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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2013 20:13:43 GMT
I saw All Is Lost today, the movie with Robert Redford as the only character and with no dialogue. Very grim movie, but well made. I think it was good that the ending was ambiguous because I think that a lot of people could not face the obvious outcome. A few people walked out part way through, and I suppose that they felt the way I did when I saw Buried with Ryan Reynolds -- I was so upset at the situation that I was in extreme distress and it took a lot of will power to see it through to the end.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 14, 2013 1:52:51 GMT
Thanks for the reviews, Skater, & thanks for telling me your husband had trouble dealing with the brutality in 12 Years a Slave. I feel like less of a wimp now.
I didn't know there was a Mary Poppins element to the Saving Mr. Banks -- now even more interested! It's so cool the way that Emma Thompson takes on every kind of role (Beautiful Creatures, for instance). She's sort of the female version of Johnny Depp in that way, except without resorting to bizarre make-up.
Did you expect to enjoy Frozen that much?
Kerouac, you are really good about sitting through "important" movies, even when they're horribly uncomfortable. I can't even think about Buried, much less see it. However All Is Lost seems like one of those stories that simply must make it to film. Is is suspenseful, besides grim?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 14, 2013 8:04:55 GMT
There is plenty of suspense, not to mention frustration...
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Post by bjd on Dec 15, 2013 19:25:29 GMT
I went to see this movie this afternoon. It's a documentary about tropical forests and trees in general. Great photography but I was a bit annoyed about the special effects (the growing plants) and confess that I felt like sleeping. The friends I went with both dozed off for short periods. Il était une fôret (once upon a forest) -- in French, but you don't need to understand to appreciate the trailer
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2013 19:53:55 GMT
Yes, the animations bothered me as well, but I did read that the film makers said that they felt the need to add a little "action" to the movie since trees do not move enough. However, everybody agreed that one tree stole the show -- you know which one.
I saw A Touch of Sin today which tells 4 different unconnected and quite upsetting stories about modern China. I found it absolutely remarkable in terms of learning things about China and also the fact that the director is now permitted to make such films (his films were banned in China for years). Still, there is something so alien about this culture that I was not really moved by the problems depicted. Since the problems are universal, I think there is something wrong with me.
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Post by fgrsk8r1970 on Dec 16, 2013 14:37:00 GMT
Yes Bixa - I usually enjoy the Disney movies very much, they have just the right amount of humor, fun, drama and the music usually works well - and the animations today are just fantastic. They all have a little bit of the same same but different… and that's ok I loved TANGLED as well. However - as cute as Monsters University technically is…. couldn't get into it as much and we turned it off half way through. just didn't have the hold on us as the first one did. We did not get to RUSH yet…. Football somehow took over this weekend again LOL. And packing Kerouac - I have to see if we got "A touch of sin" ….. and I am sure there is nothing wrong with you LOL
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2013 12:58:43 GMT
Today's movie was totally gut wrenching, about the Traveller families who have settled into the estate housing in Bradford, completely rejected by the non-Travellers who live all around them. But that's not really the subject of the movie.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2013 13:45:34 GMT
Well, I saw The Wolf of Wall Street today and while it is never boring, I did not like to see it treated as a comedy. These people disgust me so much that I am incapable of laughing at their antics.
The tiny role by Matthew McConaughey at the beginning of the film is as absolutely brilliant as everybody says it is.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2013 22:37:52 GMT
Several hours later, the more I think about that movie, the more it pisses me off. But if Leonardo DiCaprio gets an Oscar nomination for his role, he certainly deserves it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2013 21:02:46 GMT
So, today I went to see the Japanese movie "Like Father, Like Son" which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes festival(that's 3rd place).
You'd think the subject has been overdone -- babies switched at birth growing up with the wrong family -- but there is always something new to say about it. In this movie, an elite family discovers that their son is not their son. The other family is very working class and not at all the same. They are told "100% of families in the same case exchange the children and the sooner the better." The children in question are already 6 years old -- and full of questions.
Obviously, the families meet and there is a lot of hand wringing and soul searching. There is nothing predictable about how things will turn out -- there are so many little details, incidents, moments of complicity and other times when things don't go as well. I was riveted.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 28, 2013 4:49:18 GMT
I would love to see that. I'm so fascinated by the subject that I'm a fan of "Switched at Birth", which is sometimes pretty schlocky. Htmb just asked over in the Recent Small Screen Viewing thread about movies not seen at the movie theater & was referred to the Opening Post of that thread. So, to reiterate here: In his Opening Post on the thread, Recent Small Screen Viewing, For those of you who watch films at home, have you seen anything interesting lately? DVDs are a last resort for me, when there is no way to see (or see again) a film that interests me on a big screen. But on this thread, the What is the last movie you saw? thread, the Opening Post reads thus: I'm talking about the cinema, that place with the big screen where you sit in the dark with other people you don't know. So, this thread is for movies we see in the movie theater/cinema/moving picture emporium/picture palace, and the other thread for movies we see on televisions/tablets/phones, etc. Okey dokey?
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Post by bjd on Dec 28, 2013 10:07:50 GMT
That "Like Father, Like Son" is playing here and I heard a good review. I'm just afraid I would cry through it all.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2013 23:13:49 GMT
Today I saw a totally marginal film, only playing on about 4 screens in Paris (a normal release comes out on 50 or more screens) and I thought it was delightful, but I completely understood that it was not for everybody... or even for most people. Tomorrow I will go and see another movie in exactly the same category. For that alone, I am really happy to live in Paris where I can catch some of these furtive films with absolutely no commercial future.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2014 18:10:35 GMT
To jump start the year, I saw the very controversial Nymphomaniac this morning, and Lars von Trier remains an extraordinary film director, although obviously his films are unsuitable for a lot of people.
This film is "volume 1" and begins with a title card by the unhappy Lars saying that it is the shortened and censored version of the film and that he disowns it. "Volume 2" comes out at the end of January, each section being 2 hours long. Apparently the full uncensored version will be released a bit later -- 5 1/2 hours -- so one wonders if all of this is just a bit of hype to create a buzz for commercial purposes. Lars von Trier has been making films long enough to know what the various countries are willing to accept on their screens, but he might be pushing the envelope, like he did back when he made the hardcore "The Idiots."
In any case, this version (Volume 1) at least is only forbidden to spectators under the age of 12 in France, which I personally find a bit lenient for a film showing plenty of genitals, sperm, non simulated sex acts and generally creepy sexuality. Then again, there is little risk of many young teens seeing the film when they can choose between this and movies with robots, world catastrophes and high speed car chases. They are already watching that other stuff on the internet when the urge arises, and those videos get directly to the point with no artistic detours.
Anyway, I found the movie totally gripping. Stellan Skarsgård finds Charlotte Gainsbourg bloody and bruised in an alley and after she refuses that he call an ambulance or the police, she says she wants a cup of tea. So obviously he takes her home. That's where she tells him her life story in flashback, from early childhood where she stimulated herself by playing "frog" on a wet bathroom floor to a contest with a friend on a train at age 15 to see which of them could have sex with the most men in the WC and win a bag of chocolates.
Charlotte Gainsbourg (the character's name is Joe) keeps insisting that she is a bad person, but Stellan Skarsgård keeps finding mitigating circumstances to her behaviour.
Anyway, yes, the film is visibly censored because each time that it appears that you are going to see things explicitly, you don't, but you see plenty anyway, and the hints by Shia LaBeouf that he had to pay with his person in his role are most certainly confirmed. (Why do all of these former Disney stars feel the need to reject all of those 'family values' to such an extreme extent? I won't condemn them until I find out what Disney did to them.)
I do, however, disapprove to a certain extent of the use of Stacy Martin in the film. She is a very young actress who plays Joe in the flashbacks of Volume 1. Like so many beginning actresses, she clearly allowed herself to be manipulated beyond what I personally feel is reasonable. If more experienced actresses (like Charlotte Gainsbourg) want to go to sexual extremes as part of their career, I think it is a defendable artistic choice. But I will always be suspicious of what caused actresses like Stacy Martin (or Adèle Exarchopoulos in Blue is the Warmest Color) to allow themselves to be put on display in such a way.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2014 18:24:14 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2014 22:03:52 GMT
I thought it was interesting to read on the net today that in countries where the movie has been rated, it is accessible to everybody in Denmark, age 16 in Switzerland and the Netherlands and age 18 in Norway.
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Post by htmb on Jan 1, 2014 22:47:38 GMT
Your review is quite impressive, even though I don't plan to see the film.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2014 22:49:06 GMT
You have very little chance of ever having access to the film in any case, except on video.
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Post by htmb on Jan 1, 2014 23:20:27 GMT
Well, I will be spending a significant amount of time in France.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2014 19:15:59 GMT
Okay, I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty this morning. It was quite pleasant even if Ben Stiller is not a great film director. He lets his slapstick urges infringe on serious storytelling, but I will let him get away with it, if only because the James Thurber story had only been done once before and new generations need to discover the concept.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2014 18:45:29 GMT
Okay, I knew that Oldboy by Spike Lee had not received the best reviews, and of course I had already seen the original Korean movie. But the -16 restriction in France intrigued me (especially after the -12 rating of Nymphomaniac), as did the very low number of screens on which it was released. So of course I had to see it.
Well, Josh Brolin is excellent and it is somewhat admirable to have accepted such a role, but it is true that the movie is not very, er, consensual. Personally, I think that if it had stayed a bit more realistic (in spite of the folly of its premise), I would have preferred it, but notably the scene where Josh Brolin kills or maims at least 30 muscular professional attackers all by himself (keeping in mind that he was an advertising executive in his previous life) just made it seem ridiculous to me.
However, I am totally in love with the idea of a secret industry that makes people disappear and imprisons them for as long as you want, as long as you have the money to pay for the service. Feeding them Chinese takeaway for 20 years is a fiendish idea.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2014 11:38:55 GMT
I went to see The Witches of Zugarramurdi by Alex de la Iglesia today. His movies are always outlandish but fun. This was no exception. Ridiculously disguised gangsters have trouble with their holdup and try to escape to France. One of them has his young son with him because it is one of his custody days and the kid wants to go to Disneyland. Anyway, they don't quite make it because they end up in the witches' village...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2014 19:06:25 GMT
Today I saw Lovelace which was both fascinating and informative. When she abandoned her "career" I was probably like a lot of people who just thought something along the lines of "what a hypocritical bitch!" The movie has completely changed my mind.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2014 21:49:37 GMT
12 years a slave hasn't come here yet. Funny, I have two degrees in history and have read extensively of the many and varied cruelties people are capable of inflicting on one another, but somehow viewing films is really a trigger. I was relieved that most of the worst violence in "The Pianist" was suggested (except how on earth did an almost starved guy manage to survive in the ruins, in a Warsaw winter ) I have read several slave narratives, from the US South and the Caribbean, as well as accounts from Brazil, but text is always a bit more abstract, especially when taking notes and comparing accounts. Perhaps I'll go see Agora with a friend who was born in Alexandria.
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Post by rikita on Jan 12, 2014 22:27:22 GMT
i want to see like father like son. i hope i can find it here somewhere, and preferably not in the movie theater as i don't really get to go there much lately, but on dvd. however, i fear it is not the type of movie they have in the normal dvd renting places.
last movie i saw was gravity, i think.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2014 6:11:40 GMT
Yesterday was apparently my Catholic dysfunction day because I went to see Philomena followed by the Polish film In the Name Of. I enjoyed Philomena even though it was just the usual polished "product" and I kind of felt that I have already seen this movie half a dozen times in the past. Such stories are always poignant, though, even more so when they are true. But it was still a bit too slick with too much emphasis on nice hotel rooms and product placement for Guinness. In the Name Of (Polish title: W imie... - French title: Aime et fais ce que tu veux) was a world apart because it follows the life of a worker priest in a lost corner of Poland. He is in charge of a living unit for young men who are just growing out of juvenile delinquent stage -- a very hard to handle group. They are really a foul bunch for the most point and their favourite insult is "Jew!" However, they seem to be efficient field hands when necessary, and they also do things like breaking rocks. Anyway, the priest has his hands full, but the villagers find him admirable. Unfortunately, on certain sleepless nights he has to masturbate in the bathtub, and he also tries to repress his own demons with massive doses of vodka, which doesn't really solve the problem.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 15, 2014 2:26:20 GMT
Boy, did this thread come in handy today. A friend told me that she was looking forward to a film coming as part of a special group of award-winning movies. She said that she didn't know the name but that "it's something Japanese about families".
"Is it Like Father Like Son?" I asked.
Yes, yes ~~ that's it! Yaaay. I get to go see it a week from today.
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Post by lola on Jan 15, 2014 2:46:05 GMT
Funny about the product placement in Philomena, K, because it missed me entirely. I enjoyed the movie pretty much without loving it; we probably chose it because my sister-in-law recommended it to my husband (and he did like it.) The pacing seemed odd, but probably it had to unfold that way to reflect the book and true story. I'd have been fine if they'd cut several minutes of driving scenes.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 18, 2014 17:30:43 GMT
I've never commented here ( or at least I don't think so but I'm not going back to look!)simply because I do not remember the last movie I saw - it's that long ago! It's not because I'm averse to sitting in a large room with a handful of other people, but think I simply lost interest when the kids came along. Finding baby sitters and the like. Yes that was way back 'when' because my son is 34, so I've had plenty plenty time to catch up! Well, by then I lost interest as South Africa was launched into the TV status in the early seventies or somewhere thereabouts. TV! WOW! Going back to 1964 for a minute. This was the time for movies in my life. Met my husband and we would go to the drive-in on a Saturday night but on a Wednesday evening we would attend a theater in the city. This was very special. I had to don an evening/cocktail dress and he had to wear a collar and tie AND a jacket! We always went up to the ticket booth and the lady or gent would shove a plan of the seating towards us. All the 'taken' seats were crossed off so in about 10 seconds we had to choose two seats. Sounds OK - Well, it wasn't OK sometimes because the movie houses were always playing to capacity crowds in the evenings and occasionally some person would be sitting in one of our seats. I liked one seat on the aisle so could scoot the person off post haste. Why didn't we just sit elsewhere? Well because no sooner would your rear touch the seat when somebody else would shove you off. You've probably all remember Maggie Smith in that scene from Hot Millions ( I love that movie and have watched it at least 10 times) where she tries to be an usherette and gets the seating horribly wrong - torch flashing down the rows and people shifting about in the half dark ! That's about how it used to be at every screening we went to. Shooting along to 1978 - baby on the scene, exit the movie life for us. These days. No, too tired in the evenings after running the business all day. Weekends. No, nothing absolutely a big screen must see. BTW, the screen in the old movie houses was ENORMOUS! These days, you can virtually by the same size and install it with surround sound. I'm telling you all this pitter patter because today on TV they showed the 10 best westerns of all time. Number one was Clint Eastwood's "The Good. The Bad and The Ugly" We never missed a Western and I reckon those old films were magic. But then I can't really compare can I? Over to our movie buff Kerouac for comment
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2014 21:59:35 GMT
I do understand quite a few reasons that people do not go to the cinema, the main one now being that it is too expensive in so many places. In Paris, the normal ticket price is now 11-12€ in the nice first run cinemas. Luckily, most people don't pay that price because there are so many ways to get discounts, and I myself have an unlimited movie card that allows me to go to as many movies as I want for only 20€ a month. This is a double edged sword, because I see much more crap than I used to, simply because I don't have to pay. But also in lots of places there isn't even a nice place to go to. On top of that, in cities without many cinemas, the only movies available are the infantile superhero blockbusters or other shoot-em-ups. Even when some of those movies are excellent and worth going to, it can be a pain to sit with an audience with an average age of 17. I myself am very annoyed now when I see the glow of telephones during the movie as the younger spectators feel the need to text their absent friends during the show. Who knows? Maybe they are even texting their friends sitting three seats away.
Nevertheless, Paris is a city that takes the cinema seriously (like NYC), so the film offer is incredible and most audiences are well behaved, except on Saturday night when I nearly never set foot outdoors.
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