Visually, this Kurosawa film (Red Beard, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, Madadayo) as represented on this Criterion DVD is magnificent. The widescreen photography, action scenes, natural surroundings, and Toshiro Mifune's performance are all excellent.
Monster Man
A bar full of amputee rednecks. Road trip guys chased by giant monster truck driven by faceless horror. Sexy scantily-clad hitchhiker. Giant pentagrams. Headless corpses. Fart jokes. Blood and gore up the wazoo. Road kill fantasies. This movie has it all.
Wes Anderson's THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
I admit it. I'm terminally unhip. But I really enjoyed this movie. I put it right up there with Buckaroo Banzai and Repo Man, and that's very good company.
While watching this film I Imagined I was seeing an alternate universe view of a hybrid Charles Addams/Edward Gorey/Roald Dahl world as seen through the eyes of a child.
The Coen Brothers THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE
This film is a triumph of style AND substance. The photography is striking, the performance are universally excellent, and the story keeps our interest until the very last scene.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
This 1928 silent film is emotionally wrenching. We follow a fictionalized account of the “trial” of Joan of Arc by an English-controlled religious court. The “trial” spans a day leading up to her being burned at the stake.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban
My daughter explained the intricacies of the plot after we finished watching the movie. I was a bit confused about the rat sub-plot but did follow the time travel exercise (I always enjoy time travel stories when well done and the end sequence here is handled quite nicely).
Ram Gopal Varma's COMPANY
That the life of crime can be portrayed as glamorous, dangerous, brutal, and ultimately as pointless is something we in the West have grown accustomed to. We have films like THE GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS that reinforce that as they simultaneously attract and repel us.
Shohei Imamura's DR. AKAGI
In the closing days of World War II, family doctor Akagi runs (literally) from patient to patient in a small Japanese seaside village and discovers an alarming increase in hepatitis among his increasingly war-weary patients. He seeks a cure but the government is more interested in preparing for The Final Battle as the war draws inevitably to a close. He enlists the support of a diverse collection of friends including a morphine addicted surgeon, a hedonistic monk, and a young recovering prostitute who inevitably falls in love with him.
None of which is bad, given the skewing of this movie to a somewhat older audience than the first, but if you think of sports metaphors, Shrek 2 is a homer inside the park; Shrek was a homer outside the park. Both are winners, but there is a difference.
Brad Bird's THE INCREDIBLES
The house was packed. The movie was terrific. We had a great time. Another Pixar triumph.
So what is so great about this movie? It’s funny, the action is nonstop, the characters are memorable, the animation excellent, the dialog is witty, the satire is clever.
Man On Fire
Yes, we get to see Denzel kick some serious ass in what has to be one of the best kidnapping-revenge movies I’ve ever seen. What makes this movie rise far above its standard story and outdated “NYPD Blue” jumpy photography is a set of terrific performance by all main and supporting characters.
The view of the publishing business that emerges in this documentary is very different than the one you see if all you know is Amazon.com, Borders, and C-SPAN's BookTV. Here you see charismatic young publishers betting the farm to bring fringe and suppressed book to light while battling the forces of "mainstream media" that at all turns seem to be resisting and twisting "the truth."
Lewis Gilbert's “SINK THE BISMARCK!”
When Germany’s Bismarck sank Britain’s Hood in 1941, 1,415 men lost their lives; only three survived. The final explosion that sent Hood down is dramatized as one of many fantastic occurrences in this tense and realistic film.
Mani Ratnam's DIL SE
First I popped in the DVD and selected the “play all songs” options. Wow. I have never seen a song-and-dance production number like the one that takes place on the top of the moving train (“Chaiyya Chaiyya”). My daughter wondered, “How many people died making this?” The rest of the musical numbers are quite interesting, a mix of romance and action, including one sequence with plentiful fire and explosions.
This movie has some of the most incredible special effects I’ve ever seen. The views of the earth and disastrous weather systems viewed from space are simply gorgeous. The repeated disasters are very skillfully done and usually very scary. The surround soundtrack is spacious, effective, and loud.