Made my first real post on UNMEI KAIHEN yesterday, about ep5 of Spice and Wolf II. Check it out if you are watching the series!
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa (2005): Enjoyed this, but more so for the visuals and action than the story. There just is not time for the movie to do everything it wants to do in a strong way. Going in, though, I didn't really expect some amazing, perfect closure, so it does not really bother me that much. I like how all the elements from "our world" are weaved in (the main antagonists are based on a real group that sponsored the Nazi party, Fritz Lang was a real movie director, etc.), but Ed and Al doing what they need to do is way more interesting than anything involving the bad guys. The ending is kind of, "Huh?" on first viewing, but after thinking about it, I believe it's a solid illustration not only of Ed and Al's brotherly bond, but also of the sacrifice required to close off the connection between the parallel worlds.
Chasing Amy (1997): I got something completely different than what I expected with this movie, and it's fantastic. This movie deals so well with how people live with the mistakes of their past, how people are prone to letting the stupidest things get under their skin and just the overall complexity of two people building a relationship with one another. You have two people, Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), who try to act completely based on their feelings, and, well, they fail, because their feelings are not perfect. The same feelings that allow Holden to fall in love with Alyssa are the same that also make him feel insanely disgusted and frightened of her past sexual history. But aside from all the great complexities of love, this movie is also really friggin' funny. The most hilarious character is Hooper X (Dwight Ewell), a secretly gay black comic book author who puts on a militant act so that his image will sell more comics. Guy is hysterical both in and out of that persona.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958): Really glad this was on TV after the stupid DVD I checked out a few weeks back crapped out on me. Anyway, I love how the story builds bit by bit until everything explodes when Brick reveals to Big Daddy that Big Daddy's cancer is inoperable. There's so much tension with all the anger and lies swirling around everywhere, everyone in the family trying to get a piece of Big Daddy's pie. And, man, every time I see another Paul Newman movie, he climbs higher on my favorite actors list. He was so good at playing these frustrated, tortured characters without turning them into whining caricatures. Brick acts like a total jerkoff, especially to Maggie, and he's basically drinking himself to death, but he's still sort of sympathetic throughout the movie because you can sense that he's protecting at least a modicum of hope beneath his facade. (Just look at the way he buries his face in the piece of Maggie's clothing hanging on the bathroom door. He wants to be close to her, but he's also forcing himself away because of his guilt.) I feel kind of sorry for Brick's brother, Cooper, too. He's kind of a dope, and he's going after the inheritance as hard as anyone, but he turned out that way because he spent his life trying to do everything Big Daddy wanted him to do.
On the queue for this week: Point Break (1991), Man Bites Dog (1992), Glory (1989) and Burn After Reading (2008)
Total Movies: 105 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
