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| gromit |
 Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:11 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| To search for common words such as It Follows, put the search words in quotes ("It Follows"). Then those two words need to appear in that order. I'm not sure which of the two search options is best when using quotes -- I think it doesn't matter. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:27 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I tried both options and it didn't work. In fact just about every option and wildcard I could think of gave me 423 entries (or 0). The recommended search option doesn't do a thing.
EDIT: Actually the search function seems to ignore the word "it" |
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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 Oct 02, 2015 8:36 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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gromit wrote: Has anyone seen It Follows?
I'm not much on horror films, but it's getting good buzz and supposed to be well filmed with good character understanding.
Tried Gromit's technique and found direct hits, all on July 2, 2015, about 3rd thru 5th entries on the list. Thanks, G. My reply is: "yes, and it is indeed."
Watched Frenzy last night, it is, as others mentioned, repellent but very well done and some nice touches of Hitchcockian black comedy. I may not be eating potatoes for a while. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:38 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| That's right. You really don't have to look before July. (Conks self in head.) |
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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: Fri Oct 02, 2015 10:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Chicken with Plums (2011) is Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's mostly live-action followup to the great Persepolis, and this one is a mixed bag, with episodes that don't quite mesh together and episodes of frustrating brilliance. This is a story of a brilliant violinist whose violin is broken, so he buys a Strativarius, only to find that he can't bear to play it. Instead, he decides to die, and after considering several alternatives, decides to take to his bed and starve himself to death after eight days. (We are told this at the beginning so no spoilers.) The question is why all this happens, and it takes eight episodes over eight days to find out, before which we have to bear with an unsympathic and selfish protagonist who deserves to have his face slapped. This is, of course, all due to a lost love, but since the loss happened twenty years ago, and he has a wife and two children, perhaps it's time to get over it...
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, because he's sublimated his love into the violin which his wife broke... but now we're getting into spoiler territory. The movie is divided into the eight days, of which day six (in which our protagonist faces Azrael, the Angel of Death, in a surprisingly funny segment given the subject matter) and day eight (in which we FINALLY get an explanation, and it's pretty moving despite the protagonist being selfish and slightly more sympathetic) are great. But most of the time, I was wondering Satrapi and Paronnaud thought this story worth telling. After all, this is a story in which the only really developed character spends most of the movie committing suicide, and no amount of glamor, humor and beautiful cinematography can disguise that.
PS: The film shows us the future of the son and daughter in two pointless scenes. The future of the daughter is pointless, but evocative. The future of the son is done as an eighties sitcom, and is so excruciating that I wondered if Satrapi and Paronnaud will ever make a decent film 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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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 12:19 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| Despite the positive buzz, I've pretty much decided to pass on It Follows. Just not a horror film fan. Violence, horror and erotica are the main genres I skip. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 5:33 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I hate most horror films as well, but may check out It Follows. It just sounds too good to pass up. Really liked the latest Shyamalan. Also may look at Curse of Chucky, the latest demon-doll sequel, which reviews say is perhaps the best of the whole slew and well worth seeing. It streams on Netflix. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 7:50 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Cassandra's Dream is the name of the sail boat that two brothers (Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor) purchase. They can't afford it, but that's the way they acquire everything. They borrow everything their mother has laid away, they borrow from friends, they steal from their father, they borrow fast cars from an employer's garage. A Shylock is after the brother who gambles.
After a long, necessary buildup, they are suddenly offered money to kill a guy, and they accept without too much soul searching. That's the point. Their moral sense has become so eroded over time that they were a short step to murder without knowing it.
Allen is great with issues of modern morality in Match Point, and he's just as good here. The second theme to this is that the brothers are alone in the world, yet they love each other despite everything. |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 11:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Contraband (1940). A Danish Sea Captain (Hans Andersen, played by Conrad Veidt) has his ship seized by the British to check it for contraband. Nobody really thinks they're carrying contraband, and Andersen and his first mate are invited to dinner on land, only to find that their passes have been stolen and Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight) have vanished, despite having no apparent connection. Andersen has to recapture them without the British catching on, since he wants to be able to get his ship to Denmark. He figures out they are going to board a certain London train, discovers Mrs. Sorenesen, and rapidly falls in love with her, realizing her motives are benign, but soon falls into the hands of the real German spies.
This is a relatively minor Powell/Pressburger film, but I'd liked every film I'd seen by them. I had dismissed this as a World War II propaganda film, which was a mistake because it's a delightful Hitchcockian film in the vein of The 39 Steps and Foreign Correspondent (not to mention Saboteur and The Lady Vanishes). In one respect it's better: I like Veidt and Hobson better than any of the Hitchcock pairings. It does have plot holes (why search through night clubs when all he had to do is look at the marquee of the one he was captured in), but it's not every film where you have a shootout in a roomful of busts of Neville Chamberlain. Witty and well worth checking out. (8 of 10) |
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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: Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:25 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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| Yambu, the casting of the brothers sounds perfect, and hard to resist. Will check it out when it gets to Sticksville. Thanks. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: Yambu, the casting of the brothers sounds perfect, and hard to resist. Will check it out when it gets to Sticksville. Thanks.
BTW and JMO, I hated Cassandra's Dream. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 7:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| A new addition to the Netflix streaming roster is a real find, one of those under-the-radar indies that genuinely rock. It's called Glass Chin, and despite a lot of arty touches that occasionally annoyed me, it ultimately comes through strongly as what is sometimes called a "neo-noir." A washed-up boxer gets involved with an evil cross between Donald Trump and Charles Manson and becomes his enforcer. Horrible things ensue and it's a no-way-out scenario, but writer-director Noah Buschel makes it work. The fact that the prodigiously charismatic and talented Corey Stoll (House of Cards, Midnight in Paris) plays the lead helps enormously, but supporting performances by Marin Ireland as Stoll's g.f. and Billy Crudup as the crazy bossman are also sensational. This is a keeper. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 12:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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| Netflix gave it one star??? |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:00 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Maybe it was filmed in Texas.
Stoll is terrific. Ireland IIRC was notable in Homeland, driving cross country with Patinkin, a captive terrorista. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 7:33 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I never did post my review of Tracks:
Tracks: in 1977, Robyn Davidson made a journey of more than 1700 miles from Alice Springs, Australia to the Indian Ocean, through some of the hardest terrain in the world, accompanied by her dog and four camels. It took her two years to train the camels, which run feral in central Australia, before even setting out. She had to make a deal with National Geographic to finance her expedition, so periodically she was met by a photographer, and wrote up her experiences, which became a best seller.
She's played by Mia Wasikowska, who bears a strong resemblance (and who both looked like Martha Plimpton c 1985, and is very good, as is pretty much everybody in the movie. There's a little bit of psychoanalyzing, but I don't take it seriously; Robyn seems to have been a private person who wanted to make a journey of her own, prepared sensibly, and generally comes across as an intelligent person who did something remarkable, if rather extreme. I highly recommend the movie. I found it thoroughly absorbing. |
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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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