Forgot to mention one of the things I really like about “Contact” is the philosophical back and forth between Foster and McCaughney’s characters. It could’ve been a bit deeper, but what was there was intriguing and gives lots to think about. Damn I love that movie. Need to watch it again soon.

Yes, you could assume that. Although we don’t touch on the”controversy” itself because to me it was so obviously bullshit from the start. WB is stupid… but there’s no way they are THAT stupid.

Yes, Once Upon a Time in America on DVD has the 4-hour version of the film and it’s freakin awesome. I never saw the butchered version and don’t care to see it. I’ve seen almost all of Leone’s spaghetti westerns except for Duck, You Sucker. Honestly, Leone has never missed with me. His films are damn memorable. Anyway, I’ll make sure I see it before you guys do the next MovieClub Podcast!

I’m really going to try to actually get out to the movies this weekend and see at least 2 of the following: The Darjeeling Limited, Assassination of Jesse James by that Coward Robert Ford, Into The Wild. Here’s hoping.

unrelated tangent - just sat down with the remastered version of 36th Chamber of Shaolin - wow does that look really good and clean! Gotta get me one of those ’silver hands on a stick’ that the supervisor in the ‘Head Chamber’ has.

I remember having a lot of fun watching “The Rundown”. I may have to revisit that at some point. And I’m in the same boat as you Andrew, the only thing I remember about “Be Cool” is The Rock standing in front of a mirror in a tight baby blue polyester suit, grabbing his ass and saying something like “Doesn’t my ass look good in these pants?”

Wow. For once I actually recognized a few of the films on Kurt’s list including “Mute Witness” which I haven’t seen but instantly remembered that haunting poster and “Audition” that I sometime early last year at, of all things, the recommendation of the blockbuster guy. Excellent little film.

As for the DVD selections…wow, that’s quite the list.

“You Kill Me” has some fun moments and Kingsley is pretty good.

Rise Blood Hunter” - I’m looking forward to checking this out again, especially if it’s a DVD with some sort of director’s or extended cut because there seemed to be a bunch of stuff missing from the narrative and the story itself.

And damned it, I still want to see “Black Sheep” so I may have to get out to the video store for that one.

As a bit of an exercise, here’s my “All Canadian” Top 5 Women in Movies:

5. Valerie Buhagiar as Jackie in “Highway 61″
4. Sandra Oh as Jade in “Double Happiness”
3. Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret in “Margaret’s Museum”
2. Samantha Eggar as Nola in “The Brood”
1. Nell Shipman as Dolores in “Back to God’s Country”

Great show guys!

Marina - props on the Valerie Buhagia call. I almost had here in there for MacDonald’s earlier film “RoadKill”

btw, did you hear they are remaking THE BROOD? Awful idea.

I heard about “The Brood” remake and agree. AWFUL. Still have to see “Roadkill”.

In no particular order:

Yeong-ae Lee as Geum-ja Lee in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Juliette Binoche as Vianne Rocher in Chocolat

Hilary Swank as Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry

Penelope Cruz as Raimunda in Volver

Michelle Pfeiffer as Lamia in Stardust (yeah I know she wasn’t the lead but she stole the show)

Angela Bettis as May Dove Canady in May

JOHN: Yeah. Good call on Swank. I missed it too. I had her on my contender list, but for “Million Dollar Baby.” BDC is a much better choice.
I came really close to nominating Cruz, as A) I loved Volver and B) She’s my dream wife.
“Chocolat and Sympathy” are good choices too.

MARINA: Congratulations. I have seen none of the films on your list.

ROSS: almost had Lola on my list as well. Good call with Winslett. I thought of it, then decided Carrey is the lead in that movie. It’s debatable though. I purposely didn’t choose any QT flicks as they seemed too obvious (KB and Jackie B). Watch Contact. Watched again last night… awesome.

Lastly, if anyone has Penelope’s contact information, shoot me an email to andrew@moviepatron.com.

Cynical and flint-hearted, maybe.

But I feel positively normal compared to the dewy-eyed, honey-hearted, marshmallow-headed saps who fall for this kind of twee romantic nonsense.

Having said that, I’m off to watch Monsoon Wedding.

Oh, and Snowleopard. You should really go out and rent the bitchy-crazy twin sister of Amelie — A La Folie…Pas Du Tout (aka He Loves Me…He Loves Me Not) which also stars Tatou.

Or even better yet, rent the skanky cousin of Amelie, “Jeux D’Enfants” (aka Love Me if You Dare) which is a film I really really do love, and stars a young and spunky Marion Cottilard.

ive only been able to listen to the first half so far (busy busy busy) but based on what ive heard

Very Bad Things pissed me off the first time i watched it. i’m not shocked easily, i just was amazed a comedy was made that hated its own characters so much. Id ask Andrew what he thus thinks of “Drop Dead Gorgeous”, him being Midwestern and it too having a very very cynical hate of its characters that turned a lot of people off (though i like the movie)

I really like the Rock, I own a copy of the Rundown, and for that matter, the Scorpion King (though i didnt pay for it). Agree that he was the best part about Be Cool…

about Be Cool,
the book is not great. its okay. just okay, not an embarrassing sequel to Get Shorty whatsoever though very much not at the same level. The movie however, is the biggest rape of a book I’ve ever seen. The reason only the Rock stands out is that reading the book, the part was MADE for him, it was perfect casting. However the way they amped up Uma’s characters role to a fault, made Christina Milans character a completely different person with a completely different ending which really changes the whole story, and ruined what made Vince Vaughns character valuable in the book, shoehorning in dancing scenes and all this other crap (ugh, Black Eyed Peas) to make it hip and modern, it seriously ended up perhaps my least favorite movie of this decade. I gave it a 0/4 in a FilmJunk review back then, even though I liked the Rocks characterization.

Snow Leopard. Thanks for the criticism of The Movie Club. (seriously, that kind of feedback is very useful). I’m hoping that Duck You Sucker will split opinions of the participants, and I’m wondering if Gimme Shelter will make talking fodder or not…as none of us were probably alive at the time of that film, we may be a bit too removed. Still, time will tell.

I found both Drop Dead Gorgeous (DDG) and Very Bad Things to be both too arch and not clever enough. Heavy Handed, is probably the correct phrase in both cases, but there are some small charms in DDG particularly Kirsten Dunst’s tapdancing undertaker’s makeup assistant (which feels curiously like an extension of Parker Posey’s Diary Queen employee from Waiting For Guffman, but that may be just because DDG was originally titled Dairy Queens and this association was planted in my brain…)

Nah. Run Lola Run is a wholly worthwhile visual experiment, a great multi-media demo in fact, and really fun to watch while chewing bubble-gum.

Context is everything, but there was not such a glut of ambitiously/flashy (and blatantly pop) visual European films (well ones that were exporeted to North America) back in pre-1998.

So forgiveness of its flaws and/or indulgences is warranted in this case.

Speaking of Podcasts you should check out The Hollywood Saloon. I’m not sure about their most recent one but the one before it was all about summer blockbusters and what they call the Summer Pass (ie. critics giving a movie a pass just because it is supposed to be dumb fun).

Black Crowes, sweet, that would be a concert I’d enjoy.

I’ve also stopped listening to movie podcasts for the past week. That way I should have a full Ipod for the trip.

It’s coming man. I had a LOOOONNNG day flying into Toronto and now three days later I finally got my luggage. Same pants and shirt for three days = no fun.

So anyway, I’m back on track tomorrow and we’ll see about possibly doing a show from the Bloor Cinema tomorrow afternoon/evening.

It will have to be in between screenings, so it will likely be kinda short. Hang in there though; we’ll get something up for you - if nothing else I have the recording of the Q&A with Uwe Boll I can post.