rate the last movie you saw

[AndyDursin]

That scene is why I am not dragging my wife to this one and will wait for video. I have a very very low tolerance level for anything resembling rape sequences even in "lighter" fare like this.

[AndyDursin]

TOP SECRET
9/10

Still one of the funniest films I've seen in a theater...and incredibly it holds up well, mainly because the humor is genre-specific and not limited to then-contemporary jokes. Good songs, great fun.

[Monterey Jack]

LOVE Top Secret!, which I think even trumps Airplane! as far as belly-laughs go. I'd love to see it on Blu-Ray.

[Paul MacLean]

The Sixth Sense



SPOILERS BELOW



Well...the acting was very good. M. Nigh Shyamalin certainly knows how to extract excellent performances from his cast...but that's about the only positive thing I can say about this morose, tedious film, which is riddled with plot holes.

In fairness, I already knew about the big twist (that Bruce Willis is actually a ghost), which was ruined for me years ago, so the effect of that big surpise was lost on me. And with that foreknowledge, the movie plays like a more glum version of A Guy Named Joe or Spielberg's Always (dead guy trying to help the living while stewing with jealousy over his girl's new suitor). However, even if the viewer is unaware of Willis' condition, it does not excuse the enormous implausibilities and even preposterous story elements that mar the script.

Surely Osmet's character would have mentioned to his mom, at some point, that he was a seeing a therapist (especially when Willis appears at the kid's house early-on in the film)? Surely his mother would ask him about his therapist -- and probably want to speak with him. But no, the kid never bothers to tell his mom.

No one notices (or cares) that Osmet walks right into the home of the girl who died -- whose family he doesn't even know -- and upstairs into her room? And why didn't the girl show her father the tape of her mother poisoning her while she was still alive?

At the end we are finally given the big twist: that Willis is ghost, and has been for months -- yet he was totally unaware of this??? If he was dead, everyone (not just his wife) would be unable to see him. Wouldn't he start to think this was odd? Wouldn't he question why he was no longer drawing a paycheck? Or why everyone at work, at the bank, at the McDonald's drive-through, etc. -- was ignoring him? I mean Patrick Swayze had it figured out in a couple of minutes (in a film that was ten times more entertaining -- and believable -- than this thing).

I honestly thought Unbreakable was better!

[AndyDursin]

Goodness Paul, I totally disagree with you on that film...although I figured out the twist the first time I saw it, when Willis was having lunch with Olivia Williams about 10-15 minutes in. I knew I was being played, though I still thought the film worked incredibly well.

[Paul MacLean]

Goodness Paul, I totally disagree with you on that film...although I figured out the twist the first time I saw it, when Willis was having lunch with Olivia Williams about 10-15 minutes in. I knew I was being played, though I still thought the film worked incredibly well.

I just could not buy that Willis had no idea something was amiss. I mean, he's a ghost -- nobody can see him. Why doesn't he question why everyone ignores him? Wouldn't he see the freaked-out looks on peoples' faces when he opens a door, or when his car drives by with no one in the drivers' seat (or when the cops pull his car over because no one's driving it)?

Realistically, he would have behaved more like this...

[AndyDursin]

Isn't he dead? Maybe he doesn't have all of his mental facilities?

I just figured he was in some kind of psychological denial.

[Paul MacLean]

Isn't he dead? Maybe he doesn't have all of his mental facilities?

I just figured he was in some kind of psychological denial.

I suppose that's possible. In fairness, I thought the film was very well-acted, but it otherwise didn't really work for me.

[Eric Paddon]

I think maybe to understand Willis's attitude, think back to the Twilight Zone episode "Death Ship" in which the ultimate twist is the fact that Jack Klugman is too stubborn beyond belief to accept the fact that he and his fellow astronauts are dead so as a result they keep reliving things again and again leading up to their deaths and not accepting it, simply because of Klugman's force of will/denial on this point. It isn't a perfect parallel but it is I think the one precedent in sci-fi I can point to attitude wise for a character to not accept he's dead and Willis at that point is too stubborn to admit it all the while.

[AndyDursin]

I think maybe to understand Willis's attitude, think back to the Twilight Zone episode "Death Ship" in which the ultimate twist is the fact that Jack Klugman is too stubborn beyond belief to accept the fact that he and his fellow astronauts are dead so as a result they keep reliving things again and again leading up to their deaths and not accepting it, simply because of Klugman's force of will/denial on this point. It isn't a perfect parallel but it is I think the one precedent in sci-fi I can point to attitude wise for a character to not accept he's dead and Willis at that point is too stubborn to admit it all the while.

Yes, great point Eric. As always there is a suspension of disbelief required in a supernatural picture like this...I mean, who's to say Willis should be behaving differently...since none of us have died, there's no right or wrong answer there. To me he doesn't function as a straight thinking human being because he isn't one. I think Paul is looking at it from a logical standpoint, but it's the kind of thing you either buy into or don't. I guess I could pick apart POLTERGEIST as to why the ghosts behave the way they do (why don't they just grab Carol Anne right at the beginning of the film instead of waiting?) but it's not something I'm looking for in that kind of picture, so long as it's not brain-dead.

I always found the film fascinating because of Osment's character. It's debatable whether he knows Willis is dead the whole time -- though I think he does, which adds an interesting layer to the movie on subsequent viewing. But supernatural element or not, the movie functions (IMO) because of the strength of its emotional convictions -- the scenes with Osment and his mother at the end, Willis' final understanding of where he's at, for me it is very powerful. The movie works even if you don't know the twist.

One thing's for sure: at least Paul will understand why THE HAPPENING is so funny since he's seen a few Shyamalan movies!

[Monterey Jack]

I just could not buy that Willis had no idea something was amiss. I mean, he's a ghost -- nobody can see him. Why doesn't he question why everyone ignores him? Wouldn't he see the freaked-out looks on peoples' faces when he opens a door, or when his car drives by with no one in the drivers' seat (or when the cops pull his car over because no one's driving it)?

Here's the million-dollar question...why doesn't Willis witness his own body being carried away by the paramedics? Later in the film, we know for a fact that a dead person's ghost manifests itself almost immediately when Osment sees the dead cyclist standing outside the car window next to his mom (a bit hilariously spoofed in Spaced...and even featuring Olivia Williams as the cyclist! ), and yet if that were true, Willis should have witnessed his wife sobbing over his now-lifeless body, seen himself getting zipped into a body bag and wheeled away on a stretcher, ect., and yet he STILL doesn't realize he's dead?!

[Monterey Jack]

Edgar Wright-a-thon...!

-Dead Right (1993 film made as teenager): 7/10

-Spaced (1999-2001): 10/10

-Shaun Of The Dead (2004): 9.5/10

-Hot Fuzz (2007): 9/10

-Don't trailer from Grindhouse (2007): 8.5/10

-Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010): 10/10

[Eric Paddon]

King Kong (1976) 8 of 10.
-My disc is a creative boot that incorporates some of the TV material from the R2 bonuses and seamlessly inserts it back into the film (since these scenes were presented widescreen in those bonuses). I have always had a soft spot for this movie because it was really the first "big event" movie of my childhood with the trading cards and other merchandise tie-ins, and also this film shows the non-seedy side of New York I first experienced as a kid with its now poignant location work at the World Trade Center (my brother in fact was in the crowd at the plaza with the giant model lying there one of the nights they shot). Looking at it today, I think it holds up well because unlike Jackson, it tried to be different and didn't think it could top the original in what the original did best. It was in short, a respectful reintrepretation whereas Jackson came off as trying to be the 1933 version on steroids if you will. Jessica Lange in the native costume remains the most beautiful Kong lady of them all IMO.

-Some parts of it don't work of course and we don't need to rehash the many things that have been cited before. I think this time I found myself wondering just what kind of "program" is it that takes place where Wilson gives a pompous intro lasting about 15 seconds and then we have a bunch of reporters swarming up. Not very good program execution even before Kong breaks free! (at least Denham in the original took time to explain that he wanted the press to take pictures first).

The Conversation (1974) 6.5 of 10
-I had only seen this once before and wanted to reintroduce myself to it. Hackman is terrific, great location work and a good, low-key eerie kind of telling but come on, you think the hotel people who had to clean up all that blood coming out of the toilet weren't going to say anything???? (unless I suppose the Company owns the hotel and could have their men take care of it?). Shire's music works, but it's easy to see why Intrada can never move copies of the CD because it clearly wouldn't make for a good stand-alone experience.

[Monterey Jack]

The World's End (2013): 8/10

Finale of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost "Cornetto Trilogy" has plenty of laughs, but doesn't quite reach the highs of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz (the extended, out-of-nowhere finale drags a bit). Then again, I kind of thought the same about Hot Fuzz at the time, and that film gets funnier with each viewing, so my grade is provisionary. Brilliant visuals and kinetic editing as always with Wright (hopefully he'll keep DP Bill Pope when he makes Ant Man), and the cast is excellent, particularly Pegg, digging a little deeper into pathos than you'd expect from a film that's basically a soused riff on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

[John Johnson]

The World's End (2013): 8/10

Finale of the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost "Cornetto Trilogy" has plenty of laughs, but doesn't quite reach the highs of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz (the extended, out-of-nowhere finale drags a bit). Then again, I kind of thought the same about Hot Fuzz at the time, and that film gets funnier with each viewing, so my grade is provisionary. Brilliant visuals and kinetic editing as always with Wright (hopefully he'll keep DP Bill Pope when he makes Ant Man), and the cast is excellent, particularly Pegg, digging a little deeper into pathos than you'd expect from a film that's basically a soused riff on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

I loved the Cornetto reference.