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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 9, 2020 18:16:29 GMT
Ahh ~ Thanks! That is the second recommendation from a trusted source I have received today. It sounds excellent.
I have watched two episodes of Maniac, which I started because it has name-brand actors and was billed as a comedy. Apparently it's also been called a comedy-drama, which is closer to the truth, or at least half truth, as I've been unable to find anything comedic about it. Justin Theroux is in it as sort of a mad scientist, broadly drawn, as is Emma Stone. I was turned off by Emma Stone in La La Land (a crappy movie I didn't even finish watching) because she seemed so mean. She seem mean in this show, too, but in line with the character and she really is a good actor. Sally Field is in the show, too, but has not yet made an appearance.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 9, 2020 19:42:19 GMT
I started watching The Shining tonight, which I know is an excellent movie. But I know it by heart, so I switched to another channel which is playing Oz the Great and Powerful which I also saw at the movies way back when, but my memory has been swept clean. That is generally an indication that the movie is total crap, which is quite frequent when a movie stars James Franco.
So far, what I can see is that James Franco and Disney do not mix at all. It makes him look like he is the worst actor in the world, which is not true, even if one does not like him. It is simply totally the wrong material for him.
But since I don't remember anything about it, I don't even know if Dorothy will show up. But that is so unimaginable that I'm pretty sure she will turn up sooner or later.
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Post by lugg on Jul 9, 2020 20:13:03 GMT
Not seen this yet but I am going to watch it ( and ignore the Guardian review) . I am not really into comic book / super hero movies but I listened to an interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor a few days ago and he had me intrigued, not least by his reticence. It is released tomorrow on Netflix ...The Old Guard.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 13, 2020 17:49:32 GMT
ImagineThis House is full of Music last night (now on BBC iPlayer) about the Kanneh-Mason family. 7 incredibly gifted young siblings (Sheku played at Harry and Megan's wedding) all brilliant musicians. They play cello, piano and violin...and they have a friend from university staying with them too (a classical guitar student). They filmed a series of pieces being played around their home and garden I Nottingham. Lots of unusual pieces (No Woman No Cry on a cello?!) and classical favourites. Interspersed with scenes from their home, chats with the musicians and their parents...Alan Yentob?!? on a laptop doing the interviews. Excellent... Just try not to feel inadequate.....
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Post by lugg on Jul 13, 2020 18:40:12 GMT
That sounds like something I would enjoy Cheery thank you.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 26, 2020 17:32:27 GMT
Watched The Post today, recorded it last night and watched it this afternoon (so that I could fast forward all the commercials). I enjoyed it...now I want to watch All the President's Men again
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 29, 2020 12:22:33 GMT
Because casimira mentioned it recently, I found myself watching The Goldfinch last night since it was playing on one of the movie channels. It was a total piece of trash, but I enjoyed it very much. The cinematography was excellent, and I liked the actors but boy-oh-boy how unbelievable can you get? I think the problem was trying to follow the novel too faithfully, which made the movie last 2h20 when it probably would have needed to be a 5-hour miniseries. Terrorist bombing that kills mother, nice foster family, suddenly removed from foster family when errant father shows up. Is hauled to an abandoned suburban zone in Las Vegas (the era of the foreclosures and bank repossessions). Life is awful with drunk father and trashy stepmother but he makes friends with a bad Russian boy who gets him addicted to drugs. He finally runs back to NYC where the nice furniture restorer takes him in as well as the dog he stole from his stepmother. Flash forward 10 (?) years for part two of his roller coaster life, but I won't tell any more of the story.
It actually made me want to read the book which absolutely has to be better than the movie.
I did read that the movie only made about $2 million domestically and $3 million internationally and therefore lost.... $50 million.
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Post by lugg on Jul 29, 2020 18:18:26 GMT
I did watch the Old Guard - there is likely to be a franchise I guess. Did I enjoy it ? it was ok not my usual choice but has some redeemable features and I always enjoy watching several members of the cast.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 3, 2020 17:20:23 GMT
I have not been a regular viewer over the years, but for the last three weeks I have been watching "Nus et culottés" which means both "naked and cheeky" and "naked and clothed." The two adventurers begin every programme butt naked and must perform a "mission." For example, on tonight's programme, they have to travel from northern France to the City of London to interview financiers.
The first thing they have to do is find clothing, and this is an urgent task because sometimes they film this in the dead of winter. Their first clothes (generally just loincoths) are made out of leaves, vines, plastic or whatever they find, so the first people they encounter are generally a bit surprised. But faced with friendly naked people, just about everybody comes up with old clothes, shoes, etc. to give them. They also have to beg for food and lodging and later transportation. Some people refuse, but others help and there are always heartwarming stories and exchanges. The two guys offer to work in exchange whenever possible, but sometimes all they can give is a little origami animal.
Every episode ends well, which is what makes me wonder about how accurate their adventures are. Here is an episode that a fan subtitled in English.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 3, 2020 22:55:53 GMT
Much nicer than Naked & Afraid. I didn't watch all of the video above, but might finish it later as it's charming. What kills me is that no one they encounter seems to think that the guys might be robbers. "We just want to come in your house for five minutes or an hour" is not something that would get me to let two weirdly dressed strangers into my house.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 5, 2020 19:23:55 GMT
I did not go to see Jésus de Montréal at the movies, probably because the title repelled me. But I finally watched it on video today, and it is not so bad, even though it is becoming quite dated (1989). I didn't expect it to suddenly become an organ donor movie.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 6, 2020 1:53:16 GMT
As the library is beginning to reopen, it’s still curbside only 4 days a week in Missoula, but the little town on the way to the lake cottage has a partner library that allows in-library pickups six days a week, so we reserve items in Missoula for pickup in Philipsburg. Works great. And we can return everything in P’burg, whereas Missoula wants patrons to hang onto checked out materials while they make the move to a brand new library building next door. So we are FINALLY getting some of the movies on our list. Peanut Butter Falcon was the first, and we just got our mitts on MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT. Tom Cruise was amazing, did ALL his own stunts: motorcycle chases, car chases, helicopter chases, jumping out of a plane at 20,000 feet, jumping between tall buildings - a stunt that resulted in breaking his leg and causing an 8-week pause in filming. The footage from that jump was the take that they decided to use, and you could tell he was limping badly when he got up from his tad-too-short jump’s crash landing and ran after the bad guy a few steps till they yelled “cut”. The Trivia section from IMDb has a LOT of factoids about the stunts that I found fascinating. www.imdb.com/title/tt4912910/triviaThe cast was excellent, the writing was very good for an action film, with humor and sly references to other films in the series as well as other films. Well done, worth the watch.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 7, 2020 13:52:15 GMT
I watched Midnight Cowboy again yesterday. That movie has held up spectacularly well. It even made me admire Jon Voigt again, at least at that point of his career.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 7, 2020 14:18:49 GMT
k2, your next old movie should be Easy Rider.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 7, 2020 16:15:58 GMT
I watched that again a few years ago and was impressed by how well it held up.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 13, 2020 11:52:49 GMT
I managed to wrestle the TV remote out of Jeff's hot sweaty little hands last night to watch a film on Netflix. Excellent film...The Judge (2014) highly recommend it...Robert Downey Junior was excellent as the hot-shot attorney son with Robert Duvall as his country town judge father...very moving.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2020 16:54:56 GMT
Oh -- that looks great. Thanks!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2020 17:07:39 GMT
Since they are practically giving away DVDs these days in France, I bought Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood so that I could examine the details better. Also, the DVD says that it contains 7 deleted scenes, which in my estimation is reason enough to spend 5 euros. I don't know when I will actually watch it, but I am certainly looking forward to it.
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Post by Kimby on Aug 13, 2020 18:46:13 GMT
We watched two very different but very good movies. JOKER is the origin story of Batman’s arch nemesis Joker. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing, and deserved every award he got for this role. Gotham (a thinly-disguised NYC) plays a major role in this film as San Francisco does in THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO, a story taken from the life of lead actor Jimmy Fail IV. The photography has a difficult-to-describe appliquéd look, as if the actors were floating in front of the scene.
Both good movies, well-acted and thought-provoking.
The library logjam has broken since we figured out we could pick up library materials at a different partner library while our library is closed for moving into a new building.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 15, 2020 17:31:37 GMT
Joker was a very good movie. I'm sure that a lot of people avoided it because they thought it was in the same category as those other comic book movies, and yes, Joaquin Phoenix absolutely deserved his Oscar.
I just watched Edmond again (American title: Cyrano, My Love) and found it as fabulous as when I saw it at the movies. It is a completely unauthentic story of how Edmond Rostand wrote the most popular play ever presented in France, Cyrano de Bergerac. But it is a totally delightful vaudeville with bunches of great actors having the time of their lives.
Paris lovers might be a bit disappointed by not recognising most of the iconic places in Paris, since it was filmed in Prague, but frankly, I thought they did a good job at imitating a lot of the places, and it was frankly not the point of the movie.
Anybody who like costumes and period pieces like this should be delighted.
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Post by rikita on Aug 29, 2020 20:46:53 GMT
a. and i watched Ostwind (Eastern Wind) the other day - first movie in a series that is very popular with young girls ... the acting isn't that great and the story kind of predictable: young city girl in trouble in school has to spend her summer holidays with her strict grandmother as a punishment. grandmother used to be a succesful horse rider, but got injured by a very wild horse named Ostwind - the girl, who never had anything to do with horses, and the horse form a mysterious bond and show everyone that they are better than what was thought ... there is also a mean girl who is a good rider and thus arrogant (and tries to ruin the success of the heroes), a good natured stable boy who first dislikes the city girl but then they become friends and he helps her, a wise elderly man who used to be a succesful horse trainer but has stopped doing that, but now is willing to secretly train the girl and the horse ... so, not a great movie, but still okay, and a. liked it (though she always talks half the movie, so not sure how much of it she really sees ...)
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Post by Kimby on Sept 20, 2020 3:34:07 GMT
Saturday Night Cinema on PBS is a godsend. This week’s feature was FIVE EASY PIECES, with Jack Nicholson and Karen Black. Though I’ve been aware of it for 50 years, I don’t believe I ever saw it. Some very good performances and a fascinating misanthropic rant by the hitchhiker they pick up as they drive to Washington to visit his dying father. The title is from a book of piano music for beginners. www.imdb.com/title/tt0065724/
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Post by Kimby on Oct 18, 2020 17:16:56 GMT
Last night’s Saturday Night Cinema was ABSENCE OF MALICE which I don’t believe we ever saw when it was a new release in 1981. Sally Field was a little too cute and Paul Newman was way too handsome, but the movie works for the most part. www.imdb.com/title/tt0081974/And today as the Sunday morning news shows were ending, NBC jumped right into a rom-com that I had never seen - and Mr. Kimby would never watch - even though he used to crush on Jennifer Anniston. RUMOR HAS IT. www.imdb.com/title/tt0398375/The premise is cute and almost works. A young woman recently engaged finds out that her mother had a fling the week before HER marriage 30 years earlier, with a man who also bonked HER mother (the grandmother, a very spicy Shirley McClaine). This scandal is rumored to have been the subject of the book and movie, The Graduate, and the Anniston character feels compelled to get answers by going to meet the man who could have fathered her. Mark Ruffalo as the fiancé is pitch-perfect. The reviews were not outstanding, but it’s an enjoyable diversion for a female on a Sunday when every channel is airing football. And I don’t mean soccer.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2020 19:57:18 GMT
It looks like American television is doing the same thing as French television. Since the 4-6 week curfew began yesterday, France Télévisions has promised a feature film every night on at least one of its channels (France 2, 3, 4, 5).
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Post by lugg on Oct 24, 2020 10:21:34 GMT
I watched Borat Subsequent Moviefilm last night which has been released by Amazon. It was pretty bad, occasionally funny and it seemed to me to be very staged. However I thought the actor who played his daughter was great.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 24, 2020 12:27:18 GMT
Isn’t the point of Borat to be stagy and over the top?
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 24, 2020 16:02:02 GMT
I tried to watch the first Borat movie and quickly came to the conclusion that it's off of a different planet from anything that might interest or amuse me. The sequel is not even getting a chance.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 24, 2020 17:28:56 GMT
A 2018 documentary about Muhammad Ali and his relationship with Dick Cavett. Excellent and very funny.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 24, 2020 18:04:54 GMT
Sounds great! What's the name?
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Post by lugg on Oct 24, 2020 18:17:07 GMT
Isn’t the point of Borat to be stagy and over the top? Lost in translation maybe? ....substitute "staged" for "set up / scripted". The first film was not so in the main. I have really mixed feelings about the Rudy Giuliani segment, albeit I am no fan of his. But ... it is topical, completed despite Covid and yes I applaud his attempt to influence the US voting. "The sequel is not even getting a chance." that's a shame -- I would love to read your view of it and of course any other who call USA their home.
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