Gone Girl - it's close to the book and i give it a ummm, say an 8
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Gone Girl - it's close to the book and i give it a ummm, say an 8
I enjoyed Gone Girl as well although I could anticipate the plot except for the actual ending which I found disappointing. I agreed with the guy's sister.
Recently, I watched the older version of the Mummy and Dracula. The stories were very similar. The male violated some code and is punished with a defective existence. The female reincarnates and is later found by the male who loses her in the end. They would both get 8/10.
I just watched Nymphomanic Vol 1 on netflix.
Great movie. The way people were talking about it I was expecting something like Salo but it felt more like a Greek tragedy. You watch this girl get corrupted pretty early and she just ends up running in circles from guy to guy.You just keep waiting for her addiction to finally kill her
While I was at Menard's (a hardware store) I found sets of movies for $5.00. I once bought 100 science fiction movies there for $10.00. Anyway, I found a set of 6 that I had not seen before and so I've been watching them to see what I've missed. Here are the ones so far:
The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag Score 8/10. The is what could happen if you are a police detective and you skip dinner with your wife on your wedding anniversary because you have to work late.
Two Much Score 8/10. This is about two wealthy sisters. One of them decides to marry Art (Antonio Banderas) who wants to marry the other one who unfortunately doesn't like him until he becomes an imaginary twin brother called Bart.
Betsy's Wedding Score 8/10. Two kids want to get married and their parents try to plan it for them against their will. There is also the sister of the bride, a policewoman, who meets someone she thinks she should be arresting rather than falling in love with. But love conquers all. And everyone lives happily ever after except those who don't deserve to.
Mr Wrong Score 8/10. I realized I saw this one many years ago after wealthy Mr Wrong started reciting some poetry he wrote. Except for his poetry, the guy didn't seem all that bad to me.
What's left are Born Yesterday and Gross Anatomy.
I saw Born Yesterday and it kind of reminded me of a play that was made into a movie. It was a little more serious than the other movies in this set and deserves a higher score: 9/10
Then I figured I might as well watch Gross Anatomy. And this one was wonderful: Score 10/10.
300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Historical background: Second Persian invasion of Greek city-states which ended in a stalemate at one front and Persian loss at the other, in the year 480 BC.
It reinforces old school Orientalist characterisation in worst possible way and at the same time frames the Persians as war fanatics interested only in death and destruction.
Good computer-generated action but a lousy piece of political propaganda. 300's first episode that came out a few years ago was much better entertainment.
That's probably because originally it was a play.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Yes, I see it was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_YesterdayQuote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
I wonder why I felt the disconnect. Perhaps the age of the play? Or the way the scenes changed? It did seem more serious than the other movies in the set except for Gross Anatomy. The others could have been labeled "S" for "Stupid", which is often all I want to see.
I haven't seen the film but it did make an impact when it came out, largely due to Judy Holliday's performance that won her an academy award for best actress. I imagine that being directed by George Cukor also helped.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
If you have a penchant for films labeled "S" for stupid , the last 50 years gives you limitless choice.
I saw Annabelle last month. It's very nice, funny horror film and I highly recommend this. It tells the story of a couple of women who want to play with the same doll – Annabelle. 3/10
I agree, it was a waste of time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin
This neat little British film stars the then husband and wife team of buxom Hazel Court and handsome Dermot Walsh who play a married couple from Canada who have come to England and who buy a motorised yacht even though the ships custodian tells them that it's haunted. The ghost of a marine engineer haunts the engine room and the reason is explained when they call in a medium who under an induced trance reveals a tale of adultery and murder among the ships former crew.
7/10
I wasn't going to admit I watched these, but then I thought, why not?
Don Peyote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1828968/
This starts out with some information about the hundredth monkey which seems to say if you can convince just enough people then you will convince everyone. I don't think this is quite true although there is something to the idea of people influencing others indirectly.
So this is about a guy who is getting married. His girlfriend is also pregnant and they did this on purpose. If there is any message for the females, it might be first get married and then get pregnant, but the story is more about the guy's views of reality especially after taking more than his share of drugs and drinking too much ayahuasca. There are also his adventures while evolving into Homo sanctus, or something like that.
Apparently, at the end he meets his son years later after his girlfriend abandoned him since he abandoned them while trying to become Homo sanctus. I guess his son was the hundredth monkey. I hope I didn't spoil the ending for anyone. I didn't understand it anyway.
Score: 3/10
Behaving Badly: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2314824/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff) is trying to get a cute girl (Selena Gomez) to like him and he makes a lot of mistakes along the way, but then most of his friends and family are mistakes waiting to happen. There are some nice scenes with his guardian angel or imaginary friend or whatever she was. At one point she says she is taking a vacation and leaving him on his own. That was the best scene for me.
For movies like this, I think the 'S' rating is a little too generous, but I did enjoy it.
Score: 8/10
Escape into Night (1972): A six-part British TV serial adaptation of Catherine Storr's children's fantasy novel Marianne Dreams. I only recently learned of the existence of this show, and having loved Bernard Rose's Paperhouse (1988), based on the same novel, I had to check it out.
Here's Wikipedia's plot summary of the source novel, which applies to both media versions: Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time, and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn. As time goes by, she becomes sicker, and starts to spend more and more time trapped within her fantasy world, and her attempts to make things better by adding to and crossing out things in the drawing make things progressively worse. Her only companion in her dreamworld is a boy called Mark, who is also a long-term invalid in the real world.
Well, the TV version is very different from the later movie. I understand from reviews that this version is much more faithful to the novel (which I haven't read), but I actually liked most of the plot changes the movie made. It didn't help that the lead actress of the show, Vikki Chambers, was very stiff, while the movie's lead, Charlotte Burke, was much, much better. The boys who played Mark in both versions were very good as well. In supporting roles, the differences between professional film actors and '70s low-budget British TV actors are about as you'd expect.
In general, the TV version is worth watching once, but the film is a must-see. Sadly, it's unavailable on DVD in the U.S., so I had to ask my father to bring a copy back when he took a trip to England.
Escape into Night: 7/10
Paperhouse: 10/10
Flashpoint (1984): Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams are border patrol officers who come across a long-buried jeep containing a mysterious stash of money and a rifle, and then soon find themselves up against some federal agents who have their own agenda.
I've been enjoying the Tangerine Dream soundtrack CD from this movie for 30 years, but had never seen the film itself until now. Sadly, it's pretty disposable. The plot turns out to be thin and slow to progress, the climax just kind of happens, and the director strangely ends up breaking the fourth wall to explain the MacGuffins to the audience, while the lead characters never do learn exactly what's going on. The main positives in the movie, besides the soundtrack (nice to see the music in context at last), are the always likeable Kristofferson and Kurtwood Smith (That 70s Show) as the villainous lead Fed.
4/10
Sounds like a good movie and a good book, Calidore. I'll have to check out the book.
This is a filmed version of a scandal so great that it makes the Clinton/Lewinsky affair look like a minor indiscretion.
Based on a series of books written since, it concerns what became known as the Profumo affair. John Profumo was a role model for pillar of society wannabes. Public school and Oxford educated, decorated in WWII, Conservative member of parliament and married to a beautiful actress, he had risen through the political ranks to be appointed Minister for War in the Conservative government of 1959.
By 1960, however, the siren voices of liberalism had persuaded the establishment to open its doors to the lower echelons of society and the result was, inter alia, the Profumo affair in which the MP became involved with a winsome prostitute Christine Keeler, among whose lovers was a soviet naval attaché. Another prostitute, Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's friend, was also implicated in the affair, as were a number of upper crust figures who had also enjoyed the girls' favours.
The linchpin of this network of impropriety was a society osteopath, Stephen Ward, who acted as a procurer for his clients and eventually committed suicide when charged with living off of the immoral earnings of prostitutes.
When the truth emerged into the public domain, it shook British society to its foundations.
The film opens very well with newsreel showing Profumo being appointed War Minister and switches to Keeler leaving home to go to London where she gets a job in a strip club and meets Ward and Rice-Davies. Ward introduces the girls to his circle of bigwigs including Ivanov the Russian naval attaché.
At a party thrown at Cliveden, the aristocratic seat of Viscount Astor, Keeler meets Profumo and their affair begins. The story continues to the point where Ward, realising that he is going to be made the scapegoat, kills himself.
It's well acted but completely fails to mention the colossal impact of the fallout from the scandal when it was uncovered by a Labour politician and splashed all over the media for weeks. It concentrates mainly on Ward's relationship with Keeler and gives but small mention to Rice-Davies who was a major figure in the affair.
6/10
I do remember the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. However, I haven't heard of Profumo before, but then my political awareness is almost unconscious. I wonder how the social fallout differed.
I've watched some rather enjoyable movies:
Chef: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2883512/
My wife told me that Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara (her full name) was very famous and even had a line of clothing. She did seem hotter than Scarlett Johannsson which I didn't think was possible. Anyway, the nice part about the movie was the ending where the nemesis became the opposite.
Score: 10/10
Begin Again: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1980929/
Like Chef there is a couple that has problems and then get back together again. The best scene for me was when Keira Knightly's character discovers her boyfriend is seeing another woman just by listening to his music and slaps him. I also liked the idea that the two main characters did not have an affair and how they released their album in the end.
Score: 10/10
Well, while calls for Clinton to be impeached were rebuffed and he went on to complete his term of office, Profumo was forced to resign and the government almost collapsed but held on for another year before being beaten in the following election.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
The soviet naval attaché was recalled to Moscow but he was almost certainly a spy and was therefore of no further use in that capacity.
Here's how I covered the affair in my novel Pro Bono Publico:
The press, knowing they were onto something extraordinary, began to investigate the affair more rigorously, and as their journalists got to work, they uncovered a vein of impropriety implicating some of the highest names in the land as being among those attending licentious parties at one of England’s finest country houses. The allegations included call girls and drugs and, with serious implications for the country’s security, a soviet naval attaché was revealed as the client of a young woman named in the affair as the Cabinet Minister’s lover.
The sexual repression inherited from Puritan and Victorian forebears gives rise to an exaggerated prurience among the English and, as the story evolved, the public waited eagerly for new aspects of the scandal to be revealed. Their expectations were fully realised when, some weeks after the Cabinet Minister’s denial, the country’s leading tabloid published irrefutable evidence of his extramarital affair and the scandalous events surrounding it.
The involvement of the likely soviet spy complicated matters. Then the public denial of what was latter shown to be true destroyed credibility.
I can see how it was a mess. In the case of Clinton there weren't any spies involved.
Yes, governmental credibility was further damaged due to the appointment by the outgoing Prime Minister, who resigned for health reasons a few months after Profumo, of Sir Alec Douglas Home; a personal friend of the PM.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
There is a wonderful irony in the fact that the Labour MP who uncovered the story was later caught by police as he drove around Hyde park importuning women, which in itself might be considered unusual given the number of homosexuals among members of parliament.
The Thing from Another World (1951): Hadn't watched this in quite a while, and it's still a decent, polished old-school creature feature. The only cast member who really stands out is pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the alien, and at 6-foot-7, he can't help it. This actually has all the ingredients of an early Doctor Who base-under-siege story, making me wonder if it was an influence on the template.
8/10
It probably was, as in most science fiction, nothing succeeds like excess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
I saw "Whiplash" last night. It's a movie about music and teaching: a Jazz drummer studying at a thinly disguised Julliard is abused by a teacher who runs the school's Jazz ensemble as if it were a Marine boot camp. He screams at and abuses his students. His excuse? He wants to motivate them to true greatness, like Charlie Parker was motivated when some drummer I hadn't heard of threw a cymbal at him.
The lead actor is a kid so obsessed with drumming (he drums until his hands bleed, and he races to perform at a concert after a bloody car accident) that any reasonable adult would encourage him to take it easy. Not Fletcher (the teacher, played by J.K. Simmons). He, evidently, comes from the Vince Lombardi, football-coach school of motivation, screaming, belittling and abusing. The film is less about music than it is about the psychotic desire for control
In the end, while the film is intense, it is overblown and not believable. In addition -- who want to hear a brilliant drum solo as the grand finale? Couldn't they have made the hero a sax, trumpet or piano player?
"First Knight" (1995). The king Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot triangle. I liked it very much, although I expected it to be about Holy Grail which is in the legend closely connected with king Arthur and his knights. But, anyway, I spent a pleasant time watching it. Good acting, imaginative ideas and beautful scenery.
Cuban Fury: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2390237/
As a child Bruce (Nick Frost) was winning all the salsa dance competitions until some bullies embarrassed him and he stopped dancing just before a likely win at the championship. Years later he's being bullied by a co-worker who is trying to sleep with their new boss whom he likes as well. As it turns out the boss is a salsa dancing student and so he has to brush up on his dancing skills to win the girl.
The only problem with Bruce is he could lose a pound or two. Regaining his corazon wouldn't hurt either. Neither I nor his boss pictured him as a salsa dancer, but he proved us both wrong.
Score: 8/10
With existentialism all the rage, Louis Malle astutely released Le Feu Follet in which the protagonist (Maurice Ronet) is a burnt out playboy who has spent some time in an alcoholic's rehabilitation centre. Unfortunately, the cure has left him with a crisis of identity which is amplified when he returns to Paris and finds that his erstwhile friends have dispersed to take up lives of bourgeois normality, chase after the big money, or sink into drug induced degradation. After visiting various friends, he returns to the rehab centre and commits suicide.
Originally, Malle started shooting it in colour but sensibly changed his mind when he realised that black and white was a much more expressive medium for this story. The camerawork is excellent and captures a Paris that is, sadly, disappearing due to crass commercialism and duff architecture; it's worth seeing for that alone.
http://youtu.be/mpQ4UED3LLU
Last movie i watch Exodus Gods And kings It was awesome and i am still looking now to watch Interstellar both are good movies.
I watched the Quiet Man last night. I believe it's the best John Wayne movie, up there with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and True Grit. Very funny if you can understand the thick Irish accents and stand the fifties stereotypes.
My wife gave me the complete set of John Wayne movies for Christmas some years ago. I'll have to see if it was complete enough to contain True Grit or Liberty Valance.
I saw "My First Mister" last night: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206963/
This is about a 17-year-old girl, J, with too much metal jewelry on her face who runs into a 49-year-old clothing store manager, R, who gets the metal off her face. She also has a mother she abuses and a grandmother who is not alive, but whom she talks to. Usually in romantic movies there is something in the plot that gets the fairy-tale couple to split up temporarily until the boy chases the girl to the airport. In this movie all J and R have is something to argue about, but it turns out well, is justly labeled a comedy and kept my interest.
Score: 10/10
Bal-can-can (2005), a Macedonian film. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369258/
It's a comedy about a military deserter who escapes his native Macedonia with his family during the fighting between Albanian separatists and government forces in 2001.
An excellent satire of the Balkan conflict told through the background story of the grandma who dies on the road when the family is fleeing. Her body is rolled in a carpet to avoid suspicion from the authorities. When the carpet sitting on the car's roof is stolen, they find themselves sucked into Balkan crime underworld to retrieve the carpet and the body.
Fun fact: The film was the highest-grossing film to date in Macedonia. I give it full marks.
Watched "Grave of the fireflies" and cried uncontrollably. One of the best anti-war films ever
I'd give it a 9.5/10
The John Wayne set did not have True Grit in it nor Liberty Valence. It was a selection of early John Wayne movies.
My daughter brought home the complete set of Breaking Bad and so we are watching these, two episodes per evening. Some of the things I've learned:
1) The chemistry teacher (Heisenberg) and his partner (Jessie) remind me of Merlin and Arthur.
2) I should have paid more attention in Chemistry class.
3) Don't call your wife a skank when she's high on something and your head is beneath an ATM machine.
4) The way to build up plot is to give the main characters all the back luck you can think of along with all the good luck to get them out of the situations they are in so you can have a next series.
We are only into season two.
Score: 8/10
The Hunt (2012), Danish film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2106476/
‘It is assumed that children tell the truth but it’s common for children to describe non-existing details’ and ‘to have a vivid imagination.’
A primary school teacher is accused of sexually abusing an innocent child. A mass hysteria ensues. He is ostracized, social-boycotted, spat on, thrown out of shops, abused and, finally, arrested by the police. Lucas’ perfectly normal life becomes topsy-turvy.
What recourse do you have when an angelic child, just to spite her teacher, describes things that can only be interpreted as sexual abuse? Nothing it seems. It is as though the accusation proves the guilt.
It’s an excellent critique of preconceived notions and our attitudes towards some matters, which, though serious, are guided by irrationality and impulse than by reason and evidence.
5/5
A pretty good one I saw recently on youtube was "The Perfect Host" (2010) with David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane) as a total whackjob.
We are further along in the Breaking Bad episodes and somewhere in season three. Although I expected Walter's wife to have an affair eventually with her boss Ted the way she did made me think that she was the ultimate cause of all this dysfunction by not letting Walter reject therapy for his cancer and die peacefully. Of course other people made bad choices along the way as well.
I see her as "narcissistic". That is, she manipulates others without empathy. In terms of the dualism of good and bad she represents self-righteous goodness, an extreme form of good that is essentially evil.
Anyway, the series seems to be getting better and I am raising the score to 9/10.
I saw Closer last week. It was quite good and acting was great. I've always liked Jude Law, but in this film Clive Owen was absolutely astounding. And it will get 7/10.
Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows -
9/10 . . I love the series.
We finished the third season. The part that had the fly in it was unbelievably bad. I've reduced the score back to 8/10.
It seems the real problem is that Skylar and her sister want the best medical care and don't believe that their insurance can provide it. What's the insurance for anyway? Hank acts like a baby and won't go through with the treatment that is now costing them much more money and then he won't go home until he magically gets better.
Skylar continues to act like a nuisance.
Walter should do what Jessie says and go to the police. But if he does that, the story would end. I do like the way he finished off those two that Jesse was planning to kill. I'll up the score to 8.5/10 just for that scene.
THE PUTIN SYSTEM 10/10
From my late teens I have always had a keen interest in the Machiavellian maneuvering of politicians in the major European countries; not least my own.
It makes for great reading and, as Shakespeare has shown, it's a trait common to nations in general.
Russia is obviously no exception and a full length French documentary on Youtube called the Putin System covers the events that brought Vladimir Putin to power and his consolidation of that power. It is the story of how a group of rascals, sometimes reffered to as the Jewish Oligarchs, got hold of Russia through a foolish Boris Yeltsin's breakneck mass denationalisation of the country's industry and used him as a puppet to milk Russia of billions of roubles. When Yeltsin's health started to deteriorate they had to find a successor and they set up Putin, an ex KGB colonel who had infiltrated Yeltsin's circle, as their next puppet by using their vast wealth in promoting him to the electorate who voted him in as president . And whaddya know folks? the puppet turned out to be more rascally than his backers and nailed them for corruption and tax evasion; forcing some to flee the country and imprisoning others. Those who were allowed to remain were warned not to interfere in the country's politics while he set about massively restoring Russian power that had been devastated by the predatory oligarchs; thereby gaining the support of the population at large.
Of course, it's always prudent not to take such documentaries at face value and allow for a certain amount of axe grinding but this one was so well made I watched it twice .
I was so impressed with Putin's political skill, that I'm thinking of buying a Putin mug. I'm torn between one with a hammer and sickle and the words 'Nobody tells Vladimir what to do', and another with a picture of Putin's smiling face and the slogan; 'Haters Gonna Die'
I saw The Imitation Game last night. It tells (or distorts) the story of Alan Turing, the man who helped break the enigma code in World War 2 by inventing one of the first computers. He was then convicted of public indecency for engaging in homosexual acts (in the '50s) and submitted to "chemical castration" (hormone therapy) instead of going to prison.
The movie is so bad that it was almost fun. It distorts the historical facts to portray Turing as the ultimate nerdy genius, socially inept and politically uninterested. He's in love with his computer -- which he names after his dead, beloved Public School friend, Christopher. It's the sort of pop-psychoanalysis in which bad movies indulge.
And how "The Imitation Game" indulges!!! Every scene is imbued with high drama and terrible dialogue. The fun comes from watching the actors chew the scenery attempting to give life to their ridiculous lines. Throughout the movie,Turing occasionally goes jogging, an event which, based on the facial expressions of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, leads him to run the gamut of every emotion known to man.
In the interest of dramatic tension, "The Imitation Game" has the head of the secret decoding project despise Turing and try repeatedly to get rid of him. Since Turing's boss is portrayed by Charles Dance (Papa Lannister from Game of Thrones), viewers cannot but wonder if he survived being shot through with arrows by his son Tirian.
At the end of the movie, subtitles describe Turing's fate: conviction for being, in the argot of the movie, a "poofter", hormonal therapy, and suicide. There is no mention that his suicide occurred at least a year AFTER his hormonal therapy ended -- that might ruin the dramatic tension between an evil, uncaring society and a tormented, gay genius.
I have no objection to distorting historical facts in the interest of good cinema; "The Imitation Game" distorts historical facts in the interest of bad cinema. Why bother?
I was going to see "The Imitation Game", but I probably won't after that review, Ecurb. There is another "Night at the Museum" movie that I was eyeing. I missed "Dumb and Dumber To" because my wife refused to have anything to do with it after seeing the trailer. I'll wait till the library gets it. I remember seeing "Transcendence" and I know how bad some of these movies can get, with or without names like Johnny Depp.