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Didn't Adam Sandler exploit a lot of inexplicable bursts of rage = comedy things, like, 20 years ago? I never thought it was funny then.

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Seeing Tree of Life on Friday when it finally opens here. A bit nervous, since Rosenbaum apparently didn't like it and Ebert loved it. An Ebert 4-star is probably the biggest critical buzz kill I can think of, at this point.

I want it to be good so bad, please let this be an exception.

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Man I don't know if it was intentional or just a reference to the fact that I hate it, but your likening of Enter the Void and Tree of Life was pretty prescient, coso. Both movies have a pretty relentless dedication to an aesthetic that feels sorta unique while also quickly resorting to spinning its wheels, both draw a lot of inspiration from 2001 and would like to be philosophical parables on the Meaning of Life, both indulge in some seriously fetishized oedipal impulses, both fade to black at moments that feel like it could be the end of the movie -- only to fade back in and keep going, and both were kinda not that good.

Like the beginning of Tree of Life, though, when it's more or less the prettiest episode on The Discovery Channel ever. For the first twenty minutes, when there's no scenes or really almost any conventional narrative to speak of, but it just keeps being a dizzying array of handheld, jump-cuts and beautiful, hypnotic imagery to the point that I'm sitting in my chair, slack-jawed, barely even hearing whatever narration is going on, I kept thinking "there's no way he can keep this up for 2 hours" and "I can't believe he got funding for this." It's unfortunate that the rest of the movie responds to both of those thoughts in nearly the most mundane way possible.

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Ronk I hope this is what you were referring to.

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God help me, I think I might like Man on Fire better than any movie in either Scott Bro oeuvre.

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I actually don't really think the movies look shitty per se, though cartoony is I guess an apt description of it. To me they look kinda like '80s Italo horror meets Terry Gilliam or something. Lots of super wide angle shots and low angles and maybe even some crash zooms and basically a feeling of anti-verisimilitude. I guess that makes it look kind of dated, but I wouldn't say that's inherently bad or like Jackson had no idea what he was doing. It seems a pretty obviously thought out strategy to give it a weird otherworldly vibe. It's been too long since I've seen them to comment on whether or not this strategy works (I remember not liking the movies, but not for visual reasons), but, disregarding personal preference, it doesn't seem like making the movies look this way should be considered an objectively bad quality, the way "total lack of composition" would.

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I don't remember the actual movie sounding that Harry Potter-ish.

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If Super 8 were a Spielberg movie it would be the worst Spielberg movie.

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coso that is a pretty cool article that sums up some of the reasons I like Bay (as well as unintentionally bringing up a bunch of the gross ideological problems I have with him)

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Thanks for the straw man argument, Allen Smithee.

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Other best parts of TF3:

*Star Trek episode as oblique foreshadowing
*Flashback JFK looking like a dude in a halloween mask

I can't wait to buy this on blu-ray and skip to the last hour over and over and over until my eyes melt. Guess that is the benefit of backloading the Crazy Robot Violence rather than the better balance between CRV and Dumb Story in 2. Not benefit is that if you watch the whole thing you might kill yourself before you get to the good stuff.

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Can't tell how far I am into Faster (about halfway I'd guess? PS2 DVD player doesn't have a way to check), but so far it is pretty incredible. About as lean as one could ever expect a Hollywood action movie to be. And, mercifully, all the extraneous shit so far happens to characters who aren't The Rock, so you know every time he's in a scene it's gonna be The Good Shit. This seems like a Parker movie. Did Parker like this movie?

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Katie Holmes out of the cage.

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Nah I bet it was cause robots destroying each other is a lot cooler to watch.

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it is kind of hilarious that they were like we want it to be a prequel not a remake cause we don't want to defile the original remake.

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touch of evil is pretty much the best.

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i wish that interview were real

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swordsman 2 as dream fantasy kung fu wtf epic over ashes of time. that movie rules.

new wkw movie kinda looks like it sucks, sadly.

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i don't know it looks like every post-matrix, post-tony jaa martial arts cliche shoved into one scene to me. nonchalant hard kicks, super slow mo cgi close-ups. it feels like shit that would've had people going BADASS in 2003. yuen woo-ping is a pretty awesome choreographer who i respect probably above all other fight choreographers ever, but he works so damn much that at least a third of his stuff ends up feeling phoned in. and this trailer is one of them, to me.

like the last thing i saw from him that seemed pretty cool and unique was unleashed. movie was all kinds of dumb, but the choreography really felt like what you would think a dude who is basically a human version of a dogfight dog would fight like. all crazy energy and no technique, just ferocity and relentlessness.

this just looks like every other shit ever, to me. like would it even be a blip if it weren't tony leung and wkw. i'll still see it, though. and i still want to see true legend.

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a tv show about people using their minds to make each other's heads explode sounds like an awesome tv show.

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i hope it's like the highlander show where each episode the hero faces a new villain with a backstory and gimmick and in the end the hero must make his or her head explode.

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my favorite part of the new harry potter was rupert grint's swoop hair in the epilogue.

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rudie watch contempt. if you hate all the characters that's the point.

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considering it's by the director of zombieland and stars jesse eisenberg, 30 minutes or less wasn't nearly as bad as i was expecting. mostly thanks to aziz ansari.

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i had no idea it was based on anything that actually happened.

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don't be afraid of the dark was almost as bad as pan's labyrinth. guillermo del toro is the worst.

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hey cool dracko said what i was gonna, pretty much. 'cept i haven't seen either of those other movies.

but i'd recommend alex de la iglesia's the last circus and dying of laughter as two much more interesting depictions of the horrific dissolution of humanity that became of franco's spain.

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where's the super sharks?

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if you count herzog's narration then cave of forgotten dreams is almost 100% unbearable talking heads.

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yeah you guys are right, i was just looking for a way to slide in my comment.

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aw too bad. my professor told me to go see cold weather when it was at the living room, but i missed it. he is notoriously generous, but i was hoping he was right about this one.

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bowie's full-frontal scenes are especially "in your face" in huge 35mm.

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how will video games be art if they don't try to be more like (bad) movies??

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showgirls not good enough, dracko?