Michael's comments (member since Dec 05, 2008)

Michael's comments from the Movies We've Just Watched group.

Just got back from seeing UP IN THE AIR. Excellent!

I just re-watched CHISUM (1970) last night. It's no classic, but it is a very entertaining John Wayne western.

It's a somewhat fictionalized account of New Mexico's Lincoln County War, which involved Billy the Kid.

Wayne plays John Chisum, not the Kid. :-)

It is on DVD and should be in stores soon, if not now.

I just watched this. It's a cute caper comedy with Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy. Worth a rental.

TWO LOVERS is the best movie I've seen thus far this year. James Gray is a director to watch.

I watched TAKEN the other night with Liam Neeson.

As an action/thriller, it's quite entertaining. Certainly it's as good as the Bond and Bourne movies, even if the action sequences do go "over the top" at times.

And, when Neeson kills one of the bad guys...which he does often...you want to cheer.

I just watched a film called THE UNINVITED.

It's an adaptation of a Korean horror film, and it's got a pretty good story and with a nifty surprise ending that I didn't see coming.

Frankly, I think the movie would have been much better if they'd cut the horror elements and played it as a straight thriller. The story was good enough to stand on its own without the cheap thrills.

Nobody is being mean to Daniel.

We're having an intelligent discussion, and we just have differing points of view.

If you understand WHY a person does terrible things, then perhaps you can prevent somebody else from also doing those terrible things.

Continually painting Nazis as totally evil without letting us know WHY they became that way is not helpful. They become caricatures, and it is important that we see them as real people.

Yes, they are murderers and should be punished. There is no disagreement in that.

My sympathy in the film was for the young man and how his relationship with this older woman affected his entire life. I had a similar relationship when I was quite young (not with a war criminal) and I understood his confusion and pain.

Although I've not seen it, I think that Tom Cruise's film, VALKERIE, has a worse problem than THE READER. It's my understanding that the film paints Cruise and his fellow conspirators as heroes because of their plan to kill Hitler. However, I'm told that they never even acknowledge the Holocaust.

And, these are the people we're supposed to admire?

Her tragedy is that she never does really understand... even after spending years in prison.

But, I do agree that we are not going to convince each other.

You are preaching to the choir.

The difference between this movie and most other Holocaust films is that the war criminal (i.e. Winslet) is not presented as black-and-white evil. Her color is gray, which doesn't excuse anything that she did. It just helps us understand why she did it.

Of course, the Germans had choices...and I'm not suggesting that they should be forgiven for the terrible choices that the made.

What makes THE READER stand out is the fact that it doesn't equate all of the war criminals to Hitler or Himler. Germans went along with the Nazi plan for various reasons...often without considering the consequences.

The Kate Winslet character was, as said, "stupid". She couldn't read and that shamed her. She became a camp guard because it was a way to better herself... and everything she did after that was because she was following orders...because she didn't know any better.

Forgiveness, no. Understanding the reasons why something like the Holocaust could occur, absolutly.

THE READER was my favorite film of 2008.

The movie grabbed me from the start and kept me mesmerized, my eyes often moist, until the very end.

Yes, the morality issues are somewhat ambiguous, but I could identify with the young man and I understood the Kate Winslet character, even though I certainly didn't condone her acts.

I don't believe she was an "evil" person (i.e. like Hitler). For lack of a better word, she was "stupid," and she did what she did because she didn't know any better.

Weren't a lot of the war criminals in WW2 like that?

I saw THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON today.

It's a well-made film with good performances, sensational make-up and production values...but I didn't really like it that much.

It was very episodic and, unlike THE READER, which I loved, I felt no emotional connection with the characters.

It's not a lost film, but it would be nice if the Gershwin estate would finally allow the 1959 version of PORGY AND BESS to be released onto DVD.

Rob wrote: "I thought it might be interesting to discuss films that have been "lost" over time...or scenes from films that have been lost. What lost films do you wish to see the most? Are there lost films or..."

I also wanted to see LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, however after seeing WHV's DVD recreation of the film using stills, I think it might be better if it stays lost.

My hunch is that, if it ever was found, it would be a disappointment.

I just got back from seeing THE READER.

It's an excellent, emotionally involving film, one of the best that I've seen this year.

Kate Winslet might get her long overdue Oscar for this one.

Hannah wrote: "The Snowman.

Also, I'm not sure if this could be considered a christmas movie or not, but it's the only time that I watch it--The Lemon Drop Kid. Has the world forgotten this film?

These ..."

I remember when this movie was released onto DVD 4-5 years ago, along with several other Bob Hope movies. At that time, the distributor told me that this was the best-selling title in the Hope collection.

That surprised me because I thought the top seller would be THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS, which has that great soft-shoe number with Hope and Jimmy Cagney.

THE LEMON DROP KID, however is the movie in which Hope introduced the now standard Christmas song, "Silver Bells".

Cissy wrote: "Disagreed, Tom... Bale is fabulous, too. "

After watching this film for a 2nd time, I've decided that I don't really like it. It's too long and the editing is a problem. In several of the action scenes, it's difficult to tell who is doing what to whom.

Actually, I wasn't crazy about the picture when I saw it in a theater, but I was impressed with Heath Ledger. I was less impressed with him this time.

Tom wrote: "Not a fan of MEMENTO, or any of Nolan's films. Those Batman things, I mean really.

Watched about an hour of one of the great Bad Films last night, Dmytryk's BLUEBEARD with Richard Burton and Jo..."

Dmytryk's last really good film was MIRAGE w/Gregory Peck, although ANZIO w/Robert Mitchum is an okay war movie.

Eddie didn't really like BLUEBEARD either, but work was work.