Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Alex

I found myself watching it not as a movie but as a type of artists portfolio where the flaws of one item don't necessarily reflect on the merits of the others. A cinematic gallery exhibit, if you will.

How funny - that is exactly the way I described it to the team of LoTters with me. (I also said the same of "Me and You and Everyone We Know.")

[flippyshark]

Has anyone had a chance to see the Ian Curtis biopic CONTROL? It looks pretty amazing to me, but it's not playing anywhere I can easily get to.

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Has anyone had a chance to see the Ian Curtis biopic CONTROL? It looks pretty amazing to me, but it's not playing anywhere I can easily get to.

It played at the Aero when we were in PS, so I haven't seen it yet. i really would like to see it.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Lars and the Real Girl. What would have been a one-trick pony was surprising, full of hand-and-hand pain-delight. Tom said - and I agree - that there was a small ledge upon which the concept might have been well-executed... and the movie confidently strode out on that ledge without so much as a hint of doubt.

It's a story about a man whose crippling insecurities leads him to develop a full-scale delusion that his mail-order sex doll is a real person. It sounds like a tawdry gimmick, really, but the film takes the concept to such.. dare I say... innocent places. Sweet ones. More than just a film about a man trying to bring himself emotional comfort, it's also about the family and the town that stands firmly behind him through his crisis, despite their own struggles with the situation.

The screenplay was well-crafted, the directing lovely, and the performances excellent all around, particularly Gosling-- I have been touting him as the new generation's best for a few years now and I continue to feel vindicated. Gosling's subtle path from a man who refuses touch to a man who seeks it was beautifully realized. Supporting performances by Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider and Patricia Clarkson all excellently handled the myriad reactions to a loved one's (or a patient's) lost mind.

This isn't a movie that will interest realists. It's a fairy tale, and requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief (though there were moments that were so believable it made the rest seem practically plausible.) But if you open yourself to it, I think it will surprise and delight you. It certainly did so for me.

[CoasterMatt]

I'm watching Xanadu on HD Movies as I type..

Wow, what weird memories this brings back.

[innerSpaceman]

Ok, I've never heard of Contol or Ian Curtis. Huh? and What?


^ and except for LSPoorEeyorick's review above, Lars has been pretty much universally panned. I guess different people disagree about where that ledge is. But as it's starring Ryan Gosling, I will be seeing this film .... eventually.

[flippyshark]

Ian Curtis was the lead singer for Joy Division, an influential post-punk artist prone to epileptic seizures, and a suicide at age 23. Newcomer actor Sam Riley looks to be a dead ringer, and the film should be intriguing for folks interested in the era. Obviously, it isn't going to be a feel-good pic.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

What reviews are you reading?

Originally Posted by Los Angeles Times

The creators of this film were fiercely determined not to go so much as a millimeter over the line into sentiment, tawdriness or mockery. It's the rare film that is the best possible version of itself, but "Lars" fits that bill.

Originally Posted by Wall Street Journal

It's nothing less than a miracle that the director, Craig Gillespie, and the writer, Nancy Oliver, have been able to make such an endearing, intelligent and tender comedy from a premise that, in other hands, might sustain a five-minute sketch on TV.

Originally Posted by Premiere

Lars's attraction to Bianca is like an audience's to an actor onscreen -- the object is fake, an approximation, but for some that's better than flesh and blood. Bianca is a work of art. And so is Lars and the Real Girl.

Originally Posted by USA Today

At a time when romantic comedies seem to have exhausted unique ideas, along comes Lars, an original, amusing and heartfelt tale sharply written by Nancy Oliver (Six Feet Under).

Nine of the fifteen reviews listed on MetaCritic skew strongly positive. 77% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Manola Dargis and Lisa Schwartzbaum and a few others panned it - those with qualms were those who, IMO, simply didn't allow for the fairy-tale aspect or the suspension of disbelief.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by LSPoorEeyorick

What reviews are you reading?

Reviewers in Variety and the L.A. Weekly panned it. Those are the film reviews I read in passing, in the periodicals I actually see on a daily and weekly basis.

If I care all that much, I'll check Rotten Tomotoes for something, but I'm usually only interested in those opinions after I've seen a film.


Going in, I only register the opinions I didn't go looking for.


Friends' opinions matter most, so LSPoorEyorick's trumps anything I've read. A film featuring Ryan Gosling needs no prodding from anyone, though. I even saw his last piece of trash, Fractured, and it sucked ... but he was still good.

[Alex]

I'm interested in Lars but am put off a bit by the fact that several of the critics I tend to skew with all have issues with it. And I must admit that when I watch the trailer I get a very strong whiff of Kapra which generally isn't a good thing.

On the other hand, an article in today's Chronicle referenced Harvey which is a very good point in its favor.

So, I'll wait and see it and find out. But you can say of any movie "it is good if you just go along with it." Any nonsense or setup can fly, in my opinion, but the responsibility isn't necessarily on me to just relax and open myself up to it but on the film to make me want to.

In other movie reviews, Michael Clayton is very solid. Not great and a little too long. But it really brings home two emerging truths:

1. George Clooney, somehow, has become the person that simply doesn't make bad movies. They're not all great, but it has been a long time since he was in an outright bad one. The only other name of someone similar (who works regularly unlike say Daniel Day-Lewis who works every few years) is Russell Crow.

2. Not since Cary Grant has god put on this earth a man so perfectly designed for wearing suits on the big screen.