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| gromit |
 Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 5:49 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Finally got around to I Saw the Light, a Hank Williams biopic. I thought it was pretty recent, but it dates back to 2015.
The film is overlong at 2 hours. I started feeling its length at the 1'30" mark. It focuses too much on his relationships with women, and so the band and other musicians of the era get short shrift. And their shrift should have definitely been more extensive.
Tom Huddleston does a very credible job. Not to the point where you think you're actually watching Hank Williams, but he invests in it and sings the songs in a pretty good Hank fashion, without trying to be an exact imitation.
The music is of course great, and they throw in a few additional period pieces ranging from country to gospel to R&B (Jimmy Liggins & his Drops of Joy). A couple times they have Hank sing one of his well-known songs without musical accompaniment -- once on stage early on and later as he's just finished writing another classic. Which is a nice way of giving us some variation on well-known classic songs.
There's something so simple and direct and appealing about Hank Williams songs, yet they have a impressive phrasing at times, and aren't as simple as they seem. It's ironic that his breakthrough hit Lovesick Blues was a cover of a song that dated back 2 decades as a broadway song and was a country hit 10 years earlier by Rex Griffin in a version that doesn't sound much different than Hank's. Hank actually started performing on the radio (15 minutes real early morning) when he was just 14 or 15. And heart failure at 29. Jan 1 1953. You have to wonder what else he could have accomplished, since he had a string of posthumous hits, with rockabilly and rocknroll just around the corner.
Anyway, as with most biopics it's a solid film, and they get the music right, costumes are terrific without being attention grabbers -- and yet it seems a bit too limited in its telling. They go for his family life first and music second and don't have time for much else.
I would have been up for more on the musical context of the times.
Coincidence: I looked up Hank Williams, and one of his old guitar players just died, Felton Pruett:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2018/09/21/hank-williams-guitarist-felton-pruett-dead-at-89.html |
Last edited by gromit on Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:47 am; edited 1 time in total
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 8:11 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Watched Operation Eichmann, starring Werner Klemperer as Eichmann, Ruta Lee as his (possibly fictional) mistress, and John Banner as Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz. This is about Eichmann's activities during World War II, when he was in charge of implementing Himmler's plans for exterminating the Jews, and his attempts to preserve Naziism after the war. He insists that with all the top Nazis dead or in prison, he is now the head of Naziism, something the other surviving Nazis beg to differ with.
The trial is not shown since this movie was made between his capture and the trial, and much of it was based on rumors that turned out to be false (such as Eichmann went to Kuwait to create a new Nazi empire). In other words, it was quickly made to exploit the headlines, and accuracy in the 50s segments is accidental. For Klemperer, this was sort of a preview of his far better, and chilling role as an unrepentant Nazi judge in Judgment at Nuremberg. Actually, I thought Banner was better in a role that is far away from Sgt. Schultz as you can get.
I'm sure far better films about Eichmann have been made. This one's chief value is as a curiosity. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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I think everyone misunderstands Michael Myers in the original Halloween. He's always described as a relentless killing machine. He became that in the sequels, but in the first movie, there are plenty of people who cross his path with no problem--particularly children. He never harms children, and I think in his mind he still is one, and his vendetta is against the "big people," the adults. Particularly if they are sexual.
He seems to treat he stalkings as a game of tag, or hide-and-go-seek. He always seems to be looking for girls--going back to his sister. The blank look on the child Michael's face at the end of the opening sequence, and as an adult turning his head one side to the other in curiosity as he gazes at the dead boyfriend Bob pinned to the kitchen wall, suggest he doesn't quite know what death or killing means, like a child watching a bug writhe beneath a knife or ants under a spy glass that increases the heat of the sun.
I think he wants to express himself sexually, and doesn't know how, and has gotten stalking and killing confused with pursuing and winning a female. I'd say the original Halloween is the best phallic comedy any horror film has ever been. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:57 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I've watched a couple of horror films on TV, but never saw one in a theater, even when I was in high school. (Some sci-fi thrillers, yes, but not in the bloodbath genre.) But the reviews of the new "Halloween" make me want to see it, as well as the original. Sounds like Jamie Lee Curtis is practically on the road to an Oscar--wouldn't that be fun? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2018 3:49 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| It would be, and the new movie looks good to me, too. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:06 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Congratulations to all present and former dwellers in RSN! Amazing team this year. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 11:58 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: Congratulations to all present and former dwellers in RSN! Amazing team this year.
You know I'm an acronym know-nothing, but let me give it a shot:
Red Sox NATION? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 5:15 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Yes! I knew you would have no trouble.
As for supernatural manifestations of Wade, I have no idea what that's about. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 11:41 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Watching The Book of Life and enjoying it more than I was expecting, partly because it is often hilarious. I cracked up when Manolo's ancestors described the heroic bullfighting deeds for which they are famous. Very odd animation decisions in this movie, which gives us a mariachi band three members of which are anthropomorphic pigs.
The movie invites comparisons with Coco, though it doesn't resemble it that much, despite both of them dealing with the Day of the Dead and showing us the consequences of not being remembered. Main complaint on this one is that it's too frantic. It's hard sometimes to figure out exactly what's going on. |
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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: Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:22 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| With the hundredth anniversary of the armistice last Sunday, we watched Kubrick's classic Paths of Glory. Well worth rewatching. An unflinching look at the destructive power of human vanity and the absurd quest for honor. I notice NYT columnist David Brooks wrote a beautiful piece about the film this week, worth breaking through the paywall for (incognito mode, or wipe your cookies). |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2018 4:55 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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bartist wrote: With the hundredth anniversary of the armistice last Sunday, we watched Kubrick's classic Paths of Glory. Well worth rewatching. An unflinching look at the destructive power of human vanity and the absurd quest for honor. I notice NYT columnist David Brooks wrote a beautiful piece about the film this week, worth breaking through the paywall for (incognito mode, or wipe your cookies).
Another easy option is after the article loads and the paywall overlays it, simply save the page. You'll save the article sans paywall, and can just open the file from your computer. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 3:30 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| Don't look now, but Nicholas Roeg is dead at 90. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 6:13 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| He'll be back. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| knox |
| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:35 pm |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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No doubt he will appear on a bridge in Venice, wearing a red raincoat.
Bertolucci has danced his last tango. RIP. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2018 6:49 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Neither Roeg nor Bertolucci made films I liked.
Just Insignificance for Roeg and The Conformist for Bert.
And I liked but didn't love those. |
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