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Post by mich64 on Jan 19, 2012 6:00:59 GMT
I agree with that as well Bixa! ;)Cheers! Mich
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Post by auntieannie on Jan 19, 2012 9:19:39 GMT
maybe we should have a thread on the subject, but I must object, ladies, that even in this country, where drinking to get drunk is - to many, a sport/ a religion/a favourite pastime ... we're only talking about having ONE beer or ONE glass of wine, whilst waiting for it to be time to get into the "theatre". We're most definitely NOT talking about spending time at a bar then taking a film in. Some people do have one or two drinks after the projection, to allow time to discuss the film with friends. Yet again, not getting drunk there. If they meant to keep drinking, they'd move to another bar or walk into an off-license shop on their way home.
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Post by spindrift on Jan 21, 2012 15:04:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2012 20:30:48 GMT
Tonight I saw the Fincher version of Millennium. Slightly different emphasis on certain things, but the new version is still quite similar to the previous version. I quite like both.
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Post by lola on Feb 11, 2012 1:37:25 GMT
Margin Call is up for Best Original Screenplay, and I say give it to 'em. I've seen it twice.
I thought it was going to be a Kevin Spacey film, but it's really an ensemble effort. Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci, all excellent.
It's a dramatization of what happened with I think Lehman Bros in 2008. Probably it would help to have some interest in why the world economy was carried off in a handbasket, I suppose. It makes a good companion to Inside Job.
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Post by lola on Feb 11, 2012 2:37:58 GMT
However, Margin Call brings up the point that Neil Genzlinger made in the NYTimes Arts Section the other day:
"First let me say that I yield to no man in my fondness for naked women. I have seen several in person, though none recently, and rank them right up there with a good sunset or a crisply turned double play on my list of things worth looking at.
That established, let me now make a plea that may shock you, coming as it does from a naked-woman-loving heterosexual man: enough already with the strip club scenes."
He was talking about TV, where apparently you can't throw a rock without hitting a strip club scene. Margin Call indeed includes a brief but similar scene. I'm not curious enough about the phenomenon to turn on my TV, though.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2012 12:17:49 GMT
I was very impressed by Adrien Brody in his new movie Detachment, playing one of the saddest teachers in the world but never letting it break him down.
Even though it has to be placed in the sub-genre of "determined teacher meets bad school," it goes in completely different directions from the usual plot. I did feel, however, that the little optimistic moment at the end of the film was totally inappropriate.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2012 20:42:19 GMT
Many hours later I am still haunted by this movie, which is rare for me.
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ssander
member
Offline
At the Belleville Arts Open Doors in Paris in 2007
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Post by ssander on Feb 13, 2012 11:27:16 GMT
The Descendents - a very, very good movie.
...We hardly ever go to the cinema, but it was my wife's birthday, so dinner and a movie it was! I'm really glad we saw it.
SS
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2012 5:54:52 GMT
Since I had the morning off, I went to see The Artist again. It seemed like the right time to refresh my memory about the costumes, the music, the art direction, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2012 19:56:52 GMT
I finally saw The Iron Lady this morning, and I have mixed feelings about it. I am pretty sure that Meryl Streep will get the Oscar for best actress with no problem, but I was not enthralled with the movie.
I know that Margaret Thatcher is suffering from Alzheimer's, but I am not aware of any information that she does not know that her husband is dead and or that she converses with him constantly. I felt that this was just a hokey way to introduce the flashbacks to her life as PM.
Also, I felt that the movie was far too sympathetic to the character, who seemed not to be the least bit responsible for all of the awful things happening in the UK at the time -- the strikes, the terrorist attacks, etc. They just all seem to happen to her by surprise. I just don't buy it.
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Post by lola on Feb 18, 2012 20:13:46 GMT
I tend to dislike biopics in general, especially when the subject lived recently, double super especially when still alive but out of it. Putting imagined words into mouths of those who can't correct the record rubs me the wrong way. Plus they tend to sentimentalize.
Trying to think of an exception. Well, okay, the rugby one with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, Invictus. Mandela was idealized, but it wasn't his sanctified life and not a biopic.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 18, 2012 20:22:39 GMT
Interesting about The Iron Lady. I'm somewhat curious about the movie, but have the same feeling about biopics as Lola. I always feel I shouldn't look, as though I'm peering at the subjects through a peephole or something.
I did like The Queen, which came across as balanced in its treatment of Elizabeth2 as a person, but also as The Queen.
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Post by bjd on Feb 19, 2012 7:29:32 GMT
My son told me yesterday that he had just seen The Iron Lady. Same reaction as Kerouac -- Streep is very good but he didn't think much of the rest. And that also fits with other criticisms I have read about it -- the concentration on her supposed Alzheimer's and old age, rather than showing enough about what a tough and influential woman she was when in politics.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2012 8:43:58 GMT
Over the weekend, I saw the soporific Tinker Tailor thing, at least part of it when I was not asleep. Frankly, I do not have the capacity to watch grey grim middle aged men having meetings about their previous meetings and consider it to be either entertainment or art.
Yesterday I saw the brilliant but uneven Flemish movie Bullhead with the absolutely extraordinary actor Matthias Schoenaerts (who just filmed a new Jacques Audiard movie along with Marion Cotillard). It's about a farmer involved in hormone trafficking, but he himself takes as many hormones as he injects into the cattle. He has scary pumped up muscles and goes into deadly fits of rage when the chemicals take over. Normally, this would be the sort of character that one would despise, but you end up feeling so sorry for him because of the unspeakable thing that happened to him as a child (not involving pedophilia for once) and how it completely wrecked his life.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2012 14:37:27 GMT
Blessings upon you for perfectly summing up why spy dramas make my brain flutter away like a moth.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2012 18:16:15 GMT
Another case of amazingly different trailers
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 23, 2012 18:45:49 GMT
Who'd have thought that we'd grow up into a world where the phrase "hormone mafia underworld" actually made sense. The two trailers are radically different. The first one had that crucial continuity that not only makes me curious, but makes me want to see a film. Not only were the images in the second trailer pointlessly fragmented, but I can't even see why they'd have seemed particularly compelling to whomever chose them.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2012 20:07:42 GMT
In any case, there was an interview with the actor in yesterday's paper that explained how he had to pump himself up and gain a lot of kilos of muscles for the role. "I needed to look like the Minotaur," he said. And he succeeded. Two years later of course, he is back to normal. Thank god.
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Post by thill25 on Feb 23, 2012 21:52:06 GMT
That's gotta run into some money. No, in France we can get unlimited passes for about 20€ a month -- you see as many movies as you want in just about any cinema in the entire country. Actually, I just learned that my pass is also valid for Belgium. That is AWESOME! Now I have one more reason I want to live in France.
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Post by nycgirl on Feb 24, 2012 2:55:09 GMT
Who'd have thought that we'd grow up into a world where the phrase "hormone mafia underworld" actually made sense. The two trailers are radically different. The first one had that crucial continuity that not only makes me curious, but makes me want to see a film. Not only were the images in the second trailer pointlessly fragmented, but I can't even see why they'd have seemed particularly compelling to whomever chose them. I agree, I like the first one much better, too. The second one was overly concerned with providing blurbs and a list of accolades, but gave no information whatsoever about the actual plot or theme of the movie. The first one certainly made me very intrigued about this "hormone mafia underworld."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2012 11:52:42 GMT
This morning I went to see the very disturbing Martha Marcy May Marlene. It seemed very uncomfortably authentic and the ending was, uh, not satisying.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2012 17:43:33 GMT
The Woman in Black has a satisfying ending in which poor Dan Radcliffe does not save the day.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2012 19:09:00 GMT
The movie I saw yesterday has a personal story to go with it. It is a biopic about Claude François, one of the biggest pop stars in French history. He was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt like another French megastar, Dalida. He electrocuted himself in the shower in 1978 at age 39. For comparison, Elvis Presley died at age 42 when many of us were already calling him a total has-been. Claude François had ups and downs in his career, but he was "up" when he died, having taken the proper disco turn at that point in time.
Most anglophones do not know this, but Claude François wrote the most recorded song in history. "My Way" is just the English adaptation of it.
Anyway, I was hired as Claude François' personal assistant in 1977, so if you look at the trailer, at the 1 minute mark, I was actually in the back seat of the car during his drive with groupies hanging on (and they were shrieking "who is that new guy?" -- about me!).
I spent all day sitting on a sofa with the Clodettes (you have to have been there or see the movie to know about the Clodettes, but I will try to dig up an appropriate YouTube depicting them), and they scared the shit out of me -- gigantic predatory women, and I was not ready for such things at the time.
Also in the movie, I saw that they reproduced his office to absolute perfection, as it is engraved in my mind forever.
I worked for Claude François for exactly one day and then I told them that I absolutely could not work for such a person. I did not even ask to be paid for that day.
The Belgian actor who plays Claude François, Jérémie Renier, is absolutely perfect. No other actor could have done that.
And here is the real Cloclo:
He died less than six months after I refused the job, so I guess I was lucky.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2012 19:09:45 GMT
Oh, I forgot to say that the movie is excellent. I hope it is exportable.
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Post by mich64 on Mar 20, 2012 21:21:42 GMT
It must have been quite an impressionable situation for you to remember his office to the detail 35 years later!
It must have been surreal to see yourself and so many familiar surroundings on the big screen in front of you, not many people go to the theater expecting that from a movie!
You are quite an interesting man Kerouac...
Cheers! Mich
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2012 21:40:25 GMT
It is one of the only forks in the road of life that I can look back upon and be certain that my life would have become absolutely and totally different if I had stuck with the job.
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Post by mich64 on Mar 21, 2012 1:16:12 GMT
After my husband explained to me what forks in the road meant, I now understand that you think your present career and lifestyle would have been totally different than what it is now.
After viewing the videos you posted I think it would have been extremely unpredictable every single day... from my impressions of you, I do not think this would have been a healthy choice for you, or for most of us!
I am glad you enjoyed your movie choice and your memories of another time.
Cheers! Mich
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Post by Breezy on Mar 21, 2012 2:26:19 GMT
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Post by bjd on Mar 21, 2012 16:37:07 GMT
I hadn't spent much time in France when Claude François was popular so didn't really know who he was. On watching these videos, I can understand why French pop music was not really exportable at the time. It's quite awful. And those costumes!! I thought the French were supposed to have good taste?
Another reason for my negative attitude is that until recently, we had a neighbour who held a lot of parties and would play Claude François music full blast in the middle of the night.
I must admit though that the actor in the first video looks quite convincing.
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