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A self-referential movie by Spike Jonze, who also directed Being John Malkovich.
Ka-boom.
An anime movie wherein a member of a motercycle gang ends up infused with super powers.
I particularly liked how a loser became all-powerful, instead of your typical lead hunk character.
A classic sci-fi movie. Although the dystopian setting aged relatively well, the emphasis on nuclear technology and and the characters are sort of telling of the times. For example, the antagonism between the mechanics and the officers (regarding, in part, union dispute).
A militarized revisit to alien. Seeing Bill Paxton try and play a bad-ass is sort of amusing.
A great movie about Mozart. Sadly, a director's cut has come out since I picked this up.
The soundtrack is sort of obscure though ;)
The cover has some quote about "The feel-good movie of the year!". For once, such hype is understating its case, not exagerating it. Funny, feel-good, and also very very beautiful cinematography.
I was already hooked on director / writer Jean-Pierre Jeunet; this movie got me hooked on Audrey Tautou as well.
A collection of 20 shorts by various artists, a lot of them very good ones.
Includes Don's trilogy and Billy's Baloon.
A good action/adventure movie set in the Yucatan before the Spanish invasion. Notable for using unknown native actors and being filmed entirely in the Mayan language. Also notable for being an action movie set in a place and time without guns, explosives, etc.
The original (relatively) Batman movie. Not as good as Batman Begins, but decent.
A very good controversial Japanese movie.
I think the controversy comes from the nature of the violence. There's a lot of killing in movies in general, even involving younger characters. The main difference is the nature of the killing. Sometimes those who are killed don't have much or any character developement, so it's just a plot point. Other times they are not innocent, like criminals on the job. Innocent or not, there usually isn't a lot of time spent on the death and suffering. The other characters move on.
The nature of Battle Royale is a lot different. The deaths are painful and messy, which is realistic. A lot of the motivation isn't "pure evil" or something logical; people kill to survive as they have been forced to. The survivors have a lot of emotional reaction, and so does the audience.
Yet even with all that, I still don't think I've put my finger on it. The way this movie is controversial is related to Larry Clark's films, Kids and Bully. Perhaps the characters and ages of the characters are too close to home to be comfortable.
I got the original Tartan version from the UK for the better subtitling. I've seen the director's cut, however, and think I should have gotten the Tartan extended (PAL) version.
This movie really ties my collection together.
A very good quoting movie, and a good comedy in general. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's another comedy that doesn't feel as forced as your typical Hollywood comedy. I don't know, there's just something... blatant and contrived about most comedies. Maybe this is just more believable.
Rather different than the book, but still good. A Ridley Scott movie.
Fantastic movie upon first viewing with no foreknowlege in a dark theatre, but I shouldn't have bothered buying it on DVD.
A drug-running movie. Nothing stands out really, but I like it anyway.
Series; I only have the first DVD out of four.
The oceans have risen, covering the land. There's now a war raging between humans and some sea dwellers.
It never really caught my fancy, so I haven't followed up on the other DVDs.
A good action / spy movie. This got me to try out the books, which I eventually stopped in disgust -- the pacifist ultimate assassin thing just does not work at all for me (see also: Xenogears; contrast: Memento).
Pretty rare than a movie can outstripe the book. Ronin is a comparable type of movie.
Should be required viewing around here these days. A Terry Gilliam movie.
I like this one a lot for the scenery, period costumes, and characters, rather than for the action element.
A more or less meh quality reformed gangster movie. Plays more like a love story.
Scorsese's 3rd mob movie, following Mean Streets and Goodfellas further up the hierarchy to Las Vegas. They had it all and they threw it away.
A classic Lupin the 3rd movie.
A very nice and funny movie. The style is closer to Disney than most of the anime I watch.
A very good visual movie. Being stuck in someone's head allows quite the artistic license; it'd be hard to find a setting for everything in this movie otherwise.
Wow, pretty amazing. A good story, filmed in a very gritty and real-feeling way. Particularly impressive are the long cuts, even during huge action scenes.
Another great movie from Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Contains some recursive elements.
The eerie soundtrack is quite good as well.
It's rare for Tom Cruise to play a villain, making this movie somewhat notable. Jamie Foxx also plays in a non-comedy role, and is good at it. Michael Mann's love of LA really shows, too.
Yet for all that, this is only a so-so movie. Not bad, but not great.
A modern political thriller. Very well done, although everyone is a lot more articulate than I've seen in our political system.
An anime series centering on a group of private investigators in the space age. Very well done.
Now here's an underrated movie. I think I saw it on a hunch, but I'm very glad I did. The soundtrack does sound a bit like a video game though...
Better than both El Mariachi and Once Upon A Time In Mexico.
Funny with lots of blow-shit-up. And not your typical Hollywood comedy either.
A wonderful sci-fi movies, set among high schoolers in the 80s. Director's cut.
Richard Kelly does a great job of capturing the feel of high school, and of the 80s as well. The use of music -- matching it both to the scene and to the mood of the scene -- is also exemplary. The plot is pretty engaging, even if it does take a couple runs to keep it all straight. The characters, however, are really the driving force.
Your typical British transvestite comedian. So far I have Dress to Kill, Glorious, Definite Article, and Circle. Dress to Kill is the best one by far.
A celebrated Bruce Lee film. I thought it was ok. I probably haven't seen enough martial arts films to see why it's considered so important a film.
The stereotypical types of characters in the movie were pretty interesting.
A dystopian world where the new world order is to have no emotions, and the underground are those with feelings. This is the story of one of the elite guards gaining his feelings. No light shades of Fahrenheit 451.
It gets pretty slow for awhile in the beginning, but makes up for it later. Also some very interesting "gunkata" scenes.
An eight DVD series, with box. A very pretty series. Also redone as a movie, which I now have as well.
A crazy crazy series. Six DVDs with no box.
The first dozen episodes or so follow a trend of parodying various genres such as action or sports. They seem to lose their way (and some of the comedy) after that point... until the last episode.
Episode 26 is more or less uncensored.
It is insane.
A good movie, and not just for the North Dakotan accents.
Luc Besson's breakout movie. Great in that, while being a good action movie, it also has great depth of character. Anne Parillaud as Nikita isn't just a plastic mold killing-machine action star. She has reactions to the killing, and transforms throughout the movie.
Jean Reno also makes a great appearance as Victor the cleaner.
The subbing on my version is, sadly, not that great.
Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club has a lot of interesting perspectives on the world we live in.
The things you own end up owning you.
There are things I like about this movie, and things I don't like; the former outweighs the latter.
The entire series! (i.e. one season). Sort of unique for emphasising a western feel in a sci-fi. It was too popular with women, so Fox cancelled it. Also made a movie afterwards, Serenity.
One of Sergio Leone's western trilogy. Really, it's just a remake of Yojimbo. As such, the weakest of the three.
A bloody romp that turns into a B horror movie halfway through (but in a good way).
Lots of bits and pieces that show up in other Tarantino movies, and in Desperado as well.
Romantic comedy / drama, starring Natalie Portman. (Well, the story concentrates on Zach Braff's character's life, really.)
Great soundtrack.
Well, I like the character design, and it was on massive sale.
Haven't watched it yet.
A dystopian world similar to Huxley's Brave New World.
One of my favorite movies, and I don't pick favorites lightly. It definitely has the intelligence factor going for it. The dialogue is well written, the characters are believable, and the movie was very well casted.
Part of what makes this movie great to me is the amount of talking that goes on. It's pretty rare to find a good movie without a lot of action or loud bang-gee-whiz type content, and I enjoy a good talking movie. I guess I have a few others with a good balance in this respect, but most are in languages other than english, and therefore impractical to play in the background.
For other "talking films", see Amelie, The City Of Lost Children, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Sex, Lies, And Videotape.
A classic. Probably the best known anime in the mainstream, prior to recent theatrical releases.
Another Ridley Scott movie. This one definitely has some flaws, but I felt it was okay overall. There are some very pretty scenes, and of course a number of battles.
While I wouldn't place this movie at the top of my list, it's definitely a good movie. Chances are my favorite parts of the movie aren't the typical ones, either.
I thought it was terrific how you could see Michael's personality change throughout the movie. The best example of this is after the hospital, when he spells out his plan to the family.
About twice as far below Part II as Part II is below the original.
I've seen a lot of criticisms about Sofia Coppola playing the part of Mary; I thought she was one of the better parts of the movie.
A classic movie starring Dustin Hoffman. His character has a lot in common with John Cusack's character in Say Anything (made 2 decades later).
The movie doesn't have much of a plot per se, but is more about social norms, the characters, and their lack of direction in the world. The parent generation have lives who are alien and undesirable to the children generation; Ben and Elaine are indeed drifting through their lives.
The movie captures the feel of no direction very well, in no small part due to the soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel.
A good anime series mostly taking place inside a future MMORPG.
The ending wasn't very climatic, but at least it didn't suck.
The Thomas Harris story which actually features the main character, Hannibal Lecter. Even with the whole eating people bit, the good doctor has style.
The cover proclaims Heat to be "a Los Angeles crime saga", and it's correct. The two sides of this epic aren't presented as good against evil, and both sides are given character and depth.
By the end of the movie, neither side has really "won". There's respect between the sides, and nothing is presented as black and white.
While there are some major action scenes in this movie, they are handled very well; it's definitely not an attention deficit type of action. There're lots of preperations before the action, and there's lots of story afterwards as well. Most of the movie develops without action, and this works great.
An Akira Kurosawa movie. This one is noted as being a primary influence in the making of the Star Wars movies.
A romantic comedy with a great soundtrack. (One would hope so, given its setting of a record shop.)
A depressing drama starring Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. Moreover, the people I had the most sympathy end up losing the most. The movie making and in particular the photography is very nice, but I couldn't bring myself to really like the movie as a whole.
This movie's pretty decent, but it'd be better with a different Jack Ryan.
First of the three original movies. I understand Lucas is preparing to butcher some more of his former work and release a fourth.
Amazing.
I have the Japanese version, but plan to get the (US) director's cut, whenever it shows up.
A movie based on book 3 of James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet. The books are better than this movie, but this movie is very good on its own. Various corners had to be cut in order to pull the story out of the series, and also to constrain the length of the movie. It was cut gracefully, however, and works very well.
I hadn't heard much about this movie until someone recommended I go see it, and it is very good. So my impression was that wasn't getting the attention it deserved, but now I see it's very high up the list at IMDB.
Set during the French and Indian war, this movie has a good story and some great scenery.
There's a part of this movie that's 10-15 minutes long, with great music and no vocals. It works really well, and I wish that kind of scene would be used more in movies.
Everyone dies, but for some reason I like it anyway.
Julia Ormond probably has something to do with it.
AKA The Professional. I have the "international" (uncut) version.
This movie was controversial in the US for having a minor in adult situations, and was subsequently cut. (The assassin, drug dealing, and so on, were okay though). Anyway, a great movie.
I'm not sure how to classify this movie. It has comedy elements and action elements as well; a good movie all in all.
Probably the best one-liner movie I have. I find it amusing that the box tries to hype the action. Action takes a back seat to the humour; there are a lot better choices if action is what you're looking for.
A real good comedy/drama. There are some very beautiful scenes. It's set in Japan, but it really could have been set in any significantly foreign land... many of the Japanese specific scenes are more about stereotypes than actualities.
Denzel Washington stars in this remake of a 1987 film. It lacks climax (or alternatively, the entire last hour is the climax), but is pretty good overall.
The original version. Pretty good.
The good news is, Angela Lansbery didn't age much in 30 years. The bad news is, she looked like she was in her 60s when she was in her 30s.
Antonio Banderes looked quite different back then...
Definitely a good movie considering the $7,000 budget. I feel that Desperado was better, however. Also followed by Once Upon A Time In Mexico.
This one was really well done. The second movie (which I don't have) lost a lot, but had action and visuals to go some way in making it up. The third movie (which I'll probably never have) lost even more, and didn't make up for it.
Not the best Mel Brooks movie, but a pretty cynical outlook on western history...
The digital cinematography was impressive at times, but that's about it. Overall shallow and predictable.
So, you quickly lose the thread of WTF is going on, but I think it's a great movie after the third time around or so. Definitely got me to check out the other David Lynch stuff.
Apparently not a Rushmore rip-off like the trailers might have you assume.
Evangelion is both a series (eight DVDs) and a movie (End of Evangelion). The movie is more or less an alternate ending to the series. If that weren't enough, a director's cut of the final 6 episodes are also planned for release. I have a box for the series.
All in all, an uncontroversial family anime.
Very different from the (good) book The Club Dumas. Not a great movie, but I thought it was interesting anyway. And I liked the ending...
A very stylish, very good anime series. Lots of highly skilled female assassins.
I thought the ending was a little weak, but not bad. Good endings are so rare in anime series anyway.
Although apparantly depressing as hell, this series is very well regarded.
A comedy based (very loosely) on The Odyssey. Caused a bluegrass music explosion. It also shows George Clooney to be a more versatile actor than I had previously thought.
Third in a series after El Mariachi and Desperado. I still like Desperado the best. This one is a bit disjointed, and I felt the story was sort of throw-away, but pretty, and funny.
A Sergio Leone masterpiece. While his earlier trilogy of westerns were more about the action and tension aspects, this movie has a good amount of plot and a lot of character development. The ending isn't as powerful as The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, but the ongoing story is stronger.
Mainly I got this one as it was cheap, and the character designs are by Satoshi Urushihara. I wouldn't call it perverted, but he definitely has a thing for boobs.
A very enjoyable adaptation/period piece. Both Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike are beautiful in this film.
I feel one of Tarantino's strongest points is his use of music to set mood, set pace, and enhance scenes. This movie is placed a bit high on IMDB in my opinion, but it is good.
Like Excel Saga, only crazier.
They also say "Poemy", but screw that bastardization.
An OAV and a TV Series, the latter being subtitled Chronicles of the Heroic Knight.
A "gun samurai" movie. Not much of a plot going on, but I enjoyed it as an action film. And Mira Sorvino makes for a pretty character.
This is supposed to be a very powerful movie, but I haven't seen it yet.
Compared to Tarantino's other movies, I think this one lacks grace. Nice soundtrack though.
A great spy type movie, with truly amazing car chases. The scene transitions are a bit too sudden at times.
A German movie wherein the same situation is played out three times, with variations. This movie got me hooked on Franka Potente.
This is a remake of the 1954 film, starring Audrey Hepburn. This version stars Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond, and works real well.
An OAV prequel to the drama/comedy anime series. This movie-length OAV has little comedy but lots of drama. Pretty nice.
I never really intended to buy this movie, but got it for free. It's not a bad movie, but it didn't exactly click for me either; I consider it to be overrated.
The ending makes it worth it. Pulls off the whole dystopian setting pretty well too.
A John Wayne western. Well regarded, but I didn't think it was that great.
A nice animated movie from the early 80s. It's instructive to compare the dark cover of this movie to its direct-to-video sequel. They don't make 'em like they used to.
A good talking movie, and also a good look at relationships and personalities. I think those qualities supposed to qualify this movie as a "drama", but more often than not that implies some sort of soft-porn. Despite the title, I didn't find Sex, Lies, And Videotape to be that. It's more about the interactions that take place -- and any sex related scenes are not explicit.
That's not meant as a criticism at all, but I guess you could take it as a tip to look elsewhere if you're trying to get off...
A zombie invasion comedy flick from the UK. Not bad, not great. The epilogue is probably closer to, uh, "reality" than other zombie flicks. The satirical content is closer to "reality" too -- zombies are easy to run away from, for example. The characters become more important than the horde.
Hannibal steals the show. The main villain is sort of just around to advance the rest of the movie.
Special edition. This is the best comic adaption I've seen in terms of preserving style. Another good production by Robert Rodriguez.
Two series boxes of four DVDs each; the original series and Slayers Next.
The third series, Slayers Try, is generally considered a large step down.
One of Hayao Miyazaki's movies, and a great one at that. I was disappointed to have to return to reality after seeing it.
A good, well-paced thriller. The story involves a person who is able to fake and adapt his life to those around him, to such a degree that it gets far, far out of hand end the end. ``I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.''
I think part of what makes this movie great is that it shows us people who are very real, on many levels. This is especially true for the main character, Tom Ripley. By way of example, there are some scenes in the film that that are very embarassing for the character, and that feeling comes across very well. Movies very rarely show such embarassing personal moments made public, unless within an exagerated comedy or similar.
An oddly presented, but pretty, anime series. Character design by aBe-san.
Another recursive movie, with a world inside a world. It's a good thing I had friends who'd seen this movie, as the trailer I'd seen made it look like some random horror movie.
The 1999 version. It has a few plot or logic holes the size of Texas, but it's still good, light movie.
A movie set in Gulf War I, it makes some points which have become even more applicable in recent times.
A more truthful look at the drug war than most. Although it doesn't really touch on hemispheric oppression, the jail industry, the laundering trade, and other such aspects.
A Spike Lee joint, but not your typical one. This movie deals more with the characters in a tough situation than with issues of race or other social problems. It's more personal in that respect.
There was a bit of hype for this movie being one of the first to mention the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York. It's not central to the movie in any way, but it's often there in the background -- as it indeed was in New York at the time. It's handled respectfully, and I feel, accurately.
This movie has a surprising amount of plot (more than expected) and ass-shots (less than expected), given the subject and trailer.
A great deconstruction of western movies. There are no good guys, and no horrible guys either. There's a good deal of character developement, including characters who change during the course of the movie. Very good all around.
More or less your typical De Palma dramatization. Most scenes feel more arranged and stretched out than natural, sort of like Carlito's Way.
An Oliver Stone movie about the booming 80s stock market. This movie introduced the canonical role of Michael Douglas as a ruthless business man. "Greed is good."
A Japanese comedy. Had a decent reputation, but I didn't think it was that great.
A "modern western" which has been criticized as having too much plot, to which I reply, "WTF?". In case you didn't figure it out, I consider this movie to be underrated.
It could have definitely used a better actress than Juliette Lewis, and Ryan Phillippe gets on my nerves, but Benicio del Toro, Taye Diggs, and James Caan make up for it.
