What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[rockabilly]

I saw Zero Dark Thirsty over the weekend. It was awesome.

Freudian slip

[Prospero]

I think singalongaLesMis would be even worse than the sound of music. There isn't a decent tune in the whole thing as far as i can discern. I have an advance DVD and will be (gritting my teeth) and watching it soon.

[Prospero]

Oh and Stavros - what was the question? That biopics should be banned? Of course not. But I'd agree that most should not be made. Except of course the one i am developing presently lol

[Prospero]

To return to Stavros and the issue of biopics. I think they almost always fail because, as Stavros demonstrates with his remarks about Wagner, those who are familiar with the real biographies of the subject will always pick holes in the dramatic simplifications inevitable in a film portrayal. Naming a single really terrific biopic is hard to do. Perhaps Ivan Rublev by Tarkovsky? But both are dealing more in the myth of a figure rather than the actual details of a life. Nothing Hollywood produces is truly great though, like Lincoln, it can contain a great performance.
The problems are twofold. Life is messy with loose ends. Popular entertainment (and Hollywood films especially) tries to tie them up. And to try to contain a life to a short film is impossible with gross distortion or simplification. The best biopics, I'd argue, choose an event or an episode - and use that to suggest the nature of its character. Lincoln, while flawed by many things, works reasonably well because of 1. A terific series of performances and 2. Because it limits ambitions to a brief part of Lincoln's life. It is weakest when it falls pry to Spielberg's constant need to sentimentalise things (the Gettysburg address business at the front, the sequence where he quotes from Hamlet, the postscript and the decision to feature Lincoln's death (wholly unnecessary)

[wbmando]

Silver Lining Playbook--excellent movie.

[Jericho]

Reacherround, er, i mean, Reacher.
Not as bad as i expected it to be!

[Prospero]

Jericho in shock change of avatar. You look younger now

[Jericho]

What can i say...I've found god!

[Stavros]

There are special showings of The Sound of Music in which people dress up as characters and sing along with the songs. My idea of hell.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I think that is where the rot set in. Unbearable.

I once had to reprimand a man at Covent Garden who mistakenly assumed he was allowed to singalong with Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera; and almost died laughing while watching the philosopher Bryan Magee get out of his seat during a performance of Die Walkure to virtually thump a man in the back who had developed a minor cough...one must retain standards.

Do you do singalong, happy-clappy songs with your devoted audience, RobertLouis?

[Stavros]

To return to Stavros and the issue of biopics. I think they almost always fail because, as Stavros demonstrates with his remarks about Wagner, those who are familiar with the real biographies of the subject will always pick holes in the dramatic simplifications inevitable in a film portrayal. Naming a single really terrific biopic is hard to do. Perhaps Ivan Rublev by Tarkovsky? But both are dealing more in the myth of a figure rather than the actual details of a life. Nothing Hollywood produces is truly great though, like Lincoln, it can contain a great performance.
The problems are twofold. Life is messy with loose ends. Popular entertainment (and Hollywood films especially) tries to tie them up. And to try to contain a life to a short film is impossible with gross distortion or simplification. The best biopics, I'd argue, choose an event or an episode - and use that to suggest the nature of its character. Lincoln, while flawed by many things, works reasonably well because of 1. A terific series of performances and 2. Because it limits ambitions to a brief part of Lincoln's life. It is weakest when it falls pry to Spielberg's constant need to sentimentalise things (the Gettysburg address business at the front, the sequence where he quotes from Hamlet, the postscript and the decision to feature Lincoln's death (wholly unnecessary)

Exellent points in biography and film; but why does Spielberg have such a desperate need to make people want to cry at his movies?