Best Movies You've Seen In The Past Year

[vaticanplum]

I mentioned it on the Oscar nomination thread a while back, saying it would probably end up winning for best pic, and had a disagreement w/ someone who disliked it immensely on the Worst Movie thread.

I just read that I tend toward your opinion, I think. It actually reminded me of one of my very favorite movies, Traffic, in the sense that all these stories come together and the main theme with which I'm left is that nothing is black and white, there are a million aspects to every story. And the way that everything that seems so big can really be broken down into tiny little pieces of relationships and mundanities of life. The way those things can just blow up on you at any time.

I thought the Japanese girl was amazing...that story just broke my heart. She essentially just kept getting rejected, over and over, even by her own mother in a sense. And the easiest and most obvious way to not get rejected was for her to get close to someone physically, and it KEPT HAPPENING because she was so misguided about it. The end with her father...oh god. Man.

All that said, the whole movie was just harrowing. I felt sick several times.

[Blimpie]

I'll throw my vote behind The Departed, as well. I have never been a very big Leonardo DiCaprio fan--but her steals the show in this flick.

With that cast, it was no easy task.

[GAC]

Saw "Letters From Iwo Jima" this past Thursday. Fantastic movie, especially since "war" movies generally don't show things from the enemies point of view. I highly recommend this movie.

Is it out on DVD yet? Or is it just being released to theaters? I watched Flags Of Our Fathers today - WOW! Great movie!

Had some great lines in it too. One of the opening lines really struck me hard...."Every A**hole thinks they know all about war. Especially those that have never fought in one." So very true.

"The right picture can win or lose a war"

[Reds Fanatic]

Is it out on DVD yet? Or is it just being released to theaters? I watched Flags Of Our Fathers today - WOW! Great movie!

Had some great lines in it too. One of the opening lines really struck me hard...."Every A**hole thinks they know all about war. Especially those that have never fought in one." So very true.

"The right picture can win or lose a war"

Letters from Iwo Jima is still in theaters. It will probably be on DVD either in the spring or early in the summer.

[GAC]

Just took the kids to see Ghost Rider w/ Nicholas Cage. I never followed the comic book series (after my time); but it was a good movie and well worth seeing.

Saw the previews for Spiderman 3. It looks pretty good, and I'm anxious to see it this summer. Also the FF sequel too.

[edabbs44]

Borat was hysterical.

[GIK]

Just watched 'The Prestige' last night and thought it was great.

[justincredible]

Just got done watching Flags of our Fathers. Pretty good movie.

[pedro]

Just saw Casino Royale. Good flick.

[letsgojunior]

Throwing my vote in for The Departed as well

[919191]

Probably The Departed. I am gonna try to see Babel this next weekend.

[GAC]

Just watched 'The Prestige' last night and thought it was great.

I tried to watch it... but alas, lying in bed the eyes couldn't stay open. I did the same thing with The Illusionist. I've heard they are both good movies - and I hope to stay awake long enough to see them.

Also have The Night Watcher w/ Robin Williams.

[GAC]

Ok. I watched The Prestige yesterday and really liked it. But the ending really threw me.

DISCLAIMER: If you haven't seen the movie, stop here.

To those that have seen it, I have some questions that you might be able to help me with.

Bale's character (Borden) is actually twin brothers perpetrating the Transported Man. I figured that out when Caine's character (Cutter), in advising the Jackson character (Angier) who was "obsessing" over how Borden was doing this act, told him he had to be using a double. Cutter knew because he was in on it. Angier seemed to not want to accept such an easy explanation.

So Angier finds a double of his own for his new act. But what happens to this guy? Now I thought, after I watched the movie, that this other guy (the "drunk" Angier) was really his twin brother. And that it turns out that it was actually two sets of twin brothers carrying out this bitter feud, trying to out do each other, and even sabotaging each others acts.

But what throws me for a loop is the device capable of teleporting a being from one place to another, and built by the Bowie character, physicist Tesla. In the movie, when the device is activated, it doesn't appear to work because the top hat and cat used in the experiments were still standing within the device. I assumed that Angier took the device, even though it didn't work, for it's theatrical and visual effects, and used the trap door, as well as his double, to create this new act.

But reading up on Wikipedia on this movie (and the book), the device did work and creates a "clone" of the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige

For Angier's trick, Tesla successfully creates a device capable of teleporting a being from one place to another, but which has a surprising side-effect. As well as re-creating the subject wherever is deigned by the device, the subject is also left behind, but as a cold, lifeless shell. Angier, with bitter humor, refers to these shells as 'prestiges'.

Angier's new act is equal to Borden's and Borden, in retaliation, attempts to discover how In A Flash is performed. During one performance he breaks into the backstage area, and turns off the power to Angier's device, though he does not discover what it does, during the act itself. As a result, the teleportation is incomplete, and both the new Angier and the old, 'prestige' Angier continue to live, though the old feels constantly weak while the new seems to have a lack of physical substance. The real Angier fakes the death of his magic act alter-ego and returns to his family estate, where he becomes terminally ill.

The clone Angier, alienated from the world by his ghostly form and realizing Borden's secret, attacks one of them before a performance. However, Borden's apparent poor health and Angier's sense of morality intervene and Angier does not carry through with the murder. It is implied that this Borden dies a few days later, and the incorporeal Angier travels to meet his twin. They obtain Borden's diary and publish it after omitting the brothers' secret. Shortly afterwards, the corporeal Angier dies and his ghostly twin uses the device to teleport himself into the body, hoping that either he would return it back to life and be one person again or kill himself instantly. It is discovered in the final chapter that the reconstructed Angier has continued to survive to the present day.

-----------------------------------------------

So was it the "clone" Angiers running around doing the killing?

And at the very end of the movie you see a scene of the one Angier still in the water tank. What was with that? One of the Bale brothers gets hanged for murdering Angier, and earlier in the movie we see the Angier who was supposedly drowned in that tank on an autopsy table.

I'm also assuming that the Michael Caine character switches his allegiance to Borden at some point after he realizes that Angier's obsession with Borden's acts is driving him to try and destroy Borden's personal life out of pure jealousy.

What say some of you?

[Redsfaithful]

Saw The Departed last night, great movie. Can't believe I waited so long to watch it.

[Cyclone792]

GAC, I started a new thread to respond to your post on The Prestige so we wouldn't hijack this one with movie spoilers. The link to that thread is below.

DISCLAIMER: If you haven't seen the movie The Prestige, do not click the link below.

http://www.redszone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1250234