"The Kingdom" (again)
Jamie Fox, et al.
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"The Kingdom" (again)
Jamie Fox, et al.
ha! this made me laugh (in a good way). good write up, although you know what?Quote:
Originally Posted by RallyCola
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
I could not find it on iTunes or Netflix but I think it can be accessed on Lovefilm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy W
Tim's Vermeer (2013) - IMDb
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by pantybulge69
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/f...nominated.html
http://www.goldderby.com/photos/338/...utherland.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.
Peter Lorre, Donald Sutherland,Myrna Loy, Edward g Robinson... remarkable.
Marilyn - well an icon and beauty, but seldom much of an actress.
Angel Heart
Manhunter
Year of the Dragon
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
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.
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 directed by a guy that looks like my gym trainer
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
so i take it the story is a piece of shit if you need all those things to distract you :ignore:Quote:
Originally Posted by hairyguy
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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.
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.
Not that it matters but I'm not sure deus ex machina is exactly right, but plot contrivance emphasized for storytelling purposes.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
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.
I did try...
Gallowwalkers (2012) - IMDb
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
"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
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
The Road To Perdition.
Kinda strange seeing Tom Hanks as a 'bad guy'.
Broncofan, no need to be so coy, just say it loud: Elliot Gould cannot act.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
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.
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.