Kick-Ass - Even better the second time!
Death at a Funeral - The original one. It’s funny, because it sets a foundation of reality and slowly gets crazier and crazier.
Kick-Ass - Well paced, full of action, comedy and charm. A lot of fun. More»

In case you were wondering what we have been doing all week, here is a list of the films we have watched since last time.

The Cinesthete:

1. Last Starfighter - A fun film for the 80’s generation. It’s every kids dream come true. I wish I saw it 20 years ago.
   
2. Twilight - A hilarious atrocity. I’m glad LCD made me watch this.
   
3. Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project - I was looking forward to some stand-up, but I more importantly got a glimpse into film history. Eye-opening.
   
4. Eight Days a Week - Funny late-night teen comedy. Better than most.
   
5. Soylent Green - A great idea,  but a bit cheap and not executed as well as it could have been. Also, if you know the ending it loses alot.
   
6. District 9 - A good film, but try to take all the hype with a grain of salt. It’s not that good.
   
7. Iron Giant - Well-animated, great characters, touching story. You can see how Brad Bird moved on to Pixar after this.
   

The Lowest Common Denominator:

1. Die Hard with a Vengeance - Bruce Willis kicks ass while Samuel L. Jackson does his patented angry not quite yelling thing.  It’s a totally awesome match made in heaven.
   
2. The Last Starfighter - Classic 80s sci-fi adventure about a boy escaping the trailer park to take on intergalactic tyrants.  The Last Starfighter kicks ass despite the prehistoric special effects.  Michael Bay should take note of what you can accomplish by utilizing outdated film concepts like decent storytelling and likable characters.
   
3. Twilight - The best unintentional comedy of the past decade? I think so.  This movie is bad, so bad it’s kind of unbelievable.  This is the kind of movie you’d expect to see on at 3am as part of some hokey late night horror program.  It’s like a lifetime movie that reinforces all the stupid things chicks do for boys.  Remember ladies, if you want that bad boy to love you, all you have to do is give up everything you are and conform to everything he wants you to be!  Also, don’t pay any attention to his severe character flaws like acting nauseated by the near sight of you, wanting to suck your blood until you are a hollow husk and sneaking into your room at night to watch you sleep.
   
4. In Bruges - off-beat comedy about two hitmen on the lamb in Bruges, Belgium.  Funny and well-made, I’m not sure how it managed to fly so far under the radar with a cast of Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes.
   
5. District 9 - Harkens back to the days of yore when filmmakers actually cared about producing something worthwhile instead of just throwing together a loosely connected plot and having a bunch of shit blow up.  Everything a summer blockbuster used to be.
6. Rocky IV - how can something be so bad and so good all at the same time?  I don’t know either, but Rocky IV manages to be both a captivating masterpiece and a hollow piece of crap in the same breath.  One great, big glorious breath of awesomeness!
   

In case you were wondering what we have been doing all week, here is a list of the films we have watched since last time.

The Cinesthete:

1. Orphan - Predictable, cheap-scare horror. The only saving graces are Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard
2. Brick - Film noir set in a highschool. Unique and engaging.
   
3. Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Michael Bay should watch this film and bow. It’s amazing that this film was made without computers, and that it is still so fantastical and fantastic.
   
4. Eddie Murphy: Raw - He does some great stand-up, even if it is a bit blue.
   

The Lowest Common Denominator:

1. A Haunting in Connecticut - this actually should have been in last week’s log, but I had forgotten about it.  That should tell you all you need to know.  The acting was surprisingly good for a horror flick, but the scares were all cheap and the story is absolutely nothing like what truly happened.
   
2. The Bourne Supremacy - The Bourne Identity is about as faithful an adaptation as if someone had only read the plot synopsis online and was hired to write the movie based only on that information. The Bourne Supremacy takes this faithlessness to an entirely new low.  Paul Greengrass has a name like a failed porn director and he makes feature films like it too.  What’s the point of having awesomely choreographed fight and/or action scenes if you can’t tell what the fuck is going on because the camera is shaking like the DP is having an intense seizure?  Still, Supremacy manages to be a fun action movie despite Greengrass’s ineptitude, even if it is one of the worst book adaptations I’ve ever heard of.
   
3. The Bourne Ultimatum - Basically the same as above.  Fun action movie, nothing else to report on.  Would have been much better if Greengrass had invested in a steadycam but, whatever.
   
4. National Lampoons Vacation - I felt the need to watch a John Hughes masterpiece after hearing of his shocking death.  Vacation was everything filmgoers of the 80s would eventually come to expect from a film written by John Hughes.  It’s hilarious, geniune, surprisingly poignant without being too sappy and manages to have a message without being overbearing.
   
5. The Goonies - another 80s classic.  This is the movie that should have given pirates their position of glory rather than those terrible Johnny Depp movies nearly 20 years later.  Listen, if I really have to tell you how great this movie is you should probably just crawl back under the rock you’ve been living under for the past 25 or so years.
   

In case you were wondering what we have been doing all week, here is a list of the films we have watched since last time.

The Cinesthete:

1. Dumb and Dumber - LCD forced me to watch this masterpiece, so I will be doing a CinemaSodomy review shortly.
2. Poseidon Adventure - Campy fun with Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine. I love it.
3. Funny People - Judd Apatow’s best film? I think so. It’s more drama than comedy this time, but very funny.
   

The Lowest Common Denominator:

1. Dumb and Dumber - genius in its idiocy, cinematic brilliance from the Farrelly brothers.
   
2. 300 - A masterpiece of a film, it bleeds masculinity and awesomeness.  That must be why TC doesn’t like it very much.
   
3. Gladiator - Part 2 of my ancient Greece/Rome double header.  An epic film in which  Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe pwn3d cinema and Joaquin Phoenix, respectively.
   
4. The Shawshank Redemption - I watch Shawshank and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in spurts where it seems like I can’t stop watching them for weeks.  I do this fairly often.  Get used to it.
5. Step Brothers - Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly team up with Adam McKay to deliver another comedy.  The formula and results are consistent: low-brow entertainment in spades with a complete and utter disregard for artsy fartsy themes and cool camera work.  Just the way I like it!
   

In case you were wondering what we have been doing all week, here is a list of the films we have watched since last time.

The Cinesthete:

1. The Room - See my review below!
   
2. High School Musical - Shut up.
3. Bullit - Standard fare except for the great car chase and the airport set-piece.
   
4. The Dirty Dozen - An awesome film with an unbelievable amount of star power. Tarantino probably stole a lot of this one for his new film.
   
5. If… - It’s slow to start but Malcolm McDowell is great and the film becomes just surreal enough. 60’s England must have had a heart attack when it saw this one.
   

The Lowest Common Denominator:

1. Bruno - Kind of gross, very awkward for the sake of being gross and awkward.  Not as funny as Borat and didn’t have nearly as much to say.  Mildly amusing at best.
   
2. Knowing - Nicholas Cage does his solve a puzzle thing again. I’m always struck by how lazy Hollywood is about research and how easily people eat it up.  Just because it’s sci-fi doesn’t mean you can make up your own rules.  And why include a documentary that refutes what happens in the movie as impossible as part of the special features on the DVD?
   
3. Napoleon Dynamite - It’s the 2000s, but everyone in Idaho still dresses like it’s 1984.  And it’s awesome.  How did Jared Hess go from making this quirky, genius of a film to the festering turd that was Nacho Libre?
   
4. The Shawshank Redemption - The Greatest Story Ever Told.  The novella by Stephen King is so good it should be part of the Bible.  The film trumps it.  Every single frame of this movie looks like a Norman Rockwell painting, if Norman Rockwell had had the balls to paint prison sex instead of baseball games and family dinners.  It’s the closest thing to perfection cinema will ever know.