Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Heh. Well, I'd start threads with a one-liner "meh" review, just because it sparks conversation.

Well and good if anybody else has seen the movie yet. But as we are frequent moviegoers (by which I mean that we see every Oscar contender before the year ends, usually.) There's often little discussion to be had about the movies we just saw that nobody else has seen. Unless I talk to myself.

Oh, that Babel. What on earth was the director thinking with the frequent p*ssy shots of an underage teenage character?

I know. I'm not a prude, but I really like for there to be a reason for nudity when it's used. (Really, I like for there to be a reason for ANY gimmick/concept/idea to be used, nudity or not.)

Yep. one shot would have been OK as she was clearly obsessed with sexuality and trying her darnedest to explore that, but when it gets to six, maybe seven distinct shots of her p*ssy, it starts to feel exploitative and ooky.

Well, at least it made you less bored. Or less annoyed because you were being forced to follow characters you really didn't care about.

Oh, it wasn't just that I didn't care about them, it was that I disliked them and their choices in such a way that made me uninterested in watching them. I actually wanted to leave.

We've never left a movie early, though. Never. Why are we even spending time talking about Babel, Heidi? We hated it.

I dunno. But I definitely don't think Babel deserves its own thread until somebody else has seen it and wants to discuss it.

[Gemini Cricket]

Watched 'Shaun of the Dead' yet again tonight.
I love that movie.

[flippyshark]

Hmm, I guess I'm different than a lot of folks here. I seldom come to this thread because I don't know where within it I will find discussion of what movie, and I have to work backwards to figure out what the current topic is. It's open-endedness (and ever increasing length) make me woozy. I guess I like things categorized and titled. Oh well.

Shaun of the Dead is a wonderful movie!

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

It was a movie filled 4-day weekend, a bunch of which was laying in front of a tv that has cable. At the theaters, I saw Stranger Than Fiction and The Fountain.

Stranger Than Fiction was, for me, a perfectly lovely movie in every way, and includes one of my now favorite on screen love stories. I adored every performance, every inclusion of "animation" and just about every line of dialogue. It also make great use of its soundtrack.

The Fountain was delightfully ambitious and gorgeous to watch. I appreciated what it attempted to do more than it actually did, I think. It's essential flaw may be that the story needed more time. It deserved at least four hours and I think it needed at least that amount of time to tell the story it was trying to tell. I felt like there were pieces missing, like I was watching an exciting but early cut of the film. A scene would end and I'd be left thinking, "But, but, but...more, more, more."

[innerSpaceman]

Saw two Queen movies, care of screeners coming my way.

Marie Antionette was far better than I'd expected, and actually made me look at the infamous last French queeen in a different light.

The Queen is a wonderful film, with Helen Mirren in the title role - in top form. A week in the life of the British Royal Family ... heheh, what a week, following Diana's death in 1987.


I recommend either film if you're in a Royal mood, but The Queen is the finer of the two.

[wendybeth]

I saw 'Happy Feet'- twice. Adorable penguins, great music and beautifully animated. I really loved it. The ending was a bit rushed, but overall it was a lovely movie.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Second votes on "The Queen" and "Stranger Than Fiction." We saw both a few weeks ago, and both were lovely. Mirren's performance is a marvel, so is Ferrell's. Writing for both films shines.

Can't give my vote on "Marie," though-- there were fleeting moments of loveliness, but not much else, I thought. Parallels to the eighties were clever, at least.

[innerSpaceman]

I think I liked it because it gave me a different motivation for her playland of peasant life at Versailles. From visiting the lush palace, I had assumed the Let Them Eat Cakery attitude of mockery in Marie's pretending to be a peasant, with an entire village set up for her faux-poverty pretence on the vast grounds.

But the movie easily portrayed a different option ... that the peasant village was a true escape from the stiffling ritual and empty luxury of palace life, an escape to the true happiness of a simpler existence that could reasonably be longed for after years of pampering and vacuousity at the pinnacle of the French court.

I found that rather sweet, and I liked Kirsten Dunst in the role.


Not a candle to The Queen, but hardly the disaster I was led to expect.



.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

I saw 'Happy Feet'- twice. Adorable penguins, great music and beautifully animated. I really loved it. The ending was a bit rushed, but overall it was a lovely movie.

Really? Everyone else I've spoken to says Happy Feet was a preachy environmentalist movie (this from liberals, btw) that was nothing what they expected and, well, bad.

We watched Bednobs and Broomsticks the other day (GD hadn't seen it). I never realized before that this was a pretty sad grasp at Mary Poppins The Sequel. It has fun moments and the actors are great but there's a looming shadow over all of it....from the out of control inanimate objects to the street performer to the jaunt into an animated world....I'd know that sill-ya-wett anywhere. I loved it as a kid....

[CoasterMatt]

I still love Bedknobs and Broomsticks...