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gromit
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 3:10 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I don't get the praise for Robbie. Her scenes are fairly short and she doesn't have much to do. I liked her strutting into the party. She was fine enough, but I've heard her praised highly for the role.

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gromit
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 3:12 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Ha, you think blogspot isn't blocked. Blogs are the first thing China blocked, nearly 20 years ago, when they were still relevant.

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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:46 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
bartist wrote:
I still don't get into people set aflame or beaten to pulps, no matter how bad they're presented to be.


Wimp. Smile Smile Smile
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billyweeds
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:49 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
gromit wrote:
I don't get the praise for Robbie. Her scenes are fairly short and she doesn't have much to do. I liked her strutting into the party. She was fine enough, but I've heard her praised highly for the role.


Her most important scene IMO was the one where she picks up the random hitchhiker and treats her with love and affection. The role is virtually dialogue-less, but Robbie is a wonderful, emotionally touching presence. This plus her likewise largely silent role in "Bombshell" (which includes a magnificent scene with John Lithgow) makes her my first choice for supporting actress of the year.
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bartist
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:22 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Syd wrote:
I liked the new version of Little Women, which has a very good cast including Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Emma Watson as Meg, Laura Dern as Marmee, and Louis Garrel as Professor Bhaer. Timothée Chalamet is Laurie and I had a feeling that he was too young for any of the Marsh sisters, including Amy. The story's told non-linearly, which can get confusing, but does help develop the relationship between Amy and Jo and their final loves. Meg's love isn't as well developed and kind of disappears. (He was handled better in the 1994 Winona Ryder version.) I've seen the 1933 version with Katharine Hepburn and the 1994 version, and like all three.


Had seen none of the previous or read Alcott's two books but liked this one. As often the case, I had the feeling it would require a five hour movie to really cover the books and flesh out the male characters a bit more. I would be interested to read the books to see if the father (mostly absent in the film) was really based on Bronson Alcott, an authentic American weirdo. I. e. massively ahead of his time in many respects.

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bartist
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:23 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
billyweeds wrote:
bartist wrote:
I still don't get into people set aflame or beaten to pulps, no matter how bad they're presented to be.


Wimp. Smile Smile Smile


Haha! Yep.

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gromit
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:15 am Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I hadn't thought of the connection, but in Under the Silver Lake there are two moments of violence that mirror Once Upon a Time. In one latish scene the slacker-anti-hero pulls a musician off the toilet and proceeds to punch him in the face a few times when he's helpless (on the tiled floor with pants around the ankles. Akin to the Spahn Ranch beat down, but a bit less violent. And then there a late (dumb) scene where the main slacker meets this powerful songwriter/pop culture guru, who shoots at him and then our slacker proceeds to bash in the old guy's face repeatedly with Kurt Cobain's guitar, until his visage has become an unrecognizable pulp. A la the home invasion in Once Upon a Time. Weird.

I hadn't thought how Silver Lake reflected Tarantino, but there is a lot of concern about pop culture ephemera, a meandering story that flares out into ultra-violence. And both films are an homage to film and LA. Silver Lake is very much a C-level Tarantino pastiche film. But there's a good deal of similarity in the approach and concern. And Silver Lake did have a few moments with impressive or flashy camera movement, and lots of focus on the music/soundtrack.

If I hadn't watched them B2B I likely wouldn't have noticed, but now I'm going to explore the coincidence and discover the secret meaning of pop culture and hence the world (that's the hokey level that Silver Lake is pitched at...).

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 7:38 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
gromit--Wow. You have made me absolutely lust to see "Under the Silver Lake," which I was completely unaware of.

In the meantime...

...and this is for EVERYBODY including gromit...

I've seldom liked Clint Eastwood-directed films. Even the Oscar-winning ones ("Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby") leave me cold. The only ones I've liked are his first directorial stab (pun intended) 1971's "Play Misty for Me," which predated "Fatal Attraction" and for which Eastwood would have a reasonable plagiarism case, and the critically-ripped Matt Damon starrer "Hereafter." But now he's come up with a really great film which has unfortunately flopped at the box office and thus will probably be denied the honors it deserves. "Richard Jewell" is suddenly my favorite Clint Eastwood movie.

Telling the true story of the security guard who was targeted as the perpetrator of a bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the movie features a superb title-role performance by virtually-unknown Paul Walter Hauser and a sensational supporting turn by Sam Rockwell as his lawyer, with stalwart jobs by Kathy Bates as Jewell's mother and Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde as the villains (the FBI and the press, respectively, which leads to the duh-worthy conclusion that Eastwood is a 45 supporter).

But political opinion aside (and certainly Clint's colloguy with a chair at the 2012 Republican convention means he wouldn't ever be my best buddy), Eastwood has made a wonderful movie. I have to revise my "best" lists for 2019 to accommodate the film, Hauser, and Rockwell. And, to my chagrin, Eastwood. Hey, I even love Jon Voight in "Ray Donovan," so sue me.
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Syd
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:35 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12887 Location: Norman, Oklahoma
I'm not sure Eastwood is a 45 supporter. The politics is consistent with some of his earlier films such as "Sully" and "Changeling." Certainly during the campaign he referred to Clinton and Trump as Abbott and Costello. I suspect he voted for Gary Johnson.

There's been some protest about Wilde's reporter using seduction as a tool, but she's also one of the people responsible for making Jewell's life a hell for several months. My guess is the FBI leaker thought Jewell was involved in the bombing and didn't like him being lionized as a hero, which of course Jewell was.

I've always been fond of "Bronco Billy," and I did really like "Million Dollar Baby" although I realized Hilary Swank had the wrong build to be a female boxer. (Her neck is too long and vulnerable.) Michelle Rodriguez in "Girlfight" had the perfect build and I never, ever want to make her mad.

Eastwood's segment of "The Blues" was quite good. His was on piano blues.

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bartist
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 10:45 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
All those films pale into insignificance next to Gran Toronto.

My auto-correct is acting up again, but that's too good to fix. And yes, I'm joking about GT.

I recall liking some of his early efforts like Jersey Whales, Play Misty, and Escape from. M$B was pretty good, and I hadn't really considered the elongated cervical vertebrae of Ms Swank but that's a fair point.

Like many people who are fortunate enough to have truckloads of money dropped in their laps, Clint is a Libertarian. (ironic snarky emoji goes here)

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gromit
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:13 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I haven't liked a Clint film in a long while and have for some time stopped watching them. But I do plan to see Richard Jewell.

Under the Silver Lake is disappointing imo. What it wants to be is far from what it is. But the resemblances / parallels to Once Upon A Time ... are striking.

I thought of a new similarity today. In Tarantino's flick, the Manson Family functions as a background menace; while Silver Lake has a Dog Killer on the loose (though with no payoff). But there's a menace and fear from the opening frame to near the end due to the Dog Killer.

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knox
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1245 Location: St. Louis
For those of you who are (a) men, and (b) may have had trouble finding a female chaperone to accompany you...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dear-men-who-are-afraid-to-see-little-women-you-can-do-this/2019/12/31/9bab49b2-2b46-11ea-bcb3-ac6482c4a92f_story.html

I don't see why Jo couldn't head-butt someone, and then this would all be so much easier.
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gromit
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:01 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Danny Boyle's Yesterday premises that the Beatles never existed, or have been entirely forgotten or somesuch. Except one Indian fellow remembers them and their songs, and as an aspiring musician passes the Beatles works which he can remember off on his own. There are a few amusing scenes where he struggles to recall the lyrics to various Beatles songs. And once some folks strongly encourage him to change the title of a famous Beatles tune (their version is kinda lame).

But it's mostly a lighthearted, gentle film, with some nice simple versions of Beatles songs, and a romantic comedy/dram involving his once-loyal girlfriend/manager. There's no explanation for why the Beatles and Coca-Cola and a few other things are missing in this alternate reality which is otherwise identical.

It's mostly just a sweet nostalgic trip, with the primary joke/irony that it's nostalgia for the film's audience but the Beatles songs are all new to the film's public. Lily James adds some nice charm (and reminded me a fair amount of a British lass I dated for a time). It doesn't have aspirations to be more than light and pleasing. In perhaps a reflection of the film's theme, I didn't know that Ed Sheeran was a real person, though the way he was presented and treated in the film made me suspect he probably was a genuine musician. But I wasn't sure until the credits.

There's one late scene which is somewhat reminiscent of Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood:

SPOILER

Our fake Beatles songwriter seeks out the real John Lennon a 78 year old who is content and wise and was never famous so never shot. It's a nice scene.

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bartist
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 12:44 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I keep meaning to see that. Thanks for reminder. Your spoiler, even with not reading it, seems pretty obvious. But not really a spoiler - just a logical consequence of the plot as you've described it. You had me at Lily James, anyway. With her charm, you can have a plot that's sillier than a flask of nitrous.

LMAO, Knox. Yes, we all need other men who can openly discuss how Beth's character wasn't sufficiently developed. I like the term "Little Women Men."

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gromit
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 5:02 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Can't express how much I disliked Uncut Gems.
It's an ugly looking film, all jangly and over-edited. Annoying, dumb characters. Terrible music. Clunky plot mechanics. The only thing I guess i sort of liked is the main character is a Knick fan, but since he's a horrible jerk that's kind of unpleasant too.

One issue I had, how much did Howie owe Arnold? Either that was never made clear or I missed it. Would have been useful information to assess how violent they might be, how serious this all was, and how absurd Howie's behavior was.

I should add that it's very much not my kind of film, both in content and style. I didn't like almost every choice the filmmakers and actors made. I hated the opening and the close, as well as all the middle stuff. I could have stopped watching the film at any point and felt no regrets.

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