Simply Good Movies

Matilda (1996)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:25:00 +0000

IMDB

I was in need of some good, uplifting comedy to cheer me up so last night I went to bed at 2 am, started re-watching Matilda on my pocket PC and before I know it was already 4 in the morning.
I really have a lot of respect for mr. Danny DeVito. Not only is he a good actor, he also directed some great movies that I have watched more than once. Hoffa was excellent. Throw Momma From The Train and The War of The Roses are two of my favorite black comedies.

Matilda is a cute 6-year-old girl who is super smart. She has the worst parents in the world. Her bigger brother is a total ass. Her school principal is a walking nightmare. She has a great, caring teacher, though. Not to mention telekinetic power.

I haven't read the book by Roald Dahl but the movie adaptation is simply wonderful. There is none of the sappiness usually associated with children movies here. This is a film that can be enjoyed by everyone (except self-loathing, miserable people).

My favorite scene (makes me smile every time I think about it):
Harry Wormwood: Are you in this family?
Matilda: Mmmm...
Harry Wormwood: Hello?
[short pause]
Harry Wormwood: Are you in this family?
[switches the lamp off]
Harry Wormwood: Dinner timne is family time. What is this trash you're reading?
Matilda: It's not trash, Daaddy, it's lovely. It's called "Moby Dick", by Herman Melville.
Harry Wormwood: Moby *what*?!!
[snatching the book from Matilda and tears the pages out of the cover]
Harry Wormwood: This is Filth! Trash...!

Get the unabridged audio book at:
http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/audiobook/roald_dahl_matilda_complete_and_unabridged.html

Get the e-book version in html format at:
http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/others/fadfdfdsfg4.html

And here are the Rapidshare links for a good quality dvdrip:

http://tinypaste.com/093b9

Specs:

File : 968 MB, duration: 1:34:11, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 882 MB, 1310 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 704*304, Divx v5,
Audio : 86 MB, 128 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, CBR

Q-pel: No GMC: No PB: Yes (can be easily removed using MPEG4ModifierMod.1.4.4.exe).

Neco z Alenky (1988) aka Alice

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:22:00 +0000

Alice thought to herself 'Now you will see a film... made for children... perhaps... ' But, I nearly forgot... you must... close your eyes... otherwise... you won't see anything.

IMDB

While waiting for Terry Gilliam's Alice In Wonderland to come out in theaters here in Montreal, Canada, I re-watched Jan Svankmajer's masterpiece: Neco z Alenky aka Alice (1988) last night. It is a wonderfully creepy, strikingly original interpretation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale. It must have been the fourth time I watched this film over the years but the enjoyment is still undiminished.
If you're new to Jan Svankmajer's work, this would be the perfect introduction. And then you will want more.
=================
Review from Washington Post:
By Hal Hinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
November 23, 1988

What the Czech animator Jan Svankmajer does in "Alice" seems more akin to alchemy than moviemaking. His is an art of dark conjuring, brought to life more by the wave of a wand than the slap of a clapper board.

Anyone who's ever slept in the same room with a larger-than-normal-sized doll will have some idea of the atmosphere of vague dread in "Alice." The film begins with the words, "Now you will see a film for children. Perhaps." They're recited by a pretty blond child (Kristy'na Kohoutova') with large intelligent eyes and a willful expression. The child is surrounded by her toys, some bits of food left over from tea, drawings and other everyday items, all scattered in disarray.

It is out of these ordinary oddities that Svankmajer creates the inhabitants of Alice's sleep. Svankmajer's creations have a quality of wonderment, but of a very peculiar sort; they're partly enchanted, partly haunted, and there's a hint of the morphologist's lab in them, a trace of formaldehyde. In a corner is a glass case containing a large stuffed white rabbit, which comes to life with a kind of shiver. Donning a red velvet livery with a lace collar and a matching top hat, the White Rabbit breaks out of its case, pulls a pocket watch out of a rip in its chest and hurries off, eventually disappearing into a desk drawer.

Desks and desk drawers figure prominently in Svankmajer's world of symbols. Sometimes they're like rabbit holes, passages into other worlds; sometimes they fulfill their normal function, though not quite in normal ways. In one drawer, Alice finds an inkwell, the contents of which she drinks, causing her to shrink into a doll. Later, a bite of a cookie causes her to return to normal size.

"Alice," which according to the credits was "inspired" by the Lewis Carroll tale, sticks fairly closely to the story's basic plot. Along the way, though, Svankmajer departs from the original, in many cases using Carroll's words but taking the liberty to create his own action, his own world. Svankmajer's addition to Carroll's word games is the element of psychological danger. Alice's dreams have the scrambled frenzy of a child who has fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position. The images are troubled, menace-laden.

Traveling through the psychic landscape Svankmajer has created, Alice seems somehow to be at risk. The world seems to be in revolt against her, threatening her, bearing in. Or else it's simply mysterious, alien.

This mirrors a feeling that we often had as children, when objects appeared large and unmanageable, and grown-ups spoke in what seemed to us like code. Svankmajer possesses the kind of technical mastery that carries us over mechanical questions, allowing us to concentrate on the deeper meanings in the work.

But meanings, in the strict sense, are elusive. And what's more, you have no interest in pinning him down, in deciphering the messages. Svankmajer communicates through textures, colors, moods, and he delivers his ideas by implication, obliquely, in a nonliteral, though still accessible, manner.

If he has a deficiency, it's in his sense of narrative. For all its poetic power, "Alice" doesn't reveal Svankmajer to be a very natural storyteller, and occasionally we get bogged down in the enactment of his secret ceremonies. Not lost, but adrift.

Still, Svankmajer's sinister visual music has an irresistible potency and allure. Watching it, we feel the enthrallment of the irrational. It takes us back to a time in the history of movies when audiences responded to the images on screen with a combination of awe and fear, when in submitting to them, we felt as if we were submitting to a spell.
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http://tinypaste.com/655a6
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Specs:

File size : 1.36 GB (or 1,398 MB)
Type : AVI
Duration : 2:01:10
Audio stream:
Cds: 1 (not splitted)

Video
Size: 1010 MB
Codec : XviD 1.1 (Koepi)
Bitrate : 1165 Kbps
Resolution: 672*352
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Bits per pixel: 0.204
QPEL: No ; GMC: No ; N-VOP: No

Audio
Size: 388 MB
Codec : AC3
Bitrate : 448 Kbps
Channels : 5
Sampling rate : 48 000 Hz

Language: English
Subs: English (sub and srt)

The Ballad of Little Jo (1993)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:40:00 +0000

The Ballad of Little Jo (1993)
Directed by
Maggie Greenwald

Written by
Maggie Greenwald

IMDB

================
Plot (from AMG):
The Ballad of Little Jo is based on a true story -- several true stories, in fact. Suzy Amis plays demure young Josephine Monagan, who in 1866 is run out of her home town after bearing an illegitimate child. Fleeing westward, Josephine is terrified by stories of how treacherous the frontier can be for a woman alone. As a result, upon arriving in the muddy burg of Ruby City, she disguises herself as a man, going so far as to scar her face to suggest that she's been in a few scrapes. In this guise, "Little Jo" does just fine by herself for nearly 30 years! Almost as good as Suzy Amis is Bo Hopkins as gunslinger Frank Badger, Little Jo's best buddy (if only he knew....) Written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, The Ballad of Little Jo does a marvelous job conveying the people and places of its period; and, unlike Bad Girls (which was released around the same time), we aren't bludgeoned to death by feminist revisionism. Unfortunately ignored when it went out to theatres in the fall of 1993, The Ballad of Little Jo has fared rather better on video.
================
Review (from AMG):
by Tom Wiener
Turning the feminist point of view askew, this film offers the premise that the only way a woman could prosper in the frontier West with any dignity was to disguise herself as a man. The fact is, given the constrictions on women at the time, this was likely the only means of prospering for a woman anywhere in America. But Little Jo, née Josephine Monaghan, has a better chance of concealing her identity on the underpopulated frontier, which also was democratically open to an entrepreneur with some talent and determination. Jo learns how to be a sheepherder from Frank Badger (Bo Hopkins), and then turns the tables on him by saving up enough to buy her own spread and flock. They manage to coexist as neighbors, if not outright pals, for the rest of her life. But her secret is discovered rather quickly by another outcast, a Chinese veteran of railroad work (David Chung), who becomes, in turn, her domestic servant and then her lover. Concealing both her identity and the affair almost overwhelms Jo, and the film is distressingly vague on the resolution of the couple's relationship. Another subplot involving a cattle baron trying to buy Jo's land is similarly unresolved. What the film is best at portraying is the isolation and terrible loneliness of life on the frontier. Writer/director Maggie Greenwald's next film, Songcatcher, also dealt with a woman venturing into a isolated culture where she wasn't welcome; in that story, the protagonist made few accommodations. In a rare lead performance, Suzy Amis is persuasive, but because of her character's understandable reticence, the real life of this party is Bo Hopkins' Frank, a man who's sure that Little Jo is some kind of peculiar fellow but is at the same time remarkably tolerant of him.
================
http://tinypaste.com/dd2e5
================
Specs:

File size : 1.36 GB (or 1,398 MB)
Type : AVI
Duration : 2:01:10
Audio stream:
Cds: 1 (not splitted)

Video
Size: 1010 MB
Codec : XviD 1.1 (Koepi)
Bitrate : 1165 Kbps
Resolution: 672*352
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Bits per pixel: 0.204
QPEL: No ; GMC: No ; N-VOP: No

Audio
Size: 388 MB
Codec : AC3
Bitrate : 448 Kbps
Channels : 5
Sampling rate : 48 000 Hz

Language: English
Subs: English (sub and srt)
Source: R1 WS DVD
Ripper: CroakerBC

Hachiko: A Dog's Story (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:45:00 +0000

IMDB

Just watched this newly released movie a couple of days ago. It was really good. I love dogs. I remember when I was a kid, there was this little dog I named Mimi. Every night, after I went to bed, it would wait for me to be asleep then jumped on my bed and slept next to me. I had lots of other dogs, too. But after awhile, my family decided not to have any more dogs. Because it was just so sad when they die.

Anyway, Hachiko: A Dog's Story is a heart-warming, touching tale based on a true story about a loyal Akita dog who was abandoned on the street. A professor found and took it home. Every day, Hachiko would come to the train station to see the professor off to work, then in the evening it would come back to greet him. One day, the man didn't return. For 9 entire years, the dog waited for the train that would bring his friend back, until the day it died.

Would that I had friends as loyal as Hachiko. Maybe I already do. But you never know how loyal your friends are until the shit hits the fan. I am not looking forward to finding out.

The real Hachiko

Read about Hachiko at Wikipedia
==================
Hachiko.A.Dogs.Story.DVDRip.XviD-NeDiVx

File : 699 MB, duration: 1:28:46, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 607 MB, 956 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 624*336 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 92 MB, 145 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, CBR

Language: English
Subtitle: English, Japanese
==================
Links:
http://scenereleases.info/2010/02/hachiko-a-dogs-story-dvdrip-xvid-nedivx.html

http://www.rlslog.net/hachiko-a-dogs-story-dvdrip-xvid-nedivx/

http://www.oneddl.com/movies/hachiko-a-dogs-story-dvdrip-xvid-nedivx/
==================

Wolf (1994)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:58:00 +0000

IMDB

Just re-watched this today and it was as good as I remember. Michelle Pfeiffer is the babest of all babes and Jack Nicholson is, well, Jack Nicholson. Wolf (1994) is not a scary, per se, and does not contain tons of gore or special effects like other werewolf movies but it is one hell of a refreshing, humorous and highly entertaining ride.
====================
Washington Post review:
'Wolf' (R)
By Hal Hinson
Washington Post Staff Writer
June 17, 1994

"Wolf," the new Mike Nichols film starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer, doesn't take a straight horror film approach to the werewolf genre, and it's not a jokey sendup either. It's something fresher and infinitely more inventive -- a satire about how to climb the corporate ladder that uses werewolf lore only as its metaphorical springboard. In its own delightfully peculiar way, the film is the only one of its kind ever made -- a horror film about office politics.

What Nichols has attempted here -- with the assistance of screenwriters Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick -- is the filmmaking equivalent of a high-wire act. The result is a sometimes shaky, always enchanting Beauty and the Beast story for grown-ups that is the very essence of smart fun -- droll, sophisticated and surprisingly, pleasingly light. The movie isn't wholly great; it starts to unravel just after the midway point. Still, there are charms enough all the way through to make it the most seductive, most enjoyable film of the summer.

Topping this list of enticements is Wolfman Jack himself, who, though playing a beast, hasn't seemed so engaging and effortlessly human in years. Nicholson plays Will Randall, the respected senior editor of a Manhattan publishing firm -- and from the look of it, this low-energy, almost depressive character with his pipe and corduroys was conceived as a sort of inverse joke on the actor's larger-than-life hipster image. At the beginning of the film, the firm is in the process of a corporate takeover and Randall is about to lose his job to a more ambitious, younger colleague (James Spader). It's not hard to see why. For all his "taste and individuality" -- the qualities that takeover tycoon Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer) praises in his distinguished employee just before giving him the boot -- Randall is pretty much a spent force.

Before long, though, Randall is tossing away the bifocals and shocking his wife, Charlotte (Kate Nelligan), by undoing her robe with his teeth. Feeling frisky as a cub, he also decides to fight for his job, even going so far as to challenge Alden by threatening to take his authors with him.

Of course, the youthful surges of vitality and confidence could have logical explanations, but somehow Randall is feeling better than well. When his senses become so keen that he can eavesdrop on conversations three floors below or even sniff out his wife from all the way across Central Park, he begins to wonder if the bite he received recently from a wolf up in Vermont might have something to do with it.

Up to the point where Randall begins his moonlight prowls, Nichols's direction is as deft and intelligent as it's ever been. And even afterward, when the story focuses on the characters -- specifically, on Randall's developing relationship with Alden's rich-bitch daughter, Laura (Pfeiffer) -- the film maintains its keen satirical edge. The picture toys with an alluring modern theme: Just how friendly should we be with the animal within? The main attraction, though, is Nicholson -- first, last and always -- and it's his modulated suavity and wit that make the film so sublimely entertaining.

In recent years, the actor seems to have been drawn almost exclusively to clown roles; even his blustering career soldier in "A Few Good Men" was a histrionic buffoon. As Randall, though, he lets his voice drop down into a relaxed, sexy growl. Though Randall becomes more formidable as the movie progresses, Nicholson sustains his low-key, self-effacing style, and somehow the more he keeps his natural dynamism in check, the more his charisma increases. Undeniably, the story requires a metamorphosis into a fearsome black wolf, furry paws, fangs and all, but the makeup never takes over the performance. It's the man we're drawn to here, and strangely enough -- especially for Nicholson -- he's a good man. It's virgin ground for Nicholson, and he uses it to give his greatest performance since "Prizzi's Honor."

As the world-weary Laura, Pfeiffer doesn't have nearly as much to work with, and so, ultimately, she lends more of her beauty than she does her talent. But with beauty like hers it would seem churlish to complain. Even so, she does bring a ring of true emotion to this bad girl's jaded snarl. Chemistry between the two stars is essential here, and Pfeiffer makes us believe in this improbable love affair.

It's Pfeiffer's combination of compassion and terror that carries the last section of the film and gives it class. Otherwise -- with Nicholson locked up in a stable like a junkie in rehab -- the film might have deteriorated into a campy joke. It seems almost always on the verge of it anyway. In truth, when "Wolf" tries to be a werewolf movie it falls on its face. The special effects are cheesy and unconvincing, and the makeup is ludicrous. (In Nicholson's case, it makes him look more like a cranky pirate than a demon wolf.) Only up in those ruthless glass towers are the movie's fragile conceits completely in balance.

Even when it's bad, though, "Wolf" is bad in ways that are appealingly unexpected. Traditionally, it's the Beauty's love that tames the Beast, but "Wolf" provides a neat new variation -- one that's satisfying and full of weirdly sexy possibilities.
====================
http://tinypaste.com/df587
====================
File size: 2.25 Gb
3 audios: 1) Russian 2) Russian 3) English

Specs after removal of Russian tracks:

File : 1.59 GB, duration: 2:00:32, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.50 GB, 1784 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 704*416 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 98 MB, 114 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, VBR

The Two Jakes (1990)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:34:00 +0000

What I do for a living may not be very reputable. But I am. In this town I'm the leper with the most fingers.

IMDB

The Two Jakes is a direct sequel to Chinatown. It always irks me to see Chinatown get so many mentions in film-noir discussion and make the top of many best-of lists, yet people tend to overlook or ignore or downright diss this masterful work by Jack Nicholson. The Two Jakes is, imho, every bit as good as Chinatown. It's a real shame Jack Nicholson didn't direct anything else after this.

There was meant to be a third movie, titled Cloverleaf that would complete the trilogy started with Chinatown. Due to the poor box office performance of The Two Jakes, Cloverleaf never saw the light. A damn shame.
=========================
REVIEW BY ROGER EBERT / August 10, 1990

Here at long last is Jack Nicholson's "The Two Jakes," seven years in the trade papers, center of prolonged teeth-gnashing at Paramount Pictures, and it turns out to be such a focused and concentrated film that every scene falls into place like clockwork; there's no feeling that it was a problem picture. It's not a thriller and it's not a whodunit, although it contains thriller elements and at the end we do find out whodunit. It's an exquisite short story about a mood, and a time, and a couple of guys who are blind-sided by love.

The movie takes place in postwar Los Angeles - the 1940s of the baby boom and housing subdivisions - instead of the 1930s city where "Chinatown" was set. It's not such a romantic city anymore. And private eyes like J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) are a little more worn by time and care. The Gittes of "Chinatown" was the spiritual brother of Philip Marlowe. But now it is after the war, and Gittes has moved out of the two-room suite into a building of his own. He heads a staff of investigators. He belongs to a country club and has a fiancee and has put on some weight. One of these days he's going to stop calling himself an investigator altogether and become a security consultant.

But he still handles some of the old kinds of cases. The cases where the outraged husband bursts into the motel room and finds his wife locked in the arms of an adulterer, and then the investigator leaps in with a camera and takes photos that will look bad in divorce court. He knows, Gittes tells us in the film's opening narration, that he shouldn't get involved in messy situations like that anymore. He's outgrown them. They're beneath him. But sometimes he still takes the jobs.

That's how he meets the other Jake - Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel), a property developer who thinks his wife (Meg Tilly) is fooling around with his partner. So Gittes tutors Berman on how to act when he bursts in through the door, and what to say, and then they stake out a motel where the evil act is confidently expected to take place. But Berman doesn't follow the script. A gun appears from somewhere, and the partner is shot, and the partner's wife (Madeleine Stowe) thinks that maybe it wasn't a case of adultery at all. Maybe it was cold-blooded murder, and Berman intended to kill his partner so that he and his wife could collect the partner's share of the property development. That might make Gittes accessory to murder.

So far, what we have here is the kind of plot that any private eye movie might have been proud of. But "The Two Jakes" uses the plot only as an occasion for the deeper and more brooding things it has to say.

Everyone connected with this movie seems to have gone through the private eye genre and come out on the other side. The screenplay is by Robert Towne, who at one stage in the project's troubled history was going to direct it. He has not simply assembled some characters from his "Chinatown," added some new ones, and thrown them into a plot. This movie is written with meticulous care, to show how good and evil are never as simple as they seem, and to demonstrate that even the motives of a villain may emerge from a goodness of heart.

Jack Nicholson directed the film, and Vilmos Zsigmond photographed it, in the same spirit. This isn't a film where we ricochet from one startling revelation to another. Instead, the progress of the story is into the deeper recesses of the motives of the characters. We learn that Gittes - fiancee and all - still is deeply hurt by the murder of the Faye Dunaway character in "Chinatown"; he never will be over her.

We learn that the property being developed by Berman has been visited before by Gittes, in that long-ago time. We learn that love, pure love, is a motive sufficient to justify horrifying actions. And we learn that when the past has been important enough to us, it never will quite leave us alone.

The movie is very dark, filled with shadows and secrets and half-heard voices, and scratchy revelations on a clandestine tape recording. Out in the valley where the development is being built, the sunshine is harsh and casts black shadows, and the land is cruel - the characters are shaken by earthquakes that reveal the land rests uneasily on a dangerous pool of natural gas.

The performances are dark and gloomy, too, especially Nicholson's.

He tones down his characteristic ebullience and makes Gittes older and wiser and more easily disillusioned. And he never even talks about the loss that hangs heavily on his heart; we have to infer it from the way his friends and employees tiptoe around it.

Right from his first meeting with the Keitel character, when he notices they are wearing the same two-tone shoes, he feels a curious kinship with him, and that leads to a key final confrontation that I will not reveal. And he feels something, too, for the Meg Tilly character, who has been deeply hurt in her past and is afraid to express herself. She is like a bird with a broken wing.

The point of "The Two Jakes" is that love and loss are more important than the mechnical distribution of guilt and justice. When Nicholson and Keitel, as the two Jakes, have their final exchange of revelations, it is such a good scene because the normal considerations of a crime movie are placed on hold. The movie really is about the values that people have, and about the things that mean more to them than life and freedom. It's a deep movie, and a thoughtful one, and when it's over you can't easily put it out of your mind.
=========================
http://tinypaste.com/11daf
=========================
File : 893 MB, duration: 2:17:33, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 767 MB, 779 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 608*352 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 125 MB, 128 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, VBR

Chinatown (1974)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:17:00 +0000

Of course I'm respectable. I'm old.
Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.

IMDB

I don't think this classic noir needs introduction, but just in case you haven't seen it: it's a film-noir and it's a classic. Yes, I am a master of stating the obvious.

REVIEW BY ROGER EBERT / June 1, 1974

Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" is not only a great entertainment, but something more, something I would have thought almost impossible: It's a 1940s private-eye movie that doesn't depend on nostalgia or camp for its effect, but works because of the enduring strength of the genre itself. In some respects, this movie actually could have been made in the 1940s. It accepts its conventions and categories at face value and doesn't make them the object of satire or filter them through a modern sensibility, as Robert Altman did with "The Long Goodbye." Here's a private-eye movie in which all the traditions, romantic as they may seem, are left intact.

At its center, of course, is the eye himself: J.J. Gittes, moderately prosperous as a result of adultery investigations. He isn't the perenially broke loner like Philip Marlowe, inhabiting a shabby office and buying himself a drink out of the office bottle. He's a successful investigator with a two-man staff, and he dresses well and is civilized and intelligent. He does, however, possess the two indispensable qualities necessary for any traditional private eye. He is deeply cynical about human nature, and he has a personal code and sticks to it.
There is also, of course, the woman, who comes to the private eye for help but does not quite reveal to him the full dimensions of her trouble. And there are the other inevitable ingredients of the well-crafted private-eye plot, as perfected by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and practiced by Ross MacDonald. There's the woman's father, and the skeletons in their family closet, and the way that a crime taking place now has a way of leading back to a crime in the past.

These plots work best when they start out seeming impossibly complicated and then end up with watertight logic, and Robert Towne's screenplay for "Chinatown" does that with consummate skill. But the whole movie is a tour de force; it's a period movie, with all the right cars and clothes and props, but we forget that after the first ten minutes. We've become involved in the movie's web of mystery, as we always were with the best private-eye stories, whether written or filmed. We care about these people and want to see what happens to them.

And yet, at the same time, Polanski is so sensitive to the ways in which 1930s' movies in this genre were made that we're almost watching a critical essay. Godard once said that the only way to review a movie is to make another movie, and maybe that's what Polanski has done here. He's made a perceptive, loving comment on a kind of movie and a time in the nation's history that are both long past. "Chinatown" is almost a lesson on how to experience this kind of movie.

It's also a triumph of acting, particularly by Jack Nicholson, who is one of the most interesting actors now working and who contributes one of his best performances. He inhabits the character of J.J. Gittes like a second skin; the possession is so total that there are scenes in the movie where we almost have telepathy; we know what he's thinking, so he doesn't have to tell us. His loyalty is to the woman, but on several occasions, evidence turns up that seems to incriminate her. And then he must pull back, because his code will not admit clients who lie to him. Why he's this way (indeed, even the fact that he's this way) is communicated by Nicholson almost solely in the way he plays the character; dialogue isn't necessary to make the point.

The woman is Faye Dunaway, looking pale and neurotic and beautiful, and justifying for us (if not always for him) J.J.'s trust in her. And then there are all the other characters, who revolve around a complicated scheme to float a bond issue and build a dam to steal water from Los Angeles, in a time of drought. Because the film depends so much on the exquisite unraveling of its plot, it would be unfair to describe much more; one of its delights is in the way that dropped remarks and chance clues gradually build up the portrait of a crime.

And always at the center, there's the Nicholson performance, given an eerie edge by the bandage he wears on his nose after it's slit by a particularly slimy character played by Polanski himself. The bandage looks incongruous, we don't often see a bandaged nose on a movie private eye, but it's the kind of incongruity that's creepy and not funny. The film works similar ground: Drifting within sight of parody every so often, it saves itself by the seriousness of its character.

[Followed by a long-delayed sequel, "The Two Jakes," in 1990, directed by Nicholson.]
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http://tinypaste.com/abf2d
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File : 1.26 GB, duration: 2:10:32, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 880 MB, 943 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 704*304, XVID
Audio : 418 MB, 448 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 6 channels, AC3, CBR

The Burrowers (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:10:00 +0000

IMDB

A good western is very rare nowadays. A good horror movie isn't easy to come by either. So whenever a good horror-western appears, it is cause for celebration. Below is a review by Todd Brown that I find does the film justice.

TIFF Review: THE BURROWERS
by Todd Brown, September 10, 2008 11:03 PM

More ominous than it is outright frightening JT Petty's The Burrowers is an odd little beast that just so happens to be populated with odd little beasts. But put aside your creature feature expectations with this one because Petty is aiming to give you something different, something unique. Though the creatures are certainly present The Burrowers plays more as a psychological thriller than a full bore horror film, it is a film far more concerned with the people the creatures prey upon than with the creatures themselves.

We begin in the Dakotas at the height of the Old West. Irish immigrant Coffey is in love with the local settler MaryAnne and determined to make her his bride. The feelings seem mutual and he has asked her father for her hand but before things can progress any further MaryAnne's family homstead comes under attack. Four are killed, six are missing. And when Coffey arrives on the scene the only logical conclusion is that the family has been taken by Indians.

Coffey is wrong, of course, but that doesn't stop him from rounding up a pair of local ranchers - played by Clancy Brown and Lost's William Mapother, who seems to have been born for this sort of role - and setting off in pursuit. But pursuit of what? All they can do is guess who took the family, the only clues around the homestead a number of strange holes in the ground. And when they enlist the help of the local army detachment the commanding officer seems far more interested in torturing Indians than in doing anything that might actually be useful. And then they meet a native woman who talks vaguely of the burrowers ...

No doubt about it, though the creatures get more than their share of screen time and drive the narrative of the picture this is a film much more concerned with the constant break downs in communication. Everybody is making faulty assumptions about everybody else, nobody takes the time to really stop and figure out what is going on - a situation that leads to so much needless tragedy, since the signs are all around them if only they would take the time to look. This is a film about entrenched enemies, about it being easier to blame the supposed enemy you know ragardless of whether they are actually to blame or not - a fairly relevant point to make in today's political climate - and the consequences of that. Is it accidental that the creatuers anaesthetize their victims before killing them so that they die painlessly while the humans indulge in pointless torture in the name of extracting information they know they will not get? I highly doubt it.

The Burrowers leans more towards the western end of the horror-western label, playing out as a film far more about atmosphere and human relationships than anything else. Loaded with strong performances and beautifully shot, it is a slow burner of a picture, one that doesn't overwhelm but lingers well beyond the final frames. An intriguing blend of genres.

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http://tinypaste.com/375ee
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Language: English
Subtitle: English (srt)
File : 700 MB, duration: 1:36:31, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 3.92 GB, 5821 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 640*256 (2.50:1), XVID
Audio : 78 MB, 113 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, CBR

Dead Birds (2004)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:57:00 +0000

Dead Birds (2004)
Director: Alex Turner
Writer: Simon Barrett
Genre: Horror / Thriller
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Don't let the generic cover put you off. This is a well done, effectively scary horror movie. Well acted, atmospheric, eerie, polished, almost cliche-free with a twist ending.
To all fellow horror fans, I heartily recommend this movie.
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From Ain't It Cool:

I really fuckin' dug this film. I almost blew it off because I've heard the ending was really predictable and a friend of mine saw it and thought it was boring. Maybe I really love this film because I went in expecting it to be shitty or at the very least dull, but for whatever reason this movie really, really worked for me.

The set-up is simple. You have a group of bank robbers in the 1800s hiding out with some confederate gold in an out of the way plantation-like house. Creepy shit happens. Visions, creatures, possessions, ghosts, etc. It actually felt a lot like a video game set-up. You have the creepy dark house, the even creepier cornfield that surrounds the place, the fucked up barn, the door that won't open until the very end of the story, etc. I wish director Alex Turner had gotten ahold of RESIDENT EVIL before Paul WS Anderson turned it into a weak actioneer ALIENS rip-off. He understands the pacing and the level of reveals needed to pull off one of those horror video games as a feature film as is evident in this original film.

I've come to find that this film was just released straight to video by Lion's Gate and having looked up the DVD and seeing the cover I can safely say, "Ignore that crappy direct to video looking shitty ass cover." This movie has pitch perfect pacing, a great cast, great cinematography, genuine scares and an interesting story.

The pacing isn't slow or boring. To me it was very deliberately paced with a scare or real bit of tension happening regularly. There was never any moment of the movie where I was thinking, "All right... get on with it, already!" The film opens with a gunfight and we get a monster 10 minutes later. No shit. A creepy monster no less, with needle-like teeth and grotesque pink skin like an aborted rat except the size of an average sized dog.

The cast is full of familiar faces and names. Henry Thomas (ET) leads the gang, which features his brother, played by Patrick Fugit (ALMOST FAMOUS), his right-hand man Isaiah Washington (who is badass, by the way), his woman Nicki Lynn Aycox and a pair of untrustworthy sorts played by Michael Shannon (TIGERLAND, VANILLA SKY, 8 MILE) and Mark Boone Junior who seems to have been in everything ever shot, including MEMENTO and the upcoming BATMAN BEGINS.

The tension in this movie is truly what makes it succeed, though. The cast is very important, but the atmosphere, sound design, cinematography and structure is what makes it stick out to me. The last time I was this tense in a theater was when I saw JU-ON: THE GRUDGE at AFM a couple years ago, before it was known. I don't think DEAD BIRDS is as good a film as JU-ON, but that's not a knock against it.

The monsters are well designed. The only negative is that there are a few scenes that are overly CGIed out, but there's nothing in this film that is as ridiculous as the "Jack-Pot" eyes in THE GRUDGE.

Also, to be clear, the ending is not what you'd expect, it's not a cliche. I know I was surprised. All in all, I strongly suggest hitting your local video store and checking this one out. I just wish Lions Gate would quit releasing their shitty movies like ALONE IN THE DARK to 2000 screens and put out a genuinely scary horror film like DEAD BIRDS.

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http://tinypaste.com/c5870
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Language: English
Subtitles: English, Italiano, Espanol, Nederlands,Arabic,Bulgarian,Hrvatski,Czech,Dansk,Finish,Greek,Hindi,Hungarian,Norsk,Polish,Portugues,Romanian,Slovenian,Svenska,Turkish (vobsub) + English (srt)

File : 696 MB, duration: 1:27:19, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 516 MB, 827 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 640*336 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 179 MB, 288 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, CBR
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Mong ming yuen yeung (1988) aka On The Run

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:18:00 +0000

IMDB

A gem of a suspenseful, intense noir crime drama from Hong Kong. On The Run is one of the darkest, grittiest and most violent movie to ever come out of Hong Kong. Yuen Bao stars in the film but there is none of his trademark acrobatics here. In fact, there is no martial arts at all. The brutal fight to the death at the end is an all-out, no holds barred brawl.
The story involves a detective forced to team up with a cold-blooded hitwoman from Thailand, who just happens to be the murderer of his ex-wife, against corrupt policemen.
The use of colors and lighting is simply fantastic. The script is intelligent and supported by a very strong performance all around. Not to mention the score which is great and appropriately moody.

On The Run is, quite simply put, a real gem.
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Review from HKMDB:

Alfred Cheung has directed a few decent films over the course of his career, most of them being comedies such as Her Fatal Ways, or All's Well, Ends Well 97. But nothing else in his filmography would lead you to believe he was capable of delivering a film as polished and stylish as On the Run, a gritty and quite violent crime noir classic which he wrote and directed in 1988. The movie is truly a gem that represents not only one of the creative peaks of HK cinema in the late 80s but also a highlight in the acting career of star Yuen Biao.

Shot mostly at night, the film is awash in colored neon light, reflected in the wet asphalt of HKs urban jungle, bouncing off car windshields, and providing a warm glow through windows and doors, bathing walls and interiors in strong reds or greens. The color composition is lovely, and on more than one occasion I wished I could freeze and print out the image on the screen to hang it on a wall. Cheung uses the environment to perfection, and creates moody, dark settings simply by playing with shadow and light. The closeups are often gorgeously framed and enhanced by natural effects, such as Pat Ha's face behind a screen of rain pouring down a car windshield, or the silhouette of Pat Ha and Yuen Biao against a background of staggered angled walls, each lighted in different colors. It all looks very stylish without ever becoming mannered - and it was shot years before WKW and Christopher Doyle came along...

The story is unrelentingly dark and tense, without ever becoming depressing or moody. And Cheung ensures that the tone of the movie, once established, is carried through in a consistent manner - no comic relief, no jarring concessions to sentiment, no self-referential irony, just honest, direct story-telling in the best film noir tradition.

Yuen Biao plays a CID detective whose wife is brutally assassinated in a restaurant by a lone female killer (Pat Ha). It turns out she had uncovered evidence of wrong-doing by some members of the homicide squad, and so the corrupt police officers ordered the hit to keep her silent. Yuen Biao starts investigating and soon finds the murderer, except that the aforementioned bad guys are trying to silence the hired killer as well - Yuen Biao spoils their plans by saving the killer, which puts him in their crosshairs as well, and soon Yuen Biao and Pat Ha are on the run for their lives, with nowhere to turn to for help.

The action is presented in a realistic manner - no acrobatic gunplay, no fancy moves, no gravity-defying stunts. Pat Ha is convincing as the cold-blooded killer, and Yuen Biao for once gets to act, and does so very impressively: freed from the burden of having to display acrobatic stunts and martial arts prowess, he concentrates on his character and does an execellent job conveying his pain, despair and finally his deadly resolve. There's very little dialog in the scenes between Pat Ha and Yuen Biao, but still a picture of the complex relationship between these two hunted people begins to evolve. The dynamics between the two are quite involving, and I was completely caught up in their story. The bad guys are somewhat more stereotypical, although it helps that Charlie Chin as the lead villain gives a very calm, subdued performance that is all the more menacing precisely because he doesn't overact his role.

A lot of people die in this movie, including some characters who would be untouchable in a Hollywood film. The final showdown is extremely gritty and violent. Unfortunately, the movie ends right after this final fight, with only a screen caption giving a grim, bleak update on the fate of the survivors. Supposedly, there is a longer version of the film that includes an extended epilogue, but it's not on this Megastar dvd (with a running time of about 84 minutes).

I had very very high expectations for this movie, and I was still blown away by how good the film actually is. This is a must-see for any HK movie fan. Very strongly recommended.

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http://tinypaste.com/9d29a
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Language: Cantonese
Subtitles: English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean

File : 1.36 GB, duration: 1:24:09, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.14 GB, 1942 Kbps, 29.970 fps, 672*368 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 231 MB, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, AC3, CBR
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36 Hours to Die (1999) (TV)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:26:00 +0000

IMDB

Excellent made-for-TV thriller directed by Yves Simoneau (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out). Don't let the TV label fool you, this movie is truly well-done, tightly scripted, stylishly directed and features a strong ensemble cast. The technical aspects are also very polished. If 36 Hours To Die was to be shown in theaters, I bet nobody could tell it was made for TV.
TV-movies are usually low-budgeted, forgettable stuff but every once in awhile, a gem appears and this is one of those.

Note:
I forgot to put part 9. A thousand apologies to everyone who downloaded. Part 9 is added now.
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Review from Variety:

"36 Hours to Die" feels so much like a Mafioso homage to Quentin Tarantino's eccentric stylings that it's a wonder the filmmakers didn't just go out and get Tarantino to make this TNT Original pic himself. Derivative though it may be, the imitation somehow works pretty well for high-profile scribe Robert Rodat (an Oscar nominee for "Saving Private Ryan") in his crafting a quirky, bizarre crime thriller that wants very badly to be an arthouse feature when it grows up. And while Treat Williams and Kim Cattrall spark a smoldering chemistry, and Carroll O'Connor turns in a deliciously crusty performance, the film is stolen out from under them all by a fellow named Saul Rubinek.

Rubinek expertly embodies the tone-shifting stylings of Rodat's colorfully intense teleplay in portraying a memorably disturbed wacko named Morano. Using every idiosyncratic trick in his repertoire, Rubinek -- whose character-acting credits include such films as "And the Band Played On" and "Nixon," and guest shots on "Frasier," "L.A. Law" and "Hill Street Blues" -- manages to paint us a villain who is at once menacing and pathetic, devious and oblivious, scary and weasly. Note to casting directors: This man should never be out of work.

What Rubinek seems to grasp better than anyone here is that "36 Hours" is warped to the core. Rodat and helmer Yves Simoneau spend the majority of the film twiddling with the audience's brain cells, giving the action and dialogue a firm enough tug to make everything just a little off center. It's a credit to Simoneau's artful instincts, and Rodat's skewed characterizations, that we're never really sure if this is supposed to be a parody of the thriller genre or simply a crime movie filled with nut cases who ran out of lithium.

Williams portrays Noah Stone, a guy consumed with a death wish of unknown origin. He is a brewery owner who is felled by a heart attack as the film opens. Noah's twit of a brother, Frank (Alain Goulem), pitched in during Noah's convalescence by running his business into the hands of organized-crime slime balls who are so nasty that one kills people by stabbing them with a screwdriver. A guy after Joe Pesci's own heart.

Quicker than you can say Gambino family, the bad guys (led by the evil Morano) have managed to take control of the beer biz and have arranged to use it as the linchpin in extorting $120 million. Noah is understandably less than thrilled with all of this, particularly when his sultry wife, Kim (Cattrall), and two kids become sitting targets. He has 36 hours to keep the money from transferring to Morano's slimy paws -- if he can live that long.

It is right about here that Rodat allows the script to start growing increasingly preposterous. For one, it turns out that Noah is, inexplicably, one of the world's only brewery bosses who happens to be an expert marksman.

It must have rubbed off from his uncle, an intense former cop named Jack "Balls" O'Malley (O'Connor). It also clashes with reality that Noah should be such a devoted family man and yet every decision he makes seems designed to place his clan in greater jeopardy.

There is also plenty of incongruously jarring violence scattered throughout "36 Hours," some of it designed to be irreverent and ironic in that "Pulp Fiction"/ "Fargo" kind of way. To be sure, Simoneau allowed director of photography Eric Cayla, production designer Anne Pritchard and music creator Richard Gregoire an unusually free hand, punctuated by mockingly artsy slow-mo and classical opera to boost that Mafia mood.

Tech credits are generally sharp and imaginative.

Camera, Eric Cayla; production designer, Anne Pritchard; editor, Yves Langlois; music, Richard Gregoire; sound, Bruce Carwardine; casting, Vera Miller, Michelle Allen, Clare Walker. Running time: 2 HOURS

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http://tinypaste.com/2937c
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File : 1.62 GB, duration: 1:30:36, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.53 GB, 2431 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 640*480 (4:3), XVID
Audio : 83 MB, 129 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, VBR,

Oi yue shing (2000) aka A War Named Desire

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:54:00 +0000

IMDB

When thinking about HK shoot-em-up action movies, the names John Woo, Johnny To and Tsui Hark immediately come to one's mind. But there are many lesser-known and often overlooked Hong Kong films that are truly well-done and deserve to be discovered. While A War Named Desire is not totally up there with John Woo's A better tomorrow, The Killer and Hard-boiled or Johnny To's The Mission and Exiled, it still stands on its own as an extremely entertaining and refreshing take on a popular film genre: the triad movies.

It is superbly acted by the always excellent Francis Ng and Gigi Leung in one of her most memorable performances as an achingly beautiful yet very lethal femme fatale. While there are plenty of shootouts in the film, the director still leaves space for character development which make them more believable than usual. The gunfights are, of course, crazy and stylish as can be expected.

If you want an action movie with a solid story, well-crafted characters and ultra-stylized gunfights, definitely check out A War Named Desire.

Below is the review from H.K. DVD Heaven:

Travelling to Cambodia in search of his older brother Charles, Jones (Daniel Chan) and his girlfriend Jess (Pace Wu) find life a lot harsher than in Hong Kong.
Nearly 15 years have passed since the brothers met, Charles (Francis Ng) having left with the family savings. After their mother dies, Jones believes it time that the money is paid back...with interest.
However, Jones doesn't get quite what he bargained for, and after being framed for the murder of a local gang boss, must not only heal the rift between him and his brother, but also find the real culprit.

Directorial flourishes punctuate this superbly acted and beautifully scored film from little known director Alan Mak.
Although both Daniel Chan and Pace Wu are equally solid in their roles, it's Francis Ng's portrayal of Charles which sets the film alight.
Working extremely well alongside Dave Wong, Francis exudes a ruthlessness which makes his triad character both utterly believable and totally cold. Thankfully, Ng also adds an emotional centre to his character which raises him far above many a Hong Kong anti-hero.

Whilst Gigi Leung's involvement in the film is slight, her impact is massive. In one of the film's most memorable scenes, she and Charles ballroom dance whilst being surrounded by a large group of rival gang members. At the slightest command, both draw their weapons and decimate their attackers.
Although this scene could have felt like any other action set-piece from a HK film, its direction follows the music, leaving the pair to literally waltz past their opponents.
Neither overdoing or underplaying the relationship of the two characters, director Mak creates a nice balance to their scenes, where little is said but much is understood.

Above all else, this 2000 production reminded me of an aspect of Hong Kong cinema which is often overlooked - the soundtrack. An eclectic mix of musical styles is blended with the superb visuals with an assurance I've not seen in a long time.
A wonderful acoustic guitar piece accompanies the film's opening, setting the tone and standard for what is to come.
This high standard is upheld throughout, as dance, canto-pop and instrumental music is married perfectly to the movie's visuals.

If the film has one flaw, it's that the epilogue seems a little disappointing at first. However, on repeat viewings it actually makes more sense, and wraps up the film nicely.
If you're looking for a sign that Hong Kong movie-making is on the up, and that Francis Ng is one of the most gifted actors of his generation, A War Named Desire is the perfect place to start.

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http://tinypaste.com/1ba1b
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Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: English (Srt)
Cds: 1
File : 1.36 GB, duration: 1:29:06, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.12 GB, 1803 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 704*400 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 244 MB, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, AC3, CBR

Many thanks to the person who uploaded the DVD on ADC.

Extreme Prejudice (1987)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:02:00 +0000

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When it comes to macho action movies, Walter Hill is the incontestable master. Extreme Prejudice is one of his most adrenaline-charged and one of the best in the genre. It is famous for the lengthy, bloody final shootout that is excellently executed. Not to mention a stellar ensemble cast (Nick Nolte, Michael Ironside, Powers Boothe, Rip Torn, William Forsythe, Clancy Brown).

Some movies just need to be viewed in widescreen to be fully enjoyed and this is one of them. I wasn't happy with the Fullscreen DVD which is the only version available in North America so I bought a Widescreen DVD on the Internet. One of my best buys yet. My fellow fans can now rejoice, here is Extreme Prejudice in glorious widescreen, brought to you by yours truly.
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Review from Allmovie.com:

Walter Hill's wildly over-the-top Peckinpah-flavored Western often borders on camp, but fans of the genre will enjoy the exaggerated posturing of the leads and the film's carefully stylized violence. Employing the Precambrian-era plot about former friends on different sides of the law who are in love with the same woman, Hill adds nothing new, while painting both the hero and villain as larger-than-life, primed-to-explode kegs of testosterone. For good measure, he also throws in a cadre of CIA contract mercenaries, whose indecipherable mission requires a meticulously executed bank robbery. Is this really where our tax dollars are going?

Nolte, as the stalwart Texas Ranger, transforms his face into solid granite in what may be his least expressive role, while Boothe seems to revel in the hard-boiled epigrams favored by two dimensional villains. The final bloody shootout in the Mexican village, a homage which tries to out-Peckinpah Peckinpah, is skillfully executed, but its length may have some viewers checking their watch. As usual with Hill, the woman's role is negligible, leaving Maria Conchita Alonso little to do, but Rip Torn, as Nolte's Ranger buddy, is the film's most lively character, and one is sorry to see him get the deep six so early.

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http://tinypaste.com/4f126
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Specs:

File size : 1.36 GB
Type : AVI
Duration : 1:40:21
Audio stream: 1
Cds: 1

Video
Codec : XviD 1.1.2 Final
Bitrate : 1749 Kbps
Resolution: 704 x 368
Frame rate : 25.000
Bits per pixel: 0.270
QPEL: No ; GMC: No ; N-VOP: No

Audio
Codec : AC3 CBR
Bitrate : 192 kb/s
Channels : 2
Sampling rate : 48 000 Hz

Language: English
Subs: German, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, and Portuguese (vobsub)

Ripper: CroakerBC

Princes et princesses (2000)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:35:00 +0000

Princes et princesses (2000)
Directed by
Michel Ocelot
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IMDB
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Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Princes et Princesses!!! This French animation gem is a treasure waiting to be discovered. I got it from The Mule.
Be warned, this is no Disney movie. You better read the reviews (links below). They say it better than me. All I gotta say is "I downloaded. I watched. I'm conquered ."
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Synopsis from AMG:

In this episodic animated fantasy from France, an art teacher interprets a series of six fairy tales (each involving a prince or princess) with the help of two precocious students. Princes et Princesses was created using a special style of cutout animation, with black silhouetted characters performing the action against backlit backdrops in striking colors. Produced in 1989, Princes et Princesses was first released in Europe in 2000 and received its first screening in North America at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. -- Mark Deming
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Review from The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review:

Princes and Princesses comes from French animator Michel Ocelot. Prior to this Ocelot had some international success with Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998), a striking linedrawn film based on traditional African folktales. For Princes and Princesses, which it took him ten years to make, Ocelot returns to the same form - linedrawn fairytales. It is a delightful and quite beautiful film he produces. All the figures are animated as silhouette shapes, something which in its simplicity has an extraordinary versatility, allowing Ocelot to model styles as diverse as Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to traditional Japanese art. There's a great deal of visual invention to the film, especially The Sorceress episode with the sorceress's gadgets which repel all attempts at incursion and the delightful drollness of the hero's solution and the twist ending. All the stories are told with a delightful piquance where justice gets a final comeuppance and good wins out as in all fairytales. None of the episodes are weak at all. The most appealing of them is the final Princes and Princesses episode with the prince and princess going through an hilarious series of animal transformations with each kiss in an attempt to regain their original forms.

Especially appealing is the way the film has been construed with a postmodern edge. It is not merely a set of fairytales but a film about animators (who themselves have been animated) making a series of animated fairytale shorts. With each we see them discussing the presentation and design before the curtain literally opens on the tale. Quite delightfully the film stops at midpoint for exactly a one minute break so we can discuss what we have seen so far.

Great french review here.
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http://tinypaste.com/a5ed5
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File size : 702 MB
Type : AVI
Duration : 1:04:23
Audio stream: 1

Video
Size: 648 MB
Codec : DviX 5
Bitrate : 1407 Kbps
Resolution: 720*448 (16:9)
Frame rate : 25 fps
Bits per pixel: 0.173
QPEL: NO ; GMC: NO ; N-VOP: YES

Audio
Size: 53 MB
Codec : MP3
Bitrate : 116 Kbps
Channels : 2
Sampling rate : 48000

Language: French
Subs: English (srt)

Outland (1981)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:23:00 +0000

IMDB

High Noon in space. An often ignored but enjoyable and very well-done space western starring the always stellar Sean Connery. A lot of critics bashed this movie but their opinion is about as relevant to me as snake turd. Sometimes, movie reviewers tend to focus too much on finding something to criticize in a movie and as a result they overlook all the fun.

Review from Eye for Film:

In simple terms, Outland essentially takes the Gary Cooper-starring Western High Noon and remakes it in space. Written and directed by the underrated journeyman Peter Hyams, the result is an underrated yarn which is both tense and dark.

During a one-year tour of duty aboard a mining outpost on Jupiter’s Moon, Marshall William T O'Niel (Sean Connery) investigates a few violent deaths. Discovery that they’re linked to a dangerous performance-enhancing drug which eventually causes psychosis, the trail leads him to the general manager Sheppard (Peter Boyle). Finding no allies aside from the argumentative Doctor Lazarus (Frances Strenhagen), things worsen for Marshall when hired assassins arrive for him.

As with any movie he’s in, the trump card is Connery. On top accenty form (“he’s an arrssshhhole”), his verbal sparring with Boyle’s suitably-slimy bossman are the reasons to watch. Yes, the empty and desolate feeling that the impressively-created space-station provides results in a fantastically-taught atmosphere, but it’s the great Scot who keeps our attention.

Which is why, despite the impressive nature of the camera work - most of the many chases are filmed with Steadicam - the overlong action scenes aren’t the highlight they should be. Indeed, when you’ve got an actor with as much natural screen-presence as Sir Sean, it’s almost a crime to have such long periods without dialogue.

Gritty, throbbing with mood and featuring plenty of Connery’s unique brogue, there’s plenty to like about Outland, the only problem being, with all the long dialogue-free action sequences, nobody in space can hear them…

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http://tinypaste.com/9e2e0
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Specs (after removal of Russian audio):

File : 1.24 GB, duration: 1:47:55, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 981 MB, 1271 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 704*288 (2.44:1), Divx v5,
Audio : 288 MB, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 6 channels, AC3, CBR,

Note: two audio tracks. 1rst: Russian; 2nd: English.

Again, thanks go to our Russian comrades for a quality rip.

Brat (1997) aka Brother

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:03:00 +0000

IMDB

If you're fed up with the loud, flashy and routine Hollywood action flicks, Brat aka Brother is the perfect cure for you. Very enjoyable movie from Russia, starring the charismatic, talented and unfortunately late Sergei Bodrov Jr.

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New York Times review:

If you believe the portrait of St. Petersburg presented by Aleksei Balabanov's terrifically stylish gangster film "Brother," the former Leningrad has become a lawless, shoot-'em-up frontier town in the post-Soviet era. While the city's rootless youths clutch voraciously at the cheesiest elements of Western pop culture, warring outlaw factions have turned the city into an Eastern European version of 1930s Chicago.

The film's central character, Danila (Sergei Bodrov Jr.), is a baby-faced young hoodlum who arrives in town fresh out of the army and goes to work for his brother Viktor (Viktor Suhorukov), who runs a murder-for-hire business connected to the feuding Russian mafia.

By the end of the film, Danila, a sleepy-eyed dolt obsessed with a mediocre Russian rock band named Nautilus, has cut a lethal swath through the city's underworld and is ready to move on to greener pastures, namely Moscow.

During his stay in St. Petersburg, Danila meets Kat (Mariya Zhukova), a Russian version of a New York club kid who hangs out at McDonald's and will do anything for dollars to subsidize her passions for drugs and disco. He lives briefly with a hard-boiled trolley car driver and part-time prostitute named Sveta (Svetlana Pismichenko) whose husband is in prison.

From the movie's opening scene, in which Danila lands in trouble after interrupting the filming of a music video and tussling with a security guard, "Brother" suggests that St. Petersburg is a Darwinian battleground where everything is up for grabs.

The center of warfare is a sprawling outdoor market where rival gangs are struggling for the power to extort protection money from the hundreds of intimidated vendors. Ethnic and regional rivalries abound. Danila befriends a German who maintains that "what's good for the Russian is bad for the German." Viktor is contemptuously referred to by his rivals as "the Tatar."

Hooking up with Viktor, whom he has idolized since childhood, Danila is assigned to do his dirtiest work, and he brings a strong, primitive sense of right and wrong to his murderous duties. He also quickly becomes addicted to the instant power he commands when he flashes a gun. When a couple of dhugs refuse to pay their fare on a streetcar, he relishes playing the hero by pulling out his weapon and sending them scurrying.

"Brother," which opens Wednesday at the Film Forum, has a thread of cynical humor that connects it to the American gangster movies of the 1930s as well as to more recent films like "Goodfellas" that examine the flashier trappings of macho gangster culture with a satirical eye. Glamour and power in Danila's world are defined by the wad of cash he carries around and from which he casually peels off $100 bills and dispenses as gifts when the spirit moves him.

More than his gun, Danila's most precious possessions are his CD player and his growing collection of Nautilus albums. The shortsightedness of his morality is evidenced in a scene where he puts on a videotape of his beloved Nautilus and is outraged to discover it is an inferior pirated copy.

Bodrov's Danila is queasily sympathetic as a killer whose touching familial loyalty turns out to be sadly misplaced. In the movie's most cynical joke, he emerges as both the most deadly and the most morally consistent character in a world where loyalty counts for little and brute force rules.

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http://tinypaste.com/c1e9c
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File : 1.35 GB, duration: 1:35:23, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.09 GB, 1651 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 588*356 (16:9), Divx v5,
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The Big Sleep (1946)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:57:00 +0000

IMDB

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Nothing like a good old Bogey movie on a rainy day. The Big Sleep is the kind of timeless classics that I like to re-watch every few years. And every single time, it's pure joy. Bogey is like Bruce Lee, man, nobody can ever replace him.
It helps to have read the novel before watching this movie, otherwise it'd probably give you a freaking headache, but it is a good kind of headaches.
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Plot Synopsis from AllMovie.com:
by Hal Erickson

The definitive Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall vehicle, The Big Sleep casts Bogart as Raymond Chandler's cynical private eye Philip Marlowe. Summoned to the home of the fabulously wealthy General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), Marlowe is hired to deal with a blackmailer shaking down the General's sensuous, thumb-sucking daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers). This earns Marlowe the displeasure of Carmen's sloe-eyed, seemingly straight-laced older sister Vivian (Bacall), who is fiercely protective of her somewhat addled sibling. As he pursues the case at hand, Marlowe gets mixed up in the murder of Arthur Geiger (Theodore von Eltz), a dealer in pornography. He also runs afoul of gambling-house proprietor Eddie Mars (John Ridgely), who seems to have some sort of hold over the enigmatic Vivian. Any further attempts to outline the plot would be futile: the storyline becomes so complicated and convoluted that even screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthmann were forced to consult Raymond Chandler for advice (he was as confused by the plot as the screenwriters). When originally prepared for release in 1945, The Big Sleep featured a long exposition scene featuring police detective Bernie Ohls (Regis Toomey) explaining the more obscure plot details. This expository scene was ultimately sacrificed, along with several others, in favor of building up Bacall's part; for instance, a climactic sequence was reshot to emphasize sexual electricity between Bogart and Bacall, obliging Warners to replace a supporting player who'd gone on to another project. The end result was one of the most famously baffling film noirs but also one of the most successful in sheer star power.
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Marlowe is a regular babe magnet, alright.
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http://tinypaste.com/6633d
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File : 701, duration: 1:53:57, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 641 MB, 786 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 528*384 (4:3), XVID
Audio : 60 MB, 74 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, MP3, CBR,
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Click on the book cover below to download the novel in lit format.

Jedné noci v jednom meste (2007) Stop-Motion Animation

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:57:00 +0000

IMDB

Jedné noci v jednom meste (2007)

Language: No dialogue
Subtitles: none
DIRECTOR: Jan Balej

Surrealism and black humor are sacrosanct in the Czech artistic tradition, be it literary – think Kafka and Hrabal – or cinematic, as in the works of Jan Svankmajer and Karel Zeman. Often utilizing puppetry, claymation and stop-motion technology to construct a world in which the naïve, the comic-grotesque and the sinister meld, Czech animators in particular have influenced filmmakers worldwide.

Working in the hallucinatory mode of his countrymen, Jan Balej brings us his now whimsical, now deep-dark One Night in the City. Set in and around a dimly street-lit apartment building, the animated feature strings together a series of beautifully bizarre episodes that merge phobias with -philias, fantasies with fears. A lonely old man entertains himself by building an insect circus, disregarding the fact that his miniature performers are all dead. His next-door neighbors, a fish and a tree, play cards, exchange Christmas gifts and occasionally head down to the corner bar for a drink. Two regulars uncork a genie and waste their first two wishes on pints of beer. A frustrated accordion player finds a severed ear in the gutter, stitches it to his own head and is suddenly able to paint like van Gogh.

One Night in the City – which took top prize at the Czech Republic's Anifest in 2006 – is a rare treat not only for animation buffs but for anyone who discerns the shimmer and glimmer of the dark side. --Source

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http://tinypaste.com/3c69b
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File : 700 MB, duration: 1:07:24, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 643 MB, 1335 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 624*464 (4:3), XVID
Audio : 56 MB, 116 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, VBR,

Shattered (1991)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:54:00 +0000

IMDB

One of the best mystery thrillers ever, from the director of In The Line of Fire. Not the most plausible but who cares as long as it's well done. This is good entertainment, pure and simple.

Plot Synopsis from AllMovie.com:
by Paul Brenner

Wolfgang Petersen directed this intricate suspense thriller, based on the novel by Richard Neely and starring Tom Berenger as Tom Merrick, who begins to suspect the auto accident that caused his memory loss may not have been accidental. The film begins with a car crash over a seaside cliff in San Francisco. Judith Merrick (Greta Scacchi) is thrown clear of the crash and escapes without injury. Her husband, Tom, on the other hand, is trapped inside and when he is finally rescued, he is disfigured and in a coma. Judith helps him through his ensuing recovery and plastic surgery and the couple returns to their home in San Francisco. Tom, now suffering from selective amnesia, meets his old friends Jeb (Corbin Bernsen) and Jenny Scott (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer). After meeting them, he gathers hints that before the accident, he wasn't well liked by many people. The next day, when he returns to work, he begins to pick up more clues on his past life -- clues that indicate his marriage wasn't as idyllic as he presumed. To make matter worse, he keeps having flashbacks of shattered glass, ocean waves, and a gun. To help him solve the mystery of his past, Dan hires retired private eye Gus Klein (Bob Hoskins), who works with Dan to unravel his past.

http://tinypaste.com/223bf

Excellent quality rip. Two audio tracks: Russian and English.

Specs (after removal of Russian audio):
File : 1.23 GB, duration: 1:37:47, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.10 GB, 1618 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 688*368 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 134 MB, 192 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, AC3, CBR,

Der Name der Rose (1986) aka The Name of The Rose

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:39:00 +0000

IMDB

Sean Connery. A very young Christian Slater. Dark monastery full of creepy monks. Murder. Intrigue. Gore. Sex. Great atmosphere. As intelligent entertainment goes, there is not much better than this.

Plot Synopsis from AllMovie.com:
by Matthew Tobey

Adapted from Umberto Eco's best-selling novel, director Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a 14th century murder-mystery thriller starring Sean Connery as a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan monk called William of Baskerville. When a murder occurs at a secluded Benedictine Abbey, William is called in to investigate. As he and his apprentice, Adson von Melk (Christian Slater), delve deeper and deeper into the case, more dead bodies begin to turn up. Eventually, Bernardo Gui, an inquisitor played by F. Murray Abraham gets involved, but he may not have the best intentions. Sean Connery's performance earned him the award for Best Actor at the 1988 British Academy Awards.

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http://tinypaste.com/a9734
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Specs:
Name of the release :
The.Name.Of.The.Rose.1986.CD1.DVDRip.XviD.AC3.iNT-TURKiSO.avi
The.Name.Of.The.Rose.1986.CD2.DVDRip.XviD.AC3.iNT-TURKiSO.avi

CD1

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Audio : 196 MB, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, AC3, CBR,

CD2
File : 694 MB, duration: 0:54:41, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 544 MB, 1392 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 592*320 (16:9), XVID
Audio : 150 MB, 384 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 5 channels, AC3, CBR,
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Click on the book cover below to download the book in rtf format. It's in English, of course.

Xiao Qian (1997) A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:25:00 +0000

IMDB

The Chinese Ghost Story trilogy was a lot of fun and so is this charming and very enjoyable animation. Great stuff for the whole family, but people familiar with Chinese culture and mythology will enjoy it even more.
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Synopsis

Tsui Hark is the executive producer, production designer, and screenwriter of this 82-minute Chinese animated feature displaying a full panoply of magical supergods, vexing spirits, and mere mortals. After debt collector Ning (voice of Jan Lam) loses his girlfriend Siu Lan (Lasi Suiyan), he beckons his playful dog, Solid Gold (Tsui Hark), and the two embark on fantastic adventures encountering the attractive Shine (Anita Yuen), a follower of Madame Trunk (Kelly Chen). Their eventual goal is to board the Reincarnation Train in hopes of getting Shine reborn. The original Siu Sin title is Shine's name in Chinese. To realize this fluid-action fantasy, animators at Tsui Hark's Film Workshop in Hong Kong labored for four years. Shown at the 1997 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart @allmovie.com

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A HUGE thank to ZenKoan for this special rip.
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http://tinypaste.com/4b199
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File : 1.08 GB, duration: 1:22:43, type: AVI, 1 audio stream
Video : 1.01 GB, 1764 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 640*464 (4:3), XVID
Audio : 68 MB, 116 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, MP3, VBR,

Seven Times Lucky (2004)

noreply@blogger.com (CroakerBC) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:07:00 +0000

Seven Times Lucky (2004)
Directed by
Gary Yates

IMDB

A good film-noir that is sadly underrated and overlooked. I love it.

You only con the ones you love.

When a veteran grifter loses ten grand of the boss' money on a bad horse tip, his talented young
protégé devises a risky scheme to get the money back... Film Noir with a yuletide twist, Seven Times
Lucky spins a twisting yarn in which three generations of crooks vie for a coveted prize on Christmas
Eve.

Toronto International Film Festival®
Programmers’ Notes

Harlan (Kevin Pollak), the hero of Gary Yates's sly, smart and seriously entertaining first feature
Seven Times Lucy, is the last in the line of scammers, hustlers and black market bottom-feeders. He's a bag man for Eddi (Babz Chula), one of Winnipeg's most prominent fences, and also runs his own sketchy crew including punkish pickpocket Fiona (Liane Balaban) and Sonny (Jonas Chernick), a
local dimwit Harlan keeps around primarily out of pity.
But then Harlan is the kind of mug who's easily put upon. As the film opens, he gets a hot tip on a horse race and has a whack of cash - the undelivered weekly droop - beckoning from the top of his dresser. Not surprisingly, the bet fails to pay off, sparking a series of cons that (given those involved)
invariably go down twisted.

Part thriller, part caper flick, but primarily a character study, Seven Times Lucky is reminiscent of
under appreciated seventies classics like Robert Benton's The Late Show or Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. Its characters are anachronisms, still living and dressing as if it were the forties or pretending to lead normal lives. (The first time we see the ruthless local kingpin, Mr. Five Wounds
(Fordon Tootoosis), he's making Christmas decorations.) Of course, these fillips give events a comic feel, but they also underline the central split between those whose affiliations extend beyond the cash nexus - and those who only care about money. Here, affectation is a mark of sincerity.

Exquisitely shot by Steve Cosens, Seven Times Lucky oozes a scuzzy yet sophisticated beauty. A shot of Harlan nursing a twisted ankle in the ice machine at his flophouse recalls Edward Hopper, while the motel where Harlan's gang plans its big con suggests a pink neon Lee Friedlander. The milieu
inverts the usual assumptions of hard-boiled detective stories: instead of the charismatic gumshoe, we follow a low-rent hoodlum (the type Marlowe would regularly beat up) anxious to escape his dead-end existence, but not desperate enough to screw just anyone. Expertly directed, Seven Times
Lucky features a stellar cast, led by Pollak, who delivers what could only be described as a real star turn - one Bogart might have admired.

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http://tinypaste.com/754c1
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Specs:
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Video : 515 MB, 872 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 640*352 (16:9), XVID (No QPEL, No GMC)
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Language: English
Subs: English