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| gromit |
 Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:58 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Glad you enjoyed La Jetee.
If anyone hasn't seen it, it is really a brilliant inventive film, with a clever sci-fi story. A master class in how to make a film when you don't actually have a movie camera. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 9:16 am |
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I guess Groucho didn't say that in the elevator.  |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:39 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Turned out I hadn't seen it after all. Great stop-motion effects, my favorite being the cyclops/dragon battle near the end. Acting and dialog not so much, although I did like the resourcefulness of the miniature princess. As far as villains go, I prefer the more complex one in Golden Voyage.
It's worth noting that here we have two-headed rocs and one-headed giants, while in Popeye the Sailor vs. Sindbad the Sailor, it's the other way around. Also that the roc is not that deadly unless you kill its baby. The baby roc is an odd combination of the cute and the monstrous. |
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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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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:32 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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In The Late Quartet, four musicians at the top of their profession, and having played twenty-five years and three thousand concerts together, suddenly learn that their cellist Christopher Walken has irreparable Parkinson's Disease. So tightly wound as a unit are they that they immediately begin to unravel. Seymour Hoffman especially is a torrent of bitter jealousy and lesser sins.
SPOILER:
Walken chooses his moment to go out, and it's with all the class imaginable. |
Last edited by yambu on Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:32 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 6:29 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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“My story can never be told. I write it over and over, wherever we find shelter. I write of what I cannot speak: the truth. I write all I know of it, then I throw that pages to the wind. Maybe the birds can read it.”
I enjoyed “Byznatium”(2012) Neil Jordan’s refreshingly different and adult take on the vampire film. The film revolves around two women, the sensitive young orphan Eleanor (an ever ethereal Soairse Ronan) and her fierce protector and centuries old whore, Clara (a surprisingly effective and seriously curvaceous Gemma Arterton). They seem condemned to carry on living or don’t have the capacity to escape the lives they were leading when they acquired immortality. It is unclear whether eternal life is a gift or a curse. The women are not endowed with superpowers nor subject to the other supernatural baggage beloved of popular culture. If anything, their need for human blood condemns them to a sadly human, furtive and nomadic life. They might not be vulnerable physically, but their lives are built on shifting sands. Forced to flee once again, they find themselves in a sleazy, faded British sea-side - is there any other type – that seems to reflect their rootless alienation.
In the past, Neil Jordan sometimes had a tendency to indulge in heavy-handed symbolism or draw analogies at the expense of story he was trying to tell, but I think he’s been maturing as filmmaker for some time. “Byzantium” is an elegiac and apolitical mood piece. Its protagonists are flawed, but sympathetic – their actions flow from their characters and situation. Clara, an avenging angel, and Eleanor, a gentle soul, who provides realise, mitigate their cravings to cause the least harm as they see it. The film is also about woman surviving in a hostile male world and about love love, mainly the power of filial love, but also romantic love, which, in the best traditions of the nineteenth century novel, is delayed and hard-earned.
You may have had your fill of vampire films, but don’t be put off, “Byzantium” is to “Twilight “ what “Wuthering Heights” is to “Jackie.”
***˝ (out of five)
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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. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:08 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I don't think I've seen Gemma, but this sounds like a role Saoirse Ronan could nail. |
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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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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:03 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Julius Caesar: this is the 1950s version with James Mason as Brutus, John Gielgud as Cassius and Marlon Brando as Marc Antony. Poor Mason is overmatched by his co-stars. Louis Calhern is Caesar and the Roman Nose thing is taken literally. One striking thing about Shakespeare's play is how just about every single decision Brutus makes is a disaster. It makes you wonder how he survived to adulthood.
Interestingly, Brando's not on screen as nearly as much as Mason and Gielgud, but he's the one who commands the screen, not just during the Speech, but during the tightrope scene when he meets with the conspirators over Caesar's body. It's a superb acting performance playing a man doing a superb acting performance. One of my favorite moments is during Brutus's speech when he hears a woman's scream and turns around, and there is Antony silently holding Caesar's body. Brutus is so stunned he's speechless for a good part of a minute. Brando got a deserved Best Actor nomination for the movie, though you could argue that in terms of length, Mason and Gielgud's performances are the leads.
Julius Caesar is rather stodgy for Shakespeare, and the battle(s) of Philippi aren't dwelt on as much as you'd expect, but this is a really well-done version.(8 of 10) |
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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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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:58 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Richard Dreyfuss told our film class that "Julius Caesar" was the movie that made Brando his favorite actor--he was impressed by the way he brought out the poetry in the lines while giving a great performance.
I caught part of it this morning on TCM, too. When I was taking Latin in high school, there were photos of Brando and Mason in our textbook. They didn't really help me learn the language, but they kept me interested in the book. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 8:09 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Syd,
Gemma Arterton is building quite the filmography. You'd have seen her in such films as The Prince of Persia...; Tamara Drew: and Hansel and Gretel... Which may be why I used the term 'surprisingly effective' to describe her performance in Byzantium. |
Last edited by jeremy on Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
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. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 9:06 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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jeremy wrote: Syd,
Gemma Arterton is building quite the filmmpgraphy. You'd have seen her in such films as The Prince of Persia...; Tamara Drew and Hansel and Gretel... Which may be why I used the term 'surprisingly effective' to describe her performance in Byzantium.
I haven't seen any of those (for which I guess thank God), so I'll get to watch her with fresh and lustful eyes. And Saorise for her acting. |
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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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| yambu |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:26 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: Julius Caesar:....One striking thing about Shakespeare's play is how just about every single decision Brutus makes is a disaster. It makes you wonder how he survived to adulthood
Syd wrote: [i]One of my favorite moments is during Brutus's speech when he hears a woman's scream and turns around, and there is Antony silently holding Caesar's body. Brutus is so stunned he's speechless for a good part of a minute
I'm not the first to say it, but once the military campaigns get underway, the story loses its air. The end result is preordained. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:46 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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But is Brutus's motive pure? Cassius plays very effectively on Brutus's vanity and honor (not to mention envy--and honor here is used as an excuse for dishonorable deeds), and when Brutus has to explain to the crowd his motive, he's singularly ineffective (which is why Antony can so easily turn them into a riot mob). Saying you murdered somebody because they may become a monster twenty years down the road, when they've shown no evidence of it, is not the best argument.
Cassius's best argument as far as Brutus is concerned is that one of Brutus's ancestors overthrew the last Tarquin. This really only works if Caesar is the next Tarquin. |
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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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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 6:29 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| I like the '79 BBC-TV production. Its Brutus is more sympathetic, more complete. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 8:18 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| Always wanted to see that Julius Caesar. But have trouble imagining Brando as a believable Marc Antony. |
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-Topher |
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