lumpenprol
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Everything posted by lumpenprol
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lol I'm
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sounds like season 3 is good. My wife and I dropped off after season 2. Maybe we should pick that shit back up.
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I just listened to all of Ae's previous releases in order to get myself psyched for Exai, but it had the opposite effect. I now realize they suck. Off to listen to some Tiesto, bye.
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yeah she really does. She looks like some kind of creature wearing an (ill-fitting) human mask. More than a few Deliverance genes floating around in there. I'm sure she'll look like Honey Boo Boo's mom when she gets a bit older, but she's in her prime now.
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agreed, and it makes sense if you know Bruno S' backstory - he seems less studied because he was beaten severely as a kid, and spent much of his youth in mental hospitals. If I remember correctly Herzog discovered him while he was shooting a documentary. So yeah, no professional background/training. Silver Lining’s Playbook: Well, I have to agree with Overlook on this, not one of David O. Russell’s best pics, that’s for sure. Started off pretty strong but after the diner scene it veered off into implausibility land. I guess Russell is developing a tic or trademark for his comedies, these rapid-fire escalating arguments between characters that end in some kind of physical struggle. I think this worked really well in Flirting With Disaster, but seemed more staged here. About the acting…not sure why so many people got nominated for this film. I thought DeNiro was mis-cast as the dad; sure he manages to squeeze out a few tears in one scene, but I never bought him as a dad, he looked like he belonged on a yacht in Cannes. And Bradley Cooper is a lightweight who had zero chemistry with Lawrence, probably because he’s gay – or at least seems so to me. But Jennifer Lawrence. Ok, I admit, this film gave me a huge boner for her. She has a hot, thick bod that was amply on display, and when she screams at someone she looks like a shapeshifter who is momentarily losing her human form. Hot. 5/10 for Russell, 8/10 for Lawrence’s ass and angryface.
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Just saw Cloud Atlas, have no idea if it would make sense to anyone not familiar with the book. Was as weird as the book, but improved on it it places. Could have been even longer I think, it felt rushed. A bit too much cross-cutting between sequences lessened the emotional impact of some of the stories. Still, overall, was surprisingly affecting. Doona Bae was phenomenal, really looking forward to seeing her in anything else. Tom Hanks was pretty good too, as were some of the minor players like Hugh Grant. I'm getting tired of both Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving. Very ambitious film that almost works. It's true that some of the make-up was distractingly bad. People seem to be talking about turning Halle Berry and Doona Bae white, but I thought the biggest offender was turning Doona Bae into a Mexican, that was an unmitigated disaster. All that said, loved the ambition of the film. If they had taken out the Ghastly Tale of Timothy Cavendish (the present-day storyline...was too cartoonish), lengthened the film, got rid of some of the action, and toned down the ham-fisted metaphysics, it could have been a classic. A failed experiment that succeeds in many small ways and is still worth viewing. 5/10 if I'm being a prick, 7/10 if I want to award risk-taking.
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fix't that for you, this is watmm remember got 23 btw, i'm too dumb to be aspie didn't they just remove aspergers as a medical diagnosis?
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Indeed, same for me!
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we need an "opens can of worms" emoticon :-) Eugene, did you really read the overall tone of the film as critical of Americans and American response to 9/11?
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Edit: re: Eugene's post I understand that perspective, but I don't buy it. I had to ask myself why I was left with such an uneasy feeling while watching the film. It wasn't due to seeing torture onscreen, or the idea that Americans torture. It was due primarily, I think, to the decision to focus on the clearly largely fictionalized figure of Maya. As I said she’s basically just an avenging angel who never questions her gut instinct…hmm, sounds a lot like George W. Conveniently (and I thought, very implausibly), the film places her at both the hotel bombing (in Pakistan?) and makes the lady who is blown up at the base one of her best buddies. This is all to provide ongoing motivation for the character (various other terrorist attacks are peppered throughout the film for the same reason, hell some of them were probably mostly unrelated and not on orders of UBL). It’s a carefully cloaked revenge fantasy. If I was asked to summarize the narrative of the movie, it would be “We’re a good people, we never asked for 9/11, we don’t want to torture and kill – damn you UBL for forcing us to come destroy your ass with our terminator-like persistence, and supersoldiers”. In fact, that’s the very narrative we Americans want to have about ourselves. She’s done an extremely able job of making the al qaeda threat as emotionally trouble-free as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It’s a “feel good” movie. We are allowed to satisfy our desire for revenge, and our vision of ourselves as a deeply moral people. That’s why the torturer guy is shown as actually having a heart of gold (the sappy moment with his monkeys), and why Maya cries at the end. It’s all about us – our anger, our revenge, our grieving. Why did you force us to do this pretty fucking awesome revenge on you? Sorry, but I don’t believe any war can be cast so simplistically, and any war movie that doesn’t have a deep ambivalence towards its subject is troubling. On the surface the film shows “fuck ups” as you say, but its emotional core is never ambivalent. one interesting thing is that she deliberately included torture as an element despite cia saying that it was not crucial in getting to osama. so why is that ? to portray that it's awesome and it works ? That's easy. Because she needed a snappy opening to her film. It's the aforementioned revenge fantasy in a different guise; we can get off on it vicariously, but then we see him playing with the monkeys so we know he's really a nice guy under it all. Thereby two of our impulses are satisfied: our desire for revenge, and our own image of ourselves as a moral people.
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that's a very forgiving score for killing them softly. i thought they laid the political commentary on so thick that the movie collapsed. because, you know, they play cspan and msnbc at bars that mob guys frequent in working class neighborhoods. you're probably right, I just enjoyed the languid pace and pretty shots (and some fine acting). Agree with your comment about Ivan's Childhood too. I always remember that one shot, with the camera zooming/tumbling down the hillside to look at his mom (maybe it's at the very beginning?) Been a while since I've seen the film but there are a few shots that are quite memorable for some odd reason. Another one with the kid in the back of a truck with a young girl and some apples? It has some great dreamlike shots. The ending was surprisingly Spielberg though, from what I remember.
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Liotta is a weirdo. He made a couple (horrible) films at my company and spent hours every morning lying on a couch getting free therapy from our motion graphics designer. By the way, Dominik has used a different DP on all his films. Deakins on Assassination, Greig Fraser on Killing Them. this should go in the "stupid questions" thread, but when I wrote my mini-review I almost said DP but then opted for Cinematographer. Is there a difference? I had some friends in film school who always used DP; maybe that's the more appropriate term?
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c'mon, give us more than just the base score. Curious to hear what you thought of both films. Just saw Killing Them Softly, it was a bit heavy handed at times (ok more than a bit), but it cast some of the same hypnotic spell for me that Assassination of Jesse James did. Not sure who the cinematographer is on Dominik's films, but they are really lovely to look at. Brad Pitt did quite well too. James Gandolfini just acted like Tony Soprano again. What is up with Ray Liotta, something about that guy just gives off the vibe that he has bodies in his basement. Dialogue was mostly sharp. I know I have a fondness for slow films so others might not like it. Didn't really have any surprises, it's more of a mood piece. 7.5 or 8 out of 10.
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heh. I remember really wanting to like Strange Days when it came out, but being disappointed. I had a big art-house boner for Ralph Feinnes after Schindler's List, but he was a bit disappointing. And at the time I found the rape sequence really disturbing (I wonder if I'd find it that way now, probably not). One funny thing I seem to recall about the film is it being blatantly white guilt (like Django) where all the black people are saints who get unjustly brutalized and the white guys are the devils. I also remember loving Angela Bassett in it. And I remember Juliette Lewis' horrible singing (Hole? I shudder...) and flashbacks with her on rollerskates on venice beach, lol. Juliette Lewis' entire career is a mystery to me. She always seems like a nutty bipolar skank but for some reason there was a long stretch of time where she was cast as the love interest in a bunch of popular "edgy" films. It's sort of like casting Shelly Duvall in something, I just don't understand it. She seems like a nice enough person, but why would anyone want to watch that...
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seriously wtf. 777 has good sounds but doesn't go anywhere. Acroyear2 starts out like a spastic nerd dancing and then it morphs into deep deep soul brother funk...sublime
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why stop there?
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also:
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That is pretty spot on... The LP 5 things in this LP are becoming apparent to me, as well. Lots of very short flange/delay efx on both melodies and beats for one.. That sounds like perfection, pretty much. Finally getting a wee bit exaited. Bring it111
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I've been watching Wallander, a detective show based on a Swedish series of novels (so I'm led to believe) with all the major roles inexplicably played by Englishmen, the lead being Kenneth Branagh. Not bad, well lensed and very slow so my wife can keep up (hehe)
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that review is brilliant, I had to check to see if it was real. bravo.
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The Impossible - hey, not bad! It's like young Spielberg circa Empire of the Sun, as well crafted but also as emotionally manipulative. But well-acted by almost everyone involved, and very nicely directed. Not much to it, but good for what it was. Good wholesome family entertainment. 7.5 or 8 out of 10.
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ganus, is that your gf/wife?
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heh, i didn't even notice the black cat. If we're going to call that out, might as well call out the bad cgi helicopters (at least that's how it looked on my low-quality dvd). I just like the way she edits and moves her camera. She's one of the few directors who can change location multiple times, but the unified technique makes it feel as if it's all part of the same narrative. Her camera also feels very naturalistic, so if she's aiming at the street in Karachi or something, it doesn't feel staged at all. I really dig that.
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the funny thing is they actually look like they belong in those suits of armor. They could both be extras in Game of Thrones for sure...maybe minstrels?
