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gromit

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 4:15 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

I also snagged a copy of American Hustle, so will get to that shortly. Then just have Her and All is Lost to get to.
And a couple of ME films -- The Past and the entire film output of Saudi Arabia ....

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billyweeds

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:27 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit--Interesting question about what comes of Llewyn after the fadeout. If, as generally thought, Llewyn Davis is a thinly-disguised surrogate for the legendary Dave Van Ronk, he becomes a father figure to Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and other superstars, mentoring them while continuing to write and perform himself, and in the process becoming a genuine cult figure in his own right. This is the "happy ending" for Llewyn Davis--not the one he wanted or envisioned, but better than a kick in the head, or walking around Greenwich Village in the dead of winter without a coat.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/10/inside-llewyn-davis-dave-van-ronk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Van_Ronk

gromit

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 8:10 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

They obviously used a good deal of Van Ronk and his autobiography for the film. But Llewyn Davis is by most accounts a rather different person and temperament than Van Ronk. We do see in the film that Llewyn has genuine talent and enough Village connections, so such a mentorship and continued performing role would certainly be open paths. Though Llewyn doesn't seem to exhibit the personality or inclination to let others get close to him or to help them. But who knows how Llewyn would react if a young raw talented fellow like Bob Dylan started showering praise on him and needed a little guidance?

My first reaction was Uh-oh Llewyn hasn't made it and now this young upstart Dylan is about to take off. And then Llewyn gets pummeled. So I thought it was a Big Downer. But then started thinking about how the Village folk scene was about to blow up and really enter the 60's with newly written material and political commitment, record deals and hit records. So Llewyn would have more opportunity in an expanded and successful folk scene. I think it's pretty clear that Dylan's entrance marks a change, but the film doesn't let us know whether Llewyn will get a couch of his own or not ...

Maybe one thing to remember is that this is just one week in the life of Llewyn Davis. We've all had bad weeks. Thankfully the Coens didn't base their film around Jackson C. Frank -- that would have been depressing

Fwiw, besides Llewyn/van Ronk, the young Army singer is based on Tom Paxton, while the cowboy guitarist "Cody" is a take on Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
I never really got into folk music of that era, though I think Odetta's Pastures of Plenty and Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now are great songs/performances. And Helen Merrill does an absolutely wonderful cover of Judy Collins' My Father. But I never really enjoyed listening to early folk Dylan, Ochs, Paxton, van Ronk or Jackson C. Frank, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins. I do like Joni Mitchell a good deal, but she moved away from folk music.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 9:48 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit--I agree with you about everyone except Judy Collins, whose voice was always like an angel's IMO. Her "Both Sides Now" was never equaled.

I'm prejudiced a bit, in that I know Collins personally and know what an amazing woman she is, but I loved her voice before I ever knew her.

gromit

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 10:35 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

She has a lovely voice, but the material doesn't do much for me.
As I said, folk music just isn't my thing.
Not terribly fond of folk-blues or folk-rock, though i like those better than just straight folk music.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

jeremy

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 5:41 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

My reading of the film was that the world was about to move on and leave Llewyn behind. For all his talent, he lacked the spark and drive to be a success. The film finished with a worn down Llewyn about to board a ship to nowhere.

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gromit

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:19 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

I'm guessing you mean that as a metaphor.
But the fact that he can't board the ship means that he will stay in the folk scene and be around for the change.

As for American Hustle, I really really liked ... the hair.
Otherwise, Amy Adams was good and I enjoyed the final twist.
But the film felt off a lot of the time, seemed to find any excuse to jam another song in, and it seemed odd that the bribery and arrests of a half dozen congressmen and a NJ Senator takes up all of maybe 5 minutes in the film, if that. I suppose that was the point -- that the headline news was all about the arrest and conviction of politicians for bribery, but a lot of crazy stuff went on behind the scenes to get to that. But we never even really get a sense of the importance of that element.

Another problem is that I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. But I also didn't really care for the look of the film, the way a good deal seemed amped up and almost cartoonish. Things needed to be tightened and reigned in a good deal. The film at times verged on slipping into disaster territory. I'm also not sure the mob would be so forgiving, let alone grateful. The film was overlong and I'd rec just watching the trailer, which was interesting and fun, and much better than the actual film.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:49 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

gromit--Word. (Re: American Hustle)

Oh, except I didn't like the hair either.

Ghulam

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 1:54 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY

.
Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty" won the Best Foreign Film Oscar last week. It is even more Fellini-esque than "8 1/2", with dream-like, quick-moving, eerily edited scenes of parties, dances, funerals and memories. It has a mood and a tempo all its own and it carries you as a whirlwind through a debauched Rome for two and a half hours. Just sit back and enjoy!

.

jeremy

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:04 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

Given its Oscar and critical and popular acclaim, I was a little disappointed with the formulaic Frozen. The animation was beautifully realised, but I found the narrative flow to be heavy-handed – it lurched between set-pieces like a low-grade Hollywood actioner - and, a few nice touches aside, most of the film’s tropes were straight out of the Disney princess playbook.

I know that complaining that a Disney animated film lacks depth or grit is a bit like pointing out that popcorn doesn’t provide much in the way of nutrition, but I was still frustrated that the film chose not to mine any its psychological potential or the tragic elements inherent in the story. It think it either needed to be longer or more ruthlessly edited. The story telling in Frozen just wasn’t up to the sublime standard manifest in much of Disney’s back catalogue. I didn’t cry once. For me, the studio still seems to be struggling to find a new voice since its take-over of Pixar.

gromit

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:55 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

I thought Frozen was fairly awful.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

bartist

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:23 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6958 Location: Black Hills

I'm softening in re Llewyn Davis, as I see how viewers can map their interpretations and hopes (or pessimism) onto the ending. This seems to be a typical cycle I go through with Coen films that I'm not initially that impressed by. Over time, they have a stealthy way of growing on me.

The reverse process is taking over, re American Hustle. Some of what Gromit said - the garish look, the plot problems, the editing oversights, etc. It's a matter of distance for me - up close (temporally speaking), I'm dazzled and loving the cast, then as time passes, the flaws emerge.

Ghulam, you and Weeds have rather different responses to TGB, which I partially attribute to differing expectations about plot or plottedness, to coin a clunky term. I'm WFV, but plan to play it on a largish screen so as to get the Roman (visual) bath.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

jeremy

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:02 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

For the record, I was unable to detect the lesbian subtext that has got some commentators hot under the collar. I also didn't notice the absence of darker-skinned Sami - its hard to see what's not there - that has upset a totally different constituency.

Like McDonald's and Microsoft, the downside of Disney's pride of place at the centre of American culture is that it is assailed from all sides of the political spectrum and held to higher standards than other companies that manage to slip below the radar. This can't be healthy for the creative process.

Ghulam

Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:35 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 4742 Location: Upstate NY

Bartist, I don't know what Billy had said about TGB. I took it as a trip but did not care much for the debauchery.

gromit

Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:01 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

gromit wrote:

As for American Hustle ... it seemed odd that the bribery and arrests of a half dozen congressmen and a NJ Senator takes up all of maybe 5 minutes in the film, if that. I suppose that was the point -- that the headline news was all about the arrest and conviction of politicians for bribery, but a lot of crazy stuff went on behind the scenes to get to that. But we never even really get a sense of the importance of that element.

Part of the problem was that I wasn't terribly engaged in the film, so when the bribery sting of the politicians came up, I was ready to latch on to that and was disappointed when it went past so perfunctorily.

But for the overall problem I mention in the post above, I was wondering if the following solution would have worked. Start the film with politicians being busted for bribery, go on to montages of news reports about the arrests/scandals, show reporters mobbed around a pols house or office or courtroom, etc. Have reporters speculate about a Senator resigning or being Impeached and when the last time that happened was, etc.

Spend 5 minutes making the Abscam arrest of a half dozen congressmen and a Senator A Big Deal.Then cut to the backstory with Bale as a small-time fraudster. I think the contrast between the BigTime Pols and the Small-time Crooks who helped bring them down would have been effective. Cut from the Headline News to the Seamy backstory. Then later in the film, it would be fine to be so perfunctory about bribing the politicians, as the story has shifted to how they almost entrapped the Mob and almost got thwacked in doing so.

Now the film would still have problems with its look and some oddball scenes (the FBI agent beating the hell out of his boss, the bathroom stall, etc) and its overall impulse to turn Abscam into a music video. But at least I think I found a better way to approach the fact that the sting and arrest of Congressmen was not that important to this film about Abscam.

Otherwise, I think the whole character of the FBI agent needed to be rethought, and a different actor chosen. That would have helped.
But there were a lot of miscalculations throughout the film. It seemed as though they had watched a number of Scorsese films too may times and decided they could outdo them. And I'm not much of a fan of those Scorsese films to start with.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

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