My nomination for the worse movie ever made: "Hair" (1976, I think). An absolute waste of film, just a total piece of crap. TMN has been showing this sorry excuse for a movie musical several times recently. People actually paid to see this stinker???
Movies II
Tue, 2008-11-25 19:50
#202
Boom Boom
Tue, 2008-11-25 19:50
#203
Boom Boom
My nomination for the worse movie ever made: "Hair" (1976, I think). An absolute waste of film, just a total piece of crap. TMN has been showing this sorry excuse for a movie musical several times recently. People actually paid to see this stinker???
Tue, 2008-11-25 23:49
#204
Wh-a-a-t?? That must be just grumpiness talking, Boom Boom.
Flesh Failures
We starve,
look at one another short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new-told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
No, there are much, much worse things to make it to film. The movie "Next" for example, starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore.
Besides, Treat Williams. Beverley D'Angelo.
Thu, 2008-11-27 12:46
#205
I watched Network two nights ago, in order to scratch it off my AFI list, and I really enjoyed it! It featured some superb acting and though made 30 some-odd years ago, it really struck a chord with me in regards to media concentration and exploiting the mentally ill (see American Idol!). Two thumbs up!
Thu, 2008-11-27 12:46
#206
I watched Network two nights ago, in order to scratch it off my AFI list, and I really enjoyed it! It featured some superb acting and though made 30 some-odd years ago, it really struck a chord with me in regards to media concentration and exploiting the mentally ill (see American Idol!). Two thumbs up!
Thu, 2008-11-27 12:52
#207
Half the time I post on babble I double post, even if I don't double click! Let's see if this one works properly.
Thu, 2008-11-27 18:58
#208
Boom Boom
I loved the album "Hair" but the movie version was an abomination. Just total dreck. BTW, I have Hair on CD and listen to it at least once a year.
Thu, 2008-11-27 18:58
#209
Boom Boom
I loved the album "Hair" but the movie version was an abomination. Just total dreck. BTW, I have Hair on CD and listen to it at least once a year.
Thu, 2008-11-27 19:34
#210
Just finished watching Hancock. Eh, s'alright. At first it was a neat play on the superhero genre and it is certainly suggestable to most people out there who aren't looking for much more than Will Smith saving the world. The ending was atrocious. Just god damned awful.
I also watched the new documentary Gonzo. Hunter S was most certainly the man.
Thu, 2008-11-27 19:37
#211
Hey thanks for the heads up on Gonzo PB. That's what I'll be watching sometime this weekend.
Sat, 2012-08-25 01:14
#212
The Turin Horse (2011) 2.5 hrs Slow paced, meaning of life in a microcosm. Hungarian film.
On January 3, 1889 in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver...
You'll either fall asleep in the middle of it or discover the heaviness of human existence.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) 2.5 hrs
"Turkey's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film." Failed to make Hollywood's shortlist. Downloaded and burned to DVD w Eng.. captions. Tomorrow night's popcorn-o-rama.
Battleship Potemkin (1925) Soviet film. Never heard of it, but I downloaded it and will be watching at some point.
Wed, 2012-10-10 07:04
#213
Bradhenry
I have uncountable movies to current time. I have watched some horror movies. These movies are so awful. Names are
Drag me o hell
The 13th ghost
livewatchmovies.com
Wed, 2012-10-10 22:40
#214
Boom Boom
As I mentioned before, I subscribe to seven movie channels on ExpressVu - and I'm hoping TMN.ca repeats V For Vendetta on November 5th. 
"More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot."
Wed, 2012-10-10 23:45
#215
THey might show the story of the original, too:
Thu, 2012-10-11 09:40
#216
Boom Boom
THey might show the story of the original, too:
I've never seen that one - but I'd like to.
ETA: I faintly recall a Guy Fawkes movie in black and white - maybe from the 1940s?
Thu, 2012-10-11 13:42
#217
I don't have cable only internet. I also get Netflix and they have lots of good movies especially if you go into the US site. I am not above occasionally using a certain Scandinavian site to "liberate" Hollywood movies.
I have been off the cable for a year now and don't miss it. But then I am not on a dial up internet connection.
Thu, 2012-10-11 15:28
#218
Boom Boom
We're in a big storm here, and the power is off. I started up my small generator and the TV is on. The satellite feed comes and goes.
Sat, 2012-10-13 06:57
#219
We're in a big storm here, and the power is off. I started up my small generator and the TV is on. The satellite feed comes and goes.
You'll just have to move back to Ottawa so you can download movies from that Scandinavian site kropotkin alluded to so delicately above. And most movies have closed captioning files in English, Francais, Italian, Chinese, Arabic etc which can be recorded with the movie fairly easily. It's not quite as easy-breezy as paying for Turner Classics but cheaper in the long run and not so difficult once you get the hang of it jts.
Yeah I watched Titanic again with Leonardo and Kate. My eyes watered-up a little again when Rose realises Jack is gone.
Jack: Where to, Miss?
Rose: To the stars.
Sat, 2012-10-13 10:22
#220
Boom Boom
Not much chance I will ever leave Quebec - and especially with that prick Harper in charge of Canada and that jerk McGuinty in charge of Ontario.
Sat, 2012-10-13 15:41
#221
I saw the documentary "Marley" not long ago and it was a wonderful well done documentary.
A conflicted hero for me although I have always loved his music. I loved his anti-racism and anti-imperialism but not his misogyny. I saw him at Convocation Hall in 1976 and he and the Wailers and the I Threes were outstanding.
Sat, 2012-10-13 16:44
#222
Boom Boom
Just watched Sitting Pretty (1948) on TCM. Silly, but funny satire on suburban life, and very over-acted, a bit over the top. Maureen O'Hara is just terrific. The Mr. Belvedere character is an absolute hoot. 
Sat, 2013-01-19 22:33
#223
..not a movie but a tv show. asylum begins in season 2.
American Horror Story: Asylum
quote:
Overseeing of the madness is the stern and sadistic Sister Jude, played by scene-stealer Jessica Lange in deliciously theatrical manner. Lange was the highlight of the first season, playing meddling neighbor Constance Langdon, and she swallows this even meatier role whole. Sister Jude is a woman with a sordid past, suspicious of science, and firm in her belief that mental illness is a sin that must be beaten out of the human spirit. She's also inclined to view everyone as her sworn enemy, nobody more so than Dr. Arthur (James Cromwell), hired by the church to make Briarcliff a leader in the medical treatment of the insane. Their rivalry is the story's engine, affecting the movements and the motives of everyone around them. It's a classic struggle: religion versus science, matriarchy versus patriarchy, crazy versus crazier. But there's no clear winner, as each side is presented to be just as sinister as the other, which suggests that ultimately the struggle may be a pointless one. Sister Jude might be cruel, but Dr. Arthur is downright evil, getting his kicks by mutilating prostitutes and performing radical experiments on his mental patients, turning them into grotesque creatures with a taste for raw meat.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/review/american-horror-story-asylum/363
Sun, 2013-01-20 11:43
#224
Love Jessica Lange.
Sun, 2013-01-27 20:47
#225
Boom Boom
Am watching this: The Fever
The film follows the existential crisis of an unnamed urban sophisticate (Vanessa Redgrave) who becomes aware of the nature of world politics, economic exploitation and the vapid consumerism around her. A series of events lead her to visit an unnamed third world country, representing an exotic location somewhere in Eastern Europe, where the entire economy and populace are geared towards the tourist industry. Even as she enjoys the rare taste of its products she is made starkly aware of the reality behind the façade by a journalist (Michael Moore) who, subsequently, suggests a visit to the country's war-torn neighbour in order to experience a true picture of life in the region. She does so and her life is changed forever.
Once back, and now acutely attuned to the world about her, she can no longer fit back into her old elitist and consumer-driven lifestyle; watching operas, discussing art and theatre with friends, shopping for "beautiful things" and aggrandizing her trifling everyday struggles, all seem meaningless to her compared with her recent macro epiphany. Compared with the global struggle for existence, her life begins to feel insignificant. Having lived in the bubble her guilt-free, pleasure-filled, life she is now challenged to look beyond comfort and soon finds herself in the throes of a moral dilemma, questioning the moral consistency of her own life and the choices that have had an impact on the lives of the poor in far corners of the globe. She feels that she cannot be truly free having apprehended this new reality, which confronts her blindness to the harsh truths of the class struggle and her sense of entitlement, which had, in the past, been broken, only occasionally, by displays of sympathy.
She returns to the war-torn nation to explore her feelings further, this new reality now drawing her ever deeper. This leads to a delirious bout of fever in a run-down hotel where her inner-self challenges her need for comfort and entitlement, culminating in a moment of spiritual awakening and a perceived 'oneness' with all reality. Finally she sees the truth about her own life and her innate connection with every human being, apprehending the transient nature of her material life. She can no longer sit, immersed in her personal comforts and vanity, or "clean sheets" as she terms it, and pretend it’s all right when the world around her is filled with strife and exploitation for millions of people. She is lustrated of her previous immunity towards their predicament and is, by extension, finally able to see the truth of own life, as summarised by film's tag-line: Enlightenment Can Be Brutal
Discussed in the film are:
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
What is the Fetishism of Commodities?
and a discussion of “Democracy is the worse form of Government, except for all the others”.
and: why do we have so much, and others have so little?
We make choices in life - if we choose to struggle and have a good life, we do so at the expense of others.
Sun, 2013-01-27 21:53
#226
Watching "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" on a certain well-known online movie provider, It follows a year in the life of a largely self-sufficient river community living far off the grid in northern Siberia. The similarities to northern Canadian life are surprising to me.
Sun, 2013-03-24 00:32
#227
Just watched Argo - what BS!
Argo: Iran hostage crisis film fiddles with the facts
That said, as entertainment Argo does succeed as a true Hollywood thriller And as far as film critic Leonard Maltin is concerned there should be no problem with that, after he has one piece of sage advice for us all "don’t get your history from the movies."
http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/argo-iran-hostage-crisis-film-fiddles-with-the-...
Mon, 2013-03-25 03:26
#228
Top of the Lake
Twelve years old and five months pregnant, Tui Mitcham suddenly disappears from her remote mountain town. Detective Robin Griffin returns home to investigate, but every step closer to solving the case unearths a dangerous truth about her past. Written and directed by Academy Award® winner Jane Campion.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/series/top-of-the-lake/
Top of the Lake
It's hard not to be initially repelled by the familiarly grim procedural setup of Jane Campion's Top of the Lake. Tui Mitcham (Jacqueline Joe), the 12-year-old daughter of low-level drug kingpin Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan), is pregnant and missing after running away from her father's compound on Lake Wakatipu. Matt's convinced she can handle herself, but the police suspect that the father of Tui's baby, a pedophile and possibly a shamed member of the Mitcham clan, may have killed her. The investigation is being led by Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss), a visiting detective who helped discover Tui's pregnancy following a presumed suicide attempt, and Al Parker (David Wenham), the town's lead investigator, but also riles up the attentions of many members of the small town's decidedly masculine power structure....
Tue, 2013-06-04 22:47
#229
I don't think anyone's posted this yet:
[url=http://laborfilms.com]The Labor Film Database[/url]
Sat, 2014-03-08 21:38
#230
..spectacular movie with solid acting.
August: Osage County
Adapted by Tracy Letts from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and starring the woman often hailed as the world's greatest living actress, John Wells's August: Osage County is awards bait at its most overt. Buried within its vanilla packaging and sub-standard compositions, though, is a slyer, more compelling vision, a bawdy and black-hearted vaudeville act that defies the notion of "prestige." Unquestionably a bit of a mess, it's also a dirty, angry, obscene, and uproarious one, and as such difficult to dismiss.
The film, like the play, follows one dynastic Oklahoma family as they cope with the suicide of their patriarch, Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard). His pill-popping, cancer-stricken wife, Violet (Meryl Streep), gathers the family together to mourn, and in doing so triggers an avalanche of voiced resentments, family secrets, and escalating physical violence. Violet—cutting, exhaustingly bitter, collapsing under the weight of her own regrets—is the primary instigator of this battle royale, but she's matched by her eldest daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts), who escaped to Colorado years ago and can barely contain her enmity for Osage County and its inhabitants. Every branch of this family tree is eventually proven rotten, of course, through a series of revelations that impact every guest at the house....
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/august-osage-county
Sat, 2014-03-08 23:15
#231
Sheesh, - I've been hanging around here for 18+ months and never knew that Babble actually has a movie thread. So thanks for revitalizing it, epaulo.
Just wondering, are there any preferred 'rules of engagement'? Big screen and/or small screen? Hollywood blockbusters and/or World cinema? Babbler feedback and/or links to published reviews? Or anything and everything goes?
PS On the subject of August: Osage County, I did enjoy it, tho' it was a bit "theatrical" for my taste. And it didn't exactly prove to be "awards bait" ... despite assorted nominations, it didn't win anything major that I can recall.
Sun, 2014-03-09 11:38
#232
..no problem sherpa-finn
Sun, 2014-03-09 14:57
#233
Well here's my film plug for the month - a day late for International Women's Day - for a great Chilean film I saw last week - Gloria. (It was Chile's nominee for best foreign language film in this years Oscars.)
Its set in Santiago and features a terrific performance by Paulina Garcia as a working, divorced 50-something woman who somehow retains her free-spirit despite the slings and arrows (and paintballs) that life as lover / worker/ mother / grandmother / neighbour throws in her general direction. A terrific performance by Ms Garcia in a sometimes grim but eventually uplifting movie.
And just for fun, it closes on the dance floor with that 1980s classic tune of the same name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=355Fk8drgZE
(No, not the Van Morrison G-L-O-R-I-A tune.)
Movie trailer here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2425486/
Fri, 2014-11-14 00:37
#234
..just finished watching an amazing 4 part mini series staring frances mcDormand who played marge the pregnant cop in fargo.
Olive Kitteridge
Sun, 2014-11-16 14:54
#235
There are not many mainstream movies these days that combine progressive politics with great music - and throw in a big wallop of humour as well.
So this is my plug for 'Pride', - the "based on a true story" film about a group of gay and lesbian activists in London raising money for striking coal miners in Wales during the darkest of the Thatcher years. And how the two communities come (gradually) to acknowledge each others realities, oppressions and pride. See it if you can - its terrific!
Sun, 2015-01-11 23:21
#236
This is a quick plug for the film Selma that I saw this afternoon. Some strong performances and great music. And an interesting script that presents a three dimensional picture of the politics at play: the different elements of the civil rights movement with their diverse values, analyses, strategies and tactics; the national-level political games of chicken being played by MLK, LBJ, the media and others; and the domestic pressures and tensions within the King household.
I have not done the research to speak to historical accuracy - but its a compelling film on a timely subject. 100% better than lasy year's "tribute" film on Mandela. And did I mention the music? http://www.selmamovie.com/
Mon, 2015-01-12 00:35
#237
It was nominated for a Golden Globe tonite but don't know if it won.
Update:
Common On His Emotional Golden Globes Win: ”Selma’ Has Awakened My Humanity’
http://www.mtv.com/news/2045882/common-golden-globes-win-selma/
Mon, 2015-01-12 00:39
#238
This is a quick plug for the film Selma that I saw this afternoon. Some strong performances and great music. And an interesting script that presents a three dimensional picture of the politics at play: the different elements of the civil rights movement with their diverse values, analyses, strategies and tactics; the national-level political games of chicken being played by MLK, LBJ, the media and others; and the domestic pressures and tensions within the King household.
I have not done the research to speak to historical accuracy - but its a compelling film on a timely subject. 100% better than lasy year's "tribute" film on Mandela. And did I mention the music? http://www.selmamovie.com/
Its portrayal of Lyndon Johnson was grossly inaccurate. Though Johnson has many pluses and minuses, he was a leader of civil rights and was never relunctant in fighting for it. Simply put had the sainted John Kennedy not been assassinated, it's unlikely that any bills passed on civil rights in the 1960s would have encompassed the scope that they ended up doing.
Mon, 2015-01-12 01:00
#239
Stop the Revisionism: LBJ Was No Liberal Hero
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117346/lbj-should-not-be-celebrated-l...
Thu, 2015-07-23 16:37
#240
Film Review: Deux jours, une nuit (Two days, One Night)
I recently had an opportunity to watch Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night), a 2014 joint Belgian-French-Italian production starring Marion Cotillard (La vie en rose), who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Sandra, a Belgian working mother who is faced with a seemingly simple yet crucial and time sensitive challenge. Within two days, Sandra must reach her 16 co-workers and organize them for an important vote.
The background for Sandra’s story is unfortunately fairly familiar: the bosses had decided to get rid of this vulnerable worker who has been on an extended sick leave battling depression. However, what is very different is the method used to try to terminate her employment. Management planned a scheme that would let the workers have the ‘final say’ through a ballot question. This sneaky approach would see those employees pulling the trigger by “choosing” between receiving a badly needed bonus and allowing Sandra to return back to her job on the factory floor....
Thu, 2015-08-06 01:37
#241
Fri, 2015-08-07 20:29
#242
Director Carlo Gabriel Nero brings actor/playwright Wallace Shawn's controversial study of the growing chasm between the first and third world from stage to screen with this tale of a privileged woman whose reality suddenly suffers a profound shift. A bourgeois woman awakens suffering from a particularly intense fever and trapped in an unidentified third-world country. Later, upon venturing out into her war-torn surroundings, the once-wealthy woman is forced to contend with such unfamiliar issues as luxury, culpability, and revolution.
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Moore, Angelina Jolie, Joely Richardson, Rade Serbedzija in a drama that employs animation and thought-provoking first-person monologues to explore the concept of bourgeois privilege.
Sun, 2015-09-06 11:53
#243
Runoff is set in an unnamed rural American town where wide-open, beatific skies stand in stark contrast to the poisoned ground, a consequence of the agrochemicals distributed by a large-scale farm company called GIGAS. The corporate monolith is also putting the squeeze on Betty (Joanne Kelly) and Frank's (Neal Huff) farm-supply business. Rather than reflexively laying blame for the family's hardship at the feet of big business, however, writer-director Kimberly Levin's film acutely conveys the characters' complicity in their own undoing. A recurring image of an anguished Betty watching a crop-dusting plane quietly connects the idea that the pesticides her husband peddles to local farmers cause biological harm for the entire town even as they simultaneously keep their family out of the red....
Thu, 2016-01-14 17:30
#244
Saw the 17th Animation Show of Shows (trailer) (description). Generally when I see a film of short animations, I expect to be quite impressed by at least one of them, bored by a few, and sorta impressed by the rest. This one actually had no duds. All were okay. But, as always, there were two that stood out to me. One, called "We Can't Live Without Cosmos" (trailer), was about two cosmonauts who are good friends. Fabulous. The other, called, "World of Tomorrow" (trailer), was about this little girl and her future clone. Also fabulous.
Sun, 2016-01-31 20:58
#245
..awesome film
Toward the end of Abderrahmane Sissako's 2006 film Bamako, an elderly man breaks into rebellious, heartbroken song in the fictitious court where the World Bank's push for globalization is put on trial. The man's unshakeable wails and calling out to the ether speak more powerfully than the tirades of factual evidence and outrage that the prosecutors muster in the film's final minutes. For Sissako, music is a language of furious hope and peace, and in his remarkable fourth feature, Timbuktu, musicians are both songbirds of peace and targets of the religious rigor that Muslim jihadists use to punish, enslave, and murder several members of the titular North African city....
Sun, 2016-02-07 00:25
#246
Sounds good. I'll have to check it out. Speaking of films involving old men and courts, the Indian film Court was good.
Sun, 2016-02-07 00:38
#247
How about Michael Moore's new movie. The blood and guts and big guns will be real and not just Ninjas jumping over their foes' heads in fake combat with cooool swords, yeahhhh. But the bad guys will still be dying in droves and the good guys won't hardly get a scratch!
Sun, 2016-02-07 00:47
#248
I liked Roger and Me. What's his new film called?
Sun, 2016-02-07 00:53
#249
Michael Moore's, Where to Invade Next.
If Bernie's supporters want a movie for the times then that's it. It will be very well done as is usual with his movies. But Bernie has to get some guts if he wants to go big on foreign policy.
It could be catchy and help change the American people from being very prowar, just as Canadians are so far.
Tue, 2016-02-23 18:15
#250
Rented a couple of films from the public library. Shaun the Sheep movie -- great stuff. Highly recommended. And Looper -- a futuristic action thriller about time travelling killers who want to change destiny by coming back in time to kill some little kid who's destined to grow up and cause trouble with the future killers (and thus the kid is evil, which, frankly, makes no sense). So, it's kinda like Terminator, only without Arnie, and without anything interesting about it at all. Avoid.
Thu, 2016-02-25 12:45
#251
..outstanding movie!
Like the novel on which its screenplay is based, Lenny Abrahamson's Room is a fictional high-wire act. Filtered through the viewpoint of an intelligent five-year-old boy, a story that might easily have been sensationalized or made saccharine—the imprisonment of a kidnapped, sexually enslaved young woman and the son she bore and is raising in captivity—becomes a tough but tender tribute to the creative power of maternal love.
The vivid metaphors that dot Jack's (Jacob Tremblay) voiceovers (“I zoomed down out of Heaven into Room,” he says, recounting the origin story his mother created for him) make a fairy tale of mother and son's captivity, while his habit of anthropomorphizing the objects in the storage shed where he's spent his entire life imbues even small things with great power. The camera adopts his point of view, making the little space feel cozy and warm though glamorous close-ups and by lingering on the routines, games, and stories Jack's mother, Joy (Brie Larson), invents to keep him happily occupied....