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I saw No Country for Old Men...I really did like that one. I will have to check out the other more serious or thriller type films. Didn't you see my post above yours? I guess my view of their work is divided; some I liked and some I didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
Ooops, I misread :redface:
Oh that's ok, Daniel, ....:lol: maybe you need reading glasses. So are the other ones you mentioned more on the serious side with some quirpiness? If so I would probably like them.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
Oh yes, all of them are great. Omg, I forgot: Barton Fink! Big thumbs up to that one.
I'll chime in:
Raising Arizona--I saw it in the theater and loved it. This was a pretty new kind of film, at least to me way back then. Comedy about love for a stolen baby, with lots of bumbling shenanigans. And pretty arty editing, etc.
Ladykillers--I had read a lukewarm review or two, but tried it out because I love the Coen Bros., and had an absolutely fantastic time watching it. It is hard to judge Tom Hanks fairly after all of his accomplishments, and his mainstreamness seemed to make me less interested in his performance, but I never found reason to criticize the performance (I was maybe almost disappointed about that--that's just how I am when it comes to putting big-budget guys in a Coen Bros. film), and there was a lot of other great stuff going on, I thought.
Miller's Crossing--A gangster film without too much Coen-quirkiness. It had (for me) all the weighty family issues coated with cold-bloodedness that Scorsese films have made me expect from Mafia films, but did not resemble a Scorsese film in any way, not in performance, casting, set design, or any film technique my untrained eye could notice. I thought it worked well, but I can't say I remember it so well. I'd like to see it again.
The Man Who Wasn't There--I didn't get into this one. It was dark, and moody, and grim. I had little reason to smile, and some of it moved kind of slow, I thought. I wouldn't mind seeing it again, and I strongly suspect that a fan of this one could open my eyes to stuff I missed, and maybe change my opinion. Still, there was little joy or wackiness in this one, and plenty of discomfort, imho.
O Brother--I thought this was a great film! All I can say is that there were some unusual characters, but it never seemed like they were pointlessly unusual. The story went through some odd changes, but it never seemed pointlessly unusual. And the whole thing was offbeat, sometimes absurd, other times ridiculous in its old-time innocence and conservatism. But I was able to watch it without all the extremes and odd juxtapositions throwing me out of a pretty warm and lightly-wacky adventure story, subtly underlined by the quiet, soulful reverberations of eternal truths, kind enough to keep their distance.
The Big Lebowski--I won't say much about this one, just be ready for wackiness, EXTREME quotability, and a rather surprisingly explorable allegory for post-Vietnam U.S. But just forget I said that, it isn't important, really.
Speaking of Raising Arizona. . . .
Raising Arizona seems as if a camera was given to a twelve year old Orson Welles and was told to go crazy. This is an unbelievably skillful and well photographed film with endless eye-candy and camera moves that seem like circus tricks. This film is just exploding with Wellesian innovation and charm.
That is, with the camera at least.
Raising Arizona is probably the prime example of a director choosing stlye ocer substance. This is a suprisingly premature film from the Coen brothers, who made Blood Simple only two years ago, and Fargo ten years later, both of them masterpieces. This one, is an extemely well made dud. Nothing works in here except the camera. Everything is overdone to nauseating extremes, including the comedy. The screenplay is very messy, which can be quite poetic, but at the wrong times. Really, this film is like a seesaw: It has either moments of pure genius or flat-out embarresingly helpless ones.
It's a good thing that the Coens realized that they could both express their genius and be funny at the same time with Fargo, which is so beautifully subtle and smart. But hey, Raising Arizona was just a mistake. The Coens made Blood Simple before and Fargo after, along with many other greats to add to their collection. Every dog has it's day, and every dog has it's dud.
5/10
Just to clarify my comments about Raising Arizona--I had fallen asleep during Blood Simple while watching the newly-released VHS at a friend's house, but only because I was extremely tired. After that, my friends' love for the film made it impossible for me to watch it again from a fresh perspective.
Anyhow, I don't know when DanielBenoit saw Raising Arizona, but I thought Nick Cage was a pretty new and interesting face at the time. I can understand the see-saw type perspective, but I'll give the film an 8.
But Wild At Heart gets a 9, from me.
Yeah, I certainly wans't around at the time it was released, so I wouldn't understand the context in which it was released.Quote:
Originally Posted by billl
By the way, I hope I didn't offend anybody with my bad review of Raising Arizona :redface: :lol:
Well, I panicked about not having mentioned Blood Simple in my list of reviews. Maybe I'd have felt the same as you about Raising Arizona if I had gotten a good viewing of Blood Simple first.
I still haven't seen No Country, can't wait for the right time to check that one out...
The best of the Coen Brothers films is easily Fargo, though the only terrible movie they made I can think of is Intolerable Cruelty (Court-Room Romance? wtf?) or Burn After Reading.
500 Days of Summer - 7/10 - I wanted this to be a lot better. Some really good acting (on the part of Zooey Deschanel and her co-compadre) mixed with some very mediocre directing.
You didn't offend me, Daniel, but I liked the movie at the time I saw it - way back in the day, year it was released. I may hate it now; haven't seen it in ages, so I can't currently judge.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanielBenoit
The Hurt Locker (2009) - 10/10 - It's easy to see why this is the best reviewed movie of the year, because it's simply the best movie of the year. This movie realizes the realities of war, without putting some sort of political or situational brush on any of the issues. The things that happen simply happen, and they have nothing to do with whether or not the soldiers want to be in war or not. War presents an escape. As is quoted in the opening lines of the movie "War is a drug." Brilliant in every possible way. Look for this in the Best Picture category of the Oscars in a couple months.
THe Kingdom of Heaven ( director's cut)
It was a good ( really good actually - if a little long especiall concidering adverts :sick:) film but the true story didn't need messing with and it would have been soooooo much better if they didnt add the needeless mush between Balian and Sibylla esp concidering in reality he was marrie...d to her sister. *grumble* *grumble* but all things concidered I think I have a new film for the favourites list. 9.5/10 :D
Australia. Hmm. I'd give the first hour 0/10 and then the rest probably a 7/10. Nicole Kidman earns a 1/10 for some terrible overacting, and on the whole it was much too long. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with this movie and I'm not sure they were either, and as a consequence it is very hit and miss. No Moulin Rouge.
Overall, I'd give it a 4/10.
8 1/2
Well, this being one of my three favorite films of all time, whenever it's on, I never hesitate for a revisit.
First of all, this is the greatest dedication to film ever made; it is a complete homage to art and life, and how art can save life. The subtitle of this film was The Beautiful Confusion and that is exactly what it is. Throughout the film we feel as if the camera and actors are participating in some sort of surrealistic ballet. This film was so many layers of depth, everything gravitating around it's centeral character, who is without a doubt the Hamlet of cinema, Marcello Materorini in the performance of his career, a director who suffers from writers block and muses upon nostaligic memories of his childhood as the whole world around him waits at his feet for his next film.
At one level, this is a meta-fictional film, with even a self-referencial title to tell so (Fellini had directed seven features and three shorts before this). It is obvious that the director, Guido is Fellini, and that Fellini; after making La Dolce Vita was suffering from writers block, having no idea where to go next, so he decided to make a film about his very own confusion, and crafted it into a beautiful character study of a man who shares every part of us.
It's not just that Guido is searching for inspiration, but he is searching for meaning, for purpose, to his seemingly artifical, confusing and yet orderly life. Nobody understands him obviously; the producer is constantly bugigng him, his intellectual co-writer is always taking philosophical jabs at him, he even sees a priest, who has nothing of use to say but that he can never find salvation outside of the Church. His wife loves him, but is fed up with his confusion and ambivilence as well. He tries to drift off into peaceful moments in which he can muse upon the ideal beauty, his nostaligic past or sexually charged dreams of the subconscious.
There are so many flawlessly directed scenes in this film, all of them handled with such imagination and surrealism, that one is reminded why Fellini is Fellini. Nobody can express the confusion and surreality of both waking and sleeping life than Fellini, not Lynch, not anybody. Fellini handle Guido with sentimentality, but transends any kind of sympathetic/unsympathetic standards, by self-consciously answering any critics and believing enough in himself that Guido represents everyone of us.
(might be some spoilers)
Never has more personal a film been made than 8 1/2, nor has a more joyful, confusing and surreal film ever been made. By the end, Fellini dives into the chaos that is life and gives Guido the most beautiful Hamletian epiphany, and the film ends with a baroque band of circus performers playing the flute, tuba and horn, to the dancing of everyone whom Guido has ever known in the chaos of his life.
10/10