Category: Movies

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Thanks to J.D. for the link.

Roger Ebert discusses his picks.

Ebert says four of his 10 are on Netflix streaming.

The New Yorker critics Anthony Lane and David Denby offer their best (and some worse) films of 2010. Denby definitely did not like Black Swan.

A Christmas Story in 30 seconds with bunnies.

Will “The Social Network” ride its early wave of positive reviews and zeitgeisty momentum, only to fizzle, à la “Up in the Air”? Will “Black Swan” go toe-to-toe with “Inception” in the category of films from directors (Darren Aronofsky and Chris Nolan) who are overdue for accolades? Will the billion-dollar grossing “Toy Story 3,” the final act of a beloved series, which has the considerable backing of Disney and Pixar, pull a “Lord of the Rings” to have a real shot at best picture? And what of “Winter’s Bone” and “The King’s Speech,” indies that are said to be playing well at Academy screenings, and “True Grit,” the Coen Brothers remake which is yet to come?

The Carpetbagger

“Wow!”

Donna, at the conclusion of “The Secret in Their Eyes” (El secreto de sus ojos). She also said, “Excellent movie.”

The film, which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language picture this year, is set in Argentina and is in Spanish (we watched with English sub-titles). Excellent acting, a complex mystery, a few unexpected plot twists, a hint of romance and comic moments all make this a fascinating film.

Jill and I saw the film The Social Network over the weekend. We commented to each other last evening that we were still thinking about the movie.

This is the film about the birth of Facebook (or as it was originally called, The Facebook). The movie is very well written (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin) and very well acted (Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and even Justin Timberlake). It is also, I thought, just plain interesting about the mechanics of the modern world in the same way West Wing was.

Like the people it portrays, this is a very smart movie. It engages you with dialogue and complexity made dramatic.

“It is the best movie I have ever seen.”

Dilbert creator Scott Adams on The Social Network.

In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) models Facebook on Harvard’s legendary final clubs, private groups made up of some of the school’s most privileged students. But the clubs are as secretive as they are exclusive, which meant researching them was no easy task for screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Luckily, he got a hand from one of the school’s most famous alums: Natalie Portman. The star studied at Harvard from 1999-2003 and dated a member of the famous Porcellian Club — and she couldn’t wait to tell Sorkin all about it.

“Natalie Portman got in touch with me when she heard that I was doing this to say, ‘Listen…come over for dinner and I’ll tell you some stories,'” Sorkin said to a group of Harvard students at a sneak preview screening last week. “I would’ve come over for dinner under any circumstances. But that was really helpful.”

EW.com via Huffington Post

Only EW would think Natalie Portman, lovely and talented as she is, was “one of [Harvard’s] most famous alums.”

She was so much more than the elderly Rose in Titanic.

In the past few evenings I have watched two movies, The Kite Runner about Afghanistan and Invictus about South Africa and Nelson Mandela. Both are excellent, as most of you probably already know.

But my brain is having a difficult time. Or maybe it’s my heart. How can there be a world with so much evil and yet some people with so much good?

Maybe in between the two I should have watched a romantic comedy — or something with Jack Black in it.

I thought this piece by Amy Davidson was fascinating. War and movie stars and affairs and even a wonderful, wonderful clip from “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Tonight I watched Zelary, a 2003 film from the Czech Republic. This beautifully filmed drama tells the story of a nurse during World War II who must leave her surgeon lover and the city when they are discovered by the Gestapo as part of the resistance. She is taken to a remote mountain community to save her life, putting all who help her there in jeopardy, including the man she marries to make her arrival appear convincing. It’s more romance than war film, finely-paced, with a number of interesting characters and subplots.

As with many European films, I found I had to slow down and savor the film. It was rewarding when I did.

Zelary is in Czech with English subtitles. My copy was a DVD from Netflix.

Kottke mentioned this list. Roger Ebert put it together in 1995.

100 great movie moments.

We saw The Girl Who Played With Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden) this afternoon — the Swedish film (with English subtitles) based on the Stieg Larsson book, the second of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. It’s a terrific action drama and Noomi Rapace is even more remarkable as Lisbeth Salander.

Read the three books. See the movies.

(The third film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Luftslottet som sprängdes) was released late last year in Europe but not in the U.S. yet.)

Sports writer and columnist Joe Posnanski lists the 100 best movies he’s ever seen.

The movies that are on this list are the ones that, one way or another, transported me into another time and another place. They made me laugh so hard I couldn’t stop, or they changed the way I looked at the world, or they made me fall in love, or they made me ridiculously happy, or they chilled me to the bone. What they did was take me outside of myself for an hour and a half or two hours or however long.

It’s an interesting list, based he says in part on reading Roger Ebert’s The Great Movies and The Great Movies II.

I’m not sure I could do a 100 best list. I don’t remember movies that well and would be too dependent on external hints (such as Ebert). There surely are many movies I will watch for a few minutes when I find them while surfing the channels — even though I’ve seen them many times before.

Posnanski’s list is in alphabetical order, so click the link above to check it out. His explanation is interesting, too.

I quickly estimated I’ve seen about 75 of the 100. Ebert’s books are terrific reading and the great movies reviews are online.

There are many of us who have no shame about our obsession with Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, nose-ringed, bisexual computer hacker whom the late Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson placed at the center of his three posthumous bestsellers, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Given that, the prospect of a film version of the second book is a cause for excitement. It’s a shame that the second film, directed by Daniel Alfredson, lacks the stylistic flair and driving energy that Niels Arden Oplev brought to the film rendition of the first book. But Noomi Rapace, who became an international star in the role of Lisbeth, is back in action, and she’s spectacular.

Peter Travers | Rolling Stone Movies

The first film is available on Netflix streaming — in Swedish with English subtitles.

Here, at Luis’s suggestion, the top lines from Raising Arizona:

1. Smalls: You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw. You want to find a Dunkin’ Donuts, call a cop.
2. Gale: H.I., you’re young and you got your health, what you want with a job?
3. H.I.: Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.
4. Policeman: Do you have any disgruntled employees?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: Hell, they’re all disgruntled. I ain’t running no damn daisy farm. My motto is “Do it my way or watch your butt!”
   Policeman: Well, do you think any of them could’ve done it?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: Oh, don’t make me laugh. Without my say-so they wouldn’t piss with their pants on fire.
5. Evelle: Gale? Um, Junior just had a … an accident.
   Gale: What’s that, pardner?
   Evelle: He had hisself a little ol’ accident.
   Gale: What do you mean? He looks okay.
   Evelle: No. You see, moving though we are, he just went and had hisself a little ol’ rest stop.
6. Evelle: You know how to put these things on?
   Grocer: Well, around the butt and up over the groin area.
   Evelle: I know WHERE they go, old timer. I just want to know if I need pins or fasteners.
   Grocer: Well, no, they got them tape-ettes already on there. It’s self-contained and fairly explanatory.
7. Policeman in Arizona house: What did the pyjamas look like?
   Nathan Arizona Sr.: I don’t know – they were jammies! They had Yodas ‘n’ shit on ’em!
8. H.I.: But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren’t screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids. And I don’t know. You tell me. This whole dream, was it wishful thinking? Was I just fleeing reality like I know I’m liable to do? But me and Ed, we can be good too. And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.

First posted here five years ago today.

The American Film Institute announced its Top 100 movie quotes of all time. Here’s the top 10.

1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “Gone With the Wind,” 1939.
2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “The Godfather,” 1972.
3. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am,” “On the Waterfront,” 1954.
4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939.
5. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Casablanca,” 1942.
6. “Go ahead, make my day,” “Sudden Impact,” 1983.
7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” “Sunset Blvd.,” 1950.
8. “May the Force be with you,” “Star Wars,” 1977.
9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” “All About Eve,” 1950.
10. “You talking to me?” “Taxi Driver,” 1976.

“Like the marriage montage near the beginning of Up, the last 10 minutes of Toy Story 3 seem to have been developed in collaboration with an ophthalmologist specializing in the production of tears.”

Dana Stevens – Slate Magazine

She says it’s the best of the three Toy Storys.

The review linked to this video.