Gates of Flesh

I watched this dvd from Netflix tonight. It was pretty much soft core porn. The story of post-WWII Tokyo and a group of prostitutes and how they survive. The movie was made in 1964. It was full of anti-American sentiment. The last scene kind of says a whole bunch (the whole movie I guess too), they show a rising sun Japanese flag in the water, thrown away, then they pan up to the American flag waving over Tokyo.

I watched the interview of the director and the set designer after watching the movie. The director actually admitted that the project was made to show women torturing women and nudity. The set was definitely inspired by play sets. There was definitely some torture and nudity in this movie, but there was so much more going on too. I enjoyed the movie. Of course it was in Japanese, so you have to read the subtitles.

Eastern Promises

I went to Eastern Promises last night while waiting for Halo 3 to be released. It was a very interesting, bloody movie. It moved kind of slow, developing the story. It was set in London. I just figured it would be set in New York, so that was an interesting twist. Viggo Mortensen was pretty good in it as a Russian mobster. His character is more than just a Russian mobster though. Vincent Cassel had an interesting role too. Naomi Watts of course was hot in this movie. Viggo's accent was pretty good, and they spoke plenty of Russian.

There was this one scene where Viggo's character is attacked in a bath house. It is pretty bloody, and Viggo fights in the nude. It reminded me of that bath house fight in a James Bond movie, where none of the towels fell off. Another cool part of this movie is the whole tatoo angle. They do a little explanation of all the Russian gangster tatoos. The ending was kind of abrupt, but I think just because I wanted to see Viggo's character take over the mob. They implied that he did, but it would have been neat to see how his character played out. I liked this movie though, mainly because of the great actors in it and the interesting story.

The Brave One

I went to this movie today. Jodie Foster did a great job in this movie. It was not the typical revenge movie. They dealt with the victim's fear and her work at getting her life back and she mostly used a gun. I hate it when a revenge character suddenly becomes an MMA fighter over night, like in Death Sentence. She did kill one guy with a tire iron and that felt kind of weird. It would have been better if she would have shot him. There was a little bit of racism. One of the cops mentioned that the ipod was stolen because it had music on it that a young youth of color would not have. Terrence Howard played a pretty good detective. His partner was kind of strange with a tattoo on his neck. The ending was pretty cool with her returning to the scene of the crime with her dog. Over all this is a great movie. I wonder if Death Sentence was so bad because they rushed it out to beat The Brave One's release.

Pan's Labyrinth

I rented this movie from Netflix the other day. This is a great movie. I definitely recommend it. Even if you have to read the subtitles it is just a great movie. Surreal movie making at its best.

Disturbia

I rented this movie the other day from Netflix. To compare this movie to Hitchcock's Rear Window is pretty much blasphemy in my book. With that said, I will not compare the two. Without comparison, Disturbia is a decent kids serial killer movie. The serial killer character was sufficiently creepy and the adults dull enough so the kids can figure everything out with their tech savvy. The ending was totally sappy like a teen movie ending should be. I rent too many movies.

I Think I Love My Wife

I rented this movie the other day from Netflix. I enjoyed this movie. It should be a must watch for women and wives in particular. It gives a definite male perspective on the whole relationship game and some of the distractions and temptations a man deals with in this world. The ending was kind of hokie, but still good.

I Like Killing Flies

I rented this movie the other day from Netflix. This documenary is about a gourmet chef and his little hole in the wall restaurant in New York. I can see why they would make a documentary about such a guy. He is pretty amazing and so is his family. I enjoyed this documentary and I learned about the restaurant business and people in New York. Good stuff.

The Good Shepherd

I rented this movie the other day from Netflix. I liked this movie. Bunch of good people in it: Robert Dinero, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie. It kind of gave a white washed history of the CIA. Matt Damon did a great job. Interesting stuff all the way through and some good twists. I thought it was kind of shocking that Clover, Jolie's character, just jumped on Damon's character, but I guess they had to insert some kind of sick romantic component, even into a movie about the CIA. I recommend this movie.

The Darwin Awards

I rented this movie the other day from Netflix. Good lord, how did Winona Ryder get roped into this piece of crap. It was like a Monk episode gone wrong and too long. I kept wanting to crawl into the screen and grab Winona and shake her, "what are you doing with your career? please stop taking the advice of whoever told you do do this movie." There were a few snippets of goodness, but overall this movie made me feel like I go to and rent too many movies.

The Great Happiness Space

I rented this dvd from Netflix the other day. I heard a comedian do a joke where one of the lines was, "I just saw the movie Heat and I want to talk about it." That is the problem with renting movies. All the hype is dead and gone and no one wants to talk about it. Well guess what, now that I have this blog, I am going to talk about the movies I rent. The Happiness Space was a totally cool documentary. It is about this phenomenon in Japan of these clubs that cater to women like geishas cater to men. Half way through you find out something about the patrons of these clubs that is shocking and interesting. A very interesting commentary on Japanese culture and the human condition. I definitely recommend this documentary if you are interested in either.

3:10 to Yuma

I went to 3:10 to Yuma yesterday. I liked the way this movie flowed. The film editor wasted little in moving the story along. There were interesting characters and very interesting lines. The Wade character played by Russell Crowe had some pretty cool lines. The best I thought went something like, "Green eyes don't matter that much." This movie was definitely about fathers and their relationships with their sons. The Wade character did not have a father and was wild and did not have a moral compass. Christian Bales character, a one legged farmer, had two sons, but the story mostly focuses on the oldest son's relationship with his father. The youngest son has TB. Christian Bales character is interesting because information is revealed about him as the movie goes along. You since there is something going on with him, but are frustrated at first, by the end of the movie, you have a much better understanding of this character's motivation, so he is definitely a dynamic character. But so is the Wade character played by Crowe, by the end he seems to change too, while staying the same.

A few things I did not like about the movie was that the kid with TB slept with his brother. TB is contagious, so I would not think they would sleep together. Also, they said that the kid caught TB when he was 2 years old. How did he do that? When he was so young, he should have been only around family, not around a bunch of TB sufferers. Also, the ending was kind of shocking. None of this really mattered because I still really enjoyed the movie.

Death Sentence

I went to this movie the other day. I like Kevin Bacon. He does make some good choices on his roles. This was not one of them. This movie was just bad. It is a revenge movie, Bacon's family is slowly taken away from him, so he takes law into his own hands and goes after the bad guys. It seemed pretty unreal that this white collar worker was suddenly able to fight and run like a guy that has nothing to do all day but work on his body. A little character development would have been helpful, perhaps showing a military background and training at an MMA gym or something, but instead we see this guy sitting at his desk, then suddenly fighting tons of people. I think the best way they could have done it is by using the hockey angle. Have a conversation with his son about fighting during a hockey game or something like that. Oh well, I go to too many movies.

King of Kong

I went to King of Kong the other day. I liked this documentary. It was about these guys that play vintage arcade games on actual arcade machines like Donkey Kong, Gallaga, and a few other games that I never heard of or played. The crux of the documentary is high scores on these games and a group that validates these high scores. Some poor unemployed guy tries to break the Donkey Kong score and it seems the group that validates scores undermines his attempts. I enjoyed the movie. It reminded me of the documentary called American Movie.