you need to see the bourne supremecy right now...like right fucking now

At the very least, a movie audience brutalized by dumb, loud and cynical blockbusters can always stand to be reminded of what vibrant, intelligent and sincere popular filmmaking looks like. -- A.O. Scott, NYT

Watching Raimi and his writers cut between the story threads, I savored classical workmanship: The film gives full weight to all of its elements, keeps them alive, is constructed with such skill that we care all the way through. In a lesser movie from this genre, we usually perk up for the action scenes but wade grimly through the dialogue. Here both stay alive, and the dialogue is more about emotion, love and values, less about long-winded explanations of the inexplicable... -- Roger Ebert

Which is to say that "Spider-Man 2" may be the most internalized superhero vs. monster movie ever made. Though buildings crumble, an arachno-man swings, an octo-man crushes and the earth trembles, it's really about what's going on inside, where each of the antagonists mulls fate vs. character, wishes things were otherwise, wants more, settles for less, and generally carries on like Holden Caulfield walking around the East Side in that goofy hat all those years ago. -- Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

On the other hand, props to Charles Taylor in Salon:
"Spider-Man 2" is too square to take that approach, and not imaginative enough to take any other. For a big-budget action movie "Spider-Man 2" is modest and not assaultive -- it has a boring decency.

As they should have. As a viewer, I did.

aside from its untradtional narrative (task rather then charchter based) I gotta disagree with, just on the grounds that it's a definate popcorny throwback lacking pretention.

and I also gotta disagree with the manic editing. charge. I'm a total playa-hata when it comes to high-speed editing, and while this could be seen as the case in BS, I think it's more the case of quirky hand-held cinematography and the lack of lengthy scene-setting and lengthy pace-making that makes the film feel as frenetic as it does.

and total props to Damon who's really growing into himself. There're an awful lot of close profiles of Jay Bourne, and the character - and actor - has a face that's at once doe-eyed and hard-edged. As Bourne drives through Berlin at night, the traffic lights refracting off the raindrops on the car's windshield glance against the prep-school impertinancy of his cheekbones, and the shadows gouge deep ruts into his cheeks and offset the funny hardness at the end of his nose. It's easy to imagine Damon evolving into a Cagney-type.

And Brian Cox is, again, absolutely amazing.

I enjoyed the car chase, but it went on too long for me. The best bits were the things kept short-and-snappy (blowing up the house, fleeing across the traintracks).

and yeah, with brian cox the reveal was a bit... "so?"

Funny thing is of course that I remember the miniseries based on The Bourne Identity shown back in the mid-1980s. Richard Chamberlain and Jane Seymour, how much more perfectly obvious could it get? I do recall one pretty good part where Chamberlain was firing a gun in just the right cold/machine manner of Bourne as a character from the books, though it seems Damon has that down far more believably.

but salvation may be here in the form of http://www.dollarcinema.ca

i imagine some smart producer's eye was caught by "bloody sunday," or maybe matt damon put in a word. (is damon credited as a producer of this series? it wouldn't be unlikely.) anyway, it's common enough for the director of an impressive "indie" hit to be summoned by a major franchise (even sam raimi falls roughly into this category).

i'm sure the increasing chic-ness of multiplexes is part of it. although that's a chicken/egg question. were multiplexes pressed into offering more luxury by the high prices or were prices raised to accomodate such "advances"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1235145,00.html

!!!

In the U.S., depending on the deal made with the film's distributor, the theater pays 85 to 90 percent of the box office grosses for the first week or two of release, and a smaller percentage as the run goes on. The theater management has to pay operating expenses -- rent or mortgage, employees' salaries, utilities, etc. -- out of that portion of the gross that it gets to keep and the profits from the concession stand. (This is why movie theater popcorn and soda costs a fortune, and why they try to keep you from bringing in your own snacks.)

Theaters that are part of the really big chains get some breaks because upper management can negotiate for films based on the number of screens they command. However, they still have to cover their operating expenses from a rather small percentage of what you paid at the box office.

oh that's the one about terrorists and football games no?

(Yes, Blair Witch Project was pretending to be a film student documentary, so they could could hardly take steadicams into the woods.) But if you're not shooting Jurassic Park XXVII you don't need to pretend that the dinosaurs are on the march or there's suddenly been an earthquake and the whole area has gone loopy. If it hadn't been for the motherf***ing handheld camera, I would have appreciated The Bourne Supremacy for what it is -- an entertaining, well-crafted action flick, and by Hollywood standards remarkably respectful of character and pshychology.

That said, I loved this one like I loved the first one; cold, european locations, no CGI jizz, and reality(Bourne hurts his leg, and he limps the rest of the way!). Yay for a real spy movie without superhuman heroics!

the way the individual crashes in that chase were filmed was atypical: it was often a driver's POV so the sudden impact registered as a serious jolt, rather than external shots that would just register a bunch of cars banging into each other. so it was successfuly insofar as those kind of shocks kept coming. and i liked the absence of sentimental speechifying (except for the v. end, when it was pretty credible). and i always like matt damon. but i don't think it was some amazing piece of work or anything.

the further i get from this movie, honestly, the less i like it. the script REALLY sucked.

(SPOILER AHEAD)

When Franka Potente's character died, I was totally shocked. I was really looking forward to her becoming somewhat hardcore in her own right and kicking arse. Script-wise it's obvious why she needed to bite it. It gave Bourne an opportunity to completely flip out and use his skills to their fullest.

Speaking of which, I loved the way they had Bourne deal with violent conflict. The ruthless, uncompromising efficiency of his actions really did it for me. (esp that moment where he turns the customs situation on its head, early in the piece) Also the way they had him shot in the shoulder was a nice touch, and particularly well-played.

I'm very excited for the third film... bring that shit on.

andrew, i agree, that was a great surprise. (i did miss her for the rest of the movie tho--i thought she brought something special to the first one)

http://www.sergioleone.net/dj-10.jpg
http://www.bredalsparken.dk/~juliekretzschmer/assets/images/roger08.jpg
http://www.sign4me.de/film/film2/georgelazenby.jpg

After Team America, I have a hard time seeing Matt Damon doing much else except sitting around and saying his name.

Kinda blew me away to discover that the actor that played the lanky Russian secret service agent antagonist is the same guy who played Eomer in the LOTR franchise.

Ah Jesus youd want to be spotting that.

PS don't watch star trek ur mind will be blown.

also he was julius caesar in xena: warrior princess