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| Marc |
 Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 5:39 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| Ben Wheatley's Kill List is an absolute mindfucker of a horror film. But you'd never know it until it gets there. What starts as a thriller about hit men turns into something so unexpectedly bizarre your brain will experience whiplash as you get sucked into a genuinely terrifying creepfest. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit--Interesting how I can agree with your overall rating of The Descendants in the Alexander Payne roster and yet think you've undersold the movie. You (correctly) answer all of your objections, sometimes with rare insight, and yet you still downplay the film, which I found truly excellent if lacking that Sideways je ne sais quoi.
I like the way the admittedly clunky voice-over ends when Clooney finds out his wife is going to die. It's as if his self-important omniscience goes out the window when he realizes he can't control everything.
As for the music, I thought it had many levels, not just that "buoyance" you saw. It reminded me of the zither music in The Third Man, and I can find no higher praise than that. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Marc--I knew there was something that was drawing me to Kill List. Now I have to check it out. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:18 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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billyweeds wrote:
I like the way the admittedly clunky voice-over ends when Clooney finds out his wife is going to die. It's as if his self-important omniscience goes out the window when he realizes he can't control everything.
That's an interesting read.
The VO didn't bother me, but it also didn't set me into the mood or story of the film that well. It took me a while to get into the film and believe this was real.
Quote: As for the music, I thought it had many levels, not just that "buoyance" you saw. It reminded me of the zither music in The Third Man, and I can find no higher praise than that.
Wow.
Did we have different reactions.
The music (and at times the Clooney) distracted me and took me out of the film a bit.
It might be the kind of film that plays better on second viewing. But it seemed to be rather average material handled fairly well. I sometimes react negatively to films about rich white people's problems.
I also didn't really believe that people talk to coma patients that much or particularly in that way (at least three express anger towards a brain dead patient). I'm reminded of Yi Yi, where talking to unresponsive grandma's forms the core of the film.
For the record, I thought Yi Yi was overlong and fairly boring. But with a hospitalized/coma-ed loved one, one parent having an affair, some business trips, and a family simultaneously coming together and falling apart, The Descendants seems to have borrowed a lot of the framework of Yi Yi. Now that I think about it, there is even a little kid taking odd photos, though that is a brief episode in Los Descendientes. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 8:32 am |
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You're welcome, Marc.
Now for a movie I have seen. I may have even commented on it before. The Skin I Live In. Marta and I saw this latest Almodovar flick last month. It was in Spanish of course with no subtitles, even though an English Canadian film buff like me was in the audience.
The Spanish wasn't a big problem for me. The movie though was a bit of a problem, even though Almodovar was as brilliant in the filming, acting, dialogue and storyline. For me it was just a bit too creepy. Maybe more than a bit. The film goes cleverly back and forth in time as the plot fills out. The characters are sharply portrayed, and mostly scarred in one way or another. Antonio Banderas carries the film as a brilliant plastic surgeon whom tragedy has sent him on a grotesque path.
Almodovar is Marta Luz's favourite director and Banderas is the actor whom she finds loves the most. She loved the movie. I guess I am more squeamish than her. I'm getting soft in my old age.
The first I heard of this film was when my friend in Israel gave me a call last October and asked if I had seen the latest Almodovar movie. I thought he meant Broken Embraces but he was referring to The Skin I Live In which had opened there but didn't open in this side of the Atlantic till last month. He was fascinated by the movie, but he's a shrink so that figures. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 8:37 am |
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| I should say that it is a very good movie and should definitely be seen (I'm glad I saw it). There are even some funny things in it. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 11:08 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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My son saw TSILI and just loathed it. We don't always see eye to eye on films, so I'm waiting for the DVD to turn up.
Saw "A Separation" last night - excellent in every way that a familial/legal drama can be excellent. The dialog, action, and deftly handled handheld camera serve to maintain a momentum, with pacing so perfect that I simply walked into the film and lived in Iran for two hours, spellbound. Jesus F. Christ what an amazing film. I don't know if the morning-after glow will wear off, but right now I have to call it the best film of 2011.
When great storytelling is applied to the big questions -- what is the truth, how do we judge others, how free can people be under the strictures of religion and class and cultural rules, how can men and women learn to understand each other, how do we pass moral values on to children -- and makes them personal and vibrantly real, the result is something that stays with you forever. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: I don't know if the morning-after glow will wear off, but right now I have to call it the best film of 2011.
When great storytelling is applied to the big questions -- what is the truth, how do we judge others, how free can people be under the strictures of religion and class and cultural rules, how can men and women learn to understand each other, how do we pass moral values on to children -- and makes them personal and vibrantly real, the result is something that stays with you forever.
I saw A Separation about a month ago and immediately elevated it into my top 20 of all time. A month later, the glow remains, and so does its placement in my pantheon. I suspect that when I resee it--asap--it will stay there or even get higher on my list. Seldom in my lifetime have I seen so perfect a movie. Best of 2011 it certainly is, and one of the best of the 2000s. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 11:35 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The Lorax is okay but message heavy. The Seuss story was about a boy from a polluted city who visits the Once-ler, who destroyed the forest because the tufts of the trees could be used to make a fad item. In the movie, the kid's story is expanded to include a girl friend who he has a crush on, and a villain/dictator/thug who has made a fortune selling bottled air and doesn't like trees because they cut into his business.
The boy and girl are named Ted and Audrey, and you can guess why. Zac Efron and Taylor Swift voice them; Danny de Vito is the Lorax (the rather ineffectual guardian of the forest), Ed Helms is the Once-ler, and Betty White is Ted's grandmother, who actually remembers trees. All are fine. Swift is actually more than fine; I really liked Audrey, both the animation and the voice, and totally understood why Ted would have it bad for her. And she is, of course, a foot taller than him.
There's no reason really to see it in 3-D. The effects are mostly of the throw-things-out-of-the-screen-variety, and this was done better in the trailer for Despicable Me 2. I'm not sure an IMAX would add that much to it, and IMAX 3D would be overkill. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:02 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Kyle Smith is the politically conservative film reviewer for the politically conservative New York Post, but his review of The Lorax is inventive (and no doubt somewhat true) despite its bias:
The Snore-ax
An explanation in verse for why it could hardly be worse!
Last Updated: 11:42 PM, March 2, 2012
Posted: 10:33 PM, March 1, 201
More Print Kyle Smith
Blog: Movies
MOVIE REVIEW
Dr. SEUSS’ THE LORAX
Thneedlessly preachy. Running time: 86 minutes. Rated PG (mild profanity). At the Empire, the Kips Bay, the Union Square, others.
I am the critic, I speak to displease:
“The Lorax” is awful, like chronic disease.
There’s no fun in “The Lorax,” no joy in its theme;
It’s as boring as sales tax.
I’m ready to ream.
Its knickers are twisted so high and so tight
It could lead the day’s news on the Daily Kos site.
The Lorax stands small as a hectoring runt.
Even Al Gore’s ax was never so blunt
As he ground it and frowned it right into the ground, staging his raging and waxing profound,
like this Muppety scold — this Sierra Club front.
Our story’s in Thneed-ville, a plasticky place
Where all things are phony and nature’s displaced.
No tree is still present, nor one blade of grass
Compared to Las Vegas, it’s even more crass.
O’Hare is the bad guy, industrialist scum
But he’s dull and unfunny, not Grinchy — humdrum.
Zac Efron plays Ted, a young sprout with a crush
On Taylor Swift’s Audrey, the cause of his blush.
For her he is questing to find one real tree
In a land artificial — how Charlie Brown-y.
He encounters the Once-ler, a puzzling chap
Who hides behind shutters, then opens his yap.
Ed Helms does the voice of this tree-hating jerk
Who once long ago the small Lorax did irk.
The Once-ler began as a boy out to seek
His fortune in business while his morals did leak.
He raped the environment, plundering hard,
Making the forest his own lumberyard.
The Lorax, an orange and furry wee thing
Emerged from a stump and proceeded to zing
The Once-ler for taking his forest away —
The latter agreeing his acts were outré.
But the Once-ler loves mama, and at her behest,
He changes his mind and puts cash before nests.
Down goes each tree, every Truffula trunk
So their tufts can be made into scrofulous junk.
Danny DeVito’s the Lorax’s voice
And he says he must go now to balk at this choice.
The Lorax ascends in a beam of clean light
an ascension like J.C.’s but 10 times as bright.
Now back in the present, the Thneed-Ville you know,
has just one more chance — it’s a seed fit to sow.
With O’Hare in pursuit, our Ted scrambles to save
a tree that could start a green hopeful new wave.
It’s sad — in the climax, the main action scenes
are dull and lackluster, like eating your greens.
Ted’s run is just runny, there’s no fun here that’s funny
Just tired old gags on pollution and money.
There are songs here, it’s true, but they’re musical rants
As stale as the crust on your dad’s underpants.
You’ll forget them before this young March hits the ides;
I have heard better tunes on Clay Aiken’s B-sides.
This satire, it dates back to ’71,
an age when the cool was remarkably un-.
The plastics and vinyl were blooming their blooms
Today it’s all Whole Foods and locavore ’shrooms.
Four decades too late to be timely on time
The whimsy lacks whim and the rhyme doesn’t climb.
It’s all preaching and perching on messages dry.
Bob Dylan’s poor knees are sixteen times as spry.
We all know that trees are much better than sleaze
But delight must be light and should please with its ease.
When this story’s harrumphing and pleading its plea
I’d prefer to get lectured by Barack O-B.
kyle.smith@nypost.com |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:19 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Stop him now before he commits versicide again! But the movie is heavy-handed, which is straight from Seuss's book. Apparently the solution to deforestation is to plant more trees.
I liked the song at the end, "Let it Grow." Don't be surprised if it's an Oscar nominee next year.
As far as movie-length Seuss adaptations go, the one to see is Horton Hears a Who!, which manages to be whimsical and intelligent and presents its message much more gently. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 4:40 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| The Lorax certainly looks like it sucks. But the book was my favorite of all the Dr. Seuss books. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:28 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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It doesn't suck. I liked Ted and Audrey, and I even felt a little for Once-Ler, even though he is a villain though his short-sightedness (and desire to support his worthless family). Okay, he eventually feels really, really sorry and provides the crucial truffula seed, but there wouldn't be an ecological crisis without him.
I look forward to Yertle the Turtle and Green Eggs and Ham, should they ever occur. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:39 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Carol et al.--Kyle Smith is a conundrum. He is often hilariously funny, but always extremely annoying in the way he politicizes almost everything. He's a fellow Yalie, and in some ways an embarrassment to me, though not as much as the Bushes are. But Smith is usually a terrific writer, if not a reliable critic.
His Lorax review was not so hot, with the exception of these four lines:"There are songs here, it’s true, but they’re musical rants/ As stale as the crust on your dad’s underpants./ You’ll forget them before this young March hits the ides;/ I have heard better tunes on Clay Aiken’s B-sides."
Syd--What is it about the names "Ted and Audrey" that should make it easy for us to guess why those are the characters' names? Please elucidate. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 10:24 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| They're named after Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and his second wife Audrey. Audrey was a consultant on the film. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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