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| Marc |
 Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:38 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| COLLATERAL is an exce;llent film. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:55 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| After doing some big numbers in it's first few days, THE HURT LOCKER is tumbling to the ground. What appears, according to critics, to be the best film of the year is not finding an audience. I think the way it's being released was a big mistake. It doesn't even open in Austin (a very film savvy city) until July 10. By then, the buzz will have become a whisper. What's up with that shit. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:14 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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| As for Micheal Mann - I hesitate to admit it this, but The Last of the Mohicans is one of my favorite guilty pleasures ever. I watch it anytime I hit it on the tube. Yes, the accents were horrible, but the style and grace of it was so great. And a fine love story to boot. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:32 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Saw PUBLIC ENEMIES again. It is everything I've said it is and more. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:34 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Saw Public Enemies and I can understand why the reviews are all over the place. There's a lot of style, which is not necessarily bad, and an underdevelopment of characters. Bale, Depp and Cotillard all sink effortlessly into their characters, but about all we get of Dillinger's background is that he was beaten as a child, and we don't even get that for Melvin Purvis and Billie Frechette.
There is a big, well-done shootout sequence between the FBI and the gangsters, the latter at this point being Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and their gangs, and I thought Baby Face Nelson was dead four times over since I wasn't clear which character he was. The confusion of the scene was well done though; it shows you how easy it is for people to get killed by friendly fire.
Of the three stars, I was more impressed by Cotillard than Depp or Bale, but that may just be because she showed more emotion. Dillinger and Purvis come across as being pretty cold. (But there is a scene involving Purvis and Frechette that shows there might yet be a streak of decency in Purvis. (Hoover comes off a lot worse than Purvis.) There was an amusing little bit I loved where Dillinger is in court in Indiana and his lawyer is trying to keep Dillinger in the jail he's in rather than sending Dillinger to a penitentary. You know why this isn't a good idea.
There is an effort to paint the FBI as being as bad as Dillinger, which causes a problem for me because Dillinger was a violent criminal. But that final shootout strikes me as being incredibly irresponsible given the probablility of innocent bystanders being shot.
Overall reaction is mild disappointment, because I had such high expectations given the cast and director, but it's definitely worth taking a chance on. I'm expecting reactions on the forum to be as varied as those of the critics. |
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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: Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:45 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Kate wrote: As for Micheal Mann - I hesitate to admit it this, but The Last of the Mohicans is one of my favorite guilty pleasures ever. I watch it anytime I hit it on the tube. Yes, the accents were horrible, but the style and grace of it was so great. And a fine love story to boot.
The Last of the Mohicans isn't even a guilty pleasure of mine. I freely admit, without any guilt, that I love the movie. I suspect, having read other Cooper, that it is a case of turning shit into caviar. Or, really, of taking a powerful but incompetently told story and putting it in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing.
Collateral is also an excellent movie. The best I've seen that Mann's directed. Haven't seen anything else Mann has directed, which is odd because he directed Ali and The Insider, two movies which I should have seen by now and didn't. |
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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: Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:50 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 8:20 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| I predict that PUBLIC ENEMIES is going to do big international boxoffice. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 8:24 pm |
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| Sounds like a safe bet to me. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:12 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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| Just got back from The Hangover. It's a very funny, very well-crafted manflic. Missing that layer of sensitivity of Superbad, but just as funny. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Pacific Northwest
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lshap wrote: Just got back from The Hangover. It's a very funny, very well-crafted manflic. Missing that layer of sensitivity of Superbad, but just as funny.
I just saw it tonight as well and liked it much more than I expected to. It was very funny and enjoyable film. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:49 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Kate wrote: lshap wrote: Just got back from The Hangover. It's a very funny, very well-crafted manflic. Missing that layer of sensitivity of Superbad, but just as funny.
I just saw it tonight as well and liked it much more than I expected to. It was very funny and enjoyable film.
I thought it was pretty enjoyable, too. I liked the overall atmosphere of anarchy. My favorite line was near the very beginning when Tracy says "We're getting married in five hours." and Phil replies, "Yeah... that's not gonna happen." There's something about how he delivers that line that cracked me up.
Tyson punching out Alan was a great moment. Alan had done so much to deserve it that I was ready to cheer.
And it's always nice to see Heather Graham, who seems to play a lot of prostitutes and porn stars and has a lot of fun doing it. Makes you wonder why Stu would hesitate at being married to Jade when Melissa is the alternative. Although you have to wonder how good a mother Jade is when she can lose her baby.
I'm glad we never got to find out about the chicken. That's one of those existential mysteries that makes life worthwhile. |
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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: Sun Jul 05, 2009 3:08 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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The Hurt Locker was entirely nothing special, in my O. Iraq, a 3-member team of US soldiers who disarm bombs, conflicting personalities, and ... it's easy to imagine the rest pretty well, as it unfolds in familiar ways.
I didn't really believe in or get engaged with these rather stereotyped characters. And I found myself getting some of the characters confused in their helmeted and non-helmeted states. Also, in many scenes it was difficult to tell where things were or what was happening. Undoubtedly, this was a choice to convey the adrenaline/action/fog of war, etc -- but it got a bit tiresome, distracting, and paradoxically distancing when it is meant to convey immediacy.
I started tuning out around the one hour mark, when there occurs a fairly lengthy standoff in the desert. It's not a bad film, but seemed rather familiar in its action and somewhat weak with its characters. Not much is explained, such as the types of explosives, how to disarm bombs, protectiveness of the protective suit, etc. so each mission ends up seeming reasonably the same and equally dangerous.
Probably the film has more impact in a theater. It was released in Italy several months ago, so there are perfect DVd copies already here.
The Hurt Locker is very much an Iraq War film, and not much different than others I've seen. |
Last edited by gromit on Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:05 am; edited 2 times in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: After doing some big numbers in it's first few days, THE HURT LOCKER is tumbling to the ground.
Not according to Movieweb.com, which says (two hours ago) that:
Kathryn Bigalow's The Hurt Locker stayed at the top of the per-screen average charts, pulling in another $126,000 on its allotted nine screens. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:28 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: The Hurt Locker was entirely nothing special, in my O. Iraq, a 4-member team of US soldiers who disarm bombs, conflicting personalities, and ... it's easy to imagine the rest pretty well, as it is unfolds in familiar ways.
I didn't really believe in or get engaged with these rather stereotyped characters. And I found myself getting some of the characters confused in their helmeted and non-helmeted states. Also, in many scenes it was difficult to tell where things were or what was happening. Undoubtedly, this was a choice to convey the adrenaline, action, fog of war, etc -- but it got a bit tiresome, distracting, and paradoxically distancing when it is meant to convey immediacy.
I started tuning out around the one hour mark, when there occurs a fairly lengthy standoff in the desert. It's not a bad film, but seemed rather familiar in its action and somewhat weak with its characters. Not much is explained, such as the types of explosives, blast impacts, protectiveness of the protective suit, etc. so each mission ends up seeming reasonably the same and equally dangerous.
Probably the film has more impact in a theater. It was released in Italy several months ago, so there are perfect DVd copies already here.
The Hurt Locker is very much an Iraq War film, and not much different than others I've seen.
Couldn't disagree more if you paid me; you're not paying me, but I still disagree. |
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