Wait -- GREEN ACRES?!

I know. I tried to let that one go, but that does quite a bit to shoot the ol' credibility in the foot...

Anyway, here are some other things I've seen lately.

Beat: An ensemble movie based on real events from the life of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and other people they both knew. I had been wondering for a long time if it was any good--especially since Ginsberg is played by Ron Livingston (Peter from Office Space). It's not.

I watched about eight scenes and then turned it off. Then I tried listening to a little bit of the director's commentary to see if it would convince me to finish watching the film. It didn't. When Courtney Love is playing the most sympathetic character, you know you're in trouble.

Not recommended.

Lucky Number Slevin: I shouldn't have liked this movie, or some of the unreliable narrator-type tricks the story pulls... but it's actually pretty fun. Josh Hartnett is surprisingly good as Slevin. Lucy Liu is delightful as his love interest. Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley are good, as usual. Basically, it's a really weird gangster movie but it's a lot more interesting than the trailers might have led you to believe.

Recommended.

The Italian Job: I finally got to see the original starring Michael Caine and Benny Hill and... Whatever. It's kind of funny, I guess, but maybe liking it is a generational thing. There's some good stuff with the prep and some good stuff during the actual heist... but I ultimately wasn't that into the story or the huge ensemble cast. Better than the remake, but that's not saying much.

Not recommended.

More stuff I've seen since I started this thread:

Merchant of Venice: You can't go wrong with a cast featuring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, John Sessions and Joseph Fiennes. They added some stuff at the beginning to help explain potentially confusing and/or offensive things in the play to contemporary viewers, which would make this a great adaptation to use for lit classes. But then, director Michael Radford decided to strive for period accuracy and have all the hookers constantly walk around topless (something they had to do in Venice back in Shakespeare's day to prove they were really women)... which kind of limits the educational value.

Lynn Collins doesn't walk around topless, but she is surprisingly good as Portia considering that she's perhaps best known as the gal from The Number 23.

Al Pacino is good as Shylock, but somehow I expected more from both him and Irons. So, the whole thing is mildly disappointing.

Recommended, I guess.

Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind: Yes, it's science fiction anime. But don't let that stop you from watching this totally brilliant movie about a young woman trying to save her village from invaders in a weird, distant future where the whole ecosystem is hostile to the descendents of the humans who screwed it up.

Highly recommended.

I really liked Beat, particularly the great Norman Reedus's subtle and strong performance as Lucien Carr... his silent scene there, in the office, near the end, all the emotion he quietly brings to the man and his predicament... man...

I also liked Lucky Number Slevin, tho not as much, and with one big personal caveat. The filmmaker strives to make each significant character likable -- or at least interesting and amusing -- in some way. The thugs are lovable, funny bumbler-idiots, the godfathers truly love their sons (GREAT change of pace role for Morgan Freeman, turning his pickled screen persona on its head), etc. EXCEPT "The Faggot." All he is is spoiled, sleazy and predatory. He's just "The Faggot" and nothing more. The only key character with no redeeming feature on any level. Particularly disappointing for me because at the screening I attended, the filmmaker set of my gaydar like a five-alarm fire. (Of course, my gaydar's been wrong before, and either way it was a kick in the queer crotch...) Still, admittedly clever and fun; Hartnett and Liu are a delightful screen couple.

I wanted to like Merchant of Venice (big Radford fan, for one thing...), and the truth is it's a really well-made film, except that it just became very awkward in the way Radford tries to "correct" the anti-Semitism of the source material but fails; it's just too strong for him, throwing the film off dramatically and leaving an ugly taste in the mouth. Pacino is terrific and tries very hard to work with Radford to counter-act the play's anti-Semitism; he comes closer than Radford, but he too can't overcome the nature of the source material.

Matthew

Who's the faggot, Matthew? I saw that film, but don't remember. The one role Hartnett is actually suited for is a character who can't display any feelings.

The character in question is actually called "The Fairy" (as if that helps much). He is the son of The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). He is the guy with the curly hair and the two ex-MOSSAD bodyguards.

The Fairy barely gets any dialogue, so about all the viewer finds out about him is that he has a nice looking apartment.

I guess I can see what you're saying, Matthew. Although I definitely got the impression that he didn't deserve to get whacked, so maybe he wasn't all bad.

Charles,

"Who's the faggot, Matthew? I saw that film, but don't remember."

Ben Kingsley's son.

"The one role Hartnett is actually suited for is a character who can't display any feelings."

See, that's really weird to me, as I find his great asset as an actor to be a complete, utter sincerity, whether he's playing a good-guy type (like in the ooky Here on Earth) or a pitiful but evil manipulator (like in O).

--------------------

Dumas,

Ah, yes -- that's right. The Fairy. Lesser of two evils, I guess.

You're right that he had the smallest amount of screen-time and dialog out of all the characters key to the narrative. So maybe he didn't even NEED much definition, but it sucked that he was just about the ONLY -- if not the only -- character key to the narrative who both 1) had nothing appealing about him on any level and 2) had repulsive things about him.

(And, yeah, he didn't deserve to be killed -- but that just means he was disgusting, only not disgusting enough to warrant being murdered!)

Matthew

Planet Terror: I missed Grindhouse when it was in local theaters (long story, and I also wasn't completely sure if I wanted to see Death Proof), so getting to finally see the extended director's cut of the half by the director I actually like (Robert Rodriguez) was really cool.

I was surprised by how much I love this movie, considering that it's really just a zombie movie jazzed up with some little homages to other types of trashy movies thrown in for extra fun. I could have lived without seeing Tarantino as one of the evil soldiers, but at least he dies in a pretty awful way so that was nice.

The commentary by Rodriguez totally rocks, so the movie is worth renting just for that. I haven't had a chance to check out the rest of the special features, but they're probably cool too.

Highly recommended. With an extra recommended for the trailer for Machete.

28 Weeks Later: Somehow, the trailers for this one managed to steer me wrong about what was going on with the Robert Carlyle character and his son, who may have DNA that would help create an antidote to the Rage virus. So, color me disappointed. I thought Carlyle would turn out to be the good guy and that by helping his family, he would help save some of the people who were caught between the U.S. Army and the infected during the new outbreak.

It turns out to be a lot more of a downer than that, and (SPOILER ALERT, I guess) the world would have been safer if Carlyle had died during the flashback at the beginning of the movie. So, having fallen victim to deceptive editing and voiceovers... it was very irritating to learn that the sequel goes for much more of a George Romero wannabe vibe--while not being anywhere near as cool as an actual Romero zombie movie.

Not recommended.

I watched Black Snake Moan last night. Good movie. Recommended.

Dumas,
Glad you liked PT. It's a hoot to watch the entire GRINDHOUSE in the theatre, but both times I went the attendance was puny, and you really need a big audience with which to savor the balls-to-the-walls (literally at times) FX.

I'm hoping that the whole GRINDHOUSE will get a repetory run at one of my local venues so as to get the audience-effect I crave.