Seen any good films lately? [3]

In Bruges is great but its a bit of a downer if you are not in the right frame of mind.

Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum (kind of), I watched Kenneth Branagh's new film, Cinderella yesterday. I found much of the humour and some of the performances to feel a little forced or strange or unappealing to myself. The constant squeaking from the mice and Helena Bonham-Carter's frantic performance as the Fairy Godmother stand out as examples.

However, everything central to the story was handled beautifully! I liked Cinderella and the prince. The loving relationships between their respective parents (their fathers anyway) and themselves worked very well, and they had a really believable liking for eachother ("chemistry"). There were a few sad scenes that really got to me.

When Cinderella's father died I couldn't help but cry when I saw the branch in her hands. It was this emotional power that made the film worth watching. I mean it was really beautiful, both in set decorations and cinematography, but if the characters were as unlikeable as, say, Angelina Jolie in the recent Malificient I simply wouldn't have bothered to see it.

she was a great Bellatrix though

I really liked her in Twelfth Night.

Watched a film called "The Iceman" tonight. Starred Michael Shannon. Based on a true story its about a guy called Richard Kuklinski, a contract killer & how he operated without his wife & family ever knowing the truth till, hes set up & nabbed. It was good !

I enjoy behind the scenes stuff

Oh my goodness, I watched Birdman last night over at my sister's. It was amazing!

A really awesome film. The acting was really, really, really good. And the cinematography was really pretty sometimes. The darker themes of insanity for the main character were very interesting of course, but my favourite parts of the film were when it focused on interaction between the actors in the play. Edward Norton was particularly delightful in his lovably dickish role as an aspiring, but well-versed, actor on Broadway.

Emma Stone had one incredible scene, but overall she was just fun to have around. Michael Keaton, on the other hand, was utterly excellent. He seemed very well suited to the role for not only is he very similar to his character (they have even both played a '90s comic book action hero), but his age and humble face (he never was very attractive) make you really want him to succeed at his desperate attempt at validation through the stage. He's also Michael Keaton though, so he can play craziness or weirdness very well.

This is the sort of movie that I love. This is what I watch movies for! A film that makes you love all the characters involved (despite their flaws and shortcomings), that has beautiful cinematography (using digital manipulation and simple transitions the film pretended to be a single continuous take), and absolutely wonderful acting.

I mean, every single relationship that the movie presented was believable: the bitter old play critic and the Hollywood wannabe, the absent father and his resentful daughter, the exasperated woman and her sometimes-obnoxious boyfriend, the stage-director and his grateful actress, the desperate washed-up actor and the Broadway know-it-all punk.

Gosh, I loved it.

P.S.
Favourite scene was between Emma Stone and Michael Keaton when she delivers a holy verbal smack-down of epic proportions and then immediately regrets the damage she has done. It was a thing of beauty.

really want to see that film

Really should see it

Birdman felt real & raw, like you were an invisible 'fly on the wall' going along, seeing the day unravel in front of you.

I wasn't planning to revisit again until the DVD release, but I was invited out to the movies tonight and we ended up seeing Kingsman, which for me was the second time. I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time and definitely expect it to be one of my favorite movies of the year in nine month's time.

Ah yes! Another one for the Netflix queue.

Did it have a more mature British sort of feel to it than Kickass?

It did feel very British.  Apparently in the original comic book it's based on the secret service actually was MI6, but even though it's replaced by a fictional international organization in the film, the film is permeated with British culture and slang.  It does have a very dry sense of humor and I didn't find the third act to suffer from the tonal shift that Kick-Ass' did, although

minor spoilers:

I'm not sure if I'd call it more mature than Kick-Ass, though there were one or two seasons that were definitely more violent.  There's a fight scene in a church that had a lot of people gasping in the theatre and was apparently censored from some international releases of the film, but it had fantastic action choreography.

I want to watch Cinderella, but I think I am going to have to go on my own.

I thought Cinderella looked good. But I can't deny that a big part of why I want to see it is for Robb Stark and Xaro Xhoan Daxos.

Haha, when I was watching the scenes with both Nonso Anozie (Captain of the guard) and Lily James (Cinderella) I kept feeling like the former should start hitting on the latter. Massive, tall, dark-skinned Anozie making advances toward a short petite blond? Now where have I seen that before?...  


And then Richard Madden is pretty awesome in the film. His character is extremely likeable and he's also kind of gorgeous. Apparently his eyes are actually that blue (with the right lighting) in real life. It's just that the post-processing effects used to drab down his Game of Thrones scenes subdued his eyes to a normal-looking hue.

So here's some pleasant crabbit from the guy whose video about torches I had posted in the LotR section.

Here he talks about historical advisers in films.



This is, of course, a single instance of this sort of thing. But you can certainly imagine a "who cares, let's do this because we want/need to" approach taking precedence over any dedication to historical accuracy. The best example of this that I saw in another one of his videos was about how a person who is holding a torch and looking around would actually hold the torch above and behind their shoulder and head. This would keep them from being blinded by the flames in front of their face and also shed light on the surrounding area. For the sake of lighting an actor's face, however, directors of photography will have the actor hold the torch in front of their face so as to allow the audience to see more of the actor than just their silhouette as they search around with their (blinded) eyes.


I remember watching the behind-the-scenes stuff from the vastly superior Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven. The historical adviser/writer for the movie was a pretentious windbag, and I'm not entirely certain his boasting about how awesome he was was not to compensate for his lack of knowledge.

At any rate, sacrifices obviously must be made in filmmaking, and it's as naive to assume that a director will try and get everything historically accurate in a production as it is to assume that a book will be adapted into a movie without any changes.

This movie was actually pretty funny ... saw it Friday with my son

I saw the 31% it had on Rotten Tomatoes and thought I'd avoid watching it. The summary read:

RottenTomatoes wrote:
A waste of two fine funnymen, Get Hard settles for tired and offensive gags instead of tapping into its premise's boundary-pushing potential.

That being said, I've never really not enjoyed Will Ferrel in a movie, so it might be worth watching.

In terms of not-very-good RT scored films that I like, Your Highness has always entertained me quite a lot despite its crudeness and stupidity. And then of course The Fall absolutely does NOT deserve its low rating of (used-to-be, it's around 60% now) 47% or so because it's actually an amazingly cool film that is excellent in all ways and stars one of the cutest child-actors imaginable AND Lee Pace!

ohhh yeah it was offensive... but funny as hell

Forest Shepherd wrote:So here's some pleasant crabbit from the guy whose video about torches I had posted in the LotR section.

Here he talks about historical advisers in films.



This is, of course, a single instance of this sort of thing. But you can certainly imagine a "who cares, let's do this because we want/need to" approach taking precedence over any dedication to historical accuracy. The best example of this that I saw in another one of his videos was about how a person who is holding a torch and looking around would actually hold the torch above and behind their shoulder and head. This would keep them from being blinded by the flames in front of their face and also shed light on the surrounding area. For the sake of lighting an actor's face, however, directors of photography will have the actor hold the torch in front of their face so as to allow the audience to see more of the actor than just their silhouette as they search around with their (blinded) eyes.


I remember watching the behind-the-scenes stuff from the vastly superior Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven. The historical adviser/writer for the movie was a pretentious windbag, and I'm not entirely certain his boasting about how awesome he was was not to compensate for his lack of knowledge.

At any rate, sacrifices obviously must be made in filmmaking, and it's as naive to assume that a director will try and get everything historically accurate in a production as it is to assume that a book will be adapted into a movie without any changes.

where can you sign up to become a historical advisor. sounds like my kinda job. I like coffee and Mars bars.

Yeah count me in too- a job where you get paid a lot of money to just be ignored- sounds perfect to me- I get ignored now and dont get a bloody penny