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| Earl |
 Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:07 pm |
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Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 2621
Location: Houston
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I was also disappointed by State of Play, but I agree with Billy that Crowe gave an excellent turn in it. I liked the very idea of his character, an old-school investigative journalist still doing top notch work in a blogging world. Everything about him seemed to have stopped evolving sometime in the mid 1990's. He used a 90's computer. He drove a 90's car which, from the look of it, hadn't been cleaned since the 90's. His appearance was a total shambles and he probably hadn't bought an article of clothing since the 90's. And it had certainly been quite a while since he had gotten a haircut or a shave.
Also, I forgot to mention in my original review that Jason Bateman has a wonderful cameo. He drops into the movie late in the game and gives it a much needed shot of adrenaline. If only his role could have been expanded.
By the way, any thoughts on the significance of the title? I don't recall anyone using the words "state of play" anytime during the movie. To what does the title refer? |
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"I have a suspicion that you are all mad," said Dr. Renard, smiling sociably; "but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt friendship." |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:34 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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State of Play and Up were the last mainstream movies I saw. I liked them both. Esp. Crowe. Up was inspiring.
Wade.......I'm glad you're back!
While I was in CA I saw some good films and the latest Woody Allen. To get that out of the way:
WHATEVER WORKS I don't like Larry David/his character. He was so dominant and so boring in his snobby/grouchiness it was not believeable that anyone would want to be a friend to him, a wife to him, or a listener to him. Woody Allen in the role would have been more amusing......but still too much of that character. What made the movie have an element of pleasure was watching Patricia Clarkson as the young runaway's proper Southern Christian mother transform herself into the very hippest New Yorker. Ed Begley, Jr. did a good job transforming her cheating husband into the very gayest New Yorker. A side note.......I started watching Carrie and discovered it was the 2002 version. Patricia Clarkson plays Carrie's mother.
IRENE IN TIME I really enjoyed this. Victoria Tennant and Karen Black were the only familiar faces in this tale of a single CA 30 something who thinks her father was the only man who thought she was really special. She compares notes with girlfriends (who describe their fathers) and recites advise from dating books while she suffers through more dating failures. I hope someone else will see this......I'd like to discuss the ending.
DEPARTURES This is a slightly quirky but basically inspiring Japanese tale of a man who loses his cello playing job with a Tokyo orchestra and takes a job in his home town that he thinks involves travel booking. Well.....he discovers that it involves travel......helping people travel to the other side (death). It is very culture-specific, very moving. It won the Oscar for best foreign film. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 8:46 am |
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Quote: Also, I forgot to mention in my original review that Jason Bateman has a wonderful cameo.
I also forgot to mention that, though I remembered later and didn't get around to posting. He was very good and it did give the movie refreshing turn. I wouldn't call his role a cameo though, it's big for a cameo.
Betsy, I'm glad someone else liked it. Thank you.  |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:04 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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| I quite like Jason Bateman. He has a very low key charm and ease, and can be very funny. We saw Hancock on cable last night and it was a garbled mess, but Bateman was the best part. He does seem somewhat one note, but I like that note. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Okay, people. Are you ready? Just saw The Hurt Locker. It's not only the best movie of the year by a thousand miles but one of my all-time top twenty, maybe ten. The term "instant classic" was coined for just such movies as this one. Nothing on Kathryn Bigelow's resume--and I liked Point Break as much as anything Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves have ever made--could have prepared me for the absolute genius of Bigelow's direction here. If she doesn't become the first female director to win an Oscar something is seriously wrong with the world. And the unknown Jeremy Renner is great in the leading role. And Anthony Mackie, slightly better known, is terrific in support.
It's about the Iraq war, but there is no political statement being made. It's a character study, a suspense thriller, an action flick, and a psychological drama all rolled up into one. There is humor, sentiment, and incredible tension. This is a truly great film, plunked down into the world with almost no publicity. Get ready for a rollercoaster ride and buckle yourself in tight. But don't miss it for the world. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:22 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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| Hard to decide whether to see The Hurt Locker based on such an ambivalent review. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Even after seeing the movie, I had to Google the meaning of the title. I had assumed it meant something about a faulty mechanism or something. What it actually is, apparently, is another term for "a world of pain." To put somebody in "the hurt locker" is to inflict pain on them. And war can do that. What I failed to mention earlier is that it's also the best war movie I've ever seen. (But I don't much care for the genre, so that's less praise than everything else.) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:37 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Also saw the muckraking documentary Food Inc., all about how we should eat organic food because everything in the supermarket is such shit. It's undoubtedly true for the most part, and skillfully made, I guess, but for anyone (like me, and I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou) who has studied the situation, there's nothing particularly new here. It's a DVD rental for most, I think. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Back to The Hurt Locker. I just read the review from The Village Voice and was interested to see that the critic called THL the best American movie since There Will Be Blood, which I absolutely flat-out loathed.
But--honestly, folks--while watching THL I did have a moment where I thought, "This reminds me of TWBB, except that Bigelow and Renner are doing everything right that Anderson and Day-Lewis did wrong." |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:12 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| THE HURT LOCKER is the only movie I am pissing myself to see. It sounds like Kathryn Bigelow has finally made the film that will put her in the artistic big leagues. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:13 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| In the print ad for THE HURT LOCKER there are tons of great reviews. Nowhere in the ad is the word Iraq mentioned. Commercial kiss of death. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: In the print ad for THE HURT LOCKER there are tons of great reviews. Nowhere in the ad is the word Iraq mentioned. Commercial kiss of death.
A.O. Scott of The NYTimes knows it, too. Hence his very funny and perceptive opening:
"The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow from a script by Mark Boal, is the best nondocumentary American feature made yet about the war in Iraq. This may sound like faint praise and also like a commercial death sentence....So let me put it another way, at the risk of a certain cognitive dissonance. If The Hurt Locker is not the best action movie of the summer, I’ll blow up my car." |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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It's gotten wonderful notices but it is undoubtedly an Iraq war film.
After I saw Saving Private Ryan I made a promise to myself. No more war movies. I've kept that promise. And I'm afraid even a great one won't break it.
WNYC. org is giving out free passes if anyone's interested. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: THE HURT LOCKER is the only movie I am pissing myself to see. It sounds like Kathryn Bigelow has finally made the film that will put her in the artistic big leagues.
Without a glimmer or a shadow of a doubt. She is now officially one of the greats, and probably will be the most praised female director since....Leni Riefenstahl? Lina Wertmuller? Penny Marshall? (Just kidding about Marshall.) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marj wrote: It's gotten wonderful notices but it is undoubtedly an Iraq war film.
After I saw Saving Private Ryan I made a promise to myself. No more war movies. I've kept that promise. And I'm afraid even a great one won't break it.
WNYC. org is giving out free passes if anyone's interested.
I'm interested in why you're so rigid about it, and why SPR was the one that did it to you. |
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