The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Resurrecting the Movies thread...
Front-Ranger:
I'll look for it. I love Visconti. They said something similar about Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of my other Italian favorites!
oilgun:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 04, 2013, 04:12:11 pm ---I'll look for it. I love Visconti. They said something similar about Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of my other Italian favorites!
--- End quote ---
You won't regret it, it's a masterpiece. I think Visconti, being more conflicted, was a bit more subtle than Pasolini as far homoeroticism is concerned. Sometimes, I find subtlety to be so much more enticing. For example I found Rene Clement's Purple Noon (Plein Soleil,also from 1960) the more erotic adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley compared to the one with Matt Damon. But then, it stars Alain Delon as Ripley so I'm biased. ;)
http://generalthinker.blogspot.ca/2010/08/plein-soleil-rene-clement-1960.html
Front-Ranger:
I saw this again a couple of days ago. Loved especially Kathy Bates delivering the line (as Gertrude Stein)
Gertrude Stein: The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.
--- Quote from: brian on October 27, 2011, 11:23:15 pm ---I saw 'Midnight in Paris' 3 weeks ago with our movie group and loved it. But then I am in love with Paris. I warned the others I might walk straight out and head for the Travel Agent. Lucky it was Sunday ;D I recognised many locations from my fairly regular visits there. I also love 20's music and so am thinking of buying the DVD. The story was silly but that did not worry me.
--- End quote ---
delalluvia:
The Impossible 8/10
Very disturbing if you have kids.
I liked how the director did not go for sensationalizing the event. You didn't get a build up to the tsunami, no 'forboding', you don't have an outside eye of the event as that is not what the story's focus is about. It's about this family's experience. You experience the tsunami as they did.
So the movie tsunami hits out of the blue as it no doubt did to the real victims. The movie didn't linger on the deaths of thousands or have lurid scenes of those caught in the path of the wave. It stayed focused on the family. There is no 'moral' to the story, the ending is not "Hollywood-ized", you feel very much for the family, you empathize a lot. But though your heart strings are tugged, it's not because the movie is manipulative. Your heart strings are tugged because you're human. Of course you would feel for the people in this situation. You end up feeling a tiny fraction of the stunned shock the victims spent most of the movie in more than anything else. It was a lot more realistic than I expected.
Naomi Watts is amazing as is the actor who played her elder son. Ewan McGregor does what he does best, anchors the movie with his always sincere and believable performance.
Beginners 6/10
While the movie is good, it's a bit too vague and unrealistic for me. The main character Oliver, played by Ewan McGregor spends a lot of the movie sad and not really knowing how to cope, though it appears he had sufficient love and interaction with - his mother at least - parents. You wonder where other family members are to support him. His friends try, but his father's friends, of which there appear to be many, are nowhere in sight.
I give kudos for the director actually showing he has a job, but it disappoints in that he doesn't actually seem productive there and this is shown, so I spent the movie wondering when his bosses were going to lay him off.
His love interest, while I found her character very engaging and interesting, was disappointing in that she remained mysterious, with no real reason why Oliver finds her attractive, there is no clear explanation of why her character is the way she is and her choice of profession was very "Hollywood". I was like, really? ::)
And both, of course, live in large, retro homes in LA and one has a decent sized apartment in NY even though both have professions that do not indicate they get paid much more than a barista at Starbucks.
However, on the upside, the acting was well done. You can see why Christopher Plummer won an Oscar. His acting is effortless. His coming out story is, surprisingly, not the focus of the movie. Neither is how his son deals with it and the ramifications of it. What the focus of the movie is how Oliver deals with grief. While that is good in one way, his father's coming out and being gay isn't the OMG!! event, it's also kind of strange in that it's like window dressing on a movie about grief and loss.
I guess that's a good thing and a sign of progress. Being gay is no longer a big deal.
Watch it if you have nothing else going on because Ewan is at his most beautiful in this and The Impossible.
southendmd:
I'm not into zombies, but I found "Warm Bodies" to be terrific! When the human girl, Julie, tries to ask our zombie hero, known as "R", what his name was (because apparently zombies don't remember much, including their names)--"Is it Robert? Richard? Ricardo?", I wanted to scream a name at the screen!
Note to Gil/oilgun: I finally got "Rocco and his Brothers" from Netflix. You didn't mention it's three hours long!!!. I'll carve out some time however...
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