All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

..and why not?
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Spec » 02 Jul 2008, 16:14

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Only half-way through but this is pretty great (in a horrible, uncomfortable way). At the moment I have no idea what to think.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 03 Jul 2008, 08:28

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Ended up enjoying it although for a a good hour or so it was just raising the occasional smile. I guess so much of it has been borrowed or improved on since and the leads just don't make it timelessly laugh at loud funny in the way some 30s comedies still are. I liked and was surprised by Cooper's vulnerability and Arthur was charming as the classic screwball reporter slowly losing her cynicism, but they were both quite quiet qualities rather than laugh out loud ones. The intrusion of the great depression with the manic gun waving farmer broke the mood a lot but also made me think about the incongruity of all these society comedies from the period.

The courtroom scenes were genuinely funny though, especially once Cooper takes the stand, there was just a hurt integrity to him in those scenes that genuinely did have him coming across as superior to all the people ranged against him. although cooper explaining to the court what a doodle was was very odd 70 years on.

So i ended up enjoying it, I'd like to see both arthur and cooper more but i think it's not quite retained as much of what obviously made it special at the time as some others from the period have

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby James R » 03 Jul 2008, 10:31

Specbebop wrote:Only half-way through but this is pretty great (in a horrible, uncomfortable way). At the moment I have no idea what to think.


Wait until the end of it and you'll have even less idea.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby straw mimsy » 03 Jul 2008, 11:16

Owen wrote:Image

Ended up enjoying it although for a a good hour or so it was just raising the occasional smile. I guess so much of it has been borrowed or improved on since and the leads just don't make it timelessly laugh at loud funny in the way some 30s comedies still are. I liked and was surprised by Cooper's vulnerability and Arthur was charming as the classic screwball reporter slowly losing her cynicism, but they were both quite quiet qualities rather than laugh out loud ones. The intrusion of the great depression with the manic gun waving farmer broke the mood a lot but also made me think about the incongruity of all these society comedies from the period.

The courtroom scenes were genuinely funny though, especially once Cooper takes the stand, there was just a hurt integrity to him in those scenes that genuinely did have him coming across as superior to all the people ranged against him. although cooper explaining to the court what a doodle was was very odd 70 years on.

So i ended up enjoying it, I'd like to see both arthur and cooper more but i think it's not quite retained as much of what obviously made it special at the time as some others from the period have


I can totallly talk about this for a while...WAIT
I need to go to work, THEN I can procrastinate. and have you seen Hudsucker proxy, cause that's whats going to be discussed next.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 03 Jul 2008, 12:31

angshu's girlfriend wrote:I can totallly talk about this for a while...WAIT
I need to go to work, THEN I can procrastinate. and have you seen Hudsucker proxy, cause that's whats going to be discussed next.


Years ago on tv, i remember channel hopping as well, it's been one i want to come back to as i'm much more up on sturges and screwball in general since, i have it and Barton Fink (which again i think i'd get a lot more out of if i resaw it) on my lovefilm rental queue but thats a very long queue.

I've never been totally satisfied with the Coen brothers, especially the comedies. I realise thats hardly a unique position but i think as I get more and more into 30s and 40s comedies I at once want to give them another go and am even more likely to find something lacking in them.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Spec » 03 Jul 2008, 13:31

James R wrote:
Specbebop wrote:Only half-way through but this is pretty great (in a horrible, uncomfortable way). At the moment I have no idea what to think.


Wait until the end of it and you'll have even less idea.


Finished it last night and you are right. No idea at all. It makes you think about so many things on so many levels including how quick we can be to judge people sometimes. But as a parent it makes you think about how much you entrust people you don't really know with your children.

A powerful piece of film-making. The clip before the epilogue of the old family films spliced together is very moving.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby straw mimsy » 03 Jul 2008, 15:16

Owen wrote:Image

Ended up enjoying it although for a a good hour or so it was just raising the occasional smile. I guess so much of it has been borrowed or improved on since and the leads just don't make it timelessly laugh at loud funny in the way some 30s comedies still are. I liked and was surprised by Cooper's vulnerability and Arthur was charming as the classic screwball reporter slowly losing her cynicism, but they were both quite quiet qualities rather than laugh out loud ones. The intrusion of the great depression with the manic gun waving farmer broke the mood a lot but also made me think about the incongruity of all these society comedies from the period.

The courtroom scenes were genuinely funny though, especially once Cooper takes the stand, there was just a hurt integrity to him in those scenes that genuinely did have him coming across as superior to all the people ranged against him. although cooper explaining to the court what a doodle was was very odd 70 years on.

So i ended up enjoying it, I'd like to see both arthur and cooper more but i think it's not quite retained as much of what obviously made it special at the time as some others from the period have



Okay,
So yes, being a raving and eternal fan of Frank Capra, I love watching how it is received by everyone else in the world. He's a director that very much agrees with himself. So much so that often one can over-generalise about his still and then get knocked for a loop actually watch one (either a new one, or even that same ones again.)
I don't think Mr. Deeds goes to town is best of his. Or even top ranking. And I don't know if it just my own bias. I watched it recently with about 15 other people (because its my ultimate aim in life to get as many people as I can to watch movies I like.) Most of these were not movie geeks, or even familiar at all with old movies. And they had the same reaction (not to say you arent' a geek or are unfamiliar with old movies-- just that it seems like this movies general effect) i think its probably because you don't know who's side you are on to begin with. I think Capra tries to set up a strong contrast with the savvy city-slickers, and the backwards homey down-to -earth folk. I think it doesn't adapt well to this new age, because either we come in with a patronising view point of olden times, where everything must have been a PleasantVille existence (and these movies are usually stereotyped as 'capra-corn' in that way) -- either this is true of the era or not (I think worth debating in it's own right) it doesn't have a pull with modern audiences til you have time to suspend that disbelief/get the distinction. Still, If you've just watched this
watch
Meet John Doe (Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck)
You can't take it with you (Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur)
and to a lesser extent Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Jimmy Stewart Jean arthur)
I think these (with the same actors) do it better.

Then watch
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Arsenic and old Lace
The lost horizon

To see what the man can do besides.

Oh and I guess the comparison to Hudsucker proxy is more of a post-script than a main theme. But, after having watched this movie-- where most people liked it, but i think came out with the same opinion as you did. We decided to pick a modern movie. this was the Hudsucker proxy. Which was unfortunate for it, because it basically replicated whole scenes from mr. Deeds goes to town. not subtly done. but maybe that was the point. it detracted without adding.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 03 Jul 2008, 18:56

Image

Funny and almost an antidote to the Before Sunrise/sunset movies. Goldberg being in his own way just as annoying as Ethan Hawke but more likeable with it. I've always liked Delpy and while there isn't really that much new in here it was a confident debut

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Penk! » 04 Jul 2008, 00:27

Owen wrote:Image

Funny and almost an antidote to the Before Sunrise/sunset movies. Goldberg being in his own way just as annoying as Ethan Hawke but more likeable with it. I've always liked Delpy and while there isn't really that much new in here it was a confident debut


Weird, we watched that earlier too.

Well I say we watched it, actually Penkette and my sister watched it and I went to read after about half an hour because I thought it was unbearable. Afterwards Penkette said she hated it too but didn't want to offend my sister.
There were a few funny lines but the characters were unbelievably smug and irritating, I just wanted to punch the guy. It felt a bit like when you are in a queue in the airport and there's a group of students behind you having a competition to say the most inane thing possible.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 04 Jul 2008, 08:13

I can see that, I think he is deliberately annoying in pretty much everything he is in, but especially in this, but it is generally an annoyance i didn't mind watching whereas i tend to turn Hawke off. Maybe just because he was annoying in a less pretentious way.

I quite liked the way it got across a relationship that they weren't particularly enjoying, again as an antidote really to how these sort of films usually approach relationshipts and it made me laugh fairly frequently. I find delpy really watchable and it was interesting to see her direct but there wasn't anything new there and i can see where it would put people off. Al commented after that they were both just playing the national stereotype, there wasn't a huge amount of subtlety anywhere

The inane student comments in the queue complaint is interesting, we saw In Search of a Midnight Kiss at the weekend and in the car afterwards commented on how much of the dialogue came across as inane stuff that you would hear yourself. I think it's just a given of most small budget self written things unfortunately

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Snarfyguy » 04 Jul 2008, 20:15

Image

Tarkovsky's The Mirror

This knocks everything else into a cocked hat. I need to see it about twenty more times and do some thinking on it, but for now I'm just completely blown away.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 05 Jul 2008, 11:52

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All i really knew about Hughes came from James ellroy books so just what he achieved in the earlier period was quite new to me, that period did kind of shoot by but I liked the feel scorcese gave the hollywood scenes. How thrown together and loose everything seemed as people were discovering how film worked and how technology could be pushed. You got the impression that a lot of what scorcese saw in hughes was that he was an obsessive film maker along with everything else. As it moved onto the conflict with Pan am the baseness of alda and baldwin worked very well. As warped as Hughes was his goals seemed realistically to be those small boys dreams, to venture out of his safe room to become the fastest and the richest and most famous.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby The Write Profile » 05 Jul 2008, 12:06

Owen wrote:Image

All i really knew about Hughes came from James ellroy books so just what he achieved in the earlier period was quite new to me, that period did kind of shoot by but I liked the feel scorcese gave the hollywood scenes. How thrown together and loose everything seemed as people were discovering how film worked and how technology could be pushed. You got the impression that a lot of what scorcese saw in hughes was that he was an obsessive film maker along with everything else. As it moved onto the conflict with Pan am the baseness of alda and baldwin worked very well. As warped as Hughes was his goals seemed realistically to be those small boys dreams, to venture out of his safe room to become the fastest and the richest and most famous.


Oddly, watching that film I can't help but feel that the person who least knows what to make of Hughes isn't Dicaprio, but Scorsese. At times, the film seems to fly (no pun intended) in so many different directions that it struggles to find a centre, on the one hand, we have Howard the millionare playboy and scamp, on the other Hughes the obsessive filmmaker (this is where Scorsese seemed to have the tightest hold on the piece), or Hughes the recluse, or Hughes the one-man crusader.

I think Dicaprio did a surprisingly good job actually, though you felt he handled the later scenes the best, those bits in the courtroom about the battle with Panam are so zippy and sharp that they make up for all the bizarre sections where you wonder whether it's actually setting itself up for a sequel rather than a proper denoument. The bits about his mental deteroriation were scattered throughout, I kinda felt they never developed a proper rhythm or payoff and you could see Dicaprio trying his darndest to make them work, but somehow they felt lacking. What he did get about Hughes was the "kid in a candy store" boundless optimism, coupled with that sense of outrageous perfectionism (not least in the scenes where they're shooting Hell's Angels.) Also, he played off John C Riley well, who was pretty much playing the same sort of putupon suffering friend he does in most of his films, but it did provide some balance.

Blanchett got Hepburn pretty down too, but then Blanchett seems to be one of those actresses who seems more at home in films outside of 'modern' period, and one that's a natural chameleon, like Meryl Streep, but without her nagging self-regard and histrionics. Most of the other female leads seemed to feel the costumes would tell enough of the story, but the fact of the matter is that Ava Gardner is unrepeatable, as was Harlow, in her own way.

There's also these weird tonal shifts throughout, I don't think that Scorsese really knew what sort of "prestige pic" he was making, and it's interesting to note that it was originally a Michael Mann vehicle before he took over (Mann remained the producer), Hughes seems more in line with Mann's parade of obsessive, driven and ultimately hollow loners than Scorsese's more self-flagellating self-messianic protagonists. Which is a roundabout way of saying that maybe the Hughes that's depicted in American Tabloid would've been a better fit for him.

There's a lot of good stuff here, but then again there seems to be a lot of stuff in general. I'm wondering whether a film focussed on one part of the story would've been more satisfying and less frustrating- the last thirty minutes were superbly handled, as were the opening thirty. But then again, maybe Hughes is the sort of figure you only have one shot at doing these days. I got caught up about it, and it was nothing if not entertaining, but you do feel like it was circling around and trying to figure out how to land, to extend the laboured flight metaphor.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Owen » 05 Jul 2008, 12:51

The RightGraduate Profile wrote:Oddly, watching that film I can't help but feel that the person who least knows what to make of Hughes isn't Dicaprio, but Scorsese. At times, the film seems to fly (no pun intended) in so many different directions that it struggles to find a centre, on the one hand, we have Howard the millionare playboy and scamp, on the other Hughes the obsessive filmmaker (this is where Scorsese seemed to have the tightest hold on the piece), or Hughes the recluse, or Hughes the one-man crusader.


As i said they try and link them as being kind of a kids obsessions but yes Scorcese clearly identifies most with the hollywood stuff, as if the air records were this accidental offshoot of a combination of the OCD (why do there need to be rivets spoiling things) and the need to make Hells Angels more impressive. As if Scorcese can largely get into them via movies or a movie style overriding psychological motivation.

Despite the title there isn't this feel that aviation might actually be a larger, more real passion than films because for scorcese himself it wouldn't be but you get the impression that for hughes it was. MS gets driven broken men and he gets movies and he shows those sides of hughes well, but as well as he melts Hughes down he achieved so many different things that scorcese doesn't really get across the majesty of. He was the fastest man on the planet, he flew the biggest plane ever built. He overcame long established and really powerful enemy firms. That he did so while so badly debilitated is part of it rather than all of it. The ellroy style depiction is alluring, this larger than life capricious force that could create literally anything on a whim but in Ellroy it's at the side of the picture stirring up the world for everyone else, scorcese tried to put that at the centre without as you say being totally on top of what to make of the whole picture.

I think Dicaprio did a surprisingly good job actually, though you felt he handled the later scenes the best, those bits in the courtroom about the battle with Panam are so zippy and sharp that they make up for all the bizarre sections where you wonder whether it's actually setting itself up for a sequel rather than a proper denoument. The bits about his mental deteroriation were scattered throughout, I kinda felt they never developed a proper rhythm or payoff and you could see Dicaprio trying his darndest to make them work, but somehow they felt lacking.


I'm not sure they could have a proper dramatic structure like that, simply because the attacks didn't have that. You got the impression, as you do in Ellroy and when reading up on him (as i've done since watching the movie) that he could overcome the ocd stuff to face down a challenge but that he just didn't actually seem to find anything all that challenging.

He overcame all sorts of opponents, the aviation stuff, Pan am, congress then onto vegas and all that came with it and just got richer and richer and needed to stir himself from his room less and less. Rather than being defeated and slumping into oblivion it was the complacency of having beaten everything, having control over every aspect of his life and searching for invisible stuff to fight because he had mastered everything. It ends up looking like a life spent constantly picking supposedly unwinnable fights and winning them all easily so he creates and is destroyed by these absurd battles inside his own head.


What he did get about Hughes was the "kid in a candy store" boundless optimism, coupled with that sense of outrageous perfectionism (not least in the scenes where they're shooting Hell's Angels.) Also, he played off John C Riley well, who was pretty much playing the same sort of putupon suffering friend he does in most of his films, but it did provide some balance.

Blanchett got Hepburn pretty down too, but then Blanchett seems to be one of those actresses who seems more at home in films outside of 'modern' period, and one that's a natural chameleon, like Meryl Streep, but without her nagging self-regard and histrionics. Most of the other female leads seemed to feel the costumes would tell enough of the story, but the fact of the matter is that Ava Gardner is unrepeatable, as was Harlow, in her own way.

There's also these weird tonal shifts throughout, I don't think that Scorsese really knew what sort of "prestige pic" he was making, and it's interesting to note that it was originally a Michael Mann vehicle before he took over (Mann remained the producer), Hughes seems more in line with Mann's parade of obsessive, driven and ultimately hollow loners than Scorsese's more self-flagellating self-messianic protagonists. Which is a roundabout way of saying that maybe the Hughes that's depicted in American Tabloid would've been a better fit for him.


Maybe, that would certainly fit the Scorcese that exists in a million male film fans heads, i'm not sure that guy exists any more or that he has ever really looked at things with that world view that Ellroy needs. I'm not sure Ellroy has the themes that Marty needs although i agree that it's possible the aviator was a little confused on that score as well. I found Blanchett to be a pretty straight forward hepburn impression, annoying in the way hepburn could be annoying but rarely stumbling across the things that made her great, there were odd moments of freedom there, when you could see what she might get from Hughes, but they felt more like a creation of the movie while the pretension felt real. I actually liked the Gardner character but i've seen a lot less of the real thing than i have of hepburn (i was reading on hepburns box office poison issues yesterday prior to seeing the film, it was what made me watch it, and i might have brought the negativity to my viewing of blanchett to be honest)


There's a lot of good stuff here, but then again there seems to be a lot of stuff in general. I'm wondering whether a film focussed on one part of the story would've been more satisfying and less frustrating- the last thirty minutes were superbly handled, as were the opening thirty. But then again, maybe Hughes is the sort of figure you only have one shot at doing these days. I got caught up about it, and it was nothing if not entertaining, but you do feel like it was circling around and trying to figure out how to land, to extend the laboured flight metaphor.


I agree, but i think that was largely down to there just being so much there to work with. Even at three hours scorcese had to pick off the bits of his life that mattered most to him, and i think scorcese the film historian had as much say as scorcese the film maker if you know what i mean,.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby BARON CORNY DOG » 05 Jul 2008, 15:25

Snarfyguy wrote:Image

Tarkovsky's The Mirror

This knocks everything else into a cocked hat. I need to see it about twenty more times and do some thinking on it, but for now I'm just completely blown away.


Have you read Tarkovsky's book?
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Snarfyguy » 05 Jul 2008, 19:58

Il Baron wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Image

Tarkovsky's The Mirror

This knocks everything else into a cocked hat. I need to see it about twenty more times and do some thinking on it, but for now I'm just completely blown away.


Have you read Tarkovsky's book?

No, I didn't know he had a book.

Let me know what you think of it, pb.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby Quaco » 05 Jul 2008, 20:04

Last night, I watched an episode of Ironside.
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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby the masked man » 05 Jul 2008, 21:37

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Errances

French director Damien Odoul here presents a handsomely-shot but ultimately frustrating drama about a destructive marriage. His elliptical, fragmented shooting style (we rarely see full events unfolding, just randomly-selected extracts from stormy scenes occurring over a five-year period from 1968-1973). He screws about and drinks heavily; she chain-smokes and worries a lot. We really learn very little else due to the lack of any focus.

What I found interesting about the film is the number of ways in which Odoul distances his characters from the audience. Aside from the fragmentary nature of the film, he variously shoots his characters in dim light, from the back, in middle and long distances, reflected in mirrors and seen through windows. This means we can never really get close to these two people - frankly it's hard to care much, despite some diverting set-pieces.

I was reminded of François Ozon's 5x2, which also shows a doomed relationship unfolding at certain points in the recent past. Yet Ozon's film was structured carefully for maximum impact. By comparison, this curiously distant effort seems rather slight and misconceived.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby The Modernist » 06 Jul 2008, 01:01

Image

A film that is almost a paradigm of the European art film. I was a bit tired before I started to watch this and on reflection may not have been in the right mood for it. Many people consider this a masterpiece and the key film in the Three Colours trilogy.
The film is about the long,painful grief of Juliete Binoche's character who has lost her daughter and husband, a reknowned classical composer who was working on a prestigous commission. Binoche retracts from life and tries to bury the past but slowly she reemerges to find some reconciliation between the past, present and future. The completion of the symphony symbolises this journey.
Certainly there is much to admire here: it would be insulting to praise Kieslowski as a visualist, there is clearly so much more at work than that. His painstaking close ups are a web of poetic metaphor with everyday objects ( from a swimming pool, a lump of sugar or a glass ceiling light) assuming rich layers of meaning regarding loss and escape from the self. Admirable too is his desire to confront the deepest of human emotions with a sympathetic, non-judgemental eye. For all this I found it a hard film to warm to, the austerity of his vision felt like contrivance; I found myself irritated by its dolorous fades, its stark solemnity.
I can't argue with the brilliance at work here but I was strangely unmoved.

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Re: All-new RECENT VIEWING thread!

Postby mentalist (slight return) » 06 Jul 2008, 02:28

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3 50's westerns from Fox. Garden of Evil is pretty average but enlivened by a stunning Bernard Hermann score. Cary Grant as lonely gunfighter Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter is passable, but Rawhide is a killer tense suspenseful western. Jack Elam is particularly good as a psychotic bad guy.
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