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| carrobin |
 Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I think it was Marianne Moore who wrote "Only the wildest animals need cages so carefully made." That's the line that occurred to me when I watched Colin Firth organize his wardrobe and the rest of his carefully controlled life. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:50 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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2009 continues to be a good year to uncover interesting smaller unheralded films.
Cold Souls stars Paul Giamatti as a man who puts his soul in cold storage, a recent scientific advance, which in the film produces results akin to taking psychiatric medicine. Giamatti is quite good, using his awkwardness and hangdog looks to great effect.
The film has a bit of a Charlie Kaufman film to it. Sort of an existential comedy-drama. But it mostly reminded me of Woody Allen, The Sleeper, with its futuristic science and comedy, but also Love and Death, with its Russian themes (Giamatti is spiritually burdened by playing Uncle Vanya and then he goes to St Petersburg to get his soul back form the Russian black market). The Woody connection is furthered by his NYC apartment, learning about the soul extraction business from his agent and the New Yorker, anti-intellectual references to Heraclitus. And some of Giamatti's whining and one-liners have a definite 70's Woody style to them.
There's also a definite Being John Malkovich moment ... unless that was an Eternal Sunshine moment.
An interesting, entertaining film. Would make for a good rental or something fun to catch on cable. My main criticism would be that the writer/director never really decided what it would be like to have someone else's soul in your body. And while we get a sense of what it's like to have no soul (or rather 5% left), it's more conveyed through dialogue rather than dramatized. They needed some better ideas in the script to make the issue of soullessness and transplanted souls mean more and have more life.
In some ways, this film is a nice companion piece to Moon.
I should add that David Strathairn is quite good as Dr. Flintstein, the head of the soul storage operation, with a
Dr. Frankenstein sounding name. But he's hard to pin down, as he seems part reassuring psychologist, part businessman, a bit smarmy, but equal parts wise. A nice role that Strathairn seems to enjoy.
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Last edited by gromit on Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:56 am; edited 1 time in total
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:28 am |
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I saw Up In the Air yesterday and it is a very good movie though not a great one. Clooney is the lynch pin of the movie playing Clooney. He does that very well. I have the reverse view of the two main actresses that have been mentioned in previous posts. Farmiga playing Alex was good, but Kendrick playing Natalie was a lot better, playing a role that had a range of emotions that called for a terrific performance and she hit the mark. I would consider her lead actress with Farmiga being more like a co-star facilitating Clooney's emotional journey.
The name of the movie in Spanish is Amor Sin Escala which after many translations from my wife, turns out to be Love Without A Stopover.  Marta complains about Spanish titles that sometimes have nothing in common with the English title. I told her that it was the same when foreign titles are changed to English. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Gary--In some ways you're right about Kendrick having the tougher assignment, but Farmiga's natural charisma counts for so much in this context. Didn't you find her attractive?
The title Up in the Air is perfect, gaining in resonance in retrospect. I guess it was originally the title of Walter Kirn's novel, on which the movie is based, so Kirn gets credit for that one.
Love Without a Stopover is a very lame replacement. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:20 am |
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Yeah, she's attractive enough but she's no Virginia Madsen.
In the end credits they have an audio with a friend of the director telling him that he is out of a job and wrote this song about it that might be good for his movie and then he sings Up In the Air. I thought that this might be the reason for the name of the movie. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:41 am |
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| A O Scott has a very entertaining and funny review of Edge of Darkness in the NYT today. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 10:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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Oh great, wake up to see a photo of Paul Giamatti. . . *shudders (and not from the 17 degree weather)*
The more I think about it, the more I felt Kendrick's performance screamed "I'm in over my head so I'm going to rely on histrionics and my Acting for Film 101 toolbelt". Kendrick / Farmiga -- day / night.
Off to AhBahDah -- IMAX -- 3D -- dramamine packed. NYers did you know about 1st showing matinee prices @ some theaters? What would normally be $17.25 is only gonna cost me $10.00. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 11:07 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I listened to about 20 minutes or so of The Cove, an environmental documentary about mercury levels in seafood, and the Japanese imperative to kill dolphins along with whales. I was in a dvd shop while it was playing. I also watched about 5 minutes, and it seemed to be a very well put together expose of the way that cultures delude themselves along with the assistance of moneyed special interests.
One revolting thing I learned is that one of the Japanese lawyerly tack-on arguments for killing dolphins and whales is that they eat large numbers of fish, and fish socks are depleted. The filmmakers learn this when they offer to pay fishermen the same income to not kill dolphins, and they come back after discussing it with the gov't and explain that they are required to continue their "pest control" killings. So, basically the argument is that because people are overfishing (read: killing too many fish), the solution is to kill more large sea mammals to prevent them from eating the remaining fish. It's really a fatuous piece of crap, yet the Japanese back this up with some paid-off junk science and by buying off small poor nations to join the Int'l Whaling Org and vote the way the Yen tells them to.
I really should pick this up, it looked sad and interesting and well done. There's another doc called Food Inc., as well. Does anyone know anything about that. I'm a committed vegetarian and can't stomach watching slaughterhouse deaths and such. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:03 pm |
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Quote: ...and fish socks are depleted...
The fish's poor feet! 
The Japanese also claim that their killing of whales is for research. Sounds a little iffy to me. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:15 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Craig Ferguson was riffing on Shamu last night--"Sure, it's great. 'We're going to take you out of the ocean and put you in your own little pool.' If he had a choice of going back to the ocean, he'd probably say 'No thanks, I'm fine here,' right? Why not open the gate and see?"
A few years ago I proofread a book by a woman who observes whales and dolphins in the north Pacific, off the coast of Canada, and it made me hate the idea of putting such intelligent and far-ranging creatures in Sea World type parks. Like wolves, they're social beings with families and friends. The whole concept of a human-centric world has become problematic to me--looks like greedy men are ever more intent on destroying the planet. |
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| grace |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:43 pm |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
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gromit wrote: There's another doc called Food Inc., as well. Does anyone know anything about that. I'm a committed vegetarian and can't stomach watching slaughterhouse deaths and such.
Food Inc. is by Michael Pollan, and it does contain some slaughterhouse footage, mass electrocution of pigs, etc. Watching it might be a tough love type of experience. If you can make it through The Cove -- which I couldn't -- you might make it through Food, Inc. But the ride won't be all fun. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Hate to sound like a jaded New Yorker, but Food Inc. had nothing new to say to me. I'd heard, read, seen it all before. Well photographed, but pretty dull for the most part. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:07 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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The Cove and Food Inc. are on my Blanche short list of documentaries. Found them both excellent, informative and/or reaffirmative, and fairly disturbing.
On the femmes of Up in the Air, the reason Li'l Kendrick is getting more reax than La Farmiga is because she's a relatively unknown quantity, certainly in Filmville, save for the handful of Broadwayphiles who actually saw the High Society stage adapt a decade or so back -- New Girl In Tinseltown Syndrome. Whereas Vera Dearest has hardly been unknown to cineastes and criticalities, for quite some time, LA Film Crix gave her heroin addict in Down to the Bone a Best Actress award in 2005; ironically a subliminal taken-for-granted aspect is in play -- they expect Vera to be good. Plus, the roles have different weight, Natalie the Neurotic Neophyte far easier to assess and digest than Alex the Ambiguous Assignation, and that entertaining factor gets confused with ability. I thought both were wonderful, though as written Natalie is the fresher, or at least, more clearly Now-skewed archetype; we've seen Smoldering Women With A Secret hitherto. The mater, who liked the film significantly less than I, thought Li'l Kendrick more inextricably cast in her part than La Farmiga was in hers. As the dying blue-footed boobie said to Julia Sweeney, whatchagonnadoooo? It's all so subjective. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Pedro Almodovar's noirish Broken Embraces brought to mind Hitchcock's Notorious more than once. It is based on a gothic saga of a script, but Almodovar pulls it off. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:21 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| That's all good in my book. |
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