Notable examples of films set in one room that were successful: Rope, Rear Window (slightly expanded set), Coherence, and The Guilty (Danish).
Thanks, I've been meaning to see the Rope and Coherence. I'll add The Guilty to my list as well. I saw there was an American remake, but I'll stick with the original.
As for Johnny Flynn, what he lacked in intimidation, he made up for in coming across as petulant and entitled. Whenever he was on screen, my stomach turned (in a good way) in the same way it does when I see Joffrey in Game of Thrones or Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) in Blade. I at least hope you also
I would recommend watching the French movie, "The Rules of the Game", "La Dolce Vita" (Marcello is in both), "L'Aventura", and then this. I saw the first 30 minutes a few days ago, and finished it this morning. When I first watched it, I gave it an 8/10 (I think) on this thread (I think). I think I just completed this movie also to see the next movie (L'Eclisse, and then Red Desert, if I make it)
And like many things on YouTube, the movie is free. Stop wasting your money when YouTube is better. Sometimes you just have to search the original title in another language which you can find on IMDB.
@Takoma11 I think Adam's Rib is the all-time great satirical comedies, and incredibly ahead of its time when it was made. It discusses the friction men and women can experience between each other more frankly and honestly than most movies dared to do during the 40's. I think an apt comparison would be The War Of The Roses. Another movie where the estranged couple act extremely nasty towards each other, and where neither of them are particularly sympathic but their quarreling is so entertaining to watch. It actually gets much darker than Adam's Rib, so if you felt uncomfortable during that movie it might be worse with this one.
This was actually a lot of fun and better than the trailer made it look. I wasn't convinced by the casting beforehand but they convinced me. I do like the musical a lot although it took me a while to warm to the songs so even if you like musicals it might come across as odd if you don't already know it, and if you don't like musicals I think it would probably be a hard sell. But I thought it was a really good film version of the musical.
At 2 hours, 44 minutes, my usual criticism is it's too long.
And the first two thirds... before it gets to the meat of the story... is very slow. The nice thing is much of the slowness is filled with fantastic vistas & nature shots.
A beautifully shot period piece that explores prejudices & caste systems of British-occupied India in the 1920's. The plot towards the end is very gripping, but it takes so long to get there.
But I am left with one prevailing question (for those who've seen it)...
Why did Adela accuse a man of rape whom she liked and respected, a man who showed her kindness and whose people Adela herself felt were treated poorly by the British, when she hadn't been raped at all? Why would she treat someone like that whom she viewed as oppressed? Someone outraged over inequality & oppression doesn't then make accusations of horrific crimes against the very people they feel pity for, do they?
Okay, we know she was insecure about her engagement as she flip-flopped on it at least once, we know she may have been sexually repressed (as indicated by her scene in the lost ruins) - but to accuse an innocent man of rape as a response to these things? To try to destroy the life of someone you like because you're unhappy with your own? As the prosecutor asked Adela when she withdrew her accusations in court: "Are you mad?"
Was that it? Was she mad? Was she somehow driven insane by the echo in a cave? (A lot of hints pointing that way, but no explanation.)
Personally, I needed more indication as to her motive than to just be left speculating! In that respect, the movie began to feel more like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) instead of a historical piece & courtroom drama. What was her goal in accusing Aziz of something that did not even occur?
The one nice surprise was when Mr. Fielding reveals he ended up marrying Stella (Mrs. Moore's daughter) and not Adela as the film previously leads us to believe.
Why did Adela accuse a man of rape whom she liked and respected, a man who showed her kindness and whose people Adela herself felt were treated poorly by the British, when she hadn't been raped at all? Why would she treat someone like that whom she viewed as oppressed? Someone outraged over inequality & oppression doesn't then make accusations of horrific crimes against the very people they feel pity for, do they?
Okay, we know she was insecure about her engagement as she flip-flopped on it at least once, we know she may have been sexually repressed (as indicated by her scene in the lost ruins) - but to accuse an innocent man of rape as a response to these things? To try to destroy the life of someone you like because you're unhappy with your own? As the prosecutor asked Adela when she withdrew her accusations in court: "Are you mad?"
Was that it? Was she mad? Was she somehow driven insane by the echo in a cave? (A lot of hints pointing that way, but no explanation.)
Personally, I needed more indication as to her motive than to just be left speculating! In that respect, the movie began to feel more like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) instead of a historical piece & courtroom drama. What was her goal in accusing Aziz of something that did not even occur?
The one nice surprise was when Mr. Fielding reveals he ended up marrying Stella (Mrs. Moore's daughter) and not Adela as the film previously leads us to believe.
Last edited by Captain Steel; 12-16-22 at 05:22 PM.
Love this classic. Can’t answer your spoiler question since it’s been a while. Would have to view it again.
Looking at the cover more closely, there we have Alec Guinness as an Indian. Race-swapping anyone? Judy Davis is Australian - was she an Aussie in the movie? Can’t remember. And people are riding on top of elephants? Always a no-no for me in any circumstances.
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Love this classic. Can’t answer your spoiler question since it’s been a while. Would have to view it again.
Looking at the cover more closely, there we have Alec Guinness as an Indian. Race-swapping anyone? Judy Davis is Australian - was she an Aussie in the movie? Can’t remember. And people are riding on top of elephants? Always a no-no for me in any circumstances.
Judy Davis was purely British in this story.
I was wondering what point Alec Guinness served in the plot (seemed the movie could have played out as it was without him)... but then I read on IMDB that much of his footage was left on the cutting room floor by director David Lean... after that the two never spoke to each other again! With all the actual Indians in the film, looks like they swapped one out in exchange for Guinness's recognizable name!
Yes, there was elephant riding, rape accusations, hitting Indians on bicycles with cars, monkey cosplay, lots of racism... all sorts of nastiness!
Avatar The Way of Water (2022) The film looks great and is technically well crafted, but is nowhere near as good as the first one. It's far too long and lacks the magic and wonder of the original Avatar. There are some spectacular moments along the way, but not enough to justify its bloated runtime.
I would recommend watching the French movie, "The Rules of the Game", "La Dolce Vita" (Marcello is in both), "L'Aventura", and then this. I saw the first 30 minutes a few days ago, and finished it this morning. When I first watched it, I gave it an 8/10 (I think) on this thread (I think). I think I just completed this movie also to see the next movie (L'Eclisse, and then Red Desert, if I make it)
Nice recommendations. I've seen all titles you mention except La Notte and The Rules of the Game by Renoir. Will have to get round to seeing them. Still struggling to really connect with Antonioni, other than stark coldness and emptiness. If there's something more I need to look deeper to find it. Maybe that's the point. Huge admiration though, maybe Marcello can add a new dynamic to the whole thing for me. Gotta say also Monica Vitti was perfect in these.
And like many things on YouTube, the movie is free. Stop wasting your money when YouTube is better. Sometimes you just have to search the original title in another language which you can find on IMDB.
I don't know - there's a whole debate I could go into over how much a film's derivative features affect our enjoyment of it. Oblivion isn't the most original of apocalyptic sci-fi films to come along, but it looks absolutely stunning and I still enjoyed it the second time around. Joseph Kosinski, who's done well for himself with Top Gun : Maverick directs the action really effectively - and I love the way the film ends, by both taking us somewhere awe-inspiring and showing us how the events that originally transpired actually began at the same time - those two ends of time being neatly tied together. It's not revolutionizing the genre, but it's a solid entry with a lot of polish. It won't survive intellectual scrutiny however, so it's one of those "switch your brain off" blockbusters.
Ocean's Eight followed the heist formula so closely that it became kind of predictable, and it unfortunately doesn't have many twists and turns in it to liven everything up. Sometimes in these movies things go wrong, forcing members of the heist crew to improvise and try to make their way through hairy situations. In this one, everything goes to plan step by step - which for me drained the film of any tension it might have been able to create. To be fair, some things go wrong during the set-up which force the gang to improvise, but aside from that I found Ocean's Eight somewhat joyless and average. It wasn't on my wavelength humour-wise either, which kind of just left me with the joy of watching a good heist take place and little else.
5/10
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Ocean's Eight followed the heist formula so closely that it became kind of predictable, and it unfortunately doesn't have many twists and turns in it to liven everything up. Sometimes in these movies things go wrong, forcing members of the heist crew to improvise and try to make their way through hairy situations. In this one, everything goes to plan step by step - which for me drained the film of any tension it might have been able to create. To be fair, some things go wrong during the set-up which force the gang to improvise, but aside from that I found Ocean's Eight somewhat joyless and average. It wasn't on my wavelength humour-wise either, which kind of just left me with the joy of watching a good heist take place and little else.
5/10
The writing in Ocean's 8 was so weak! It's always frustrating when a film wastes a great ensemble.
It's a big one, the latest James Cameron epic. This time it's chapter two of the Na'vi and their amazing planet Pandora, attempting to end their exploitation by the mechanized, militaristic occupiers who appear to have earth like attitudes. It picks up a "decade" later. An anti-aging enzyme has been discovered that's only found in unbelievably huge whale like creatures, who, when killed, yield about a quart of the magic liquid. There's also another faction among the humanoids, the Na'vi being one, the other being anatomically somewhat different; there's friction between the two tribes and the humans want to exploit this by morphing some actual humans on the Na'vi template so they can be agent provocateurs. Not surprisingly this culminates in the huge battle that dominates the movie.
Well....what an extravaganza. The movie went on for about 3 hours and 10 minutes but seemed much longer. Lots of action, no noticeable dialog, factions on the movie that are fairly thinly veiled metaphors for a variety of conflicts between technological humans and native populations, with nature being the biggest loser. Because I couldn't imagine Cameron doing a movie in which the Na'vi are simply exterminated, the "whales" drained of their magic fluid and the planet becomes a corporate plantation, the main question was how long this had to go on before some balance was restored. It turned out to be 3 plus hours. It felt like 4.
That said, the 3D animation is spectacular. Much of it is set underwater, the colors are resplendent and the action seems convincing enough that you start to believe in 10 foot tall blue humanoids. Having seen the first movie, I expected nothing less. I just wish about an hour of the movie had been left on the cutting room floor. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. It's worth seeing, but make sure you have a full belly and an empty bladder before you go in. Apparently, chapters 3, 4 and 5 are in the queue, so we have not seen the end of Pandora.
Benedict Cumberbatch convincingly portrays a mild mannered businessman from 60's London who is recruited by the secret intelligence service into recieving documents from a high ranking soviet official to try an advert the Cuban missile crisis in this true story. Cumberbatch loses an extremely amount of body weight in this movie. He makes Bale in Machinist look fat.. I was shocked when I seen him and almost wanted to cry when he was talking, he says the process of losing the weight was "horrible" and left him feeling very vulnerable and you clearly see that. His performance was top notch. There's nothing you haven't seen here before but it done it perfectly fine and it was worth a watch. Felt timely given the current circumstances though more from a one sided view one might say. At its heart a story of friendship.
Up is a fun and at times magical adventure where Carl gets back to his little boy's dreams and eventually accepts his fate which is basically an old people's home. Very good movie with excellent first 10 minutes. My favorite Pixar film. The montage of Carl and Ellie's life at the beginning is lovely and I love how they didn't even show her funeral but just Russell sitting at the table with an empty chair opposite of him (this is later repeated multiple times, including juxtaposing the image of Carl sitting in the armchair with an empty armchair next to him. Ellie sat in that armchair in the opening montage. Even later there are two empty armchairs which symbolize that Carl went on with his life.).
There's some poignancy in how Carl escapes the caretakers who come for him to take him to an old people's home. He just attaches hundreds of balloons to his house and flies off! This works well within that entire theme of dreams that take you up and memories that weigh you down. This is clear during the first 10 minutes when Carl's cart tries to go up because of all the balloons attached to it. Carl presses it down with the weight of his body because he married Ellie and chose her over following his dreams. Later on in the film, when the little boy says "It may sound boring, but boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most", Carl kind of remembers Ellie at that point and the "boring" life they had. Of course, none of that is shown or spoken, it's just his facial expression for a second. So then when he skims through his Adventure Book, he discovers that his relationship with Ellie was an adventure, too. And that she thanked him for the adventure and told him to have another one. So he throws away his old stuff from his house, including the two armchairs, so that he can again soar into the skies.
Up is a fun and at times magical adventure where Carl gets back to his little boy's dreams and eventually accepts his fate which is basically an old people's home. Very good movie with excellent first 10 minutes. My favorite Pixar film. The montage of Carl and Ellie's life at the beginning is lovely and I love how they didn't even show her funeral but just Russell sitting at the table with an empty chair opposite of him (this is later repeated multiple times, including juxtaposing the image of Carl sitting in the armchair with an empty armchair next to him. Ellie sat in that armchair in the opening montage. Even later there are two empty armchairs which symbolize that Carl went on with his life.).
There's some poignancy in how Carl escapes the caretakers who come for him to take him to an old people's home. He just attaches hundreds of balloons to his house and flies off! This works well within that entire theme of dreams that take you up and memories that weigh you down. This is clear during the first 10 minutes when Carl's cart tries to go up because of all the balloons attached to it. Carl presses it down with the weight of his body because he married Ellie and chose her over following his dreams. Later on in the film, when the little boy says "It may sound boring, but boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most", Carl kind of remembers Ellie at that point and the "boring" life they had. Of course, none of that is shown or spoken, it's just his facial expression for a second. So then when he skims through his Adventure Book, he discovers that his relationship with Ellie was an adventure, too. And that she thanked him for the adventure and told him to have another one. So he throws away his old stuff from his house, including the two armchairs, so that he can again soar into the skies.
There's that overarching question: should you choose down-to-earth life with somebody who is real and human or should you choose to follow your dreams perhaps never being able to fulfill them? Hell, dreams can even turn out to be fake or illusions (like the famous explorer you were a fan of in your childhood who turns out to be a villain!).
The soundtrack reminded me of the soundtrack to the wonderful film Yoyo. Though not quite as similar to Up's soundtrack as I remembered, I still get the same kind of magical, nostalgic vibe from both:
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