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billyweeds
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:16 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Syd wrote:
I always confuse In Bruges with Layer Cake, but, yes, In Bruges is pretty contrived, down to the whole subplot involving midgets. I have to remember which film has Sienna Miller and which has little people.


Just a note: it's politically incorrect to confuse midgets with dwarves. In Bruges features a dwarf. Oh, and btw, I think IB is far superior to LC. But JMO.
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bartist
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:43 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I've never encountered a group of people that will sit around trading Layer Cake quotes. Just sayin.

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gromit
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:10 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I don't really recall Layer Cake much. It was more of a gangster-action film, and that's a genre I'm not much into. In Bruges at least seems to aspire to more. It's really a dialogue heavy film, somewhat disguised as a gangster film. It's also mostly an inaction film, as the two hitmen are waiting. And the action doesn't come til late. So in between they meet some odd locals.

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Syd
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:51 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
bartist wrote:
I've never encountered a group of people that will sit around trading Layer Cake quotes. Just sayin.


I've never encountered a group of people trading "In Bruges" quotes either. You must travel in vastly different circles than I do.

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Syd
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:06 pm Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
billyweeds wrote:
Syd wrote:
I always confuse In Bruges with Layer Cake, but, yes, In Bruges is pretty contrived, down to the whole subplot involving midgets. I have to remember which film has Sienna Miller and which has little people.


Just a note: it's politically incorrect to confuse midgets with dwarves. In Bruges features a dwarf. Oh, and btw, I think IB is far superior to LC. But JMO.


I don't care. "Midget" was the PC correct term, then it was "dwarf" and there's a point at which everybody finds an excuse to be offended.

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gromit
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:03 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I think shortarses is no longer considered acceptable ...

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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 5:01 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
Syd wrote:
billyweeds wrote:
Syd wrote:
I always confuse In Bruges with Layer Cake, but, yes, In Bruges is pretty contrived, down to the whole subplot involving midgets. I have to remember which film has Sienna Miller and which has little people.


Just a note: it's politically incorrect to confuse midgets with dwarves. In Bruges features a dwarf. Oh, and btw, I think IB is far superior to LC. But JMO.


I don't care. "Midget" was the PC correct term, then it was "dwarf" and there's a point at which everybody finds an excuse to be offended.


You may not care, but midgets and dwarves are completely different. http://www.softschools.com/difference/midget_vs_dwarf/102/
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bartist
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:55 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Quote:
Ray: A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. A disproportionate amount, actually. Hervé Villechaize off of Fantasy Island. I think somebody from the Time Bandits did. I suppose they must get really sad about like... being really little and that... people looking at them, laughing at them, calling them names. You know, "short arse". There's another famous midget. I miss him but I can't remember. It's not the R2D2 man; no, he's still going. I hope your midget doesn't kill himself. Your dream sequence will be fucked.

Chloë: He doesn't like being called a midget. He prefers dwarf.

Ray: This is exactly my point! People going around calling you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf. Of course you're going to blow your head off.


BTW, I was at a forum discussing gun control, and the Ralph Fiennes quote from IB about "a normal gun for a normal person" was quoted. I assert that people do quote this movie and that when talented playwrights turn to screenwriting, the results can be memorable.

Indeed, I find IB so quotable that I would nominate McDonagh as an honorary third Coen brother.

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gromit
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:58 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
That's what I always thought. Midgets were proportional. Dwarves have large heads for their body and often barrel-chests. So they look different.

Midget always seemed a technical term to me. While "little people" sounds rather patronizing. Not sure why midget became seen as offensive.

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knox
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:49 am Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
I suspect midget became offensive (at least to all the non-midgets) about the time that "mental midget" became a common phrase. So, given that a huge percentage of short people are not proportionally speaking midgets, and given the other negative associations of the word, it was inevitable that it would become a source of offense. "Cretin" also went the same route, I think. It used to be an accepted medical term for congenital hypothyroidism (causing dwarfism), but then became so pejorative that CH is now preferred.

Wonder how the R2D2 man is doing these days. I expect his days are growing short.
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gromit
Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:01 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
...


Last edited by gromit on Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:16 pm; edited 3 times in total

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gromit
Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Had an interesting time with Splendor in the Grass.
I'd seen it before, but all I really recalled we're the blustery father pushing his son to excel, and the great bittersweet ending where Deanie goes to see Bud.

It's kind of an oddity in that it's a period piece taking place in 1928-30, while being made in 1961. So it focuses on one repressive sexual era from the vantage point of what we consider another sexual repressed era. Though in 1961 the seams were starting to show (then again the 20's was a fairly liberated era, though this takes place in small-town Kansas).

I really liked the performances. Natalie Wood really digs in to her character, and she's also the so sweet and lovely, you can understand why Beatty's loins ache. Really the ribald father should have just brought him to a brothel, but that would've been a different film. Beatty does some good angst. Angst seems big back then.

I liked the dramatic irony of the action taking place with the stock market crash and Depression looming, with everyone in the film unaware.

I liked how every character gets some room to show themselves. Deanie's father is a very low key mild presence, but at the end he casually defies his wife and assist his daughter. And it turns out his judgment was right. I liked that he got his little moment late, after being so mild mannered and self-effacing the whole film.

Barbara Loden, Kazan's wife, plays a drunk floozy who nearly gets gang-raped. A wild drunken flapper. But I didn't like how they simply mention that she got hers and was hit by a car. Was it necessary to show her get punished to get the risque stuff in the film?
It's really a film about sex! SEX!! S-E-X!!!

Anyway, I think this will sit with me for a while. It really kind of pained me to see Deanie try to look and act like a flapper late in the film. Like I was one of her friends and knew that wasn't her and wasn't good for her.

Elia Kazan sure knew how to get drama on screen, and seemed especially adept at getting great performances. I think the strong scripts and dialogue helped. But he always seemed to make quality films.

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billyweeds
Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:51 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
gromit--I'm not a huge fan of Splendor in the Grass, but I like your assessment anyway. What I can't get behind is your failure to mention the stunning performance by Zohra Lampert in the final sequence, as Beatty's wife. Lampert became a big underground cult figure later. She (more than Wood or Beatty) makes that final sequence what it is IMO.
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carrobin
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:13 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC
Speaking of Kazan--somehow I ended up watching "On the Waterfront" on TCM a couple of weeks ago. I had never seen it, as it's one of those films that one hears so much about and sees clips (at least one clip) too often. I always thought of it as a macho flick about boxing and moving stuff around on docks, and had no interest in it. But I was flipping channels and happened to see the beginning, and when the guy was thrown off the roof, I was intrigued. And it was great. Why didn't anyone tell me it started with a murder?
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gromit
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 11:47 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Didn't want to spoil it for ya ...

For the final scene in Splendour, we don't know if Deanie will be able to take it, when she finds out Bud has seriously moved on. She's just been 2.5 years in the boobie hatch. Her mother thinks it's a bad idea.

And then not only does she meet Bud's wife who is pregnant, but there's already a son,making it concrete that things are way over. But there's this great moment when she's introduced to Bud Jr who is playing on the kitchen floor next to a chicken, and Bud says, "That's Bud Jr ... the one without the feathers." And the little humor breaks right through the awkwardness and strain and kind of normalizes things. Somebody (Inge?) did well to add some nice humor right there.

I remember the first time being impressed by Zohra Lampert at the end. this time I really enjoyed the whole finale.

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