Candy's comments (member since Feb 14, 2009)

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

Oops, I'm awfully late here...but I am one of those people who is a little obsessed with The Wizard of oz. I love LOVE the Slman Rushdie essay he wrote for BFI that Phillip mentions here. I also recently went to see a speaker who wrote a book called Finding Oz...Evan Swartz. What a fantastic set of explorations he shared with us last month in Chicago. I believe he's doing a tour of this book of his. I've only started reading Finding Oz but so far it's terrific fun.

p.s. A book Philip...did you say you were interested in a book? A book relatng to this theme of the movie I would recommend is The Other Side of Eden

Here are some links...

http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/RelatedInf...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people...

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Eden-Hu...

I haven't seen this movie ina long time. I wish I had seen your note here and caught it on tv.

I was very influenced by this movie as a young person. And a lot of friends were too.

Interesting, even then I knew wit was a metaphor of some sort. i wan't the sharpest tool in the shed in youth...but I felt this story was about standing up. Walking Tall was it's peer. Not so much about taking the whole law or violence as a vigilante...but to take a stand about right and wrong and good people and what is our society really built on. It made me question authority and social constructs.

I haven't seen the movie for a long time. I have friends in Toronto who named their Jack Russel terrier "Billy Jack" and it reminds me of how this movie touched a certain group of people to last for years in their lives. I've come to understand that the movie was a classic B-movie and maybe I'm afrai o have my childhood memory of this movie jarred heh heh,

but I felt the message was to question authority.

I loved The New World much more than I thought I was going to for some reason. I love Mallick's movies...even though he has made so few...but they are all magically beautiful to me. I loved The Thin Red Line mentioned here as coming out around Saving Private Ryan.

Everyone here has mentioned things that stand out in Malick's movie. "the portrayal of nature" is a good phrase because it's as if nature does have a persona in his movies.

Alex, I am not familiar enough with the original movie to say whether a dvd cut is different. Wouldn't it be almost like an ethical issue to change a movie and not mention it on dvd? I feel as if there may not be a written rule about it, but wouldn't it be in everyone's interests if it was a directors cut...to mention it? I just don't know though.

Have you all seen Badlands and Days of heaven? Days of Heaven was the first Malick film I ever saw and it changed my whole view of films...it just haunted me...the cinematography as much as the characters and setting. I just made a note I must watch everything he makes...and then he doesn't make another movie for 20 years!

Right back at ya Becca!

Oh, Margeret...this sounds very painful to watch. I tried watching the tv series "Whale Wars"...I watched about 7 episodes and was so disturbed I had to stop.

"My company sells a product that's better than the competition at a price that's lower than the competition". Frank Lucas. American Gangster: There are two moments I could watch over and over...and sometimes I have paused the dvd player to look at them. One is when Denzel Washington's gangster hugs his wife after she gives him a fateful gift. His face is outstanding. Washington is a master. The other scene I especially love, and what the movie leads us to...is the interogation room scene with two actors at the peak of their abilities. My husband and I LOVE this movie. We've watched it a few times and we bought the 3 dvd set. We've watched it entirely with directors commentary too. The movie was promoted as an action film and not released according to the directors preferences. I believe this harmed it's reception with many viewers. The director's cut is incredible and once you realize this isn't an action film, but a character study, you can see how marketers sometimes really screw up a movie. Unfortunately character studies aren't sexy to the mainstream and action sells. It's not that this crime drama isn't exciting, it does have some cool moves. I love when Crowe is entering the projects to bust everyone, there is a lot of tension and confidence in his body work. I could watch this double study of these two men again and again...little did we know it was a buddy film. Director Ridley Scott riffs on classic gangster movies, the more gangster films you've seen, the more you appreciate how he did this and also genre-bent it to create a buddy film in the last five minutes. Who cares what fucking bridges are in the background shots, this is a beautifully constructed story. Or at least the directors cut is. Too bad corporate suits don't trust artists. Score: buyer beware. Unrated extended version, 10/10.

From the booklet in dvd set: In the early '70s, police corruption was rampant in New York city. The Vietnam War was taking a devastating toll overseas and at home. Soldiers were brought back to the US either in body bags or addicted to an opiate called heroin-which they shared with curious experimenters who became instantly hooked. With the assistance of law enforcement, the Mafia operated with relative impunity in this noncompetitive market, selling thousands of kilos of smack to addicts hungry for their product. A priveledged and untouchable class of white men paid hundreds of millions to New York judges, lawyers and cops to keep quiet about this mutually beneficial relationship. La Cosa Nostra and their underlings were unbeatable.

Until a black entrepreneur named Frank Lucas took over the game.

I was mildly curious about this movie...I went for the special effects...and stayed for the story!

I was fine if it was just a fun action, but pleasantly surprised it had a good set of characters and plot. I guess my feeling was close to Roxy's attitude. I got so into the Transformers, what a lot of fun! I would give it an 8/10.

Hi all, I'm new here so I'm going to cut and paste the odd review while reading all the topic threads and catching up...

Regis Philbin was promoting Slumdog Millionaire quite ahead of the word of mouth. He had been to a special premiere and couldn't stop raving about the movie. I had figured he'd be a good judge since he was the original host of the reality program Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. If you've ever wondered why reality tv is so popular, Slumdog Millionaire gives a good demonstration. I suppose it is obviuos why I like this film so much. I don't give much respect to cookie-cutter education or school and I enjoy the study of diversity in learning styles. I set a tone of exploration on the topic of learning here at my blog almost from the first post. I don't want to abolish schools or anything I'm just not romantic about school or conventional education. I think the education matrix is a kind of bullshit system. School is a way to prove people can jump through hoops. Trying to look at the industrial society anthropologically we see that formal education is taking up more and more of peoples time. We are keeping young people in school longer in order to keep them out of the work force and competing with older people for jobs. We've almost lost the notion of university as "universe city". Apprenticeship and practice have lost status to high-cost privately paid tuitions. University is a status symbol and packaged by marketers for consumers. University originally meant "a community of teachers and scholars". We have so little regard for learning now that we make teachers beg for their money. (going on strike)
$$$$$$$$$$$$
So along comes a movie that directly addresses the illusion of the value of learning within strict formats like school. Slumdog Millionaire is also brilliant by contrasting our contemporary ethical concerns with torture to the popular reality tv show Millionaire with its own interrogation methods lit in fetishistic blues. Contrasted with the yellow lit scenes: condemning those institutions as cowardly that enforce schooling and how we measure intelligence? (I like this contrast much more than the same pattern used in Traffic). An all round great movie and I think it will, and should, get the "best film Oscar" this month. I love this movie because it reminds us how limited mainstream industrial society defines intelligence and learning. I love this movie because it's a fantastic story with wonderful characters. Experience is the best school....but this movie is the best argument for why school should be available and subsidized for everyone. Score: 10/10.

Good review Philip,

I'm new and just catching up on topics here, and am just going to cut and paste my notes on movies to get started...

Sean Penn makes the world a better place. Why doesn't he have an Oscar for every role he's ever done? I had absolutely no idea about the real life Milk and I got right into this counter-culture story and learned a lot. I grew up and went to a school where two of my girlfriends would hold hands at a party. It's hard to believe so many people were grossed out by gays and lesbians back in the 60's. What a great coverage of the times, of this aspect of human rights revolution and what incredible characters these mad gay guys were. I felt like I knew them! Like saying "Streep is a good actress" I'm going to sound like an idiot again...this movie knocks your socks off. It's good to see Van Sant back at a fully rounded story arc. Score: 10/10.

Hi Ed and all,

Ijust found the invitation to this group and joined. I immediately cut and pasted some movie reviews intoa general themed thread...and now see you have added categories etc. I should have looked around a bit before I posted...ooops. Well, I'll try to sort my posts out and put different movie notes into respective topics.

Looks like a great joint

Thanks for the invite
Cheers
Candy

The 1970's movie Caged Heat scared the living shit out me. Jonathan Demme has always been able to bring a documentary feel to his fiction films maybe because he has made some of the coolest docs around with Neil Young and Talking Heads. Demme seems to me to be that kind of director who shows strength working with women, (like George Cukor and Ridley Scott) and Rachel Getting Married is an intense, languid and penetrating story of two women, neither of them especially likablee...that is...until they like each other first. Sometimes, I was really surprised how languid and slow the handheld camera work was...how much time was spent following very mundane family activities, how the music was sometimes annoying...even one of the characters complains about the drone-like quality! But also...it is a movie that incorporates music as ambiance and plot, there are extremely tense emotional scenes. I am very close to my sister and it was painful to see a mean sister relationship. ..and I felt a claustrophobia and fear of loss in this movie like I did when I first saw Caged Heat. No one is meaner to women than other women.These two sisters are so immature, competitive and each seeking to be the center of attention craving approval, it is a painful movie. The cast is incredible with singer from TV on the Radio, Bill Irwin, Roger Corman but the most wonderful surprise cast member was the magnificent Debra Winger. I was not a really big fan of Anne Hathaway, but she won me over with her chops and her chopped haircut. Score: 8/10.

Many powerful portrayals of predators can be found in film history, but none has quite scared me, repulsed me, and compelled me as Kate Winslet in The Reader. Right when she first preys on a sick boy there is something seemingly innocent and damaged about Winslet's character and I felt oddly emotionally pulled. How clever of a true predator! One of the amazing things about this movie and about Winslet is that it challenges certainty in some ways. I am a fairly easy going person about ambiguous topics, often I enjoy approaching topics or movies and picking out a different angle. But there are a few topics in the world where I am not ambiguous, where I am absolutely uncompromising. Some of those topics are children and drugs, abuse in positions of power, and nazis. I will not compromise. Like Indiana Jones "I hate those guys". Two grandfathers signed up to fight nazi's and one of them spent the rest of his life reading action war stories about fighting nazi's. You could say, I come by it honestly. At one point during a trial scene Winslet is so naive and subtle that I almost felt like I could almost sympathize with her...and this really shocked me and is a credit to her performance. Not since Kevin Spacey playing an equally disturbed killer in Se7en have I felt this frightened and interested in a predator. We discover that this predator has a pattern of adopting sickly children...in one act as kindness, in another she is the worst kind of monster:unaware and remoresless. Finally, by the end of the movie there are two characters who are the spine of life (the prof)...I absolutely loved the woman/character of a rich Jewish New Yorker who will not accept any ambiguity about actions during her childhood. I relate to her resolve. Her lines and acting are awesome. I did not want to like this movie but Stagg and I and I were riveted. Score: 10/10.

Perhaps a lighthearted genre film might offer an ever greater view of an actors capability? I was so enamored over Streep in Doubt I decided to watch another movie I didn't think I was interested in...of all things...Mamma Mia. I don't like this kind of singing, I don't really like very many musicals...but I thought this was great gay Shakespearean fun. It really had the vibe of a Shakespeare story set by the sea, kind of like The Tempest but not at all. Some of these guys couldn't sing at all, listening to Pierce Brosnan was both funny and sad..except, he was so commited to his role he kept me interested. I really loved this and now I wished I'd seen it in the theatre with a bunch of friends. If it isn't enough that Streep can act, she can sing AND dance too. she climbs all over the place while singing and does a great job. She is charismatic, ebulient and when she did a cannon ball off a dock, my eyes welled up. What an animal. Score: 9/10.

Sean Penn makes the world a better place. Why doesn't he have an Oscar for every role he's ever done? I had absolutely no idea about the real life Milk and so Stagg and I got right into this counter-culture story and learned a lot. I grew up and went to a school where two of my girlfriends would hold hands at a party. It's hard to believe so many people were grossed out by gays and lesbians back in the 60's. What a great coverage of the times, of this aspect of human rights revolution and what incredible characters these mad gay guys were. I felt like I knew them! Like saying "Streep is a good actress" I'm going to sound like an idiot again...this movie knocks your socks off. It's good to see Van Sant back at a fully rounded story arc. Score: 10/10.

Definately, Maybe is one terrific sweet chick flick. It is also a fine example of good script-writing and story telling. I was fairly tepid about the main actor, Ryan Reynolds, but he was terrific as was the delightful Abigail Breslin. So many good things are in this movie it is an example of how there are good chick flicks and bad chick flicks and what a mistake it is to dismiss a movie because it carries a love story. The plot and time references surround music and a presidential candiacy. It's quite well done how we know what is going on time-wise due to President Clinton's story arc! Ryan Reynolds plays a political campaigner and divorced parent and his daughter wants to know her history as if it's a "love mystery story". The chemistry between actors is fantastic, and the characters sincerity keeps this movie moving forward and real. Score:9/10.

We were totally taken by surprise with the quiet charming movie The Visitor. All the actors draw the viewer in and it is so wonderful to have character be the major source of suspense and entertainment in a movie. Richard Jenkins totally deserves his best actor nomination. Score: 9/10.

I love monster movies and the Alien movies are among my favourite. I saw the first Alien movie by accident. Some friends and I went to see the suspense movie Altered States at the drive in where the William Hurt movie was the feature film. The way drive-ins work is they had a mainstream big seller blockbuster movie play first, then they would pair it with a B-movie. The B-movie that night was the first Alien. I remember begging to move to the front seat I was so scared sitting alone in the back seat with my friends. When film makers create such an astounding primordial character as the Alien...they know they can always market another movie to their die-hard fans. I am one such fan. I am also a fan of the B-movie Predator. So of course, I was looking forward to seeing another sequel, this one a second feature film pitting the Alien against the uber-hunter Predator. No, I know, no self respecting "film buff" would ever admit to seeing such low brow fare...or even more shocking enjoying it! Alien versus Predator: Requiem had some of the best special effects I've ever seen in a movie. It's beena long time and very rare to watch a contemporary horror or monster film that lacks any irony or self-referential humor. I found Requiem to be refreshing in it's lack of irony. The characters are straight-ahead archetypes, two former friends, one grows up a cop, the other a criminal, returning Iraq soldier, female, alienated form her daughter, a popular girl with a geek in love with her, etc etc. These characters had no idea they were in a monster movie and I loved that for a change. (see also The Decent and Cloverfeild. Unfortunately, Stagg doesn't like horror movies so I have o watch them by myself...and this one had some scary moments. I loved the mano-a-mano between a Predator and an Alien, no armour! Acting/plot score: 6/10. Special effects score: 10/10.

Regis Philbin was promoting Slumdog Millionaire quite ahead of the word of mouth. He had been to a special premiere and couldn't stop raving about the movie. I had figured he'd be a good judge since he was the original host of the reality program Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. If you've ever wondered why reality tv is so popular, Slumdog Millionaire gives a good demonstration. I suppose it is obviuos why I like this film so much. I don't give much respect to cookie-cutter education or school and I enjoy the study of diversity in learning styles. I set a tone of exploration on the topic of learning here at my blog almost from the first post. I don't want to abolish schools or anything I'm just not romantic about school or conventional education. I think the education matrix is a kind of bullshit system. School is a way to prove people can jump through hoops. Trying to look at the industrial society anthropologically we see that formal education is taking up more and more of peoples time. We are keeping young people in school longer in order to keep them out of the work force and competing with older people for jobs. We've almost lost the notion of university as "universe city". Apprenticeship and practice have lost status to high-cost privately paid tuitions. University is a status symbol and packaged by marketers for consumers. University originally meant "a community of teachers and scholars". We have so little regard for learning now that we make teachers beg for their money. (going on strike)
$$$$$$$$$$$$
So along comes a movie that directly addresses the illusion of the value of learning within strict formats like school. Slumdog Millionaire is also brilliant by contrasting our contemporary ethical concerns with torture to the popular reality tv show Millionaire with its own interrogation methods lit in fetishistic blues. Contrasted with the yellow lit scenes: condemning those institutions as cowardly that enforce schooling and how we measure intelligence? (I like this contrast much more than the same pattern used in Traffic). An all round great movie and I think it will, and should, get the "best film Oscar" this month. I love this movie because it reminds us how limited mainstream industrial society defines intelligence and learning. I love this movie because it's a fantastic story with wonderful characters. Experience is the best school....but this movie is the best argument for why school should be available and subsidized for everyone. Score: 10/10.

Zodiac: might be David Fincher's masterpiece and you all know how much I love Se7en, The Game (genius!) and Fight Club (don't ask me how many times I've seen this). The opening few minutes are so pretty and so violent we feel the tricks of film noir working on us. Right away Fincher pulls from film history as Scorcese uses Donovan in a similar sick satiric manner in Goodfellas. What are we in for with this movie? We really begin to feel the obsession the characters have for finding a serial killer. We relate because most of us share the same curiosity, what makes a person a serial killer, who are they? Instead we study the people on the hunt for the killer and it is a beautiful investigation. There are many layers going on with the mise en scene, from phallic lamps and VW cars to the Zodiac killer being a movie buff, and the main characters often have movie posters in their personal spaces. Nice touch. The cinematography is stunning and of note...the cinematographer Harris Savides is also the director of photography for American Gangster (and The Game, Elephant, and Coldplay, Madonna videos). The cast is an incredible ensemble and it's good to see Anthony Edwards in a movie again. I will see anything Mark Ruffalo is in, he is so good. Ted Levine is in a small role too and he is a fascinating actor even though he is not leading man (he was serial killer in Silence of the Lambs, the Vietnam Vet older brother in Rourke's Bullet, small roles in American Gangster, Assasination of Jesse James, Heat). Brian Cox is really good as Melvin Belli. Score: 10/10.

Wow, I saw Doubt the other day while trying to catch up on Oscar nominated movies. I was almost dragged kicking and screaming to see this movie because I'm not super crazy about dramas. I prefer sort of genre films. I saw a trailer on a talk show a couple of weeks ago with Streep and Adams...and the tone actually was very comedic. When I saw this clip I thought, oh maybe I am interested in this movie! The clp was when Adams is talking and chewing out Streep and a light bulb goes out...and Streeps character says "you blew out my light" and it was so funny! In fact, I think this movie had a lot of very good comedy in it and it is much more than maybe even the playrightinteneded. Right away in the movie I thought..."oh this is a metaphor or allegory about invading Iraq" and I felt okay well thats fine. But the movie begins to develop and offer much more than such a parable. Meryl Streep is off the chain. She completely owns th movie and she has enabled a multi-layered reading of the cstory . I was completely mindblown at this film. And I had thefirst understanding that we didn't ever come away with "knowing" what really happened. Streep is so amazing that she seems to have changed the playrights vision (and apparently he said so too)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: David Fincher is one of my favourite directors. I will see every movie he makes. I was very curious when I saw the trailers for this movie because it kind of looked "cutesy"...something I don't associate with Fincher's edgy, fast and stylistic movies. The adverts for Benjamin Button suggest a strange charming love story. What? Now Fincher is sexy and has some awesome love stories and sex scenes in his movies but "sweet"? No. David Fincher makes film noir. Period. Doesn't he? Paul Schrader points out that “film noir's techniques emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity; then submerge these self doubts in mannerism and style. In such a world style becomes paramount; it is all that separates one from meaninglessness.” (Notes On Film Noir, 1972) About half way though the very long movie it begins to hit me, this isn't a love story at all. It truly is film noir: it's kind of Forrest Gump meets John Irving in hell. I really liked this movie, Brad Pitt is very good and it's important that he is so good because the entire movie is setting one up for the emotional delivery of images in the last ten-15 minutes of the movie. I really liked this movie, it's beautiful and is a lot about how everyone is a cool lonely story. Existential. I don't recommend it for everyone. I had a couple of problems with some of the conflict in the plot but they were minor distractions. 10 tissues. Score: 8/10.

The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is just dam good. Perhaps it will be a little artsy and slow for action fans, but really cool for art house fans. Everyone's performance is super. 10/10.

Bullet: as "Benjamin Button" is oversold as a great love story (it is a good love story...don't get me wrong...it's genre-bending because it is about finding love despite our solitary journey) Bullet is just plain undersold. Especially undersold considering it is a really good movie, is Tupac's last movie and it was written by Mickey Rourke and stars Rourke as an ex-con Jewish junkie. Although the movie overall may only be a 6/10...maybe a 7/10...Mickey Rourke is beyond charismatic and compelling. He has written one ofthe most beguilling families I've ever seen in a movie. The entire time watching Rourke on screen he provokes what we all hope an actor might summon: the audience asking WHY? Why is this guy like this? Why is his family completely broken? There are half a dozen portrayals in this movie worth your time. Tupac is pretty good. You can see he is coming into his own, he's comfortable on screen but I had the sense he wasn't fully working it yet. Tupac was fantastic to look at and believable enough, he adds to the atmosphere considerably. But Adrien Brody, Ted Levine, John Enos III, Jerry Grayson, and Suzanne Sheppard are very good. (Of note, Michael K. Williams Omar from The Wire and Donnie Walberg have small roles) The tv Guide gave this movie 1 star, and that is a huge crime. I still can't believe I had never seen or heard of this movie before...but it came out when my grandfather was very sick and I was helping my grandmother...so I must have missed any press about it. More oddly, Stagg had never heard of this movie! It felt impossible to look away from Mickey Rourke or see anyone else on screen when he was on...he was stunning, his body was incredible, gorgeous, only outshined by the role he played. Rourke gets 10/10. I'll be thinking about this family for a long time. Directed by Julien Temple. Score: 7/10.

Burn After Reading: Pitt totally deserves his Oscar nomination for "Benjamin Buttons" and after Keanu Reeves and Jeff Bridges he is probably the next most under-rated actor. People tend to think of him cast only for his looks. Wrong. He is an amazing actor. (Kalifornia, 12 Monkeys, The Mexican, a cameo in True Romance show his subtle range). The delivery of the finale in "Benjamin Buttons" depends on his acting. Here he and his partners in absurdity create some fine silly moments in comedy. How often do we see a comedy rolled out starring middle aged actors? The Coen Brothers seem to sadistically want to make fools out of their wife, George Clooney and anyone else they manage to convince to be in their screwball comedies. Frances McDormand said she forgot all her lines when she was in a scene with Pitt. I can imagine, he brings something different here and his hair is massively distracting, the Coens don't do any pretty lighting on Pitt. He is playing a scary fitness obsessed middle aged man in spandex. Ambulance. He also takes a great punch in the face. How much do I love John Malkovitz? As much as I love Mickey Rourke! This is just plain old fun. Score: 7/10.

The Trials of Ted Haggard : you can't make this stuff up. HBO doc follows Haggard as he lives in exile for a year after being caught in bi-sexual relationships and chrystal meth habits. Irresitible. Score: 6/10.

There's something really interesting about how we don't see Rourke's face for the first 5:40 minutes of The Wrestler. I've watched it a couple of times because I just couldn't believe we we're looking at the back of his head or face in shadows until 6 minutes into the film. The device helps us notice other details about his character. The Wrestler has yellow hair, wrinkles on his hands, duct tape holding is coat together, his posture is exhaustion. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a movie is when all the kids attack him as he gets out of the van and he beats them up. The movie is worth it just for that early moment. When I first heard about this movie I had mixed feelings. I've been working on a script with a wrestler in the plot and at first I thought "shit". I've been studying and researching, often happily following small league wrestling leagues or WWE for 5 years. We went to Lucha Libre and I filmed some matches. I was also really excited to see Mickey Rourke in a starring role. It turned out this movie has been really inspiring and I just loved it. I probably really extra loved it because of my research and investment in the wrestling world. I also spent a fair amount of time in Jersey and like this view of the people and place. This movie may be a problem for those people who are intolerant of sex workers...but the comparative work between Marisa Tomei and Rourke really shows us the tragic side of performers. Tomei is beyond generous in her acting and bringing soul to her character. Mickey Rourke is an angel. I love him so much! Scars, tats, needles, make up, theatrics, loss, rebirth, love, Jersey. Score: 10/10.

I totally loved this movie and keep meaning to pick up a dvd copy of it. I loved how it began with a hip N.Y. party and that the story relied on the contents of the video tape.

I thought it was brilliant how the partygoers had accidently started recording over a pre-existing shot video...and that pre-recorded video sometimes appeared during the crisis. Suddenly there was a sunny day between with recorded material of the date interupts the action.

Then, if that wasn't enough...at the very end of the taped crisis with the city, night and the monster...the tape suddenly cuts to the sunny afternoon date on coney Island. As the couple is riding a ferris wheel (I think it was the ferris wheel) we see in the background something fall from space into the Hudson River, or ocean way behind them.

Brilliant!

And one of the coolest looking monsters, ever!