Last movie you watched......

I actually read the book because I read a review of the movie (carefully avoiding the plot twist given away here).

 

DAMMIT!!! How about a spoiler alert???

 

I was a wee bit disappointed in "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." The book has some of my favorite parts of the whole trilogy but the streamlining process, which seemed OK in the first two books, seemed to drain some of the life out of the finale.

And I was very, very, very, very disappointed in the movie's rendering of the book's final scene.

 

Saw "Biutiful" with Javier Bardem. Grim but a great performance. Then watched "Last Chance Harry," a cute little film with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Fun.

 

As a pitch to the older crowd, LCH was a decent shot, and you can't quibble with the cast. Surprised it didn't do at least somewhat better.

 

Saw it today. Fantastic performances all around.

But best picture? Not sure. Very tightly contained, and not the sweeping type of film that usually wins in that category.

 

Can't quite agree. Hoffman wasn't convincing as either someone throwing everyone away or someone finding love. And Thompson was pretty wooden.

Anyhoo, saw Social Network. Macro-wise, I think it was a study of one-dimensional lives, and how they clash with each other and try to co-exist with the three-dimensional world. Eisenberg was pretty decent portraying the calculating, socially awkward junior genius, and the kid who had the world as his oyster. That second aspect was what the Napster guy, played sublimely by Timberlake, used to weasel his way in (I did enjoy the comeuppance tho, and the lesson it contained). I didn't know Napster guy was an integral part of the Facebook story. I think the kinda touching ending shows that Zuckerburg will always win, but the victories will sometimes be Pyhrric, and self-awareness fleeting.

 

Look, I've seen a lot of movies, I used to be a film geek, etc., etc., and I don't get the adoration The Social Network. It wasn't compelling. Wow, a computer genius has the social skills of a child, but is going to change the world? And we're going to show a bunch of flashbacks and depositions to prove a point everyone who cared enough to see the movie already knew? What a waste of breath.

My sneaking suspicion is that people like to praise The Social Network because they are somewhat worried about Facebook's all-encompassing effect on our lives -- but they sure as heck don't want to delete their precious profile, so they of course aren't going to pan the darn thing.

 

Recently saw "The Quick and the Dead," featuring a living, breathing Sharon Stone, as well as your vintage "I don't really know how to act but I'm so prescient that anyone can see a universe of potential in me" Leo. I would say it was enjoyable and went by fast, although Sam Raimi probably tried a lil too hard to make his presence felt, even back then.

 

You guys should check it out. I, too, loved the original, had low expectations for the US version, but it really surprised me. It's definitely more gory and amped up than the original. Good cast too - Richard Jenkins, the little girl from Kick-Ass and the boy from The Road. I'm glad I watched it.

 

He did a tremendous job with what he was given, and deserved the nomination, but the problem I have with that character is the same problem I have with a lot of the movie: Mendes and the screenwriter don't trust the viewer to grasp subtext, so they have to fill in every single emotional blank for us. It gets tremendously tedious very quickly, and the Shannon character may be the worst offender of the bunch (except for Kate Winslet's little monologue about how "we're not special," which took me out of the film for good, it was so on-the-nose).

The Shannon character is there to tell us EXACTLY how Frank and April are REALLY feeling. That he's mentally ill seems like obscuring a flaw to me with sleight of hand: "Maybe the audience won't notice that we are being on-the-nose here if we dress it up as coming from a disturbed character!" Otherwise, it's just the Ellen Page character from "Inception" or the Rashida Jones character from "The Social Network" all over again.

I don't understand why Mendes and the screen writer were not more confident in the actors and the source material, I really don't. "American Beauty" does not have the same flaws, for example. What was different here?

Spoiler below:












I also have a problem with the April-Shep fling. I don't remember it being foreshadowed at all. That makes it a cheat to me. It shocks us, and it's useful as plot development, but with no indication previously that makes us say, "Of course those two shouldn't be left alone together - what are you two doing!?" it loses its power. As soon as the cars were blocked in and Winslet and Shep had to stay at the restaurant together, I knew where they were going with it. But not because there was prior foreshadowing that the two were attracted to each other that would have given the scene real dramatic tension. Only because the situation was so contrived to set up exactly what happened because the plot needed April to be as unsympathetic as Frank when he makes his confession. When they actually got it on, I just rolled my eyes. The scene would have been better off with nothing happening, to play with our expectations (TV shows do this all the time, especially "The Sopranos" and "Mad Men").

I recognize that there is a certain requirement that the director and screen writer have to stay true to the novel, but if so, they should have done it better by foreshadowing Shep and April's mutual attraction, or at least April's desire to stray.

Also: The fighting starts way, way, way too early. Hell, they have their first knock-down-drag-out before the opening credit sequence. That removes any and all tension from the deterioration of their marriage, and does not give us a chance to invest in their relationship, as it is clearly on the rocks within five minutes of the movie's start. I did not understand that decision whatsoever. The scene at the play - where Frank accidentally insults April's performance - was quite enough to show that there was trouble brewing underneath this seemingly perfect marriage. Why did Mendes have to put the fight scene in there? Why didn't he trust his audience?

 

You know what ... fuck it, I liked Catfish. Slow at first, but the payoff was pretty interesting. Loved how Angela didn't really try to sway Nev into liking him, and how he just kind of let her tell the story of why she would fabricate multiple Facebook personas. Pathological liar, yes. But a woman who felt trapped in a life that she should have never been in. She admits to making poor decisons, re: Life vs. relationships. I thought it was an intriguing 1 1/2 hour of moviemaking once you get past the first (admittedly dull) 45 minutes.