TV/Movies Megathread

[Duque de Bragança]

Giving Lovefilm a go, after a long time; so quick, I need some decent films of the last 5-6 years to populate the list.

Try to watch at least the first Elite Squad to get you in the mood for the Brazilian World Cup.

[Ideologue]

she lacks heat. 

Kids these days 

She's too reserved.  It also hurts her work in Gaslight, when she has to play crazy.  It feels the littlest bit forced, just like her love/lust in Notorious or in Spellbound.

[Ideologue]

The thing about Bergman is that I can believe she's in love with anybody--she does that pretty well--but she lacks heat.  I don't believe like she ever wants to fuck anybody, even when it's text, like in Notorious, where she's a 1940s party girl and is supposed to be gagging for Cary Grant, the abusive potential husband that can fix her.

It works in 1940s movies well enough, since this was before most people had discovered sex.

I think that hurt her more than anything concerning her affair with Roberto Rossellini.  She was hardly the only woman in cinema to have an affair or get a divorce, but that was so far removed from her screen persona that there was a scandal.

See?  I'm not imagining it.

[Ed Anger]

I watched half of a Venture Brothers episode while on the can today.

The Dr. Impossible one at the ice research station.

[Ideologue]

CC, continuing our conversation from TBR:

Obviously, Bergman is beautiful, even in Hollywood.  I really think you're missing my point.  I was criticizing her acting--on some emotions she is extremely strong (e.g., determination, surprise, anger, curiosity, sadness, nondescript longing, contempt, love, self-loathing) but at least in her 1940s pictures, on the most extreme emotions (lust, genuine hatred, insanity) my read is that she's forcing it.  With more takes and better directing perhaps this impression could've been avoided, but Bergman is only great sometimes in these films.

This seems especially the case with Hitchcock--but sometimes I think Hitchcock was not overly concerned with the authenticity of his actors' emotions, if it got the point across, and it took a genuinely great (over)actor like Jimmy Stewart to hit it on the head, like in Rope and, to a lesser degree, Vertigo.  (On the other hand, there's Psycho, which is pretty close to perfectly acted by its lead, though to the best of my knowledge Tony Perkins is not himself considered a great actor.)

***

Hey, MB, that's a pretty good one.

[Sheilbh]

It works in 1940s movies well enough, since this was before most people had discovered sex.

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

?

[Ideologue]

I strongly agree with the thesis of the song.  '63, man.  Truly the best of times.  90% marginal tax rates, houses and spouses were issued to you at age 18, and America could still bully the whole world.

[Admiral Yi]

Bergman's not the problem with that movie, Bogie is.  In the flashback scene where he's supposed to be carefree and in love he looks like a total mook.

[Ideologue]

Also, what is that, an early draft of Meat Loaf's "Paradise By the Dashboard Light"?  Some people just need to work on their relationships.

[celedhring]

Saw The Amazing Spiderman 2. Is 150 minutes long and only has 3 action scenes in it 

[The Brain]

I. Bergman made some great movies.

[Ideologue]

Saw The Amazing Spiderman 2. Is 150 minutes long and only has 3 action scenes in it 

It's a musical!

It has like five or six.  Counting each Rhino scene as half, and the raid on OsCorp as an action scene, anyway.

[mongers]

Giving Lovefilm a go, after a long time; so quick, I need some decent films of the last 5-6 years to populate the list.

Try to watch at least the first Elite Squad to get you in the mood for the Brazilian World Cup.

I'm guessing this is a joke, you're actually recommending some urban combat/crime film action movies?   

[Scipio]

I think it's pretty great.

I still need to see The Big Sleep.

Well, that explains a fucking lot.

What other standards are you missing in your repertoire? Rio Bravo? The Virginian? Stagecoach? Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Christ, you're a child.

On the plus side, I'm sure you don't enjoy films as much as I do, even though I've seen more than you. So there's that.

[CountDeMoney]

This new mini-series  on the HitlerHistory Channel, "The World Wars", is exactly what you'd expect from that channel: overdone.

The PBS special on the logistics and engineering of D-Day was done much better.