About Beowulf Kurt - I enjoyed it for what it was (I saw it in 2D, by choice though (not into the whole 3D thing quite yet)) but apart from the gorgeously done and looking animation it doesn’t hold much else for me. The voice work is great (I agree both on the fact I HATE Hopkins too (except for in two things - The Elphant Man and The Silence of the Lambs) and that he was batshit in this film!). And also some of the action scenes, especially the dragon sequence - !WOW! - were stunning, but apart from that it just didn’t have all that much going for it. The story was so wafer thin you could see through it, it was about half an hour too long and after the scene with Grendel and the first encounter with the mother it sort of forgot it’s point and then just realised it had to address what it brought up towards the start before the closing credits. The more I think about it the more I, not “dislike” it but, like it less. You can read my review here

About Southland Tales Andrew - almost every reason you gave as a negative about the film is some of the reasons I believe I am going to really like or even love it. As a huge HUGE fan of Donnie Darko (it STILL remains my favourite film after Pulp Fiction) I will see ANYTHING Kelly makes in the rest of his career (even if Southland Tales is atrocious). I predict I am going to enjoy it just for it’s weirdness and randomness even if it has no point what so ever, whereas with DD it was still random and weird but you felt there was something there that made it mean something in it’s own way.

SnowL - I caught the dates too. I guess my biggest disappointment with Lars is just how darn facile the whole thing is. It’s like they shot their wad coming up with the concept and how to play it (straight) and then just sort of gave up any other edge the story could have had. I had higher hopes than a simple, “this will make you smile” movie.

Ross - I kinda agree with you on Southland Tales. The random surface survey of issues and concerns that plague western society told in an non-standard way is the attraction of Southland Tales. Expecting that going in, I expect to like it myself.

On Zodiac - I’m waiting for that directors cut DVD, but sad that it is only 7 minutes longer. For some reason if they made Zodiac 5 hours long I’d be just as engrossed!

You should really see Miller’s Crossing, it’s one of those great movies of the 1990s that did not get its due. (See also: Todd Haynes SAFE and Stanley Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT). Barton Fink is a bloody masterpiece too.

Hmmm, curiously, I really like Millions despite its hamfisted closing manipulative scene. Maybe it is the implied threat of violence to children that gives Millions its edge.

I just felt there was no actual conflict in Lars. I didn’t necessarily want Quirkier, I just didn’t want the whole affair to go damn smoothly.

Perhaps, the way I feel about this is similar to the nazgul in lord of the rings, and I’m talking about the book here, J.R.R. Tolkien spends pages and pages talking about how mean and vicious they are, constantly driving fear, constantly having them show up, but what do they really do over the entire novel? manage to injure the lead character when he was practically defenseless anyway, fly around and shriek a lot and are eventually killed by the girl and a hobbit.

In Lars, the film seems to want to say that Lars has a real issue here, and it may even be debilitating, yet at every turn it turns out to be not a problem, things all work out in the end and really there is little consequence to him fetishizing a sex doll in a conservative small town. May this is the point of the movie, these things are no big deal. Maybe I missed something fundamental here, but really the movie just felt to me like the filmmakers (not the actors! they are all great) were just going thru the motions here.

Well we are in agreement that K-PAX is awful. I didn’t expect the community in Lars to form a rabid mob or anything. I didn’t expect Lars to get down and dirty with the doll either. Yes, it’s a delicate line. But damn if the whole thing didn’t go off without a hitch. I’m not sure exactly what i was looking for in the movie, but I know that what I did get seemed a little too pat. I wasn’t sold, and I wasn’t moved like the movie dearly wanted.

Maybe it was all the cornball reaction shots on Bianca (artfully aranged every time). Maybe it was because the actors were so good and the characters so thin. I mean, I don’t really think that we ever actually get inside Lars head for anything, it’s all given thru exposition via Patricia Clarkson’s character. Now I loved Clarkson in the film she felt the most human for some reason even as her character was put in there at its most calculating to hand info to the audience. A smarter movie would have eliminated her character altogether.

At one point in the movie Bianca is up for some sort of municipal elected position, there was probably a joke or two that could have been capitalized, but the movie was waaaaay too much in love with the small town in the film…almost to the point of condescension in that the characters are all so damn accommodating. My folks are both from very rural small towns and well, they can be as judgmental and harsh as city folk. It just didn’t ring right for me that everyone was a softhearted saint looking out for sweet old Lars.

Now I wasn’t looking for a “run Forrest run” scene either. But something more. Something more. Er, I wish it was easy to articulate…but it isn’t.

and by the way, i grew up in small towns too (in New Brunswick) and you’re right, they can be hars h and not very accomodating when confronted with something strange. my relatives are different versions of baptists and they all hate each other because of their minor differences..

…but with this story, i wasnt exactly looking for that realism - i didnt need to see someone attacking small town life. at the same time, i really dont feel the movie was some affirmation of small town life either - i just saw it as a suspension of disbelief issue for the sake of the story, which in a movie with a christian guy and a love doll seemed fine to me.

if i actually thought the small town aspect was there to try and teach us something about the way people do things in the sticks than in the city, i’d probably have hated it the same way I hated “Cars” - I thought a lot of “Junebug” watching “Lars…” - they’ll have their subtle potshots and even the more obvious ones, but the movie isnt specifically trying to lionize one way of life over another at all - they’re just characters in this specific situation and location and they deal with it.

Great list. I have seen the trailers of Beowulf and it looks interesting and a good movie.

(posting while intoxicated)

looking forward to what will be brought to the table with rowthree.

anyways Junebug is a real treat - it took me way too long to finally get to see, its a really special film, especially for the sake of Amy Adams, who is seriously the cutest girl in the world.

I actually look forward to seeing “enchanted” whcih seems to have the “Galaxy Quest” vibe in droves and apparently critics are really supporting.

Cuter than the girl from THE MONSTER SQUAD?

Anyway, in the words of Penn Gilette - “ARE WE LIVE???!!?? YEA!!”

Everything is moving over to Row Three, including our first recording as “Row Three Cinecast” which will be up (hopefully) some time wednesday.