Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine The Rented Movies Thread

Every year there are a number of movies that pique my interest, but not enough to spend the dough to see them in the theaters. Usually I wait until they become the 5-day rental at Blockbuster and see two or three in the same weekend. This thread is for the discussion of those movies you waited to see until they came out on video or dvd.

<font size="4">It should be assumed that all posts in this thread contain spoilers. </font s>

EDIT
Also since this thread could conceivably end up talking about any movie ever made, it might be better for everyone involved to try and make the title of the movie you are talking about stick out from the rest of the text.

Last weekend I rented Mystic River. I was interested in this because of all the good reviews that it got, oscars received, and by the fact that Clint Eastwood directed it.

That said, the acting was fantastic. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins are exceptionally talented actors. Eastwood has a great eye for lighting.

The movie, alas, breaks one of my fundamental rules for enjoying movies. That rule is that there must be at least one person/character in the film that you "feel" for. What you feel for them can range from respect, pity, hope, things in common, disdain, whatever; just evoke some response. The problem with Mystic River is that when it was said and done, I found myself not giving one lick about anybody involved in the whole thing.

Does anybody have some insights into this movie that might make me appreciate it more? All in all it was a technically well made movie, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

Mystic River

Mike, when I saw it in the theater, I found it heart-breaking. I think this really is Clint Eastwood's masterpiece, and the acting is truly incredible. Tim Robbins and the actress who played his wife broke my heart, and the scene with Sean Penn learning his daughter's fate was one of the most edgy I've ever watched.

I don't know if I can offer any insight that might make you appreciate it more, but I found that I could relate somewhat to every character, although not overly to any one in particulur. I know my girlfriend loved it more than I did, but my father didn't really like it as much--he recognized that it was a great movie, but a bit too depressing for him.

A bit on a few others:

-Just rented Bubba Ho-Tep last week. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I'm going to buy it definately. It was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, but also was very charming and heart-warming, once you start thinking of Bruce Campbell and Ozzie Davis as Elvis and JFK. Oh, and I'll also mention that my sister hated and was apalled by this movie

- Van Wilder: I can't get enough of this movie. Like Super Troopers and Old School, this movie is one of the funniest I've ever seen. It's funny, b/c I don't usually go for comedy (I find movies like High Plains Drifter a lot more funny than true comedy), but these movies crack me up. Maybe having this one kid who lived down the hall from me at college call me 'Van Wilder' a lot helped .

-I also watched Reservior Dogs last night, which I own, so it's not really a rent. Whenever I watch a comedy, I need something afterwards to wash it down.

Re: Mystic River, I totally felt for the Sean Penn character. His grief-stricken performance made me want to see justice as well - even if it meant teaming up with the Savage Bros. and doling out some vigilante justice. However, Eastwood is smarter than that and Penn's (and the audience's) desire for justice leads us very quickly into morally questionable territory.

I also felt for the Tim Robbins character because of his early trauma and inability to escape his past.

The Kevin Bacon/mysterious wife on the phone subplot just seemed out of place to me and didn't resonate emotionally.

One thing about this movie I've been wondering about if anyone else had thoughts on:
When Laura Linney gives her speach to Jimmy (Sean Penn) about how he's a king and he can rule this town etc... seemed over the top to me *until* the parade scene where we see her surrounded by the Savage Bros and Jimmy joins them as Kevin Bacon sets his sight on Jimmy. This floored me because I realized that his wife conspired with the Savage Bros to kill Jimmy's daughter! I won't get into plot specifics, cuz there are several possibilities about how it all went down, but they certainly had motive.

Laura's speach shows she's not just a normal housewife - she has ambitions and wants Jimmy to reassume his role as a gangster. The Savage Bros certainly want that - they said so several times. His daughter was the only reason he went straight and with her out of the way, they could bring him back in the fold. For Jimmy's wife, it would also mean that *her* kids were Jimmy's priority - an earlier scene showed that she knows his oldest daughter is his first love, moreso than the kids he has with her. When she talks about how she told the kids that their father would do anything for them, she's talking about herself as well -- she's looking out for *her* kids, Jimmy's daughter be damned.

Saw this on a big screen at San Diego. Not a bad film, though I thought the constant voiceovers from Campbell really hurt things.

Part of the movie's charm, IMO, is that you don't have to believe they're actually Elvis and JFK. You can just see them as loopy old men. The film leaves that open.

Wooooah now, wait just a minute here. I thought that the boyfriend's brother, you know the mute, and his friend were the one's that killed Sean Penn's daughter. That speech by Sean Penn's wife is the reason that I ultimately ended up losing any feelings of sympathy for the Sean Penn character. If he can let himself be manipulated by those words into disregarding his own conscience or feelings of responsibility for his actions, then he deserves to be married to that evil, amoral woman. Further, it made me think that the daughter's death was more or less the gimmick to put Penn in that situation, and that kinda shocked me out of the moment of the movie. That does not bode well for the movie when you start thinking about director's choices and how he made the movie over what's actually going on within the movie. But nowhere did I come off thinking that Penn's wife and the Savage Brothers were the actual killers.

I think the only character that I ended up feeling sympathy for was Tim Robbin's wife. Man was she put in a bad situation, and she was the only moral, innocent one of the lot. Even though it was her admission to Penn that ultimately got Robbins killed, and she turned out to be wrong.

I view Mystic River almost as a classic Greek tragedy that turns into a social commentary on modern day America. Only I don't like the moral... Money can buy you a guilt-free conscience. Because I think that's ultimately what this movie came down to. I kill your husband and send you $500 per month for the rest of your life. Everybody wins (no further regards for the deceased of course).

On to the next movies... Along with Mystic River I rented Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Matchstick Men.

I know what you're thinking... Tomb Raider: TCoL really you rented that. The only excuse I can offer is that the box had a quote by Ebert that said the movie was fun. I think Ebert is getting soft in his old age or something. All I can say is that the movie is totally watchable and undeniably forgettable.

Matchstick Men was the gem of the lot though. Nicholas Cage is another one of those great screen presences and here he does not dissappoint. I put this up there with The Sting as one of the great con movies of all time. I won't give anything away at this point, but if you got a couple extra bucks and want to get value from a movie, rent Matchstick Men.

I rented Love Actually, the most overstuffed and nearly the most preposterously intricate romantic comedy of all time, after seeing it in the theater months ago.

(Sorry, Minesurfer, but I almost never see a film for the very first time on DVD/VHS, except for a few documentaries over the years -- and "Star Wars II.")

It has nine, count 'em, nine interweaving story lines that do cross and interact, sometimes beyond reasonable expectation ... yet, dammit all, the whole spectacle ends up working, and being relatively easy to follow. And, at moments, truly touching.

Yes, the other extreme of cheese is also present at moments, and the side trip from London to Wisconsin (!) is beyond belief, but even at its less sterling points it remains highly amusing.

I know that some of our British friends have inveighed here against Richard Curtis, who wrote "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill," and wrote and directed this one. What may not be evident, though, is that he writes many big, sloppy scenes -- emotionally, anyway -- that, to me, give off a more expansive American sensibility, rather than a strictly British one. (That all these films have prominent U.S. stars in them is part of what spurs this, methinks.)

If you have any reasonable-sized portion of being a romantic sap in you ... and we all have some bit of it, but few will admit it in a hard-boiled age ... rent this and surrender to its whirlwind of stories.

You don't have to apologize to me for your movie going habits, Grey. All sinners are welcome here.

I just wanted a place to discuss movies that aren't the "hot" items any more without starting a whole new thread for each movie. I rarely make it to the theaters anymore as they are becoming way expensive for a man and his wife to attend anymore. Not only that, but I find myself less interested in most movies these days. So far all I've seen at the theaters this year was Spider-man 2 and Secret Window, and I correctly guessed Secret Window's big secret way ahead of time.

Love Actually and Lost in Translation are two movies that have piqued my interest in the rental stores. They may be in my next batch.

Speaking of rentals, has anyone tried out NetFlix? I hear that's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

(I have a couple of friends who swear by it.)

I haven't rented a movie in a while. Usually if I want something enough, I'll just buy the DVD. And if I'm not interested enough to get the DVD, I generally can't muster up the energy to go to the local Blockbuster to rent it, either.

It's only hinted at, but I think they either manipulated the kid or were out and out accessories. The Savage Bros and "Just Ray" were known associates who certainly knew Jimmy had killed Just Ray. Just Ray's widow certainly had enough enmity to Jimmy and her daughter as well to be part of it. I don't remember enough of the specifics of the film anymore, but I think Eastwood certainly wanted to make you question it.

And in terms of "morals" - I don't think the film had one. Penn's character certainly didn't win in the end - his daughter's dead and he realizes he's killed an innocent man (a former friend who's childhood trauma he felt some guilt about). If nothing else, he's totally defeated at the end - the way he throws his hands up in the air at the end seemed to me that he'd resigned any illusion of control he had over anything. That's why he's able to be manipulated by his wife.

And if my theory is correct, then the daughter's death wasn't the director's gimmick to put Penn in that situation, but an orchestrated plot hatched by his wife to put him in that position.

Eastwood was trying to avoid conveying a moral or even leaving anything really settled. The parade scene seems to set the stage for the next chapter in these characters' lives and we don't know what the consequences are of the actions in this film - we're left to ponder.

Yeah, I wasn't too happy with that movie. When Stephen King wrote it, that gimmick pobably wasn't as predictable. Still, it could've been directed a lot better in terms of conveying tension or drama even if you knew where things were headed. I thought the big "reveal" was handled pretty weakly as well (not to mention that it reminded me of "The Shining"'s "redrum" moment).

About the parade scene in Mystic River... I took it as kinda opposite of what you did. They really have Penn elevated in the scene, like a King surveying his subjects. Robbin's wife running around knowing everything and powerless to do anything really goes to reinforce this. And in the end it seems like Penn really did win a guilt-free conscience. Considering what he did, that's a pretty big prize. Even Bacon's gun/finger-pointing/shooting thing and Penn's shoulder shrug reaction shows a little bit of this too. Bacon saying, "You did it." And Penn retorting, "What you gonna do about it?" I take that as a man who has justified/rationalized his actions because of his loss and money payments.

Mystic River(cont):
I agree that he has sort of rationalized it, but I think it's only because he has no choice - what's done is done. I would doubt that he's totally guilt-free (he recognizes that it was his own sin that lead to his daughter's death), but he may have pushed it all deep down at that point. What you say about Penn looking like a king is how I felt about his wife standing there surrounded by the Savages - that moment seemed to say to me that she was the one in control, not Penn.

I think the fact that we have such different opinions about it all is something Eastwood wanted to leave open to interpretation.

I hadn't thought about it the way you saw it, but it's interesting to think about.

Both are pretty damned good. Both well worth a look.

Lost In Translation - as long as you're prepared for nothing happening throughout the whole movie, it's a brilliantly told story of ships passing in the night.

Love Actually - more Richard Curtis. If you enjoyed 4 Weddings and Notting Hill (one of my favourites) then this'll be right up your street. The deleted scenes are good too - especially the one about the porn.

If you like a good scream/thrill in your movie see Love Object, a kinky psychological chiller. For more info, check the link

http://www.nightmarez.com/loveobject.htm

Ms. T., I notice that website has all kinds of "Phantasm" references. I love the Phantasm movies, their one of my favorite guilty pleasure B grade horror flick movies!

(And that film looks really cool and creepy. I'll have to look for it...)

Re:Lost In Translation:
I would recommend it as well, though don't let the hype build up your expectations too much. It's certainly a lowkey kinda film though it does a good job of immersing you in an atmosphere of being in a foreign land - I really felt as though I had spent two hours with these people, but don't look for a conventional plot or even a resolution to the feelings it stirs up.

I checked The Lion King 1 1/2 out of the library for my daughter. It's basically a revisionist view of "The Lion King" from the perspective of Timon and Pumbaa, the comic relief from the original. Though they only came into the original about halfway through it, part of the joke in 1 1/2 is that they were there the whole time, unaware of the larger events going on around them. It was pretty funny, though I guess it helps if you've seen the original a million times like I have. If you aren't familiar with the original some of the jokes might not make much sense, but those were probably the biggest laughs for me.

I was actually pretty surpised that Disney would make so much fun of one of their more "serious" features though. Good for them. Sometimes Disney makes it harder than ever for me to resist their dominance.

I was home sick all week so I rented a few more movies... Kill Bill Volume 1, Bad Santa, and Love Actually. Still haven't watched Love yet but I gotta say the other two really didn't live up to the hype. I'm not saying they were all that bad either, but I think I only laughed at Bad Santa once, and that was when they were all in the boxing ring hitting each other in the nads. That's not a good sign for a comedy. I just didn't find the rest of the movie funny, just kinda cynical.

Kill Bill on the other hand was worth watching at least once. They definitely could have edited out some parts because they took along way to get to some goals, and pretty unnecessary too. Why go through all that dialogue at the counter with the man from Okinawa, just to get him to make you a sword? There were a couple other times it seems like Tarantino took a circuitous route to a goal but that one was the first to come to my mind. Also, and this is just a nitpick, but there sure were a lot of bodies and blood flying around and not too much interest from the authorities. I'll wait to pass full judgement on this until I see Volume 2, but the whole thing is... Volume 1 didn't put me in a hurry to see Volume 2.

Well, lately I have kinda been on a comic movie kick. League of X-gentlemen, Hulk, Hellboy, Xmen, Spidey.

HULK wasn't as bad as i had heard. I actually enjoyed it. Well, except for Bana. He must be a stud to the ladies cause he was flat as a fritter to me. Still, a good popcorn movie.

Just watched HELLBOY. kinda fun. David Hyde-Pierce as the voice of Abe, now that was funny in and of itself. Did he actually do the entire role? Pretty good comic fare.

LEAGUE was fun. Peta Wilson's Connery impression had me laughing a lot. Hadn't read the comic, so i couldn't get into the furor over Sawyer. Though it never said he was TOM, could have been a junior for all I know.

But the one i am looking forward to is the one i didn't even know was out until yesterday.

MARGRET CHO has a new DVD out. Gotta Gotta Gotta Gotta get that.

Just rented League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- and I found it pretty entertaining. Not Oscar-calibur, but worth my $3.00.

Maybe I didn't have more of a problem with it because I've never read the comics, and didn't have anything to compare it to.

Compared to a lot of movies, I actually thought most of the extra footage that had been left out would have made the movie better...

Well, it's not really movies, but...

My wife loves Friends. So we have been buying the DVD series of seasons. so far its 1,2,4 and 5. For some reason season three was about 4 dollars more, so it has been put off.

She also wanted to watch the four feathers. But i have to say i liked the order better, as well as the Core, which was basically a fantastic voyage meets journey to the center of the earth updated.

Still, they were fun. Gonna have to get her John Carpenter's Vampires though, she loved the horror movies, but for some reason wont, absolutely wont, watch the exorcist.

I still haven't watched Love Actually yet, but I have seen some of the other movies mentioned.

Let's start with The Hulk. I really liked this flick, so much I bought the dvd. This movie gets a bad rap (much like Daredevil) from the fan boys. I'll admit that both films have problems... Hulk is a little slow in some parts and the dogs look wierd. Ben Affleck isn't the greatest physical performer. These movies are about more than that though.

DD is about a man and his faith. Something else else that The Batman movies have tried to explore, but so far haven't done very well.

Hulk is very character driven. I liked Bana, given that I'd expect Banner to be "flat as a fritter" (great line by the way rickshaw1).

I think both movies are so much better than the X-Men flicks. Heck I'd even say that they are better than the first Spider-Man too, although not too much better. I don't see why they got such a bad rap from the general populace.

Hellboy was another good movie. I didn't know anything about it going into it, but I've got to say that Pearlman (sp?) gave a great performance. The villains were interesting and the story kept my attention, and when it was over, I found that I actually cared about the Hellboy character and his friends.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen left me a little flat. Too many effects, too much action, and not enough character driven moments. Kinda like the final arcs of DnA's run.

My wife is another Friends fanatic too. We've got seasons one through four, and with both of our birthdays and Christmas coming up, you can bet that there will be another couple seasons on the mantle soon.

I wish that I could get her to watch sci fi and horror though. That's not exactly right, I mean she'll watch horror, as long as it doesn't have Vampires or stupid killers in it like Freddy, Jason, or Jeepers Creepers. That doesn't leave much does it? She liked Young Frankenstein.