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| gromit |
 Posted: Sun May 05, 2013 11:51 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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| This is Not a Film got me to pick up two Iranian films today: Turtles Can Fly and Panahi's debut The White Balloon |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun May 05, 2013 4:50 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I've seen Turtles Can Fly. It's very bleak, which probably was inevitable given the subject matter. The same director did Half Moon which I like a lot. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun May 05, 2013 5:04 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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I liked Ghobadi's Marooned in Iraq.
Haven't seen Half Moon. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 12:44 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 1:04 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Ghulam wrote: .
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
Because it has Anna Paquin? She's a good actress and it's nice she got a lead role for once. She should really be a major star.
Although the people who put pictures of her on her website chose the least flattering pictures imaginable. I have to think it's deliberate. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:33 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Ghulam wrote: .
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
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I could not disagree with this any more if I tried. Margaret is a near-great film and one of the best of its year.
To be fair, it's controversial and polarizing. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 8:35 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| A movie that should not be polarizing (how's that for segue?) is the charming "The Music Never Stopped," a 2011 film with J.K. Simmons and Julia Ormond, about a young man who, due to a brain tumor, cannot build new memories and believes he is living around 1970 (the story is set in 1986). His family builds a bridge through music therapy, when it's discovered that he can connect and remember things when music is playing, esp. bands of the late 60's. His father (Simmons) is a "square," who couldn't relate to his son's music or countercultural philosophy at that time, but learns to set aside his narrow tastes and past prejudices, so it's one of those stories where you realize that both have cognitive impairments to grow out of. This could have been sappy and maudlin, but thanks to the fine performances is quite moving. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 9:34 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Ghulam wrote: .
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
You probably chose it because a number of peeps really liked it and had it quite high on their best of the year lists.
I really enjoyed it and have been meaning to re-watch it. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 10:19 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: A movie that should not be polarizing (how's that for segue?) is the charming "The Music Never Stopped," a 2011 film with J.K. Simmons and Julia Ormond, about a young man who, due to a brain tumor, cannot build new memories and believes he is living around 1970 (the story is set in 1986). His family builds a bridge through music therapy, when it's discovered that he can connect and remember things when music is playing, esp. bands of the late 60's. His father (Simmons) is a "square," who couldn't relate to his son's music or countercultural philosophy at that time, but learns to set aside his narrow tastes and past prejudices, so it's one of those stories where you realize that both have cognitive impairments to grow out of. This could have been sappy and maudlin, but thanks to the fine performances is quite moving.
Maybe it shouldn't be polarizing, but it sure was with me. I purely loathed this film, which was surprising to me since I really like the actors involved, but the generation gap situation was so horrendously cliched that even the hip actor Simmons couldn't make it anything but sappy. You thought no. Well, I'm glad you liked it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 10:20 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Ghulam wrote: .
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
You probably chose it because a number of peeps really liked it and had it quite high on their best of the year lists.
I really enjoyed it and have been meaning to re-watch it.
I really want to rewatch it, but it's a long movie and requires a commitment of time that I can't often make what with all the new stuff I "have" to see. Which brings me to Mud, for which you'll have to visit "Current." |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 3:02 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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billyweeds wrote: bartist wrote: A movie that should not be polarizing (how's that for segue?) is the charming "The Music Never Stopped," a 2011 film with J.K. Simmons and Julia Ormond, about a young man who, due to a brain tumor, cannot build new memories...This could have been sappy and maudlin, but thanks to the fine performances is quite moving.
Maybe it shouldn't be polarizing, but it sure was with me. I purely loathed this film, which was surprising to me since I really like the actors involved, but the generation gap situation was so horrendously cliched that even the hip actor Simmons couldn't make it anything but sappy. You thought no. Well, I'm glad you liked it.
It's based on an actual case from the files of Oliver Sacks. It is possible that my foreknowledge of the story's provenance made it easier for me to shrug at the clichés (i.e. entertain the notion that some families are living clichés). It's also possible that I was so weary of movies that grossly mischaracterize memory loss/Korsakov's Syndrome patients that anything even slightly more anchored in reality was heartily welcomed. V-e-r-y possible. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 3:57 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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billyweeds wrote: Ghulam wrote: .
Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret with Anna Paquin is an annoying and boring movie about a teenager's confused attempts to deal with her guilt over an accidental death. I have no idea why I had ordered it.
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I could not disagree with this any more if I tried. Margaret is a near-great film and one of the best of its year.
To be fair, it's controversial and polarizing.
I thought it was contrived, had a weak premise and did not truly reflect how teenagers (and adults) behave. However one must compliment the makers for their seriousness of purpose.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 12:54 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Cloak and Dagger (1946): French partisans learn that Germany is buying tons of pitchblende from Spain, but their transmitted message is cut off. Germany is also transporting tons of monazite from Norway. These are ores of uranium and thorium, so the OSS concludes Germany is developing an atom bomb. They need a nuclear physicist, and it happens one of the OSS is a friend of Professor Alvah Jesper (Gary Cooper) . They recruit him to contact another nuclear physicist who has defected to Switzerland from Germany. This leads Jesper into the world of espionage, dangerous agent Marjorie Hoshelel, and, eventually going undercover with Italian partisans led by Robert Alda and Lilli Palmer.
This is a convoluted but rather fun Fritz Lang tribute to the OSS and anti-Naziism based on (well, somewhat inspired by) the non-fiction book Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of O.S.S. by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain, and had an OSS consultant to make it a bit more plausible. Palmer gets a lot of Significant Lines, but is nevertheless pretty good and looks hot with a gun. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 2:01 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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I saw Cloak and Dagger when I was in high school in India. I was very impressed, especially with Gary Cooper's performance, but have not heard anyone mention it at all in the past 60 years.
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| Marc |
| Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 2:34 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| MARGARET is among my favorite films of the past few years. |
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