31 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi

R.I.P. James Bond Theme Composer John Barry (1933-2011)

5-time Oscar winning Composer John Barry died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 77.

Despite being best known for his soundtrack work on 11 James Bond films as well as writing the incredibly famous and much copied "James Bond Theme", Barry's Academy Award wins were for his scores and songs for BORN FREE (won both Best Score and Best Song), THE LION IN WINTER, OUT OF AFRICA, and DANCES WITH WOLVES.

Over the course of his 50 year career, Barry lent his distinctive touch to tons of movie and television projects, the last being the Dougray Scott/Kate Winslet drama ENIGMA in 2001.

Raleigh News & Observer music critic David Menconi wrote today that Barry "created some of the most iconic scores Hollywood has ever heard, none more so than 1967's 'YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (an orchestral hook later used to good effect on English pop star Robbie Williams' 1998 hit single 'Millennium')."

Many Raleigh residents have been enjoying Barry's 007 scores via the Colony Theater's revival series "James Bond Originals" which has presented 35 millimeter prints of the fan favorites the Thursday of every month since June last summer.

As 1973's LIVE AND LET DIE (showing on February 24th) has Beatles producer George Martin taking on the composing duties, 1974's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (March 31st) will be the next in the series to feature a John Barry/James Bond score.

Incidentally as a kid I like many thought that singer/composer Monty Norman had written and arranged the "James Bond Theme" which first appeared in DR. NO (1962). This was because Norman was credited for it on many of the original soundtrack records.

A few lawsuits have occurred over the credit with both composers claiming authorship, but as Barry pointed out he was invited back to score many of the following films and Norman wasn't.

R.I.P. John Barry.

More later...

29 Ocak 2011 Cumartesi

Kaboom (Saturday, January 29, 2011) (4)

Oh boy - what to say about Greg Araki's Kaboom. Well, it's very frank about sex. Uh, yeah - that's about it.

This movie is some sort of gonzo laugh at John Waters-like camp fare, but is sorta impossible to follow and goes off in such weird directions that you lose track of what the hell you're watching.

Smith (Thomas Dekker) is a college freshman living in the dorm. He thinks he's gay, but starts getting interested in some of the hot women he sees around. He has a dream with a mysterious girl in it and then thinks he sees her on campus. He tries to find her and enlists his best friend Stella (Haley Bennett) to help him. She's a lesbian (you see the trend) and always has a strong scowl on her face.

At some point there is a cult that starts recruiting students in the school and seems to have some sort of suicide pact, like Jonestown or Heaven's Gate. Well, they're more like the latter because there's some stuff about celestial bodies and space or something. Somehow Smith's search for this mysterious girl and search for getting laid by as many people (of all genders) as he can runs into the cult story. I'm still a bit mystified about what exactly happens.

Araki uses a rather non-linear structure to the film and it's very hard to follow from one scene to the next. I not sure very much comes from this aside from confusing us. Well, maybe this as something to do with drugs or something, but it's rather difficult to understand.

I fully admit that there might be something great that I'm not seeing here. I think Araki is capable of brilliant stuff (I think his film Mysterious Skin - which was also non-linear - is amazing), but I didn't see it here. To me, John Waters at his best was in Serial Mom and Pecker - two films that mixed the gross-out shock camp of his early work with normal (and hilarious) story lines that were somewhat approachable. Earlier and later stuff he's done (like Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living or Cecil B. DeMented) is just too hard to follow and such pure camp it's hard to connect to. This film is much more like Araki's Desperate Living than it is Mysterious Skin.

Stars: .5 of 4

27 Ocak 2011 Perşembe

BLUE VALENTINE: The Film Babble Blog Review


BLUE VALENTINE (Dir. Derek Cianfrane, 2010)

It's billed as "a love story", but BLACK VALENTINE is more accurately a toxic love story.

As a couple in the final stages of their marriage, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams go through the messy motions and as the film cuts back and forth from the beginning of their relationship to the present we see that they were doomed from the start.

In the present Gosling and Williams (who also co-executive produced the film) have a 4 year old daughter (Faith Wladyka) and live a fairly unremarkable existence in Pennsylvania- he paints houses; she works as a nurse.

In the past Gosling worked for a Brooklyn moving company and met Williams in a nursing home he was re-locating a senior to. Williams, there visiting her grandmother (Jen Jones) has a giggly spark when first meeting her later beau, and before long they're an item much to the chagrin of her former lover (Mike Vogel).

Williams is pregnant with Vogel's baby so there's that too.

In several sequences like one set in a blue-lit future-themed hotel room where Gosling hopes to re-ignite the couple's dying flame get into some emotionally wretching territory, but the film never wallows in misery.

Sometimes feeling like a series of sad snapshots of a doomed romance, "Blue Valentine" captures the tone and uneasiness of fading affection without a false move.

It's surprising that Williams got a Oscar Nomination for her work here and Gosling didn't. Don't get me wrong - William's nom is well deserved, but Gosling's restless intensity definitely equals hers.

A great Grizzly Bear soundtrack and graphic instances of sex and violence are intertwined inside the abstract construction of this film, but I bet what will linger more in the memory will be the raw moments between Gosling and Williams where they ache together yet still can not connect.

Like a heart made out of barbed wire, BLUE VALENTINE really stings.

More later...

24 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi

Blu Ray/DVD Review: CATFISH


I missed this film, referred to by some as "the other Facebook movie", when it played in Raleigh last fall, but just caught it as it's out now on Blu ray, DVD, and available via Amazon Video On Demand. Netflix subscribers will have to wait until next week (February 1st) to rent it because of that damn studio delay deal.

CATFISH (Dirs. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, 2010)

There's a little bit of controversy about this film's validity, but the film makers who appear as themselves swear that it's all real.

On the surface it's a documentary about New York photographer Nev Schulman spending months messaging through texts, Facebook posts, and phone-calls a 19 year old girl he met online.

Nev's brother Ariel and friend Henry Joost film with tiny hand held cameras the odd, and frankly creepy, relationship which started with a 8 year old mailing a painting she did of a photograph of Nev's that was printed in the New York Sun.

Nev friends the young girl whose name is Abby on Facebook, then also adds her mother Angela, her father Vince, and sister Megan who all live in Michigan.

Megan, as evidenced by her many photos on her Facebook page, is a pretty blonde and Nev is quite taken with her, that is, until he finds out that an MP3 she sent him if her playing guitar and singing wasn't her - it was taken from a Youtube clip.

Other claims that Megan made don't stand up to much scrutiny so the troubled trio decide to fly to Michigan and confront the mysterious teenager and her family.

This is where the story description has to end because to go on would spoil the film's supposed big twist - the promotional tagline even says: "Don't let anyone tell you what it is."

It would even be a Spoiler! to tell you what the film's title means so I won't do that either.

It's more out of respect for potential viewers of this film than for the film itself that I won't give it away. CATFISH is fairly involving as it builds to the reveal, but it really doesn't amount to much once it gets there.

It doesn't have insights into what's really hidden behind a Facebook profile or what the addiction of connectivity is doing to society, it pretty much only has whining strivers thinking a pathetic situation deserves documentation.

In one of the key scenes the puzzled protagonists approach Megan's mother's house. Mark Motherbaugh's soundtrack music, mostly effective in other places in the film, gets maddening with the same ominous piano key note being hit over and over. It's an annoying scene that sums up the manipulative methods at play.

If CATFISH is 100% real then it's much ado about nothing; if it's scripted and pre-arranged then it's, well, kinda stupid. These guys aren't completely without compassion, but their film feels as about as cheap as it looks.

Special features: Only a 25 minute Q & A with the film makers.

More later...

DVD/Blu Ray Review: CLIENT 9: The Rise And Fall Of Eliot Spitzer


CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELIOT SPITZER (Dir. Alex Gibney, 2010)

It's amazing that former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer sat down for Alex Gibney's (ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, CASINO JACK AND THE UNITED STATES OF MONEY) camera for this probing documentary.

Especially since the tagline for it is: "Money. Sex. Power. Betrayal."

The scandalized Spitzer, often in extreme close-up, talks at length candidly, though he understandably holds back at times, about his once promising career, and it's a bit jarring at times.

Jarring because this is no confessional - he takes responsibility for his actions and makes no excuses.

Spitzer's interview in this detailed portrait of what led to the his downfall in 2008 when he was linked to a high scale prostitution ring is framed by a narrative told through archival stills, campaign ads, and many clips from CNN, MSNBC, and even The Colbert Report.

Gibney gets a number of Spitzer's cronies and foes as well as journalist and producer Peter Elkind, whose book "Rough Justice: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" this film is based on, to also sit down to relay their stories.

One of the most lively interview subjects is Cecil Suwal - the co-owner of the Emperor's Club VIP escort service. Her giggly demeanor helps lighten the mood of this somberly told tale saying such things as: "Okay, the governor of New York is using our service, how bad can what we're doing be? Right?"

There's also the interesting case of the prostitute, called "Angela" here, who Spitzer employed many times who refused to go on camera or have her voice used so an actress (Wrenn Schmidt) performs the words of the woman's interview with Gibney.

The film is overlong and the tabloid nature of Spitzer's scandal has been well covered so there's not really anything amounting to a surprising revelation here, but "Client 9" is a solid and extremely thorough documentary in the ranks of Charles Ferguson's also intensely researched INSIDE JOB (which Spitzer was also involved in).

Special features: An audio commentary with writer/director Alex Gibney, extended interviews, deleted scenes, HDNet: A Look At CLIENT 9, and the theatrical trailer.

More later...

22 Ocak 2011 Cumartesi

The Housemaid (Saturday, January 22, 2011) (3)

The Housemaid is a weird movie. I have come to expect from contemporary Korean films that the directors sometimes like to shock and surprise us, but this movie takes that idea and really runs with it. At times I felt like writer-director Im Sang-Soo was telling an interesting psycho-sexual drama and at time it felt like he was poking fun at us for thinking it was serious, while he made a silly drama similar to a soft-core porno you'd see on late night cable. This isn't to suggest the film is pornographic, but the dramatic plot line was silly and forced throughout.

Hoon and his wife Haera are super rich and have a gigantic house. They have one old housekeeper, Nami, and are looking to hire an assistant for her to help with things around the house. They find Eun-yi, a young woman, and hire her to help out taking care of their young daughter and do smaller tasks like taking food and wine to different parts of the home (because when you're rich you hire people to do that for you). In a short time Eun-yi and Hoon are having an affair. Nami, never happy with her young assistant, finds out about the affair and tries to let Haera know about it in the most dignified way possible. All hell breaks lose when Eun-yi gets pregnant and Nami and Haera's plans crumble as Korean family pride (and blackmail) becomes more important than anything else.

One thing that Sang-Soo does very well here is that he creates a beautiful world of unparalleled luxury with gigantic spaces (in the enormous home) decorated in the finest woods and marbles. The interiors are sumptuous and the costumes work with them beautifully. At times I was reminded of the richness of the rooms and spaces in Luca Guadagnino's recent I Am Love. At time same time, though, there is a coldness and antiseptic quality to the cleanness of everything - which, of course is important here as we realize this rich family is much more superficial, fragile and even toxic than we had originally thought.

There has been a recent trend in the past few years of movies about maids (well, maybe it even goes back to Mary Poppins) and how powerful and manipulative a force they can be. They are like domineering mothers, but are not part of the family and are paid to be there, or not be there. They know all that goes on in their houses, generally don't meddle with the family business, but can find out important information by simply doing their normal job. In many ways Nami is reminiscent of Catalina Saavedra's maid character in Sebastian Silva's The Maid. She wants to be part of the family and thinks of herself as such, she's reluctant to admit she needs help and is such a master of the home that she knows how to control people who step foot in it.

This film is about how maids have become Freudian nightmares. They are motherly and caring (assuming you pay them), but also can be sexual or sexually threatening. They are uber-mothers - not part of the family (and you can have sex with them if you want), but are hard to get rid of if you don't like them.

The finale of this film goes much too far and involves flames and high-wire hijinks (almost literally). It is a shame this happens as there is a lot of interesting stuff to go through in the film about male-female relationships and the cost of companionship and love. Sang-soo goes for a rather big, cheap spectacle at the end (and throughout, really) and undermines the good stuff that we saw before. This is a shame because this could have been a very interesting and beautiful film otherwise.

Stars: 2.5 of 4

21 Ocak 2011 Cuma

No Strings Attached (Friday, January 21, 2011) (2)

No Strings Attached should be a terrible, terrible movie, but is actually pretty decent and not all that bad. In this Ivan Reitman picture, Natalie Portman plays Emma, a super hot, super smart med student. She meets up with a kid she knew in camp (and later in college), Adam (Ashton Kutcher), who works on a TV show. They both think the other is hot, so they fuck. Afterwards they decide it would be awesome if they could just be fuck-buddies and not actually date.

They start fucking all over the place, in cars, bathrooms, parts of the hospital. At some point Adam asks Emma if she would be more than just a fuck-buddy and actually be his girlfriend. She tells him no and then runs away. This ruins their relationship and their deal.

For such a silly idea, the script (by Elizabeth Meriweather) is actually pretty clever. There is some very funny, sharp dialogue and the flow of the narrative moves very well. I find most romcoms fall off a cliff in the third act as they try to figure out how to boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl in a new way. This one works pretty well, actually - partly, I think, because neither character is particularly a caricature of real people; they are both pretty down to earth people and you can see the situation from both points of view.

Somehow the casting of this seems to have come out of my subconscious. NatPort has long been a boyish crush of mine. She's totally cute and clearly very Jewish (she plays a Jew here, which is nice... or something). Her best friend is played by Greta Gerwig, a newish actress I adore. (I actually love Greta more than Nat.) Coming out of mumblecore, Greta is one of the best and most honest actors working today. She's funny and sweet and her girl-nextdoorness is out of control. She's wonderful here in the scene when all the women in the apartment are on the rag at the same time. ("There's red-velvet in here, right?")

Then there's Lake Bell, a girl I went to high school with who would barely give me the time of day then and certainly wouldn't speak to me now. She plays, bizarrely, the dorky, bookish co-worker of Ashton at the TV studio who is madly in love with him. She wears glasses and is mostly seen with a clipboard and mousy hair. It's a bit of a stretch that in Hollywood a sharp-tongued hottie like Lake would somehow be a meek assistant, but this is a dumb movie, so I won't argue too much about it. This character is actually not really necessary to the film and seems to only be in for one joke in the end credits. If the part is left in, I think Lake should have been Nat's best friend and Greta should have been the nerdy assistant (both roles are pretty small).

I don't know if it's because I have such fantasies about the actresses in the film or that it was actually pretty good, but I really think this movie is very watchable. It's pretty sharply written (with some really terrible lines peppered in, including the kicker line of the film before the credits, which is gawdawful) and very modern. It doesn't get bogged down in super-duper now-ness the way a movie like He's Just Not that Into You did (mentioning Myspace, so that by the time the film came out, the line was already a silly old relic of a bygone era), but feels contemporary nonetheless. I like it. Sue me!

Stars: 2.5 of 4

20 Ocak 2011 Perşembe

The Illusionist (2010) (Thursday, January 20, 2011) (179)

The Illusionist is a very charming and lovely animated feature that is based on an unfinished Jacques Tati screenplay that was never produced. It is made by Sylvain Chomet, the animator/writer/director behind The Triplets of Belleville, which was a very Tati-esque movie in its own right.

In the film there is an old magician traveling around France and Britain performing shows in the 1950s. As he goes to theater after theater, his audiences get smaller and smaller as the rock 'n' roll boom is just picking up at the same time. He ends up in the Hebrides, or some very remote and northern islands in Scotland, and there meets a young girl who is fascinated by his tricks. She doesn't understand the illusions he's performing and honestly thinks he's doing real magic and conjuring. Totally mystified and in love with the idea of what he does, she follows him when he leaves her village to take a gig in Edinburgh. There she is a small-town girl in the big city and the illusionist has to look after her as he tries to make a living from his tricks.

There is a wonderful joy and simplicity to this film that is rarely seen anymore. There is almost no dialogue at all throughout the film. The man speaks in simple French sentences whenever he does speak. The girl chips away in gibberish, or Scots-Gallic, perhaps, and nobody can understand what she's saying. Most of the time there's melancholy music and noise from the outside world. This brings a very cozy and sweet tone to the whole film that is really wonderful.

This film has been nominated for the Best Animated Film by the Oscars and it has no chance of winning, but it's totally deserving of the nomination. It's been 50-some years since Tati was last nominated for a significant award and this work is as much his as it is Chomet's.

Stars: 3 of 4

18 Ocak 2011 Salı

Blu Ray/DVD Review: DOWN TERRACE


DOWN TERRACE (Dir. Ben Wheatley, 2009)

"You're only as good as the people you know." - Bill (Robert Hill)

There is an uneasy feeling surrounding the grizzled Robert Hill and his scruffy unshaven son Robin Hill as they return to their shabby Brighton, England home after being acquitted of drug charges. The two, as Bill and Karl respectively who are real life father and son, don't know which one of their crew is a police informant though they have some suspects. Couch potato Tony Way is on the top of the list, but Kerry Peacock who shows up pregnant claiming it's Robin Hill's triggers skepticism as well.

Over the course of 2 weeks, big white letters inform us of what day it is throughout, the family (including Julia Deakin fromSpaced as the long suffering mother) pops pills, drinks, and argues - most of which is quite amusing.

A creepy Michael Smiley as the most brutal of the clan steals the film from the squabbling in its second half as he carries out some hits on those that could put an end to Hill and company's operations completely.

Comparisons to The Sopranos have been made and some scenes, like one involving Smiley and Robin Hill bickering over burying a body out in the countryside, do have that same macabre sense of humor, but with its folky music interludes DOWN TERRACE dances to a different beat.

The shaky cam low budget ambience works well for this bare yet blunt material, and though these are largely unlikable characters there's a wicked delight in watching their pissed off personalities collide.

Though heavy accented and murky at times (some story elements could have been fleshed out a bit more) "Down Terrace" is a decent debut by British television director Wheatley.

It doesn't re-invent the violent crime genre wheel, but its realistic feel and scrappy demeanor made it a worthy hour and a half of my time.

Bonus Features: Commentary with Ben Wheatley and Robin Hill, acting screen test, an extended scene, a deleted scene, "Tricks of the Amazing Wizards!!!" featurette, DOWN TERRACE teaser/festival trailer, and "Rob Loves Kerry" short film.

More later...

17 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi

GasLand (2010) (Monday, January 17, 2011) (176)

Josh Fox's interesting documentary GasLand tells the story of how over the course of the past decade millions of Americans have been affected by a process of natural gas drilling, called 'fracking'. No, this is not some Battlestar Galactica sexual euphemism, fracking is a process where natural gas is collected after deep holes are drilled into the earth and water, laden with toxic chemicals, is forced into the wells. Due to massive industry lobbying and major relaxations in environmental and regulatory standards gigantic swaths of the middle part of the country, from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, are now speckled with these fracking wells.

The problem is that the chemically rich water has to go somewhere when its underground and generally ends up in drinking water. This makes the water non-potable, clearly, but also flammable, which is a neat effect to see on camera, but would be shocking to see in your kitchen. Through the film, Fox takes us around the country looking at how different families in different parts of the country have been hurt by this drilling process, how they live with the day-to-day realities of it and how they are fighting back (mostly unsuccessfully).

This is a clever polemic, but is ultimately a bit dull. It feels the whole time like a very good Frontline special or 60 Minutes report, but there's not enough intrigue to hold attention for nearly two hours (it's way too long). One nice touch that Fox uses is a wonderful banjo/bluegrass score throughout. This is probably a bit manipulative as it suggests down-homey Americana in a rather lazy way, but in the end it's wonderful music. He also uses great black and white, bold, all-caps, sans-serif titles between sections to orient us as we watch. There is a rather 'DIY' quality to these, which I like a lot.

I always hate polemics that end with a call to action and direct me to a website - that after seeing the movie, I'm supposed to get off my ass and write a letter to my congressman or senator. This is annoying do-gooderness, when just presenting the information would suffice to tell a good story. I want to watch a movie, I don't want to get involved in a movement. Stop sending me to your website, I'm in a movie theater and won't remember the address when I get home. Just show me interesting, evocative things and let me have an experience.

Maybe my issue is really with polemical docs, which are over the hump for me and on their downslide. I've had enough of liberals telling me what to cry about now (I saw as an avowed ultra-liberal). I'm no longer interested in stories about energy/chemical/food/health care companies being evil. I know those stories well.

I think Fox has a nice movie here, but he should have cut it down by 20 minutes. It drags too much and he seems to lose control somewhere after the middle of the second act. He should have tightened the story a bit and cut some of the repetitious material (how many people do you need to have on camera lighting their water on fire?).

Stars: 2.5 of 4

Now Out On Blu Ray/DVD: FREAKONOMICS: THE MOVIE


FREAKONOMICS: THE MOVIE (Dirs. Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Seth Gordon, Rachel Grady, Eugene Jarecki, and Morgan Spurlock, 2010)

Journalist Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt's best selling book seems a ripe one to adapt into film, but with its simplified statements, glitzy graphics, and overall glib tone this creaking adaptation more resembles a collection of TV news magazine segments than a hard hitting documentary.

At the beginning Dubner says: "If there's only one element that I say is there in almost everything we do, is the idea that incentives matter and if you can figure out what people's incentives are you have a good chance in guessing how they are going to behave."

With 6 different directors, all noted documentarians, the authors attempt to explore that thesis through contained pieces entitled: "A Roshanda By Any Other Name", "Pure Corruption", "It's Not Always A Wonderful Life", and "Can A Ninth Grader Be Bribed To Succeed?"

Seth Gordon (THE KING OF KONG) ably and amusingly links the film together with transitional segments narrated by Dubner and Levitt.

Morgan Spurlock (SUPERSIZE ME) handles the first segment ("A Roshanda...") about whether parents' name choices affect their path in life, and while there some good points made, the jokey nature, unnecessary employment of actors, and people on the street sound bites overshadow any actual insights. Infomercial type animation doesn't help either.

Alex Gibney's (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE) lengthy contribution ("Pure Corruption") concentrating on cheating in the world of Sumo wrestling fares much better. With well edited footage, insightful interviews, and stirring statistical info, "Pure Corruption" makes a fascinating case study.

However when journalist Yorimasa Takeda in the segment opines: "I read Freakonomics and thought it gave numerical evidence of something very difficult to prove" he could be stating the problem with the entire project.

Eugene Jarecki (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, ALL GOOD THINGS) takes on what is posited as one of the most crucial sequences of the film - "It's Not Always A Wonderful Life" - which deals with data that ostensibly indicates that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s is one of the primary reasons that crime rates were down in the 1990s.

Jarecki's segment makes a convincing argument, but its flashy use of cartoon framed footage just highlights that the bottom line theory just isn't that compelling.

Likewise for Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's (JESUS CAMP) concluding segment "Can A Ninth Grader Be Bribed To Succeed". It looks very interesting at first - the experiment of rewarding students with money for higher grades, but it doesn't give us results that mean anything. Some kids are pushed to work harder, some aren't. So what?

I haven't read the book yet, but I suspect its really where to go for the detailed and engaging lowdown on this material. As a film FREAKONOMICS is an mostly unappealing stylistic mishmash with precious little educational takeaway.

Bonus Features: Additional interviews with Levitt and Dubner, directors' commentary, producers' commentary, and HDNet: A Look at FREAKONOMICS

More later...

16 Ocak 2011 Pazar

Easy A (2010) (Sunday, January 16, 2011) (175)

Easy A is a polished teen comedy that takes its themes and some story elements from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. It is not a teeny update of the book, like how Ten Things I Hate About You was a new version of The Taming of the Shrew or how My Fair Lady, Can't Buy Me Love or Drive Me Crazy were new versions of Pygmalion. Rather this story is original (and by "original" I mean totally recycled from dozens of high school comedy movies) and deals with ideas of sin, sluttiness and gossip.

Olive (Emma Stone) is a precocious, beautiful and sharp-tongued high school student who claims to have no status in her high school. Apparently "no status" means that everyone knows her name and everyone loves to gossip about her. One day in the bathroom, she tells her best friend that she had a date with an older guy and had sex with him. Someone overhears this and the news spreads around the school like a bullet and makes her popular and notorious.

At some point the school's gay kid (there has to be one, of course) approaches her and asks her to say that the two of them had sex, cementing her reputation as a floozy and suggesting to classmates that he digs chicks and not dudes (because gay kids in high school who are totally cool with being gay still like to be seen as straight. Right.). Olive does this for him and then does it for a slew of other weirdos and losers in her class, each time taking a small payment for the job. Of course, she's not actually doing anything with these kids - just saying she is.

Meanwhile, Olive and her classmates are reading the Hawthorne book in English class and she's the only one who really understands it. When the Christian club at her school starts to get upset by what they hear she's doing, she goes home, sews a few naughty outfits all emblazoned with a scarlet "A" on the chest. You see, she's suggesting she's like Hester Prynne and that her moral turpitude is similar to the character's in the book. It seems like a big of a stretch (a lot of a stretch), but whatever.

Emma Stone is actually very good in this. She has the perfect over-enunciated sharp tone in her voice to pull off the very exact, clever dialogue, by writer Bert V. Royal. She's super self-confident and very fun and the kind of girl you would love to date. This, of course, is the big problem, because she's supposed to be a weirdo loser and not a cool girl. It's very confusing, actually, because we're supposed to feel sorry for her at times, but she seems like a girl who doesn't need the pity of anyone... or would punch you in the face if she knew you felt bad for her.

The script throughout the film moves from very funny dialogue to very muddled narrative-wise. There is way too much going on here. The second half of it spirals deeper and deeper into a black hole, when keeping it simple would have done just fine enough. There is a lot of funny and amusing stuff in this, but there is also a lot of waste and indulgence (perhaps as a way of staying clear of The Scarlet Letter or other teeny comedies).

The cast in this is really outstanding, and surprising for such a moderately scaled movie. Aside from Stone, you have teeny soap stars Penn Badgely and Amanda Bynes as well as grown people Thomas Hayden Church, Lisa Kudrow, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Malcolm McDowell and Fred Armisen. (Wow! Big cast!) Clarkson and Tucci are great as Olive's parents. They're very sarcastic and funny and work well together as loving parents of a kid who doesn't screw up that much. It's a relief to see Tucci in a role where he doesn't play an asshole with an affected accent. (And of course, there's something funny about Malcolm McDowell playing the principal of the school in a teen rebellion movie.)

There really isn't anything to hate in this movie, but I had a hard time trying to figure out why some people are saying it's better than the average teen comedy. It does have very snappy dialogue and Olive's best friend is named Rhiannon (which is sorta perfect and fantastic, actually!), but it gets buried in so many layers of junk on top of the story that it's hard to get through it. It feels like a man wearing three hats. Why doesn't he just wear one hat? Why does he need so many hats?

Stars: 2.5 of 4

14 Ocak 2011 Cuma

THE GREEN HORNET: The Film Babble Blog Review


THE GREEN HORNET (Dir. Michel Gondry, 2011)

A $90 million dollar superhero movie dropping in the middle of January may seem like a bad sign, but "The Green Hornet" isn't terrible - no, it's just so standard issue, formulaic, and only occasionally funny.

Hmm, maybe it is a bad sign.

Seth Rogen, who also co-wrote and co-executive produced is our unlikely hero here. His character Britt Reid is a partying rich 20 something and fairly close to roles he's played before. He's slimmer here, but he's still the same schlubby loser who lives from buzz to buzz.

When Rogen's disapproving newspaper mogul father (Tom Wilkinson) dies from a bee-sting, our slang talking bozo inherits his entire estate including his mechanic/man-servant Kato (Jay Chou) who makes a mean cappucchino.

Chou outfits a black Chrystler Imperial with machine guns and bullet proof glass and what do you know - they've got a crime fighting duo thing a-happenin'!

Christoph Waltz (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) is the drug kingpin villain who wants to rule Los Angeles with a crew of pimped out thugs and a double-barrelled handgun.

Through the film's fast pace, albeit one with too many montages, we see Rogen and Chou fight attacking foes, getting their gear together, and smashing up their Imperial so much that they need a line of back-up cars.

There's also Cameron Diaz in a nothing role as Rogen's secretary (at least there's one lady present in this boy's club I suppose), Edward James Olmos as the newspaper's long suffering managing editor, and a slimy David Harbour as the District Attorney who's motives you can see coming from a mile away.

Its a noisy mess of a movie full of destruction displaying very little of the visual style that Gondry has shown in such films as THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. The brief instances of Gondry's flair are lost in the slick shuffle - a segment with split screens inside of split screens in yet another montage hints at what could've been.

As much as I like Rogen and have been highly amused at his work - his jokey jargon didn't carry the movie through as amusingly as expected. He's, of course, not an actor that gets lost in a role - he's just Rogen playing dress-up - and that like just about everything else here gets pretty tiresome.

There's some entertaining chemistry between Rogen and Chou, but their dynamic seems a bit off at times. However a fight scene between them after a falling out is one of the stand-out set pieces of the film.

As the only one with grace in the cluttered comic book chaos, Chou is the film's true star. Though underwritten, again like everything else, Chou makes the most of his portrayal of a refined perfectionist who can level an army of gun toting goons.

THE GREEN HORNET is too big, dumb and ho hum to be the major fun its meant to be, but maybe for a mid-January superhero flick it can pass muster.

But just barely.

More later...

RABBIT HOLE: The Film Babble Blog Review


RABBIT HOLE (Dir. John Cameron Mitchell, 2010)

Married couple Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman are shuffling through the motions of daily life. It's been 8 months since their son was killed - hit by a car - and the lingering pain has yet to recede.

Eckhart thinks group therapy will help with their grief, but Kidman hates what she calls the "God people" in their sessions. Such overly religious folks like the sobbing parent who says of her deceased daughter "God had to take her. He needed another angel."

Kidman dryly can't help but respond: "Why didn't he just make one? I mean, another angel? He's God after all...why didn't he just make another angel?"

Kidman leaves the group after this, but Eckhart returns and makes friends with Sandra Oh as a seemingly more stable group member who has been attending for almost a decade.

Meanwhile Kidman has to contend with a pregnant sister (the acerbic Tammy Blanchard), and their haggard yet still spunky mother (Diane Wiest) who had lost her son to a drug overdose - a comparison to Kidman's loss that she hates her mother to make.

Driving one day, Kidman spots a schoolbus and sees a teenage student that triggers recognition in her. She follows it and sees the student (Miles Teller) get off and enter his suburban home.

Stalking the student becomes a routine until the boy confronts her and we learn that he was the driver of the automobile that killed her son.

Also haunted by the death, Teller is apologetic and shows Kidman a comic book he's working on entitled RABBIT HOLE about parallel universes, time-holes, and alternate realities.

So Eckhart and Kidman don't cheat on each other, but they reach for others for support instead of each other and the film's unforced manner makes it easy to empathize.

It's one of Kidman's sharpest and most piercing performances with Eckhart matching her with some of his most nuanced acting to date. No predictions here, but I expect their names won't be left out in awards season.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, the inescapable sense of pain is palpable in RABBIT HOLE, but it's not a depressing film.

Director Mitchell's (best known as Hedwig in the cult favorite HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH) naturalistic style and compassion for these characters creates an extremely well constructed and moving film.

More later...

12 Ocak 2011 Çarşamba

Aksiyon Filmi Paristen Sevgilerle İzle

Luc Besson filmi izle john travolta filmleri


İZLEMEK İÇİN TIKLA

EVERYONE ELSE Now Streaming On Netflix Instant


EVERYONE ELSE (Dir. Maren Ade, 2009)

Lars Eidinger and Birgit Minichmayr as a couple of young newlyweds on a Mediterranean vacation are one of the most believable screen couples to come along in some time.

Believable because they are neurotic, suspicious and thoroughly mixed up yet still seem to have convincing affection for each other. However as our time with them ends and the credits roll it appears to be undeniably a doomed affection.

This is a largely formless film that basically just follows the copule as they flow through a few days - eating, drinking, making love, and endlessly making vague banter that hints to a poorly hidden sadness.

They run into another couple (Nicole Marischka and Hans-Jochen Wagner) and reluctantly try to socialize with them, but it only brings about insecurities about Eidinger's middling architectural career and their undefined class status.

"It's not embarrassing not to have profound dreams" Minichmayr offers at one point, and while she means it to comfort, it can't help but sting.

When the film explores the awkward yet affable dynamic of the 2 couples its easy to think a BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE thing might ensue, but don't worry - it's so not that kind of movie.

Though it drags slightly, the beautifully shot "Everyone Else" feels achingly real from the tense exchanges of the leads to the sex scenes which add to the voyeuristic appeal in that they look too real to be faked.

Those who fret about subtitles and small scale character studies will likely be bored, but EVERYONE ELSE will do for those looking for an emotionally engaging film about people you might actually know, or in some cases might be.

More later...

10 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi

I Love You Philip Morris (2010) (Monday, January 10, 2011) (174)

There's something about Jim Carrey that just never quite works for me. I always feel that he's showing off and doing too much hamming for the camera and sometimes wish he would just act normal (look - Robin WIlliams who is just as silly can play normal beautifully). I Love You Phillip Morris is his latest "serious" role where I am supposed to be wowed by his range and his ability to be serious - but again, all I see is over-the-top zaniness and annoying facial expressions.

In the film, Carrey plays Steven Russell, a guy who seems to be addicted to scams and breaking the law. He begins as a cop in some small town, but them comes out as gay and moves to Miami Beach. Down there, he realized that "being gay is expensive", so rather than working, he figures out ways to get injured and suing for his injuries. At some point he is convicted of insurance fraud and goes to jail. In jail, he meets Phillip Morris (Ewan McGragor) a smart gay guy who was arrested for stealing cars. They two fall madly in love and then spend the rest of their lives going in and out of jail, but always for love... or something.

This movie is basically The Mask meets Catch Me if you Can. Every time Steven has a chance to scam someone, he does. When he's released from jail and goes looking for a job, he forges his resume, gets hired as a firm's CFO and then embezzles money from them. It's all a bit much. Oh, wait ... I can't say it's too much because it's apparently based on a true story. Whatever.

Carrey is wound up so tight, when you see him release into a scene, he goes around so fast, it's hard to concentrate on what the hell is happening. You get your dumb Jim Carrey voices, and your tired Jim Carrey faces, and your silly Jim Carrey physical comedy, but not much else.

I get that the story is based on real events, but it's hard to like a character who is so dimwitted about crime. Does he not think he's going to get caught? Does he think that anyone will care how elaborate his scams are? (They're very elaborate.) You want to shake him and say "STOP!"

McGregor is good here, but it is sorta hard to figure out what the hell he sees in Steven. I guess the fact that they are madly in love (after five minutes of meeting) is enough for us to understand, but it doesn't totally work.

Mostly this movie is fun and easy, but it was frustrating how it kept going on and on and on with Carrey's 1990s jokes, never learning from his mistakes or doing anything differently. He tries one thing and he gets arrested, then gets out of jail and tries the same thing again and again gets arrested, and then a third time and on and on. It's sorta tired and silly.

Stars: 2 of 4

9 Ocak 2011 Pazar

Summer Wars (2010) (Sunday, January 9, 2011) (173)

Summer Wars is a good, but not great, anime movie about how the wold is in danger because of social media networks. In the film, there is a computer system called Oz (subtle) that seems to control everyone. It's like Facebook on crack. Everything you do is documented there and government stuff is run through there as well. Everyone in the world has an animated avatar that lives in Oz and interacts inside that world.

One day, Kenji, a dorky computer nerd who is a student but works for Oz doing some sort of policing, is asked by his female friend Natsuki to accompany her to her grandmother's house to pretend to be her fiance. Natsuki has a big family and her brother is apparently some legendary Oz gamer. While the whole family is there, Natsuki's uncle, Wabisuke, returns after years of living in America (boo!). It seems he left the family a long time ago after selling some of their land in a terrible deal. The family is not happy about his arrival.

But they don't have a chance to worry about him because as this is happening, Oz is taken over by some mysterious villain avatar called Love Machine (it's ironic) that eats code and other avatars and tries to take over the world via Oz. Kenji, Natsuki, her brother and the family have to get on their computers to fight Love Machine, lest he bomb Japan.

There is a very nice look to the animation here and lots of the shots of Oz are totally inspired by the art work of Takashi Murakami. I like this a lot. I also like that Kenji is a reluctant hero and that it's dorks and geeks who save the world, rather than supermen and strong guys. This is a nice change, though, I'm sure it's more common than I know in anime.

I think there is a bit too much that happens here, and the movie plays a bit too long for me. It's drags a lot in the third act and sorta loses its way a bit. The subplot of Wabisuke is nice for the family story, but feels like a hat on a hat when it comes to this program that's going to destroy the world. I get the idea that families need to stick together and that only together can we conquer tough things, but the story would have essentially be there without this character.

This is a fun movie, but nothing brilliant. It has some lovely visual elements in it and I liked the animation a lot.

Stars: 2.5 of 4

8 Ocak 2011 Cumartesi

Eyvah Eyvah 2 bedava izle indir

sinema çekimini ve orjinal çekim izleyebilirsiniz.




Sınav Gizem Filmleri İzle

sınav filmini izle exam izle



izlemek için tıkla


ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla


ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla

Centilmen George Clooney İzle

Centilmen filmini nasıl izleyebilirim
corc kluney kuluni izle



izlemek için tıkla


ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla


Sihirbaz Filmleri İzle 2006 filmleri

Sihirbaz – The Illusionist Türkçe Dublajlı Divx olarak izle


izlemek için tıkla



ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla



ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla


Obama Aldatmacası Amerika Başkanı



izlemek için taklayınız

Güzel ve Çirkin 2009 Filmleri İzle



izlemek için tıkla



ALTERNATİF

izlemek için tıkla


Country Strong (Saturday, January 8, 2011) (1)

Note: This film had a limited release in 2010 for award consideration, but never played in New York City until this weekend. The New York Times ran their review of it on Friday, January 7, 2011 and as a result, I consider it a 2011 release.)

I was hoping this movie would have some good country music in it and be sorta trashy and fun to watch. It did have good music, but most of it was only partial songs and the story was mostly trashy and not really fun, so I didn't get what I wanted at all.

As the film opens, we see Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) in a rehab clinic outside of Nashville. Her orderly is Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund) a hot wannabe musician, playing bars in and around Music City. The two have become friends (and maybe more) over the months she's been in the clinic. Her husband James (Tim McGraw) is her manager and wants to get her back out and on the road as soon as possible.

James sets up a three city tour for her to get her legs back and signs up Beau (who she says is her sponsor) and a young country-pop starlet Chiles Stanton (Leighton Meester, Blair from Gossip Girl) to open for her. The four of them go on the road, first to Houston, then Austin and finally in Dallas. As the tour goes along (I mean, it couldn't be all that long, right? It's only three shows!) lots of stuff happens when different people have sex and Kelly proves to be not totally recovered.

It was frustrating to me was how writer/director Shana Feste used music throughout the film. This is a music movie. It's not really a movie about mental health or alcoholism (as much as those appear here). It's a movie about the business of Nashville... and the music is the business. But all we ever get is the first few bars of the songs and, maybe if we're lucky, another bit of the song later. Why she couldn't have treated the songs like full works that might help move the story along or give us insight into stuff is beyond me. (I now realize how well Scott Cooper mixed music with story in last year's Crazy Heart.) On top of this, she has Tim McGraw in the film in a particularly non-singing role. I guess it would be confusing to have him as a singer and Kelly as a singer (because then it would be like his marriage to Faith Hill), but it would have been better for the soundtrack, to be sure.

What was even more frustrating is that the big title song, Country Song, that Kelly sings at her big show in Dallas, is total country pop junk. By the point in the film when we hear it, Beau has already waxed poetic about the good ol' country music he grew up with (Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylan Jennings, Patsy Cline) and how cross-over stuff is silliness. He and Chiles performed their amazing duet Give in to Me and we love their old sound. But what we get from Kelly is junk. (Interestingly, that YouTube clip is a full version of the song that is not in the version of the film that I saw... I saw the first few lines and then there was a cut to some stuff happening back stage and then a cut back to the end of the song. Seeing it now complete, I realize it's a really, really great song.) Feste underlines the point her character makes, but seems to do it without knowing what she's doing. Her heroine is singing exactly the stuff that her hero is saying is junk... but she's doing it positively. Weird.

The script is easily the worst part of this movie. It jumps around from place to place with no explanation and never really has a good focus. At some point in the middle it seems that the tension is built on not knowing if Beau will end up with Kelly or Chiles... but this doesn't feel very important. It almost feels like Feste started writing a bunch of scenes, but never had a bigger outline and didn't know exactly how she's get from one to the next. (Also, someone has to explain to me how Kelly and Beau got on that damn train in Austin and then got off and back to town all in one day. That was weird.)

This movie would have been a lot better if it was just about Beau and Chiles. He's the emotional core of the film (Hedlund is really great as an actor and a singer) and he's the one we identify with. It could have been a movie about the duo on the road, put together against their wills but over the days they grow to fall in love. The whole Kelly part was unnecessary and a waste of time.

The whole movie is really not great, but it was nice to be introduced to Garrett Hedlund and to find out that Leighton Meester might have a career outside of Upper East Side soap operas (she's really good!). I wish there had been more music and I wish the script had been better. I'm glad for the one duet... at least I got that.

Stars: 2 of 4 (it would have been fewer stars without the one song)

7 Ocak 2011 Cuma

ALL GOOD THINGS: The Film Babble Blog Review


ALL GOOD THINGS (Dir. Andrew Jarecki, 2010)

Andrew Jarecki, director of one of the best documentaries of the Aughts (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS), stays in the world of non-fiction for his first narrative drama based on what's been called "the most notorious murder case in New York history."

Loosely based on the life on real estate mogul Robert Durst whose wife Kathleen McCormack mysteriously disappeared almost 3 decades ago, this film begins as a love story with overhanded ominous overtones.

Through a framing device of later court testimony providing narration we meet Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst as the couple, renamed David and Katie Marks, who meet in 1971 and seem initially happy, well, if she looks the other way when he mumbles to himself.

Gosling's powerful NYC property owner father played with suave menace by Frank Langella doesn't care for Dunst or his son's hippy lifestyle (the couple smokes joints and own a health food store out in the sticks in Vermont called "All Good Things").

Langella wants his son to be back in New York working for the family business - work than mainly involves shady money pick-ups from sleazy tenants. Gosling gives in to his father and the couple give up the country for the big city.

We learn from Lily Rabe as a outgoing friend of Gosling's that his mother had committed suicide in front of her son . This may explain why he demands that Dunst immediately get an abortion when she tells him she's pregnant.

The couple grow apart after that with Gosling in NY while Dunst stays at their weekend lake house pursuing a medical career.

Gosling has several violent outbursts aimed at his worried wife and after one particularly gloomy evening at their second home Dunst vanishes.

Throughout the film we see flashes of a dark figure hauling garbage bags that presumably have human remains onto a bridge in the middle of the night.

Despite the suspicion of many, Gosling is never charged with a crime and moves on until years later when he's charged with the murder of a cranky neighbor (the always welcome Phillip Baker Hall).

Though he claims self defense and is acquitted, of course, strong doubts linger.

The film gets a bit unfocused in its final third, but it was on shaky ground much earlier it must be said. Gosling is effectively cold and creepy and the film matches that demeanor beat by beat yet the overall take-away isn't one of eerie fascination.

ALL GOOD THINGS acts as if it has secrets to tell, but it really only has a few speculations up its sleeve.

It feels like a slightly glorified "made for TV" melodrama like those shown on the Lifetime network.

The supporting cast is capable - Dunst registers more realistically than she has before for me, and as her coke snotting best friend Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) has a few moments as, I guess, light comic relief, but there isn't a lot of weight to this plodding procedural.

There have been great inconclusive films before such as David Fincher's ZODIAC and Jarecki's own doc CAPTURING THE FREIDMANS - films that passionately probe for the truth through a murky web of contradictions, but ALL GOOD THINGS simply doesn't have the hook or enough layers to make it anything more than a forgettable true crime thriller throwaway.

More later....

5 Ocak 2011 Çarşamba

The Film Babble Blog Top 10 Movies Of 2010

Although there is still a slew of 2010 films I have yet to catch up on (films such as CARLOS, BLUE VALENTINE, SOMEWHERE, etc. have yet to come to my area) I decided to go ahead and make my list of the best of the year. Though in many ways a lackluster year, there were still a smattering of excellent films by film makers and actors at the top of their game. Here are my favorites:



1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Dir. David Fincher)

 Time Magazine's 2010 Man of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg - computer nerd visionary or just an arrogant asshole who ripped off his best friends? Whether Zuckerberg (played here by Jesse Eisenberg) is really Man of the Year or not, this scrupulous Aaron Sorkin scripted comic drama is my movie of the year because of its snappy narrative take of the phenomenon of Facebook. Read my review here.

 

2. TOY STORY 3 (Dir. Lee Unkrich) Pixar holds the #2 spot on my top 10 for the third year in a row and that's fine by me. This funny, exciting, and genuinely touching trilogy topper is a supremely satisfying sequel and another entry in the annual Pixar blows every other animated movie away sweepstakes. Take that HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, DESPICABLE ME, MEGAMIND, and TANGLED! Though some of those films had their moments. Read my review here.



3. TRUE GRIT (Dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen)

 Enlisting "the Dude" to take on the role made famous by "the Duke", the Coen Brothers make a Western epic that does grand justice to the genre. Jeff Bridges along with an ace supporting cast including Hallie Steinfeld, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin handle the humor and powerful pathos of this material mightily. Read my review here.



4. INCEPTION (Christopher Nolan)



I called this film "an incredible mind bender of a movie" in my rave review last summer and still stand by that. I also wrote "what wins out is that this film threatens to burst out of the screen into real life - just like the most lucid dreams." Read the rest of my review here.



For my reviews of the rest of the movies on the list please click on the highlighted titles:



5. 127 HOURS (Dir. Danny Boyle)



6. BLACK SWAN (Dir. Darren Aronofsky)



7. THE KING'S SPEECH (Dir. Tom Hooper)



8. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (Dir. Banksy)



9. THE AMERICAN (Dir. Anton Corbijn)



10. THE GHOST WRITER (Dir. Roman Polanski)



I may make a revised list later if I get to a film from 2010 that warrants inclusion.



More later...

2 Ocak 2011 Pazar

The Worst Films of 2010

So 2010 was a very good year in bad movies. There was a lot of garbage released. Most of it was from Hollywood, though there were a bunch of independent movies as well.

One note I want to make is that Birdemic is one of the most sublimely horrible films I've ever seen in my life. It might be worst than Tommy Wiseau's The Room (and possibly worst than Troll 2, though I've never seen that). Every part of it is terrible, the story, acting, direction, music, editing, sound editing and special effects are so bad it seems like it has to be a joke... but if it was a joke, they wouldn't be so convincingly terrible. I gave it its own section of the list because it deserves it. It is the Michael Jordan of bad movies.

Eat Pray Love was totally offensive too, so that gets 1A. In a normal year it would be the worst of the year, but it was unlucky enough to be released the same year as Birdemic - a true masterpiece of shit!

Oh - and Oliver Stone is the big winner with Wall Street 2 and South of the Border both on this list. He had a heckuva year!

The Bottom Ten Films of 2010:

1 Birdemic: Shock and Terror

1A Eat Pray Love
2 The Runaways
3 Black Swan
4 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
5 Twilight Saga: Eclipse
6 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
7 The Last Airbender
8 Salt
9 Dinner For Schmucks
10 Greenberg

Honorable Mentions:

Middle Men
South of the Border
Alice in Wonderland -3D (I don't know where this blogpost went. Sorry. The movie sucked.)
Enter the Void
Shutter Island
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Hereafter
Fair Game
The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector
Holy Rollers
Somewhere
Valhalla Rising