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TheRuralJuror
SEE KEIRA KNIGHTLEY ANSWER MY FECKING QUESTION!
[Church of Chiwetel]
TheRuralJuror
jeebus08
CaptainStigmata
tedorton
mr_MOVIE_geek
runshouse
What the hell is a flower cat?! Why does it exist?! [flowercat]
James McAvoy. End of Discussion:http://bp3.blogger.com/_whuOJKL2nqQ/R4CRGdLwMjI/AAAAAAAAAeM/TYYH62dPfMY/s1600-h/untitled.JPG
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Previously: simpsons433
Rural's Favorite Actors
1. Jack Lemmon
2. Donald Sutherland
3. Dustin Hoffman
4. Warren Beatty
Rural's Favorite Actresses
1. Jane Fonda
2. Julie Christie
3. Faye Dunaway
4. Meryl Streep
Tops of 2008 so far . . . UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Top Films
1. Reprise
2. The Wrestler
3. Wall-E
4. In Bruges
5. Ballast
6. Snow Angels
7. Stuck
8. Frozen River
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. Dear Zachary
Top Actors
1. Richard Jenkins- The Visitor
2. Andrew Garfield- Boy A
3. Colin Farell- In Bruges
4. Lee Pace- The Fall
5. Javier Bardem- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Top Actresses
1. Rebecca Hall- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Hiam Abbass- The Visitor
3. Juliette Binoche- The Flight of the Red Balloon
4. Mena Suvari- Stuck
5. Tarra Riggs
Top S. Actors
1. Brendan Gleeson- In Bruges
2. Ralph Fiennes- In Bruges
3. Ben Kingsley- The Wackness
4.
5.
Top S. Actresses
1. Penelope Cruz- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Viktoria Winge- Reprise
3. Chiari Mastrioani- Love Songs
4. America Ferrara
5. Lucy Garaldo
Top Tens of 2007
Top Ten Films
1. There Will Be Blood
2. Once
3. No Country for Old Men
4. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5. Zodiac
6. Ratatouille
7. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
8. September
9. Michael Clayton
10. Away From Her
Top Ten Directors
1. Paul Thomas Anderson- There Will Be Blood
2. Julian Schnabel- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3. Anton Corbijn- Control
4. David Fincher- Zodiac
5. Brad Bird- Ratatouille
6. Joe Wright- Atonement
7. Joel and Ethan Coen- No Country for Old Men
8. Andrew Dominick- The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
9. Peter Carstairs- September
10. Sarah Polley- Away from Her
Top Ten Actors
1. Daniel Day Lewis- There Will Be Blood
2. Sam Riley- Control
3. Gordon Pinsent- Away from Her
4. James McAvoy- Atonement
5. George Clooney- Michael Clayton
6. Brad Pitt- The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
7. Josh Brolin- No Country for Old Men
8. Emile Hirsch- Into the Wild
9. Philip Seymour Hoffman- The Savages
10. Glenn Hansard- Once
Top Ten Actresses
1. Ellen Page- Juno
2. Nicole Kidman- Margot at the Wedding
3. Julie Christie- Away from Her
4. Laura Linney- The Savages
5. Keri Russell- Waitress
6. Amy Adams- Enchanted
7. Keira Knightley- Atonement
8. Marion Cotillard- La Vie en Rose
9. Parker Posey- Broken English
10. Mark�ta Irglov�- Once
Top Ten Supporting Actors
1. Tommy Lee Jones- No Country for Old Men
2. Javier Bardem- No Country for Old Men
3. Alan Tudyk- Death at a Funeral
4. Paul Dano- There Will Be Blood
5. Hal Holbrook- Into the Wild
6. Sam Rockwell- The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
7. Jeremy Davies- Rescue Dawn
8. John Carroll Lynch- Zodiac
9. Steve Zahn- Rescue Dawn
10. Robert Downey Jr.- Zodiac
Top Ten Supporting Actresses
1. Tilda Swinton- Michael Clayton
2. Kelly MacDonald- No Country for Old Men
3. Amy Ryan- Gone Baby Gone
4. Emmanuelle Seigner- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
5. Kristen Thomson- Away from Her
6. Marie-Jos�e Croze- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
7. Jennifer Garner- Juno
8. Michelle Monaghan- Gone Baby Gone
9. Saoirse Ronan- Atonement
10. Samantha Morton- Control
Top Tens of 2006
Top Ten of 2006
1. Children of Men
2. Pan's Labyrinth
3. The Proposition
4. Volver
5. Stranger than Fiction
6. L'Enfant
7. The Lives of Others
8. The Queen
9. The Departed
10. Marie Antoinette
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Speed Racer (2008)
A Film that Works Only About Half of the Time
I wish Hollywood would realize that obnoxious children are not funny. They just aren't. I don't want to pay money to be annoyed. This movie tried so hard to make the kid everyone's favorite character, but I really just wanted him to suffer.
Anyway, I would say that this is a film that works about 50% of the time. It has the same weaknesses and strengths of The Matrix trilogy, in fact. The action sequences (as computer game-y as they were) made for pretty thrilling viewing when the Wachowskis weren't throwing too many talking heads around (literally, talking heads), but the rest was fairly hit or miss. There was some really BIZARRE flash back techniques they used that just made everything needlessly complicated, and one in particular involving Matthew Fox at the end was laughable.
I would say pretty much every actor was severely underused, including poor Christina Ricci who barely had a point. Matthew Fox did a nice job, I would say, except in the aforementioned flash back scene. Then again, it's hard to be too good when your head is floating across the screen every 3 seconds like a ping pong ball while exposition plays out in the background.
IF you go see this, I would say IMAX is the way to go . . . unless you're prone to seizures in which case I would never see this movie. The whole thing kind of looks like the inside of a pin ball machine. There's lots of colors and sounds, and you're not sure what's going on, but it sure is fun to see.
Now, if you're going to ogle some man flesh, the Wachowski's apparently have you in mind because the guys look great in this. Emile Hirsch walks around with Danny Zuko hair the whole time looking like jail bait. There's one scene in which he walks into the kitchen after just waking up with his hair all messy in a white t-shirt that was almost worth the price of admission. Matthew Fox and Rain get to show off their chests a few times and parade around in leather suits and artfully ripped shirts, respectively. Oh . . . and I don't believe Kick Gurry ever wore sleeves.
The Wicker Man (2006)
Alice's Sense of Shame Doesn't Live Here Anymore
I could give this movie a proper review, but, really, what's the point?
Sure, I could discuss the plot. But really all that happens is Nicolas Cage goes to an island populated entirely be Shrewish Lesbian Honey Witches, throws on a bear suit, punches some women, and dies. That's it. Sure, Ellen Burstyn gets to dance around like Puck from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with her face painted like Mel Gibson's in 'Braveheart', but, that's not necessarily interesting or campy enough to make the movie worth your while. You'd probably just be better off watching the YouTube video of all the best bits spliced together.
Most of the good stuff happens in the last 20 minutes, and there's a lot of Nicolas Cage grimaces and 'IT'S A DREAM-no, it's not-BUT IT IS' moments that you have to get through before getting to the Leelee Sobieski throat kick.
Oh . . . and P.S. Aaron Eckhart, I saw you! Don't even think you can get away with being in this. Because you can't.
Transylvania (2006)
Asia Argento is Not a Vampire
I saw Tony Gatliff's film Transylvania in Melbourne, and, despite the presence of horror princess Asia Argento, the film has absolutely nothing to do with vampires. Part travelogue and part exploration of two masochistic lost souls, this incredibly strange, surreal, lonely, music-filled journey is unlike anything I can recall seeing before. If nothing else, it proves that cinema is not dead: not every film is manufactured in pitch meetings and script workshops. This is clearly a film not overly designed to appeal to any audience at all-perhaps explaining its practically nonexistent release outside of film festivals and special retrospectives since its Cannes debut in 2006-and, for better or worse, this is no doubt the film Tony Gatliff wanted to make, directorial flourishes and all.
Asia Argento . . . she's getting there. Though not a great actress, she's earned her place in history already, I think, by sheer measure of her persona and willingness to go places few would have the balls to explore, say french kissing a dog. In terms of physicality, she's incredibly skilled in the ways she's able to use her body. She can brandish it violently, smashing herself up against a wall in a moment of ecstasy and deep sorrow, or twist it painfully and quietly into a crumpled ball of limbs and self-induced isolation. Hurling herself full force into a musical cyclone and smashing dishes with the flick of a hand, Argento is able to bring the character to life.
It is in her line readings, during scenes that call her to sell the character in words rather than physical manifestations, that Argento never quite manages to reach the point of believability required of her. Her voice often settles into an off-putting monotone that, in quieter moments, can undermine the inner complications and emotions meant to come through in what she is saying.
Aided by often remarkable shots of a countryside not normally used in film and a truly impressive collection of folk music, Transylvania is not easy an easy film to recommend nor is it easy to dismiss as yet another self-indulgent festival film created by a director trying to force more of his vision into 100 minutes than it can support. I am unsure if the film works on every level, I suspect that it does not, but the ways in which the film both indulges in its own artistry and refuses to go out of it way to cater to the personal tastes of anyone other than its own makers are strangely admirable. Even if you don't like Transylvania, it's nice to know a film like it can be made at all.
Comics Unleashed (2006)
How can a show about comedians be so unfunny?
I just don't see how this show manages to suck as much as it does. Every night, this show features 4 professional comedians (5, I suppose, if you count Byron Allen-I DON'T), yet there's more laughter to be found over at 'Poker After Dark'. This is a problem, people. An old guy in a cowboy hat playing poker with a dyed blonde woman wearing sunglasses is funnier than 4 comedians telling jokes on a stage! How is this possible? Well, to begin with, Byron Allen's isn't funny on the show (but they give him 3 minutes to do a painful monologue Jay Leno wouldn't touch during a Writer's Guild strike), and even if he WAS given good jokes, I'm not convinced the King of mediocre late night television would be able to deliver it. Secondly, the format of the show is awful. Byron Allen sits in the middle of a semi circle of four comedians (3 men and 1 woman...ALWAYS) and asks them strangely specific questions very obviously given to him beforehand by the comedians so that they can deliver pre-prepared jokes (or, more accurately, moderately amusing to unfunny and grating anecdotes). Even worse, Byron switches quickly from comedian to comedian to comedian to comedian to commercial to comedian until the show is over. Because none of the comics is given any chance to build up momentum, their extremely random and disjointed attempts at humor end up resembling nothing more than a rambling jumble of conversation you might overhear at a bar mitzvah.
I'm not joking when I say you could put Bill Cosby in his prime up on that stage and his famous routine on Noah and the Ark would barely elicit a chuckle, such is the waste land of this show.
The Prodigal Planet (1983)
It's just your average, everyday road trip movie....with zombies and 70's mustaches
Just when you thought this film series couldn't make LESS sense, here comes "The Prodigal Planet" to show us how very wrong we are.
The great awfulness starts in the beginning, where preacher man from the last movie has SOMEHOW gone back in time and is now not on the guillotine where he ended movie #3 but is walking down a passageway to the guillotine. A blonde woman saves him as she's dressed up in a fake military outfit with a fake mark. So....they bust out of the base (preacher man doesn't really find it odd that she was able to smuggle herself onto a military base presided over by a GLOBAL force but....anywho). No mention is ever really made of the preacher man's dead friends from the last film...he kinda just forgets them and moves on to our next bunch of misfits.
Other than blonde woman, preacher man starts a road trip with some women and her bratty teenage daughter who they run into in a nuclear disaster zone brimming with zombie mutants. Apparently our main characters are immune to radiation as they just walk around in the contaminated air. One of the zombies ISN'T evil and he's a teenage boy so he hooks up with the girl. By 'hooks up' I mean they hold hands or something, this being a Christian movie, so we never figure out if his parts still work.
Lots of driving and stuff happens as they're going to some caves where all the Christians live now waiting for Jesus. Oh, evil hippie man whose wife got killed by a giant bee last movie is hunting them too. It's kind of like "Wild at Heart" without the sex. La dee da....zombie boy takes a bullet for the girl or something (I'm still pretty sure she doesn't even give him a kiss as thanks or anything), it turns out blondie actually DOES have the mark and she was just pretending to be a Chrisitan pretending to have the mark (?). Not that we have to worry about her for very long cause Jesus takes her out with a train collision. Anyway, preacher man and the mom and her daughter get to the Christ caves and evil hippie dies during an earthquake.
Amen
Image of the Beast (1981)
The funniest of the 4!
I, like most people. saw this movie in my Baptist high school Bible class. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be dramatically affected by this series or what but....I certainly remember it.
To catch up, the first movie tells us about a bunch of hippy kids who turn to Christ and get raptured up, leaving Patty and her two friends. I lovingly refer to them as the evil hippies. You see, they take the mark of the beast and betray their friend Patty AND they have crazy hair and bell bottoms. They essentially represent what the filmmakers were afraid their kids would be. Anywho, the first movie turns out to be mostly a dream where Patty wakes up from a nightmare where she was left behind to find......she's been left behind! What a terrible coincidence!
The second movie tells of her moving onto a farm with 2 other random chicks. One of them's named Sandy and the other one has a name I'm sure I just can't remember it. Well, it's told in flashback from a church where a bunch of Christians are being held to be executed cause they won't take the mark. There's some random preacher there....basically so they can kill off Patty and her friend. Sandy ends up taking the mark, encouraging Patty to do the same, while the other girl loses her head.
Now begins the 3rd one. Well, first off, this movie starts where the 2nd one ended. Apparently, Sandy dyed her hair and applied a lot of hairspray AND changed her shirt in the 3 seconds in between the 2 movies because she has changed A LOT. Patty gets her head lopped off during an earthquake and then preacher man escapes with some random chick who ends up getting in a car accident or something while they're running away. He leaves her, even though they're apparently madly in love, and somewhere along the line hooks up with a woman and her kid. They shack up in a cabin in the woods and, wouldn't you know it, the woman works with evil hippy woman who still dresses in bell bottoms and crazy hair even though she's apparently a big wig government person. Oh, and the girl from the car accident gets nursed back to health by some random old people.
Preacher man and mom woman get by because they somehow figure out how to use a giant 80's calculator and a bar code from a book about the evils of computers (product placement on the producers' part) to make fake marks that they can go shopping with. They run into the priest from the earlier movies who now lives underground and eats rats.
Bla, bla, bla....plagues happen, evil hippy lady comes to the house and gets killed by a giant bee arm made of plastic, Sandy captures the girl after she leaves the old people (now in a wheelchair), preacher and the kid get captured by whoever came with hippy lady, the mom ends up convulsed after being stung by the giant bee....eventually we end up with the kid, the preacher, and the wheelchair lady in jail. Somehow the kid gets a balloon and we get the oh-so tasteful shot of the balloon rising up past a window after the guillotine falls. Wheelchair bites it next and we see preacher man being laid down on the guillotine as the credits roll.
Of course, the 4th movie opens with preacher man NOT where he ended the 3rd movie, but walking to the guillotine down the hallway where a random girl saves him. Apparently he has the same time bending powers that helped Sandy get a makeover. That movie makes less sense (hard to believe, no?) what with its zombie romances and 80's radio technology.