Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
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Absolutely classic noir, Polanski greatness. And Nicholson in his prime.Finally started Chinatown. Been sitting on it for months. It was on my queue for 4 years.
Absolutely classic noir, Polanski greatness. And Nicholson in his prime.Finally started Chinatown. Been sitting on it for months. It was on my queue for 4 years.
Interesting, KasparovGame Over: Kasparov and the Machine - 5/10 - pretty boring documentary that is more about the drama of the Kasparov vs Deep Blue event than the technology or anything else. Because of this I was bored by it. Learned a few things but i found it stupid.Kasperov thought that a grand master was helping make critical decisions for Deep Blue and/or verifying that moves were not blunders. Especially in match 2 when Deep Blue did a few things Kasperov never saw a computer do before. Aslso, after match 4 of 6, Kasperov was ready to quit because he was convinced that there was human grandmaster involvement on IBMs side since IBM refused to provide logs that gave an idea of Deep Blues thinking process. Not sure what the log had but I'd assume that it gave a "top 10" ideas along with the actual decision.
Has Aaron Sorkin ever done anything that isn't great? Tremendous talent.The Newsroom : 9/10 - An outstanding new HBO series by Aaron Sorkin. Jeff Daniels is supremely good here, along with an excellent cast and of course exquisite writing. I have a couple of quibbles about things here and there, but overall a great great show.
The Newsroom : 9/10 - An outstanding new HBO series by Aaron Sorkin. Jeff Daniels is supremely good here, along with an excellent cast and of course exquisite writing. I have a couple of quibbles about things here and there, but overall a great great show.
^^
interesting. On Netflix or Amazon Instant by chance?
Watched Chinatown again last night. It had been a number of years. I must have seen it back in the 70's, another time when I bought the DVD around 2005. I jotted some words in my movies table, basically this (just a few minutes ago):
My god, watched last night. Amazing movie, and you really should be at your sharpest when watching it to grasp it in depth.
Chinatown is one of my favourite films of all time. It's amazing, though I may actually give Repulsion the nod as my favourite Polanski film. It's been a while since I last watched Chinatown, so that may change again when I re-watch it.
KT
^^
interesting. On Netflix or Amazon Instant by chance?
I liked the show a lot, but I'm not in love with the politics all the time. I like the idea of calling out politicians about the crazy stuff they say. However, it's not very balanced (don't remember hearing any references to Democratic politicians saying dumb stuff) and plays into "gotcha politics". The two references to asking Michele Bachmann what God's voice sounds like come to mind - we all know that she wasn't speaking literally. Not saying I even like any of the politicians they called out - just that some of the things were pretty ticky-tacky.
Watched Chinatown again last night. It had been a number of years. I must have seen it back in the 70's, another time when I bought the DVD around 2005. I jotted some words in my movies table, basically this (just a few minutes ago):
My god, watched last night. Amazing movie, and you really should be at your sharpest when watching it to grasp it in depth. The script, the direction are stunningly great and Nicholson's acting (and really, everybody else's) is fantastic. He was not yet a star when he did this. The script won an Oscar, and it was absolutely written with Nicholson in mind, you find that out when you see the extra, an interview way after the fact of the script writer, Robert Towne, Polanski (who was hand picked by the producer), and producer Robert Evans. Evans wanted Polanski because he wasn't American and would have an outsider's view of America. Townes passed up an opportunity to earn $175,000 (a fortune then) to do Gatsby to get $25,000 instead to have this script produced. He didn't want the onus of trying to match Fitzgerald's genius and, of course, coming up short (my words, based on what he said in the interview). Polanski was estranged from Hollywood by virtue of Sharon Tate's murder (duh!), but was lured back to do this, and he said he was completely at home at Paramount.
Just phenomenal!, and like Ebert said, a tour de force from beginning to end.
From Cinemania, Pauline Kael's remarks add a lot of useful perspective:
- - - -Set in the 30s, this nostalgic thriller, in the style of Hammett and Chandler, draws on the history of Los Angeles, specifically the water-rights and real-estate swindles. You can feel the conflict between the temperaments of the scriptwriter, Robert Towne, and the director, Roman Polanski. In Towne's conception, the audience discovers the depth of the corruption along with the romantic-damn-fool detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson). Polanski, whose movies don't leave you anything to hang on to, turns the material into an extension of his world view: he makes the LA atmosphere gothic and creepy from the word go. The film holds you, in a suffocating way. Polanski never lets the story tell itself. It's all overdeliberate, mauve, nightmarish; everyone is yellow-lacquered, and evil runs rampant. You don't care who is hurt, since everything is blighted. And yet the nastiness has a look, and a fascination. There's a celebrated background story to the film. The script had originally ended after Gittes realizes what horrors the woman he loved, the twitchy liar Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), had been through. And then she kills her incestuous, baronial father (John Huston) in order to save her daughter from him, and Gittes helps the young girl get to Mexico. But Polanski, an absurdist, seals the picture with his gargoyle grin. He ends it with the death of Evelyn Mulwray and the triumph of the Huston character, who had raped the land, raped his daughter, and would now proceed to corrupt the daughter's daughter. Polanski's temperament dominates (and he seems indifferent to some of the plot points). Yet Towne's temperament comes through, too, especially in Nicholson's Jake Gittes, the vulgarian hero who gives the picture much of its comedy: Gittes gets to tell wittily inane, backslapping jokes, and to show the romanticism inside his street shrewdness.
If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain
The Raid: Redemption- 8/10
Was freaking awesome. Doesn't mess around with unneeded love BS, gets to the point, is simple, and extremely suspenseful.
Only complaint was that at some point, the pain tolerance gets out of hand. Tons of characters take like 15 direct hits to the head and can still pull off insane counters and blocks when they should probably be unconscious.
Lawless - 8/10
I really didn't know much about this movie other than that it was based on a book by guy who went to the same college as me. I ended up enjoying it a lot. I don't think it's going to win a bunch of awards, but it's entertaining and it definitely knows how to evoke real emotions towards the characters. I definitely hated Guy Pearce by the midpoint.