Movies

June 2008
Futurama: Bender’s Big Score (2007)

Memorable quotes
Bender: Well, we’re boned.
More…

June 2008
Eagle vs Shark (2007)

Memorable quotes
Jarrod: It’s time to pay the piper. He’s gonna reap what he sowed, and it sure ain’t corn. Or wheat.

March 2008
The bank job (2007)

February 2008
Spider (2007)

Memorable quotes
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

February 2008
Il supplente (2006)

February 2008
Blue dress (2007)

February 2008
Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

January 2008
Waitress (2007)

Memorable quotes
Jenna: Dear Baby, I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for 20 minutes straight and that’s all they do. They don’t pull away. They don’t look at your face. They don’t try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms and hold on tight, without an ounce of selfishness in it.

January 2008
Fracture (2007)

Memorable quotes
Willy Beachum: I’m not going to play any games with you.
Ted Crawford: I’m afraid you have to old sport…

January 2008
The lookout (2007)

Memorable quotes
Chris Pratt: I started skating again. I’m not as good as I used to be, but I’m okay. What happened that night along Route 24 is a part of me now. I just hope that one day Kelly will be ready to see me again and I can finally tell her what I’ve only been able to say in my dreams. Until then, all I can do is wake up, take a shower, with soap, and try to forgive myself. If I can do that, then maybe others will forgive me too. I don’t know if that will happen, but I guess I’ll just have to work backwards from there.

January 2008
MirrorMask (2005)

Memorable quotes
Valentine: My mum always said: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, son. You get them before they get you. Eat your greens. Stop embarrassing me in front of the neighbors. Maybe it would best if you leave home and never come back!” [pause] She wasn’t even my real mum. She bought me from a man.

January 2008
Scoop (2006)

Memorable quotes
Sid Waterman: The man is a liar and a murderer, and I say that with all due respect.

January 2008
Breach (2007)

Memorable quotes
Kate Burroughs: You’re going to make agent, Eric. Isn’t that what you wanted?
Eric O’Neill: It was.
Kate Burroughs: Until you came over to my apartment and saw the TV dinners and no cat?

January 2008
No such thing (2001)

Memorable quotes
The Monster: Nobody’s afraid of me any more.
Beatrice: I’m afraid of you…

January 2008
A sound of thunder (2005)

Memorable quotes
Travis Ryer: We cannot have accidents.
Payne: While I was a physics major in college, we studied something called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It proves that there is no such thing as zero tolerance. It doesn’t exist. You basically can’t be 100% sure of anything no matter how hard you try. Accidents… happen.
Travis Ryer: We can’t have accidents.

December 2007
The tao of Steve (2000)

Memorable quotes
Dex: Doing stuff is overrated. Like Hitler. He did a lot. But don’t we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?
Syd: Oh, I see. So you’re only options are to get stoned or commit genocide?

December 2007
Stranger than fiction (2007)

Trailer
Memorable quotes
Kay Eiffel: [narrating] And so he did what countless punk-rock songs had told him to do so many times before: he lived his life.

November 2007
Idiocracy (2006)

Trailer
Memorable quotes
Frito: Yah I know this place pretty good, I went to law school here.
Pvt. Joe Bowers: In Costco?
Frito: Yah I couldn’t believe it myself, luckily my dad was an alumnus and pulled some strings.

November 2007
Paris, je t’aime (2006)

Trailer

October 2007
Sea monsters (2006)

In the Late Cretaceous, a great inland ocean divided North America in two. A curious and adventurous dolichorynchops travels through life’s stages, experiencing the world from her spot near the bottom of the food chain. Along the way, she’ll encounter long-necked pleisosaurs, giant turtles, enormous fish, ferocious flippered crocs, fierce sharks, and the most dangerous sea monsters of all, the mosasaurs.

October 2007
Damaged goods (2006)

Trailer
Memorable quotes
Some people are better off damaged.

October 2007
Freedom state (2006)

Trailer
Memorable quotes
Beyond that storm lies the edge of the world.

October 2007
Dante’s Inferno (2006)

Trailer
Memorable quotes
I’m not Mrs. Butterworth Goddamit, I’m Senator Strom Thurmond!

October 2007
Geocache (2006)

May 2007
The man who sued God (2001)

Memorable quotes
Primate: It’s a sign!
Cardinal: A miracle!
Moderator: A winged messenger!
Gerry Ryan: It’s a f***ing cockatoo!

May 2007
Over the hedge (2006)

Memorable quotes [after the credits, RJ tries to take all the food in the vending machine, but they get stuck]
Hammy the Squirrel: Well, this is anti-climactic.

May 2007
Monster house (2006)

Memorable quotes
Chowder: My dad is at the pharmacy and my mom is at the movies with her personal trainer.

May 2007
Hot fuzz (2006)

Memorable quotes
Danny Butterman: What do you think?
Nicholas Angel: Well, I wouldn’t argue that it wasn’t a no holds barred, adrenaline fueled thrill ride. But there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork.

December 2006
Dead man (1995)

December 2006
Friends with money (2006)

Memorable quotes
Jane: I’m just tired.
Aaron: Of what?
Jane: I just, guess I feel there’s no more wondering what’s it gonna be like.
Aaron: Like what’s gonna be like?
Jane: My fabulous life.

November 2006
The jacket (2005)

Memorable quotes
Jackie Price: You got somewhere you need to go?
Jack Starks: [long pause] I’m not sure.
Jackie Price: Well, let me ask you that again. This time, look around and consider your options. Have you got somewhere you need to go?
Jack Starks: Yeah, I do.
Jackie Price: Well, great. Get in.

November 2006
The island (2005)

Memorable quotes
McCord: Just ’cause people wanna eat the burger doesn’t mean they wanna meet the cow.

September 2006
The ice harvest (2005)

Memorable quotes
Sidney: My mother’s always telling me I gotta control my anger, channel my energy into something more positive. Makes me want to slap her silly.

September 2006
Ivor Cutler

“I can remember the first time I ever heard Ivor Cutler - it was on the Andy Kershaw radio show on Radio 1 - and it is not a time that you could forget easily because his is such an unique talent that it is unlikely you have ever heard anything like it before. This documentary takes on the hard task of delivering the man’s colourful background and perhaps a bit of insight into who he is; but it mostly works. Only really knowing his albums, I was quite engaged by his back story and the “sadness” that sits at the heart of many creative and funny people. The film doesn’t do this that well, as it struggles to really produce a real structure but it is full of nice little stories and memories from many contributors that are interesting and quite pleasant. Of course if you have never heard about Cutler or his work then you’ll struggle to get into this because you’ll still be trying to get your head around the clips of his work; but for those who have more than a passing interest in him, this is a nice addition to your knowledge base.”

August 2006
Little Miss Sunshine (2005)

Memorable quotes
Olive: I’d like to dedicate this to my grandpa, who showed me these moves.
Pageant MC: Aww, that’s so sweet. Is he here now? Where’s your grandpa?
Olive: In the trunk of our car.

August 2006
Kiss kiss bang bang (2005)

Memorable quotes
Perry: [to the audience] Thanks for coming, please stay for the end credits, if you’re wondering who the best boy is, it’s somebody’s nephew, um, don’t forget to validate your parking, and to all you good people in the Midwest, sorry we said **** so much.

“I saw this movie at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival and expected it to be the typical film noir genre. This seemed to be the case for the first couple of minutes of narrative monologue before the jokes started coming fast and furious. This turned out to be a highly entertaining comedy/buddy film couched in a tongue in cheek film noir setting. The dialogue was witty and the chemistry between Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmour was great. Some of the jokes went by so fast that I’ll have to see this movie again to see what I missed as I was still laughing at the previous one. The director spoke before the movie and commented on how the producers were nervous about the risky choice of actors. This was a reference to Robert Downey Jr.’s past addiction problems, but this film proved that he was worth the risk. I saw 10 films at this year’s film festival and this one was my favorite.”

July 2006
IMDb top 250

June 2006
The hard word (2002)

“We get to hear Guy Pearce (long-haired and greasy) and Rachel Griffiths (blonde and wet) go native in their accents in an entertainingly original script by first-time director Scott Roberts. While not the first film to have quirky brothers-in-crime as the comfortable loyalty fulcrum, the familial psychological pathologies make for a nice counterpoint to the friends’, foes’, and femme fatale’s twists and turns. There’s more jokes and ironic humor than even the violence, which helps to block out some quizzical plot turns. The movie never tells us that the title is Ozzie slang, among other blunt phrases used throughout (such as the tendency of Ozzie blokes to affectionately call each other the “c” word). My Down Under friend Bronwyn translates (used with her permission): “In it’s ‘ultimate’ usage it means to pressure someone for sex. If you were talking to a girlfriend who went out on a date with someone new, you might ask ‘did he put the hard word on?’ However, it is sometimes also used just in a general sense of exerting pressure. In fact, it was in a headline in our local suburban paper (”The Leader”) yesterday: ‘Minister puts the hard word on district pollies [politicians].’ An article about the State Minister for Local Government pushing the local councils to sort out boundary reforms.”

March 2006
Night watch (Nochnoi dozor) (2004)

March 2006
Keeping the watch

“In 2004, Timour Bekmambetov’s Night Watch broke box-office records in the director’s native Russia. The first of a sweeping fantasy trilogy, Night Watch concerns itself with matters very familiar to fans of fantastic tales: prophesies, legends, the balance of power, and the choices that can turn a seemingly ordinary person into the focus of all hopes and fears. But unlike, say, Lord of the Rings or The Matrix, Night Watch takes place in the here and now, in a contemporary Moscow as easily inhabited by Others (vampires, witches, seers, shapeshifters) as by the humans who remain ignorant of the supernatural events unfolding around them.”

March 2006
Dark city (199

February 2006
The notorious Bettie Page (2005)

February 2006
The world’s fastest Indian

“While the best - and weirdest - characters show up in the US scenes, the New Zealand footage is beautifully shot, and big - huge, massive. Thanks go to the casting director and vocal coaches for not pouring on the Kiwi accents (a thick New Zealand accent sounds more like a turkey gobbling than real human speech).”

February 2006
Indomitable Kiwi spirit

“Roger Donaldson gives us a nuanced portrait of Burt Munro, a Kiwi obsessed with taking his 1920 Indian Twin Scout motorcycle to the world’s greatest straightaway, Bonneville Salt Flats U.S. After 20 years of perfecting his machine, Munro wanted to see what happened if he drove it as fast as it could go. In his early 70s at the time, Munro set the land speed record (201 mph) in 1969 at Bonneville. Donaldson (Thirteen Days) met Munro in 1971 at his home in Invercargill, New Zealand and made a documentary about him for N.Z. television, Offerings to the God of Speed, in 1972. But after Munro’s death in 1978, Donaldson was determined to make a feature film about this unique personality who’d made such an impression on him as a young filmmaker. More than motorcycles contributed to Munro’s fully lived life. He finds a loving relationship with Fran (Annie Whittle) in New Zealand and shares the bed of lovely desert widow Ada (Diane Ladd) in the U.S. A Native American man (Saginaw Grant) helps him after an accident and shares with him a potion for prostate suffering. Munro befriends an L.A. drag queen (Chris Williams), a used car salesman (Paul Rodriguez), a Vietnam soldier on leave (Patrick Flueger), and a fellow motorcyclist at Bonneville, Jim Moffet (Chris Lawford), whose way with the officials gets Munro into the timed trials. With excellent supporting performances, Hopkins makes it his movie with an understated, mellow performance showing Munro’s savvy, skilled ambition and his rich, personal style. Here was a man. World’s Fastest Indian opens Friday at the Bijou. Don’t miss this one.”

February 2006
Porco rosso (1992)

February 2006
Ofelas (1987)

February 2006
Lock, stock & 2 smoking barrels (1992)

Memorable quotes
Bacon: What’s that?
Samoan Joe’s Barman: It’s a cocktail. You asked for a cocktail.
Bacon: No. I asked for a refreshing drink! I didn’t expect a fucking rainforest! I could fall in love with an orangutan in that! Bring me a pint.
Samoan Joe’s Barman: You want a pint, you go to the pub.
Bacon: This is a pub!
Samoan Joes Barman: It’s a Samoan pub.

“By the end of it all, as you’re reeling while trying to make sense of the plot, “Lock, Stock, etc.” seems more like an exercise in style than anything else. And so it is. We don’t care much about the characters (I felt more actual affection for the phlegmatic bouncer, Barry the Baptist, than for any of the heroes). We realize that the film’s style stands outside the material and is lathered on top (there are freeze frames, jokey subtitles, speed-up and slo-mo). And that the characters are controlled by the demands of the clockwork plot. But “Lock, Stock” is fun, in a slapdash way; it has an exuberance, and in a time when movies follow formulas like zombies, it’s alive. Roger Ebert

February 2006
Match point (2005)

“One reason for the fascination of Woody Allen’s “Match Point” is that each and every character is rotten. This is a thriller not about good versus evil, but about various species of evil engaged in a struggle for survival of the fittest — or, as the movie makes clear, the luckiest. “I’d rather be lucky than good,” Chris, the tennis pro from Ireland, tells us as the movie opens, and we see a tennis ball striking the net it is pure luck which side it falls on. Chris’ own good fortune depends on just such a lucky toss of a coin. The movie, Allen’s best since “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989), involves a rich British family and two outsiders who hope to enter it by using their sex appeal. They are the two sexiest people in the movie — their bad luck, since they are more attracted to each other than to their targets in the family. Still, as someone once said (Robert Heinlein if you must know), money is a powerful aphrodisiac. He added however, “flowers work almost as well.” Not in this movie, they don’t.” Roger Ebert

January 2006
Jesus’ son (1999)

January 2006
The life aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

January 2006
King Kong (2005)

December 2005
He died with a felafel in his hand (2001)

“Danny (Noah Taylor) wants to be a writer. He has not been successful, however, so he is constantly moving to new apartments and houses all over Australia whenever the landlord insists on actually being paid, taking his Underwood typewriter with him. He uses a roll of teletype paper instead of individual sheets because he heard that Keroauc felt that pages are limiting. And he generally starts each piece based on a couple of lines on a poster he keeps on his wall. Somehow the people Danny shares these residences seem to all stick together, which is convenient since that means we also get to know them. Sam is a girl, but is generally just another one of the mates. Anya is a vegetarian and is a little dark and scary. Flip is known to lie in the backyard at night with a reflector catching moonbeams. And everyone seems at least a little mental. Early in the film we see a toad being hit with a golf club, and we hear it hitting the side of the house. For the rest of the time at that house, we occasionally hear the thud of another toad. This explains the ‘professional cane toad whacker’ credit at the end of the film. Note: You never actually see the club hit the toad. The toad simply disappears when the club swings through. So it’s mentally but not visually gross. The film is more style than substance. I was reminded a bit of the feel but not the subject matter of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The dialog is very fun, although it is a bit too clever to be realistic. There are frequent movie and Star Trek references. There is drama mixed in to the comedy, but unlike in A Hot Roof, it works quite well here. And the soundtrack is also quite good. I came out grinning. I think I liked this film more than most, but if you like offbeat comedies, this is definitely one to look up, assuming it ever gets distribution.”

Other reviews

December 2005
Teenage kicks (2001)

November 2005
Capote (2005)

October 2005
Criminal (2004)

October 2005
Serenity (2005)

October 2005
Can’t stop the signal

“The first thing you need to know about Serenity, the first feature film from Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, is not the oft-told tale about how the movie was born from the ashes of a short-lived 2002 TV series called Firefly (though that is a pretty good yarn). It’s that on nearly every level, Whedon’s character-driven space opera beats those bigger-budget behemoths George Lucas has been unleashing on us for the last few years. Hands down. (Lucas does have, it must be admitted, more money and thus shinier effects.) While in many cases it may not be necessary or even fair to compare apples and oranges like these two films, here it seems appropriate: Some of us have been waiting for more years than we’d like to admit for a science fiction adventure that takes the saucy, rebellious Han Solo spirit and runs with it like Serenity does.”

October 2005
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

June 2005
Party girl (1995)

June 2005
Noises off (199

June 2005
Snatch (2000)

May 2005
The castle (1997)

April 2005
Big fish (2003)

March 2005
The price of milk (2000)

March 2005
Dinner rush (2000)

Mar. 2005
Shallow grave (1994)

Mar. 2005
Matchstick men (2003)

Mar. 2005
24 hour party people (2002)

“24 Hour Party People is the story of Factory Records, a defiantly eccentric independent record label based in Manchester, England, which discovered acts as influential and diverse as Joy Division and the Happy Mondays. The film is shot in mock-documentary style and narrated by Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), the founder of Factory. Coogan portrays Wilson’s double life as music Svengali and cheesy local TV reporter to brilliant comic effect. Although Brits will draw the inevitable parallels between Coogan’s Wilson and his ultra-naff TV persona, Alan Partridge, Coogan actually has Wilson off to a tee. Arrogant and pompous, Cambridge-educated Wilson is master of the pseudish sound bite (when he realises they have no tickets for a concert in his nightclub, he retorts “Did they have tickets for the Sermon on the Mount? Of course they didn’t, people just turned up because they knew it would be a great gig”). But he also has a perceptive eye for the zeitgeist and his vision to create the Hacienda club transformed Manchester into Madchester, for a brief time the music capital of the world.”

Feb. 2005
Unconditional love (2002)

Feb. 2005
The cooler (2003)

Feb. 2005
Trainspotting (1996)

Feb. 2005
King Arthur (2004)

Feb. 2005
Mean girls (2004)

Feb. 2005
Garden state (2004)

Jan. 2005
Dirty deeds (2002)

Jan. 2005
Swimming pool (2003)

Jan. 2005
Intolerable cruelty (2003)

Jan. 2005
Shaun of the dead (2004)

Jan. 2005
Kiss or kill (1997)

Jan. 2005
Lantana (2001)

Jan. 2005
Love actually (2003)

Jan. 28, 2005
The Oregonian’s 50 funniest movies

since 15 August 2007