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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 12:57 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: I'll be seeing The Wolverine this afternoon. Should be a lot of laughs there.
One of those films I have less than zero desire to see. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 1:18 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| I'm with Billy. I have no interest in any of these super hero movies anymore. One cliche after another. The past few I've seen were totally forgettable. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:59 pm |
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I liked it. Takes place mostly in Japan and has some very spectacular scenes. It opens up with the bombing of Nagasaki shot from across the water at a Japanese prisoner of war camp. An excellent opening that starts the plot of the movie which jumps to the present day where the Wolverine is a very troubled loner in a Yukon forest area. A Japanese woman meets up with him at a bar there where he is punishing some hunters who have hunted in an illegal way. She is there to take him back to Japan to see the Japanese soldier who's life he saved during the bombing of Nagasaki. She finally convinces him and off they fly to Japan. The story line is interesting and the two Japanese women are very good. The mayhem is fun to watch though, as usual, it can be hard to believe. The final mayhem did have some things that I could have done without. There is a surprise.
If you see it, don't leave when the credit role because there is an interesting scene that pops up that takes place in two years hence.
I'd give it 7 out of 10. If the final battle were done somewhat better I would have rated it higher. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:48 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:58 pm |
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| Yeah RIP Elmore Leonard. He had a hell of a run with his novels and movies. I don't think anyone had as many movies made from their books. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Blue Jasmine is a double tour de force for Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins as Blanche and Stella redux from Streetcar. They are both incandescent. But the movie (well acted from top to bottom, and fairly entertaining) is all but undone by some of the sloppiest, most amateurish plotting I've ever seen from a "name" writer/director.
Woody Allen has never been that great at story construction (Annie Hall was all but plotless) but here he's worse than usual. The entire denouement of the movie hinges on an outrageous coincidence, and it's not the first in the film. Betrayals and cheating pile up at an alarming degree of alacrity during the last half-hour, and characters behave haphazardly.
So, although the movie holds the interest and is worth seeing for the acting, it isn't really very good. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:41 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| Sally Hawkins was great in BLUE JASMINE. Cate Blanchett's performance was impressive in the same way that an Olympic gymnast is impressive: lots of groovy moves but not much more. She didn't create a believable character, she just displayed her acting chops. Talk about haphazard. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 9:44 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Marc wrote: Sally Hawkins was great in BLUE JASMINE. Cate Blanchett's performance was impressive in the same way that an Olympic gymnast is impressive: lots of groovy moves but not much more. She didn't create a believable character, she just displayed her acting chops. Talk about haphazard.
You're absolutely right. Blanchett does everything skeptics accuse Meryl Streep of doing all the time (making every acting choice so obvious it hurts). And yet I can't bring myself to criticize her, because she's so constantly interesting. And because the character of Jasmine is something of a drama queen. However, I agree that the movie's best performance is Sally Hawkins's--by a mile. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:41 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Hakins is given too dumb a role to be able to be great. It's no slight on the actress, but she's made to play a person who could never exist, who is a tissue of cliches. She handles the material as well as anyone could, though.
Don't agree about Blanchett telegraphing all her choices, either. The descent into madness aside, she was very much like the kind of women in real life she's based on (I've known them). It's presentational because the character is presentational, not the actress.
Billy's spot on about the terrible script. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe was right about Sally Hawkins's accent. It was not remotely Californian. But we don't know where the girls were raised, nor where Hawkins went when she "ran away from home," so the fact that it doesn't sound like California is not necessarily a mistake.
One thing I will give Blue Jasmine. In the genre of "Woody Allen does WASP angst," it was a lot more entertaining than Interiors, Another Woman, or September. Even though the Andrew Dice Clay-Bobby Cannavale-Michael Stuhlbarg-Peter Sarsgaard-Max Casella characters were either over-or-underwritten, the actors were all fun. And Louis C.K.'s character was right on the money, as was Alec Baldwin's.
But the plotting still sucks. (Ginger just happens to see Hal and Raylene while the cab is stopped and Augie is asleep? Flicker can't restrain himself in his own office? Augie just happens to pass by as Jasmine and Dwight are examining wedding rings? Etc., etc., etc. Puh-leeze.) The movie is already among the most overrated of the decade. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:28 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| I'm not even buying Dwight coming that close to marrying her without meeting a single person from her past--considering he has political ambitions. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:12 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Ah, well........I did drive two hours to see it. And I'm relieved it wasn't Blue Jasmine. It was The Canyons and it was worth it. It was worth it just for the soundtrack of edgy suspense and unfamiliar sounds. The Lindsey Lohan aspect didn't carry the film. Her overly made up eyes and scratchy voice stood out but her acting fit.
Not as young as they used to be guys and gals in Hollywood trying to make a go of it. Up against the unearned wealth of a few. There was a plot revolving around jealousy. There were two main male characters and there was full frontal nudity. I wasn't sure which one was James Deen, the porn actor and I guessed wrong. They were very different types. That made it interesting. Not a wasted afternoon. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:15 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| Oh.....and I had the theater all to myself. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Befade wrote: Oh.....and I had the theater all to myself.
You've convinced me to see it. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| You want to have a theater all to yourself? |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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