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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 12:30 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Befade wrote: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it's the best Woody Allen film maybe ever. He's not in it and nobody acts like him in it. Anthony Hopkins plays the older guy with the young wife.......but it's handled in a fresh, not perverted way. I think it's the cast, too that's great together. I keep getting amazed by Josh Brolin. He has such range. Naomi Watts doesn't move me the way she did in Mulholland Drive. She plays terse well, but that's no fun. I could write more........it's a wonderful movie.
It's not the best Woody ever, but it's right up there. I think Manhattan is still his best, but YWMATDS is (with Vicky Cristina Barcelona) one of his best recent movies. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 12:57 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| moved to couch. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Stone is a remarkably well-acted but unrelievedly grim exercise in sadness and gloom. Robert De Niro (in a real performance as opposed to his recent lame attempts at comedy) plays a sort of parole officer interviewing a prisoner (Edward Norton) ready to be released after being jailed for arson and murder. The duo play their scenes with skill and brio, but the plot is almost totally unbelievable, as Norton gets his wife (Milla Jovovich, who is excellent but has never done anything for me) to seduce De Niro. Then things turn twisty but uninvolving. The movie is worth seeing for the performances (including Frances Conroy as De Niro's wife), but it leaves you with no catharsis. Worth a rental, however. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:45 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Edward Norton's performance in Stone is all style and no content and the style ain't particularly interesting. I saw the film at Fantastic Fest here in Austin a few weeks ago and Norton was there. I spoke with him briefly and got the sense he wasn't totally pleased with the film. I myself found it hollow and unsatisfying. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:34 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Like I could of met Edward Norton and only bothered to mention it when the film we discussed was brought up by someone else. Pretty cool Marc, all round. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:28 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| Marc--You're right about Norton and the film, but Norton himself has the reputation for being a genuine 100 percent asshole, so I wouldn't take his opinion as gospel. I thought the film was premeditated and deliberate and completely prefab, but the acting--all "style" though it is--makes it worth seeing. As I said, Jovovich does zilch for me and her lack of appeal makes her seduction of De Niro much harder to accept, but she is undeniably skillful. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:01 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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This brings up an uncertainty I have when people speak of "style" -- sometimes it's pejorative (as in, all style and no content) and sometimes style is seen as definitive of character and indicative of content. Method theories aside, we only see what they show us, and many of us go to movies to be fooled, again and again. I guess it's telling when Billy uses the word "exercise" -- as in "exercise in sadness and gloom" -- which does suggest that the beating heart is missing from the narrative. If there's a pulse, then it's a sad and gloomy story, not an exercise.
Not to invoke the ever-simmering Fight Club rift, but that seemed to me to be a heavy dose of style without all that much content underneath. Other directors, like Tarantino, also strike me as very comfortable in that mode. Style can be very entertaining and can give me a very vivid world to enter that is unlike my own, but I don't reflect much on the characters in such films or have much lasting feeling about them. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:07 am |
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| I totally agree with bart's post. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:35 am |
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billyweeds wrote: bartist wrote: Billy, I'm with you on Fight Club (and occasionally meet people who want to found one, with me, due to my failure to jump on the bandwagon), but I suspect that Lorne may have nailed it -- it's a kind of bent entertainment, hallucinogenic and blackly funny.
Someone mentioned (Melody?) that Zodiac ran too long, but that seemed part of the point -- it's about a long-running obsession. It's supposed to feel long.
I loathe movies that are too long--loathe loathe loathe them--but Zodiac, undeniably a verrrrry long film, felt exactly right. Any shorter would have been too peremptory for the subject. It is a perfect film, one of the most unjustly unawarded of the decade. Fight Club, on the other hand, is ridiculously over-venerated. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:53 am |
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: bartist wrote: Billy, I'm with you on Fight Club (and occasionally meet people who want to found one, with me, due to my failure to jump on the bandwagon), but I suspect that Lorne may have nailed it -- it's a kind of bent entertainment, hallucinogenic and blackly funny.
Someone mentioned (Melody?) that Zodiac ran too long, but that seemed part of the point -- it's about a long-running obsession. It's supposed to feel long.
I loathe movies that are too long--loathe loathe loathe them--but Zodiac, undeniably a verrrrry long film, felt exactly right. Any shorter would have been too peremptory for the subject. It is a perfect film, one of the most unjustly unawarded of the decade. Fight Club, on the other hand, is ridiculously over-venerated. No great film is ever too long, no matter how much time it takes. No bad film is short enough.
Roger Ebert has often said this, and I agree. But comedies should--Joe is right--be around 90 minutes. Some Like It Hot is an exception. It's two hours long. Dramedies can be longer. The Apartment is the perfect dramedy and it's about two hours long. Bottom line: Billy Wilder made perfect two-hour films. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:10 am |
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| Of course he did - he was Billy Wilder! |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:50 am |
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Location: Houston
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Billy,
I agree that dramedies are different. Which is maybe what I'd classify The Social Network as, actually. It's interesting how many classic comedies of the thirties aren't even 90 minutes long. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:55 am |
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bartist wrote: This brings up an uncertainty I have when people speak of "style" -- sometimes it's pejorative (as in, all style and no content) and sometimes style is seen as definitive of character and indicative of content. Method theories aside, we only see what they show us, and many of us go to movies to be fooled, again and again. I guess it's telling when Billy uses the word "exercise" -- as in "exercise in sadness and gloom" -- which does suggest that the beating heart is missing from the narrative. If there's a pulse, then it's a sad and gloomy story, not an exercise.
Not to invoke the ever-simmering Fight Club rift, but that seemed to me to be a heavy dose of style without all that much content underneath. Other directors, like Tarantino, also strike me as very comfortable in that mode. Style can be very entertaining and can give me a very vivid world to enter that is unlike my own, but I don't reflect much on the characters in such films or have much lasting feeling about them.
I think there was something very, very strong supporting the style of Fight Club, and that in fact the hallucinatory nature of the filmmaking was essential to the movie's theme. No way could I classify that picture as style without substance.
The movie contains perhaps the central critique of Gen X culture. The narrator makes a wry comment about "single serving" friends met on plane trips, leading to:
Tyler: Oh I get it. It's very clever.
Narrator: Thank you.
Tyler: How's that working out for you?
Narrator: What?
Tyler: Being clever.
About the most accurate in-your-face condemnation of one of my my generation's primary shortcomings. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:52 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Billy,
I found Edward Norton to be totally unpretentious, accessible and down to earth.
I was wearing my press badge so maybe that had something to do with it. But, he seemed to be a genuinely decent guy. |
Last edited by Marc on Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:40 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Billy,
I found Edward Norton to be totally unpretentious, accessible and down to earth.
I was wearing my press badge so maybe that had something to do with it. But, he seemed to a genuinely decent guy.
How interesting. I trust your instinct.
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