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| whiskeypriest |
 Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 12:26 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| Did we ever determine the proper punctuation and capitalizqtion of Blood Simple[.]? |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 1:55 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: My Chaplin would be (only) City Lights. Keatons would be The General (duh) and Steamboat Bill, Jr.* (egregiously underrated by most but venerated by a few including me).
* It's awful to be an anally retentive proofreader. Some sources include the comma, some don't. I'm going with the comma. But NOBODY CARES. (Except maybe carrobin.) Steamboat Bill [,] Jr. is only slightly less great than The General, which is one on the 10-15 greatest movoes ever made. On the other hand the only Chaplin that approaches that level for me is Modern Times.
Substitute City Lights for Modern Times and I'm with you all the way. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 7:35 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| Ducking reviews and hoping Interstellar is directed by the director of Memento, Insomnia, and The Prestige, and not the director of Inception. Really, even if it bites off more sci-fi concept than it can chew, I will probably find something to like. Jessica Chastain may write memos to herself on her skin, stay awake for days, and be teleported into Nikola Tesla's backyard where she will help Michael Caine rake up top hats. All things are possible in the Nolan universe. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 7:49 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| I really wish I could be even slightly optimistic about Interstellar, but--going into it with the truly huge anti-Nolan bias that I already have--I fear I will come out even more anti. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises--all were bad enough. But Inception was the end for me. If I were paying to see Interstellar...well, I wouldn't be seeing it. But since it's part of a Screen Actors Guild package, I'll be there on November 17. Will obviously report back here. |
Last edited by billyweeds on Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:04 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2014 9:45 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Given that physicist Kip Thorne was the science advisor, if they listened to him it could be very hard science fiction. |
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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! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 11:48 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Yep. Thorne contributed wormhole concepts to Sagan when he wrote "Contact." And it looks like he's publishing a book on the science of the new film.
I assume the film deals with the temporal aspects of interstellar travel...if the casting of McConaughey's character's daughter calls for a child actor, Jessica Chastain, and Ellen Burstyn. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| "Nightcrawler" depicts the unethicality and prevarication of freelancing photographers chasing every police call to accident and murder scenes with the hope of selling their footage to local television news stations. In spite of the seamy subject matter the movie is both fascinating and satisfying. Remarkable performance by Jake Gyllenhaal. Bill Paxton shines in a small role. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:41 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Yeah, Paxton was good, and took me a bit to recognize him, which usu. means an actor is doing his/her job.
Did you notice we had a chat about the film a couple pages back? Just sayin'... |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2014 3:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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bartist wrote: Did you notice we had a chat about the film a couple pages back? Just sayin'...
Thanks for referring me to the earlier "chat". It was a good discussion. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 11:26 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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At last a film that deals with general relativity, and its implications for human spacefarers, in an intelligent way that pleasantly stretches your mind. "Interstellar" is clearly inspired by Kubrick, but instead of the Kubrickian austerity and emotional distance, we get closer to the emotional lives of the characters as the impending end of life on Earth, and the sacrifices that must be made to give humanity a chance at survival, are seen at a personal, familial level.
If you like science fiction, and you heard a negative review of this movie, ignore it. Some critics don't understand science fiction and are not willing to stretch their intellects or imaginations, or really take the time to learn a little science, and try and make sense of movies that don't spoonfeed them everything in easily digested little pieces.
It's not perfect - a couple characters are poorly developed (and perhaps there were a couple characters too many, even for a film that clocks in at nearly three hours), but the central story of a father and daughter, and the promise made, holds up well. There is some cornpone philosophy spouted at times, but it seems suited to who these people are (at the outset, the family is farming corn on an earth suffering severe ecological blight and massive dust storms) and the diminished lives they have fallen into. And, if I were the film editor, I could gladly have cut a bit of Michael Caine quoting Dylan Thomas. Kipling might have been more fitting, but then he didn't write a famous poem that could somehow be analogized to dipping into the "good night" of a black hole singularity.
Visually, the film is stunning, and I can see why the makers recommend seeing it in the 70mm Imax format. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 12:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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knox wrote: Visually, the film is stunning, and I can see why the makers recommend seeing it in the 70mm Imax format.
But not from the fourth row. I speak from experience. |
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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! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 1:05 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Big Hero 6 is a lot of fun, with a young genius who wants to join a research team, and winds up creating a superhero team. Given that Baymax (the Pillsbury Doughboy sort of robot) has only one expression, he's surprisingly effective. He was actually invented by the hero's brother as a healing robot, which causes some problems when our hero tries to turn him into a superhero. (It's hard to fight crime when you have the Hippocratic Oath programmed in.) This is all set in San Franokyo, so we have characters who are Japanese (our hero and his brother) and American (several of the the other heroes.)
Big Hero 6 is the name of the team, by the way. From the previews, I thought it was the name of the robot. |
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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! |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 1:22 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Syd wrote: knox wrote: Visually, the film is stunning, and I can see why the makers recommend seeing it in the 70mm Imax format.
But not from the fourth row. I speak from experience.
Yes. As a guy with inner ear issues, I'd say some distance between you and the screen is a great idea, especially the scenes where they are attempting the dock the lander with the spinning ship. And, really, almost any scene that happens in freefall, and there is no visible horizon line.
Knox, nice review, mostly agree on the film's scientific cred and artistry, I had no problem with Caine's choice of poetry, though it seemed pretty obvious, I mean, there are other British poets besides Dylan Thomas who wrote about facing death. Henley's "Invictus" came to mind, in the context of a black hole....
Quote: Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
I really respect the film for not dumbing down General Relativity, or trying to "fix" the time dilation problem with some fancy-fantasy thing with going backwards in time. The ending offered a legitimate and plausible, yet quite imaginative, way to send a signal where it needed to go, and was quite moving. There may have been some physics violations there, but I didn't hear Neil DeGrasse Tyson complaining (he liked the science, per tweets) about it, and he's a pretty tough room. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 2:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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| I care about the scietific accuracy of Ticketseller as much as I cared about the scientific accuracy of Gravity. Which is as much as people care about the legal accuracy of, well any courtroom movie: not one goddamned bit. |
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I ask you, Velvel, as a rational man, which of us is possessed? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:22 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Well, the caring aspect arises from the deplorable state of science education in this nation, which by all measures lags way behind other developed nations. So you have impressionable minds whose science vacuums are being filled bt the mindsmog of most sci-fi films.
A propos of your analogy to legal movies...there is probably a similar deficit there, too, in terms of what used to be called Civics.
So getting the science right might be nice once in a while, esp. in a film that seems to be promoting its plausibility and attendant message that we should be getting into spacefaring in a big way. Agree or disagree, it would be nice to have the younger viewers excited about real science and not confused mixes of science and fantasy. As Sagan used to point out, real science is exciting enough and sufficiently generative of wonder that we shouldn't have to whore it up with pseudoscience nonsense.
so, while I normally agree that realism isn't vital to a popcorn movie, this time I would take exception to that.
Cheers. |
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