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| lshap |
 Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:45 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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After watching Cassandra's Dream, I've become more concerned with Woody Allen's mental health. I'm probably his biggest fan on Third Eye so I don't say this lightly, but what the fuck, Woody, what kind of dark, murderous fantasies occupy your thoughts? One film about a plotted murder is fine, especially when it's masterpiece like Crimes and Misdemeanors. A second? Okay, Match Point was also terrific. But here we are, back again for a third...uh... shot.
Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) are brothers whose lofty ambitions don't match their limited abilities. Ian's desperately in love, Terry's desperately in debt, and they turn to rich uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) to bail them out with a quick infusion of status and cash. He'll do it, but first the loyal nephews must kill someone. Mucho moralizing ensues as the brothers are backed further and further into a corner from which they can't wriggle free.
Farrell and McGregor are typically great to watch, and I believed their moral conflict and eventual course of action. If it was anyone else behind the script I might even have unreservedly enjoyed Cassandra's Dream. But the little voice inside my head kept saying, "How many films does it take you to work through your demons, Woody?" |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:59 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I don't think the movie was in a class with Crimes and Misdemeanors or Match Point in any case. It was dramatically dull--with unplayable roles, especially Wilkinson's. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 2:03 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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It was also quite predicable. No where in the league with C@Ms and Match Point.
I wondered if Allen were going for a trilogy of sorts and just failed. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 2:20 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| i just enjoy watching colin & ewan and even tom |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:13 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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I enjoyed them, too. It is interesting to watch how people react when placed in situations over their heads. Our liberal, Western mindsets are not quite the immovable objects we presume them to be when confronted by irresistible forces. Our deeply held morals and judgments bend a lot easier than we'd like to believe when our foundation gets shaken enough. The whole plot of Cassandra's Dream was a classic 'McGuffin' to place the two brothers and uncle in one such shaky scenario.
But I've seen that scenario before. By the same writer. Twice. Cassandra's Dream was nowhere near Woody's other two murder films because its strengths were the ones recycled from those two. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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| While i agree -- i still love me some Colin -Ewan - Tom. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:16 pm |
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| I have a hard time watching Ewan McGregor in anything. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:29 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Werner Herzog's documentary, The White Diamond begins with a brief history of early flight, both airplanes and dirigibles, and dreams of flight. Then we meet Graham Dorrington, an airship designer with a slightly mad look in his eye and a hyper way of talking. His dream is an airship that will allow him to maneuver in complete silence above the canopies of the South American jungles and see the life that lives there. It sounds much more romantic than David Attenborough's ropes, pulleys and counterweights.
Dorrington waxes poetic about it, but also is alert to the dangers. A cinematographer friend was killed in one of Dorrington's earlier experimental airships. Thus there is an argument when Herzog wants to be on board on its first flight. Herzog wants a camera on board and is not willing to risk an employee on a craft he hasn't tried himself. And there are problems on that flight when an engine destroys itself. And with all engines running, the airship flies backward. (The biggest engine was running in the wrong direction.)
The film takes place near the magnificent Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, a huge falls that Dorrington wants to fly across if possible. Alas, the downdrafts make it impossible. But there are millions of swifts which nest behind the falls, where no predator or camera can find them.
We also meet Mark Anthony Yhap, a Rastafarian Guyanan who collects medicinal herbs, mines diamonds, and dreams of taking the airship across the ocean to see his missing family in Europe.
Very good film about the dream of flight, marred sometimes by overly dramatic music. Not quite as powerful as Grizzly Man, but Dorrington and his crew are sane and doing something worthwhile, and I would love some day to float through the treetops with them. |
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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: Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:35 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I watched The Iron Giant again, which documents events that happened in Rockland, Maine when I was six. (The screenplay changes the name of the town to Rockwell and changes people's names to protect the innocent and cover the asses of the guilty.) This was in October, 1957, when Sputnik was just launched and people were in a panic, not only because the evil Russians were in space, but because this meant they could potentially launch a nuclear missile to hit anywhere in the United States. Thus everyone was on edge, and when a meteorite bearing a fifty-foot tall alien robot hit in the middle of a rare Maine hurricane, the scene was set for a major panic and potential mass destruction. Only the courage of a young boy, a single mother, and a beatnik scrap artist prevented a major disaster.
It was fortunate at the time that we hadn't perfected the WHOPPR, because this incident could have resulted in global thermonuclear war; as it is, the incident has become one of the more evocative memories of the Cold War, teaching us to show restraint in the use of nuclear weapons, and not to panic when giant robots start roaming the landscape and munching our automobiles, and--especially--do not try to hit them with guided missiles.
An excellent lesson, charmingly by Brad Bird, and one of the best animated films of the late 1990s. |
_________________
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: Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:10 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Neither Leigh nor I could make it more than 20 minutes into The Darjeeling Limited. Sorry, just didn't connect.
There's a brief short before it, Hotel Chevalier, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman, that is slow, mannered and excruciatingly boring, and is supposed to be an appetizer for the main film. It's a great way to put you out of the mood. |
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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 Aug 10, 2009 12:07 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Darjeeling Limited doesn't get better.
It was a brutal misfire.
But Barbet Shroeder does have a cameo.
And you might want to skip towards the end when Anjelica Huston makes an appearance as their mother. By far the best part of the film, and she has an interesting turn, for 5-10 minutes.
Otherwise it was a crapfest. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| A second viewing of the Turkish film Distant (2002) directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan made me appreciate it even more than I did when I first saw it. A divorced photographer living by himself in Istanbul has a cousin from the village come and live with him while he tries to find a job in the big city. Tensions develop between the two and the guest becomes the recipient of some harsh words. The title of the movie refers to the alienation of the city-dwelling photographer from not only his cousin, but also from his own mother, his ex-wife and even from his own feelings. There is very little dialogue, there are long but pregnant pauses. Superb direction. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:03 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I'm heading off tonight and will be in Turkey next week.
I had planned to watch Distant before I left, but didn't manage the time.
I would highly rec Ceylan's latest film, Üç Maymun (2009) (aka Three Monkeys).
Ignore the inane English title and see it.
A taut drama about a family that gets pulled apart when a big shot gets entwined in their lives.
I was impressed. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Gromit, thanks for the tip and bon voyage. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:40 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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The new one is the only Ceylan I've seen, and now I need to see more. I also have Iklimer (Climates), but alas and alack that's in a jumbo to-watch pile as well. We might drive through Uzak, for what that's worth.
Hey, WHERE's MO F.?!? |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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