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Author Topic: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.  (Read 428150 times)

Offline Gazapete

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #330 on: October 08, 2018, 02:54:54 AM »
I would like to read your review, I am going to try to find it *flexing fingers over keyboard*

Offline gattaca

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #331 on: October 08, 2018, 03:47:44 AM »
Actually, I must be losing it.  My bad. I never wrote one of my short reviews - just that I liked the film and recommended "Wind River" highly if you liked HoHW.

http://ultimatebrokebackforum.com/index.php?topic=40633.msg2688235#msg2688235

Ok, so here's my take and the main links below.

BLUF: It's a nice way to spend a couple of hours watching a great (sleeper) film with no regrets.  V.

Spoilers ON!

LOVED the ironic twists. Everything from the dueling brothers who give us a careful dance of the crazy and stoic older brother taking care of his younger brother - including a finale of self sacrifice.  The brothers motive of trying to save the family farm from the evil greedy Texas banks who are adept at stealing valuable property for nothing, is refreshing.  Yeah it's one thing to borrow and not pay, it's another to outright steal the other way too. 

Our brother's are re-linked and motivated by their dying parent who assumed the unpayable debt maybe due to his illness. .  The younger brother Toby (Pine) also has a wife, and family (young sons) who's he's trying to do the right thing by after many years of failing them and ending in a divorce.   So it's a redemption story from that angle as it seems like he's not been around too much and may have had a "it's time to grow up responsibility" challenge with much of his life spent in his older brother's shadow.  His irresponsibility  seems driven not  having a "real job" or real opportunity.  The greedy Texas Midland bank helping him lawyer up is all that more ironic too - just loved that twist.

I found the interactions between the brothers as well as the The Ranger (Bridges) or his partner (Birmingham) well played. There was earned respect for what each pair was trying to do.  I've said the film is full of twists and turns and gotchas. 

The finale surprised me. I did not expect Alberto, (Bridges partner) to get shot right outta the gate in the final sequence but I did see the brother's death (Tanner) coming by miles.   There are a couple of lines between Markus (Bridges) and Alberto (Birmingham) which gave me pause but in context, it was all friendly banter which in the end proved that both of these guys really cared about each other too way beyond the daily job grind.

The finale wraps up with both men Toby (Pine) and Markus (Bridges)  "dancing around what they know but cannot prove in full Texas style"  That concludes the story but part of me feels it could have omitted.  Things could have stopped at that final gun shot,  and Tanner slumping over and then Bridges saying something like "I got that SOB" and we would have been left  to our own imagination for what happens to Toby and his family. 

I've seen HoHW probably 5-6 times now and it's one of the rare films where if I see it on, I might just land there and stay - sort of like I do with  "Hidden Figures" or "The Martian" which I recorded on the DVR and I'll just queue up as background ambiance when working around the house.

For me, it's some of Bridges best work in years and I've said several times prior how I feel about Pine - especially as James T. Kirk in his Star Trek role  :o  ;D  8)
Spoilers OFF!

1) Ebert's site -> https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hell-or-high-water-2016
"The most surprisingly satisfying of the bunch comes from Chris Pine, who turns in his best work to date in a part that finds him dialing down the smirky charm of his nouveau Captain Kirk in order to play a far more serious-minded character. "
2) Rotten -> https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hell_or_high_water/reviews/
3) Rolling Stone -> https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hell_or_high_water/reviews/
4) LA Times -> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-1122-hell-high-water-20161110-story.html 
5) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/22/hell-or-high-water-best-picture-oscar
« Last Edit: October 08, 2018, 08:33:43 AM by gattaca »

Offline Gazapete

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #332 on: October 08, 2018, 04:01:25 AM »
Thank you!  :-*


The brothers motive of trying to save the family farm from the evil greedy Texas banks who are adept at stealing valuable property for nothing, is refreshing.  Yeah it's one thing to borrow and not pay, it's another to outright steal the other way too. 


This made my day, robbing the bank that has been robbing their mother for so many years, wrong but oh so right!
I also liked the commentary Pine's character makes about poverty being hereditary and all of this being a desperate attemp to break that vicious circle and give his kids a better chance.

Offline oilgun

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #333 on: October 08, 2018, 06:36:46 PM »
Colette with Keira Knightley. It's very conventional but quite enjoyable. One of Keira's best performances.
"Yer fond of me lobster aint' ye? I seen it - yer fond of me lobster! Say it! Say it. Say it!" - The Lighthouse.

Offline Sara B

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #334 on: October 09, 2018, 01:48:53 AM »
^^^^

I might look out for that. I read quite a lot of Colette when I was young (in English, except for Le Blé en Herbe, which I just about coped with).

In what way is it conventional?

Offline ingmarnicebbmt

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #335 on: October 09, 2018, 01:54:00 AM »

I've always liked Colette, and found her life and novels more than fascinating.
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And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that.

Offline oilgun

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #336 on: October 09, 2018, 08:36:40 PM »
^^^^

I might look out for that. I read quite a lot of Colette when I was young (in English, except for Le Blé en Herbe, which I just about coped with).

In what way is it conventional?

I'm embarrassed to say that I knew very little about her life and haven't read any of her books.

By conventional I just meant that it follows her life - during the Willy years- chronologically in a very straightforward manner. Very Merchant and Ivory I guess. It was a delight to watch though, with gorgeous costumes and production design and a great cast but I did find the music a bit intrusive at times.

I just read a review that I agree with completely. It also makes me hope for a sequel that would deal with Colette's amazing life after her first marriage:

https://www.thewrap.com/colette-film-review-keira-knightley/

"[...]
Because we spend so much time on her first marriage, we never get to the Colette who became one of the first female war reporters, or wrote a bestselling novel referencing her own affair with her second husband’s teenage stepson, or rescued her Jewish third husband after he was arrested by the Gestapo, or influenced so many of the great minds of her time, or lived long enough to be embraced, shamed, shunned, and celebrated by the same society.

“Colette” does offer us an engaging introduction to a fascinating woman. But it’s hard not to wonder: Why tell the story of an avant-garde, ambisexual iconoclast if you’re planning to play it so safe?"
"Yer fond of me lobster aint' ye? I seen it - yer fond of me lobster! Say it! Say it. Say it!" - The Lighthouse.

Offline Sara B

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #337 on: October 10, 2018, 02:52:56 AM »
Sounds attractive.

Offline Flyboy

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #338 on: October 13, 2018, 09:45:47 PM »
I tried to watch The Kindergarten Teacher with Maggie G, but my Netflix wouldn't cooperate, or whatever, kept restarting, or resetting the film...I finally just shut it off. Will try another day. Love watching Maggie G.
Wondering if anyone else caught it yet? 

Offline Lyle (Mooska)

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #339 on: October 14, 2018, 11:20:45 AM »

--Wildlife

One of my SAG friends invited me to two screenings this weekend. This is one of them. It stars
Carey Mulligan, whom I'm not a fan of...I liked her very first film she got wide attention for, An
Education, but I haven't cottoned to her since. It also stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

It's hard for me to review the film or even talk about the performances because this is a movie
that I just sat and watched and had no feeling toward it from beginning to end.

Going in I had no idea what it was about or who directed, nothing but who the two leads were.
So when it started I found out it's a period piece set in 1960's Montana, mostly, and was going
to revolve around a family, Jake and Carey, the mother and father, and a son. At first everything
about the film, especially the period aspects, had me ready to go with the film, but nothing changed
for me from that moment on. It was like I was experiencing something that made no sense to me.
I was like an observer who came into town and started watching things going on that I had no idea
why or who they were or anything.

So this morning I looked up the film on Rotten Tomatoes and it has 25 reviews at the moment that
are nearly all from when the film was shown at one film festival and all 25 of them rate it positively.
This is what the "critics concensus" says: Wildlife's portrait of a family in crisis, elegantly adapted from
Richard Ford's novel, is beautifully composed by director Paul Dano -- and brought brilliantly to life by a
career-best performance from Carey Mulligan. (I'm impressed that critics can tell one performance from
another by her.)

Maybe I shouldn't try to make sense of my experience. I really thought there was such a profound absence
of backstory to any of the characters that it really made no sense as to what they were doing or why. (Which
means it left me not caring. The central character, the son, witnesses what's happening to his family, but it's
all one note as to how he reacts to it, it's as though he had the same problem as me...what am I watching and
what is going on. And why. While watching it I kept thinking that the director was more interested in making
pretty camera shots, as though he was arranging photographs in an appealing way on a wall. I enjoy period
film making, but I felt on occasion it wasn't presented as real, and perhaps that's because of my previous
sentence to this one. When I found out at the end it was directed by Paul Dano, an odd person who plays
odd characters most of the time, it seemed to make more sense.

For those more interested in Jake, you should know he disappears for the middle part of the film.

Good luck!

Offline Lyle (Mooska)

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #340 on: October 14, 2018, 11:30:34 AM »

--Can You Ever Forgive Me?

This is the other film I saw and I also had no idea what it was about, just who the leads
were, Melissa McCarthy and Richard Grant.

Jane Curtin has a small role, too, playing her writer's agent. It's based on a true story of a less than successful
author (McCarthy) named Lee Israel, who writes biographies of famous people that no one's really interested in
and she's having trouble making ends meet. While she is researching something she finds a typed letter signed
by Fanny Brice in a book she's using for research and tries to sell it for some money, but they say it isn't that
interesting a letter to collector's because of the mundane content and offer very little for it. She gets the idea
to start forging these type of letters (and signatures) that interest collectors and begins doing so.

I thought this world of author memorabilia and collectibles and the type of people who navigate this world
and why was intriguing.

Richard Grant is a gay friend she tolerates (she's lesbian, too, but it's a more peripheral tangent than Grant).
I was intrigued with the subject matter and liked that Melissa McCarthy toned down her usual loud, obnoxious,
physical personas she has in all her other movies. The Richard Grant character is very well-played, but seems
a bit like a stereotype that we, maybe not others, have seen so often before. Jane Curtin's role I wish had been
somewhat larger.

It probably won't be on any favorite movie lists of mine, but I was satisfied enough to say I liked it. Oh, it's based
on the real life person who actually got into this scheme and subsequently wrote a book about it with the same title.

Offline Lyle (Mooska)

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #341 on: October 14, 2018, 11:39:43 AM »

--Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I saw this one last week. It had all the elements I've liked about all the other films in the series,
both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, so I enjoyed it. It what I wanted and what I expected in
these films!



Offline Lyle (Mooska)

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #342 on: October 15, 2018, 11:05:47 AM »

--The Catcher Was a Spy

This is a recent film about Moe Greenburg.  He was a baseball player who ended up being a spy for the U.S. during WWII.

It stars Paul Rudd with a substantial supporting cast including Jeff Daniels, Connie Nielsen,
Guy Pearce, Sienna Miller, Mark Strong, Paul Giamatti, Giancarlo Giannini and Tom Wilkinson.

By all accounts he was very secretive. To say this man was unique is an understatement. For example, he spoke at least
7 languages, read ten newspapers a day, studied law, was very academic, well-traveled and played major league baseball.

The film is based on a 1994 biography of Moe Berg.  There is also a documentary in the works about him that is set to
be ready next year.

This film presents Moe Berg as a closeted gay man. The more info you read about Moe Berg the more that idea makes
perfect sense, but reading some things about the film and a few things about Moe Berg this morning, this has apparently
caused some to declare this aspect as "questionable behind-the-scenes decisions."

In other words, it's the age old problem of "is/was someone gay or not."  We all know people seem to view this question
differently and each person has their own scale of belief. Some never believe it. Some only will if the person publicly declares
it. Some will believe a closeted persons denials that they are. Etc. Etc. Etc.

To be clear, this issue as presented is not a major part of this film, it's in some details. But it has now been argued if the detail
is correct or not. As one reviewer wrote:  ...the film seizes on scraps of gossip in Dawidoff's book (the biography it's based on) to assert
that he was a closeted gay man whose relationships with women were, even if genuinely loving, mostly a disguise.


[...] Asked through a publicist if his team had evidence beyond the book to justify this characterization, Lewin said "yes...we have used
primary historical sources to inform our depiction of Moe Berg's sexuality." Pressed for details, the director was vague before saying, "We
have not tried to depict Moe as gay. He is shown as a man who genuinely loved women, and who may have engaged with other men.
We have reflected the innuendo that followed Moe, and not tried to prove anything."


The reviewer of this film, who liked it quite well, feels this is a problem because the source material is too vague (to him or everyone?) to
definitively portray Moe Berg as a closeted male. The reviewers explanation: The Catcher Was a Spy feels both like a disservice to Berg and
an insult to historical figures like Alan Turing, who paid a tremendous price for their sexuality after giving everything they had to the war
effort. For decades, big-screen biographies glossed over the private lives of even flamboyant gay men. Taking a very private figure and
inventing a sex life that moviegoers will assume is true is hardly a step forward.


The only quibble I'd have with what the reviewer said is that this is only an issue for those portrayed as gay on flimsy evidence. No one
would care if a man who was gay, but not proven, was to be portrayed as straight. That wouldn't be an issue. Sometimes I believe it's
all right to say, with all that we know, is there the possibility that this was the case? If there's the possibility then I'm okay with it. This
situation reminds me of the same kind of thing talked about with Sandy Koufax, another baseball player, who is still around. It had never
ever occurred to me that he might be gay until a controversy about it came out when a biography was written in the 1990's. Since then,
there are so many puzzle pieces that I've come across that fit together so well, that I'm pretty convinced he is.

At the same time, the notion that Doris Day had an affair with black player Maury Wills of the Dodgers, got very little attention and no one
got into many disputes about that!  Doris Day has denied many gossipy things written about her, but she has not denied this.

All of this sidetracks from the fact that I found the film quite interesting. I like films that have different takes on the history we
all know, like WWII intrigue and such. Movies like last year's WWII set The Zookeeper's Wife, for intstance. The trailer and publicity
for the film makes it sound action-oriented, which is why I feel some critics haven't liked it. THe action is way more cerebral than
audiences are used to nowadays.

I'll be looking forward to the documentary and I'll be quite interested in how they present the notion that Berg was a closeted gay man.
With the biography and movie bringing it up, the documentary will surely have to address it in some way.  Though, Ken Burns' hours
long documentary didn't address any of that concerning Eleanor Roosevelt.

We shall see, I guess.


Offline B.W.

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #343 on: October 20, 2018, 01:14:05 AM »
Over the w/e i watched the disturbing movie "Mississippi Burning".
Starring: Gene Hackman...William Dafoe... and the fabulous Francis McDormand and
so many other great actors.

The story is based on real events that happened in Mississippi. It concerns the murder of 3 young men working for civil rights. They had been to a civil rights
meeting and were driving back through Mississippi...when they were spotted by
some members of the KKK....noticing that one of the young men was coloured.

Great movie...but as I said very disturbing.


I think I saw "Mississippi Burning" (1989) before some years ago, but I'm not quite sure.  I heard that the families of the three slain male civil rights activists were very upset by the film. Just think,  these brutal and heinous murders did not take place too long ago.  The deaths of those three young male civil rights activists in Mississippi, the murder of Medgar Evers, the lynching of Emmett Till and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sunday morning, September 15th, 1963 which resulted in the deaths of four young African-American girls: 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair, 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, 14-year-old Cynthia Dianne Morris Wesley and 14-year-old Carole Rosamond Robertson; the murders of the two young black boys Johnny Robinson and Virgil Ware, which also took place in Birmingham on the same day as the church bombing, they are such heartbreaking stories and were some of the most tragic evens that occurred during the civil rights era.  Spike Lee's theatrical documentary film about the experiences of the black community of Birmingham during the civil rights movement, also tells the story of the lives and deaths of the four girls who lost their lives in the church bombing and the events that took place after the bombing, "4 Little Girls" (1997), it is just so gut-wrenching, especially when the scene of the four girls' extremely graphic autopsy photographs is shown.  One of the four girls' head was blasted from her body in the explosion. The song "Birmingham Sunday" by Joan Baez that plays during the opening scene is so beautifully performed and so tragic.  The song "4 Little Girls" by Pantera Saint Montaigne that plays during the end credits scene that shows home footage of Denise McNair is just so poignant.  I cried all through my first viewing of "4 Little Girls".


My husband shed tears and even let out a few strangled cries when watching "4 Little Girls" with me, and he almost never cries. I think that the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Film or whatever that category is called.  The film was given a limited theatrical release before airing on the HBO channel.  I may be wrong, but I think that "4 Little Girls" played in theaters for about three months in North America, I don't know if the movie was shown in theaters in countries outside of the U.S.   I also believe that the movie was nominated on one of the American Film Institute's lists not so long ago, but I am not quite sure about that. If you haven't seen "4 Little Girls", you really should at least consider watching it.  It is so powerful and sad at the same time. Spike Lee originally wasn't planning for the film to be a documentary, but he felt that it would be more important to let the people who lived through that era and the loved ones of the four girls tell the story in their own words.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2018, 06:16:20 PM by B.W. »

Offline B.W.

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Re: What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.
« Reply #344 on: October 20, 2018, 01:18:08 AM »
I'm late posting this as I saw both movies on Sunday!

1) " All About Eve".....starring Bette Davis,Anne Baxter,Celeste Holme, George Sanders and others !
You may well think from the title of the movie that "Eve"  is Bette Davis.....
wrong....Eve is Anne Baxter. Bette is Margo...an ageing actress.

Eve is the young "wanna" be actress who ingratiates hers self on Margo......
and gradually gets the parts Margo once did/wants.

Anything Bette Davis did...never disappoints.

                                             *************

2) Spotlight.(2015).....starring...Marc Ruffolo,Michael Keaton,Rachel McAdams,
and the fabulous Stanley Tucci who so under played his character.

The newspaper "The Boston Globe"....after hearing the story of widespread child
abuse in Boston by Catholic Priests..who never got bought to justice but just
got moved to another parish....began investigating the whole story...which after
an indepth investigation they realized it was going on all over the world ..right
up to the Vatican.

Brilliant movie...though disturbing.


Univesal Pictures' "Spotlight" (2015) is a very disturbing but is very good and powerful film.  The Spotlight team for the Boston Globe were so brave to tackly such a difficult story and I applaud their magnificent job at doing it.  I'm glad that the film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2016.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2018, 12:34:57 AM by B.W. »