Author Topic: Resurrecting the Movies thread...  (Read 1025187 times)

Offline BelAir

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #440 on: December 09, 2007, 11:10:13 pm »
I saw I'm Not There this evening.

Overall, I thought it was a very interesting film.  I expected it to play out as "chapters" with each of the different actors having the central role in each subsequent chapter.  But it wasn't like that at all really, they were all mixed in together.  I guess I spent the first half of the moving just trying to figure things out, but by the second half I could buy that I was watching different aspects of one man's life.  I could even empathize a little.  I wasn't quite prepared for the length of the movie (about 2 1/2 hours).  I was most mesmerized by Charlotte Gainsbourg's (spelling?) performance.  I also found the scenes with Ben Whishaw quite compelling.  I thought Cate Blanchett was quite good (especially her last scene with Bruce Greenwood), but some of her scenes were quite jarring in terms of the loudness of the music, and I also didn't care for the movie video-esque nature of some of her scenes.  It was nice to see Heath smiling in Robbie's early scenes, but by the end I was very sad for Robbie... 

It was definitely worth the six bucks I paid.  In fact I would have paid six bucks just to sit in the theater and listen to the musical tracks, I think.  (So, if you don't like Bob Dylan's music, I doubt you'll like the movie, lol...) 
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Offline oilgun

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #441 on: December 09, 2007, 11:36:38 pm »
I saw I'm Not There this evening.

Overall, I thought it was a very interesting film.  I expected it to play out as "chapters" with each of the different actors having the central role in each subsequent chapter.  But it wasn't like that at all really, they were all mixed in together.  I guess I spent the first half of the moving just trying to figure things out, but by the second half I could buy that I was watching different aspects of one man's life.  I could even empathize a little.  I wasn't quite prepared for the length of the movie (about 2 1/2 hours).  I was most mesmerized by Charlotte Gainsbourg's (spelling?) performance.  I also found the scenes with Ben Whishaw quite compelling.  I thought Cate Blanchett was quite good (especially her last scene with Bruce Greenwood), but some of her scenes were quite jarring in terms of the loudness of the music, and I also didn't care for the movie video-esque nature of some of her scenes.  It was nice to see Heath smiling in Robbie's early scenes, but by the end I was very sad for Robbie... 

It was definitely worth the six bucks I paid.  In fact I would have paid six bucks just to sit in the theater and listen to the musical tracks, I think.  (So, if you don't like Bob Dylan's music, I doubt you'll like the movie, lol...) 

Six bucks!! That only gets me half a seat where I live and I'm talking at a matinee!   :laugh:

I loved Charlotte Gainsbourg.  I fell in love with her in The Science of Sleep and she's fast becoming my favourite actor.  I thought she was great with Heath, they had wonderful chemistry.

Offline BelAir

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #442 on: December 10, 2007, 12:08:12 am »
Oilgun -

I guess if I lived where you live, I'd only get to see half as many movies per year!  I can still remember when matinees were 3 bucks!

Oh - I forgot to mention that I saw a preview for No Country for Old Men.  Yikes, does not look appealing to me at all!  I MIGHT rent it on DVD to see Tommy Lee Jones.... unless someone round here convinces me otherwise.... it looked like too violent of a movie for me...
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Offline oilgun

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #443 on: December 10, 2007, 12:38:41 am »
Belair:  Best you avoid No Country for Old Men because it IS quite violent.

I just watched a great documentary called Helvetica. It was a blind buy for me but I figured it was a safe bet since I've been a committed modernist since the seventies and I love the typeface.   It's chock full of interviews with famous graphic designers, some who love Helvetica and some who hate it.  One jokingly blames the Iraq war on the typeface, another equates it with a disease or fast food.  Others see it as THE perfect typeface that cannot be improved on.  I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in design.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/



Offline delalluvia

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #444 on: December 10, 2007, 01:01:01 am »
AND, Del, ... Since Christian groups are saying Christians should boycott it, I AM SO SEEING IT.  Gleefully.  (I would have anyway for Daniel Craig and the talking polar bear, but this clinches it.)

 :laugh: :laugh:

Yep, anytime the Church says don't see/read/hear something, it's almost always worth seeing/reading/hearing.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #445 on: December 10, 2007, 01:18:28 am »
I just watched a great documentary called Helvetica. It was a blind buy for me but I figured it was a safe bet since I've been a committed modernist since the seventies and I love the typeface.   It's chock full of interviews with famous graphic designers, some who love Helvetica and some who hate it.

Oilgun, once again your movie recommendations have proved very useful. I've read about this film and thought it sounded interesting, but I don't know that I would have gone so far as to rent it. I will now!  :)

Offline MaineWriter

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #446 on: December 10, 2007, 09:35:17 am »
Some more awards news, this time from Los Angeles:

Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," an epic tale of the oil business in early 20th-century California, won four awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in their year-end voting Sunday including best picture, director and actor honors.

Anderson was selected as best director while Daniel-Day Lewis' performance as a rapacious oil man in "There Will Be Blood" won as best actor. The group also gave its production design honor to "Blood's" Jack Fisk, whose early California design won over Dante Ferretti's re-creation of late 19th century London for "Sweeney Todd."

The other multiple-award winner was Christian Mungiu's Romanian film "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" -- the Palme d'or winner at Cannes this year -- which won both best foreign language film honors and best supporting actor in Vlad Ivanov, who played the abortionist in the film.

The film that finished runner-up in the best picture and director categories was Julian Schnabel's French-language "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

Best actress went to French actress Marion Cotillard, who delivered a knock-out performance as Edith Piaf in the biopic "La Vie en Rose." Runner-up was Anamaria Marinca, who played a young woman helping a friend get an abortion in "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

The runner-up to Lewis as best actor was Frank Langella, who played an aging novelist in "Starting out in the Evening."

Tamara Jenkins won the best screenplay citation for "The Savages," her comic drama about two quarreling siblings trying to settle their mentally failing father, beating out "There Will Be Blood," Anderson's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel.

The best supporting actress nod went to Amy Ryan, recognized for her work in two films, "Gone Baby Gone" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead." She won over Cate Blanchett, who played Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There."

Hal Holbrook, who played a retired army officer in "Into the Wild," finished second to "4 Month's" Ivanov.

The New Generation Award, which usually goes to a cinema newcomer, went to Sarah Polley, a long time Canadian actress but first time director with "Away From Her."

In animation, Brad Bird's "Ratatouille," made at Pixar, tied "Persepolis," made in France and directed by Marjane Satrapi (which Vincent Paronnaud co-directed).

In the documentary category, the critics honored Charles Ferguson's Iraqi doc, "No End in Sight." Michael Moore's indictment of health care in the U.S., "Sicko," came in second.

For cinematography, the group voted for Janusz Kaminski's work in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Robert Elswit's cinematography on "There Will Be Blood" was runner-up.

For best musical score, the critics selected the score -- mostly songs written by Glen Hansard and Markita Irglova -- for the Irish musical "Once." Jonny Greenwood's score for "There Will Be Blood" was runner-up.

The Douglas E. Edwards Independent/Experimental Award went to Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa for his film "Colossal Youth," which played at the Redcat in Los Angeles.

The group bestowed its newly created Film Legacy Award to Milestone Films, for its efforts to release such vintage films as "Killer of Sheep" and "I am Cuba," and Outfest Legacy Project, for its restoration efforts on many gay and lesbian films.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i58cca3606862e973c28dbcc6e4b543af
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Offline Lumière

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #447 on: December 10, 2007, 03:53:11 pm »

I too saw The Golden Compass this past weekend.
Lovely fantasy movie, loved it, recommend it.
I will definitely check out the sequels whenever they come out.



Last night, I watched Mulholland Drive for the first time.  I had a headache by the end of the movie but must say that David Lynch's warped mind is genius.  Naomi Watts gave a phenomenal performance in it, IMO.   I have to watch it again to get a clearer understanding of Lynch's tangled web of clues and dream world vs. reality.  Great, even though, disturbing film.


Offline MaineWriter

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #448 on: December 11, 2007, 09:35:48 am »
From Time Magazine:

Monday, Dec. 10, 2007
Do Film Critics Know Anything?
By Richard Corliss

I sprinted down the corridors of TIME this afternoon, eager to spread the news of the New York Film Critics Circle voting for the year's best films. The winner, in the film, director, screenplay and supporting actor categories? The Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, which three different people told me they'd been meaning to see. The runner-up, with wins for best actor and cinematographer? There Will Be Blood, an audience-punishing epic that doesn't open for another two weeks. Best actress? Julie Christie, in Away from her, which earned less than $5 million in its North American release.

I didn't even tell them that the very popular, and very good, Pixar cartoon Ratatouille lost out to a French movie about the troubles in Iran. (Though Persepolis, take my word for it, is funny.) By the time I'd got back to my office I had realized that we critics may give these awards to the winners, but we give them for ourselves. In fact, we're essentially passing notes to one another, admiring our connoisseurship at the risk of ignoring the vast audience that sees movies and the smaller one that reads us.

In the past five days, five groups — the National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Washington. D.C. Film Critics Association and my crowd, the New Yorkers — have convened to choose the most notable movies and moviemakers. No Country was named best picture in four of the groups, There Will Be Blood in L.A. George Clooney won two best actors awards, playing a lawyer at crisis point Michael Clayton, Daniel Day-Lewis a pair for his oil mogul in There Will Be Blood and, in Boston, Frank Langella the prize for playing an aged novelist in Starting Out in the Evening. Three groups selected Julie Christie as best actress — she's an Alzheimer's patient in the Canadian film Away From Her — and two liked Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La vie en rose.

You will be forgiven if, like my friends at Time, you are scratching your head and feigning interest, hoping I'll get quickly to the sexy stuff, like best non-fiction feature (the Iraq docs No End in Sight and Body of War and Michael Moore's Sicko) and distinguished achievement in production design (Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood, L.A.) . Gee, you're wondering, did The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the French story of a man totally immobilized by a stroke, beat out the German spy drama The Lives of Others? (Three out of five critics groups say yes.) If you're getting restless, movie lovers, too bad. You'll be hearing the same obscure names at the Golden Globes and on Oscar night.

In animation, Ratatouille won the award outright in Washington and from the National Board of Review. Boston gave the Pixar film a screenplay award, which rarely goes to a cartoon. But in L.A. it shared the L.A. prize with Persepolis, the biographic cartoon from the Iranian exile Marjane Satrapi. And the New York critics rebuffed Ratatouille — and The Simpsons Movie and Bee Movie and Beowulfand other ani-movies people have actually seen — with a first-ballot vote for Persepolis. An art-house film beat out movies that have already grossed nearly $1.5 billion dollars (or about 47 euros) worldwide.

That's the deal with critics' awards. They give prizes to whom they damn well please. No problem with that; it's their gig, and obviously they should pick their favorites. (The choices are fine with me: No Country, Persepolis and No End in sight are all on my 10 best.) But these laurels factor into publicity campaigns for the Oscars and Golden Globes; often they are the campaigns. It's the way we critics contribute to the art-industrial complex. Our prizes certainly help determine which films get nominated, setting in motion the next round of ballyhoo before the final prizes are handed out. So almost all the nominees will be from worthy obscurities that can't draw much of an audience in the theater or, when the awards shows are aired, on TV.

You might think the highest-rated Oscar telecasts are in years when there's a close contest in the major categories, as with Crash and Brokeback Mountain two years ago. Nuh-uh. It's the runaway years, when billion-dollar blockbusters like Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King get what are essentially People's Choice awards, and its makers wear a path in the rug from their seats to the stage. Moviegoers who are TV viewers don't want horse races; they want coronations — validations that somebody in Hollywood is ready to honor the movies they love.

That won't happen this year. If the Oscars follow the critics' prizes, there won't be a hit film among them — not even the hits that reviewers loved. Disney's megahit comedy Enchanted has the highest rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics' polling site, but I barely heard the film mentioned at the New York voting today. Dozens of scribes raved about the smash comedies Knocked Up and Superbad, but neither film has won a critics' prize. The comedy they love now is Juno, which came out last week.

Actually, it's hard to tell which if any of the critical faves will be popular, because most of the big winners (Diving Bell, No Country, Persepolis, Starting Out in the Evening, Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood) are November or December releases. Half of them haven't hit the commercial theaters yet. Maybe the critical establishment has A.D.D.

But the Golden Globes and the Oscars, if they follow the critics' lead, will have V.D.D. — viewer deficit disorder. Large numbers of people won't watch shows paying tribute to movies they haven't seen. In the old Golden Age days, most contenders for the top Oscars were popular movies that had a little art. Now they're art films that have a little, very little, popularity. The serious movies Hollywood gives awards to in January and February are precisely the kind it avoids making for most of the year. The Oscars are largely an affirmative action program, where the industry scratches its niche. The show is a conscience soother, but not a crowd pleaser.

And it all starts here, with critics fighting over which hardly seen movie they want to call the best of the year.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1693300,00.html
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Offline oilgun

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Re: Resurrecting the Movies thread...
« Reply #449 on: December 11, 2007, 10:24:55 am »

 Gee, you're wondering, did The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the French story of a man totally immobilized by a stroke, beat out the German spy drama The Lives of Others? (Three out of five critics groups say yes.)


That's strange, The Lives of Others is from last year, isn't it?