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| Ghulam |
 Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| Lars von Trier's Dogville (2004) is well-intentioned and shows some glimpses of directorial proficiency, but the story is very unbalanced, showing unmitigated evil on the part of the townsfolks and limitless goodness and self-sacrifice on the part of the protagonist. By setting it in this country, it may have an intended or unintended indictment of Americans, which would be patently unfair. I liked Nicole Kidman's performance. I do not know if I can really recommend this movie to my friends or not. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8250
Location: Salt Lake City
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Mr. Brownstone wrote: I'm probably an idiot, but I watched Jackass this weekend and laughed my ass off.
This is on my list of movies to watch. I loved the show, but just have never gotten around to seeing the movie. I missed a lot of the jokes that my friends were telling a months ago camping at the lake.
I've got a free rental from BB. Guess it's time to use that to finally see the movie. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:32 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8250
Location: Salt Lake City
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With this 2 week free trial to BlockBuster, we've seen a few movies that we didn't see in the theaters.
Mystic River was one of those we watched on Sat. night.
It was a very good film and it had some good twists in it that were played out very well. Sean Penn was great in this movie as well, but I thought Tim Robbins was much better in his role of Dave. I was pretty impressed with how well everyone interacted.
It was one I was glad to have finally seen. |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:30 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| What Marc said, except I'd call Topsy Turvy a masterpiece or is that a near masterpiece or...who the fuck am I to say...I liked it a lot. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| I really enjoyed Topsy Turvy, but it did seem to wallow in melodrama a little too much. The disconnection between the surface and the reality of the characters' lives was just a little too pat and deliberately shocking. |
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| ehle64 |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:37 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
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Yet another one duped into the faux-austereness that is Mystic River.
*sigh* |
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It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:40 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| I know what your saying and I can't really counter it. Instead, I look to the film's strengths: its attention to detail, its affection forits subjects, the quality of the acting and production...for me it was the cinematic equvalent of a couple of sundowners on the verandah of a beach house, reward for a full day, sipped with a loving companion as the waves lap the tropical sands. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:41 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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| Jeremy - I understand. Me? I'd rather see one of the operettas in its entirety. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:41 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Topsy Turvy that is , not Mystic River which I thought was overblown. That'll teach me to wax lyrical. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:59 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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I had two big problems with Topsy-Turvey. In the first place, The Mikado simply wasn't the step into realism away from fantasy the movie makes it seem. Indeed, there had already been both Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance, which are as realistic as The Mikado and trade on basically the same plot, comic devices, and complications.
Also, the individual stories of the company members weren't compelling to me. |
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| chillywilly |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:18 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8250
Location: Salt Lake City
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ehle64 wrote: Yet another one duped into the faux-austereness that is Mystic River.
*sigh*
ehle, what was it that you didn't like about Mystic River?? |
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Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend" |
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| censored-03 |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:43 pm |
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Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 3058
Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
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| Tonight I'm finally watching Blade Runner the (directors cut) and Pioneers in Ingolstadt a Fassbinder made for TV movie. It's about a group of soldiers sometimes refered to as "pioneers" who come to a town to help build a bridge. The film focuses on the lives of a few of the town's women and their various relations with the "pioneers". One woman in particular takes to her role as a one night stand while the other (Berta as I remember) played by Hanna Schygulla (spelling) is a romantic and falls in love to tragic consequences. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:19 pm |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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censored-03 wrote: Tonight I'm finally watching Blade Runner the (directors cut) and Pioneers in Ingolstadt a Fassbinder made for TV movie. It's about a group of soldiers sometimes refered to as "pioneers" who come to a town to help build a bridge. The film focuses on the lives of a few of the town's women and their various relations with the "pioneers". One woman in particular takes to her role as a one night stand while the other (Berta as I remember) played by Hanna Schygulla (spelling) is a romantic and falls in love to tragic consequences.
Marc, this Fassbinder movie sounds like a MUST-HAVE for your DVD rental store! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:08 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: I had two big problems with Topsy-Turvey. In the first place, The Mikado simply wasn't the step into realism away from fantasy the movie makes it seem. Indeed, there had already been both Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance, which are as realistic as The Mikado and trade on basically the same plot, comic devices, and complications.
Also, the individual stories of the company members weren't compelling to me.
I agree with all of Joe's points. It was okay, but given that I love G&S and Mike Leigh, I was disappointed. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:00 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12895
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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I saw American Splendor last night. It was sponsored by the Other Film Club, the alternative film group on campus, but their publicity was late and they only had a half-dozen people. (Last year, they started out with Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter and nearly filled a large auditorium.)
I greatly enjoyed the film. To tell you the truth, I had never heard of Harvey Pekar or the comic American Splendor before the movie. He made frequent appearances on Letterman in the late eighties, but since I don't like Letterman, I missed them. Some of those tapes appear on the show, and they look like typical Letterman. The real Pekar is much stranger than Paul Giamatti can play him. Hope Davis plays his wife, and seems a bit too strange until you see the real wife and realize her portrayal is dead on. Giamatti does a pretty good job as Pekar, but doesn't bother to do the voice. This didn't bother me because I found it hard to penetrate Pekar's voice to understand what he was saying.
The story is how Pekar. a file clerk at a VA hospital, found a way to deal with his obsessions and anger as a comic book writer (he can't draw at all) and became a cult figure as a result. This was partly because he was observant, morose and sometimes witty, and partly because he had the fortune to be friends with R. Crumb, who already was a legend in underground comics. (The R. Crumb here is a hell of a lot more normal than the R. Crumb in the documentary Crumb.) Eventually the comic and/or the play based on it got the attention of the Letterman Show, and Pekar got to be a guest. Since he seemed to be a humorous eccentric, he became a semi-regular item on the show (but not enough, apparently, to quit his day job), until a big blowup occured. Some of his appearances are shown as clips in the movie with his wife watching them on television, but the blowup is acted.
As the movie has it, Pekar was undergoing tests for a suspicious nodule that turned out to be testicular cancer, and his wife was in Palestine doing charitable work, and Pekar was done with the nonsense and frustration.
Pekar, meanwhile, is writing his coworkers, casual acquaintances, his wives, and his rather nebbishy wife in the comics. One day, Joyce, working in a comic store in Delaware, is upset because the 8th issue of American Splendor is sold out before she has a chance to read it. She contacts Pekar, they get into conversations, and eventually she goes to Cleveland to meet him. After a weird, pretty disastrous first date, she decides they should get married right away. They're still married 20 years later despite or because of their neuroses. (This first date would fit without any trouble in a Woody Allen movie, and is reproduced in the play in a manner that only superficially resembles what happens in the movie. The play looks quite awful.) Eventually, they acquire a daughter in a rather odd manner and she winds up in the comic as well.
The film finds a creative way to give the feel of the comic. The real Pekar narrates it, appears in the film clip, and sometimes appears in the movie. In one cool bit, Giamatti and an actor playing a coworker are discussing jellybeans, then wander off the movie set, where the real Pekar and the real coworker are, and there is a donut spread, and, yes, a box full of jellybeans. Comic-book style versions of Pekar appear and interact with people on the screen, there are captions on screen, and sometimes you see the real versions of the people in his life. It's all odd, and works quite well. I suspect it's sanitized for human consumption, but it's good anyway. |
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