Some recent rentals. (Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown!) [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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Kam
12-05-2005, 07:39 AM
Alrighty then, dove into some more obscure titles over the weekend and figured to hand out some new reccomendations of movies:

Chinatown: Not that this needs any more reccomendations, but finally got around to seeing it. Great Polanski flick of intrigue and dirty dealings and jack nicholson trying to trace how deep they really go, and where it all leads. Really twisted and edgy stuff with Faye Dunaway. One of those great movies that just couldn't work if made now. Or i guess, more appropriately, just wouldn't work if made in the current trend of hollywood remakes now. Any movie with deliberation, with purpose, which takes its time to slowly reveal in complex layers the intricacies of a plot... i dont know if it stands a chance, and very few are being made nowadays. Great cameo by roman too as the punk thug.

Enduring Love: (Britain 2004 - won a bunch of british awards) With Daniel Craig (the new bond), Samantha Morton, Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans (the quirky roomate-dude from Notting Hill). This movie further's my opinion that DC has the potential to be the best bond since Connery. It really will all depend on what they (producers/directors) let him do with the character. IF (and that's a big if given the direction the franchise has been headed in) they let him make it his own, they let him approach it like he has been approaching his other roles, than this will be the most nuanced, dark, and complex Bond ever. Given what a solid actor he is, and how he can completely dissapear into his roles - compare his snivelling son of newman in Road to Perdition to his badass businessman/gangster in Layer Cake. It's like it's not even the same actor. Think of how many people thought Michael Keaton was a horrible choice as Batman, Toby as Spidey, and the british christian bale as the american bruce wayne. I think DC has the potential to be in this line of great casting choices. Then again... high risk/ high reward.
So... now to this movie, Enduring Love. The opening of this movie just reels you in and pulls you non-stop through the movie and that's all I'll describe. In the opening few minutes, Craig (a university professor) and Samantha Morton (a sculptor) are about to have a picnic in this beautiful open field when a hot air balloon comes swooping down. Confusion ensues as people in the park rush to help as a boy is left inside when his father jumps out to the ground. Rhys Ifans is also one of the men that shows up to help. The 5-6 men grab on and hold the hot-air balloon down when a gust of wind rushes out of nowhere and pushes the balloon back up in the air dragging the men with it. They all hold on as the balloon continues to rise and then one of them lets go, after which all of them let go except for one. They all fall to the ground from a good height, but land safely as the balloon launches skyward. The last man holds on for as long as he cans, and then falls in an unbelievable shot. He dies. Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig walk over to the dead man and Rhys asks that they say a prayer for him, DC declines, Rhys begs for a prayer and DC agrees and.... it begins. I don't want to say anything else other than watch it! Very high reccomendation and a very entertaining movie.

Danny Deckchair: With Rhys Ifans (from Enduring Love) and Miranda Otto (from LOTR) a verrrrrry heartwarming, fun, feel-good movie from Australia (2003). Danny (Rhys Ifans) plays a construction worker sick of his life and girlfriend and decides to get away during a barbeque party by tieing helium filled balloons to a deckchair. He goes floating off and drifts into a storm. The movie has heavy Wizard of Oz overtones, and several Oz references in it as well. Rhys lands in another part of australia in a small outback town and ingratiates himself with the locals, including Miranda Otto. What follows in somewhat predictably, but still very enjoyable feel-good movie. Definitely reccomended.

Returner - (From Japan 2002) - great fun of an action/drama movie. Deals with time travel, an alien invasion, assassins, the triad, the yakuza, and revenge. All in under 2 hours! Has some really cool special effects which gives me hope that The Transformer's might be able to pull off some cool action sequences given this movie is already 3 years old and still had some convincing graphics in their spfx sequences (obviously dealing with the alien invasion). Again, dont want to reveal too much but the basics - an assassin is targeting a gangster on this docked ship and goes through a ton of his henchmen in the process as he tries to deliver his message to the gangster. Simultaneously in the future, the attack by the aliens is at the limits and the rebels send a young girl back in time to stop the invasion before it begins (yes... very terminator like). The girls pops back in time to the ship and distracts the assassin just as he's about to kill the gangster (who has a strange connection to the assassin's past). The assassin shoots the girl by accident and then is drawn in to her problem: save the world in 72 hours from the alien invasion. The rest is all good fun with just one incredibly awkward, completely out of place, non-logical, and ridiculously (kinda stupidly) funny pretty woman section that really should have been cut out entirely, but doesnt kill the movie. Just kinda sticks out as i'm sure you'll pick up while watching it.

That's the latest!
Peace
k2