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| Joe Vitus |
 Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 12:48 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| I've never seen any of them. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 1:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| R.I.P. Peter Yates, director of a wide variety of films including "Bullitt" and "Breaking Away." |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:31 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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carrobin wrote: R.I.P. Peter Yates, director of a wide variety of films including "Bullitt" and "Breaking Away."
And John and Mary, on which I spent four memorable all-night sessions as an extra in 1968 or 1969. I well remember how, after I'd injected myself into one too many shots, Yates politely told the cameraman, "I think we've seen enough of this gentleman." RIP, truthteller. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:42 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Again, the first True Grit sent me when I was a bowl-cut-headed tyke. Haven't seen it again since sometime in the early '90s, on cable, when my seminal ACT/UP/Radical Faerie/Highways-fueled mega-cynical/anarchistic/spiritual passage was in full gear. Don't quite remember revisiting it easily. I do recall singing that doggurned Glen Campbell song near-incessantly, to my parents' irritation, identifying strongly with Kim Darby, and being skeered by Bruce Dern's baddie. Also, there were snakes, which give me nachtmeres. Was shocked when reading the novel some months afterwards in my nook at the town library (where I snuck in the books that had not passed parental muster, The Exorcist, for example), to learn how much darker its conclusion is. Will likely see the new one this week, provided the unexpectedly heavy workload lightens. Ditto The Fighter.
Meanwhile, am trying to figure out how to do justice to Hereafter and Another Year. Am not sure I can. Both are extremely accomplished, innately specialized films, of particular quality and heft, that merit the utmost thoughtful and detailed commentary. Will just say my pre-Blancheifications are newly askew, and Lesley Manville in Year was not only up to reports but transcended them. Good on East Clintwood and Like Meigh. |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:32 am; edited 2 times in total
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:54 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I agree with every word of inla's post and would add encomia to Hereafter's Cecile De France, since reviews etc. were very short on sufficient praise for the mademoiselle. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: The Coen brothers True Grit is not only the biggest moneymaker of their career, it's own its way to being one of the biggest boxoffice smashes of 2010.
Anything that enhances the Coens is worthwhile. They are two national treasures, even though True Grit is not one of my top Coens. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:05 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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billy: I thought Mlle. de France was lovely, both in person and performance. Can certainly see what the Belgians see in her, and I'm a poofter, but still.
Seriously, don't want to just throw out observations -- they're both major additions to the canons of their respective directors --- make that auteurs -- and as such deserve nothing less than full-on analysis. Not for everybody, certainly, but Hereafter made me think more than a few deep thoughts while it was transpiring and for days hence -- not to mention the imagination it entailed -- and Another Year, much the same, though the deep thoughts were rather more personal and specific in scope and detail. Art-house films in the best sense of that often misused term. Highly recommended, provided that, in each, the viewer is prepared to just go with the distinctive ride -- evocative, non-linear existential allegory in one case, verite-slanted, socio-domestic behavioral parable in the other -- that the filmmakers want to take them on. |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:44 am; edited 2 times in total
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:25 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| A couple of very good, very intelligent friends just saw Another Year and were somewhat downbeat about the movie (though not the acting, which they adored). They described the movie as "the dramatic version of Seinfeld--e.g., about nothing--which on the face of it is true, but is largely why I liked it. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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inlareviewer wrote: ...and I'm a poofter, but still.
Thought you were a semi-poofter--read: bi--but whatever. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:44 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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billy: Nope. A perfect Kinsey six, just like Michael Tolliver in Tales of the City, except I do not enter underwear contests, and hopefully would have seen through Mary Ann's incipient yuppiedom sooner.
Ah, irony, after saying I don't want to just throw out observations, have to say that the Seinfeld reference to Another Year is at best nominally applicable; it seemed light years beyond that. Like Meigh may never before have devised so appropriate and workable a canvas for his particular brand of exhaustive pre-filming preparation --- Stanislavski meets Dogme -- as Robert Altman's ghost fumes in admiring envy. Not just Ms. Manville, but the entire cast -- Jim Broadbent! Oh. Mah. Gah. -- operates in selfless attunement to same. I'd have to refer back to The Best of Youth (though that two-part, multi-hour marathon is almost beyond compare) to find a slice-of-life picture that really felt as though it were sliced from actual lives without robbing me of mine.
Oh, heck. Now I want to see it again. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:01 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I totally agree that Another Year leaves Jerry and Co. in the dust, but the fact that AY is not plot-heavy seems obvious. The Leigh is officially my favorite movie of the year, just so you know where I stand. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:29 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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willybeeds: That it is your fave was clear from your original post-seeing-it post. It's certainly near the front of my pack -- at present, far more packed than it was as the fall ensued, how'd that happen? A film about a lot more than it seems on the verisimilitude-ridden surface, not least British post-WWII class consciousness, and how to be perfectly happy (as Mr. Broadbent and the wonderful Ruth Sheen's Tom and Gerri are) while inadvertently affecting less-happy family and friends (Ms. Manville haunts me still, am thinking her more Supphose Actress than Prima Donna, but it's a close call.).
Okay, now I'm talking about it. Gotta see it again; maybe I'll do a formal review for the Reevyoo section.
As for Hereafter, well, if I tried to throw out random thoughts, I think my head would liquefact. But, at the risk of cranial meltdown, can say that to me Mr. Damon's low-key turn seemed exactly right, Mlle. de France was fascinating in the extreme, the zigzags that other observers have nattered away over kept me intrigued, absolutely adored those twin boys, am thinking Mr. Morgan's screenplay a Blanche original lock, and I may never go anywhere near tsunami territory again (talk about your overwhelming opening sequences). Remarkably imaginative, and I think the reason it turned a lotta peeps off is because it's less interested in answers than in questions. Which, I have to say, was sort of my favorite thing about it. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:14 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Hereafter is by far my favorite Clint Eastwood movie since his directing debut Play Misty for Me (in which Jessica Walter's Evelyn prefigured Glenn Close's Alex in Fatal Attraction and topped it IMO).
I am a long-time Eastwood detractor, however, so my opinion probably doesn't count too much. Liked Mystic River but was meh about Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby and positively detested Gran Torino, Absolute Power, and True Crime. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:29 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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| Strangely, I haven’t seen True Crime, but would agree that Aboslute Power was a poor film, partially undone by Eastwood’s mid-period vanity. Like Harrison Ford, he took far too long to accept that he was too old to be credible in many of the roles he was playing. I found him much more watchable after he become irredeemably grizzled. Many took exception to certain racial elements in Gran Torino; as with Avatar, salvation was at the hands of an American saviour. Personally, I didn’t find this that troubling; sometimes people seem an almost Pavlovian reaction to these things. And I am not alone in thinking that Unforgiven is a great film deserving of its Oscar, but I always appreciate that Billy is not overly swayed by the crowd in his appreciation of films. Looking forward to Hereafter. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:18 am |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Top-tier Red Carpet patterns formalize with the DGA nominees:
Aronofsky, Fincher, Hooper, Nolan and Russell
Steve Pond/The Wrap: Top DGA Nominees
and the American Society of Cinematographers:
Black Swan, Inception, The Social Network, The King's Speech and True Grit
Steve Pond/The Wrap: Cinematographers Nominate 'Social Network,''King's Speech,''True Grit'
Well, well, well. It's starting to get innurestin'. Kewl. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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