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| ehle64 |
 Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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yambu wrote: I don't know about chopping scenes. It's commercial TV; Whaddya gonna do?
Well, duh. AMC used to be a great movie channel that didn't chop scenes nor add commercials. As everyone was so eager to watch this channel last night I was just wondering if any of that had changed. |
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| censored-03 |
| Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:14 pm |
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Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 3058
Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
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Quote: AMC used to be a great movie channel
Couldn't agree more..it used to be the ONLY thing I watched. |
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"Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel."
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 10:23 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Kate wrote: .....I enjoyed CW, but agree with many of the points here. The bedroom scene with Gail was too reminiscent of Body Heat....
The Body Heat scene worked because Kathleen Turner was the lust object, and every guy in the theatre was covering his lap with his popcorn and coke.
Yambu, this is the answer I got when googled: It is Delibes: The Flower Duet (From The Opera "Lakme" By Delibes)
Thank you. That sounds right. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Melody |
| Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 11:54 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2242
Location: TX
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We Don't Live Here Anymore is the most depressing and unlikeable film I've seen in a long time. Usually depressing doesn't bother me, as long as it's a well-written script and the actors can pull it off. That ain't the case here.
This would appear to be yet another failed literary adaptation, although I haven't read Andre Dubus' short stories from which this screenplay was adapted. Lordy, please don't make me, either.
So why'd I go? Because I really like all the actors and figured they'd be good together. But these folks, with the exception of the uber-talented Mark Ruffalo, are lost in a crappy script that's just too predictable. And by the end -- hell, by the halfway mark -- you don't give a shit. You just want something to happen, ANYthing. And when it does, you rejoice because it signals the end is near.
I tried to relate to these characters, and found myself pulling bits and pieces out of each one to try on. Laura Dern keeps a messy house and goes through fits of manic cleaning -- check. Peter Krause burns his many-times-rejected novel on the BBQ -- check. Naomi Watts gets off on the quickie stand-up hump downstairs while her hubby and kid are sleeping upstairs -- check. Mark Ruffalo constantly searches his wife's face, trying to remember the reason they were drawn together in the first place -- major check.
You may find yourself asking, as I did, what was the spark for Mr. Dubus? He had to be either the married college prof who can't sell a script, flirts with his students and has a boring-as-hell affair with his best friend's wife, because it's easy, OR was the married college prof who has a thang for his best friend's wife and sneaks off to the woods with her because he can't afford a motel.
Best-case scenario: He was so wrapped up in his banal world, he thought it would make a riveting story to reveal how ho-hum and dull life's little surprises are in the end.
And, of course, the midlife crisis story has never ever been written before.
What is it with these authors who write beautifully but insist on creating characters that are difficult to sympathize with and root for? Why does every character I run across lately have to be so lifeless and unenergized and fucking realistic? It's there in Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World (check the Third Eye Book section) and it's here in WDLHA. I think I'm starting to despise forced realism.
Maybe what I need is to get out of my head and into a good old-fashioned Ace Ventura belly laugh. If that's where you're at, too, avoid this movie like the drooling dog it is and go rent Austin Powers or Rushmore. |
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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LOL! Great review, melody. I happen to disagree with a lot of it, though.
Funny, you lambast AHatEotW now, I seem to remember that 15 pages to the end of the novel for you, you didn't want it to end. |
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| Melody |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2242
Location: TX
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Yeah, you're right, Ehle, about my liking AHatEotW and not wanting it to end. I've been careful to delineate my fondness for Cunningham's writing style with my irritability at the characters he chooses to populate his novel with.
I realized this quirk in myself -- believe me, I'm owning this, darlin', as a possible dimming lightbulb of my former literature-grooving self -- as I was skimming back over the novel in order to write about it over in Books.
I'm all over Clare -- I like her character most of all. I can understand why she takes off in the end, having had a very young daughter in a woefully inept living situation at one time myself. And no, I wasn't living with two unhappy gay guys -- probably would have been more palatable.
But Bobby, Jonathan and Erich, these guys are about as realistically unhappy and unsettled as any characters you'll find anywhere. And that never changes.
I realized my putting the book down 15 pages from the end was a reflection of my dread of Cunningham just ending the book with nothing resolved, characters stuck, no HEA, as Kate puts it. Of course, as I now know, this isn't the case -- and there's no HEA, fer sure -- and even YOU admitted you were incredibly sad at the ending. Could there be a tinge of disappointment for you as well that these characters won't ever smile and fucking mean it?? |
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My heart told my head: This time, no. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:48 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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You don't think Bobby means it when he smiles? Just a question, and before we get a "what the hell does this have to do with Current Toodles" post from marc, it is one. I really think that Alice is capable of having many smiles with her Indian lovetoy. I think that Jonathan is going to have many more smiles spending the rest of his days with Bobby (his, to quote you, "head over heels" true love), I think the dance on the porch was to symbolize that. I totally find Clare having many smiles, she generates them, plus there's the daughter factor. Do most people IRL end up happy as clams with big-assed smiles on their faces? Whatever your reasons for feeling the way you do after reading the book, I respect. I mean, there have been times that I have loved/been loving a book and after I read the last word totally whipped the damn book across the room! You never hit upon some of the things I felt were the main themes of the story, and if you could that would be most excellent.
I love this line in your review of wdlham, "I think I'm starting to despise forced realism." At first I thought, thank you LotR's et al. (sarcastically), but then I grabbed hold of the word forced. I, personally, don't think Cunningham was trying to force anything. But hey, that's just my opinion. |
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| pedersencr |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 1:28 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 921
Location: New Orleans
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Melody,
Hooray!
You put it better than I was able to! Notwithstanding the acting, We Don't Live Here Anymore left me feeling very disappointed. I had great difficulty imagining, let alone believing, that such a tale of screwing around could lead to such flat reactions from everyone (Laura Dern excepted). I found myself asking "Is that it?" I guess my standard for "irate" is from Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? if that is the movie I'm thinking of (it has been so long now).
We Don't Live Here Anymore isn't from the real world I live in.
Charles |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 1:30 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Mel_o_d_y!
Spectacular review!! And I haven't seen the movie so my response is all about your writing and how you choose to express yourself. To write a derogatory review with such humor is quite the feat, my friend! This is a piece to be proud of. Please please send it to Lorne for posting so everyone will read it?
I am going to copy Wade's and your posts and add them to our discussion, over in the Book Forum. But I am not going to ask that they be deleted from here. My strategy is simple enough.  Maybe if people read these posts they'll drop by and read the rest of the discussion, and who knows? Maybe even join in?!
*hint, hint* |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:46 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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Melody,
Hey -- great review! How would you feel about me taking it over into the review forum? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:49 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Finally saw Hero and it was well worth the multi-year wait. It's incredibly beautiful, the visual equivalent of a symphony, complete to being in several movements. Of the major performances (Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Daoming Chen, Zhang Ziyi, and Jet Li), Jet Li gives the weakest performance and is still quite good; Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are outstanding as Flying Snow and Broken Sword, assassins and lovers torn apart because of political differences; Zhang Ziyi plays Moon, Broken Sword's apprentice. Her role is superfluous after the first half hour or so, but it is essential before that. There is a swordfight between Flying Snow and Moon that's one of the most beautiful things I've seen in cinema. The story is a bit too clever, but still very involving, sometimes ironic and sometimes very moving.
The story is a fantasy based on Chinese history, and takes place just before King Cheng of Qin (the future Shih Huang Ti, the First Emperor of China*) launched the final series of wars that unified China; he was subject to numerous assassination attempts to prevent this, but due to his personal ruthlessness, and the organization, discipline and size of his armies, he was able to prevail. China at the time had been subject to an escalating series of wars over five centuries, and dozens of minor states had been reduced to seven major ones. Qin, which in some ways resembled Sparta in its militarism, and which had a great advantage in location (it was on the western side, with an open frontier into which it could expand, and had natural defenses which made it difficult to attack from the east, but easy for itself to attack eastward. The Zhou, Qin, and Han Dynasties all united China from this region). The historical situation is well presented in Hero.
The Qin dynasty fell apart on the death of the Emperor here, (he basically founded an empire that required a Shih Huang Ti to administer it) and there was a 8-year long civil war in which Liu Bang prevailed and founded the Han dynasty. That story would make a great movie, and an excellent sequel to this one. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:04 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I meant to mention, that although I think Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung were particularly outstanding, the movie would not work without the intelligent performance of Daoming Chen as the King of Qin. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:05 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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Paparazzi sounds like a cute concept -- newly minted movie star is hounded mercilessly by soulless photographers until a resulting near-fatal accident causes him to turn the tables and hunt down the obnoxious paparazzi who were responsible. Prey becomes predator.
Problem is this film is so badly written it comes off as a movie-of-the-week Columbo episode, and not one of the good ones. Tom Sizemore plays the chief bad-guy photographer, doing his charismatic best to flail his way past the lousy dialogue, and Dennis Farina actually sounds like he's imitating Peter Falk's rumpled, wise detective, only without the charm.
The story bounces from scene to scene in reasonably crisp fashion, enough to keep the audience awake, but again, this is a third-rate screenplay whose reach greatly exceeds its grasp. Watch a rerun of Murder She Wrote instead, save yourself the money. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| I responded to Hero pretty much as Syd did. I was expecting to be bored, having never taken to martial arts movies, but I found the story to be interesting, the duels well choreographed and without the blood and gore of KB 1, visually it is a grand spectacle with excellent cinematography, and the overall theme is one of peace. Definitely more entertaining than Crouching Tiger or even KB 2. |
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| Gmathieu |
| Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 7:00 pm |
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Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Posts: 1
Location: Austin
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Hi everyone. I haven't been on the forum before and will need some tutoring on how to post. Not to mention I don 't have a cool picture by me. Hope I am actually posting this.
I used to enjoy writing the ocassional film review-here's my take on "We Don't Live here Anymore."
In the heart warming tradition of “Scenes from a Marriage” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf”, “We don’t Live Here Anymore” explores the dark side of marriage and friendship, confirming an occasional suspicion of mine that solitude is the only safeguard against other’s emotional confusion.
In the merry mix, we have the slattern, Laura Dern with hair like an electrocuted mop, the quietly suffering but sexy control freak, Naomi Watts who does a lot with a subtle quirk of her lovely lips, and the two withdrawn blokes, Mark Ruffalo, Laura’s husband, and Peter Krause. For English professors, their only concession towards communication seems to be to occasionally quote from a book. You would think these guys were softwear engineers, from their traditional male stance of battening down the hatches and weathering out the storm. After all, the movie does take place in Washington State, as evidenced by the license plates and big redwoods, making me wonder what movie the Austin Chronicle reviewer, Kimberly Jones, saw when she kept referring to the New England atmosphere. Obviously a close observer of the movie there-maybe she couldn’t look at the emotional train wreck unfolding.
Laura has frantic, manic sex, on top of her lovers, her face contorting furiously. Naomi Watts seems to prefer sex standing up, with Laura’s husband. One thing that struck me as a little less than believable is how the women still consider each other friends after their mutual betrayal. Perhaps it’s supposed to be reflective of the warmer emotional tone that the women have-Naomi Watts, although cool and self possessed, seems downright friendly next to her aloof and stern husband.
The film has a leisurely feel, due to being based on two short stories. There are a few gaps, filled by frames of Naomi Watts standing quietly in white eyelet or linen outfits (Is she innocent-I don’t think so-perhaps misguided), or the dark trees towering. Soderbergh and Clooney produced this film, and strangely enough it has some of the same sad, solemn long shots as their recent film about love lost in space.
The acting is uniformly excellent, and the child actors are amazing, especially the child that plays NaomiWatt’s daughter. The psychological damage of growing up in a house full of stifled tears and withheld compliments is already apparent in her tense little freckled face. The dialogue too, stays mostly close to reality, although I had the urge to interrogate several of the characters, and ask them why they would say something so patently self-serving. But then people do that, especially under emotional stress and when drinking.
So there’s no good reason not to see this movie. But be aware that after it’s conclusion, you too will feel a strong urge to drink, and you too will feel disturbed. Of course you could be like the people behind us, who seemed to have snuck in some beer during the movie!
ehle64 wrote: yambu wrote: I don't know about chopping scenes. It's commercial TV; Whaddya gonna do? |
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