TV/Movies Megathread

[lustindarkness]

So last night I watch A Million Ways to Die in the West. Well done, had a story, it had some funny stuff, good cameos and cast, but I have yet to decide if I actually liked it or not.

[Duque de Bragança]

Golan-Globus actually indulged in vanity/art house projects more often than not. Sometimes for a good result, with Cassavetes, with Love Streams, or Barbet Schroeder's Barfly, sometimes for the worst, Godard and his King Lear. Very experimental, even by Godard's standards of the '80s.
Even Zefirelli said good things about the Go-go boys when they allowed him to produce Othello.

I didn't know that; I had only heard of Golan-Globus from the fine films I had mentioned before.  So when I saw their logo at the end I went 

A couple of documentaries have shed light on Golan-Globus recently. An unofficial one, Electric Bugaloo and an official one, The Go-go Boys, made by themselves when they learned a documentary was made about them, in true Cannon fashion cf. Lambada movies  Long story short, they almost made it as a major studio, but some bad choices coupled with the Wall Street crash crippled them and they never recovered. Plus some shady Italian financier powered by a French bank (back then nationalised).
I preferred the unofficial one, which featured some experts analysing and discussing the finer points of films such as Invasion U.S.A, by pointing the good in it (!) while acknowledging its serious limitations.

[Duque de Bragança]

The Artist (2011)

The single greatest movie made since "Modern Times"!!!!






The first forty-five minutes of the film (where it's mostly comedy,) are great.  After that the film takes a turn into drama, and there the film runs into trouble. There the story becomes dull and repetitive.  There's a payoff at the end; but getting there is trying.

George Valentin is supposed to be a Douglas Fairbanks/John Gilbert hybrid; but I thought he looked a lot more like Adolph Menjou, especially with the suits.

The silent film Valentin makes might have been a hit overseas in1929.  1929 was the year of "Pandora's Box" in Germany (as well as "Arsenal" and "Man with the Movie Camera" in the Soviet Union.)  Even as late as 1931 what remained of Stroheim's "Queen Kelly" was released in Europe.

I was expecting a movie review telling that Mel Brooks did it much better with Silent Movie.  

It's been a long time since I've seen Silent Movie.  I don't remember it being one of Mel Brooks' better films. 

Thing is, [spoiler]the Mime Marceau gag seems to have inspired a scene in The Artist, conceptually at least.[/spoiler]

Spoiler added just in case.

[jimmy olsen]

At the movies to see Jurassic World. A woman just sat down next to me with a 2 year old girl on her lap. Why do people do this?

[Tonitrus]

Couldn't get a babysitter.

Though honestly...I expected better of Korea.  That is usually an obnoxious American move.

[Admiral Yi]

Just watched Gone Baby.

I was enjoying a densely plotted gothic mystery, with interesting and well drawn supporting characters, then the writers couldn't come up with an ending so they decided to change it to a surreal kabuki tone poem about the misery of marriage.

This is not a good movie.

[Ideologue]

Just watched Gone Baby.

I was enjoying a densely plotted gothic mystery, with interesting and well drawn supporting characters, then the writers couldn't come up with an ending so they decided to change it to a surreal kabuki tone poem about the misery of marriage.

This is not a good movie.

Gone Girl?  That's just objectively wrong.

Great book too.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, Gone Girl.  It ends in a welter of ridiculousness.

[Ideologue]

True.

[celedhring]

Yeah, Gone Girl.  It ends in a welter of ridiculousness.

Agree with that. At times it resembled an OTT lifetime movie.

Gorgeously shot though, Fincher is a god with the camera.

[garbon]

Definitely not a great book. Great start of a book that then collapses on itself when the writer had walked herself into a corner.

[Admiral Yi]

So I'm reading an article The Brain's Favorite Magazine about usurpation of American movie and TV roles by foreign, particularly British actors, and I read for the thousandth time that British actors have the advantage of Shakespearian training.

Does anyone know what this training entails?

[Josquius]

On the day a boy is admitted to theatre school, he is given a puppy to take care of. At the end of the first year, the boy is made to strangle the puppy. Should he fail to do so, he is vanquished to the realm of daytime TV. During training boys are culled in this manner whenever they fail a task, be it quoting a specific line of Hamlet, creating tears on demand or being the centre piece ('the receptacle') of their dorm's masturbation fests. To win their certification of Shakespearian training they must take a silver penny, go to the east end and buy a young boy from its gin-addled mother. With this boy they must then perform a two man show of a given Shakespeare play ('Romeo and Juliet' is a popular choice) to the satisfaction of the Queen.

[Admiral Yi]

I meant, besides the obvious stuff.

[Liep]

On the day a boy is admitted to theatre school, he is given a puppy to take care of. At the end of the first year, the boy is made to strangle the puppy. Should he fail to do so, he is vanquished to the realm of daytime TV. During training boys are culled in this manner whenever they fail a task, be it quoting a specific line of Hamlet, creating tears on demand or being the centre piece ('the receptacle') of their dorm's masturbation fests. To win their certification of Shakespearian training they must take a silver penny, go to the east end and buy a young boy from its gin-addled mother. With this boy they must then perform a two man show of a given Shakespeare play ('Romeo and Juliet' is a popular choice) to the satisfaction of the Queen.

I read this post before I saw Yi's question and thought that you had finally gone completely mental.