loud and very flat.

  2006-09-09
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• Hot Fuzz (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-04-25 22:16

  

  It doesn't quite reach the heights of non-stop awesomeness that Shaun of the Dead does, but it's still superb and hilarious and I enjoyed it an awful lot. I guess I'm not the only one who spent his formative years fantasizing about his go-nowhere, dull little home town erupting in scenes of spectacular action-movie mayhem.

  2007-04-25
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• Hunger (2008) 3/5

  2010-11-08 20:09

  

  Unfortunately, I come in with no knowledge of the historical events fictionalized here, and the film has no interest in actually engaging the viewer. In fact, it's so stark, insular, and obsessed with the bloody price of martyrdom that it kind of becomes a kind of IRA Passion of the Christ. I can appreciate it as an exercise (and there's clearly genuine talent here), but not as a film.

  2010-11-08
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• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) 3/5

  2007-08-02 23:10

  

  It's hard to fault this film's social message about the brutality of 1930s chain gangs. The chain gangs of Cool Hand Luke look like the model of enlightenment by comparison. And the performance of Paul Muni as the eponymous escapee is nowhere near as stagey as most 1930s acting. But in most other ways, this has all the problems of melodramas of the period: boring photography, extreme overacting from the supporting cast, and a story with the level of subtlety that would later be associated with Oliver Stone and daytime TV. I know, it's a classic, and it's a lot better than most films of the era (in that it's watchable), but the era kind of sucked, and here at Haiku Factory, we don't grade on a curve.

  2007-08-02
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• I'm Not There (2007) 3.5/5

  2008-12-21 17:23

  

  It's pretty rare for a preposterous high-concept gimmick to pay off, but here it just barely manages to. Six people, including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchette, inhabit various aspects of the Bob Dylan persona. It's pretty audacious, but Bon Dylan has always been such a self-mythologizer that a conventional biopic could never capture all the aspects this one does.

  2008-12-21
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• Idiocracy (2006) 2.5/5

  2007-02-04 00:16

  

  A real cult has grown up around this film already, based on the studio's decision to order reshoots, then shelve it, then dump it straight to DVD with no publicity. In some quarters, it's been hailed as a buried masterpiece, and The Guardian (predictably) posits a conspiracy based on the supposed subversive power of the film's anti-corporate message. Unfortunately, while it has some pretty funny moments, there are some long, dry stretches of Hollywood hokum between them, and the satirical jabs are hardly devastating. Which is kind of disappointing -- Mike Judge really nailed the whole "laughing at retards" thing when he did Beavis and Butt-Head.

  2007-02-04
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• In Bruges (2008) 3.5/5

  2008-03-23 11:17

  

  2008-03-23
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• Inception (2010) 4.5/5

  2010-08-07 23:18

  

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• Incubus (1965) 3.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:27

  

  2011-01-02
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• Independence Day (1996) 1/5

  2009-06-26 06:44

  

  So after actually rather enjoying seeing things get smashed in Cloverfield, I thought maybe it was time to finally see Independence Day. I was wrong. There is never a time to see Independence Day.

  2009-06-26
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• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 2/5

  2008-05-25 22:21

  

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• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 4/5

  2008-05-25 22:19

  

  2008-05-25
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• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 2/5

  2008-05-25 22:18

  

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• Infernal Affairs (2002) 3.5/5

  2007-07-05 09:58

  

  This is the Hong Kong crime thriller that The Departed is a remake of. The first time I saw it was in 2004, and I was hopelessly lost in the first fifteen minutes. Seeing The Departed makes this film make more sense, but also kind of diminishes it, since the acting is fairly tame by comparison, and the editing, cinematography and (especially!) the soundtrack are so superior in the Scorcese film. Unfortunately, this makes Infernal Affairs -- which really is an excellent, original film -- seem like a well-executed first-draft effort for the brilliant and more polished The Departed.

  2007-07-05
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• Inglourious Basterds (2009) 5/5

  2009-08-31 13:34

  

  2009-08-31
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• Into the Wild (2007) 4.5/5

  2007-11-04 20:47

  

  A terrific movie, and the rare adaptation that enriches the original book, instead of trying to reproduce or supplant it (I've read the Krakauer book twice). The interviews and essays of the book become the backbone of a road movie that preserves the book's ambivalence towards its subject -- Christopher McCandless is irritatingly self-absorbed, naive and intransigent, but his self-assigned mission to cast off material concerns and follow a road of hardship, self-discipline and joy probably registers with anyone who has ever thought about how easy and how hard it would be to simply walk away from their life for one on the road. And the America shown in the movie is so vast and beautiful, it can't help but feel like you're missing out if you don't spend your life exploring it.

  2007-11-04
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• Irma Vep (1996) 3.5/5

  2007-05-10 10:14

  

  "I thought you hated French movies," my roommate said when he saw me watching this. That's not really fair. I only hate the boring, pretentious, "highbrow" fare that is 93% of what makes its way here (and yes, that number's correct -- I did the math). This movie seems to hate it too, but, ironically, can't seem to resist getting bogged down in "intellectual" commentary toward the end, as if it suddenly wanted to prove it was a Serious French Art Film. However, the gorgeous Maggie Cheung (playing herself) spends most of the movie padding around in a latex catsuit being lusted after by her cute lesbian costume designer. This alone makes it the best French film of the past decade. Maybe ever.

  2007-05-10
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• Iron Man (2008) 4/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
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• Jesus Camp (2006) 3.5/5

  2007-02-26 13:04

  

  A documentary looking at a camp for the children of evangelical Christian parents. (Notice I didn't say "evangelical children" -- as Richard Dawkins points out in The God Delusion, none of these kids chose or understand the dogma.) The purpose of the camp is, quite openly, to brainwash these kids into being obedient servants of far-right evangelical Republican interests, and it's never creepier than when the true-believer director is railing against Muslims and bringing out a cardboard cut-out of George Bush for the children to "thank". And for now, none of them knowing any better, they take to it. I would love to see a follow-up documentary in ten years -- the missing piece of the doc is what happens to these kids and their unquestioning obedience when they become adolescents and young adults.

  2007-02-26
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• Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) 3/5

  2007-06-28 10:24

  

  This film is much better than you would think from its title. And premise. And its box office results. And critical reputation. And lame 80s-comedy musical montages. And laboured attempts at comedy. And the presence of Meg Ryan. And the fact that Meg Ryan plays three different characters. Not that it's really all that good -- it's just better than all those things would lead you to believe. Which, to be honest, is kind of a minor miracle. Can you imagine how bad it could have been?

  2007-06-28
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• Juno (2007) 4/5

  2007-12-25 23:34

  

  Solidly in the Wes-Anderson-inspired quirky indie comedy genre, complete with hyper-articulate herione and twee pop soundtrack. I was worried at first that the characters would be compilations of writerly quirk, a la Little Miss Sunshine or the unspeakable Garden State, but after about the first 15 minutes it became clear that Juno is aiming a lot higher, and it mostly succeeds. And when it doesn't, it's because it falls a little too in love with its dialogue and nonconformity, and dear God, there are worse flaws than that.

  2007-12-25
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• Jurassic Park (1993) 3/5

  2009-05-03 11:29

  

  It's effective entertainment, and the scenes with the raptors hunting are great, but without the 1993 impressiveness of the computer graphics, it's not a terribly meaty film -- more War of the Worlds than ET. And don't get me started on the film's cartoonish anti-science message.

  2009-05-03
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• Kabluey (2007) 2/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
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• Kicking and Screaming (1995) 3/5

  2007-07-29 15:53

  

  The IMDB plot summary simply reads, "Following graduation, a handful of college students do nothing and talk about it wittily." And that truly is the film. There is not much of a plot and the only character distinguishable from the rest is Eric Stolz as a 9th-year undergrad. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. A lot of the dialogue is pretty witty, and I like witty. Though by the end, you mostly just feel that Noah Baumbach took his "writing thoughts" notebook and filmed it.

  2007-07-29
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• Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) 2/5

  2009-05-03 11:38

  

  I was watching this movie (again) and wondering if it might not have been better if Dave Foley was in it for more than five minutes (again). And where is Dave Foley now? Doing nude scenes in Uwe Boll movies, that's where. Life is funny, isn't it?

  2009-05-03
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• Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 4/5

  2007-11-25 23:42

  

  2007-11-25
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• Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 4.5/5

  2007-11-25 23:42

  

  2007-11-25
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• Killer of Sheep (1977) 4/5

  2009-05-18 18:45

  

  Meticulous, haunting and beautiful. This is a film in the vein of Italian neo-realism, but it also comes across as very American (in a good, good way). It's essentially a series of short vignettes about one working-class family in Watts, Los Angeles. Some scenes seem like jokes or anecdotes, some are moments of characterization and some are just small everyday moments. And it all somehow fits together.

  2009-05-18
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• Kitten with a Whip (1964) 3/5

  2009-08-12 22:38

  

  The closest I ever came to seeing anything starring Ann-Margret was her tedious lullaby-singing appearance on The Flintstones. I still have only the vaguest idea why she was famous enough to merit inclusion on the show -- it's definitely not her acting. But aside from her scenery chomping, Kitten is actually one of the better drive-in juvenile delinquent films I've seen. Margrock is a teenaged reform school runaway who breaks into the home of a local politician, and then uses the compromising position of her very presence to blackmail him. Soon he's forced into helping out A-M's whole gang, lead by a bizarre Zen-monkish beatnik-thug. It's pretty ridiculous, but at least it tried hard to entertain, which is enough to put it ahead of a lot of these kind of films.

  2009-08-12
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• Knocked Up (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-06-04 09:43

  

  This movie takes the lamest premise (and title) imaginable (fat, hairy slacker-type accidentally impregnates supermodel-type and they decide to make it work, for the sake of the baby), and somehow manages to turn it into a movie that not only transcends its premise, but transends the entire sex/romantic comedy genre. I mean, every single scene is hilarious, and yet every major character is real, three-dimensional human being. Which just makes it funnier, and more moving, because these things are happening to people, goddamit, not Hollywood joke machines. How fucking awesome is Knocked Up? Very. That's how fucking awesome it is.

  2007-06-04
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• Kung Fu Hustle (2004) 4/5

  2010-10-07 08:23

  

  While packed full of references to Hong Kong and Hollywood films, rewatching this, the clearest antecedent is the Asterix books. It's paced at a breakneck speed, filled with cartoony violence and broad -- but affectionate -- characterizations, and celebrates a chaotic communal life protected by superwarriors over the harsh world just a few steps away.

  2010-10-07
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• La Jetée (1962) 4.5/5

  2008-01-09 12:20

  

  Yes, it's a 28-minute sequence of black-and-white still photos. And yes, it's French. French science fiction, no less. Don't let any of that put you off -- this is a fascinating, engaging, entertaining film that will stay with you for a very long time. And, it's the film that Twelve Monkeys is a remake of, so it's got that, too.

  2008-01-09
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• Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001) 4/5

  2007-07-08 01:30

  

  A four-hour movie about taxes and cricket! And it's freaking awesome! When I retire, I want to go live in a Bollywood movie.

  2007-07-08
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• Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) 4/5

  2007-08-12 10:37

  

  Werner Herzog doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body and I think he lacks pity, but that's not the same as wanting for compassion, as can be seen in this gentle documentary about Fini Straubinger, a German blind-and-deaf woman who acts as advocate and activist for people like herself. It's a slow-paced film, devoid of uplifting scenes of triumph or drama, but the scenes of Straubinger describing her world and helping others trapped in their isolation are moving and enlightening, even poetic, and pure Herzog.

  2007-08-12
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• Land of the Dead (2005) 3/5

  2006-08-18 22:33

  

  Disappointing at times, but I do love zombie movies, and this one has Dennis Hopper as a venal fat cat, Canada as a zombie-free paradise and a director who pretty openly has more sympathy for the dead than the living, all of which score points with me.

  2006-08-18
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• Lars and the Real Girl (2007) 2.5/5

  2009-06-06 21:21

  

  I think it's to Ryan Gosling's credit that his characters is not far more annoying. He plays a lonely, small town sad sack who turns to a realistic sex doll for companionship, which he starts treating like a real person. This is pretty creepy, but the movie is much more interested in being "heartwarming" and "whimsical", so instead of having him committed, the entire town inexplicably has nothing better to do than indulge Lars while he works through his none-too-subtle personal issues. The one saving grace is that Gosling manages to make Lars and his interactions with the doll sympathetic instead of cloying, but that only makes the movie watchable, not good.

  2009-06-06
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• Le Cercle Rouge (1970) 4.5/5

  2009-03-15 21:33

  

  Alain Delon, the epitome of 1960s Euro-chic cool, is a thoroughly professional master criminal who is released from prison and is drawn, more by fate than will, into planning and executing an elaborate heist. At the same time, he and his partner are being hunted by an equally brilliant and aristocratic detective. The centrepiece is the incredible heist sequence, which is real-time and dialogue-free, and which piles cool upon cool until all you can do is gape at it's awesomeness.

  2009-03-15
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• Le Samourai (1967) 4.5/5

  2009-06-06 21:02

  

  Incredible piece of 1960s-issue existential Eurocool. Alain Delon is perfect as the ultraprofessional, icy-cool hit man who drifts through chic jazz clubs and rainy Parisian streets with a trenchcoat, a gun and a blue fedora. But it all starts to unravel as he comes into conflict with both the police and his employer. An absolutely fantastic piece of filmmaking that respects and rises above its genre origins.

  2009-06-06
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• Legend of Drunken Master (1994) 5/5

  2007-08-25 23:57

  

  Or, Drunken Master II, as I saw it on a bootleg VHS back in my film school days. This is pretty much the perfect Jackie Chan movie, meaning I can't watch it without grinning like an idiot the entire time. The premise is sublime: Jackie plays a well-meaning 20-something slacker with a Popeye-like relationship with alcohol. This comes in handy when he accidentally lands in the middle of a plot by the British ambassador to smuggle Chinese treasures out of the country. The result is the perfect scaffold on which to hang Jackie Chan's unique combination of ass-kicking, physical comedy, and ingratiating charm, and everybody involved just runs with it -- the stunts, martial arts and comedy are all top notch. The whole third act is essentially a series of stunts and fights, each somehow topping everything that came before it, until the climactic, breathtaking fight scene involving a steel mill, large quantities of industrial alcohol and Jackie literally crawling backwards over hot coals.

  2007-08-25
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• Les Choristes (2004) 2/5

  2007-08-15 10:03

  

  "Serious" French cinema these days is inevitably either pretentious academic wanking or sappy middlebrow nostalgia. This "acclaimed" film -- kind of a Dead Poet's Society-meets-Sister Act -- is decidedly in the latter camp. What the hell happened to you, French cinema? I used to able to at least pretend to respect you.

  2007-08-15
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• Let the Right One In (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-12-27 16:55

  

  A grim, unromantic and genuinely creepy vampire movie, probably the best of its sort since the 1979 Nosferatu, which was also grim, unromantic and genuinely creepy.

  2009-12-27
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• Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 3.5/5

  2006-09-08 10:09

  

  This kind of "indie lite" comedy, where everybody is charmingly quirky, can easily become groan-inducingly precious (*cough cough* Garden State). But this movie mostly manages to deftly step up to the cliche cliff and then zip off in another direction. Plus, this demonstrates my thesis that no movie with an unexpected musical number has ever been bad. Except some musicals.

  2006-09-08
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• Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (2001) (TV) 4/5

  2006-10-06 19:31

  

  Pretty amazing doc about child beauty pagents in the deep south. The title is uncannily accurate. What struck me most was that the little girls in the doc aren't being turned into adult women or anyone's idea of femininity -- they're dolls: unblemished, utterly passive porcelain simulacra of children in birthday-cake dresses. That, and the extremely southern, extremely gay coaches. That's gotta be the path of most resistance.

  2006-10-06
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• Logan's Run (1976) 2.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:27

  

  2011-01-02
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• Look Back in Anger (1958) 2/5

  2007-07-16 22:46

  

  For a supposed "classic", this is a bad, bad film. So bad, in fact, that it's good, like a Plan 9 from Outer Space of socially-conscious 1950s British cinema. Based on a play respected at the time for its "realism", it combines typically artificial stage writing with an hilariously over-the-top performance by Richard Burton as the middle class-hating "angry young man". Burton's overacting is so extreme, and so sustained that it starts out painful to watch, and then becomes funny, and then becomes a special, painful kind of funny, like watching Ricky Gervais dancing in The Office. Best of all, Burton clearly thinks he's delivering the performance of a lifetime. Which he is, in a grotesque way. God, I hate "serious" theatre. But hey, at least it's better than Tape.

  2007-07-16
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• Man of the Century (1999) 3.5/5

  2006-10-02 23:31

  

  A reporter straight out of a 1930s screwball comedy lives life inexplicably and blissfully unaware that it's almost the 21st century. A really charming little film that deserves to be better known. So go rent it.

  2006-10-02
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• Man on Wire (2008) 4.5/5

  2009-02-15 13:45

  

  Incredible documentary about Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the WTC twin towers. Hearing it described, it sounds like a stunt, but seeing the planning and execution turns it into something transcendental -- a kind of insane dream art. Particularly as seen through the eyes of Petit's then-girlfriend, who is a primary narrator. My only real complaint is that the movie is lacking decent footage of the walk itself, but in a way, that just lets it live more strongly in the imagination, where it belongs.

  2009-02-15
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• Manhattan (1979) 3/5

  2008-02-16 20:04

  

  I've seen this movie before. More than once, even. And loved it. In fact, it was on the short-list of my Top 100 Films list. So imagine how disturbed I was to find that some reason, this time around, I'm not sure I even liked it. I wonder if the perpetually overrated Allen's films are becoming as irrelevant as the man himself. It's certainly an increasingly uphill struggle for me to care about his rich, self-absorbed, pseudointellectual bobo baby boomers, even in his best films.

  2008-02-16
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• Manufacturing Dissent (2007) 3.5/5

  2007-12-25 23:21

  

  It's no great secret that Michael Moore plays extremely fast and loose with the facts in his "documentaries", but this doc, from filmmakers who are sympathetic to his ends but clearly disgusted by his means pains a pretty damning portrait of both Moore and his followers. The former as a hypocrite who wants nothing more than to feed his ego, and the latter as a group happy to do so in exchange for a pre-digested worldview of heroes and villains.

  2007-12-25
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• Martin (1977) 3.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:28

  

  2011-01-02
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• Mean Creek (2004) 3.5/5

  2006-08-17 00:03

  

  A modest little film about a group of kids who take a bully on a boat trip to teach him a lesson. Great performances from all the child actors, but the story seems to kind of lose its momentum as it goes on. Still, I liked it quite a bit.

  2006-08-17
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• Miami Vice (2006) 3.5/5

  2006-08-01 23:26

  

  “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them” -- Pauline Kael

  2006-08-01
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• Michael Clayton (2007) 4/5

  2008-02-16 21:23

  

  It was interesting to see this and The Lookout in the same week. Both have the structure of conventional thrillers, but are both more interested in their main characters than the plot. Both those characters have managed to get to places they are not happy with, and are trying, not always perfectly or directly, to rehabilitate themselves. Both even have memorably stark, totally appropriate, winter landscapes. I wish I had something insightful to say here after drawing all those parallels, but I don't -- I just enjoyed both films a lot.

  2008-02-16
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• Modern Romance (1981) 3.5/5

  2006-12-07 23:45

  

  Here's another movie that doesn't quite succeed as a movie, but is more interesting than a dozen slick and flawless Hollywood films. It's really a series of set pieces demonstrating the many faces of Albert Brooks' neuroses, but damn if it isn't spectacularly funny right up until the last scene, which chokes to death on its own pathos.

  2006-12-07
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• Mongol (2008) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
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• Moon (2009) 4/5

  2010-02-15 22:17

  

  Man, if there's one microgenre I really have a soft spot for, it's low-budget "hard" science fiction films, where story and character are... not unimportant, but secondary to exploring ideas in meticulous detail. Moon is the story of the only occupant of a lunar base (a brilliant performance by Sam Rockwell), and what happens when he's suddenly *not* the only occupant. It borrows hugely and openly from 1970s sci-fi, but its ideas are its own, and it's fascinating to watch them unfold.

  2010-02-15
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• Ms. 45 (1981) 4/5

  2008-11-08 16:35

  

  A really odd Abel Ferrara-directed revenge flick set in NYC at its scuzziest. Raped twice in one night, a pretty, mute seamstress kills her attacker. Terrified at first, she keeps the body in her bathtub while disposing of it bit by bit. Pretty soon, though, she takes the rapist's gun and starts hunting other "bad" men, but her evolving moral code makes more and more men targets. We follow her descent in increasingly creepy and unnerving set-pieces, until we find our anti-heroine dressed in a nun's habit kissing her .45 while planning a massacre. The movie's not all that graphic, but it is unnerving, and like most of Ferrara's other films, has a ratio of two parts exploitation flick to one part art film. Which means it's pretty much right up my alley.

  2008-11-08
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• Murder, My Sweet (1944) 3.5/5

  2008-01-13 17:01

  

  Classic Raymond Chandler adaptation, with singer Dick Powell as Marlow. A year later, Humphrey Bogart would play a much slicker Marlow in The Big Sleep, and you'd think this portrayal would suffer by comparison, but Marlow is a complex enough character to support both interpretations. Here, Marlow is dirtier, grubbier and more clearly out of his depth. He's a mercenary who gets by on his good looks, confidence, and dry wit, rather than by being smarter or tougher than anybody else.

  2008-01-13
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• My Kid Could Paint That (2007) 3/5

  2008-08-04 20:16

  

  2008-08-04
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• My Winnipeg (2007) 4.5/5

  2008-08-06 23:55

  

  2008-08-06
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• Mystic River (2003) 3/5

  2007-09-10 10:58

  

  The first two-thirds -- where you don't know where it's going and can enjoy the performances and direction -- are excellent. But then we get to a completely and utterly implausible third act, followed by a series of tacked-on epilogues that rob the movie of any remaining poignancy or ambiguity. (And am I the only person that thinks Sean Penn isn't much of an actor? I never once thought I was seeing a character rather than "superstar actor Sean Penn". And not just here...)

  2007-09-10
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• Network (1976) 4.5/5

  2007-08-14 15:47

  

  Sure, it's overwritten and naive and clearly pandering to the liberal elite. It's still brilliant and prophetic. "You've got to say, 'I'm a human being, Goddammit! My life has value!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'" Yes. Fuck yes. Yes.

  2007-08-14
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• No Country for Old Men (2007) 5/5

  2007-11-15 20:20

  

  I saw this on my birthday last weekend and couldn't have received a better present. This is a great, great film -- stark and subtle and filled with memorable scenes. I'll need to watch it again (and again) to decide just how great it is, but this I know: No Country for Old Men has taken up permanent space in my head alongside Fargo and Miller's Crossing. And hopefully this will finally shut up the pompous idiots who claim the Coen brothers are lacking in depth because they are "funny". Not that there aren't funny moments, but they are so dark and frightening that laughing at them starts to feel perverse.

  2007-11-15
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• Once (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-07-12 11:34

  

  Sure, I'm a snarky, borderline-bitter guy whose relationships mostly consist of insecurity and awkward rejection. But deep down, I'm a sappy romantic who likes sad-bastard-style indie pop love songs. Actually, I guess that's not really a contradiction. I will say, though, that while I dig musicals with an enthusiasm unbecoming for an ostensibly hetero man, this is the first time I felt that a musical was made for me. It made me want to move to Dublin and start a band and get a beautiful teenaged Czech musician girlfriend. Maybe after I finish my PhD.

  2007-07-12
  0.3

• One, Two, Three (1961) 4.5/5

  2007-08-30 10:08

  

  I can't believe I never heard of this manic Billy Wilder cold war comedy until recently. James Cagney stars as a smug Coca-Cola executive in Berlin, who has to suddenly deal with his boss' engagement-prone teenaged daughter. This in addition to his snarky wife, his sexy secretary, the ultra-efficient German Coca-Cola staff, officious East German police, sarcastic American police, and a corrupt Soviet trade delegation. And then things start to get kind of crazy. Awesome. Hilarious. Awesomely hilarious. To quote Billy Wilder on his screenplay: "This piece must be played molto furioso. Suggested speed: 110 miles an hour - on the curves - 140 miles an hour in the straightaways. "

  2007-08-30
  0.3

• Only the Bad Sleep Well (1960) 4.5/5

  2006-11-23 11:21

  

  Kurosawa's fantastic and nihilistic revenge film, loosly based on Hamlet, but set inside a corrupt public corporation in postwar Tokyo. What makes it fascinating is that the violence is more emotional and social than physical, but no less devastating, and the price is just as high.

  2006-11-23
  0.3

• Pan's Labyrinth (2006) 4.5/5

  2007-01-28 15:51

  

  I saw this movie a week ago, and I've spent a long time thinking about it since then. I'm not sure I can fully grasp the film's underlying themes, which seems to be connnecting fascism with fairy tales, but I am sure that it's an dark, original, powerfully-told story, and I liked it very much.

  2007-01-28
  0.3

• Pandora's Box (1929) 4.5/5

  2007-08-01 12:55

  

  The best silent films have an exotic and oddly literary quality that didn't survive the transition to sound, making Pandora's Box one of the high points of what turned out to be an artistic dead end. The film is a dark melodrama about Lulu (the seriously hot Louise Brooks), who must be the world's most innocent bisexual nymphomaniac. Actually, it's not really fair to talk about realistic characterization: Lulu isn't a person, she's female hypersexuality as a hedonistic force of nature. Kind of a flapper-era Madonna in a sexy hair cut. Lulu can't help being lusted after by every human being who lays eyes on her, including a father and son, a countess, an Egyptian white slaver, and a serial killer. Every encounter is twisted into tragedy, not by her actions, but by her inadvertent ability to unlock everyone else's inhibitions. The gorgeous cinematography and the unreality of silent films saves it from becoming camp, and instead it becomes a kind of fascinating visual poetry. I like this movie a lot.

  2007-08-01
  0.3

• Paprika (2007) 2/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Paranoid Park (2008) 3/5

  2008-10-12 17:15

  

  2008-10-12
  0.3

• Pickpocket (1959) 3.5/5

  2008-08-24 20:14

  

  2008-08-24
  0.3

• Point Blank (1967) 5/5

  2007-03-26 23:34

  

  This is the ultimate Lee Marvin movie, and probably in my top ten films of all time. I love this movie on so many levels -- the stunningly avant-guard editing; the colour-themed photography; the stark tough-guy dialog; the cool sixties location shooting -- it's a movie both of and ahead of its time. But above all, there's Lee Marvin as the brutal, existential anti-hero he was born to play. Nobody punches a crotch like Marvin, and nobody makes sadness seem so manly.

  2007-03-26
  0.3

• Point Break (1991) 4/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Poltergeist (1982) 2.5/5

  2008-02-17 02:16

  

  I remember when I was a kid, this movie was a huge deal. Maybe if I saw it at the time, there would be more of a nostalgia factor. But seeing it for the first time now -- it's not a bad film, but it's not a particularly ambitious or challenging one, either. There are some jolts and jumps, but never anything too upsetting, and the film is careful not to ever do anything that would drive anyone away.

  2008-02-17
  0.3

• Pontypool (2009) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:26

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• Predator (1987) 3/5

  2008-03-16 11:29

  

  2008-03-16
  0.3

• Prince of Darkness (1987) 2/5

  2007-05-31 11:28

  

  For some reason, John Carpenter's movies are more fun to think about than to watch. This one could have been awesome -- a group of scientists and theologians investigate a mysterious artifact that may contain Satan. Or is it an alien? Or some kind of time traveller? And it's pretty slick and well-made, considering the low budget. But ultimately, it's manages to be both iconic and vaguely unsatisfying. Just like Assault on Precinct 13 and Big Trouble in Little China. And Escape from new York. And They Live. And so on.

  2007-05-31
  0.3

• Public Enemies (2009) 3/5

  2009-07-31 20:39

  

  A lot of people seemed to be bothered by shooting a period gangster movie with handheld digital, but I think it was incredibly effective, especialy during the action sequences. There's nothing I'm less interested in seeing than that burnished, buttery glow we usually see in movies set in the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, the cinematography is the best part of the movie. Particularly bad is the central relationship between Depp's Dillinger and the dishwater-dull Billie Frechette -- there is simply nothing in Marion Cotillard's underwhelming performance that would make you think Dillinger would ever notice her, let alone make her the central figure of his life.

  2009-07-31
  0.3

• Pusher (1996) 4.5/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Pusher 2: With Blood on My Hands (2004) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:26

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• Pusher 3: I'm the Angel of Death (2005) 4/5

  2011-01-02 12:28

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• Rachel at the Wedding (2008) 3.5/5

  2009-06-13 21:03

  

  Alright, it's not my favourite genre -- the earnest-but-voyeuristic indie family melodrama, where everybody is just so troubled and good-looking and bobo as fuck -- but it's well-made (Johnathan Demme!), and my iPhone got me through the most interminable scenes. I'm glad I resisted the urge I had for the first 20 minutes or so to shut it off. (Also, future band name: "Bobo as Fuck".)

  2009-06-13
  0.3

• Radiant City (2006) 2.5/5

  2006-10-11 09:39

  

  This is probably the most artistically interesting movie I saw at the film festival, using a mockumentary-style approach to looking at Calgary as a stand-in for suburbanization generally. Unfortunately, it kind of turns to shit in the last 20 minutes with the "ha ha we tricked you" moment, following which the actors break character and start to talk and talk and talk and talk. And talk.

  2006-10-11
  0.3

• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 5/5

  2008-05-25 22:17

  

  2008-05-25
  0.3

• Rambo (2008) 2.5/5

  2008-09-01 21:30

  

  Here's Rambo's greatest strength and greatest weakness: from the title alone, you know exactly what you're gonna get. And you get it. Sly Stallone single-handedly kills dozens of deserving foreign baddies. It delivers. Unfortunately, it's also all you're gonna get. (Unless you're really, really into bad CGI blood and gore, in which case, boy howdy, you are in for a treat.) None of this is bad or unsurprising. It's just a little... empty-leaving.

  2008-09-01
  0.3

• Rambo: First Blood (1982) 3.5/5

  2010-11-16 20:21

  

  Not nearly as cheesy as the later films in the series, this is actually a pretty solid adventure-drama with some great damp and chilly shots of my beloved Pacific Northwest.

  2010-11-16
  0.3

• Ratatouille (2007) 4/5

  2007-07-03 09:46

  

  Another brilliant film from the artistic heavyweight of modern animation, Brad Bird. This doesn't have quite the same kind of complex social commentary Bird's The Incredibles manages to pack in, but the themes -- what is the role of the exceptional person in an egalitarian society? -- are still there, even if Ratatouille doesn't really tackle them head-on. And this is literally the best animation I've ever seen, both technically and artistically. The kitchen, and the food don't look photorealistic: they look better. And the character animation is incredible.

  2007-07-03
  0.3

• Re-Animator (1985) 3.5/5

  2006-11-25 16:43

  

  A messy, gory, tasteless piece of 80s camp horror that is as much fun to watch as it must have been to make.

  2006-11-25
  0.3

• Renaissance (2006) 1.5/5

  2006-10-08 00:39

  

  Beautiful, but stupid. Really, really stupid. Will the dedicated maverick cop be forced to turn in his badge but vow to stay on the case? Will the megacorp president who talks about bettering the world turn out to be... pure evil? Will the cop and the 'bad girl' fight at first and then fall for each other? If you can't guess the answer, welcome to your very first movie.

  2006-10-08
  0.3

• Reprise (2006) 2/5

  2009-06-26 06:44

  

  Mark my words, "write what you know" will be the epitaph of the 20th century. A young novelist-filmmaker made this film about two young novelists and their awesome girlfriends and wacky circle of friends. It's pretty much the same too-cool celebration of writerly angst you've seen and read before, with plenty of Dogme 95 and "homages" to Truffault thrown in.

  2009-06-26
  0.3

• Repulsion (1965) 3/5

  2006-07-31 01:37

  

  I know it's a classic, and it has some great scenes, but the New Wave-inspired "la femme brushes her teeth and then the phone rings" scenes have aged about as well as the dime-store psychoanalysis. Catherine Deneuve is incredibly hot, but she's such a vague cipher that I never really cared what happened to her. Polanski did another psychological horror movie, The Tenant, which is less famous, but which I liked much, much better.

  2006-07-31
  0.3

• Rescue Dawn (2006) 4/5

  2007-07-15 17:42

  

  This is a brilliant, thoughful Werner Herzog film with an outstanding performance by Christian Bale as the real-life Dieter Dengler, who was the also the subject of Herzog's incredible documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly (on my all-time top 100). So why was it so unsatisfying? When I left the theater, I felt like there was something missing from the film, something I couldn't really explain. Maybe it was the unbroken shot of thousands of aircraft that ends Little Dieter. Or maybe it was that I already know the story, so the events weren't as much of a revelation. I'm going to have to watch it again and see if I have the same reaction.

  2007-07-15
  0.3

• Revenge of the Nerds (1984) 3.5/5

  2009-01-21 13:36

  

  Okay, it's really not a great film, but it's goofy, entertaining and easy for me to relate to. Plus, it has a kick-ass theme song by The Rubinoos. So go ahead, put us down -- one of these days we'll turn it around.

  2009-01-21
  0.3

• Revolver (2005/I) 1/5

  2007-12-25 23:48

  

  Luc Besson, Guy Ritchie and Ray Liotta have all seemed a little crazy for the last, say, decade or so. Apparently, putting them all together was like a perfect storm of batshit-insane. Nothing I say can possibly prepare you for the schizoid, pretentious, Kabbalah-fueled mess of a gangster film that is Revolver. You must see it. If for nothing else than the endless scenes of Ray Liotta in his underwear under black lights, weeping and telling the voices in his head to fear him -- voices which, incidentally, are there for no fucking reason whatsoever!

  2007-12-25
  0.3

• Road House (1989) 2.5/5

  2007-07-22 15:50

  

  Boobs, bullets, bar fights and a bare-chested Patrick Swayze as a mullet-wearing world-famous bouncer/philosopher. Plus, Ben Gazzara as the oddly wry villain with a monster truck, and enough unintentional hilarity and homoeroticism for any three Joel Schumacher films. Truly, this is the movie with something for everyone. "Pain don't hurt," sayeth the master. No, Patrick, it sure don't.

  2007-07-22
  0.3

• Rocket Science (2007) 2.5/5

  2008-08-24 20:13

  

  2008-08-24
  0.3

List generated by WP Movie Ratings.