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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Since I liked Un Chien Andalou, Nancy introduced me to Entr'acte, which is another surrealist film which makes a little less sense, and I found a long clip from Man with a Movie Camera, which was a film made in 1929 that is one long experiment with what you could do playing with film, and makes the other two look like they have plots. |
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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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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:58 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Syd wrote: Since I liked Un Chien Andalou, Nancy introduced me to Entr'acte, which is another surrealist film which makes a little less sense, and I found a long clip from Man with a Movie Camera, which was a film made in 1929 that is one long experiment with what you could do playing with film, and makes the other two look like they have plots.
Entr'acte is wild, although it's been a long time since I've seen it.
I love Man with a Movie Camera, although I saw it with the Alloy Orchestra score (which may make a big difference - for example, I can never see Aelita, Queen of Mars again because it had a theremin accompaniment that was never released on video, and I can't imagine it with anything else). I don't think the other score out there quite does it justice.
The showing I saw it at was sponsored by a film prof at Rutgers, who explained that there were seven "day-in-the-life-of-a-city" movies produced over time:
Manhatta (1921)
Berlin: Symphony of a City (Walter Ruttmann, 1927)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
A Propos de Nice (Jean Vigo, 1929)
Daybreak Express (J.A. Pennebacker, 1953)
I'm forgetting the other two.
(I've seen all listed except for Manhatta.)
And although I don't think there was a consicous effort to create a genre, he was right; the movies have individual characteristics (and they're not all classics by any means) but they're all clearly "biographies" of the cities they capture. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:59 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: It's really picky to be so into ranking, but For Your Consideration IMO is better than A Mighty Wind, slightly less good than Waiting for Guffman, and right about on a par with Best in Show. Bottom line: they're all worth seeing, but A Mighty Wind is the one I could live without. It's just not as...funny.
FYC has a great performance by Catherine O'Hara which all by itself makes the movie a must.
Totally agree. I loved FYC and perhaps even moreso as I saw it right before the Oscars. And there was something so tongue in cheek about this whole movie that I loved.
I haven't see Best in Show, so I can't be into ranking. But it reminds me to put it into my queue.
I also loved some of Guest's non regulars especially Ricky Gervais. But I'm such a fan of his. Interesting to hear on the commentary that when he first met Guest about doing this movie he said, "I don't improvise!" |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Salt Lake City
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Nancy wrote: Syd wrote: I like Best in Show the best of the Guests. For Your Consideration is worth seeing for Catherine O'Hara and Parker Posey at their best.
Harry Shearer is also good. Loved his commercial for Hula Balls. Made me want to rush right out and not buy them.
Guess I'll be putting FYC on my list. I like Harry Shearer and not just for his voice work on THE SIMPSONS. |
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"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:15 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Just finishing up Infamous, the second Capote movie. In some ways I like it better than the first one. It takes itself quite a bit less seriously for the most part, and some scenes are really funny. Toby Jones as Capote is more of a cartoon than Hoffman, but more entertaining as well.
Daniel Craig is much more successful as James Bond than he is as killer Perry Smith. The parts of the movie dealing directly with the In Cold Blood murder are not as good as they were in Capote.
I know this will seem like sacrilege to the Catherine Keener fan club (of which I am a frequent member), but I prefer Sandra Bullock's Harper Lee to Keener's.
It's not sacrilege just a different opinion. I liked her too. I have to see Capote again to see Keener again.
I enjoyed the New York scenes and almost wished this film hadn't moved into the Clutter's murders and just examined Capote's life. Once it did I found it to be so unsuble and embarressingly bad. Daniel Craig is a fine actor but was just so wrong as Perry Smith. I understand he was the third or fourth choice for the role. And I also didn't like Toby Jones. As much as I know Truman Capote was often a parody of himself, he wasn't at this time in his life. Toby Jones tried hard but often came across as a parody. And if anyone could have used subtly it was Jones.
But a lot of the fault I give to the script. We got the same story without such graphic detail in Dan Futterman's script. A far superior film all together IMO. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:02 pm |
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| I was sorry to have missed Infamous when it was in the theatres. Now I'm not sure there was anything to be sorry about. I liked the preview, but after reading Marj's review I guess I can shut it off after they leave New York. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:20 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Thanks Gary. Though I wouldn't call it much of a review.
I wish you had seen Infamous. I would have like to have read your opinion. Please correct me if I'm wrong but as I remember Billy never really liked Capote so I'd love to have heard from someone who did. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Capote was my #1 film of 2005. I haven't seen Infamous. |
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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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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:24 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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[quote="Nancy"]Syd wrote: .....Harry Shearer is also good. Loved his commercial for Hula Balls. Made me want to rush right out and not buy them. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:29 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: Capote was my #1 film of 2005. I haven't seen Infamous.
There were a lot of things I liked about Capote, but I did think it wore its portentousness on its sleeve. Infamous was not as good, but at its best (New York scenes, Christmas at the Deweys) it was better.
Though I was okay with Toby Jones, he did do a cartoon Truman. And Marj told it like it is about Daniel Craig. Truth be told, he was pretty awful. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
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Location: Lithgow, Australia
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| C'est etrange. Over on Slate Magazine, which believably championed Infamous noisily last year, they wanted Craig to get a Best Supporting Actor gong. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:09 pm |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
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Location: Lithgow, Australia
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The Cotton Club
One of those films doomed through issues that have nothing to do with the film itself, The Cotton Club isn't going rival Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II or The Conversation as Francis Coppola's most respected film, but it surely deserves more respect than it gets. It's often called on its "unlikeable characters"; I find Richard Gere's bratty but essentially decent white-boy jazz player and Diane Lane's precociously bitchy heroine an entertaining, very '30s-riffic pair. Not to mention the delightful supporting turns by Gregory Hines, the gorgeously talented Lonette McKee, James Remar raving and snorting his best, Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne (especially), and a cast full of later-to-be-familiar actors (Larry Fishburne plays Bumpy Johnson for the first of two times in his career). The film's chief problem is the story progression, which jumps and coughs more than a badly-maintained Model T Ford. Apparently Coppola got co-screenwriter William Kennedy (of Ironweed fame) to do 20 drafts of the script and they still couldn't get it tuned - it never settles down and involves you in any single element's thrust and bite. But Coppola's staging is beautiful in itself; the interior of the Club and the action that unfolds there is sublimely choreographed and gaudily visualised, and the film in many ways displays what a vivid and entertaining director Coppola can be, avoiding here in gangland material the often too-too artful The Godfather films. |
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A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:20 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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| The Cotton Club did have some interesting casting -- Joe Dallesandro as Lucky Luciano comes to mind. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:37 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| My favorite casting was Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne. The movie started a late career for Gwynne as a character actor, culminating with the judge in My Cousin Vinny. |
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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: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:52 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| The big problem with The Cotton Club is that white people didn't perform at the Cotton Club, yet a white man playing there is the gist of the plot. It's ludicrous. It also looks like an 80's era MTV video, which is no compliment. |
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