Jake Gittes

Well, I never claimed otherwise. Aliens is great because it's one of the few movies that more or less nails the balance.

Ratatouille is far from my favorite Pixar, but it has that amazing Anton Ego flashback & speech and is easily one of the most visually beautiful CGI animated films.

I put Godfather II above the first.

In order of release Goodfellas (1990) The Hairdresser's Husband (1990) Europa (1991) Naked Lunch (1991) Reservoir Dogs (1992) Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) The Age of Innocence (1993) Pulp Fiction (1994) Heavenly Creatures (1994) Giorgino (1994) Underground (1995) Dead Man (1995) Heat (1995) Fargo (1996) Breaking the Waves (1996) Lost Highway (1997) The Butcher Boy (1997) Jackie Brown (1997) The Big Lebowski (1998) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) Happiness (1998) Rushmore (1998) Election (1999) Pola X (1999) Beau Travail (1999) Fight Club (1999) Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Additions since late June Shadow of a Doubt - Alfred Hitchcock, 1943 Letter Never Sent - Mikhail Kalatozov, 1959 Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 The Mirror - Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock - Peter Weir, 1975 Possession - Andrzej Zulawski, 1981 This Is Spinal Tap - Rob Reiner, 1984 Tideland - Terry Gilliam, 2005

I get what The Counselor is trying to be (your typical crime-doesn't-pay story where the focus is not on the main action but on what's happening around it), I just don't think the result is all that good. To me the fault isn't in writing as much as in Scott's direction which is incredibly banal and unimaginative outside of a couple scenes like the guy getting beheaded on the highway or Pitt's death. The movie would have probably been a lot better in the hands of someone like the Coens or Andrew Dominik (whose Killing Them Softly is in a way the great version of The Counselor), guys who have their own vision and could elevate the screenplay's ideas with their direction. Last Scott movie I liked was Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut. It's been a long time and based on its trailers I don't even want to see Exodus.

Yeah, I really like both Phoenix and Johnny Cash (as well as Witherspoon in a good role) and I *still* haven't drummed up enough interest to watch that one. Same with Ray which I frankly don't want to see at all.

There are so many different kinds of biopics it's pretty reductive to brush them all off in one fell swoop. Lawrence of Arabia is technically a biopic. So is Ed Wood. So is The Social Network. So are Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street. Personally even while I have no interest in most childhood-to-death biopics, I still think there are at least two great ones (Malcolm X and Walk Hard). This, meanwhile, is fascinating for its structure alone which I can't remember ever being done before so it's neither tired nor unoriginal. And while I'm far from a Boyle fan, his films typically have a ton of personality taking them a safe distance away from the typical middlebrow awards bait camp.

Aliens is just the richer movie. Alien is pure suspense/horror that's chilling and tense as all hell, but Aliens finds enough time for horror, action, drama *and* comedy without ever breaking a sweat, its cast of characters is a lot more engaging, and the whole motherhood motif seals the deal for me. Being a guy who'll probably only be a parent himself in another decade or so (if ever), I wouldn't necessarily think I'd find that theme of the film so damn touching, but I do, and that means Cameron and Weaver did their job incredibly well.

In my opinion, what matters most is that the film was both completed and shown to the general public in 1966. Doesn't matter if said public wasn't American. Besides this is an international forum with people from all over the place, making it all the more weird for it to be the only place on the Internet where Andrei Rublev is considered a 1973 movie. I'm having cognitive dissonance looking at the thread title.

My second favorite Tarkovsky after The Mirror. A deeply felt, beautifully shot, perfectly paced epic about various kinds of artists and the struggle they face in creating their art.

It was OK but I still prefer Cannibal Holocaust.

Strangelove may be the greatest comedy ever. Also my second favorite Kubrick after The Shining.

Wow that poster for Sils Maria is godawful.

"My daughter had a friend named Max. She told me Fight Club was his favorite movie. I told her never to talk to Max again" - Fincher

John Goodman deserves a nomination just for saying "fuck you" to Mark Wahlberg several times in less than a minute. Seriously though, he looks like one badass motherfucker in The Gambler trailer, definitely gets your attention. I hope he got some good material to work with.

Sucks that it's been pushed back to December here. I really want to see this (and I couldn't give less of a damn even two weeks ago).

Yeah that was not one of QT's best moments.

Certainly uneven, mostly in the opening third (why is David Bowie in this movie at all?), but when it hits, it hits hard. I found myself fighting back tears more than a few times during the film, and I have to say that in the final minutes, the tears won. Once the film abandons the FBI agents and switches its focus to Laura Palmer, it gradually becomes one of the most harrowing and empathetic portrayals of an abuse victim I've ever seen. Lynch's refusal to shy away from the horror only makes his humanism shine through more strongly, and Sheryl Lee gives a great and massively underrated performance. With all due respect, I'll be blunt: if you hadn't seen at least half of the TV show before this movie, then you haven't seen this movie.

Actually it's pretty obvious?.. or am I not detecting the sarcasm?

It's true about the second season's highs and lows, isn't it. I watched episodes 4-7 of it today, and the first three had some good stuff in them but overall were mediocre, sometimes painfully so (Nadine the super-powered amnesiac, Leo in a coma - what a waste of screentime and talent). But then Lynch steps in and directs "Lonely Souls" and holy hell I still haven't quite caught my breath from those final 15 minutes. All of a sudden all the elements just come together and it's stunning.

Boyhood Birdman Gone Girl Unbroken Whiplash Foxcatcher Interstellar The Imitation Game The Theory of Everything ___________________________ Just outside looking in (for now) Wild Selma Big Eyes Mr. Turner American Sniper

I'm at the beginning of the second season now. Some observations: The whole first season is pretty fantastic. Add 15-20 minutes of resolution and the pilot could be one of the great films of the 1990s all by itself. I was amazed at how quickly Lynch was able to convey the tragedy of Laura's death; I hadn't even yet spent 30 minutes with these characters, but the combination of acting, music and imagery already created an incredibly vivid sense of pain and loss. That moment when Sarah Palmer realizes what happened just slayed me right away. Speaking of which, I can't get enough of that music. But then, who can? In general the combination of comedy, tragedy, soap opera, mystery, surrealism and horror works much better than it has any right to. It's a total high-wire act and the way they were able to pull it off episode after episode is a hell of an achievement. That and the whole theme of a "seedy underbelly of a wholesome small town" work much better here than (controversial opinion incoming) they ever did in Blue Velvet, which I thought hardly ever struck a proper balance. The whole cast is wonderful with the exception of James Marshall (who's entertainingly wooden at first but then becomes boring fairly quickly, although he has one very good scene in the woods with Lara Flynn Boyle) and whoever plays Nadine, although that's more the character's fault. Every time she appeared I immediately couldn't wait for the scene to end. BOB is legitimately scary. That scene where he climbs over the couch gave me shivers. And just his visage under "Have you seen this man?" is creepy as hell. What this story would be without Frank Silva I don't want to know. I want to be like agent Cooper when I grow up. At the risk of sounding shallow, this show has the most stunningly beautiful cast of women in any TV series or film I could possibly think of. Maybe 8 1/2 comes close, but I don't know what else. I'm delighted by the fact that about 20 million Americans once saw this scene on network TV in prime time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjeRCsoufII

Regarding the Cool Girl speech, while I agree in spirit, it's ironic that the character who comes off best when all is said and done is Margo who is totally a Cool Girl. I am honestly not sure if Flynn and/or Fincher intended that.

It's also a great Psycho homage. (Those last two words were practically blaring in my head during the whole scene). The big shot in both scenes is blood being washed away from a naked woman's body and going down the sinkhole, except in Psycho the woman is the victim and the blood is hers, while in Gone Girl she's the murderer and the blood is the male victim's. (Now, I may be stretching it but Neil Patrick Harris in this movie actually kinda reminds me of Anthony Perkins in both looks and demeanor. Coincidence? And of course Pike is a textbook Hitchcock blonde, he would have absolutely fallen in love with her if he saw her in this). It's like a reverse reference/homage. I loved it even if it's ridiculous that they didn't wash the blood away in the hospital.