TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

Sure did.

[CountDeMoney]

Breakfast at Tiffany's (had not seen it before)

I teared up at the cat scene.  Long time since I've done that with a film. 

You big softie, you.

Unfortunately, unlike the end of the movie, the Holly Golightlys of the world never figure it out.  That's why it's called Fiction.

[Tonitrus]

Breakfast at Tiffany's (had not seen it before)

I teared up at the cat scene.  Long time since I've done that with a film. 

You big softie, you.

Unfortunately, unlike the end of the movie, the Holly Golightlys of the world never figure it out.  That's why it's called Fiction.

Don't misunderstand...I didn't care too much about Holly and Hannibal Smith....but the cat's face when she abandoned it, and that they went back for the cat. 

[Duque de Bragança]

L'Avare (The Miser) (1980)

Moliere's comedy is brought to the big screen in this filmed version of the play.  The production values are such that maybe it should have been kept on the small screen; but Louis de Funès gives a manic energy to Harpagon that it works pretty well.  I just finished reading a couple of plays by Plautus and Terrence and it struck me how similar this play was in spirit to those writers.  (To be fair some of Shakespeare's early comedies also fit in with those playwrights, in fact "Comedy of Errors" is derived from a couple plays by Plautus.)

Question to the francophones (or francophiles): is the rapid delivery of lines typical of l'ancienne comedie; or is that an affectation for this film?

Louis de Funès is well known for his rapid delivery. I have not watched l'Avare in years though. French wiki says cuts to the original text were extremely limited, maybe that explains it as well.

[CountDeMoney]

Don't misunderstand...I didn't care too much about Holly and Hannibal Smith....but the cat's face when she abandoned it, and that they went back for the cat. 

lol, yeah.  Poor cat was the most sympathetic character in the movie.




Meowtf bitch

[garbon]

Cat people

[Eddie Teach]

Did she ever get around to naming it?

[CountDeMoney]

Knocked out the first two episodes of The Girlfriend Experience.  Interesting;  typical sanitary Soderbergh direction, a springboard from his movie with Sasha Grey a few years ago; but this Christie/Chelsea strikes me as dangerous. 
Much different than the professional GFE's I have known, but Chelsea operates at a much higher altitude, the kind that never had to worry about getting bailed out.

Had absolutely no idea that was Lisa Marie's daughter.  Holy shit, the King's granddaughter. 

[Admiral Yi]

Watched a bit of The Pathfinder the other night.  Viking kid gets (captured/rescued?) by Indians and raised as one of their own.  Battles Vikings a la Dances with Smurfs when they show back up.

They wrecked it for me by depicting the Vikings as invincible mounted troll knights swinging ball and chains.  There could have a been a reasonable movie if they had stayed away from all the stupid Warhammer shit.

I imagine the good guys win somehow and our hero hooks up with the babe.

[The Brain]

Watched a bit of The Pathfinder the other night.  Viking kid gets (captured/rescued?) by Indians and raised as one of their own.  Battles Vikings a la Dances with Smurfs when they show back up.

They wrecked it for me by depicting the Vikings as invincible mounted troll knights swinging ball and chains.  There could have a been a reasonable movie if they had stayed away from all the stupid Warhammer shit.

I imagine the good guys win somehow and our hero hooks up with the babe.

You could check out the Oscar-nominated Norwegian 1987 original. It might be slightly better. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093668/

[Admiral Yi]

Knocked out the first two episodes of The Girlfriend Experience.  Interesting;  typical sanitary Soderbergh direction, a springboard from his movie with Sasha Grey a few years ago; but this Christie/Chelsea strikes me as dangerous. 
Much different than the professional GFE's I have known, but Chelsea operates at a much higher altitude, the kind that never had to worry about getting bailed out.

Had absolutely no idea that was Lisa Marie's daughter.  Holy shit, the King's granddaughter.

Well that's a frisky little show.

[Josquius]

Anyone still watching The Americans?
It used to be great...but I just can't get into it now.

[Savonarola]

L'Avare (The Miser) (1980)

Moliere's comedy is brought to the big screen in this filmed version of the play.  The production values are such that maybe it should have been kept on the small screen; but Louis de Funès gives a manic energy to Harpagon that it works pretty well.  I just finished reading a couple of plays by Plautus and Terrence and it struck me how similar this play was in spirit to those writers.  (To be fair some of Shakespeare's early comedies also fit in with those playwrights, in fact "Comedy of Errors" is derived from a couple plays by Plautus.)

Question to the francophones (or francophiles): is the rapid delivery of lines typical of l'ancienne comedie; or is that an affectation for this film?

Louis de Funès is well known for his rapid delivery. I have not watched l'Avare in years though. French wiki says cuts to the original text were extremely limited, maybe that explains it as well.

Thanks, it was robably due to Louis de Funès more than a directorial choice then.  I could understand some of what the other actors were saying; but whenever he was around it was well beyond my ability.

It was strange to hear characters playing brother and sister vousvoyer one another; but (almost) exclusive use of the formal second person happened in 17th century English as well.  We just never got out of the habit.   

[Josephus]

Anyone still watching The Americans?
It used to be great...but I just can't get into it now.

Yeah...too much focus on the daughter...she's not even that cute... less on actual spying. But we'll see where it goes.

[Savonarola]

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

In part a product of its time and place; the immediate post-war France.  The film was planned during the occupation, when apolitical films like fairy tales were much more likely to get through the censorship office and Aryan actors like Jean Marais and Josette Day were desired.  At the time of filming they could get sumptuous haute courture; but had difficulty getting sheets without patches.  Production had to be stopped when the drapes off of Belle's bed were stolen.  They couldn't find a deer carcass for sale, so they had to substitute a dog with antlers (like the Grinch did later.)   Jean Cocteau was never the critics favorite and he had recently been savaged by Jean Paul Sartre for being insufficiently political, so he had to include the handwritten defense of his film in the beginning.  (It didn't help, the film was still savaged by critics.)

In part its a result of Cocteau's quirky vision.  He wanted the special effects to be the same as those used by Georges Méliès half a century earlier.  He went way out of his way to make Jean Marais (his then lover) to look as gorgeous as possible on film, usually bathing him in a halo.  He demanded the cinematographer shoot the film in a documentary style, as though it were a documentary of an enchanted castle.

Somehow this all works together and made for a classic film.  The Criterion version has the Philip Glass opera as one of the soundtracks.  I had never seen that before.  It started out a little like Dark Side of the Rainbow; but once the film gets going it works, though I prefer the original soundtrack.