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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 2:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Betsy--You neglected to mention the name of the filmmaker in question. It's Abbas Kiarostami. And the first film is actually titled Like Someone in Love. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 3:43 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| I am suffering from a decrease in brain cells that affect memory of names and titles. So if I choose to post accurately I have to do some research first. I feel guilty not doing it and always look forward to your corrects..... By the way, did you like the film? |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2017 3:44 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Befade wrote: I am suffering from a decrease in brain cells that affect memory of names and titles. So if I choose to post accurately I have to do some research first. I feel guilty not doing it and always look forward to your corrects..... By the way, did you like the film?
Have not seen, but will put it on my list for sure. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:34 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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My review in April 2013....
Quote: "Like Someone in Love" is the latest film from Kiarostami. Set in Japan, it opens with a tavern scene in which the person talking is not in the frame, so we are slowly introduced to the call girl who is the central character, gradually accumulating hints from one side of her phone conversation, and interruptions from others who approach. This sets the tone for the film, which takes its time, gradually revealing a situation and subverting conventional plot expectations that this might be about the hooker with the heart of gold who is "saved" by a lonely old scholar. The process is done with such mastery and such exquisite photography (mostly in confined spaces - a taxi, a small apartment, the professor's Volvo) and such a confidence in the power of the film medium to show without telling, that I'm going out on a limb and declare this the best foreign film of 2013. And maybe just the best film, period.
My film companion and I were rendered speechless for some time after leaving the theater and both of us agreed that the emotional impact of the film would grow during the coming days, rather than fade away. I will contemplate for a long time what I've been shown about the things people hide from each other and themselves....and the mystery of the ending, if there is one.
The film is now on a limited run in arthouses and independent theaters in the U.S. I urge you to find one and see it on the big screen - there is a taxi ride through Tokyo that is one of the most extraordinary and immersive experiences I've ever had in a theater. Moments which, if I were to describe them might sound rather sedate and lacking in much interest or forward momentum, draw you in and obliterate any possible distance between the viewer and the characters.
"Like Someone in Love" is a masterpiece. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:10 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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Didn't care much for 20th C Women. It seemed too much of a pastiche of other films. Reminded me of Running with Scissors, an adolescent boy growing up in a house surrounded by a quirky group of other kids/adults. (Even with Annette Benning in the female lead, with Evan Rachel Wood as the Elle Fanning of a decade ago).
But there were also elements of Almost Famous, with 20thC W's sporadic emphasis on the music of rebellion, as a young male grows up among worldier girls. And then I came to realize it was also very much a Woody Allen style film covering the adolescent years Woody usually skipped. The old jazz tipped me off to that connection, but you can see how a not-so-macho kid trying to find his way and get girls into bed was in the Woody Allen mode -- while family drama issues circle about.
Otherwise, I never got invested in any of the characters. It often felt rather fake and quirky without much purpose. I didn't like the style -- the various narrations including their past and future lives. Or the still photo montages. Seemed like the film was groping for a style or tone that never crystallized or just didn't work. there were a few good lines here and there, but more often the dialogue felt overly written and unnatural. I just didn't get inside or close to this film and the mish-mash of other films, uninteresting characters, artificial group living situation situation, and writerly dialogue kept me on the outside looking at my watch. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:21 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Gromit.....the beauty of that film quirky as it was, is Bening's performance and her dialogue. Maybe it's just one of those women's films.
Bart.....I have no memory of that film or your review. It was a recent discovery......an impulsive buy with no info. What a surprise it was! I'm glad I have it here to watch again. I went to Tokyo last May and loved that city...so I'll watch any film that takes place there. (Lost in Translation). But what a film! And surprise is a good word for it. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER would be surprise ending....I jumped out of my seat! |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:59 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Loved both 'Like Someone in Love' and 'Certified Copy'.
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 2:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Ghulam wrote: .
Loved both 'Like Someone in Love' and 'Certified Copy'.
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Looks like I have some catching up to do. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 2:19 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| gromit--I get what you mean about 20th Century Women, but Bening's performance made up for everything. It was, I think, her best turn ever. Also, although the movie had a real case of the self-important, I much preferred it to either Running With Scissors or Almost Famous. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:56 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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| Billy and Bart.... I hope you both will see Certified Copy soon and report back. I'm starting to wonder if I didn't like it because I can't stand watching couples arguing.......that film has a lot of it. |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 4:16 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Upstate NY
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| gromit |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 5:07 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9015
Location: Shanghai
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April and the Extraordinary World is kind of fun, if a little silly at times. The basic plot is that the Franco-Prussian War never occurs, the Napoleonic Dynasty continues to rule France into the 20th C, and a pair of mutant lizards try to take over the world by kidnapping all the scientists, thus resulting in the absence of the 2nd industrial revolution and steam power continuing on, as electricity is not invented. Yep, more steampunk.
The alternative history of France is I guess equivalent to those that posit the South wins the US Civil War (or that a split nation forms). It's interesting how France and the US managed to time their revolutions and political crises for 100+ years. The talking human-like mutant lizards constitute the rather silly part of the plot. The film becomes concerned with scientific development and the issue of science being able to be used for both good and bad. With clear parallels to nuclear technology and weaponization. Fe,ales are the primary agents -- April, her mother, the good female mutant lizard.
I mostly enjoyed this, though had to overlook the silly parts, and some of the action sequences were a bit tiresome, but I'm never much into action sequences. My disc only had the English voices -- J K Simmons, Paul Giamatti, Susan Sarandon, etc -- which is what i would have primarily used anyway, but I would have liked to have watched some of it with the French in order to get a feel of the original and to compare and see which version I liked better. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 7:41 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| Ghulam, so as to avoid making this webpage five feet wide, you can remove everything after the question mark in a Times URL, and it will still work. Basically, everything after under-spell-James-Baldwin/ can be removed. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 7:52 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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| I read a synopsis of April etc. recently and it seemed like "a little silly at times" might be something of an understatement. For one thing, Faraday's work on electricity had already been started by then. But, mais oui, with the French eet eez all a metaphor, n'est-ce pas? |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:14 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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As I watched Get Out:
This first scene doesn't make sense. There's a lot of swearing.
I can't see Allison Williams with this guy. He's not handsome and he's a very dark black. But she seems smitten.
Her parents embrace him. But the "colored" servants are off. Smiling yet definitely not connecting with the black boyfriend. The brother is very strange.
His going outside in the night with the groundskeeper bumping into him is scary. His sitting with the mother when he comes in evolves into a witchy tea cup and spoon seance. Is she hypnotizing him to stop him from smoking?
The guests the next day were obviously well heeled older white couples who are very friendly on the surface but are focusing on what qualities a black person has.
I'm not laughing. I'm kind of confused.....I thought this was a comedy horror.
As the film progresses it becomes a horror thriller where I'm rooting for the black boyfriend to survive. Very clever film that you have to stick with to the end for it to jell. |
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