I used to know Bernard Cornwell who wrote Sharpe in his previous incarnation... and under his real name.
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I used to know Bernard Cornwell who wrote Sharpe in his previous incarnation... and under his real name.
"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
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.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by LibertyHarkness
"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
Uplifting, Enchanting, Inspiring... It's Lucio Fulci fer cryin' out loud!!!
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/7...vesfire2vy.gif
The New York Ripper 1982 Trailer (HD) - YouTube
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
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.
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!!
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
samba mania 25
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
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
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by runningdownthatdream
"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/2...a_fact_mcgrath
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.
Did not see the first, but was impressed with Brotherhood.Quote:
Originally Posted by runningdownthatdream
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_26Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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!
My ancestors were Pictish, to the extent that they came from Fife, which is full of Pictish names.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jericho
And people painted blue.....
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.
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...
Robocop
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by pantybulge69
http://www.impawards.com/1979/poster..._field_xlg.jpg
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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.
Rocky II
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by runningdownthatdream
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I was being generous, I think your choice of words is superior.