Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Saw
Sherlock Holmes
this weekend. That was quite fun. Agree that
the plot wasn't all that
and in parts the dialogue was hard to understand,
but I
loved Holmes/Watson.
Also finally saw
Inglourious Basterds.
It was okay. I didn't love it or hate it. Certainly low man on the Tarantino totem pole though. I did love seeing Mélanie Laurent in such a big role. That girl is belle, belle, belle.
I got Vol. 1 & 2 of "Icons of Screwball Comedy" on DVD for Christmas and watched an awesome screwball I had never seen:
If Only You Could Cook
with Jean Arthur and Herbert Marshall. i don't know why this one isn't better known.
Just got back from seeing Sherlock Holmes. Speaking as someone who used to sit with the books open on my lap while watching the Grenada Television productions, I found it morbid and creepifying that
the big bad looked like the lovechild of Jeremy Brett and the guy who played the Sentinal
. I enjoyed the movie as a whole. Clearly this is a slightly different universe than Brett's Holmes. Just as clearly, this Holmes and Watson are only slightly less married than House and Wilson.
this Holmes and Watson are only slightly less married than House and Wilson.
True, true. The arguments over who owned the dog were good.
Someone on WX pointed me to the Ebert lukewarm review, saying she didn't understand part of it. I thought she meant the bit where Holmes
trashed his rooms,
which didn't stick with me.
No, she meant the gay bit. I'm not sure how that could get past anyone.
We had what seemed like interminable trailers. Looking positive:
Inception
and
Iron Man 2.
Looking missable: everything else. The Tina Fey/Steve Carrell date movie looked kinda funny, but not necessarily ninety minutes worth. The Michael Cera movie looked like torture. I'm not sure he'll ever do anything that appeals to me on first look at this rate. Two movies look like I'm supposed to go for them based on rep/genre--one about witches whose title escapes me, and
Wolfman.
Neither were very clear about what might happen in them, though.
No, she meant the gay bit. I'm not sure how that could get past anyone.
I don't really have slash goggles, but even I saw it. To the point where I began wondering how explicit they meant it to be.
Looking positive: Inception and Iron Man 2.
So full of squee!
Wolfman. Neither were very clear about what might happen in them, though.
I know, right?? What the hell is
The Wolfman
ABOUT? Besides...a wolfman? It was just a random mishmash of images that didn't hint at anything resembling a story. Which doesn't bode well (he says, even though he barely has an idea what
Inception
is about either but is totally excited for it).
The thing about the Wolfman trailer was that it mostly seemed to be a shot of his hand. Over and over. And over.
Sorcerer's Apprentice
looks like it could be fun, but I like most stuff Nicolas Cage is in, such as
Season of hte Witch,
which we also saw a preview for. He's been busy. He must be in debt.
I didn't get an
Iron Man 2
trailer when I saw
Sherlock Holmes
today. Still, I got to see
Sherlock Holmes
today, so I'm not complaining. While I definitely saw the
gay, gay, so very gay relationship between Holmes and Watson, I also liked Mary and Irene Adler. So I could see a nice polymorphous polygamy thing happening, once Irene talked everyone into it. I'm also glad that they cleared up all the mystical stuff at the end (although that seemed tacked on and rushed). I'm happy to see fighty, yet thinky Holmes. But Holmes getting involved in magic as magic, rather than finding a trick behind it, really doesn't fit in with my idea of the Holmes-ian universe.
I'll be happy to see it again.
I was quite pleased on how they resolved the
magic thing
. And the way Mary proved to Holmes that she was more than just a wretched hussy sent to take Watson away from him.
We saw
Avatar
today in 3D, and while the fact that it was basically
Dances with Wolves
was glaringly obvious, I still found it visually stunning. I know every review has already said this, but the worldbuilding was amazing.
The video logs that Jake had to record all had a date stamp, and I noticed that the year was 2154, and all I could think was that there is NO WAY humans could develop such technology in ~150 years. And THEN I thought, the first thing Grace did when she hopped out of the Avatar-pod was
light up a cigarette,
which made me think, Seriously? After 150 years,
smoking hasn't been made illegal?
It's the little things that grab me. But yeah, it was amazing to watch.