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| marantzo |
 Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:17 pm |
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Billy wrote:
"If Inception wins I'm moving to Canada."
Come up to Winnipeg and you can stay at my apartment (small but cozy), till you find a place to live. I'll make it very reasonable, but you will have to come in late fall when I travel down south for about 5 months. You could even get some roles in the movies they shoot up here. You'd make a great character in one of Maddin's movies. Plus the Manitoba Theatre Centre which is now the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre can always use an actor and was where Len Cariou's acting career started.
What will you do if The Town wins? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:22 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote:
What will you do if The Town wins?
Burn Ben Affleck in effigy.
Though he's excellent in another new flick which I'm in the middle of watching on a screener, The Company Men. Loving it a lot. Great perfs by Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, and (believe it or not) the aforementioned Mr. A. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 3:31 pm |
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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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The trouible with being the critics' darlings is that you are also their bitches. It's good to see the Cohen's making a dash for the fresh, open pastures of popular acclaim.
At this time of year, even in an august institution like the NYT, I am suspicious of articles proclaiming this or that film as a front-runner forthe Oscar - a studio publicity department couldn't have written a better piece for their film. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Finished watching The Company Men, which would be an Oscar contender if the Weinsteins hadn't decided to throw all their weight behind The King's Speech. TCM is a terrific take on the economic crisis seen through the eyes of the types of people we generally have little sympathy with--the men who make the big bucks and who were thrown out of work in 2008 and beyond.
The movie was given a token short run in December to qualify for the Oscars, but it's really being released in January, where it will make quite a splash, one hopes, being one of the only first-rate films I remember to be released during that misbegotten movie month.
It deserves credit for perfectly casting Ben Affleck as an elitist, arrogant asshole, a role he plays with unusual spunk and vividness.
As noted before, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones as execs and Kevin Costner as the embodiment of "down with the peeps" are all aces, and so is Craig T. Nelson as the 18th-highest-paid CEO in America, the king of the downsizers. The movie is sometimes very depressing but overall exhilarating because of the energy of the acting and the sharp writing and direction. Despite a couple of last-act storytelling cliches, one of which you can see coming from the first scene, this one is a definite keeper and a serious contender for Blanche notice.
A side note is that Costner has obviously been working on his Boston accent since the ear-splitting Thirteen Days. He's still not the male Meryl Streep, but he's doing well and the effort is appreciated. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:58 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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jeremy wrote: It's good to see the Cohen's making a dash for the fresh, open pastures of popular acclaim.
It's Coens (no "h," no apostrophe). |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 10:32 pm |
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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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| Bugger...I knew that. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:05 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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A double feature today:
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS
RABBIT HOLE
I had thought PM was another of the spate of cigarette movies until I read about it in the NYT and saw photos of the real characters. It was a very rich movie Thoroughly enjoyed Jim C. and Ewan M. (my new favorite actor) It's a bit of a CATCH ME IF YOU CAN themed movie. I liked it alot and it appears to be overlooked.
Next to it RH seemed one dimensional: How do people grieve? Not considered in the movie was having photographs of the loved one around and talking about him. (that's the appropriate way from my point of view) |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 11:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: It deserves credit for perfectly casting Ben Affleck as an elitist, arrogant asshole, a role he plays with unusual spunk and vividness.
Reminds me of the character he played to perfection in Changing Lanes, especially if he's smarmy as well. |
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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: Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:27 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Restrepo is a solid doc of a year embedded with US soldiers near the Afghan/Pakistan border.
It's sort of haunting that the film is named afetr a character who is killed very early in the deployment.
Kind of a fun, life of the party guy. The film is named after him, as the soldiers build an outpost in the Korengal Valley and name it after Restrepo.
What struck me most is how young the soldiers are. How even the brigade commander, dealing poorly with Afghani elders and life&death matters, appears under 30. You can sense how the American soldiers and leaders are just a revolving corps, and ties to the local community have to start from less than zero each time. You also sense how unprepared these young soldiers are, emotionally, mentally and physically for the challenges thrown at them.
The whole enterprise seems pointless. You kill a few enemies along with a few civilians which makes more enemies. It all becomes a pointless grudge match -- you killed our guys so we'll kill some of yours. Did I mention pointless? You wonder how fighting some shadowy Afghanis in remote valleys has anything to do with American security or interests. It's just another empire bleeding its wealth in hostile territory, almost shorthand for Afghanistan itself.
I don't think anyone needs to rush out to find this. But it's timely and interesting, and well worth a watch on cable or as part of your Netflixation.
We don't really get to know the soldiers that well as people or individuals. Just brief bits of interviews interspersed. I found the extended interviews on the dvd interesting. The one young kid basically joined the army as a form of rebellion against his hippie parents in Oregon. I wish the film had contextualized things, by talking to superiors and getting comments about the purpose of the mission, progress, descriptions of the task, etc. Sometimes things are a little too choppy, like this final thrown in sentence. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:36 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Rabbit Hole and ILYPM both seem to be permanently buried in "limited release." On the plus side, the art house here is bringing Made in Dagenham, Tiny Furniture, A Woman A Gun and a Noodle Shop (the Blood Simple Chinese remake), Another Year, and a couple others I've been wanting to see, in the next month or two.
Restrepo is, to my amazement, available on Redbox. They also had Winter's Bone recently. Are they trying to make a move away from the total box o' shlock? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 12:59 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
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Location: St. Louis
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Ebert on Season of the Witch:
Quote: You know I am a fan of Nic Cage and Ron Perlman (whose very existence made the "Hellboy" movies possible). Here, like cows, they devour the scenery, regurgitate it to a second stomach found only in actors and chew it as cud. It is a noble effort, but I prefer them in their straight-through Human Centipede mode.
One of the funnier pans of what is reportedly a turkey, and a new low for the IRS-tormented Cage. Today's release is also Nic's birthday. I wonder if there's a charity angle here that might induce me to go....Nic Aid? |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 6:28 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
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Location: Montreal
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Affleck also played an arrogant political figure last year, in that film with Russell Crowe as a journalist, along with Helen Mirren and that cute Canadian chick.
I'm 50; I don't fucking have to remember anything if I don't feel like it.
Point is, Affleck has always been a good actor with a (mostly) bad filmography. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 6:33 pm |
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Loved the preview and the cast of The Company Men; hope to actually see it next week.
Costner's another interesting case of a career that took off like a rocket, then seemingly collapsed under the weight of his own ego, then slowly regained altitude under auxiliary power of a bunch of great supporting roles. He's become a pleasure to watch.
Haven't seen Chris Cooper in awhile and will bet a lot that he'll give yet another excellent performance. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:45 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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lshap wrote: Loved the preview and the cast of The Company Men; hope to actually see it next week.
Costner's another interesting case of a career that took off like a rocket, then seemingly collapsed under the weight of his own ego, then slowly regained altitude under auxiliary power of a bunch of great supporting roles. He's become a pleasure to watch.
Haven't seen Chris Cooper in awhile and will bet a lot that he'll give yet another excellent performance.
The cast of The Company Men is superb, and you're right about Costner and the arc of his career. Movies like The Postman and Robin Hood and Waterworld and even The Bodyguard all but sank his momentum, but The Upside of Anger, Thirteen Days, the woefully underappreciated Mr. Brooks, and now The Company Men have him back where he belongs. Yo, Kev! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 7:51 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: billyweeds wrote: It deserves credit for perfectly casting Ben Affleck as an elitist, arrogant asshole, a role he plays with unusual spunk and vividness.
Reminds me of the character he played to perfection in Changing Lanes, especially if he's smarmy as well.
Not so much smarmy as "entitled," but I'm gonna watch Changing Lanes again this week (just TiVo'd it). |
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