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| grace |
 Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:48 am |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 3214
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Quote: Quote:
By the way Bart, you might as well Map Quest your house while you're giving us all this information about how to rob you.
As long as it's Mapquest, bart is safe - they give more wrong directions than anyone I know.
(This message was brought to you in an effort to turn the page.) |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Heh. You should get a garmin. I've never gotten so lost. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| grace |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:17 am |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:08 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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grace wrote: Brick as teen noir? And in color.
Pimple noir. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:45 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| Watched a pretty dull slacker-mystery-mumblecore neo-noir last night. Cold Weather (2010) by Aaron Katz. Not very good. I didn't believe any of the characters or the fairly basic plot. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Watched a pretty dull slacker-mystery-mumblecore neo-noir last night. Cold Weather (2010) by Aaron Katz. Not very good. I didn't believe any of the characters or the fairly basic plot.
You're being far too kind. This was a real honest-to-goodness turkey. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Quote: Dogtooth (2009), a bizarre Greek black comedy that won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, shows us a well-off but incestuous family which is kept cut off from the rest of society by a powerful though idiosyncratic father. Original and engaging.
Gromit and Ghulam: I cringed all through this one.....bizarre, disturbing.....the tale of a family attempting to protect it's concept of the nuclear family by telling the kids it's too dangerous "out there" and they can only leave when they loose one of their dogteeth. This was an unpleasant viewing experience except for the clean, neutral-colored filming and the beautiful young daughters.
I prefered YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for an amazing performance by Al Pacino and an issue you can really chew your (dog)teeth on. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 4:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Finally saw Men Who Stare at Goats the other day. Even being told how disappointing it was could not prepare me for how disappointing it was. Somewhere in there was a pretty funny movie. I am pretty sure it did not have voice-over narration, though. At least, not THAT voice over narration. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:58 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Quote: ...Somewhere in there was a pretty funny movie....
That about covers it. Nice to see the Dude doing his thing, some funny vignettes, but....really, I barely remember it now. Which is the most damning thing you could say about it, I guess.
"Cold Souls" -- just found this in the 99 cent bin at BBuster. I don't buy DVDs, but at that price I can watch Paul Giamatti have his soul removed, then pass it along to my son, who likes this kind of movie. Will report back. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 7:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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bartist wrote: I can watch Paul Giamatti have his soul removed, then pass it along to my son...
Cold Souls sounded to me like Charlie Kaufman Lite. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:21 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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It does sound Kaufmanesque, but struck me more as the kind of urban fantasy Woody Allen does so well....and the fact that Giamatti's soul turns out to look exactly like a chickpea is clearly a nod to Allen (who famously said that his own soul looked like a chickpea). But there are certainly parallels to a Kaufman script like BJM, especially in the theme of being inside someone else's head and the existential woes that follow. And Giamatti plays an actor named Paul Giamatti.
But the plot goes in a very Woody direction, after Giamatti's soul is removed (so that he can get through a two-week run of "Uncle Vanya" without cracking under the strain....as his director suggests, he is taking Vanya much too seriously) and is then stolen and sold through a Russian black market in souls. Giamatti sets out to retrieve it, finds that it has been transplanted into a pretty Russian soap opera actress who wanted to try an American actor's soul, and so on. There is some clever metaphysical humor along the way, and also a genuinely touching story concerning the soul of a Russian poet that is trying to find the right place to be.
I think anyone who likes either Kaufman or Allen will find this a run romp. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:40 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Yes, Cold Weather was useless, but too bland/generic to actually be offensive. It did take me two nights to make it through. Clearly the sister character/actor was designed to be a Parker Posey role.
Not recommended.
Cold Souls was pretty good in a low-key way.
I quite enjoyed Men Who Stare at Goats.
Thought it was a lot of fun, and oddly based on actual events. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:38 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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The chat about noir prompted me to watch The Woman in the Window (1944), considered one of the early examples of the noir genre (the release of TWITW, Double Indemnity, and a couple other U.S. films in the same year in France led to an article about them in a French magazine in which a critic first coined the term, film noir....). Edward G. Robinson plays a college professor who is drawn into murder and intrique by a femme fatale (Joan Bennett), which culminates in the victim's bodyguard (obviously not supercompetent) blackmailing her. The sound was terrible to the point where I missed many lines (no CC), and I fell asleep before the movie ended (it was running on a UHF digital channel in Omaha that is mostly classic film). Still, the approach to forensics in the forties was kind of interesting, as Robinson's good friend happens to be a prosecuting attorney and we watch him piece together the evidence. It has hokey elements, but as character-driven drama, it's not bad. I might try to find a synopsis, or DVD copy, as I'm a little curious how it ended.
EDIT (WITH SPOILERS) -- Oh. Groan. Arggghhhh. Well, the ending shouldn't surprise me, given the obvious setup with the early shot of Robinson (the stodgy married man, gloomy at the unadventurous rut his life has settled into) looking at the portrait in the window, and then the superposition of Bennett's reflection on the glass, ethereal and dreamlike.
I suppose this ending satisfied the moral requirements of the studios in the 40's. You see what happens, Edward, when a married man even thinks about dallying with a pretty young thing? Even though you never made a move, you were sucked into a vortex of darkness and evil, just for having a drink with her. Hey, good thing it was only a dream. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:00 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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I liked Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger more than most critics did. It is slightly below 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona', but at par with 'Match Point' and 'Melinda and Melinda'. It is way better than most of the fare at the multiplex (except of course MIP).
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:00 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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bartist wrote: The chat about noir prompted me to watch The Woman in the Window (1944)
Easy enough to ignore the little tacked on ending.
Try Scarlet Street, basically a better re-working of the same theme with the same actors -- Edward G, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Street
It's Lang again, the following year.
Great film.
(and ignore Billy's follow-up post as he's wring, wrong wrong.)
Edited to point out Billy's wrongheadedness. |
Last edited by gromit on Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:32 am; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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