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| bartist |
 Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 8:50 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Agree with your Baby Driver comments and applaud the editing. Touches of visual poetry and an overall plot and style that is unabashedly about youthful fantasy rather than trying for any sort of realism. Nice to see Downton Abbey's Lily James again, radiating star power as a Georgia peach. Kevin Spacey was a weak link - not his fault, they just gave him some dumb lines and an improbable management approach. A different crew every time? Not how you build a cohesive team and keep your loose thread count down. In any case, he violates his stated rule in the last heist.
Follows in the footsteps of The Drop and Drive, but not quite as good as either of those. But still quite good, if you accept you are in the realm of the fantastic and youthful dreams. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 12:55 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Kathryn Bigelow’s "Detroit" is a powerful indictment of race relations in America. It focuses on the senseless murders of three black youths during the 1967 race riots in Detroit. It depicts both police brutality and the immense difficulty of convicting white police officers extremely well without burdening us with political rhetoric.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 5:27 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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| Good thing that's all in the past and has nothing to do with today . . . |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:46 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| I liked "Dunkirk" as visual spectacle and a sort of immersive theme park ride that leaves you temporarily (I hope) deaf from the explosions. I'm not sure there is a movie there, in terms of knowing any of the characters, who function more as Everyman placeholders with whom you can feel the thuds and concussions. Mark Rylance, once again, stood out. Since Bridge of Spies, he's been my go-to guy for understated acting. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:12 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Kathryn Bigelow's "Detroit" is a tough piece on the 1967 Detroit riots, with the center being an hour or so focusing on the harrowing Algiers Motel incident in which three innocent blacks were murdered by white police officers (although the one who fired a starter pistol at the police was something of a Darwin Award candidate). Nine more tenants were also brutalized by the police to reveal the location of a non-existent gun. The last 45 minutes is aftermath and anticlimax, and legal injustice.
I don't remember hearing of the 1967 riots at the time, but I do remember the riots from 1968 which followed Martin Luther King's assassination, and which also started around 12 Street. The events of this movie also provide context for those, although the 1968 riots are not mentioned in the movie.
It's mostly an unknown cast except for Anthony Mackie as a Vietnam vet. Hannah Murray is Gilly on "Games of Throne." John Boyega, who plays a security guard who gets caught up in the action, is Finn in "The Force Awakens," and is quite good. The most villainous policeman was a villain in "The Revenant" as well. |
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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: Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:50 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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They announced at a Detroit Tigers game that fans should be careful heading home as the riot was in progress on Sunday afternoon. Willie Horton, the popular Tigers leftfielder, who was from the area near the riot, went to 12th St, and still in his baseball uniform climbed on top of a car and tried to get people to stop the destruction and head home. Didn't work.
Newark, NJ was the first major riot of the Summer of '67. DET kicked in 11 days later. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 7:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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My favorite movie of the summer by a long shot is The Big Sick, a romantic comedy with drama and soul and big laughs and six amazing performances. Liked Chris Pine's performance in Wonder Woman and was suitably impressed with Gal Gadot. Maudie was only okay.
Dunkirk did nothing to change my constantly negative opinion of Christopher Nolan. It was better than Inception or Interstellar. But since I and I are two of my least favorite films of ALL TIME, that's saying nothing. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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If you like character-driven crime dramas, I recommend Wind River, about the investigation into the death of a teenage Native American girl who was beaten and raped. Her frozen body is found by US Fish and Wildlife agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) whose own daughter was also found dead from exposure and who was the victim's best friend (and half Native American herself. Rookie FBI Agent Jane Banner is sent to investigate with the help of Tribal Police Chief Ben no last name (Graham Greene), and deputizes Lambert, who knows the terrain.
Renner is excellent; this is the best I've ever seen him. Olsen seems a bit out of place, but that may be the point. Greene is his usual fine self, and Gil Birmingham is fine as the victim's father. The weather also gives an excellent performance; it's a character itself. The movie is still in limited release, in this case surely to build up word-of-mouth for Oscar consideration.
Director is Taylor Sheridan, who wrote Sicario and Hell and High Water; this time he's directing his own script. There are a few flaws, notably a flashback that tells us what we've already figured out, but mostly it's solid. |
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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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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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In Leap! two orphans (and best friends) escape from the orphanage to Paris, where the boy wants to become an inventor and the girl a ballerina. It's more about the girl's quest in a city where at first everyone seems hostile. Nice movie, sometimes touching, marred by inappropriate pop music during a crucial ballet scene which is crying out for Tchaikovsky. This is taking place in the late 19th century, and the time line is slight fudged so the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty are being built at the same time The Nutcracker makes its Paris review. (Statue of Liberty finished in 1886, though this may be the smaller replica we gave back to France. Eiffel Tower completed 1889. The Nutcracker debuted in 1892.)
It's currently having some early showings (which allowed me to see it before a single review appeared on Rotten Tomatoes), with the main rollout next week. |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:48 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Wind River is definitely on my list of films to see. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 6:27 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| Wind River was pulled from theaters here, but they just brought it back, the management responding sensibly to howls of outrage from me and other area residents who felt that a multiplex with nothing but romcoms, emoji movies, and Stephen King adaptations was unacceptable. Seeing asap. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:35 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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I liked the visual tone of Wind River, and there was some good acting from Renner, Olsen, et al. But the last part wasn't quite what I had hoped for, getting more into a big body-count shoot-em-up and vigilante revenge thing that bypassed some opportunities to explore tribal life and white folks cluelessness on the Rez. The tribal police do not actually need white trackers to come in and help figure out tracking. And I have never heard of the FBI sending an agent onto the Rez to "help" figure out a death. Did the murder cross state lines? Does U.S. jurisdiction extend onto a Rez? The film says "inspired by true events," but I am curious if this FBI intervention was perhaps a bit more fabricated than the rest.
A few bloopers that really pulled me out of the film:
1. The line of trucks going out to the drilling rig site. No. On that kind of road, you would be blind in 2 minutes if you followed anyone that closely, on a dirt road. Lots of mud kicking up, you would follow at some distance. I don't even know how they shot that, from what I could see the tires kicking up. Preposterous.
2. The FBI would dispatch from the Denver office, not Las Vegas, FFS. And the agent would have a suitable coat and long johns. So we get that scene that was so annoyingly "written" - where the mother can outfit the FBI lady in her murdered daughter's duds. Please.
3. You never stand directly in front of a door, in a hostile breach situation. Even a green agent like Eliz. Olsen's would know better than that.
4. Where on earth did Jeremy Renner get that rifle? You hunt cougars and wolves with ordinary deer rifles, not elephant guns whose rounds apparently can hurl victims across the room (as in the trailer scene). Preposterous and silly.
5. Wind River people are mainly Shoshone and Arapahoe, who look nothing like the Hollywood Indians cast in this film. The daughter, the father, the ex-wife, all looked to be from Southern or Southwestern tribes. I know most viewers don't care and have little awareness of the diversity of tribal peoples, so maybe it's not that important so far as the film's basic message. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:10 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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bartist wrote: And I have never heard of the FBI sending an agent onto the Rez to "help" figure out a death. Did the murder cross state lines? Does U.S. jurisdiction extend onto a Rez? The film says "inspired by true events," but I am curious if this FBI intervention was perhaps a bit more fabricated than the rest.
The film's correct. Serious crimes on Indian reservations are investigated by the Federal Government, in particular the FBI. It has to do with the Federal government having the responsibility to deal with Indian nations, which are independent in many respects. The FBI also tends to give low priority to this duty, which is why they send such an inexperienced agent, and had to reach all the way to Las Vegas to find one sufficiently inexperienced. And yes, it's really stupid to stand directly in front of the door of a suspect who may be armed.
As for the gun, that's Hollywood, or maybe there are grizzlies in those mountains. |
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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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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:47 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Can't comment in too much detail about Wind River, since the slow pacing and low-key vibe sent me into a deep slumber early on. Nice photography, though.
I can comment on Logan Lucky. Boring when it was not cutesy, which was often, and sometimes boring when it was. A disappointment from Soderbergh, usually a favorite director of mine. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 8:17 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Syd wrote: bartist wrote: And I have never heard of the FBI sending an agent onto the Rez to "help" figure out a death. Did the murder cross state lines? Does U.S. jurisdiction extend onto a Rez? The film says "inspired by true events," but I am curious if this FBI intervention was perhaps a bit more fabricated than the rest.
The film's correct. Serious crimes on Indian reservations are investigated by the Federal Government, in particular the FBI. It has to do with the Federal government having the responsibility to deal with Indian nations, which are independent in many respects. The FBI also tends to give low priority to this duty, which is why they send such an inexperienced agent, and had to reach all the way to Las Vegas to find one sufficiently inexperienced. And yes, it's really stupid to stand directly in front of the door of a suspect who may be armed.
As for the gun, that's Hollywood, or maybe there are grizzlies in those mountains.
Yeah, I did look it up after posting, and was surprised, given all the local (west of the river, SD) news stories where the FBI was never mentioned in some serious crime on Rosebud or PR or Standing
Rock. So I guess they keep a low profile and low priority. I do know that the "sovereignty" of the Rez, up here, means that they lack court services for the county they are in - IIRC, Todd County cases have to be tried over in Fall River County to the west. I know there are a couple reservations in the U.S. where they are trying to completely detach themselves from the court systems in adjacent counties, as they feel they don't know how to properly handle Native cases, and have rather the Tribal Court handle it. |
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