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| Joe Vitus |
 Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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lissa wrote: Poor Lassie...a life of gender confusion and before the whole world, too!
Lassie...the original Clay Aiken. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Keeping Mum was, as promised, quite delightful. Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott Thomas, Rowan Atkinson, and Patrick Swayze were all a lot of fun, and the British atmosphere was very cozy. A perfect DVD rental. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:34 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2148
Location: my computer
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| How'd I miss that one, billy? Is it recent? The cast is stellar, I need to rent it now! |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:46 am |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 9:52 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I watched The Visitor again a couple of days ago. Just as good the second time through. I have Leigh watching it now, and I discovered she's never seen The Station Agent, which is by the same director. That's one I want to have my own copy of. |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:14 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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lissa wrote: How'd I miss that one, billy? Is it recent? The cast is stellar, I need to rent it now!
I had never heard of it before Swayze's passing introduced the discussion on the forum. Ironically, Swayze's character discusses death philosophically in the movie. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 2148
Location: my computer
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| Thanks, Gary - and billy - and I think I'll rent it. |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:37 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Ben Hur is really an epic piece of crap.
Some impressive sets, and fine costumes (though they all look freshly laundered, as is usual for 50's Technicolor/CInemascope period films).
The chariot race is pretty cool, though it hardly makes up for the incredibly lame way that it is set up. Along with the fact that all of the angst and revenge merely gets channeled into a chariot race in the first place.
The film also has an odd subtitle, A Tale of the Christ, which is substantially inaccurate. Actually in some ways the film almost seems like a parody, as "the greatest story ever told" unfolds just off camera, while we instead watch these bozos and their unlikely and petty rivalry.
Overlong, poor acting, poor scripting, bad dialogue ... good for almost a dozen Oscars. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:41 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I believe the subtitle comes from the novel on which it's based. |
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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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:29 pm |
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Gromit, is that the first time you've seen it? "An epic piece of crap" will have to be added to the many things I have called the movie. When I am in a book store and want to judge a movie review book, I look up how they rate Ben Hur. You'd be surprised how many rate it highly.
The chariot scene was OK but also ridiculous, with the hero having white horses and the villain having black ones. And the bad guy cheating with those horrible things on his wheels. The old version's (silent?) chariot race was better and the Oscar winner stole from it with relish. The scenes at sea looked amazingly like they were shot in a bathtub.
Dwight MacDonald said that it was shot in butcher shop colour.  |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Ben-Hur is a pretty terrible movie but Stephen Boyd is pretty good in it as I recall. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:50 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Ben-Hur is a pretty terrible movie but Stephen Boyd is pretty good in it as I recall.
I like the silent version better. |
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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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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:01 pm |
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| Boyd was OK for sure, but Heston was at his terrible best. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:12 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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First time. I'd never really gone in for the epics before. I just recently watched Quo Vadis* and now Ben Hur, since my interest was peaked after having wandered around Rome and Constantinople this Summer.
I thought Stephen Boyd was pretty good in BH and really looked the part, but too often the dialogue or staging let him down so that he had to utter dumb dialogue or stand around in a scene with nothing to do.
On the disc I have, there's a screen test of Leslie Nielsen in the Boyd role. It's a fairly lengthy early scene where the Roman tribune Messala meets Judah Ben Hur for the first time since they were boys.
* Actually my Quo V disc got all jittery and Mr. Freeze around the 2 hour mark. I just got around to returning it and haven't gotten to the final hour yet. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:20 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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| My favorite thing about Ben-Hur (Loved Ben, hated Hur) is recalling how Gore Vidal tacitly told Stephen Yummy, er, Boyd to play homosexual crush as subtext without letting Mr. Reactionary Heston know what he was up to, which adds extra camp to the Judah/Messala scenes. It's really an overblown movie, to put it charitably. |
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