yourstruly

I think it's clear that the GOP Senate is going to do away with the filibuster to prevent Democrats from being able to obstruct the GOP agenda.

I am so grateful I live in a county that went more than 2-1 for Clinton and an office where *everyone* was in mourning. People admitted that they were looking at jobs overseas, someone suggested that we open a branch in Australia just so we could all leave, we even opened a bottle of leftover champagne at lunch as a sort of wake, since America committed suicide last night. But she had a good run. I appreciate this thread. I don't feel better per se, but I just don't want to feel alone. And reading these responses, along with deciding to go to work today, has actually helped. Better to find good people to be around than to wallow in this pain.

I am hearing that from everyone and experiencing it myself. My body is feeling the same way it did when I heard about the death of a family member or friend. Hungry but can't eat, tired but can't sleep, on the verge of tears but too shocked to cry, numb but achy at the same time. And I don't know when I will stop feeling this way. I do know that eventually I will cry and I also know that eventually I am going to get so furious. I am full of hatred for all who voted for him and all who voted for Johnson and Stein and I don't see this going away until he and Pence are gone.

(small voice) I think the problem with the Solange musical bit was how turned down her vocals were. Her new album is *fantastic* and I love "Cranes In The Sky" (the song she sang with the headdress) (/small voice). I'll see myself out...

Ditto to everything you said. I saw it a week or so ago (yay free screening!) and was so moved. I was not expecting it to be *that* good on every level. The movie looks beautiful and there is not one weak performance-I don't know who I would say was the best actor in it. I also liked that it showed an aspect of Miami that never gets shown and avoids typical Miami on film cliches (I've never been there). I am definitely seeing this again and will happily pay.

This basically reminded me of that David Cronenberg movie Existenz with Jennifer Jason Leigh. Instead of the video game designers firing a port into the base of your skull, in that movie they fire the port into the base of your spine. I'm not into video games at all, so I can't imagine 1. agreeing to let anyone fire a vague "attachment" into my neural system for any reason, unless it was to save my life and 2. I can't see getting excited about and agreeing to play a game that fed on and exploited all my personal fears. I just could not suspend my disbelief enough to accept that. If I had been the protagonist, this show would have ended with me calling Mom and having her wire me money to get a flight out of Heathrow that afternoon.

If there is already a topic for this, apologies and please delete mine! I just got back from this and I *loved* it. I think it's Kaufman's most direct and moving work since Eternal Sunshine. As much as people are praising Jennifer Jason Leigh for Hateful Eight (which I have yet to see) I would be surprised if she is better in that, because she is incredible (with just her voice!) in this one. I was also impressed by Tom Noonan, and was just wondering about how much work it must have been for him to voice all those characters (he is everyone who is not Leigh or David Thewlis). I don't think it's as knock-your-lights out bleak and powerful as the closing scenes of Synecdoche New York (I am one of the tens of people who adore that movie) but it's way more consistent and has fewer wacky tangents than Kaufman's previous work. And the stop motion is interesting-you stop noticing the artifice of it very quickly and just go along with it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

I totally think Jennifer Jason Leigh will win this. She is a revered actress (other actors seem to bow down to her) who had never been nominated before, to the point that people were incredulous about it. She's been working *forever*. She comes from the movie industry and her parents are well known. She got praised for her performance and Tarantino always gives actors something to chew on. Category fraud issues for a couple of the other nominees. McAdams's role is not that big or showy (sadly that will hurt her). Winslet already has one. Just my worthless prediction...

Lifetime Oscar voting rights changed... This seems fair and like a good way to get rid of some of the geriatric dead weight that gets a lot of the blame for some of the stranger/dicier/more out of touch Oscar choices in recent memory. Another way to resolve this would be to...just not care about the Oscars so much? It's subjective and it's obvious that they are a bit challenged when it comes to judging quality. So stop making it the end all be all. JMHO.

I saw Vertigo for the first time last night and...I don't get the gushing praise for it. I don't even think it's Hitchcock's best movie, let alone one of the best movies ever made (critics' polls always put it in the top 10). There were obviously good elements to it-the opening credits, the music, Kim Novak's performance(s), etc...but I can't see myself enjoying watching it again. Maybe watching it again to see what I missed, but with Rear Window or Psycho, if it comes on and I catch it, I will end up watching the whole thing, no question, and be riveted all over again. I can't see myself doing that with Vertigo.

The new Todd Haynes movie starring Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. I saw it last night. All of the reviews are saying it's Haynes' best movie and...I think Far From Heaven retains that title IMHO. It's *good*, but after seeing it, I am not sharing in the rapture. The look of the movie is incredible-you are there, completely immersed in the 1950s and you buy it lock, stock and barrel. I just didn't buy the love story and it wasn't nearly as devastatingly emotional as Far From Heaven. That movie, especially the final scenes, kill me dead. This seemed more mannered and maybe *too* restrained. Blanchett has one great scene where she goes full Blanchett, but she was better in Blue Jasmine. And the category fraud issue is real, Rooney Mara is without question the main character. I do think one thing that was interesting was that the movie (and the book) diverge from the predominant tendency in gay-themed work, even now, to have a tragic, nearly operatically tragic, ending. Apparently the book was controversial in its day because it suggested that gay relationships could work and the gay lovers don't have to die or be permanently separated. It made you think about how back then, gays and lesbians had "roommates" or "good friends" and could not say any more. It's interesting, and Haynes is always worth seeing. But I am not getting the "best of the year, one of the greatest love stories ever" hype.

This is me being extra-sensitive and I honestly try not to be, but I have noticed (maybe just in my head) a strange pattern in sci-fi movies-the actors of color are more and more likely to play under heavy makeup or performance capture: see Zoe Saldana and nearly all the Nav'i in Avatar, Lupita Nyong'o in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and now, incredibly, Idris Elba in the new Star Trek: Beyond trailer. No, not kidding. http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/star-trek-3-beyond-image-21.png Someone as good looking as Idris Elba and you hide him under pounds of makeup?!?! I know this could be good for his career and all, but still. I find this sort of...hmmm.

As with everything else in life nowadays, there's an app for that. http://runpee.com/

One of the critics who voted there hinted that that was exactly what happened.

That's smart. I always thought that was done to prevent people from double dipping on one ticket.

National Board of Review is Dec. 1st and New York Film Critics are the next day...so, next week. Apparently, everything except Star Wars has been screened already.

It will be interesting if the issue of category fraud comes to a head here. There was an article that said that Mara and Vikander submitted themselves as supporting and the Golden Globes wouldn't allow it-they are both clearly leads. Mara already won Best Actress at Cannes for Carol and is in the movie more than Blanchett is. Article linked below... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/awards-category-fraud-insane-inflation-842089 They mention other performances, many of which won, and in some cases, I can't see the line between lead and supporting and in some cases, yes, it was stretching it. Like last year, I don't know, was Patricia Arquette supporting in Boyhood or not? She won awards in both lead and supporting - a case could be made either way. On another note, I am interested to see how Creed will do-the critics are going nuts over it, Ryan Coogler is seen as an up-and-coming director (Fruitvale Station was devastating), Michael B. Jordan is also up and coming and was tipped to be nominated for Fruitvale, and it's expected to do well. And then there's Sylvester Stallone, who is being singled out for praise and nomination talk. It would be insane-has *any* actor been nominated for playing the same character 40 years apart?! And what if he won?!

Which has proven to be the case: IMDB shows Nyongo as doing three movies since winning the Oscar-OK, one is Star Wars but that is motion capture and you don't actually see her and another is a voice in The Jungle Book. I can totally see that they just don't know what to do with her, which I find so ridiculous.

Not to be pedantic, but it's probably not in the movie because it's not in the book. And Lewis was married. They were really faithful to the events and the tone of the book, which I appreciated. Same with cutting back to his family-in the book he mentions them but doesn't dwell on them (at least as much as I can recall). There is a part where Beth talks to her family and a pretty gruesome survival strategy is alluded to and I was surprised that they cut that out. The book is very technical and procedural about surviving moment to moment in that environment. When I finished it and found out that Weir was a computer programmer, I thought "yeah that sounds about right". It's not an emotional novel at all-I actually liked it more because of that.

This is totally shallow and unfair, but I would just support Charlotte Rampling winning sight unseen just because it seems like the Best Actress winners are always so young, especially in comparison to the Best Actor winner. My random prediction: Ridley Scott wins Best Director-The Martian did incredibly well critically and commercially and it can be a defacto lifetime achievement award. Ala Martin Scorsese-everyone knew that The Departed was nowhere near his best movie, but come on, he made Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Same with Scott-yeah, it isn't Alien, Blade Runner or Thelma and Louise, but it will do.

Directed by Ava DuVernay (dir. of Selma, Middle of Nowhere)

Loved it. So glad it's back! I actually put this on my calendar and cleared my schedule so that I would be home to watch it as it aired. Love Jamal and Michael back together...because they are both so damn pretty. I don't see it ending well though. And I think gangster jr. is not in Jussie Smollett's wheelhouse-it wasn't that convincing to me. Chris Rock was...surprising. It was more convincing that I would have expected. It was like an inverted Pookie. And God help me, I know that he is a truly horrible person in real life, but I think Terrence Howard is such a good actor. His line deliveries, his choices...he's just deliciously entertaining to watch. I think a good season premiere should get you excited to watch for the rest of the season and this nailed it. I am in.

Random worthless trivia-the director of Mean Girls is the brother of the director of Heathers. My unpopular opinions-or the ones I can think of off the top of my head-I think British actors are overrated and not inherently better than American actors. And I think Beasts of the Southern Wild is an unbearable movie, and basically trades on the noble black savage myth and portrays poor black Louisianans as "exotic". Since half my family is from New Orleans, I guess I don't see people from Louisiana as exotic. The whole movie made me cringe and it's up there with American Beauty and Little Miss Sunshine as one of those movies where if someone gushes about it, I think less of them. I *loved* it-I think it's the closest anyone has gotten to making a great movie out of a Sondheim musical.

YES. He was *wonderful* as Eazy-E (anyone who thinks this is a joke, see the movie) and all the reviews have singled him out for praise. I hope that the success of the movie means he will be looked at at the end of the year. He also has a great story-New Orleans native who fell into drug dealing, lost everything in Katrina, came back to New Orleans and worked as a dishwasher in restaurants, took acting classes at night and worked his way into the field. If they nominate him, that would be a great call. http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2015/08/jason_mitchell_straight_outta_compton.html

This made me go out and buy some old Dr. Dre and the NWA songs that I didn't already have. The funny thing is, I don't even think Straight Outta Compton is a good album. Like top to bottom, there is a lot of filler. It's just that the good songs are *so* good, *so* incendiary, that they overshadow how mediocre the majority of the album is. And what Dr. Dre and especially Ice Cube did afterwards leaves NWA in the dust. Yeah, like, when out of nowhere, Tears for Fears came up on the soundtrack. Although to be fair, I'm black and I love Tears for Fears.