caracas1914
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Posts posted by caracas1914
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Ali McGraw looked good in a beret.
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4 minutes ago, caracas1914 said:
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12 hours ago, Simon Boccanegra said:
I consider Shoah one of Kael's greatest reviews.
I differ with some of the above in that I don't think Kael's contrarian streak has gone extinct in modern film criticism. Whenever a new movie is released to widespread acclaim, it's easier than ever to find dissenting voices, with Rotten Tomatoes collating everything. And there are always at least a few. To give one example of a very highly praised movie of recent years, Moonlight has 386 reviews posted there; seven are pans, They're not all obscure bloggers either; some are with major publications, and two have the site's "top critic" seal. (A third is, perhaps inevitably, the National Review's Armond White.)
Ah the infamous Shoah review, Kael wrote that the director, Claude Lanzmann, “could probably find anti-Semitism anywhere”.
Somehow I don't see any mainstream critics today writing a similar scathing review.
It wasn't so much that Kael was contrarian vis-a-vis many revered films, but how she skewered them. They seemed to offend her personally. though truth be told, With Pauline, everything was personal.
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19 hours ago, Rinaldo said:
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, from 2019, feels more satisfying, partly because restriction to one person's life allows greater focus and a proper conclusion, but also because of the chosen mode of presentation: No narrator, just her words (I'd love to know how Sarah Jessica Parker was chosen as "her voice," though in the end she does well) and those of people who knew her, speaking to the camera. She herself is also seen and heard in a number of TV and home movie clips. Any needed bibliographical landmarks are displayed onscreen without fuss... including, I was happy to see, the man who actually did the research that went into "Raising Kane." Among those participating are her daughter Gina James, Molly Haskell (much more gracious than her late husband Sarris ever had been -- admittedly Pauline had been brutal about him in "Circles and Squares," but he never stopped resenting it or their first meeting, ever), Alec Baldwin, Quentin Tarantino, and many more. Peter Bogdanovich is given his obligatory 5 seconds to pout about how meeean she was to Orson Welles (she wasn't). It gives a good picture of her life, including her curious blind spots: her eternal surprise that people she'd eviscerated in public didn't want to hang out and be buddies; her co-opting of her daughter's life as chauffeur and typist; her assembly of a crowd of younger like-minded critics (the "Paulettes") while publicly maintaining that no such thing existed. Naturally someone tries to make the point that after gaining fame by taking an anti-auteurist stance, she became a huge auteurist herself; but I think this betrays a misunderstanding of what auteurism meant as Sarris practiced it in the 1950s, as well as the nature of her admiration for some of the new directors who arrived in the 1970s. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot and I think it's very well put together.
I've alway had a soft spot for Pauline Kael. Agree or disagree, Kael had visceral reactions/responses to films which mirrors the way many of us experience movie-going. Nowadays some film criticism is so tip toey or almost by consensus. Compare with Pauline's : nothing wishy-washy about her film opinions. She was not afraid to go out on a limb, and when it came to panning a movie, todays critics don't hold a candle...hehehehe....
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On 12/13/2020 at 7:45 AM, Spartan Girl said:
What the hell, this turned 40 this year.
Yes, it is one of the ultimate “so bad it’s kind of good” cheesy sci-fi cult classic 80s movies. And it would be nothing without the kickass Queen soundtrack.
For the record, I never would have even heard of this had it not been so brilliantly skewered on VH1’s I Love the 80s. It’s now a guilty pleasure movie, even more so now because of the damn coronavirus.
So yeah, there will be a remake at some point. But for now, would anyone be interested in discussing the campy over-the-top performances of Max van Sydow, Brian Blessed, Topol, and Timothy Dalton?
I'd rather focus on Ornella Muti,, best sci antiheroine EVER...... Shocked no awards came her way.
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Agree that the witty "It's not about me" was the best number in the movie. I dunno, it would have been nice to have had a musical with some bite along with the usual Ryan Murphy schmaltz poured on. Murphy wouldn't know nuanced if it hit him on the head.
The rest of the musical numbers just fell flat, there is nothing more glaring than forced exuberance.
Nicole Kidman tried her best but her dancing was so subpar that it was the elephant in the room, a veteran chorus line hoofer she's not in any way, shape or form.
I could see how they felt they needed all the star power, but the musical itself was fairly flimsy so it seemed to collapse under all of it.
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Agree that the witty "It's not about me" was the best number in the movie. I dunno, it would have been nice to have had a musical with some bite along with the usual Ryan Murphy schmaltz poured on. Murphy wouldn't know nuanced if it hit him on the head.
The rest of the musical numbers just fell flat, there is nothing more glaring than forced exuberance.
Nicole Kidman tried her best but her dancing was so subpar that it was the elephant in the room, a veteran chorus line hoofer she's not in any way, shape or form.
I could see how they felt they needed all the star power, but the musical itself was fairly flimsy so it seemed to collapse under all that weight.
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The 1947 version can be summed up in two words:
Sexual Tension.
It had it in spades and few films can equal it.
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9 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:
Honestly would swapping Sofia for Winona really have changed anything? Mary’s storyline was trite at best and icky at worst — Vincent was her damn COUSIN!
And the whole premise of Michael’s eleventh hour remorse and trying to redeem himself was bullshit anyway.
Though Godfather 3 gave us the memorable line: "Just when I thought I was out...they PULL me back in"
Duvall being left out was really the biggest problem, Coppola in hindsight realized that how integral Tom was to the story. Tom was like the Greek Chorus/Conscience of the movies, of the family but still separate.
Francis had been battered badly financially and even critically with his Zoetrope studio woes so Paramount essentially had him by the short hairs. The only Godfather film that Francis essentially did what he wanted without major studio opposition/friction was the middle film.
Godfather 3: The bones of the story I thought were good, with Michael having the hubris to try to whitewash himself and his sins by legitimizing his business, which of course was a Sisyphean endeavor. Some of the dialogue between Michael and Kay gave them some closure,, and the machinations with the Vatican echoed back to one of the themes of The Godfather saga that the Mafia was like any other big business, with corruption/duplicity/murder on all levels.
Tom in the middle of all this, with Robert Duvall, oh what might have been.
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On 12/8/2020 at 6:18 PM, voiceover said:
Little Women was my favorite book as a girl, and I've cherished at least something from each of the adaptations (Christian Bale is the best actor to have played Laurie; Jonah Hauer-King looked exactly like Alcott's description of Jo's best friend) (I could go on, and have).
It is from this fangurl island that I report with horror and disgust that the TCM app's article about the 1994 adaptation has an error so glaring for a classic movie channel to make, I can hardly bear to report it here:
The author mentions Susan Sarandon taking on the role of Marmee -- the part, he writes, made famous by Katharine Hepburn.
Are you freaking kidding me??
I'll be on my fainting couch, having a little bromide with gin while waiting for a rebroadcast of One Way Passage.
We feel for for you Countess Delave, if word gets out, La publicite!
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2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:
I don't think that Elena was crazy. I think she was pretty calculating. Her actions were meant to unsettle Grace, presumably leading up to a point where Grace would confront Elena and Elena would confess. Elena's mistake was that she was playing games with someone who was capable of brutally murdering her.
Didn't she paint a portrait of Grace in her studio? It seemed she thought that she had made a connection with Grace and appreciated Grace's kindness. All these red herrings that could interpreted so many ways. Perhaps the problem was that while Matilde de Angelis played the character as high strung / overwrought she certainly didn't come across as insincere in her dealings with Grace at all to me. In Elena's mind maybe everything was going to be resolved with them being some great big extended family, which sure seems delusional bat shit crazy to me.
The way Elena was used as a prop, with the men hovering around her at the benefit because she was this irresistible object of desire, and the women uncomfortably fixated on her breastfeeding, (Sylvia grudgingly admiring her breasts) and the full frontal nudity while confronting Grace at the gym; it seems in 2020 things really haven't changed much, as long as you clothe it under psychological thriller.
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I guess what annoyed me about the whole resolution was that Jonathan was simply a bat-shit crazy sociopath and that Elena was a bat-shit crazy over possessive mistress.
That was it.
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Love Hermine, but quite frankly she panicked a bit, the pressure apparently getting to her in the Semifinals stage. Improvising your recipe with gelatine at the last moment, Oh no.
Laura is messy, emotional and what reality TV loves, a "cryer". Having said that, the judges rarely have issues with how her bake taste, which is something you can't say about so many other contestants.
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On 11/25/2020 at 4:14 PM, Rinaldo said:
Which makes an interesting criss-cross with Rope, for which the first-choice casting for Rupert was Cary Grant. But for whatever reason (stories vary) he didn't do it, and James Stewart was cast instead. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents has written that he was especially disappointed that they didn't get Grant, because the only way the gay subtext could be conveyed in that era was through the personal qualities that the three main actors conveyed, and Stewart was so unambiguously heterosexual that he killed that whole idea.
Ah, Rope with its infamous 10 minutes takes somewhat appearing to be one long uninterrupted film. Looking at it now you can clearly see the edits. I confess Rope is a guilty pleasure of mine, for all it's flaws.
Stewart was reportedly unhappy with this Hitchcock filming experiment but yes, the bigger problem is that he was woefully miscast. Cary Grant in the role would have brought forth the sexual tension of the character with his two former students. Stewart mouthing Nietzsche-like takes on murder just looks so WTF out of place, ( almost as bad as Gary Cooper mouthing Ryand individualism tripe on the Fountainhead).
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On 12/1/2020 at 5:45 AM, festivus said:
I just finished watching The Queen's Gambit last night and she was great. I've never seen her in anything before but I could not look away from her, she owned that screen. She has a different look but I think she has an otherworldly beauty.
Btw, her name is Anya Taylor-Joy. I thought it was Anna too until about halfway through watching.
Agreed Anya has a unique , I think cinematic look. She is like an anime character come to life. Her spin on yet another movie version of "EMMA" was interesting, and she gave weight to what could have been just the prototypical victim/hostage heroine of the Split/Glass films.
The reality is like most young women actresses she has limited shots for stardom, whereas male actors (insert basic white leading man) can have 10 flops in a row and still get offered potentially star-making leading roles.
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I confess I'm a big fan of Anya Taylor Joy and her "anime" face, it strikes as so cinematic. Loved her in "Split"/ "Glass" as a teenager and currently "The Queen's Gambit" she made the character so interesting.
Her take on Emma what I enjoyed is she didn't work overly to make her " likable", this Emma is clearly a snob and patronizing and the snap with her early dialogue with Knightley was there.
There were nice touches, such as the attendees cooing over Emma's singing/ piano performance totally trumped by Jane Fairfax's pseudo humble "I guess I can play unreheared" morphing into "this is how it's done, bitch". Emma's reaction was priceless.
I was surprised that that character who was fleshed out differently to me was Vicar Elton played by Josh O'Connor. Yes the obsequiousness is still there; However his humiliation and anger at Emma's rejection rang so genuine, and then the subtle ambivalence with his final marriage choice and the hint he's been humanized a bit at the end (his cadence on the world "innocence") was a fresh take. Eli Cumming now has competition as far as the ideal Elton.
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NFL Thread
in Sports
So how did the Tampa Buccaneers get Antonio Brown? Seriously?
Don't look now but Brady is back in the hunt for #7, but Patriot fans are not bitter.
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Goodness Armie Hammer was worse than even I imagined as Max de Winter.
An empty white vanilla yougurt container has more inherent interest. Even Max's coiled anger/rage was reduced to Armie's pouting. Absolutely no menace or mystery in this Max.
Whose idea was it to clothe him in that yellow suit in the Monte Carlo scenes?
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On 10/17/2020 at 9:55 AM, Wiendish Fitch said:
Great idea! We all need a light hearted topic like this.
My picks:
..........Asta from The Thin Man series: I love terriers, and they don't come as lovable and mischievous as Asta!...........
Asta in real life was Skippy, and man was he was the king canine of screwball comedies... Appeared in the "The Awful Truth" with Gary Grant and Irene Dunne as the subject of a custody battle between them as a sparring divorced couple.
I loved him as "George" in my favorite SB comedy "Bringing up Baby", yup he's the one that ran off with the dinosaur bone...
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If this works out, it seems the best way to deal with the tragic demise of Chadwick per the Black Panther franchise:
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Apparently Frank Sinatra treated Marlon Brando badly during the making of "Guys and Dolls." Not only was Sinatra miffed that the lead role of Skye Masterson went to non singer Brando, but the previous year Brando got the role that Sinatra coveted in "On the Waterfront"
To Brando's chagrin, Sinatra, instead of singing in his character's (Nathan Detroit) strong Jewish- Bronx accent, Sinatra opted to sing the songs in his regular romantic voice, creating "two" male lead singing roles.
According to Fiore, a friend of Brando, Brando had his revenge as Sinatra’s character Nathan has to eat into some cheesecake while listening to Brando’s Sky. Brando stretched it out to eight takes of dessert-eating, Sinatra decided enough was enough. According to Fiore, he yelled, “These f**king New York actors! How much cheesecake do you think I can eat?” before storming off the film set.
While this account is from a friend of Brando's , from so many accounts on so many movie sets Sinatra was No. 1 Asshole, with a whole entourage around him, so I give this account the benefit of the doubt.
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On 9/3/2020 at 10:36 PM, BetterButter said:
What? He's cutting out all of Sofia's screentime? 🤪
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It doesn't get any better than this....
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OMG, It had been ages since I had seen "The Fountainhead"(Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey) , and to my delight it's still as batshit crazy a movie as I remember.
They Ayn Rand dialogue is something to behold, and I can't get over how Gary Cooper designs a housing project for the poor and damn if their needs not be addressed over his individual rights. The closing speech by Gary Cooper to the jury goes on and on and one.... It's hilarious.
OF course THE scene of the drill being used by Gary Cooper at the quarry that Patricia Neal dreams about afterwards.....best phallic symbol imagery in a Production Code film ever.....
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Mank (2020)
in Movies
At the risk of sounding like a cultural philistine but this is a movie for only the critics to love.
The admittedly detailed craftmanship (B/W cinematography) overwhelms the premise of the film and bare bones there is no genuine driving narrative. The film tries to drum up suspense for the gradual reveal as to why Mank "betrayed" Hearst/Marion Davies and my impression was there isn't anything there, it's certainly not even the irony of a "Rosebud" reveal. As others have said, the film is not genuinely about the making of Citizen Kane but more Mank's ambivalence with his Hollywood existence/experience, 30's politics, Orson Welles trying to squeeze a screenplay out of Mank, and the fake facade of tinseltown. Yet all these narrative threads seem half assed. They get some "details" right, but I couldn't help but wonder to what purrpose? I will say It is the first time I've ever seen the MGM wonderkind Irving Thaldberg portrayed as a duplicitous weasel.
The title character should be magnetic/charismatic/, Allegedly Hearst loved having Mank front and center at Hearst Castle dinners because of his wit, but as played by Gary Oldman he's one note: washed up, bitter and self destructive throughout the film.
However I concur with all the accolades Amanda Seyfried is getting, her Marion Davies in a relatively brief role is a fleshed out interesting person, and she conveys the ambivalence that Marion supposedly had about her own fishbowl existence as Hearst's long time mistress.
Another distracting note: We get that Mank was this prematurely aging self destructive person boozing his way to an early grave (though he lived 13 more years after Citizen Kane) but having said that, Gary Oldman is way too old looking. When the character states he's 43 , you do a double take. Gary's Mank appears older than Luis B. Mayer, WR Hearst, etc, and when the film flashbacks to 1930, when he's suppose to be a fairly youthful 33 Oldman still looking 63 + years old is just too much cognitive dissonance for me. All the contemporary characters including his wife and brother seem decades younger than him. Even Gary Oldman is not that good of an actor to pull off the illusion.