Originally posted by richardfinegold
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Films you've seen lately
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"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest
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Originally posted by LHC View PostWasn't Furtwangler's decision to stay influenced as much by his desire not to be outdone by Karajan, as any thoughts of preserving German culture. I thought the latter was more Richard Strauss's excuse than Furtwangler's.
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Originally posted by smittims View PostRonald Harwood wrote a very interesting novel about Cesar Franck, 'Cesar and Augusta' . Not the first composer one thinks of as being novel material.
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I tried with Everything Everywhere, I tried.... but the relentless pace wore me out in under an hour. Exhausted and dizzied by a film which contrives to be both frantic and repetitious (and wearying of cliché-ridden pseudo scientific sci-fi dialogue re. the multiverse), I gave up - unusual for me.
Was I too hasty? Does it ever calm down to offer some contrast in pace or narrative later on? Develop some depth? (Reading up on plotlines and reviews later, it seems not...). If I try to continue, will it reward? Anyone?
Almost all the best films I've seen recently have been relatively quiet and intimate - The Quiet Girl, Aftersun, Banshees of Inisherin, Parallel Mothers....
Perhaps my tastes and temperament have shifted a little. But I can still enjoy action (if cleverly paced) and sci-fi, or epics with a heart, if done well...
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Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostI tried with Everything Everywhere, I tried.... but the relentless pace wore me out in under an hour. Exhausted and dizzied by a film which contrives to be both frantic and repetitious (and wearying of cliché-ridden pseudo scientific sci-fi dialogue re. the multiverse), I gave up - unusual for me.
Was I too hasty? Does it ever calm down to offer some contrast in pace or narrative later on? Develop some depth? (Reading up on plotlines and reviews later, it seems not...). If I try to continue, will it reward? Anyone?
Almost all the best films I've seen recently have been relatively quiet and intimate - The Quiet Girl, Aftersun, Banshees of Inisherin, Parallel Mothers....
Perhaps my tastes and temperament have shifted a little. But I can still enjoy action (if cleverly paced) and sci-fi, or epics with a heart, if done well...
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Just watched The Program - a film about Lance Armstrong's fall from grace - directed by the estimable Stephen Frears - on iPlayer for a few more days. Superb performance by Ben Foster as Armstrong, good back up from Chris O'Dowd as the persistent reporter, and Guillaume Canet as Michele Ferrari, the evil drug doctor. Nice cameo from Dustin Hoffman, Armstrong's insurer. It has been criticised for not going sufficiently into Armstrong's childhood/family influences or interior motivations - which is a good criticism I think. But what's left is a fast moving biopic that's superb on the medical & legal aspects - Armstrong's cancer, how he actually dodged the drug testing, how he was found out, etc. Good cycling scenes. Overall, well worth watching. Screenwriter John Hodge, a former doctor, adapted Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting.
"Foster has often received praise from critics for his "intense" and "unhinged" performances in numerous films... Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz described Foster in 2016 as "one of those actors who makes even a bad film worth seeing. Sometimes he suggests the film you'd rather be watching." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Foster_(actor)
This estimation seems spot on in this context. The Program isn't a bad film, but Foster really makes me wonder how Armstrong became so "intense" and "unhinged", and I want to see a film about that as well.Last edited by Mal; 02-02-23, 09:06.
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Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostI tried with Everything Everywhere, I tried.... but the relentless pace wore me out in under an hour. Exhausted and dizzied by a film which contrives to be both frantic and repetitious (and wearying of cliché-ridden pseudo scientific sci-fi dialogue re. the multiverse), I gave up
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostI gave up too. After a while I just didn't care what happened next. I was thinking that maybe the problem was that I've never been interested in martial-arts films. People who are might be stimulated by the way it pulls the genre in what presumably are some new directions.
Quiet masterpieces with a devastating emotional impact....
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Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostCatch up with Aftersun or The Quiet Girl yet?
Returning to Tár for a moment, I see from social media responses that colleagues are split down the middle about this film. One musician I know described it as "possibly the worst film I have ever seen", which is possibly a bit harsh, but impelled me to come to what I think is my conclusion for now, that my negative opinion of it is not mainly because it's set in a context I'm somewhat familiar with, although the pretend conducting and some of the "professional" conversations were pretty cringeworthy, and also not mainly because it puts a woman as the perpetrator of abuse that we all know has been associated 100% with men, at least until now, but because it seems coldly, even cynically, calculated to provoke exactly the kind of controversies that it has, with a great emptiness beneath its elegant surface.
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Originally posted by RichardB View PostNot yet, my watching time has been a bit too occupied in catching up with Better Call Saul which (like pretty much everything on TV) I missed when it was broadcast, although now we are between series 3 and 4 so maybe it's a good time to take a break with a film or two instead.
Returning to Tár for a moment, I see from social media responses that colleagues are split down the middle about this film. One musician I know described it as "possibly the worst film I have ever seen", which is possibly a bit harsh, but impelled me to come to what I think is my conclusion for now, that my negative opinion of it is not mainly because it's set in a context I'm somewhat familiar with, although the pretend conducting and some of the "professional" conversations were pretty cringeworthy, and also not mainly because it puts a woman as the perpetrator of abuse that we all know has been associated 100% with men, at least until now, but because it seems coldly, even cynically, calculated to provoke exactly the kind of controversies that it has, with a great emptiness beneath its elegant surface.
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