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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 7:52 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| It almost goes without saying--but I forgot to say it and probably should--that after Guinness establishes that Jock Sinclair is larger than life, he manages to create a lifesize portrait many times over before the end of the movie. Jock Sinclair is Guinness's most layered character. The only reason this film didn't become Guinness's trademark IMO is because it followed so closely the excellent but less textured performance in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" just a year or so earlier. "Tunes" is more exciting and memorable than "Kwai" in any case, but never more so than in the one-of-a-kind Guinness performance. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 8:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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I just put Tunes of Glory @ the top of both my rental queues. I heart Alec Guiness and Criterion, even. WooHoo!
thanks, billyweeds  |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 8:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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24 Hour Party People (2002) is an enjoyable skitter through the first wave of punk rock as seen through the eyes of Tony Wilson, a record producer/nightclub owner/television presenter working in Manchester, England. This is a quasi biopic, a cross between This Is Spinal Tap and From a Whisper to a Scream (documentary on the evolution of Irish rock music), and Wilson, appealingly played by Steve Coogan, is constantly breaking the fourth wall to tell us that the film is peppered with real people from the era, many of whom question the veracity of what he is saying.
I would almost say this movie is a cliche of the rock music scene, but it just didn't feel like a cliche at all. Although its tongue is in its cheek quite often, I had a real sense of what it might be like to be Tony Wilson (not an entirely affectionate portrayal, by the way). There is a real feeling of the anarchy of punk music and the way it held sway over a generation of disaffected youth. No matter how cool Tony tries to be, he's really a scrubber who lucked into his Cambridge education and is trying to look "real" without having a clue about what that means.
This music isn't my favorite, so I can't say I enjoyed the musical interludes very much. But that's my problem, not the movie's. I was of age at the beginning of punk, so there is a small nostalgia factor for me. It seemed a little long, but I was always engaged with the film. I recommend it. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 8:45 am |
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billy, dead on about Tunes of Glory. I saw it only one time, on late night TV (must have been in the late '60's). I figured I'd watch it to see how it was and if I should watch for it in the future. I was rivetted and stayed up for the entire movie. I seem to remeber it as being pretty long. Great movie, great performances and you're right about Guiness (sp?).
I have to watch it again.
And I love the bagpipes. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 11:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8250
Location: Salt Lake City
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Jynx,
Actually, i can't agree with you on Untouchables Although, Connery did have a better accent in other movies like The Rock.
brownstone,
Feild of Dreams was a great movie, but I liked James Earl Jones better then Coster. I though his role in that movie was sooo much better. |
_________________
Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 11:50 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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Hairspray is a fun movie that takes us back to 1963 Baltimore, a faux innocent locale torn apart by racial prejudice and segregation. Ricki Lake plays teenager Tracy Turnblad. Tracy is all things good--tolerant, popular, comfortable with her fat body, confident--and quickly becomes the star of an American Bandstand like show, wins the most handsome boy on the show from a pushy blonde rival, and leads the cause of integrating the show.
The film is an homage to 60s teen flicks and sends up a lot of the fads of the time, from dance-craze songs, to teased hairstyles, to mother-daughter outfits (my mother and I had one). The actors are having fun, and Divine is divine as Tracy's mother and as the racist owner of the Baltimore TV station that airs "The Corny Collins Show" on which Tracy dances.
The biggest contribution this movie makes to the genre it both sends up and is a part of is that it doesn't ignore the social conditions of the time and pretend that everything is rosy and, above all, lily white. I'd have to say I prefer Bye, Bye Birdie for a strong, more tuneful satire of the TV dance show, but this is a pleasant enough film. |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 12:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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Billy--
Thanks for posting about Tunes of Glory. I will definitely have to look for it. Syd has been getting Guiness's Ealing comedies on DVD, and I have been borrowing them. He's such a good actor. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 1:28 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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I watched Anything Else with Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs. I'm afraid those are two actors I wouldn't miss if I never saw them again. I'm always interested in Stockard Channing...........Here's to older ladies with life left in them!
Woody must have intended to spotlight all the bridges and underpasses in Central Park.........and that was my reason for the viewing.........having just biked through the park....that was a kick.
Woody may have mellowed and accepted his oldmanhood. No young chicks for him here.........just an old red Porsche convertible. Loved the part where he hops out of it and breaks the car windows of the thugs who took his parking spot. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 4:51 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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Two Familyn House was something that sounded light and interesting as I was browsing the library shelves today. It won the Audience Award at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, so I figured I wouldn't be taking too much of a risk in renting it (it was free, after all). After I finished watching it, the glowing reviews of it by Ebert and I think some forumites came back to me. In between, I had the best filmic experience in weeks. This film is a gem in every way.
The film takes place on Staten Island. Buddy, an Italian-American WWII vet, returns home after the warto do want GIs did back then--get married and carve a piece of the American Dream for themselves. He wanted to audition for Arthur Godfrey after the soon-to-be TV host heard him sing to troops during the war and invited Buddy to try out when he came home. Buddy's wife, Estelle, considered the audition a pipe dream.By 1956, the year the film takes place, he has been married for nearly 11 years, works in a factory, and is still living at his in-law's house. His dream of making something of himself has not died, however. After several losing business ventures, he buys a two-flat (the two-family house of the title) and decides to convert the first floor into a tavern.
First, he has to evict the tenant who are living on the second floor, an Irish couple. The husband is middle-aged, drunken, and abusive to his young, pregnant wife. The day his wife gives birth is also the day he walks out of her life forever, and prejudices of the Italian-American community start to crowd in on the young woman, Mary, and eventually, Buddy.
This film is tightly paced, with well-drawn characters of real complexity and truth. The bald-faced prejudices of the time are on full display. It's a bit shocking to modern sensibilities, but we also see that Buddy has his problems with his milieu as well that extend beyond his wife's play-it-safe lack of confidence in him and his friends' well-intentioned attempts to support his dreams without providing him with an example of courage he can truly lean on. Mary does that, and they become allies in attempting to make their own lives apart from the expectations of their social groups and the constricting 50s. It's instructive that rebellions could occur at a time when conformity was the norm, and that those rebellions would be in simple acts of the upwardly mobile working class as well as the more "usual suspect" of 50s rebellion.
I very highly recommend this touching, wonderfully written, acted, and directed indie film. |
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| Nancy |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 5:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
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Syd gave me a DVD of Lagaan for my last birthday. It is rather long, but I enjoyed it. Particularly liked the scene where the drought-stricken villagers see a raincloud overhead and sing and dance for joy so enthusiastically that they frighten the cloud away.
Ghulam wrote: "Lagaan" (2001) from India, in Hindi with English subtitles, is one of the better Bollywood movies, about a fictional cricket match in the 19th century between British colonial officers and Indian villagers. The song and dance routines are more subdued than is usual for Indian movies and are therefor more dignified. At 224 minutes, it may be a bit too long for Western audiences. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 9:15 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Marilyn,
When Hairspray opened, it played in the same theater where I was in the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We went the day it opened, and we kept going back. And, of course, we couldn't resist: we started shouting lines and getting up to do the Madison. We did the Bird in our seats. A really fun movie. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 11:53 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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It has been probably 10 years since I have revisited Merchant-Ivory's A Room With a View. There is a simply stellar new DVD release out, completely remastered, that looks scrumptious. Everything that I loved about the movie when it came out and later re-watched a dozen times (it was one of the first VHS films I owned) holds up. I love the pairing of E.M. Forster and Merchant-Ivory, a few weeks ago it was my revisit to Maurice and now this. Splendid.
There is a whole other DVD in the set. It includes a documentary about Forster that I'm anxious to see. Other shorts on the making of the film and whatnot. There is also a commentary track on Disc 1, if anyone leans towards those.
Poor, Charlotte. . .  |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 12:20 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Just viewed "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Somehow I had gotten the overwhelming impression that it was masturbatory to the max and had nothing to say to me. Instead, it was a lot of fun. It certainly is lightweight and not in a class with "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" in the Tarantino pantheon, but the set pieces are choreographed like great dance routines and are played for entertainment value, which they deliver with gusto. Uma Thurman is vivid and gutsy in the leading role and I also enjoyed Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu as sort of "guest combatants" in what plays like a variety show of violent encounters. Eager to see "Vol. 2." |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 12:27 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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Ehle
Thank you for reminding me of A Room with a View as I loved it so very much.
Question - is Netflix the way to go? I am getting ramped up to join the discussion and the video stores where I am are rather well, shall we just say A Room.. is not among the choices.
Kate |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 12:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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Kate wrote: Ehle
Question - is Netflix the way to go? I am getting ramped up to join the discussion and the video stores where I am are rather well, shall we just say A Room.. is not among the choice
Netflix has not failed me yet and I've been a member going on 3 years now. I see that you're in Seattle, so they probably have a hub somewhere near you. Basically, I get the movie they mail me within 2 days and so, if you watch the film right away, you get about a 4-5 day turnaround time. Not bad for a mail service. Plus, their selection is very good. |
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