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Originally Posted by Chuck Mayer
I rarely post in here, but I did recently see Badlands for the first time. It's a year older than me. Almost all of the Malick details are there. Beautiful film. I'm stocking my Netflix with old unseen goodies, and Badlands was top of the list.
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Yeah, Malick is amazing. The New World was my favorite 2005 film.
Stocking the Netflix list...ugh, reminds me of why I'm not at HTF as much, stupid S&S challenge. I feel guilty if I don't knock off a S&S flick, but half the time I worry about the film being too arty or draining. Half the time they are very enjoyable, but sometimes not so much.
At times I just say "F it, I'm having fun", but then another disc from the S&S shows up and I feel like I shouldn't watch anything but it so the other 4 just sit there.
Adam - I had a totally different reaction to Potter
Harry Potter and the whatever it is #5
9 of 10
First the bad, too much story for too little film time. This creates a Columbus effect as you can clearly see how huge portions of story have been squeezed in with poor choices like dialog interjections or forced scenes from out of nowhere. That does impact it's flow as a film. Either make 2 films or suck it up and punt some major portions out and let the book fans be damned.
However the story itself was the most impressive yet in my mind. The tension and conflict has improved during the series. So that countered the choppiness of the script fairly well for me.
Then you have the standard top-notch effects and some really choice acting from people like Fiennes and Oldman and I think you have a pretty great ride. I really enjoy the performances of all the kids, though obviously Hermione and Ron have their roles diminished for this film which is a drawback.
It helped that the film pushed aside it's choppy approach at the end and instead spent a long period of time with the final showdown battle. That left me with a good feeling about the film as I headed home which always helps.
Knocked Up
9.5 of 10
Brilliant romantic comedy, great drama and meaty character issues that remain constant throughout the film yet don't intrude on the wall to wall comedic efforts. Rudd and Rogen riff off each other like Vaughn and Favreau in Swingers; nearly all my favorite scenes featured the two of them together.
For me it was a notch above 40 Year Old Virgin, it just had more consistantly high level comedy. Both are heavily dependent on pop culture references and perhaps that's where 40 YOV beats it out because it does a better job of creating it's own comedic references, mostly thanks to Carrell. But otherwise Knocked Up is dialed in the entire time.
The mushrooms bit...brilliant.
