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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:19 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I would agree with gromit totally except for the fact that I have a freebie to the Hoover movie. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 11:17 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Hoover wasn't bad...as much a love story and character study of the man as it is an account of his FBI career. Armie Hammer did a good job as Hoover's love and righthand man, Clyde Tolson. Leo shows a Hoover equal parts idealist and paranoiac; the film uses the device of JEH telling his bio to a ghostwriter to show a disjunct between certain realities and Hoover's self-dramatization of himself as the consummate G-man. Nicely edited, jumping back and forth between the 30s and the 60s. And the film does touch on some post 9/11 issues as Hoover takes his first experimental chips at the Constitution, drawing out both humor and a sad realization of how Hoover is morally blinkered by his zeal for stamping out the enemies of America.
Not a great film, and there are weak spots....for me, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) does not make a credible Bobby Kennedy. But okay for a matinee ticket and a dusting off of one's 20th century Am. history -- interesting look at the Lindbergh baby case and the birth of modern forensic science. And yes, that is Stephen Root as the country's first CSI, matching tool marks and such. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 12:46 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Fine, go the theater, get your free ticket.
Then rip it into shreds and light the scraps on fire, all the while castigating Eastwood as a boring hack director. And save something extraordinarily cutting to say about a past Eastwood to use when you are being led away.
Oh yeah, don't forget to have someone film this and post it to youtube once you're free.
Looking forward to it ... thx.
The odd thing about Clint is that he often tackles projects and topics I find interesting -- jazz, boxing, the FBI -- it's just his approach is so stodgy, middlebrow, dull, _____, that I'm not much interested in his films. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 5:56 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Pale Rider
Play Misty for Me
Unforgiven
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Hereafter
The above is a off-top-of-head list of fine films made by Eastwood. Now go buy a ticket to J. Edgar and tell me where I went wrong.
Not even sure what "middlebrow" means, but I hear the term a lot these days. Agree that his other stuff is often stodgy and competent at best. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 6:41 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I loved Hereafter and Play Misty for Me. Loved Mystic River on first viewing but second time around the magic totally evaporated.
Completely detested Gran Torino, Absolute Power, and True Crime, and--sorry--Oscarwinners Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby left me cold. Blood Work counts as a guilty pleasure because of the Jeff Daniels performance. A Perfect World and The Bridges of Madison County were okay because of Costner and Streep respectively. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 6:50 pm |
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| I thought Gran Torino was eh, until the ending which was terrible (I seem to remember that it was the only part you liked). True Crime was bad and had an ending that was even worse than what went before. I was completely unimpressed with Unforgiven. Of the others you mentioned, I didn't see, except Absolute Power which I don't remember very well. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 6:53 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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bartist wrote: Not even sure what "middlebrow" means, but I hear the term a lot these days.
Surely you are familiar with the terms highbrow, lowbrow and middlebrow (not to mention Lowenbrau), whether you agree with them or not. I generally think they've done a disservice to the arts. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 7:13 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: I thought Gran Torino was eh, until the ending which was terrible (I seem to remember that it was the only part you liked). True Crime was bad and had an ending that was even worse than what went before. I was completely unimpressed with Unforgiven. Of the others you mentioned, I didn't see, except Absolute Power which I don't remember very well.
The only thing I liked about Gran Torino was the very very last shot, which went on forever and was just intriguing because of that, and the music which accompanied the shot. Otherwise I thought it was amateurish beyond belief, and featured some of the worst acting I can recall in a major film, including the man himself.
Absolute Power was likewise badly acted especially by the very uneven Judy Davis, whose acting can range from superb (Husbands and Wives, the Judy Garland bio) to unwatchable (AP and Deconstructing Harry). |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 7:32 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Maureen Dowd's column in the Times (the Sunday Review section is already on the Web) has a nice interview with Eastwood. I'd add the link here but my laptop won't copy anything. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 8:12 pm |
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"The only thing I liked about Gran Torino was the very very last shot..."
The last shot was ruined for me by that cliched crucifixion pose. Real amateur night. If he didn't do that worn out metaphor it would have been a powerful scene for me also.
Car, why won't your laptop copy? |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 8:16 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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marantzo wrote: Car, why won't your laptop copy?
I accidentally killed the toolbar a few months ago and couldn't figure out how to get it back.
The Times site is nytimes.com--easy enough to click "opinion" on the left column and Dowd's column is on the top of the page. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:32 pm |
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| Car, press ALT and then right click on the tool bar and click menu bar and navigation bar. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:58 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Thanks, Marantz--it worked, but I still can't seem to copy the http address (the "copy" doesn't register). But oddly enough, I can copy text.
Here are the first paragraphs of the Dowd article. It's longer than her usual column, so anyone who wants to read more can just check the Times site.
I ASK Clint Eastwood, the star who defined macho in 20th-century movies, what it was like to direct a scene with two men kissing.
Especially when it’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer playing a rule-bending and gender-bending version of J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson.
Stretching out his Giacometti legs in the Four Seasons bar, the rangy 81-year-old said he juiced up the action to make it a fistfight that suddenly turns erotic. Or as Eastwood circumspectly puts it, “It becomes an expression, at least from one of the parties — maybe both — of borderline something else.” |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:08 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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carrobin wrote: Thanks, Marantz--it worked, but I still can't seem to copy the http address (the "copy" doesn't register). But oddly enough, I can copy text.
Usually that means that PASTE isn't working for whatever reason.
After you copy, if Right Click then Paste doesn't work, try Control-V (at the same time).
That usually does the trick.
Copy can also be done with Control-C, but Copy almost always takes. Paste doesn't work sometimes.
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As for Clint, his very unwillingness to wrestle with issues, or to follow through implications is a good part of the problem. He's willing to show certain things because that's part of the culture now, but he isn't going to really deal with things, just show them briefly and move on. It's all sort of surface and perfunctory.
I wisely skipped Gran Torino. Don't even recall hearing of True Crime or Absolute Power or A Perfect World. Skipped Garden of Eden as well. Thought it sounded in Bridges of Madison County mode, and that was entirely decent, but nothing more. I did like Unforgiven. Pale Rider is fine enough.
I really disliked Million Dollar Baby, which convinced me to skip Gran Torino and those other post-MDB films. |
Last edited by gromit on Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:11 am; edited 2 times in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:09 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Margin Call, about the 2008 Wall Street debacle, is one of the best movies of the year, with great dialogue and direction by a neophyte, J.C. Chandor--and the best performances in years by Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. Spacey and Irons remind us of their immense talents after what seems like decades of appearing in cheese and not rising above it. They are both awe-inspiring.
Zachary Quinto, the Spock of the Star Trek movie, plays the closest thing to the leading role, and he more than holds his own.
Meanwhile, Demi Moore gives her second terrific performance of 2011. I don't know what's happened to her, but she's stopped "acting" and started behaving like a human being, and she's suddenly a marvelous actress. Astonishing.
The movie is an ensemble-acting miracle and a definite must-see. |
Last edited by billyweeds on Sun Nov 13, 2011 10:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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