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| carrobin |
 Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 1:01 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| On my visit to South Carolina for my mother's birthday (she's 94!), my sister and I had to choose some movies (there isn't a lot of fun stuff we all can do together these days). Most of the flicks on offer were the superhero things like X-Men and Spiderman, which we knew she had no interest in (nor do we, actually), so we ended up seeing "Maleficent," which was excellent (nice twist on the fairy-tale ending), "Heaven Is for Real," which was very good (Greg Kinnear was impressive as a small-town preacher whose little boy's comments send him into confusion and uncertainty), and, unfortunately, "Neighbors" (we should have listened to my sister's 17-year-old granddaughter, who told us it was "inappropriate" and came along to see it a second time). Interestingly, Mom didn't fall asleep during any of them. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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94 and with good enough eyes to watch a movie.
Impressive.
I knew my greatgrandmother who lived to 96, but the last few years she could only make out shadows and shapes. A tough Scottish old bird. She'd roll her R's, and had a morbid dry humor. My father would say something such as see you next time grandma. And she'd reply: "Next time you see me they'll be shoveling the dirt over me face." |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2014 1:19 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Mom does have macular degeneration, which has affected her reading, but she seems to have little trouble with TV or movies. She also uses the computer and loves e-mail. (Scottish blood too--her grandfather was a MacPhail.) |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 1:46 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE is a dreadful, inconsequential piece of shit by a director who no longer matters. On the other hand, NON-STOP is an inconsequential but thoroughly entertaining flick that really does deserve the over-used phrase "thrill ride." My patience is running out when it comes to "art" films. These days they're generally cheap vanity productions that have no ambitions beyond getting some streaming action on Netflix. Cinema, as we once knew it, is dead. It's all just entertainment. TV killed the movie star.
In Austin, a movie town, indie and foreign films are barely getting theatrical releases. It blows my mind. UNDER THE SKIN played one theater, one screening a night, for one week. And it featured Scarlett Johansson nude! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:53 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I think Marc somewhat overstates the case, but he has a point. I haven't seem Only Lovers Left Alive and have no intention of doing so, but I disagree that Non-Stop was thoroughly entertaining. I found it a great big bore, unlike the really entertaining trash movie that began the Liam-Neeson-as-action-hero cycle, Taken. That was a great popcorn movie.
Must, sadly, seriously part with yambu on Ida. I thought it was strangely unemotional for a movie dealing with primal material, and torturously slow, making 80 minutes seem like two hours. Well photographed and acted (especially by the non-professional woman playing the title role), it is nonetheless not a film I could recommend. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 5:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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It's now June, and there have been only three movies this year that I remotely enjoyed much less loved. Two of them are sports movies, which is odd because I'm not big on sports, and the other is a food movie, which is less odd since I am known as the human garbage pail. Oh, you want to know what the titles are, right?
Chef
Draft Day
Million Dollar Arm
In that order.
None of them are great, although Chef would be getting there if it were a teensy bit shorter. They're all worth seeing, however. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 8:31 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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| Did I want to see Under the Skin, a film in which Johansson plays an alien who lures, and then eats, hitchhikers? Is the Pope Catholic? Also disappointed that it didn't reach Podunk. (after mid-June, I will be living in Rapid City, so then these oversights won't be disappointing, but par for the course...) |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:22 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| I've heard that in Rapid City, the new films come and go too fast for anyone to be able to actually watch any of them ... |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:25 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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| In "Rapid City," Kiefer Sutherland plays a doctor, Shlomo Shun, who wakes up one day to find himself in a mysterious city in which time seems to pass at a faster rate for all the inhabitants except him. He is unable to catch a bus or trolley, hail a taxi, or initiate a conversation - everything moves on, unwilling to wait on his glacial slowness, leaving him in a rapidly settling cloud of dust. Televised sporting events are impossible for him to follow (not that it was ever all that easy for Shlomo), except for the slo-motion instant replays which seem to proceed at normal speed. Waiters only serve him if he can read a menu in advance, posted by the front door, and order his food in the most rapid and shrill voice he can muster. Shopkeepers turn and help other customers if he starts fishing for change. Ultimately, he is able to unravel the mystery with the help of a sultry lounge singer (Jennifer Connelly), who tells him that "she likes it nice and slow." |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 9:12 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| You're making that up...right? (The plot of "Maleficent" sounds more realistic.) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 11:50 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Sort of like The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything, but in reverse. |
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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: Fri Jun 06, 2014 8:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| The Oscar-nominated Palestinian movie "Omar" is a taut and absorbing thriller dealing with the daily chases, intrigue and violence in Occupied Territories. The story deals with some rough characters on both sides, the Palestinian terrorists and Israeli police officers matching each other in guile, deceit and double-crossing. In the middle of all this fast-paced action there is a wonderful though ill-starred love story. Most of the actors are new comers and give superb performances. Adam Bakri, as Omar, is outstanding. The director/writer Hany Abu-Assad won several international awards, and the movie got the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 5:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Fading Gigolo provides a sweet, low-key pleasure for the most part, but if it's possible for a movie to be too understated, this one proves that point. It's almost underwater.
The premise is hard to buy, but if you bring a willing suspension of disbelief to the table, you can accept Woody Allen persuading his younger friend John Turturro to become a gigolo for much-needed cash. Turturro's job: to be the male in a threesome fleshed out (pun not intended but hey, why not?) by Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara. Turturro does the job but also falls in love with a Hasidic widow played by Vanessa Paradis.
Turturro wrote and directed the movie, and he did a decent job. It's like a middle-quality Woody Allen movie--a few laughs, a few nice NYC locations, some jazz music on the soundtrack. Paradis is lovely and sensitive, Turturro has a really soulful face, Allen can still be alternately believable and ridiculously over the top, Stone and Vergara are gorgeous (Stone has a pair of legs to rival Cyd Charisse's), and oh, yes, Liev Schreiber and Bob Balaban are along for the ride.
But it all seems rather pointless when all is said and done. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 5:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Marc |
| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 11:23 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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EDGE OF TOMORROW did not live up TO the critical hype. Same ol', same ol'. It's been a long time since a Summer blockbuster got my rocks off. Same deal with GODZILLA. Ho hum.
James Grays' THE IMMIGRANT didn't gutpunch me in the way I think the director intended but it is one of the better films I've seen this year.
So far these are my favorites of 2014:
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
JODOROWSKY'S DUNE
BLUE RUIN
IN FEAR
THE RAID 2
ENEMY |
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