Rockers (1978) - 6.15.2008

The last 15 minutes of this almost make up for the previous hour and a half. If I were Jamaican and not a sort of fluent English speaker, I might have liked this... or at least understood it. This was a Hollywood Forever Cemetery screening. Que ridiculoso.

5 stars.

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) - 6.15.2008

This is kind of long. Zach Braff has a neat cameo... I think he might even say some words. Watching neurotic people makes me very uncomfortable, I don't think Woody Allen was quite this crazy before. Alan Alda is great though, and I like Bob Balaban too.

5 stars.

His Girl Friday (1940) - 6.15.2008

Cary Grant is great. I like when he describes Ralph Bellamy's character by saying, "You know the movie star Ralph Bellamy? He looks like that." I also like when a crazy lady pointlessly jumps out a window! Check this one out.

5 stars.

Gamers (2006) - 6.14.2008

I rented this because it had William Katt in it. It is not that funny and features only sporadically laughable improv comedy. Don't watch it.

5 stars.

Lifeforce (1985) - 6.13.2008

I am not quite sure how I had never heard of this movie. Apparently Quentin Tarantino played a trailer for this during his New Beverly festival and someone, who is amazing by the way, made a netflix list of movies mentioned therein. As a result, Lifeforce is on my Roku and today I checked it out. I was already embarrassed about not seeing it when Golan-Globus Productions came up so you can imagine how mortified I was to find Tobe Hooper's name following them. Later still in the opening credits, the score which I had been enjoying thus far and continued to throughout the film was credited to one Henry Mancini. At first confused by his appearance, I later found out this soundtrack was submitted to Hitchcock for his film Frenzy but apparently rejected. I am glad it was put to use. The first half of the movie is probably the most realistic alien vampire movie ever committed to film, but is that saying much? The second half is less acceptable. The special effects for the time are pretty incredible and the corpse animatronics and puppetry were really great. The film features appearances by Clockwork Orange's Aubrey Morris and also the great Captain Piccard. Definitely worth a look if you have somehow not heard of it either.

5 stars.

Semi-Pro (2008) - 6.12.2008

I was on set for some of this. I thought maybe Jeff and I were in it. We are not, dangit. I love Will Ferrell to pieces and it was still worth being on set with Ferrell and Andre and Harrelson and Arnett and Walsh and so on. In one scene toward the end, Jesse and I noticed the girl from the Foot Fist Way that Danny McBride kept hitting on at his dojo. No doubt Ferrell's casting decision considering how much he loves that movie. The scene with the pseudo-Russian Roulette was already funny in the trailer, but friggen hysterical the way it actually plays. Check this out.

5 stars.

2 Days In Paris (2007) - 6.11.2008

This film confounds me. I have seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset enough times to be very much in love with Julie Delpy. Her association with Godard only makes her that much more attractive. It is hard for me to accept that someone could write and direct a film in which they portray such a slight antagonist. She is the bad guy here, but so barely that I could comprehend people disagreeing with me. This is a subtle villainy. I assume from what I understand of Delpy's life that this film is at least slightly more autobiographical than most of her work. She has poor eyesight (as her character does here) and was born and raised in Paris. Obviously I have never met Julie in person (so it is unfair for me to assume that her character here is even remotely a representation of herself) but this film forces me to ask whether I could write myself into a script as the antagonist.

P.S. I liked this a lot... if that was confusing.

5 stars.