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| marantzo |
 Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 8:39 pm |
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| The Asphalt Jungle is an excellent film noir. One of the best. I've seen it many times and it's riveting every time. The cast of characters is stunning. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 11:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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marantzo wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: Before reading this thread, I'd never even heard of Out of the Past. 
Let's see, are you around 52 now? If you are, then you are finding out about Out of the Past around the same age as I had found out about it. 
Get the disc or check out TMC when it's Mitchum's birthday.
Whoa, there buddy! I'm only 43.
Don't have cable (or even an antenna for the airwaves) but will check it out on disc. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat May 18, 2013 10:25 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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"Layer Cake" is no Snatch or Lock Stock Etc. but it's a fairly entertaining 2004 Guyritchieesque addition to the Quitting-the-Racket (Or-Trying-To) genre. Daniel Craig tests out some of his future Bond-isms as he deals with a mob boss, murderous Serbians, et al. - and Sienna Miller dons lingerie in a brief scene that
(lost my train of thought) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 12:10 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Man of Aran is a classic fictionalized documentary of the type Robert J. Flaherty specialized in, and it's often really spectacular. Once again, he creates a fictional family, this time to show us the hard life in the Aran Islands (in the mouth of the Bay of Galway on the west coast of Ireland). Although the movie was made in 1934, Flaherty was actually portraying an older style of life. The great shark hunting sequence was showing a way of life from the 19th century, and there was considerably more soil than depicted (although the way of building up soil was probably authentic as to how it was done a few decades earlier--after four or five centuries you can build a lot of soil).
There is lot of amazing footage of giant waves crashing on shore and shooting up foam to a height of maybe forty feet. At one point the family is retrieving a net from the water and are inundated several times by the waves.
I was amused about them having to render the shark's liver for oil. By 1934, they were probably getting kerosene. They certainly had enough shark meat to feed the islanders and their cats and dogs.
After this, I think Flaherty switched to making films that were a little less dangerous for his participants. I don't think anyone was seriously injured during the film, but I was half expecting the kid fishing from a cliff top to catch a shark and go flying. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 2:06 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Aran is pretty great.
At one time it's rep was above Nanook, or so they say.
Check out Louisiana Story, a sort of bayou homage to odd pets and harmonious oil exploration.
I've been enjoying Underdog more than I expected. It's got a nice goofy charm. I like the Underdog theme song too. But Go Go Gophers gets a bit tiresome. Good voices, but it kind of goes round in circles. I like Commander McBragg, but tend to fall asleep during his short bits. I think it's the gophers fault, tiring me out beforehand.
I was thinking it was odd that in GoGoGo, the Colonel and Sergeant are coyotes in charge of calvary men. But then I realized that Underdog is similar in that Shoe Shine Boy and Sweet Polly Purebread are dogs but everyone else is a person (except Riff Raff, a wolf).
I was watching S5 of The Twilight Zone, and during From Agnes With Love (the jealous computer), my supersonic hearing quickly recognized Wally Cox as the voice of Underdog (Underdog!). Was kind of amusing. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 1:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a thoroughly enjoyable documentary about this 85 year old master chef who is still active, together with his son, running his tiny Tokyo sushi bar which was given the highest rating by Michelin. You have to wait 1 month to get reservations. Each meal costs $300. There are only 12 seats, all at the counter, no separate tables. You have to go outside if you want to use the bathroom. And Jiro himself is a delightful character, full of worldly wisdom and wit.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 2:26 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Nice work if you can get it.
Sounds like a mini-scam to me.
I think Syd reviewed it last week.
I spotted the Dvd, but not much interested in a film about fish murder. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 12:46 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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gromit wrote: It's certainly not a bad film at all. Some good scenes and enjoyable moments. It just needed to tighten things up and to tie things together better.
There's a pretty decent -- though rather 70's-ish -- love triangle. But the Isabelle Huppert character is a bit too vague to fully carry that arc. The cattlemen vs. the immigrants is the conflict at the heart of the film and interesting, but the immigrant stuff is really overdone, so that it almost becomes cartoonish or a parody of noisy poor immigrants. And the political layer -- the governor and even president supporting the landowners and the vigilantes -- seemed unconvincing (even if basically historically accurate).
The film tries to do a lot and be a grand epic, but needed tightening up and more skill in finding the dramatic.
The final scene feels tacked on and unnecessary (plus a bit slack and vagueish), but is also rather brief. There is a good surprise ending in the prior scene which should have been the final scene. But also the initial Harvard graduation scenes (25 mins or so?) were unnecessary and add nothing to the film except introducing a few characters who we'll join 20 years later in Wyoming.
Film mostly looks great. Great music and costumes.
And fairly ambitious trying to be a Western epic. Just needed a better screenplay and much tighter editing. I would have preferred seeing the shorter version.
Just saw this (the 3 hr. 36 minute director's version) and agree on the dire need for editing/cutting. The McCabe-y style may give it a feel of western verite, but many details and aspects of western life are grossly inaccurate or just silly. And there are woeful violations of basic filmmaking rules, such as scenes where there hasn't been a clear establishing shot and you find yourself asking, where are we? The immigrants are indeed caricatures (trust me on this, I'm descended from those folks). As are the stockmen. There's some very pretty photography here, but the film is bullshit. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 2:31 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: ...I don't think anyone was seriously injured during the film, but I was half expecting the kid fishing from a cliff top to catch a shark and go flying.
I saw men shoveling sand and seaweed into a pickup. Curragh (currach) boats, now canvas, were everywhere. As a part of the Gaeltacht language preserves, in the Arans more Irish than English is spoken among adults, but not children. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 11:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Wife vs. Secretary has Myrna Loy vs. Jean Harlow with Clark Gable as a faithful husband who has a knack for making himself look guilty. In one of his first roles, James Stewart is Harlow's suitor and gets to deliver the moral at the end (in a pretty good speech). This is the movie where Stewart claimed he deliberately messed up a kissing scene so they'd have to repeat it because Harlow was such a good kisser. May Robson's also aboard as Gable's mother.
Not as funny as I expected given the cast. It's not really a screwball comedy; in fact, there are some pretty strong emotions going. Harlow's relatively subdued; it's Loy who gives the double entendres. It's too bad they only made a couple of movies together because they make an interesting pairing. I see them again in a couple of days in Libeled Lady. |
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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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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 10:46 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Dark Skies - a small cut above the usual B-grade film about little gray aliens who muck up house circuits, implants devices in your head, leave weird symbols, abduct humans, etc. Its chief asset is that we see very little of the Grays, and quite a bit of suburban idyll being gradually subverted. JK Simmons has a nice small part as an abduction expert who makes interviewing the traumatized family look as routine as changing a flat tire. I think it's meant to be funny, but not sure. Fans of "Signs," swing away!
Library reserve finally coughed up "This is Not a Film," the clandestine docu. Hope to see tonight; much looking forward to. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 11:17 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
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Location: St. Louis
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Loy was a great actress...she could tell you more than one thing in a single gesture or line, give you comedy on the surface, tragedy underneath. Haven't seen W v. S. - must fix that.
Re DS - I kept thinking the husband was meant to be David Duchovny and they had to settle for this guy. But really, he was better, because his character needed to be bland and not have any pop culture subtext pulling you back to an ironic distance. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 11:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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knox wrote: Loy was a great actress.
Couldn't agree more. For absolute and indisputable proof, see The Best Years of Our Lives, which contains her best work IMO, and in which she more than holds her own against the Oscarwinning performance of Fredric March. March-and-Loy have a chemistry at least equal to Powell-and-Loy's, and in TBYoOL Loy uses her comedic and dramatic skills equally. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 2:05 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Turtles Can Fly is a pretty good interesting film. Set in a refugee camp on the border of Iraq/Turkey just prior to the American invasion. It's mostly of mostly children and the elderly, and one young boy has put the other kids to work scavenging mines and shells, and setting up satellite dishes occasionally. There's an armless boy who has prophetic visions of the near future.
The film is a little uneven and not subtle at tiems, but there's also a good deal of lyricism and sadness seeps in towards the end, while many of the children have rather unforgettable visages. Definitely worthwhile.
I'm a little uncertain what the very end meant -- guess I'll have to read up.
Have The White Balloon up (probably/possibly) next. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Funny how certain films that are more than just interesting and travel all the way to excellent go totally under my radar. There's a movie currently streaming on Netflix that for some reason I never knew existed, and it's amazing. Titled The Details, directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, it was released last fall and stars Tobey Maguire and Laura Linney in roles unlike any they've ever essayed. And though it has comic elements, this is a comedy with genuine--as opposed to the more common "just kidding"--edge.
Maguire plays an entitled yuppie with everything going for him whose world suddenly craters due to a weird concatenation of horrible events, some of them ecological and some sexual. The role requires Maguire to go places, especially in the sexual area, where he's never had to go, and though he still looks around 12 years old he plays a man over 30 with conviction and style--and power when necessary. The arc of the character is unusual and surprising, and Maguire is fully up to the task.
As for Linney, she plays what in the past would have been a "Shelley Winters" role--crazy, delusional, highly sensual, bawdy, outrageous--and makes it fully her own. If The Details had been a hit, Linney would have been an obvious "supporting actress" nominaton.
The rest of the cast is aces in roles from leading (Elizabeth Banks) to middle-sized (Kerry Washington, Dennis Haysbert) to small (Ray Liotta). As you can see, the movie is A-list material--and it got some over-the-top raves from critics. Why did it disappear when crap gets noticed? No answer, but there's Netflix to come to the rescue. See this movie!
P.S. This quotation from NYTimes critic Stephen Holden may explain the fate of the film: "Instead of turning soft and squishy, this examination of karma gets tougher as it goes along. Its refusal to settle into a cozy niche may be commercially disastrous, but I take it as a sign of integrity. Mr. Estes means what he says." |
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