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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 24, 2010 17:05:50 GMT
It gives me what I want in a comedy -- that thing where you start laughing because something is clever, then get caught up in it until you can roar at absolute slapstick.
Last night I watched the episode with Chandler (Matthew Perry) trapped in the atm "vestibule" with the Victoria's Secret model. "Gum would be perfection." ;D I had tears running down my face by the time that bit of shtick was done.
I got very attached to Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer immediately. The show really explains Jennifer Anniston's appeal and the other characters are growing on me apace.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2010 12:14:44 GMT
Mad Men this weekend!!!!! I am so psyched!!! It's the only TV I watch. In a word,BRILLIANT!!! (the hour went by tooo fast )
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 31, 2010 4:48:08 GMT
Frozen River ~~ see it!!! I can't say enough good things about this movie. Melissa Leo was nominated for an academy award, as was the screenplay, but all the acting and all the details are so incredibly real and work so well. www.metacritic.com/film/titles/frozenriver
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2010 5:19:16 GMT
I liked that, too. I was truly fascinated by seeing clandestine northern border immigration for once after seeing all of the southern border movies.
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Post by Jazz on Aug 2, 2010 2:50:15 GMT
Homocide, Life on the street, 1993-1999
In the last few weeks, I re-watched this 7 year series and think that it is the finest of the American ‘cop’ series that exists. To watch it in a relatively short period of time enhances its quality. It holds its place in time and is far superior to anything now on. The final year was disappointing, they were under heavy network pressure to ‘soften’ the ‘product’ and it shows, badly. I had worked with many of the actors, Clark Johnston (both as actor and director, love!), Andre Braugher, Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Melissa Leo etc. and felt an affinity. The 3 episodes by Kathryn Bigelow, (director of The Hurt Locker’, were brilliant.
Nothing since then is comparable in this genre. I liked ‘The Wire, but not as much. The Wire drew quite a bit of inspiration from Homocide.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 2, 2010 3:41:00 GMT
Better than The Wire??!!! *makes surreptitious sign of the cross*
That's a heavy-duty recommendation, Jazz. I trust your taste and would be thrilled to find a top-notch series to watch, so of course will give this a try.
But better than The Wiiiiiiiiire?! can. not. accept.
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Post by Jazz on Aug 2, 2010 4:48:16 GMT
You haven't seen Homicide: Life on the Streets www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/27/homicide-life-street-david-simonI think that it is superior to The Wire. A close friend disagrees and puts it in second place. This is the article from the UK Guardian, ...'The best cop show of recent times – one of the most innovative and influential dramas of all time – was set not in New York, Miami or LA, but in Baltimore. It featured a squad of embattled, super (street) smart, sardonic detectives fighting against the drug dealing and killing blitzing their beloved city. This series stemmed from the pen of the godlike David Simon and was as literate, funny and deep as television could be. But it was not The Wire. It was Homicide: Life On The Street. Homicide: Life On The Street was even better than The Wire. Yeah – as Chris Rock likes to cry defiantly – I said it! The show ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, making the new box set a glorious 122 episodes; twice as many as The Wire. It is thus the perfect gear for any Wireheads jonesing for a fix of Simon-flavoured cop drama. The series was based on Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, David Simon's astonishing record of his time "embedded" with the Baltimore police. It was brought to the screen by the city's film leviathan Barry Levinson (Diner, Tootsie, Rain Man etc), Paul Attanasio (the writer of Donnie Brasco and now executive producer of House), and Tom Fontana (St Elsewhere and later creator of Oz). Simon wrote and edited a few episodes and produced the final two seasons. "I was proud to learn everything they could teach me," he told me. Simon regards Homicide as "a series of interconnected short stories", comparing it – rather grandiosely – to James Joyce's Dubliners. For me, Homicide is the missing link between Hill Street Blues and The Wire. The links with The Wire and the book are myriad. In one hilarious episode, detectives Munch and Bolander re-enact Simon's anecdote about a suspect confessing after taking a "lie-detection test" – using the station photocopier. "Then David went and did it in The Wire," Fontana protests. "I was like, 'Dude! We already did it.' He said, 'Yeah I know, but I wanted to do it again.'" The Wire, for Simon, was "more akin to the dynamics of Baltimore as I knew them". But life in Baltimore is horribly real in Homicide. Clark Johnson won an Emmy for the pivotal episode of the first series about the brutal rape and stabbing of 11-year-old Adena Watson – based on the murder of Latonya Wallace, also featured in Simon's book. "We were shooting one day," Clark Johnson (who played detective Meldrick Lewis) tells me. "This lady from the neighbourhood came up to me and said, 'Excuse me. She wasn't lying over here. She was lying over there.'" So much for NBC's view that the title, A Year On The Killing Streets, needed to be more upbeat. "A policeman once said to me a young man of 20 had more chance of dying in Baltimore than on the beach at Normandy," Fontana recalls. "We had to be true to that." Both Simon and Fontana set out to debunk the myths TV had created about police work, starting with the premise that cops get along. Homicide's detectives squabble with their partners like married couples. "You never say 'please' and 'thank you'," complains Tim Bayliss. "PLEASE don't be an idiot. Thank you," seethes Frank Pembleton. "The greatest lie in dramatic TV," Simon has said, "is the cop who stands over a body and pulls up the sheet and mutters 'damn' … To a real homicide detective, it's just a day's work." Whereas The Wire was about the cases (the wiretaps used to nail Stringer, Avon, or Marlo), Homicide was about the cops – a group of detectives so involved that death is what they live for. Death becomes the norm. A healthy, happy life at home is beyond them. "The Wire is more Brecht," agrees Fontana, referring to Simon's description of The Wire as "a political tract masquerading as a cop show". "But we were more Chekhov," – not a distinction you would make discussing The Bill. The likes of Bayliss (the liberal conscience of the show) and Pembleton (the volatile Jesuit tormented by the need for redemption) are torn apart by their experiences in a manner so torrid that McNulty and co look rather cardboard. Large parts of each episode are spent with the detectives sitting around talking – about how the world's first fridge was invented in Baltimore; how Montel Williams is from Baltimore ("A guy from Baltimore has got his own talkshow?!"); the claim that "14% of seagulls are lesbians". Andre Braugher They talk about sex, death, and love in a way that is positively (or negatively) existential. "The way a woman feels about a man," argues detective Bolander (Ned Beatty), "that's the way he's going to feel about himself, his friends, his job." Eschewing the crucial forensic breakthrough, Homicide's detectives talked their suspects into confession. And the show only ever had one real shoot-out. "The ratings spiked. Then we went back to making the real show and the ratings went back down!" Fontana laughs. It's easy to see why Homicide can be seen as more radical than The Wire, not least because it was on NBC rather than the more experimental, independent HBO. Both shows looked at the way race, the media and local politics in Baltimore affect the police. The leader of the squad in Homicide was the noble, Othello-like figure of Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto). The smartest, sharpest, master of the art of interrogation was Pembleton (Andre Braugher). 'Where's the pretty girl? Where's the hunky guy? We had the least attractive cast on television!' The show took risks at every turn. "The network would say, 'Where's the pretty girl? Where's the hunky guy?' We had Danny Baldwin! We had the least attractive cast on television!" laughs Fontana. Clark Johnson, who played Gus Haynes in The Wire, directed the pilots and finales of The Wire and The Shield, and may be the world's greatest authority on TV cop shows, says: "I would put the cast of the first two series up against any cast that's been on TV." Barry Levinson established the show's groundbreaking visual style (aped by NYPD Blue) from episode one, draining it of colour and shooting entirely on hand-held cameras that swooped in and out of the actors' faces, jabbing at them like a boxer. And, amazingly, the killing of schoolgirl Adena Watson was left unsolved. "That would never happen now. We live in the world of procedural crime dramas now," Fontana laments, referring to CSI – which he openly disdains. Clark Johnson plays Detective Meldrick Lewis. Photograph: Gail Burton/AP The network didn't like it, but Fontana says: "Homicide had less censorship problems than St Elsewhere. We did an episode on testicular cancer where the network freaked out because the word 'testicle' had never been said on television before. Ever. They became irritated by Homicide. They hated the camerawork. We were in danger of being cancelled every year." The second season was four episodes long. "Then they moved us to Friday nights, which was basically Siberia and just forgot about us." The quality of the scripts attracted star names such as Kathryn Bigelow, Steve Buscemi, John Waters, Kathy Bates and James Earl James. Edie Falco, Elijah Wood and Jake Gyllenhaal made early appearances, as did Chris Rock, as a paedophile suspected of killing Adena. Murder is relentless in Homicide, the cases more sinister than The Wire, making it more intense, more affecting: an old lady has her tongue cut out and wedged down her throat; a man is trapped under a subway train, dying before Pembleton's eyes. Fontana takes the fact that The Wire has stolen Homicide's thunder remarkably well. "You mean, the way people talk as if it sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus?" he laughs. "Look, I love The Wire. David picked up the ball and ran with it." I'm amazed we got to make the show the way we did for as many episodes as we did. So I'm just grateful for that." So should we all be....' If you loved The Wire, you will love Homicide: Life on the Streets.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2010 10:57:01 GMT
I can't begin to tell you how psyched I was/am to have just read this glowing praise,and excellent synopsis of Homicide!!! Hands down,my favorite TV series of all time,(and I believe, mentioned in this thread here somewhere!) for all the above mentioned reasons. I became so addicted to this series,watched it in reruns while on,fell in love with the characters,the writing and directing were beyond brilliant. The pairing of the actors as partners working together, their lives,the very human like qualities portrayed in the day to day life of these people,I have not seen done as brilliantly as this ever. I am a big fan of The Wire,huge,but,I really think that Homicide was the trailblazer in this genre. There are some episodes that I would love to see again. One in particular,based on a true story of a NOPD woman police officer,who kills a Vietnamese couple as their son and daughter are huddled in the walk in cooler of their restaurant in New Orleans East,still gives me goose bumps. Another added treat is the music used in the different episodes. I was crestfallen when this series ended,although they did have an excellent run. Andre Braugher did finally get a well deserved,way overdue Emmy for his efforts I believe,in it's last season. (my favorite character was Baylis : . God, I loved this show!
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 2, 2010 15:50:23 GMT
Jazz, I don't know if it's sheer coincidence, or if you decided to feature Homicide after seeing my post about the Melissa Leo movie above, but I am so glad that you did.
I throw myself whole-heartedly into a series when I watch it, and want that immersion. Even though I watch Damages, for instance, I don't really consider it one of "my" shows because it never achieves that real-life feeling of a series deserving of total commitment.
Then, when I was primed and ready to be swept away again, Treme was just the cruelest disappointment. For one thing, the acting was either sort of dead, as in the case of Clarke Peters, whose one-note portrayal of stubbornly noble got real old real quick, or twitchedly actressy, with lots of "business", as in the cases of both Melissa Leo and Khandi Alexander. I have to assume it was the fault of the directors, as I found Melissa Leo note-perfect in Frozen River.
So anyway ~~ Homicide: Life on the Streets .......... I can't thank you enough for that full review above, which answers every question I had about the quality and focus of the show and totally convinced me it's something I want to watch.
As for your surprise about my not having seen it ....... I was never too much of a tv person, then lived here for years without cable. It's only in the recent past that I discovered the joys of tv & movies online. I rely on a few select people for recommendations of what's good, so huge thanks to you for this.
This also clears up something that puzzled me. At some point pre-Treme, Casimira mentioned that she loved Melissa Leo in Homicide. After seeing Leo in Treme, I was mystified, especially knowing that Casimira admires actresses such as Helen Mirren who are subtle and excellent.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2010 16:14:12 GMT
Well, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did Bixa. Everything in that review Jazz posted is so right on. I too,thoroughly disappointed in Treme,and now...really disappointed with the second episode of Mad Men last night. I think it's lost it's umph for me... I just read a feature yesterday in the New York Times Sunday magazine section,about Laura Linney,her life and career,(another one of my favorite actresses). Anyway,she is taking a rather risky leap into a TV series (30 minute black comedy) for Showtime called The Big C,about a woman with terminal cancer.I don't get Showtime but,am prepared to keep my eyes peeled for this available online. I do so love her work.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2010 16:52:44 GMT
Regarding Homicide (which I have never seen) et al., I am really saturated with crime shows, and here we get the American ones, the French ones, the British ones, the German ones, the Italian ones and even sometimes the Australian ones. (Extra points for those last two countries because the most recent series were about the maritime brigades, which gave a little variety to the crimes.)
It is interesting to see the different styles according to the country of origin. I don't need to describe the American ones, but the others all have their particuliarities. The French are heavy on sex among the crime fighters, and there are a lot of bizarre little incidents at the police station (actually NYPD Blue had quite a few similarities with the typical French crime show). The Italian series are heavy on sex also. The Germans and the British have very slow investigations and little or no violence, but there is a certain charm to both, once you get over your impatience. The Australians don't take their work seriously because they have so much other stuff going on -- usually conjugal difficulties or financial problems -- but they manage to get the job done in the end.
But really, when I find a series that does not involve the police, lawyers or detectives, I go for it. It's a shame that I can't stand Mad Men.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 2, 2010 20:19:17 GMT
I am going to urge you again to give Mad Men a chance. If I can remember correctly, didn't your objection have something to do with unkind humor? There may have been something like that shown at the beginning to illustrate a character or something, but that is certainly not a feature of the show. It doesn't resemble soap opera which is how it might superficially sound. It's the pace and the character development that pull you in, plus a completely fascinating back story. And it hardly needs to be said that the production is superb.
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Post by Jazz on Aug 2, 2010 20:46:27 GMT
My friend just bought the boxed set of the 7 years of Homicide and gave it to me to watch, I had not seen it since it was on air and forgotten how great it was. Like a true addict, I would sit and watch 4-6 episodes in a night, truly immersing myself in the series. Bayliss and Pembleton and the progression of their friendship fascinated me, they were my favorites, so complex and so different from each other. Melissa Leo is great and yes, I think your post twigged that I should talk about Homicide.
Kerouac, this is an outstanding series because it isn’t like most of the mediocre crime dreck that’s ever been on TV. I think the English do some fine work, Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren was excellent.
I’m watching less and less TV now, so much of it is just too dumbed down and mediocre. The only reason I’m still getting cable is the great Turner classic movie channel, which I would miss. Clark Johnson comes from a very artistic family and his sister Molly Johnson is a singer and well known in Canada…some of her work is almost indistinguishable from Billie Holiday’s. Just one song, shot in Montreal,
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Post by Kimby on Aug 2, 2010 22:22:46 GMT
Because I never in my whole life watched an episode of Friends and because this seems to be some void in my life, the other night I watched the pilot & have watched 3 or 4 more episodes since then. I really like it!You need to go to Laos, bixa, where there are TV bars that play reruns of friends non-stop....
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 3, 2010 15:59:54 GMT
Geez ~~ my life feels so, so ....... empty after reading that!
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 9, 2010 14:29:20 GMT
You will have to pardon me for dumbing down this very interesting thread. However, watching "idiocracy" www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ over the weekend, was worrying. Most definitely not the kind of film that would get oscar buzz. I felt it was worth it, though.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 9, 2010 15:49:48 GMT
It looks like fun, Annie! I'm definitely going to look for it.
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 10, 2010 11:54:39 GMT
The lasting effect of the film is a dread of dumbing down.... hihi! I took it too seriously!
But we watched Moulin Rouge again and I still think this is a vital/bonkers ode to Bohemian Paris and the world of burlesque shows.
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Post by lola on Aug 11, 2010 17:06:30 GMT
We watched a New Zealand short film last night, Two Cars One Night, and loved it. I'm looking for more from this writer/director.
11 minutes on YouTube:
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 17, 2010 16:45:41 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 18, 2010 1:19:51 GMT
Is it the Japanese one from 2008, Annie? What's it about?
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 18, 2010 1:26:43 GMT
Uh, Lola .......... I made it through 5:55 of that video and, um, ahh ~~?~~
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 18, 2010 19:25:40 GMT
yes, Bixa! the japanese film.
A young man goes back to his small town when the orchestra he was playing in disbands and finds an unusual job, preparing the dead to be put in their coffins. I don't know how to explain, but it definitely isn't an action film. It is about "departures", acceptation, understanding. It's about relationships and finding oneself. The film incorporates all this beautifully.
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Post by lola on Aug 29, 2010 1:00:26 GMT
Uh, Lola .......... I made it through 5:55 of that video and, um, ahh ~~?~~ Ha! Okay, call me quirky. I saw A Serious Man today, luckily alone so I could FF through what promised to be the most painful parts. I expected to find it "unwatchable" as per a New Yorker critic, but found it touching and liked the protagonist. Many bad things heppen to him, Job style, and he seeks in vain for guidance.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 2, 2010 5:44:16 GMT
Still trying to see Departures. I found a good copy ....... in unsubtitled Japanese.
You are brave, Lola. My heart sank at the prospect of watching it. Anyway, I don't always "get" the Coens.
Tonight I watched "American Splendor". I didn't think it was going to grab me, but it did. At some point in the movie I realized I was sitting there grinning. The gimmicks really work -- the real life people and the actors who play them all appear on screen, along with drawings of them and I happily accepted that. At times I even lost track of who was real & who was the actor. The look of the 60s, 70s, and 80s is letter perfect, almost disconcerting at times. There's some great music in the movie, too.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 5, 2010 17:49:06 GMT
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Post by Jazz on Sept 5, 2010 21:44:32 GMT
Elephant, directed by Gus Van Sant. Last night I found myself watching this ‘cold’. By that I mean that I had vague memories of it being ‘groundbreaking’, but had no idea why. As I entered into the first hour I was becoming impatient. It had an almost documentary feel of highschool students, intriguing in that it did seem ‘real’, noted his use of examining each student repetitively from another viewpoint…good, yes, but not that fascinating. Then I realized what was going on. Chilling and horrifying. It was all premeditated and carefully planned. The delicate, sensitive boy playing the piano so beautifully, and made fun of by his fellow students… was to become a killer who dons camouflage garb one day and coldly and deliberately murders many of the students and teachers. The final scene is horrifying in his calm decision.
It is a remarkable film, but I would never watch it again. Too real, too disturbing, too terrifyingly 'undramatic'. You gain a partial understanding that you never wanted and it is difficult to deal with, of why a young person decides to massacre his fellow students and teachers. He was only in grade 11, perhaps 16 years old. He was not from the slums, not the child of a junkie, he was the child of a middle class home with all of his needs supposedly cared for. He played piano exquisitely. Banal, innocent, trivial day to day life is instantly and brutally eliminated by built up hate and confusion. It is, I suppose, Van Sant’s attempt to explain Columbine and the following massacres in US highchools.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 10, 2010 7:04:20 GMT
Well, it only took me sixteen years, but tonight I finally saw ......................... Forrest Gump.
I didn't expect to like it at all, but really got into it. I had thought it was going to be a comedy, though.
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Post by auntieannie on Sept 12, 2010 14:31:23 GMT
ha, you had not packed the tissues, then? ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 15, 2010 6:10:37 GMT
Okay, okay, Annie ........ maybe I was a little moved.
Tonight, on the recommendation of actual English People, I watched this bit of fun:
It works because they play it straight all the way through, which is what makes it funny. I was further amused by the fact I could tell it was all filmed in England, even the Los Angeles parts, and that everyone in it was English, even the "Americans". The acting and casting are really superior.
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