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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:04 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: The squirm-inducing first 30 minutes of HGL are sort of a setup to a darker and more interesting remainder of the film. It's worth it to stick with the thing, IMO.
Will give it another go. Thanks. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:20 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8251
Location: Salt Lake City
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inlareviewer wrote: jeremy wrote: Reading the tea-leaves, as opposed to seeing the film and making my own judgement, the Best Actor Oscar is a done deal fo Colin Fiirth. He's served his dues and, from my perspective, can't miss with a performance that ticks ALL the right boxes. Bingo. He's already won it for all intents and purposes, and not just because he might easily have won it LAST year, had Mr. Bridges not given his career-encompassing drunk-country-western-singer-tour de force turn. The Buzz around Mr. Firth at present is mighty, like a tsunami, identical in fact to that which surrounded Dame Helen the year of The Queen , or Daniel Day-Lewisohn the year of There Will Be Blood, and we haven't even yet had the Gilded Globules or the SAGGY vote weighing in. At the very least, King Colin is absolutely The One To Beat.
Seems we now have the buzz for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor locked up with Colin Firth and Christian Bale, two movies I really do want to see before the end of the year. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:31 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote: bartist wrote: The squirm-inducing first 30 minutes of HGL are sort of a setup to a darker and more interesting remainder of the film. It's worth it to stick with the thing, IMO.
Will give it another go. Thanks.
I think I managed 30 or 40 minutes.
Goodness did I dislike those characters and that film.
I rarely give up on a film, almost always stick it out.
I won't be giving that another go. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:33 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The squirm-inducing first thirty minutes of HGL are an introduction to the squirm-inducing remainder of the film. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:50 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Howl was pretty mediocre.
It jumped right into trying to be interesting by showing animation of the best minds crawling naked through the streets and howling, but without first establishing any mood either through the poetry reading, the characters, or the animation. So it just comes off as kind of random, flashy and off-putting.
The film really focuses on the poem Howl itself, jumping between an interview with Franco as Ginsberg, flashbacks to love interests, the Ginsberg character doing an early reading of Howl at a hipster cafe, the obscenity trial, and animation of angel-headed hipsters playing bright yellows and reds out of saxophones and whatnot. The jumping around between these elements/scenes isn't interesting, so that the disjointed approach never coheres.
I think they should have cut out some of the relationships, and focused on the poem more in-depth. I get how the relationships relate to the autobiography in the poem, but they needed to tighten this up. More analysis of the poem would have been better, instead of the tantalizing bits we get through the trial. Rarely did I think the animation worked well or added much. It might have been better as one or two extended sequences, instead of short scenes popping up now and then.
I have to admit that I apparently dozed off for the last 20 minutes and woke up 5 minutes before the end. Or something like that ... it was kind of confusing. I'll have to go back now and see what I missed -- perhaps endless balls or ultimate cunt. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Just want Gary to know not to see THE BLACK SWAN.
It's a horror movie of gringe-inducing sadism with a finger and toenail excision focus. Natalie Portman was in every scene playing woebegone, fearful, naive dancer in search of perfection. (I wouldn't give her an award because those qualities were pretty much her range for the film.) Of course, by the end of the movie she was totally insane.......but. I was so glad to walk out into the Phoenix sunlit after that experience. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:06 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Syd -- "an introduction to the squirm-inducing remainder...." I just want others to suffer as I have.
Befade: oh, no, say it ain't so! I'm not sure what a "gringe" is, but if it combines a Grinch and a cringe, then I'm not in favor of it. Anyway, your (cough) thumbnail of the film sound like the sort of thing that makes me squirm, cringe, and gnash my teeth. Still, there's Mila Kunis in tights, so....[holds out hands, weighing invisible entities]...hmmm |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Betsy,
Is your post a joke? I know the basic plot (haven't seen it yet and...sigh...probably won't unless it's still showing in February), but you make it sound like Last House on the Left or something. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:09 pm |
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| Thanks Betsy, I was planning to see it here because it is playing at a theatre I like (Atlanta). What you wrote in your warning is valid. I really don't have any desire to see that kind of stuff. If they do it off screen and let my imagination picture it, fine, but if they insist on shoving it in my face they won't get my ticket money. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:43 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| The Black Swan is terrifically entertaining, The Red Shoes meets Repulsion. By all means, see it. It's a horror movie so, yes, there's some very brief gruesome scenes that barely rate a mention. If you are a fan of Polanski, Argento, Hitchcock or Brian De Palma, you'll gobble The Black Swan up. It's actually quite funny. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 7:46 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| Christ, what's the average age of the contributors in here? 85? Ya sound like a bunch of old turds! Complaining about a little violence in a horror movie. What's next? Dirty words and all that damn sex? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Very happy to see you here, Marc, and clearly in good spirits. I wish you the best over this holiday season. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Christ, what's the average age of the contributors in here? 85? Ya sound like a bunch of old turds! Complaining about a little violence in a horror movie. What's next? Dirty words and all that damn sex?
It's that old, old cliche rearing its ugly head again:
Old age = puritanism. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 10:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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Quote: Befade: oh, no, say it ain't so! I'm not sure what a "gringe" is, but if it combines a Grinch and a cringe, then I'm not in favor of it.
Billy has spawned another spelling checker.
Joe........I was very serious......I didn't have anything like Marc's attitude toward the film. I'd equate it with Carrie. And Gary, no I don't like to see bloody, torn-in-half toenails and a frantic, control-freak mother hacking away at her daughter's finger nails so she won't scratch her back.........This was not a fun film to watch......too intense, too negative, too awful and relentlessly so. The relentless and humorless intensity reminded my of The Next Three Days. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 11:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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Quote: Still, there's Mila Kunis in tights
Bart......you're so pliable........Actually she was the only relief factor in the film, the grit. |
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