| Author |
Message |
|
| bartist |
 Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:55 am |
 |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 11:26 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| I'd like to volunteer at a cocker spaniel rehab center. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:09 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
| Inla.....I have a chance to hear Kenneth Turan speak on Friday. Should I take it? |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 2:43 pm |
|
|
Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Befade wrote: Inla.....I have a chance to hear Kenneth Turan speak on Friday. Should I take it?
Yes, absolutely. Let us know how it went. Tew kewl. |
_________________
"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 7:31 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
| Thanks, Inla.......I'll report back. |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:17 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
|
Richard Roeper with an amusing simile on "Phantom," the Soviet sub thriller opening today...
Quote:
Ed Harris in "Phantom" is like Steve Carlton with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1972 — delivering a wall-to-wall, amazing performance that's lost in a sea of dreadfulness.
That season, Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that finished 59-97. Harris delivers a nomination-worthy performance in a movie with a throwaway title, an abundance of closeups that provoke unintentional laughs, a few bizarre supernatural touches and one of the loopier endings in recent memory.
I don't share Roeper's concern about the actors retaining American accents (as they play Russians), but I understand how this might tread upon a cinematic convention in a way that's distracting. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:20 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
|
What accents to adopt for a film set entirely in a foreign milieu is always difficulty - especially for those perceived to have an accent. Billy may dispute this statement, but even Americans seem to consider that they have an accent and that 'received' British pronunciation is the more neutral accent for films' set overseas. It's a legacy thing.
I think the best actors don't adopt a foreign accent wholesale, but rather gently modulate their phrasing and the pronunciation of the occasional signal word as a an acknowledgement that the person they are playing isn't from London or New York or wherever. Going the full Maurice Chevalier is just wrong. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:54 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
I have seen two reviews of Phantom. Roeper says having no accent is ridiculous. The NYTimes critic--who loathes the film--says one of the only good things about it is that the actors do not adopt accents.
Go figure. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:20 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
|
jeremy wrote:
I think the best actors don't adopt a foreign accent wholesale, but rather gently modulate their phrasing and the pronunciation of the occasional signal word as a an acknowledgement that the person they are playing isn't from London or New York or wherever....
Is wery good idea, tovaritch!
I remember watching The Lady Vanishes and being amused at the accents of the fake nationality ("Mandrika") which seemed to amble all over the European continent. In a comedy, you can get away with that. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:39 am |
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
|
Stolen Seas (Tales of Somali Piracy) is a pretty interesting documentary. Impressive that they got such access to some of these places and people. Mostly they interview one Somali who worked as a negotiator for the pirates/hostage-takers. He had lived 20 years in the US, so has very good English and knowledge of dealing with Westerners. It's almost farcical to watch Danish businessman (the one shipping company execs) interact with 3rd World criminals. I swear I could be a tougher and better negotiator than the Danish lawyer they use.
I think the documentary gets a bit muddled when it tries to look at why piracy flourishes and why the int'l community can't/won't stop it. For instance, just because Somali piracy allows Japan, China, Germany to expand their military power, and the US to test out its military hardware, isn't the same as thing as they don't want to stop it because it has benefits for them. They might take advantage of an opportunity, but the film implies and directly posits that they allow piracy to continue because its in their interests.
I was also disappointed that discussion of UN task force never mentioned even the possibility of drone usage against piracy, which would seem to be a good low-cost way to track and surveil pirate boats.
The film often goes for a you-are-there approach with actual footage plus recreations, instead of filling in some of the operations puzzle pieces. They mention at one point that the young guards on board a captured ship make $15K for an operation. I would have been interested in how many such guards there were (a dozen?) and who else got what cut. We do learn that there were 11 initial attackers, but not what share they get or what their roles are after a ship is brought to port. I also would have been interested in more of the details of the pirate operations.
This review on Ebert's site seems to have confused and misinterpreted most of the facts and issues. It seems a real sloppy review without much understanding at all of what is in the film or going on in Somalia. Not sure who this guy is who wrote the review, but just about every paragraph is off-base. |
Last edited by gromit on Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:57 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:13 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
My friend who pulls movies off the Internet just sent me a disk of "The Woman in Black." He had seen the play in London but didn't even know there was a film; I told him it didn't get good reviews and disappeared quickly, with only Daniel Radcliffe as star power. But it's a good old-fashioned ghost story, set in a grayish post-Victorian England and well acted throughout, with some moments that must have brought gasps and screams in full theaters. (I admit that I just sort of squeaked.) I liked the gothic ending too. Thumbs up, especially if you've nothing to do on a rainy afternoon.
P.S. It's from Hammer--still in business, it seems, doing what they do best. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 3:34 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
carrobin wrote: My friend who pulls movies off the Internet just sent me a disk of "The Woman in Black." He had seen the play in London but didn't even know there was a film; I told him it didn't get good reviews and disappeared quickly, with only Daniel Radcliffe as star power. But it's a good old-fashioned ghost story, set in a grayish post-Victorian England and well acted throughout, with some moments that must have brought gasps and screams in full theaters. (I admit that I just sort of squeaked.) I liked the gothic ending too. Thumbs up, especially if you've nothing to do on a rainy afternoon.
P.S. It's from Hammer--still in business, it seems, doing what they do best.
This should be in Couch btw. But whatever.... |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:48 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6967
Location: Black Hills
|
| [moved to Couch] |
Last edited by bartist on Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 12:13 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
And I'll join you, Bart.
[Let's move to the couch, OK? I actually know how Billy feels.] |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:52 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
|
Putin's Kiss is a pretty well done documentary on modern Russia. It follows the development of Masha Drokova who joins a pro-gov't youth movement called Nashi when she's 16 and moves up to become a spokesperson in the next couple of years. She becomes well-known as the girl who impulsively got up at a youth meeting and gave Putin a kiss. Her boss, the founder of Nashi gets a quasi-ministerial appointment, and there's also a shadowy militant wing that targets the opposition. There's various intimidation tactics and occasional violence against opposition leaders and journalists. You know your pro-gov't youth movement has issues when it has to repeatedly assert that it is "democratic and anti-fascist."
Masha gets into a prestigious university, plus a nice apartment and late model sedan. She also gets a TV show where she interviews people on political topics. And through this she gets to know some of the independent Moscow journalists, and her views evolve. It's an interesting look at some of the people and personalities behind the scenes. Masha herself comes from a pretty ordinary middle class family in a small town somewhere or other. She seems more commitment and striving than brains, and her busty peasant looks don't hurt. It's not so easy figuring out Masha, or Russia itself.
There were more details I would have been interested in, and some of the political discussions remain at a general level. But overall, it's well done, interesting, informative. I left out the one twist, which the doc foreshadows the whole time, so you pretty much know what's coming anyway. |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
