Cinemexperience: part deux., Some more filums you saw. Options

[Raven]

The Life Aquatic

It always fills me with such sweet melancholy.

^ It filled me with boredom.

The Dark Crystal

Still holds up surprisingly well, as I don't think the puppets have dated in the same way CGI or animation may have done. I hope the sequel is as good.

[maian]

Immortals (2011)

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.

I expected a lot from it since I loved The Fall, but that Tarsem brings his customary opulence to the visuals the plot is so plodding that it was hard to care about it on any other level than a purely aesthetic one. Admittedly it looks great and the action sequences are well-done (the 3D adds nothing, but that goes without saying at this point. When will this godforsaken fad fucking die?) but it's so relentlessly solemn and serious that it's just not all that much fun. The irony being that it tries so hard to be serious that it winds up being ridiculous; you can only extend a certain amount of reverence to a film which features long stretches of James McAvoy strutting around in shiny gold boxers. If it had been just a little less dull it could have been campy fun, but it doesn't even reach that level.

This post has been edited by maian: Nov 10 2011, 10:26 PM

[maian]

Apparently it's Luke Evans who plays Zeus in Immortals, not James McAvoy. The resemblance is really, creepily uncanny.

[Serafina_Pekkala]

Shame - I was looking forward to that. Mirror Mirror sounds more promising though. ^

The Dark Crystal

Still holds up surprisingly well, as I don't think the puppets have dated in the same way CGI or animation may have done. I hope the sequel is as good.

Still amazing and still terrifying. I don't like this 'sequel' idea.

Frost/Nixon

Highly recommended intelligent film for grown-ups. Pretty impressive all round. Sheen and Langella really shine in their roles and rightly won awards but no way as many as deserved. All other 'Nixon impressions' look like Spitting Image puppets in comparison - and Sheen managed to avoid caricature too. Excellent work too from Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, Toby Jones as (genius) Swifty Lazar and Matthew McFadyen too - I would pay good money to see these all together in something. Platt and Rockwell especially work amazing together. And even though she wasn't given much to do, Rebecca Hall was delightful as she always is on screen. Even delivering lines like "I live in Monte Carlo" with a shiny smile. Lots of 70s glamour like pubs on planes and Hollywood hotels and parties with Neil Sedaka. The look and feel are flawless if a bit too rose-tinted. The gritty business of interviewing a President is tackled too and stuff such as the Cambodia questioning is pretty important today*. The script is awesome and Ron Howard shows why he is still top of the A-list. I am amazed there was no best script gong for Morgan. His pace and story weaving is artful. Not sure how true it is but even so, as speculation goes, it is thrilling.

* strangely the night before I saw Stephen Fry speaking about Christopher Hitchens (who was too ill to attend) and they mention Hitch's book on Kissinger and Cambodia. Which is hugely important still. And i though - how timely. Funny when that happens, isn't it?

This post has been edited by Serafina_Pekkala: Nov 11 2011, 11:39 AM

[bigfatrich]

In an attepmt to increase attendance on our courses, we're looking at holding some kind of "film club" one afternoon per week. However, I don't feel that endless showings of Fast & Furious; Saw and Paranormal Activity is the way forward with it.

Any suggestions about films which may capture the interest of 14-19 year olds whose experience is limited to the type of films listed above would be most welcome. If it's any help at all:La Haine has worked with some groups, but Oranges and Sunshine, depsite the local links, worked with none.

[Serafina_Pekkala]

Anything teen and John Hughes.

[bigfatrich]

Anything teen and John Hughes.

John Hughes is a great idea, thanks

[NiteFall]

Mel Brooks' earlier works? From before he became a bit crap.

[bigfatrich]

When would that have been? Trying to put this together has shown me how limited my own knowledge of films/cinema is.

[mcraigclark]

When would that have been? Trying to put this together has shown me how limited my own knowledge of films/cinema is.

Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs would get my vote.

[NiteFall]

Anything up to Robin Hood: Men In Tights really. Whether or not you include that one depends entirely on whether or not you believe Cary Elwes is good enough to redeem it. Definitely Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety and The Producers though.

[Sostie]

As great as they are I think Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety might be a stretch for those who don't know the sources (Universal horror & Hitchcock)

I'd go for Airplane, Top Secret & Holy Grail.

[Jimmay]

I'd go for Airplane, Top Secret & Holy Grail.

That's a hell of an evening in right there.

[Serafina_Pekkala]

I vote Holy Grail.

[maian]

I third the nomination for Holy Grail, alongside Airplane!, since they're both so silly that it'd be hard for anyone not to like them.

The Rum Diary (2011)

Johnny Depp returns to the Hunter S. Thompson well and the results are mixed, to say the least. For its first two thirds it's a diverting enough series of comic vignettes in which Depp's character of Paul Kemp wanders through Puerto Rico in the early 1960s, gets drunk and hangs around with an assortment of similarly drunk oddballs at the low rent paper that he works for, then falls in love with a glamorous young woman (Amber Heard; hot) who is engaged to the sleazy businessman (Aaron Eckahrt) who offers Kemp the opportunity to do some writing on behalf of his shady land deal. That plot strand leads into the film's troubled third act, during which it suddenly decides that it wants to be about something, specifically the birth of Hunter S. Thompson; voice of the angry and disenfranchised. It wouldn't have been so awkward if the film had at any point before that suggested that Kemp's problem was that he couldn't find his voice, but it tries to cram it all into the last third and, whilst it ends on a nice enough note, I couldn't help but feel that the film would have been better if it took itself a little less or a little more seriously. Either jettison the "author searching for his voice" angle or make it central, don't just have it as an afterthought that is added in to give a flimsy comedy some weight.

Fun enough for the most part, but the inkling of what it could have been makes what it is incredibly disappointing.