mcgillnuck

I love me some Hitchcock, but for whatever reason Notorious didn't do it for me. Other than the Bergman-Grant chemistry it just didn't have a lot going on . Have you seen Shadow of a Doubt? That's my personal favourite.

The last 2 fight scenes in The Raid 2 are probably going to go down as my favorite movie moments of 2014. Fucking incredible. On the other hand, Snowpiercer is probably going to go down as my year's biggest disappointment. I'd been following it for over a year, and had heard nothing but great things, and then it was just kinda mediocre. The tunnel fight scene was very cool, but other than that it really did nothing for me.

I didn't like Trance either. But Rosario Dawson almost made sitting through it all worthwhile.... I'm actually really back-and-forth on Boyle. He makes amazing sci-fi/horror (Sunshine, 28 Days Later) and really good dark comedies (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting), but I'm pretty ambivalent about his oscar-baity stuff (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire). And his high-concept thrillers are terrible (Trance, The Beach).

Without any thought to how Benning would get this done, how sweet would it be if we got both (good) Reinharts? With the Sedins on the way out they could be the new face of the franchise.

This week I saw a few documentaries (all on Netflix). In order from worst-->best: Cropsey (7/10) - Creepy doc about a staten island serial killer who has since became folklore. It's disturbing stuff, but I think the filmmakers were hoping to uncover something big that never really materialized. Still, very atmospheric, and very creepy. Best Worst Movie (7.5/10) - A doc about the "worst movie ever made:" Trolls 2, made by its now grown-up child star. The stuff about the movie itself gets old kind of quickly, but the portraits of the people involved with it (the director who thinks it's a masterpiece and gets upset when people laugh at it, the real-life dentist who debates quitting his practice to capitalize on his new-found fame, another actress who has clearly gone insane since the film was shot), and how they're all deluding themselves is a little more interesting. Cocaine Cowboys (8/10) - It's the story of the rise of cocaine smuggling and dealing through Miami, and the drug wars that resulted. It's essentially just a series of interviews with various drug smugglers/hitmen/detectives etc... but the stories themselves are fascinating. I've heard people complain that this movie glorifies cocaine culture, and honestly that's probably a fair point, but I'm not sure it's the filmmaker's job to prevent the people who are remembering their youth from glorifying it. And they certainly don't shy away from the realities of the violence either. Let the Fire Burn (9.5/10) - Now this was great film. It's from last year and it absolutely should have been up for best doc at the Oscars. It recounts the 1980s standoff between a black liberation movement in Philadelphia and the government, which ended up with the activist compound (which was in a residential area) being firebombed via police helicopter and then left to burn down, which ended up killing the majority of the activists while also burning down a lot of the neighborhood. It's extremely unbiased, and you'll find yourself sympathizing with both the police and the activists at various parts in the story, and the story itself is extremely compelling. I can't believe I'd never heard of it before.

To each their own, but I found Spring Breakers to be more thought-provoking and entertaining than the vast majority of films that came out last year. Only Her, 12 Years a Slave and The Act of Killing were better IMO.

I really liked it. It made my top-5 from last year. And I disagree that a film which doesn't have good character development or a great storyline isn't worth watching. If a movie is trying to, but fails to meet those criteria, it's not a good movie. But if it's going for something different it can succeed on its own terms. Spring Breakers was a critique of the hedonistic spring breaker mindset, and by being gorgeous and vapid it was adopting those attributes to better skewer its target. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think if you were to ever watch it again knowing what you were getting into you'd come away feeling differently about it.

Apparently you're my Wes Anderson evil twin. My rankings: 1. Life Aquatic 2. Moonrise Kingdom 3. Rushmore 4. Royal Tenenbaums 5. Fantastic Mr. Fox 6. Grand Budapest 7. Bottle Rocket 8. Darjeeling Limited

This is how I feel too. I was never against trading Hodgson, but I think we got the wrong piece for him at the wrong time. Having said that, Kassian's been growing on me.

Anchorman 2 - 6/10 I loved the first Anchorman, but this was too full of cameos and call-backs to stand on its own. It's also the worst edited major studio film in recent memory. Pros: -The even crazier news team fight was the stupidest thing I've seen in a movie in years, but I couldn't stop laughing -Farrell's claims that he's "full blown Mexican" -Champ referring to different animals as "chicken of the cave/railyard" -Brick's and Kristin Wiig's relationship Cons: -Everything else. Especially the extremely lazy and tired black jokes.

If only... Remove Pouliot and Simmonds and you might make a deal

It's in my top 10, and i get into arguments about it all the time. It's so clearly satire. I don't see how critics dismissed it as a dumb action movie. And wow do those special effects hold up.

PVH is easily one of the my favourite directors. Super Troopers, Robocop and The 4th Man are some of my favourite movies. And even his flops like Showgirls and Basic Instinct are fun. Hollow Man is the exception that proves the rule.

Burrows isn't helping, but it's not like he's holding the Sedins back. They can barely make a pass right now.

He had a fantastic run of Ehrhoff, Higgy and Lappy. Since then his trades have ranged from "decent value but in retrospect a waste of a pick - Roy" to "complete disaster - Ballard." And he did not get decent value for Hodgson, plus he traded him at the exact wrong time. He's pretty great at signing playes, and pretty good at re-signing players (although we're now in NTC hell), and he's great at cap circumvention, but I don't trust his trades at all.

Pros: Kassian 4th Line End of List

Yeah but Kassian was directly responsible for 2 goals against

Next game (if Hank's back): Kesler-Hank-Burrows Sedin-Schroeder-Higgins Kassian-Santo-Booth Tostito-Richardson-Hansen

Her is so good. I'd be shocked if 12YAS doesn't win best picture, but then I didn't see American Hustle so I'm biased. Gravity should win all the technical awards but that script was nowhere near oscar worthy IMO.

That's a movie that improves with every re-watch. Have you seen Inland Empire? I love Lynch, but I ended up turning that one off halfway through. It's pretty well regarded critically though, so I'm wondering if I should give it another chance.

Her - 9/10 Even for Spike Jonze this is a helluva movie. It somehow manages to take what seemed to me like a fairly dumb premise and turn it into a movie that's both really entertaining and stimulating. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to go hide in a cabin in the woods and think about life for awhile. You'll definitely get far more invested in a human-AI relationship than you'd ever think you could. It's my pick for best film of 2013. The Wolf of Wall Street - 8/10 Scorsese already made better versions of this movie twice (Goodfellas and Casino), but it's still entertaining as hell. Leo's phenomenal as always (who knew he was so good at physical comedy?) and Jonah Hill keeps his hot streak going too. Probably a little overlong and lacking a really solid ending, and it doesn't have many of the jaw-dropping gutpunch scenes Scorsese is known for, but it is definitely worth a watch.

I'd add Pouliot (until today's game) and Ekblad, but it's a valid point. It still would have been nice to see Horvat play better.

Assuming our forwards are amazing when we're in the middle of a win-streak is just as terrible as assuming they're dogcrap when we're in a losing streak. The situation isn't dire, but we still need another top-6 winger if we want to compete with Chi/LA/STL/SJ.

I really wish Edler didn't have an NTC. Packaging him for a Kane-type player just makes too much sense for us right now.

The trailer for Last Vegas makes it look so bad. It'll actually make you feel sorry for Freeman/DeNiro. I saw a couple of Criterion films this week. Repo Man (7/10): A really strange low-budget post-apocalyptic cult film. It starts out of kind of boring but picks up a lot in the second half when it completely throws plot out the window and goes insane. Really good John Carpenter-esque soundtrack. Worth a watch if it sounds like your kind of thing Shadows (7/10): John Cassavetes' first film. Even the criterion blu-ray is kind of a tough watch as it's a 50s movie that was made on a non-existent budget. It's also a bit of slog to get through since it's not very plot-heavy and the acting is very strange (a lot of it was improv'd by non-professional actors). It's probably more worthwhile to watch from a historical point of view more than anything else as a lot of people credit it with birthing the independent movie movement, but there are some very memorable scenes and it's got a really cool vibe. Also Charles Mingus did the soundtrack, so that's pretty cool.