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Syd
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 9:56 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Early Summer: This is the second of Ozu's "Noriko Trilogy," so called because Setsuko Hara plays (different) characters named Noriko in each movie. In order, these are Late Spring, Early Summer and Tokyo Story. Although this doesn't seem as well-regarded as the other two, I enjoyed it the most, mostly because it was the most accessible to me, and also because it made an excellent bridge between the other two. Besides, I liked these characters. As in Late Spring, Noriko is in her late twenties, still unmarried. This time her family wants her to marry a 40-year-old businessman of their choice. However, Noriko has a choice of her own, being willing to struggle for a while to marry someone she trusts and has liked for a long time, and if her family doesn't agree, well Noriko is famously stubborn.

Flawlessly directed even by Ozu standards, and there's not a single weak performance in the film, although the older nephew is a brat. Unlike in Late Spring, Noriko has a sizeable extended family who love her, a good job and a wide circle of friends. As in the other two movies, there's a tension between the traditional ways of doing things and the more liberated women emerging during the American occupation.

By coincidence, I saw Late Spring before the solstice and Early Summer two days after the solstice. I guess that means I'll have to see Early Spring in late March of 2014.

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Syd
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 11:55 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I didn't mention Early Summer is a comedy of manners. When Noriko and her best friend Aya are having a friendly argument with their married friends (one of whom has already taken refuge with Aya after a marital fight so isn't the best argument for marital bliss), I was humming "Wedding Bells are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine."

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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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Ghulam
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 1:03 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY
.
The French-Canadian movie "Monsieur Lazhar" (2011) is set in a Montreal school. The children in one class are trying to deal with the tragic loss of their teacher. The new teacher is an immigrant from Algeria who initially has problems adjusting to Western culture, but his own tragic past in Algeria makes him uniquely qualified to establish a bond with the traumatized children in his class.

Very sensitively directed and acted. The Algerian actor Mohamed Fellag is superb. This is one of the best movies I have seen this year. It won several international awards and was nominated for an Oscar. Reminiscent of the French Palme d'Or winner "The Class", although it is not about kids with behavior problems as the French movie was.


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Shane
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 5:34 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1168 Location: Chicago
We just watched Sister Mary tells it all and I have to say:
Hardly ever do I feel Diane Keaton is over the top but this performance was just plain sad to watch. All the roles were driven by the lead, Sister Mary, and so they tried to match in 'volume'....making the whole thing very painful after the arrival at the church. If you decide to watch this for the first time be prepared for a dirty shock at the hands of a usually talented group of actors. I just felt used. Sorry to offend if I did but I had to get this off my chest, something like the proverbial shower as it were.

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bartist
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:01 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Thanks, Ghulam, I much liked "The Class," so will check out M. Lazhar.

Shane - sounds like a painful "Rule of Two" with "Sleepers."

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Syd
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:20 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
"Nanook proudly displays his young 'huskies' the finest dog flesh in all the country round."

Yes, I thought the worst, but apparently they're going to be fine sled dogs. I hope.

EDIT: I like that Nanook built a little igloo for the husky puppies to keep them warm and safe (mostly from the big dogs).

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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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Shane
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:13 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 1168 Location: Chicago
bartist wrote:
Thanks, Ghulam, I much liked "The Class," so will check out M. Lazhar.

Shane - sounds like a painful "Rule of Two" with "Sleepers."
Bart I'm not familiar with 'Rule of Two' but I enjoyed 'Sleepers' a couple of times now...Kevin Bacon sort of came into his own for me in that one. It hit me on a very personal note and that's probably why I could relate to it so well. Who sez the regular person doesn't contemplate vengeance murder now and again!?!?

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knox
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 8:37 am Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
Shane, do you remember the NYT film forum? I recall you posted there. "Rule of Two" was often invoked there, to explain mediocre (or worse) copycat films. The producer, cigar between teeth, "Crichton did that one with the mysterious telepathic ball under the sea....let's do a mysterious telepathic ball pic! Put it out in space! Is Sam Neill available?"
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Syd
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 3:15 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
Chaplin is a reasonably good movie with serious flaws. There are excellent performances, particularly by Robert Downey, Jr. as Chaplin himself, Diane Lane as Paulette Goddard, and to an extent Geraldine Chaplin as Hannah Chaplin (her own grandmother) and Dan Ackroyd as Mack Sennett. It generally looks great. There is one scene showing the first appearance of the Tramp, in a Mabel Normand short, which is not only great but considerably better than the original short.

But we see very little of Chaplin actually making films, with the exception of him putting Edna Purviance through 30 takes for one short, and composing and editing Modern Times. You get a much better idea how Mack Sennett made films, which is interesting but not exactly what you come to see. The big fault here is that Richard Attenborough used Chaplin's Autobiography as a source, and Chaplin didn't like to tell people how he made films. He thought it was like a magician revealing his tricks. So we get a film that mostly about other aspects of his life, and, since he lived more than 80 years, there's a lot of life to go through, much of it superficially.

However that brings up other problems in that the film tries to find explanations for aspects of his life by using pat formulas. Why did Chaplin like young girls? The film explains they all reminded him of his long-list first love, Hetty Kelly, to the point that Hetty and his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill Chaplin, are played by the same actress. (As near as I can tell, it's not mentioned that Oona was the daughter of Eugene O'Neill, which you'd think would get mentioned since O'Neill was outraged and cut his daughter off.) Why did Hoover pursue Chaplin? It comes down to a fictional dinner party where they argued.

I think Attenborough would have better off concentrating on one phase of Chaplin's life that trying to cover fifty years of it. And the framing device, where an editor is discussing what Chaplin left out of his autobiography, is awkward. So although there is a lot to like in the first hour or so, I think the film leaves a bit to be desired.

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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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marantzo
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 4:18 pm Reply with quote
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"So although there is a lot to like in the first hour or so, I think the film leaves a bit to be desired."

I agree. It is not as good (by a long shot) in the second half. Yes it does have a bit, or more, to be desired in the second half.
billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 5:09 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Haven't seen Chaplin, but have seen Gandhi and A Chorus Line, and that's quite enough Attenborough for me. He shoulda stuck to acting, Oscar victory and Lovely War notwithstanding.
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marantzo
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 5:22 pm Reply with quote
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Chaplin is better than those two.
bartist
Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:22 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
knox wrote:
Shane, do you remember the NYT film forum? I recall you posted there. "Rule of Two" was often invoked there, to explain mediocre (or worse) copycat films. The producer, cigar between teeth, "Crichton did that one with the mysterious telepathic ball under the sea....let's do a mysterious telepathic ball pic! Put it out in space! Is Sam Neill available?"


Good example, though I feel compelled to point out that Sam Neill and his telepathic space disco mirrorball ("Event Horizon") came first, a year prior to "Sphere."

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gromit
Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:58 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Things to Come (1938) is a weird HG Wells vision of the future. It's partly his response to Lang's Metropolis which he thought was terrible film.
The late 30's despair of democracy and imminent war pervade the film, along with bauhaus design and art deco tanks.

Basically WWII breaks out and continues for decades and a plague breaks out (the wandering sickness basically zombifies people) and a Dark Age ensues with warlordism and continuing low-level warfare.

I was a little uncertain how they managed to have munitions to keep fighting when they don't have any basic industry and are completely out of basics such as wiring and medicine.

Then a technocratic elite -- advanced airmen* -- take over the world with their sleeping gas and spiffy super-planes and general competence. This benign dictatorship of the elite leads to all sorts of progress except in fashion where everyone wears togas. In 2038, they are about to send two people to the moon -- shooting them up there via a giant space gun -- when the rabble rise up against too much progress and continual change. Hard to be more conservative than these Luddites.

It's all a weird mish-mash of ideas.
HG Well's advocates some sort of liberal fascism, technology as man's saviour, benign dictatorship, regimented dress.
Pretty impressive visuals at times and a vivid score. But I'm not terribly surprised audiences in 1938 didn't know what the hell to make of it all.

I might have to watch this again.
it's certainly an ambitious muddle.


* another oddity is that one of the leading airmen comes solo (from Iraqi HQ!) to a little dumpy warlord territory in South England, proceeds to act superior and is taken hostage. Seemed a little unlikely they would send a top leader on such a small mission by himself. that and the endless supply of weaponry stuck out to me as contrivances.

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Syd
Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:30 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
marantzo wrote:
Chaplin is better than those two.


I prefer Gandhi. I haven't seen it since it first came out, though. I remember it being epic, stodgy with a great Ben Kingsley.

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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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