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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 4:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Quote: It's a great gig, Marc. Congratulations. But tell me where to access Mirgun's photos. All I see are videos .
Billy, if you click on the pieces on tattoos, breakfast tacos, street art and almost every post on that site, the photos are all Mirgun's.
Thanks, Marc. The photos are wonderful; tell Mirgun I love them. I also happen to agree completely with you about 21 Jump Street being easy to hate if it weren't so funny and occasionally sweet. I have become a Jonah Hill groupie. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 4:38 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Watched The Artist last night and really enjoyed it. My only complaint was that it was too short and ended abruptly. Maybe that was just me. Which of course it was. I got a sneaking suspicion I missed something.
So I went back and checked -- turns out I dozed for the last half hour only to wake up for the very last scene.
Odd. A few days ago, I dozed during Design for Living, thought I'd missed half an hour and it turned out I only nodded off briefly for only 2 minutes. This time I thought I missed 2 minutes and turns out it was 30+.
I'll have to go back and see what folks here said about The Artist. Really lovely, great hammy acting, one of my faves of the year. Also, it made a nice double feature with Design for Living, an early Lubitsch talkie from right around that era.
Edit: Everyone seems to have liked The Artist but felt a need to call it overrated. I don't get it. First off, I don't see how others opinions affect my opinion/appreciation of a film. And second, if you and everyone here and everyone else likes the film, it gets rated highly. Pretty simple.
Inla had a nice appreciation of the film. And seems the only one to appreciate the last line -- the only line spoken by George Valentin. I'll try to go back and link to it. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 5:07 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Lorne, can we have a Narcoleptic Cinema thread? Pleeeaaasse?
I watched 30 minutes of Cassavetes last week (AWutI) and then went to bed. At that length, I was just barely able to withstand the pain. Very well done, excellent acting. When I've recovered, I'm going to try another 30 minutes.
Really enjoyed Mirgun's photos. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:42 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| The Turkish movie Once Upon a Time in Anatolia directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the better movies I have seen in the past 12 months. It won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. It purportedly is about the bureaucratic aspects of a criminal investigation, but is really about the drudgery and dishonesty that is life. I loved Ceylan's earlier movies Distant, Climates and Three Monkeys, but this one is his most ambitious and best. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Reviewed OUATIA a while back, and couldn't disagree more with Ghulam. One of the more torturous film experiences of the last few years. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Upstate NY
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Billy said, "One of the more torturous film experiences of the last few years."
Some of it may be deliberate. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:33 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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gromit wrote: Edit: Everyone seems to have liked The Artist but felt a need to call it overrated. I don't get it. First off, I don't see how others opinions affect my opinion/appreciation of a film. And second, if you and everyone here and everyone else likes the film, it gets rated highly. Pretty simple.
Inla had a nice appreciation of the film. And seems the only one to appreciate the last line -- the only line spoken by George Valentin. I'll try to go back and link to it.
I'm one of those who liked it but thought it overrated. I think Bérénice Bejo's performance may be underrated. Her role may be silent, but remember she is playing an actress in sound films. I thought she captured the late 20's and early thirties era very well, which is difficult when you don't have a word to say. She reminded me of Joan Crawford before she became a diva.
The movie does have some truly great scenes, one involving a staircase, the dream sequence when everything is making a sound but him, and especially the last dance sequence, which is one of the great sequences in film. I wouldn't be surprised if the movie is thought better in 20 years than it is now. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:43 am |
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We saw The Artist last week. I pretty well had the same reaction to it as gromit, and that's a rarity.  Bérénice Bejo , was delightful to watch giving a wonderful performance and Jean Dujardin was perfect as a silent movie star acting as a silent movie star. It was interesting how she, though silent, acted like someone in a sound movie and he acted like a silent movie star would. Yes, the scene with everything producing a sound but him was an excellent piece and the ending was up there with the best endings ever.
Marta Luz liked it, but I loved it. She thought the dog was the best actor and her favourite character though she liked the two leads also and thought Bérénice Bejo was so nice and gorgeous. Can't disagree. The doggy may well have been the best performer in the very good trio. Coincidently Marta found out the next day that the dog was trained by a Colombian guy who lives in the States, who also trained Obama's dog. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:10 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Quote: The doggy may well have been the best performer in the very good trio.
Not everyone would consider that soaring praise for a film.
Finally saw The Skin I Live In, the Almodovar attempt at quasi-sci-fi/horror/allegory. What a wretched experience. So much talent and production money wasted on what is essentially a mean-spirited revenge flick with lurching caricatures of humanity. The Big Reveal lands with a thud, because it's so obvious by then. A film full of cruelty and empty of meaning. Yech. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:44 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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The acting and casting was terrific. The slight differences between his style and hers was played quite well. It's a simple story, but that's part of the charm, allowing the viewer to soak in the acting, the costumes, the set design, the camerawork -- everything going on in fact. And as inla points out there's lots of film references for those who enjoy subtext and that kind of thing. I enjoyed the cinematic references I noticed, and kind of like the fact that there are more I don't have a clue about.
I wouldn't go nearly so far as to say that Uggy was the best actor, but damn that dog did a good job. I really like when he goes to the movie theater and watches the film with his dog in his arms, and nobody bats an eye. And then that nice touch is deftly worked into the storyline when the woman comes over not because he's famous as he expects, but to pet the cute little doggie. A further ego blow.
I really can't think of anything to criticize the film about. Er ... Goodman looked the part, but often his scenes ended kind of flat. A quibble.
I thought the ending was more ambiguous than the weedman suggests. They might make it as a dance team, or he might be the next/original romantic Chevalier type with a funny French accent, or the film might not be a hit, or his accent might doom his talkie career. I thought that this was a triumphant number, but we don't know if the film is up to snuff, or if the public will embrace the pairing. Lots of silent stars fell by the wayside when talkies came in. From the dance scene, we don't know if he can act in the "modern" style or act convincingly while speaking.
I was wondering: when people saw this, did it have French intertitles which were subtitled, or does it screen in the US with English intertitles? |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:16 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| English intertitles, here in the US of A. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| grace |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:16 am |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
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I liked The Artist somewhat unapologetically, noting that it was getting too much buzz for my liking. I stand by that sentiment, because there was a time when it was being pushed, and hard - which, in my mind, invites a backlash, which I thought The Artist did not deserve. Or at least, I didn't want to see that happen.
I also loved Berenice Bejo, and thought the complexity of her role - as Syd notes, she's playing a talkie actress silently - went largely unappreciated. Perhaps it was unnoticed, which would explain the lack of appreciation. I would have liked more of Missi Pyle, but that's a personal thing. I also thought Goodman, had he had more to do, might have done better, but who knows?
re Intertitles, I believe they were in English. (I didn't think anything about it, since the movie was set in Hollywood.) |
Last edited by grace on Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:59 am |
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Here in Medellin the intertitles in The Artist were only in English.
Of course the end of the film, SPOILER MAYBE, obviously meant that it would be a success. It was a typical silent movie ending. The audience goes away happy. Silent films that weren't a serious heartbreaking drama, but more of a sort of serious drama with a comic side have happy endings. And of course Goodman says that the dance was terrific and called for some more of it.
Another scene that had me laughing and also worried was when she was driving through Hollywood to get to him. She obviously wasn't a licensed driver. And the intertitle when we see the has-been star with a gun in his hand in his room, while she is approaching, was cleverly misleading. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:12 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I enjoyed most of the movie, without ever thinking it was Oscar-worthy, except for the scene I loathed, where they used a huge portion of the score to Vertigo. The scene in The Artist did not have the emotional heft to deserve Herrmann's music, arguably (and IMO inarguably) the greatest score ever written for any movie. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:18 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I'm not a huge Vertigo fan, so I didn't even recognize the score. |
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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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