Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
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Movies, DVDs, and Theater
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What MOVIES or DVDs have you watched lately? (PART FOUR - 2011) (ongoing thread)
message 351:
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Joy H., Group Founder
(new)
Apr 05, 2011 04:58PM
Darn dark screens!
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A lot of movies are made that way these days. I don't see the point of it. I'd much prefer to have a brighter screen and be able to see lots of details.
Jackie wrote: "A lot of movies are made that way these days. I don't see the point of it. I'd much prefer to have a brighter screen and be able to see lots of details."Jackie, I'm under the impression that the dark screens come from our non-state-of-the-art tvs. Do you have any other tvs to check my theory? POSSIBLY some change in movie theater technology made this change possible?, but I doubt it. The cinemas don't make enough money to invest in improvements. MAYBE it's a director-thing: "all the other guys are doing it so I will too". But that doesn't seem reasonable to me either.
I have a 'state-of-the-art' TV & a lot of scenes are still too dark. Not quite as bad, but not as bright as I'd like them. I think I mentioned this before, the new TV's have much higher contrast than the old ones. Still, I think it's an artsy trend, myself.Speaking of 'state-of-the-art', my new, 2 month old TV, started acting as if it was possessed. A few weeks ago, it would occasionally start muting & turning the sound back on every second for a 5 to 10 seconds, then be fine. A couple of times, it turned off by itself or didn't want to turn on.
Monday, I came home early from work because I was sick. The TV was on & muted. Marg was out at the barn. It wouldn't shut off. Not even the tiny, multifunction dial on the side (the only manual control on the whole thing) would turn it off, although pulling the power cord did it, but then it was still haunted. The sound wouldn't come on, either. It would change channels - sometimes. It wouldn't see the PC, although hooking a monitor to it showed the PC was fine.
The long & the short of it was I had to call tech support & fight my way into the menu system to do a factory reset. Then unplug it for 30 seconds, then turn it back on & reset up everything.
Yeah, the damn TV is so complicated that it needed its cache cleared & a hard reboot. Sheesh!!!
Now it's fine, but I was not amused. The remote is so complicated that it has a slide out keyboard in it. Welcome to the 21st century.
Jim, maybe your new TV has a Star Stone inside it... and really IS possessed! :)(referring to a "priceless jewel called the Star Stone"* in Doorways in the Sand. I heard about the book via Jim's review of it.)
*From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorways...
Earl, I think it's pure laziness on the director's part. If a scene is dark, they don't have to fuss with the details. Eric has a HDTV and the same movies are still dark. Jim, don't you just love progress, lol
I hope not, Joy! ;-)My review is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Joy has made some interesting comments & added some links. I've read other stuff on World's Without End. It's a good review site.
Here's the "Worlds Without End" website:http://www.worldswithoutend.com/index...
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"Worlds Without End is a web site dedicated to bringing you the best Science Fiction & Fantasy literature. We've built an extensive database of the best books, authors and publishers using the top 10 awards in the field as well as some of the top "best of" genre lists as our foundation. Our goal is to be the best resource around for SF/F novels. WWEnd is designed to help you find the books you crave."
FROM the "About" page of "Worlds Without End" at
http://www.worldswithoutend.com/about...
=======================================================
Today I watched a DVD of the movie, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"(2008) which was adapted from the book, The Memory Keeper's Daughter (2005) by Kim Edwards (2005).http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/The_M...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955298/
"A father separates his son from his twin sister at birth to prevent him and the mother from knowing she was born with Down syndrome."
Stars: Emily Watson, Dermot Mulroney and Gretchen Mol
A good story. The TV movie was fair. Emily Watson did a good job. The ending was a bit like a soap opera. The beginning drew me in but the story seemed to go flat toward the end. Still, I'm glad I watched it.
I agree JOy, the book was very good and moving but hard to cope with at times. I wasn't thrilled with the movie either. nina
I finally made myself watch "Shakespeare in Love") via a Netflix DVD)."Shakespeare in Love" (1998)
Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes & Geoffrey Rush.
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Sha...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/
"A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays."
"This bittersweet romance won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress."
I gave it 3 Netflix stars out of 5. The story was a good one and Gwyneth Paltrow was lovely as Viola whom Shakespeare falls in love with in this story. However, I never learned to appreciate Shakespeare's plays. So when the Shakespearean language went on too long I started to become bored.
The bonus features gave some interesting background about the movie. For one thing, I found out why certain parts of the movie were confusing. The director purposely kept shifting scenes, melding together parallel couples, Shakespeare-with-Viola and then Romeo-with-Juliet. (Gwyneth Paltrow & Joseph Fiennes play both couples.) At times the viewer can't tell which couple is which because of the rapid shifting. I suppose this was very artistic but unless you're prepared for it, it's confusing.
The bonus feature also pointed out why Shakespeare included humorous lines and light scenes in his serious dramas. He was trying to appeal to all tastes in order to attract customers since he had a mixed audience which included both high-brow and low-brow elements of the population.
Netflixed Stonehttp://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Stone...
I gave it 5 stars out of 5. This film seem REAL and rang TRUE to me. The only fly in the ointment was in the final seconds when it seemed to go all metaphysical or religious or something. I may watch this again after a year or so, that's how much I liked it.
I thought it was too predictable. I hate when I know what going to happen in the first 10 minutes of a movie. Makes the rest of it a waste of time. Now that my initial movie/TV frenzy is over, I find myself being hyper-critical. With that being said, it was still good and worth seeing.
Earl wrote: "Netflixed Stonehttp://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Stone...
I gave it 5 stars out of 5. This film seem REAL and rang TRUE to me. The only fly in the ointment was in the ..."
Earl - I, too, don't care much for metaphysical talk in a book or film. The book, Gilead by Marilynne
Robinson, was filled with metaphysical rambling. (I read it in 2008 and still remember that.) For that matter, so was _The Da Vinci Code_.
Here's the IMDb page for
"Stone" (2010)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1423995/
Genres: Psychological Thriller / Crime Thriller
Stars: Edward Norton, Milla Jovovich and Robert De Niro
"A convicted arsonist looks to manipulate a parole officer into a plan to secure his parole by placing his beautiful wife in the lawman's path."
At IMDb I learned that the title comes from Edward Norton's character whose name was Gerald 'Stone' Creeson.
The Sequel to the long running, "Upstairs/Downstairs," is on Masterpiece Theater, PBS tonight starting at 8:00 PM here.
Joy, sometime between 1999 and 2004, I also watched Shakespeare in Love (one of our girls wanted to rent it --I think she thought Fiennes was cute!), though not the bonus features. Like you, I liked it to a point, but I wasn't crazy about it. The archaic language didn't really bother me, but I felt like Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife, not the modern-day actress :-) ) got really cavalier treatment from both the writers and the characters. And it's definitely a made-up storyline, not a dramatization of anything that really happened. But it did have its pluses: it's a really good window into the world of the late 16th-century Elizabethean theater, the portrayals of Elizabeth I and Christopher Marlowe struck me as probably spot-on, and it's got a strong feminist sub- text in some ways that I appreciated. (And Paltrow is a gifted actress, who brings her character to very realistic life.)
Nina wrote: "The Sequel to the long running, "Upstairs/Downstairs," is on Masterpiece Theater, PBS tonight starting at 8:00 PM here."So glad you mentioned it, Nina. I just finished watching it. The new cast is very promising. It was good to see Jean Marsh again.
Werner wrote: "Joy, sometime between 1999 and 2004, I also watched Shakespeare in Love (one of our girls wanted to rent it --I think she thought Fiennes was cute!), though not the bonus features. Like you, I lik..."Werner I agree with you when you say "Shakespeare in Love" was "a really good window into the world of the late 16th-century Elizabethean theater". The scenes of the inside of the theater and the audience were impressive... so many extras had to be hired and costumed.
I hadn't thought about Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway at all. Good point. As you said, it was a made-up storyline, pure fiction. But it helped me to think of Shakespeare as a real person, rather than just a literary name.
Judi Dench won an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. Gywneth Paltrow also won an Oscar for her role as Viola. Yes, Joseph Fiennes WAS cute. :) He's the brother of actor Ralph Fiennes.
I didn't know about Dench and Paltrow's Oscars. Yay! For once, a couple of Academy Award choices I can agree with! (It's been known to happen, rarely. :-) )
Judi Dench is in Jane Eyre coming soon. I am reading it now. nina
I recently read part of Judi Dench's autobiography, And Furthermore. I didn't finish reading it. It was OK, but I had more interesting books waiting to be read. Here's my review:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Werner, Here's the IMDb Awards page for the film "Shakespeare in Love":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/a...
There were quite few nominations as well as wins.
Have an of you read, "The Lord of Misrule?" It is to be regarded as a book to read at our book club. nina
Wow, Shakespeare in Love got seven Oscars in all, including Best Picture (presumably of 1998, the year it was released). All of that was news to me --you can tell I don't follow the Academy Awards very closely!
Nina wrote: "Have an of you read, "The Lord of Misrule?" It is to be regarded as a book to read at our book club. nina"I started it & hated it, not because of the story, but because the author does a stream-of-consciousness type of writing where one paragraph can have multiple characters thinking to themselves & speaking to others. I had to re-read pieces a couple of times to figure out who said what to whom & all.
(There's a reason that The Elements of Style has been published for so long. Follow it & your readers can follow you. Artsy crap like this author pulled is fine in small doses, but it gets old & confusing very quickly for me. Too much like work.)
Marg read it & managed to get all the way through it. We discussed it & both felt the author really knew the subject matter, but neither of us cared for the delivery. The characters were pretty well drawn. They must have been because we both knew real people who were very similar to the characters in the books & both put the same names to them.
She said the story was pretty depressing & that's the impression I got as well. Neither of us will ever look for another book by the author. Not worth the effort.
Nina wrote: "Have an of you read, "The Lord of Misrule?" It is to be regarded as a book to read at our book club. nina"Nina, which _The Lord of Misrule_ are you referring to? There are quite few books with the same title, but different authors. See the following Goodreads list:
http://www.goodreads.com/search?q=lor...
The original meaning of "Lord of Misrule" was: "One who presided at traditional Christmas revelry in England during the 15th and 16th centuries."
I figured she was talking about Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon. It's pretty high profile right now & she or one of my friends recommended it to me because of the horse racing angle. It looked interesting so I got it. Not a complete loss since Marg read it & I just sent it out via PaperBackSwap for a credit on some other book I want. Mom read it for her book club, too.I'm just a curmudgeon when it comes to artsy writing, I guess. I don't like to work at reading, as a general rule since I read fiction for pleasure & to relax. I read tech stuff all day & that reading really is work. That's plenty.
Jim, thanks for the info.Artsy writing gets on my nerves too, especially writers like Toni Morrison.
Country Strong and Harry Potter 7 pt 1 came out on DVD today. I just finished Country Strong and it was fantastic. I don't even like country music. For fans of country music, this is a must see.
I was impressed with the overall story and the fact that all the actors did their own singing. And they were all excellent, in both singing and acting. Totally worth seeing this movie.
When Ant gets home we'll watch HP; I'm sure I'll love it, as I did the rest of the series.
Thanks for the input, Jim, as I knew you would know if the story background rang a bell for you. Evidently, that part was OK but the rest sounds not a like to read book for me. I think I heard similar reports from another source. nina
Jackie wrote: "Country Strong and Harry Potter 7 pt 1 came out on DVD today. I just finished Country Strong and it was fantastic. I don't even like country music. For fans of country music, this is a must see. ..."Here are the links for "Country Strong" (2010):
http://movies.netflix.com/Search?oq=c...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555064/
"A drama centered on a rising country-music songwriter (who sparks with a fallen star (Gwyneth Paltrow). Together, they mount his ascent and her comeback, which leads to romantic complications involving her husband/manager and a beauty queen-turned-singer."
Has anyone seen this new movie?"Win Win" (2011)
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and Jeffrey Tambor
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Win_W...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606392/
"Disheartened attorney Mike Flaherty (Giamatti), who moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, stumbles across a star athlete through some questionable business dealings while trying to support his family. Just as it looks like he will get a double payday, the boy's mother shows up fresh from rehab and flat broke, threatening to derail everything."
Sounds like a good one. It's on my "saved" queue at Netflix. Not sure when it will be available from Netflix.
No, I haven't seen Win Win.The imdb write-up for Country Strong is too simplistic, makes it sound boring.
Harry Potter: surprisingly, I didn't care for it, I'm sad to say. For a 2 hour and 20 minute movie, things didn't move much and I felt they just dragged it out so they could split the movie in two and get a double payday. I'm glad I didn't spend money at the theater on this one.
Jackie, Ed and I tried seeing a Harry Potter movie when it first came out. It just seemed to be one hair-raising episode after another... never-ending. It just wasn't for us, sorry to say.
It's good if you're into Fantasy and HP was very well-written and the movies were really good. Except this one. I'm annoyed because I'm going to be forced to buy it for my collection. If it wasn't an ongoing story, I'd skip this one altogether. There goes $20. lol
They say that there's some sort of a "collectors" gene in human beings. So many of us like to collect certain categories of things. I used to collect so much. Now I'm trying to get rid of it all. :) But I do hate to part with my favorite things... and when I do, I usually regret it for years. I regret giving away my favorite books. As my mom used to say, you can always give things away. What's the rush? LOL But after a while we run out of space. There's the rub! :)
That gene passed me by, I'm all about No Clutter. I only buy movies that I will watch numerous times, so it's cheaper than renting. I know I called it a collection, but it's really not. It just seemed the easiest word to call it.I have no problem getting rid of stuff. My rule is, you have used it in a year, you never will, throw it out. I have to do the throwing out in this house because both my guys have the collector gene, lol
Anthony will keep the most stupidest stuff because someone gave it as a gift, I have no emotional attachments like that. If I have no use for it, I give it away or throw it away.
Jackie, that certainly makes life much easier. :)
It does. The boys call me The Clutter Nazi because I'm constantly on them about leaving anything laying out and I threaten to throw things out if they don't have a place. If something has a place, put it there, if it doesn't you can't have it. lolSpace is limited and I don't like the way clutter looks, it makes the house look dirty and umkempt. I'm not a clean freak so I have to resort to de-cluttering. lol
Our book club picked, "The Lord of MIsrule," in spite of the fact that I relayed your critique, Jim. I will let you know the result. nina
LOL - Good verb, "de-clutter". Don't you have a "maturing table" for articles "in transit"? :)
Nope. If it doesn't have a place already set, it can't come in the house. See what I mean about the 'nazi' part? lolConversations about 'stuff' in our house generally start like this:
E: Mom, can I have ___?
J: You got a place for it?
The response determines if they can have whatever it is they want.
It does have a lot of stuff to discuss, Nina. I'm sure you'll get through it. I might have if there was a reason other than pleasure reading for me. There wasn't, so it was just too much like work & too much like real life. Yes, people actually are like that at the track &, yes, they do all those things.
Thanks for the input. That book will be discussed by my book club members who happen to be writers; some of whom have published books to their credit and we do discuss and critique the monthly choice from not only a reader's point of view but also from a writer's. So, hopefully that book will lend itself to a good discussion. nina
Tell them what I said about "The Elements of Style" then, please. Some writers can get away with brief departures, but they should be effects, not the standard. The gods made quotes for a reason!
;-)
I did tell them what you said about,"Elements of Style," and when we actually review it I will remind them again. When I was writing for publication(never a novel) it was my Bible. nina
I watched a Netflix DVD of:"Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" (1994)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110588/
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Mrs._...
Stars: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Campbell Scott and Matthew Broderick
Below are excerpts from three of the member reviews at Netflix:
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"Love the look of the film, great cast, but we had to turn it off or slit our own wrists! Jennifer Jason Lee's accent is muttering, deplorable, fake, unintelligible."
"...the director, Alan Rudolf, should have demanded that Jennifer spit out the marbles and pull her voice out of her throat. Her affected accent and imitative sound does not help the picture. In fact, it draws attention away from what is actually a masterful performance."
"Jennifer Jason Leigh does a great disservice to Mrs. Parker by adopting a slurring, unintelligible accent and slithering dramatically around the set, not quite meeting anyone's eyes, like a shy schoolchild. The script is wonderful, the supporting cast is very talented. If they ever remake this movie with a different lead actress, it would be worthwhile."
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My feelings exactly. I also found it hard at times to tell which actor was playing which famous person. They didn't make it clear enough. If it weren't for the annoying aspects cited above, the film would have been much better. Certainly, it's interesting to learn about the life of the witty Dorothy Parker.
Because Easter week is approaching I thought this was a good quote:"Love and kindness are never wasted, They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver." Barbara De Angelis
nina
Speaking of clutter; once I had a poem published concerning that theme. It was actually read at a symposium for single Dads/MEGAN'S ROOM
Megan makes Mom mad
sometimes when she
leaves her room a
mess.
Today whe left it
bare, when she went
to visit Dad.
nina
Interesting poem, Nina.
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