You're right. Pitying fools is a practice one needs an M.D. for. It's all about action, not talk.

laurelin_kit posted a link in the Bad Movies You Love thread featuring Mark Wahlberg, and I could not rest after watching it until I'd rented The Departed. I'd had no real intention of seeing it, but that clip piqued my interest. I really enjoyed it; my love for Leo is secure, and I think Mark Wahlberg has gained a new fan. Normally I can't stand Jack Nicholson, then I see him in this and have to grudgingly admit that he can be good at what he does. I really liked the soundtrack as well. That Irish-sounding music that played over the driving scene and on the DVD menu is stuck in my head, in a good way.

Ahahaha, yes. I've got one more on Team Departed.

"Shipping up to Boston" by Dropkick Murpheys

Thanks! *off to find soundtrack*

Just watched Wide Sargasso Sea. Very pretty, but not a very good movie, alas.

I didn't rent this (because I don't rent movies, I buy them, but that's another story), but I finally saw Little Miss Sunshine, and I loved it. It was kind of one of those movies that, for me, everything just came together - the music, the cinematography, the story. I know a lot of people don't like Wes Anderson's movies, but I love them, and that first shot of Steve Carrell in his wheelchair as the title comes up over his face reminds me of that scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Luke Wilson is staring at himself in the mirror - that sadness, that acknowledgement of what he tried to do (Carrell) or is about to do (Wilson). And because it can't be said enough, I love the music in LMS, and I can't believe I waited this long to see it.

A Perfect Couple: From Altman’s late 70’s decent, a period of his career described charitably as “unfocused“. Which is the best way to describe A Perfect Couple, what can best be described as the unholy hell spawn of One from the Heart, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and At Long Last Love.

Altman always the jack of all trades and master of injecting pretentiousness into what should be an easy genre exercise melded the idea of a romantic comedy with “average looking people finding love” into a vehicle for the heretofore unheard of and thereto since unheard of Keppin’ ’em Off The Streets. A sort of pet music group to Altman and some of his cronies. I never thought Can’t Stop the Music, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Xanadu would ever gain a shred of legitimacy. Keppin’ ’em Off the Streets warrant their own movie, but Supertramp doesn’t?!

Cart well before the horse, Altman built a movie around a music group without a record contract; less Monkees than New Monkees. And after this cinematic triumph the destitute man’s Fleetwood Mac still didn’t get a record deal. You know what directors were able to snag record deals? Shatner and Nimoy, suck on that Altman!

The lead singer gave suck an awful acting job that I assumed he was a musician with no acting experience and under the wing of a director who slapdashedly lets actors mail it in. And I know I lay into Altman for getting flat reads from actors who having rehearsed the material enough, but this guy is so bad it rivals the father in Troll 2.

Of course the surprise is that the lead singer was in fact Jesus Christ Superstar, Ted Neeley. Granted a musical, but he had some non-singing roles. You’d expect a better performance out of someone fresh off guest runs on The Man from Atlantis and Starsky & Hutch.

One of the principals being a member of the communal band scuttles the whole idea of the romantic comedy portion of the movie. Two average looking people finding love doesn’t work when everyone knows the only reason you join a band is to get laid. Paul Dooley has to be history’s most unlikely groupie, the man was 50 when APC was filmed. I might buy it if he was some kind of management Svengali like Mr. Celine Dion.

Dooley and Altman were frequent collaborators. Yet the partnership yielded A Wedding, A Perfect Couple, H.E.A.L.T.H, Popeye and O.C. & Stiggs. Dooley had the good fortune that 4 of these were barely seen. At some point I’m planning a Slapshot!, A Mighty Wind, Breaking Away triple feature to remind me of Dooley’s talent.

In the film Dooley is the scion of a very patriarchal Greek family. I can’t tell which is worse casting: Henry Gibson as a Greek or Dennis Franz NOT playing a cop.

I would like to single out the reviewer from the Onion as a goddamn liar.

The Philadelphia Story, from which I learned that Cary Grant is hot, pants were super high-waisted, and 1940 is full of douche bags.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... Does he recite bad poetry while holding a big stalk of garlic?

The Skeleton Key. The soundtrack is surprisingly good; the rest of it is unsurprisingly not.

Why do I do these things to myself? I think I have some kind of disorder.

OMG the pants! I saw this a few months ago and was sooo distracted by those high waisted pants! My lord, NO ONE can make those things look good. But the movie still rocked.

The jitterbug corrupted America as we knew it. On the subject of Cary Grant, he was almost in the Hammer version of Phantom of the Opera. (Not the Phantom character--he was kind of a fatherly mentor type in this. Albeit a disfigured and crazy father) Cary Grant in a Hammer film. How cool would that be?

I kept thinking if only they would button the lower parts of their jacket it wouldn't be so distracting! It was definitely a funny movie though.

Skyblade, I reveal my ignorance and ask what is a Hammer film?

Hammer was a British movie studio in the 50's (That lasted until the seventies or so) that mainly produced horror films, though you'd see stuff like One Million years B.C. from them. Usually mentioning them brings to mind Gothic-style monster movies starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. (Who played Dracula a billion times)