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Befade |
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 3:20 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Yes, Nina Hoss is perfect. Transit is also set in the 1940’s. A man trying to leave the country and assuming another man’s identity. Things aren’t going well for him. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:04 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Agree with Betsy 100%--Parasite yes, Snowpiercer no. And, yeah, Swinton was awful in the latter. Wow, am I ever hot and cold about her. |
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gromit |
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2019 9:39 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Has anyone seen:
Jo Jo Rabbit
Marriage Story
Last Black Man in San Francisco
???
I'm interested in these. |
_________________ Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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bartist |
Posted: Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:32 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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We want to see JJR, but its route to Stixville seems to be pretty indirect.
Just saw a film that is a return to the form of 70s murder mystery, with an ensemble cast that includes Daniel Craig as a private eye who talks like Foghorn Leghorn and a nurse/companion who vomits if she doesn't tell the truth. Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, and Toni Collette play various ungrateful and avaricious offspring of a famed mystery writer (Christopher Plummer) who is found dead in his room in suspicious circumstances. Beautifully shot gloomy New England ambience, and a plot that is twisty and nonstop fun. "Knives Out" is...and this is where I am tempted to make some sort of pun on the title...but won't. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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Befade |
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:27 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Hmm.....I wonder...Knives Out is quality entertainment.
Gromit.....I’ve seen all 3.
Marriage Story is genius if you want to see up close why a couple splits and what happens when lawyers get involved. High praise to the actors.
Jo Jo Rabbit was an odd film camouflaging a very poignant message.
San Francisco was a beautifully filmed spotlighting the gentrification of a black neighborhood. Took me a while to get into it.
This time of year there’s a lot more to see. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2019 4:59 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I've seen Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit. MS is one of the best stories of divorce imaginable. My only issue was that the man and woman are both show-biz successes and it's not as easy to empathize with their problems as a result.
JJR is a fascinating story but a bit too twee and Wes Anderson for my taste.
Btw Scarlett Johannson is in both movies, and brilliant in both. |
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bartist |
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:14 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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Sorry, I have no interest in adding a streaming service because this motion picture was "released" to ten theaters in coastal cities and is now being hoarded by Netflix.
For a nation to have any kind of general culture, to have works of art that are universally accessible and can include everyone around the watercooler, there needs to be a medium that does not block access to large groups of citizens. Many middle-class families can stretch their budgets to have a broadband service, and possibly one streaming service. (real wages, adjusted for inflation, have not been this low since 1973) If that happens to be Hulu, or Sling, or HBO, then that's what they have and there is simply no way to add Netflix so they can see Marriage Story. Fully ONE HALF of Americans have no savings for retirement. 140 million Americans are poor or low-income. 80% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
60 million American subscribe to Netflix. Which means that 270 million Americans don't. Now I don't claim to have the statistical nuances here, e.g. how many people watch at a friend's house, or how many borrow a login password from someone else (most often a relative), or how exactly subscriber numbers are compiled (does it include both members of a couple, when one name is given for billing?), but it sure looks to me like a Netflix release is not truly a general release of a motion picture. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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Befade |
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2019 2:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Netflix is not my favorite streaming service......but I rent their hard discs to show to film classes I facilitate for a life long learning organization. I used to buy them. I object more to Amazon and Facebook.
I just saw a movie at a theater in California that had more impact than Marriage Story. Waves.....hard to find a theater showing this. A middle class black family with 2 teenagers. This needed to be seen on the large screen......because you felt the emotions of the characters. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:45 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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A good film - in theaters all across America - is Dark Waters. A real-life legal thriller with a formidable ensemble cast, led by Mark Ruffalo as an increasingly weary yet essentially unstoppable corporate lawyer who somehow manages to turn his senior partners from defending chemical companies to taking on Dupont, the folks who brought better living through chemistry until they started poisoning people and livestock and, well pretty much anything that needs water. Unlike Erin Brocovich, the hero of this story is almost entirely charisma-free - what Bilott the lawyer has is character, heart, and nearly insane levels of perseverance. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 7:51 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: A good film - in theaters all across America - is Dark Waters. A real-life legal thriller with a formidable ensemble cast, led by Mark Ruffalo as an increasingly weary yet essentially unstoppable corporate lawyer who somehow manages to turn his senior partners from defending chemical companies to taking on Dupont, the folks who brought better living through chemistry until they started poisoning people and livestock and, well pretty much anything that needs water. Unlike Erin Brocovich, the hero of this story is almost entirely charisma-free - what Bilott the lawyer has is character, heart, and nearly insane levels of perseverance.
One of my favorite films of 2019, with wonderful performances by Ruffalo and Bill Camp as the farmer who gets Bilott on board. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:14 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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God yes, had I written a longer review I would have heaped praise on Camp's perf, profoundly moving, heroic and tragic, not going along quietly when a toxic disaster of Biblical proportion and heft lands on his farm.
And Ruffalo seems to have deepened his understanding of stresses and strains since his own difficulties with a brain tumour and year of facial paralysis (which kept him from swinging the baseball bat in "Signs" and gave Phoenix the role instead). |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:57 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: God yes, had I written a longer review I would have heaped praise on Camp's perf, profoundly moving, heroic and tragic, not going along quietly when a toxic disaster of Biblical proportion and heft lands on his farm.
And Ruffalo seems to have deepened his understanding of stresses and strains since his own difficulties with a brain tumour and year of facial paralysis (which kept him from swinging the baseball bat in "Signs" and gave Phoenix the role instead).
I was unaware of that factoid about "Signs." Strangely enough, that's still my favorite Phoenix performance. (I"m not a huge fan of his, but he was great in that one.) Ruffalo is a guy I'd love to meet and get to know. There's something about him that just says "fine fellow."
Bill Camp's performance is my choice for supporting performance of the year. (Of course, I do not acknowledge Brad Pitt as a supporting actor. He was as much the star of "Once Upon...Hollywood" as DiCaprio.) Pitt and Camp are my picks in the male category.
Meanwhile, my female choice, until yesterday Lupita Nyong'o for "Us," is now Elisabeth Moss for "Her Smell," in which she blazes new trails in realism. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:59 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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"Her Smell" (a title which originally turned me off) is one of the year's best. The saga of a former punk rock star (played by Elisabeth Moss in what is now my favorite female performance of 2019) who freaks out in epic fashion, it's hard to watch at times but worth the effort. I was at first repelled, then moved to tears. Moss paints a completely unsympathetic character who ultimately gains your affection (or at least mine). It's a brilliantly directed (by Alex Ross Perry) movie which will not be everyone's cup of punk, but was definitely mine. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:16 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
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I've Grown Accustomed to her Smell was an early draft of the song in "My Fair Lady" that Lerner and Lowe were strongly urged to rewrite. Little known fact
-oid. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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billyweeds |
Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:51 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: I've Grown Accustomed to her Smell was an early draft of the song in "My Fair Lady" that Lerner and Lowe were strongly urged to rewrite. Little known fact
-oid.
Hahahahahahaha. |
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