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| marantzo |
 Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:29 pm |
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| I don't understand the "Wait, they are suddenly Jewish" thing. You know right from the first that the young man and his grandfather, of course, is/was Jewish. |
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| grace |
| Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:59 pm |
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Joined: 11 Nov 2005
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| I'd have to check the book - and that won't be happening, I think I donated it - but I believe that in the book, the grandfather (and therefore, grandson) was not Jewish. If that's not the case ..... I dunno. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 9:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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marantzo wrote: I don't understand the "Wait, they are suddenly Jewish" thing. You know right from the first that the young man and his grandfather, of course, is/was Jewish.
In the book, by the way, they weren't Jewish. The book's version of Grandfather's story is more powerful and offers a better explanation for Grandfather's suicide - which did not work for me at all in the movie.
I see you may have misunderstood what I was saying. Alex's family suddenly became Jewish after learning that the Grandfather was Jewish. |
Last edited by whiskeypriest on Fri Dec 09, 2011 9:41 am; edited 1 time in total
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 9:39 am |
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marantzo wrote: whiskeypriest wrote: marantzo wrote: Transferred from the Best Films site:
Completely overlooked film: Everything Is Illuminated. A very good movie from 2005. Directed by Liev Screiber, main actors Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz, both excellent as are most of the other players.
It's about a young man (Wood) travelling to the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during WWII (holocaust). Hutz is his chauffeur and guide. Wood's character is proper, always wearing a suit and tie, and quietly serious. Hutz's character is the opposite and comical unintentionally and intentionally. The journey is a pleasure to watch. Very funny at times, mysterious at times and powerfully moving at times.
It seems to have come and gone without much notice. Has anyone on here seen it? I think I wrote a review of it back when it was current. Read the book, it is miles and miles better than the movie, which I slightly disliked for its ending. Perhaps in part because it was a huge change from the book, but also because I didn't feel it worked on its own level. Particularaly the "Wait, they are suddenly Jewish?" bit.
So in the book the guy who looks for the woman who saved his grandfather isn't Jewish?
Or, Jonfen. Alex, or more particularly, Alex's translating his story into English with what seems to be a Roget's thesaurus by his side, is the chief joy of the book. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:48 am |
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Whiskey, OK, now I get it. I thought you were talking about Jonfen. I did some research and then understood what you were saying. I'd only seen the movie once and had completely forgotten that Alex had found out that his grandfather is Jewish. When I saw the last part of the movie on TV here, it was in Spanish so I missed the 'he's Jewish' thing and I didn't see the part where they show the executions. I was in bed and it was the middle of the night and I was dozing on and off. And I didn't know who the grave was supposed to contain, not remembering the names. If they had subtitles I would have figured it out. I think if I had read the book that I wouldn't have cared much for the being Jewish revelation very much either, but I don't think it would have bothered me very much.
The music in the movie was another thing I really liked about it. |
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| grace |
| Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 4:28 pm |
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whiskeypriest wrote: They weren't aware they were Jewish until they heard Grandfather's story.
My mom went from 100% Dutch to 100% English all of a sudden (when my dad took up genealogy in his retirement). I'm not saying stuff like that happens all the time, but it can happen. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:03 am |
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grace wrote: whiskeypriest wrote: They weren't aware they were Jewish until they heard Grandfather's story.
My mom went from 100% Dutch to 100% English all of a sudden (when my dad took up genealogy in his retirement). I'm not saying stuff like that happens all the time, but it can happen. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:58 pm |
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| Unless I am mistaken, I think that men have to have their head covered during a funeral in a Jewish cemetary. Of course they could have worn hats instead of yarmulkes. Women don't have to have their heads covered, including synagogues. I think it's because their hair is cover enough. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 4:54 pm |
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| I did a search and apparently I didn't mention The Culpepper Cattle Company on the Overlooked Films site, so The Culpepper Cattle Company is definitely an overlooked movie. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2015 8:53 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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For all its quirks, not to mention a certain small-screen-origins mentality, have been besotted by A Big Hand for The Little Lady since tot-dom. Producer-director Fielder Cook's television experience perhaps shows more than it ought, but it does at least let him dig into the reactions and interplay of the peerless cast, which takes Sidney Carroll's screenplay adaptation of his teleplay A Big Deal in Laredo and doesn't so much open it out as expand its premise-bound reach. The narrative involves an annual high-stakes poker game in, you guessed it, Laredo, where the five most affluent men in the territory each leave pointedly satirical situations, from a life-and-death trial to a horrible daughter's wedding, to get to their destination. Enter two homesteaders and their son, Father a compulsive gambler with a heart condition, Mother a prim homebody with her eye on their life savings buying a farm....and to say more would ruin the fun, right up to the delicious twist of an epilogue, which upends everything we thought was afoot with more after-the-fact logic than many an outcome.
Deathless exchange:
Mary Meredith: Gentleman all. All such gallant gentlemen.
Henry Drummond: Yeah, we're gallant on Sunday. This is Friday, and we're playing poker. Now, you wanna play with us, you ante up $500.
Ultimately, the real joy of this film lies in the actors. Henry Fonda as the card-addicted husband and Joanne Woodward as his iron-spined wife are perfectly attuned and, given where each character ends up, brilliantly layered, and the veteran character actors -- Kevin McCarthy, Charles Bickford, Jason Robards, Robert Middleton and John Qualen as the longtime aces-and-deuces competitors, Paul Ford as the town banker, and Burgess Meredith as Laredo's alkie doctor -- are a pleasure in and of themselves. Cinematically, it's hardly a classic, yet it totally works on its own terms, and, again, the final reversal remains a tickling treat.
"Rosie, you are my posie/You are my heart's bouquet/Come out here in the moonlight/There's something sweet, love/I want to say/Your honey boy is waitin'/Those ruby lips to greet/Don't be so aggravatin'/My blushin' Rosie/My posie sweet." |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:09 am; edited 2 times in total
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2015 7:49 am |
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Location: New York City
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Wow. Just wow. I've often thought I was the only creature on God's green earth who loved A Big Hand for the Little Lady as much as I do. It's genuinely an all-time favorite and one of the most egregiously overlooked films ever. The performances are so solid I'm tempted to call them "great," but the movie is much too concentrated on being pure entertainment to allow for any such portentous evaluation. Woodward in particular is astonishing, but Fonda and Meredith almost as much--and Robards, Ford, Kevin McCarthy, and everyone else. And the ending is a true O. Henry delight.
And, oh, yes, I sing "Rosie" a lot. A whole lot. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:27 am |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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willybeeds, me too, usually while cooking. Yes, an all-time-favorite, ever since one was a wee lad and saw it on NBC's "Friday Night at the Movies." The Widow Newman is certainly astonishing -- it's difficult to describe her subtleties and grace notes without giving the game away -- and Jane and Peter's Dad is wonderfully dualistic. And that roster of familiar faces -- including Mae Clarke, Ned Glass and certainly Virginia Gregg as Robards' impossible wife -- could hardly be more satisfying. David Raksin's score is pretty nifty, too, and Lee Garmes' 'tography goes from open-prairie sunshine to cramped back room darkness and back without a seam. Egregiously overlooked, indeed, one of those fillums that achieves exactly what it sets out to. Love it.
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