Resurrecting the Movies thread...

[Front-Ranger]

Actually, sorry to say, I didn't. I really wanted to like it and wanted the director to be a new Bunuel. But the whole thing was so murky and dark I couldn't really see the details. My favorite character was a mandrake root.

[delalluvia]

Count me in as a member of the "not able to stand Renee Zellweger's face" club!

She scrunches her face unbearably in this movie.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps the real Miss Potter did the same and they hired Renee because she's already so good at it? 

Anthony Lane's review of "Miss Potter" in the New Yorker is hilarious. He talks about how Ewan McGregor's character "is required to utter the line, 'We shall give them a bunny book to conjure with."    Then he writes, "Only one man on earth can speak those words with a straight face, and that is Hugh Hefner." 

    He does say the line, and it's supposed to be funny for both the audience and the characters because in the plotline, Miss Potter has gone to some publishers to get her book published and they accept it, but then send their youngest brother (Ewan's character) to arrange the details.  They're essentially fobbing off the 'bunny book' job as they derisively described it to get rid of their youngest brother who is trying to do something with his life.  Ewan's character is quoting his brothers.

[ednbarby]

I actually quite liked Pan's Labyrinth.  My theater's print was not murky and dark at all.  Yes, of course it was violent, but mercifully most of the violent acts were implied and not shown (or at least not fully).

I thought it was a beautiful parable, actually, of the importance of questioning authority at times when authority is clearly, terribly wrong.

I'm very glad I went to see it today.

[oilgun]

I am not sure if I should post this here, but has anybody seen Little Children?

I saw it yesterday and loved it!  I had to really suspend disbelief when it came to seeing Kate Winslet as plain though, lol! An excellent film with a constant underlying feeling of dread throughout.

Another favourite which I've mentioned in the Oscar Prediction thread, is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.  It was badly marketed and is very underrated, I can't wait for the DVD.  Ben Whishaw was a revelation.

Pan's Labyrinth was a bit disappointing.  I realize that it's billed as fairy tale for adults but I still found the "bad guys" too easy to hate.  I too found the print way too dark.

[mvansand76]

I saw it yesterday and loved it!  I had to really suspend disbelief when it came to seeing Kate Winslet as plain though, lol! An excellent film with a constant underlying feeling of dread throughout.

Another favourite which I've mentioned in the Oscar Prediction thread, is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.  It was badly marketed and is very underrated, I can't wait for the DVD.  Ben Whishaw was a revelation.

Pan's Labyrinth was a bit disappointing.  I realize that it's billed as fairy tale for adults but I still found the "bad guys" too easy to hate.  I too found the print way too dark.

Thank you Oilgun, I am gonna watch it on Tuesday! 

[ednbarby]

I wanted to see Little Children today, myself.  But, alas, it has left all my local theaters.  I ended up seeing Venus and loving that instead.  What a gem!  And again, not just because of the lead actor's (Peter O'Toole's) performance - the movie as a whole was lovely.

Yes, the bad guys were awfully easy to hate in Pan's Labyrinth, but they were fascists, after all.

I still thought it was beautiful.  Sorry about the dark prints you guys have experienced.  I'm usually very sensitive to that, so I'm certain the one I saw did not have that problem.  I remember seeing a very dark print of BBM in one of my theater viewings, and it was very disappointing indeed not to be able to see very much at all - even/especially facial expressions - during TS1.

[delalluvia]

I actually quite liked Pan's Labyrinth.  My theater's print was not murky and dark at all.  Yes, of course it was violent, but mercifully most of the violent acts were implied and not shown (or at least not fully).

I thought it was a beautiful parable, actually, of the importance of questioning authority at times when authority is clearly, terribly wrong.

I'm very glad I went to see it today.

Just came from seeing he movie.  My theater version was dark and murky too.  It was easy to hate the bad guys, but it made you wonder when the Captain drew the straight edge across his mirror image.

I thought it was very well done.

I guess it had a happy ending.

[serious crayons]

Re dark prince prints: I have read articles, I think by Roger Ebert, saying that in order to save money some movie theaters use dimmer projection lighting than the films are designed to require. So that could be the problem, rather than the prints.

I haven't noticed that problem before, but thanks to BBM I do now know that theaters' sound quality differs considerably. The first two times I saw it, I had trouble making out much of the dialogue. The third time I saw it in a different theater, and suddenly everything was clear as a bell. Then back to the original theater, and it was murky again.

[ednbarby]

That makes perfect sense, Katherine.  I would hope Muvico can afford to use the proper lighting systems - they charge more than any other theater in the area.  But I had the same experience with the sound of BBM.  My first two viewings were in that theater.  The picture quality was tremendous, but the sound was not quite clear.  Then I saw it in a theater where the picture was darker, but the sound was perfect.  I think the best showing overall was the Castro Theater showing in San Francisco.  Both the picture and the sound were the clearest I'd ever seen and heard.

Yes, I thought the captain drawing the knife across his own mirror image and deliberately fixing the watch his father had wanted him to keep broken to remind him of the time of his death showed self-loathing probably due to father-son conflict.  So he wasn't quite as cut and dried as he seemed.  I also thought that the showing of his stitching up his own face showed what a hard-ass, tough son of a bitch he was.  I saw him actually as fairly complex.  But the best acting I thought was done by the woman who played Mercedes.  I honestly didn't know whether she was a "good guy" or "bad guy" until about a third of the way through.  I credit the writing and acting for that.

I just thought it was a beautiful film about the power of the imagination to help us through hard times and about how obeying just for obeying's sake is dangerous and wrong.  I imagine if the film had appeared dark and murky the whole time, I would literally not have seen all I did see in it.  But as it was, I thought it was magical.

[oilgun]

Yes, the bad guys were awfully easy to hate in Pan's Labyrinth, but they were fascists, after all.

Lol! Good point but I'm sure fascists aren't evil all the time, wouldn't that be too tiring?  The guy didn't even like his wife, he was really the evil king figure. 

I realise that the shaving & mirror scene and the watch thing were there to add some complexity to the character but for some reason, it wasn't enough for me, I just wanted him dead, no questions asked.  I was hoping that some of his underlings might have second thoughts about following some of the orders. [mild spoiler ahead] Actually, now that I think of it, there were some protests in the farmer and son bottle-in-the face-scene.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I thought it was a wonderful film overall.  I'm just not a big fan of the fantasy genre, I guess. (although I loved Naked Lunch if that can considered fantasy)