| Author |
Message |
|
| Rod |
 Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:20 am |
 |
|
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
|
Not that I particularly care what you think, but then, as I said, I expected argument.
Ach, that feels so much better. |
_________________
A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:45 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
Befade wrote: Since I go to movies that noone else knows about here's one:
I quote from imbd because this reviewer said it so well.
Quote: ROMAN DE GARE has a lot going for it. Start with one of France's biggest stars, "jolie/laid" (beautiful/ugly) Fanny Ardant. Add Domique Pignon, the brilliant and quirky circus performer turned actor who starred in DELICATESSIN, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, and AMELIE. Add Audrey Dana as Hugette, a lovely "rocker chick next door" type & hairdresser wannabe, who gives a knock-your-socks-off performance in one of the most interesting victim roles written for a woman in years. Add a fantastic, complex, multi-layered mystery-thriller script that holds your interest and is tight-as-a-drum.
Toss in a serial killer on the loose, a husband who has walked out on his job/wife/and child, a ghost writer for a famous author, a handsome policeman in love with an overweight housewife, a murder, and a brother/sister magic act. Finally, the core of this film takes us to the kind of French countryside we never see... French "hill country" that is like a ramshackle farm in West Virginia, where education is poor, and the house a modified stable.
Instead of being a mess, all of these elements pull together so simply in a way that feels everyday and natural; because ultimately this film is about the complexity of modern life.
I always like French films, especially mysteries. This was a very satisfying one.
Thanks Betsy. This goes to the top of 'must see' list. |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:54 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
mo_flixx wrote: Marilyn wrote: Hollywood's staple products are getting a run for their money from foreign film industries. The French turned out a dynamite thriller, Tell No One, very much in the Hollywood action tradition. If the majors in the U.S. don't watch out, they're going to lose market share to films like this.
This French film was released in France in 2006. Wonder when it be coming out in the U.S.
Definitely sounds intriguing.
I agree. I want to see it as well. There is to be a limited release on July 2nd. God knows when it will get to Taos. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:14 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
billyweeds wrote: Whew! Rod and billy are back to normal. I loathed There Will Be Blood, hated more than half of Death Proof (Poitier's daughter = worst perf of the year), found Hot Fuzz mostly insufferable, and was thoroughly underwhelmed by American Gangster and Jesse James as well as Planet Terror.
I did adore Zodiac, Eastern Promises, 4...3...2...,and Michael Clayton, and admired No Country, Black Book, Sweeney Todd, Before the Devil..., and Atonement quite a bit.
I think you hit on the right word, Billy. I admired more of this years films than loved them. I'll be seeing 4...3...2 in a few days, so that may go into my loved list.
But we are in agreement in adored movies. I'd add Atonement to that list however. Apparently I'm fortunate to have missed your list of hated movies. Perhaps I liked Atonement more because it is a close to a women's film.
I'm curious. What did everyone think of Charlie Wilson and Lions for Lambs. I expected more from both but Lions for Lambs was a real disappointment. Charlie Wilson's War was OK, thanks only to Tom Hanks, who I tend to think of a better actor than most. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:16 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
Marj........Roman de Gare was directed by Claude Lelouch of A Man and a Woman fame.
Quote: This French film was released in France in 2006. Wonder when it be coming out in the U.S.
Definitely sounds intriguing.
Mo.......I saw Tell No One at the Palm Springs Film Festival. The book on which it is based is by an American mystery writer, Harlan Coben. I read the book first and it was fun to see what changes the French made: an Asian male villain was a tall thin woman in the film. Kristen Scott Thomas did a mean job of speaking French. The performance was sold out and the police had to be called because of a man who was disgruntled about his seating arrangements. (I sat next to him and tried to be my coolest.) |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:20 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
Befade wrote: Marj........Roman de Gare was directed by Claude Lelouch of A Man and a Woman fame.
Quote: This French film was released in France in 2006. Wonder when it be coming out in the U.S.
Definitely sounds intriguing.
Mo.......I saw Tell No One at the Palm Springs Film Festival. The book on which it is based is by an American mystery writer, Harlan Coben. I read the book first and it was fun to see what changes the French made: an Asian male villain was a tall thin woman in the film. Kristen Scott Thomas did a mean job of speaking French. The performance was sold out and the police had to be called because of a man who was disgruntled about his seating arrangements. (I sat next to him and tried to be my coolest.)
I just ordered "Tell No One" from amazon.co.uk .
Kristin Scott Thomas has lived in France for years and is (was) married to a Frenchman. She works a lot in France. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 8:00 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
A Man and A Woman sucked BVC! I suspect if it were made in Hollywood it would have laughed at by anyone who was a film buff.
Rod if your list were turned upside down, we would have a lot of agreements.
Planet Terror was a hoot, save for when Tarantino was on the screen. The first 45 minutes or so of Death Proof are an example of how bad Tarantino can be, like putrid bad. They last part may have been great, I'll never know, I tried twice and had to walk out both times. What shit.
I've heard and read so many people say that There Will Be Blood goes into the crappy in the last section that I was never tempted to see it.
Kung Fu Panda was wonderful. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:14 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
| I haven't seen A Man and a Woman in decades but I remember loving it when I was young and foolish (as opposed to older and foolish). I loved the music more than any other element. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marc |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:18 pm |
|
|
Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
|
| TELL NO ONE is available for rent at my store. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Rod |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:38 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
|
| A Man and A Woman is a lot of fun. There's a vein of wry humor and a charge of genuine romantic melancholy underneath its fashion-magazine visuals. |
_________________
A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:54 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
Quote: There's a vein of wry humor and a charge of genuine romantic melancholy
Rod.......I would say that's very true of Roman de Gare. I don't remember if I saw a Man and a Woman......if I did it left a very bland impression. Roman is a cool film with a nice aftertaste. |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Rod |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:05 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
|
I'm genuinely pleased that several of my own favorites irritated the hell out of many of you. And I'm not just saying that for the sake of being contrarian. If there's a kind of art I almost automatically detest, it's the kind - Juno's a good example - that encourages everyone to feel comfortable drawing close to their bosom. Greatness to me is a partly a challenge to the standard. PT Anderson's efforts to meld the Western with the Herzog-esque was, to me, monstrously beautiful; Death Proof melded the slasher flick with the Hawksian hang-out-and-chat adventure film, and I enjoyed it more than any other film last year. The fact that the old guys here so consistently object to the spunky girls of the film intrigues me very much. Otherwise, I like being pricked, prodded, disturbed, thrilled, having my patience and intelligence being relied upon. Jesse James demanded patience, to me it rewarded it by the proliferation of subtle menace and dark deliberation played out by the characters. I adored American Gangster's edge of trashy Superfly-esque social subversion combined with Ridley Scott's brilliant filmmaking and a real feel for the long roots of the Gangster film - it paid homage to The Roaring Twenties as much as to The French Connection, and it rather than the slick-assed Zodiac, was the real heir of '70s film. It was an infinitely more fun noir film than No Country for Old Men. Actually, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is a noir film, too, as some have pointed out, and achieves its modern-life-is-rubbish points far more efficiently than NCforOM. Perhaps I liked Amazing Grace for almost the opposite reason - it was a good, solid, old-fashioned piece of biopic pizzazz with no pretensions to being anything other than what it was. Call it my token square film.
No number of "sucks" comments will alter my opinions, y'know. |
Last edited by Rod on Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:32 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Rod |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:10 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
|
Befade wrote: Quote: There's a vein of wry humor and a charge of genuine romantic melancholy
Rod.......I would say that's very true of Roman de Gare.
It's true of the other Lelouch films I've seen. His Les Miserables de Victor Hugo was one of the most ambitious and entertaining films of the '90s. |
_________________
A long time ago, but somehow in the future...It is a period of civil war and renegade paragraphs floating through space. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:53 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
Hippie LURKS!
 |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 12:08 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
Rod wrote: The fact that the old guys here so consistently object to the spunky girls of the film intrigues me very much.
This is so lame. Quite apart from the ageist statement being made here, the fact is that I have nothing against "spunky." I have a lot of respect for "spunky." I like to think of myself as "spunky."
What I have little tolerance for is totally inept acting like Ms. Sydney Poitier's, and misplaced, inartful feminism like that espoused by Tarantino in his writing and direction of these grrrrls. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
