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billyweeds

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:35 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Joe--On the drunk scenes we can definitely agree. Brolin (who for me gave the best performance in Milk) was simply stunning, while Langella was overly theatrical. Otherwise, my opinion of the movies as movies stands.

mo_flixx

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:40 am

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

lady wakasa wrote:

I didn't think it was all that hip - Takashi Miike just seems kind of crazy. (He's also not someone I normally check out.)

In general, though, (gromit, watch the movie first) I thought it was a fun time, but I was with a pretty responsive audience (at a film festival). The whole spoof of spaghetti westerns was funny enough and handled fairly well, though.

If I'd seen it at home I'm not sure I would have had as much fun.

Reading some of the comments on various boards, it comes across as the kind of movie that people either have fun with, or don't like so much. Plus the US version cut out 20-30 mins, which is a *lot*.

It'd be interesting to get Hippie's take on this, since I'm pretty sure he's seen it at this point.

He screened it...I'm sure he loved it. In fact, I haven't told him that the movie didn't do a lot for me...as I think he'd disapprove. I think he thought he'd get the youth audience out for SWD but it did not seem to catch on.

I think it helped that he had seen "Django," which I haven't.

I do like most Miike -- I was checking out Japanese movies at Mondo today and found an interesting Seijun Suzuki (a director I really like).

Rod

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 3:58 am

Joined: 21 Dec 2004 Posts: 2944 Location: Lithgow, Australia

lshap wrote:

There was nothing sudden about Frost's energy boost during the last interview. Much like the training scene in Rocky, we see him enlisting the help of Sam Rockwell's character and gettin' down and dirty with the books.

This film is sounding more and more like the definition of spurious.

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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.

gromit

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:51 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

billyweeds wrote:

As for gromit, how can one person be so right (about RR) and so wrong (about Slumdog) in the same day?

Them's fighting words.
Okay, 5 rounds.
You're Frost; I'll be Nixon.
DING!

I just Frosted Nixon last night, and would agree with Earl. The way it was presented, Frost's last interview triumph came out of nowhere -- a last minute 3 day cram session, with a last minute research assist from James Reston. It was kind of cheesy in how the transformation was portrayed, and how confidently he strutted into battle, something like the high school football jock studying hard last minute to pass the big test, so that he's eligible for the championship game. Or the nerdy team mascot, suddenly lifting weights and vitamin drinks to pump himself up to become the star quarterback in one week.

I thought Frost Nixon largely skimmed the surface, but with decent performances. The first scene with Langella, I thought he looked and sounded nothing like Nixon. Thereafter, he blended into the role. Oddly, during the close ups of the last interview, Langella looked a good deal like Reagan!
They never gave Nixon that throw-back 50's quality he had (a la Ed Sullivan), but instead gave him more like a throwback 70's quality instead, which was okay, but didn't capture his essence as I'd hoped.

Frost Nixon was okay, but kind of a shrug of a film for me.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:18 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Quote:

DiCaprio's performance has generally been playing second fiddle in the reviews to Winslet's, but I thought he was at least as good as she was. Together they make music.

I appreciated Leo's performance more, because it formed the backbone of the film, was rock steady, and set the tone of fiftiesness. Both leads were in top form.
-------------------------------------------------------------
As for the cursing, I remember reading an interview with a director and screenwriter about cursing in a period piece. They intentionally decided to use more modern expletives, because they thought it would sound too dated and awkward (even silly) to use period cursing, such as Darn and Dang, Cripes and Nerts (okay, so that's earlier silly slang, but helps make the point).

Anyway, when making a period film for a modern audience, some period elements might be too distracting, while some modernisms might give more immediacy. I wonder if they could have used "freakin'" or "frigging" instead. But in any case, it's all a small quibble in an otherwise strong film.
------------------------------------------------------------
As for Slumdog M, I thought the early childhood scenes were the best, but too episodic. Also, as I mentioned, I disliked the choppy editing. All of which means that I wasn't fully engaged in the film, so when the sentiment and conventionality strode forth, I noticed it too much and flinched.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

gromit

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:27 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Earl with the tough choice between Mother's Milk and Christmas.

Joe, the tapes as framing device was poorly followed up on in the film and didn't add much, while slowing the pace. They could have chosen to use the tapes at the end only, perhaps as a voice-over after he was gone. Or not use them at all. Or integrate them better into the story. It's not a question so whether they were factual, but how they were employed (or not) in a depiction of the life.

I thought there was a lot to like about Milk, but the conventional structure did drag it down some in my estimation. I'm not a big fan of pictures where everything revolves around the hero and we get little or no outside context -- no matter how common such films are.

Otoh, imo, Frost-Nixon didn't elevate itself much above a good Tv drama. Whereas I was looking for something more along the lines of Good Night, and Good Luck. (edited)

Last edited by gromit on Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:11 am; edited 3 times in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:32 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit--I'm assuming you mean Good Night, and Good Luck, which I thought was as dry as dust and less appealing than Milk, much less Frost/Nixon. The only one I have any desire to resee is F/N.

lshap

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:58 am

Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2004 Posts: 4248 Location: Montreal

One problem with the Frost/Nixon vs. Milk debate is that the defenders of either can always fall back on the excuse that, well, it really happened.

The tape-recording scenes in Milk was a good idea that went on too long. Had it only been used to begin the film it would have been a nice bit of foreshadowing; using it repeatedly stopped the story in its tracks.

As to the criticism of Frost/Nixon that the strength of Frost's final interview came out of nowhere, it's important to remember that only the last interview had been reserved for the pivotal Watergate topic. Nixon may have knocked the first interview out of the park against an unsteady Frost, and come out without a scratch in the second and third against a Frost who was noticeably improving, but those topics covered the stronger areas of Nixon's administration. it was only the fourth and final interview topic that exposed his flank; Frost prepared and pounced. Plus, well, it really happened.

My reasons for preferring F/N over Milk, a film I did enjoy by the way, is as Billy says. Both Frost and Nixon had better defined character arcs. They became, respectively, more and less than they were at the start. Harvey Milk, after stating that at 40 he hadn't done anything, spent the rest of the film plugging away at the same speed and in the same gear. Admirable, but less interesting.

billyweeds

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:06 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

When you create a perfect post, it must be acknowledged. Bravo, lshap, for saying everything I would have liked to say but don't have the energy or will to conjure up. Plus, hey, you agree with me, so good on ya.

marantzo

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:37 am

Guest

Just about every criticism of how Slumdog Millionaire was shot that Gromit made is what I found so inventive and striking about the movie. Though his complaints about what he saw as logical flaws are just piffle. I was under the impression that Joe was the king of mind numbing obsessive deconstruction of movies (and other art forms), but if Gromit keeps it up, Joe may have a threat to his supremacy.

gromit

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:47 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Analyzing a film on a film forum.
Whatever was I thinking?

I'd welcome more analysis and deconstruction.
And new members.
Always feel free to skip posts.

IMO, Slumdog isn't a film which holds up well to analysis, so the key to the film is whether it effectively engages viewers emotionally.

More piffle on Slumdog:
Why do the police need to torture him?
With nothing to hide, why wouldn't he readily explain how he knew these answers, instead of only telling them post-torture?

And would the police really torture someone who had become nationally famous, possibly very rich, and was scheduled for live TV the next day? It's not like the prize money was about to change hands immediately, and there was still the possibility that he'd lose it all anyway, or they could discover any cheating method being employed.

Furthermore, wasn't that a pretty simple quiz show for the amount of money involved? Multiple choice, with some silly answers mixed in, lifelines, and fairly easy questions. Not to mention that you can choose to play or not after you hear the question.

On a tangent, it always bothers me when I don't have an idea of the exchange rate in USD for a currency used in a foreign movie. This also irks me in old movies, when they are discussing French Francs in 1954 or say Japanese Yen in the 1960's. Turns out 1 Greenback gets you 42 Rupees at the moment, down from a recent 50.

Lastly, I liked this observation I swiped from elsewhere on the Web. I had heard ofSlumdog being considered an Age of Obama film, but hadn't heard it put this way before:

Quote:

if Slumdog Millionaire wins the Oscar, then it is truly a sign of the times. If No Country for Old Men was Bush's hopeless, nihilistic, and senselessly violent Texas/America, then Slumdog Millionaire is Obama's story of a minority overcoming the odds and winning, with ridiculously inflated expectations and unrealistic fairy tale happy endings.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

ehle64

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:08 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A

I liked Milk. *duh*

_________________
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.

inlareviewer

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:19 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

Personally, am already over the inevitable comparisons between MooJuice and David/Dick, understandable though they may be. From my increasingly detached POV (should never have invoked The Green Man at Festivus), both films accomplished what each set out to, and then some; the problems that are being brought up, in either, didn't bother me an iota. In one film, those tapes not only did happen, but cannot imagine a better or more efficient way to establish the level of Harvey's prescient bravery to the masses of uninformed Gen. X same-sexers and unconcerned hets that the movie hoped to reach; the inclusion of the interstitial Jack tragedy (along with positing Scott as The Love of His Life) shows, as opposed to tells, how well the late politico kept his conflicted private relationships away from the public sector, and the toll that took on his conflicted private relationships, even the docu avoided any mention of it. Why shouldn't conventional biopic tactics of focusing on its subject's life apply to a mainstream film about Harvey? If it's good enough for Pasteur, it's good enough for Milk. Conversely, the larger ur-theme of television's career-and-popular-mindset minefield and the personal cost of ambitious self-circumscriptive careerism was painstakingly re-purchased and underpinned by Opie in virtually every frame; the Morgan adaptation obviously is the key there, not least because there was hardly any way that the play's (stunning) post-modern mileu of a sea of teevees, against which the two antagonists parried and thrust and were self-commented upon through, could have been replicated. Plus, Patty McCormack plays Pat Nixon, which leads to delicious thoughts of of deleted scenes where she hits Dick with her shoes. Penn's turn is clearly my emotional preference, but was nonetheless blown away by the degree to which Langella pulled his long-established stage characterization in and down without losing its essential punch. Am thrilled to see him getting something like the film recognition he has merited since, oh, Diary of a Mad Housewife, and I hope to see both films again after the other "must-sees" have been must-seen.

Would certainly hope that peeps would analyze and deconstruct and discuss films on a film forum, am sorely aware that my time away has been spent largely in another artistic discipline, complicated by a whole other historic realm of debate/counterpunch/campaigning, so forgive me for not trailing back a few dozen pages and instead slothfully asking why the Fanny Hill aren't people still waxing ecstatic over The Visitor, or dissecting the reclamation of Demme's earlier, jagged style and the breakout power of La Belle Anne in Rachel Getting Married, or championing the not-to-be-missed potency of The Class?

(instashift to Maria Montez)
Aye heff spok'n!

tee-hee

Last edited by inlareviewer on Tue Jan 06, 2009 7:15 pm; edited 3 times in total
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

lissa

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:26 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2148 Location: my computer

inla...I'll wax ecstatic over The Visitor!!!

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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy.

inlareviewer

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 2:30 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

lissa wrote:

inla...I'll wax ecstatic over The Visitor!!!

Way kewl. A little film, but a lingering one. Am so rooting for Richard Jenkins, and Hiam Abbass as Mrs. Kahlil did me in entirely. I believe Lorne mentioned it recently as well.

And if people want to compare, again, that's only understandable, don't mean to be a nag. Heaven knows the approvers and shakers in Screamland will do exactly that when Milk and Frost/Nixon get Racso nods. It just seems sorta beside the point. They both have their idiosyncrasies, they're both worthy fillums.

_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim

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