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| gromit |
 Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:41 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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My problem with Howl was that it never set a tone or forged a path before it started stylistically jumping all over the place. So it felt a bit MTV/ADD.
Also, I think the limited focus on Howl plus flashbacks didn't suffice.
For a rather similar biographical film on a writer -- complete with animation and style-mania -- I much preferred A Room and a Half, on the life of Josef Brodsky and his exile. I think the myriad of styles fit better as a means to convey a life overview, rather than just a modern epic poem(/poet). |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:47 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Befade wrote: Quote: It's okay, Billy, you can't help being cold and dead inside.
Bart.......that's a little/lot rough I think. Billy is obviously very passionate in his likes and dislikes. Whether you agree with him or not........he is much more engaged than most.
I was so utterly kidding -- do you have emoticons shut off today?? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| Nope..........let Billy respond........remember he's an old guy. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Aaarrgghh. Can't talk. Too cold and dead.
Oh, yeah. Forgot. Didn't like Master and Commander either. Haven't seen Fearless. Did sort of like Witness. And Green Card was at least unpretentious, a rarity among Weir films. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:15 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Quote: Don't forget Fearless, where Jeff Bridges is superb as a plane crash survivor. Another great movie.
Fearless is one of the most underappreciated and underseen great movies of the past 3 decades. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:30 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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| I loved the attention to detail in Master & Commander. It helped make a somewhat episodic and pedestrian film more palatable. Mike Leigh's, Tospsy Turvy was better alround, but as with M&C. the director allowed the period to be as much another character as just a mere setting. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
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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: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Quote: Don't forget Fearless, where Jeff Bridges is superb as a plane crash survivor. Another great movie. is one of the most underappreciated and underseen great movies of the past 3 decades.
I know that Marc loves Fearless. I must cop to being afraid to see such a graphic depiction of an airplane crash. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: Marc wrote: Quote: Don't forget Fearless, where Jeff Bridges is superb as a plane crash survivor. Another great movie. is one of the most underappreciated and underseen great movies of the past 3 decades.
I know that Marc loves Fearless. I must cop to being afraid to see such a graphic depiction of an airplane crash.
Which reminds me, when I first watched Alive, near the end, when Ethan Hawke heads off to get help, one of his teammates tells him to bring back pizza. I turned to Mrs. Whiskeypriest and said, "How' he going to bring back pizza when he didn't even ask who he wants on it?" Sometimes I crack myself up. Sadly, I do not always crack up the heavily emotionally invested Mrs. Whiskeypriest. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:14 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Quote: I know that Marc loves Fearless. I must cop to being afraid to see such a graphic depiction of an airplane crash.
Quote: Well, at least Jeff Bridges did not eat Rosie Perez afterwards.
SBOCK! (spewing beverage on computer keyboard) |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:36 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| Our film class saw "Alive" and quite a few people walked out (no rules against that, and some films ended up with about a dozen people in the audience). But our professor later told us that he had to fly to California the next day and he really had to struggle with himself to get on that plane. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:45 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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If they served lunch on the plane, that would be kind of a double whammy, struggle-wise.
. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 1:28 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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| I can see saying "meh" to some of the hype that attends Peter Weir. But I'd agree with Marc about "Fearless" -- anyone who is anti-Weir should see it before giving up on him. "Picnic..." was just clumsy and dunderheaded. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 2:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| I would say that of all the Weir films I detest, the one I detest the most is Dead Poets Society. Not only is it Salinger-wannabe pretentious, but it also contains the first of the realllly terrible Robin Williams performances that became the bulk of his resume, and features one of the most credibility-stretching suicide motives in my screengoing history, one even the estimable Robert Sean Leonard could not make believable. The movie is loathsome. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:22 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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gromit: Totally agree, Howl is all over the place. Elected to overlook that, since (a) I met the man in the waning decades of his life, and was hugely impressed by the considerable degree to which James Franco nailed his essence; (b) the movie was at least trying to do something difficult and different; and (c) if I hadn't made the call to stay with it after the first animated sequence, would have turned it off 15 minutes in, and it took me forever to get the screener. Haven't seen the other film. It sounds very interesting.
Befade wrote:
Not having seen The King's Speech yet.......I can't be sure it rises above The Fighter in validity.
Quote: Both are true stories (the best kind I think).
Which makes each film hold attention and dramatic impetus, in spite of their outcomes being on the record. There's something I find very gratifying about a movie going to the place, by virtue of history, that it must, only it doesn't do so in quite the way anticipated, and therefore makes you forget about it. Which I felt to be largely true about The Fighter and certainly The King's Speech, albeit in polar-opposite ways and means of execution.
Quote: What made The Fighter interesting to me was the unique family composition: Strong/tough mother, warm stepfather, was it 5 opinionated sisters?,
Quote: one brother: talented, troubled, demanding, and another brother by a different father: stable, ambitious, and torn by the family dynamics. Enter in the Amy Adams character.........What will happen? This drama was so atypical and riveting
There is where I diverge, because I found the specifics of region and community detail to be the most original aspects. The two-contrasting-brothers, sports-opportunity narrative, jagged family dynamic and active-outsider elements for me had their precedents -- it was the way that Mr. Russell and company told the story that made it come up relatively fresh. Anyway, that's a subjective quibble, because as it was screening, the movie generally involved me through to the adrenaline-charged windup.
Quote: ...of course the great acting and cast helped. It was more than one man's story.
And speaking of one man's story, despite my diatribe in the Dawn of the Dead musings, one endearing thing about The King's Speech is that, though it centers the stakes on B-B-B-Bertie, i.e., The Stammering, Unwilling Future George VI, it puts that over with the periodic aid of parallel/contrasting Lionel Logue career/household details, as much as the core antagonism-turned-comaraderie of client and therapist (and the sidebar element of quietly determined Elizabeth, who sets the tale in motion and tacitly keeps it moving). In any case, I found it lovely, an old-school confection with unexpected heft, quite up to the hype and not just because Colin Firth effortlessly sustains a titanic, Olivier-level technical virtuosity that neatly bookends with his preternatural, Redgrave-tinged total inhabiting of Mr. Ford's 2009 Isherwood adaptation. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:21 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Quote: In any case, I found it lovely, an old-school confection with unexpected heft, quite up to the hype and not just because Colin Firth effortlessly sustains a titanic, Olivier-level technical virtuosity that neatly bookends with his preternatural, Redgrave-tinged total inhabiting of Mr. Ford's 2009 Isherwood adaptation
Inla.......that is motivation enough for me to see The King's Speech. A Single Man was the most unforgettable film/performance last year.
Probably the 2 different brothers is ordinary (I guess I'd better remember to see the Toby McGuire/Jake Gyllanhal film) But Amy Adams up against ......did you say 7 sisters and a mother......crushing! |
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