'Ariel'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
He's a supervillian! OMG!
Yeah, see I didn't realize that was supposed to be a secret until the Big Reveal Scene. I'd been assuming it was part of the premise. (Which is probably why I was so bored that I started coming up with nicknames for the movie about halfway through. Unbearable. Unwatchable. etc.)
Gee, I wonder if it's about guys who are trying to grow up and shit.
My friend Scott on the phenomenon: [link] The Startlegram screwed up the formatting, so here's what the last part is supposed to look like: [link]
Yeah, see I didn't realize that was supposed to be a secret until the Big Reveal Scene.
I had no idea until the Big Reveal, which usually doesn't happen to me when twists are foreshadowed. I wasn't very engaged with the movie, though.
Oh, right. Him. Whom I mix up with Edward Norton, I think. And mostly don't have strong opinions about...kinda wannaLevinson, isn't he? Levinson lite.(no social conscience) But it doesn't bug me like y'all. Baltimore's Ed Burns is a hero. Seriously. And I'm GenX, we never say that.
Another director who directed himself (in French!) was Jules Dassin, in Rififi. He plays the technician among the gang of thieves, and puts on ballet slippers during the scene where they stealthily break into a safe.
The whole subtext of the movie is a rebuke to On the Waterfront, so it's kind of a signal that he plays the role of the betrayer who must be executed for his crime. He takes it gallantly, aceepting his doom, because he know that you don't rat out your friends!!
(Although really the reason he cast himself was that he was a penniless director in France and couldn't afford anybody else. That's also why Jo le Sueduois is played by a German making his French-language debut: it was shocking to cast a German, that soon after the war, but it was cheaper to cast a German too.)
Always wanted to see that and TOPKAPI (sp?) which was almost like Dassin remaking RIFIFI as a lighter film (and with a more substantial budget, I think).
actually find him enjoyable in small doses, like the TOP GUN riff in SLEEP WITH ME
Which remains one of my top ten scenes of all time, but then, my love for Sleep With Me is huge and irrational.
Another director who directed himself (in French!) was Jules Dassin, in Rififi. He plays the technician among the gang of thieves, and puts on ballet slippers during the scene where they stealthily break into a safe.
Good call! Maybe French directors have superior self-direction skills.
Always wanted to see that
You'd love it, Frank. Very stylish French noir. Swanky and doomed. Plus, Paris in the 50s!
Very stylish French noir
Oh, that reminds me! I saw a new French animated film called Renaissance over the weekend (they held the press screening at Comic Con, figuring that it would be a good match for the attending critics). Oddly, the film is in English, but the website is only available in French. But the important thing is that this movie is fucking gorgeous. It's done entirely in black & white, and I mean that exactly -- no gray here, everything is either light or shadow. Kind of like a sleeker version of the art in Sin City. It's weak on storytelling (and for having Daniel Craig and Ian Holm in the cast, weak on voice talent as well), but the visuals make up for it 1000%.
I also saw Miami Vice on Monday night, and it was pretty dreadful. I wanted to like it because it's a beautifully shot film, but...it's not good. I actually had some of the same issues with it as I had with PotC:DMC in that the plot is only workable if you assume from the outset that everyone involved is very, very, very stupid (except for Gong Li, whose only weakness is wanting to have lots and lots of sex with Colin Farrell, for which I really can't blame her). Colin Farrell is overacting in a bad way, and Jaime Foxx seems to just be playing himself. It's a toss-up which was the better choice. Gong Li is the exception in the cast, mostly because she's Gong Li, and is therefore awesome. She's flinty and tough and smart and her scenes with Colin Farrell are unbelieveably hot. Those two should be naked onscreen together more often, mrowr.
As I said, it's visually stunning -- the action sequences are gorgeously shot. Unfortunately, it's kind of the same gorgeously shot action sequence over and over and over, and so by the nonclimactic third act, I was too bored to care anymore.