mike777 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 For my personal favorite movies of 2014 I think it would be (in some order): LEGO movie, Snowpiercer, Citizenfour, Selma, and Chef------------------ American Sniper#3( better than I expected)Had theory of everything as #4Interstellar#5Lego#6Chef#7Gone Girl#9 Selma good but not tht greatSnowpiercer overrated/ ---- Seeing Paddington Sunday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 American Sniper I think people many people have not seen this movie and miss the ending the very end. At the end the Americans are killing many many many of the bad guys but still the bad guys come and win the battle. At the last battle the Americans are running away in the middle of a confusing sand storm, they are running away. Our hero, the Legend runs away dropping his rifle and helmet, he is being chased by many enemy in a blinding sand storm, he calls his wife to say he is ready to come home. At home he is troubled and killed by a troubled vet. this movie does not glorify war Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I may well see American Sniper. As mentioned, this would be without Becky's company and maybe without her encouragement, but I might. I am not so concerned about whether it does or does not glorify war, i can handle my own views on that score. I am more interested in the following: Will I come away thinking I have a better grasp of the real person that this story is about? There is a guy at the Y that I sometimes talk with, or more accurately sometimes list to. You cannot be around him for five minutes without learning that he was a sniper in the Viet Nam years. I just want to get my exercises in so I don't listen too closely but honestly he seems like a nut. That's one case only. I do not at all think that you have to be a nut to be a sniper. War is a difficult business and, if we are going to fight wars, no doubt a well-trained sniper is a great asset. I couldn't do it. Not because of some thought out moral code, I simply couldn't. Could I have been trained to do it when I was 20? I don't know, and I am very glad that the possibility never came up. My understanding is that the movie shies away from a number of his traits that he openly discussed in his own written version. If so, that's too bad. On a serious matter if you tell a story you should fill in the details and you should fill them in accurately. Anyway, I may well go to see it. Becky is having the Yoga group over for dinner on Tuesday, I'm welcome, but maybe I should excuse myself and go to the movie. She would probably have to make up some story about where I was so as not to shock them. It's probably best if I am "at a math lecture". No one would ask for details. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mbodell Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 My understanding is that the movie shies away from a number of his traits that he openly discussed in his own written version. If so, that's too bad. On a serious matter if you tell a story you should fill in the details and you should fill them in accurately. It definitely downplays the amount of racism and vitriol he was associated with. It doesn't completely eliminate it, and the story presented is about more than just one individual. The lead character is also, in some ways, your guy at the Y. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted February 20, 2015 Report Share Posted February 20, 2015 Oops, I m,eant this to be in the recent movie thread, I seem to have erred. 2012 is recent by my standards. Anyway I jut saw Wajda. It was shot in Saudi Arabia by a woman director. I am a sucker for movies about kids, but this is, imho, superb. Some comments from the Wik: Al-Mansour's screenplay was influenced by neorealist cinema like Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Jafar Panahi's Offside or Rosetta. The final scene recalls the final scene of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows. I guess I am not the only one who liked it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 22, 2015 Report Share Posted February 22, 2015 Oops, I m,eant this to be in the recent movie thread, I seem to have erred.Moved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted February 22, 2015 Report Share Posted February 22, 2015 Moved it. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgoetze Posted February 22, 2015 Report Share Posted February 22, 2015 http://i.imgur.com/DqJdFg2.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted February 22, 2015 Report Share Posted February 22, 2015 again if American sniper is meant to be pro war or pro military or pro propaganda then it failed big time. The hero dies a senseless non heroic death. The hero comes across sad very sad for most of the movie.the hero's family is sad for 99% of the movie.The bad guys win most of the war battles.they win the end where our hero runs away with everyone else. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted February 22, 2015 Report Share Posted February 22, 2015 The bad guys win most of the war battles.they win the end where our hero runs away with everyone else.The technical term is "advance to the rear". :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggwhiz Posted March 14, 2015 Report Share Posted March 14, 2015 Just watched Jersey Boys having seen the play a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Set me off on a quest to find FM from 1978, not as highly rated but (for me) with a killer soundtrack. Anyone seen it or have other favorite soundtracks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Posted March 14, 2015 Report Share Posted March 14, 2015 Just watched Jersey Boys having seen the play a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Set me off on a quest to find FM from 1978, not as highly rated but (for me) with a killer soundtrack. Anyone seen it or have other favorite soundtracks? I grew up in a small town in Northern Montana. There was a local college that had a radio station and one of the few albums it had was the FM soundtrack. The DJ would play this at least 2-3x a week, so he could leave his post for at least an hour lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted March 15, 2015 Report Share Posted March 15, 2015 Just watched Jersey Boys having seen the play a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. Set me off on a quest to find FM from 1978, not as highly rated but (for me) with a killer soundtrack. Anyone seen it or have other favorite soundtracks? The first soundtrack I ever bought was for The Wild One which, despite its 1953 release date, I believe saw in 1955. I generally think of this as the Brando movie that I really liked and no one else has ever heard of, but you got me looking up a review on the web where it is described as " a landmark film of 50s rebellion". A further excerpt:Because of the controversial nature of the film, public screenings were banned in England by the British Board of Film Censors for fourteen years (until 1968) after its release. Even in America, it was feared that the shocking, 'Communist' movie glamorized a anti-social subculture in revolt, would set a bad example, and cause impressionable viewers to copy-cat its plot and incite delinquency and riots. In fact, it took many years for pacifist motorcyclists to overcome stereotypes and fabrications promoted by the film. My my. Anyway, I liked it and I really liked the score. Moving back to the (more or less) present, I very much liked the music in Midnight in Paris. As to FM radio, in the 60s. at least in the early 60s, much of FM was publicly financed with commercial radio still on AM. I first heard Bob Dylan on the University of Minnesota FM radio station. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y66 Posted March 18, 2015 Report Share Posted March 18, 2015 The soundtrack I've been enjoying for the last 2 days is O Brother, Where Art Thou? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y66 Posted April 18, 2015 Report Share Posted April 18, 2015 Just watched Charles Bradley: Soul of America streaming on Netflix. This guy's story and his music are so good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted April 19, 2015 Report Share Posted April 19, 2015 child 44 wonderful=book, wonderful movie. imagine a paradise where murder cannot exist.If you suggest such, then think of your family, your loved ones must be tainted and condemned for paradise cannot create such.think of the children. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y66 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 From A.O. Scott's review of Blue Is the Warmest Color When “Blue Is the Warmest Color” was shown at Cannes in May — where the jury, headed by Steven Spielberg, took the unusual step of awarding the festival’s highest prize jointly to Mr. Kechiche, Ms. Exarchopoulos and Ms. Seydoux — much attention was paid to its explicit sex scenes. Not without reason. One sequence in particular is longer and more literal than anything you are likely to encounter outside of pornography. Ms. Maroh (among others) objected that Mr. Kechiche’s rendering of her work was indeed pornographic, reflecting a prurient male fantasy rather than the truth of lesbian sex. A conversation late in the movie (after most of the on-screen sex has taken place) seems to anticipate this criticism, as does an earlier scene in which Adèle and Emma visit a museum and gaze at paintings and sculptures of naked women, almost all of them produced by men. The conversation features a male gallery owner who rambles on breathlessly about the power and mystery of female sexuality, which has fascinated male artists for centuries. A parallel argument between Emma and another woman about the relative merits of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt — tireless painters of the female form, as is Emma herself — underlines the theme. All this talk may be an attempt by Mr. Kechiche to cover his own backside while Ms. Exarchopoulos’s and Ms. Seydoux’s are on full, undraped display. Like Titian or Degas or Flaubert, he just can’t help it. But “Blue Is the Warmest Color” is ardently and sincerely committed to capturing the fullness of Adèle’s experience — sensory, cerebral and emotional. The sex is essential to that intention, even though Mr. Kechiche’s way of filming does not quite succeed in fulfilling it. Trying to push the boundaries of empathy, to communicate physical rapture by visual means, he bumps into the limits of the medium and lapses into voyeurism, turning erotic sensation into a spectacle of flesh. That is a small failure, given the scale of this movie’s achievement, which belongs equally (as the Cannes jury recognized) to the director and the actresses. The film is at times as sloppy as its heroine, with her runny nose and unruly hair, but it is never dull, lazy or predictable. Mr. Kechiche’s style is dizzy, obsessive, inspired and relentless, words that also describe Adèle and Emma and the fearless women who embody them. Many more words can — and will — be spent on “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” but for now I’ll settle for just one: glorious. Never dull, lazy or predictable? Indeed. A little long perhaps for watching all at once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 I took a look at the Wikipedia entry. The "Plot" part beginsAdèle is an introverted 15-year-old[18] high-school student whose classmates gossip constantly about boys. While crossing the street one day, she passes by a woman with short blue hair and is instantly attracted. For me, the "15-year old" aspect of this would be far more of an issue than the lesbianism or the explicitness of the sex. Especially if her guide into this sexuality is significantly older. Fifteen isn't twelve, but it isn't eighteen either. I'll have to think about it. I accept, from the reviews and from your view, that it is a solidly done movie. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 For me, the "15-year old" aspect of this would be far more of an issue than the lesbianism or the explicitness of the sex. Especially if her guide into this sexuality is significantly older. Fifteen isn't twelve, but it isn't eighteen either. It is a French film. The age of conscent varies from 14 to 16 across Europe (except for Ireland where it is 17 and Spain where it is 13), in France it is 15. I don't think many people over here find a film about a romance between a 15 year old and an adult controversial. I know it is different in the US. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenberg Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 It is a French film. The age of conscent varies from 14 to 16 across Europe (except for Ireland where it is 17 and Spain where it is 13), in France it is 15. I don't think many people over here find a film about a romance between a 15 year old and an adult controversial. I know it is different in the US. This occurred to me as well. Of course the law is only part of it. I was at a bat mitzvah sometime back when as part of the ceremony, the father explained that in Jewish law she was now at an age where she could marry. He also explained that her father had a different view of the matter. At any rate, what someone cannot be put in jail for doing and what I am ok with someone doing are not always the same thing. Otoh, I fully understand that the director and all were not making the film to please me. So I will think about it. Probably I won't see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobsolow Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 I took a look at the Wikipedia entry. The "Plot" part begins For me, the "15-year old" aspect of this would be far more of an issue than the lesbianism or the explicitness of the sex. Especially if her guide into this sexuality is significantly older. Fifteen isn't twelve, but it isn't eighteen either. I'll have to think about it. I accept, from the reviews and from your view, that it is a solidly done movie.If I had known the protagonist was 15, I might not have watched this either. I thought the sex scenes were well done and about twice as long as needed to make this part of their relationship credible which is necessary to make the other parts credible. Adele and Emma are beautiful young women. I think it is a credit to the actresses and the director that their physical beauty is not their most attractive quality and that the sex scenes are not even close to being what makes this such a memorable movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjbrr Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 I thought it was totally forgettable fwiw. It was like sex and the city met angsty high school teenager, while constantly shouting ART and ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE at you like a vegan brings up their lifestyle at a dinner party. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobsolow Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 I thought it was totally forgettable fwiw. It was like sex and the city met angsty high school teenager, while constantly shouting ART and ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE at you like a vegan brings up their lifestyle at a dinner party.I thought Sex and the City was entertaining for a few episodes because it was somewhat novel at the time and it starred SJP and NYC which is quite a pairing. You could wring all the emotional impact out of all the scenes in SATC and not come close to the impact of the restaurant scene near the end of Blue. That was such an incredible, heart breaking scene (I have such a weak heart). There was definitely some of the ill mannered vegan lifestyle flaunting thing you mention, for example, when the gallery owner held forth at the spaghetti dinner party, but I thought that was done intentionally to make the point that Emma's world was not asshole free either. The painting of Adele with the cigarette dangling from her lips did not shout. But it did blow me away. Wow. James Dean reincarnated as a confused young French woman. "If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know?" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 Ex Machina was quite good 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted June 15, 2015 Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 Agree. I also enjoyed SPY the comedy with Melissa McCarthy, very funny and fun. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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