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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The big animation question to me is why Mulan doesn't have a nose. Nostrils, yes, but the bridge of her nose is entirely missing. One of the reasons I had trouble the first time I approached the film. |
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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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| jeremy |
| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 9:09 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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I didn't really notice the nose thing - I guess it was an attempt to make her look both oriental and girlishly cute.
Without ever reaching the heights of Beauty and the Beast, Hunchbackand others, Mulan - charming and watchable - was a solid piece of work from Disney's second golden era (1989 to 2002).
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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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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 10:14 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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I still haven't seen "Mulan," but I caught "Frozen" on a night of free pay-cable, and found out why it's such a hit. I started off thinking it was pretty much the usual charming/amusing/clever Disney princess tale, but when Elsa goes rogue and builds that ice palace, it takes off and becomes a superior version of the usual plot. I liked the romantic twist at the end too.
I also caught the last half of "Brave," and I'll have to look it up and catch the first half when I get a chance, because it's a delight. The accents were well done--just thick enough to sound Scottish, but not thick enough to be incomprehensible (as they can be in Edinburgh even now). |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 2:38 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I didn't get much out of Frozen at all.
Thought Brave was very well done, though could have done with less bear/bodily function jokes towards the end. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:36 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| The Israeli movie Fill the Void is about a conservative Hassidic family. An 18 year old girl is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Very sensitively directed. Excellent performances. Good glimpses of Hasidic family life and society. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 4:21 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:08 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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The 2012 Italian film Nina is nothing special. A 20-something brunette with a Jean Seberg 'do languishes away a Summer, pet-sitting and studying calligraphy and interacting with a young boy and a potential boyfriend.
Sort of restless languor as she binges on fancy cakes and wants something more.
I got rather bored, but the most interesting part of the film was the buildings. It's filmed in the EUR* District of Rome, which was intended to be a fascist celebration (20 years!) and the site of the 1942 World's Expo, which was calcelled due to war. So there are a bunch of monumental neo-classical and modernist buildings, including the "Square Colosseum".
It's interesting how the Nazi architecture is often commented upon, but I was largely unfamiliar with Mussolini's attempts to reshape Rome. Fascists were nothing if not ambitious.
As for the film, the relationships all felt rather phony. The sensitive 11 year old boy in the building who becomes her confidant. The Chinese calligraphy professor who dispenses odd philosophy. The potential suitor who seems rather neutered. The architecture was the star, even if not terribly well-integrated. It seemd more odd and curious than natural and part of her world. Maybe the alienating effect is what they were going for. But the film just had too limited a groove to really be interesting or substantial.
* EUR = Esposizione Universale Roma (Universal Exposition being an older name for what is now usually called a World's Fair or World Expo)
Next World's Fair is next year in Milan. The last one in Shanghai in 2010 was fun and interesting. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Have to take this time to promote Thanks for Sharing, which just started streaming on Netflix. The star is my top man-crush Mark Ruffalo, but aside from that it's one of the most even-handed 12-step-program movies I've ever seen, and I've seen a ton of them. This one is about sex addiction and three guys who are using the program to fight it. Ruffalo's sponsor is an older man played by Tim Robbins, and Ruffalo's sponsee is Josh (Book of Mormon) Gad. Ruffalo gets into a relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow and Gad forms a platonic relationship with Pink (yes, though she's called "Alecia Moore" in the credits). Robbins has problems with his drug-addict son (Patrick Fugit of Almost Famous). It's all acted beautifully and honestly, with laughs to leaven the sometimes painful facts. The movie was severely underrated on its release about a year ago. Now is the time for reevaluation--via Netflix. Stream, stat. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 3:13 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Three brothers, all strange, reluctantly agree to take the Darjeeling Limited across India to attend their father's funeral. The father never liked the sons, nor did their mother (Angelica Huston). The boys themselves can barely hang together.
One of the brothers, the most shallow of them, fancies himself a Santa Monica-style guru, holding the others to an itinerary of holy places where he finally gets one shoe stolen and loses all the inner peace he had built up over the week.
The brothers can cooperate enough to pool their medications in a futile effort to get high.
One of them falls for an Indian woman on the railway staff, and devotes life and soul in his pursuit of her all over the train.
Caution - The movie has a forward. It's a terribly done love scene that later fits into everything.
Finally, this Indian train had the right wall of each car missing, for ventilation and more room. This allows still right angle cameras to view the inner life of each car as it passes slowly.
It's not Bollywood, but it's a great imitation. |
Last edited by yambu on Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:45 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:22 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| [DELETED] |
Last edited by yambu on Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:27 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:37 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| I found The Darjeeling Limited to be unwatchable. |
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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: Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:52 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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This is a practical joke, right?  |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 9:43 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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yambu wrote: This is a practical joke, right?
No. I made it about twenty minutes in, which is about five minutes more than Nancy did. I didn't like The Royal Tenenbaums very much, either. I do like Fantastic Mr. Fox, which suggests to me that I might like Anderson films if he wasn't directing humans and writing original screenplays. |
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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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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 10:04 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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| I watched all of the Ltd. Vignettish, but if you get past the first 30 min. or so, there is an offbeat comic momentum that might allow you to see it's all about the journey, not the destination. Think Bottle Rocket with curry and cobras and musings about how we must lose our baggage. I really don't know why I like it so much. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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