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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:56 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: Stephanie Zacharek has now referred to Heathers as "smug" and "faux-sardonic."
I assume that was in a review of Because I Say So, Michael Lehmann's latest. Right? |
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| Melody |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:30 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2242
Location: TX
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Joe Vitus wrote: Stephanie Zacharek has now referred to Heathers as "smug" and "faux-sardonic." I will never bother with her reviews again.
LOL! C'mon, Joe, it's okay to label Heathers faux-sardonic since it's a satire. Plus, there's the Christian Slater Factor.
You gotta give me a better reason to be hatin' on Ms. Zacharek. |
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Melody wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Stephanie Zacharek has now referred to Heathers as "smug" and "faux-sardonic." I will never bother with her reviews again.
You gotta give me a better reason to be hatin' on Ms. Zacharek.
Melody--"Smug" and "faux" are negative adjectives in this context. And if Joe loves Heathers to distraction, the knowledge that a critic did not like it might lessen his respect for her.
All it took was one public hug for GWB to make me write off John McCain forever. (Oh, you question my analogy, huh? Well!) |
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| Melody |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2242
Location: TX
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Billy, right there with ya on McCain. At the Christmas '05 Family Shindig, when I was accused of being such a fierce liberal that I was blind to any Republicans, even moderates, I offered up John McCain as a Good Republican I Could Possibly Support for President. Boy, have I come to eat those words a thousand times since then.
But you're trying to distract me. It won't work.
Do you disagree that Heathers is both smug and faux-sardonic? I like the movie a lot, too, and I can see how those adjectives fit the bill. If she had said "smugly satirical," would that have softened the blow?
(Sort of like the question I heard all over Air America yesterday: "If Joe Biden had omitted the word 'clean' in his seven-adjective description of Barack Obama, would it have been acceptable?") |
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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The Four Ghosts of the White House
One night, George W. Bush is tossing restlessly in his White House bed.
He awakens to see George Washington standing by him Bush asks him,
"George, what''s the best thing I can do to help the country?"
"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises, and then fades away...
The next night, Bush is astir again, and sees the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moving through the darkened bedroom.
Bush calls out, "Tom, please! What is the best thing I can do to help the country?"
"Respect the Constitution, as I did," Jefferson advises, and dims from sight...
The third night sleep still does not come for Bush.
He awakens to see the ghost of FDR hovering over his bed.
Bush whispers, "Franklin, What is the best thing I can do to help the country?"
"Help the less fortunate, just as I did," FDR replies and fades into the mist...
Bush isn''t sleeping well the fourth night when he sees another figure moving in the shadows.
It is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
Bush pleads, "Abe, what is the best thing I can do right now to help the country?"
Lincoln replies, "Go see a play." |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:34 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I finally watched all Random Harvest, which really does improve if you see the first half. I still think she should have tried hitting him over the head a few times, and the last line should be, "Why the hell didn't you tell me who you were ten years ago? |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:32 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| In the continuing absence of Roger Ebert, Stephanie Zacharek has become my benchmark American critic, which is not to say my favourite or the most insightful or whatever; it's just that she gives get an honest, readable and reliable review. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Stephanie Zacharek has now referred to Heathers as "smug" and "faux-sardonic."
I assume that was in a review of Because I Say So, Michael Lehmann's latest. Right?
Yup. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:03 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Vagabond Lover is a VERY early sound film (1929 to be exact). Since Al Jolson had had a hit with The Jazz Singer, it was natural to build a movie around another singing sensation, Rudy Vallee, who here makes his acting debut. (He'd earlier done a couple of performance shorts.) To tell the truth, he couldn't act much at all at this time. He's wooden and appeared petrified. He and his love interest (a very pretty Sally Blane) pretty much announce their lines. Fortunately, this was a musical vehicle for Vallee, and if you like his singing, there's a lot of it. The songs are old-fashioned, but they grew on me, and a couple of them, "A Little Kiss Each Morning" and "I'll Be Reminded of You," deserve to be revived. I have a soft spot for Rudy Vallee since he popularized "The Stein Song," my alma mater's fight song.
Redeeming the acting is one of the first sound appearances of Marie Dressler, funny as a formidable society matron in the Margaret Dumont mode. I also liked Nella Walker as her rival patron of the arts.
The story: Rudy is lead singer and saxophonist for an amateur band. Although a talented singer, he was a mediocre saxophonist until he took the correspondence course of the famous Ted Grant, and Rudy is now actually good. So he and his band go to audition for the famous Ted Grant, who, of course, would be absolutely delighted to hear his prize pupil. Beseiged by pupils, expecially Rudy, Grant runs for the hills, but, not knowing this, one of Rudy's band members gets a bright idea: they will climb into Grant's house and start playing for Grant, who will surely be so impressed he'll lend them a hand, hopefully before he calls the cops. So Rudy and the band audition to an empty house.
Meanwhile, Grant's neighbors (Dressler and Blane) see the band entering the house through the window and call the cops. It happens that Mrs. Whitehall (Dressler) has been trying to get Grant to play for a charity gala to help orphans, but neither she nor her niece Jane (Blane) have actually seen him, and when Jean suggests Rudy's band might be Grant's, the band leaps at the suggestion to avoid arrest. Rudy's band plays a couple of numbers to show they really are a band, and Jane, of course, instantly falls for Rudy. (She's a 20's female and this is Rudy Vallee, so this is inevitable.) Mrs. Whitehall sees her chance to trump her rival and convinces the gala committee to allow "Grant's" band to play all the music at the gala.
The band, of course, is found out, and are making their escape, but darn it, that means the gala will fail and the poor orphans will get no money, so what is the poor band to do? Right, you guessed it, and one step ahead of arrest.
The Vagabond Lover is a slight film and a lot of actors in it either never acted before or don't know how to act in a sound film. I'm reminded of some of the acting in The Singing Cavalier. I laughed when I saw a big corsage on Sally Blane's shoulder, thinking "So that's where they put their microphone." The film has survived very well and the sound quality isn't bad. Vallee has a soft voice and doesn't use a megaphone here, so he's wise to stick to ballads.
Fortunately, Rudy Vallee did eventually learn to act, and turned in a great performance as the shy millionaire in The Palm Beach Story. Sally Blane was born Elizabeth Jane Young, one of four acting Young sisters, and though she appeared in a lot of films over the next decade, is mostly known for being Loretta Young's sister. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:13 pm |
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Melody wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Stephanie Zacharek has now referred to Heathers as "smug" and "faux-sardonic." I will never bother with her reviews again.
You gotta give me a better reason to be hatin' on Ms. Zacharek.
Well, her persistent imitation-Kael voice has driven me crazy forever (and I love Kael). But, come on, Heathers is a landmark movie, a genuinley dark teen comedy that marks a dividing line between the the 80's and the 90's. To miss that, and to label its sardonic sensibility "faux", is to make a really bad call.
I get what you're saying about Slater. And Winona Ryder, for that matter. But it's a defining movie of its time, and not the slick, processed thing that she implies. I'd go so far as to say it opened the door for 90's films in the way Bonnie And Clyde did for the 60's. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Joe, I thought Heathers was no more than ok. And I really don't see the claims your making for it. I'd love to know what was so special about it that paved the way for...well what exactly. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8251
Location: Salt Lake City
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billyweeds wrote: All it took was one public hug for GWB to make me write off John McCain forever. (Oh, you question my analogy, huh? Well!)
I felt there was more behind the hug that showed where McCain's real agenda lies. While there are some things that come out of McCain's mouth that make sense, a lot of them seem to be what others may simply just want to hear. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:57 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Alexander Nevsky, surprisingly, I never saw before although it's considered a classic. I had problems with it. It was made in 1938, when war between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union appeared inevitable, and the film was made to rally the Russian people against the Teutons by presenting the story of a previous war between the Teutonic Knights and the Republic of Novgorod.
The Russian principalities have had a rough five years. First the Mongols came pouring out of central Asia in 1237, conquering the steppes and reducing the Russian principalities to tributary states. The Swedes saw Novgorod's vulnerablility and invaded, but were stopped cold at the Battle of the Neva River near modern St. Petersburg, won by Prince Alexander, who thus became known as Alexander Nevsky. Don't ask me why a Republic has a Prince.
The Mongols having devastated much of Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Teutonic Knights decide to retaliate by conquering Novgorod, since everybody else is. The Knights do a lot more than invade, they rape, pillage, burn and tear babies from their mother's arms and throw them in the fire. Novgorod's ruling oligarchy is torn. Perhaps the Knights will only massacre all the poor peasants leaving the boyars to grow rich from trade. The poor peasants don't appreciate this idea, so they call on Alexander Nevsky to save them. Nevsky was kicked out of Novgorod after his previous victory when political opponents grew jealous. However, after a few qualms, he agrees to lead the army of Novgorod.
Alexander, furious at the Knights sacking of Pskov, determines not to let the Knight on Russian soil. The Knights are coming through Estonia, and the border between Novgorod and Estonia is Lake Peipus, which is where Alexander determines to make his stand. On a solidly frozen lake, in the middle of Russian winter. Unfortunately, the enemy will discover, solidly frozen for humans does not mean solidly frozen for armored knights on horseback.
There are a lot of good things in this movie, especially the views of the frozen Russian plains that make it even more astonishing that the greedy Teutonic Knights would want to conquer this wasteland. Surely it would be more comfortable to spend the winter reading before the fire and come calling in the spring? The battle is very well done and has been ripped off many times, notably in Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and King Arthur. The most spectacular part of the battle is at the end, when the defeated Knights retreat toward Estonia only to have the ice crack open underneath. This disaster is so convincing you wonder how many actors died in the making of the film. You almost feel sorry for the Teutons despite their being murderous Nazi thugs. (Some of them have swastikas.)
Now the bad things. The film is a propaganda piece, and the propaganda is laid on not with a trowel, but a cement mixer. The Teutons are totally evil, the Russians (except for those treasonous boyars) virtuous. Alexander is flawless. Prokofiev did the score, which is full of hymns to mother Russia and stirring martial music. This is a story of people vs. people, without much room for humans. About the only characters at all on the Russian side are a romantic triangle, where a woman named Olga is going to choose which of two suitors to marry by who is more heroic on the battlefield. [The great moment in the film, outside of the battle, is the aftermath, where Olga comes across her two would-be lovers, both of whom have been hurt in the battle, and takes them off the battle field, each of them leaning on one of her shoulders.] |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:03 am |
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Yet another movie review. I don't think I should be reading text too much at the moment, so I'm watching movies instead. Of course, then I have to review them...
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams is a frustrating film to watch. It is a stunningly beautiful film and you really want to love it, but it's also very preachy and bits that go on and on and on.
For example: The last section, "The Village of the Watermills," in which a wanderer comes across a strange village which seems to have cut itself off from the modern world. The wanderer comes across some children laying flowers on a stone, then he comes across an old man. The town has no name, but since there are churning waterwheels everywhere, it is nicknamed Watermill Village. He asks the old man about the village. The people in the village live in harmony with nature. They have no electricity for they do not need it. Candles and lamps will do. No need to come between man and the night. People should live naturally. Apparently thirty-foot tall waterwheels are natural. What are the wheels for? We never find out.
People in the village live until they're ready to die. Today there's a funeral for a woman who died at the age of 99. She was the old man's first love. He's over 100. Let's go to the funeral.
The funeral procession goes on and on, repeating the same song over and over. We get the idea after one or two minutes, but the procession goes on for more like ten.
The stone is the gravestone of a nameless traveller who died in the village. The flowers are to commemorate whoever he was. The wander places flowers on the grave. The end.
All the dreams have beautiful, striking images. Most of them have tedious or preachy sections. Sometimes they end abruptly.
In the first dream, a little boy is watching the sun through the rain. His mother explains that this is when the foxes hold their processions. They do not like humans watching their processions and do not easily forgive. The boy does not heed the warning and goes to see the procession. (The procession is people in fox masks.) He is spotted and runs home. When he gets there, his mother will not let him in. A fox has come by, leaving him a dagger with which to kill himself. The only way he can save himself is to go to the home of the foxes beneath the rainbow and hope he can receive their rare forgiveness. He finds the rainbow. End of story. Does he earn their forgiveness? Perhaps, assuming the other stories are dreams of the same person.
Some of the ones I liked: the second one, about the peach orchard, where a boy is visited by a strange disappearing woman. He follows her to the former site of a peach orchard. He is prevented from entering by the ghosts of the spirits who inhabited the trees of the forest. However, since the boy loves peaches, they give him one last glimpse of the orchard in its glory. This is a pretty little story, nicely told, and complete.
A commander is about to enter a tunnel. He hears a beast coming. It is a strange, snarling dog, the sentinel of the tunnel. He goes through. He hears footsteps behind him. It is a dead soldier who still believes he's alive and is within site of his home, where his parents also believe he's still alive. The commander explains that the soldier died in his arms. The soldier returns into the tunnel, then there is a loud sound of marching soldiers. It is the third platoon, none of which believe they were injured in war, but who in reality died to a man at the orders of the commander, who himself was taken prisoner and suffered torments, but not as much as the dead soldiers. He orders the platoon about face, and they march into the tunnel. The sentinel comes out of the tunnel, snarling and biting at the commander.
The really bad stories are the apocalyptic "Mt. Fuji in Red" in which Mt. Fuji is ignited by exploding nuclear power plants. It's a great image, but turns into a diatribe against nuclear power. This is followed by "The Weeping Demon," a post-apocalyptic nightmare which is even preachier, although I love the image of the ten-foot tall mutant dandelions.
"The Blizzard" has a team of mountaineers caught in a storm and trying to find their tent. They march on. And on. And on. It snows. And on. They tire. The leader falls asleep and has a vision of a snow fairy. The wind comes up, the fairy is blown away. He wakes up, wakes up the other and there's the tent. Outside of the snow fairy, which is a lovely image, this segment is amazingly tedious.
"The Crows" is a journey into the worlds of Vincent Van Gogh, surprisingly effective except for Martin Scorsese's cameo as van Gogh. (Van Gogh cut off his ear because he simply couldn't paint it right.) However the way the landscapes transform into paintings and back again is very nice. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:52 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Melody,
Sorry, I missed this earlier:
Quote: Do you disagree that Heathers is both smug and faux-sardonic? I like the movie a lot, too, and I can see how those adjectives fit the bill. If she had said "smugly satirical," would that have softened the blow
The movie wasn't smug. Actually, it was more earnest than the cheesy crap that was churned out through most of the 80's. But it's sharp satire worked like an antiseptic after all those treacly Brat Pack movies, and neuter Rob Lowe romantic comedies and comfy yuppie mainstream pics that filled the decade. And that it came through what is generally the biggest sell-out genre of all time, the teen pic, made it especially sweet.
Nearly everyone my age loved it, which is telling. It was the first movie to feature the return of verbal slapstick and toughmindedness (which is not the same as callousness) our generation was responsible for. It announced the seismic shift: welcome to the 90's. (But we didn't know that yet. We thought it was a one shot deal and watched it over and over, figuring it would never happen again. We didn't get yet that our tastes would be the center of attention in a couple of years.)
For Zacharek to miss that, to not get why people hold it in high regard, shows her being particularly dense about a major shift in popular culture. A pretty big gaffe for any film critic.
jeremy wrote: Joe, I thought Heathers was no more than ok. And I really don't see the claims your making for it. I'd love to know what was so special about it that paved the way for...well what exactly.
It was the first genuine black comedy released in about a decade. People didn't have the guts to write jokes like that beforehand. To the supposedly ever-upbeat councillor: "Thanks. And call me when the shuttle lands." For an audience that watched the Challenger explode, that dialogue brought as many gasps as it did laughs. In fact, when, or if, the audience felt it was okay to laugh at kids getting murdered (and celebrated after death by people who'd always hated them) changed from screening to screening. I loved watching this movie with an audience more than any other I can think of.
It was exhilarating. It showed that you could challenge an audience and still succeed. This was back when nothing original or unusual was getting through. It was funnier, smarter, and more daring than anything that had been released in a long time, and proved there was an audience for it. No, Heathers, no Pulp Fiction, Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Clerks, or There's Something About Mary. |
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