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| marantzo |
 Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2015 12:25 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
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Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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Very interesting! |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 6:01 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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They've remade the Argentine film The Secret in Their Eyes with Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The original won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but I thought it was fairly awful. The plot point related to the title is just a terrible contrivance. the film was overlong, the pace plodding. The transitions between the present day and the past were clunky. I didn't think the story was particularly compelling, but the style and presentation really turned me off.
Anyway, two actresses I quite like, but this will have to get some very good reviews to get me to watch it. I suppose it's possible to take the basic storyline and do a better job with it, but I'm skeptical. Openign Nov 20. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 11:25 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Seldom if ever have I ever been as psyched to see a movie as I am to see Spotlight, which I will see tonight. Directed by the great Thomas McCarthy, who directed two of my favorite films of the past decade or so--The Visitor and The Station Agent--and starring my two favorite living movie actors, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. I will, of course, report. Anything less than greatness will be a disappointment, however--telling you that going in. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 1:21 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Also up for it.
"Secret in their Eyes" - I liked Syd's review a couple years ago...something about the ending being "too Lisbet Salander" and not in keeping with the actual characters.
Hope hollywood can do better, but it's really beyond me why anyone wants to remake that dismal story. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:12 pm |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
Posts: 278
Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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| Billy, I really liked - The Visitor and The Station Agent. I will certainly watch Spotlight when it comes here. |
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Big bang, shmig bang; still doesn't explain how anything starts. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2015 7:14 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Saw Spotlight and my feelings are mixed. It's a very very good film in almost every way, but it didn't quite do it for me. The direction is smart, well-paced, and flowing. The acting is superb, as fine an ensemble job as I have ever seen on the screen. The story (of how a Boston Globe team exposed pedophilia in the Roman Catholic church) is shocking though well-known. And the final scene is magnificent. But the film is extremely talky and borderline monotonous, and seldom rises to the kind of dramatic heights I was hoping for.
It's almost impossible not to keep comparing Spotlight with All the President's Men, another movie about investigative journalism which had all the virtues and none of the flaws of this one.
That said, my two fave actors Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo are aces plus, and they are equaled by Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, Brian d'Arcy James, John Slattery, Neal Huff, Rachel McAdams, and Biily Crudup. Slattery plays the role of Ben Bradlee Jr., another reason one keeps thinking of All the President's Men. Sorry, but the comparison hurts this film. But, oh, yeah, see it for sure. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 8:12 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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You're probably going to be hearing loads of over-the-top rapture about Eddie Redmayne's performance as a real-life transgender woman in The Danish Girl. Redmayne is quickly turning into the flavor of the decade with his (IMO overrated) Oscar-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in last year's The Theory of Everything and this new, similarly unusual portrait. He turns from a man into a woman before your eyes!!! But really, the movie is stolen by Alicia Vikander, the actress playing his almost incredibly understanding wife. She is a great actor who also happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. This is a rare combo and one which should make her a major star. (Note to self: see Vikander in Ex Machina.)
Directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Miserables), the movie itself is thoroughly okay but is likely to be wildly overrsold, so be warned.
Just by the by, the subject of transgender has been handled far more memorably this year in Eric Schaeffer's acclaimed indie rom-com Boy Meets Girl. (Full disclosure: Schaeffer is my stepson, but I'm not indulging in nepotism here. BMG is a terrific film.) |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 11:21 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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| Testament of Youth is also worth seeing, for Vikander. Her accentless command of English means she has many more roles open to her. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| With Showtime free at the moment, courtesy of Time Warner's no-cost-to-them beneficence, I managed to catch "St. Vincent." It was a lot like that Clint Eastwood movie named for a car, which I also caught on TV and liked well enough, but Bill Murray pushed the concept up a few notches. If anyone can make a cranky, hostile loner lovable, it's Murray, whose oddball sense of humor can be glimpsed through any number of antisocial layers. I laughed, I cried, I did both at the same time--it was great. I can't imagine any other actor bringing it off so well. (I liked his car better than Eastwood's, too.) Naomi Watts was likeable as the pregnant stripper, and Melissa McCarthy was excellent as the hard-pressed single mother; the kid was good too, and I looked up his name and it's Jaeden Lieberher--he should do something about that. I should add that Chris O'Dowd was a delight--he impressed me in "Bridesmaids," and I like him more with every role. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:41 pm |
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| It has to be better than Gran Torino. You had me at Bill Murray. And I also prefer the Chrysler LeBaron to the Grunting Rhino. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 11:37 pm |
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bartist wrote: Testament of Youth is also worth seeing, for Vikander. Her accentless command of English means she has many more roles open to her.
She was fine in Ex Machina and I look to seeing her more often. Not to the point where I'm drooling to see her in The Danish Girl. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Gran Torino was worse than can easily be described. One of the worst movies in years and years. Did I mention that it's really really bad? (Not to mention Eastwood's own performance, which is almost as awful as his turn at the Republican convention. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 11:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Syd wrote: bartist wrote: Testament of Youth is also worth seeing, for Vikander. Her accentless command of English means she has many more roles open to her.
She was fine in Ex Machina and I look to seeing her more often. Not to the point where I'm drooling to see her in The Danish Girl.
Seriously, The Danish Girl is worth seeing for her performance, not for Redmayne's. Bet you won't be reading this in many other places. He is going to be overrated almost universally. And she will therefore be likewise underrated. But don't cry for Alicia. She's gonna be fine. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:01 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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| It's kind of unfortunate that a mediocre Steve Jobs film was made a couple years ago, which sort of clouds the release of the really really good Steve Jobs film that's now showing. I hope people don't stay away on the basis of "Well, I saw a Jobs film and one was enough." The one with Fassbender was the one to see. One of the most interesting portrayals of a man's aesthetic obsessions and ambitions you will see on a movie screen. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:37 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Steve Jobs is a really fine film. That said, I can easily understand why it's tanking at the box office. The script, literate and witty, is also extraordinarily technical and bound up in details that many have no idea about. It will leave many in the dust. Fassbender was excellent, but his character had little dramatic oomph. That may be the fault of the real-life Jobs, but as a result there was only one scene with real dramatic impact of the type that grabs general audiences, and that was mainly (IMO) because of the acting of Seth Rogen, not Fassbender. |
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