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| Syd |
 Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:18 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I've always liked her since her days on Cybill. Last time I saw her was The Upside of Anger. |
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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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| grace |
| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 9:21 pm |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 3215
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| I'm fairly sure I saw Ms. Witt in an ad for an upcoming flick -- 88 Minutes, I think? |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:19 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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grace wrote: I'm fairly sure I saw Ms. Witt in an ad for an upcoming flick -- 88 Minutes, I think?
I did too, but I don't remember what it was. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Caught Jurassic Park tonight for the first time ever. Not bad. Jeff Goldblum is always good to see. The kids were likable. Some exciting moments. A little too pat: Sam Neill needs to learn to care about kids and, what do you know, this provides a perfect lesson; they need a hacker and, what do you know, that's what the little girl likes to do. Too many cases where a tense situation is followed by a clever line (the reason "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat" works so well in Jaws is that they don't try something like that every five minutes). But I enjoyed it. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:31 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Joe,
I saw Jurassic Park on opening night at the Ziegfield in NYC. It was far better than "not bad". In fact, it was wonderful. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:32 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Babel's a film that has a lot to recommend it, but doesn't quite make it as one of the best films of the year for me. It consists of four loosely related stories united by a common event and theme, as in earlier films such as Traffic (drugs), Crash (racial prejudice), and Syriana (oil). Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga did this before in Amores Perros, where the links were a car accident and dogs, but in that one, after the initial crash, the main plots were told as separate stories, with an occasional common event, more like Pulp Fiction than Crash. I haven't seen 21 Grams, so someone else has to tell me where that fits in.
Here the theme has to due with misunderstandings, and the most dangerous come when one side has an official capacity to hide behind. Here's a bit of the four plots:
(1) A goatherd in Morocco receives a gun and three hundred cartridges to protect his herd from jackals. He has two young sons who he teaches to shoot to help him out. The kids hear that the gun can hit a target at three kilometers and, naturally, decide to try this out. After missing a few targets, they decide to take some potshots at a distant bus. At first they assume they miss, but then the bus stops, they realize they may have hurt someone, and they run.
(2) Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are a couple on tour in Morocco after the crib death of their baby. Blanchett is the one hit by the bullet. She desperately needs medical attention before she bleeds to death and the nearest hospitals are too far away, so they take her to the nearest town where they can find someone with some medical training.
These two stories get caught up the stupidity of international posturing and the assumption that an American shot in a Muslim country must be a victim of terrorism even if there is no terrorism to speak of in that country. In this case the posturing puts the wife's life in even greater danger and the terrorizing of the nearby population in the search for the terrorism.
(3) Meanwhile, back in the states, the couple's nanny is taking care of their two kids but her brother is getting married in Mexico. Unable to find a suitable caretaker, she and her nephew take the kids to the wedding, where they enjoy themselves. Returning, however is not so simple, for why are two Mexicans crossing the border with two small pale-skinned blond children.
(4) Finally we have the story of a troubled and lonely Japanese deaf-mute girl whose mother committed suicide. With her father distracted and her having problems relating to boys who dismiss her because her handicap, she gets involved with a series of increasingly desperate attempts to use her sexuality as means of human contact. This includes using the classic method for which Sharon Stone became famous.
We switch back and forth between these story lines. Now the first two are intimately connected and I think work the best. The third is not only more loosely connected, but takes place after the first two, so we are not only switching back and forth in place, but in time as well. The fourth line has a connection that finally becomes explicit, but for the most part doesn't relate to the others at all.
This sounds like it might be confusing, but thanks to the skill of the director and screenwriter, it isn't at all. All the stories are compelling, although I eventually grew tired of the one about the nanny and the kids, and I frankly didn't like the Cate Blanchett character. I think, however, that having stories intertwined both in place and in time dilutes the impact of each. I don't want to exaggerate this. Since each of the four threads takes place in sequence, I never felt lost. It does lead to a powerful moment when you realize you are listening to one end of a phone conversation that you heard the other end of two hours earlier. So there are compensations to the structure. And the segment involving the two kids and the last three or four scenes in the Japanese thread are really powerful.
In short, an often excellent film, which is dragged down a bit by its structure and a bit by the fact that when you have four threads going, some are going to turn less compelling than the others. |
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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: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:48 am |
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BABEL SPOILERS:
One of the things that struck me is that most of the encounters with government agencies were negative, but that the people in the village where Pitt and Blanchett stayed acted admirably. Although I thought the detective in the Japanese segment also acted well. He just didn't realize exactly what was going on in the head of the girl.
I also notice that this writer/director team shied away from the worst. There could easily have been six or seven more major deaths in the movie. (I'm not entirely sure whether one character died.) I was all set up for one suicide that never happened. |
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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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| Melody |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:15 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: TX
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Good review, Syd. While I mostly agree with you about the awkwardness of Babel's interlocking storylines, I was knocked out by Adriana Barraza's nanny. When all was said and done, Barraza's story was the one I cared deeply about and would have preferred the movie center around her, NOT the pasty white people in Morocco.
I read an interview with Barraza recently where she revealed that those scenes of her carrying Elle Fanning in the Sonoran desert were filmed in 100+ degree heat -- and Barraza has a history of heart trouble.
The pain and fear in her eyes comes from deep within and transcends acting, tapping into a wellspring of desperation, the stuff of nightmares, and I can't get the image of her in her red dress, in the vastness of the desert, out of my mind.
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:18 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Melody wrote: Good review, Syd. While I mostly agree with you about the awkwardness of Babel's interlocking storylines, I was knocked out by Adriana Barraza's nanny. When all was said and done, Barraza's story was the one I cared deeply about and would have preferred the movie center around her, NOT the pasty white people in Morocco.
I read an interview with Barraza recently where she revealed that those scenes of her carrying Elle Fanning in the Sonoran desert were filmed in 100+ degree heat -- and Barraza has a history of heart trouble.
The pain and fear in her eyes comes from deep within and transcends acting, tapping into a wellspring of desperation, the stuff of nightmares, and I can't get the image of her in her red dress, in the vastness of the desert, out of my mind.
Though I question the director's wisdom in allowing a woman with a history of heart disease to perform these acts in 100-degree heat, still this is more of a directorial and cinematographical achievement than an acting one, isn't it? Not to downgrade Barraza's acting, but I think she's gotten as many points for the character and the context as for outright acting skill. |
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| Melody |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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You've got a point, Billy. I think of the above scene when I think of Barraza (and Inarritu).
BUT: consider the very real sweat on her face and body during those scenes, the desperation she feels for herself and the kids, the contempt she has for her body as it gives out on her, the soul-wrenching realization that she can't go on. All those emotions play out on her face better than any dialogue could and require an actress of substance to pull them off. She is, and she did. |
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:46 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| Word. By the way, the larger part of the message of this film (if indeed there was one) is that we are all connected. I found the editing and storylines completely seamless. But then again, I found Babel to be THE movie of the year, 2006. |
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It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:57 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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BTW, Nancy & Syd, I did see Yaji & Kita, I liked it a lot, and I want to see it again before finishing a writeup.
There seemed to be a lot going on in there, but that might be because I've never heard the story before. According to the 1960 translation of Hizakurige (the original source material, which the Pretty Good Library has), it (the original!) plays a role in Japan similar to the role Dicken's The Pickwick Papers plays in English.
...so I'm thinking I had a completely different reaction as a Westerner to what a typical Japanese would have. I did think, though, that SPOILER the interpretation of the story, seen through Yaji & Kita's eyes, is a dream trip, but what's actually going on is much closer to reality than you'd think. Especially the situation with Yaji's wife. |
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| Jynx |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:27 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 750
Location: Nowheresville
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Quote: But then again, I found Babel to be THE movie of the year, 2006.
Here here!
I bought it last night and I've also got The Departed; can't decided which to pick apart first. Although I loved the interaction in Babel and thought it flowed wonderfully. I'm still absolutely stunned that Pitt didn't get a nod, especially after revisting Half-Nelson. Gosling was good, but no where near planet Brad.
I need to rent Quote: The Upside of Anger |
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"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass ... and I'm all out of bubblegum." |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:36 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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jynx -
Now what the hell did we do to deserve THAT? |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:40 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Jynx wrote: Quote: But then again, I found Babel to be THE movie of the year, 2006.
Here here!
I bought it last night and I've also got The Departed; can't decided which to pick apart first. Although I loved the interaction in Babel and thought it flowed wonderfully. I'm still absolutely stunned that Pitt didn't get a nod, especially after revisting Half-Nelson. Gosling was good, but no where near planet Brad.
I need to rent Quote: The Upside of Anger again; after seeing that post, I want to watch it again. I thought it was a good/very good film, Costner plays the doofus so well.
Costner's was THE performance of 2005. And he wasn't such a doofus, in fact. He had a lot of doofusy moments, but at the end of the day he was the wisest one in the bunch. |
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