Mr. Hakujin

Yeah, I actually saw it a few weeks ago and posted a review in another thread, but she hadn't seen it so I went a 2nd time. Buuuuut, just for you dude: Slumdog Millionaire A Unsettling. Uplifting. Original. The story follows a Muslim boy growing up in the slums of Bombay (now Mumbai) and his journey to freedom. The closest film I can think of that made me feel the way this film did is Shawshank Redemption. Gran Torinio A- Clint Eastwood delivers another memorable screen character as Korean War Vet Walt Kowalski—a man who lets out more politically incorrect humor on his own than Black, Stiller, & Downey combined did in Tropic Thunder. You can definitely compare this to Eastwood's other Oscar winning low budget film about a faithless man mentoring a misfit--Million Dollar Baby. However, I found Gran Torino reminded me of a more somber and violent version of Karate Kid—characters from American & Asian cultures (here the other being Mhong) learn important lessons on life they couldn’t or wouldn’t learn from their own culture. Let The Right One In A- If Terrance Mallick was Swedish and decided to make a vampire/suspense movie starring two tweens it might’ve come out like this film. It’s quiet and slow paced yet never tedious. The cinematography & directing are both beautiful and unsettling, and the performances by the two child leads are compelling throughout. Bangkok Dangerous C- Nicolas Cage as a hitman who grows a conscious in Thailand. The directors (The Pang Brothers) desperately want to be the next Jon Woos, and action is OK, but the film had a seriously weak ending.

Taken B+ The most succinct way to describe this Luc Besson scripted revenge flick starring Liam Neeson is to picture what would happen if Jason Bourne retired and had his daughter kidnapped in Paris. However, this film is a revenge film and not a spy thriller, so don't go looking for any heavy character development or government mysteries. Nor does this film have a Bourne-sized budget, and some of the "bigger" action scenes suffer for it. What this film does have is Liam Neeson as a one man dispenser of asskickery who pistolwhips and throat chops more bad guys in one scene than Damon did in all the Bourne films combined. Maggie Grace (Remember her from seasons 1 & 2 of LOST?) does an amicable job as the daughter in distress, but the main attraction for action fans is seeing in what way Neeson's PO'd poppa is going to exact his brand of justice next.

Yeah, but come on, you gotta admit that will put some fucking years on ya healing factor or not.

When I read it I took it as the originals and not any successors. I try to keep that mindset, especially with stories I really get hooked on.

Not to sound like I wanna start hugging and singing kumbaya, but I read yours! I read your YES MAN & SPIRIT reviews. I think you're a much more forgiving reviewer than I am. I post these reviews on another forumz & a blog as well, and usually my grades aren't as high as they were for this batch. Although in the 3 yrs. I've been doing this I don't think I can recall ever giving a film an F...I've had lots of Ds though. I so knew you were gonna bring that up. Seriously, is the movie THAT fucking good?!?!? Right now I'm on episode 5 of True Blood (it's ok) and I'm taking the gf to see Slumdog Millionaire tomorrow, so it'll be a while before I get to any new films... It's NOT on DVD in the US yet. I think it comes out in March according to Amazon. However, it IS on teh Internets.

Yes, I know Baytor already does this in a much more detailed manner. Yes, I know I'm a n00b here at Hondo's and I'm adding to the clutter. Yes, I know there's another thread for this sort of thing. But damnit, my genius thoughts of, um, genius were being ignored and stifled there! It needs its own thread in which to grow and spread and blossom. I'm only being slightly sarcastic and marginally self-deprecating here, people. Plus my reviews are bite-sized (like my attention span) and have nifty letter grades. Huzzah! I rate films differently than some other reviewers. I'm a notoriously stingy bastard when it comes to my time and my money, so I tend to rate my movie watching experience in relation to those two main factors. The grading rubric is as follows: A+ = It's a classic; something I'll watch repeatedly; a shinning example of its genre. Examples of some A+ films for me are Silence of the Lambs, Godfather I & II, Toy Story, Fight Club, Shawshank Redemption, and the original Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes 4-6). A or A- = something I highly recommend seeing in theaters, and I will also probably want to own on DVD. B+ = Definitely worth a night at the theater and has a high re-watchability factor. B = Worth a night at the theater; I'd also likely rent it on DVD. B- = OK, not the best, but I don't feel cheated having seen it in a theater. I'll probably rent it if my 1st choice is not available at the vid store in 4 months. C+ = It's definitely a rental, maybe even worth catching again on a bored and lonely night if nothing else is on the TV. C = It had its good moments, but they were few & far between. I've no real desire to watch it again. C- = I could barley hang in there through the whole flick. I got up and went to the bathroom or surfed the Net while it was on, but it had that one good scene/performance that saved it from making me feel completely cheated out of my time. D+ = Worthless, but it had a hot chick in it. D = I have to pretend to not completely hate it b/c my girlfriend liked it. D- = I was willing to gouge out an eye to make it stop. F = God hates me for letting me be dumb enough to watch this movie. And here we...go! Man On Wire A This is a documentary about highwire artist Philippe Petit and his many extraordinary stunts he pulled off in the early 1970s leading up to his “dream” of walking a wire between the WTC Twin Towers. Petit and the band of men and women he managed to convince to help him pull off his stunts tell their story with such passion and enthusiasm the director almost doesn’t need to use actors to recreate the scenes leading up to that day in New York in 1974. It’s an engaging tale about wonder, beauty, and art that makes you feel proud to be human; a film that leaves you wanting more. My Winnipeg C+ This is another documentary, but unlike Man On Wire it doesn’t tell a tale of grand dreams, but of simple introspection. The director calls it a “docu-fantasia” and uses a lot of creative gimmicks (having his mother play herself in reenactments, shooting in black and white, narrating and cutting the entire documentary like an arthouse film) that are interesting in their concept yet ultimately fail to engage or entertain for the entire length of a film. Happy-Go-Lucky A- Actress Sally Hawkins is getting a lot of attention (and a Golden Globe award) for her starring role as the relentlessly cheerful character Poppy. It’s a comedy and character study filled with people you just want to watch. The film is about happiness, the search for it, how we try to maintain it, and the absence of it. And while it doesn’t have much of a plot and meanders (in an enjoyable way) there is a big payoff when the film culminates in a revealing scene between Poppy & her driving instructor Scott.

You and this thread are evil. EVIL! My pocketbook cannot match my supreme geekitudeinal desire for those bookcases and tiles. And as if my house wouldn't be hard enough to flip w/ out a f'n TETRIS backsplash.

Ah, damnit! I was hoping to get this one. Gotta love the gimmick cover heydays...

talk about understatement. i like the new trio, but i'm a bit peeved kirkman hasn't delved into this mysterious "all-knowing" fat guy's past yet. i'm sure he's saving it for the next arc though as kirkman is all about the trades.

# is missing but it's CATWOMAN #66 EDIT: Arrgh! You beat me to it! Here's #67 then...

I would point and laugh at you openly about the NKOTB, but I've got Sum41 on my list, so that would be more than a bit hypocritical on my part. Oh, whatthefuck... bwahahakjpuhru!lkjlsjhaklg!

Need to rep TDK a bit more in here...

Let The Right One In A- If Terrance Mallick was Swedish and decided to make a vampire/suspense movie starring two tweens it might’ve come out like this film. It’s quiet and slow paced yet never tedious. The cinematography & directing are both beautiful and unsettling, and the performances by the two child leads are compelling throughout. Bangkok Dangerous C- Nicolas Cage as a hitman who grows a conscious in Thailand. The directors (The Pang Brothers) desperately want to be the next Jon Woos, and action is OK, but the film had a seriously weak ending.

With the help of Wikipedia to I'll try (emphasis on try) and go backwards chronologically: 2008 Mixed Nuts (local band) Cold Weather Fox (local band) Flogging Molly Van Halen (the show was disappointingly meh) Voodoo Fest '07 Rage Against the Machine (so fucking awesome) Smashing Pumpkins (kinda meh) Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals M.I.A. Spoon Motion City Soundtrack Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Various other shows throughout The 2000s: Incubus Flogging Molly A Perfect Circle TOOL Iron & Wine Weezer Guns-N-Roses Incubus Pink & SUM41 (separate shows, but saw both b/c of my gf at the time) Rip Slyme (Japanese hip-hop) Mongol800 (Japanese punk rock) Andrew W.K. The Hives Pearl Jam Voodoo Fest '00 311 Ben Harper Eminem Stone Temple Pilots Cypress Hill Cowboy Mouth Rahzel Blues Traveler Various other shows throughout The '90s: Tori Amos (4 times) Guns-N-Roses Metallica (twice) 311 Cypress Hill Stone Temple Pilots Better Than Ezra (great live show!) Pearl Jam NIN PWEI Cowboy Mouth Lollapalooza '94 The Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, The Breeders (my first time ever in "the pit"), A Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, L7 Lollapalooza '93 Primus, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr., Fishbone, Arrested Development, Front 242, Babes in Toyland, Tool And there's a bunch more I'm forgetting. I've been to Jazz Fest about 3 or 4 times throughout my life and they all kinda blend together. I know I've seen Wilson Pickett, Smash Mouth, Dave Matthews & Lenny Kravitz there...mostly it's lesser known artists though.

Ditto. Plus it made me remember this classic bit of I<3Huckabees behind the scenes drama.

The whole Old Man Logan arc is on there. Go now and DL! I hereby grant thee permission to call me Hakujin. Like Janet, I'm only Mr. Hakujin if you're nasty. Can't believe you weren't as gaga for that issue as I was, but then again my enthusiasm might be a bit overboard b/c I'm a big fan of McNiven's work w/ this story. The dialogue from Millar in issue #70 was far from his greatest, but the expressions McNiven put on Logan's face were fucking deadly. Outstanding stuff. Thanks for the Mysterio update. As for the other character you mentioned in the OML story: I'm enjoying this story way too much to even risk running into a spoiler.

Yeah, definitely avoid the spoilers if you're not up to speed on the story. And the Marvel U is letting bodies hit the floor left and right...outside of "normal" MU continuity that is. And I too re-read issue #70 again immediately after finishing it.

Holy Christmas! Fuck me sideways w/ Sarah Connor's cancer ridden corpse if this wasn't one of the greatest single issues of Wolverine ever. Evah, I say! I'm not sure how many more issues Millar & McNiven are going w/ this storyline, but this is the best dystopian tale of superheroes since Kingdom Come. As for why Wolvie turned farmer... However, I'm wondering a few things after reading this issue and maybe some more knowledgeable fanboys can help me out here: 1. 2. 3.

I agree: I luvs me some Deb. The best was when she'd make fun of Layla, "Pardon my tits." Did you see the final ep. of S2 yet? Killer ending.

Now that is what I call a ringing fucking endorsement. Can't wait to see this one on DVD now!

Yeah, but Jane's version had no Yakuza. Advantage Lundgren.

Asian Kung Fu Generation - After Dark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ko0zp2aFew

Yes, the finale was one of the best episodes in TV history. It was a complete and total payoff for fans of the series. I loved how it expressed the cyclical nature of the war on drugs. It summed up the tragic futility of this "War" quite beautifully.

Well, I'll be honest and say not all of the items on my list are on DVD and some *ahem* reside on various hard drives. ^0^ . What can I say, the Internets is a good thing for impatient (and poor) anime fans. Series: Batman: The Animated Series (vol. 1&2) Bleach (ep. 1-75 I stopped watching around #30 and really need to catch up) Chobits (complete series) Clerks (complete series) Cowboy Bebop (complete series) Family Guy (seasons 5&6) Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (series 1) Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law (seasons 1-3) Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (season 1) Paranoia Agent (complete series) Ranma 1/2 (season 1) Robot Chicken (seasons 1 & 2) *Samurai Champloo (complete series--and my favorite Japanese anime series of all time!) The Simpsons (season 1) Space Ghost Coast To Coast (vol. 1-3) Sea Lab 2021 (seasons 1&2) South Park (seasons 9-12) Venture Bros. (seasons 1-3) Movies: A Bug’s Life Aladdin Alice In Wonderland Animatrix Batman: Gotham Knights Castle In The Sky (Laputa) Chicken Run Cowboy Bebop: The Movie Finding Nemo Ghost In The Shell Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence The Incredibles Justice League: The New Frontier Kung-Fu Panda My Neighbor Totoro Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind Nightmare Before Christmas Persepolis Princess Mononoke Ratatouille Secret of N.I.M.H. The Simpsons Movie Spirited Away Steamboy TMNT Tokyo Godfathers Ultimate Avengers The Movie