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bartist
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:03 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Gromit -- I can't tell, since I don't have Gary's special superpower of seeing through movies that I have not fully viewed. I'm just at the point where they break into the old lady's house and steal some letters (from the guy they suspect of the murder) and idiotic drunk guy has left his lookout post in front. I sort of like the idiot-drunk, and the way he answer his office phone, always making up improbable offices and saying wrong number. But, as I said, I can't make a crap assessment at this point.

Carro: It's my understanding that Russel Brand's Arthur is also a drunk and that it remains a key plot point in the remake. I forget what the Alan Rickman problem is -- wow, it's been a while since I've seen any of the Die Hards!

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carrobin
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:07 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
Alan Rickman was the best villain of the Die Hard bunch, and they killed him off. That's the problem.
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bartist
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:15 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Oh, YES, absolutely -- Hans Gruber.

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gromit
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Your mileage may vary.

It did in fact win the Oscar.

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marantzo
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:34 pm Reply with quote
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I haven't seen The Secret In Their Eyes and for some reason I don't know if I liked it or not. From the capsule reviews I've read, gromit is in line with most of them.
knox
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:54 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
There was something kind of stupid about The Secret in their Eyes, but I don't recall just what it was. Maybe that it was a little like The American, where they do the European thing - sit around too much and have amusing literary conversations and memories shot through cheesecloth. I hate to say something like that to anyone midway through a film, but there it is.
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gromit
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:15 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
knox wrote:
There was something kind of stupid about The Secret in their Eyes


The title conceit was especially ridiculous.
But so was a lot of the investigation.

It wasn't Merchant-Ivory drawing room-ish at all, but rather soap opera-ish.
Lot of ish in that film, in my O.
I reviewed it quite a while back.

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Syd
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:20 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
In No One Knows about Persian Cats two rock musicians, Ashkan and Negar--the names of the actor and actress as well as the characters--have just gotten out of prison, apparently for illegal rock music. They want to travel outside of Iran to bring their music to other countries, but Negar has a visa but Ashkan needs a passport. Also, their band has broken up while they were in prison, so they need to recruit new members, who will require passports or visas of their own if they don't have them already. The third major character, Nader, can get these but only at great expense.

None of these characters are sufficiently developed, although Negar at least is potentially interesting. The plot gives Bahman Ghobadi an excuse to tour the underground rock scene in Tehran. A couple of these are pretty bad, and a lot of lyrics don't translate well out of Farsi. On the other hand, the blues singer Rana Farhan is outstanding, and there is a Persian rap band that is really good. One of the musicians teaches children eleven hours a day (four for Iranians, four for Iraqis and three for Afghans), and is good. And when the band finally plays, they're pretty good too.

Ghobadi shot this in seventeen days, and it shows. He really needed to take his time and work on the overall plot, because there isn't enough going on to sustain the movie. Too bad, because this is a potentially fascinating subject.

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:04 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
Re-watched Arthur tonight, which holds up much better than I expected. Yes, the heart-tugging manipulation is hard to take (the movie develops almost a metronomical tone: laugh/pathos laugh/pathos laugh/pathos). But that doesn't much hurt the movie. Most of the jokes are really funny, and I'll admit to tearing up right on cue, even if I was irritated by how mechanical my response was. Writer-director Steve Gordon's dull-but-serviceable screen images don't hurt, either. It's your typical bland, characterless but "nice" early 80's looking picture.

More of a problem is that the movie is almost totally sexless. Despite Arthur picking up a prostitute near the beginning, or his grandmother telling him at one point "Every time you get an erection it ends up in the daily papers," none of the characters seems to have anything going on between their legs. When Liza Minnelli tells Dudley Moore "I wish we'd made love" I sorta wonder, can they? I'm not saying I want a Liza/Dudley sex scene (horrors), just that no one here seems to think of love as being related to adult desires.

But most of all is that terrible title song and much of the Burt Bacharach underscoring (and I like 60's era Bacharach).

Put it together, and a not bad comedy ends up seeming like the movie equivalent of adult contemporary music.

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whiskeypriest
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:45 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
My impression of the original Arthur was rather unpleasant, except for Gielgud. But then I haven't seen it since right after it came out and I've never liked Liza Minelli in much of anything. And I suspect I would find drunk obnoxious guy much less charming now.

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carrobin
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:53 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
I didn't find Arthur obnoxious--quite the contrary. The problem for a lot of critics, and it was a legitimate one, was that he was funny because he was a drunk.
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marantzo
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:00 pm Reply with quote
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That's not a legitimate complaint. Some people are funny when they are drunk, what's the problem. Robin Williams was funny when he was coked up.

Puritans.
Earl
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:40 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 09 Jun 2004 Posts: 2621 Location: Houston
"Every one who drinks is not a poet. Some of us drink because we're not poets."

I like that line.

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Earl
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:48 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 09 Jun 2004 Posts: 2621 Location: Houston
carrobin wrote:
I'll put in another vote for "Dr. Horrible," as well as for the original "Arthur." I was always a fan of Dudley Moore, and there were moments in that film that really cracked me up. The sequel was a bore because he had sobered up--a morally unfortunate (but predictable) situation.


I remember the opposite: that Arthur in the sequel had not sobered up and that Moore had a few uncomfortable interviews in which he had to explain why Arthur was still drinking.

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:20 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
marantzo wrote:
That's not a legitimate complaint. Some people are funny when they are drunk, what's the problem.


I agree.

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