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| shannon |
 Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:29 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 1628
Location: NC
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| I think Blood Diamond, for what it sets out to do, is pretty much perfect, save for the extraneous coda. I loved it. One of the most pleasant dvd suprises in recent months. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:34 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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The Chairman was pretty good fun. A Cold War film, involving bio-technology secrets, with the Chinese as the bad guys I really didn't do it justice by watching it over three nights (just was too tired). The early set-up is basically a riff on Bond films. And Gregory Peck is quite good. A few scenes come across as low-budget, especially a poorly edited car crash, and the less than stellar Oriental make-up applied to Caucasians. (Some of the low-budget moments almost gave off a whiff of Get Smart, though nothing here was played for laughs). But really it's an interesting, relatively exciting, thriller. Better than I expected.
The opening credit sequence is pretty impressive, using actual Cultural Revolution photos in a sort of broad puzzle-piece fashion, edited to some dramatic faux-Chinese score by Jerry Goldsmith. Very effective. There's also an odd special feature on the Dvd, a 20 minute "mini-film" version of The Chairman. Probably designed so that narcoleptics don't have to watch the movie over three nights. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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shannon wrote: I think Blood Diamond, for what it sets out to do, is pretty much perfect, save for the extraneous coda. I loved it. One of the most pleasant dvd suprises in recent months.
Basically I agree with you, but what was it with that coda??? They had as perfect an ending as movies of this sort ever achieve, and they went ahead and blew it. What possessed them? If you have any cogent ideas, I'm really interested. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:20 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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I'm catching up so s'cuse for a long post.
Quote: Betsy, I know that there were many many 'women's' movies in the 40's, but I sort of liked a lot of them. They were entertaining in many cases and sometimes a little subversive. Things that the 50's versions didn't seem to have. Now the 30's movies of that genre were out and out wicked, they looked on wives' adultery as just sort of a lark. And the husbands are always some sort of saps. I get a kick out of those movies. Their sense of morality is looney.
I happen to agree, Gary. But I can't seem to get more of us to try out these films. A lot of them seem sorely dated, but when you think that the late 30's and forties is when American cinematography came into its own, I wish people would give these films a chance. Films other than Citizen Kane, that were women's movies like the Selznick movies are really worth a look. I'd love some of us to see Portrait of Jennie and Since You Went Away. The stories may be sappy but look at the cinematography and tell me these aren't amazing films.
And look at the comedies. Well, we've discussed those. Still I love them. And then there are the 'noir' films. Some of the best were of the forties. Another of our best forums.
And why are we discussing the best of the 90's. Didn't we recently vote on these films and so a forum on the chercest of all? I think the forum is archived but for those who didn't take part, I do think reading it will open some eyes. It was a good forum. One of our best.
I left out Children of Men when I was catching up. What a difficult film to recap. On one hand it is brilliant. Technically and philosophically brilliant. But it was so bleak, so dispairing that I found my self pulling away from it. And I'm turning into Trish. I've become such a Clive Owen fan. But I was so disconnected from the film that by the final metaphor I broke out laughing.
"Drum me out of the roll call and drum me out of your dreams." |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| There's an interesting revelation in that quote, but so far no one has noticed it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Sorry to be a party pooper, but it's actually:
"Rub him out of the roll call
And drum him out of your dreams." |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:53 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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To be really anal, it's:
Rub him outa the roll call
And drum him outa your dreams!
I quote the published text of South Pacific as reprinted in the Modern Library's 6 Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It's a handy book. Everyone should own a copy. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:18 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| Guys, Guys!! I changed the lyrics purposely in order to relate to my post. Notice I said, Drum ME. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:21 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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You dare use the Holy Writ for purposes of satire!  |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:25 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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I dare to defy and I did.
In fact, I think Mr. Hammerstein would be proud. *wink* |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:58 am |
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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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| Isn't it spelled 'outta' |
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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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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:31 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| wrong forum |
Last edited by gromit on Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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jeremy wrote: Isn't it spelled 'outta'
Not in Hammerstein's script. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:23 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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I was just watching a modest, unsatisfying, but somehow gripping little horror film called The Dark from 2005 (Not to be confused the the 1979 William Devane-Casey Kasem classic with an alien in a rubber suit). It was something of a mish-mash, directed by John Fawcett who made one of the decade's few horror classics, Ginger Snaps. This one has both some of that film's assurance and high tensile sense of raw narrative, but it swaps between unnerving John Carpenter-esque poise and standard-issue contemporary visual gibberish. It draws heavily on the very dark nature of Welsh myth which also, lest we forget, give the early Halloween films some of their pep.
It's got Mario Bello as a slightly obnoxious woman with an estranged husband, played by a very unusually well-adjusted Sean Bean, and a resentful daughter. When resentful daughter goes missing, apparently drowned, Bello's guilt over causing her daughter's near-suicide months before boils up. Then the couple are visited by a girl who seems to be the long-lost daughter of a crazy priest, a warped, pagan dubbed "The Shepherd" who once, in the '50s, inspired his whole congregation to throw themselves over a cliff, and who may are may not have returned from "Annwn", the Welsh mythological netherworld, with hope for their own daughter's return. Or is the Shepherd manipulating them in representing some twisted purpose of the dark forces of Annwn?
It's highly reminiscent of The Ring in many ways, and actually rather better, in that it has a narrative rather than a bag of blockbuster tricks. It's often painfully similar to many recent genre entries, and yet it holds it own, and the final image, with Bello locked in said netherworld at the mercy of...something, briefly glimpsed, is perhaps the most effectively creepy moment I've seen in a recent horror film. |
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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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| bart |
| Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:39 am |
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Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2381
Location: Lincoln NE
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Saw Children of Men --- when British (or Commonwealth) non-sci-fi writers take on the genre, I'm often surprised at the quality of the result --- Doris Lessing, Anthony Burgess, Margaret Atwood, and now P.D. James. A good film built from a good book.
People without children have less to lose, less to live for, less hope, hence productivity drops and the world suffers ( somewhat ironically given that there are gradually more resources per person) impoverishment and massive social upheaval. The notion is interesting because it can be wrong -- you really have to think about the speculative leap being made.
What's remarkable is that, in spite of the movie being driven by an intellectually challenging idea, you can enjoy it on the level of its human story, as a gritty adventure rather like a blend of Anthony Burgess's "End of the World News" and "Escape from New York." |
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