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bartist

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:45 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6967 Location: Black Hills

Thanks for the 7P review, Gary - was on the fence about it, but now might see it in theatre.

My film companion wants to see Pitch Perfect. If I can stall for five more days, I think it will leave town, but I'm running out of excuses. It's not often that I wish for a massive solar flare to take out our nation's power grid.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

billyweeds

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 12:58 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

bartist wrote:

Your film companion can be trusted more than Gary IMO. I've already noted that I found Seven Psychopaths strained and arch. Pitch Perfect is a very cute movie with a charming performace by Up in the Air Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick and a scene-stealing one by Bridesmaids alumna Rebel Wilson. It's about a capella singing and a lot more fun than, for instance, Glee.

marantzo

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 2:10 pm

Guest

Bart, SP is not strained and since the meaning of arch is 1. (prenominal) chief; principal; leading his arch rival
2. (prenominal) very experienced; expert an arch criminal
3. knowing or superior
4. playfully or affectedly roguish or mischievous
I would agree that it is arch as defined by #2,3,and 4

grace

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 8:30 pm

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 3215

Saw Cloud Atlas, liked it very much.

inlareviewer

Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2012 11:22 pm

Joined: 05 Jul 2004 Posts: 1949 Location: Lawrence, KS

A colleague from the Critics Circle got his hands on the Les Misérables shooting script by William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer (don't ask me how he got it, for if I told you, I'd have to kill you before he killed me, but I digress). Just as a read, it's sorta kinda spectacular -- you can literally see the film unfolding against the (largely intact, though somewhat reordered through 2 hours and 32 minutes) score, as you peruse.

Between its cinematically apt cast -- Huge Ackman as Valjean, Russell Crowe as Javert, La Belle Anne as Fantine, Li'l Seyfried as grown-up Cosette, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thénardiers, Samantha Barks as Eponine, Aaron Tveit as Enjolras, etc., with many a stage vet of the show in supporting roles/cameos, most notably Colm Wilkinson as the early-pivot Bishop -- Tom Hooper at the helm, and the peculiarly tantalizing thrust of the teaser trailer

Les Misérables Official Teaser Trailer -- YouTube

coupled with the news that the actors shot every song live

Les Misérables -- Extended First Look -- YouTube

it feels suspiciously like The Oscar-Bait To Beat. At least this year the Documentary Filmmaker, the Singing Dancing Therapist and This Humble Correspondent won't have to debate what the Annual Christmas Flick will be. Woohoo.

Also of interest, to me, anyhoo, are the following:

Hyde Park on Hudson -- Official Trailer -- YouTube

Anna Karenina -- Official Trailer -- YouTube

Hitchcock -- Official Trailer -- YouTube

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Syd

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 12:42 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12944 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

I was thinking Les Misérables will probably dominate the Oscar nominations. The previews looked really good. I think Argo will do very well as well.

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Joe Vitus

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:16 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

If Les Miz is a film version of the musical, I can guarantee you right now it will tank at the box office (he said, having seen nary a hint of even the trailer).

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bartist

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:54 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6967 Location: Black Hills

billyweeds wrote:

bartist wrote:

I feared the cuteness that seemed to radiate from the poster of Pitch Perfect, but you've given me courage, BW. Which is good, because my PP obfuscations and evasions were finally seen through and I had to commit. As said companion noted, "If you picked every movie, we would watch nothing but cheesy sci-fi, noir and thrillers." The truth, it stung, but it does reportedly set you free.

_________________
He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

knox

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:49 am

Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1246 Location: St. Louis

grace wrote:

Saw Cloud Atlas, liked it very much.

Well, one brief glimmer of Cloud Atlas love at 3rdEFS. I liked it, too, in spite of deep flaws that have been covered here. Forget about who is what actor, forget about connecting philosophic strands, and you might enjoy this gaudy meditation.

7Psych is kind of strained. It's rather fun, and if you don't require it to approach the wit and heart of In Bruges, then you might enjoy....

Pitch Perfect -- saying it is "a lot more fun than, for instance, Glee," is to my ear like saying it is a lot more fun than licking out petri dishes, but I recognize that someone who is a distinguished song writer living in NYC might just connect with this film more than I ever will. I'm sorry, Glee fans, I can feel the outrage, but that show just had too many uplifting messages and massive outbreaks of cuteness for my taste.

grace

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:20 am

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 3215

knox wrote:

Totally agree re the Adrian Messenger thought; but I didn't see connecting philosophic strands as much as noting a couple of ultra-basic themes that recur through the generations -- always have and always will. There's the usual suspect, love; and the never-ending battle against oppression, bet it political/institutional or personal, to name two. Though I guess that's all philosophical.

Quote:

I'm sorry, Glee fans, I can feel the outrage, but that show just had too many uplifting messages and massive outbreaks of cuteness for my taste.

At the risk of breaking your heart or at least making you vomit, Glee is still in the present tense.

jeremy

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:03 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

Anne Hathaway is terrific in the trailer to Les Mis. Her performance totally vindicates Tom Hooper's decision (if it was his) to use good actors who could sing (rather than singers who can act) and to sing the songs 'live'.

The film looks great, but I am no judge of how these things will pan out at the box office or at awards time. If the film tanks, I suspect the Academy will ignore it; if its a hit...

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My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it.

jeremy

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:04 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

Roger Ebert liked "Cloud Atlas". I guess I'll just have to find out for myself.

jeremy

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:05 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

Killing Them Softly could easily be called “Low-Life” a study of modern gangsters by Andrew Dominik. It’s not hard to see why this has been so well received by the critics. It is a knowing compendium of the best elements of some of Hollywood’s great moments. Like all good films, it trusts in its material. It's the blackest comedies. It’s pace is deliberate and the action sparse, but when it breaks it burst forth with satisfying brutality. And when I say satisfying, I mean suitably real, but never truly disturbing. The rain softened set pieces and the slow motion beatings and dying reminded me of “The Road To Perdition” or, going back further, the work of that godfather of screen violence, Sam Peckinpah.

In Killing Them Softly the gangsters’ talk with a detachment and lyrical banality that is reminiscent of Jules and Vincent discussing why the French, with a system of weights and measures not rooted in history and language, have to resort to calling their ‘Quarter-pounder with Cheese’, a 'Royale with Cheese’. But Killing Them Softly lacks the playfulness of “Pulp Fiction”, it fails to notice and match the punchline: Jules and Vincent are steeled executioners and that the condemned men are having a final breakfast of Kahuna burgers.

I’m not sure what message Tarantino is sending; it’s very absence may be the message. But it doesn't matter, he still manages to intrigue. Unfortunately, Andrew Dominik insists on drawing parallels in thick, soft pencil between the the workings of the gangsters’ world and the machinations of modern America. A motif he offers not once, but repeatedly. Its effect is to make promises his film can’t deliver and to undermine the carefully established verisimilitude. And I love that shit: the life, times and works; the dynamics, language and method of crime. I lap it up like a student who might in some unforeseen future need to ‘lean on a narc’ or ‘hold up a liqor [sic] store’.

Most of all, it is apparent the Dominik is a student of all-round good fellow, Martin Scorsese. The assassination of a unsuspecting dupe mirrored the pathetic assassination of the all-round, almost made, bad guy played by Joe Pesci. “Killing Them Softly.” also mines the trope of crime as business, a fallible and a poorly managed as any in America.

There is much to commend in “Killing Them Softly.” The acting is superlative. It is the opposite of whatever ‘dialed in’ is: delivered with great portent on a silver platter? Brad Pitt, an actor who I am beginning to appreciate more and more, is particularly good. The film as a whole and the hold-up scene in particular is elegantly crafted. However, Killing Them Softly lacks heft. Its cynicism is in want of a counterpoint. Brad Pitt’s contrived closing speech strikes a false note that echoes in the film’s emptiness.

gromit

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:56 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

To tangentrify, the words "quarter pounder" sound hefty and meaty, and much more impressive than a mere 4 ounce burger.
A testament to American marketing genius.

In the stores here I see some German products with risible marketing/packaging. For example, a cereal named Chocolumpus. Maybe that works better in German somehow, but it seems like they are barely trying. The box has some generic looking cartoon animal, a brown crocodile I think it was, which looked like a sketchy imitation of American cereal mascots. It's obvious how much more effort and time/money nexus is placed on marketing in the US. It seems like the Germans don't think a kid's breakfast cereal is worth the effort.

Royale with cheese? At least the French are trying a little. In Germany it's probably Meatalumpus mit cheese.

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Marc

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:53 am

Joined: 19 May 2004 Posts: 8424

Jeremy,

stellar review of Killing Them Softly. Thanks.

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