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| bartist |
 Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 9:31 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 3:27 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I decided to stick with silent Murnau.
Faust (1926) is Murnau's last German film, a big budget affair filled with great costumes and fun special effects. I'm not sure how much the story makes sense at times, but everyone looks wonderfully bizarre. The costumes and even some of the effects reminded me of Melies at times. It looks like Emil Jennings has a good time playing The Devil. Faust is really engaging and a pretty wild ride (on a skeletal horse, of course). |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:28 am |
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| If you liked "Gravity," I would recommend another 2013 science fiction film, "The Europa Report," with Michael Nyqvist, Embeth Davidz, and Sharlto ("Lobster Arm") Copley (doing a fine job of shedding his Afrikaaner accent). A well-done and thrilling "footage" movie concerning an expedition to a moon of Jupiter that may have an ocean of liquid water - and therefore life - under its icy surface. Several scenes capture (in some ways, better than "Gravity") the rigors of space exploration and what it's like to face death in a vacuum. Filmed in a Brooklyn studio, with a much smaller budget than "Gravity," but producing just as much sense of wonder and awe at what lies out there beyond the Earth. Might be the most underrated sci-fi film of the year. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I am daft about Embeth Davidtz (which is the correct spelling of her impossible-to-spell name). |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 5:27 pm |
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Location: Black Hills
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| I see she is South African sorta the same way that Mel Gibson is Australian - her family moved there from the U.S. when she was nine, and she grew up there, learned Afrikaans, etc. TER doesn't really give her much chance to spread her acting wings - it's kind of a limited part - but I've seen her elsewhere and can see the daftness potential. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: I see she is South African sorta the same way that Mel Gibson is Australian - her family moved there from the U.S. when she was nine, and she grew up there, learned Afrikaans, etc. TER doesn't really give her much chance to spread her acting wings - it's kind of a limited part - but I've seen her elsewhere and can see the daftness potential.
Schindler's List, Junebug, and The Gingerbread Man are all good examples of her talent. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:03 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Watching the 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. I generally like John Garfield (I mean, duh). But Lana Turner can't act, and in this movie I can't even figure out why so many men wanted to fuck her. Audrey Totter as the chick Garfield picks up near the end strikes me as more like the Cora of the book than Turner does. She's got about two minutes screen time and she made the biggest impression on me. Leon Ames is a boring representative of human decency (he needs to be parenting Judy Garland to be appealing). Hume Cronyn is okay as a dirty lawyer, I guess. Alan Reed is dull as the lawyer's even dirtier aide, but it's funny to hear Fred Flintstone's voice in this movie.
It's easy to say "Well, back then the subject was new and the movie was really shocking." But Double Indemnity holds up fine. That's because Billy Wilder was a talented director and Barbara Stanwyck was a talented actress (I think MacMurray is dull and miscast, but you can't have everything).
Is this movie still considered a classic? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:06 am |
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Joe--I agree with everything you say about The Postman Always Rings Twice (especially about Turner) and most of what you say about Double Indemnity, but boy, do you ever lose me when you dis Fred MacMurray. FM was usually pretty dull IMO, but in his two Billy Wilder outings (DI and The Apartment) he is brilliant. His Walter Neff in DI is the perfect complement to Stanwyck's Mildred, and together they burn up the screen.
MacMurray's other shining hour was as the weasel in The Caine Mutiny. He really stepped up to the plate when playing morally dubious men. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:07 am |
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| I'm not that fond of either Stanwyck or McMurray in Double Indemnity. Edward G. Robinson is superb. |
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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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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:17 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Oh well, Billy, we can't agree about everything. 
Robinson is superb, Syd. I can agree with you to that extent. Usually the stunt casting of a star against type doesn't work, but Robinson is wonderful in that role. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:36 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Finally caught the original version of To Be or not to Be. Really well done - Lombard and Benny make a great comic pair. I thought it would be somehow dated and less funny than Mel Brooks's remake, but that wasn't the case at all. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:08 pm |
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Joe Vitus wrote: Watching the 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. I generally like John Garfield (I mean, duh). But Lana Turner can't act, and in this movie I can't even figure out why so many men wanted to fuck her. Audrey Totter as the chick Garfield picks up near the end strikes me as more like the Cora of the book than Turner does. She's got about two minutes screen time and she made the biggest impression on me. Leon Ames is a boring representative of human decency (he needs to be parenting Judy Garland to be appealing). Hume Cronyn is okay as a dirty lawyer, I guess. Alan Reed is dull as the lawyer's even dirtier aide, but it's funny to hear Fred Flintstone's voice in this movie.
It's easy to say "Well, back then the subject was new and the movie was really shocking." But Double Indemnity holds up fine. That's because Billy Wilder was a talented director and Barbara Stanwyck was a talented actress (I think MacMurray is dull and miscast, but you can't have everything).
Is this movie still considered a classic?
I remember watching Jack Nicholson's 1981 remake of Postman and thinking, "This is so fucking boring... the original must be better". Thanks for saving me two hours. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 1:13 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Couldn't get through that one back in the day, either. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2014 3:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Funny how two stories so similar could be so different in quality. DI (whether or not you love Stanwyck and MacMurray) is so much better than Postman it is really weird. Many posit that it was the MGM studio attitude that ruined the original Postman, but how does that account for the almost equally inept Nicholson-Lange remake? |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:11 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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[bringing "Prisoners" over here...] Can't decide if I like Jake G. in this role, or as Graysmith in "Zodiac," more. Both are nicely layered and carry similar weights of obsession and relentlessness - maybe it's "apples and oranges" to compare a completely fictitious character with a "true life" one. Jake G. has an amazing way with world-weariness - it's something in those Scandinavian eyes - in both movies.
The ethical questions raised by "Prisoners" stayed with me long after seeing it - the retarded boy does know something, did have a connection to what was going on, but simply was unable to articulate anything useful - is Hugh Jackman, "Dover," a monster not to see this (as his friend, Terrence Howard, so clearly does)? Or just emotionally unstable and raging, pushed to madness, a kind of victim himself?
Agree with Weeds (over in "Current") that Melissa Leo was the weak link. She certainly had a hard row to hoe. I mean, it's not easy to say stuff like "We are at war with God" and hit all the right notes of despair, loss, sociopathy, etc.
As for Hugh Jackman, honestly, I didn't think the actor had it in him. A surprising turn from him.
Poor Paul Dano....clubbed to death by Daniel Day-Lewis, beaten to pulp and scalded by Hugh Jackman. |
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