| Author |
Message |
|
| grace |
 Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:16 pm |
 |
|
|
Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 3215
|
whiskeypriest wrote: Saw Hope Springs. Pleasant. Pleasantly SASSY (that's for inla). Not making my Top 100 any time soon. Have spent worse 100 minutes in a movie theater.
I unsuccessfully stalked Mamie Gummer's Mom during filming for this near my work. My original plan re Hope Springs was to WFV and watch it only pick out landmarks; but with a slightly toasty (hotter than lukewarm) endorsement, I may try to catch it in the theater. |
|
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:42 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
|
| Campaign is crude and idiotic, and thus captures the modern political scene admirably. Zack G always great to watch and seems to know what to do in this type of OTT comedy. The political satire is obvious and painted in broad strokes, but some fun to be had. Will Ferrell is...at his most feral. I laughed more than I want to admit to. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:29 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
|
| Mel Ott? |
_________________
I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 12:03 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
|
| OTT is "over the top" but I suspect you knew that. I have no qualifications to review a Mel Ott based comedy, as the man is known to me only through crossword puzzle clues. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 1:53 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
| Ott and Orr are the crossword puzzle champions. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:56 pm |
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
|
I got suckered into watching a Christian film the other night. Blue Like Jazz sounded like an earnest indie film dealing with a Texan Baptist going to Reed College in Oregon and having his religious assumptions challenged. Even has jazz in the title. I figured I could send it to my niece who will be starting university in Oregon in a few weeks.
BUT, the film is kind of an oddball. The message is that Christianity provides a moral grounding even if the history is littered with some unsavory doings. Some of the Christians make mistakes, the atheist college kids have fun. It's kind of amusing how liberal arts college is portrayed as some sort of constant bacchanalia with crazy drunken folks often in costumes enacting various pagan/adolescent rituals. And any student with religious convictions is explicitly advised to hide them because atheists and lesbians and a black dean rule the academic world. But Christianity is hip and strong enough to look at itself, laugh at itself, but ultimately be rewarding.
Underneath the hokum, it's reasonably diverting with some decent characters within a schematic universe and a weird silly parody of liberal university. Or better to say some decent young actors inhabiting stereotypes -- the girl playing the lesbian looked a lot like Amy Winehouse. And the girl playing the female Christian student looked like a young blonde Karen Black. Sorta. Anyway, the end message of the film was preachy and as unsubtle.
Weird stuff. Apparently the book of the same name was a recent NYT bestseller and Blue Like Jazz is a phenomenon of sorts within Christian media circles. |
Last edited by gromit on Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:12 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| grace |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:10 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 3215
|
gromit wrote: It's kind of amusing how liberal arts college is portrayed as some sort of constant bacchanalia with crazy drunken folks often in costumes enacting various pagan/adolescent rituals.
Actually, that's a pretty fair description of my college years.
I might have to keep an eye out for Blue Like Jazz. Despite being a heathen, I'm a a sucker for that type of flick in moderation (and without irony). Thanks for the heads up. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:34 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
|
| Whoever recommended "Micmacs" here: thank you. Brilliant, clever, artful, fun. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:49 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| Off to see Killer Joe with Earl. Hoping I like it. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 12:10 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
Probably should see Killer Joe again before coming to a conclusion about it. My initial reaction is "meh." I liked the fucked up family dynamics, and near-constant stream of non-sequitors. But it's also filled with all that junk that movies set in Texas can't resist (bad overdone accents from most of the cast, girls with raccoon-style mascara, trailer park interiors, strip clubs). And can we please have an end to the aesthetic conceit that muddy photography with primary colors somehow constitutes "grittiness"? Maybe it did when you saw a grimy print of Sweet Sweetback at a grindhouse in the 70's. Not now when it's an intentional affectation.
Matthew McConaughey does the dark comedy aspects well, but is surprisingly bad at the silent, deadly bit. I guess he's better at manchildren than men. (I know that at this point Clint Eastwood wouldn't touch a role like this with a ten foot pole, but I've got to wonder how much more effective he'd have likely been in it.) Juno Temple does very well with a part so completely written out of memories of Baby Doll and her later Roger Corman descendents that it's surprising she can find any character to play, at all.
I do think I liked the movie more than anything else by William Friedkin I've ever seen. Will probably check it out again. Would like to read the play it's based on. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 1:03 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
|
Hey Weeds, have you gotten hold of Margaret yet?
I'd like to hear your opinion.
Especially since you is a New Yorker.
(your Upper East side?) |
Last edited by gromit on Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:13 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:56 am |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
bartist wrote: OTT is "over the top" but I suspect you knew that. I have no qualifications to review a Mel Ott based comedy, as the man is known to me only through crossword puzzle clues.
He didn't have the cinema impact of Fred Ott. |
_________________
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! |
|
| Back to top |
|
| knox |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:34 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
|
Micmacs is quite funny, owing to the lead actor's comedy chops - there is something of "Bean" in his antics. The film is ridiculous and made me think "French Terry Gilliam."
Fred Ott seemed familiar. Realized he'd been mentioned as one of the pioneers who worked in Edison's film lab in West Orange. Will Shortz might be glad to know there is more than one clue for those three letters.
Killer Joe looked awful, but I look forward to your second review, Joe V, the one in which you will come to a conclusion. I have like Matt McC more in recent years, with outings like The Lincoln Lawyer. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:40 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
|
Quote: I got suckered into watching a Christian film the other night. Blue Like Jazz sounded like an earnest indie film dealing with a Texan Baptist going to Reed College in Oregon and having his religious assumptions challenged. Even has jazz in the title. I figured I could send it to my niece who will be starting university in Oregon in a few weeks.
Where's your niece attending school? I attended Reed my freshman year. Lots of kids with high SAT scores and copious supplies of pot, LSD, and mescaline. It was the 1970s. My ex taught at Oregon State for a while. |
_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:16 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
|
OU in Eugene.
I believe.
She's leaning towards environmental science.
I sent her an email last week on college tips.
Mostly:
- Take notes, and find someone in the same class you can get notes from when you miss class or your notes suck.
- Do the reading. Read ahead if you want to look smart.
- Learn how to make a schedule which is balanced between easy/hard classes, lectures/seminars, and final exam/final paper (if applicable).
- Figure out the library and bookstore
- Make time to study
- and most important, the Professor makes the class, so read student evaluations online and talk to people to find good profs/classes
- Don't sleep with your professors
Okay, I didn't include the last one.
I'd like to provide a tutorial in how not to get pregnant, but I don't think it's Uncle Gromit's place to do that. Hope her parents or friends or the internet tells her, as no one told me a thing when I was in high school or finishing college. And my knowledge of such things and options was, looking back, pathetically limited.
An ex-girlfriend of mine teaches Ukrainian feminist sociology at Reed. I thought of emailing her a Hello, but not sure if it would be appreciated. We had rather different approaches to life and study and my more casual intelligence irked her for some reason. Oddly we went to the same university undergrad and I even knew two of her ex-boyfriends (one nice guy, one interesting weirdo), but we never met until we both went to grad school in a different city and moved into the same building within days of each other. |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
