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| gromit |
 Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 7:59 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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Quote: The new film about Salinger’s career, Rebel in the Rye, is a work of searing mediocrity about an author who was horrified by the very idea of mediocrity, eventually sealing himself away from public life rather than subject his work to mainstream scrutiny. Written and directed by Danny Strong, the Hollywood scripter behind true-story movies like The Butler, Recount, and Game Change, Rebel in the Rye is immediately and passionately convinced of its hero’s genius before he’s written a line or uttered a word of dialogue. Strong seems to believe Salinger’s name, and his salty attitude, are enough to convince the audience of his talent. Why else would the director not devote a single moment in the film’s 105-minute running time to trying to understand what distinguished the young author from his contemporaries?
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/09/rebel-in-the-rye-review/538908/ |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:19 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| Syd.....You said it: the weather was the main character in Wind River. I needed my down jacket......I was definitely snowed in. I like Jeremy Renner and he was great. I did not like the big shoot em up at the end...it belonged in some other mindless action movie. There was something too sweet and white and pretty about Elizabeth Olsen's presence in the film and I usually like her. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:14 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Quote: There was something too sweet and white and pretty about Elizabeth Olsen's presence in the film and I usually like her.
You never heard that comment about Jody Foster as the rookie FBI agent in Silence of the Lambs. Which I guess indicates Foster's bringing an edge, a toughness, to her role. And competence. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 5:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| Interesting comparison. The missing edge. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:19 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: Quote: There was something too sweet and white and pretty about Elizabeth Olsen's presence in the film and I usually like her.
You never heard that comment about Jody Foster as the rookie FBI agent in Silence of the Lambs. Which I guess indicates Foster's bringing an edge, a toughness, to her role. And competence.
I am a definite non-fan of Jodie (the correct spelling, btw) Foster, but in The Silence of the Lambs she was flat-out great. Iconic and excellent as was Hopkins as Lecter, it was Foster's Clarice who nailed the film to the wall. Without her brilliant turn, I think the movie would have been okay, but with Foster it was a classic. Because Hopkins caused such a splash, Foster's Starling is one of the most underrated Oscar-winning performances. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:01 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Not by me! And Foster is worth mentioning in regards to Wind River, because she would have provided a useful template for the rookie FBI agent plunging into something really messed up and dark. Instead the script went a different direction, in which Olsen is, as Befade put it well, "sweet and pretty," and essentially just reacts to things, without really being much resourceful or gritty. She is mostly just there to bring out Renner's magnificence and heroism and defer to his wisdom. She plays relatively little role in the final apprehension and meting out of "justice." She takes a bullet to her Kevlar vest and goes bang-bang a few times. She tearily soaks up Renner's sad backstory. At this point, I can barely remember her as anything but a minor character. An opportunity wasted, or is that the film's point about the FBI? Guess I could see it either way. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:31 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/movies/mother-review-jennifer-lawrence-darren-aronofsky.html?referrer=google_kp
Intriguing ambivalent praise from AO Scott. Now I'm curious.
Dear Ann Landers: My spouse wants no part of "Mother." Should I go without her, leaving her at home during what is usually "us time" on a Sunday afternoon? Or stay home and focus on marital bliss?
Dear Bart: First, I'm dead, so take this astral advice with a grain of ectoplasmic salt. Second, you have excluded a third option from your choices: go to the multiplex with your spouse. You can see "Mother," your spouse can see "The Big Sick," a lighter-hued comedy, and then you can rejoin after your respective screenings and compare notes. Or you can trust your spouse's instincts - AO Scott seems to me overly enamored of Aronofsky. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2017 10:50 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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| mother sounds like some unwanted companion piece to Anti-christ. I shall go nowhere near. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 9:17 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: mother sounds like some unwanted companion piece to Anti-christ. I shall go nowhere near.
Stick with your instinct. Though I found it intermittently fascinating, it's a bore on the whole, not to mention thuddingly pretentious. Michelle Pfeiffer is the only really saving grace. She's scary--and with her excellent performance as Ruth Madoff opposite De Niro in the Madoff HBO movie, she's experiencing something of a comeback this year. Otherwise, mother! is silly, silly, silly. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 6:26 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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In spite of his problematic "Village" years, I'm thinking a director like M. Night, could have made "mother!" as a more satisfying and less pretentious dark comedy.
That said, I am afraid for him and his upcoming "Glass" project. I fear he's sealing off his creative spirit and sense of reality in a sequel that should not ever happen. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:09 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| This is showing before the special release of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeHxUVkW4w It's very inspiring. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2017 9:04 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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| Tears running down my cheeks. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:18 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Upstate NY
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"Mother!" has been praised and reviled equally by critics. It is the long nightmare of a woman who does all the work and goes through months of pregnancy while her husband, a poet, hardly produces anything, entertains his friends and enjoys being adored by crowds, showing scant appreciation or understanding of what his wife is going through. As horror films go, it is well made but it is not entertaining. Good performances by Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Pfeiffer.
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 6:06 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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American Made is loosely based on the life of Barry Seal, a notorious drug smuggler who worked at times for the CIA and DEA, and compresses his timeline to make a more coherent and outrageous film. I'd recommend seeing the film before reading Seal's biography. Tom Cruise, Sarah Wright and Domhnall Gleeson are clearly enjoying themselves, as did I.
SPOILER: Although much of the action involves the Contras, Seal claimed that he was running guns to Castro's opponents as early as 1959, when he would have been about 20. He was a precocious pilot and smuggler. Many movies merge characters. This one merges entire wars. |
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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 Oct 09, 2017 2:46 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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Saw over half of The Lost City of Z on a dinky airplane screen.
The first 20 minutes is rather rushed trying to get in relationships, backstory and exposition before the adventure begins. Then the adventure stuff is all right but rather low key and dry, which is odd for a jungle-survival-obsessive film. I dozed mid-film , caught some later stuff and then turned it off. Too many shots and moments seemed derivative and expected, without much payoff. Kind of a rote tribute to other films or something. Then again, the small screen and watching conditions didn't do any favors for an epic film. |
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