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[Jmolinari]

my brother sent me a wikipedia for Human Centipede as a joke, and literally i lost my appetite just reading it. I felt ill and really really disturbed.

regarding funding, if you read the wiki page it says that the director basically "tricked" the people into funding, not telling them the truth about the project.

[AndyBoy]

I have a photographer friend whose 16 year old daughter has spent the summer as an actor in Mama's House 3. I think she was in the other 2 also but not sure. They were doing some of the filming around the Agnes Scott campus and also up in North Carolina. Not a movie I am likely to see though.

[The_Scientist]

We rented Temple Grandin over the weekend, and it's a good biopic about an extraordinary subject.  If you don't know, the title character is a renowned authority on animal behavior who revolutionized the cattle industry by designing a more humane and more efficient method for handling and slaughtering.  She is also autistic and a source of inspiration for every family dealing with that condition. 

Her life could have been so much sadder.  When she was diagnosed with autism in 1952, the usual recommendation was to commit her to an institution for life, but her mother refused to allow it and worked constantly to get her to talk.  The fact that her family was wealthy gave her quite an advantage, but she also turned out to be brilliant in observing details everyone else missed and to have a photographic memory.  A few encouraging figures nurtured her and gave her the fortitude she needed in the face of cruel prejudices.  It's uplifting without being phony, and it's about science!

[Otto]

The video is in my Netflix for this week!  Her books are amazing. Animals in Translation and Animals Make us Human are great reads.  I look forward to watching the movie.

[The_Scientist]

On Demand had Body Double in its free movie bin, and since I hadn't seen it and FG had it highly recommended, we watched it.  All I could say afterward was "This is the movie Brian DePalma made after Scarface?" 

It has >80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the only explanation is that everyone was prepared to love anything he made.  This was terrible beginning to end with awful acting, ridiculous script and direction that should embarrass a film student, let alone someone considered an auteur.  DePalma managed to make a few good movies and a lot of junk in his career, but fans only seem to remember the good ones.  Why is it that Terry Gilliam keeps having Baron Munchausen thrown in his face, and DePalma gets a pass for steaming piles like this?

[KoPP]

Speaking of Gilliam, I watched The Imaginarium of Dr Parassus this weekend - strange movie. I enjoyed it, but I can see why a number of critics get on him. Personally, I thought Brazil was crappy in the first released version, but a LOT better when the director's cut made it out.

On Black Friday, it's being predicted that flat screens are going to hit ridiculous levels. A 35" 600Mhz 1080i for $199? A 55" for less that $500? Oy.

[The_Scientist]

Speaking of Gilliam, I watched The Imaginarium of Dr Parassus this weekend - strange movie. I enjoyed it, but I can see why a number of critics get on him. Personally, I thought Brazil was crappy in the first released version, but a LOT better when the director's cut made it out.

On Black Friday, it's being predicted that flat screens are going to hit ridiculous levels. A 35" 600Mhz 1080i for $199? A 55" for less that $500? Oy.

Gilliam also did 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King, Time Bandits and Brothers Grimm (not a lot of people liked that one, but I did), plus the Python stuff. 

I weep when I think of how much I paid for my HDTV, and what it would run now.

[terry]

Lots of direct to video, indie and what-whats like Human Centipede.  How they decide what to charge isn't clear either.  Why are some $2.99 and others $6.99 (Human Centipede)?  Why would anyone pay any amount to watch Human Centipede?  Why would they watch it even if it were free and no one but your cable company was the wiser?  What were they thinking when they made Human Centipede?  Who would put up money for Human Centipede?  Why am I so upset that Human Centipede exists?  Why are they making sequels to Human Centipede? 

I regret to say that I saw this movie (on Netflix). After I saw it I gave it a rating of 1. I wish I could un-see that movie. There was nothing graphic about it, but it sure implied a lot.

[The_Scientist]

After much prompting we finally saw Inception via On Demand.  Even though it had an undeserved happy ending, I appreciated the pretzel logic of the plot and the way it didn't dumb down the psychology talk too much.  CGI was stunning.  No standout performances except Marion Cotillard as Leonardo DiCaprio's insistent wife.  She won an Oscar a few years ago, but most people don't know her in this country.  If she weren't French Hollywood would make her an A-lister.

[KoPP]

After much prompting we finally saw Inception via On Demand.  Even though it had an undeserved happy ending, I appreciated the pretzel logic of the plot and the way it didn't dumb down the psychology talk too much.  CGI was stunning.  No standout performances except Marion Cotillard as Leonardo DiCaprio's insistent wife.  She won an Oscar a few years ago, but most people don't know her in this country.  If she weren't French Hollywood would make her an A-lister.

This is the one film everyone really wanted to see in 3-D.

I'm not so sure about the ending being happy - it's left vague on purpose.

[Jmolinari]

the ending is neither happy not sad. It can be interpreted either way.

I thought it was by far the best film ive seen in a long time.

[The_Scientist]

I will concede that there is some question about the concreteness of the ending.  A couple of events in the waking world are rather dreamlike, so it could be that the whole plot is dream.  I still felt a little let down by the end, but as FG will tell you, that's a complaint I have about lots of movies, and I definitely recommend this one.

Modified for typo

[The_Scientist]

Another Saturday night at home, but at least we found Lenny as a free On Demand movie. I'd seen it, but it was so long ago that I didn't remember a lot of details. This is one of the best biopics ever made. Even Valerie Perrine is good in it. The non-linear narrative is strikingly modern, so much so that it wouldn't seem out of place as a new release, something few movies can say.

[The_Scientist]

A lazy Sunday with On Demand queued up. FG wanted me to see Dogville. It's a large investment of time at almost three hours, but I have been reflecting on it ever since it ended, which I guess means it succeeded.

Lars von Trier directed, which immediately gets people yelling about his anti-American leanings (he notoriously won't even travel to the US) and gets this movie labeled agitprop. The movie uses familiar Hollywood tropes: the runaway rich girl, the local boy trying to win her heart, provincial but basically good small town folk, brutal gangsters. It then turns those tropes around to show how they can turn ugly and destructive. The only explicitly political statement comes with the closing credits, which are ham-fisted and unconvincing compared to the movie itself.

It's basically a filmed play with a minimal set, mostly imagined props and an omniscient narrator. The characters are easily seen as metaphors, with Nicole Kidman as the liberal do-gooder, Paul Bettany as the well-meaning but ineffectual spiritual adviser, the townsfolk as outwardly pious but inwardly vicious peasants, and the gangsters as capitalists who mow down anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way.

Hey, this movie got me thinking on that level. Let's see a comic book movie do that.

[The_Scientist]

It's been a long time since I've seen Eraserhead, and now Comcast has it in its free On Demand bin. Even today after David Lynch and all of his imitators have made dozens of films filled with weird imagery and gore, this is still as baffling and open to interpretation as ever. Lynch notoriously won't talk about what it all means, because he wants the audience to figure out their own meaning. He's even coy about how he did the "baby" effect, although it was apparently an enbalmed fetal calf.