@L_Mariachi once posted a map of the chase scene in Bullitt describing the same phenomenon, which i responded to
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Finally watched We need to talk about Kevin. Didn’t really help that I’ve seen the actor who plays Franklin. A good movie, just very difficult to get through.
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Tilda, as always, is divine.
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I’m being unfair to John C Reilly. He’s been in a lot of things besides
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OK, here’s one that hasn’t been mentioned: The House of Yes. i’d seen it when it came out back in '97; found it at 1am last night flipping channels and stayed up too late to watch it again.
To start with, the script is very clever as it was adapted from a play. this is very much a “dialog” film, which is impossible to pull off unless the writing is superlative. it is. then, when the lead actor delivering these lines is Parker Posey, you’ve got lightning in a bottle.
I think the key to explaining it without giving away any of the fun is that the setting, the family home, is a character itself: a huge, staid, WASPy enclave that protects it’s sparse inhabitants from the outside world; qualities also reflected in the matriarch of the family, embodied by Genevieve Bujold. in that sense, the film evokes a Grey Gardens atmosphere; doubly so due to the mythos of the Kennedy family looming very largely, both in the family’s neighborhood but even more in their minds. the home–the family–maintain an equilibrium in the service of containing the at-times explosive Posey.
The plot is set in motion when a stranger invades the home. one son, who has pointedly escaped the gravitational pull of his family, just barely beats an oncoming hurricane to return home for thanksgiving of 1983 with his guest, whom he introduces as his fiancee. surprise!
I’m intentionally leaving out a lot. This is one of the most underrated films i know, obviously because it really isn’t for a general audience and doesn’t lend itself to being marketed. But i’ve written enough so that you can tell if it is for you, and if so, you’ll probably love it.
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The House of Yes I think is rather brilliant, and certainly under-rated. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be for a general audience, but I do think US movie distribution deliberately curates fluff. I like to think that viewers might appreciate something which the Hollywood cartels might not.
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yes, that’s what i meant. but OTOH, i think they are at least half the time “right” in terms of giving the market what it wants. the “dark horse” movies that end up popular tend to resonate more, but are far less frequently popular to a general audience. i.e. all of the Pixar and Disney movies are for a general audience and they aren’t even usually trash in the sense of like Transformers or whatever, which is also for a general audience. a general audience likes and acknowledges Taxi Driver, for instance, but at a lower rate. my feeling is this is more audience-driven rather than the fluff-curation being the driving factor, but it would be interesting to see some actual data.
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I liked burn after reading, in that the ending had a playful irony to it. Which is to say, a huge setup for a tiny payout.
But then, that is just my sense of humor. I was the only person cackling I’m the theater. I love the tiny payouts, sort of like the feghoots.
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My better half is a big Parker Posey fan so we watched that a while ago, and some other ones she did around the same time - The Daytrippers, and Party Girl.
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haven’t seen that one–yet. i also need to get around to seeing Clockwatchers; i’m told it’s good.
she’s in a fairly niche film that i’m a fan of set against the 90s NY club scene called Party Girl; a good performance by her, that.
wait–did you edit that in or am i nuts?
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Heh. Yeah, added it in…
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Schindler’s List: Over all a pretty good film, but I don’t think it’s as outstanding as so many claim. Part of this is probably personal (well, of course, it always is, isn’t it?). I’m often somewhat resistant to fiction(alized) films that try to emotionally move me in relation to some real tragedy. It feels dishonestly exploitative to take someone else’s pain and make entertainment out of it. (Conversely, a film that is basically honest about being an exploitation film might get more respect from me, even if I’m not likely to be in a rush to see it.) I probably wouldn’t have bothered posting these rather banal thoughts at all, but I just wanted to say that I really, really hated the final scene with Schindler. Fortunately, it wasn’t the last scene of the film.
Oddly enough, I thought Amistad, which didn’t get nearly as good reviews, was a great film.
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Recently watched a Swedish punk, coming of age film, We Are the Best! It’s a great little film!
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One of these days I’ll watch Schindler’s List. Probably. I even owned it on DVD once and never got around to it.
Recently watched Jurassic World, which was lazy shite, as I expected it would be. Couldn’t be underrated - and this is from the guy who’s making SW Ep IX and we should expect something more risk taking than Abrams did with Ep VII?
I did also watch Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley, which was much more like it. I always like watching Cilian Murphy. I really should try some more Loach films, they’ve all kind of passed by by.
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From Loach, I’ve seen Kes and Sweet Sixteen. Thought they were both very good, although I haven’t felt a great urge to seek out more of his work.
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I loved what I saw of Kes while MrsTobinL watched it but it was odd needing subtitles. Those accents were really hard to parse for me.
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My niece was really into Ghibli when she was about 14/15.
For her 15th birthday I treated her to My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service and…erm, Grave of the Fireflies.
On her 15th birthday I left her bawling her eyes out as she sat through Grave of the Fireflies.
Don’t regret a thing. That movie should be seen by everyone at least once.
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Just watched that now with another mutant here. It’s a great movie, totally blue skies, but it’s very cute.
It’s a bit cliched, but tells the story in a fresh way.
“The computer who wanted to know what love is really was the one teaching me about love all along!”
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I just adore it. I think it aged so well because they faked all the computer graphics, so it was such an idealized version of computers anyway that it didn’t really tie it to a period in time, except the period where computers were pure magic.
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Yeah that’s what I kept thinking. “wtf, computers in 1984 couldn’t do that! Oh right, computers are magic.”
And of course there’s that brief exchange in the shop:
“I don’t really know anything about computers”
“That’s okay, nobody does!”
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