What is The Last Movie You Watched?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

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.

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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/...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.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

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

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Originally Posted by Jericho

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

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

And people painted blue.....