Well, his best film is Almost Famous in my opinion. That is a great movie. Jerry Maguire is ok, Say Anything is nothing special.
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Well, his best film is Almost Famous in my opinion. That is a great movie. Jerry Maguire is ok, Say Anything is nothing special.
Chili
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The point of the comparisons was about the evolutions in the film careers of top singing stars, that's all. The main point was about the quality of the scripts that Elvis starred in, which is why they are mostly forgotten today, in my humble opinion.
CNN has a summary of some of the TIFF 'highlight' films.
TIFF 2020 highlights: A strange start to the awards race, but a start nonetheless - CNN
TIFF 2020 highlights: A strange start to the awards race, but a start nonetheless - CNN
Arizonan God
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Alright, I guess I'll be the dissenting voice in here RE: Cuties
I'm personally of the opinion that it's exploitative trash. The lack of subtlety, dull presentation, and rushed character work are topped off by gross, over sexualized male gaze-y images of young half naked girls (yes, I know that's the point, and I frankly don't care). Of course, the conversation around the film is in many ways ridiculous (attorney generals getting involved is pretty funny), but that doesn't make Maimouna Doucoure's choices any less concerning and frankly irresponsible. Instructing child actors (not even teenagers, mind you) to dance the way they did and then to also shoot it like a Ludacris video circa '03 to drive an obvious point home that everyone already understood raises many questions. I mean, really. Did anybody need close ups of a young girls butt to realize that over-sexualiztion of children in modern society is bad? If they did, they are seriously ignorant. Again, I understand she meant to shock the audience, and again, I don't care. If anyone makes that argument in reply to my post, I won't even bother replying.
On the same token, Netflix was obvious the wrong platform for a trashy, overly self-assured French indie film. I'm sure if this went to Mubi or something, no one would care.
2/10
I'm personally of the opinion that it's exploitative trash. The lack of subtlety, dull presentation, and rushed character work are topped off by gross, over sexualized male gaze-y images of young half naked girls (yes, I know that's the point, and I frankly don't care). Of course, the conversation around the film is in many ways ridiculous (attorney generals getting involved is pretty funny), but that doesn't make Maimouna Doucoure's choices any less concerning and frankly irresponsible. Instructing child actors (not even teenagers, mind you) to dance the way they did and then to also shoot it like a Ludacris video circa '03 to drive an obvious point home that everyone already understood raises many questions. I mean, really. Did anybody need close ups of a young girls butt to realize that over-sexualiztion of children in modern society is bad? If they did, they are seriously ignorant. Again, I understand she meant to shock the audience, and again, I don't care. If anyone makes that argument in reply to my post, I won't even bother replying.
On the same token, Netflix was obvious the wrong platform for a trashy, overly self-assured French indie film. I'm sure if this went to Mubi or something, no one would care.
2/10
Yeah, I was kind of addressing that by implying that Elvis being a mediocre actor probably had a lot to do with that. If he had improved as an actor and proven himself to be a good one, as Bing did in the 30s, he would've started to get better scripts eventually, IMO. That's what I was trying to say. Generally speaking, I don't think that it's just bad luck that some actors consistently get bad scripts and others get good ones. Good actors tend to make the most out of bad opportunities and get rewarded with better opportunities in time.
ItsFineImFine
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3-Iron (2004) - 8/10
I was cold and tired and then I watched this and I was still cold and tired.
I was cold and tired and then I watched this and I was still cold and tired.
Pranzo Oltranzista
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Jussi
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Chili
Time passes when you're not looking
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Have a book on Elvis (His Life From A to Z-Fred Worth and Steve Tamerius). It lists several films linked to being offered to Elvis, some of them:
The Defiant Ones-reportedly was offered the role that went to Tony Curtis
Thunder Road-was offered the part of Robert Mitchum's brother
West Side Story-the director wanted Elvis to play one of the gang members
Sweet Bird of Youth-He was offered the Paul Newman role (Col Parker didn't want Elvis to play a bad guy)
Midnight Cowboy-The Jon Voight role was first offered to Elvis
A Star is Born-Barbara Streisand wanted Elvis as her co-star but Col Parker wanted $1 million plus top billing for Elvis
Those are just some of the 'could have been' film roles that could have changed how his film career was remembered today.
The Defiant Ones-reportedly was offered the role that went to Tony Curtis
Thunder Road-was offered the part of Robert Mitchum's brother
West Side Story-the director wanted Elvis to play one of the gang members
Sweet Bird of Youth-He was offered the Paul Newman role (Col Parker didn't want Elvis to play a bad guy)
Midnight Cowboy-The Jon Voight role was first offered to Elvis
A Star is Born-Barbara Streisand wanted Elvis as her co-star but Col Parker wanted $1 million plus top billing for Elvis
Those are just some of the 'could have been' film roles that could have changed how his film career was remembered today.
With the exception of Thunder Road, all of those are jaw-dropping. A few people must have thought there was an actor in there somewhere.
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Only the Animals (2019) Directed by Dominik Moll 7A
Only the Animals starts out as a conventional mystery. A woman’s car is discovered abandoned on a snowy road in central France. She is nowhere to be found. For a time, we see interactions among a small group of people going about their business. Presumably, some of the suspects will be members of this group. And some are. We watch as they respond to news of the missing woman. Nothing seems out of the ordinary; none of these people seem especially suspicious. Then we start focusing on individual characters, and suddenly this seemingly by-the-book mystery spirals into the strangest places imaginable. Different suspects begin to receive scrutiny, including a teenage boy from the Ivory Coast who has never set foot in France and knows none of these people personally. The bits of information that we saw at the beginning dealing with the characters interacting with one another are revisited and given a completely different and much more sinister context. Only the Animals has as many twists as an anaconda on amphetamines, and I could do nothing but smack my forehead in wonderment at the final shot. Only the Animals is a Swiss watch of a movie but brilliantly put together and fiendishly clever. Best to just sit back and enjoy the ride. There is also a beautifully constructed subtext about how loneliness can drive everybody more than a little crazy.
subtitles
Top Ten so far this year
First Cow, Reichardt, US
Seducio da Carne, Bressane, Brazil
Beanpole, Balagov, Russia
Before We Vanish, Kurosawa, Japan
Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman, US
Only the Animals, Moll, France
The Portuguese Woman, Gomes, Portugal
The Forest of Love, Sono, Japan
The Load, Glavonic, Serbia
A Land Imagined, Siew, Singapore
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Jussi
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ProstheticConscience
Check dein Limit
#Alive
with Korean people. Mostly dead ones.
Jun-u is a teenage video game streamer living in a South Korean apartment with his parents and younger sister. He rolls out of bed one day to discover an empty apartment, empty fridge and a note from mom to go get food. He of course immediately plonks himself in front of his computer, but is quickly told to check out the info on tv. Public Service Announcement: Zombies! He looks out the window and...yup. Zombies everywhere. So much for the grocery run, and that's going to matter sooner rather than later. He and some others trapped in their homes send messages out into the ether through social media, but as the days tick by and food, water, electricity and utilities begin to run out, Jun-u's mental state begins to deteriorate. During a brief window of connectivity, he receives a phone message that leaves him distraught, and hope starts to bottom out. He prepares for the end, but suddenly a laser pointer starts poking around in his apartment. Hey! Cute chick across the street in another wing of the complex! One quite a bit smarter and more resourceful than him, to boot. Two heads are better than one in the zombie apocalypse. Where do we go from here? Watch and see.
Not bad. For some reason, Koreans manage to make zombies a lot scarier than Americans. I thought this was related to Train to Busan. Probably just because it combined Koreans and zombies, now that I think of it.
On Netflix
#GotRamen?
with Korean people. Mostly dead ones.
Jun-u is a teenage video game streamer living in a South Korean apartment with his parents and younger sister. He rolls out of bed one day to discover an empty apartment, empty fridge and a note from mom to go get food. He of course immediately plonks himself in front of his computer, but is quickly told to check out the info on tv. Public Service Announcement: Zombies! He looks out the window and...yup. Zombies everywhere. So much for the grocery run, and that's going to matter sooner rather than later. He and some others trapped in their homes send messages out into the ether through social media, but as the days tick by and food, water, electricity and utilities begin to run out, Jun-u's mental state begins to deteriorate. During a brief window of connectivity, he receives a phone message that leaves him distraught, and hope starts to bottom out. He prepares for the end, but suddenly a laser pointer starts poking around in his apartment. Hey! Cute chick across the street in another wing of the complex! One quite a bit smarter and more resourceful than him, to boot. Two heads are better than one in the zombie apocalypse. Where do we go from here? Watch and see.
Not bad. For some reason, Koreans manage to make zombies a lot scarier than Americans. I thought this was related to Train to Busan. Probably just because it combined Koreans and zombies, now that I think of it.
On Netflix
#GotRamen?
I wondered if he may've received some better scripts and just didn't accept them. If so, that's definitely on him (and, maybe partly, his agent). I wonder if, because he was a small-town Southern boy who became a star, he gravitated towards scripts in which he essentially played himself, which is why his films are mostly similar, formulaic and forgettable. Perhaps he would've felt uncomfortable playing some of the characters in those films above and that's why he turned them down. If so, I can admire staying true to himself, but, yeah, it certainly didn't help his film career.
ORRFForever
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Only the Animals (2019) Directed by Dominik Moll 7A
Only the Animals starts out as a conventional mystery. A woman’s car is discovered abandoned on a snowy road in central France. She is nowhere to be found. For a time, we see interactions among a small group of people going about their business. Presumably, some of the suspects will be members of this group. And some are. We watch as they respond to news of the missing woman. Nothing seems out of the ordinary; none of these people seem especially suspicious. Then we start focusing on individual characters, and suddenly this seemingly by-the-book mystery spirals into the strangest places imaginable. Different suspects begin to receive scrutiny, including a teenage boy from the Ivory Coast who has never set foot in France and knows none of these people personally. The bits of information that we saw at the beginning dealing with the characters interacting with one another are revisited and given a completely different and much more sinister context. Only the Animals has as many twists as an anaconda on amphetamines, and I could do nothing but smack my forehead in wonderment at the final shot. Only the Animals is a Swiss watch of a movie but brilliantly put together and fiendishly clever. Best to just sit back and enjoy the ride. There is also a beautifully constructed subtext about how loneliness can drive everybody more than a little crazy.
subtitles
Top Ten so far this year
First Cow, Reichardt, US
Seducio da Carne, Bressane, Brazil
Beanpole, Balagov, Russia
Before We Vanish, Kurosawa, Japan
Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman, US
Only the Animals, Moll, France
The Portuguese Woman, Gomes, Portugal
The Forest of Love, Sono, Japan
The Load, Glavonic, Serbia
A Land Imagined, Siew, Singapore
K...
Didn't you feel cheated by the absurdity of it all?
The odds (a couple billion to one?) of the African fellow choosing the exact girl the dead woman had an affair with is beyond long. And unfortunately, the story doesn't work without it.
I felt cheated / manipulated - looking back, I rated it too high. A 5 (or less) would have been more accurate.
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That's your example of the absurdity of a film that features a guy riding his bicycle with a goat on his back like a backpack?
K...
(I "kid")
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ORRFForever
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ItsFineImFine
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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - 6.5/10
I've had enough of Guy Ritchie tbh. His try-hard clever dialogue mixed with Cavill acting smug for the entire movie is frustrating to say the least. The action scenes are a bit bland. The film as a whole has sporadic tension. I criticized The Gentleman, his most recent flick, but I do appreciate the dialogue in that one compared to the more bland version on display here. Still, it gets some cool points for style.
I've had enough of Guy Ritchie tbh. His try-hard clever dialogue mixed with Cavill acting smug for the entire movie is frustrating to say the least. The action scenes are a bit bland. The film as a whole has sporadic tension. I criticized The Gentleman, his most recent flick, but I do appreciate the dialogue in that one compared to the more bland version on display here. Still, it gets some cool points for style.
Dunno. I find Americans pretty scary these days.
You took it way more seriously and literally than I did. I thought it was pretty clear early on, say when the movie first focused on one of the characters in detail (Joseph), that this was going to be a movie intent upon pulling rabbits out of a hat. So I wasn't the least bothered by its contrivances. I just wanted to see where Moll was going with all this. And I was delighted where it ended up. I found the twists exhilarating; I thought the whole thing fit together beautifully. To me, it was an exercise in really clever film making just for the fun of it. Plus, as I mentioned in my review, I think it sneaked a pretty good statement about the damages of loneliness in there almost seamlessly.
As for absurdity, lots of entertaining movies are absurd if you think about them long enough: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Diva; Charade; The Usual Suspects; and so on. No harm in that if the fun is done well.
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ProstheticConscience
Check dein Limit
I never realized how distinctive Robert Vaughn was until I saw that movie and watched Henry Cavill do a 2-hour Robert Vaughn impression.
I mean, on the screen, y'know.
ORRFForever
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ORRFForever
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Alone (2020) :
In the movie Alone, there are 2 Jessica's...
The first is the "too nice Jessica". She's the one that wasn't clever / forceful enough to make the creepy guy with the moustache go away - all she had to do was take his picture and tell him she's sent the picture to the police because he's scaring her. Problem solved! He'd never bother her again.
The second is the "resourceful Jessica". That's the Jessica that appears after she's kidnapped and that Jessica is a BEAST.
Then there's the bad guy - along with having a heck of a right hook, he's smart and scary, but not over the top like you see in other movies.
To the writer's/director's credit, Alone did its best not to be predictable and it succeeded - there were a few times when I thought I knew where the movie was going, but it took me in another direction. Bravo!
While the final 5 minutes was too much and there were better ways to end Alone, it was a heck of a ride and the 98 minutes flew by.
7.75/10
In the movie Alone, there are 2 Jessica's...
The first is the "too nice Jessica". She's the one that wasn't clever / forceful enough to make the creepy guy with the moustache go away - all she had to do was take his picture and tell him she's sent the picture to the police because he's scaring her. Problem solved! He'd never bother her again.
The second is the "resourceful Jessica". That's the Jessica that appears after she's kidnapped and that Jessica is a BEAST.
Then there's the bad guy - along with having a heck of a right hook, he's smart and scary, but not over the top like you see in other movies.
To the writer's/director's credit, Alone did its best not to be predictable and it succeeded - there were a few times when I thought I knew where the movie was going, but it took me in another direction. Bravo!
While the final 5 minutes was too much and there were better ways to end Alone, it was a heck of a ride and the 98 minutes flew by.
7.75/10
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