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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:01 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/movies/21darg.html
Manohla Dargis's top ten article/list. Words cannot convey how I loathe this woman. Even when I agree with her views on a movie she turns me off. She is someone I never wish to encounter. Does anyone agree with me? |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:19 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4246
Location: Montreal
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billyweeds wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/movies/21darg.html
Manohla Dargis's top ten article/list. Words cannot convey how I loathe this woman. Even when I agree with her views on a movie she turns me off. She is someone I never wish to encounter. Does anyone agree with me?
The woman sounds like a pill, either by nature or by professional affectation. I agree with 30% of what she wrote, and am completely ambivalent about the remaining 70% because the film titles she references are as obscure as medieval whale prayers. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:40 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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lshap wrote: billyweeds wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/movies/21darg.html
Manohla Dargis's top ten article/list. Words cannot convey how I loathe this woman. Even when I agree with her views on a movie she turns me off. She is someone I never wish to encounter. Does anyone agree with me?
The woman sounds like a pill, either by nature or by professional affectation. I agree with 30% of what she wrote, and am completely ambivalent about the remaining 70% because the film titles she references are as obscure as medieval whale prayers.
"Pill" is perfect. I tend to go all hyperbolic, but I can't stand pills. "Medieval whale prayers" is an LOL moment. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 11:45 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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Re: Dargis.
WALL-E is like "There Will Be Blood????" She's a pill all right.
I wasn't familiar with a lot of the films either, but one standout is "Alexandra." This is a film I happened to see last spring in Paris. It is the poigant story of a mother who is determined to visit her Russian soldier son. She makes it to his camp and gradually becomes a friend to all. The movie is slow with an understated performance. It is not the kind of film that would get a lot of notice here, but it is worth seeking out if you have a chance.
And yes, I'd definitely include it in a 10 Best List...if anyone had seen it. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 12:18 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| Mo, Russian friends who live in St. Petersburg once told me that the plight of their Army grunts is pretty severe, and that mothers are in the habit of visiting their NCOs and officers and complaining about it. Culturally, they are shown great deference. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:34 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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Loved "Slumdog Millionaire." In a year that hasn't seemed particularly impressive in terms of movies, I'd definitely put this in my own list of top films. Danny Boyle's narrative and visuals are compelling. The soundtrack hits all the right notes.
My only problem (and it's slight) was that I had a hard time keeping track of which child was which since different actors were used as the characters aged.
Like "Man on Wire" and 9/11, "Slumdog Millionaire" has an equally ironic relationship to Mumbai -- which makes watching the film all the more powerful. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Rod |
| Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:12 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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God damn, that's the best cinematic news I've heard all year. |
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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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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:48 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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My feeling is that when enough people actually see it, Benjelina's new button will fall away in the scramble for the top honours. Unless it's Tom Cruise dancing in a fat suit to Ludicris (nuff said), prosthetics rarely do it do it for me - read in to that what you will. Not even Cate Blanche-Winner can save it. I still haven’t forgotten her Russian accent or forgiven her for sullying her good name in the year’s most over-hyped, pissing on fond memories, piece of junk, The Curse Of The Transparent Cynical Sequel. When was the last time Spielberg or Lucas did something that enhanced their reputations. Not only will the Academicians fall out of love with Button, but neither Dorian Pitt nor Calamity Cate will figure in this years bun fight. In a flat year, the academy will take the opportunity to bestow its blessing on either of those perennial wall flowers, Meryl or the one true Kate. No not Beckinsale. In a scrap made in heaven, the prize for best non-actress will recognise the portrayal of a real man. And any suggestion that Harvey Milk is not twice the man that Nixon was will be met with a withering stare...No it’s no good; I can’t come close to matching Inla, let alone out Inla-ing him. They say that flattery is…
A new paragraph; what a relief.
And another!
Getting back to to somewhere near where I started. In my opinion, and I’ll put my money where my mouth is (albeit that neither amounts to much, my opinion and my money that is, not my mouth, which has always given good service) the bestest motion picture gong will go to either Slumdog or Milk. Amazingly, Slumdog is making the early running, but this slight, foreign film, set in India, with much of the dialogue in Hindi, and made without any home grown stars is, I suspect, about to experience the mother of all backlashes in favour of a local horse. Even though the irascible Sean Penn is not everyone’s favourite, Milk, an excellent biopic (hang your head in shame Ron A Beautiful Mind Howard). It bears testament to a true American hero. It is 24 carat Oscar gold. Although they might not realise it, there are many who will fear Slumdog, a film of global appeal and global provenance. Slumdog’s roots go back to an older Hollywood than those of Milk. It is Frank Capra painted fresh with gay, Bollywood colours and gilded with some British social concern. Slumdog has been liberally sprinkled with magic dust, but not so much as windborne spore was carried from SoCal.
So my precdiction? Richard Milhouse Nixonwill steal some Harvey Milk votes and American openness will prevail: Slumdog will rule. |
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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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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:13 am |
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| Your prophecy skills are uncanny! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Jeremy--Slumdog is the farthest thing from "slight." Where do you get that description from? The ending was pure Bollywood (ironically so), but aside from (and even including) that, the picture had grit and heart and soul. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:10 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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"Slumdog" reminded me a bit of the movie "Quiz Show." During the real quiz show scandals of the 1950's, Dr. Joyce Brothers had to put in a repeat performance of her encyclopedic knowledge of sports.
The back and forth structure of "Slumdog" really worked IMO. It was a movie with an excellent use of flashbacks. I liked the film's pace and structure and the way we, the audience, were manipulated at the end. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:43 pm |
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Jeremy: Without having seen any of the movies, it looks to me like a three-way battle between Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt and Milk. Frost/Nixon will be contending in the acting awards, and Doubt stands a good chance of taking a couple of acting awards,
This is all assuming there isn't a groundswell for The Machine Girl. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 1:54 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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billyweeds wrote: Jeremy--Slumdog is the farthest thing from "slight." Where do you get that description from? The ending was pure Bollywood (ironically so), but aside from (and even including) that, the picture had grit and heart and soul.
Billy,
You're right, slight was the wrong term. What I was trying to suggest was was that Slumdog covered its ground so deftly that it barely left a dramatic footprint. The film didn't labour to build a monument to its serious intent, rather, like its fleet footed protagonists, it shook off the sleaze and grunge of its surroundings. To wring emotion from the slough of their existance, to tip the piper, would have denied the audience an imagination and cheapened the expereince. Dev Patel, thank God, will not b up for an actorly Oscar. |
_________________
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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 2:55 pm |
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Slumdog Millionaire was dynamite. Another film where the use of the score was startling. I wondered how the Brit director did such a good job of making what was in all respects an Indian film. I just checked IMDB and he had a co-director who was indeed Indian.
There seems to be a number of very bad people in India. Especially Mumbai.
The film had me from the second it started. And I was quite please with myself when I guessed how come he knew the answers when the interrogator asks how someone like him could know the answers without cheating.
I was talking to my son last night and told him to go and see it. He had spent time in India when he was young (his mother being a Sai Baba devotee), and some of it in Bombay. He hated India by the way and seeing as he was always there in the stifling summer, and getting sick there and having to spend time in the ashram which he really hated, it's understandable. Finally he just refused to go. So I will be very interested in what he thinks about the movie. I think he might identify with the brothers quite a bit.  |
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