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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 20:10:25 GMT
I confess that I let Vincere slip through my fingers.
Part 2 and part 3 of everybody's favorite Swedish thriller are coming out at the end of this month and the end of July. Even though I watched most of them already on the movie channel here, I will go see them on a real screen when the time comes.
Tonight I went to see the excellent Tom DiCillo documentary "When You're Strange." Just as I feared, it left me awash with nostalgia but also relieved that those times are past. Even though Johnny Depp was only 8 years old when Jim Morrison died, he almost sounded like he knew what he was talking about (well, reading about). As for tonight's audience, I would say that 85% of them hadn't even been born in 1971.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2010 10:08:21 GMT
I went to see The Chameleon today, yet another French movie filmed in Louisiana with the up-and-coming Québécois actor Marc-André Grondin and the ever popular Ellen Barkin ( ), trying for an Oscar nomination this time. I thought it was quite good, but unfortunately the American producer is extremely unhappy with the unflinching portrayal of 'trailer trash' and is planning on completely re-editing the movie before any American release, even if it goes straight to DVD. The director is considering having his name removed from the re-edited version. However, I was more interested in the fact that it is a true story rather than 'just' a movie. I was absolutely fascinated by the articles about this case when it was in the news.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 27, 2010 17:25:30 GMT
This is great ~~ I didn't know a movie had been made about the case. For those of you who don't know about it, absolutely read this: www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_grann (you may want to print it out -- very long, but spell-binding) I can't wait to see this -- from the clip, it looks really well handled. I'll be delighted to see Emilie de Ravin in something other than the endless "Lost".
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Post by joanne28 on Jun 28, 2010 21:02:05 GMT
This looks very good - I hope I can find the original version here.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2010 21:25:11 GMT
Imdb shows absolutely no release dates outside of France yet. I hope that will change.
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Post by joanne28 on Jun 28, 2010 22:33:14 GMT
God, I hope so too. Now I'll have to go find the book also.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2010 0:51:18 GMT
Is there a book? I think all of the info in one place is in the link I supplied above.
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Post by spindrift on Jul 3, 2010 10:27:05 GMT
Last night I saw Villa Amalia. beta.rottentomatoes.com/m/villa_amalia/It's another 'hard work' film with little content and much depression throughout. The first half is filmed in dark(ish) rooms leading one's spirits into gloom. There to stay. It's in French so that was one of the pluses. *hard work films - my friend, M, says I always go for them. They are not entertaining in the true sense but involve intense emotional feeling and one comes out feeling drained.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2010 14:32:05 GMT
Exactly. Often one comes out of such a movie thinking "I really did not enjoy that very much," but then you find that it sticks with you long after 'entertainment' has been flushed from your mind.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2010 18:28:23 GMT
The Karate Kid. My 2 youngest and I saw it yesterday, it was brilliant. Link: www.imdb.com/title/tt1155076/Lots of footage in China, a story of the underdog who wins, lots of Kung Fu action. I love those kind of films.
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Post by lola on Jul 7, 2010 0:22:45 GMT
I think of "hard work" films as the kind that involve prolonged struggle and ending badly. Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The Road.
Maybe even ones that don't end with dead bodies, like the Chinese Not One Less, where you feel you're physically helping the protagonist through all her travels.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 7, 2010 1:05:43 GMT
I think of "hard work" films as those which engage our emotions in the same complicated way that real life does, and that leave you with the sense you need to work out the permutations long after you've actually viewed the movie.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2010 18:20:05 GMT
I saw two movies today.
This morning I saw Copacabana, the new Isabelle Huppert movie with a ditzy hippie-ish mother at odds with her reasonable, serious daughter. Besides the fact that it is a comedy (a rare thing for Huppert), it is made much more mordant by the fact that her daughter is played by... her daughter. To gain credibilty (and earn the right to be invited to her daughter's wedding), she goes to Oostende to sell horrible timeshare apartments. There are some remarkably moving scenes where she befriends a backpacker couple living in the street with their dog and helps them -- they are much closer to the sort of person that she is than her daughter.
This evening, I went to see Millennium 2, even though I had watched it on television. It it ten times better on the big screen, and it was sold out.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 11, 2010 21:01:47 GMT
*grinds teeth with frustrated yearning*
How did Millennium 2 stack up to Mil. 1 -- as good?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2010 21:45:10 GMT
Actually, I found it "easier to digest" -- but don't forget, since I have not yet read the books, I had to get to know the various characters the first time. Visually, it was inferior, because 2 & 3 were filmed directly for TV on a lower budget. But the acting was just as high class as the first time.
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Post by lola on Jul 18, 2010 21:24:09 GMT
My girls and I just got back from seeing Winter's Bone, the best we've seen in a long time.
"That was an amazing movie." H. "Chillingly authentic." MC.
Most excellent is Jennifer Lawrence as a teenager trying to save their home and keep her family together.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2010 15:14:54 GMT
Dare I say that I was not impressed by Inception? I like Christopher Nolan and I like Leonardo DiCaprio, and I loved the special effects, but it all seemed so totally pointless. I never believed in the humanity of any of the characters except perhaps Marion Cotillard.
I also went to see Toy Story 3 in 3D, but frankly I thought it was too intense for many young children. It is an excellent movie, though. And the critics are correct that it is impossible to stay dry-eyed the very last time that Andy plays with his toys.
Finally, I really liked the new Stephen Frears movie, Tamara Drewe, which is apparently based on a graphic novel. It is a absolute poem to British village quirkiness and all of the actors are great. It's only playing in France so far and won't come out in the UK until September and the US in October.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 24, 2010 16:58:37 GMT
I appreciate the "warning" about Millennium 2 & 3, Kerouac. Great acting pretty much trumps anything, but it was impossible not to be spoiled by the visuals in Girl w/Dragon Tattoo.
Lola, I finally watched that trailer. I should have known you wouldn't let us see a bad trailer! Really, I've gotten to the point of avoiding book & movie reviews or trailers, since so many of them give away good stuff. The trailer for Winter's Bone just makes me want to see the movie.!
That's really disappointing about Inception, especially with the teaming of DiCaprio and Cotillard. It almost makes you angry when you see an excellent actor doing a superb job that's pretty much wasted because of the movie itself.
And back to trailers -- there is nothing about the Tamara Drewe trailer that would make me want to see the movie, which goes to show how important personal recommendations are.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2010 17:33:56 GMT
Probably because the Tamara Drewe trailer makes a point of giving away absolutely NOTHING about the plot. Each minute of the film is a new discovery.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2010 5:28:50 GMT
I really liked the Argentinian film "Plan B," more for its scruffy naturalism than the actual story, which is predictable. I get so tired of seeing glossy, perfectly filmed movies!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2010 20:52:51 GMT
Today I saw Celda 211 (Cell 211), the movie that won quite a few Spanish Academy Awards last year.
I don't want to call it "just another gritty prison movie" but I fear that I was not impressed as much as the Spanish Academy. The acting was fine, but there were just too many plot inconsistencies for me to be satisfied with the end result.
Nevertheless, it is definitely worth seeing.
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 9, 2010 14:20:35 GMT
On Saturday, I saw "Gainsbourg: vie héroique". Since there is a thread on the subject, I will discuss there.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2010 17:58:43 GMT
I went to see the Franco-Australian movie The Tree. It was good without being outstanding.
I'm glad that the director Julie Bertuccelli (who made the sensational movie Since Otar Left a few years ago) insisted that a real tree be used for the movie, even though the Australians wanted to create an artificial tree.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2010 21:00:38 GMT
Today I went to see Crime d'Amour. While it is far from being Alain Corneau's best film, Kristin Scott Thomas is so evil evil evil, as she so often is in her French films.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 23, 2010 15:50:28 GMT
Seabiscuit - purely by chance Saturday afternoon.
Very good indeed................
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2010 16:51:42 GMT
The one with Tobey McGuire?
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Post by cigalechanta on Aug 23, 2010 18:17:46 GMT
Two very good older films. Wetherby and A Rather English marriage.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 24, 2010 16:28:59 GMT
The one with Tobey McGuire? That's the one. Set in the '30's, my favourite era.
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Post by cigalechanta on Aug 26, 2010 15:22:44 GMT
last night, Jean Reno in the Ultimate Heist ****
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 27, 2010 9:49:28 GMT
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