The bad movies what I have seen lately

I'm also seeing that new doc, "Stevie," by the guy who did "Hoop Dreams." Anyone see this?

I'm like Carey - I love a good, happy, colorful corny flick as long as it entertains me. But I don't even see anything along those lines playing right now that interests me.

"Stevie" was a very long and sad documentary about an abused kid that director Steve James ("Hoop Dreams") was a Big Brother to in the '80s.

"Ghosts of the Abyss" was a 3D IMAX movie by James Cameron about the Titanic.

I think my brain might pack its bags and hit the road if I keep this up.

And...downloading Swimfan, Carey? ARE YOU MENTAL?

I watch 4 or 5 movies a week. I walked out of Rules Of Attraction. That is the first time I have ever walked out of a movie.

And I so want a pic of James Spader's scrotum but I don't think I could withstand another viewing of Crash.

Recently, "The Man from Elysian Fields" with A. Garcia and Keith Richards. Sort of a post-post Altman noir with no Sterling Hayden as a Great Bastard Writer--unfortunate. Keith was good though, he looked a lot like Mick Jagger in this one.

Actually it was probably all the pigeons in Trafalgar Sqare dying that set it up well for me (and Ken Livingston). Possibly the most entertaining bad movie I've seen since Stigmata.

You can all beat me up now.

I'll pass on the Matrix movie and X2 as these have been extensively discussed elsewhere on ILX.

The Italian Job--okay, I kind of wanted to hate this one, what with it being a pretty pointless-seeming remake, being named The Italian Job and largely being set in LA, starring Mark Wahlberg, product-placement bonanza and all. But I somehow enjoyed it quite a bit, largely due to its sorta grinning good-natured dumbness and stupid sense of humour. The movie's about two heists, the first which is over 15 minutes or so in; the rest of the flick is largely just about the second heist, with very little in the way of overly plotty distractions or character stuff. Great fake goatee on Ed Norton.

Wrong Turn--another pleasant surprise: lost-in-the-woods-pursued-by-mutant-cannibals movie. Very lean, even more so than Italian Job, one very visually nice sequence set on an old wooden watchtower, amusingly gibbering backwoods mutants, Eliza Dushku doing nothing spectacular, a couple pretty tense suspense scenes. For what it's worth this movie did very little wrong.

Dumb and Dumberer--what the fuck? prequel to Farrelly brothers flick, made 10 years later with no participation from any of the original folks, including Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, whose characters are portrayed by lookalike newcomers imitating their mannerisms (and they do look a fuck of a lot like them). What a weird fucking movie. Terrible, puzzling.

2 Fast 2 Furious--another proudly dumb movie. Only Paul Walker, who is a real goof (he seems to delight in the word "bro") returns, and he really excels at a sorta stupefied serious glare that is really very funny. Action sequences very poorly shot, hard to follow (especially the first chase), and WAY too shaky--gave me a headache. Overall it was somehow very easy to watch tho.

Bruce Almighty--long, tiring, maybe a little funny at the beginning, but turns into something very very bad as the movie swiftly sheds jokes and gets all pious & preachy. Remarkably uncreative, given the subject matter.

Down With Love--several weeks later, I don't really remember much about it, except that I laughed quite a few times & really enjoyed Mr. David Hyde Pierce.

Original Italian Job: saw this two days later, and... well, I think they did a far better job with the new one. Two of my friends fell asleep & had to be woken up for the mini chase.

there was very little sense of difficulty, even when they had to change plans at the last minute. the moment at the end when what's her name has to open the safe by hand instead of drilling, and the one where she visits ed norton's house - they were the only ones that really involved me at all.

You know, you're totally right, and I agree that you could make a million arguments as to why many many aspects of this movie were pretty weak. Yet I still got into it, for some reason.

Amanda Peet rocks. She's the only part of Identity I really liked.

I feel kinda bad that you had to sit through some crappy movies. If you weren't getting paid for it, I would feel more than bad -- I'd demand vengeance for whatever/whomever was responsible for dragging you to these things. Though it is nice to hear The Italian Job is a good movie -- wanted to see it when I saw the trailer but didn't know if it was going to be one of those "dumb summer action flick"-type movies.

What's your verdict on The In-Laws, btw? Mom's begging me to go with her to see it and I absolutely do not want to go. I will watch two back-to-back viewings of Bringing Down the House (which I will agree is pretty abyssimal) before I will watch ten minutes of The In-Laws (er, the remake -- not the original).

Anyone seen Finding Nemo?

'A Guy Thing' also looks horrendous

basically it reminded me of what contemporary hollywood does well and what it doesn't do well. one thing it doesn't do well is let people act with their bodies. too many close ups and cutting after. every. line. long shots relegated, as mentioned above, to showoffy bravura opening and closing shots. the heist was shot decently, but the boat chase was a mess that only corrected itself at the last minute. i think a "godlike" long shot of venice's canals with the boats racing through it would've been neat, although probably impossible or difficult w/o some cgi magic. (geez, what else is cgi FOR people?)

charlize theron is hott but instead of integrating her hottness into her performance (which came across better than the other principles, wahlberg and norton, i thought) they just signalled it from time to time: look! charlize in a bra! look! charlize in a cleavage-baring leather jacket! i mean you have someone who is superhott and supertall PULL THE CAMERA BACK PEOPLE.

For some reason I was into the roteness of this movie, the laughable character stuff (VO: "I found someone special... And I'm spending the rest of my life with her!") I mean so much of it was so perfunctory yet it did have a certain charm that carried it along. Maybe I'm just a sucker for those movies where no one seems really bright (tho they're supposed to be criminal masterminds) & they grin at each other & highfive each other a lot & exclaim "yeah!" a lot. But the filmmakers did seem to have a grasp on what you want to see in a movie of that ilk & did largely deliver (as opposed to X2, which seemed much more stubborn & ambivalent about pleasing the audience, which I guess is kind of interesting, though it caved at the end with that lousy "storm is making everything cold in the cerebratron!" climax).

you're right about it dropping in everything you'd want in a blockbuster, but while it was perfunctory in terms of development, all the good jokes were repeated about 10 times as were the cardinal character points. which is like the hallmark of base-level hollywood filmmaking going back 80 years. (one reason griffith isn't quite classical is that at that stage he wasn't into the kind of redundancy that becomes the norm. and yet another reason people like preminger stand outside the classical system somewhat.)

As for the comedy stuff--it was pretty lame, but done with a certain easiness that pleased me, like the unexpected cutaways to the character's youthful follies, which were too fast & goofy to really complain about.

(how about that weird napster thing too? that got mentioned about 32493 times--I see what you mean there)

(x-post):

And I agree that Bourne was a lot better, funnier in places, with more interesting beats & actually good location stuff.

(as opposed to the "meeting in the snowy mountains" thing which ebert correctly pointed out as being comically ridiculous)

This is the one not-terrible second of the film, and now you don't have to see it out of curiosity.

I've seen so many movies this summer. Basically every big summer movie (and some not-so-big ones) save Hulk.

Here, for your pleasure, are my impressions.

Alex & Emma--absolutely ATROCIOUS. Career low for Rob Reiner. Terrible, clumsy clumsy script with possibly the worst, illogical meet cute in romcom history. Kate Hudson's character has one trait--she doesn't like tomato skins--and Luke Wilson has a couple more--he's a compulsive gambler (mentioned, never seen or relevant beyond basic set-up involving cartoon Cuban mobsters) and he's a fucking terrible writer. Apparently based on events in life of F Dostoyevsky, amazingly enough.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle--fun, gleefully stupid, Frankenmovie composed of bits from about 2,000 other pics. Virulently hated by critics at a time when their ire would be more useful elsewhere. Didn't like it as much as the first one. Demi Moore so-so, Justin Theroux (Mulholland Drive) very entertaining.

Legally Blonde 2--very badly made movie incorporating incongruous NYPD Blue-style camerawork. Poor script, more "You're amazing!"-style acting from Luke Wilson. I do very good impression of him. But Reese Witherspoon is a charmer & she brings some laughs due to easy enthusiasm and sparkliness.

From Justin 2 Kelly--rather sad attempt at bubbly Annette & Franky-style beach movies. Meet cute seems to take place during a dance sequence though this is not clear. Much hand-wringing over text-message melodrama. Kelly Clarkson an appealing screen presence when lit properly; Justin Guarini sinking fast.

T3--see Terminator 3: The Secret of Krupke's Basement

Pirates of the Caribbean--see Aaaarrrrr! It's the bootylicious Pirates of the Caribbean thread!

Top 10 of the year so far coming soon.

Pirates of the Caribbean
SWAT
The Italian Job
Freaky Friday

Was that really it? How weird and sad. I mean sure I saw some other good ones (The Magdalene Sisters, Rivers and Tides etc) but they weren't really summer movies. I can't really be bothered to blame it on the sequels.

Here's some other stuff I've seen recently:

Once Upon a Time in Mexico--wanted this one to be better, there was some really neat-looking stuff, well-used hi-def video, beautiful colours, but way too dense, overdone, something like half a dozen main characters, half a dozen major villains, plus Salma Hayek only in flashback! A mess.

11'9"01--eleven eleven-minute films by eleven filmmakers about 9/11, some of these were quite good (I liked Ken Loach's mini-doc about Chile 1973, Alejandro Inárittu's sound collage, some others), some were terrible (Sean Penn's, with Ernest Borgnine running around in his underpants), overall a good project I think, worth seeing.

Cold Creek Manor--dece thriller from Mike Figgis, some nice really really (visually) dark stuff, bad guy (Stephen Dorff) not so hot, like Dennis Quaid as an angry dad, overall didn't add up to much, no What Lies Beneath.

It sucked.

Then I watched Cold Mountain last night. Two-and-a-half hours of my life I won't get back... Why does the old lady who rescues Jude Law and feeds him goat talk with a cockney accent? Why does Jack White look permanantly alarmed? How lucky is Nicole Kidman to get pregnant when she only has sex once and is (supposedly) badly malnourished? Why didn't I just go to bed at 8pm?

Gunslinger's Revenge, a western starring David Bowie and Harvey Keitel.

Bad Trip, a road trip comedy starring Ethan Suplee, Kevin Connolly, and COOLIO in three roles: Tyrone, Jerome, and CHERONE.

The Cutter starring Chuck Norris as "a detective struggling to rescue an aged diamond cutter from the hands of a murderous thief".

and the coup de grace:

The Russian Specialist directed by and starring DOLPH LUNDGREN as a retired Special Forces soldier seeking revenge!