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| gromit |
 Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 6:59 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Wonder Wheel is fairly vacuous.
Rehashes a lot of familiar Woody Allen material -- nostalgia for Coney Island, arguing couple who really love each other, voice-over narration, etc. There's also a pair of vague poorly defined kids one of which acts as a major plot device and the other has a minor subplot which goes nowhere. The dialogue is often extended monologues and rather writerly. Kate Winslet tries hard, but doesn't have much to work with. Her character is looking for a way out of her circumstances and you get a creeping sensation Winslet is wondering what she's doing not just in the situation at hand, but in the film as well. Jim Belushi does a John Goodman impression throughout.
It's unclear why the lifeguard who romances both a mom and her step-daughter (a biographical touch from Woody) is the narrator or even an important character, but he's the closest thing to an Allen stand-in/viewpoint in the film. Actually maybe one of the best things is that the film doens't have an obvious Woody Allen stand-in, where some young actor mouths standard Woody sentiments and copies his verbal tics. I had heard that it was a great looking film lensed by Vittorio Storaro, but I found the lighting choices frequently weird and distracting.
It's not a terrible film -- and I only noted one or two script shortcuts instead of Allen's usual dozen or more -- but rather undercooked, and no reason to be concerned if one misses this. Actually that's a good verdict: entirely missable. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 8:53 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| Penelope Cruz and husband Javier Bardem play former lovers dealing with the kidnapping of a daughter in Everybody Knows the Spanish-language debut of Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 11:32 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| So what did you think of it? |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 2:08 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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It just premiered in Cannes yestiddy.
I just copied and pasted a blurb to alert folks it'll be coming.
Was in a rush. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu May 10, 2018 12:14 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12892
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Asghar Farhadi seems to enjoy doing films in languages he doesn't speak (at least I don't think he speaks Spanish). But he did The Past without speaking French and it was terrific, so I have hopes for Everybody Knows, especially with that talented cast. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 2:49 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12892
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Deadpool 2 mostly keeps up the high standards of the first. Josh Brolin's kind of generic as Cable, the time traveler out for revenge to kill Hitler--well a supervillain--before the kid becomes a supervillain, but you have Deadpool, who can regenerate from anything (though somehow when he's torn to pieces you don't get multiple Deadpools), Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her pink-haired girlfriend Yukio. and most of all Zazie Beetz* as Domino, the superheroine who's superpower is blind luck--which makes her about the most powerful of all. I have the hots for Domino.
Deadpool needs sidekicks, can only get the second-tier X-Men (i.e. Colossus, NTW an Yukio), so recruits a random team of (maybe--very maybe) superheroes he dubs X-Force which soon-well I won't spoil that, except that I only mentioned Domino for a reason. Deadpool screens very carefully, and recruits everyone, including Peter, who has no superpowers but thought the ad sounded intriguing.
Stay through the first half of the credits on this one, because they're very funny and a possible Deadpool 3 and Xforce movie look promising. And don't take any deaths too seriously.
*Apparently her real name! I'm skeptical. Though if your family name is already Beetz, why not go all the way and name your daughter Zazie? Besides, I love her and her name scores high in Scrabble. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 2:54 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12892
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The previews before this one included Melissa McCarthy's The Happytime Murders which is apparently an R-rated and close to X-rated expose of murders behind Sesame Street. This could be very funny or one of the worst movies ever made. The trailer itself is R-rated and close to X-rated and could only have been showed before Deadpool 2. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 12:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Am I the only one who found Deadpool unwatchable? Got through about ten minutes and had to bail to save my sanity. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 5:47 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12892
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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billyweeds wrote: Am I the only one who found Deadpool unwatchable? .
Quite possibly. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 7:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: billyweeds wrote: Am I the only one who found Deadpool unwatchable? .
Quite possibly.
Actually, I posed the same question on Facebook and several people agreed, so I'm not exactly in a minority of one. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 10:43 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6945
Location: Black Hills
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| A good lawyer never asks a question he doesn't know the answer to. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 11:38 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: A good lawyer never asks a question he doesn't know the answer to.
I was pretty sure I knew the answer. But I'm not a lawyer. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 3:45 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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| Did you know that billyweeds can be rearranged to form silly dweeb? |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 7:51 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Gromit anagrams to G. I. Mort.
Mine becomes Rat Bits.
My favorite is Liam Neeson, which reverses to No seen mail, and has droll anagrams like Mane Lesion. Or El Noise Man.
Alexander Hamilton has potential but I've spent all day dealing with a flood (water in basement, mud all over property), so I'm leaving that alone for now. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon May 21, 2018 2:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: Gromit anagrams to G. I. Mort.
Mine becomes Rat Bits.
My favorite is Liam Neeson, which reverses to No seen mail, and has droll anagrams like Mane Lesion. Or El Noise Man.
Alexander Hamilton has potential but I've spent all day dealing with a flood (water in basement, mud all over property), so I'm leaving that alone for now.
My favorite is Angela Lansbury, which anagrams to "Gal's a Real Bunny!" Which has about as much relevance to Lansbury's persona as "silly dweeb" has to mine. (No comments, please.)  |
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