january 2007
brick - love it and had to see it again. detective pulp story set in a high school, with fantastic dialogue and with joseph gordon levitt as lead, whom i've come to love as an actor after seeing him in mysterious skin and manic. if you've seen a few detective stories/film noirs, you can predict the outcome of the movie-but that's not where the fun lies. it's fresh and clever because of the different setting and adapting character molds differently as well, yet if this were a typical detective story/film noir, it would work just as well because the dialogue is that awesome and that pulpy/film noir. one of my favorites of 2006.
and i'm excited for his next project: "Adrien Brody and Rinko Kikuchi are joining Rachel Weisz in Endgame Entertainment's "The Brothers Bloom," written and directed by Rian Johnson.
Brody will portray the younger brother in a conman team who falls for a mysterious target, played by Weisz, while Kikuchi will portray the brothers' partner in crime who may be hiding secrets of her own."
Rinko Kikuchi = japanese girl who was flat out amazing in babel (and who i root for to win even though i never guess right when it comes to awards stuff), who's also been in a variety of japanese films such as funky forest, survive style +5 (if barely) and others.
children of men - well done, intense but the ending is total blue balls. there's just something about this movie that didn't totally deliver for me and i can only think of it being the ending, just being cut off to the point that i stayed on my seat thinking they're going to show more or it might be one of those movies where after the credits finish, they have a little bit more. but no. it's well shot, well acted (it's CLIVE OWEN!) and everything is done very well but i don't know. i just wasn't completely blown away like everyone else has been. people saying this is the new blade runner, eh, i don't really get that comparison. maybe elements but very very very small ones. i think calling it a modern blade runner is sillyness. the part most people talk about, the editing and action sequence towards the end...here i go again being the guy peeing on everyone's parade but i thought it was really cool but not THAT amazing. maybe my fault is, i've seen too many movies and i just thought the scene was well done and not jaw droppingly awesome.
chinatown - first time seeing it and i was very glad i did. i now see and understand why this is a classic and it's fantastic. faye dunaway and jack nicholson had plenty of chemistry and displayed some powerful acting here. why can't jack act like he acts in this movie anymore? the majority of his most recent work is just him hamming up the screen with his antics, as if he's too big of a name now to have any director direct him. it's boring. yeah i said it, he wasn't anything special in the departed (and infernal affairs > the departed). i thought it was a clever touch that the detective (nicholson's character) gets his nose cut, since it's his job to sniff out clues. i was also surprised by the ending because of where they went and how they ended it, which very very very few movies dare to and most that do, fail. not this one. a classic this is indeed.