DVD Reviews
Zhuzhou has a really great DVD/CD/book market. The third floor is all stores with tables full of 75 cent pirated dvds. It's so fun to go in and spend 10$ and come home with a big pack of DVDs. It's cheap enough that I buy movies randomly.
Memento - pretty good. getting a little tired of the "weird narrative format" movies.
21 Grams - again, pretty good. But I think it would have been just as good, and not nearly as annoying to watch if the events were presented chronologically.
Time Bandits - stopped after 30 minutes. Sucked.
House of Sand and Fog - stopped after 1 hour. If I wanted to feel bad I'd just watch holocaust memorials, not this artificial depression
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - watched the whole thing. kind of amusing. Wayne's world aged lots better.
Battle Royale - I had watched this before in japanese and though it was just violent disgusting garbage, but maybe I missed something with my bad japanese. So I watched it with subtitles this time. There was still nothing there. Fuck beat takeshi.
Matchstick Men - awesome con artist movie.
Gods & Monsters - pretty good.
One Flew over the Cockoo's nest - good for the nth time. Book's better.
Marathon Man - eh, sort of good. I like the part with the old nazi wandering through jewish diamond selling neighborhoods. But the torture was too much.
Absolute Power (clint eastwood) - sucked
Casablanca - great
Bridge on the River Kwai - good. Old movies are noticably slower than modern ones. You really have to fight to keep watching. Chinese people thought the japanese commandant's english was terrible and kept laughing at it
Unforgiven - whatever
The Front(woody allen) - felt like a tv show
Magnolia - 3rd time or so, this is great. The first time I watched this in japan I stopped right before the frogs started falling and went to the bathroom. As I went in a frog jumped off the ceiling and landed on me. I went back and watched the rest and was shocked
Fahrenheit 9/11 - pretty good. my copy was made with a video camera in a theatre though, so I lost the subtitles and the last 5 minutes.
Donnie Brasco - good mob movie.
Traffic - Great. Brad Pitt as a mexican dude works well.
City of God - great. Has some cool stuff and is naively lefty.
Abscence of Malice - 70s robert redford pop garbage. why did I buy this?
Blade - eh. vampires are a cool idea though. and it'd be comforting to not have to worry about the real complexities of politics and explain it all with conspiracy theories. Modern myths.
French Connection II - I usually hate gene hackman but this one is ok. Cop/drug movie. He gets forced to be a junkie. Some cool bits about his isolation in france.
A Fish Called Wanda - funny. chinese people actually get some of the humor. Not most of it though.
Saving Private Ryan - good.
Anarchism - Kevin costner western. stopped 1 hour into it, or did I finish it? can't remember now
Hannah and her sisters - eh
Blade runner - stopped after 45 minutes. eh
To Watch
The maltese falcon
elephant
annie hall
the hunting of the president
henry v
spellbound
the manchurian candidate
valley girl
raging bull
patton
the pentagon papers
jersey girl
matrix 3
city heat
all creatures great and small
doctor zhivago
slacker
burnt by the sun
the killing fields
a bright shining lie
ran
To watch again
12 monkeys
tampopo
barcelona
Memento - pretty good. getting a little tired of the "weird narrative format" movies.
21 Grams - again, pretty good. But I think it would have been just as good, and not nearly as annoying to watch if the events were presented chronologically.
Time Bandits - stopped after 30 minutes. Sucked.
House of Sand and Fog - stopped after 1 hour. If I wanted to feel bad I'd just watch holocaust memorials, not this artificial depression
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - watched the whole thing. kind of amusing. Wayne's world aged lots better.
Battle Royale - I had watched this before in japanese and though it was just violent disgusting garbage, but maybe I missed something with my bad japanese. So I watched it with subtitles this time. There was still nothing there. Fuck beat takeshi.
Matchstick Men - awesome con artist movie.
Gods & Monsters - pretty good.
One Flew over the Cockoo's nest - good for the nth time. Book's better.
Marathon Man - eh, sort of good. I like the part with the old nazi wandering through jewish diamond selling neighborhoods. But the torture was too much.
Absolute Power (clint eastwood) - sucked
Casablanca - great
Bridge on the River Kwai - good. Old movies are noticably slower than modern ones. You really have to fight to keep watching. Chinese people thought the japanese commandant's english was terrible and kept laughing at it
Unforgiven - whatever
The Front(woody allen) - felt like a tv show
Magnolia - 3rd time or so, this is great. The first time I watched this in japan I stopped right before the frogs started falling and went to the bathroom. As I went in a frog jumped off the ceiling and landed on me. I went back and watched the rest and was shocked
Fahrenheit 9/11 - pretty good. my copy was made with a video camera in a theatre though, so I lost the subtitles and the last 5 minutes.
Donnie Brasco - good mob movie.
Traffic - Great. Brad Pitt as a mexican dude works well.
City of God - great. Has some cool stuff and is naively lefty.
Abscence of Malice - 70s robert redford pop garbage. why did I buy this?
Blade - eh. vampires are a cool idea though. and it'd be comforting to not have to worry about the real complexities of politics and explain it all with conspiracy theories. Modern myths.
French Connection II - I usually hate gene hackman but this one is ok. Cop/drug movie. He gets forced to be a junkie. Some cool bits about his isolation in france.
A Fish Called Wanda - funny. chinese people actually get some of the humor. Not most of it though.
Saving Private Ryan - good.
Anarchism - Kevin costner western. stopped 1 hour into it, or did I finish it? can't remember now
Hannah and her sisters - eh
Blade runner - stopped after 45 minutes. eh
To Watch
The maltese falcon
elephant
annie hall
the hunting of the president
henry v
spellbound
the manchurian candidate
valley girl
raging bull
patton
the pentagon papers
jersey girl
matrix 3
city heat
all creatures great and small
doctor zhivago
slacker
burnt by the sun
the killing fields
a bright shining lie
ran
To watch again
12 monkeys
tampopo
barcelona
posted by ernie at
8/31/2004 12:36:00 AM
