apart from Shia, that cast and that writing/directing combo cant go wrong.

Ive already booked my seats for 70mm showings of The Master in Melbourne. 

Watched Get the Gringo yesterday. Sadly without subtitles for all the spanish which meant we did not understand it all and had to guess here and there. Anyways, the major stuff was easy. It's a weird, kinda surreal movie. Story is average and the style is weird. Can't recommend it unless you want a random Mel Gibson is the badass movie to kill some time. It is not bad at all. 

saw it this weekend. Beautifully shot, that's undeniable, but I thought the storytelling fell apart in the second half. Phoenix's performance was the best, pretty convincing as a guy who became a paranoid and vulgar drunk while in the navy and doesn't know how to rejoin society. Seymour-Hoffman wasn't as good as I was expecting, but he had his moments: especially when challenged on his bullshit, his character's smooth authoritative veneer could easily give way. Best scenes were the original 'therapy session' and the 'party scene.' Selling the idea of dramatic past lives to rich ladies well past their prime who want someone to pay attention to them, lol, that's the oldest trick in the new age book.

it's hard to rate: I'd say it's worth seeing, but not in theatres if you're not a fan of the director. It's pretty meandering and opaque later on. 

Started watching Twin Peaks. I did not expect a continuous series... Someone please tell me without a spoiler (or even a non-spoiler that makes me think), does the series/season END properly or is it an open ending? 

there's an 'ending' mid-second season (a premature ejaculation of some sort). Under pressure of the tv network, Lynch had to reveal major elements of the main plot. After that, the story stalls during two or three eps and bounces again to more interesting story driven elements, never fully developed because of cancellation.
Avoid the movie sequel, Fire Walk with Me. It's a true waste imo... 

it ends, with answers, but also leave open many more questions. Basically like a lot of Lynch's other work.

Technically, you can stop watching after episode 8 of s2 as what follows is not really linked to what went before and is also not as good. But then you will miss out on what is one of the all time great last episodes IMHO.

And yes, stay clear of the prequel/sequel. 

like Shambler and Drew said, pretty damn good despite a few flaws (for me the Bruce Willis goes Die Hard scene stood out like a sore thumb but nothing else overly distracted).

So this is Rian Johnson's Memento, hope he gets a bigger budget with free rein going forward, he has some pretty neat ideas. 

I do agree about that scene, it was mildly amusing in it's own right but seemed out of place given how the film had panned out at that point. 

BSG season 3 - still love it, I must admit the opening 3-4 episodes didnt quite sit right, the iraq parallels were a little too on the nose, but boy do you appreciate the setup and all that it changes in retrospect once it gets back on the ship. One more season to go but I wont rush to it just yet :)

Boardwalk Empire - very well acted and shot and there are many many moments of scripting brilliance too, but there are also a number of instances of lazy writing and trying too hard. Well worth a watch because its still streets ahead of most tv, but not quite top tier HBO, well not this season by itself anyway. 

After having read the book, I decided to go for the DVD. The books are awesome (actually it is a trilogy), but the movie issued from the 1st book is somewhat deceiving in the sense it does not reflect the complete story... Well, afterall if the movie had to reflect exactly the book, then the movie would have been 5 hours long... too long for theater format.. though..
Well, overall, it is nevertheless a good movie, that reflects pretty well the book ambiance.
I will certainly look forward the 2nd and 3rd movies, just to check whether it is improving or not... 

are the best episodes of any tv show ever IMO. 

Have you seen Ill Manors?

Powerful stuff IMO. Was worth watching. 

yeah they were good, it was the stuff leading up to the exit that I was talking about.

Ricky, no will look it up. 

I just marathoned the entirety of Breaking Bad (Seasons 1 - 5.5). In a week. Never seen it before. Holy shit what a show.

In other news - wtf am I doing with my life? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7R5WsZRx5k 

Looper
Film about Joseph Gordon Levitt getting a implant in his chin so it looks more like a butt, so he looks more like Bruce Willis. It's a very good film... visually it's lovely and they've put together a really solid future setting, and do a nice job of alluding to the wider world without too much background info exposition. The time-travel based plot is fun and the overall tone isn't so serious that you start picking it apart (they should have called it LoopHOLE, lol). If you like sci-fi or time travel and a bit of action, you can't go wrong really.

Untouchable/Intouchables
This is French. A rich disabled white guy hires a black dude from the projects to be his carer, picking him over lots of straight-laced whiteys that have more experience. Rich guy gets to learn all about things that poor/black people like, and learns to appreciate:

1) Puffing on the marijuana cigarillos
2) Listening to the funky music, i.e. Kool and the Gang

in return, his carer learns about:

1) Fine art
2) Classical music
3) Yawn

It's basically Driving Miss Daisy 2.0. It's been received ridiculously well, despite retreading a lot of ground and shitting cliches in every direction. This is mainly because of the performances being, well, awesome. It's essentially a buddy comedy, and their humour and warmth is infectious. Much like my interactions with women, it was generally enjoyable but I left feeling emotionally manipulated. 

Yeah, was meant to see it this weekend, but much like my interactions with women, it didn't happen. 

Chinatown
This is your fault Nitin.

Loses some points for not containing any scenes where characters purchase counterfeit watches. Seriously though, awesome dialogue and script in general, the whole thing moves with a lot of finesse. Beautifully shot too, I really recommend the bluray. Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway do a fine job in their P.I. and damsel roles. I'm going to have to get back on the Noir, still haven't seen Double Indemnity. 

glad you enjoyed it, the blu ray is lovely too. Although the blu ray for Double Indemnity is even better!

Off to see Argo tomorrow night. 

I got the entire BSG series and movies on blue ray for my birthday and the quality is awesome! There goes my productivity... 

Seeking a friend for the end of the world

Expected a comedy after watching the trailer. The first minutes were like that, really dark sometimes subtle humor but it turned into a s l o w romance very quickly. And it was not very good at that. 6-7/10 maybe.

If you have any idea about aviation, there is a really stupid, really idiotic, crucial scene in it. Kinda ruined the remaining goodness by itself. 

I have given up on modern day trailers. They usually completely misstate the tone a movie has (see Looper trailer which is cut like an all out action movie) but also ocmpletely tell you pretty much all the plot.

Your best bet is to find a review it you trust and read what they have to say. 

I thought this was Affleck's weakest film as director to date. But all that means is that I think he is going to have a really long career as a major director because its still pretty bloody good, if a little too Hollywoody at the end.

Skilfully made, thrilling and genuinely entertaining, just lacks any real sense of character development. 

I watched Batman Begins the other day. What an amazing movie! The soundtrack is totally like the Inception soundtrack, really shows the genius of Hans Zimmer being able to adapt the same music to multiple works. The plot was incredible, I love how they built a water vaporizer weapon that only affects water of the government hydration system so it does not lead to any collateral damage of lifeforms whose bodies contain some minor percentage of water. I was also amazed at the ability of the Batman to hang on a wire attached a train and keep attached even of objects are moving between him and the train. The sturdiness of roofs in Gotham City has to be commended. It is a good thing that professional stunt drivers played the police men otherwise the chase scene would have left casualities. Also it was super cool how i-forgot-his-name spoke in a much deeper voice when he was Batman. 

I suggest you shift your attention to wild life documentaries.