Seen any good movies lately? - Films you MUST see

roni said:
Ocean's 11 + 12 (Not 13)

Interesting. Most people have told my wife or me that 11 and 13 are excellent, but 12's not so good. I actually preferred 13 to 11, but both are good enough that we're going to get 12.
 

Father Luke

Founding member
roni said:
Fight Club

Can someone explain the appeal of this movie to me?

Pretty much the reasons you mentioned:

I feel like I'm watching a badly filmed, badly acted,
horribly edited 70's drive in movie.

Then there's an underground cult status to it
by now. Like Rocky Horror - one I've never
seen - and people have it memorized, and can
recite it.

I never got the whole Elvis thing. So, go figure.
 
Can someone explain the appeal of this movie to me?

My kids like the movie and it could be the allure of the split personality mixed with the anti establishment and secret society. You know that whole secret back alley thing. Besides it has Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Meat Loaf with tits...

exactly.

Pretty much the reasons you mentioned [...]
Then there's an underground cult status to it [...] and people have it memorized, and can recite it.

exactly.

Besides, I like the way it is filmed and edited.
But tastes are different, so what.

Gerard K H Love said:
This would be a guys list, gangster movies.

How about 'Heat'?

Most people have told my wife or me that 11 and 13 are excellent, but 12's not so good.

What I like about 12 (and a lot of people don't quite GET) is:

it's a FUNNY movie.
it doesn't take itself serious at all.
all the jokes from 11 are being led beyond a certain border (e.g. the Chinese guy talking only chinese but is understood by everyone. or Matt Damon's character being a little unsure, wanting to belong to the pros but seeing himself under the shadow of his father. or Clooney and Pitt playing ping-pong with their words in dialogue.)

It's really done in a proper way. and it has lots of New ideas too.

In 13, they play it save:
using the same jokes again (pushing them a little further again), setting it back in Vegas, etc. It's a well done movie, but not nearly as hilarious as 11 and 12, I think.
 
What I like about 12 (and a lot of people don't quite GET) is:

it's a FUNNY movie.
it doesn't take itself serious at all.
all the jokes from 11 are being led beyond a certain border (e.g. the Chinese guy talking only chinese but is understood by everyone. or Matt Damon's character being a little unsure, wanting to belong to the pros but seeing himself under the shadow of his father. or Clooney and Pitt playing ping-pong with their words in dialogue.)

It's really done in a proper way. and it has lots of New ideas too.

In 13, they play it save:
using the same jokes again (pushing them a little further again), setting it back in Vegas, etc. It's a well done movie, but not nearly as hilarious as 11 and 12, I think.


It's an interesting genre: on one level, drop-dead serious, and on another, almost slapstick. The funniest bit in 13 is when the guy who was trying to rig the blackjack table starts to explain the basics of blackjack to Damon, Clooney and Pitt. God, the looks on their faces are priceless.
 

esart

esart.com
Founding member
...Like Rocky Horror - one I've never seen - and people have it memorized, and can recite it.

i have barfly memorized. i used to rattle off the lines of the movie as a non sequitur (and sometimes relative) response to various people's questions and comments. of course they thought i was insane.
 

Father Luke

Founding member
i have barfly memorized. i used to rattle off the lines of the movie as

okay. and now for something completely different:

"Dennis, for Christ Sake Dennis, get him another bottle!"

(oh yeah. Monty Python. How could I forget. . . ?)
 

hoochmonkey9

Art should be its own hammer.
Moderator
Founding member
esart said:
yes, how could i forget the marx bros?


I came to the Marx Bros. late. whenever Hannah and Her Sisters came out. mid 80's?
Woody Allen is having his existential crisis and after trying many different avenues to sort himself out, he stumbles into A Night at the Opera, and it puts everything into perspective for him.
that's when I really started appreciating the Marx Bros.
because Woody told me to. or something like that.
 
I always preferred Monty Python's Flying Circus to the movies, although they are good.

As for Woody, how could I have left out 'Take the Money and Run'? "The prisoners got one hot meal a day: a bowl of steam."
 
ah! a little afterthought on Ocean's 12 (mostly for purple):

if you've seen 13 without knowing 12, you'd missed some things, that were invented in 12: Like the french guy who steals the (fake) diamonds from the roof - he plays a big part in 12. Also the guy who helps our heros with technical aid - he's introduced in 12. Then the habbit of having names for all these con-tricks (like when they offer Al Pacino a "Billy Martin" (meaning a second chance) - that's elaborated very much in 12, where every heist ever done has a special name; they would only name it and everybody would know which trick was behind it.

Also Julia Roberts plays a tremendous role in the 2nd half of 12. (won't tell more about that here.)


hm... Maybe should watch it tonight again, having some champain and a cigar...

or I'll watch some documentaries on Serge Gainsbourg instead, who had his 80th birthday today...
 

hoochmonkey9

Art should be its own hammer.
Moderator
Founding member
or I'll watch some documentaries on Serge Gainsbourg instead, who had his 80th birthday today...


ah serge.
maybe I'll break out Melody Nelson tonight.
a visionary masterpiece, says me.
 
ah! a little afterthought on Ocean's 12 (mostly for purple):

if you've seen 13 without knowing 12, you'd missed some things, that were invented in 12: Like the french guy who steals the (fake) diamonds from the roof - he plays a big part in 12. Also the guy who helps our heros with technical aid - he's introduced in 12. Then the habbit of having names for all these con-tricks (like when they offer Al Pacino a "Billy Martin" (meaning a second chance) - that's elaborated very much in 12, where every heist ever done has a special name; they would only name it and everybody would know which trick was behind it.

Also Julia Roberts plays a tremendous role in the 2nd half of 12. (won't tell more about that here.)


hm... Maybe should watch it tonight again, having some champain and a cigar...

or I'll watch some documentaries on Serge Gainsbourg instead, who had his 80th birthday today...


That does explain a few things from 13; thanks. Funny you should mention Gainsbourg - a friend was playing some just the other day and I had asked who it was, as I had never heard of him.
 
ah serge.
maybe I'll break out Melody Nelson tonight.
a visionary masterpiece, says me.

that's ab-so-lutely TRUE!

... and I had asked who it was, as I had never heard of him.

outside France hardly anybody has.
But he has his fans. There must be a thread here I seem to remember.



now back to the movies:
has anybody here mentioned 'Goldfinger' by now? (I don't say it's a Top-10 counter, but maybe in the 'gangster/criminal-movie-top15'?)



oh, and one more thing about 12, no - Two:
1st. make sure to be (a little) sober when watching it the First time, so you'll get all of these tiny little jokes it has.
2nd. I've just watched again the scene, where they meet one Matsui in Amsterdam, which is a KILLER-SCENE really!!! - keep that in mind from the start of that scene so you get each one of the two-dozen(or something)-jokes in it.
 
oh and I am sorry for being too specific to be On-topic Here (maybe I should start the 'Oceans twelfe appreciation thread'), but there's One more thing on Ocean's 12 (which, as u might guess, I'm watching now):

the scene at the Station.
That's One joke following the Other!
I simply Love it!
<3


.
 
Make that four for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

I just saw Into the Wild. It was very good too.
 

Ponder

"So fuck Doubleday Doran"
RIP
Yes I saw a good movie last saturday night.

Title: spring, summer, fall, winter ...
and spring
 

hoochmonkey9

Art should be its own hammer.
Moderator
Founding member
although it's only a short documentary, there's a film over at ubuweb called Dinner With Henry. it's Henry Miller talking while having dinner with a beautiful woman, filmed a year or so before he died.
nothing groundbreaking, but funny and at times insightful. and, if the website is to be believed, quite rare.
lots of other good stuff at ubuweb, also.
 
I just saw "CJ7", a movie by Stephen Chow same guy that did "Shaolin Soccer", which I thought was hilarious, if you're into that kind of thing.
 

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
I just saw a documentary on TV about the punks. It's called, "Punk Attitude", by Don Letts (2006). Not bad at all and funny at times, such as when they say that Chrissie Hynde was in an early incarnation of the band "Damn" and wanted the band to change the name to "My Cunt's Honourable Discharge". What a charming name...:D
 
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mjp

Founding member
That was good. Lett's knows the scoop, he was there (in England anyway). He knew where it all came from and what it all meant (nothing). ;)
 

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
They said before the documentary started that Lett's made another film about the punks in the late seventies and that he early on was in a band called Acne..something (Acne Explosion?)...
 
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mjp

Founding member
The Punk Rock Movie, yeah, not so great. he only band I know of that he was in was Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones from the Clash.
 

chronic

old and in the way
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea. A fun little documentary about the history of the Salton Sea and its eccentric inhabitants (if you don't live in So Cal you've likely never heard of the place), which began as a mistake, became a trendy tourist destination, and then rotted away.

Recommended. Two thumbs up. Four Stars.
 
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