Did you see the prequel one they did? If so, is it any good?
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Did you see the prequel one they did? If so, is it any good?
Hey, Emil. They continued to make movies after 1960s as well! :D
Papaya and I watched "Dreamgirls" last Saturday and it has been a major disappointment. The storyline was so-so, songs were nothing to write home about... Great acting but to no particular end.
I am quite surprised that it's got so many award and such critical acclaim.
I only saw two of them, the original Dumb and Dumber (1994) and the more recent Dumb and Dumber To (2014). I didn't know there was a prequel. Whether they are "good" or not would depend on who you are talking to. My wife, for example, refused to watch them after seeing the trailers. I could see them again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Number 34
I saw "Meru" and "Everest" recently. Both are mountaineering films: Meru is a documentary about the ascent of a legendary face on the titular peak; Everest is a dramatization of "Into Thin Air", Jon Krakauer's best-selling book about a tragic Everest expedition.
Both movies are duplicitous. Meru features climbing star Konrad Anker, and co-stars all the equipment of his sponsor, North Face. After one failed expedition to the unclimbed face on Meru, the team returns and succeeds. But the movie fails to mention that the face had been bagged (on a slightly different route) by a Russian expedition a couple of weeks earlier. The movie recounts some of Anker's climbing history: his two most famous partners were Mugs Stump and Alex Lowe. Mugs was a famous "dirt-bag" climber. He was one of America's greatest climbers, but was never sponsored, and never had a guide's license (although he sometimes picked up cash guiding illegally). Alex Lowe was one of America's early professional climbers -- heavily sponsored and sent off on expeditions funded by clothing and equipment lines. Both Lowe and Stump died in the mountains -- Stump in a crevasse fall on Denali and Lowe in an avalanche in the Tibetan Himalaya. Anker, it seems, has chosen Lowe's route over Stump's (personally, Stump is one of my climbing idols).
A documentary like this succeeds on the basis of scenery and the personalities of the climbers. The scenery was good; the climbing scenes and the personalities dull.
Everest was an Imax, 3D production. It felt tricked up, to me. In some over-dramatic scenes on the Khumbu ice fall, crevasses spanned by bridges made from ladders appeared to be bottomless, which, I think, is not a feature of the ice fall. Worse, the story-telling was amateurish. What exactly happened to the group that hunkered on the South Col during the storm, unable to find the tents? If you want to know, read the book. The movie fails to tell the story.
The dramatic center of the story is Rob Hall's phone conversation with Keira Knightley (who plays his pregnant wife, back in New Zealand). Hall is stuck near the top of Everest, dying, unable to come down. It's dramatic, but Keira Knightly? Come on.
A couple of minor quibbles: First, the movie talks about how Everest had been climbed only by "professionals" prior to the guided trips, which began a few years before the events of the movie. Huh? The English expeditions -- all the early Everest expeditions and the first ascent in 1952 -- involved no professional climbers, except the Sherpas. The Brits were experts, but amateurs to a man. European expeditions did include Alpine guides, who were professional, but English expeditions did not. Second, the movie has some of the clients talking about climbing Mt. McKinley. Barack Obama has now changed the highest North American peak's name to "Denali", but no climbers would have called it "McKinley" in the 1990s, when the film takes place. The name "Denali" was already firmly established.
I enjoyed both movies, but I would not recommend them to anyone less interested in climbing than I am.
Yes but by then they were just going through the motions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
The prequel was called Dumb and Dumberer. Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels and the Farrelly brothers weren't involved with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I'll look for it! Thanks, Number_34!
I just finished watching "Matinee". Rotten Tomatoes thought it was pretty good and so did I: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1041870-matinee/
After seeing "Burying the Ex" and hearing from Rotten Tomatoes that Joe Dante directed better movies, I had to look for some. "Matinee" is one of his comedies.
The story is situated in Key West throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis. People were reasonably afraid that nuclear war was about to start. Undeterred by the fear of disaster a nearly ruined movie maker was going to try to scare the audience at the local theater with radioactive man-ant (mant) mutants hoping the real crisis would drive people to the theater to watch his fabricated one and save his career.
There are two and a half high school couples to provide the love interest. The "half" is a jealous ex boyfriend who was released early from juvenile detention because someone liked his poetry. He wasn't pleased to find that his ex-girlfriend moved on. The other couple is a mix between the son of a career military man and the daughter of parents who would likely be anti-military.
Yeah, it's complicated, but entertaining.
Score: 10/10
Phoenix, German film. Praised by critics. A little slow in the beginning. Some say it's like Hitch's Vertigo, well, not exactly. Must see again to fully appreciate. Excellent acting. Don't think there is a moment of humor. Sad about her woman friend, seemed unbelievable a little -- why did she do what she did? No reason. Film for Film Studies class, that good.
Watched Wit a tv movie based on a play with the same name. Emma Thompson stars and is brilliant as usual. It's a very gripping movie about cancer and the treatment for it. My professor in my literature and medicine class told me that it is shown to any students studying to be a doctor to show them the importance of empathy and bedside manners.
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/man_...berty_valance/
This was number 45 on the BBC list of the 100 best American films. It was directed by John Ford. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...american-films
There are at least two other John Ford movies on the list ("The Searchers" and "Stagecoach") which makes me suspect the list as much as seeing Citizen Kane being number one. Suspect it of what? Of being artsy-fartsy? Pseudo-cultural? Well, the library display is hard to miss and I figured I could use some culture. I suspect it of generating enough desire in me to watch something I probably would not waste my time on were it made more recently.
The movie is a rom-com situated in the wild, wild west where ranchers want an open range and immigrant settlers want their fences.
The main theme is who will Hallie, a young, illiterate, but cute woman pick for her husband? She could pick Ransom Stoddard, a lawyer who comes to town to bring law and order but who can't shoot a gun, or she could pick Tom Doniphon, a rude, but decent guy who can shoot a gun and more importantly can shoot better than Liberty Valance. For some reason Doniphon has not shot Liberty Valance yet although Valance has done enough to have justified a shooting. I suppose Hallie could consider Valance as a possible beau, but Valance is more useful as the bad guy who makes the differences between Doniphon and Stoddard stand out. Eventually Valance goes over the top one too many times and Stoddard challenges him to a duel and, just as the title promises, someone shoots Liberty Valance out of love for Hallie.
I admit I enjoyed the movie although it would not make my top 100 list. One hundred is a very small number. I think it was more interesting than Citizen Kane.
Score: 8/10
Edit: The movie was based on a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson which I just finished. The story was more realistic than the movie which exaggerated the characters making Stoddard too genteel and Doniphon stand out too much in the town. There was no political theme in the story between ranchers and settlers. The marshal was competent and generally ignored. He was not the buffoon the movie turned him into. But the movie got the romance underlying the story correct.
Score for the story: 10/10
The last movie I saw at the cinema was Inside Out. Some of the small children were a bit upset, which did not surprise me. It was very good, but my favourite Pixar film of those I have seen is Wall-E.
I saw "Phoenix", too. It was overrated, in accordance with the principle that all holocaust films must be given 4 stars by critics, lest the critics be drummed out of the club.Quote:
Originally Posted by byquist
Would have to put "Liberty Valance" in top 100 -- super-evil vs. innocence and courage, courage to the point of foolhardiness. But, he risked his life. Plus the Duke controlling events so smoothly. Great story. Stewart showing his specialness.
John Ford's "Liberty Valance" movie was good enough to lead me to reading Dorothy Johnson's short story. There was also a hit song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David that Gene Pitney sang based on the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDN4L7cAQf0
My problem with the movie is that after reading the story, the movie seemed shallow and sentimental. I remember having a similar experience watching "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" after reading the novel by Anita Loos: The novel was great; The movie was mediocre in comparison.
What made the movie disappointing was precisely the super-evil vs innocence theme. John Wayne was a poor choice for Bert Barricune (Tom Doniphon in the movie). Bert was a drunkard and a cattle thief, not the John Wayne anti-bully who could stand up to Liberty Valance when no one else could. Bert could shoot, but so could others in the town including the marshal. Valance had a reward on his head and did not come into town lightly. Ranse Foster (Ransom Stoddard in the movie) was not a nice James Stewart sort of guy who came to the wild west with a law book in his hands. He was educated enough to be able to read Plato in Greek. However, he was also a lazy drifter who scorned those who tried to help him. He spent his time wasting his life preparing to kill Valance because Valance humiliated him earlier.
What made the story memorable was Bert's love for Hallie to the point that he risked a murder sentence by killing Valance so that his rival could marry her and then pushed Ranse to get some basic ambition so Hallie would be happy. Johnson pulled this story off with surprising economy. It was a perfect example of "show, don't tell" writing.
Behind boisterous student high-jinks in an English university town lies a world of existential angst with a dramatis personae of fairly stock characters.
There is the frigid professor whose frustrated wife seeks solace with the working-class student with a chip on his shoulder.The token black African student overplaying his hand as he tries to be more like the English than they actually are. The shy student whose diffidence makes it hard for him to fit in and is killed in an attempt to do so.
Despite the paucity of plot, the acting is good: especially Paul Rogers as the professor who discovers the truth about his wife which leads to her student lover being sent down.
7/10