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| whiskeypriest |
 Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:16 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Befade wrote: (remember when he played opposite Carrie who was in The Great Gatsby.....me losing more memory cells....? |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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marantzo wrote: Just saw The Butler. Good movie.
I have not really had computer time since I saw it. I liked a lot about The Butler, especially the acting. I keep forgetting that Oprah could probably have had a really good career as an actress had she opted for that career path. She was quite good in the baity role. Whittaker was also fantastic as a man forced, or forcing himself, to internalize most everything. David Oyelowo got to do the opposite, and was also very good.
It had some significant draw backs, in addition to that missing s after the apostrophe. I could of done without the parade of stars as presidents (Oh look! That's Robin Williams! Oh look! John Cusack! Oh wait... that's that guy who was in Everything is Illuminated... Crap. What is his name!). It was a distraction that was unnecessary. I was more put off by the movie's belief that it had to cram as much of the civil rights saga into itself as humanly possible. Made for a nice history lesson, but as a movie it meant that the history became what happened in front of the characters rather than too the characters. My single biggest problem was with the character arc of the second son, whose name was, or should have been, Toe tag. Seriously, has anyone ever gone to an off-screen Vietnam and made it back alive? Especially after the conversation he had with his brother before he left? Unworthy of the movie. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Befade wrote: Joe...I'm very familiar with all of Tennessee Williams women. I actually thought Blanche was more hystrianic and harder to relate to than Jasmine. Jasmine is afloat...her anchor..Alec...was an illusion. She's been stripped...someone who depended on money and class is stuck with a sister who's from a different world. Women depending on men for security are legion. Jasmine does not know how to cope in the real world...Chanel is not armor. Her anxiety is palpable.
Billy...I need a few new brain cells.....they've just made a discovery about this with mice......I'm waiting for the pill.
Blanche caused her husband's suicide because she couldn't face the truth about his sexuality. And having killed the man she loved she essentially became him, turning into the "promiscuous gay man" so many gay men were at the time, schizophrenically hiding behind the mask of prim English teacher. And then Stanley comes along to destroy her as she destroyed her husband. The line is clearly defined as to what happens when you destroy the illusions of someone, how they have no escape, no salvation, except in death or madness. We see why Blanche retreats (slowly, then quickly) into insanity.
We never see why Jasmine does, or whether her insanity is actually related to what has happened to her or anther aspect of her personality galloping along beside it. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 2:03 pm |
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"...or anther aspect of her personality galloping along beside it."
That's what I thought all along. For me she was living the good life with a husband that she loved, so that other part of her mind never awakened. She kept herself all wrapped up in her marriage and lifestyle. As was told in the movie, she was the only one who didn't know her husband was screwing around for years. She crashed.
She did eventually pull out of the crash when she hooked up with Dwight, but her original dishonesty sunk her for good and the last scene certainly foresees that she is not coming back. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2013 9:18 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Whiskey writes,
Quote: ...I was more put off by the movie's belief that it had to cram as much of the civil rights saga into itself as humanly possible. Made for a nice history lesson, but as a movie it meant that the history became what happened in front of the characters rather than to the characters....
2nd that. And if you are going to do contemplative, then you have to make a smaller canvas that's less busy.
Trying to get to The World's End this week. I assume history will happen to those characters, bigtime. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2013 7:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Joe...good summation of Blanches journey to madness. I have to read it again. jasmine didn't have guilt or a Stanley to destroy her illusions and she wasn't a nymphomaniac. Her bubble was burst by the intrusion of reality.
Streetcar then, has the same theme as Suddenly Last Summer...Katherine Hepburn refuses to accept her sons homosexuality. Then there's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 5:49 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| The destruction of one's illusions, and how unprotected we are from the destructive nature of life without them, is indeed a perennial theme in Williams. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 9:40 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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I've never much liked Williams, but my dad's second wife would have been a good Williams character. She married him just as he was starting his own business, and as it become successful, they got a nice house, two Cadillacs, and all the trimmings. When he got Alzheimer's, she insisted he was going to get well and come home, even though they ended up sharing a couple's apartment at a nice nursing home (she'd drive back to their house occasionally). When he died, she went through the funeral in practically a catatonic state; later, my sister said that she would sit in the nursing home's lobby waiting for Dad to come down for lunch. Four months after he died, she had a stroke and died as well. I think she was one of those wives whose whole life is built around her husband, without any other supports or interests.
My sister and I never liked her, of course, and she never liked us. But she was a good bad example of the hazards of being a "devoted wife."
By the way, I never heard her express an opinion about gays, but years ago when I mentioned that I was looking for a woman gynecologist, she said she thought there was something wrong with women in that field.
I really have to see "Blue Jasmine." |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 10:07 am |
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| You haven't seen it carr? I'm looking forward to what you think about it. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 5:46 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| In my '20s Tennessee Williams was my favorite. But I was drawn to The Fugitive Kind and Summer and Smoke....plays.movies that focused on the deep, smoldering passions of lonely women and the tragic crushed fulfillment of those passions..... |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:03 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
Posts: 8424
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| Entering my top ten films of 2013 is CRYSTAL FAIRY starring Michael Cera and Gaby Hoffman. Exquisitely acted by the entire cast and deftly directed by Sebastian Silva, this is a "head" movie with an enormous heart. An EASY RIDER for Generation Y... and those of us who have had more than a few peyote trips. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 2:25 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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I believe they're called Generation Um now ...
(Joking, saw that as the title of a film and thought to myself they were straining for a label) |
Last edited by gromit on Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:10 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Alert!
Ron Howard film gets good reviews. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
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. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:20 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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I enjoyed "Red Obsession" the documentary that blended Bordeaux with business and Cabernet Sauvignon with the rise of China. For a documentry it was filmed with care and craft, but I felt it lacked pace, push and purpose. It was no "Inside Job".
Apologies, I was in the mood for alliterating. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
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. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:44 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Three current movies are getting stellar reviews. Gravity is a space epic with reportedly a career-best performance by Sandra Bullock and a great supporting turn by George Clooney. Rush is the aforementioned Ron Howard flick about Formula One racing, a true story. And Short Term 12 is an under-the-radar item about a foster home for teens that sounds mind-bogglingly good. |
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