Identity Thief was lame. But I'm sure all of you already knew that just by watching the trailer.

Just watched Jack The Giant Killer, there is neither Jack nor Giant in the movie. It's basically Jurassic Park minus the good parts.

And the good special effects. Jurassic Park is a beautiful marriage of prosthetics and CG. That's why it still looks fantastic today.

Super hyped for the 3D release. I just want an excuse to see it in theaters again.

Films that you appreciate upon a later viewing are usually the best. I mention this because I just rewatched Strange Circus by Sono Sion. Out of the (many) Sono films I have seen, Strange Circus never really resounded with me or stuck in my memory.

Watching it last night left me shaken, I think I finally understood what he was going for with this film. Apart from the usual Sion aspects that have become his cliche- exteme sex/violence, abuse (usually domestic), subtle horror, over-long scenes, interesting music choice and getting his actors to do stuff that only a few daring actors would do in the west- this film has a truly successful and underlying tone of sadness that I did not pick upon on initial viewing. Perhaps its because I took the surface far too literally the first time round too- well, as much as possible anyway.

It further cements in my mind that he's probably the one director from Japan that I know I can rely upon to create a film thats tweaked for my interests, much more so than anyone else. I read many arguments on why he isn't great but in the end- the entertainment level and rewarding experience/desire I have to rewatch his films many many times (Lynch, Jodorowsky, Kubrick and Wes Anderson are the only other ones are capable of doing that for me on a regular basis) really speaks for itself.

Hm, do you have thoughts on Lars Von Trier and Park Chan Wook? Personal vs. Objective quality of a cult filmaker is very complicated.

I really want to see Stoker bad, but it's only playing in Big Cities. I'm trying to hold off on spoilers, but I watched the trailer. I hope I can stop myself from spoiling it further.

Lars Von Trier has an 80% success rate for me, most recently, his stuff has been really good. Melancholia was my pick of the year 2011 with no real competition. I'm looking forward to seeing his next film, though I feel from the description that it's gonna be one of the more 'fans-only' kind of films. Melancholia managed to be a good film for non-fans too.

I haven't seen Stoker but most of Park Chan Wook stuff has appealed to me (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance obviously, but Thirst was also a great movie treat. I'm A Cyborg wasn't too bad either). I hope that Stoker doesn't turn into Park Chan Wook's My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar Wai's truly mediocre attempt at making a western cast/English language film).

just finished watching KOTOKO. it was a very unsetteling experience but Cocco's performance was more than worth it, you'd never believe it's her first acting role

So, a group of my friend's and I have taken upon ourselves to hold a monthly kung fu night, hosted at my apartment. And when I say night, I mean all day. Basically start drinking around noon, make a ton of various Asian food and watch 4-5 foreign martial arts films (the person designated to cook also picks the movies, so they don't miss out on too much). It's pretty much the greatest thing ever.

Standouts have been:
Singham - Bollywood police action/drama/comedy/musical that exudes so much raw machismo all the women in our group were impregnated just by watching the opening credits.
Merantau - Precursor to Gareth Evans' The Raid (which we watched as well). Basically, a better, tragedy-styled version of The Transporter meets Ong Bak.
Mystery of Chessboxing - Ghostface Killah's namesake and the title of one of the tracks from 36 Chambers. There's a reason for that; it's pretty good.
Infernal Affairs - What the shot-for-shot remake and Best Picture winner known as The Departed shot-for-shot remade.
Ip Man - Honestly, if you haven't seen this yet, you've failed as a person. Probably the best kung fu film of the past 20 years, give or take.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Wow. So I just finished watching Safety Not Guaranteed. Go see this if you haven't already. I don't even much care for Aubrey Plaza or Jake Johnson since they're both completely one-note but really, this is a fucking beautiful little film. I just threw it on Netflix since I was bored and it looked unengaging enough to kill a couple hours with. Surprise, surprise, turned out to be an absolute gem. Easily in my top 3 films of the past year or so. Wow, just wow.



Also, it's super lame that no one else regularly frequents the TV and film threads.

Cool! I was curious, but it came out with a glut of other indie-comedies that underwelmed, so I never got the impetus.
The wife loves Aubrey Plaza too!