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| marantzo |
 Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:03 am |
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billyweeds wrote: marantzo wrote: Let's hope Toy Story 3 isn't another Godfather 3.  gets a bad rap for not being as good as the first two. It had a lot to live up to, and didn't do all that badly. Comparisons are always odious, but in this case impossibly so.
Never saw it, so I can't agree with or dispute your opinion. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:23 am |
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billyweeds wrote: Though I certainly enjoyed Toy Story, it was not a favorite of mine. Toy Story 2 was considerably better IMO, mainly for the inclusion of the heartbreaking and justifiably Oscarwinning song "When She Loved Me," which broke Randy Newman's string of Oscar-nominated bad songs/losing songs.
Alas, it didn't win. The bland song from Tarzan won that year in a travesty ("You're In My Heart," that is. "Circle of Life" would have been a good winner.). Randy finally won a couple of years later for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc. , which was easily the best song up that year. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:46 am |
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Syd wrote: billyweeds wrote: Though I certainly enjoyed Toy Story, it was not a favorite of mine. Toy Story 2 was considerably better IMO, mainly for the inclusion of the heartbreaking and justifiably Oscarwinning song "When She Loved Me," which broke Randy Newman's string of Oscar-nominated bad songs/losing songs.
Alas, it didn't win. The bland song from Tarzan won that year in a travesty ("You're In My Heart," that is. "Circle of Life" would have been a good winner.). Randy finally won a couple of years later for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc. , which was easily the best song up that year.
OMG, you're right. And the winning Newman song may have been the best of that year, but it was one of his long, long string of mediocrities nonetheless. "When She Loved Me" is a great song--both in and out of the Toy Story 2 context, but particularly in, where it had me awash in tears. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:03 pm |
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| Newman has written some marvellous and eccentric-if that's the correct term-songs throughout his career. In writing for film he seems to write much more mainstream stuff and I think that is why many of them are forgettable. Or maybe he was just so much better when he was depressed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:15 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| Agreed. Randy Newman is a very talented guy and wrote some really knockout material early in his career, but when he started writing for movies he became largely generic. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:16 am |
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Location: Upstate NY
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| Philippe Garrels's Regular Lovers (2005) about three Parisian youths and their affairs during and after the street riots of 1968 is a three hour long movie, slow, plodding and at times fast-forwardable. The shots of Paris riots are amateurish. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:23 am |
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Location: NYC; US&A
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| bummer, it sounds like it coulda been er, uhm, good? |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:47 am |
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| Ghulam, I had the same problem with REGULAR LOVERS. I couldn't sit thru it. Boring. Makes Godard seem like a thrill ride. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:52 pm |
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Faust (1926) was F. W. Murnau's last German film before he came to the United States. His next film was the classic Sunrise. Faust is also considered a classic, but I'm more lukewarm about it. I suspect it would work better on a big screen and certainly with a better print.
It's a version of Goethe's Faust with some details added from other versions of the story. Mephistopheles (aka Mephisto, played by Emil Jannings) makes a deal with an archangel (Michael, I believe, since he has a sword) that he can corrupt the righteous Faust. If Mephisto succeeds, the Earth will be saved.
Mephisto starts off by hitting the elderly alchemist Faust's hometown with a plague. The images of a gigantic Mephisto looming over the town are impressive. Faust tries to save victims to no avail. A monk screams that the only way to survive is through faith. Unfortunately, he then sees the gigantic Mephisto, losing faith, and falls a dead plague victim.
This also shatters Faust's faith, and he starts burning his books, including his bibles. One book opens itself to a page telling how to get power by summoning the spirit of darkness. All you have to do is go to a crossroads and say his name three times, and you can get power, wealth and, in other movies, learn to play a mean blues guitar.
Thus Mephisto appears as a peasant who doffs his cap to Faust. Faust runs, but wherever he goes, there's Mephisto, doffing his cap. Finally Mephisto says he can offer Faust whatever Faust wants, and what Faust wants is to stop the plague. When his efforts lead to Faust being declared a servant of the Devil, Faust takes the next best thing, which is youth, wealth, and lots of sex and other debauchery. This lasts until he meets and seduces the virtuous Gretchen, and things get really, really bad.
Some very good effects here, the absolute best being Faust and Mephisto flying from Germany to Padua over the Alps, which apparently include a detour through the outskirts of Hell, complete with birds that appear to be half dragon. The scene where Mephisto appears everywhere is also great and rather funny. Mephisto is often pretty likable for someone who spreads plague and frames people for murder. On the other hand, the early special effect scenes looked really crude to me, and the actor who played Faust bothered me.
Gretchen is played by Camilla Horn, who is quite good until the director gets obsessed with turning her into the Virgin Mary. (Lillian Gish was originally going to play the part, and was a Virgin figure in Intolerance.) Horn had a lengthy career in German films, the last of them in 1988, but this is the only time I've seen her. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:36 am |
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| Sounds like it really screws with the Faust myth. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:59 am |
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The Polish movie Katyn (2007), directed by Andrzej Wajda is a grim retelling of the brutal killings pepetrated by the Soviets in Poland in 1939 and 1940 when over 20,000 top officers of the Polish army and intelligentia were eliminated with machine like efficiency. The focus shifts to how the families dealt with their loved ones being unaccounted for and later revealed to be dead, and how during the Soviet occupation of Poland, the lie was officially repeated again and again that this horrible massacre was the work of Germans. Excellent movie.
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:02 am |
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I guess it was too much of a stretch to try to blame it on the Jews.  |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:57 am |
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marantzo wrote: I guess it was too much of a stretch to try to blame it on the Jews.
Scapegoating Germans is a whole new twist in itself! |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:58 pm |
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Ghulam wrote: marantzo wrote: I guess it was too much of a stretch to try to blame it on the Jews.
Scapegoating Germans is a whole new twist in itself! |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 7:01 pm |
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| It is difficult to kill 20,000 people and try to blame someone else. You are bound to leave a few holes in your story that tanks could go through |
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