OT: Movies You Have Seen Lately

[Fyron]

The 1920s!

They could at least stop being so horrendously blatant about it...

[Renegade 13]

Indeed.

Lets bring back the days of silent movies! No more cheesy dialogue!

[Black_Knyght]

Things are really getting sad in Hollywood - I read just recently that there's going to be a Knight Rider and a Simpsons movie made, and that someone is considering making a Gilligan's Island movie and a remake of Death Wish.

[AMF]

Interesting. I found the Constant Gardener to be a very good movie, with depth and fascinating characters, and great acting.

MI:3 was as awful as the other MIs. I mean, who needs another flick that is essentially one explosion after another with one-dimensional characters, and no real plot except "superhuman guy getting revenge and saving hot chicks etc..."

And Hitchhikers was a true dissapointment. Really quite awful as well. Gags not funny. Acting generally poor. Of all the books that would be hard to suck the humor out of, somehow they managed to make it boring.

I can only presume the Da Vinci Code will be as bad as the book.

Narnia was just a sad attempt to recreate the book and try to come up with something similiar to the Lord of the Rings.

Recent good ones: Match point, Brokeback mtn, and Capote were all very good, actually getting into real human emotional and other conflict and making one feel that these were real people with real problems (although I found Capote to be thoroughly unlikeable as a person, I felt the portrayal was quite excellent).

I highly reccomend the following series as entertainment at its absolute finest: Six feet under, The Sopranos, Weeds (very funny show), and Deadwood. The Wire is also inspired, but a bit typical (but not predictable).

For the best movie in the past few years, I nominate Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and go rent it immediately.

And the classics cannot be ignored. Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and Breakfast at Tiffany's are the ones I would put at the top of that list.

Just my two cents. Needed to get a break from work. Back to the grind.

[Black_Knyght]

A lady I'm rather fond of at the moment convinced me to watch Wimbledon and About a Boy with her tonight. Both were very interesting for different reasons. Wimbledon starred Paul Bettany and was surprisingly funny, down-to-earth, and actually had an interesting storyline. About a Boy starred Hugh Grant, who as a rule I loathe, but this time he was oddly funny, as was the movie. Go figure.

I think the movie choices of the evening were a test, of course. Now she's making noises about seeing Brokeback Mountain.








Ain't gonna happen.....




.

[AMF]

yeah, About a Boy is definitely one the better movies out there. Hilarious.

BB mountain is a good flick. There is some substance to the critique that it's popular becuase it's controversial in subject matter, and I am in agreement with the Academy that it wasn't an Oscar level movie, but the acting is very good. Really, it is just a classic unrequited love story, and you could replace either of the characters with a woman, or both, and it would be the same movie. So, yeah, not worth an Oscar, but a good movie nonetheless.

I, of course, don't know why you are adamant about not seeing it, but I'm always surprised at the level of vehemence against the movie. I mean, heck, why does anyone really care that much what people do behind closed doors. Or, in this case, out in the wide open woods...



Here's a totally hilarious article by the comic writer Gene Weingarten:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

Actually, heck, I'll reprint it below, because it is really funny and relevant (really!)

Aisle Be Damned
By Gene Weingarten

Sunday, March 21, 2004; Page W11


I think we can all agree with our president that gay marriage is a grave threat to America, because if it weren't, our president would not have this issue to flog and might lose the election, and then who would protect us from

being murdered by poorly shaven individuals from Middle Eastern nations?

No, wait. That can't be right. The reason gay marriage is a grave threat to America must be that if we let gay people marry, the entire hallowed institution of marriage will be disgraced. No one will take marriage seriously anymore. Pretty soon the American divorce rate will start approaching 50 percent, and the sanctity of the whole process will be compromised, with pop stars getting drunk, married and annulled all on the same weekend. And then, before you know it, people will take marriage so casually that romance and passion themselves will erode, couples will no longer care about how they look to each other, and America will become a nation of people waddling around with keisters the size, texture and pliability of weather balloons.

Oh, wait.

Well, that's not why, anyway. The argument against legalizing gay marriage must be the same as the argument against legalizing drugs: If you legalize gay marriage, everyone will want to do it. Clearly, we all have these massive, pent-up, homosexual urges waiting to erupt, once we get the giddyap go-ahead from the government. George Bush and Dick Cheney might take up residence together in a simply darling Crystal City duplex. If gays are allowed to get married, guys like me will start looking at our wives and thinking, wait a minute, I have to settle for this weak little, squeaky-voiced, thong-wearing thing when Sylvester Stallone is available?

Oh, wait.

Actually, I guess the real reason to oppose gay marriage is that God is opposed to it, as certified by Leviticus (Lev. 20:13). Because this is an actual book of the Bible, we must obey everything it says literally, which is why Bill Cosby, Newt Gingrich, Albert Einstein and Bill Clinton have all been duly put to death for adultery, the prescribed punishment (Lev. 20:10). Or why anyone who shaves his head (Lev. 21:5) or wears clothing made from both wool and linen together (Lev. 19:19) or marries a divorced woman (Lev. 21:7) has been publicly condemned as a sinner. Or why any married couple that has sex when the woman is menstruating has been banished from civilized society and left to wander the earth (Lev. 20:18).

Well, maybe not.

But perhaps the best argument for why gay marriage is a grave threat to America is historical. Historically, when a society begins to condone decadence and licentiousness, it collapses like a souffle in an earthquake. The nations that survive and prosper and become world powers are the ones that adhere to strict moral codes, like Yemen, Djibouti, Myanmar, and that one with all the goats.

Okay, I confess that I don't really understand why anyone gives a fig about this issue, but I am sure our president knows best, by virtue of his superior brain and his Doctor of Thinkology degree. If he says that it requires a constitutional amendment to rectify this grievous error, then, by gum, I am all for it. I have been looking at the Constitution, actually, and I have to admit that an anti-gay-marriage amendment would fit right in.

You'd hardly know it was there. You could even add it to an existing amendment.

For example, Amendment VIII: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Also, ix-nay on the omos-hay, okay?"

But if we do follow this path, we really ought to consider another constitutional amendment, drawing not only from this same intense desire to improve our society, but from our increasing willingness to invoke the deity to do so:

Proposed Amendment XXVIII:

"It shall be unlawful to use the U.S. Constitution as a plaything for the politically self-righteous. Violators should all go to Hell

[Black_Knyght]

Actually, my reasons for NOT wanting to see Brokeback Mountain are pretty straight-forward.

As a native-born son of Texas who grew up on a ranch and lived the life of a ranch hand until Uncle Sam conned,....er...., convinced me to enlist, I have caught a ton of flack over this flick. Add to that I just don't have any interest in seeing two guys making out, whatever the story.

I'm not at all against gays, and I'm not homophobic. I don't care what people do in their private lives, I'm just not interested in seeing or hearing about it.



'nuff said.

[AMF]

I didn't mean to imply homophobia...sorry! (I should have been more clear in my writing, doh!)

[Hunpecked]

Black_Knyght: Actually, my reasons for NOT wanting to see Brokeback Mountain are pretty

>>> straight-forward. <<<

Pun intended?

[Black_Knyght]

alarikf said:
I didn't mean to imply homophobia...sorry! (I should have been more clear in my writing, doh!)

Never even crossed my mind.

hunpecked said:
Pun intended?

Ya think ?