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| knox |
 Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 12:03 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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Several opening this weekend, all inducing caution...50/50...I like Joe-Gord, but must he keep steering towards comedies that end sadly? (unless you think losing Zooey D is not a sad ending) Dream House...what a cast, but I catch a whiff of the salt air blowing in from Shutter Island. That BIGASS SPOILER in the theater trailer did not help!
And the "Number" movie with Anna Faris. Caution here simply for the plot. True love is already back there in the rolodex! How sweet!
Look forward to your reviews, Three Eyed Ones. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 12:49 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Dream House is reputed to be unspeakable. The mystery of how the talented Jim Sheridan directed a cast including Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts and came up with something this bad is the most interesting thing about it to me. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 1:25 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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billyweeds wrote: Marj wrote: I'm a real fan of Gosling, so I'm excited to see Ides of March too. Looks like my kind of film. I can hardly wait.
Don't miss Drive in your eagerness to see The Ides of March. The latter seems more my kind of movie, but Drive is as good
is it gets.
I believe you, Billy and I'm trying. Man am I trying! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:27 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| With all the fuss over Gosling, I missed the references to Carey Mulligan being in the movie. Okay, I'll see Drive. |
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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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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:30 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Dream House is reputed to be unspeakable. The mystery of how the talented Jim Sheridan directed a cast including Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts and came up with something this bad is the most interesting thing about it to me.
Hey, it's beating Abduction on the Tomatometer. 6% to 5%. |
_________________
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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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 3:39 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Haven't heard the buzz on Dream House and harbored hopes it would be good, given how much I like that cast and director. Agree, Knox, that the trailer spoiler is glaring and heinous, given that it's billed as a suspense movie.
Count me as another fan of "Joe-Gord" and looking forward to 50/50, even if it a multi-hanky weeper. And here I was just swearing off tumor movies. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 5:22 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| The trailer to Dream House seems to make seeing the actual movie extraneous. I thought we were finished with those "tell the whole plot" trailers. But nooooo. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:55 pm |
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| A Winnipeg critic in the Free Press gave a scathing review of Dream House and said he was thankful that the preview gave away the mystery so that people who saw it don't have to waste their time and money on this lousy picture. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:00 pm |
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| The Number movie also got a bad review, but Faris was complimented and wondered why she didn't pick better movies. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 6:38 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Gashole is pretty poorly done.
It starts with a bunch of conspiracy theories of Shell and other oil companies squelching gas mileage improvements by possibly killing and/or intimidating people. In then in pretty typical gashole style they have an expert review one patent that supposedly doubled gas mileage or whatever, and he agrees that it has potential. But no follow-up, no making of a prototype or any other attempt to test it out. Just insinuation that the oil companies are lying thugs and that's that.
Otherwise the doc is filled with other speculative talk, mostly in wildly general terms, and little proof or much of anything concrete. Then they throw in clips of oil execs at congressional hearings, appearing less than forthcoming and being treated with kid gloves by Texas politicians. Then there's a whole slew of utterly pointless, nearly random clips from old movies, supposed to make an ironic point as we hear some pseud-expert spout off some generalities about oil company badness. It's almost a parody of Michael Moore's appropriation of such old cultural artifacts. The cartoon charts and graphics were okay, though they usually seemed designed at about an 8th grade level of informational sophistication.
There's almost nothing of substance or practicality in Gashole. It's two-levels below such an obvious expose as Food Inc., because Gashole is incoherent and about two steps removed from facts. If you want conspiracy theories and insinuations and general talk about the evils of Big Oil though, then Gashole can fill up your tank.
One factual thing Gashole does present is that the oil companies have blocked new refining capacity and even closed profitable refineries with the intention of running up the price of gasoline.
They only provide evidence of one instance, but that was factual and well done and should have been the type of evidence-based info the whole documentary should have striven for.
The best thing about the Gashole dvd I bought is that for some unfathomable reason it also contains Carlos Diegues' 1979 Bye Bye Brasil, a film I haven't seen in a long time. I doubt there is any connection at all, though the Brasilian film is about small-time hustlers and conmen, and might be one of those cultural artifacts commenting ironically on the small-minded ways of Gashole. Certainly one of the weirdest 2-for-1 discs I've ever encountered -- Bye Bye Brasil isn't listed and was just a mystery supplement). |
Last edited by gromit on Sun Oct 02, 2011 9:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 12:51 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Ha! A weird double-feature indeed. I thought Gashole was weak on the whole magic-carburetor suppression thing, but amusing and sort of thought-provoking. Agree that they did nail that one point about Big Oil strategies to jack up the pump price. For me, the big failing of Gashole is that the stuff it does get right is kind of old news. Like the (yawn) segment about how trolleys and trains and buses were driven out of business by Standard Oil et al. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 9:14 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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The weirdest part was that my I fell asleep in the middle of Gashole and woke up to some Portuguese carnival film. I had no idea what was going on and at first assumed somehow it had switched to Tv. Then slowly realized the dvd must be messing with me.
The problem with Gashole is it just tells you about Big Oil suppressing public transportation without really providing hard facts or making a strong case. The whole film is mostly just talking heads making general assertions of wrong-doing with inter-cuts of old movie clips and animated charts and other not really informative visuals.
It's like they thought it was real easy to make a Michael Moore style film, and we learn that they were wrong. Even the title points to the flippant, vague-news style of the doc. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 7:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Take Shelter is an amazing CGI triumph and an even more amazing acting triumph by Michael Shannon, and to an only slightly lesser degree by Jessica Chastain. Shannon plays a mentally disturbed blue-collar guy who sees visions of disaster. Chastain plays his loving but increasingly upset wife. The director-writer Jeff Nichols does a brilliant job of making Curtis's story unique and uniquely visceral and painful. It's a marvelous movie with a great performance by Shannon. As for Chastain, her one-two-three 2011 punch of The Tree of Life, The Help, and Take Shelter is as convincing as any calling card I've seen in a long time. She is a great actress. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:33 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Take Shelter is an amazing CGI triumph and an even more amazing acting triumph by Michael Shannon, and to an only slightly lesser degree by Jessica Chastain. Shannon plays a mentally disturbed blue-collar guy who sees visions of disaster. Chastain plays his loving but increasingly upset wife. The director-writer Jeff Nichols does a brilliant job of making Curtis's story unique and uniquely visceral and painful. It's a marvelous movie with a great performance by Shannon. As for Chastain, her one-two-three 2011 punch of The Tree of Life, The Help, and Take Shelter is as convincing as any calling card I've seen in a long time. She is a great actress.
She's also in Coriolanus and The Debt. She's even playing Salome in a film version of Oscar Wilde's play, directed by Al Pacino (!). The latter won the Queer Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The Queer Lion honors exactly what you expect it to honor. I think in this case it's because there are documentary elements. She's also going to be in The Wettest County in the World later this year. She certainly isn't limiting herself as an actress.
I only saw The Tree of Life and The Help, but thought she was very good in both. |
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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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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:54 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| She's also going to be in Malick's next project along with Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Peet, Olga Kurylenko and some guys I won't be looking at. |
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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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