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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:56 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Humpday is the kind of movie that gives the term "indie film" a good name. A delightful, beautifully improvised human comedy about the attempts of two college friends, grown apart and living diametrical lifestyles, to get it on on camera with each other, it's laugh-out-loud funny and extremely touching, sometimes at the same time. Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) are terrific as the two guys, and Lynn Shelton, the writer-director, is a woman who knows her men. I loved this movie, and I think you will too. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Quote: I watched Breaking and Entering recently. I liked it and its complications. I also loved the roof-jumping
Wade.........I can always count on you to have seen that film that you and I are the only ones here to see. (that's not worded real well). Yes, call it the choreography........and I want to see more of that actor.....Raf ______ |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:20 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I'd suggest you replace Zodiac with a better film.
I recall Zodiac with a pretty strong following here, but it didn't make much impression on me.
We already had some discussion of the recent decade and a few lists. I started off the lists here:
http://www.thirdeyefilm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=192401#192401
I'd shuffle the order some, but not too much.
It's in Current Film as the convo branched off from the new Coen film to favorite Coen films to overall favorites of this Century.
The discussion continues for 2 more pages and about 4 people put in lists or at least tossed out titles.
The only title that seemed to get a lot support was 4, 3, 2.
And billy, you really need to see The Believer. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:59 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: lady wakasa wrote: I think a crop of filmmakers have tried to make the definitive War on Terror movie, dating from about 2004/2005. It's just too early to make that movie, yet. (IMO, anyway.) might seem at first glance to be a notable exception to this rule, being a certifiably great film set during and within the Iraq war, but not really. It's a suspense flick, not a war flick or a message flick.
It was too meandering in the middle to be a suspense flick. It pretty clearly is a message flick, the ending if nothing else demonstrates that.
While I wasn't crazy about the movie, I admired a lot of it. And I'm bugged that my many, many students who have spent time serving in Iraq not only have not seen it, but not even heard of it. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Turkish Director Nuri Ceylan's Three Monkeys (2008) is even better than his two other notable movies Distant (2002) and Climates (2006). It is a taut family drama of guilt, revenge and forgiveness and of the shifting roles of husband and wife when a family goes through severe trauma. Wonderful performances by and superb direction. It won the Best Direction Prize at Cannes. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:39 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Marj wrote: billyweeds wrote: Marj wrote: Thanks, Joe and Billy.
I'm going to move State and Main down and The Room up my queue. Normally, I'd just drop the film all together, but I'm just too curious to do that.
Was The Room already in your queue?
Yes. But now you're giving me second thoughts about that too.
I doubt that it matters much. Since I haven't been able to get to a theater this season, there a bunch of 2009 films coming to DVD in December and The Room will get pushed way down.
You will appreciate all the good movies coming out much more after seeing The Room, and your life will be changed.
YES! I just experienced the longest hour and forty minutes of my life.
In all fairness, there were moments that were laugh out loud awful, but the novelty quickly wore off. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:48 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Marj--Sorry about that, but there are some things that are not for all people. I now actually own The Room and cannot wait to host a Room party. (Is that like a house party only smaller?) |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| gromit--I was, shall we say, sort of disappointed in 5 Against the House, which did have some of the shtick you described--and some of it was fun, with the mismatched four buddies trading klutzy one-liners--but the plot was nearly non-existent and Kim Novak's contribution too miniscule. Besides, the title was a cheat. It wasn't "five against the house," since Novak and Guy Madison were not even in on the scam until the end, and even then didn't really go along with it. It turned out to be "Brian Keith against the world." My teenage memories had played me false this time, but I'm glad I saw it anyway. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:04 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Marj--Sorry about that, but there are some things that are not for all people. I now actually own The Room and cannot wait to host a Room party. (Is that like a house party only smaller?)
Actually seeing it at a party might have been a hoot! But I doubt you'll make it through the whole thing. Well, maybe ... |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:21 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote: gromit--I was, shall we say, sort of disappointed in 5 Against the House, which did have some of the shtick you described--and some of it was fun, with the mismatched four buddies trading klutzy one-liners--but the plot was nearly non-existent and Kim Novak's contribution too miniscule. Besides, the title was a cheat. It wasn't "five against the house," since Novak and Guy Madison were not even in on the scam until the end, and even then didn't really go along with it. It turned out to be "Brian Keith against the world." My teenage memories had played me false this time, but I'm glad I saw it anyway.
I enjoyed the weird shifts and the meandering plot line. I like how the college shtick shifts to a jazz club because of the girlfriend, and then the Post-Korean War traumatic stress kicks in there, and after a little more of that triple-play, suddenly its heist time. I think the title is deliberately a bit misleading so there is some suspense, as we expect Mr. Reasonable and his girlfriend to join the plot (since the other two fall in pretty easily). And I still love that foolproof plan. Hilarious.
As a B-pic, I thought it was tremendous fun.
And I still think it's a great testament to the 50's.
-------------------------------------------------
As for a similar misleading title, in Capra's Lady for a Day where street seller Apple Annie is disguised as a society lady for something like 2-3 weeks. Lady for a Fortnight? |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:38 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I finally got a copy of The Wizard of Speed and Time, which I'd seen a little bit of at a science fiction convention about twenty years ago and had wanted to see ever since. As near as I can tell, it's never been issued on DVD, which is a shame because I kept wanted wanting to pause it to look at the details.
This is the story of Mike Jittlov, an independent film maker and genius of stop-motion animation who is discovered by a studio executive and assigned to make a short film (The Wizard of Speed and Time) for a special on the world's greatest special effects. What he doesn't realize is that he's the subject of a bet between the studio executive and another one who bets Jittlov can't do it and is determined to win his bet by sabotage. Jittlov is given no budget (supposedly he will be reimbursed afterward) so is forced to improvise. And, being an independent, he is of course NON-UNION. (There's an amusing sequence when he goes to the director's union, the writer's union, the animator's union, the set-designer's union, the costumer's union, etc., meeting different versions of the same guy at each. Since Jittlov does everything himself, he has to meet with ALL the unions.)
Jittlov is really a stop-animation geek with a talent for inventing. He lives with his mother, who is forced to step around a lot of little hopping, wheeling, flipping little robot toys. I particularly like the electrified bicycle.
The whole movie is inventive and very funny, not to mention very odd, satire of Hollywood film-making. As I said, it really needs to be on DVD so you can stop the film and take in all the little jokes in the background. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:47 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote:
As for a similar misleading title, in Capra's Lady for a Day where street seller Apple Annie is disguised as a society lady for something like 2-3 weeks. Lady for a Fortnight?
Perhaps, but May Robson's masterful job as Apple Annie makes it all worthwhile. Bette Davis bombed in the same role in the Capra-directed remake Pocketful of Miracles. Bette, she ain't got much SOH except in All About Eve. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:40 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Billy Wilder alert: One, Two, Three is on TCM in 20 minutes. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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whiskeypriest wrote: Billy Wilder alert: One, Two, Three is on TCM in 20 minutes.
I will be there. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 6:29 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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billyweeds wrote: whiskeypriest wrote: Billy Wilder alert: One, Two, Three is on TCM in 20 minutes.
I will be there.
Tried it and remembered what it is I don't particularly like about it. It's too fast, too furious, too unrelaxed to be truly funny. No one seems very comfortable doing it. Not a favorite of mine. |
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