What DVD have you just watched?

In the fastidious world of hollywood garbage, every now and then, a film like this is produced. A true masterpiece from the young Coen bros. Rejoice!

EJS,

As good as Fargo is if you haven't watched 'Blood Simple' add it to your 'to watch' list, still their best film IMO.

M

M,

The Coens are excellent story tellers. Anyone who could make Nick Cage look good and believable, as in Raising Arizona, would only come up with future gems such as  Fargo and my favourite No Country For Old Men, thanks to Bardem's perfomance.

KR

Tony

Hi Tony,

I agree, both on the comment about their innate story telling, and Nic Cage!

No Country for Old Men is breathtaking.

Got to say that they do have a few misses for me: The Ladykillers; The Big Labowski. Not dreadful, just not firing on all cylinders. The image of John Goodman jumping froma car and shooting everything in sight was hilarious.

O Brother, Where Art Thou took a bit of watching, although I love some parts of the soundtrack - Constant Sorrow!!

M

Burn after reading was not as good as it could have been, either. But then I bow to the mastery of the remake of True Grit!

EJ

Knowing, by Dark City director Alex Proyas, with Nic Cage in the lead. Simple but intriguing plot, deliberate pacing and OK acting (yes, I even felt Cage did a good job) cannot cover for a weak script (that phone call by Cage to his father...), the unimaginative alien presence and silly resolution.

Better than some of the endless junk that Cage seems to produce nowadays, but not good enough - feel free to give this a miss.

Cheers,

EJ

I agree EJ. Best bit of the film was the plane crash but even that wasn't sufficient to entice me to watch the film again. Once was enough!

MDS

Oh come ON! TBL is an all-time classic. The dude abides....

Sorry Winky,

Not my cup of tea, although with some great flashes of Coen humour.

M

Never really fancied this movie before but last night I thought I'd give it a try, what a fantastic film with amazing performances from both Sheen and Langella -

Small Soldiers

Haven't watched this for a few years, not since the girls past their early teens - but felt like watching something light last night, and this was it.

I think the voice casting here is brilliant. Frank Langella cast against type as the peace loving Archer, and Tommy Lee Jones hamming for all he is worth as Rick Hazard, delivering well hackneyed phrases one on top of another.

Cannon fodder Barbie reporting for duty. Fun stuff.

M

The Browning Version (1951)

Really superb stuff. Michael Redgrave supplying an understated and harrowing performance.

I think we have all had times in our lives when things have gone far less than smoothly, and we have made choices. In the case of Crocker-Harris his choice is to maintain a steady course. One in which his marriage and professional powers wither.

The whole builds to a powerful denouement, demonstrating how poisonous his life has become.

Is this a Rattigan at his best? My only question is how Crocker-Harris attracted his wife in the first place.

A slow burner that builds to a series of powerful blows in the final act.

M

Man on a Ledge

OK. Predictable.

I was disappointed in the ending, that seemed to me to rely on luck and chance as the director sought to raise the tension by another notch; and, for me, just dissipated what he had achieved, and lost the precision of the plotting.

M

The Muppets

On the whole I have enjoyed the Muppet big screen excursions.

NOT this.

I watched the first five minutes and then turned it off.

M

It probably doesn't work if you watch it as a straight up caper action film, in a serious mind set, but to me this is one of last year's better bad films. And it was the ending that clinched it.

EJ

Agree with this, up there on the list of films that should never have been made. Together with the Smurfs. No redeeming qualities - I'd rather sit through "Megafault" three times in a row, even while realizing that the repeated use of the same scenes and cheap FX would cause burn-in on the TV screen.

EJ

I won't provide any spoilers on The Lincoln Lawyer because I recommend anybody to see it. It's a fun thriller. You might say it's manipulative and with questionable morals given that the hero is anything but an angel, but there's no question who you're supposed to root for. I think I haven't seen McConaughey this convincing and charismatic since A Time to Kill.

Cheers,

EJ

Man on a Ledge - SPOILERS!!!!

EJ, this is a film that the more it spins in my head the LESS I think of it.

Leaving Worthington's questionable accent to one side what we have is a New York cop who has been framed, and is now pulling a heist to prove his innocence, by stealing the diamond that he was imprisoned for nicking.

Now I will leave the whole 'framing a cop' sub-plot to one side, something that seems to me to just add a whole layer of complexity for the root villain.

What we have is our protagonist on a ledge, his task is to act as distraction while his co-conspirators break into a secure facility across the road. He also has a hidden radio with which he advises them whilst they are in the vault.

So what IS Worthington doing that eases the passage of the team into the vault? What he does is certainly attract a cohort of cops into the area!

At one point the team use explosives to blast a hole in the roof of the target building. This building already has some conveniently placed sheeting, shielding the blast area, and when the explosion is triggered Worthington does a faux dive to distract his audience. A plume of dust quickly, and conveniently, dissipates. But the main thing I wondered about was - are the people IN the building deaf?

I would LOVE to know where this team got their radios. From experience these things are interesting to use even under the best of circumstances - but INSIDE a building, and then INSIDE a vault??

But, I tried to just roll with all this. But now we come to the climax, and this could ONLY work as the villain, having checked that the article in question had NOT been stolen, and was still in the safe, chose to remove it and carry it with him.

WHY????

Without this the film was over.

Luckily our plucky team were able to get to the bad guys office, unobserved and unchallenged, and he chose to return there. Again, without this the film was over.

I could continue but will allow the cadaver to Rest in Peace.

The only element of the film that I did enjoy was the relationship between Worthington and the negotiator.

M

Got to go with Winky on this...a master class of deadpan humour, beautifully subtle off the wall characters and perfectly weighted dialogue....and very well performed. 

Perhaps the point was missed here Mr Underhill... Not really firing cylinders....more a continuos slow burning spliff.

Jason

Jason,

I think we are all grateful for the Coen brothers, we would just rank the movies in different orders.

M

Agreed....as I rank Barton Fink very close to the top and Fargo further down the list, most people never really mention Barton Fink as one of their favourites and that always surprises me.

Jason.

M, sorry but I think you are taking this film way too seriously! Objectively speaking, I agree with all your points and on top of that, would question why somebody would do a burglary in a push up bra. And if you're going to attract the attention of the city, you might want to consider some space between yourself and the building where the robbery takes place. Subjectively, I'm enjoying the nonsense for what it is. Nobody in the film takes themselves too seriously and that's fine by me.

EJ 

I thought that push up bra was one of the highlights, at least on her!!

M

The Last Boy Scout

Watched this streamed from Love Film last night.

I remember this tanking on its release, but I enjoyed it. OK, you have to accept the recurring issues of bullet proof cars and cartoon fights, but this was a LOT better than the standard fare ....Man on a - stop, stop NOW!!

M