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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:22 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
IMO All About My Mother sucks unless you worship dutifully at the shrine of Douglas Sirk. It makes Written on the Wind look like terse, underwritten Hemingway by comparison, and is the only one of Pedro's movies that I've seen where his gayness becomes an artistic issue. By which I mean that the glorified larger-than-life-ication of women seen in this film is the kind only gay men do. it turns every woman into a version of late-era Judy Garland and destroys any possibility of realism.
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bartist
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6961 Location: Black Hills
Thanks, fellows -- browsed the titles mentioned and Talk to Me grabbed my eye. Will embark. And thanks Grace for the Leoni update -- wouldn't splitting with a Leo be like...losing part of herself? LEOni, right?

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bartist
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:24 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6961 Location: Black Hills
The Long Goodbye imagines a sort of "Rip van Marlowe," who wakes up in 70's LA with the same car he was driving in The Big Sleep and trying to buy his cat the same brand of catfood that was on the shelf in the forties, which no one at the convenience store has heard of. Elliot Gould slouches cheerfully through scenes, both debonair and slackjawed, and the camera moves with that Altman fluidity and ease, while smart dialog flows and interweaves naturally and nothing pauses for you to get the joke so you just have to go with the flow. Eventually, you sense that Marlowe and the cat are the same kind of creature, only sticking with you so long as they get fed the true stuff (the cat jumps ship when Marlowe dumps generic catfood into the old brand can and serves it from that). All kinds of noir twists and turns, thanks to lying friend and deceitful femme fatale and demented writer (played with disturbing conviction by Sterling Hayden), with odd apparitions that float past in true California fashion....a muscleman-henchman who might be familiar to a modern viewer, bare-bosomed vixens next door who dance and do yoga and commune with the earth, a gated community guard who lives to do impressions of famous movie stars, and moments when we seem to be seeing Chandler's LA through a haze of incense and pot smoke. In other words, it's kind of a send-up of traditional noir that preserves Chandler's sense of the humor and folly of LA. Gould's Marlowe is an eccentric, both ascetic (never willing to remove his tie or jacket) and a wastrel who chainsmokes and absorbs most of his calories in liquid form, both chaste and radiating sexuality. I'd forgotten what a fascinating actor Gould is to watch.

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Joe Vitus
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:53 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
One of my all-time favorite Altman movies. I don't think I've ever liked Elliot Gould more, and Sterling Hayden is amazing. It was made before Altman decided cinematography and set design were unimportant, so it's a visual feast as well as an acting/directorial one.

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gromit
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 10:15 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai
It has one of the great cat performances.

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marantzo
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:06 am Reply with quote
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bartist wrote:
Thanks, fellows -- browsed the titles mentioned and Talk to Me grabbed my eye. Will embark. And thanks Grace for the Leoni update -- wouldn't splitting with a Leo be like...losing part of herself? LEOni, right?


Talk to Me and Volver are terrific. They are quite different stories so it's hard for me to decide which one I like better. I haven't seen All About My Mother. For some reason I never wanted to see it and reading Billy's comments about it, pretty well fit what I thought it would be like.
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bartist
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:13 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6961 Location: Black Hills
gromit wrote:
It has one of the great cat performances.


I sense a new thread for 3rd Eye.

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marantzo
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:15 am Reply with quote
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I thought I saw The Long Goodbye but I guess I was wrong. I saw the other Altman film with Gould that came out the next year, California Split. Very good movie. I'm going to pick up The Long Goodbye.
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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:18 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Agree about The Long Goodbye, and second the comment on Sterling Hayden. If you watch TLG, Dr. Strangelove, Johnny Guitar, and The Killing you will realize that Hayden is not the workmanlike actor he's often considered, but a near-great one.
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marantzo
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:36 am Reply with quote
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You left off The Asphalt Jungle, Billy.
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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:42 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
marantzo wrote:
You left off The Asphalt Jungle, Billy.


On purpose. I don't think it's as good as its reputation. The Killing eats TAJ'S breakfast. Same genre, same star, but Kubrick on the rise was better than Huston coasting.
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grace
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 12:10 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 3215
The Killing was excellent. Just another opinion....
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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 12:18 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
grace wrote:
The Killing was excellent. Just another opinion....


It's still my favorite Kubrick movie of them all.
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Befade
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:16 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ
Quote:
Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown is a good intro to Almodovar.
Talk To Me and All About My Mother are also excellent. There's almost no way you won't enjoy any of Pedro's films.


Bart........why not watch the early film where Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem first got together? (memory for the title????) Or Tie me Up, Tie me Down where Antonio Bandaras was exposed?

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:38 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Love Tie Me Up.
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