CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

I like "House of Flying Daggers." Beautiful photography, great acting, wonderful Shakespearean plot. If you like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon," you'll like this.

"Hero" is also very good.

winduptoy · Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 11:37 am Post subject:

**kal** · Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject:

Re: Bread and Tulips - Nope! I've added it to the list!

FYI: Was reading the DAS BOOT (a Sony movie) is scheduled for BluRay early 2008! Hopefully it'll be the full version!

Kal

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC

Joust · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:03 am Post subject:

"Quest for Fire" its all in caveman... Wink

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC

Joust · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:08 am Post subject:

there was that movie "Caveman" staring Ringo Star too. they spoke a different Dialect of 'caveman' Love that scene where he rolled over and squashed that giant fly that was on his friends face.

Joust · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:11 am Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 2:01 am Post subject:

I use to speak it at work but I had a Canadian acent Ughh eh? Grunt grunt eh.

Mr. Green · Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:48 am Post subject:

My 2 cents...

Non- Hollywood movies anyways... but for most of us, at least they are in English (except the last).

Siblings - Hold your breath... yes it's a Canadian film... that was actually good! I think it's the only good film to come out of Canada in, well forever. Picked it up for under $10 to get my 2 for $20 at blockbuster and.. it was really good. Read the review... http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Reviews/S/Siblings/2005/04/15/997749.html

The Castle (Australia) - I love this film. Very funny. http://www.infilm.com.au/reviews/thecastle.htm

Resident Evil 1&2 (and ye-haw! #3 about to be released! - I don't want to know if it's out already, I'm not watching it until it's "previously enjoyed" like every other movie I watch). http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/resident_evil/about.php

Johnny English - Rowan Atkinson at his best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_English

If you want really foreign... "Once upon a time in China" kicks crouching zebra, hidden lemmings butt! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103285/

It's almost 2 AM and I can't think of any others...

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

La Femme Nikita and Amelie were entertaining. Anything with Ziyi Zhang in it. As mentioned, too, Das Boot.

Mark_A_W · Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject:

The Castle ain't no furreign film mate.

We drive through Bonny Doon all the time ("How's the serenity?"). It used to be on the shores of a very large dam called Lake Eildon. Now it's perched on the bank of a huge big muddy hole, cause it ain't rained in 10 years.....not so picturesque now..

Mr. Green · Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 4:09 am Post subject:

By foreign, I meant not produced in hollywood. Wink

I'm 1/2 Australian and growing up my family had some hilarious similarities to the movie. My dad had a "pool room" with every neat knick-knack ever received/bought in it, so now it's oddity is just from being an auzzie and not my dad's just a little odd. He (at 83 years old on Friday) recently built a gazebo in the backyard over the (free) hot tub that never worked, has built a platform on that, and the roof (inside the gazebo) is a 1970's eight foot in diameter satellite dish! To top it off in the centre is a nasty 1980's brass chandelier! Complete with plastic "victoriana touches". From a distance it actually looks nice, then you get near it and see what's under it. The "extensions" also have a lot of "duct tape" and coat hangers in the mix.

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

To this point my favorite has to be The Returner, from Japan. It's a bit of a Matrix ripoff in terms of style, but the weird thing about the Japanese is that they can get away with copying stuff because no matter *what* it ends up with this land-of-the-rising-sun je ne sais quoi that lends it a complete inimitability.

It's definitely not the plot that makes The Returner worthwhile. A girl, last hope of a humanity nearly vanquished by angry aliens and comically bad American accents, goes back in time to prevent the events that triggered the catastrophe, and enlists / forces the help of a confused young badass who's seeking revenge on a Bad Dude who happens to play a pivotal role in the alien attack. Huh? Whatever, it doesn't matter - what matters is the way the movie manages to be shot seriously, acted (mostly) seriously, and edited seriously, but exude a complete and total lack of concern for itself. The balance struck is rare, and you end up with a movie you can laugh with one minute, laugh *at* the next, and be unexpectedly drawn into the next.

The coup de grace, though, is the actor who plays the afforementioned Bad Dude, Mizoguchi, Goro Kishitani. Kishitani manages to embue his character with a bizarre combination of serious menace, unwavering cool-and-I-know-it, and, by far the most important, a nearly pathologically patient frustration with his incompetent henchmen (for once, a bad guy actually notices what nincompoops he hired) that makes the character, in my eyes, one of the funniest I've ever seen. You know how when your computer spontaneously reboots for the fifth time in a day, for no apparent reason, you run your hands through your hair, leaning back in your chair and staring skyward in disbelief? Mizoguchi spends half the movie doing that. It's utterly splendid.

So, The Returner. My pick. Hands down.

A footnote: If you're lucky enough to find the sci-fi-convention import version (I can't imagine it's possibly been left in the Blockbuster mass release), there's a moment so surprising and utterly flabbergasting that you may actually have to pat around on the floor to find your jaw. Once you've seen it, you'll agree that it is almost certainly - and this is saying a lot - without precedent in the movie world. It's worth spending the two hours watching the movie for this moment, even if you detest the rest of it. Trust me.

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2920 Location: Ithaca, NY

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:14 pm Post subject:

I saw an Irish film once. Dam it though they didn't have subtitles. I had a hard time following what they were saying.

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

I suppose this chat could include animation, no? Ghost in the Shell (Innocence, too) sounded a lot better in Japanese than any English dubbing.

Mr. Green · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:04 am Post subject:

Why not animation as well.

I forgot one. AR mentioned Ireland and it reminded me of "Waking Ned Devine". Slow but funny.

jask · Joined: 17 Mar 2006 Posts: 10187 Location: kamloops BC