JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Mar 8, 2005 9:47:39 GMT -5
Just call me Mr. Better-Late-Than-Never...
I finally watched Minority Report.
Pretty doggone good for a science fiction film, though it was a bit long-ish.
Today I will watch Open Range with Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall (I'm a big fan of Duvall).
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Post by Thorngrub on Mar 8, 2005 9:55:30 GMT -5
[glow=purple,2,300]Thorn, I gotta ask..
Is Crispin Glover as tripped-out weird-seeming in person as when he's on the talk shows?[/glow]
You know, the answer to that is both "yes" and "no", somehow. I'll explain. To justify the "yes" answer, we need look no further than his stage presence, which was slightly shifty, quirks bubbling just underneath an arranged, calm exterior, but the manner of his speaking betrayed a certain degree of nervousness to be up before an audience who, for lack of a better term, is out to crucify him. At one point, when someone asked him a question, the acoustics were somewhat limited, and he had to ask that the question be repeated. I think everyone heard it the second time quite clearly, yet Crispin's stage fright got in the way of his being able to think clearly enough to provide a straightforward answer. He immediately took advantage of a noise from the back of the theater, and looked up there questioningly, raised his finger at us to wait a sec, said "Could you please hold on a minute", and while audience members exchanged amused looks, Crispin strode purposefully to the back of the theater and we could all hear him whispering to the patrons something to the effect of "Could you guys keep it quiet back here--?", and then returned to the front stage to resume questioning. The point being, everyone in the audience could tell that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse simply to avoid answering a question his mind had frozen up over. That was a bit of classic, neurotic Crispin Glover, right there.
To justify the "no" answer, Crispin spoke at great length, nearly for as long as the movie itself (72 min); heck, he may have well gone on longer than that, actually. Yet he delivered his monologue in a sound, good natured manner, and he was dressed sharply in a suit, to boot. When I met him at his signing table (I couldn't believe my luck, to be first in line), he was gracious and attentive and generally an all around hospitable guy. I felt very comfortable talking with him.
So I would say that in the final analysis, Crispin Glover was actually not as weird as he might manage to pull off on various late night talk shows, but you could still tell he could not hide his inner weirdness completely from us.
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Post by Weeping_Guitar on Mar 8, 2005 21:22:45 GMT -5
 Drew Struzan continues to be a god among men. |
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Post by Adam on Mar 8, 2005 23:29:17 GMT -5
Aside from the image of an unusally limber Yoda (like he needs a walking cane at that point), that's a terrific poster.
I look at that recently published collection of Struzan's art and I think, in the words of one Wayne Campbell:
She will be mine. Oh, yes: she will be mine...
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Post by Mary on Mar 9, 2005 2:05:11 GMT -5
Too bad the poster will turn out to be about 600 times better than the movie itself  I saw two more Greta Garbo movies recently, as the Garbo-fest in SF is winding down: Mata Hari and Grand Hotel - the latter of which won a very early academy award in 1932. OK, I'm realizing that all Garbo movies are really the same movie - Greta Garbo is an impossibly beautiful tragic heroine who falls in love with an impossibly dashing man but their relationship is doomed from the beginning. Formulaic, perhaps, but with Garbo, it really can't go wrong  Grand Hotel was actually interesting insofar as it had a huge ensemble cast, also featuring a very young and surprisingly sweet and endearing Joan Crawford, and a series of interweaving plotlines connecting all these people staying in the same hotel together - in this respect it felt very very modern, with its complex narrative and dozens of distantly connected characters. Garbo was almost too over the top in this one - a bit of a self-parody (perhaps intentionally!) - but damn was Joan Crawford cute!!! Who knew?? Here's a random movie-related top 10 list, just for the hell of it... Mary's Top 10 Movies of the 2000s, So Far: 1) Mulholland Drive 2) In the Mood for Love3) The Man Who Wasn't There4) LOTR (the whole trilogy - i don't want to take up three spots, dammit!) 5) Donnie Darko6) City of God7) Talk to Her8) Memento9) Adaptation10) Lost in TranslationI am sure, of course, that I've forgotten many worthwhile contenders - this was just totally off the top of my head! Cheers, M |
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Post by RocDoc on Mar 9, 2005 19:28:56 GMT -5
Right now my 'entertainment bag' has got:
1) City Of God
2) Anchorman
3) The Badge (Billy Bob & Patricia Arquette)
4) Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azbakan
- which is actually ½-watched already and in the VCR at home....and so far I lo-o-ove it!
I really like the concept of Hermione having a go-back-in- time necklace....
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Post by stratman19 on Mar 9, 2005 21:35:57 GMT -5
Right now my 'entertainment bag' has got: 1) City Of God 2) Anchorman 3) The Badge (Billy Bob & Patricia Arquette) 4) Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azbakan - which is actually ½-watched already and in the VCR at home....and so far I lo-o-ove it! I really like the concept of Hermione having a go-back-in- time necklace.... Anchorman cracked me up. I'm sorry, but I can't help it! |
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Post by Adam on Mar 10, 2005 9:09:43 GMT -5
Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azbakan - which is actually ½-watched already and in the VCR at home....and so far I lo-o-ove it! I really like the concept of Hermione having a go-back-in- time necklace.... I really didn't mind Hermione stealing the show either.  |
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Post by chrisfan on Mar 10, 2005 9:12:47 GMT -5
I spent so much time watching Anchorman, i started to scare myself. I watchedthe movie and laughed all hte way through it. Then, I watched all the deleted scenes, all the bloopers, the interview with Ron Burgandy ... just about all the special features. Then, I ended up watching the entire directors commentary ... which had NOTHING to do with the movie, but was the funniest thing on the disc!
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Post by Philemon on Mar 10, 2005 9:20:06 GMT -5
Original Potemkin beats the censors after 79 years
Ronald Bergan witnesses the unveiling of a new version of one of cinema's classics, as an uncensored Battleship Potemkin is shown at the Berlin film festival
Thursday February 17, 2005
The film fell foul of censors both in the Soviet Union and abroad
It was appropriate that a newly restored version of Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin should be shown during this year's Berlin festival with a full orchestra playing 'the original' score by Edmund Meisel.
When The Battleship Potemkin was first shown in Moscow in December 1925, finished just in time to commemorate the (partially successful) 1905 Revolution, it had an uninspired musical accompaniment played on an organ. The film played to half-empty theatres, because audiences, then as now, preferred the products from Hollywood.
Box-office figures were exaggerated by the authorities to demonstrate to the rest of the world that there was a large Soviet audience for Soviet films.
A short while later, The Battleship Potemkin was shown in Berlin where it became an enormous hit, moving from a small cinema on the Friederichstrasse to twelve cinemas around Berlin. Encouraged by the film's success, its German distributor decided to commission the Austrian-born Edmund Meisel to write a score for the theatre orchestra. By the time of Eisenstein's arrival in Berlin, Meisel had reached the last reel in which the battleship, with the mutinous sailors on board, goes out to confront the Tsar's navy, tension mounting as the ships approach one another.
Eisenstein's advice to the composer was 'the music for this reel should be rhythm, rhythm and, before all else, rhythm.' He dissuaded Meisel from composing purely illustrative music and got him to accentuate certain effects. (Meisel's score was thought lost for some years, and other music has been tagged onto it over the years from extracts from Shostokovich symphonies to the Pet Shop Boys.)
At Berlin, 79 years later, the pulsating score, which included gunshots realistically simulated by drums and cymbals, made a tremendous impact, especially during the final 'music for machines' sequence, where it reaches an almost unbearable percussive crescendo, counterpointing the speed of the ship. (In fact, it was an illusion created by montage. The ship was stationary.)
During the Odessa Steps sequence, against which the whole of cinema can be defined, the music reflects what Eisenstein called 'dialectical montage'.
Eisenstein's method is one of collision, conflict and contrast, with the emphasis on a dynamic juxtaposition of individual shots that forces the audience consciously to come to conclusions about the interplay of images while they are also emotionally and psychologically affected. The 80-minute The Battleship Potemkin contains 1,346 shots, whereas the average film around 1926 ran 90 minutes and had around 600 shots.
Curiously, the music was one of the aspects of the film considered to be subversive at the time. In some cities of Germany, the film was passed for screening but the music was forbidden. The Battleship Potemkin's depiction of a successful rebellion against political authority disturbed the world's censors.
The French, banning it for general showing, burned every copy they could find. It was only shown in film clubs in London, where it had been banned. Initially, in the USA, it was forbidden on the grounds that it 'gives American sailors a blueprint as to how to conduct a mutiny'. Likewise, in Germany, the War Ministry forbade members of the armed forces to see the film.
The German censors cut a scene when an officer is thrown into the water and a close-up of a brutal Cossack. A few years later, after Stalin came to power, a written introduction by Leon Trotsky was removed by the Soviets and replaced by a quote from Lenin. This latest version reinstated the original as well as some other intertitles felt too inflammatory at the time. (Despite the festival's claims of restoring a few missing scenes, there is not one frame that I had not seen previously.)
However, the one aspect of The Battleship Potemkin that has never aroused any censorship is Eisenstein's mischievous homoeroticism, which is more evident to modern audiences than ever. In the 1980s, Nestor Almendros, the exiled Cuban cinematographer, wrote: 'From its very beginning, with the sailors' dormitory prologue, we see an "all-male cast" resting shirtless in their hammocks. The camera lingers on the rough, splendidly built men, in a series of shots that anticipate the sensuality of Mapplethorpe, and at the great moment when the cannons are raised to fire, a sort of visual ballet of multiple slow and pulsating erections can easily be discerned.'
Although subjective, Almendros, and other gay commentators, cannot be accused of special pleading. Eisenstein was a self-confessed phallic obsessive. Knowing this, it is not unlikely that Eisenstein was slyly playing with the slowly rising guns as well as the scenes with sailors polishing pistons in a masturbatory manner.
There are also the fleeting shots of a young man tearing his shirt in fury to reveal his bare chest (a young monk has his shirt torn off him in Ivan The Terrible) and of two sailors obviously kissing as the cannons rise. None of this was lost on the sophisticated festival audience, who gave the performance (film plus orchestra) a standing ovation.
WOAH !! Homoeroticism in *Battleship Potemkine ... ?? Our film teacher at the faculty never told us about that !!  ;D Just the excuse I need to see that classic AGAIN !!
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Post by Philemon on Mar 10, 2005 9:43:25 GMT -5
Forget stupid old foreign movie ... Let's get real for a minute !! The Mac 10 Problem
Although 9 mm submachine guns such as the Uzi (which fires 600 rounds per minute) are popular in movies, everyone knows that real action heroes prefer .45 cal Mac 10's. These fire bigger bullets at rates of 1000 rounds (in other words bullets) per minute. They have a thirty-round magazine (the long black thing that stores the bullets) and are by any measure a deadly weapon.
Movies are filled with scenes of good guys and bad guys blazing away for minutes at a time. Of course, no one is overly concerned with reloading or lack of ammunition, but then that's been true since the days of singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers who smiled a lot and engaged in friendly gunplay between musical numbers. So why would we bother to mention what is common knowledge? We can't help but be impressed by the weight of the matter.
First, let us point out that the thirty-round magazine in a Mac 10 will be expended in a mere 1.8 seconds of sustained fire! If our shooter blazes away steadily for a total of only 3 minutes, his or her Mac 10 will spit out around 3000 chunks of lead at roughly 15 grams a piece. This amounts to 45 kilograms or a little less than 100 pounds of lead. And that doesn't account for the weight of the 3000 cartridge cases or 100 empty magazines scattered on the ground.
Second, bullets are, after all, propelled by some very hot gasses which exert high pressures that create high stresses in gun parts. A firearm can withstand the high pressures and stresses only if the blasts of high temperature gasses don't happen too many times before the firearm has time to cool off. Running 3000 of these temperature cycles back-to-back would turn a light weight submachine gun, like a Mac 10, into a red hot piece of scrap metal, that is, if it even lasted for 3000 rounds.
Yes, 9 mm submachine guns with slower firing rates would reduce weight problems, but it seems that real action heroes use Mac 10s, preferably one in each hand. We can't help asking where the sidekicks are with wheelbarrows to carry the ammo, let alone the cooling systems.
This one looks like a very promising link ... ! intuitor.com/moviephysics/index.html ;D |
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Post by Thorngrub on Mar 10, 2005 10:27:20 GMT -5
"City Of God" = Best Movie That Year (imo)
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Post by luke on Mar 10, 2005 10:31:23 GMT -5
Anchorman=Best Movie of Last Year
The fight sequence...oh man. Funniest moment ever, except for maybe the dog talking to the bear.
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Post by rockkid on Mar 10, 2005 10:41:32 GMT -5
What I found to be most interesting about Anchorman (in a sad way the funniest too) was the exact way it captured the old boys club mindset of that era.
Think Barbara Walters entry into the nightly news realm.
To damn hedonistically chauvinistically funny!
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Post by Philemon on Mar 10, 2005 10:51:33 GMT -5
OMG !! In the *I Can't Believe This* file ... You gotta check this Christian site that review movies for children !! The National Lampoon, in their wildest dreams, couldn't get that weird and funny ... Here's parts of their review for *The 101 Dalmatians* movie ... 101 Dalmatians (1996) was an attempt of Disney to revive the original classic using real life actors rather than animation. Somewhat true to the original movie, 101 Dalmatians (1996) contained, as to be expected, more unacceptable material than the original version. I have not analyzed the original movie so I cannot give you a numeric comparison, but trust me, there was more unacceptable material in the 1996 version than the original version. The fantasy of the original movie was lost and inherently came strong counterproductive influence on the impressionable. Detachment from the warmth, excitement, and humor of the original movie resulted. Of most noteworthiness was Close's good job at playing a mad and violent woman, bent on control, revenge, and gain by evil and sinister means - she did a very good job at displaying unacceptable material. The CAP Final Score for 101 Dalmatians (1996) (87) was one point over the bottom of the comparative baseline database scoring range for G-rated movies! One or two other items of unacceptable material would have thrown the movie into the CAP scoring range equivalent to PG movies. The most significant loss of points occured in Wanton Violence/Crime (W) due almost entirely to Close's violent madness and lust for revenge, control, and personal gain. Some sexual material was noted in abundant cleavage exposure, introducing an actress by showing first her legs then the rest of her, and partial nudity in a painting. Thus Sex/Homosexuality (S) lost a few points. Lying to avoid accountability subtracted a few points from Impunity/Hate(1) (I). Drinking alcoholic beverages took points away from Drugs/Alcohol (D). Using God's name in vain dissolved a few of the Offense to God points(2) (O), However, there were no instances of Murder/Suicide(3) (M) found! COMMENT: The central theme was about a bad girl's desire to kill dogs to get their coats. Animals have been used to clothe humans for thousands of years. But what made objective analysis of this movie difficult was the dogs were well personified with human personality traits by the script writers and choreographers, thus giving the viewer the sense that to kill the dogs would be akin to killing human babies. While many people indeed seem to value their dogs more than humans, we cannot permit elevatation of the dog to human status. God clearly gave us dominion over the beasts of the earth. If we were to elevate the dog to human status, we would indeed be lowering the human to the dog level. Thus, I cannot justify derating the movie based on plotting to kill dogs. It would be different if the dogs were actually killed in the movie. But please realize that while God has given us dominion over the beasts of the earth, i.e., they are here for our use, the arey NOT here for us to abuse! Other examples of unacceptable behavior included: - portrayal of a child having the desire to annihilate as a normal and acceptable desire - rule by fear and intimidation - gross examination of a dog to determine its gender - masked violence (hearing the sounds after display of activities which logically end in violence) - abduction and imprisonment to control and to gain unlawful entry - firey endangerment of humans - display of electric shock to private regionsPrivate regions ... !! Rhodes Island ?? Here's the link to the table of contents for all movies reviewed ... www.capalert.com/capreports/i] |
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