Fuck yeah Pete. Rififi will be on my end of the year Top 25 barring a massive influx of great movies into my list. How great is the actual heist sequence? Not a word of dialogue, and absolutely riveting. I highly recommend other great Dassin films (Brute Force, Thieves' Highway, Night and the City, The Naked City) which all earned at least a 3.5 from me.

I haven't seen Rififi for a long time but remember, vividly, the nightclub performance of that song (noir shadow puppets being the spark) and a shocking scene of humiliation when a woman is asked to strip before she gets savagely beaten with a belt. I need to re-watch it for the robbery scene.

Daddy's Little Girls

My respect for Idris Elba has just gone up a whole lot after seeing this. He single-handily saves this movie from Tyler Perry's weak dialogue, over-the-top characters and the weak social commentary. And it seems that he has a history of elevating movies since he was the best part out of Obsessed which should've been worse than it was.

7/10

I checked out Kick-Ass. Solid film. It's relatively stylish and often very funny. I was put off by the CG blood and ill-fitting soundtrack. It's also one of those that wants to be a parody but at the same time becomes the thing it's parodying. Overall, a good experience though. I can say with some certainty that this is one of the two best 2010* films I've seen!



*: of course I've only seen two 2010 movies.

Boogie Nights (1997)

A discussion of porn chic in another thread inspired me to revisit Boogie Nights. It may have been a decade since I watched it last. Still a great flick. Despite some hammy moments from Marky Mark it's very solid and the soundtrack is amazing.

4/4

Doesn't Reelviews' very own Marky Mark have an undying love for that one? In the words of darthyoshi - that's my major!

Yeah Mjr. Aphasia loves it. One of my favorites as well

Flattering that my endless jizzing on that movie's hooves has been accepted, not spit out back into my lustrous hair.

And... hammy moments?! Only deliberately if they exist at all. Greatest movie ever? Perhaps not. The one I'd most like to share an intimate moment with? Yes.

Eddie asks his mom not to be "mean" to him. I think that's just so wonderful; he's such a nice kid.

Idris Elba was one of the best things about The Wire, which is saying quite a bit. His portrayal of Stringer Bell is brilliant. The Wire is right up there with my favorite artistic experiences in any medium.

I just finished The Great Santini.

Robert Duvall is fantastic as the warrior without a war and was deservedly nominated for an Oscar. Michael O'Keefe was also nominated and was excellent as the son on the cusp of adulthood. He followed up this role with the iconic Danny Noonan in Caddyshack. The luminous Blythe Danner was solid as always. You can certainly see where Gwyneth gets her fragile beauty.

Certainly not as good as the book (few films are), but definitely a worthy watch. The major negative i have was the heavy-handed soundtrack. It was very distracting and did not match the rest of the film. Overall, I give it 7.5/10

I agree with everything you say. I would also like to note that it's one of the fastest moving long movies ever.

Boyz n the Hood

NEW REVIEW:
At first, I did think it was too heavy-handed and preachy and I still think that's true to an extent. But the more I watched it, the more I started to get it and the more I realize it is something of importance. The way it's constructed is awesome. Most of the acting is awesome especially Ice Cube. Somehow, making Boyz n the Hood was the best and worst move that John Singleton could ever made since he's been doing action movies for the past few movies.

9/10

ORIGINAL REVIEW:
It's a pretty good debut for John Singleton but it is a bit heavy-handed, I mean "Increase the Peace" makes me want to Increase the Violence out of spite but there's still plenty of good things in it to be worthwhile.

But it did inspire that awesome Dynamite Hack song...or it better have.

7/10

American Graffiti - 4/5

It's difficult to watch this without wondering what kind of career George Lucas might have had if he hadn't made Star Wars.

You may not have heard of The Human Centipede (First Sequence) but you will and it'll be sooner rather than later. IFC Films will be distributing this into theatres in the next little while and it'll get a host of negative reviews, sicken viewers, and move into some light infamy when it gets a DVD release.

The "negative reviews" will be understandable, I suppose, because a light plot summary basically takes care of the nuances: three kidnapped people are sutured together, one in the lead and the other two with mouths sewn to the anuses of the others. Why? See: the title of the movie.

It isn't a pleasant film, duh, but it is exceptionally well-made exploitation cinema. Fuck it. It's better than that; the movie, a real-world David Lynch twist on body horror, earns every

I don't even know what to say. It goes from silly horror to seriously disturbing and stays at seriously disturbing for about 80 minutes. It wasn't much fun but it was a real horror movie, not some schlocky bullshit that wants the viewer to ejaculate over all the gore. Real hardcore stuff, this one, but it had an equally real emotional center that made the movie every bit as good as the director wanted it to be. It's got dread up to the gills and what could have been a comic situation (at the extreme end of comic) becomes a compelling narrative that has no aims other than to pulverize the viewer. I really admire that when it works and The Human Centipede, better than you'd ever think, works. The critics are going to skewer this one (it posts a 30% approval on Metacritic and that number is going to be dropping dropping dropping -- Rotten Tomatoes has it at 60%, more respectable but not a ringing endorsement) and there's going to be a lot of talk about how hideous the experience was.

Me? I can't say I liked it but it wasn't the same old bullshit; compelling, ghoulish, and sincere. "Sincere" is the key word. If it has to be given stars I'd say *** out of ****. It set out to do something grotesque and punishing and succeeded 100% at its goal.

Saw the trailer, looks nasty... I can't wait to watch it

I was into gross horror films for I don't know how long, and I can't say that part of me left completely; this film looks completely devoid of soul, and fantastic to boot.

Cool. Let me/Le Forum know what you think. Strange thing about it was that it had a soul, of all things. That doesn't make it sweet but it does lend the grim gross sickness a kind of purpose.

This looks...like...something I've never seen before.

Every once in a while, I need a good mindless action flick. This is not normally my fare though when I partake, I usually have a good time. I was in this particular type of mood tonight and that led me to The Losers, and you know what, I kinda liked it. James' review focused heavily on the ending and while I agree with him, I still found it a pleasurable viewing experience. While none of the stars are mega stars, I particularly like a few of them(especially Stringer Bell. I mean Idris Elba) and liked the combination of the group. Sadly, we will probably never see them assembled again(as the ending calls for) since this film isn't exactly selling out theaters and since Chris Evans will probably never look back once he dons the red, white and blue shield. So if you're looking for a few hours of explosions and generic action fun, this one's worth the time. 6.5/10

The original The Man Who Knew Too Much has a lot of things going for it. Hitchcock thinks his remake is superior, but I'm not sure that I agree. The original has several interesting camera shots (though a few are too showy) and a delightful Peter Lorre performance (he couldn't speak English and learnt his line phonetically!). It does not have the song Que Sera, Sera which I'm counting as a positive. The 73 minute runtime means it's a quick watch, though it does occasionally hurt the picture's development. A few scenes (most notable a sped up chair throwing scene) are ill advised, so I wouldn't count this among the director's great pictures. Still, it's well worth a look. 7/10.

Really? I thought it felt padded even at 80 minutes. It doesn't help that I was watching a cheap public-domain DVD, whose quality was most suspect, but the story didn't seem to have a lot going on in it.