Recent (non series) small screen viewing

[bixaorellana]

Yeah ~ I was surprised when I saw his name on the credits. There is one false/clumsy line in that whole movie -- only one!

Here is a bit of trivia about the movie that isn't really trivial. Apparently, Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) originally sang the song that's played in the background while he's watching the home movies of happier times. Wim Winders later cut that. Seeing the movie, I understood the subtlety of only having it as background music, and the genius of Ry Cooder in selecting it.

The music is enormously affecting and appropriate if one doesn't know what it is. If you know the song, as I do now and didn't when I first saw the movie 25 years ago, it becomes even more devastatingly poignant.

This is not the Ry Cooder version, but I really admire whoever chose to match this video with this particular piece of music:

Here's a piece of luck -- Harry Dean Stanton singing the song!
listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/A_Canci_n_Mixteca/23384130

someone here did a nice job of translation:
Cancion Mixteca

¡Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido,
inmensa nostagia invade mi pensamiento,
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento,
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento!

¡0h tierra del sol, suspiro por verte
ahora que lejos yo vivo sin luz, sin amor,
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento,
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento!

Approximate translation:

How far away I am from my homeland,
great nostalgia invades my mind,
and when I see myself so lonesome and sad, like a leaf in the wind,
I'd like to cry, I'd like to die of sorrow!

Oh land of the sun I long to see you
now that I live faraway, without light, without love;
and when I see myself so lonesome and sad, like a leaf in the wind,
I'd like to cry, I'd like to die of sorrow!

[auntieannie]

Gracias por la musica, Bixa!

Today, I finally managed to convince Maffoo to watch "Garbage Warrior". It is so powerful that he now also dreams of living in an "earthship". These houses are so beautiful!

uk.imdb.com/title/tt1104694/

[bixaorellana]

¡De nada, Anita!

I am going to try to find Garbage Warrior online, or rent it when I go to the States. It sounds fascinating and encouraging.

[lola]

We saw The Fall last night. I rate 5 stars out of 5, available on Netflix.

No plot summary could do it justice, but here's the Netflix one:
Set in the 1920s, director Tarsem Singh's visually lush drama stars Lee Pace as paralyzed movie stuntman Roy Walker, who bonds with an imaginative 5-year-old named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) as they convalesce together in a Los Angeles infirmary. To coax the girl into procuring the cache of morphine he wants from the hospital pharmacy, the suicidal Roy regales Alexandria with an elaborate fantasy about larger-than-life heroes.

Amazing performance from the 6 yo girl, funny, beautiful visually.

[bixaorellana]

Oh gosh, that sounds familiar. It's from a story by Jim Harrison, maybe?

[lola]

I think this was written by Tarsem Singh. Not to be confused with Legends of the Fall, which I couldn't believe I sat all the way through.

[bixaorellana]

Never mind!

I saw the movie "The Fall". I just looked up the trailer, and indeed it's a movie, and indeed I did see it. I don't know why I remembered it as something I read, rather than saw.

Yes -- it's a move that absolutely must be seen. It's beautifully done.

About "Legends of the Fall" -- that was a total piece of crap & waste of time, as you say. Please don't let that put you off the book from which the movie was made, though.

[Deleted]

Tonight I am watching once again the magnificent Québecois film C.R.A.Z.Y. It fully qualifies as well for the category "films you can't get enough of." And its soundtrack is fully as great as the soundtrack of "The Boat the Rocked."

Yes, I confess that most Québec movies released in France require French subtitles for some of the dialogue.



(There was also a Spanish trailer for this but unfortunately the film was dubbed in Spanish.)

[lola]

An oldie we watched last night on VHS (not available on DVD I believe): Red Dust, 1932, with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Directed by Victor Fleming; Gable supposedly modeled his roles in this one and Gone With The Wind after Fleming's personality. Pretty hot stuff.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2009 21:38:48 GMT bixaorellana said:

Nov 26, 2009 20:40:04 GMT kerouac2 said:

unfortunately the film was dubbed in Spanish

Ahem. That could work out really well for some of us!

If Spanish was your native language, I would absolutely approve of this, but in your case, I thought you might prefer the original language with subtitles in English or Spanish.

[bixaorellana]

Eeeeeeuuuuuuuwwwww ~~ you're right. It's sounds really dubby, plus it's in Thpanish from Thpain.
Thanks -- I did not realize it was available w/English subtitles. Subtitles are always better than dubbing.

[imec]

Just watched one of me new music DVD's - Kings o f Leon, Live at the O2 - even me 14yr old thought it was great.

[lola]

My husband's a lot more openminded and artsy than the average middle american male, but it's still tricky finding a film that we can all enjoy on rare evenings when we're all home, like during the upcoming college break.

He won't even attempt watch a movie that has more than one of the following elements:
-- English accents
-- period costume
-- female protagonist

He did love Pan's Labyrith, but that was in Spanish, and Whale Rider, but that was New Zealand.

One thing I like about Netflix is the feature that predicts whether you'll like something. I have to take the average for all of us, though.

[bixaorellana]

People are strange, Lola. I knew a woman who wouldn't read a book written in the first person.

About the accents ~~ English accents can be difficult for Americans to understand on the small screen. I am convinced this is because tv speakers are by & large crappy, with too much bass built into them. If you run real speakers to your tv and mount them for optimum output, it will not only enhance watching tv, but you can probably keep it at a lower volume. It used to be that almost all tvs channeled the sound to the back, where it became muffled against the wall & made neighbors crazy, since the volume had to be up enough to really hear it in the room. The newer, nicer tvs have the speakers in front, but they're still no match for stereo speakers run through a transformer.

[bixaorellana]

I just finished watching Julie and Julia and must say I quite enjoyed it. The movie is what it is, and not Great Art, but still quite affecting in its way. One flaw that I noticed all the way through is that the sets look much more artificial and dated than one should expect from a big budget movie. Even the real stuff looks like the back lot of Studio B. This was partly from being too perfect and picturesque with the French parts and partly from that empty-of-people look that screams "filmed!". Just enough of New York is shown to announce that it's New York, then the same stock shot of outside Julie's apartment is flashed over and over, rather like a 70s sitcom. That said, the interiors on both sides of the Atlantic are beautifully done.

But enough griping. The casting is great, and Meryl Streep is not Meryl Streep -- she is 100% Julia Child. I would have to label this a chick flick, but not one that will make you feel you wasted time watching it, plus you'll be able to give it the I Laughed / I Cried award.

A special note for some of you ~~ if you enjoy Mad Men for the clothes and the period detail, you will adore this.

[Deleted]

I watched "The Door in the Floor" with Jeff Bridges and Kim Bassinger ,made in 2005 or so. I had seen before and enjoyed but it is really rather depressing and I don't know what prompted me to want to view it again except it was lying around my friend's house and I borrowed.(Shot on location in the Hamptons so was nice to see home town).

[auntieannie]

We watched Slumdog Millionaire Saturday night. Still that great feeling of elation at the end, even though the film has quite difficult/sad/violent scenes to it.

[imec]

No third season for Flight of the Conchords.

[lola]

We watched Les Choristes on DVD last night. It's a sweet film, sentimental in a pleasant way, about rowdy boys formed into a choir by a sympathetic teacher. Lovely singing.

[bixaorellana]

I'm watching the first season of Damages, suggested to me by a friend to help with my Mad Men withdrawal. So far, so good, although it lacks that breathtaking good acting of MM.

[Kimby]

Finally saw The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which I liked quite a lot. Though I did not give up hoping for a "happy ending" (for Bruno anyway) until the end credits began rolling...

[cristina]

I'm watching Holiday Inn as I type. I love this movie! Really, who can't love Fred and Bing?

[Kimby]

We saw "Drag Me to Hell" on DVD last night, Unrated Director's Cut.
What a mess! (And another NOT happy ending.)
The soundtrack was intermittently so loud and dischordant that it set off a cat fight between Mo and Mia, causing an unsheduled intermission to chase them down and split them up.
NOT on my list of favorite movies. (Even without the cat fight.)

[lola]

Seeing huge posters for that movie last spring plastered all over London buses gave me a pre-distaste for it.

[Deleted]

Ha ha, I saw Drag Me to Hell several months ago. It was exactly what I suspected, though. More gypsy bashing, as usual.

The title kept its promise, though, didn't it?

[lola]

We watched Sweet Land (2005) on DVD recently. www.sweetlandmovie.com/
This is a sweet film. Independent.
Mail order bride arrives in MN in the 1920's, and since it turns out to she is (hated) German instead of Norwegian, the minister won't marry her and her farmer intended.
Recommended.

[Kimby]

We just saw a 1979 film called Heartland, set in Wyoming but filmed in Montana, about a widow who hires out as housekeeper to a gruff Wyoming rancher during the homestead era and ends up marrying him.

We were living in Wyoming the first time we saw it, and now live in Montana. Our life, however, is nothing like so difficult as theirs.

[bixaorellana]

Last night I watched a movie I'd been wanting to see for ages, Oscar and Lucinda. On one level it was absolutely brilliant. Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes go beyond "performance" in stunning feats of character creation. The costumes and the Australian landscapes are lush and beautiful. Unfortunately, it all looks like a movie. Scenes at the docks, for instance, look like just that -- scenes from a movie. It's been years since I read the book, but I'm positive large parts were changed and added. Ultimately, it was disappointing, although I think I'd watch it again just for Cate & Ralph.

[lola]

Don't know whether this had been discussed earlier, but H. and I watched Trouble the Water on DVD today.

This documentary was filmed as close to on the ground before, during, and after Hurricaine Katrina as you can get. Interspersed clips of Brownie blinking rapidly whilebeing interviewed on national TV, and speeches by the President of the US, two other men in over their heads.

[bixaorellana]

I just had to censor myself on this subject. Here's the trailer for that remarkable documentary:
www.troublethewaterfilm.com/