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| Nancy |
 Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 12:34 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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Syd wrote: The film does get good for a while about an hour in when she has to deal with a kid who is bullying the other kids. You can see how she'd be a good kindergarten teacher. But notice that the first time she sees it, she does nothing.
Though it bothered me that after the hunky social worker talks to the kid and finds out that the kid's mother has an abusive boyfriend, and the social worker is planning to follow up with the kid, Poppy says "He'll be all right." That seemed pretty irresponsible to me. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 12:34 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Tokyo Story was much more blunt and obvious than the subtlety I was expecting.
There Was a Father is my favorite Ozu.
Life Aquatic ... I liked the Bowie tunes sung in Portuguese. Not much else.
The Royal Tenenbaums is easily my favorite Wes Anderson.
How I Spent the End of the World does indeed have English subs, so I bought the disc after watching Billy take a long hard pee. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 4:20 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| bocce and whoever is interested--I think it's abundantly easy to hate The Life Aquatic. In addition to being overlong and boring, it's convinced of its own postmodernity to an incredibly annoying extent. What you dislike about Owen Wilson (and I understand) is what I find irritating about the whole movie. |
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| bocce |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:03 pm |
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Joined: 24 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: I think it's abundantly easy to hate The Life Aquatic. ...it's convinced of its own postmodernity to an incredibly annoying extent
i know, or think i know what is post modern in terms of painting and, even, literature, to some degree. but i'm curious as to how YOU define it terms of film. you've used the phrase several times in the past and i've never quite gotten the distinction...
...not that i would disagree with you if you were to say that cleverness without substance was involved... |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bocce wrote:
...not that i would disagree with you if you were to say that cleverness without substance was involved...
bocce--Cleverness without substance is involved. Also irony and disaffectedness and lack of emotion. It's the new breed of hip, and I pretty much can't stand it.
Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau in Swingers flirted with it, but their innate humanity rode in like the cavalry to rescue them. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:33 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Finished Happy-Go-Lucky. I'm mostly with Nancy on this one. The movie does improve in the second half, and the climactic scenes with the driving instructor are well-done. The more dramatic scenes in the movie are much better than the lighter ones, including most of the first half of the movie. All in all, another one of those critically-praised movies that make me wonder what the critics saw in it. (It ran 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:48 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Tried to watch Synecdoche, New York, but this Charlie Kaufman epic finds realms of pretentiousness that have seldom been explored. It's truly a horrendous experience. Kaufman (whose work, truth to tell, I have never loved and sometimes loathed) creates a depressing vision which never is interesting enough to transcend the grimness. Regional theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman comes up with an idea to recreate his own life and hires actors to play himself and others in his life. This leads to mucho navel-gazing. It's torturous--well, at least the first hour of it is, which is all I could stand without throwing things at the television screen. In all, my least favorite film of 2008. Well, maybe not as bad as Quantum of Solace, but everything else. Oof!
Oh, as if to confirm things, Manohla Dargis adored it. I should have known. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 12:21 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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She also named Happy-Go-Lucky her #1 film of 2008.
My worst film of 2008 was Happily N'Ever After. |
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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 Mar 30, 2009 12:36 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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I hadn't realized that I'd seen Sally Hawkins in a couple of other Mike Leigh films, All or Nothing, where she played the teenage daughter of a couple of lushes. Don't like the film that much, but Hawkins is good (but Ruth Sheen is excellent). She also plays one of the women seeking an abortion in Vera Drake, which I did like, especially in the first half.
EDIT: I remember her better now. She was also quite good in Vera Drake. So it's really Poppy the character I have a problem with, not Hawkins herself. |
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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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| Marc |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:10 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| HAPPY GO LUCKY is a wonderful film and anyone who says otherwise is full of shit. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 1:31 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm totally mystified what you saw in it to the point where I wonder if you have any taste at all.
Well, not totally mystified. The scenes involving the class bully and the climactic confrontation are well done, and the bit where she talks to the homeless man is interesting (although I thought clueless, since she would be in physical danger). But too much of the film is pointless and annoying. It's like Leigh didn't have a film to make and made it anyway. There are a lot of scenes that are a total waste of time. |
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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 Mar 30, 2009 1:47 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Syd wrote: She also named Happy-Go-Lucky her #1 film of 2008.
My worst film of 2008 was Happily N'Ever After.
By the way, what exactly is the apostrophe doing in that title? And I'm off a year; it was the worst film I saw in 2007. The horror is still fresh in my memory. I seem to have done a good job of avoiding the true turkeys of 2008, even if it meant a lot of nights playing computer games. It's possible the worst film I saw in 2008 was The Incredible Hulk, and I've seen far worse films than that. For example, Happily N'Ever After. |
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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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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:10 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Worst of 2008:
Happy-Go-Lucky ... annoying, irritating little horror.
Man on Wire .. coy, oh-so-cute, and heavily padded out.
Hunger ... heavy-handed prison torture porn
and the truly awful ...
War, Inc. ... this thing just got dumb and noisy in a hurry. Still trying to decide if John Cusack should be embarrassed for me or if I should be embarrassed for him. |
Last edited by gromit on Mon Mar 30, 2009 11:58 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:35 am |
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| Since I walked out on Rachel Getting Married, I guess it would have to be right up there with my worst of '08. Not being a movie fanatic, I usually avoid movies that I think I'll hate, but sometimes I'm misled, so it's not a perfect protection against suffering through some crap. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:59 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
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| I owe the Hulk an apology. I forgot about Body of Lies, which manages to be dreadful despite having Russell Crowe and Leonardo di Caprio. But the worst of all was The Love Guru, which is down there with the worst of any year. |
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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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