Films you've seen lately

[LHC]

Agree with 1318&1319, but also find myself in some sympathy with 1316. How lucky most of us have been to not have our existence co-opted by a Totalitarian State . I do think that Furtwangler’s case is different from that of the average Country Priest, because his prominence allowed him opportunities that average individuals didn’t have. He thought he could preserve German Culture from within, but didn’t realize how much he was aiding the Barbarians by doing so

Wasn'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.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Wasn'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.

I’d heard that. Up until Stalingrad the overwhelming majority of the German population were convinced they were going to win. By then of course it would have been to late for the opportunistic to cut and run. Marlene Dietrich who did leave pre war was not popular when she returned post war. I think she was even booed. Von Karajan and Furtwangler were not full on carpet - chewing Nazis - they were , however, careerists.

[JasonPalmer]

Deadly b&b just finishing on freeview 33 was good, especially for a tv movie

[Alain Maréchal]

Ronald Harwood wrote a very interesting novel about Cesar Franck, 'Cesar and Augusta' . Not the first composer one thinks of as being novel material.

I read it when it appeared. It was an interesting idea, that the very noticeable increase in warmth (it was hardly eroticism) in Franck's music dated from the point at which Augusta Holmes became his pupil. It convinced me. I must search it out and read it again.

[JasonPalmer]

Watching deep impact on film four, the old monitors,fax machines,mobile phones date it....

[jayne lee wilson]

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...

[richardfinegold]

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...

My wife and I lasted about 45 minutes with it. I concur with your description

[smittims]

I can't watch anything where the camera is jumping, bobbing or swivelling about all the time, needlessly so, usually. It makes me sick.

I can't imagine why they think it's so clever. Not surprisingly Ozu Yasujiro and Joanna Hogg are among my favourite film directors.

[Mal]

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.

[Stanfordian]

‘Phantom Thread’ (2017) starring Daniel Day-Lewis with Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville.
A strangely compelling film.
Was on BBC 2 Tuesday 31st January, 00:15 - 02:20.

[JasonPalmer]

War of the worlds on film four right now, love the original book and like watching the film versions.

[RichardB]

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

I 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.

[jayne lee wilson]

I 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.

Catch up with Aftersun or The Quiet Girl yet? If you liked The Wonder these should be very rewarding....
Quiet masterpieces with a devastating emotional impact....

[RichardB]

Catch up with Aftersun or The Quiet Girl yet?

Not 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.

[richardfinegold]

Not 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.

Men are the primary offenders, but at least on this side of the pond there were a few cases that came to light during the Me Two moment of Female Corporate Execs pressuring Female subordinates for sex. One incident occurred at a local hospital system