What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[fred41]

A Werewolf Boy - Neuk-dae-so-nyeon (2012) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2315152/)

Watched this on Netflix...expected some horror, but turns out this is really a romance fairytale. This Korean film is probably geared more towards teenage girls - with that type of cartoonish, overacting by side characters...but it turns out to be a decent film that sucked me in never the less (only stopped it for one bathroom break)...and, did in fact, get me a bit misty at the end...lol.

[Stavros]

Tower Heist (Brett Radner 2011)
I enjoyed this succession of cliches and one-dimensional ideas because Alan Alda gets humiliated and sent to prison. I don't like Alan Alda. I didn't like MASH, I don't like his Mush. I don't like his voice, or his smug self-satisfied persona. He is a creep. It is worth watching to see him in prison garb, long may it stay that way.

[TSCURIOUS]

Frozen. Not bad

[Jericho]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Shallows.
Next time i see her, I'm going to punch JK Rowling right in the cunt...She killed Dobby!

[Prospero]

The Last Tycoon, a 1971 film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's last unfinished novel directed by Elia Kazan. A stellar cast including Robert Di Niro, Robert Mitcham, Angelica Houston, Theresa Russell, Jack Nicholson, and many others. A screenplay by Harold Pinter that almost parodies his cliched pregnant pauses and the most wooden leading lady I have ever seen (the daughter of Roy Boulting) in her only major role ( surely favours were called in - she later became a yoga teacher in California) Dire and directionless.

[goatman]

Enter the Dragon

[goatman]

Game of Death

[Stavros]

The Last Tycoon, a 1971 film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's last unfinished novel directed by Elia Kazan. A stellar cast including Robert Di Niro, Robert Mitcham, Angelica Houston, Theresa Russell, Jack Nicholson, and many others. A screenplay by Harold Pinter that almost parodies his cliched pregnant pauses and the most wooden leading lady I have ever seen (the daughter of Roy Boulting) in her only major role ( surely favours were called in - she later became a yoga teacher in California) Dire and directionless.

Didn't see the film or read the book, but according to IMDB it was 1976 not 1971 and for good measure someone on imdb rates it more than you do. As I am not a fan of Fitzgerald or Kazan, with a few exceptions, I will take your word for it. As for the leading lady, was that Tony Curtis?

Here is the review:
Misunderstood masterpiece 11 August 2001 | by
De Niro was an unexpected surprise as Monroe Starr in this brilliant adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished last novel. He gives a thoughtful, sensitive, and intelligent performance as this character, who was modeled on MGM producer, Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald wrote about Hollywood from the inside, and from the perspective of someone who was destroying himself by being inside. He could ask for nothing better than to have English playwright Harold Pinter create this stark, human screenplay and then have Elia Kazan realize it.

In addition to De Niro's definitive performance, we get a series of perfect cameos (usually an impossibility) from Tony Curtis, Jeanne Moreau, Robert Mitchum, and others. We also get two screen debuts of merit -- Angelica Huston (in a small, but memorable scene) and an excellent Teresa Russell as Starr's would-be sweetheart. The critics hated the movie, and it did poorly in box offices, but it was truly, like Fitzgerald himself, an American masterpiece.

[algebra1900]

Didn't see the film or read the book, but according to IMDB it was 1976 not 1971 and for good measure someone on imdb rates it more than you do. As I am not a fan of Fitzgerald or Kazan, with a few exceptions, I will take your word for it. As for the leading lady, was that Tony Curtis?
[/I]

That is where I stopped reading.

[Prospero]

Forgot Curtis was also in it and yep, got the year wrong. It also had Jeanne Moreau and Donald pleasance. The so called leading lady was Ingrid Boulting

[Stavros]

Forgot Curtis was also in it and yep, got the year wrong. It also had Jeanne Moreau and Donald pleasance. The so called leading lady was Ingrid Boulting

Do you have strong views on Kazan, Prospero?

[Stavros]

That is where I stopped reading.

Awfully sorry, did you have to change your underwear?

[Prospero]

Kazan? On the waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire put him in the first rank of great directors but his behaviour under McCarthy was despicable. But I don't claim to know about his reasons in detail. It certainly cost him the friendship of the great Arthur Miller.

[fred41]

Tower Heist (Brett Radner 2011)
I enjoyed this succession of cliches and one-dimensional ideas because Alan Alda gets humiliated and sent to prison. I don't like Alan Alda. I didn't like MASH, I don't like his Mush. I don't like his voice, or his smug self-satisfied persona. He is a creep. It is worth watching to see him in prison garb, long may it stay that way.

Then you would have enjoyed this little T.V. Movie classic...BTW...read the Trivia segment on the IMDB site:

The Glass House (TV Movie 1972) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068642/)

[robertlouis]

The Last Tycoon, a 1971 film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's last unfinished novel directed by Elia Kazan. A stellar cast including Robert Di Niro, Robert Mitcham, Angelica Houston, Theresa Russell, Jack Nicholson, and many others. A screenplay by Harold Pinter that almost parodies his cliched pregnant pauses and the most wooden leading lady I have ever seen (the daughter of Roy Boulting) in her only major role ( surely favours were called in - she later became a yoga teacher in California) Dire and directionless.

Nobody has proved capable of bringing Fitzgerald's elegant prose to life on the big screen; every version of Gatsby focuses on the superficial rather than the substance, even the bw version with Alan Ladd. The only bearable adaptation I can remember was a BBC version of Tender is the Night made in the 80s with Peter Strauss and Mary Steenburgen brilliant as the faint disguise of Zelda.

Read Fitzgerald. Don't watch it.

[goatman]

The Warriors(1979)...
Say it with me:
"WAARRIORS..., COME OUT & PLAAAAY!"

[pittpanther2010]

Monsters, Inc...I have a very exciting life and refined taste in movies

[Cerberus]

Gravity.

Zero Gravity!
Good FX but lousy story!

[LibertyHarkness]

BIG ASS SPIDER - love my crappy cheapo budget sci/horror flicks .. this one was actually quite good as it goes .. great great cover song of the pixies in the opening scene ...

BIG ASS SPIDER! opening scene [HD video 1080p] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T69VjRNyTk)

Its on lovefilm now if anyone has that .. its worth a watch, quite funny :)

[Stavros]

Then you would have enjoyed this little T.V. Movie classic...BTW...read the Trivia segment on the IMDB site:


Thanks for the link, bizarre. Also means I can avoid it...

[Stavros]

Two films yesterday:
Elysium (Neill Bloomkamp 2013)
I didn't look closely at the box or I would have left it in the shop, as this director's District 9 was rubbish and Elysium follows it into the charity shop. I think Jodie Foster was embarrassed at being asked to speak in an odd Anglo-French accent, her French was immaculate. I couldn't work out if she was chief of police or a real estate agent. I don't think it matters. The villain, a white South African called Kruger rants in Afrikaans slang which seems a bit odd even in LA in 2154. Matt Damon walks around with the remains of a bicycle stuck to his body and is of course, able to do things which most mortals cannot do, like saving damsels in distress.
Elysium Trailer #2 2013 Official - Matt Damon Movie [HD] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvGE2nP4ga8)

Freedomland (Joe Roth 2006)
I bought this for £2.50. Two fine actors, Samuel L Jackson (whose wife is also in the film), Julianne Moore in a stale and predictable story, acting is good but it is all a bit too worthy with confused direction. At times the film is about the police discriminating against Black people, but this acts as a diversion from the main plot, while some characters, like the lead woman's brother, come and then disappear from the film. Overpriced at 2.50. Another one heading to the charity shop.

Freedomland trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUqRneszsHY)

[Ben]

WORST Movies of 2013:

The WORST Movies of 2013 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2dB-rD0aUM)

Best Films of 2013

The Best Films of 2013 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w1cNRBuELU)

[Jericho]

Eragon.
Yeah, yeah, i know, but i enjoyed it! :shrug

[RallyCola]

last night, i sat through Admission with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd...some shitastic movie my wife dvr'ed. skip it...it sucked.

to get toe elysium as was posted above...that's what happens with you give a "visionary director with a social conscience" a hollywood budget. it sucked in so many ways that i can't list them. i really though this dude was going to make good on his mutant movie idea instead of just making it a one-off youtube thing.

[Stavros]

last night, i sat through Admission with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd...some shitastic movie my wife dvr'ed. skip it...it sucked.

to get toe elysium as was posted above...that's what happens with you give a "visionary director with a social conscience" a hollywood budget. it sucked in so many ways that i can't list them. i really though this dude was going to make good on his mutant movie idea instead of just making it a one-off youtube thing.

Visionary? Social Conscience? I could see how the separate development of the haves from the have-nots can be read as mimicking apartheid in South Africa, but that is as far as it went, it was the film itself that failed at every level. It is amazing how much money people will part for to produce this stuff, same thing was said of Eragon although that was commercially successful.

[RallyCola]

well, i put it in quotes because that is how NB was classified after district 9.

as far as a story goes, district 9 built tension far better than elysium and also was somewhat less predictable, albeit not very good in the end. i can buy into the idea of oppression of what you do not understand more than i can buy into the "you are destined for great things" idea.

as far as movie making goes, i feel that district 9, with its grit and naive storytelling was just better paced and suited than elysium where the notes NB wanted to hit are immediate and rushed. elysium depends on too many traditional plot devices...the criminal turned straight...the old girl from the neighborhood that saw good in him...the selfish turned selfless, the tragic hero. The difference to me is that in district 9, you are really not routing for the prawns to get set free...you are routing for wikus to get his comeuppance but learn from it. the story telling allows you to decide whether or not you care about CJ and his son. In Elysium, you are told without a doubt that you are supposed to care about the little girl, hate Kruger and root for Matt Damon to save the day.

as far as acting goes, that i had no preconceived notion of what Copley would be like so that helped me keep and open mind with D9. Matt Damon was Jason Bourne meets iron man in Elysium and could not escape being matt damon. i didn't think he brought anything to the role that was noteworthy. Couple that with the fact that I think Alice Braga can't act well and Jodie Foster has not done a good movie in 20 years, I feel again, district 9 has an edge.

overall, i do favor district 9 over elysium by far, but that is not saying much because elysium is also on my list of movies i have seen that i wish i didn't. it is just another director that made a good movie then was given access to additional cash and cast and fucked up his sophomore attempt.

[Stavros]

I thought Jodie Foster was good in Spike Lee's Inside Man (2006) one of the few films Lee has made that is worth watching even if it does have lumberjack Washington in it. Looking back over her cv, I don't think she has had as many good parts she might have, possibly because she doesn't seem to like certain types of scene which women are expected to slot into, and there aren't that many parts for women which do not concern sex.

[Dino Velvet]

I was crushed when this show ended.

Delocated: Death Erection - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39XD3726ydA)

[goatman]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind(1977)

[Dino Velvet]

Delocated: The Third Boner - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1RPcf-6Z4)

[RallyCola]

I thought Jodie Foster was good in Spike Lee's Inside Man (2006) one of the few films Lee has made that is worth watching even if it does have lumberjack Washington in it. Looking back over her cv, I don't think she has had as many good parts she might have, possibly because she doesn't seem to like certain types of scene which women are expected to slot into, and there aren't that many parts for women which do not concern sex.

let me be clear...other than taxi driver, i have not seen a jodie foster movie before the accused. but we are talking about the same woman that did anna and the king, nim's island and flightplan. i was not a big fan of inside man but i guess she did ok in that. For me, contact was alright too but the last movie i think i enjoyed her in was Maverick with mel gibson and james garner.

[Dino Velvet]

let me be clear...other than taxi driver, i have not seen a jodie foster movie before the accused. but we are talking about the same woman that did anna and the king, nim's island and flightplan. i was not a big fan of inside man but i guess she did ok in that. For me, contact was alright too but the last movie i think i enjoyed her in was Maverick with mel gibson and james garner.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane is worth seeing. Martin Sheen would give Charlie Sheen douche chills after he saw his father in this.

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976) HD TRAILER - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbWQ7ecJct0)

[Stavros]

let me be clear...other than taxi driver, i have not seen a jodie foster movie before the accused. but we are talking about the same woman that did anna and the king, nim's island and flightplan. i was not a big fan of inside man but i guess she did ok in that. For me, contact was alright too but the last movie i think i enjoyed her in was Maverick with mel gibson and james garner.

I think I like her more than I like most of her films; but I must register my surprise that anyone would sit down and watch anything with Mel Gibson...hmmm...

[Stavros]

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane is worth seeing. Martin Sheen would give Charlie Sheen douche chills after he saw his father in this.


I saw it on tv years and years ago and was quite surprised as she was 13 when she made it and appears in the nude too as well as in that bed scene -I think these days it would not even be made, and I doubt it is on tv schedules.

[RallyCola]

I think I like her more than I like most of her films; but I must register my surprise that anyone would sit down and watch anything with Mel Gibson...hmmm...

as a dude that grew up on 80s/90s action movies, the Mad Max series and LW1 and 2 are requisite viewing though not very good. Maverick is not a movie i paid to see in 1994...i saw it on cable much later and enjoyed it for the mindless entertainment it is. other than that, i tend not to like his stuff. I really can't sit through Braveheart or The Patriot. my wife made me watch Ransom but only because she loves the smashing pumpkins and they did the soundtrack. fuck Signs (and everything m night shamalamadingdong does). Conspiracy Theory and Air America are ok and other than that, i don't think I've seen much else he has done

[Dino Velvet]

I saw it on tv years and years ago and was quite surprised as she was 13 when she made it and appears in the nude too as well as in that bed scene -I think these days it would not even be made, and I doubt it is on tv schedules.

So many films of the 1970s should never be remade or touched now. People are such over-sensitive pussies that they could never deal with it. There would be a bigger line around the block full of weepy masochists looking and hoping for something to be outraged or offended by building up to their personal climax, a massive orgasm of pissing and moaning.

Thanks for reading all my pissing and moaning...

[red-cyberman]

the last movie that I watched was Prisoners

[Jackal]

Insidious, one of the better horror films to be released in some time.

[goatman]

Frozen River [2008] Working-class white woman teams up with a Mohawk[Native American--not hairstyle]woman to smuggle illegal immigrants from Canada [across reservation land] to America...

[goatman]

The Shining (1980)...
Though I did channel switch to watch that new Tricia Helfer show "Killer Women"

[pantybulge69]

the last movie that I watched was Prisoners

Very interesting movie. People seeing this movie have to pay close
attentions to clues that give hints to what's going on both during the movie (the maze painting) and at the very end. (the whistle in the hole)

[Prospero]

There is a telling scene mid-way through ”Inside Llewyn Davis”, the new Coen Brothers movie, when a music manager called Bud Grossman, played by F. Murray Abraham (and clearly modelled on Bob Dylan’s erstwhile manager Al Grossman) listens to an impassioned musical performance by the central character and responds that” I don’t hear much money in it.”

It signals a time of transformation – when the largely coffee house based folk music tradition of the late fifties and early sixties travelled into the mainstream of popular music via such figures as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

Llewyn Davies is not modelled on one of these luminaries, but on the also-rans such as Rambling jack Elliott or Dave Van Ronk (the Coens admit they based his character on Van Ronk’s autobiography).

Llewyn Davis is a nearly man of spiky personality – who plays the clubs of Greenwich villages and crashes at the apartments of friends as he ploughs (into the ground) a musical career in the aftermath of the successful time in a duo (following the suicide of his partner).

The Coens, like Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino, are darlings of the film industry and many can do no wrong – even when they producer stinkers like “Burn After Reading’ or ”A Serious Man.”

Yet they are capable of greatness with films such as “Fargo”, “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” or “No Country For Old Men” and they do deserve praise for consistently trying out different genres – like last year’s enjoyable re-make of “True Grit”

“Inside Llewyn Davis” is one of their better films and is already picking up accolades in the US. It is really going to be liked by those who love the music of this era (currently enjoying quite a present revival of interest – check out the wonderful new CD set “ Live At Caffe Lena” - which was actually not in The Village but in Saratoga Springs.)

But while it has bittersweet comedy – particularly in the character played splendidly by John Goodman, a fat drug-addled old jazz musician – and a wonderful thread about cats – it is also run through with the Coen’s now familiar misanthropic view of the human condition.

The central character played by Oscar Isaac, is a great performer – but more in the Dave Van Ronk mode than a Dylan (a brief evocation of Dylan towards the end of the fm underscores the coming marginalisation of singers like Davis) and as Grossman judges, he is not likely to make much money.

And he is uncompromising. He clashes with his sister, with his friends and with just about everyone else.

He refuses the offer to trim his wild beard to a goatee and join a trio Bud Grossman is assembling – unnamed – but summoning the spectre of the commercialism of Peter, Paul and Mary.

In summation, a most enjoyable film evoking a now largely forgotten era of musical history. Oh and the music is god - including a hugely surprising performance by Justin Timberlake.


Inside Llewyn Davis - Please Mr. Kennedy - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSwO-k-RqNA)

[tiramisu]

G.I Joe

[goatman]

A Clockwork Orange[1971]...(This movie's about a week older than I am!)
Bit o' the ole Ultra Violence my little Droogies...

[Stavros]

The Coens, like Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino, are darlings of the film industry and many can do no wrong – even when they producer stinkers like “Burn After Reading’ or ”A Serious Man.”

Yet they are capable of greatness with films such as “Fargo”, “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” or “No Country For Old Men” and they do deserve praise for consistently trying out different genres – like last year’s enjoyable re-make of “True Grit”


Surely the problem with the Coen Brothers is that even when they try out 'different genres' their films all look and sound the same, and are characterised by a cynical violence which acts as a replacement for plot or story -when in doubt, shoot it out. The question might be, How accurate is their portrayal of the contemporary USA? How many Black or Latino characters have their been in their films other than the small roles in the The Ladykillers, the camp idiot (John Turturro, Italian-American by origin and a wonderful actor) or the 'angry Black man' in The Big Lebowski? Not impressed.

[goatman]

Surely the problem with the Coen Brothers is that even when they try out 'different genres' their films all look and sound the same, and are characterised by a cynical violence which acts as a replacement for plot or story -when in doubt, shoot it out. The question might be, How accurate is their portrayal of the contemporary USA? How many Black or Latino characters have their been in their films other than the small roles in the The Ladykillers, the camp idiot (John Turturro, Italian-American by origin and a wonderful actor) or the 'angry Black man' in The Big Lebowski? Not impressed.
That's part of the problem...Hollywood(WAY "Too Big To Fail")....These things are cyclical(Think about it, when I was little, the so-called "Renegades" were Spielberg, Scorsese, & Lucas)... The Hollywood system is set in it's ways, making particular genres of films for decades: Westerns, war flicks, slapsticks, Biblical epics, action flicks, etc...Then a bunch of new hotshot come along and shake up the game with their post film school project...They're either welcomed into the machine/community/tribe(by which they exemplify their loyalty by churning out MORE studio-dreck for mass consumption--@ higher $$$budgets) or they're pushed to the "boonies" of the indie-foreign niche..

[Prospero]

Stavros, you'll have gathered I'm not that impressed either with the bulk of their work, but there is just one very brief fight in this new film - a little bit of fisticuffs in an alleyway - and precious little violence that I can recall in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou."

And while i hated "No Country For Old men" for the very violence you deplore it was a powerful piece of film making.

[Stavros]

That's part of the problem...Hollywood(WAY "Too Big To Fail")....These things are cyclical(Think about it, when I was little, the so-called "Renegades" were Spielberg, Scorsese, & Lucas)... The Hollywood system is set in it's ways, making particular genres of films for decades: Westerns, war flicks, slapsticks, Biblical epics, action flicks, etc...Then a bunch of new hotshot come along and shake up the game with their post film school project...They're either welcomed into the machine/community/tribe(by which they exemplify their loyalty by churning out MORE studio-dreck for mass consumption--@ higher $$$budgets) or they're pushed to the "boonies" of the indie-foreign niche..

Indeed I have a book called The Movie Brats, about that group of new kids on the block (Scorsese, Milius, Lucas, de Palma) who have since morphed into respectability, as indeed did most of the Nouvelle Vague in France (although most of their films are not worth seeing except a couple by Rivette I suppose).

[Prospero]

Which Rivette Stavros? The only I have seen was "Celine and Julie go Boating'. First time i loved it but 20 years later it seemed rather tedious.

[Stavros]

Stavros, you'll have gathered I'm not that impressed either with the bulk of their work, but there is just one very brief fight in this new film - a little bit of fisticuffs in an alleyway - and precious little violence that I can recall in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou."

And while i hated "No Country For Old men" for the very violence you deplore it was a powerful piece of film making.

Well I obviously haven't seen the latest so my earlier comment doesn't apply, and I don't think there was any violence in The Hudsucker Proxy thinking back on that anaemic diversion. I think also that most music in the 1950s and 1960s was local and that reputations were made by word of mouth before the record industry, tv and radio brought local acts to national and then international fame. I doubt von Ronk would ever have made it and feel Dylan in his biography was often paying off a personal debt to obscure people rather than promoting someone for artistic reasons. He is not infallible.

Not pertinent to the thread, but isn't Dylan one of the few musicians who does not owe a debt to the Black American route which began with field hollers and slave songs, and morphed through the blues and Jazz into r&b and Soul? Do the Coen Brothers, like Woody Allen, have a blind spot when it comes to non-white/Black America? Believe it or not, I actually thought Burn after Reading was one of the most bearable of their jaded parables.

[crystalsopen]

Yes It was visually stunning.

Pan's Labrynth. Anybody seen it?

[Stavros]

Which Rivette Stavros? The only I have seen was "Celine and Julie go Boating'. First time i loved it but 20 years later it seemed rather tedious.

Can't agree with that, Celine et Julie is still magical for me. Jeanne la Pucelle (parts 1 and 2) are worth seeing for a reasonable degree of historical accuracy except that, as is always the case in films, the actress playing Jeanne (Sandrine Bonnaire) was 27 when she made the first part (Les Batailles) whereas in real life Jehanne was around 16 or 17 when she first lobbied Charles VII to take on the British.

[Stavros]

Yes It was visually stunning.

Pan's Labyrinth -yes, I saw it, and thought little of it.

[Stavros]

American Hustle (David Russell 2013)
Russell directed Silver Linings Playbook and uses Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and an uncredited Robert de Niro in this film, but as with some of his earlier films (Spanking the Monkey, 1994; and I Heart Huckabees, 2004) the film promises more than it delivers. The plot is of little interest, the characters even less so, and when a character is given the name of of an Italian cheese I think you realise this film came from nowhere, has the same rythmn and tone throughout and ends up disappointing. If you do want to see films about hustling and deception, The Grifters (Stephen Frears 1990) and the Argentinian film Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens, Faien Bielinsky 2000) are both superior.

Pity as I like Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper and hope they make interesting films.

[Prospero]

Its a caper Stavros and quite funny I think! And the cheese name is a joke. The Big cheese....

[clevelandswabbie]

right & i did like "Pan's Labyrinth"...also just saw last week "Gravity"...Sarah should get the Oscar...just saying.

met a new friend from Columbus, OH...

[clevelandswabbie]

...the other last movie i saw is w/Chanel Couture...which was yesterday...

[broncofan]

Yet to see American Hustle and Inside Llewyn Davis. I agree with Prospero's take on Coen Brothers movies. I've liked a handful. Fargo, Big Lebowski, No Country, O Brother Where Art Thou, and Miller's Crossing (though I think the last one is overrated). Did not like The Man Who Wasn't There, Hudsucker Proxy, or Ladykillers. Thought A Serious Man and Burn Before Reading were okay.

Saw 12 Years a Slave and thought it was very moving.

[maxpower]

No one likes the Coens' Raising Arizona? It's one of my all-time favorites.

[Prospero]

Never seen it, Maxpower....

I watched the new Bazz Luhrmann version of "The Great Gatsby" last night. Well, to be honest, I watched some and then read a book while the rest played on. A drunken, careering car crash of a film. I wonder if he will ever make a calm film. Leonardo di Caprio was fine (and Carey Mulligan as Daisy looked lovely). Do Caprio, who has matured into a pretty good actor was a calm centre to an otherwise squally film. As Robert Louis said a few posts ago read F. Scott Fitzgerald read the books and avoid the movies. This film is horrible.

GREAT GATSBY Trailer (2012) Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARN6agiW7o)

[goatman]

Battlestar Galactic: Blood & Chrome[2012]

[Odelay]

American Hustle (David Russell 2013)
Russell directed Silver Linings Playbook and uses Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and an uncredited Robert de Niro in this film, but as with some of his earlier films (Spanking the Monkey, 1994; and I Heart Huckabees, 2004) the film promises more than it delivers. The plot is of little interest, the characters even less so, and when a character is given the name of of an Italian cheese I think you realise this film came from nowhere, has the same rythmn and tone throughout and ends up disappointing. If you do want to see films about hustling and deception, The Grifters (Stephen Frears 1990) and the Argentinian film Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens, Faien Bielinsky 2000) are both superior.

Pity as I like Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper and hope they make interesting films.
The best part of this film is that David O Russell obviously has a huge foot fetish and likes to show it on the big screen. Love all the foot scenes and foot play. The 70's outfits and music were great too. Stavros, your basic criticism isn't necessarily wrong, but as Prospero sort of said... it's a mad caper. More Fish Called Wanda than Casino.

But yeah, I love con movies dating back to The Sting as a 13 yr old on its first run in the theatres. Grifters was indeed a good one. I also think House of Games and The Last Seduction are two underrated movies from this genre. The con in American Hustle isn't all that elaborate and so I wouldn't put it on a par with the best of the genre. I'll have to check out Nueva Reina. Thanks for the tip Stavros.

[Odelay]

Nebraska. Funny and moving. Terrific film making. A possible oscar for Bruce Dern
Pleased to hear it. On the list for this week! :)

Alexander Payne has become the master of the quirky road movie.

So RL, did you ever see Nebraska? Was definitely quirky/funny, especially the mother character, but not necessarily my favorite Payne movie. Part of my view is affected by a lack of objectivity - I grew up in the Great Plains, and spent quite a bit of time in Billings, Montana where the movie starts out. The regional characterization is mostly right with Payne's skewed wit thrown in. But I guess any small town/rural region of the world has common elements to what is shown here.

[south ov da border]

I wend on a childhood bender and watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 and 2 today

[Jimmy W]

Dallas Buyers Club: Matthew Mcconaughey and Jared Leto have possibly done permanent damage to their health having lost so much weight portraying victims of HIV AIDS in the late 1980s and I wish that wasn't my first reaction because their performances, once you get past their startling weight loss, are simply beautiful. Imagine a cowboy homophobe and a drag queen and a situation where they are forced to form a relationship in order to survive. Thankfully, this film discards all those preconceived notions and cliché's and for that reason alone I give this an 8 of 10. My only problem is the overnight transition from drunken idiot to sober scientific scholar with the Mcconaughey character. This will get ignored unfortunately because it doesnt have robots or old guys boxing but it is worth seeking out.

[Jimmy W]

The Wolf Of Wall Street: If you want to be entertained by a tall tale of the excesses of Wall Street moguls from a few decades ago, it's a fun and entertaining movie. But, nothing new here from Scorcese. However, Margot Robbie appears nekkid which gives it a 10 out of 10 review!

[mrLemon]

last night was Waynes World!
a 1992 classic, haven't seen for years and loved its childishness!!
'if she was presedent, she'd be Babereham Lincoln'
a classic of its time!!
NOT!! ahh that's where it came from and we still use it today!!

[pantybulge69]

lone survivor

great film, very well done by peter berg. it's simple and very direct.
watch for the dedicated memorial at the very end. some scenes can be bloody brutal...

[Dino Velvet]

Abdullah The Butcher in a way you haven't seen him before.

Icons of Wrestling - Abdullah the Butcher - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSRXDMYke84)

[Stavros]

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
For some reason this film is not being widely distributed in the UK and as it is not scheduled to play in my town until the end of January I went to Birmingham to see it. I also read the original book before going. Solomon Northup's account, also 12 Years a Slave can be read for free at this link:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

The book is not too long and can be read in a morning or an afternoon. It is written with considerable verve and confidence by a man who refused to be beaten into submission by slavery, and whose potent sense of justice gives the book an important dimension in the decade before the Civil War. Northup after his captivity often muses on the Constitutional right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' as something denied to Black Americans, yet never loses faith in either constitutional or natural law as his route to freedom. The contradictions between the Constitition and reality are as stark as the fact that Northup prospered among white Americans in the North yet was betrayed by two of them desperate for money, treated harshly by them in slavery yet in time emancipated by them. Similarly, the Christian faith which he professes is also used in the South to justify both slavery itself and violence. Crucially, perhaps, Northup argues that slavery brutalises the slave owners and that the only remedy is abolition.

McQueen is fairly faithful to the book but edits in scenes of a sexual nature that are not in the book; and edits out other characters: he replaces a key figure, Henry Northup, the man who emancipated Solomon's father, with the trader Parker; the black slave who is murdered on the boat heading south in the book dies of smallpox; the proud Black woman Eliza, who, separated from her children slips into despair, dies in the book, but not in the film. Solomon has three children in the book, only two in the film. If anything, there are more beatings and lashings in the book than in the film, and Solomon's attempt to escape is not featured as an event in itself. I would rather have seen more time developing Solomon's character as a free man in Saratoga and filling in the background on his skills as a carpenter and raft-maker; and more time with the pivotal figure Bass (played by Brad Pitt in the film), whose encounters with Solomon are dealt with in more detail in the book. In effect he has one short and one long scene in the film. The figure of Uncle Abram is lost in the film although the scene at his funeral where they sing Roll, Jordan, Roll is one of the most moving in the film, not least because at first Solomon resists joining in. The photography is superb, the acting outstanding and the overall impact of the film is intense and powerful. It is useful to contrast this factually based and serious film about slavery with the meretricious hysterics of Django Unchained. One is a film worthy of attention, the other worthy of the bin.

[saifan]

Watched The Place Beyond the Pines last night on HBO. Wasn't what I was expecting by the end. Really enjoyed it.
The Place Beyond the Pines Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Ryan Gosling Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G07pSbHLXgg)

[clevelandswabbie]

American Splendor w/Paul Giamatti...tell ya' why...guy's an artist/works @ VA Hospital University Circle...AND one King of Porn is Cleveland born...

[Prospero]

wow... Stavros and i agree about something. Is this a portent of the end of the world?

[broncofan]

wow... Stavros and i agree about something. Is this a portent of the end of the world?
He's yet to agree that you agree:). Looking forward to the Golden Globes in about a half an hour. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are funny ladies, but nobody will ever compare to Ricky Gervais' hosting. Ballsy and sharp as a tack.

[sukumvit boy]

Abdullah The Butcher in a way you haven't seen him before.

Icons of Wrestling - Abdullah the Butcher - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSRXDMYke84)

:wiggle: Great stuff . Dino ,thanks!

[Stavros]

wow... Stavros and i agree about something. Is this a portent of the end of the world?

Hmmm..agree about what? 12 Years a Slave? We also admire Tarkovsky too I think....just don't get too comfortable or complacent....

[Stavros]

He's yet to agree that you agree:). Looking forward to the Golden Globes in about a half an hour. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are funny ladies, but nobody will ever compare to Ricky Gervais' hosting. Ballsy and sharp as a tack.

Is it true that only 90 people vote for the Golden Globes? I have a feeble view of awards, but this seems a pretty think spread of opinion....

[Dino Velvet]

:wiggle: Great stuff . Dino ,thanks!

Thanks. I'm glad somebody enjoyed that. Abdullah is more complex than we thought. His mom's a great gal and I'm glad she doesn't have to work at the funeral home anymore. One of the good stories from professional wrestling about one of the most notorious heels.

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Abdullah-the-Butcher.jpg

[Prospero]

Hmmm..agree about what? 12 Years a Slave? We also admire Tarkovsky too I think....just don't get too comfortable or complacent....

Around you I would never get complacent Stavros. Yes, you are quite right. I hugely admire Tarkovsky. And on quite a few of the political threads - even if I am weaker on some of the details than you.

[Stavros]

As I recall I liked Shame more than you did. I wasn't sure if McQueen was going to use his long shots in 12 Years a Slave but he does at a few critical junctures, the flogging of Patsey is one but there is another, toward the end when Solomon is held in mainframe looking around his landscape and gradually catches the camera's eye before moving away; intense and distressing in a way. Some critics of the film don't seem to appreciate McQueen started out with installations and is perhaps more of a film-maker moving from conceptual art into film rather than a conventional story teller although this his is most conventional film. Can't get Drumroll (1998) on the web it was one of his celebrated installations.

[Prospero]

Yes. I am afraid i found "Shame" rather dull - and have never had the courage to watch his film about Bobby Sands.

I recall an installation which i think i saw at Tate Modern of Scottish soldiers in kilts falling over. But it may have involved more than that.

[Stavros]

Shame -dull? I can't think of Michael Fassbender ever being dull.

What annoys me at the moment is the distribution of films -I haven't seen Nebraska because it wasn't shown in my town; there is a bias toward London and the bigger cities, which is why I had to go to Birmingham to see 12 Years or wait until the end of the month. There used to be a time when it would take at least 6 months for a major American film to make it to London yet it would open in Paris around the same time as its American premiere. These days London seems to be privileged over other parts of the country, as far as I know, Metro Manila only showed in London even though there are lots of Filipinos who might have wanted to see it who don't live there. I accept that Frozen and the other teen flicks will dominate local cinemas, but there are 6 screens in even my town cinema so I don't get how they can't show a greater diversity of films. In the end it means waiting 6 months or however long it is for these films to come out on DVD, as I don't subscribe to online streaming.

[Prospero]

I think the "art house" films really tend to play only in the bigger cities - as the major distributors will concentrate their more commercial films where there are fewer screens. So Cambridge or Oxford get good films because their demographic and having cinemas that cater to the student audience. I'd be surprised if Metro Manila ever plays in smaller towns - or even places lie Liverpool of Birmingham. I went to see a film about the German choreographer Pina Bausch in a suburban cinema in London last year -. it was shown on their smallest screen and we were the only two people there. It is this sort of thing which makes distributors very reluctant to risk anything which won't be sure of getting reasonable houses anywhere other than mass centres of population.

[pantybulge69]

Man of Steel.

the more i see this version, the more i come to adore, cherish and re-respect
the old Christopher Reeves (first 2 films) i didn't see or enjoy the romantic bond and relationship with Amy Adams' Lois Lane as i did with margot kidder. and i thought Man of Steel was much more of action-filled intent with todays's CGI effects. and not near as worked out a character/plot as the original 1978 and 1980 version. i got much into Reeves' Supey character much more than i did with Steel's Henry Cavill. i thought Man os Steel was solid, a good film....but not great. Not a classic.

[Jimmy W]

12 Years A Slave. SPOILER ALERT! Slavery was bad. Zzzzzzzzzzzz

[Stavros]

I think the "art house" films really tend to play only in the bigger cities - as the major distributors will concentrate their more commercial films where there are fewer screens. So Cambridge or Oxford get good films because their demographic and having cinemas that cater to the student audience. I'd be surprised if Metro Manila ever plays in smaller towns - or even places lie Liverpool of Birmingham. I went to see a film about the German choreographer Pina Bausch in a suburban cinema in London last year -. it was shown on their smallest screen and we were the only two people there. It is this sort of thing which makes distributors very reluctant to risk anything which won't be sure of getting reasonable houses anywhere other than mass centres of population.

I am not sure it is fair to cite a film that is already a few years old and which by definition has limited appeal (but is a wonderful film in spite of that comment). I think in the case of Nebraska there could have been a few evening slots to show it in, they show The Counsellor on one evening this week, for example. I know cinemas in main street have to make money, but as I said there are 6 screens and I can't see the point of showing a teen movie at 8.45 on a Tuesday. I don't expect them to show either the Osage County film or the Dallas Buyers Club unless they get awards. But it has always been like this and I don't see much change coming.

[ed_jaxon]

American Hustle

[ed_jaxon]

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
For some reason this film is not being widely distributed in the UK and as it is not scheduled to play in my town until the end of January I went to Birmingham to see it. I also read the original book before going. Solomon Northup's account, also 12 Years a Slave can be read for free at this link:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

The book is not too long and can be read in a morning or an afternoon. It is written with considerable verve and confidence by a man who refused to be beaten into submission by slavery, and whose potent sense of justice gives the book an important dimension in the decade before the Civil War. Northup after his captivity often muses on the Constitutional right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' as something denied to Black Americans, yet never loses faith in either constitutional or natural law as his route to freedom. The contradictions between the Constitition and reality are as stark as the fact that Northup prospered among white Americans in the North yet was betrayed by two of them desperate for money, treated harshly by them in slavery yet in time emancipated by them. Similarly, the Christian faith which he professes is also used in the South to justify both slavery itself and violence. Crucially, perhaps, Northup argues that slavery brutalises the slave owners and that the only remedy is abolition.

McQueen is fairly faithful to the book but edits in scenes of a sexual nature that are not in the book; and edits out other characters: he replaces a key figure, Henry Northup, the man who emancipated Solomon's father, with the trader Parker; the black slave who is murdered on the boat heading south in the book dies of smallpox; the proud Black woman Eliza, who, separated from her children slips into despair, dies in the book, but not in the film. Solomon has three children in the book, only two in the film. If anything, there are more beatings and lashings in the book than in the film, and Solomon's attempt to escape is not featured as an event in itself. I would rather have seen more time developing Solomon's character as a free man in Saratoga and filling in the background on his skills as a carpenter and raft-maker; and more time with the pivotal figure Bass (played by Brad Pitt in the film), whose encounters with Solomon are dealt with in more detail in the book. In effect he has one short and one long scene in the film. The figure of Uncle Abram is lost in the film although the scene at his funeral where they sing Roll, Jordan, Roll is one of the most moving in the film, not least because at first Solomon resists joining in. The photography is superb, the acting outstanding and the overall impact of the film is intense and powerful. It is useful to contrast this factually based and serious film about slavery with the meretricious hysterics of Django Unchained. One is a film worthy of attention, the other worthy of the bin.

Thank you for the link to the book. I saw the movie and want to see how faithful it was to the book because I was left a little empty because they did not examine him escaping or what happened in the courts afterwards. The man described in the closing credits was not the man portrayed in the movie. Just my 2 cents.

[Stavros]

I understand your reaction, Ed. I think the film could have been in three parts: the life as a free man, the life as a slave, and the aftermath of his release which is dealt with in captions before the credits, as all three are compelling narratives. Also the inability to prosecute successfully underlines the limits of freedom that Solomon actually had. But in any film of this sort the editing is where the book becomes transformed into a film and a more faithful film of the book would have been too long -or at, say, 4 hours (same length as the dreadful Gone with the Wind) too long for most audiences these days.

[robertlouis]

I think the "art house" films really tend to play only in the bigger cities - as the major distributors will concentrate their more commercial films where there are fewer screens. So Cambridge or Oxford get good films because their demographic and having cinemas that cater to the student audience. I'd be surprised if Metro Manila ever plays in smaller towns - or even places lie Liverpool of Birmingham. I went to see a film about the German choreographer Pina Bausch in a suburban cinema in London last year -. it was shown on their smallest screen and we were the only two people there. It is this sort of thing which makes distributors very reluctant to risk anything which won't be sure of getting reasonable houses anywhere other than mass centres of population.

It was a (minor) criterion in my decision to move to York from Cambridge, where there is an excellent arthouse cinema. The pluses for Cityscreen in York, aside from the opportunity to watch non-mainstream films in a civilised environment at reasonable prices, are a riverside location with terrace, a fine restaurant and bar, and all in a brand-new state of the art building. I've been going there at least once a week.

[Stavros]

It was a (minor) criterion in my decision to move to York from Cambridge, where there is an excellent arthouse cinema. The pluses for Cityscreen in York, aside from the opportunity to watch non-mainstream films in a civilised environment at reasonable prices, are a riverside location with terrace, a fine restaurant and bar, and all in a brand-new state of the art building. I've been going there at least once a week.

Interesting. There was a time when the most interesting thing to see in York was a train arriving in the station. It is, I believe, one of the most poetic train stations in the UK.

[robertlouis]

Interesting. There was a time when the most interesting thing to see in York was a train arriving in the station. It is, I believe, one of the most poetic train stations in the UK.

You are kidding, aren't you? There's more history and stunning old architecture in York per square metre than in London any day.

And the station is indeed magnificent - genius to design it over a graceful curve. Consider it a gateway to a cornucopia of wonders, the capital of the north.

[Dino Velvet]

I caught Ed Wood last night on DirecTV. My favorite Tim Burton film. Very entertaining and the performances so well-done. Thank you, Martin Landau.

I never get tired of seeing Ed Wood.

[goatman]

Oblivion[2013]

[goatman]

Savages[2012] Now THAT is one TWISTED FUCKED-UP movie...
None of the characters(no matter how sympathetic the light) had ANY redeeming qualities...Almost hated until "the Ambush Scene"....
Should be viewed along with Traffic[2000] & The Counselor[2013](preferably as the "meat" in the sandwich) by any dickhead pol/policy maker not in Denver or Olympia as to WHY WE NEED TO LEGALIZE cannabis...my $0.02...

[Prospero]

"August:Osage County " Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan Macgregor , Sam Shephard and other notable thespians all acting like crazy in a depressingly theatrical film version of Tracy Letts stage play. All very intense but you don't care about any of the dysfunctional family tearing each other apart. Streep over acts and Julia Roberts actually upstages her. Set in Oklahoma, but most of the action is indoors. Every scene proclaims that this is "a play" and it must have been better on stage. I wouldn't bother.

August: Osage County - Eat Your Fish - The Weinstein Company - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHYKPc_g5w)

[Stavros]

This clip and the preview I saw in the cinema on Sunday suggests this is a film of people shouting at each other. I am surprised to see the word 'acting' associated with Julia Roberts, that would be a departure from her normal near-comatose imitation of a tailor's dummy, ditto Ewan McGregor, a sure indication the film is not worth seeing. Not sure why anyone would call a man Tracy -I think he is also an actor and was in the latter episodes of Homeland. By the way is it me or do nearly all Americans in films now speak with a southern accent?

[Dino Velvet]

I am surprised to see the word 'acting' associated with Julia Roberts, that would be a departure from her normal near-comatose imitation of a tailor's dummy

Thanks for that. I'm not much for the broad either.

[Stavros]

Dino what can you tell me about Shia LaBoef -is it a special way of cooking steak?

[Dino Velvet]

Dino what can you tell me about Shia LaBoef -is it a special way of cooking steak?

Last I heard he roadkill'd himself leaving show biz entirely. Maybe he ran off to become a Shiite.

[Odelay]

Shia LaBoef? Isn't he about ready to star in Transformers part 87?

[goatman]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000]

[pantybulge69]

Breakdown with Kurt Russell, JT Walsh

Breakdown Trailer 1997 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvbT3SgC1B0)

[pantybulge69]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000]

... the soggy-bottom boys ?? :rolleyes:

[Curiousguy04]

The Dark Knight

[robertlouis]

Dino what can you tell me about Shia LaBoef -is it a special way of cooking steak?

He turned up in a surprisingly watchable and effective low budget thriller on BBC1 the other night called Disturbia. Mind you, he didn't have to act much, the plotting was sufficiently tight and the direction maintained the tension all the way.

[Dino Velvet]

Shia LaBeouf Tweets That He's Leaving Public Life (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20774298,00.html)

[Prospero]

"The Wolf Of Wall Street". A true story based on the autbiography of the central character, Jordan Belfort, which means the hideous little shit will be deriving a considerable income from this turgid and overlong film which takes absolutely no moral stance on this chronicle of greed, corruption and selfishness. It features very explicit scenes of sex, but is really rather boring. Three hours long. The rise and fall of a man with no morals at all - and presented as a mirror to the ugliness of Wall Street and its milieu. (There is even a knowing reference to "Greed is Good" and Gordon Gekko). The only moment in the film that really suggests director Martin Scorsese acknowledges the wreckage the progress of this latter-day rake has had on the lives of thousands of ordinary people is late in the film, when an FBI man who has been pursuing Belford, is shown in a New York subway train with sad looking people - perhaps the sort of individuals who are victims of Belford and his rancid crew. It does have a very good central performance by Leonardo Di Caprio - vamping it up as Belfort. But this veers far too closely to admiring these people and their ilk who put the rest of us in the shit.

The Wolf of Wall Street Official Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iszwuX1AK6A)

[Jericho]

Riddick.
Pitch Black in the rain! :shrug

[Prospero]

"Her" a new film directed by Spike Jonze in which the central character played by Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with a computer operating system called Samantha The computer's voice is that of Scarlet Johansson - and I can see how any man might fall under her spell. Her voice is terrific. (The whole package is even more so. The one time i was in the same room with her she exuded a quite remarkable animal magnetism). But the has other beautiful women - Amy Adams and Rooney Mara which merely helps highlight the sad central theme - of loneliness, portrayed with bitter sweet humour. It's a clever and very likeable film which also prompts thought about the extent to which artificial intelligence can replicate feelings and become a simulcra of a human.

Jonze is a director of ingenuity but is often wide of the mark. His best previous film was, for me, the wonderfully inventive "Being John Malkovich" but he also directed the dreadful "Where The Wild Things Are" and the disappointing "Adaptation" based, very loosely, on a great book called "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean.

Her - Official Trailer 2 [HD] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6p6MfLBxc)

[MaldonadoGreta]

Finally watched Gatsby, love gorgeous outfits and the atmosphere of the movie! But the book was better :))

[Dino Velvet]

Nightmare On Elm Street remake w/Jackie Earle Haley

Very so-so remake not capturing the atmosphere of the original. See it if you're a fan of the NOES series just to have seen it.

[Dino Velvet]

Calling this Kool-Aid is an insult to Kool-Aid. Who's this supposed to brainwash?

Tell a Friend - Get Covered | Richard Simmons Dance Off - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMQXYWEvYJk)

[nevada64]

I was recently in Mexico for two weeks. My hotel had about 30 channels. I happened to watch, "The Sting", "The Exorcist", "Highlander", "Philadelphia", and "Halloween".

[broncofan]

I just saw Blue Jasmine. I was impressed with it. I like quite a lot of Woody Allen films, but this was one of the best ones I've seen in years. Cate Blanchett made the film. I am not sure whether the movie is Oscar material given the other great films that have come out but I think if Blanchett is nominated (I don't know if she is) she has to be a strong contender for best actress.

The movie was bleak, with few warm moments but it did not come across as overly cynical. It was a very effective character study I think.

[runningdownthatdream]

I just saw Blue Jasmine. I was impressed with it. I like quite a lot of Woody Allen films, but this was one of the best ones I've seen in years. Cate Blanchett made the film. I am not sure whether the movie is Oscar material given the other great films that have come out but I think if Blanchett is nominated (I don't know if she is) she has to be a strong contender for best actress.

The movie was bleak, with few warm moments but it did not come across as overly cynical. It was a very effective character study I think.

I liked this movie a lot and Cate Blanchette's performance in particular. She really seemed to lose herself in the role. She made Jasmine's anguish palpable without being overwrought. Flawed and self-absorbed though she was, I was still able to empathize with her. Dialogue was well-done throughout the movie and - you're right about this - lacked a lot of Woody's usual cynicism. Every scene was impactful and necessary - nothing wasted.

Definitely one of the most satisfying movies I've watched in the past year.

[ed_jaxon]

The Nut Job.

Surprisingly it was not a porno.

[Ben]

Good for a few giggles -- :)

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa - Official Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MSrAwfagG4)

[Prospero]

Two films.
"Legally Blonde" - on the face of it a girlie movie (I was persuaded by a genetic blonde of that gender to watch) about a seeminly silly girl from California (Reese Witherspoon) who gets into Harvard Law School in pursuit of her arrogant ex but then proves to be the sharpest cookie in the jar It's actually a rather likeable and charming comedy.

And "Sunshine On Leith" an independent Scottish film about two soldiers who come home from Afghanistan to Edinburgh and their progress as civilians. It is actually a musical, utilising songs by The Proclaimers. It is based on a stage musical of the same name. Frankly its competent but dull - and i gave up half way through.

Sunshine on Leith Official Trailer - In UK Cinemas 4th October - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74WEwUnmH-Y)

[LibertyHarkness]

watching all of my boxset of sharpe again today while working on website final designs and webcam later ..

Sharpe - Over the Hills and far away - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fy3tSim3to)


Ahhhhhh why cant we go fight the frogs again :) glory days .:jerkoff

[Prospero]

I used to know Bernard Cornwell who wrote Sharpe in his previous incarnation... and under his real name.

[Prospero]

"The Invisible Woman" a very low key film directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes about an affair involving the writer Charles Dickens. it gradually engages your attention but is really sophorific. I'm sure the novel by Claire Tomalin is better or it wouldn't have been adapted.

The Invisible Woman Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Ralph Fiennes Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdV0wdYM8uo)

[Stavros]

Ralph Fiennes...sophorific...who would have thought it? Does it go into Dicken's life as a sex tourist? He used to go to Paris with Wilkie Collins to have sex with prostitutes, something you don't get much of in his turgid books.

[Prospero]

Nope - nowt about his wider ranging sex life. The focus is on woman he left his wife to live with - the mistress who is the subject of the film.

[Stavros]

The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino 2013)
This desperately terrible film concerns a 65 year old man who organises parties for the rich in Rome and who once published a book. In the course of the film we learn something poignant about his youth which returns to haunt him, it convinces him that he has spent most of his life doing nothing, and even that doesn't seem to matter. There is some sort of contrast with a nun whose daily life has meaning and purpose -to her- and the endurance over centuries of art but otherwise this film is a cynical essay in not much in particular using Rome as a city that has no poverty, no squalor or reality for that matter. There might be some sort of critique of Silvio Berlusconi but even there is it doesn't amount to much. Antonioni made cynical films in the late 50s and early 60s (L'eclisse, Il Grido, la Notte, L'Avventura) designed to show what shallow lives the rich live, which may or may not be true. Anyway at a cost of £10 this dvd was £10 more than it was worth and is destined for the charity shop. Avoid.

[robertlouis]

watching all of my boxset of sharpe again today while working on website final designs and webcam later ..

Sharpe - Over the Hills and far away - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fy3tSim3to)


Ahhhhhh why cant we go fight the frogs again :) glory days .:jerkoff

I know John Tams who played Hagman and also arranged and sang the title song - best arrangement of that old stalwart ever - and was lucky to sing harmony with him on it one night in Cambridge a few years ago. Lovely fella.

[Prospero]

"Out Of The Furnace" brutal, bleak and unpleasantly violent. Brilliantly shot with terrific performances. Christian Bale who plays the central character does the most remarkable portrayal of an American for an actor born in pembrokeshire in Wales. He also stars in "American Hustle."

Out of the Furnace - Official Trailer (HD) Christian Bale - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClzRVlMhU2E)

[Dino Velvet]

Uplifting, Enchanting, Inspiring... It's Lucio Fulci fer cryin' out loud!!!
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/7996/fulcilivesfire2vy.gif

The New York Ripper 1982 Trailer (HD) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5U7F0NJ1RQ)

[Jimmy W]

HER - Joaquin Phoenix is not an artist. He is not complicated. He is not brooding or interesting or anything he probably thinks he is. Walk The Line, The Master and now this embarrassment. He is a fumbling mumbling ....what did he say? ...can anyone hear this dialogue?....pretender. Take a second look and see what I mean. I like Spike Jonze but this premise had problems from the start and it had the potential to be something great had it not focused on the love interest being the "You've Got Mail" voice on a computer. This cleft lip Big Bang Theory clone walking around with his IPhone on a date..and people blithely accepting this "relationship"...Sorry, NO. Jimmy W says don't buy into the hype...this movie sucks and so does Joaquin Phoenix

[sdc1989]

The Place Beyond the Pines. Pretty good crime saga centering on two families, each on the opposite side of the law. Sounds pretty rote but it plays with convention in some pretty interesting ways. Bradley Cooper does the best work of his career. The third act drags a bit but it's pretty good on the whole.

[Wanderer1]

I am trying to watch "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" its losing my interest(dialogue and lack of even partial nudity) and I cannot, for the life of me, believe how this is rated R!!

[Stavros]

MUD (Jeff Nichols 2012)
This is the third feature film from Nichols who writes his own screenplays. It is a sensitive rights of passage story about a 14 year old who comes to terms with the harsh reality of life in rural Arkansas. Well written with great performances throughout -the 14 year old, Tye Sheridan also auditioned for Malick's The Tree of Life. Matthew McConaughey seems to be a rising star, and for good reason. The one flaw is the ending, which I would have preferred to be more ambiguous or, shall we say, 'muddy'? 8/10.

[runningdownthatdream]

MUD (Jeff Nichols 2012)
This is the third feature film from Nichols who writes his own screenplays. It is a sensitive rights of passage story about a 14 year old who comes to terms with the harsh reality of life in rural Arkansas. Well written with great performances throughout -the 14 year old, Tye Sheridan also auditioned for Malick's The Tree of Life. Matthew McConaughey seems to be a rising star, and for good reason. The one flaw is the ending, which I would have preferred to be more ambiguous or, shall we say, 'muddy'? 8/10.

I think you're just falling for the whole rural redneck sob story angle that seems to be getting more prevalent in American film these past few years especially after the success of Winter's Bone - a much better movie and one that's more in touch with reality. Mud was dull, predictable, and cliched but maybe that's just because I'm no longer enamored with the great southern American mystique.

[tiramisu]

samba mania 25

[runningdownthatdream]

Have watched a few Korean made films over the past few months and recommend the following:

Memories of Murder - Korean murder mystery centred in a small town. Secondary story revolves around the investigating cops and their differing approaches to solving the serial murders. At times funny, at times tragic and sometimes both at once. Salinui chueok (2003) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353969/)

The Brotherhood of War - Korean war movie about two brothers who are forced to fight during the Korean War. Excellent overall production with astonishingly graphic violence. Battle scenes sometimes surpass those in Saving Private Ryan. Script is good and acting at times superb. Might seem a little overwrought for Western audiences but, I think, accurately portrays Korean cultural norms. Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo (2004) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386064/)

[pantybulge69]

I, FRANKENSTEIN

Lot of action in it, involves the style is similar to Van Helsing but it's not
nowhere as appealing and intriguing as Helsing. It involves demons and gargoyles but i wasn't that impressed with the demons.

And of course didn't have the star power and quality as what Jackman
and Beckingsale brought to their films.

in the end i thought the plot was weak and disinteresting and i
just wasn't as impressed with the featured hero, who had tenacity,
fighting skills, above average, but it just didn't stick as a " WOW " factor
movie.
It was ok-decent but nothing to brag about. i think i'm hard to please
but seems more like a DVD flick than a theater must see.

[Stavros]

I think you're just falling for the whole rural redneck sob story angle that seems to be getting more prevalent in American film these past few years especially after the success of Winter's Bone - a much better movie and one that's more in touch with reality. Mud was dull, predictable, and cliched but maybe that's just because I'm no longer enamored with the great southern American mystique.

Oddly enough I bought Winter's Bone (because of Jennifer Lawrence) when I bought MUD so it will be interesting to compare them. Yes, there are cliches in MUD, and I can understand you being tired of the 'rural America' genre in a way that some are tired of seeing good cop/bad cop, lonesome hero against the world, and films about the mob, but I do think a) MUD was well written, b) the acting was first class, and c) I did enjoy watching it. Also not sure about the 'redneck' angle becoming more prevalent, John Boorman made Deliverance in the 1970s and that is still a powerful film.

[Prospero]

"Out Of The Furnace" has a similar "redneck" setting - though it actually located in upstate New jersey and built around a realife community.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_mcgrath

[dunkiex]

Just saw The Butler and Captain Phillips. Both were incredible pictures. Couldn't help but shed a few tears during The Butler. Incredible acting, very moving, well done.

[Stavros]

Have watched a few Korean made films over the past few months and recommend the following:

Memories of Murder - Korean murder mystery centred in a small town. Secondary story revolves around the investigating cops and their differing approaches to solving the serial murders. At times funny, at times tragic and sometimes both at once.

The Brotherhood of War - Korean war movie about two brothers who are forced to fight during the Korean War. Excellent overall production with astonishingly graphic violence. Battle scenes sometimes surpass those in Saving Private Ryan. Script is good and acting at times superb. Might seem a little overwrought for Western audiences but, I think, accurately portrays Korean cultural norms.

Did not see the first, but was impressed with Brotherhood.

[runningdownthatdream]

Oddly enough I bought Winter's Bone (because of Jennifer Lawrence) when I bought MUD so it will be interesting to compare them. Yes, there are cliches in MUD, and I can understand you being tired of the 'rural America' genre in a way that some are tired of seeing good cop/bad cop, lonesome hero against the world, and films about the mob, but I do think a) MUD was well written, b) the acting was first class, and c) I did enjoy watching it. Also not sure about the 'redneck' angle becoming more prevalent, John Boorman made Deliverance in the 1970s and that is still a powerful film.

I agree that Mud was well-written. Maybe transposed to some other culture I would have appreciated it more. Thought McConaughey was ok - nothing special. He's becoming a bit of a caricature in my opinion and seems to be cast to fit a certain type in most of his new films. I really liked him in Frailty http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264616/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_26

The thing about Deliverance is that it was one of the first popular films to explore contemporary southern American culture. At the time it was made, the imagery and ideas were fairly new for outsiders while reinforcing the redneck stereotype for others.

As I said, maybe I've just watched one too many movies from that culture and the accents tend to grate on me now.

[runningdownthatdream]

Did not see the first, but was impressed with Brotherhood.

I think you would appreciate the style in which Memories of Murder is filmed. Sometimes I found myself just staring at what's on the screen and not following the dialogue.

[Odelay]

Personally I think the popularity of the down and out plots, i.e. "rural redneck sob stories", stem from two things... the dreadful state of the economy and reality tv, almost in equal parts. I think there is a cognitive dissonance that occurs with audiences when watching such characters in the movies - one, they can relate because their own real lives aren't that far off, but two, they recognize the character as someone who succeeded in some reality tv moment. Without the latter, this genre would dry up pretty quick because no one goes to the movies to be reminded only of how crappy their own lives are.

[Prospero]

A second viewing of "12 years a slave" and it seemed even better. The photography is just terrific. Instead of the typical fast cutting method so favoured these days in Hollywood, the director Steve McQueen and director of photography offer up many long considered shots. And yet also are capable of giving us a real sense the transition from the central character's comfortable and well ordered life to slavery with the violence of ferocious close-ups of the paddles on a riverboat taking Solomon away to his ordeal. It will be intriguing to see if McQueen can move away from the intensity of his three film topics (the hunger strike of Bobby Sands, sex addiction and now slavery) in his next project. A comedy maybe? Last night the director his DOP and actor Michael Fassbender offered real illumination on how the film came together in a post screening chat. One of the big studios ere interested in the project. But said McQueen (who for those who don't know is black) said "they are now" s the whiff of multiple Oscars and Bafta awards gets ever stronger.

[Stavros]

I agree on the photography -in the original account there is an attempted escape when Solomon heads off into the Bayou only to find himself confronted by a forbidding, alien landscape with alligators and blood-sucking midges, a landscape that defeated his attempt to escape. It is hinted at in the film but not explored, however the film does present the Bayou and the landscape on the edge of the cotton plantations as almost primeval, underlining how far from the civilisation he was born into Solomon has ventured. For this reason I think it is more than 'picturesque' where some might feel the rural America stories I have discussed with runningdownthedream earlier on relies on a raw landscape as a motif for raw lives just by pointing a camera at it. I think McQueen has gone further with the use of landscape.

[Stavros]

The Fourth Kind (Osunsanmi 2009)
I saw this film on Film4 and was disturbed at the shameless way it pretended to be telling a true story when so much is made up and, in addition, fantastic rubbish. Having been told the archive footage is authentic -it was all made in the studio- the film manipulates the belief some may have that there are alien abductions. To cap this ridiculous nonsense, Nome in Alaska is presented as a remote mountain town when it is on the tundra near the Bering Straits where trees can't grow over 8 foot. Shabby drivel.

[dskreet2]

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - I like everything except the acting and role of Cathy Muller. Visually, she matched Jack's look, but her acting and/or her script stunk.

[Prospero]

"Wadjda" is the first ever Saudi Arabian film. Remarkable as they do not have cinemas in the KSA (except privately for sure for members of the Royal family). This is a moving and funny little film about a young Saudi girl's desire to own a bicycle. It is heartwarming and also chilling - for the glimpse it offers to remind of the fear and hatred of women at the heart of this ultra orthodox Islamic society. The joy is bled from the lives of its women by the oppression of religion - in this film characterised by the head of the girls school attended by the central character Wadja. But she is funny, smart and hugely watchable - as is this film.

Wadjda Official Theatrical Trailer (2013) - Drama Movie HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v67qLfygp9s)

[Jericho]

The Eagle.
It would appear the Picts were a lost tribe of American Indians...Who'd have known!

[robertlouis]

The Eagle.
It would appear the Picts were a lost tribe of American Indians...Who'd have known!

My ancestors were Pictish, to the extent that they came from Fife, which is full of Pictish names.

And people painted blue.....

[robertlouis]

Inside Llewyn Davis, the latest from the Coen brothers. Poignant seeing it on the day after Pete Seeger's passing was announced.

Beautiful to look at, slyly humorous, a beguiling narrative and a remarkable performance from Oscar Isaacs as the eponymous Lleywn. One of the Coens' best imho.

[Stavros]

Winter's Bone (Debra Granik 2010)
Harsh, cruel and bleak. Set in the Ozark's this is a film about that 'other America' which exists on the margins of what most people imagine the USA to be, where people themselves live on the margins of or beyond the law, where the absence or useless law enforcement enables an uneducated populace to police itself with its own values and rules. No point Obama and the democrats reaching out to the 'Middle Class', there isn't even a class to speak of here. George Steiner once opened a lecture with the sentence 'Absolute tragedy is very rare' and went on to point out the humour in Hamlet, King Lear -and that even in Othello there is a clown, even if he gets edited out of most productions. Because people find absolute tragedy unbearable, as it is in this film. Even when they use local folk music it is mostly sad; there is no sense of people having fun in adversity; of playing music to dance to. For this reason, and the comments in the imdb that in spite of a real drug problem among the poor the Ozarks are not a dead end full of uneducated, inbreeding weirdos, I find this a major weakness in the film; the last upbeat scene in the film actually feels out of joint with what came before, the mere idea of a man being honest seems strange. Jennifer Lawrence is outstanding, but it seems she can do no wrong anyway. Hard to believe Sheryl Lee, who used to be the alluring Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks appears in this film as a wasted ghost of a woman. But she is in her late 40s, and I assume she doesn't always look like that...

[south ov da border]

Robocop

[pantybulge69]

CASINO .....whaadda classic.

[Dino Velvet]

CASINO .....whaadda classic.

About the only film I can tolerate Sharon Stone in. James Woods was almost as sleazy in Casino as he was in The Onion Field. See The Onion Field if you haven't. Joseph Wambaugh and the LAPD.

http://www.impawards.com/1979/posters/onion_field_xlg.jpg

[runningdownthatdream]

Winter's Bone (Debra Granik 2010)
Harsh, cruel and bleak. Set in the Ozark's this is a film about that 'other America' which exists on the margins of what most people imagine the USA to be, where people themselves live on the margins of or beyond the law, where the absence or useless law enforcement enables an uneducated populace to police itself with its own values and rules. No point Obama and the democrats reaching out to the 'Middle Class', there isn't even a class to speak of here. George Steiner once opened a lecture with the sentence 'Absolute tragedy is very rare' and went on to point out the humour in Hamlet, King Lear -and that even in Othello there is a clown, even if he gets edited out of most productions. Because people find absolute tragedy unbearable, as it is in this film. Even when they use local folk music it is mostly sad; there is no sense of people having fun in adversity; of playing music to dance to. For this reason, and the comments in the imdb that in spite of a real drug problem among the poor the Ozarks are not a dead end full of uneducated, inbreeding weirdos, I find this a major weakness in the film; the last upbeat scene in the film actually feels out of joint with what came before, the mere idea of a man being honest seems strange. Jennifer Lawrence is outstanding, but it seems she can do no wrong anyway. Hard to believe Sheryl Lee, who used to be the alluring Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks appears in this film as a wasted ghost of a woman. But she is in her late 40s, and I assume she doesn't always look like that...

Good review - you nailed the movie. So did it move you in the right way or not? Personally, I like these types of movies. The Road was one of those and left quite an impression on me.

Watch Out of the Furnace which Prospero mentioned a few days ago. It's outstanding - bleak but with some of those humanistic touches that were lacking in Winter's Bone.

[Curiousguy04]

Rocky II

[Stavros]

Good review - you nailed the movie. So did it move you in the right way or not? Personally, I like these types of movies. The Road was one of those and left quite an impression on me.

Watch Out of the Furnace which Prospero mentioned a few days ago. It's outstanding - bleak but with some of those humanistic touches that were lacking in Winter's Bone.

Out of the Furnace was favourably reviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Front Row. I think it was released here a few days ago. I was not moved by Winter's Bone as much as MUD because it is so relentlessly cold. Both films have upbeat endings which I don't find credible, more so in MUD than Winter's Bone, but MUD is a softer film because it is seen through the eyes of two teenage boys.

[robertlouis]

Out of the Furnace was favourably reviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Front Row. I think it was released here a few days ago. I was not moved by Winter's Bone as much as MUD because it is so relentlessly cold. Both films have upbeat endings which I don't find credible, more so in MUD than Winter's Bone, but MUD is a softer film because it is seen through the eyes of two teenage boys.

I haven't seen Mud but have seen Winter's Bone which I thought was pretty good in every department. But "upbeat ending"? Rather more of a calm resolution to a consistently bleak narrative imho.

[Stavros]

I was being generous, I think your choice of words is superior.

[robertlouis]

I was being generous, I think your choice of words is superior.

But we both agree on Ms Lawrence. She's good in everything she does, but her performance in Winter's Bone was so true that it transcends all she's done since.

[Stavros]

Yes it was a fine performance, but so too was her performance in Silver Linings Playbook. Hard to choose between the two, but I prefer the latter.

[Prospero]

"Midnight in Paris" - a Woody Allen movie from a couple of years ago. Nice contrivance - a time travelling American who, as midnight tolls, slips into a imousine from the 1920s and goes to soirees to meet Hemingway, Cole Porter, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, Bunuel, etc. The main character speaks just like Woody Allen and is given the same kind of nebisch persona that Allen used to play when he was younger. Quite amusing and actually better now than when i first saw it a couple of years ago.

[Stavros]

Prospero, if you are interested there is a long rebuttal in the Daily Beast to the allegation that Woody molested Mia Farrow and Andre Previn's adopted daughter Soo-Yin when she was 7, an allegation that surfaced again recently. I don't care for Allen's films which as I think I have mentioned before are often set in New York but never include Black or Gay people, perhaps because they are so thin on the ground in that city. In addition, the link has two articles on Philip Seymour Hoffman -one with clips from his films, the other on the heroin he might have been taking when he died; and an hilarious video from Brigham Young University on how young men should struggle to control their urge to masturbate....enjoy!!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/03/byu-to-undergrads-masturbation-is-like-warfare.html

[broncofan]

http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/27775

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/02/watch-woody-allen-address-the-dylan-farrow-child-abuse-allegations-on-60-minutes.html

The first article I think is a re-print of the article Stavros is talking about. I couldn't find it through the daily beast link he put up but I'm sure it's there. The second link is to the Daily Beast with a video of Woody Allen discussing the accusation in the early 90's. Although I almost always believe abuse victims (>90%), I am not sure about this accusation given the reports of the psychologists and Mia Farrow's obsessive behavior. Of course, if he molested her daughter Dylan that would be good reason to be obsessive; but a lot of her son's twitter comments, which she has dutifully re-posted have tended to be mocking comments about his relationship with Soon Yi Previn. On the issue of Soon Yi they can't seem to figure out whether to call her a victim or treat her as the seductress who dissolved Mia and Woody's relationship.The video in the second link is very interesting. Woody claims that after the abuse allegations she asked to be in a new movie of his. I'm not saying I buy it hook, line, and sinker either but I'm interested to hear what his response will be to the allegation being re-initiated.

[Stavros]

they moved it here
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/27/the-woody-allen-allegations-not-so-fast.html

[Prospero]

Stavros, I like your ironic remark regarding the absence of gay and black people from Woody Allen movies. But regarding the allegations against him this is in keeping with the moral panic that has erupted in the UK - with a growing list of celebrities accused of molesting minors, some very young indeed. Many of the cases are still proceeding.

I am not sure i do always believe the accusations of abuse. It's an easy thing to claim and hard to prove or disprove. The mud usually sticks. Teachers are particularly vulnerable to such accusations (Powerfully treated in a Danish film that came out a couple of year ago called "The Hunt.")

Yes - I do enjoy Allen's films - those from his early years especially. He went through a couple of decades of making very poor films indeed. The one i watched the other evening and his most recent were better - though not up to his best.

However I can separate this from the allegations made against him. I have no idea about their veracity. if proven then he would have to be seen as a pretty disgusting character. His marriage to his own adopted daughter already makes him dubious to say the least. But I do think you separate the artist from the human. otherwise how could anyone bear to listen to Wagner or Strauss or read Celine when we know of their anti-Semitic ideas? Caravaggio killed a man yet he is a great artist. The fact that Phil Spector is now in prison for murder does not diminish his accomplishment as a great record produce and John Lennon, by all accounts, was quite a bully. I still love the music of The Beatles.

[qwerty94]

Remember Me.

I started watching Water For Elephants, but I fell asleep in the middle.

I'm on a Robert Pattinson binge right now.

[Stavros]

Stavros, I like your ironic remark regarding the absence of gay and black people from Woody Allen movies. But regarding the allegations against him this is in keeping with the moral panic that has erupted in the UK - with a growing list of celebrities accused of molesting minors, some very young indeed. Many of the cases are still proceeding.

I am not sure i do always believe the accusations of abuse. It's an easy thing to claim and hard to prove or disprove. The mud usually sticks. Teachers are particularly vulnerable to such accusations (Powerfully treated in a Danish film that came out a couple of year ago called "The Hunt.")

Yes - I do enjoy Allen's films - those from his early years especially. He went through a couple of decades of making very poor films indeed. The one i watched the other evening and his most recent were better - though not up to his best.

However I can separate this from the allegations made against him. I have no idea about their veracity. if proven then he would have to be seen as a pretty disgusting character. His marriage to his own adopted daughter already makes him dubious to say the least. But I do think you separate the artist from the human. otherwise how could anyone bear to listen to Wagner or Strauss or read Celine when we know of their anti-Semitic ideas? Caravaggio killed a man yet he is a great artist. The fact that Phil Spector is now in prison for murder does not diminish his accomplishment as a great record produce and John Lennon, by all accounts, was quite a bully. I still love the music of The Beatles.

I agree with most of this, and though I won't challenge you on The Beatles on aesthetic grounds you are wrong about Richard Strauss. His daughter-in-law Alice (whom I believe is still alive) was a Jew and by allowing her and his son to live at his home in Garmisch made him vulnerable to Nazi laws on harbouring Jews. It is true that he became director of the ReichMusikkammer in 1933, a position he used to introduce a law on copyright which gave composers the right to claim royalties from the sale or rental of their scores where before they could only earn money through performances; and a measure which benefited him too! But Strauss regarded Goebbels and Hitler with characteristic detachment, considering both men to be vulgar and unintelligent. Moreover, in 1935 when he was rehearsing the premiere of Die Schweigsame Frau in Dresden, he refused to remove the name of the Jewish writer, Stefan Zweig from the playbill, Zweig having transformed Ben Jonson's play The Silent Woman into a scintillating libretto with music to match (I don't think it has ever been performed in the UK). In an exchange of letters intercepted by the Gestapo Strauss ridiculed Goebbels and was subsequently sacked from his post, as if he cared. He did 'escape' from the last days of the war to Switzerland and it is said he appeared before a de-Nazification court in the American sector when he returned to Garmisch, not because he was a Nazi but because he had occupied a position of authority in the Reich, albeit for barely 2 years. I tried to find the transcripts of the Court proceedings about ten years ago when I was researching an article on the censorship of music in Israel (Strauss's music was 'banned' -ie not officially but the understanding among musicians being they would refuse to play it) along with Wagner's until the conductor Igor Markevich persuaded the Israelis to change their minds in the 1960s, but was unable to, making me wonder if it ever happened. I do believe there are transcripts somewhere of de-Nazification sessions; I am also not sure if the transcripts exist of the sessions with Carl Orff, Herbert von Karajan and the singer Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, all of whom actually joined the Nazi Party (Schwarzkopf's lame excuse was that musicians and singers viewed it as a sort of trade union and joined it to guarantee they would have paid work...). Not really about movies, but a fascinating subject. The controversial film that Ken Russell made about Strauss, Dance of the Seven Veils was shown once on the BBC before being banned. That Russell loathed Strauss's music may account for his bizarre misinterpretation of a life with the usual lurid scenes of schlock-horreur mixed with kitsch and phoney history -it marked the end of Russell's relationship with the BBC. You can read about it here and see some of it too if you can bear it-
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/ken_russells_banned_film_the_dance_of_the_seven_ve ils

[RallyCola]

i caught Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit over the weekend. It was terrible.

They attempted to re-tell the entire story that was told in flashbacks and exposition in the sum of all fears and red october.

next, the action is damn unbelievable and incredibly heavy handed. the flat chested ugly cunt keira knightley stinks up the screen again and finally, kevin costner just makes things worse.

i don't want to give too many details away but realistically, i've enjoyed watching paint dry more than this movie and its deliberate disregard for proper story telling. it gleams over so many details in an attempt to make us believe that plugging a laptop into an AC outlet will allow a douchebag to take over a secure network and clone an algorithm to stop a terrorist bank transaction. anyone with any knowledge of a post 9-11 finance system would see right though this bullshit. moreover, the influx of russian money into the dollar as an investment would not, in the course of the movie, have inflated the dollar as it did, and such an influx of foreign investment in our currency would have triggered other automatic fail safes by the EU and China to hedge against reduced returns. Finally, once the FBI agent that was in the midwest failed to report in, it is possible that another agent would have been dispatched to ascertain the whereabouts of such a high value target. finally, we are supposed to believe that a terrorist cell that planned the final plot forgot such a detail as letting paint dry? such a cell would have secured a van far in advance of the actual due date.

ya know what, movies are supposed to make you escape and enjoy things that are not mundane. computers are mundane. they are not sexy. they are not inescapable and not without the layman's ability to understand. i am so tired of "hackers" or "information terrorists" being used as villains in movies. i get it...someone has a really cool program/virus/algorithm that can destroy something should it launch...its a bad crutch to fall back on because it is abused too many times on film.

don't waste your money on this crap. just watch one of the far more enjoyable movies about jack ryan that were made before information terrorists were in vogue.

[Prospero]

I read recently that despite the evidence you present, Strauss actively verbally attacked several key; Jewish figures. i will dig up the reference and post it here.

as for that ludicrous Russell film.....

Meanwhile in other business (lol) the Taviana brothers wonderful "Caeser Must Die" slipped through my net. I just saw it. A terrific film in which the veteran italian directors focus on and collaborate in a prison dramatisation of Shakespeare's Julius Caeser. Fantastic performances by the prisoners.

[Dino Velvet]

Better with the audio outta synch to give an additional Kung-Fu Theater effect really upping the quality of the schlock. Michael Caine...

The Swarm - Melodramatics - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0LdNr9XzI)

[Stavros]

I read recently that despite the evidence you present, Strauss actively verbally attacked several key; Jewish figures. i will dig up the reference and post it here.

as for that ludicrous Russell film.....

Meanwhile in other business (lol) the Taviana brothers wonderful "Caeser Must Die" slipped through my net. I just saw it. A terrific film in which the veteran italian directors focus on and collaborate in a prison dramatisation of Shakespeare's Julius Caeser. Fantastic performances by the prisoners.

This is an interesting article on Strauss in the Third Reich-
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/arts/music-richard-strauss-and-hitler-s-reich-jupiter-in-hell.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[robertlouis]

Remember Me.

I started watching Water For Elephants, but I fell asleep in the middle.

I'm on a Robert Pattinson binge right now.

Nice to see you Jen. Hope life's treating you well.

[CORVETTEDUDE]

Ferris Beuller's Day Off....classic and hilarious!!

[Stavros]

Silent Waters (Sabiha Sumar, 2003)
This is a film set in the Punjab in 1979 shortly after General Zia ul-Haq's declaration of martial law and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. It is a moment when Pakistan appeared to turn against the kind of 'Liberal' politics associated with Bhutto and attempted to realise what it thought might have been Djinnah's concept of an Islamic state in which there are, by definition only Muslims. Thus the presence of non-Muslims is both a contradiction and something to be fought against, not least when Zia signed an agreement with India allowing cross-border visits of people on both sides of the Punjabi divide. Two militants arrive in a small town and begin to impose their brand of Islam on a populace either compliant or weakly opposed. The two main characters, a mother and son are caught up in these chain of events, and without giving it away, they find that the legacy of partition in 1947 when local Sikhs literally ran for their lives, comes back to haunt then, becoming a dissonant factor in the face of change. The lead actor is ok, his mother, played by Kirran Kher (who is Indian, not Pakistani) is simply fabulous -dignified, indignant, sorrowful from first to last. Like most films from the Indian sub-continent, the film is content drive, with form of little importance, but this is nevertheless is well-made if ultimately underwhelming film. A tragedy without real punch, if affecting in its own modest way.

[Stavros]

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese 2013)
This is the second attempt to tell the story of Jordan Belfort, the first being the film Boiler Room (Ben Younger, 2000). I cannot compare the two as I have not seen the Younger film. In essence, Belfort ran a boiler room selling penny shares and moved higher up the food chain until the trades, which were not properly accounted and amounted to a colossal scam, imploded and Belfort ratted on his friends to get a reduced sentence, although in reality he has failed to repay most of the money he was legally obliged to do.
The film is very long, very loud, has no moral centre or any sense of morality which does give the trading a sense of its own self-importance, and I believe many of the events in the film actually happened -the yacht, which had at one time belonged to Coco Chanel, did go down in a storm off the coast of Sardinia, the hookers, the drugs are all true. I didn't care, and while I know I was not supposed to like any of the mostly disgusting, foul-mouthed apes masquerading as men in the film, none of them had much depth anyway whereas in Scorsese's best films, which also feature unlikeable and often violent people, they at least have complexity and depth. Again, unlike his best work which has narrative complexity to match the characters this is a mostly linear tale that begins and ends without catching fire. I think the problem is we have seen it all before, and Scorsese doesn't have anything new to say. In the end a waste of money. The only bearable thing was some awesome naked females, yet even here I can't believe all the women in the real life story looked like they just stepped off a Playboy or Hustler centrefold. And no, the eye candy doesn't compensate for the weakness of the film.

[rockabilly]

redboxed " The Wolverine " last night.

Gotta say i was not impressed and thought it fell flat

[broncofan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?_r=0

Woody Allen wrote a piece that the New York Time published addressing the molestation charges. I'd be lying if I said I had any clue whether he did it or not. But it's worth a read.

[Stavros]

I read it, and all I can say is that there is clearly some very bad blood between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. I am not a huge admirer of either of them, and I am not sure their personal problems ought to be a matter of public debate.

[Prospero]

"Blue Is The Warmest Colour" a long and languid, but beautiful film, about a young woman disovering her sexuality and the emotional trauma of a failed relationship. The lesbian sex scenes are the most explicit sexual footage i have ever seen in a non porn film. Quite astonishing. The film tells its story well but, for me, it never quite engaged me as much as it should emotionally. Also while exploring the difficulty of difference, it dropped that ball at midpoint in its three hour journey in favour of following the arc of the relationship between the two main female characters. In French, shot in Lillewith two wonderful perfomances by Adele Exarchopoulis (who has something of the young Bardot about her) and Lea Seydoux. But it is a film worth watching.

Blue Is The Warmest Color Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Romantic Drama HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2OLRrocn3s)

Blue Is The Warmest Color Red Band Trailer (2013) - Lesbian Drama HD - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSJqYtFOjq4)

[broncofan]

I just saw American Hustle. I really enjoyed it; it did not have the best caper (as some have said). In fact it was pretty straight-forward and unimaginative. But the movie benefited a lot from an excellent cast and I thought was strong on other fronts including character development. I recommend it for those who still haven't seen it.

[Girlpearls]

Hello, everyone!
I'm Damian and I just joined this super site yesterday and am loving every minute of it.
So much great stuff and the forum rocks!

I just saw the movie "I Am Legend" the other day. It was one of the best post apocalyptic films I have seen to date.
It's pretty fast paced and the plot is well concieved.

Here's the official trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewpYq9rgg3w

Thank you for your time.
Please pass the pop corn!:dancing:

[Stavros]

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)
I am a fan of this Canadian director's film Incendies, and this is an outstanding thriller with fine acting from a very fine cast including Melissa Leo, Jake Gyllenhal and Hugh Jackman. I like the layers in the film, the motif of Prisoners -prisoners of destiny, of the past, of religion, of hate, prisoners in fact as in imprisoned in an abandoned building, tied up or handcuffed, imprisoned in a pit. And the light motifs -headlights, sidelights, torchlight, candlelight each of which has its own meaning. Yes there are some cliches in the film, but I like the way you think there has been an heroic ending to the film, and it suddenly slides into ambiguity. I think the fact it has had one Oscar nomination, for Cinematography tells you all you need to know about awards, which isn't much. Highly recommended, as someone else did a few days or so ago in this thread.

[Stavros]

Hello, everyone!
I'm Damian and I just joined this super site yesterday and am loving every minute of it.
So much great stuff and the forum rocks!

I just saw the movie "I Am Legend" the other day. It was one of the best post apocalyptic films I have seen to date.
It's pretty fast paced and the plot is well concieved.

Thank you for your time.
Please pass the pop corn!:dancing:

Hi girlpearls/Damian, I enjoyed parts of I, Robot but felt it caved in to Hollywood expectations half-way through, but I also like 'post-apocalyptic' films, but now wonder if I could list my favourites. Something to think about. Eg, the original Planet of the Apes still has some drawing power....

[CORVETTEDUDE]

S.W.A.T. w/ Sam Jackson, Colin Farrell & Michele Rodriquez. Great action flick!!

[Jimmy W]

Nebraska - I could only take thirty minutes of this turd. Bruce Dern playing the same 'Leave me alone. I'm being old and cranky and I'm cantankerous' character he's played before (Big Love for example) and it gets tiresome really fast. As the film starts we are supposed to believe that in this day, anyone who is not under constant medical supervision, regardless of age, would be so fully hoodwinked by a piece of junk mail (not even a phone scam or internet spam) that they believe they have won a million dollars. I can suspend disbelief very happily for a good movie but this film doesn't deserve such help. The other characters spend their time fretting about whatever shall they do with this stubborn old man with contrived hand wringing but the acting is so bad that what is supposed to be dialogue is more like 'I've spoken my line, now you speak your line, then I'll speak my other line'. Admittedly, maybe it all comes together. Maybe there is a message. Maybe Bruce Dern knew all along it was a scam and needed something to live for. I don't know and the film never made me care. I can't say spoiler alert because I never made it that far.

[Jimmy W]

All Is Lost - Robert Redford adrift at sea in a solo performance that reminded me of one of my favorites from earlier in his career, Jeremiah Johnson. Spare, subtle, almost no dialogue and certain evidence that less can be much more. Maybe the best of all the films I've seen this year.

[RallyCola]

Snow White and the Huntsman - that's 2 hrs of my life that i wasted.

Apparently there is going to be a screening here in nyc on tuesday night for the robocop reboot. i'd like to go but the guest list appears closed. i will probably see that opening night (wednesday) and post a review but i am pretty sure i will hate it.

[Jimmy W]

If you thought Snow White and the Huntsman was bad, try watching Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried

[anadmirer]

Trainspotting

[Stavros]

Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2013)
This fascinating and often moving film concerns that moment in the mid-1980s when the HIV/AIDS 'panic' was at its height, and it recounts the story of the 'Buyers clubs' which sprang up to offer people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS drugs not approved by the FDA which they believed would either help them cope with the disease or even beat it. Indeed, one of the most accurate aspects of this film is the obsessive interest which 'Aids' patients acquired in the science of their own illness, which meant they often become auto-didactic experts in pharmacology -Ron Woodroof is the main protagonist against the FDA in this film, and it has to be said Matthew McConaughey gives an outstanding performance, as does Jared Leto as the 'transexual' (surely more of a transvestite?) fellow sufferer whom he first meets in hospital.

The truth, however, is not quite the same as made out in the film. In the film, Woodroof is a foul-mouthed, babe-hunting, rodeo-drivin', hard-drinking homophobe, where in reality, Woodroof was married, never did rodeos, but did bad-mouth homos and was a hard drinker and a 'womaniser' -or was he? His wife believed he was bi-sexual and there is one brief moment in the film, when Woodroof is exploring the causes of AIDS where there is a rapid intercut into a scene of two men having sex which appears to be Ron having a flashback to an experience of his own.
Rayon, the 'transexual' is a composite of various Dallas transexuals who got involved in Woodroof's buyers club, but it does raise the intriguing possibility that Woodroof was not having sex with gay men when batting away from home, but with transexuals. I cannot prove this any way, but I do think this is a fascinating film on what is, after all, a rather odd topic for a film.
I have provided a link to the article on the 'facts' behind Woodroof's life, which has this photo of the real Ron Woodroof:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10612550/Dallas-Buyers-Club-The-not-so-straight-truth.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02809/dallas-4_2809662c.jpg

[robertlouis]

Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2013)
This fascinating and often moving film concerns that moment in the mid-1980s when the HIV/AIDS 'panic' was at its height, and it recounts the story of the 'Buyers clubs' which sprang up to offer people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS drugs not approved by the FDA which they believed would either help them cope with the disease or even beat it. Indeed, one of the most accurate aspects of this film is the obsessive interest which 'Aids' patients acquired in the science of their own illness, which meant they often become auto-didactic experts in pharmacology -Ron Woodroof is the main protagonist against the FDA in this film, and it has to be said Matthew McConaughey gives an outstanding performance, as does Jared Leto as the 'transexual' (surely more of a transvestite?) fellow sufferer whom he first meets in hospital.

The truth, however, is not quite the same as made out in the film. In the film, Woodroof is a foul-mouthed, babe-hunting, rodeo-drivin', hard-drinking homophobe, where in reality, Woodroof was married, never did rodeos, but did bad-mouth homos and was a hard drinker and a 'womaniser' -or was he? His wife believed he was bi-sexual and there is one brief moment in the film, when Woodroof is exploring the causes of AIDS where there is a rapid intercut into a scene of two men having sex which appears to be Ron having a flashback to an experience of his own.
Rayon, the 'transexual' is a composite of various Dallas transexuals who got involved in Woodroof's buyers club, but it does raise the intriguing possibility that Woodroof was not having sex with gay men when batting away from home, but with transexuals. I cannot prove this any way, but I do think this is a fascinating film on what is, after all, a rather odd topic for a film.
I have provided a link to the article on the 'facts' behind Woodroof's life, which has this photo of the real Ron Woodroof:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10612550/Dallas-Buyers-Club-The-not-so-straight-truth.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02809/dallas-4_2809662c.jpg



Thanks Stavros. I was thinking about going to see this film tomorrow, now I definitely will. The story of McConnaughey's dedication to getting the film made and then agreeing with the director to make it in 25 days on what is for Hollywood a shoestring budget is inspiring in its own way too - he clearly believed in the possibilities of bringing Woodroof's story to the screen.

[pantybulge69]

VAMPIRE ACADEMY ..... as much as i love,love vampire flicks, -this was a
horrible movie !!!
i thought it would at least be on a mode with Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009) but this one was the pits ..far much deeper and not even
close to being enjoyable. Goofy, not funny, a yawner, and just not that appealing, not even the action scenes in the final moments. it's set up for
a sequel, but i won't be around for the next episode.

[Stavros]

Thanks Stavros. I was thinking about going to see this film tomorrow, now I definitely will. The story of McConnaughey's dedication to getting the film made and then agreeing with the director to make it in 25 days on what is for Hollywood a shoestring budget is inspiring in its own way too - he clearly believed in the possibilities of bringing Woodroof's story to the screen.

And I think I should have been more emphatic about Jared Leto's performance which is exquisite, and sometimes exquisitely painful. Paris Lees has complained they didn't use a 'real' transexual actress, but don't think it matters. Leto, a versatile actor in so many different films, delivered, and that does.

[Prospero]

Dallas Buyers Club. Stavros has given a pretty good summation of this excellent film and its background. Superb performances from the central trio of actors - Matthew McConnaughey, Jared leto and jennifer Garner. Powerful, fascinating and moving.

Dallas Buyers Club - Official Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6mv0KhOBY)

[fivekatz]

Blue Jasmine, but don't tell Mia and her bitter children.

[rickinoc]

American Hustle BADASS!!!

[Jimmy W]

I would very much like to see a documentary called Tim's Vermeer but I can't find it anywhere. I understand it's about an internet billionaire who became obsessed with how Vermeer created such photo realistic works of art and how he spent years meticulously re-constructing everything from the now banned in the US pigments to the rugs in each painting and building some sort of box that allowed Vermeer to make his art. It's produced by magicians Penn & Teller so there is always the risk of it all being a con, but the trailer looks interesting.

[pantybulge69]

i'm not normally the biggest Matthew McConaughey fan. and up until Mud and Dallas Buyers Club i wasn't that eager to see him.
But i was so very impressed with his awesome performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
not only just the incredible weight loss (haven't seen something like that since Christian Bale's the Machineist) to fit the Ron Woodroof skeleton thin look,but the acting performance was just amazing.
Ditto for Jared Leto performance as a AIDs stricken transvestite.
Maybe Mac will get serious competition from 12 years a Slave's Chiwetel Ejiofor as rumored, but for my money the best actor Oscar should go to Matthew McConaughey.

[gummi baer]

"The Kingdom" (again)
Jamie Fox, et al.

[bluesoul]

i caught Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit over the weekend. It was terrible.

They attempted to re-tell the entire story that was told in flashbacks and exposition in the sum of all fears and red october.

next, the action is damn unbelievable and incredibly heavy handed. the flat chested ugly cunt keira knightley stinks up the screen again and finally, kevin costner just makes things worse.

i don't want to give too many details away but realistically, i've enjoyed watching paint dry more than this movie and its deliberate disregard for proper story telling. it gleams over so many details in an attempt to make us believe that plugging a laptop into an AC outlet will allow a douchebag to take over a secure network and clone an algorithm to stop a terrorist bank transaction. anyone with any knowledge of a post 9-11 finance system would see right though this bullshit. moreover, the influx of russian money into the dollar as an investment would not, in the course of the movie, have inflated the dollar as it did, and such an influx of foreign investment in our currency would have triggered other automatic fail safes by the EU and China to hedge against reduced returns. Finally, once the FBI agent that was in the midwest failed to report in, it is possible that another agent would have been dispatched to ascertain the whereabouts of such a high value target. finally, we are supposed to believe that a terrorist cell that planned the final plot forgot such a detail as letting paint dry? such a cell would have secured a van far in advance of the actual due date.

ya know what, movies are supposed to make you escape and enjoy things that are not mundane. computers are mundane. they are not sexy. they are not inescapable and not without the layman's ability to understand. i am so tired of "hackers" or "information terrorists" being used as villains in movies. i get it...someone has a really cool program/virus/algorithm that can destroy something should it launch...its a bad crutch to fall back on because it is abused too many times on film.

don't waste your money on this crap. just watch one of the far more enjoyable movies about jack ryan that were made before information terrorists were in vogue.

ha! this made me laugh (in a good way). good write up, although you know what?

i always had a soft spot for the film 'hackers' because it came out when i was pretty young. it's the ultimate "you better give me a million dollars otherwise all hell will break loose thanks to this super sophisticated virus i just put on da computer mainframe"

to it's defense, it came out in the early 90s before everyone, their grandmother and the kitchen sink were online so it was techno babble mission impossible for majority of the planet.

at the time, i would cruise the internet all night on a 64k dial up modem (slow coach style) exploring the forbidden universe of german kitkat-dungeon scat porn, japanese office puke bukkake, and back orifice remote control administration strokes so hackers was like the friend on the other side of my gateway computer machine running windows 95 saying "hey, you. you forgot something right here"

it was cute. it had angelina jolie and a prodigy soundtrack. so pour out a lil' liquor

[Stavros]

I would very much like to see a documentary called Tim's Vermeer but I can't find it anywhere. I understand it's about an internet billionaire who became obsessed with how Vermeer created such photo realistic works of art and how he spent years meticulously re-constructing everything from the now banned in the US pigments to the rugs in each painting and building some sort of box that allowed Vermeer to make his art. It's produced by magicians Penn & Teller so there is always the risk of it all being a con, but the trailer looks interesting.

I could not find it on iTunes or Netflix but I think it can be accessed on Lovefilm.


Tim's Vermeer (2013) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3089388/)

[Stavros]

i'm not normally the biggest Matthew McConaughey fan. and up until Mud and Dallas Buyers Club i wasn't that eager to see him.
But i was so very impressed with his awesome performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
not only just the incredible weight loss (haven't seen something like that since Christian Bale's the Machineist) to fit the Ron Woodroof skeleton thin look,but the acting performance was just amazing.
Ditto for Jared Leto performance as a AIDs stricken transvestite.
Maybe Mac will get serious competition from 12 years a Slave's Chiwetel Ejiofor as rumored, but for my money the best actor Oscar should go to Matthew McConaughey.

I agree with most of this except I don't attach much value to the Oscars as some outstanding films and performers often get ignored. My guess is the best film and direction will go to 12 Years and McConaughey the Acting prize, but also because he is an American and has been around long enough for the Academy to give him his dues. Here are two lists of actors -male and female- who have never even been nominated for an oscar, and it is a surprising list.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/9880397/Oscars-2014-the-best-20-actors-whove-never-been-nominated.html

http://www.goldderby.com/photos/338/4226/donald-sutherland.html

I have admired Jake Gyllenhaal for some years but he doesn't get much in the way of statues and gongs. Prisoners is a fine thriller that seems to have slipped attention.

[Prospero]

Peter Lorre, Donald Sutherland,Myrna Loy, Edward g Robinson... remarkable.
Marilyn - well an icon and beauty, but seldom much of an actress.

[Blktop4hungangel]

Angel Heart
Manhunter
Year of the Dragon

[Prospero]

Glad to see the MCP as a species is aiive and well ... Rally Cola on Keira Knightly "flat chested ugly cunt stinks up the screen again." Hmmm.....nice

[broncofan]

I saw the Dallas Buyer's Club the other day. My feeling is that the story of the AIDS crisis in the late 80's and early 90's needed to be told. I'm just not sure Woodroof's story was the best source material. The acting was good and it covered a lot of the important political issues of the time period, from the FDA's failure to respond to the emergency, to the rampant homophobia that tainted people's perceptions of the disease.

Here are a couple of things that I was unsure about. First, there's the fact that Woodroof and Leto's character were suffering from the disease but were mercenary enough to run a for profit business selling HIV drugs. This was addressed a little bit when Woodroof becomes more charitable towards the end of the movie, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I thought this aspect of their business was not dealt with honestly enough. I also thought the bond that formed between Woodruff and Leto was difficult to understand...even if the film dealt with this as well as it could have. How exactly did their friendship develop? I suppose one can say that about any friendship, but it seemed a bit strained here.

Finally, I am also not sure I'm comfortable with the film's portrayal of HIV treatment. It is true that taking care of your body and taking vitamins is preferable to taking toxic doses of an anti-viral. These may have seemed like the only two choices at the time, but this view has been taken to new heights by quacks who believe anti-retrovirals are harmful at any dose. The little post-script at the end of the movie seemed to address this phenomenon by discussing the fact that lower doses of AZT are therapeutic. For those who have followed the debate about the right to choose one's own medical treatment, the choices made by Woodroof are ominous in what they foreshadow, even if they were reasonable given the context they took place in.

I realize a story does not have to address head-on all of the political ramifications of its source material. But I thought the strongest thing this movie had going for it was the extraordinary time period the events took place in. The AIDS crisis in the 80's and early 90's literally felt like an apocalypse and neither health care providers nor regulators were ready to deal with it.

[bluesoul]

http://i.imgur.com/y50Ce6Q.jpg

watched this last night. a terribly fluffy hollywood piece of bubblegum fluff that's one part gladiator and two parts titanic mixed with several shakes of mount vesuvius angrily going ape shit over kiefer sutherland's over-the-top impression of his father doing a british prime minister impression in 3d

johnny depp was also there but he was busy smooching with his babe and digging some film (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-johnny-depp-amber-heard-pda-3-days-to-kill-premiere-20140213,0,1409286.story) directed by a guy that looks like my gym trainer

[hairyguy]

clerks. a 1994 movie about retail clerks. very cheesy and "b" grade like but hilarious. never knew it existed till i saw it. apparently it has good general ratings everywhere. it was on a flight back to the US from dubai on a russian airline.

and before that, mission impossible ghost protocol. rented it free from the public library here in brooklyn, ny. really a great film but you need a good theater like system (large screen and great sound system) to appreciate it completely

[bluesoul]

really a great film but you need a good theater like system (large screen and great sound system) to appreciate it completely

so i take it the story is a piece of shit if you need all those things to distract you :ignore:

[Stavros]

I saw the Dallas Buyer's Club the other day. My feeling is that the story of the AIDS crisis in the late 80's and early 90's needed to be told. I'm just not sure Woodroof's story was the best source material. The acting was good and it covered a lot of the important political issues of the time period, from the FDA's failure to respond to the emergency, to the rampant homophobia that tainted people's perceptions of the disease.

Here are a couple of things that I was unsure about. First, there's the fact that Woodroof and Leto's character were suffering from the disease but were mercenary enough to run a for profit business selling HIV drugs. This was addressed a little bit when Woodroof becomes more charitable towards the end of the movie, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I thought this aspect of their business was not dealt with honestly enough. I also thought the bond that formed between Woodruff and Leto was difficult to understand...even if the film dealt with this as well as it could have. How exactly did their friendship develop? I suppose one can say that about any friendship, but it seemed a bit strained here.

Finally, I am also not sure I'm comfortable with the film's portrayal of HIV treatment. It is true that taking care of your body and taking vitamins is preferable to taking toxic doses of an anti-viral. These may have seemed like the only two choices at the time, but this view has been taken to new heights by quacks who believe anti-retrovirals are harmful at any dose. The little post-script at the end of the movie seemed to address this phenomenon by discussing the fact that lower doses of AZT are therapeutic. For those who have followed the debate about the right to choose one's own medical treatment, the choices made by Woodroof are ominous in what they foreshadow, even if they were reasonable given the context they took place in.

I realize a story does not have to address head-on all of the political ramifications of its source material. But I thought the strongest thing this movie had going for it was the extraordinary time period the events took place in. The AIDS crisis in the 80's and early 90's literally felt like an apocalypse and neither health care providers nor regulators were ready to deal with it.

On the treatment of AIDS, as it was mostly known at that time, Randy Shilts in his brilliant survey And the Band Played On (1987) does not mention buyer's clubs, but does at various points in the book refer to -mostly gay men- buying drugs in Mexico and other places or in some cases experimenting with drugs in their own kitchens. The demand for anything that would help even if only in the short term was tremendous, but was also part of a political landscape in which, as Shilts quotes someone working in DC said, that as long as it was gay men who were dying the Government didn't reallly care. Moreover, he points out (in Ch 52) in 1985 the Office of Management and Budget actually reduced the money allocated for AIDS research for the fiscal year 1986 from $96m to $85.5m, the film doesn't really relate much about the Federal govt -Reagan himself said nothing about AIDS until 1987 and it was Rock Hudson's death (and possibly Ellizabeth Taylor's lobbying, as she was as early activist in this area) which prompted him to speak about it.

As for the transexual angle, in the link I provided a few days ago Woodroof's wife claims he was bi-sexual, and the character Rayon is a composite of various Dallas transexuals Woodroof worked with in the Club, that is one of the historical inaccuracies in the film, but may have been there as drama to suggest that Woodroof needed a lot of convincing in the early stages about his own illness, and because the gay community Rayon was part of had access to latest information on drugs. I think also the Club used most of its profit to buy more drugs from Mexico and other countries, I didn't get the impression he was pocketing the proceeds.

In the end it is a film, and as themes go in Hollywood, you can see it as a 'little man against the machine' story; there are other inaccuracies in the film that are probably an inevitable part of making any film from the past.
This is a link to a short survey of Buyer's Clubs-
http://newroots.drizzlehosting.com/buyclub.html

[broncofan]

I didn't get the impression he was pocketing the proceeds.


Yeah I guess I didn't consider that, just because I get caught up in themes and I figured they were trying to sell us on the story of a homophobic cowboy who starts out as this odious guy and has a transformation. So I thought he started out as a profiteer and turned into an advocate for the cause.

One thing about the choice to make him a rugged straight guy in this story is that it's a deus ex machina (particularly in view of the biographical material you've posted). By viewing the story through the prism of this guy's experience we now see how unjust it was to write HIV off as a gay disease. Except it sends the message that this view is not wrong because it reflects a lack of humanity towards gay men, but because some people who get the disease are not gay.

The director maybe does not trust the audience to be independently sympathetic to Rayon, but to only feel sympathy for him by proxy; because we see how touched this homophobic cowboy is by his plight. Rayon is not someone the audience is supposed to connect with except through Woodroof.

I'm nitpicking..I enjoyed it mostly, but it is a serious subject.

[RallyCola]

a haunted house

this is a spoof of paranormal activity and other recent horror flicks by marlon wayans.

it is actually quite funny and i recommend you see if it you want 90 min of mindless fun.

[broncofan]

One thing about the choice to make him a rugged straight guy in this story is that it's a deus ex machina .
Not that it matters but I'm not sure deus ex machina is exactly right, but plot contrivance emphasized for storytelling purposes.

[Stavros]

Yeah I guess I didn't consider that, just because I get caught up in themes and I figured they were trying to sell us on the story of a homophobic cowboy who starts out as this odious guy and has a transformation. So I thought he started out as a profiteer and turned into an advocate for the cause.

One thing about the choice to make him a rugged straight guy in this story is that it's a deus ex machina (particularly in view of the biographical material you've posted). By viewing the story through the prism of this guy's experience we now see how unjust it was to write HIV off as a gay disease. Except it sends the message that this view is not wrong because it reflects a lack of humanity towards gay men, but because some people who get the disease are not gay.

The director maybe does not trust the audience to be independently sympathetic to Rayon, but to only feel sympathy for him by proxy; because we see how touched this homophobic cowboy is by his plight. Rayon is not someone the audience is supposed to connect with except through Woodroof.

I'm nitpicking..I enjoyed it mostly, but it is a serious subject.

If the transexual was the main character, would this film have even been made? Boys Don't Cry featured a transexual, but it was a 'female' -did anyone really think Brandon in the film was a boy?

[pantybulge69]

ROBOCOP (2014)
i thought it was above average and a solid movie overall,but i wasn't "WOWED"
over by it. Actually i still like the 1987 version over the remake.
i did like Samuel Jackson's Pat Novak character It was ok, not
disappointed but not impressed either.

[Stavros]

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
I haven't seen this films for years and saw it in the exchange shop for £1 so I bought it. It has a featurette on the dvd too which was interesting as it went into the details of how the film was made, the tricks, the music, the way Iris was, in a manner of speaking, handled -in some of the scenes her sister stood in for her as a body double. De Niro is compelling as Travis Bickle, but so too are Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster- a quite astonishingly mature performance from someone who was 12 at the time. I have met people who hate the film because of the use of violence as catharsis, as an unacceptable alternative to law and order, but the film does locate the sleazier aspects of Manhattan as it was at the time, and Bickle's remark to the Senator running for the Presidency -'somebody needs to clean up this town' could be latched onto Rudolph Giuliani who some think did just that.

The interesting stories that come out are mostly to do with Cybill Shepherd, whose career seems to have faded -apparently she and Scorsese did not get on well on the set; De Niro was so immersed in his character that she was genuinely scared of him in the scene when he berates her in the office. She also claims, on her imdb page, of Elvis Presley: "This man loved to eat. But there was one thing he wouldn't eat . . . 'til he met me." And she has an amusing quote about the execrable Monroe "She had curves in places most other women don't even have places".

In the featurette, Foster makes the interesting claim that the 1970s in the USA has been the best decade for films -not sure if she means ever, or since the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood -and I am inclined to agree. It is hard to realise now how controversial Taxi Driver was at the time -the underage Prostitute, the violence, but it would probably not get made at all these days. And it also shows how ordinary Scorese's later films have become. Small point I didn't know -Bernard Hermann's score has no strings.

[Prospero]

Great score isn't it Stavros. I saw this film about two days before I went to New York for the very first time. It certainly gave me a frisson to see the manhole covers in Manhattan with the steam coming out of them like the opening sequence of the film.

[Prospero]

"Howl" a 2010 movie that presents Allen Ginsburg's landmark poem, with animation, threaded through a narrative about the trial for obscenity of it's publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Cty Light Books. Its a curious but fascinating blend and much more interesting than the recent film about the early life of Ginsberg, "Kill Your Darlings". James Franco plays Ginsberg and gets the voice, reciting the poem, spot on.

[Stavros]

I have seen this film twice and each time it makes me want to read the whole of Howl again, and I also thought the animation worked too in giving the film an edge of fantasy or a dream-like, junk-induced pall to contrast with the sobriety of the court room. Curious that I don't think we ever had a drama on the trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the UK.

[Stavros]

Outland (Peter Hyams, 1981)
This is a disappointing attempt to re-locate a western to a mining community on one of the moons of Jupiter, Io. Instead of cattle rustlers of bandits, the villain is the union boss of a large community of miners involved in a narcotics scam -Connery is the Sherrif/Marshal who cleans up the town. Unusual for a film set out there in space, there are no reptilian aliens, no special effects worthy of the name, computing seems to be limited to an early version of skype, and it hosts a large community of workers, cooks and whores where normally space adventures, Star Trek and Star Wars aside, have few people. The curios are James Sikking who headed the SWAT team in Hill St Blues, Steven Berkoff the maverick actor/writer, and Clarke Peters, the British-based American actor from The Wire. Peter Boyle, the union boss, has hair -though it might be false. 4/10 for entertainment value.

[Stavros]

Mystery (Le You 2012)
Le You was the director of a film Suzhou River (2000) that I saw over 10 years ago and which was as disappointing as this film nominally set in Wuhan though some of it was filmed in Shanghai and Beijing. You's films attempt to deal with the impact of modern life on youngish Chinese people, in this case a menage a trois that goes badly wrong when a young woman is killed in a road accident and the police investigation threatens to uncover a difficult secret. The attempt to give this film a sense of realism through a hand-held camera that jerks all over the place is but one irritation in this feeble film, another example of the lack of really interesting films emerging from China.

[Prospero]

"The Great Beauty" Well after all its awards and rave reviews i finally got hold of a DVD copy of this film. To say its the last movie i watched is not wholly true. i watched about 20 minutes and had to turn it off. Maybe it was my mood but it seemed to be god-awful. Self indulgent and vacuous. Beautiful imagery, beautifully shot. But.....

The Great Beauty trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxWdwx5Hkiw)

[Stavros]

I don't usually walk out on films or turn them off, and I did soldier on to the end but yes, it is vacuous rubbish. It doesn't even look like the Rome most of us see, and seems at night to have been shot when nobody is on the streets.

[Jimmy W]

The Monuments Men - This George Clooney turd is so bad it doesn't even deserve a review.
Rush - This Ron Howard turd is so bad it doesn't even deserve a review.

[robertlouis]

The Invisible Woman . A film about Ellen Ternan, Charles Dickens' much younger mistress, based on Claire Tomalin's terrific biography.

It's had mixed to poor reviews, but I was determined to see it for three reasons: I'm a huge fan of Dickens' writing and of his huge social impact in Victorian times; secondly, Ralph Fiennes, who directs and stars, made an excellent job of filming Shakespeare's Coriolanus; and thirdly, the showing at York's Cityscreen was followed by a Q&A session with the historical consultant to the film Dr Suzanna Fagence Cooper, a specialist in the role and place of women in Victorian society

The film itself is slow and claustrophobic as Ellen adapts to the cruel reality of her position - Felicity Jones as Ellen is wonderful, luminous and fragile. The other leads, especially the comedy actress Joanna Scanlan as Dickens' cruelly-traduced wife Catherine, are excellent too. It's not a great film, but it's much better than the reviews would suggest.

And Dr Cooper was engaging and deeply perceptive. It was a very worthwhile way to pass a Saturday evening. And on the way out, I suggested to Dr Cooper that Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy, The Time-Torn Man, also offered plenty of scope for a movie. Here's hoping.

[SexSlave1972]

I did try...
Gallowwalkers (2012) - IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829176/)

Actually I managed to watch it 20min after I need to stop..
Theres a class A movies, class B also, this has it's own class somewhere far end of letters :D

[Prospero]

"Lore" a rather obscure - in that I've not seen reviews anywhere mainstream, not listings of it at any cinemas - film called Lore", an Australian-German co-production about the fate of a group of children in the immediate aftermath of World War Two in Germany. They are abandoned by their parents, (the father was in the SS) , and undertake a troubled journey across occupied germany to reach their grandmother. It is a bit too beautifully filmed with overly precious lingering and overcomposed shots and is too lyrical and rather slow, but does deal with some serious issues little touched on in fiction or cinema. It is the third film by a young Australian director Kate Shortland who I'd not come across before.

Lore Movie Trailer (2013) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0800CgX6bs)

[Stavros]

Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008)
I came to this having seen McQueen's two other features -Shame (2011) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). Hunger was McQueen's first full-length feature after years of making short films and 'video installations'- he comes from a mixed background of Art School and a brief and unhappy graduate experience at the NYU film school. The film is not so much about Bobby Sands as about the experience of confinement in a claustrophobic space, on both prisoners and prison guards, with the first half-hour establishing the routines and the prisoners resistance through well-documented 'dirty protest' in Northern Ireland - the refusal to wear prison clothing, smearing shit all over the walls and the hunger strikes of 1981 that I remember vividly having been politically active at the time. Although the film is about feelings rather than politics, recordings of Margaret Thatcher, and the long confrontation with the priest do explore political issues and the first half hour does present the confrontation between Republicans and Nationalists in a brutal way.
The almost silent depiction of routine is suddenly broken with an astonishing 22-minute conversation between Sands and a Catholic priest, in which the camera does not move for 16 minutes before ending the 22-minute sequence with two sustained close-ups of Sands, and then the Priest -this is followed by a wordless six minute sequence of a prison warder mopping he floor of the urine poured under cell doors, working his way up the corridor toward the camera. Michael Fassbender lost as much as he needed to before endangering his own life, and while he doesn't look like Sands or offer much resistance to the staff, the aggressive, violent attacks on Republican prisoners at the beginning, is replaced by a caring attention to physical need at the lyrical end, when the sense of release from the burden of life is characterised by the smallest details -such as a feather floating through the hospital room where Sands is dying. A stunning debut by any standards.

[Prospero]

I've never had the courage of watch Hunger.. but having now seen both of McQueen's subsequent films (Found Shame deeply tedious, but loved 12 years a slave) I will muster the necessary to watch it. Plus discovered that the cameraman on all is a very close friend of a friend.

[Stavros]

Strongly recommend you see it -the camera work and the lighting are integral to the whole vision, as they are in McQueen's other films -this is clearly where his background in art school plays a role. According to the extras on the dvd (the interview with Laura Hastings-Smith) they had to re-do one of the takes of the conversation because the gaffer couldn't hold up the mike for that length of time, his arms got tired. The scene is backlit to give the two characters the appearance of shadows. There is violence in the film, but you have seen worse in other films, and also where it is gratuitous whereas here it helps define the dynamic tension between prisoners and prison officers.

[broncofan]

The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman, starring Elliott Gould. I have not read the source material, a book by Raymond Chandler. But if I had to guess, I would guess that this movie was let down by a deficient screenplay. The one Chandler book I've read had a very intricate, even labyrinthine plot. Here, where the plot wasn't easy to follow it was only because the character development was very thin.

A good performance by Sterling Hayden as a writer with a serious drinking problem. Elliott Gould was merely okay. He was trying to come across as a sort of sarcastic loner. Mission accomplished, but he seemed to mumble to himself a lot, and I don't think it's really a valid interpretation of Marlowe, who was probably a bit more self-possessed. Maybe I'm just used to Bogart's Marlowe from the Big Sleep, but that seemed a lot more plausible to me.

[Prospero]

"The Young Ones" a pop musical made at the dawn of the 1960s - pre-Beatles - starring Ciff Richard. Deplorably bad. I thought it might offer some sort of insight into pop culture. it didn't.

[Jericho]

The Road To Perdition.
Kinda strange seeing Tom Hanks as a 'bad guy'.

[Stavros]

The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman, starring Elliott Gould. I have not read the source material, a book by Raymond Chandler. But if I had to guess, I would guess that this movie was let down by a deficient screenplay. The one Chandler book I've read had a very intricate, even labyrinthine plot. Here, where the plot wasn't easy to follow it was only because the character development was very thin.

A good performance by Sterling Hayden as a writer with a serious drinking problem. Elliott Gould was merely okay. He was trying to come across as a sort of sarcastic loner. Mission accomplished, but he seemed to mumble to himself a lot, and I don't think it's really a valid interpretation of Marlowe, who was probably a bit more self-possessed. Maybe I'm just used to Bogart's Marlowe from the Big Sleep, but that seemed a lot more plausible to me.

Broncofan, no need to be so coy, just say it loud: Elliot Gould cannot act.

[Stavros]

"The Young Ones" a pop musical made at the dawn of the 1960s - pre-Beatles - starring Ciff Richard. Deplorably bad. I thought it might offer some sort of insight into pop culture. it didn't.

In which case you might have a look at (if you don't already know it) Expresso Bongo (Val Guest, 1959) in which Cliff Richard plays a young lad called Bert Rudge who is transformed into a Bongo-playing superstar called Bongo Herbert (!). It has the taste of a day-old cappucino, and plays to the Faustian idea of fame and wealth coming at the expense of happiness and moral integrity but it does have a remarkable cast, and if memory serves Cliff Richard actually does quite well in the role. My memory reminds me that it was unusual for a pop singer with a teen fan-base at the time to make an X-rated movie, which in itself tells you something about those times.

[broncofan]

Broncofan, no need to be so coy, just say it loud: Elliot Gould cannot act.
I think so. I may have seen him before, but I don't remember, so this is the first performance of his I recall. Ruined the movie for me.

[Prospero]

I think I shall wait awhile before seeing "Expresso Bongo" as "The Young Ones" was just so dreadful. I have never before seen any movie with Cliff. Never liked many of his hundreds and hundreds of records either. (Though "Goodbye Sam, hello Samantha") sounds as if it has a theme appropriate to this forum.

[Always_aUnicorn]

Last night some girlfriends rented wolverine. Personally I just wasn't amused or even interested. Though I was busy snuggled up with amber Taylor the lead trans singer for the sexual side effects. So the movie may have been good but her lips where better.

[runningdownthatdream]

The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman, starring Elliott Gould. I have not read the source material, a book by Raymond Chandler. But if I had to guess, I would guess that this movie was let down by a deficient screenplay. The one Chandler book I've read had a very intricate, even labyrinthine plot. Here, where the plot wasn't easy to follow it was only because the character development was very thin.

A good performance by Sterling Hayden as a writer with a serious drinking problem. Elliott Gould was merely okay. He was trying to come across as a sort of sarcastic loner. Mission accomplished, but he seemed to mumble to himself a lot, and I don't think it's really a valid interpretation of Marlowe, who was probably a bit more self-possessed. Maybe I'm just used to Bogart's Marlowe from the Big Sleep, but that seemed a lot more plausible to me.

I had similar thoughts about this movie. Watched it a few months ago because it was suggested as being one of Robert Altman's best. Not a bad movie but overall I felt it was dull and Elliot Gould was miscast - I read Chandler a long time ago and I had the impression of Marlowe being more tormented. Elliot Gould delivered too much of the character's sardonic nature and not enough of the torment. Sterling Hayden was very good, Nina Van Pallandt wasn't.

[runningdownthatdream]

Michael Kohlhaas, a french-language movie directed by Arnaud des Pallieres and starring Mads Mikkelsen. Story takes place in 16th century France (although the original story written in the 18th century was based on a figure from German, specifically Saxon, history) and is about a morally upright horse dealer and follower of Martin Luther who - when wronged by the local Baron - decides to take matters into his own hands to get justice. However, don't expect another Braveheart! Instead the director chose to focus on the moral and political aspects of the story and from an existentialist's point of view so dialogue is sparse, cinematography is devoid of enhancements, and one gets the idea that every action is purposeful. Nothing is wasted. Mads Mikkelsen is outstanding - I've watched 4 of his movies so far and yet to be disappointed - and the rest of the cast play their parts well. Interesting scene between Koohlhaas and Martin Luther in which the latter tries to dissuade the former fro rebellion while clearly Koohlhaas was following his morals according to Luther's teachings. The real star though is the script.


Mads Mikkelsen as Michael Kohlhaas - with English Subtitles - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaHWmyDub4A)

[dderek123]

I saw the Lego movie. Very enjoyable.

[Prospero]

"Super Eight" - a DVD I've had lying around for ages and never bothered to watch. I should have stuck to that decision. Dumb adventure film about aliens. Thee was a brilliantly staged train crash though. A waste of time.

[robertlouis]

The Book Thief. Don't bother, a saccharin-flavoured overblown confection of a film which even the usually reliable Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson can't rescue. Mind you, I forecast a big future for the young Canadian actress Sophie Nelisse who plays the lead role of Liesl.

It's a shame, because the book on which it's based, although flawed in its delivery, was a bold experiment. Oh well.

Next week, a treat - Wes Anderson's latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

[robertlouis]

"Lore" a rather obscure - in that I've not seen reviews anywhere mainstream, not listings of it at any cinemas - film called Lore", an Australian-German co-production about the fate of a group of children in the immediate aftermath of World War Two in Germany. They are abandoned by their parents, (the father was in the SS) , and undertake a troubled journey across occupied germany to reach their grandmother. It is a bit too beautifully filmed with overly precious lingering and overcomposed shots and is too lyrical and rather slow, but does deal with some serious issues little touched on in fiction or cinema. It is the third film by a young Australian director Kate Shortland who I'd not come across before.

Lore Movie Trailer (2013) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0800CgX6bs)

I've seen it - there are some very good German films these days. Felt it tackled the dog end of the war in an interesting way that challenged most preconceptions and took a brave stance on the parents' Nazi backgrounds. Good performances all round, and, as you say, beautifully filmed.

I will be watching Barbara on BBC4 tomorrow night as I'm a big fan of its star, Nina Hoss.

[Prospero]

And I will be seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel next week.

[Jericho]

Ted...Again.
Even fukkin better!

[Tiffany Starr]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I remember seeing it when i was like 5 and it scared the crap out of me with some of the imagery. Now it's hilarious.

[pantybulge69]

POMPEII

basically your average roman gladiator type movie -nothing special that you
don't normally see on cable TV or roku streaming - i also saw it in 3-D.
and 3-D effects wasnt anything special either. It was action filled and i guess
somewhat of a tear jearker because a few ladies in theater were sniffing tears
at the sad ending.