Time for a one-minute review. Just got back from Black Swan and I really liked it, if not loved it. The first act was clunky, but the rest of the film was really hypnotic and fascinating. Great script, interesting characters, thought-provoking themes - the works. Oh, and the final act is nightmare fuel. 'Nuff said.

[b]Top 10:[/b] (my personal favorites, not the movies I think are the "best," btw) 1. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington 2. Pan's Labyrinth 3. Monty Python And The Holy Grail 4. Monty Python's Life of Brian 5. Star Wars 6. Wall-E 7. An American In Paris 8. The Great Dictator 9. The Fall 10. The Wind That Shakes The Barley [u]OR[/u] Spirited Away [b]Favorite Directors:[/b] Steven Spielberg Guillermo Del Toro Christopher Nolan Terry Gilliam Frank Capra Hiyao Miyazaki The Coen Brothers [b]Favorite Actor:[/b] Toss-up between James Stewart and Cary Grant [b]Favorite Actress:[/b] Toss-up between Audrey Hepburn or Emma Thompson

[b]Jekkie wrote:[/b] [quote] To keep this thread going, what do you guys think of Black Swan and True Grit? I'm thinking of seeing one of these sometime after Christmas and I can't decide which to see.[/quote] Haven't seen Black Swan yet. Just saw True Grit the other day. I haven't seen the original so I can't really compare the two. All in all, it's a good film. The dialogue and pacing were well done, although I feel like some travel montages were just a bit too long. I appreciated the dark humor of the movie, and it definitely had "grit." The actress, Hailee Steinfeld, they chose to play Mattie Ross did an excellent job in my opinion. Jeff Bridges was an excellent choice, and although I'm not overly fond of John Wayne I think they were big shoes to fill and Bridges did an admirable job. The only place I felt slightly let down is in Matt Damon's portrayal of LaBeouf. His mannerisms felt affected and fell short of the sincerity of Steinfeld and Bridges' performances. 8/10 if I had to score it.

Ohhhhh, Owlright is Courtney. Ok, I gotcha, I gotcha.

Good to see so much love for Pan's Labyrinth around here. I'd go out and see Black Swan today but it just will not stop snowing and I'm not in the mood to try and go anywhere I don't have to go. Still, good day to watch Winter's Bone. Of your top 10 the only one I outright dislike is The Life of Brian. Btw I haven't seen the Wind that Shakes the Barley but I love Spirited Away. So creative, it's like an art explosion. Also good actor choices - Stewart is great, probably my second favorite after Ford. And real talk: Stewart is a much better actor than Ford, I just like the latter for his charisma and style. Which honestly is what Grant has on Stewart as well. Emma Thompson also an inspired choice - I pretty much like her in everything she's in. Doesn't get enough credit.

[b]Jekkie wrote:[/b] [quote]Ohhhhh, Owlright is Courtney. Ok, I gotcha, I gotcha.[/quote] Haha yes, thought I mentioned that before but I guess not. [b]BrotherReed wrote:[/b] [quote]Good to see so much love for Pan's Labyrinth around here. I'd go out and see Black Swan today but it just will not stop snowing and I'm not in the mood to try and go anywhere I don't have to go. Still, good day to watch Winter's Bone. Of your top 10 the only one I outright dislike is The Life of Brian. Btw I haven't seen the Wind that Shakes the Barley but I love Spirited Away. So creative, it's like an art explosion. Also good actor choices - Stewart is great, probably my second favorite after Ford. And real talk: Stewart is a much better actor than Ford, I just like the latter for his charisma and style. Which honestly is what Grant has on Stewart as well. Emma Thompson also an inspired choice - I pretty much like her in everything she's in. Doesn't get enough credit.[/quote] Out of curiosity, why do you dislike Life of Brian? I feel like it's collectively agreed that it's the best of their movies, even by themselves, though I prefer Holy Grail. It's odd for someone who likes Holy Grail to not like Brian, and it's not like their humor took a sudden turn (not that everyone has to agree with the majority, but yeah) Wind that Shakes the Barley is probably the weakest movie on my list, but I definitely recommend watching it at some point. The acting is truly great and all the emotions feel raw and real, even if the story might seem a bit cliche.

[b]Owlright wrote:[/b] [quote]Out of curiosity, why do you dislike Life of Brian? I feel like it's collectively agreed that it's the best of their movies, even by themselves, though I prefer Holy Grail. It's odd for someone who likes Holy Grail to not like Brian, and it's not like their humor took a sudden turn (not that everyone has to agree with the majority, but yeah).[/quote] I'll post what I wrote on the Flixter app for Facebook right after seeing the movie. I gave it 2.5/5 stars. "This just didn't do it for me. I don't know if it was the scenery or if the jokes felt uninspired (no pun intended)... maybe the satire wasn't sharp enough to take the edge off the blasphemy. I felt like almost every scene took the same approach to humor and there was just a lot of yelling and arguing that was more loud than funny. Not even in the same league as Grail or Meaning of Life." To expand upon this, the sets or location has a big impact either outright or subconsciously upon my enjoyment of a movie. I generally don't like things that take place in brown, dusty settings. Westerns and sword-and-sandal epics like Troy or Lawrence of Arabia have never appealed to me and I think it has to do in part with taking place in deserts. So it's got that against it. Second, there's no getting away from the fact that Life of Brian is at times poking fun at the Christ story, which has the potential to be very offensive. The more offensive something is, the funnier it has to be to make up for it. I could make a chart illustrating what I mean but hopefully you understand. If you jab at irreverence and don't succeed, what you're left with is just a jab, which leaves people either angry or cringing rather than laughing. You can make a joke about anything if it's funny enough, but Life of Brian isn't. And that's the real problem. I just found most of the humor tired. I felt like the zaniness of the other two movies just wasn't there. I could almost predict from the outset how every scene was going to go down. In addition, I have rarely heard anyone say Life of Brian is the best Python movie. Heck most people have only even seen Holy Grail. --- In other news, I saw True Grit. Liked it a bunch, particularly the style and cadences of the dialog. Pretty standard western plot lifted from mediocrity by a great performance from little Hailee Steinfeld, the Coen's adaptation of the novel, and of course Deakins' always stellar cinematography. The best scenes were the ones near the beginning that introduced the two main characters. Also I sort of agree about Damon, I just don't buy him in the old west.

Well I can't fault you for disliking the location; you like what you like I suppose. But for the rest, I really must disagree with the blasphemous charge. Absolutely none of the jokes are at the expense of Christ Himself, He's played completely straight and all the members were adamant about that. The joke is that a man gets mistaken as a false saviour, and that's a situation that isn't unique in the slightest. The satire that exists is of religion in general, I find (I think it's the making of documentary where I believe it was Terry Jones saying the movie was partially commentary on the situation in the Middle East, but I don't really buy that as much as I do it as poking fun at the way religious people are wont to splinter and quick to exalt people) The most irreverent thing I can think of in the movie is their rather cheery treatment of crucifixion, and that was hardly a punishment that was reserved for Jesus. Heck, I think God's cameo in Holy Grail is more irreverent than that. As for zaniness, I suppose it's all in one's preference, but in my personal opinion being zany is all well and good, but Brian felt like a really well-knit, properly clever movie to me, and zany can only take you so far. I think that's where Meaning of Life fails for me. Singular zany moments are great - as a single sketch. As a movie it's just [i]too[/i] clunky and unconnected, and there's some bits that simply aren't funny no matter how zany they were. Killer rabbits and a sorcerer named Tim is funny because it's ridiculous, but a scene like the Roman graffiti lesson is funny because it's clever and amusing by it's own merit, not just for being ridiculous. That's just my personal preference on the humour though. It is a bit predictable (although if you predicted the aliens, then I salute you sir lol) but it's somewhat meant to be, what with meaning to parallel (not mock) the Christ story. True enough, most Americans have only seen Holy Grail, although most the Python fans I'm friends with think Brian better. But critically, Brian almost always ranks higher than Holy Grail, and Pythons themselves have stated that they think it's their best (in addition to probably enjoying filming it more than the misery they dealt with filming Holy Grail lol)

See, I sort of disagree. I like satire of religion. Because I'm religious I get the jokes. Like I thought "Every Sperm Is Sacred" in Meaning of Life was a riot. The worst part, as you said, is the crucifixion bit, and also the rather flaccid moral of "you don't need to follow anyone, just think for yourselves." If I thought it was just broad satire of religion - well it might still not be funny, I dunno. Meaning of Life is a bunch of unconnected sketches, sure, but I mean isn't that what the Python crew does best? They seem really in their element there. The only part of Life of Brian I remember laughing at was the Biggus Dickus part. Like the conversation during the sermon on the mount was kind of funny, but it reminded me of the much sharper and funnier conversation about oppression and government in the beginning of Grail. Like I said, I'd be more than willing to forgive Brian its irreverence if I thought it was truly clever and funny. It sort of seems like it would have been funnier 30 years ago, sort of like Blazing Saddles - another classic comedy which now seems almost irredeemably dated. The pacing is sluggish compared to modern comedies and what was once shocking is now sort of ho-hum. That's the problem with any humor that pushes the envelope - it's "has-been" waiting to happen.

Every Sperm is Sacred is a crack-up :) Sketches are what the Pythons do best, that's why I love Flying Circus most of all, because [i]that's[/i] the medium that their sketches shine best in, but as a movie I think that set-up fails. If it's just some pretty great sketches mixed with some pretty crap ones, I don't particularly enjoy them trying to cobble it into a full-length movie and find some sort of "theme" to try to tie them together. When I think of what's great about Meaning of Life, I think of singular moments - this sketch or that sketch was great (I have a ridiculous love of the where's the fish sequence that I have absolutely no explanation for) but as a unit it is not good. It's less than the sum of its parts, if you catch my drift. That is rather a let down for Python, the poor old innovative, subversive boys are now cuddly faces of respectable comedy. Aside from Gilliam, probably. He's still as sharp and rather unmainstream as ever. I don't see how isn't just a broad satire of religion though, nothing they satirize to me screams that it's specifically anti-Christ in sentiment. Brian to me isn't the sort of laugh out loud kind of funny, not that I do that much anyways, except for scenes like Biggus Dickus, but I [i]do[/i] think it is clever and the satire still rings very true. I think more than anything it's the more British of the two, between it and Holy Grail. The humor is wit more than anything else and you don't really laugh out as much. As I said, I do prefer Holy Grail, and it's hard to compare to the anarchist peasants scene, which is one of [i]the[/i] great Python moments imo. But how many people do you can make a latin lesson witty if not laugh out loud funny. And "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy"? Arguably one of comedic cinema's greatest lines. The Loretta scene still kills me. Biggus Dickus, as you mentioned. One overlooked bits is the other prophets' lines in the market place, but I giggle like an idiot at the prophet going on about loosing things. The moral's a bit cheesy but it lends itself to that great moment where that one voice daring to say it's not different is told to shut up. *shrug* I dunno, maybe I'm not a [i]great[/i] judge of comedy, I mean, David Mitchell is my current comedic crush, and his comedy basically amounts to intellectual but slightly absurd rants and topical satire, and only a tiny bit of sketch show on the side, and most people I know wouldn't consider him funny. We can both agree that Holy Grail is great though, so it's all good.