| |
| Author |
Message |
|
| inlareviewer |
 Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 2:56 pm |
 |
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Really dug Ballet Russes; am thinking it was one of my Docu nods in its Blanche year.
Am going through a period of rediscovering Revolutionary Road, and am well aware that as many around here loathed it as admired it. It was given to me as an early birthday gift by the mater, and to my mind it plays better, or at least more conclusively, on DVD than it did on the big screen. The deleted scenes are especially fascinating. Am not sure Mendes didn't overcut, particularly the pregnant, happy April commenting on the picture window, young Frank and his father on the train, and the denouement of him finding April's note and dissolving into helpless tears, all of which add grace notes/links-to-Yates that the final cut often only implies. However, remain obdurate that both stars hit a level of work that would be legendary in the theatre, particularly effective given that he is denied Yates' verbal access to Frank's many contradictory interior thoughts, she has to give full shape to April's deliberately obscured-until-the-climax persona. Merely La Winslet's silent reactions during the second encounter with Michael Shannon's walks-off-the-page turn as crazy John Givings are astounding, ditto her scene at the juke joint with David Harbour's excellent Shep Campbell, and I cannot recall a more mature DiCaprio performance, the final breakfast scene breathtaking in its underlying complexity. The supporting cast seems more than proficient in their various functions, and the alleged stylization of the sets and costumes feel much less pronounced and more impact-ful in their effects on Divid. A negative, sad-cored film to be sure, probably a shade too careful and poised for the best interests of its coruscating source, but not an inconsiderable effort either.
And I finally, and I do mean, finally, caught up with Synecdoche, New York, and am at once impressed and ambivalent. As a conceptual exercise, it is surely beyond conventional analysis, and there were some delicious cross-references and only-Charlie-Kaufman-would-have-thought-of-this elements. At the same time, it seemed overly meretricious and even perverse, more a film for intellectual dissection than for visceral response. I did have nothing but admiration for the actors, starting with PSH and going down the line, if only for their ability to keep a handle on who they were and in what reality and at what time, but I can't say it moved me that much, or made me feel as much as it clearly wanted me to. The fault may well be mine, but, apart from a genuine pang when Samantha Morton's Olive departed and the very last scene, I sort of shrugged, which cannot be remotely what Mr. Kaufman intended.
Some people sew, some people paint, Dolly Levi meddles, I edit. It's a tic. |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Wed Jul 29, 2009 4:30 pm; edited 5 times in total
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:05 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
Not everyone, inla. I loved Revolutionary Road.
I'm so glad you're back! |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:19 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Marj wrote: Not everyone, inla. I loved Revolutionary Road.
I'm so glad you're back!
As for RR, I still think that Leo richly deserved the Racso nod that Mr. Pitt got for latex and drawl, and I would have been perfectly content to see Mrs. Mendes take the gold for her work there over The Reader, which I admired, particularly the scenes with the kid, yet didn't somehow retain, for reasons I cannot put my finger on; whereas certain of her expressions and specific line readings from the Yates adaptation stuck with me until, well, last week, when malareviewer tossed me the Divid saying, "Happy birthday, it's your present, you haven't been getting out nearly enough." She's such a card. |
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
|
| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:28 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
|
| I'm not sure, but I expect I liked Synecdoche, New York a good deal more than other people here. It was an interesting, ambitious, thoughtful mess of a film that could have used the hand of a director whose grasp could at least approach Kaufman's reach. |
_________________
I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
|
| Back to top |
|
| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 3:36 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
whiskeypriest wrote: I'm not sure, but I expect I liked Synecdoche, New York a good deal more than other people here. It was an interesting, ambitious, thoughtful mess of a film that could have used the hand of a director whose grasp could at least approach Kaufman's reach. |
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:26 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
| RR, S NY. The Reader, boy do you people like depressing stuff. I only liked those kind of movies when I was in those wonderful adolescent years of craziness and brooding and connecting with disturbing themes up on the screen. My adolescence lasted for about 20 years so I got to see a lot of them. Never go to them now, No desire to get disturbed if I can avoid it. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:06 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Am also going through an acute Young Frankenstein phase, and am tickled by, among so much, the way that Cloris Leachman's Frau Blücher (neiggghhhhh) hairdo resembles a cruller, if not a continental breakfast hard roll.
|
Last edited by inlareviewer on Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:55 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
| Incredible. I think I've watched and loved Young Frankenstein at least twice in as many months. But as good as Cloris Leachman is, it's Madelyn Kahn who steals this movie. At least for me. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:57 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Marj wrote: Incredible. I think I've watched and loved Young Frankenstein at least twice in as many months. But as good as Cloris Leachman is, it's Madelyn Kahn who steals this movie. At least for me.
It's just that of late, have found myself inexplicably focusing on Cloris' hair-roll-cruller-bun. Next time I watch, will probably be zeroing on Gene Wilder's eyeliner, tee-hee.
|
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:01 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| Man With the Movie Camera is a 1929 Russian experimental film meant for those who think Un Chien Andalou is 52 minutes too short and is burdened with too much of that nasty plot. It essentially shows a day of Russian life with people waking up, interacting with machinery, streetcars, exercising watching sports. The film jumps from scene to scene with abandon, sometimes alternating two scenes with one-second cuts, sometimes double-exposing, sometime having the same image doubled on the screen or having one-half the mirror image of the other. At one point, the film becomes a series of stills, and we cut to a woman editing fragments of film and sticking them together. At one point we are watching a funeral procession and cut to a woman giving birth. A lot of the images are striking, but I found 68 minutes of this a lot to take and kept checking the time to see how much remained. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:24 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
|
Syd wrote: Man With the Movie Camera is a 1929 Russian experimental film meant for those who think Un Chien Andalou is 52 minutes too short and is burdened with too much of that nasty plot. It essentially shows a day of Russian life with people waking up, interacting with machinery, streetcars, exercising watching sports. The film jumps from scene to scene with abandon, sometimes alternating two scenes with one-second cuts, sometimes double-exposing, sometime having the same image doubled on the screen or having one-half the mirror image of the other. At one point, the film becomes a series of stills, and we cut to a woman editing fragments of film and sticking them together. At one point we are watching a funeral procession and cut to a woman giving birth. A lot of the images are striking, but I found 68 minutes of this a lot to take and kept checking the time to see how much remained.
When I saw it, I was struck about what it showed about life (in Odessa, right?) and what things were like pre-collectivization...
Who did the soundtrack, Syd? I really can't see this being primo if it's not the Alloy Orchestra (much like Aelita, Queen of Mars just isn't right without the theremin background music).
There's a whole thing about "day-in-the-life-of-a-city" movies, but I'm not going into that beyond saying the movies include:
- Man With a Movie Camera
- A Propos de Nice
- Berlin, Symphony of a City
- Daybreak Express
- three more I'm forgetting
'Nuther poster:
|
_________________
===================
http://www.wakasaworld.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:56 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
lady wakasa wrote: Who did the soundtrack, Syd? I really can't see this being primo if it's not the Alloy Orchestra (much like Aelita, Queen of Mars just isn't right without the theremin background music).
It was indeed the Alloy Orchestra. It fit the movie very well. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:27 am |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| That poster's awesome, too! |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| yambu |
| Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 5:31 am |
|
|
Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
|
lady wakasa wrote: When I saw it, I was struck about what it showed about life (in Odessa, right?) and what things were like pre-collectivization.... |
_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me? |
|
| Back to top |
|
| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 7:48 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
|
yambu wrote: Moscow, mostly, though I haven't seen it. I can get it at our public library, though I bet only in 35mm
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's mainly Odessa (we had a short intro before the showing). Wikipedia's backing me on this. |
_________________
===================
http://www.wakasaworld.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
