Third Eye Film Society ~ View topic

Author

Message

< Third Eye Film Forums ~ Couch With A View

yambu

Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 7:16 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

In Philadelphia Tom Hanks is a brilliant young lawyer in Jason Robards' firm. He contracts aids, and hires Denzel Washington to represent him for wrongful termination. It was made in '93, and it is fascinating to see societal attitudes towards gays back then.

Tom Hanks is at his best here. Unfortunately, Denzel heads up the worst courtroom procedural in my memory. "Gay, fag, queer, homo!...", albeit ironic, should have gotten him contempt of court. At one point in mid-trial he launched, uninvited, into a touching soliloquy, with inspirational strings playing in the background. And what are the chances that Hanks should die right there on the courtroom floor? And precisely at trial's end?!

_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me?

Syd

Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 8:08 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12934 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

See "A Free Soul" in which Lionel Barrymore is his daughter's attorney and dies at the end of his summation. He won the Oscar, too.

_________________
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!

gromit

Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 9:52 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

Working my way through the large Criterion Les Blank set.
He's the documentarian best known for Burden of Dreams, about Werner Herzog making a film in the jungle. Or perhaps the short doc, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

He focuses on blues and zydeco musicians, food/coking (garlic and Creole/Cajun cooking. I'm not so fond of the sort of amorphous 70's style of his early films. I wanted more context, more detail, and more structure. Food/cooking on film doesn't really interest me, without the associated smells and tastes. Les Blank apparently agreed, and during some screenings of his food films would walk through the audience with a large pot of red beans & rice, or roasted garlic, which people could eat after the film.

My favorite was the film(s) on The Maestro a folk/traditional/performance artist, who is quite prolific and very much a showman -- he used to hold an annual Maestro Day in which he performed songs and paintings and assorted cowboy stuff related to his Maestro persona. Gerlad Gaxiola aka the Maestro is an interesting character and some of his artwork is interesting as well. The guy is restless and dynamic.

yambu might be interested in the documentary, "Sworn to the Drum" featuring performances and interviews with Francisco Aguabella a masterful Cuban drummer. It also takes a look at some Santeria rituals. and there are some brief glimpses of "Patato" Valdes and Julito Collazo as well.

I much preferred these later Les Balnk films, as they are less free-form and more coherent than his early films. Still the Lightnin' Hopkins, Clifton Chenier and Wild Thoupitoulas films are interesting, even if not as good as they could have been, imo

Has anyone seen the 1955 film Mambo (directed by Robert Rossen and filmed in Italy in '52 & '53)? I ask because Francisco Aguabella is in the film and the musical clip they show from Mambo was quite lively. The film has some name Italian actors and Shelly Winters.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:23 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

yambu--Read your comments on Philadelphia and realized it was streaming on Netflix, so immediately revisited it and found I liked it more than I remembered. Hanks and Washington were excellent, and I actually admired the "opera" sequence, a scene I recalled disliking intensely first time around. So...yes. A bit overlong and extenuated toward the finale, but generally a really good movie.

marantzo

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:09 pm

Joined: 30 Oct 2014 Posts: 278 Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.

I saw Philadelphia when it was new and I had more than enough of it. It dragged and dragged. The only one in the film that I liked was Washington. and I think it was his best performance, though I haven't seen a lot of his films.

_________________
Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts.

whiskeypriest

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:04 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 6916 Location: "It's a Dry Heat."

Catching up.... I was actually going to write up a whole bunch of the Christmas movies I saw over the last month or so, due to my lovely wife's fondness for Lifetime and Hallmark channels, the idea being that I w0ould watch them so you would not have to. The problem is, they are all the same movie. The plot lines are as indistinguishable from each other as Sergio Leone westerns are, the actors all look the same, all of them have an actor/ess playing an angel, or Santa, or some deus - literally - ex machina, all have people getting together, realizing love and the True Meaning of Christmas. The only one that stood out, and I cannot recall the title, stood out because it, first, reuinted a family destroyed by alcoholism which would have been nice if they treated it like the serious long term destructive issue it is rather than a plot point which pissed me off, but mostly because it had a washed up sitcom actor cameo trifecta: Cliff the Mailman from the 80s, Urkel from the 90s, and Clarissa from the aughts.

Anyway, also caught:

Postcards from the Edge, which I watched in the wake - now there is a choice of words - of Michol's death. I had not heard good things about it but was pleasantly surprised. Streep was all Streepy (a good thing), Shirley MacLaine was quite good as the controlling mother; liked the script.

Not sure how I managed to avoid seeing Almost Famous for all these years - probably my aversion to Kate Hudson and being all meh over Crowe winning out over my admiration for Frances MacDormand, coupled with my not realizing Zooey Deschanel was in it albeit pre-bangs - but it is now streaming on Netflix, so I gave it a go; a LOT better than I had feared it would be. MacDormand was by far the best thing about the movie - I got a charge out of her character every time it was on the screen. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was, well, as usual, wonderful, damn. Billy Crudup was also real good, Hudson less horse nosed and more tolerable than usual. John Fedevich made his one line count. Sweet, funny, nicely observant film.

Forgot:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One. I have seen bits and pieces of the earlier films, but decided to watch them, off and on, yesterday. Missed the second half, but while I realize the idea was to maximize profit by making two movies out of one book, I suspect that the whole thing could have been made one movie solely by cutting the two hours of two or three characters wandering the landscapes doing nothing, an interminable stretch of film not aided by the addition of commercials.

Last edited by whiskeypriest on Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed?

yambu

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:27 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

gromit wrote:

.... yambu might be interested in the documentary, "Sworn to the Drum" featuring performances and interviews with Francisco Aguabella a masterful Cuban drummer. It also takes a look at some Santeria rituals. and there are some brief glimpses of "Patato" Valdes and Julito Collazo as well....

Thanks, Gromit. I'm on the case. The distributor is ten minutes from my door.

I saw Aguabella many times. Patato less. Patato was a queer one. He took forever to tune his drums. And when the audience complained, he took longer.

When I was in Cuba in the '90's, I practically fell into a Santeria "toque de tambon", or The Touching of the Drum. I won't go into it now.

For rootsy, everyday folkloric sound, watch these youngsters having a great time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF5Z-ZjIWzI

_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me?

marantzo

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:31 pm

Joined: 30 Oct 2014 Posts: 278 Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.

I saw Almost Famous when it came out. I thought it would be OK, but it turned out to be very good. A lot of fun.

_________________
Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts.

yambu

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:14 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

marantzo wrote:

I saw Almost Famous when it came out. I thought it would be OK, but it turned out to be very good. A lot of fun.

Didn't finish it. A generational thing, I'm ashamed to say. So what makes you so hip?

_________________
That was great for you. How was it for me?

marantzo

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:24 pm

Joined: 30 Oct 2014 Posts: 278 Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.

Come on yambu, you know your music. Smile

_________________
Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts.

Syd

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:44 pm

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12934 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Beware, My Lovely: Robert Ryan plays a handyman who can't hold a job due to his unfortunate habit of murdering his employers. Ida Lupino is a music teacher who hires him without asking for references. Ryan has memory lapses, sometimes is extremely mild-mannered and sometimes paranoid. This isn't promising for their working relationship. After the first couple of scenes, we never leave the house, which we get a pretty good tour of.

Minor but decent film noir/thriller based on the play, The Man by Mel Dinelli, who wrote the screenplay. It was originally a short story, and was dramatized on radio and television.

_________________
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!

billyweeds

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:09 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

whisky--If you didn't hear good things about Postcards from the Edge, you obviously haven't been reading what I write here, because it's one of my very favorite Mike Nichols movies, topped only by Working Girl in my book, and it's my very favorite Meryl Streep performance. I'm not a huge Streep fan, but she's absolutely magical in this film, and as for MacLaine (of whom I am a huge fan) IMO it's second only to The Apartment. I simply adore this movie.

gromit

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:13 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

Syd wrote:

Beware, My Lovely: Robert Ryan ... Ida Lupino.... memory lapses ... paranoid ... film noir/thriller

Sounds good to me.
There's a series of 2-fer film noirs I haven't picked up, because I've been waiting for my local shop to get them, where they will be both cheaper and more compact (ie not in boxes).
But I probably should just grab the damn things while they are available.
I forget the titles, but there are a few Mithcums, Jane Greer, possibly Ryan, etc. And how can you go wrong with two noirs on one disc?

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 6:03 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

Saw two amazingly fine movies on Netflix last night, the kind I never would have seen were it not for Netflix streaming. (NB Joe.)

Stranger by the Lake has been described as a cross between Rear Window and Cruising, which is pretty accurate. It's a French thriller, which is low-budget in the extreme but makes as good use of that budget as can be imagined. Set entirely on a small section of beach by a lake, it's the story of a young gay man who falls in love with a serial killer. It's more sexually graphic than anything I've ever seen (including Blue is the Warmest Color), and highly suspenseful too. The director's visual sense is unerring and the acting is excellent. This is a terrific little film.

The Retrieval is set during the Civil War and tells the story of a young boy who is tasked with retrieving runaaway slaves for a bounty hunter and his relationship with one of them. It too is suspenseful, but profoundly moving as well. This was released last year, the same year as 12 Years a Slave, and IMO is much better than that undeserving Oscarwinner.

Joe Vitus

Posted: Tue Dec 30, 2014 8:13 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

I've got good things to say about Postcards from the Edge, too.

_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.

-Topher

All times are GMT - 5 Hours

View next topic View previous topic Page 2277 of 2427 Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... 2276, 2277, 2278 ... 2425, 2426, 2427 Next Third Eye Film Society Forum Index ~ Third Eye Film Forums

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum