I’ll be churning out my review of the latest instalment in the never ending (I wish) Harry Potter series. I have no shame in admitting that I’m absolutely smitten with the Potter World even if the films are only fractionally as an entertaining as their literary counterparts. I can’t remember the last time the blogosphere was flooded with so many reviews of a single film in a while: just in my neck of the woods I’ve gotten word from
I haven’t actually read most of these posts, I’m saving it for when my review’s done then I’ll sit down and read them all back to back (to back). I did that with An Education when I rewatched it, and it was fun. Here are thoughts from Yojimbo, Ruth, Marshall, Univarn, The Mad Hatter and Lady Hatter, Joana, Cris, Heather, Rachel and Simon (if I missed yours, it was probably an oversight)
Not that Harry Potter is the only film out at the opening. Any one plan on seeing Burlesque? I’ll probably catch that in the next month but Joe has 22 interesting thoughts on it. Look out for # 20; it’s a winner.
I don’t like Jack Nicholson very much. At the same time I’d be immediately read to assert that he’s probably one of the 30 best actors alive at the moment – perhaps of all time if you only include American and British. As far as the males go he’s the closest thing to Oscar royalty, what with his record breaking twelve Oscar nominations and whatnot. Despite my feelings, though, he’s always fascinated. One undeniable fact about Nicholson is that he’s charismatic. I remember when I was watching The Departed with a friend of mine and she was positively repulsed by Nicholson’s Costello. “The man’s hideous,” she said. And yet he’s built a career as a sort of atypical ladies man, more than a ladies’ man though something that never fails to intrigue me about Nicholson and his Oscar wins is the fact that each time he won the Oscar he was accompanied to the podium by the leading actress in his film – namely Louise Fletcher, Shirley MacLaine and Helen Hunt. The only thing close I can think of in Oscar history is Katharine Hepburn winning her final three Best Actress slots for films that went on to win best screenplay (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, On Golden Pond). In celebration of CS' LAMB Feature, I'm doing a shoddy attempt at profiling....grading five performances of his.
R. P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest B+
There’s a slight irony that this is the film Nicholson is most remembered for since I feel the same way about the film as I do about him. It’s brilliant, no doubt, but I feel little for it. Looking back at the category that was a relatively good year for men, but it was Jack's "time" as they call it and going crazy is a good way to win Oscar. What's more he's obviously the best in show, I'm very sceptical about Fletcher's Actress win but that's a conversation for a whole other day....
Garret Breedlove in Terms of Endearment B/B-
The eighties weren’t a horrible decade for film, but it was a poor one for Oscar. Save for Amadeus and depending on my mood maybe Out of Africa I’m more often than not confused by their choices for Best Picture. Terms of Endearment is one of those films which I’m constantly trying to find the appeal of. Sure, Shirley MacLaine is brilliant and Debra Winger, Jeff Bridges and Nicholson offer up good performances but it’s resounding acclaim always leaves me feeling a little out of the loop. Jack is fine here, definitely playing Jack but of the three wins it’s the one I’m most surprised by. Considering that none of the gents from The Big Chill made the lineup (WTF?) I suppose Oscar weren’t thinking too clearly in the category.
Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets B/B+
I don’t hate Helen Hunt as much as many do, though I’ll say she was easily the least deserving of the nominees that year. But the movie belongs to jack irrevocably. The crazy antics are Jack’s but it’s more than just him being an automatons. Even when he's playing drama Nicholson still has the tendency - exasperating at times - to be a comic, so something like Brooks' antihero works wel on him. I will say that Greg Kinnear gives him a good run for his money, but really it's the Jack Show. Shameless hamming at times, but it works...
Incidentally one of the two Jack performance I’d single out as his crowning achievement is one that’s generally quite forgotten. His Eugene O’Neill in Reds is the performance I’m always somewhat miffed he lost the Oscar for. It’d get an A in a heartbeat from me. the thing is Reds has got to be one of the most underrated films of the eighties, sure it’s 3 hours long and an epic about communism; but it’s freakin’ brilliant. It features Warren Beatty’s best work (writing, acting and directing) Diane Keaton’s strongest dramatic work, Nicholson’s strong work (says me) and an excellent supporting turn from Maureen Stapleton.
The thing is, Jack is fine when he’s hogging the camera but I always like him when he’s supporting and you have to wait for him to turn up – that’s when the appreciate grows a little more like in The Departed. His performance in Chinatown is another one I'm quick to laud. Like his performance in Reds he doesn't put too much Jack in it, even though he still has all that charisma. Maybe it's because Chinatown is so tightly focused on plot with little interest in becoming a character study so he's forced to act as succinctly as possible, or maybe it's one of the treasures of having a scene partner as brilliant as Faye Dunaway. Either way, this would get another A from me. And once again this is a performance that's defined by its leading lady.
Hello folks. If you've been reading the LAMB you've probably seen that the latest film to be re-casted by the LAMBs is the 1994 Forrest Gump in my ongoing feature LAMB Casting. So I'm extending the invitation once again how can you recast Forrest Gump and make it better. Just send me your re-imagined casting ideas for the main cast: say, I wasn't too big on Hanks performance, though it was good for what it was. Just send me your thoughts on who should play the main characters: Forrest Gump (originally Tom Hanks); Jenny Curan (originally Robin Wright Penn), Lt. Dan Taylor (originally Gary Sinise), Private Benjamin Bufford (originally Mykelti Williamson) and Mrs. Gump (originally Sally Field) at email dangerous.liaison231(@)yahoo.com - (removed parentheses).
So check it out, the first trailer for DC Comic's The Green Lantern is finally up.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds of Buried and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Blake Lively, Mark Strong of Kick-Ass and Peter Sarsgard of An Education. The film opens in June 2011 and I'm actually kinda looking forward to it. So check out the trailer yo.
Okay... this movie just might suck balls. Fuck me.
Looking nko.navy.mil? NKO.navy.mil is a government militarywebsite that asks for registration before having a full access to the website. Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) is provided as a Department of the Navy service.
From the Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) or nko.navy.mil, you will obtain links to other websites under the Department of the Navy services.
Department of the Navy's websites are all secured and you may wonder why in some browsers like Google Chrome will prompt you an alert before accessing the nko.navy.mil website.
In Firefox you will have message like this:
Secure Connection Failed
wwwa.nko.navy.mil uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown.
(Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)
While in Chrome:
The site's security certificate is not trusted!
You attempted to reach www.nko.navy.mil, but the server presented a certificate issued by an entity that is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may mean that the server has generated its own security credentials, which Google Chrome cannot rely on for identity information, or an attacker may be trying to intercept your communications. You should not proceed, especiallyif you have never seen this warning before for this site.
Since, the said website is using a secured protocol the message coming from your browsers are just fine and you don't have to worry anything about it.
Machete.... Del Taco... Sangriento... Desnudos Chicas Calientes
All you guys need to know about this movie is that Danny Trejo is a big Mexican with a big knife. And he gon cut some white folk down. The film is based on the Grindhouse trailer and it's been expanded into it's own movie and I fuckin loved it. So we have Machete, who gets fucked by Steven Seagall's character and he is laying low in America where he joins a Mexican rebel network to fight a group of rednecks led by Robert de Niro to free the Mexican borders. Oh and Jessica Alba gets naked.
What you want me to say about this.. it's a bad movie. But why I loved it is because it was intentionally bad on the part of Robert Rodriguez in a whole 70's exploitation film throwback. If you've ever loved the ridiculous film making style of Tarantino, you're gonna love the hell outta Machete.
But the bad part is that Machete really isn't in this movie much. We literally have like 6 different villains and two side stories involving Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez where Machete comes in and plays a role from time to time. It kinda goes by the same way Inglo Basterds where we come in loving the idea of seeing a bunch of dudes kill Nazis for 2 hours but we get them coming in and out through a number of side stories we don't give a shit about. he opening 5 minutes and closing 10 minutes were the best parts of Machete because that's what we came to see. Bloody awesomeness. There's this whole bunch of plot in the middle relying mostly on Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez and we all know what fantastic actresses they are.
But Michelle Rodriguez was actually great in this. Hottest I've seen her in any movie actually. She plays almost a Che Guevara like character only she's in denim short pants and a bra all day with a big ass gun. She plays her usual tough babe but there's a sense of purpose in her performance this time, one of liberation and freedom. Jessica Alba presents flat acting as usual but easily compensates with a nude shower scene that lasted 10 seconds but gets me off just fine... just fine.
Surprisingly I got more from Rodriguez than from all the legendary actors in this cast. Robert de Niro, Steven Seagall and Jeff Fahey gave flat out stereotypical performances that were fun to watch but c'mon.. you guys could have easily done awesome shit. Here they don't do that much..
Yet this movie does keep coming along and do cool shit. Just when I'm about to get bored, they'd have a set piece so bad ass and gory that kicks ass till I get my interest back then it goes off into 15 more minutes of lousy plot and Jessica Alba acting. This movie had way too many storylines when a straightforward, simple revenge film was all I was really looking for.
Hated the none Machete moments but the times he's on puts a sadistic smile on my face that ultimately wins me over for this film. Btw Lindsay Lohan is practically useless in the film. You have to literally fight through her hair to get a glimpse of boobies.
If Oscar prediction had a catchphrase it’d be “Nothing Personal: Just Prediction” and watching the trailer for a movie like The King’s Speech sort illuminates all the reasons I shouldn’t participate in Oscar prognostics. Not because The King’s Speech is the sort of movie I’d typically go crazy for. Take out HBC, Geoffrey Rush, Harvey Weinstein and Tom Hooper and it probably wouldn’t have made my top ten anticipated films of the year, but I’m easy like that. It’s getting buzz all-round, though; the sort of buzz that makes producers send out its FYC-ad campaigning “in all categories”. It’s the sort of all-round heavy-hitter that makes it the perfect candidate to boast a performance like Bonham Carter’s supporting queen who’s not at the centre of the story, but close. Of course, I’ve yet to actually seeThe King’s Speech. The thing is, right now at least, I don’t think she’s going to win the Oscar. If I were an Oscar voter (a guy dream) I’d be tired of having the winners in this category stuffed down my throat three months before the fact once, twice, three times in a row. And maybe it’s because I’m soooooooooooo in love with her, but HBC seems like the type of person who really won’t ever get the Oscar.
I hate to be contemplative, but it’s the perfect time for me play the most hopeless Oscar predicting game. If they didn’t nominate her for [insert film name] why would they nominate her for [insert film name]. But it’s way too easy to play it with HBC – I’m going to beat the dead horse and say until I see an Oscar in her hand if they didn’t even nominate her for te much feted Howards End (nomination wise at least) in a ridiculously weak year I’m not sure she’s headed for a win. Of course it’s silly for me to say that because “Oscar” is not a domineering old man, the members are ever-changing. But I already warned you at the beginning of the post, I shouldn’t be predicting Oscars – I take this too personally. I’d be lying if I didn’t pretend that the title cards were reading something just a little different as they flashed her name across the screen.
Really, though, you can’t predict Oscars like you would the stocks. The only thing about Oscar prediction to remember is that anything can happen, really. So I’ll just ignore that the last The King’s Speech seems to be all too familiar territory like The Madness of King George (it’s even mentioned in the film’s trailer) and Helen Mirren lost her Oscar bid in the role that’s equivalent to HBC’s Elizabeth. Other than the office betting pools I’m not sure that there’s any visceral pleasure to be gained from (accurately) predicting the Oscars. And more often than not the people predicting get annoyed when the show becomes too predictable, which is just a never ending mindf***. This space isn’t dedicated to Oscar forecasting, although I’m sure I’ll get bitten by the bug and do one of the scores of predictions that will flood the internet in the week leading up to January 25th.
I've been known to plan my schedule around the Oscars, but I find my interest waning which is perhaps why I choose to preface this projected foray into a long run of mental masturbation on Oscar with Helena Bonham Carter who I sincerely hope will get that edge in the race because her cinematic husband just so happens to be the king. At this point it seems she's all but assured a nod, it seems ridiculous that it will be her second though. Were I the king she'd have been nominated in 2007 and 2003 and won in 1992, 1997 and 1999 - will this finally be her year? Who knows?
I’ll be churning out my review of the latest instalment in the never ending (I wish) Harry Potter series. I have no shame in admitting that I’m absolutely smitten with the Potter World even if the films are only fractionally as an entertaining as their literary counterparts. I can’t remember the last time the blogosphere was flooded with so many reviews of a single film in a while: just in my neck of the woods I’ve gotten word from
