stripmind's movie reviews

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la mustache

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Sat, 26 May 2007 18:33:00 +0000

one of the best and most interesting movies I've seen in a long time. This movie takes you deeper and deeper. It's an experience, not just a good film.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:44:00 +0000

B+/A-

I really enjoyed this movie. It was so easy to forget that Alec Guinness played so many of the roles in this movie. Nice. Fun dialogues. Jess fell asleep after too much wine, though. I cringed when I saw that the DVD included "The American ending" as a bonus material. Somehow I knew it would suck, and it did. How sad that is.

After the movie I watched the Alec Guinness interview on the DVD, and was totally freaked out by his revelations on James Dean, which really belong in the psychotic connection blog. He claimed in the interview that he met James Dean a week before he died. James Dean showed him his new car, which he had not yet driven, and Alec Guinness foretold JD's death to his face, saying "if you drive this car, by next Thursday you will be dead." JD died the next Thursday!

It was a shocking and uncomfortable interview right around then. Sheesh!

Casablanca at the Paramount

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:49:00 +0000

I'd never seen Casablanca before in its entirety, and after seeing it at Oakland's historic Paramount Theatre, I still feel like I haven't.

The Paramount shows classic movies on Fridays, and although it seems like a great idea, the sound at the Paramount was terrible. I'm guessing they decided to using original distribution materials rather than remasters. I'm no purist, so the beauty of that added touch was lost on me. I left extremely unsatisfied, after having missed nearly every third word. I guess if you've got the movie memorized, seeing it at the Paramount is a lovely thing, but if you're trying to fill in some gaps in your film history, avoid these screenings and get the DVD. I'm going to rent it soon so that the witty dialogue is intelligible.

Talladega Nights

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:44:00 +0000

B/B-

Jess liked it a lot more than I did. I thought it had good moments. It's not the kind of movie you can say more about it than that. Though Will Ferrell usually really bothers me, I could tolerate him in this movie.

Jess particularly liked the family dinner scene with the kids cussing out Grampa Chip.

Grey Gardens

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:42:00 +0000

B+

slow, but i liked it. Also - I didn't really see what the fuss was about this documentary.

Strangers with Candy

noreply@blogger.com (aaron) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:57:00 +0000

hated it. (never saw the comedy central series)

Amy Sedaris is painful to watch, strangely contorting her face the entire movie. jokes are overwhelmingly stupid. It's littered with rapid-fire gags, but somehow they managed to hit them ALL flat. Timing is always off. There were maybe three moments that made me laugh in disbelief.

This is the kind of movie that someone might say was "ambitious but failed". It's true, this movie had such a terrible premise that it would be really challenging to pull it off. But to call it ambitious would be to imply that it was reaching for something valuable, when all it did was serve as a collecting point for stupid gags that didn't fit into some other project.

jess and i thought this would be good because we really like colbert, and have heard good things about amy sedaris (some of it from her brother's stories). It also has a cast that suggests it would be good, but in the end, I'm embarrassed I rented it. I will never perk my ears up at the name "sedaris" again, for fear it will be amy rather than david.