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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I finally caught up with Dallas Buyers Club and was thoroughly absorbed with the story and McConaughey's performance, and especially Jared Leto's. I especially like Leto's voice as Rayon. I remember the outcry in the 1980s of the FDA's slow approval of AIDS drugs and I enjoy medical dramas, too. This was a good story well-told.
I also hope McConaughey and Leto don't have to lose massive amounts of weight for future roles. They were alarmingly skinny. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:25 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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McC's weight loss was alarming, but the trend seems to be to body realism - the old school method of putting actors in loose clothing and eye shadow now looks a little cheesy to my eye. Christian Bale went and set the bar pretty high, when he skeletonized for The Machinist.
Have to wonder if there's a digital skinny-lens that will rival the real emaciation pretty soon.
Just saw the recent documentary DamNation. Excellent. Hadn't fully realized how harmful dams can be to river ecosystems. Also looks at artists who paint protest cracks on dams. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 2:16 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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| I liked the Native American guy they kept talking to, and there's a point where someone asked him if the region (in the Pacific northwest) had any problems with invasive species damaging their ecosystem, and he said just one - white people. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:14 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is from a Stieg Larsson novel. The cast is all unknown to me, except for a vital role by Christopher Plummer.
The heroine is a super flyweight played by Rooney Mara, who plays a goth computer genius, and who is a match for any male slob who crosses her.
What is such a pleasure is the slow pacing for a thriller. This is no Italian Job. For one thing, it allows its most artful villain to show off his subtle talents to the max. Great stuff.
The ending has been done a hundred times since Chaplin, but Ms. Mara carries it off well. |
Last edited by yambu on Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:55 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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| Ms. Rapace carries it off even better. Don't waste your time on Hollywood remakes...see the original Swedish version. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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knox wrote: Ms. Rapace carries it off even better. Don't waste your time on Hollywood remakes...see the original Swedish version.
I will echo this preemptively about the coming American remake of the Norwegian thriller Headhunters. See the original!!! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 10:01 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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More echoing!
2 very satisfying low-budget neo-noirs viewed on netflix streaming:
Killing them Softly - sly and funny take on the usual "calling in outside talent" hitman plot, with great ensemble including Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and Brad Pitt. More conversations than action, but what conversing!
Following - Chris Nolan's debut film and this one seems to have drawn great benefit from its very low budget - tightly constructed, witty, with interesting twists that show you an underworld of London you may have not seen elsewhere. Chris's uncle, John Nolan, plays a police inspector and may be recognized by fans of either "The Prisoner" or "Person of Interest." |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 12:45 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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While I'm on noir, this might be called "psychedlic noir" - Enter the Void, a film by Gaspar Noe. Marc cited this film to me when I had been so easily seduced by "Cloud Atlas," and he was listing films that he felt truly succeeded in bending the mind. Glad I finally got round to it. As a conventional film narrative, it may not hold up - spotty acting, overlong and repetitive, perhaps a couple cliches too many about Tokyo's nightlife - but as a work of psychedelic art that tries to convey a first-person trip, from a sudden death and into the Bardo (afterlife) of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it can cast quite a spell.
One can accept the director's disclaimer that the movie only shows a DMT trip the goes deep into the protagonist's memories, influenced by his recent reading of the TBotD, but I could not watch it on that basis. The ending sequence will haunt me for some time. And made up for some of the discomforts (stroboscoping lighting effects, heavily applied) en route.
I will warn that there seems a disturbing layer of misogyny in the film. This isn't the first film/tv where I've seen Paz de la Huerta being misused by men, but she seems to find her way out by the end - though that may be only one interpretation of concluding events, depending on what degree of reality you assign them. The film spoonfeeds you nothing. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 11:19 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Magic Flute, 1975, Swedish. (7.5 of 10.) Docked a bit because I don't like the cuts to the audience (especially the extreme closeups of Bergman's daughter's face, which got to be creepy after a while) and it takes a while to get going, but it gets rapidly better, and, of course, it has a nice soundtrack. Haken Hagegard is a great Papageno (not in feathers, which is fine by me), but it's got a nice cast. Elisabeth Erikson is a lovely Papagena (also not in feathers), and Papageno and Papagena's scenes together are delightful. Irma Irrila beautifully sings her duet with Josef Köstlinger. Why isn't this duet better known? Irrila and Hagegard also have a wonderful duet earlier on love when Papageno first meets Pamina, I half-wished he were her love interest until Papagena appears.
This was first shown in Swedish TV but was also was released in theaters and shown at Cannes. Although there are scenes that indicate this is partly a stage production, there are also obvious location shots, and lots of closeups, not to mention a scene where Pamina comes alive in a picture in a locket.
I'm now looking for a decent version of Don Giovanni. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:08 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Watched a set of Hammer Films, from the late 50's/early 60's, with titles more lurid than the content.
Stop Me Before I Kill! is the tale of a race car driver who has a car accident on his honeymoon and develops psychological problems manifesting in occasionally wanting to strangle his new wife. They hook him up with a psychologist who turns out to be more disturbed than his patient.
A bit silly, but okay.
These Are the Damned (1963) is an odd film, a mishmash of youth gang violence, an older man/young girl romance, and some sci-fi stuff revolving around worries about atomic annihilation. After a young hip chick lures a middle-aged American tourist to her brothers gang, where they rob and beat him, she kinda falls for him. So they go off on his boat and the whole gang is after them, so they hide in a cottage used by the sculpting mistress of the head of a secret gov't project . This involves 9 mutant children -- who are somehow both radioactive and very cold in body temp -- who are kept in a cave beneath a huge cliff. They are thought to be able to survive after nuclear armegeddon, so the gov't is prepping them for their future as mankind's possible only survivors, while keeping them isolated.
I always find these bizarre hybrid films rather interesting curios.
The lead is the American tourist, played by MacDonald Carey in what seemed to me a rather blatant Jimmy Stewart manner. Odd film.
The Snorkel is rather silly. A man kills his rich wife by gas, and makes it look like a suicide. He tapes up the windows and seals the doors, and stays in the room by wearing a snorkel mask connected to tubes that go under the floor and connect to outside air. When anyone comes he hides under the floor in a small crawlspace.
It's a rather ridiculous method, since he could be seen opening the trap door and coming out, or when he leaves the room, or leaves the house, or anywhere on his way back to his alibi. Which is that he was just over the Italian border in France at a small hotel. So his passport is stamped showing he was elsewhere and he hops in the water and snorkels back to Italy to commit the crime. So there are plenty of ops for someone to see him on his way to commit the crime, or leaving the scene.
Then after the step-daughter becomes suspicious, he does the whole thing again, with another whole set of opportunities to be spotted/caught coming and going. Even sillier is that he gave his wife a sedative so she'd stay in the gas filled room, and does this again with the step-daughter. I guess a suicide might do that, but it would make the suicide a bit suspicious if anyone ever noticed or mentioned the sedatives.
Anyway, after a long silly film, there is at least one good twist at the end. But it's hardly worth the trouble of getting there.
Cash on Demand (1961)is a heist film, where the bank robber pretends to be an executive from the bank's insurance company. Then he forces the bank manager to assist him, by convincing him that his wife and child are being held as hostages. This is fairly well done and suspenseful. It felt very much like an extended Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. Same sort of stripped down teleplay style with one setting and few characters. The ending is a bit of a letdown.
And Hammer Films apparently made a whole series of what were termed mini-Hitchcocks in the early 60's, in the wake of Psycho's success. Maniac (1963) is one such film. A man sadistically kills a man who raped his teenage daughter. He gets sent to a mental asylum. A few years later a visiting American stops at the bar/hotel run by the wife and daughter. He starts falling for the 19 year old daughter, until the wife presents herself as a more ready option. And the price of marrying her is to help the husband bust out of the asylum. Somehow it never occurs to him that you'd rather have a mentally unstable murderer locked up than loose. But he's already in too far, and there's another twist (which didn't make much sense) awaiting him anyway. Not a bad B picture, but not exactly worth going out of your way for. |
Last edited by gromit on Thu Dec 18, 2014 12:24 am; edited 2 times in total
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:12 am |
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| TatD sounds like Mike Nelson and MST3000 might have had fun with it. Snorkel sounds amazingly silly - as in, suitable for a double feat. with Sharknado. (Well, before there was a Sharknado II, anyway) |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:32 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| TCM began another old movie series this past Saturday morning, having run out of Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie stories (finally). They've reached across the pond again for the Carry Ons, which I cheered, because although those flicks were wildly popular in the UK, they never seemed to be shown in the USA. The first was "Carry On, Sergeant," which turned out to be a rather sweet comedy with a couple of actors I recognized, including the first Doctor Who, William Hartnell, as the title sergeant. It was the story of a ragtag group of stereotype guys showing up for their National Service and failing miserably in their training, until various experiences got them on the right track and they made their sergeant proud. Not the most original plot, but I don't see a lot of army comedies so I enjoyed it. I had expected it to be sillier, but it was the first of the series and I think things went wackier later on. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:11 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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Just from 6 Hammer Films, you start noticing definite patterns in the storylines. For instance, The Damned and Maniac both feature an American wandering into a place and situation he is unfamiliar with, and he falls for a gal and gets into troubles. Similarly, the one I didn't mention, Never Take Candy From Strangers has a couple arrive in a small town and they are labelled outsiders. In a small switch, the setting is Canada, and the wife is mentioned many times as British. And again the strangers in a new place are the focus and they run into trouble. Hammer Films seemed to rely on a limited number of writers and producers, which probably explains this.
And even Cash on Demand, has an interloper arrive unexpectedly in a bank, and he becomes the focus and disrupts the normal routine.
I found the B stars a rather odd and interesting bunch. The lead in Snorkel seemed oddly effeminate at times -- even while he's ruthlessly exterminating his wife, step-daughter and their dog. The These are the Damned lead has this rather Jay Leno chin going on.
The male co-leads in Stop Me are both kind of odd and not really great actors. And the psychiatrist again has somewhat feminine mannerisms, even as he's hot for his patient's wife.
But Kerwin Mathews is pretty good in Maniac (even if I half-thought it was The Professor from Gillgan's Island). MacDonald Carey gives a pretty assured performance in The Damned, seemingly modeled on Jimmy Stewart (which fits in with Hammer's apparent penchant for copying Hitchcock). And all of the actors are quite good in Cash on Demand, effectively using distinct types. Oddly the bank heist film COD is also partly a retelling of A Christmas Carol, as the bon vivant bank robber helps the pinched stern bank manager see the folly of his ways. He forces the manager to contribute to the staff Xmas party, and by the end the manager plans to attend and, changing his ways, be friendly with his staff. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:36 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8251
Location: Salt Lake City
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Syd wrote: I finally caught up with Dallas Buyers Club and was thoroughly absorbed with the story and McConaughey's performance, and especially Jared Leto's. I especially like Leto's voice as Rayon. I remember the outcry in the 1980s of the FDA's slow approval of AIDS drugs and I enjoy medical dramas, too. This was a good story well-told.
I also hope McConaughey and Leto don't have to lose massive amounts of weight for future roles. They were alarmingly skinny.
When I watched DBC earlier this year (the week before the Oscars), I was enthralled with how well the story flowed and McConaughey's performance. Only for Jared Leto as Rayon to not only match Matthew, but eek past with his portrayal. Both deserved their Oscars, although I admit to liking Jared's speech over McConaughey's. I tired of "Alright, Alright, Alright" pretty quick. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8251
Location: Salt Lake City
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yambu wrote: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is from a Stieg Larsson novel. The cast is all unknown to me, except for a vital role by Christopher Plummer.
The heroine is a super flyweight played by Rooney Mara, who plays a goth computer genius, and who is a match for any male slob who crosses her.
What is such a pleasure is the slow pacing for a thriller. This is no Italian Job. For one thing, it allows its most artful villain to show off his subtle talents to the max. Great stuff.
The ending has been done a hundred times since Chaplin, but Ms. Mara carries it off well.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's soundtrack made this movie more chilling than I was expecting it to be. I've not seen the original Swedish version, but will now have to seek it out based on many recommendations. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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