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| Nancy |
 Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:57 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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carrobin wrote: Another reason I liked "Taken" was that I was sort of in the mood to see a lot of bad guys get blown away. I might have enjoyed it less last week...
Senseless violence can be so satisfying. Especially when you're feeling a bit down. |
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"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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The Israeli animated movie Waltz With Bashir was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language movie category. It is about some former soldiers trying to recapitulate and recapture their memories about their experiences during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, specifically about the massacre in Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The massacre was carried out by Christian Phalangists, in the presence of Israelis, who did not intervene to stop the massacre. The movie is very frank, analytical and honest about the subject matter, but seems to hit us more at an intellectual rather than at an emotional level. Still very worthwhile.
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Here's a very hip and IMO and other's on this forum (are you listening, Marc?) very accurate statement from Stephanie Zacharek of salon.com.
"I'd argue that responding to an expressive, alive (if dumb-bunny) picture like Taken actually uses more brain cells than dipping into the puddle-size pseudo-depths of The Reader."
Yay for Stephanie. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:34 am |
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| Why did you direct that at Marc? I seem to remember him writing off The Reader as being sympathetic to a Nazi or something like that. Unless I'm mixing up my posters. |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:15 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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| Taken's of the gems of the past twelve months for me. It is, in its way, the action flick's revenge on the Saw/Hostelgenre of torture porn - countering sadistic fantasy with saviour fantasy, built from the same building blocks of pretty young things snatched by sleazy underground human-plaything-brokers and vicious creeps, but making deadly certain we're cheering the guy taking them out, not indulging in their sickness. It's a brutal film, but at least it's still set in one where the fact that people care about each-other matters. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:19 am |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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billyweeds wrote: Here's a very hip and IMO and other's on this forum (are you listening, Marc?) very accurate statement from Stephanie Zacharek of salon.com.
"I'd argue that responding to an expressive, alive (if dumb-bunny) picture like Taken actually uses more brain cells than dipping into the puddle-size pseudo-depths of The Reader."
Yay for Stephanie.
Am I supposed to understand from her comment that Taken is somehow better, more expressive, deeper than The Reader? Are you kidding? Not having read the full review, I'd be very curious how she backs up the flip - and totally ridiculous - description of the "puddle-size pseudo-depths of The Reader", a far superior film to Taken in every way a film can be measured. The Reader has "Pseudo depths"? Why? Because she says so?
Sure, Taken is expressive, and if you judge a film to be alive by how many people are dead then it is indeed one of the most alive films this year. But Taken is a perfect cathartic cliche, nothing more, just as Neeson is a perfect cathartic specially-trained-agent-antiterrorist-green beret-CIA-007 caricature guy. It's a fun film, never boring, but Taken will fade into obscurity in a few weeks as the thriller assembly line moves on, while Kate Winslet's beautiful performance in The Reader will remain a watchable pleasure for years. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:22 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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Re: "Taken."
I am hoping that Liam Neeson will be "Bourne" again.
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:42 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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| Me too, Mo. Neeson was a very appealing and charismatic action hero. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:45 pm |
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| Neeson is very appealing and charismatic, as well as being really big, at 6'4". His physical strength notwithstanding, it still looked silly for him to be running, jumping, dodging and diving like a speedy 25-year-old. Taken would've been a much better film had the focus been more on brain power and less on superhuman physical stunts. Neeson is too good an actor to be jumping through the same old action-hero hoops. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:10 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| I'll admit, toward the end of the film I started feeling that Neeson's character should be feeling the strain a bit more--but then again, adrenaline can do that for you. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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marantzo wrote: Why did you direct that at Marc? I seem to remember him writing off The Reader as being sympathetic to a Nazi or something like that. Unless I'm mixing up my posters.
You completely misread my post. Marc and I are on the very same page. He and I both think Taken is a better movie than The Reader, though I did appreciate The Reader a lot more than he did. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:37 pm |
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| Now that I think about it, how in the world can we compare those two films? I know I did it myself, but really, they're from totally different ends of the spectrum. It's like debating who's better between Meryl Streep and Charlie Chaplin. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:39 pm |
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| Lorne--Of course you're right about the apples-and-oranges thing, but Taken IMO is every bit as effective as Dirty Harry (the template for the revenge-against-the-bad-guys genre), while The Reader is not even in the same galaxy as Schindler's List, the winner of the Holocaust-drama gold. So although Taken may not be literally better than The Reader, it's more successful on the curve. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:08 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: NYC; US&A
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| I was far moved more by The Reader than by Schindler's List. Redemption played a major factor. Rather than a gazillion-dollar spectacle of one-man's version of the Holocaust, we were given a small, well-realized version of what the whole hellish experience did to one or two people. There were no forced dramatic interpretations (the red coat for example). It seemed more real and immediate to me. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:12 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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lshap wrote: Neeson is very appealing and charismatic, as well as being really big, at 6'4". His physical strength notwithstanding, it still looked silly for him to be running, jumping, dodging and diving like a speedy 25-year-old. Taken would've been a much better film had the focus been more on brain power and less on superhuman physical stunts. Neeson is too good an actor to be jumping through the same old action-hero hoops.
If you substitute "John Wayne" for "Liam Neeson" above, you'll see why I think this comment doesn't make a lot of sense. Why can't a 6'4" guy be an action hero?
Neeson is the rare actor who can play both kinds of parts, cerebral _and_ physical. His "The Big Man" was an excellent movie about boxing.
[An aside. I forgot that John Wayne was only 72 when he died of lung cancer. A lot of his physical ailments were incorporated into his onscreen persona. Today things have changed. This came up when we discussed the real life heroine of "Changeling," who, though in her 30's, could have been in her 50's. Perhaps it is not a stretch to have the mature Neeson performing what seem like superhuman stunts.] |
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