Author Topic: Resurrecting the Movies thread...  (Read 1025089 times)

Offline ednbarby

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,586
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #120 on: January 31, 2007, 11:22:52 am »
So am I.  Note to self:  Never again.

No more beans!

Offline SFEnnisSF

  • BBM Radio Program Director
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,548
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #121 on: January 31, 2007, 11:49:26 am »
I saw THE GOOD GERMAN last night.  http://thegoodgerman.warnerbros.com/

Cate Blanchett was HOT HOT HOT:D

The movie was not.

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,711
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #122 on: January 31, 2007, 01:27:39 pm »
I saw THE GOOD GERMAN last night.  http://thegoodgerman.warnerbros.com/

Cate Blanchett was HOT HOT HOT:D

Is there any movie out right now that Cate Blanchett is not in? I'm trying to decide whether to go this weekend to see "Babel" (with Cate Blanchett) or "Notes on a Scandal" (with Cate Blanchett).

Offline Lynne

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,291
  • "The world's always ending." --Ianto Jones
    • Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #123 on: January 31, 2007, 01:32:47 pm »
Is there any movie out right now that Cate Blanchett is not in? I'm trying to decide whether to go this weekend to see "Babel" (with Cate Blanchett) or "Notes on a Scandal" (with Cate Blanchett).

I vote Babel, but that's my inner Gustavo fan speaking!
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,711
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #124 on: January 31, 2007, 01:34:17 pm »
I may try to squeeze in both. And because I live in Chicago and the Super Bowl is Sunday -- I might have the whole theater to myself!  :D

Offline nakymaton

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 1,045
  • aka Mel
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #125 on: January 31, 2007, 01:35:13 pm »
A big part of the problem - perhaps the major part - is his collaborater - Paul Haggis.  I can poop better dialog than that man can write.

This is why I won't go see "Letters from Iwo Jima." Heck, I wouldn't have seen Crash even before the BBM snub at the Oscars, simply because I was so annoyed with the writing in Million Dollar Baby.

If this is what counts as good writing in movies these days, well, that's depressing.  ::) (I'm trying to think of what screenwriters other than Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana have impressed me lately, now. Did Emma Thompson write or co-write the script for "Stranger than Fiction"? That was pretty clever. I didn't see "For Your Consideration," but that comedy troupe is usually pretty clever. But that's comedy; I don't know about drama. I guess bad writing can kill comedy as well -- see Saturday Night Live -- but bad writing in drama is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.)
Watch out. That poster has a low startle point.

Offline Lynne

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,291
  • "The world's always ending." --Ianto Jones
    • Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #126 on: January 31, 2007, 01:44:33 pm »
::) (I'm trying to think of what screenwriters other than Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana have impressed me lately, now. Did Emma Thompson write or co-write the script for "Stranger than Fiction"?

Emma's biggest screenwriting successes are Pride & Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility - I thought both were fabulous.

From IMDb:

Nanny McPhee (2005) (screenplay)
Pride & Prejudice (2005) (additional dialogue) (uncredited)
... aka Orgueil et préjugés (France)
Wit (2001) (TV) (teleplay)
Sense and Sensibility (1995) (screenplay)
"Thompson" (1988) TV Series (writer)
Emma Thompson: Up for Grabs (1985) (TV)
An Evening for Nicaragua (1983) (TV)
"Alfresco" (1983) TV Series (additional material)
Cambridge Footlights Revue (1982) (TV)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000668/
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline Meryl

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 12,205
  • There's no reins on this one....
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #127 on: January 31, 2007, 02:46:19 pm »
Aw, Nanny McPhee is really a sweet movie.  I just saw it on cable.  It goes a little awry at the end (snow at the summer wedding?), but it's nicely done.  Emma Thompson is the greatest.  :)
Ich bin ein Brokie...

Offline ednbarby

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,586
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #128 on: February 02, 2007, 03:39:30 pm »
I watched a lovely indy last night - "Sweet Land."  It was a screener for members of Film Independent only (la-tee-da, I know), so it's not available yet for DVD rental.  But it will be soon.  I highly recommend it.  It's about a Norwegian immigrant farmer in Minnesota in the 1920s who has his marriage arranged with a young woman who turns out to be German.  Apparently at that time there was a lot of anti-German/anti-Socialist sentiment, so when the townspeople find out she's German, they essentially turn their backs on both of them and no one will marry them.  She refuses to leave and he's too busy struggling with bringing in his corn crop alone and with no machinery to be too concerned.  So she sleeps in the bedroom and he sleeps in the barn.  She can't speak English and his is only broken, so they can barely communicate, at least with words.  And they fall in love.  And it's magical, because you fall in love with each of them yourself as the layers of their characters are revealed.  They are strong, brave, compassionate people with hearts and wills as big as the all outdoors and you can't help but love both of them.  And watching their furtive glances at each other and how they come to bond before they even touch each other's hands is sublime.  Reminds me of something...  I can't quite put a finger on it, but some other movie where love seemed to be being invented on the screen before our very eyes...  It'll come to me...

On tap for this weekend:  "Children of Men."  I wasn't originally planning to see this one because I don't much like Julianne Moore, but I keep seeing too many good reviews and hearing too many people here and elsewhere say they felt like they were part of the action and it was thrilling, etc., to miss it.
No more beans!

Offline Meryl

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 12,205
  • There's no reins on this one....
Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #129 on: February 02, 2007, 07:17:03 pm »
I finally got to see "Volver" the other day.  I didn't want to miss an Almodovar movie that had gotten such good reviews, and I wanted to see Penelope Cruz in a role that really used her talents.  I enjoyed it, though I wasn't wowed by it. 

It's rather overplotted, with a fair number of twists and turns and convenient coincidences that require some suspension of belief.  Family secrets, ghosts and mistaken identity all figure in the story.  In the hands of, say, Mel Brooks, it would make a good slapstick comedy.  Almodovar makes it more like a Spanish Woody Allen film--you laugh more because of the characters than the situations.  Penelope Cruz does have some nice scenes, but   I don't think it's a role that would usually be singled out for an Oscar nomination.  I think voters were rewarding her for stepping out of the girlfriend roles in big Hollywood movies and doing something more artsy.  She looks great, but a little too great--what regular Spanish housewife who cleans office buildings for a living looks like she's had her hair and makeup done by a professional every day?

In the end I didn't think it was satisfying because it stayed too much in the middle of comedy and tragedy, not taking either far enough.  The other actors are fine, and it's very enjoyable.  Just think of it as a nice, light meal rather than dinner.
Ich bin ein Brokie...