| Author |
Message |
|
| marantzo |
 Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2013 8:01 am |
 |
|
|
Guest
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:22 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
Patlabor: The Movie is based on an anime and manga about a mobile police force. It is set in 1999 (ten years in the future when the film was made) and Japan has developed giant robots capable of being operated by humans, or, as they discover, can operate independently. These are being used to create islands in Tokyo Bay, something called the Babylon Project. (Actually, I got the impression that all of Tokyo Bay was to be filled in, which seems like a stupid idea since Yokohama's a major seaport.) However, someone has infected the robots' operating system with a virus which causes them to free themselves from their operators' control and go berserk. The virus is triggered by infrasonic vibrations. Now there is a typhoon heading toward Tokyo that will produce enough infrasonic to set off all 8000+ robots.
Amazingly, for a movie in which thousands of robots go berserk, this is a dull film with uninteresting characters, except for those characters which are truly irritating. Animation isn't anything special; this is before Miyazaki upgraded Japanese animation. Del Toro claims it as an influence on Pacific Rim. |
_________________
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! |
|
| Back to top |
   
|
| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 2:51 am |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
|
.
The 2007 movie "The Pool" is set in India and is about a very poor and illiterate 18 year old boy working in a hotel in Goa. He is fascinated by the swimming pool in a rich neighbor's house and dreams of being able to take a dip in it someday. He does develop a relationship with the rich neighbor and his daughter. The simple and natural dialogue, which is in Hindi with English subtitles, makes this small movie very charming and enjoyable. The town of Panjom, Goa, rich in Portugese history, is very scenic. The movie won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance.
. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 10:34 am |
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
|
City For Conquest was quite enjoyable.
A real stellar cast.
I quite liked Anthony Quinn as a gigolo-jerk who becomes the dancing partner of Ann Sheridan. There's a fair amount of melodrama especially in the final act. Elia Kazan has a small part as first a Dead End kid type who becomes a minor gangster.
Cagney is good even if he isn't that great at pretending to be semi-blind and isn't totally convincing as a boxer either.
More thoughts to come .... |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:46 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6965
Location: Black Hills
|
| Finally caught the 2007 "Rendition." Terrific, how did I miss this? The editing, and the way it allows the final twist to sneak up on you, was a thing of wonder. A fine take-down of the U.S.A.'s hypocritical and deeply flawed policy on torture. And a situation, in the film, concerning NSA gleanings of cellphone calls, was quite timely. In the right place and time, you might only have to leave your cellphone unattended for a few minutes and have it be used by the wrong people. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:48 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12940
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
In Cautiva ("Captive"), a teenage girl discovers through a blood test that her parents are not really her parents; in fact, her birth parents were two people disappeared under the junta in 1978. What remains of her birth family has been searching for her ever since. Her adopted parents got a forged birth certificate saying she was born in 1979 on the day they adopted her. Now a judge suddenly has her taken out of school without initially telling her why, refuses to let her contact her parents introduces her natural grandmother, and she freaks and runs. In retrospect, the judge could handled the situation better. Anyway, the girl has to meet the family she never had, deal with what the family she did have may have done, and find out what really happened to her parents and how she came to live with her current family.
The film is often effective, sometimes harrowing, but sometimes veers off into history lessons. If you tell this story from the point of view of the adopted parents, you get The Official Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1985, only two years after the junta fell. I've not seen that, so I can't say how they compare. |
Last edited by Syd on Sat Oct 29, 2016 11:32 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
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! |
|
| Back to top |
|
| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 4:36 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
|
| I think that "Rendition" was telling a story that people didn't want to grapple with at the time. |
_________________
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 |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:23 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
Just have to say Disconnect is a good one for more than one reason. The subject. More movies should be made about this......what happens to us with our social connections created through online devices. I remember when I'd be at the airport a few years ago and everyone would be talking on cell phones. I wondered why were they doing this? And why didn't I have someone to connect with this way? Now that I have a cell phone I notice that people at the airport aren't talking on them anymore they're staring at them or texting on them. Again I'm not with it. I don't have a smart phone and I don't text.
My 4 grandchildren were sitting on my sofa each with his own device playing a game or watching something. My sons in the room were either reading on an iPad or texting on an iPhone. Who can I connect with?
So many questions are raised. The movie addresses a few of them: cyber bullying, chat room connections, identity theft. Let's have more. |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:52 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
| The unbelievable addiction to these generation's modern devices is turning them into robots. Socializing is almost unknown to them. Ray Bradbury knew what he was writing about when he had people in Fahrenheit 451 walking down the street with a radio plugged into their ears, oblivious to anything else. It has got even much worse. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 3:21 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
|
| I Wonder...what are they saying? What are they thinking? What are they turning into? |
_________________
Lost in my own private I dunno. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 8:50 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6965
Location: Black Hills
|
| Yes. Disconnect was a great watercooler movie, assuming that anyone can make eye contact with anyone else at the old watercooler. Good Bradbury reference, Gary - I knew he'd done a story with "plugged in" people, but haven't read him in years. I applaud school teachers who keep tablets and such out of the classroom to whatever extent possible. Good to have some hours of each day when you are expected to look at someone at pay attention. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:32 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
|
I Married a Witch 1942 was rather disappointing.
A very labored set-up took up 20 minutes.
Then not much was funny or interesting or even amusing.
I usually like Veronica Lake a lot, but I got tired real fast of her sweet sing song voicing here. Susan Hayward, as the spurned bride, has a pretty limited part, but once or twice manages to be amusing. Once she puts on a forced smile which has a definite sneer to it.
The whole use of smoke as the ghosts (disem)bodies was dull.
The film really creaked along thinking it was amusing.
Throughout, the film took quite some time to wind up at rather expected places. Yawn (when I wasn't cringing).
I like much better a somewhat similarly themed Abbott & Costello film, The Time of Their Lives, where the male and female ghosts are also tied to a tree, or is it a well(?). Perhaps the A&C film with the best plot/story. |
Last edited by gromit on Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 10:50 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
Last night I was watching "While the City Sleeps" on TCM and missed most of "White Collar." I couldn't resist the old newsroom murder mystery, with Vincent Price as the new owner of the NYC newspaper, offering an important new editorial position to whichever of three employees solved the "Lipstick Killer" case. (It really wasn't a mystery to the viewer, since the killer was known from the beginning.) Dana Andrews was the bitter Pulitzer-winning hotshot reporter, who didn't want the job, but of course he was the one who figured out the plot with the help of his buddy, police detective Howard Duff. (Ida Lupino was a sultry gossip columnist, but their paths never crossed.) Good film, also with George Sanders and Thomas Mitchell and Rhonda Fleming.
One thing that struck me--there was a banner headline on the paper Price was holding, "Lipstick Killer Still at Large." Why would a newspaper run a banner head announcing that nothing new had happened? |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| knox |
| Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 11:30 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
|
Quote: Why would a newspaper run a banner head announcing that nothing new had happened?
You mean a head like, "Congress still at impasse over debt ceiling" ?
 |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 11:37 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| There's a difference. The Lipstick Killer was a threat to young women in unlocked apartments. But unless the politicians do something soon, the debt ceiling could affect everyone--and shake the rest of the world as well. The fact that they're sitting around complaining and bickering is worthy of a news report (but not a banner headline, true). |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
