Phoenix32890 wrote:I saw Psycho when it first came out. The theatre was about eight blocks from my house, and I walked to the theatre, alone. The film scared the living sh!t out of me. As I walked home, I checked behind every bush.
I think of you when I think of the movie, because of how many times I have heard this. ;-)
Piffka wrote:
I'm not a fan of either violent films or horror but I think you'll like The Godfather.
I suspect I'll wonder what the fuss was about and not get it.
Quote:Monsoon Wedding -- loved it & think you might, too. If you do like it, you may enjoy Bend It Like Beckham, which also had a Hindi wedding. Good music in both.
Bend it Like Beckham is actually on my Netflix queue as well.
Quote:A romantic comedy I've seen a dozen times and still like -- Grosse Point Blank. John Cusack was also good (& funny) in High Fidelity & America's Sweethearts which I thought was too harshly panned. I just like him, I guess.
I like Cusack as well.
Quote:It is hard to find good comedies... Calamity Jane recommended Mean Girls for fun & I think you might enjoy it.
I've seen it, some chick forced me to watch it and I wasn't impressed (either way) with it. Didn't find any scene funny but wasn't feeling tortured either.
Quote:My 21-22 yr.old kids said it was truer to life than you'd think -- they laughed their silly, wicked heads off. Since you didn't attend American HS, that film'll show you what you missed.
I actually attended a bit of American High School (most of 9th and part of 10th grade) and agree with your kids (with the caveat that the meaness in the film is downright charitable in comparison and that in real life it rarely ends with happy closure).
I hope you like the Indian films, Craven. You're right about the extra-charitibility of Mean Girls & the happy closure, though having the bus scenes at the end were amusing to me and I thought the line about teachers outside of school being like "dogs walking on their hind-legs" was pretty funny. Too bad about your 9th & 10th grades, I thought you were saved from that.
Have you seen Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction? Both are faves of mine (despite my avowed dislike of violent films).
We're showing the Motorcycle Diaries on Saturday (library's big screen). Since I have to sit through these films I don't usually watch until then, so I can enjoy it more. I'm looking forward to the line-up we've got planned -- Ray, Triplets of Bellville, Antares & Willby Wonderful (he last two are pretty obscure).
I saw Vera Drake tonight. Very sobre film. Struck me as very realistic. Impressive how it catches every little detail, lovingly filmed, with respect for the reality of times past. Very stern movie, tho. Probably wouldnt work to see it on video, attention would be too easily distracted, and then the effect would be gone. There's an element of claustrophobia in everything that's effectively caught and transmitted. But that and the lack of anything much happening does make it a bit oppressive. Well, it's a sad story of course. I gotta admit that the character of Vera and her daughter started to test my patience towards the end. Wanted to tell them to, please - act - get a grip - do. But I guess that was kind of the point. The actress who played Vera was by then reduced to playing her character almost wholly through facial expression, and though my friends were greatly impressed, I found it a teensy bit grating at times.
Still, good film to see. I'd wish it a wide viewership in the States, except that with a movie as slow-paced as this, it wouldn't really work on one anyway. The political moral of the story is as unambiguous as ever, and while Leigh does a good job catching the minutiae of 1950s working class life in London (according to my British acquaintance), his upper class characters are a bit prototypical, not real people much. But this time, at least, their presence is seemingly almost accidental, and the tale their appearance tells of pervasive double morals at least is merely told by juxtaposition, rather than by turning them into characters of somewhat unbelievable evilness. And the tale of those classes, the contrast, does still need to be told. <nods>
All in all, good film, but one I'd be cautious in recommending I s'pose.
Piffka wrote:I'm looking forward to the line-up we've got planned -- Ray, Triplets of Bellville, Antares & Willby Wonderful (he last two are pretty obscure).
Triplettes de Belleville is quite odd, but also quite clever - and really, really beautiful, in how its drawn, coloured - very impressive on that count.
Piffka wrote:I liked it, CJ. I like quirky films and I enjoyed seeing the images of East Germany.
I liked
Goodbye Lenin a lot ... and I was moved by it, I could quite identify with the boy <nods>. I told my sister to see it too.
Then again I wasnt quite moved/entertained by it as much as I thought I would be. The single best thing about the movie is still definitely the idea itself - whoever came up with it, deserves a prize (well, probably got one). But was a bit disappointed at times in that it wasnt made into something better, more, I dunno ... inventive or moving still. But definitely an enjoyable movie, yes.
Piffka wrote:Monsoon Wedding -- loved it & think you might, too. If you do like it, you may enjoy Bend It Like Beckham, which also had a Hindi wedding. Good music in both.
Havent seen either but the reviews here said that - well, basically, if you were to see either, you should see
Bend It Like Beckham.
Piffka wrote:Too bad about your 9th & 10th grades, I thought you were saved from that.
It wasn't a good time for me but I
really enjoyed the experience and find it very valuable today.
Quote:Have you seen Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction? Both are faves of mine (despite my avowed dislike of violent films).
Shawshank is one of my favorites, but I think Pulp Fiction is the most overrated movie in history and Tarantino's shock-jock tendencies bother me more than the fantastic dialogue can make up for so I find most of his films insulting to the viewer.
Quote:We're showing the Motorcycle Diaries on Saturday (library's big screen).
This one says "very long wait" in my Netflix queue, but it's at the top of it.
----
Just added Triplettes de Belleville and Vera Drake to my queue.
Craven -- You find having been a freshman and sophomore in high school valuable? Hmmm. Was that because it allowed you to see the great underbelly of this country?
I'm sorry to hear you didn't like Pulp Fiction. Must admit, I don't enjoy watching the entire thing -- I leave the room when they're getting ready to kill the guys in the apartment and don't come back 'til they're cleaning out the car. That restaurant scene is totally amazing. The whole thing is so stylized! Samuel L. Jackson & John Travolta were good together --both excellent actors.
How about the film The Commitments? I haven't seen that for a while but used to love it. We owned it wore it out and also the soundtrack. (We're Commitments-less.)
I haven't seen Vera Drake but the cuts at the Oscars reminded me of a film I liked called Secrets & Lies. That one's worth a look.
Went to see
El Abrazo Partido with M. and F. tonight. Story of a sullen, but drily comical Argentinian twenty-year old, his mother a Jewish lingerie shopkeeper in an unglamorous but picturesque galeria in the Jewish neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. He has this thing about his father, who left them to go to Israel when he was just a baby. And he wants to use his ancestry to become a Polish citizen, so he can travel. Apart from them there's the brother who once wanted to become a rabbi but now does im- and export of useless gadgets, yelling in the phone like a biznessmen but then stopping to tell some long-winded, quirky story; the Brothers Levin who sell cloth although they're not really brothers; Ramon who's training to win a race against "the Peruvian" on behalf of the whole street; the pretty new secretary of the neighbour (she doesnt speak Spanish yet, but they find ways to communicate); the grandmother who rediscovers the cabaret songs she used to sing in the ghetto, before everything; the slutty not-so-young sexy thang of the Internet shop, whose favourite unit of time is "sometimes" and the Korean couple who came to Argentine to get married, though it turns out they needn't have. Funny, endearing little idiosyncratic movie.
Piffka wrote:I haven't seen Vera Drake but the cuts at the Oscars reminded me of a film I liked called Secrets & Lies.
Same director!
Yep, same director and I'm certain the same quality of film.
AH!!! Another category/list/favorite question. You just can't have too many....<shoots self>
I was thinking--and it's dependant on personal taste, but that's a fun thing to see, as well--
I was thinking of a film festival this weekend.
If you were to arrange the funniest, most laugh out loud trio of films/movies...what would they be?
A trio of the most visually beautiful?
Thanks, anyone who contributes.
I think Sleepy Hollow has to be one of my most beautiful. Considering Dr. Zhivago as another...
Piffka wrote:Craven -- You find having been a freshman and sophomore in high school valuable? Hmmm. Was that because it allowed you to see the great underbelly of this country?
I think school is almost as important for social training as it is for education. I grew up in a different society and a taste of school was a crash course on regular society and it allowed me to fall on my face in a less critical setting (better as a H.S. freshman than a twenty-something in the workplace).
Watched Will Smith play Muhammed Ali tonight on video with some friends. Wasnt none too impressed. Film got lots of beautiful, grand, near-epic shots and scenes, but it dont touch you none nevertheless. Like a symphony piece with lots of clashing cymbals, that drowns any sincere emotion in bombast. And I still couldnt quite take Smith seriously in that role. Also, it could easily have been condensed into half its length. Still there were some great scenes - they just didnt make a great whole.
Just another forumla fight film, nimh, which I've already stated elsewhere on these pages that I've never been a big fan -- aside from agreeeing that "Raging Bull" is still the best of them all and significant as another early Oscar loss for Scorcese that didn't make sense. Now a fight film has edged him out for the big prize he again deserved for "The Aviator."
A while ago I was listing all the films I'd seen at the Rotterdam filmfestival, pledging to write about some of them still. I never did, but in a random other thread I ended up typing out some notes and then looking up some links about
Underexposure, the first Iraqi film made after the invasion.
This post has some notes on the film (embedded in a larger political point I'm afraid), and
this post below has some quotes from / info about the director. Mixed bag - I mean, not just re: the quality of the film & director <grins> but also on what they tell us about Iraq now. But interesting.
I watched I heart huckabees, it was stupid beyond belief but marginally interesting (at least to see just how stupid they were willing to go with it).
I also recently watched Wimbleton, which I loved (though the strange circumstances I watched it under may have contributed) and The Full Monty, which I thought was cute.
Another don't watch, Craven. White Noise, but National Treasure is entertaining.
Although I haven't seen it, Sahara was made into a movie, and some folks have told me that it was rather true to the book!
I'm not sure if a Cussler book can ever be made into a decent movie.... they are a bit outlandish.
We've been meaning to watch National Treasure. Glad to hear you liked it, Letty.
I thought Full Monty was funny, too, Craven. Have you seen Brassed Off or The Commitments? Both are tragi-comedies about similarly un-employed, under-employed. (Not so much sex, however.) My favorite image from the Full Monty may have been their moving around & beginning to dance a little while waiting in line for their dole.... and, of course, the end. Very cleverly done film.
I'll be showing Wilby Wonderful this Saturday. I'm hoping it is as amusing as predicted -- it's cast is supposed to be a who's who of good Canadian actors. We showed the Triplets of Belleville a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend that. Very different but well done animation on the same high level as Fantasia.
"Cellular" was good. "Ray" was excellent, and the one that I truly enjoyed was called, "Control". Surprise ending.
See Mulholland Drive it's flakey and kinetic....
David Lynch can be exasperating to watch with his twited timeframes, his metaphysical flourishes (that's all I can think to call them) and shrouded motivation of his characters. "Mulholland Drive" is deep with atmosphere and entertaining to watch but one has to, I think, be alone and undisturbed watching it. Otherwise you could be barraged with the "what did he/she say?," "what just happened?," questions. Of course, you may be asking those questions yourself and be consistently backing up the DVD.
