The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Resurrecting the Movies thread...
ednbarby:
I saw Half Nelson. It was very good. Very... raw. As good as Ryan Gosling was, the performance somehow didn't stay with me. I probably need to don my hard hat again, but I think it's being a tad overrated.
One nice thing about living in Boca Raton - we do get many arthouse films here that a lot of similar-size markets don't because there are so many transplanted New Yorkers here. We never did get Sherrybaby or Sweet Land, unfortunately, but we have gotten several others that didn't make it to other places.
Kelda:
--- Quote from: Kd5000 on January 05, 2007, 03:55:59 pm ---I think I will remember this cinematic year for the number of disappointments. I was looking fwd to RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. It wasn't up to par.
--- End quote ---
Really? - I was really looking forward to seeing this (not in UK cinemas yet) as I really enjoyed the book.
From the 'best Movie of 2006' thread in 'Movie resources' ...
quote author=JakeTwist link=topic=7088.msg135563#msg135563 date=1167626628]
http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/features/article2115036.ece
The Belfast Telegraph
Damon's top 5 movies
[Published: Sunday 31, December 2006 - 15:27]
By Damon Smith
1. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (released January 6)
The most controversial film of the year, Ang Lee's heartbreaking love story, based on a 30-page novella by Annie Proulx, wears its heart on its sleeve to chart the tempestuous 20-year love story of ranch hands Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), who cross paths one summer in ultra-macho 1960s Wyoming.
This is a heartrending portrait of an enduring yet impossible love, distinguished by gorgeous cinematography, haunting orchestral score and an elegant screenplay.
Gyllenhaal's energetic turn as talkative dreamer Jack contrasts with Ledger's riveting portrayal of an introverted soul, simmering with self-loathing.
Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway are stunning as the wives who end up casualties of Jack and Ennis's war with their true desires. As Jack puts it: "That ol' Brokeback got us good."
2. UNITED 93 (released June 2)
On September 11, 2001, the world as we knew it was changed forever. The events in New York City that fateful autumn still resonate today and are a stark reminder of mankind's terrifying capability for destruction.
Paul Greengrass' harrowing recreation of events on United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane, unfolds in real time, beginning with scenes of the hijackers in their hotel rooms, preparing for their mission.
Greengrass shoots events in the claustrophobic cabin and on the ground on handheld cameras, with a cast of largely unknown actors playing the passengers.
Key military and civilian personnel, including Ben Sliney (the man in charge of the FAA's command centre), play themselves, adding to the unsettling air of realism.
Even though we know, with sickening certainty, how the film will end, we pray for a different resolution.
3. THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU (released July 14)
Cristi Puiu's jet black comedy, charting one man's haphazard journey through the Romanian health system, is by turns hilarious and emotionally heartbreaking, shot with an unflinching eye for detail.
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4. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (released September 8 )
Husband and wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris gearshift seamlessly from directing music videos to the vast canvas of big screen with their glorious celebration of 21st century family life in all of its perplexing, dysfunctional glory.
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5. RED ROAD (released October 27)
British writer-director Andrea Arnold, who collected the 2005 Oscar for best live action short, graduates effortlessly to feature film with this voyeuristic thriller that crawls under your skin and lingers in the memory long after the end credits roll.
CCTV operator Jackie (Kate Dickie) is one of the team of people charged with scouring the city, spotting trouble before it happens. While focusing one of the cameras on the Red Road estate, Jackie is shocked to see Clyde (Tony Curran), the man she thought was still in prison for killing her husband and child.
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http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/features/article2115036.ece
© Belfast Telegraph
[/quote]
Red Road is a notorious estate in Glasgow (gang fights are common - and its really just a very depressing council estate) - I haven't seen it but I have been told it gived a pretty accurate portrayal of life there. And has got a lot of directing and acting awards... If you want an idea of REAL scottidh accents - and not those of Mel Gibson in Braveheart - see this!!!
ednbarby:
OK, so I finally saw United 93 on Friday night. Wow. WOW.
I would urge everyone to see it mainly because it's so well-done. It's difficult to watch, though - not for the reason you might think - not because it's tear-jerking and/or manipulates you into caring so deeply for the characters that you're haunted afterwards. But because it's so fast-paced that it agitates you. It agitates you to know what ultimately happened to those poor people and to wish you could tell them through the TV set what's going on and to take the plane over sooner so they can save themselves.
My husband was actually quite upset afterwards, and I, for once, had to calm him down. It wasn't because he's an airline pilot and it freaked him out to think he could be on the receiving end of such a thing. But because he truly believed that had he or someone like him (who is an airline pilot who happens to have a purple belt in karate and who used to carry a hunting knife under one of his socks back when they could still do that) been on that flight, he could have saved them all. And he was upset that they didn't do what they did sooner. I told him you have to remember that they had no idea that the hi-jacking was any different from the kind they'd known of in the past, where they take you somewhere and make demands of the government but eventually let you go. It was only when they started talking to people on the ground about it that they learned the truth, and by then, it was too late. But the fact that they did as much as they did and didn't just sit there like lemmings waiting to die, I think, is extraordinary.
The movie was fantastic. It is *not* a Hollywood movie. That's what I love about it. There is no back-story on any of the people on the plane. You can't even figure out who Todd Beamer is until he finally says his infamous line "Let's roll." And it's not said in a big Hollywood, "Die Hard," Ahnuld kind of a way. It's said in the way a real guy under those conditions would say it at that moment. If you blink, you might miss it. I only recognized two of the actors - the only way it could have been better, I think, as if I didn't recognize any of them. Because other than them, you feel as if you're watching a film someone on that plane and in those air-traffic control towers and at that military base took that somehow survived it all. It feels real. You are there. I can't say enough about how impressive it is that Peter Greengrass made the suspense build like he did even though you know the outcome. Or maybe it's because you know. It made my stomach spin.
But I talked about it with my husband for about a half hour afterwards and then went to bed and had no trouble sleeping, and didn't find myself crying in the shower afterwards. Why? I don't think I'm heartless. But I think this was, thankfully, an extraordinary situation that people got caught up in that brought the best out of most of them and the worst out of some of them. We can only relate to it in our imaginations. Most of us have not been held at gun- or knife- or bomb-point.
It's a reverent tribute to all of those people without being manipulative like World Trade Center, I think, was.
Scott6373:
Wasn't it something? I need to watch it again soon.
ednbarby:
Sure enough, Scott.
Here's a link to a site that plays several critics' sound bites about it. Gotta say I agree with all of them - especially "intestinally powerful." I have never had my stomach so churned up by any movie in my life. I could feel the tension in every single person on that screen, even the terrorists (which was in itself unsettling). I also strongly agree with the critic who said, "both unbearable and unmissable."
http://www.united93movie.com/
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