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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 6:54 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: Although you might not think The Artist or The King's Speech as screaming Best Picture, there is something to be said of a Best Picture that is infinitely rewatchable. I'd gladly watch either picture any time I get a chance.
Chicago wasn't necessarily the best picture of 2002, but I've watched more often than any other best picture of the last fifty years, if only because it has a wonderfully performed soundtrack.
I seem to be in some sort of a minority about this, but I think Chicago was indisputably the Best Picture of 2002 and one of the only really deserving Oscar-winning Best Movies of the last 25 years. It is one of only a handful of Broadway musical adaptations that ever worked, and in fact improved upon the Broadway original. I own it and would gladly rewatch it again and again. I also think Renee Zellweger gives a sensational performance in the lead. The other Z, Catherine Zeta-Jones, who won the supporting Oscar, is also terrific, and Gere, Latifah, and Reilly are likewise aces--but R-Zell takes the gold. She carries what is one of the very, very few really great movie adaptations of a stage musical.
As for The Artist and The King's Speech, they are more than okay, but no Chicago. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 9:39 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Have I mentioned I generally dislike that squinty-eyed pig-faced tart?
I liked, not loved, Chicago, and have never really sat down to rewatch it. Though I will say I loved CZJ in it, and tolerated the S-E, P-F T better than usual. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:10 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Sigboth and I both like the screen Chicago - what the weedster said. Very rewatchable, SEPFT and all. LOL. Yeah, I found myself really liking actors I've been meh about elsewhere, like Gere, Liu, and Zellw. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:58 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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| I've always been vaguely meaning to watch Chicago (and Showgirls). ... |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 10:42 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I'm finally watching The Sundowners and found myself thinking of The Quiet Man, and looking through a 2005 forum on Fred Zimmerman, I came across this by Ghulam:
Quote: I liked Wayne in The Quiet man and Mitchum in Sundowners. They could both carry a movie, but I was not impressed by their range.[/i]
So I'm not the only one who associates the movies, at least to that extent.
I didn't realize how early the bushfire occurs. I read and loved the book in high school, but all I really remembered was that it took place in Australia, and it had this scene with the bushfire that left me breathless. It does on film, too.
I also love the bit where they stop by a farm and the daughter of the farm couple has a crush on the sundowner boy, and is not shy about it. IMDb doesn't list her name. I wonder who she was and what happened to her.
Long way yet to go. I'm about to meet Glynis Johns, which I always appreciate. |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 9:04 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: I'm finally watching The Sundowners.
The Sundowners is a remarkably underrated film. The shots of sheep are ineffably beautiful, and Deborah Kerr's performance is exquisite. The ending is terrific, too. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 12:32 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| This morning I woke up early and checked TCM, and there was a film called "Killer's Kiss"--black and white, no actors I knew, but the writer, director, and editor was Stanley Kubrick. I tried to watch it but dozed off. Something to do with a boxer, some nice photography. At least I woke up again in time for "The Big Clock." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 8:18 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Syd wrote: I'm finally watching The Sundowners. is a remarkably underrated film. The shots of sheep are ineffably beautiful, and Deborah Kerr's performance is exquisite. The ending is terrific, too.
I was surprised Peter Ustinov didn't get an Oscar nomination, until I saw that the Oscar was won by Peter Ustinov (in Spartacus). Kerr's great.
Those shearers are going to have really, really supple skin. |
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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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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:20 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Okayish article on recent Iranian cinema:
http://news.yahoo.com/iranian-filmmakers-defy-regime-foreign-acclaim-053120415.html
But I thought this was interesting:
"The Voices", a less-lofty, more commercial movie by Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-French director behind the award-winning 2007 black-and-white animation "Persepolis".
The new film, a macabre comedy starring Ryan Reynolds as a man pushed to murder by his talking pets, ... is a dark comedy by the maker of the groundbreaking "Persepolis" |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:56 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Mere words cannot express how much I want to see The Voices. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2015 2:17 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Dog is a docudrama about John Wojtowicz, the real counterpart to Pacino's Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon. Forever fearless, he married his boyfriend in 1967, quite a feat in its day.
On the morning of the bank robbery, he and the gang go watch Godfather, to get in the mood.
He did hard time, was raped repeatedly, and never complained. He was a loving man, yet he could devastate the lives of friends and family. By the end, I had had enough. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 2:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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carrobin wrote: This morning I woke up early and checked TCM, and there was a film called "Killer's Kiss"--black and white, no actors I knew, but the writer, director, and editor was Stanley Kubrick. I tried to watch it but dozed off. Something to do with a boxer, some nice photography. At least I woke up again in time for "The Big Clock."
Killer's Kiss has the look and vibe of a student film, which is more or less what it was. Quite amateurish and not in the same league with Kubrick's next film THe Killing, still one of my two or three favorites from SK. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:13 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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It's interesting to watch the protonoir "Port of Shadows" with Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan because Morgan, on the strength of this role (and others) was first choice for the female lead in Casablanca and I think she would have done a wonderful job, although playing it younger than Bergman. And Morgan, of course, was French, which really makes a lot of sense when you think about it, as to why she was in Paris to begin with. I think it still would have been a classic, and I'd like to see that version in an alternate universe.
She finally did get to play opposite Bogart (and most of the rest of the cast of Casablanca, excluding Bergman, who would have been superfluous, and Henreid) in Passage to Marseille, which I probably should see sometime.
Morgan also reminds me of Lauren Bacall, except it should be the other way around, since Morgan was a decade earlier and I like her better. |
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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: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:53 am |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| As far as the film Port of Shadows itself goes, it's quite effective, with Jean Gabin as a a French deserter, Morgan as a teenage girl he gets involved with, and Pierre Brasseur as a young punk who really wants to be a gangster, but is too pathetic to be a master criminal, which makes him dangerous because he's got to demonstrate he has testicles. Gabin really wants to desert to Venezuela--a sensible decision in 1938--but, alas, there is a female entanglement. The film is overwritten, which makes it silly when it tries to be profound. The atmosphere's overblown, too. It's an example where a film tries too hard. Besides, Michel Simon looks really silly in his beard. Gabin, Morgan and Brasseur are all good. It's pretty dated, but worth checking out. |
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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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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 10:21 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I'm a big fan of Port of Shadows.
Love the atmosphere. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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