But last week, watching Sean Penn introduce Pearl Jam at The Who concert, as he rambled about The Who 'never selling out', it occurred to me, Sean Penn is The Hooker With A Penis.

Despite their grating bombast, I still like Pearl Jam as a band. Can't listen to much off of the first album because it has been played to death on the radio, but Viteology (sp?) still gets a spin in my player every now and then. 

re: penn

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15242216/
a friend with similar opinions sent me this link as an example of what we both hate. sometimes it's just really hard to see past how much hollywood moralizing pisses me off (and yes in this regard penn is a number one offender).

by all means, use a small portion of your often ill-gotten gains (many of these people are even more overpaid than professional athletes) to help yourself sleep better at night by giving to the cause-of-the-week as you strut around enjoying the high life... just shut the fuck up about it.

alright, now I'm done. 

if you had the time, and we had the beer, I could rant for several hours straight about what is wrong with Oprah, and how she has fucked up every other woman in America through osmosis of her shitty, emotion driven, self absorbed, psycho-babble spouting, ingrate attitude. If I ever settle down again, I'll likely need to find an intelligent Russian �migr� who has never heard of America's Queen B Bitch.

On the good news side of the coin, our female students have caught up with their male counter parts in mathematics and science tests. If this trend continues, Oprah could go broke in the next ten odd years given the silly, irrational shit ( http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Rhonda-Byrne/dp/1582701709 ) she espouses would be embarrassing to an audience with a firm foundation in the sciences. 

I bet metl does it deliberately. 

out of interest, what do you normally see?

tronyn,

"is one of those people in American culture (like Tim Burton, Jack Nicholson, and Johnny Depp) that after a while I've started to realize, that I really don't like ("

Johnny Depp? seriously? what dont you like about him? Apart from Bale, I find him one of the most intersting actors around.

"I don't even know why he's famous"

Err, have you seen either of Carlito's Way or Mystic River, the guy may be an idiot in real life (or appears to be), but he can act.

"a guy does what McCandless does...he portrayed someone who was really enthusiastic, idealistic, charismatic, optimistic, etc."

Not to add naive, stupid and downright arrogant. This ties into metl's question, the main reason for me not liking this was because the guy came across as a pretentious rich twat who loathed what he had precisely because he had it, and the movie turned him into some sort of tragic hero for doing so.

"I don't think you could expect the filmmakers to be able to explain what the guy's exact motivations or inner thoughts were since he left only scrawled notes"

No, but they could have tried. In fact, the few explanations they do offer are from psychology 101 (he had bad parents etc). Its no coincidence that, in the movie at least, everyone he meets in the 'real world' is an arsehole and everyone he meets on his road trip is nice and friendly. 

out of interest, what do you normally see?


Not much....I don't watch many films. Non-cheesy sci-fi action with occasional quirky things? 

yeah seriously Johnny Depp. I'm scratching my head trying to think of something I found him interesting in.. and coming up short.

As far as interesting up/coming actors, I'd say Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Eric Bana if he could ever get into a GOOD MOVIE again.

Seen Carlito's Way, really liked it, and as far as I can tell it relied on Pacino (and also leguizamo or however you spell his name, his role was important). Penn's character was an irresponsible asshole, but I've seen the same type played way better (Edward Norton in rounders. Actually add him to my list of interesting actors too, though again he doesn't seem to have been getting into really good movies lately).

Into the Wild
yeah the character was totally naive... I think one has to view what people like that do, as totally amoral. There's certainly no basis for viewing it as righteous - I mean society is sometimes evil yes, but nothing will change by running away from it. And yeah you're right they totally romanticized everyone he met on the road, except the asshole railroad guard (protecting capitalism!). Oh, hollywood - the richest bunch of jackasses in human history, obsessed with looks, status, fashion, and wealth, and yet they sit around condemning those very things and idolizing people on the fringes of society - from their mansions. 

Edward Norton movie selection bothers me, too :( 

Watched it today. While the movie (although good) in it's entirety wasn't the 2nd coming the media painted it to be, Ledger's Joker is everything the hype says and then some. He absolutely steals every single scene he is on, almost to the point of turning it into a movie about Joker and his arch-nemesis Batman.

Watch in cinema. 

although I wish they'd been able to make it even darker (R rating - it would have been good if he actually cut the smiles into others' faces). But then, basically everything I like, I feel like it could be improved by making it more dark, nihilistic, disturbing, etc. But as is Ledger's Joker is up there with Chigurh and Lecter for me. 

worth watching I guess but could have been a lot better

...

There just aren't enough good horror movies coming out these days to satisfy what I'm looking for

those were my initial two thoughts after watching. it had potential but was handled all wrong; less emphasis should have been put on the monsters since the whole 'horror' aspect lay more with the religious mob culture it portrayed. seeing monsters rip people into a bloody mess isn't scary. seeing people becoming religiously delusional to the point of sacrificing each other, however, is pretty fucking dark. it's a shame it was portrayed as more of a by-story without a great deal of thought or detail. add to that the general standard of acting / character stupidity being on par with your average cheap horror flick and it left alot to be desired. although i thought the 'twist' (if you can call it that) was actually pretty unconventional and effective

i'm sure there has to be a market out there for DECENT horror movies.. why aren't there more of them? 

has faults for sure, but better than most 'horror' that comes out these days.

Also I dont know which version you guys saw, but the B&W version that's on the dvd is tons better in terms of atmosphere and claustrophobia. 

since the director couldnt even get the studios to agree showing the movie theatrically the way he wanted (ie in B&W), its hardly surprising that it wasnt more darker etc. 

one thing which was really, really awesome about it was the line "Tentacles - Yeah." 

The Dark Knight
Finally saw this. A great action movie, a great superhero movie, and a great crime thriller. The previous Nolan/Bale movie was good, but this is a step up even from that, in terms of characters, writing, the maturity of the vision of Gotham City, and in terms of themes.

It does fall back into normal action movie territory at times, but at 2 and a half hours, it can't all be brilliant.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age
It's been ten years since I saw the first one, so my memory of the original might be gilded by age (pun intended) but it just seems like the first movie was a serious political movie with a meaningful personal angle, while this was more of a historical soap opera, with a mundane love triangle and little historical or character insight.

Coming Attactions:

Death Race: appears to be a direct ripoff of Running Man, but with muscle cars.

Quarantine: looks like the spanish zombie thriller Rec is being released in the US this fall but with a more marketable name. Worth seeing, I reviewed it upthread. 

Juno
I was suprised by the genuineness of this, was expecting another throwaway "quirky" comedy. Once you get past the first fifteen minutes or so, Juno breaks free of its indie hipness to tell an actual story, with actual feeling. 

agree with juno, the first 10-15 min had me bothered but it actually has heart and likeable characters.

as for elizabeth, I didnt like 1 or 2, for different reasons. But I thought both were quite poor. 

Just saw this. Very good, does exactly what it says on the tin, one of the classics of modern "for kids AND adults" animations*. The aspects and scenes that were particular to this film and it's theme were good all-round, the more derivative cartoon moments were weaker.

* on the subject of animations, the "earth / robot" so-called CGI was so good I don't believe it was CGI, I reckon they did the whole thing with models and stuff...! 

swears to me that his daughter was absolutely hysterically distraught after seeing this. He said that he thought she had spilled the kettle on herself or something she was crying that much.
Doesnt it die at the end? 

Nah, humans return to earth and everything is ok yay!

It was my one issue with the film, the ending is all happy/clappy. But then I suppose it is a kid's film. The rest of the film is amazering 

Agree about the ending, not as strongly themed as the rest of the film. Although the credits were pretty cool.

The leading lady is well hot! 

//SPoiLER//

I have ever seen. The humans come back to live a life of Luddite like subsistence farming? Besides, the entire movie is a bourgeoisie attack on the proletariat. propaganda to deny the working man the fruit of his labors. 

Not really my type, looks too much like an iPod.

The abhorence that was Marvin in the H2G2 movie might go for her though. 

What everyone else said. Brilliant. Hurrah.