[Phil]

Recent rent was Love and Mercy which tells the story of Brian Wilson's dive into mental illness and his rescue by his (now) wife, Melinda.

Paul Dano (the young preacher in There Will Be Blood) is absolutely fantastic as the young Wilson. In the first scene, I had to do a serious double-take, since they are a splitting image.

John Cusack plays the older Wilson. While he captures some of his quirkiness, the role seems very forced.

Paul Giamatti plays Wilson's shrink, Dr. Eugene Landy, and his role is seriously over the top but every review about the movie states they had to change very little of the real story for the movie, and in real life Landy was even crazier, but they wanted to tone down his character else he wouldn't be credible lol.

Elizabeth Banks is OK, but her role is reactive, except for a few parts. She's at her best in the Cadillac dealership when Landy is reading her the riot act.

Its a great story, but its pretty dark. The best parts are the studio sessions making Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations and Smile. Wilson is a true musical genius.

I liked it and I would recommend it.

[mike777]

 Phil, on 2015-September-27, 22:07, said:

Recent rent was Love and Mercy which tells the story of Brian Wilson's dive into mental illness and his rescue by his (now) wife, Melinda.

Paul Dano (the young preacher in There Will Be Blood) is absolutely fantastic as the young Wilson. In the first scene, I had to do a serious double-take, since they are a splitting image.

John Cusack plays the older Wilson. While he captures some of his quirkiness, the role seems very forced.

Paul Giamatti plays Wilson's shrink, Dr. Eugene Landy, and his role is seriously over the top but every review about the movie states they had to change very little of the real story for the movie, and in real life Landy was even crazier, but they wanted to tone down his character else he wouldn't be credible lol.

Elizabeth Banks is OK, but her role is reactive, except for a few parts. She's at her best in the Cadillac dealership when Landy is reading her the riot act.

Its a great story, but its pretty dark. The best parts are the studio sessions making Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations and Smile. Wilson is a true musical genius.

I liked it and I would recommend it.

ya it was sort of ok....



saw a small movie called Meet the Patels. Very good movie/documentary. top ten of they year so far. The parents live about 15 minutes west of me. Very funny, full of family love in a different culture.

https://search.yahoo...atels%20trailer

[kenberg]

Maybe I am abusing the "new" part here but I had never seen Running on Empty until last night on tv.

In many ways it was very good, but I was hoping for a more substantial ending.. I am interested in the opinions of others on this. Reviewers focused a lot on the romantic interests of the leads, or the struggles of the adults. For me, it was about the consequences for others, often the terrible consequences of our choices. The Judd Hersch character was consumed by ideology to the extent of caring nothing about the consequences to others. His (slight) change of approach at the end was not enough. The fact that his children were surviving was no thanks to him.

Anyway, I found it very interesting but I kept rooting for the 17 year old, River Phoenix, to kick his father where it hurt and walk away.

[hrothgar]

 mike777, on 2015-September-27, 23:08, said:

saw a small movie called Meet the Patels. Very good movie/documentary. top ten of they year so far. The parents live about 15 minutes west of me. Very funny, full of family love in a different culture.

https://search.yahoo...atels%20trailer

I saw some previews for that and thought that it looked good.
Thanks for the recommendation

[gwnn]

I've seen The Martian last night. Wow, what a ride! I had this idea of "oh yes it's a mixture of all these films" (for people allergic to even minimal spoilers, I hid them here:

Spoiler

Gravity, Moon, Interstellar, Cast Away, and Saving Private Ryan

), but about 10 minutes in I was so immersed that I forgot all about those films and probably even about Matt Damon or anything. The soundtrack is also really cool, I'm very happy it's not another Hans Zimmer unforgettable epic and instead it's a mixture of basic unintrusive sounds and some outrageous disco music.

PS the 3D doesn't add anything.

[mike777]

 gwnn, on 2015-October-10, 04:50, said:

I've seen The Martian last night. Wow, what a ride! I had this idea of "oh yes it's a mixture of all these films" (for people allergic to even minimal spoilers, I hid them here:

Spoiler

Gravity, Moon, Interstellar, Cast Away, and Saving Private Ryan

), but about 10 minutes in I was so immersed that I forgot all about those films and probably even about Matt Damon or anything. The soundtrack is also really cool, I'm very happy it's not another Hans Zimmer unforgettable epic and instead it's a mixture of basic unintrusive sounds and some outrageous disco music.

PS the 3D doesn't add anything.

I read the book...then I got the book again as a gift from a friend. the book is pretty good.

the movie is pretty good, borderline if it makes my top ten at this point but decent.

fwiw I think they could pick a heck of a lot better disco music.

jAll in all I note I gave it 3.5 stars out of 4 so may make top ten movies of the year but lets not go overboard.

[Winstonm]

I watched last night 50 Shades of Bad.

[barmar]

 mike777, on 2015-October-10, 23:31, said:

fwiw I think they could pick a heck of a lot better disco music.

Do you mean "more enjoyable" or "more annoying" (so you share Mark's annoyance)?

At least one of the sonds was obviously chosen because of how it fit the scene: "Hot Stuff".

Anyone think Damon will get an acting nomination for it? I think the movie is a good bet for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination.

[1eyedjack]

Just went to see "Free Fire". Highly entertaining and recommended.

[y66]

From The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far:

Quote

We are now approximately one-sixth of the way through the 21st century, and thousands of movies have already been released. Which means that it’s high time for the sorting – and the fighting – to start. As the chief film critics of The Times, we decided to rank, with some help from cinema savants on Facebook, the top 25 movies that are destined to be the classics of the future. While we’re sure almost everyone will agree with our choices, we’re equally sure that those of you who don’t will let us know.

By Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott. With contributions from Kathryn Bigelow, Guillermo del Toro, Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins, Richard Linklater, Robert Pattinson and Michelle Williams. June 9, 2017

+

Six Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of the 21st-Century - Antoine Fuqua, Sofia Coppola, Paul Feig, Denis Villeneuve, Brett Ratner and Alex Gibney share their highly personal lists.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2017-June-11, 05:15, said:

From The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far:


+

Six Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of the 21st-Century - Antoine Fuqua, Sofia Coppola, Paul Feig, Denis Villeneuve, Brett Ratner and Alex Gibney share their highly personal lists.

Clearly I am falling behind. I will tell Becky we have to get with the program. Thanks for the list.

[y66]

Watched A Touch of Sin last night.

Quote

Interviewer:

You’ve said before that “A Touch of Sin” is your take on a martial arts film. Why did you decide to make a kind of martial arts film based on contemporary news events?

Jia Zhangke:

Actually I had been preparing to make a martial arts film since 2007, a real martial arts film. It doesn’t have an English title yet. In Chinese it’s called “In the Qing Dynasty” (在清朝). It deals with the period from 1895 to 1905. The reason I wanted to film this period is because this is when China’s transformation began. And that transformation has continued up to now. It hasn’t stopped.

Last year, while I was still in the process of preparing for the film — well, not just last year, more like two or three years ago — I started using Weibo, and Chinese society also became more interested in using Weibo, China’s Twitter. It’s had a big impact on the lives of Chinese people.

The biggest impact I think is that now if something happens, no matter where it is in China, it can be seen by people immediately. And I feel that the way I understand China’s reality has also changed, because now I can see these things that are happening all around China on Weibo. Different kinds of things, not just these ones in the film. There are good stories and there are bad stories. But for me, I slowly began to see the problem of individual violence in society. There are many tragedies or social problems in which people ultimately rebel, and this becomes a very big tragedy. So I began to pay more and more attention to this problem because, frankly speaking, I feel that the Chinese people really don’t understand the problem of violence because society has never had a widespread discussion of the problem.

Especially in films, violence used to be restricted. Of course, there are two aspects of this. One is the censorship of films. In the past they didn’t really allow too much violence in movies, especially when the violence was closely interrelated with society. Then there is the cultural convention in China where we are not very willing to look back on or confront unpleasant events. Obviously, all of these violent events are unpleasant. But for me, it is not enough for the news media to report on these violent incidents. I think what films can do is provide an emotional understanding, and in the one or two hours of a film we can try to understand these incidents. From that time on, I really wanted to direct this kind of movie.

But I didn’t immediately think of a good way to make this movie. Because for a director, aside from the content, what is the most effective cinematic language to use to tell the story? I didn’t know right away. But it happened that one day, while I was preparing for the martial arts film, I suddenly knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to make a movie about these four stories. I thought these four stories were just like the martial arts films made in the past except that they were set in contemporary China. So I thought I could use a traditional martial arts style to film the movie I wanted to make about today’s China. Once I decided this, I began preparations for it in August last year. Production took a very long time. Because starting in August, when we began pre-production, to filming — first we were in Guangdong Province, in Dongguan, for about three weeks. Then we went to Chongqing, and we were there for about another three weeks. Then we went to Shennongjia in Hubei to film the third story. And then we went to Shanxi Province, where we finished filming. We began filming at the end of last October and continued into March, so it was five months in all.

You could say this was the most complicated of my films to make. Often when we were chatting, we’d say that it was like filming four separate movies, because these four stories are very different from each other. For each of them, the production and the pre-production had to be completely redone. So really we used the energy for making four movies to finish this one movie.

[Winstonm]

Took my granddaughter to see Wonder Woman: quite a good movie for the genre.

[mike777]

 Winstonm, on 2017-July-02, 10:58, said:

Took my granddaughter to see Wonder Woman: quite a good movie for the genre.

yes


Just saw baby driver

It has gotten rave reviews


I give it a thumps up

It is wall to wall music.

I would give it a stronger rating if I enjoyed the music choices more.

[kenberg]

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.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2017-July-04, 16:30, said:

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.

[kenberg]

 Winstonm, on 2017-July-04, 19:19, said:

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.

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]

 Phil, on 2017-July-07, 13:30, said:

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.