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| Syd |
 Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 11:52 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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yambu wrote: Syd wrote: [Burton does do that during most of the film; it's kind of a devilish amused look, but he does drop it sometime when nobody's looking at Petruchio, which suggest to me that Pertuchio is generally playing a part. I don't think it's a really good performance by Burton. I like Taylor's a lot better. She has a nice laugh, and there's one moment when she goes from crying to giggling, right before she starts agreeing with Petruchio's absurdities. Kate is the more interesting. In the end, she has let Petruchio teach her how she can feign obedience while becoming the controlling spouse. Or is Petruchio smarter than that? Great stuff.
And Zeferelli's original choices for the leads? Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. Wouldn't you love to see that interpretation? (Though this one is pretty good.) |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 10:38 am |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: ....And Zeferelli's original choices for the leads? Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren. Wouldn't you love to see that interpretation?.... |
Last edited by yambu on Sat Aug 09, 2014 12:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 10:51 am |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
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Location: SF Bay Area
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 12:01 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Twenty-Four Eyes is a 1954 film by Keisuke Kinoshita, who is not as well known as Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse and Kurosawa, and I'm wondering why. This is a film about a Japanese schoolteacher and her twelve students, taking the kids from 1928 though 1946, which tells you immediately that you're going to have some tears jerked. This is especially true because I love these kids and their teacher, and cringe as the hymns of war emerge, and the jingoistic bastards shut down intelligent discussion in favor of glorious idiocy. The only questions are whether any of the five boys is going to survive his patriotic adventure, and whether any of the women will survive intact.
The setting is a poor fishing village in the Inland Sea of Japan, remote enough that the teacher has to bicycle 50 minutes to work. (Why she doesn't just move to the village is never explained. Maybe her mother thinks the villagers have cooties.) Eventually the kids will go from elementary school in the village to the main school which apparently is slightly less rustic, and can be reached by boat. (She was bicycling because you know what teachers' salaries are like. Actually, she was expected to walk, but bought a bicycle on--Satan be damned--credit!)
It would be easy to nitpick the film --it's often sentimental and is sometimes predictable--but I loved these characters, and there are wonderful scenes such as the six-year-olds deciding to go visit their injured teacher, not realizing it's a five-mile journey. I was that age once. I'd do that too. Or visiting the parents of a student, and knowing damned well that their plans will be disastrous, but not being able to say anything explicit, just give some unheeded hints.,
Then, near the end, the teacher goes back to school in the small village, and reads the roll, which includes children and siblings of her former students, and earns a new nickname, "Mrs. Crybaby," which she bears with honor. The ending goes on a bit, but I really wanted to know what happened to these people. And sadly, one at least we never learn. |
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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 Aug 10, 2014 7:08 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Ralph Fiennes now retains a special place in my Private Pantheon of Actors. The Grand Budapest Hotel is an Old World splendid but aging resort in the Carpathians.
Fiennes is the manic maître d'hôtel, barking orders in hyper speed, four at a time, to his staff - everyone from the boot black to the somalier, all in breathtaking over-detail.
Cgi makes everything go, especially the most complicated prison break ever.
This movie is hilarious. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 7:55 pm |
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| Yam, I couldn't be more in line with your rating and your description of the movies weird plot line. I loved the film. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 9:33 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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I saw "The Grand Budapest Hotel" on a homeburnt DVD that my friend sent me. It was very strange but oddly interesting, not to mention fascinating to watch. And it made me hungry for some good European pastry.
Our cable company has been showing free STARZ channels this weekend, and I've managed to see all of "Frozen" and parts of "Brave" and The Lone Ranger." I wanted to see "Saving Mr. Banks" but they must have shown that yesterday when I was watching William Powell movies on TCM. I could see why "Frozen" was so phenomenally popular--besides the great song and the usual Disney humor and adventure, the ice artistry was a delight to watch. I liked "Brave" and now want to see the beginning of it, so maybe I'll check it out on Amazon Prime, which I need to try now that I have a computer that should be able to handle movies. "The Lone Ranger" had its moments but I sort of lost interest and wouldn't care about seeing it all. The new series "Outlander" has an interesting premise but I'm not getting into that, because I'm not going to subscribe--and there are too many other dancing flashing distractions calling my name already. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 9:52 pm |
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| The Grand Budapest Hotel is better to see on the big screen. Sadly, in the old days, movies from a lot of older movies ran at quite of few theatres. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 5:03 pm |
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I went to see Lucy this afternoon. I thought I'd like it. Some on here didn't think much about it but did like it.
Well I didn't like it, I loved it. Scarlett Johansson carried the film on her shoulders. All the other actors were very good and Freedman was the same guy he played in all his movies. 
Scarlett as Lucy, starts as a normal kind of student who's sort of boyfriend forces her to take something he was supposed to take to some kind of group that is in the hotel they are in front of. They are in Taipei. Lucy has the briefcase locked to her wrist. She starts to worry as things go on she is frightened, crying, beaten etc. and she changes very much from her character at the beginning. Her acting was excellent.
I was engrossed in every minute of the film. Scene after scene were very well done and the cinematography was excellent.
Not sure why so many disliked the movie, or thought it was just okay. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 7:59 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I was one of the ones who didn't adore Lucy but loved certain things about it. The photography, the graphics, and the editing were all absolutely superb. The actors were very much up to their tasks. But the story was so phenomenally silly that I really couldn't take the movie seriously. It was a lot of fun but ultimately total escapism. Nothing wrong with that, but certainly not the stuff of a great movie. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 8:06 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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| I actively disliked Lucy. More later. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 10:10 am |
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I wouldn't say Lucy was a great movie either, but it was so much fun and so visual (and Johansson's character), that had me loving it. Of course it was way out there, but maybe humans can end up being everywhere. 
Even Besson said that the plot of the movie had some unreal things about the human brain.
Besson said it took ten years to make the movie. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:43 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12889
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Turns out I hadn't seen Tom Jones after all. I also didn't like it that much. It's one of those movies that probably played better at the time, but I find Tony Richardson's attempts to be clever just got it the way of the movie. I did like Susannah York's take on Sophie Western and was rooting for her and Tom Jones to get together. Her reaction to being told she's expected to marry Blifil is similar to what I'd expect if someone told Becky Thatcher she'd have to marry Sid Sawyer. I did like Joyce Redman as Mrs. Waters. But all in all, I'd rather just read the book again. |
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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: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:47 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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I love "Tom Jones," and Albert Finney was never more appealing, but my favorite was Edith Evans--somehow her command to her brother, drowsing on a haystack, often returns to me at odd times--"ROUSE yourself from this pastoral stupor!"
I even read the book and enjoyed it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 2:15 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I will have to see Tom Jones again some time. When I first saw it, at the age of 22 or 23, I was convinced it was the best movie I'd ever seen. A few years later, a little older and wiser, I revisited it and was sorely disappointed at the adolescence of it all. Of Tony Richardson's movies, I much prefer the great angry-young-man drama The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which I saw rather recently and holds up amazingly well. I recommend it without a single reservation, not only for Richardson's beautiful directing but for the sensational lead performance by Tom Courtenay. |
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