raleighnet.org

Does anybody know anything about the movie Casshern? None of the text is in English, and I never even heard about it until I saw the trailer linked on K10K. If you haven’t seen the trailer, you really should check it out. The movie looks totally awesome. I don’t even know if it’s going to be released in the US, but judging from what I’ve seen so far, I might even be willing to see this thing without subtitles.

A few weeks ago, I saw a preview for Les Triplettes De Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville). I instantly resolved to see it. It looks just amazing, but just as quickly, I forgot what it was called. Now that I’ve stumbled across it again, I’m just setting a memory anchor for myself.

Also, I finally got around to seeing Lord of the Rings, Return of the King today. I thought it was good. The special effects have really improved over the course of the series. I watched Fellowship a few days ago, and Two Towers last night, and back to back like that you can really see the progression. The effects are pretty primitive in Fellowship compared to what you get with Return of the King.

My one complaint is the movie seems to spend the last 3 hours (OK, maybe the last half hour) throwing up one ending after another. It’s worse than AI or even the Hulk in that respect. When “The End” came up on screen I was like “Are you sure?” I can’t even imagine how long the special edition is going to be.

The Rules of Attraction has been hanging out on my TiVo for a week or so. I woke up early without much to do, so I watched it. The movie tries so hard to be edgy and cool. I’d like to say that it fails spectacularly, but there’s nothing spectacular about it. Mostly it’s just contrived and boring.

Victor’s travelogue was OK. That’s only like 5 minutes though, and really, it probably should have been 2 1/2.

Noticing that Freddy Vs. Jason was playing at the local second run $1 $3 movie theater, and thinking that it was October, and I wanted to get into a Halloween kind of mood, I decided to check it out. I fully expected it to rival a black hole in its suck factor.

Don’t get me wrong. There were some mind-blowingly sucky moments. Still, all and all it was entertaining and maybe even worth seeing. Also, it’s always really funny to hear parents gasping and shifting uncomfortably when their little angels are exposed to lots of nudity and sex in the incredibly R rated movie. Strangely, there was none of that shifting when the kids were exposed to oceans of blood and violent deaths. Funny that.

The Nuart in LA is going to be doing a showing of Tron on Friday, January 9. Imagine that, Tron on the big screen. The lights, the colors, the wonderfully 80s cheeseball graphics. That would be so cool. I hope my user will let me go … EOL

If you have a chance, you should go out of your way to check out the movie, My Life Without Me. I think it may well be the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.

It’s pretty sad, so if you’re the type to cry at the movies, you may want to take some tissues. I’d make a joke here about needing tissues because of the always beautiful star Sarah Polley, but the movie deserves better than that.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen an unedited version of Animal House that when I got the DVD the other day, I was shocked to see a giant dildo gag in one of the first scenes. Giant Dildos in 1962? Well, OK, 1978, but still.

The movie is as funny and raunchy as you remember. Unfortunately, the hilarious “where are they now” mocumentary/bonus feature was not only NOT hilarious, it was so bad that it was painful to watch.

Oh, and Universal continues with there Bullshit of comandeering control of your DVD player so you can’t fastforward past their lame-ass previews. And these previews go on and on and on… I’m half tempted to return the damn disc as defective. Or, barring that, it makes me want to rip and pirate the disc just as a giant F You!!

On the other end of the spectrum (or maybe not), I went to see Thirteen the other day. I wanted to like this movie. I really did. And, it does have a few good moments. Unfortunately the nature of the drama and the motivation of the characters is so afterschool special, I spent more time rolling my eyes than anything else. I know there are kids out there who are dealing with all of those issues and more, but this particular take just didn’t feel real. That’s a real problem since they’re going for gritty realism. With gritty realism, any suggestion of over-the-top melodrama is like a stake through the heart of the film.

I would SO pay $10 to see this movie!!!!

Somebody get to work on that OK?

Thanks for the point Brittney.

Links like this have a tendency to disappear pretty quick. If you can see it though, it’s worth it. Batman: Dead End is a 40+ Meg QuickTime movie. It has that home made, fan type of feel to it, but the production values are remarkably good. The credits say it’s a promotional piece for the film makers, and they clearly invested a great deal of money and/or time into making this. Nice work all around.

Back in February, I expressed my delight at the thought of the train-wreck that is going to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this one, because I’m pretty sure that it’s going to blow which will be fabulous. And, even if it’s good, well that will still be fabulous. The way I see it, this is a no lose situation.

I just saw an ad, and the thing that I didn’t realize (that had me laughing for at least 3 solid minutes) is that one of the monsters/super-heros is Dorian Grey (Ha! Ha! Ha!).

What the hell kind of superpowers does Dorian Grey have? “Stand back evil villain or I shall be decadent, and the corruption of my sins shall not appear on my face. Rather, it will mar the picture I have up in my attic.”

Ha! Ha! Ha! Dorian Grey is a lamer super-hero than the freaking wonder twins. Oh, this is going to be such a horrible movie. I really can’t wait.