Clooney was really good in Oh Brother, and the music was good. Other than that? Meh.
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Clooney was really good in Oh Brother, and the music was good. Other than that? Meh.
Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 3,980
- 2,897
Educated Yes 
Barton Fink
I'll follow the trend Yes
No Country for Old Men
Fargo
People are no fun Yes
The Hudsucker Proxy
Serious Yes
A Serious Man
Other fun films Yes
Raising Arizona
Burn After Reading
I guess that's OK
True Grit
The Man Who Wasn't There
Trying way too hard meh
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Big Lebowski
Can't say I remember much of that meh
Blood Simple
Miller's Crossing
Haven't seen that
Inside Llewyn Davis
Hail Caesar
The Ladykillers
Pure shite No
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Intolerable Cruelty
Barton Fink
I'll follow the trend Yes
No Country for Old Men
Fargo
People are no fun Yes
The Hudsucker Proxy
Serious Yes
A Serious Man
Other fun films Yes
Raising Arizona
Burn After Reading
I guess that's OK
True Grit
The Man Who Wasn't There
Trying way too hard meh
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Big Lebowski
Can't say I remember much of that meh
Blood Simple
Miller's Crossing
Haven't seen that
Inside Llewyn Davis
Hail Caesar
The Ladykillers
Pure shite No
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Intolerable Cruelty
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Re-watched Barton Fink last night. Complete change of heart. The way the Coen brothers simultaneously pokes fun at philistine studio executives and egomaniacal 'There is no good work without pain! Art of the people for the people!' types was executed with warmth, skill, and great comedic sensibility and the entire surreal proceedings makes it so distinct and blends so much so well that it's hard to even categorize it. Yet everything feels completely appropriate, even Lipnick leaving off to war against Japan in one of the last scenes (having bought his way in 
). There isn't a bad performance in there and lots to chew on in terms of motivation, intellect and art. Frankly, I'm not sure why I disliked it years ago. Great film. Michael Lerner gives a perfect comic performance.
). There isn't a bad performance in there and lots to chew on in terms of motivation, intellect and art. Frankly, I'm not sure why I disliked it years ago. Great film. Michael Lerner gives a perfect comic performance.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Educated Yes
Barton Fink
I'll follow the trend Yes
No Country for Old Men
Fargo
People are no fun Yes
The Hudsucker Proxy
Serious Yes
A Serious Man
Other fun films Yes
Raising Arizona
Burn After Reading
I guess that's OK
True Grit
The Man Who Wasn't There
Trying way too hard meh
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Big Lebowski
Can't say I remember much of that meh
Blood Simple
Miller's Crossing
Haven't seen that
Inside Llewyn Davis
Hail Caesar
The Ladykillers
Pure shite No
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Intolerable Cruelty
You should re-watch Miller's Crossing. I could see it clicking wiht you.
Lerner received an Academy Award nomination for his work.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) 7/10 (Really liked it)
Jason (Todd Armstrong) and his crew sail the seas and battle mythological creatures in search of a magical golden fleece. There's something about Greek voyages that captures the imagination, and what better way to bring the mythology to life than the stop motion animation of Ray Harryhausen? In probably his most acclaimed work, we get a gigantic bronze statue come to life, a couple of harpies, a multi-headed hydra and a small army of skeleton warriors. Reportedly, reception of the single skeleton warrior of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 5 years earlier was so positive that Harryhausen created 7 for this film and they serve as the climax and what most people probably remember about this film.
Something that I hadn't really noticed before is that the film never resolves its beginning. A usurper who killed Jason's father, the King, took the throne and feared that the son would challenge him for it, so he sent Jason on the quest for the fabled golden fleece because he figured that'd never make it back. An hour and a half later, the movie ends happily as soon as Jason has the fleece and sails off in victory, even though there's still a bad guy who killed his father on the throne that rightfully belongs to him. Since Zeus hints at the very end of more stories for Jason, I presume that the filmmakers figured that a sequel would tie up the loose ends. As far as I know, such a sequel was never made, so the story is left hanging. In spite of that, though, it's still a mostly satisfying and fun adventure film, even today.
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ORRFForever
Registered User
- Oct 29, 2018
- 19,735
- 10,997
We are close...
Yes
No Country for Old Men
Fargo
Blood Simple
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Miller's Crossing
A Serious Man
Raising Arizona
True Grit
Inside Llewyn Davis
Meh
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
No, More like HELL, NO
Barton Fink
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Ladykillers
Intolerable Cruelty
Hail Caesar
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
With all due respect because I was in the same boat, but what are the actual negatives of Barton Fink?
ORRFForever
Registered User
- Oct 29, 2018
- 19,735
- 10,997
Been awhile, but I remember a few things I thought at the time:
"makes a fetish of ambiguity"--not my line, and I don't remember whose line it was, but it stayed with me because it hit the nail on the head
didn't like the central character and I never got interested in his dilemma
found too many of the characters mean-spirited or maybe written in a mean-spirited fashion
I never came close to being emotionally involved
a mishmash of symbols and references thrown willy-nilly into a pot with no ultimate recipe in mind
lacked anything like a satisfying payoff
just found the whole affair tedious, pretentious and show-offy; couldn't wait for the damn thing to end.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Thank you for this. This post is not directed at you personally as a viewer but it helps putting my thoughts clearly about the movie since I found myself liking it so much the next day.
- Nothing seemed blurry to me besides the very last scene, which according to Ethan Coen stricly represented the relief of its main character, which I think is humble and works perfectly.
- Thought it was so goofy and prescient that his dilemma felt very engaging as an individual who struggles/is at odds/isn't sure how to feel about the seriousness of art as a means to an end. I succumbed to its relatability. Not in terms of my own life, person or work but strictly in terms of pompous gripe.
- Didn't get that at all and even if so, it does not bother me. You get to hate/make fun of your own characters. The only time it offends me is when an artist tries to hide it beneath a veneer of understanding/companionship/relatability.
- Didn't get that from the first or second viewing. Thought it was all blended perfectly with no loose thread, despite no black and white conclusion.
- That's how I felt after my first viewing. Tedious. Thanks.
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I just watched Barton Fink, thinking that I hadn't seen it. It turned out that I had a long, long time ago, probably in the early 90s, when it was still relatively new. It was John Goodman's character that brought a little of it back. It's funny that lead actor John Turturro's character wasn't memorable, but nearly every scene with Goodman was vaguely familiar. What a performance by him. I think that I recall that this performance is what convinced me that he was a lot more than just a sitcom star.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the film through the first two thirds, but things really picked up in the last third... and that climax is hard to forget. Overall, I have to say that I liked it. I think that I can even pinpoint the exact moment when I decided that it got a thumbs up from me:
What can I say. I like a good pun. It makes me wonder if there are more jokes hidden throughout the film that require a second viewing to pick up.
Edit: Curiosity got the best of me, so I just went back and re-watched certain parts of it...
Watching those scenes over again has helped me to appreciate the writing and the Coen brothers' twisted sense of humor a little more.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the film through the first two thirds, but things really picked up in the last third... and that climax is hard to forget. Overall, I have to say that I liked it. I think that I can even pinpoint the exact moment when I decided that it got a thumbs up from me:
...when it dawned on me why Charlie kept talking about the "head office" 
Edit: Curiosity got the best of me, so I just went back and re-watched certain parts of it...
When Charlie first explains his job, he says that he tells customers that "Fire, theft and casualty are NOT things that only happen to other people." Yeah, that's because he inflicts those things on the people that he's talking to 
.
When Charlie explains why he doesn't go to a doctor for his ear infection, he says "What's he gonna do? Can't trade my head in for a new one."
When Charlie is talking about the awful day that he just had, he says that he decided to "knock off early" and see a doctor about his ear. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that sure sounds like it might be a decapitation pun.
Shortly after, he says, "you've got a head on your shoulders, and what do they say... where there's a head, there's hope."
When he's carrying the lady's body, he bumps her head into the dresser.
Charlie tells an in-shock Barton in the bathroom to "get it out of your head" and, later, reassures him that everything will be all right by saying, "We just gotta keep our heads."
Finally, at the end of the film, he repeatedly yells "I'll show you the life of the mind," which doesn't seem to be a pun or a joke, but further suggests that Charlie is obsessed with heads and minds and that the other references are not coincidences.
.When Charlie explains why he doesn't go to a doctor for his ear infection, he says "What's he gonna do? Can't trade my head in for a new one."
When Charlie is talking about the awful day that he just had, he says that he decided to "knock off early" and see a doctor about his ear. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that sure sounds like it might be a decapitation pun
.Shortly after, he says, "you've got a head on your shoulders, and what do they say... where there's a head, there's hope."
When he's carrying the lady's body, he bumps her head into the dresser.
Charlie tells an in-shock Barton in the bathroom to "get it out of your head" and, later, reassures him that everything will be all right by saying, "We just gotta keep our heads."
Finally, at the end of the film, he repeatedly yells "I'll show you the life of the mind," which doesn't seem to be a pun or a joke, but further suggests that Charlie is obsessed with heads and minds and that the other references are not coincidences.
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The Edge of Democracy (2019) Directed by Petra Costa (documentary) 8A
The Edge of Democracy is a Brazilian history lesson with a great deal of relevance to those concerned by the rise of populism in the world today. It charts the rise and decline of Brazil's fledgling democracy and the forces on both the Left and the Right that led inevitably to the where Brazil is today. Subject to long military coups, democracy in Brazil has always been a fragile entity. One such coup took place in 1964 and it was not until as late as 1989 that the military allowed a transition to a democratic election. Petra looks at that transition and the events that followed that eventually led to the election of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro. The events play like a thriller. Surprisingly, the military have played only a small role in the current situation and religion isn't even mentioned. Rather what Costa documents is how the rich and powerful gained control, creating an oligarchy, the form of government where democracy goes to die these days. The movie is rife with heroes and villains, but one of the points that Petra makes is that the villains are only successful when the conditions are right. Brazil is a country with its own history and one must be careful not to overstate its similarities with other populist regimes: Brazil is not the United States or Poland or Hungary or India or Bolivia. Each country comes with its own set of conditions.
However, Costa is sounding a warning about what happened in Brazil concerning how the powerful can benefit from the division of the population into extreme camps making it easier for a populist government to manipulate volatile emotions. In Brazil, some laws were followed in one instance, ignored in the next. The right-wing government sought and achieved jail sentences, often on made-up charges, against the politicians who served before them. Government institutions, including the legal and judicial systems, were thoroughly corrupted by politics, and the right-wing media outlets contributed greatly to the destabilization of the population. I felt at the end of this documentary that, really, democracy anywhere can easily become an endangered species. The Edge of Democracy suggests that in reality democracy exists only with the consent of the oligarchs. When conditions displease them, democracy can always be taken away or turned into something else entirely. Countries with deep-rooted democratic institutions and traditions may possess antibodies but they are not immune.
subtitles
Netflix
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Stand By Me - 1986
I love this movie. Four kids set out to find a dead body. Keifer Sutherland shows up to try to ruin things. Richard Dreyfuss is the narrator. Great coming of age movie.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anybody?”
Great line.
8/10
I love this movie. Four kids set out to find a dead body. Keifer Sutherland shows up to try to ruin things. Richard Dreyfuss is the narrator. Great coming of age movie.
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anybody?”
Great line.
8/10
Enola Holmes, Directed by Harry Bradbeer, 6.0 (7.0 for teens)
It's not for adults, more for teens, more specifically for younger women. That said, the male kid in me enjoyed it. It's along the lines of a Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl but without the magic. The plot isn't very complicated. Mysteries or clues are solved unscrabbling letters. Enola itself spelled backwards is 'Alone' which is exactly what happens when her Mother disappears (Helena Bonham Carter).
That sets the game afoot. Her brothers Mycroft and Sherlock (Henry Cavill) come back home and Mycroft wants to send her to Finishing School. Enola runs away and meets up with Tewkesbury, another runaway and helps him escape from the evil Lenthorne. Much of the rest of the movie shifts over to this new Tewksbury mystery and the Eudoria mystery (her missing Mother) is left behind, probably to become an ongoing subplot for upcoming sequels.
It is more of a made-for-tv movie than a theatrical release. THe lead is a strong young female character. Netflix is building up it's inventory of Saturday matinee style movies (I gather to compete with Disney+) for adolescents although it's watchable for adults. The missing Mother storyline at the beginning is more of an origins story and will prolly be picked up later in sequels. This first episode is more about the case of the missing Tewksbury.
on Netflix
Corpus Christi (2019) Directed by Jan Komasa 7A
Well, here's a complex one, close to Bergman or Dreyer territory. Tomasz (Bertosz Bielenia) is a young man who has just been paroled from a Catholic reform school. Part of his parole is that he must work in a sawmill on the other side of Poland. He longs to be a priest but is told that because of the seriousness of his offense he can never hope to enter the ministry. When he gets to the small town, he defensively tells a girl in a church that he is a priest, and thus begins his perilous journey of substituting for the local pastor who is sick. His takes his duties very seriously. His ministry benefits the entire community even though he makes the kind of controversial decisions that Christ might make in his place. What the fates have in store for him is not predictable but it makes a certain kind of sense. Without overplaying its hand and without falling into formula, Corpus Christi raises important questions about the nature of mercy, forgiveness and redemption. The movie contrasts the gulf between true Christian spirituality and the kind of lip service that Christianity practices now. Bielenia is superb as Tomasz. He has a haunting face that can somehow appear blank one moment and animated the next. He digs into his character about as deeply as it is humanly possible to do, and the results benefit the film immensely. Corpus Christi is a movie from "within the tent," but nonetheless a critique and a challenge, maybe more like an accusation, to those of faith.
subtitles
Criterion Channel
Top Ten so far
First Cow, Reichardt, US
Seducio da Carne, Bressane, Brazil
Corpus Christi, Komasa, Poland
Before We Vanish, Kurosawa, Japan
Beanpole, Balagov, Russia
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
Glad you like this one. It is one of the more memorable movie I watched recently, and it stayed with me for a while.
I tend to agree with you on all here except I did like O Brother, Where Art Thou? for some strange reason.
Jevo
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2010
- 3,500
- 394
I'm probably one of the few who doesn't hate Intolerable Cruelty. Sure it's not great as an overall product. But the first half is a great satire, and Clooney is great. But for some reason there's a big tonal shift in the middle of the movie, and after that it's actually quite terrible. Which is probably why a lot of people hate it. I would gladly watch it again, because there's some great laughs in the first half. I probably wouldn't finish it though.
I started it a few months back on Netflix and when I decided to go back to finish it, the movie had been removed. It’s ok though, I didn’t think it was anything great.
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
I wanted to like Burn After Reading as I enjoyed some of the juxtaposition of the violent and the absurd but the performance of Brad Pitt in particular was too jarringly out of step with the rest of the cast that it didn't sit well with me. The same actually applied to his role in Inglorious Basterds. Brad Pitt's style of acting doesn't lend itself well to hamming it up and so it's a fatal flaw in my opinion for those films.
Funny that @kihei has the exact opposite impression of Pitt in that role. I just get the feeling that he's trying too hard.
Aside from him, I enjoyed Frances McDormand, George Clooney's ridiculous womanizing US Marshal slash inventor but most of all, J.K. Simmons' ambivalent CIA agent. John Malkovitch always makes a good villain but he's playing a little too close to type to be memorable.
(massive spoilers in clip)
Funny that @kihei has the exact opposite impression of Pitt in that role. I just get the feeling that he's trying too hard.
Aside from him, I enjoyed Frances McDormand, George Clooney's ridiculous womanizing US Marshal slash inventor but most of all, J.K. Simmons' ambivalent CIA agent. John Malkovitch always makes a good villain but he's playing a little too close to type to be memorable.
(massive spoilers in clip)
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Pitt or kihei?
(Kidding. This is just friendly payback for his joke about Americans being scary last week.)
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I wasn't suggesting otherwise or even anything at all. I was just making a joke out of the fact that you could be misinterpreted, much like he made a similar joke a few days ago.
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