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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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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.Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
"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.
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/article...e-warfare.html
http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/27775
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...0-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.
they moved it here
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...t-so-fast.html
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.
Remember Me.
I started watching Water For Elephants, but I fell asleep in the middle.
I'm on a Robert Pattinson binge right now.
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-Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/k...he_seven_veils
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.
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.
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
This is an interesting article on Strauss in the Third Reich-Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/ar...ted=all&src=pm
Nice to see you Jen. Hope life's treating you well.Quote:
Originally Posted by qwerty94
Ferris Beuller's Day Off....classic and hilarious!!
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.
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.
redboxed " The Wolverine " last night.
Gotta say i was not impressed and thought it fell flat
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/op...-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.
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.
"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
Blue Is The Warmest Color Red Band Trailer (2013) - Lesbian Drama HD - YouTube
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.
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:
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.
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....Quote:
Originally Posted by Girlpearls
S.W.A.T. w/ Sam Jackson, Colin Farrell & Michele Rodriquez. Great action flick!!
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.
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.
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.
If you thought Snow White and the Huntsman was bad, try watching Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried
Trainspotting
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/f...ght-truth.html
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...4_2809662c.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by robertlouis
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
Blue Jasmine, but don't tell Mia and her bitter children.
American Hustle BADASS!!!
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'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.