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| lady wakasa |
 Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 7:54 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: whiskeypriest wrote: lady wakasa wrote: billyweeds wrote: This Saturday we're hosting a Sita Sings the Blues dinner party. Food and a screening. Yay!
That actually sounds like a lot of fun. I assume my invitation got lost in the mail....
What I call a party means we're having a couple and their preteen son over. She's a children's book artist and he's an Emmy-award-winning video director. I think--no, I know--they'll love Sita. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:48 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: whiskeypriest wrote: lady wakasa wrote: billyweeds wrote: This Saturday we're hosting a Sita Sings the Blues dinner party. Food and a screening. Yay!
That actually sounds like a lot of fun. I assume my invitation got lost in the mail....
What I call a party means we're having a couple and their preteen son over. She's a children's book artist and he's an Emmy-award-winning video director. I think--no, I know--they'll love Sita.Well, I guess I'll accept the excuse. Cab fare would have been beyond my means anyway.
There's always the subway, you know. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:17 am |
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| Between Phoenix and Manhattan? |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:53 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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marantzo wrote: Between Phoenix and Manhattan?
You can use the unlimited pass for that. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 12:12 pm |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:41 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Got around to watching Twilight last night, which is dumb, cliched and entertaining enough. In my day we had The Lost Boys, and though it had a sense of humor Twilight crucially lacks, it's still the same cheesy confection.
They're pale as death, they scowl and shrug their shoulders and roll their eyes, and hide their faces from the sun behind a tangle of hair dark hair. I'm talking about the mortals here, not the vampires. The vampires are somehow even paler, seem to have Michael Jackson's lips, and their more frequently blonde or ash-colored hair defies gravity with a potent gel apparently not known to mortals.
It's a vampish Rebel Without A Cause meets A Summer Place with a hint of West Side Story thrown in to boot (the vamps and the werewolves are Sharks and Jets respectively; Bella's a teen Maria). But it's not meant to be art anyway. It's an artifact for teens, and for what it is, it's fine. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Man Push Cart has an almost documentary feel as it shows pieces of the life of a Pakistani street vendor in New York. Early each morning he retrieves his bagel & coffee cart and pulls it to his spot, and he pulls it back in the afternoon, and wanders around carrying his propane tank. He also works part-time at other jobs, which doesn't leave him much time for socializing, including pursuing a romance with a Spanish woman (Leticia Dolera, who's very likeable) who runs a local newsstand. The movie has its points of interest looking at his lifestyle, but it doesn't have much of a plot and 90 minutes of watching drudgery is pretty wearing. If this is what Italian neo-realism was like, I'm glad I missed it.
I'm glad Bahrani is doing more plot-driven movies these days. Goodbye Solo is my favorite movie so far this year. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:49 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Someone needs to watch some Italian neo-realism. I'd rec Rome Open City, Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D ...
Italian neo-realism wasn't focused on daily mundane activities like modern realism. For an interesting but long film in that kind of hyper-realism vein, try Chantal Ackerman's Jeanne Dielman from the mid-70's, where household routine becomes hypnotic.
Italian neo-r was a reaction against the fluffy unreal Hollywood/Italian studio films of the 30's and '40's which seemed to be so much silly fantasy when post-war Europeans were confronted with the harsh realities of the immediate post-war world of devastation and despair.
Italian neo-realism in contrast focused on poor and working class people, commented on social conditions, and frequently used non-professional actors and real outdoor locations. The idea was to have a more authentic documentary feel to the films, but they told dramatic stories, often quite sentimental, about their fictional characters who seemed as if they could be the neighbors next door.
Italian neo-realism borrowed from earlier French poetic realism, those grimy Renoir and Gabin films (Toni, La Bête Humaine) which also influenced film noir, the American reaction to changing times and darker themes. Ozu's There Was a Father is also an interesting pre-cursor to Italian neo-realism.
And some early Pasolini films, such as Mamma Roma and Acattone, carried on the tradition.
I liked Man Push Cart, but it didn't get deep enough into the character and then towards the end the added-on dramatic plot is a bit clunky. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 12:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: my computer
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I won't watch the Twilight films. They sold out, just like Eragon was sold down the Hollywood river. The books are much much better, in both cases.
Joe - hop over to the Reading Room...if you like vampires, I've recommended the House of Night series. Written for young adult, but extremely readable (I'm listening, though) and filled with humor and humanity...the vamps and fledgling vamps are so real-people-like...I'm loving it. I'd love to see the books filmed, but it would have to be done right or don't do it at all...just like (here it comes full circle) Twilight shouldn't have been filmed the way it was. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:01 pm |
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Location: Houston
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| The reason I watched it, pure and simple, was that I saw the trailer for the sequel and Robert Pattinson looked sexy shirtless. So I rented it to get a longer viewing. But alas his shirt stays on in the first one. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:43 pm |
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Well, yeah, that's a good reason for renting a movie...  Guess you'll be going to New Moon huh? |
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Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarfs aren't happy. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:28 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Otto Preminger's Exodus is a fairly plodding heavy-handed take on the post-war refugee situation in Palestine and the dramatic events leading up to the founding of Israel.
As is usual for Otto, the film is overlong and rather obvious in making sure the audience knows everything it should see and feel.
Newman is somewhat awkward in the lead role as a key Haganah operative. He has a brooding, arrogant quality common in his early Method acting, Brando-imitative days. Eva Marie Saint seems made of wood, pretty wood with a lovely grain, but definitely wood. Newman of course gets interested in knocking her up, but he has to contend with the ghost of her first husband and the woodpeckers. Sal Mineo gets to emote theatrically.
[Edit: in the last hour plus, Sal gets to tone it down and act, while Eva tries to emote and is just a pretty bad actress]
And maybe that's sort of the problem. It's at a time of industry transition from the old studio system and actorly acting, to more biting new fare and actorly method acting. And the film tries to combine the two behind OP's lack of humor and fluidity. It also suffers today from that 50's epic look, with all of the refugees wearing bright new, freshly laundered clothing.
Newman and ESM straight out of central casting, genetic all-stars.
I was surprised by how poor most of the dialogue was, very stilted and literary. Dalton Trumbo off the blacklist but not at the top of his game. Also, it seemed that Preminger had no idea how to end scenes. Most close with some unnecessary gesture, or linger too long, or fade out too quickly. A lot of awkward scene transitions. At one point everything went black and there was an extended pause. I thought either the film was over or it was an intermission (still a possibility), but the film popped back from the black and kept chugging away.
There were other sloppy moments, such as times where the camera starts panning in and then a cut occurs interrupting the camera movement. During the first romantic scene between Newman and EMS, a large shadow drifts across their first kiss. A cloud? Symbolism? or just a chubby cameraman or crew member? There's also a few instances of clunky staging where a key character stands in the background and listens in on the conversation of others without being seen, as if such Shakespearen/stage conceits were still practiced.
Anyway, the film has a real creaky quality to it. The Eva Marie Saint character is completely useless, except to add a love interest for Newman. You can almost hear the squeaking gears as the next plot point gets wheeled into place. Not even to get into the naivete of how idealistic the Israeli settlers, especially the kibbutzim, are portrayed. This seems like the kind of film that Spielberg could make about 10x as good and gripping. |
Last edited by gromit on Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:44 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:02 am |
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Location: Houston
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lissa wrote: Well, yeah, that's a good reason for renting a movie... Guess you'll be going to New Moon huh?
There's a possibility... |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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gromit--Love your review of Exodus. We need more of that detailed savaging of old movies here on the forum. I've never been able to get more than fifteen minutes into Exodus because of the things you cite. Hard to believe how wooden Eva Marie Saint can be when you see On the Waterfront. But she needs to be cast really perceptively or that quality can take over. She was great in North by Northwest, but only because her detached quality was parlayed against Cary Grant.
Preminger is a problem. He made some excellent-to-amazing movies--Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, a couple more--and a host of howlers and stinkers. He was apparently horrible to actors. I interviewed him once, and will never forget the mix of charm and scariness that he exuded. He had a sense of showmanship, however, that is still interesting. His all-star casts were sometimes ridiculously miscast (Hurry Sundown) and sometimes right on the money (Advise and Consent). |
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