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I've been watching a lot of movies lately:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt011579
Sex and Math
I really liked this movie but it will definitely put some people off. Very well done and no silly blow stuff up scenes. I am through with he-man movies.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1224373/
Slovenian Girl
But the best one I have watched lately is the original Korean flick My Sassy Girl.Of course, Hollywood remade it. The remake is horrible.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293715/
I never said I spoke for babble, I was responding to "I don't understand why progressives hate The Hurt Locker."
It's not that a movie has to 'pro' or 'anti' war', its that this movie was made during an ongoing decade long illegal occupation and it reinforced all the popular stereotypes and prejudices used to justify and prolong that war. That makes it propaganda.
The only sympathetic Iraqi character was the boy; the innocent Iraqi who still has a chance of being an Americanized good arab. Of course Iraq is too dark and evil of a place to let that boy survive and the only person who cares about him, the American hero, tragically is unable to save him from his countrymen. Of course he's the 'good guy' whose one character flaw is that he's 'wild' and 'doesn't play by the rules'. That's hardly original or deep characterization Apples, see Top Gun. The story is ridiculous, the characters are boring, and the politics are status quo. This was a made for tv movie with good production values and a skilled use of tension and suspense.
I've watched The Queen (2006) before, but could not get past the first half hour tonight. What a horrible family.
Right now I am watching Fierce Light (2008) which features Judy Rebick, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Quebec 2001 protests, and activism around in various places. Excellent film.
Just watched Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. Wow!!!
I just saw Colin Firth in A Single Man (2009). It's lovely!
I saw Predators on Saturday. Good movie. The Israeli sniper was an interesting character.
I saw it too; it was on TV. I thought it was pretty good. One reason for this is that it dealt more with the issues rather than being as Michael Moorey as some of his other pictures.
The segment on Reagan was excellent, especially seeing Donald Regan pulling Reagan's strings. I think Moore was saying that Reagan's Administration was the attempted beginning of the elimination of the middle class, leaving just the rich (1%) and the poor (99%). Interesting to see RCC clergy (priests and bishops) diss capitalism as well.
Watched 2012 last night. Am glad it's a work of fiction! However, I predict we'll see mass hysteria on 11/12/12 (that's the 11th of December 2012 - the day before 12/12/12). It'll be that Y2K nonsense all over again. I'll make lots of popcorn.
I saw two movies this past week, the 1995 french film "La Haine" by Mathieu Kassovitz, and the 2009 drama "Chloe" by Atom Egoyan staaring Amanda Seyfried, Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Both were excellent.
La Haine is a story of three youths, one jew, one arab and one black, growing up in some projects outside of Paris, and one of them finds a gun after some police riots. They're discussing how to deal with the gun, and whether or not they would take revenge if one of their friends, currently in the hospital, ends up dead. The director says it's supposed to capture France in that time, that it's a country headed for trouble, and he compares it to a man who has fallen off a building and thinks that "everything is ok thus far" for every floor he passes on the way down. It ended up having signicant success internationally, even though it was about France the director learned that it resonated with people the world over. I personally greatly related to the Jewish character, and I thought his grandmother resembled my own.
[Problem with the above image, Said is the Arab guy and Hubert is the black guy, order of the names and pictures are switched]
Chloe I watched because I read it is getting oscar buzz. It was nice.... I don't think Liam Neeson has ever failed to impress me... he even managed to be the bright spot of the original star wars. He was awesome in Kinsey and Batman Begins, and he was awesome here though they had trouble filming because his wife had a ski accident during the filming. Actually, I don't think I've ever been into a serious chick flick this much before, the last Julianne Moore movie I saw (The Hours) left me bored and restless, but this one resonated. It's really impossible to give a cogent summary of the film's plot without spoiling, so I'll give a sub-cogent summary. Moore and Neeson play a husband and wife team, their marriage is less exciting than it used to be, they're unsure of each other's loyalties, and Seyfried plays a prostitute. It's much better than that sounds, but I can't say more without ruining it. Do see it though.
I'm looking forward to the DVD release, it's too late to see it in theatres.
Shortbus - This one is rated Adult (if it actually rated at all?) So don't pick it up thinking that it's a family moview.
This was so "out of my normal confort zone"I don't think I can actually give a review of the movie except to say it is entirely mismerizing ... a porno with great acting and a exremely strong and somewhat offbeat (for most of us) story.
The Big Lebowski: still awesome.
I've never seen The Big Lebowski, but last week I dug out my DVD of Queen of Outer Space, starring Zsa Zsa Gabor. I saw it at a drive-in with my parents in the early '60s, but didn't know its title, and its memory haunted me until RonB over at EnMasse told me how to find it.
I also watched Casino Royale the other day. I had forgotten most of it. It's terrible, even though Herb Alpert's music is great. I couldn't help thinking that David Niven and William Holden would have been embarassed to be in it. Peter Sellers must have been typecast as a character in bad psychaedelic movies, as The Party shares a lot of what's wrong with Casino Royale. Ursula Andress was good, though.
Bears many watchings. As do almost all their films. A Serious Man - pure genius - and you almost don't need to be Jewish to appreciate it!
A couple of weeks ago, I watched A Single Man, A Serious Man, Up In The Air, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coco.
Mmmmmm.
Geez, al-Q. You know The Big Lebowski is a parody of The Big Sleep, right? "Yeah, right man, there are a lot of uh, facets uh, to this. A lotta interested parties."
I love the Coen brothers so much I almost sneer at their merely "good" offerings. If it's not a world-beater, I don't waste my time, it seems. I haven't seen A Serious Man yet because of that very prejudice. I'm on the case, though.
I also haven't seen Mr Fox yet! I can't believe it.
Big Lebowski for sure.
No, I don't know anything about The Big Lebowski. I've read the title a lot here and there, though.
Big Lebowski is one of my favorites but I really really liked A Serious Man too, maybe my favorite from last year.
I just saw Thirst which was interesting, the same Korean director who did Old Boy, his movies are some of the more interesting I've seen lately, I really liked the last scene in Thirst.
Catchfire, see A Serious Man.
When none of the recent new releases looked appealing I went to the rent 5 movies for 10 dollars for 7 days racks. I think I'm going to visit those ones more often because I picked up some that I've never heard of before.
One was a documentary, "My Kid Could Paint That" about the then 4 year Marla Olmstead who a few years back took the abstract art world by storm, labeled a prodigy and then was and still is I guess questioned about being a hoax. It was really interesting because the filming was started before the 'hoax' question was brought up by the 60 Minutes piece on her and followed what happened afterwards. The film was quite multi-layered and became about much more then what the filmmaker originally intended which was a piece exploring the question of "What is art?".
The other one was "September Dawn" a semi-fictional story about the Mountain Meadows Massacre which occurred in Utah in 1857 where approximately 120 people in a wagon train travelling to California were slaughtered(with some help by local Paiutes, though how much they were actually involved is part of the controversy) by Mormans in the area. The film itself is not the greatest in it's execution bit hoaky in some parts and the love story a bit cheesy but the story it's based on is sure a good one. I had never heard of this event before and when learning more about what happened I can understand why it's a bit of US and especially Morman history that isn't talked about much or part of the commonly known historical cannon of the settlement of the US in general. Anyways the movie sparked enough interest to send me on a several hour long google fest which was quite eye opening.
We had a thread about Marla Olmstead back in the day. I kind of hated the premise of the film, or at least one of the questions moblizing its appeal: "don't we all really know that art is so stupid a child could do it?" But I'm defensive. I ended up liking the film quite a bit, in the end.
Ok.
Well, the public library has copies of The Big Lebowski, so it won't be long before I can see what all the fuss is about.
Dude!
This aggression will not stand, man!
Slow down kids; I haven't signed out the picture yet.
Does "Lebowski" have a line like, "He's cute too"?
Martha Vickers is typecast.
OK, I saw the picture.
The "The Dude" stuff was annoying. The Busby Berkeley tribute was nice, though.
This part was entirely predictable - maybe that was the joke?
You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
"Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!"