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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 12:20 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Two movies, two slight disappointments.
Inasmuch as 2 Guns stars two of my favorite male movie stars, I was expecting to like it a lot more than I did. The repartee between Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg starts out snappy and fun, and the two gentlemen have chemistry and--as always--charisma to burn, but too soon the movie degenerates into a more generic action flick. Gorgeous, talented Paula Patton (so convincing as middle-class African-Americans) is miscast as a gritty sexpot. Edward James Olmos makes a terrific villain, however.
The Conjuring is well made, but it's a tad old-school and the scares are sort of by rote. The bumps in the night and the jerking around of bodies are occasionally startling, but it's all been seen before. You can call it an homage; you can also call it tired. Rarely frightened, I was more often moved to tears--mainly by Lili Taylor's vivid evocation of mother love. Taylor is memorable; the rest of the cast (including my current favorite female movie star Vera Farmiga) is just fine; but the movie is not much better than okay by me. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 11:50 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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On my visit to South Carolina, my mother and I went to see "The Heat." (My sister had seen it twice already, "Blue Jasmine" hadn't hit town yet, and there wasn't much else my mother would have been interested in.) It was a lot of fun (though I didn't see much hilarity in a bloodily botched tracheotomy effort, which almost spoiled it for a while). Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy made a great team, bitching at each other through most of the movie but settling down into mutual respect and a slightly tense friendship (tense when they weren't both drunk, anyway).
By the way, Marantz, I loved the fistfight in "Big Country," precisely because it was a fight where neither guy won. Can't help but wonder if neither Gregory Peck nor Charlton Heston would allow himself to be the loser in the script. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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carrobin wrote: On my visit to South Carolina, my mother and I went to see "The Heat." (My sister had seen it twice already, "Blue Jasmine" hadn't hit town yet, and there wasn't much else my mother would have been interested in.) It was a lot of fun (though I didn't see much hilarity in a bloodily botched tracheotomy effort, which almost spoiled it for a while). Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy made a great team, bitching at each other through most of the movie but settling down into mutual respect and a slightly tense friendship (tense when they weren't both drunk, anyway).
By the way, Marantz, I loved the fistfight in "Big Country," precisely because it was a fight where neither guy won. Can't help but wonder if neither Gregory Peck nor Charlton Heston would allow himself to be the loser in the script.
Heston wasn't nearly a big enough star at that point to make any demands of that sort. You can bet the no-win thing was in the script from the start, and a good thing too. I love that movie to bits. Peck is--for once in his life--funny. And Heston is not as stentorian as he got later. Meanwhile, Jean Simmons is at her absolute best, which is great. And Burl Ives won the Oscar--though that was obviously also for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Big Country is on a par with William Wyler's best films, and several light years better than the Wyler Oscarwinner to come (B-H; can't even abide to spell it out). |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 1:53 pm |
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"Can't help but wonder if neither Gregory Peck nor Charlton Heston would allow himself to be the loser in the script."
Definitely a possibility. I can imagine Heston complaining about his losing the fight in the script; that is even more of a possibility.  |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 2:06 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: "Can't help but wonder if neither Gregory Peck nor Charlton Heston would allow himself to be the loser in the script."
Definitely a possibility. I can imagine Heston complaining about his losing the fight in the script; that is even more of a possibility.
See my comment above. Heston was to Peck as (today) Armie Hammer is to Tom Cruise. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 2:12 pm |
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Quote: Heston wasn't nearly a big enough star at that point to make any demands of that sort. You can bet the no-win thing was in the script from the start, and a good thing too. I love that movie to bits. Peck is--for once in his life--funny. And Heston is not as stentorian as he got later. Meanwhile, Jean Simmons is at her absolute best, which is great. And Burl Ives won the Oscar--though that was obviously also for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The Big Country is on a par with William Wyler's best films, and several light years better than the Wyler Oscarwinner to come (B-H; can't even abide to spell it out).
Just the other day, (I think it was on TMC), I watch two guys talking about B-H and the original. Agreeing that the original was a better film and that the chariot race in the original was better than the one in the re-make, which tried to copy the original version. I saw the original chariot race, (I think I mentioned that on here), and it was certainly better. I only saw that scene, not the rest of the movie. They also showed the scene of B-H getting his drink of water in both versions and that was also a much better scene than in the re-make. I was so happy seeing two guys who knew their movies.  |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 2:19 pm |
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| The Big Country was a bit like Giant, but The Big Country was good. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 3:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: The Big Country was a bit like Giant, but The Big Country was good.
Exactly, and much too genuinely entertaining to be honored (as Giant was) by the pretentious hacks that ruled Hollywood (and still do).
If only for the Jerome Moross score, this is a great film. But there's much more to it than the music. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:02 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
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Location: Montreal
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Jobs: The jokes write themselves: Welcome to the iPlod. Okay, that's overstating. A fairer assessment of this biopic is that it's a Mac Mini -- compact, simple, user-friendly, but lacking the power and depth of the big boys.
Ashton Kutcher plays iconic Apple visionary Steve Jobs in a film whose script doesn't measure up to his acting ability. Think about that for a minute. I'm not trying to slam Kutcher, who's actually pretty good in the role, but at no point does this script push the actor to reveal anything deeper than the bullet points we've all heard before. For anyone up on their Apple-lore, this is a comfy bedtime story with all characters performing as expected. Jobs is a pill, albeit a very focused, bright one (I'm guessing the pill was loaded with Omega Fat), and it was cool to see the watershed Lennon-McCartney moment where Jobs and Wozniak hook up to form the Apple band. Also cool to see a parade of lesser-known founders, CEOs, financiers and tech-geeks act as equal parts engines and obstacles for Jobs' ambition. Jobs gains power, Jobs loses power, Jobs gets power back, Jobs loses again, etc.
The Apple brand certainly holds an important enough place in our culture to merit a great film. Unfortunately, until a great film is made, this one will have to do. I wasn't bored, the film faithfully follows the path of computer innovation from early 70s until early 90s, but it's more a Time Magazine article than feature film. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 12:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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| Well, I guess Kutcher looks like Jobs who was half Syrian. The book was good. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:33 am |
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Befade wrote: Well, I guess Kutcher looks like Jobs who was half Syrian. The book was good.
I heard the book was worth reading, but I was never as fascinated by the cult of operating systems as many of my fellow Mac users. I know Steve Jobs has his DNA imprinted in my iMac and Powerbook laptop, but to me they're just efficient, user-friendly tools to do my work.
I was hoping Steve Jobs would come alive on film, as Mark Zuckerberg did, but the script was too interested in checking off each pivotal scene and then moving onto the next event, never taking the time to explore Jobs or any of the weird relationships surrounding him. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:38 am |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
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The obvious question becomes: When does Bill Gates get his biopic? He's a much bigger presence with a much wider view of the world around him.
And who would play him? Michael Cera could do the young Bill. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:03 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Michael Emerson as the older Bill.
Jesse Eisenberg, Michael Cera, Tobey Maguire = the Geekpack?
(PS - how is it we make the films, but Canadians get to see them two weeks before us?? Doesn't open here until the 16th, Lorne.) |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:15 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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bartist wrote:
(PS - how is it we make the films, but Canadians get to see them two weeks before us?? Doesn't open here until the 16th, Lorne.) |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:34 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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| Ebert.com liked The Millers. I tend to be cautious about any project Aniston signs on for, BYNK. |
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