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That isn't a loving tribute since the original's Islanders actually communicated, had a culture demonstrated through dance, lived in houses, and had boats and lived in an environment they could logically survive in.

2005 Top Twenty First Time Viewings 1. Casque D' Or 2. Harakiri 3. Fighting Elegy 4. Night and the City 5. Simon of the Desert 6. The Exterminating Angel 7. The Big Country 8. Love Me Tonight 9. Paris, Texas 10. Pauline at the Beach 11. Dawn of the Dead extended cut 12. Porco Rosso...

Narnia was the best in December. Given what else I saw that month, it wasn't a difficult choice. Jim, my comment was based on your own taste, not mine. Just surprised you'd pick various 05 CGI fests over Night and the City or some of the other noirs and westerns on your list. Dashing these...

King Kong is the best movie you saw Jim??!! December Recap Movies Seen: 24 Best 1st Time Viewing: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe 2005 Films The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - A- The Exorcism of Emily Rose - C+...

Le Samourai (1967) - A hitman is doublecrossed and hunted by those who hired him in this existential crime film. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, the film is tremendously well shot and edited, simply gorgeous to look at. But the film makes Alain Delon's hitman a remote figure, stuck in the...

Yes, Kill! is the film that is the genre parody. I did laugh a few times - the beginning when Nakadai enters the dusty town, a common opening for samurai films and Westerns, and it's shot like a typical "cool epic" entry, but then he gets dust his eyes and coughs; the farmer getting turned on by...

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005) - In general, an outstanding adventure story with a positive message. I hadn't read the books in years, but Lewis' novel came flooding back as Lucy went through the wardrobe into Narnia, and experienced thrills of wonder and...

Murderball (2005) - Well done documentary on quadraplegic rugby players that centers more on the human participants than the sport. Illustrative of the resilience of humans in living perfectly fulfilling lives despite what others might view as crippling handicaps. Also does a good job in...

The Brown Bunny (2003) - Vincent Gallo's maligned masterpiece follows motorcycle racer Bud (played by Gallo) on a cross country journey to try to understand the inexplainable. Gallo's performance is as raw and transparent as anything seen in years, taking us with him through a bottomless pit of...

Sky High (2005) - Entertaining mix of teen coming-of-age film with superheroes facing the twin perils of adolescence and learning to use their powers. Delivers a healthy amount of laughs and a feel good message. - B Kings and Queen (2005) - French film about a woman defined by the mistakes...

Whoops, Hey I like Dick Powell. William Powell would have been too old and is too cool and suave to be believable as someone the bad guys keep getting the upper hand on. As much liquor as he downs in The Thin Man I can't believe they would have a strong enough drug to keep him down for days.

Murder, My Sweet (1944) - Dick Powell stars in this film noir based on a Raymond Chandler novel. He has an interesting take on the Phillip Marlowe character: quicker with a wise-crack than with his fists, he spends a lot of time getting pushed around and beaten up, but his smarts and chutzpah...

I don't either. If they were complaining remakes suck, why would you present them with yet another terrible film? And The Brown Bunny remains the best American film of 2004 I've seen. November Recap Total Films: 27 (I just hit 300 for the year. I may be 100 shy of what I watched last...

What Michael doesn't mention is that The Lost World takes even longer to get going. IIRC, it's about 45 minutes before you glimpse a dinosaur. It spends twice the amount of time Kong does in setting up the love story and getting the expedition organized.

5x2 (2004) - Francois Ozon's film presents 5 stages of a couple, told in reverse from divorce to their chance meeting. Works as an interesting intellectual excercise theorizing about the nature of love and relationships. It displays the precise technique of his earlier films. Yet it never...

Depeche Mode plays virtually everything exactly as recorded on the albums and I can vouch for thousands of fans who love it that way. The communal experience of 14,000 fans all singing the lyrics to songs we're intimately familiar with is a treasured experience. Hence while Mode no longer makes...

Cowards Bend the Knee - Guy Maddin's autobiographical film, "reflected through a shattered mirror" is the typical story of a boy growing up in Winnipeg - playing hockey, observing his Aunt's beauty parlor, falling in love, being fooled into thinking his hands have been removed and replaced with...

I need to see The Gunfighter then since High Noon is my favorite classic western. Bought Devil's Rejects last night but it will probably be the weekend before I have time to watch it. The clerk at Circuit City said I was the first person to buy it all day, and this was around 7:20pm. I...

Thanks for posting that Michael. Sounds great. Hopefully I'll finally get a chance to see Faster Pussycat and Johnny Guitar.

Captain Spaulding's dream sequence is hilarious and adds more flavor to his character. Sid Haig is easily my favorite actor in these movies as I'm a big fan of his work in Jack Hill's films (Spider Baby, The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage, Coffy). Movies are always trying to be too tight...

I won't repeat whatever the IMDB guy said, but the "3 eras of the Klan" is correct. Totally disagree that The Devil's Rejects is too long. I thought it also displayed some impressive decisions by Zombie, like dropping the sound out in an action scene that showed he really has a director's eye...

Melinda and Melinda: Woody Allen's lastest begins with Wallace Shawn and friends debating whether life is comedy or tragedy. The film then illustrates these viewpoints, dividing into two parts, a dramatic one and a comic one with Rahda Mitchell playing the same woman with a different take on the...

Glad you thought so highly of Harakiri, Haggai. Definitely one of the best "1st time viewings" of the year for me. I'll be buying it at the next 20% off DDD sale. October Recap: 37 horrors, 2 new theatricals, and 1 Sept. Netflix leftover that I watched at the beginning of the month. Like...

Whoops, I won't get to Flesh and the Fiends this go round. I checked again and it is 8th on my list so there's no way I'll get to it this week and after the Horror Challenge is over I'll be re-ordering to bump up all the new releases and Criterions I skipped over this month, plus re-starting my...

I don't recall the zombies swimming Jim. I thought they walked on the bottom of the river and came out the other side, though I do agree with you on the "lack of dread". I'm still debating whether to buy it or not. Should see The Flesh and the Fiends this week.

Films like Streetcar and Baby Doll are merely suggestive and still resulted in censorship and Catholic League rigamarole. It can be hard to fathom what the morality police of a particular era will get in a huff about. Even in England eleven years later when, as you describe, there was much more...

Ok, thought you'd rented it George. No big deal. If you're interested, you can read the liner essay on Criterion's webpage. Just click on the individual movie and then the link to the essay is on the left hand side. It's been a couple of years or more since I've listened to the commentary...

Gah! Mario drops a number of bombs. There are no "obvious" reasons to a dislike of Ikiru as it is my favorite film. Likewise Ozu is a director I hold very dear. As I've seen more and more Kurosawa films, and watched them repeatedly, I've come to prefer his modern Japan films as a whole to his...

September Update Saw quite a number of excellent films this month. Also completed viewing of my 8 disc Arrow Films r2 box set of Eric Rohmer films and opened the Warner Film Noir v1 set, watching Gun Crazy which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'll resume the Film Noir box in November after the...

Night of the Hunter is one of those as well. A restored print has toured the last couple of years, and outtakes have also been shown. Unlike most films of the era for which any additional footage is lost, Laughton kept reels and reels of film. I love the film and think it's one of the greats...