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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:42 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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That sounds like something I'd enjoy. I just put it in my Netflix queue.
George R. R. Martin wrote a great story, "Unsound Variations" about a man who discovered how to travel back in the past. He started out as a loser, and blamed this on a chess tournament where he drew a game where he had an advantage, and that lost his team the championship. So he uses his ability to go back in time and make his life better while ruining the life of his teammates. Then he calls them together to gloat. The result isn't what he expects (his victims realize that their bad luck wasn't their own fault, but due to his malice) so the story ends with him going back in time again, not realizing all variations he creates are unsound. Since his going back in time requires him to die in the current timeline (so he can switch to a new timeline), his victims are now free. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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lady wakasa wrote: Fly-by post
Nice one. The movie sounds interesting. Will look for it. (My Blockbuster sucks, as most video stores these days, but if there's one thing they keep up with, it's anime.)
On the subject of the audience for a given anime, I've been avoiding the Lupin movies because the packaging leads me to believe the moviemakers went strongly in a kid-friendly direction. Have you see any of them? If they were true to the orginal strip, I'd want to see them. |
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| daffy |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:18 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1939
Location: Wall Street
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Syd wrote: I could have sworn somebody reviewed October Sky here before me, but search doesn't turn it up. Maybe it was back at the New York Times.
One thing I like about it is that although John Hickam (Homer's father) is often pigheaded and narrow-minded because of his devotion with mining, he's also genuinely heroic, and this is established very quickly. Chris Cooper as usual is very good. I always look forward to seeing him in a movie. He's in one of the short stories in New York, I Love You, and will be in The Tempest.
The Tempest I have mixed feelings about since I don't care for the play. On the other hand, Helen Mirren is playing Prospera, which is certainly an innovation. Djimon Hounsou is Caliban, and that sounds very interesting.
I love October Sky and Chris Cooper. Jake is pretty good, too. I agree with Syd about the father being heroic, and I also like SPOILER: the way they portray the Principal's change-of-mind: nothing sentimental about it, just doing the right thing. My only problem is when Cooper puts his arm around his son at the end. Too hokey. They could have found a better way to express that. END SPOILER.
Speaking of Prospera, The Tempest, and Gyllenhaals, I saw big sis Maggie perform Prospera at Columbia back in '96. She was pretty good, considering she was 19 and playing an older character. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:29 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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| Some Fly by post, Lady! That is one of the best reviews I've ever read here. It's concise but gives us what we need to know with out depicting the whole plot. And I love your personal take on it. You made it so readable. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:22 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| The first third of David Mamet's HOMICIDE is a tough police procedural that crackles with Mamet's signature wise cracking dialogue. The scenes between Joe Mantegna and William Macy in a police cruiser clearly influenced similar scenes in Pulp Fiction. But, when HOMICIDE starts becoming a morality play (as does all of Mamet to varying degrees of success), the movie becomes conventional and heavy handed. The subject of betraying one's ethnic roots and the ensuing guilt is a much-used theme in the movies and one would hope that Mamet would bring something fresh to the mix. Alas, he does not. HOMICIDE starts tough but quickly goes soft and eventually inert. In addition, I found the characters stereotypical to the point of caricature. The rich Jews hiding dark secrets and nefarious plots were as one dimensional as depictions of white supremacists sporting skinheads, Doc Martins and swastika tattoos. These are two sides of a coin minted in the treasury of cliches. Yes, they exist, but, in their obsessive one dimensionality, they're not very interesting. I don't expect subtlety from Mamet, but I do expect intelligence. |
Last edited by Marc on Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:12 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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All Quiet on the Western Front: I mentioned in the Pre-Code forum that James Berardinelli was going through the Academy Awards’ Best Pictures and this is the earliest I hadn’t seen. This isn't really a pre-Code, although we do get one man kissing another on his cheeks, and they aren't even French.
We start off with a man opening the door to show soldiers marching down the street. His postman is a sergeant in the reserves and has just been called up for the beginning of World War I. We switch to a classroom where a teacher of Greek gives a long speech to his all-male classroom, revving them up by talking about the glories of war, patriotism, the pride of nations and the effect of a man in uniform on young ladies. There are several long speeches in the movie, but they’re really great speeches. The boys promptly go off to enlist, including five young men who aim to spend their war together. (During the speech, we get looks into the kids’ minds to see the effect of the teacher’s speech).
They are delighted to find the former postman is their drill sergeant until they find out he’s all business and not their buddy, and the process of turning schoolboys into soldiers does not leave them much time to show off their uniforms to the young ladies. It also gives the former postman the pleasurable chance to be on top of people who in the civilian world would be his social superiors. However, the kids get some revenge.
Then it’s off to the front, where they discover that all that talk of glory is a lie. Soon they’re wondering what happened to their supply lines, ducking enemy fire, or waiting out an artillery bombardment in a dugout while the shells are showering dirt from the roof and one of the soldiers is going mad.
A little less than halfway through, there is a battle with initial artillery bombardment followed by an enemy sally across no-man’s land and chaotic bayonet fight in the trenches. This is one of the best pieces of battle footage I’m seen in any movie. For those impressed by the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan, this film was there almost seventy years earlier. A bit later Paul (Lew Ayres) is fighting in a graveyard with his former drill instructor who now gets to find out what it’s like under enemy fire. Then Paul finds himself in a crater with a French soldier he has mortally wounded, but who he now feels sympathy for. Paul has a speech here that is one of the few really bad ones in the movie, but the scene itself is haunting.
Ayres became famous for his role here, and sometimes he’s good, as with his big speech near the end, or the one in the graveyard, but during the first half of the movie, I was having trouble telling which kid was which. Considerably better is Louis Wolheim as Kat Katczinsky, the weatherbeaten company scrounger who takes the kids under his wing to teach them the ropes. I also liked Arnold Lucy as Professor Kantorek, who keeps stirring up the blood of his young charges so they’ll enlist, and John Weay, who plays the mailman turned drill sergeant.
All in all, the antiwar message of the book is preserved undiluted.. It’s certainly one of the most uncompromising antiwar movies ever made.
Apparently a remake is now being cast, but it’s going to have an almost impossible task matching the impact of the original.
No wonder Germany and Austria banned this film in the 1930s. |
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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: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:34 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Marc wrote: The first third of David Mamet's HOMICIDE is a tough police procedural that crackles with Mamet's signature wise cracking dialogue. .... becoming a morality play ... HOMICIDE starts tough but quickly goes soft and eventually inert.... I don't expect subtlety from Mamet, but I do expect intelligence.
That was pretty much my reaction as well.
The Mantegna-Macy interaction is interesting and well done. Then the film, after a fairly good set-up, devolves into cliches, a fairly strained plot-line of conflicting duties, and loses direction. The message is too forced and stale.
Decent but disappointing. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:31 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Mamet, a sometimes marvelous, sometimes polemical playwright, makes all-but-unwatchable movies. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:31 am |
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| Yeah. Because of his reputation I always expect his work to be first rate and so many times I end up wondering why he is thought of so highly. I'll have to look up his films because I know I liked some. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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Syd, I'm going to put that into my queue too. Sounds like just my kind of thing.
Onto Mamet. I agree most of his films are far too stagey but then you get Glen Gary Glen Ross and House of Games. When he does something that works, it's brilliant. Both of these should have been in my top 50. But based on Marc's review, I'll probably skip Homicide.
He's now working on a new Diary of Anne Frank. That ought to be interesting. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:46 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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Harumph! Can't find anything today.
Syd, are you certain that "Unsound Variations" is the correct title? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:14 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Marj wrote: Harumph! Can't find anything today.
Syd, are you certain that "Unsound Variations" is the correct title?
Yes. It was a novella published in Amazing Stories in 1982 and was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. You can find it in his collection "Portraits of His Children." |
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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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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:35 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Glengarry Glen Ross was written by Mamet. James Foley directed. |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:03 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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The Spanish Prisoner was my first Mamet, and although I loved Steve Martin the ending was kind of painful.
The Winslow Boy, however, gained from being done by Mamet because his whole way of "distancing" the audience from the characters was an important part of the story itself.
...well, I thought so, anyway. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 4:16 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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I knew that Marc. And Lady, recently I tried to watch The Winslow Boy. It didn't work for me, but I had just recently seen the original and that may have had some effect.
Gary, I will try it again, perhaps in another year.
Marc, have you ever seen House of Games? Actually it's one of those really interesting films, I think every should at least give a try. |
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