Recent movies

[Winstonm]

Becky and I saw Wonder Woman this afternoon. It is excellent. I had a large comic book collection in the 1940s and Wonder Woman was a major part of it. The movie keeps the early nature of WW with well done updates on her origins, while creating a story that fully kept my interest for its 2+ hours. Part of making a movie work is having the non-starring players do a fine job, and that's the case here. The costuming is excellent. And the special effects are great, this from a guy who usually wishes about half the special effects in a movie would have hit the cutting room floor. Gal Gadot is perfect for the role, she looks seriously athletic, she has an expressive face and makes it all believable (well, believable enough).. And Lily Aspell as young Diana was very good.

 

As you can see, I liked it.

 

I'm with you on special effects - here, they were only used to advance the story. Usually, they are used because they have run out of story. B-)

[kenberg]

I'm with you on special effects - here, they were only used to advance the story. Usually, they are used because they have run out of story. B-)

 

Exactly!

[The_Badger]

Watched The Ox (Oxen) 1991 directed by Sven Nyquist a few days ago. Nyquist is considered one of the top cinematographers ever. He worked in his early days with Ingmar Bergman. A disquieting, but uplifting film about a man who illegally kills an ox to save his family from starvation...(but I won't spoil the plot any further.) Unfortunately the film is very rare. But the cinematography is amazing. No CGI or any of that nonsense!

[Phil]

I'm still in shock over Moonlight beating La La Land for best picture last year and I haven't seen a lot of films this year.

 

May go to a movie this weekend. Recommendations are welcome.

[Winstonm]

I'm still in shock over Moonlight beating La La Land for best picture last year and I haven't seen a lot of films this year.

 

May go to a movie this weekend. Recommendations are welcome.

 

I thought La La Land OK but kind of over-hyped. Haven't seen Moonlight. I was impressed and really enjoyed Lion.

[kenberg]

Becky and I saw Hell or High Water, last year stuff I know. We were both unsure this was a good idea when we went but Becky liked it well enough and I thought it was very good. I saw it as real. Not people I know, not people I ever knew, but still I believed it entirely. That's a job well done.

 

Side note: It was shown in theater that responds to requests. The guy who asked for this one did so as a tribute to his recently deceased wife. Becky requested that if I do anything such as that I should pick a somewhat more cheerful movie. I don't know the guy so I minded my own business but I would have liked to have heard his story.

[Winstonm]

Becky and I saw Hell or High Water, last year stuff I know. We were both unsure this was a good idea when we went but Becky liked it well enough and I thought it was very good. I saw it as real. Not people I know, not people I ever knew, but still I believed it entirely. That's a job well done.

 

Side note: It was shown in theater that responds to requests. The guy who asked for this one did so as a tribute to his recently deceased wife. Becky requested that if I do anything such as that I should pick a somewhat more cheerful movie. I don't know the guy so I minded my own business but I would have liked to have heard his story.

 

I thought this was a pretty good movie, too. Not too far-fetched and well acted.

[Phil]

I thought La La Land OK but kind of over-hyped. Haven't seen Moonlight. I was impressed and really enjoyed Lion.

 

The opening scene in La La Land is brilliant in these days of green screens. Yes, Gosling can't sing, but the rest is wonderful.

 

I turned off Moonlight about 2/3 the way through. Was bored out of my mind.

 

Lion was OK - kind of a nice story.

[Winstonm]

The opening scene in La La Land is brilliant in these days of green screens. Yes, Gosling can't sing, but the rest is wonderful.

 

I turned off Moonlight about 2/3 the way through. Was bored out of my mind.

 

Lion was OK - kind of a nice story.

 

I thought Gosling was better than Stone in the first half of the movie. The last 30 minutes dragged to me. The initial scene was indeed a highlight.

[Aberlour10]

Future Movies.

 

2018---<<<< a new mobster epic by Scorsese<<<<de Niro <<<Pacino <<<Pesci <<<Keitel <<<< what else could we want?B-)

[Winstonm]

Future Movies.

 

2018---<<<< a new mobster epic by Scorsese<<<<de Niro <<<Pacino <<<Pesci <<<Keitel <<<< what else could we want?B-)

Brando - RIP

[The_Badger]

Future Movies.

 

2018---<<<< a new mobster epic by Scorsese<<<<de Niro <<<Pacino <<<Pesci <<<Keitel <<<< what else could we want?B-)

 

Don't make me laugh. All excellent actors, and I'm a real Al Pacino fan, but the late James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) was more of a gangster's gangster than all these guys put together.

 

And if you want the movie hardman of hardmen, then our home grown Ray Winstone would just look at these guys and make then wet their pants!

[y66]

We saw "Lady Bird" with Saoirse (sursha) Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. We enjoyed it. It's a mother-daughter coming of age story.

 

Saw "Magnus" on Netflix. Enjoyed it. It's a documentary about the Norwegian chess phenom.

[y66]

From Manohla Dargis' list at Best Movies of 2017 at NYT:

 

1. ‘DUNKIRK’ (directed by Christopher Nolan) Most war movies are about winning. “Dunkirk” is about surviving. With peerless craft and technique, Mr. Nolan puts you in the air, on the sea and on the ground during a World War II rescue mission and, once the rescue is over, makes it harrowingly clear that the fight goes on.

 

2. ‘EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY’ (Frederick Wiseman) In his wonderful, expansive and wholly absorbing documentary, Mr. Wiseman goes deep into the New York Public Library — down grand and humble halls, and past open and seeking faces — for a portrait of a cultural and social institution that is democracy incarnate.

 

3. ‘FACES PLACES’ (Agnès Varda and JR) In this glorious, vividly personal work, Ms. Varda both wanders through France and into the past alongside the visual artist JR, meeting new friends and seeking out old. Ms. Varda is often described as one of the greatest female directors alive, which is true. She is also one of greatest.

 

4. ‘THE FLORIDA PROJECT’ (Sean Baker) Mr. Baker makes heartbreakers about people usually ignored by movies: a porn actress and the forgotten elderly woman she befriends in “Starlet”; two transgender female prostitutes in “Tangerine.” In “The Florida Project,” he tells a deeply American story of children and adults struggling at the margins of Disney World, creating a 21st-century “Grapes of Wrath” with psychedelic color and gobs of spit.

 

5. ‘GET OUT’ (Jordan Peele) A meme generator, a social critique and a metaphor for our times — “Get Out” is all of these. It’s also an exceptional feature directorial debut. Mr. Peele does much that’s right and it’s worth remembering that what makes his movie memorable isn’t only what he says, but also how he makes meaning cinematically with finely calibrated timing, a sense of alienated space and an indelibly haunted, haunting image of the void.

 

6. ‘LADY BIRD’ (Greta Gerwig) The anguished teenager has been a cinematic cliché since James Dean bellowed about being torn apart in “Rebel Without a Cause.” Ms. Gerwig’s tender, thrilling movie about an adolescent girl has plenty of drama: Our heroine throws herself from a car. Thereafter, she does more than simply survive; she becomes a person in a movie that insists female artistic self-creation isn’t a matter of sacrifice but of being.

 

7. ‘OKJA’ (Bong Joon-ho) Filled with lapidary visual touches and pictorial splendor, Mr. Bong’s lovely, often funny and achingly soulful movie about a girl and her pig didn’t receive the theatrical release it deserved because it was bought by Netflix, which largely seems committed to shoveling product into its pipeline. That may be the future, but it’s infuriating that — like the villain in this movie — it can’t see past the bottom line.

 

8. ‘PHANTOM THREAD’ (Paul Thomas Anderson) Two lives — and two perversities — become one in this ravishingly beautiful, often unexpectedly funny film, which traces the relationship between an eminent couture designer (a magnificent Daniel Day-Lewis) and his younger, surprising muse (Vicky Krieps). It’s a story about love and about work, and finally as much about its own creation as the romance onscreen.

 

9. ‘A QUIET PASSION’ (Terence Davies) In this exquisitely directed biography of Emily Dickinson (a sensational Cynthia Nixon), Mr. Davies turns images into feelings. With delicacy and transporting camera movements, he brings you into Emily’s everyday life, touching close to the people that she deeply loved and into the rooms that they shared. He shows you the beauty, grace, light and shadow that flowed into her and right through her pen.

 

10. ‘WONDER WOMAN’ (Patty Jenkins) I love all the movies on my list, but more than any other this year, “Wonder Woman” reminded me that we bring our entire histories when we watch a movie — our childhood reveries, our adolescence yearnings and adult reservations. I’ve always loved Wonder Woman in all her imperfection, including in the old TV show, and I loved her here because all my adult reservations were no match for this movie.

 

OTHER FAVORITES “After the Storm”; “The Big Sick”; “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story”; “Call Me by Your Name”; “The Challenge”; “Dawson City: Frozen Time”; “The Death of Louis XIV”; “Escapes”; “Girls Trip”; “Good Time”; “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki”; “I Am Not Your Negro”; “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton”; “Kedi”; “The Lost City of Z”; “Mother!”; “Mudbound”; “My Journey Through French Cinema”; “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer”; “The Ornithologist”; “Patti Cake$”; “Personal Shopper”; “The Post”; “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women”; “Quest”; “Song to Song”; “Tonsler Park”; “Twin Peaks: The Return”; “The Woman Who Left”; “Wonderstruck.”

[y66]

We watched Phoenix on Filmstruck's Criterion Channel. Liked it.

 

Last week we watched "The Apartment" with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. The script is so-so but those two are so good.

[kenberg]

We watched Phoenix on Filmstruck's Criterion Channel. Liked it.

 

Last week we watched "The Apartment" with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. The script is so-so but those two are so good.

 

The Apartment: Billy Wilder was a great director.

 

I was 21 and newly married when The Apartment came out and I found it disturbing. In some ways I was mature, I had been choosing my own path for a number of years, but I was also naive. I was a pretty straightforward person and I found all of that interpersonal duplicity and using of other people upsetting. Looking back on it at 79, I think it's a fine performance by Shirley McLaine. "I'd spell it out for you but I can't spell". A great line at a climatic moment.

 

Speaking of upsetting, I saw Blue Jasmine on tv the other night. I thought of Winston, since the issue of genetics comes up. I could quarrel with some of the script, but it's original and interesting. I just now looked it up and found it was written and directed by Woody Allen. Hmm. And I also liked Midnight in Paris. I have been comfortable for years thinking that if Woody Allen had anything to do with the writing or the acting that was more than enough reason to stay away. Cate Blanchett is very good, true enough, but so is Sally Hawkins and the combination is excellent.

[hrothgar]

Just back from watching Molly's Game

 

I thought that it was quite good, though the whole Kevin Costner subplot could have been excised...

[Chas_P]

I saw Darkest Hour this afternoon. Both the casting and the acting are superb. The final scene where Churchill addresses Parliament with, "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." brought tears to my eyes.

[blackshoe]

I look at Churchill, and WWII, and then I look around the current world, and I think of the immortal words of Pogo Possum: "we have met the enemy, and he is us". :(

[kenberg]

From Manohla Dargis' list at Best Movies of 2017 at NYT:

 

 

 

I'm so out of it. The only ones on this list that I have seen are Wonder Woman and Get Out, both of which we both liked.

 

About Wonder Woman. I really liked the reviewer's comment "I love all the movies on my list, but more than any other this year, 'Wonder Woman' reminded me that we bring our entire histories when we watch a movie — our childhood reveries, our adolescence yearnings and adult reservations.".

 

Especially, for me, "childhood reveries". I had the biggest and the best comic book collection in my neighborhood. My parents, with me along, spent many evenings in the neighborhood bar. They would give me some money and send me to the local drug store where I bought comic books. Lots of comic books. There have been many philosophical, sociological, psychological etc studies of comic book heroes. What were Batman and Robin really up to in the Bat Cave? Here is the basic fact: Comic books were a lot of fun to read. I was 6 when the war ended. Both Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck helped us win it. Pluto helped too, as I recall. Wonder Woman was great. She might well have been an early feminist, I had no position on that issue at the time. The Wik tells me that Robotman goes back to 1942. I recall discussions with friends about the correct pronunciation. We settled on Row Boat Man. And there was Mr. Mxyzptlk from the fifth dimension.

 

Was this wasted time? I don't think so. I enjoyed it. Also, when I was 13, I bought George Gamow's One Two Three --- Infinity from the same drugstore where I used to buy comic books. Of course I also bought a couple of Thorne Smith novels there. And Perry Mason and Hopalong Cassidy. I think the Hopalong Cassidy was when I was about 10 and I was shocked by the vulgarity. Not at all the upstanding citizen portrayed by William Boyd in the movies.

 

Anyway, Wonder Woman was a fun movie and yes, childhood memories were definitely part of the fun.

 

On a recent trip back to St. Paul we stopped in at the same neighborhood bar. http://www.crnook.com/ It's still there. I used to set pins at the bowling alley beneath it.

[gwnn]

I look at Churchill, and WWII, and then I look around the current world, and I think of the immortal words of Pogo Possum: "we have met the enemy, and he is us". :(

Here's where you're wrong. Huckabee knows that we have a modern-day Churchill.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/366519-huckabee-compares-trump-to-churchill

[gwnn]

Nobody's seen Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri yet? It's a great little film.

[Chas_P]

I look at Churchill, and WWII, and then I look around the current world, and I think of the immortal words of Pogo Possum: "we have met the enemy, and he is us". :(

 

Yep, son.

 

Walt Kelly was a genius. I really miss him. "Deck us all with Boston Charlie."

[Flem72]

From Manohla Dargis' list at Best Movies of 2017 at NYT:

 

 

 

I don't understand how "Wind River" can be left off of any top xx list. Or NOT EVEN mentioned as 'another favorite.' All things considered -- acting, script, direction, cinematography -- I thought it was one of the best made films of the last 10 years.

[Elianna]

Nobody's seen Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri yet? It's a great little film.

 

Adam and I saw it at the Zurich Film Festival.

 

I agree that it was a really memorable film, and it was very true to itself. I don't think that it went in the way that a typical Hollywood movie would go, but I think that also might not make it work for other people's tastes. I really hesitate to recommend it in general but I don't really want to give away the ending and that's what I would need to do to expand on this.