It probably was, as in most science fiction, nothing succeeds like excess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calidore
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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.