What Did You Watch Today?

[Numbahs]

Annie Hall - ***** out of *****

[TMM]

Harsh Times - 3.5/10

Bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD!!! It's just not very good at all. The posters made it look decent. Reviews made it look decent. It was by the say game who wrote Training Day.I liked Training Day. I didn't like this.

First off, the dialogue was beyond ridiculous. I don't think a character spoke a line in the film that didn't involve "hommie", "fuck", "shit" and every other stereotypical "ghetto" talk. It was over the top in a bad, bad way.

Christian Bale was not bad in this I guess, but he had nothing to work with. With the shit script and plot that he had, but I was left disappointed. Frdedy Rodriquez was good for what he was doing, but not enough time was given to develop him I think. And Eva Longoria was just a waste of time because she can't act, and she's not attractive, so she was pointless. They were really the only three characters that we were even given enough time to "get to know".

I think it's fair to say it's understandable why this hasn't been released in America yet, and is only in a handful of cinemas at a handful of times in the UK; it's rubbish.

Edited August 25, 2006 by TMM

[Buford Ripley]

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - 8/10

Infernal Affairs III - 7.5/10 - 'Twas good but no where near the level of the first.

[BlackFlagg]

Black Sheep - 6/10

[BlackFlagg]

Unbreakable - 7/10

[Ananas]

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - 6.5/10

More substance than the usual Will Ferrell fare, even if it isn't quite as laugh out loud funny.

Beerfest - 6/10

The high points are absolutely gutbusting, although there aren't as many as I'd like. Still, it's better than Club Dread, so we can take comfort in that.

[The Kraig]

Land Of The Dead - 2/10.

By far the worst 'Dead' film in the series. Nothing made any sense whatsoever, the characters sucked hard and the zombies were annoyingly smart. And the plot...what plot? The end also sucked, I felt like, 'it's over?'.

I loved all the other films though. Weird.

[BlackFlagg]

Tomorrow Never Dies - 6/10

[BlackFlagg]

American History X - 9/10

[TMM]

Platoon - 8.5/10

I saw it for the first time last night. I bought it during the week with the sexy new box.

Great film from start to finish, and you can really get into the characters because of the war setting. You can understand how certain characters are relating to others (eg Taylor jumping Barnes in the "pot house" for lack of a better term).

Brilliantly shot, brilliant dialogue and brilliant acting. It's sad to see Charlie Sheen in this and how good he was, and see him doing sitcoms. He's a great actor, but what a fall. It's ironic that Johnny Depp is in this as well, because of Sheen hadn't fucked up his life, I think he could've been in the Johnny "I could have any role I want" Depp position right now.

Edited August 26, 2006 by TMM

[Timmoru Suzuki]

X-Men 2 - 8/10

VERY good. I almost gave it higher. Just a very good film.

[Rashid]

Sin City

Stunning to look at. Visual aspects get 10/10. Story is great as well. Never read the graphics novels before, so I wasn't familiar with the story or what to expect. To my surprise the movie was 3 smaller stories. That was pretty cool. Acting was top notch as well, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, and person who played Merv were my favorites. Can't wait for the sequel.

8.8/10

V for Vendetta

One of the best movies of 2006. Great, interesting story telling. It was somewhat long (approx: 2hours 15minutes) and never had any boring moments, so it gets props there.

8.3/10

The Benchwarmers

I hated this movie so much when I saw the trailers non stop on television. But I saw it anyway. I shouldn't have. I never laughed or gave a chuckle once during the film. For a comedy movie, that is truly awful. The "humour" itself wasn't that creative or well thought up, just stupid. The story was the only highpoint, and that was mediocre.

2.5/10

[BlackFlagg]

The Hills Have Eyes - 7/10

[BlackFlagg]

Half Baked - 8/10

[BlackFlagg]

Army of Darkness - 9/10

[punky]

Accepted - 6/10

Actually better than I thought it would be. Not many laughs but at least there were more than just the one's from the previews on TV unlike most of these type of movies. Lewis Black was hilarious as usual.

[Ananas]

Idlewild - 4/10

Of all the various acts making music today, there are few that come close to matching the charisma and presence of Andre Benjamin and Antwon Patton, who together make up Outkast. The duo have just released their third straight instant smash hit album, and have sold more albums than any rap artists in history. So who better to make the jump to the big screen, especially since this latest album is to serve as soundtrack to their debut film? Right? Wrong. First off, the album Idlewild is much less a soundtrack than their previous effort Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Most of the tracks that appear in the film come from that album, and although there are a few dynamite new tracks, it's generally a revisiting of that former glory. Big Poi (Patton) is particularly limited here; none of his contributions to the latest record make the final cut of the film, and Andre's showstopper "PJ & Rooster" is relegated to the credits. The Speakerboxxx material is strong and still holds up pretty well, but it will certainly come as a disappointing surprise to anyone excited for Idlewild: The Film based on Idlewild: The Album. And if only that were where this film's problems stopped, I might have been able to enjoy it anyways.

When deciding who they wanted to direct their debut big screen feature, Outkast looked to their music video director Bryan Barber, who, although already acclaimed for his work in that medium, had never handled a full length feature before, and it shows. The pacing is incredibly inconsistent, and although the project is very unique and ambitious, it never seems to take flight. He undersells the show stopping moments, overemphasizes scenes that just don't work and in the end, is probably what's working against the film the most. He also penned the screenplay which seems little more than a 90 minute ode to the real life differences between Andre and Big Boi, which the press has repeatedly reported to be driving the duo apart. All the other characters, without a real life basis, just end up feeling like two dimensional rip offs of similar films. But he does have an interesting visual style, which no doubt marks his biggest contribution to the project.

It's not to say that Idlewild is an entirely pleasureless project. Tony Award winner Hinton Battle's choreography on some of the musical sequences at "The Church" is astounding. The supporting cast is a who's who of some of the best character actors around, and they are uniformly excellent. And of course, the Outkast duo does make a very strong team, both on screen and in the studio. But because there's so little to fill the void between dance numbers and musical vignettes, it's kind of hard to get behind Idlewild at all. The film probably would have worked as a straight-to-DVD project, and I think that it can be enjoyed just fine as a rental once it does come out, but as a big screen feature it fails to hold any kind of weight. Until they get themselves some more creative collaborators, I think it would be best that this duo limit themselves to the recording studio.

[BlackFlagg]

Spider-Man - 8/10

[BlackFlagg]

Evolution - 6/10

[Ananas]

The Protocols of Zion - 4/10

A subtlely Islamaphobic documentary that asks no questions, gives no answers and relies solely on emotion. It's kind of hard to chide Muslims for anti-Semitism when you stand quietly and let Jewish protestors call for the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel without so much as a follow up. The entire crux of the documentary is that: a) the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is bullshit, and b) there has been a rise in anti-Semitism since 9/11. The response to both points is of course, duh. The problem is that instead of examing why the book is still believed or why people still express anti-Semitism, director Marc Levin instead tries to hammer home those two original points, as if we don't believe him or something. Plenty of emotional appeal I guess, but documentaries are meant to inform, and in this it fails miserably.