Rating - Perfect 10 Movies

[barsoomcore]

(the scene where the two guys watch Ed Norton beat himself up and then ask where they can sign up)

Note one thing: you NEVER see anything to suggest that those guys DID ask to sign up.

Here's the trick of Fight Club: It NEVER HAPPENED. None of it. The entire movie is a METAPHOR. It's the only way it makes sense. You're right, the idea that people watched Ed Norton beat himself up and became his mindless followers is ludicrous. Exactly. Maybe he died in that plane crash he pretends never happened. Maybe he blew up his own apartment building and went crazy. Or maybe the whole movie is about something happening inside a person's head as they face themselves at last.

That's another movie that I just love, and I do mean LOVE, but I wouldn't rate as a 'Perfect 10'.

Exactly what I would have said before I watched it again last night.

So if you're in the Pacific Northwest next week

Hey, are you a Seattle boy, KL? I'm in Vancouver BC, myself. Just a hop away...

 

[Mog Elffoe]

How ironic. Just a few days ago I took the Criterion Edition DVD out of my collection and set it aside because I'm planning to trade it in to get a discount on Return of the King this Tuesday. So if you're in the Pacific Northwest next week, you might want to check a few Wherehouse stores, you just might find a copy available for purchase.

Check e-bay before you do. You might be able to get some decent cabbage for it if you're really looking to get rid of it. I don't know what it's going for right now, but there was a time when the Criterion Collection editions of both Hard Boiled and The Killer were going for around $200 each. Personally, I'd never part with my CC editions of these films. I just love 'em too much (but neither are 'Perfect 10s').

 

[Kai Lord]

Check e-bay before you do. You might be able to get some decent cabbage for it if you're really looking to get rid of it. I don't know what it's going for right now, but there was a time when the Criterion Collection editions of both Hard Boiled and The Killer were going for around $200 each. Personally, I'd never part with my CC editions of these films. I just love 'em too much (but neither are 'Perfect 10s').

Holy crap, you aren't kidding. There's one there going for $53 with 8 bids on it. Okay that's better than the $7 I'd get at Wherehouse. For me Hard Boiled was great back in the day, but at this point I've just outgrown it. For my John Woo fix, I've got Bullet in the Head and Face/Off. Two *much* better films, with a lot more emotional punch (a keel over gut punch in the case of BitH.)

But the warehouse and hospital shootouts in Hard Boiled will always be utterly amazing.

 

[Kai Lord]

Hey, are you a Seattle boy, KL? I'm in Vancouver BC, myself. Just a hop away...

Heh, lived in the Seattle area for 8 years (Bellevue actually) before finding work down here in Portland, Oregon. One of these days one of us should make a pilgrimage to go catch a flick with the other guy so we can argue about movies in person.

 

[barsoomcore]

Yeah, though we should probably sign some kind of "non-aggression pact" beforehand.

I thought I'd outgrown Hard-Boiled -- exactly. Just got my head kicked in the other night, though.

Maybe I'm regressing.

 

[Mog Elffoe]

For me Hard Boiled was great back in the day, but at this point I've just outgrown it. For my John Woo fix, I've got Bullet in the Head and Face/Off. Two *much* better films, with a lot more emotional punch (a keel over gut punch in the case of BitH.)

But the warehouse and hospital shootouts in Hard Boiled will always be utterly amazing.

Really? You think that Face/Off is better than Hard Boiled? I like Face/Off and all, and even own it, but better than Hard Boiled? I don't see it. Is there a particular reason? Some of the "Say you're impotent!" stuff at the end of Hard Boiled comes across just strange to Western ears, but the action and pure filmmaking artistry... For my money, Woo has never topped Hard Boiled.

 

[barsoomcore]

For my money, Woo has never topped Hard Boiled.

Can I get an amen?

I'll agree that choosing between Hard-Boiled and Bullet in the Head can be a little hard. But BitH has got some real problems for me (the opening fight scene is plain old cheesy, and I think you could accuse it of sentimentality at times).

But Face/Off -- well, not for me. Woo's Hollywood films have been a string of disappointments to me. I don't think he has the need to depict suffering that he did in those last years in Hong Kong. And he hasn't found anything new to talk about. I mean, you can very clearly see in Woo's later HK films a real terror of the impending merger with China. It's pretty obvious that Woo distrusts the ideas of policital agendas and a legal distinctions -- he puts his faith in the solidarity of heroic individuals who cleave together despite the social issues that separate them. All his HK films are about this notion, from A Better Tomorrow on. What are his Hollywood films about? I don't know, and I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't, either.

That said, M:I 2 had at least three moments of pure Woo poetry. I own that DVD just for that front-wheelie-spin-shoot-the-car-into-a-rollover moment. I can watch that one (and the other spin-on-the-motorcycle-shoot-the-suburban moment) over and over again. When he's on, there's no one quite like him.

I just wish he'd find a script that lets him bring something with real passion to the screen.

 

[Xune]

Dark Crystal
Kill Bill
The 13th Warrior
Excalibur
Space Balls
Legend
LOTR Trilogy
The Matrix
Blood of Heros

Too many to list really,

I have to go with the what you expect theory.

I try not to make every movie an aspiring work of art. Even the Dungeons and Dragons movie was enjoyable, if you weren't expecting much.

Oh yeah the one I have to add as possibly my all time favorite:

Tie between Pulp Fiction and Fight Club....

My all time favorite oneliner::

"Sticking feathers up your but does not make you a chicken"


Also A Johny Depp flick Dead Man. I love that movie.

 

[Particle_Man]

Also A Johny Depp flick Dead Man. I love that movie.

Amen. And someday I want to run or play in a 13th Warrior campaign. That would be, what, 1 rogue and 12 barbarians?

 

[Thanee]

Or maybe the whole movie is about something happening inside a person's head as they face themselves at last.

Been a while, that I watched it, but I believe it is pretty much that.
The whole movie shows something like the weird perception of a person with MPS.

Bye
Thanee