BS: Seen any good movies lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 11:07 AM

Why would they have a family structure if they are "hatched" out of the ground { if I remember correctly }?

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 10:33 AM

My feeling is that Orcs are not very much like the ones in the Tolkien films, most of whom look like reanimated corpses hopped up on some kind of violent drug effect. I think that real Orcs would have a different skin colour, yes...and different features from humans or Elves, etc. They'd probably be strongly built, large-boned, and rather fierce looking. They'd probably have a society that involved families, same as other societies do, and that would mean wives and children, and communities. They'd probably be at war with Elves, Humans, and Dwarves all right, because of the cultural differences. They'd probably have a religion, a social philosophy, and a history. They would think of themselves as "the good guys". They'd probably be more nocturnal than diurnal (same as wolves, cats, coyotes, owls, bats, etc). They would know how to make clothing, weapons, houses, jewelry, etc.

There would always be the possibility of a temporary truce being made between the Orcs and various of the other races...depending on their leaders and events. They would probably trade with the other races from time to time.

Until you respect and try to understand the Orc...don't expect him to ever respect or try to understand you! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 10:21 AM

In order to make Orcs more sympathetic - coming soon......

ORCS - The Musical.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 02:13 AM

But are they Tolkien Orcs? That's what Little Hawk is talking about. Not those generic ones.
Tolkien Orcs look like Star Wars characters that are dead and decomposing. Generic ones just look like Bruce Willis with chronic depression.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:58 PM

Some of my best friends are orcs.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 02:46 PM

Sure, the depiction of the Orcs in the films works...in the context of the films. But it makes them less interesting than Gollum...as characters...because they have no depth of character.

And that is basically my point.

"Were not the concentration camp guards who committed mass murder worse than any creature in a LOTR book?"

Actually, I think not. Various people among those guards were, in fact, stricken with a deep sense of guilt over what they were doing...or had done...because they were given orders to do it and they were deeply afraid to disobey those orders...in fear of losing their own lives in front of a firing squad. This was also true of many German soldiers in the field who were ordered to summarily execute prisoners (It happend a lot in Russia, specially. And the Russians were doing that to the Germans too, of course...hard to say who started doing it first, and it probably doesn't matter.). Many of those German soldiers and guards who had committed atrocities ordered by their commanders suffered great remorse over what they had done, and some committed suicide because of it.

I think this makes them considerably better and more human individuals than various of the evil creatures in LOTR. If someone is capable of repentance and regret over his own misdeeds, he is clearly not entirely evil. He's more likely someone who wasn't quite strong enough to stand up and say "No, I won't do that."...and face the consequences.

I've never seen the slightest reluctance in a Tolkien Orc or other monster to commit atrocities. This makes them quite different from we humans, who must usually be persuaded to do so over a period of time by gradually being numbed to what we are really doing by political propaganda, coercion, prejudice, and fear. In our case, that's tragic...and tragedy makes for very interesting drama.

There's nothing tragic about the demise of a crowd of Middle Earth Orcs, is there?

But the fall of Berlin in WWII was an astoundingly tragic event in terms of what happened to the people and the city...an event that resulted in death, misery, and despair falling on a vast number of innocent, ordinary people (and a group of tragically flawed idealogues and a few outright fanatics in the command structure) most of whom were just unlucky enough to have been born German, in the wrong place, at the absolute wrong time. They came under bad political leadership. It could happen to us someday, just like that.

We don't see anything tragic in the fall of Mordor, however. There isn't one shred of goodness in Mordor to feel sorry about. This makes it good for a fictional story, but completely unreal at the same time. In this world, there are always a lot of good people on the opposing side in any war...people you'd have been glad to have as friends under a different circumstance.

I can't imagine having a Tolkien Orc as a friend! ;-) Nope. That wouldn't work too well at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 01:14 PM

Your points about the orcs and goblins are valid. But looking at it from a story telling point of view, or even from the point of view of the characters, where the only interaction with the creatures is danger. The point of view of a hobbit viewing a group of Orc's the hobbit would not likely be pricy to the campfire conversation and music of those hunting him as dogs hunt rabbits.

In the Star Trek universe Klingons started out universally bad until further development made them admirable allies, at which time they were replaced as evil antagonists by Cardassians and Borg.

Getting back to point of view and the war you brought up, If the Japanese Islanders had seen the invading Marines as people like themselves would they have flung themselves and their children off cliffs rather than surrender? Were not the concentration camp guards who committed mass murder worse than any creature in a LOTR book? Gassing people, making lampshades of them? But yet they had mothers wives and children and probably drank beer and ate sausage in October.

I don't think the LOTR movies need sympathetic orcs anymore than a movies including Gestapo and SS troops need scenes of baby NAZIs eating black forest cake with their moms.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 12:37 PM

You are perfectly right, Little Hawk. Disturbing right, actually.

The orcs were elves, the highest born of Middle Earth. They show us
what happens to even the highest born when they become obsessed with the Ring of Power. Gollum shows us the psychological process that turns even a loveable hobbit into a creature that eats its own kind. That's why the ring has to be destroyed.

Given that Tolkien says that the orcs were elves, he could have given them all histories, but with all that added back story, LOTR would have been really long;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 12:33 PM

It's definitely in my top 10.

Another one that's right up there for me is "Groundhog Day".

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 12:02 PM

>'The Last of the Mohicans' - which is my favourite film of all time!

It certainly has one of the best scores, plus the presence of Madeleine Stowe.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 11:59 AM

I watched 'Catch Me If You Can' the other night. It's based on a true story in which a 1960s American teenager pulled off a sequence of amazing and audacious frauds before eventually being caught by a very persistent FBI agent.

Somewhere above, Little Hawk mentions (Michael Mann's) 'The Last of the Mohicans' - which is my favourite film of all time!

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 11:40 AM

"12 O'Clock High" was a very fine film indeed.

Stim - Brilliant! (your comments on The Hobbit) Having given what you said some consideration...I think you're absolutely right in what you say, comparing "The Hobbit" to the LOTR trilogy. They'd have had to make LOTR into about 10 full length movies to get in all the less action-oriented stuff, the humour, the songs, all that other more subtle stuff that was in the books. Maybe they should have...

Regarding the Orcs. Okay...maybe Tolkien saw them as having been "created" by magic specifically to BE evil...therefore they are only 2-dimensional creatures with no natural characteristics. If so, it makes them unrealistic as a race of beings, and it's Tolkien's error. He was, after all, symbolically playing out the great struggle of his own time (WWII) in his story about good and evil in Middle Earth...so it seems that the Orcs and Goblins were intended to represent the legions of the Fascist powers in WWII. Well...the young men who served in German, Italian, and Japanese forces were not evil monsters created by some wizard in a castle. ;-) They were perfectly ordinary young men of their time, born into unusual political circumstances, and like the soldiers in all the other countries who fought, they went to war for the usual reasons: duty, honour, country, tradition, patriotism, loyalty, obedience to authority...and because it seemed completely unavoidable at the time.

So they were real people, just like us, serving a very bad and misguided political system that ruled over them. Like us, they experienced love, hope, and every form of human idealism.

If there really were a race of Orcs or Goblins, I expect that they too would turn out to be quite complicated beings, much like us, and not simple cardboard cutouts of pure evil. And that's how I'd have looked at it, if I were Tolkien. But since he didn't write it that way, the movies have depicted the Orcs much as Tolkien would have wanted, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 08:55 AM

"12 O'Clock High" is a true classic. Gregory Peck was just as compelling then as he was thirteen years later in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

The mid '60s series was good too, for TV, but it quickly deteriorated when star Robert Lansing was deemed too "old" to pull in the ratings.

So the producers killed off General Savage, dropped his tough boss (John Larkin, whose jaw was squarer than Dick Tracy's), and replaced them with a colonel (Paul Burke) who led everybody (including a young guy with blow-dried hair) in simpler, less psychologically-oriented adventures.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Janie
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 10:17 PM

Just watched "12 O'Clock High" with my son on Netflix. I'd never seen it. A good way to spend an evening at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 04:24 PM

I saw "The Hobbit", and was very surprised, in a good way. It's a better movie than any of the other LOTR films, partly because it has a lot of humor, partly because Bilbo is a much more interesting character than Frodo, but mostly because the story line doesn't disappear for 20 minutes at a time in battle scenes.

Just so you know, I am slightly OC checking this stuff, and went back and watched all three LOTRs just to make sure...

One thing to remember is that Peter Jackson is the "auteur" of the films, not JRRT, and he isn't as good a story teller.

As to the orcs, you gotta love them...aren't they really zombies? They are just lumbering corpses who are going to going to be cut to pieces, and they are so enthusiastic...they haven't got a clue....

Little Hawk, if you liked "Looking for a Friend..." you will probably like "Safety Not Guaranteed"--it's about some low-end reporters who find a personal ad from someone seeking companion for time travel, and decide to find the person who placed the ad and do a feature story about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 02:29 PM

Yeah, those last 2 things bother me too, Wesley. ;-)

As for stories, I think a fictional story, to be a good story, needs some real drama in it just as much as a nonfictional story does...generally speaking...in order to be effective as a story. There might be the odd exception here and there.

The one thing I find weak about Tolkien's stories (and they are brilliant) is the idea of having specific races of beings that are intrinsically evil by their very nature. It's just a dumb idea. You don't find any situation in real life where that happens....but it's a common device in stories, because we use them to play out symbolic dramas between supposed opposites...or archetypes of good and evil. Such opposites are crude outer symbols of the moral struggle between light and darkness that occurs within each one of us during our entire lives.

Gollum is a very interesting character, precisely because we are aware that he wasn't intrisincally evil in his original nature...but fell from grace! That makes him tragic...and it makes him interesting in a way that the Orcs and Goblins and other "Bad Guys" like Sauron never will be. They're not presented as real characters at all. They never had any grace or innocence to fall from. They're one-dimensional cardboard cutouts of evil, and nothing more.

That's the way people once saw wolves. We don't see wolves that way anymore, do we? They're just ordinary animals who hunt to live, same as many other animals do. We see wolves more realistically now than we once did, because we've set aside the ancient myth of their supposedly "evil" nature. You have to understand wolves and their place in Nature to get beyond the myth.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 02:11 PM

"We don't live in a world so simple that you can tell the "good guys" and the "bad guys" from what race or nation they belong to. Some would like it to be that way, some are even deluded enough to think it IS that way, but it never will be."

I take your point, but to be pedantic it's not a good analogy LH, because both Goblins AND Orcs were *created* by evil people to *be* bad. As of course were the Uruk-hai too. :P

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 02:08 PM

"It defeats the sense of real drama for me."

I'm not sure you should attempt to find "real" in a book about Hobbits....

What bothers me in the movies - among other things - is guns that never seem to need reloading. Or a man and woman who hate each other until they look longingly into each other eyes,kiss and discover that they really DO love each other.Even though they have nothing in common.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 01:28 PM

Yeah, sure....but do you get what I mean about that sense of unreality that sets in after awhile when the "good guys" don't lose a single man while slaying hundreds or thousands?

I mean...why even worry about the good guys if they are to all intents immortal??? ;-) It defeats the sense of real drama for me.

In a great movie, "The Last of the Mohicans", a number of important characters we've come to know well and probably empathize with die during the movie. That gives it a hell of a lot more emotional impact than if they had slain upwards of 5,000 Iroquois warriors and all made it through without losing a single life on their own side, doesn't it?

The general public apparently prefers (or at least has fed TO them) completely unreal fantasies where only the "bad guys" die...and by the hundreds. Well, that's just silly. Mind you, they did have some heroic Dwarves die in the flashbacks....apparently the Orcs did know how to fight back then! ;-)

It's a minor complaint. I did quite liked the movie anyway, and I expect I'll like the next 2 installments of it.

We don't live in a world so simple that you can tell the "good guys" and the "bad guys" from what race or nation they belong to. Some would like it to be that way, some are even deluded enough to think it IS that way, but it never will be.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 12:52 PM

"I do find it a bit odd that a dozen Dwarves can repeatedly fight vast numbers of Orcs, assorted monsters, and Goblins, slay them in droves, yet not lose a single Dwarf while they're doing it. "

Well duh - It's because they are the GOOD guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: alex s
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 08:47 AM

Hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 12:10 AM

I just watched Enchanted on NBC. I had seen it before. It's a light, frothy bit of fluff. Amy Adams was a delight.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 09:38 PM

Okay, I just saw "The Hobbit". Nice movie. Much as I would have expected. Lovely to look at. And it's always good to see those magnificent Elves, the very image of what we humans could be if we rose to our very best...although they only appeared for short segments. Nice to see the Dwarves get their day on film too.

The section with Gollum was the most memorable part.

It won't have near the impact the LOTR trilogy did, but I think the fans will mostly enjoy it.

I also enjoyed seeing all the interior shots of "Bag End", and, no, I didn't find the movie "too slow", but I do think it's a bit much to stretch that particular story out to 3 movies. 2 movies would probably do it fine.

I do find it a bit odd that a dozen Dwarves can repeatedly fight vast numbers of Orcs, assorted monsters, and Goblins, slay them in droves, yet not lose a single Dwarf while they're doing it.

That doesn't happen in real war. It gets a bit silly after awhile, watching it happen onscreen. I think Orcs and Goblins can fight better than that. If they couldn't, they'd all just give up, surrender, and go home. And after all, where is the drama in watching battles where they never lose a single man on the "good guys" side? And do Orcs and Goblins also have mothers who weep when their sons don't come home? (It seems quite likely that they would....if they really existed at all.)

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 07:33 PM

Schindler's List is about one self-absorbed criminal opportunist whose dormant human decency is finally awakened. It has the virtue of being more or less a true story, and certainly makes no novel claims about the nature of the Holocaust.

"Life is Beautiful," on the other hand, says that Auschwitz was not so bad, and that only a gloomy Eeyore would let a Holocaust or a Gulag or a Nagasaki or a Cultural Revolution of exploding Towers dampen his sense of fun. For Benigni, the smile of a happy child and his unfazed mom tells us all we need to know about such silly annoyances. Life is beautiful!

Benigni has also said that the only way we can "get past" the Holocaust is to "laugh at it."

That proves he's a fool no matter what he thinks he means.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Elmore
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 06:54 PM

Enjoyed Les Miserables on Christmas, and this afternoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 05:17 PM

Yes, I've done it too Lighter. Ugh indeed. Inglourious Basterds I am sort of ambivalent about.

Schindler never seems to me to face up to the majority of times when it wasn't hot water that came out of the nozzles. I find its feelgood tone rebarbative, tho can see why it is admired, unlike the vile LIB. But, as Kubrick remarked, you have a movie about 6 million people meeting particularly nasty ends offscreen while 600 manage to survive on...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 04:59 PM

M: I stand by my opinion of "Schindler's List," but I agree fully that "Life is Beautiful" is truly "unspeakable."

If you'd like to boost your blood pressure two or three hundred points, check out the gushing all-star reviews at IMDb and Amazon.com. I've done it, and I don't recommend it.

Benigni's own father allegedly survived a Nazi camp. If so, the young genius is even more obtuse than he might appear. (He is quoted as saying, "I hate, I hate, I hate sentimentalism!")

Of course, millions of fans love the message: "Not even crummy bunks and mean old Nazis can beat a guy who thinks positive!"

Thus LIB garnered an award at Cannes, three Oscars, and a special commendation at the Jerusalem Film Festival: "for furthering the understanding of Jewish history."

Sic.

I realize that, statistically, people who are appalled, like me, are the weirdos, and I guess I have to live knowing that. (The chorus of Pod People scolds, "Lighten up, dude! It's just a *movie*! And
>sniff!< Roberto was a *great* father!")

Double feature: follow up a viewing of "Life is Beautiful" with one of "Inglourious Basterds." For a pop evening you'll never forget.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 04:18 PM

I also thoroughly enjoyed "Seeking a Friend at the End of the World", though I saw it on the computer, not at the movies. Like most of the movies Kiera Knightley's been in, it was excellent, and it was a really fresh and new approach to the basic scenario of a story about the end of the world. It didn't take the kind of path they usually do at all. I could very much identify with the lead characters, different as they were from one another. Like the guy in the film, I'd just want to spend the time quietly....no wild parties or orgies, thanks! Just some quiet time either alone or with someone I really care about.

The brief section with the desperate ex-boyfriend was kind of annoying, but I liked the rest of the movie a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 03:25 PM

Anyhow; that one makes a point in its title & pre-pub of demonstrating that it is not meant to be in any way a serious contemplation of the issues raised; whereas the two I animdvert against above...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 03:23 PM

No, Jack ~~ I have made a point of avoiding that one. Twice bitten...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 02:56 PM

MtheGM, Surely you are referring to "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden "

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 01:58 PM

Sorry ~ meant Lighter, not Leveller. Apologies to both.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 01:57 PM

"Spielberg's best since "Schindler's List" and every bit as good."
.,,.
Disagree, Leveller. I can't find words to express my hatred & contempt for that vile cop-out from the worst thing that has happened in the entire history of the world*; surpassed only by the Oscar-winning{Christ!) & unspeakable Life Is Beautiful, about the fun & games children had in the Belsen holiday camp.

~M~

*YMMV ~ not trying to drift into a competition for that undesirable title. Just can't think of another such enormity committed with the full knowledge & approval of the entire population of perhaps the most cultured nation in the Western world.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 01:53 PM

Premium Rush, an hour of bicycle chase scenes, 30 minutes of plot, surprisingly good.

Moonrise Kingdom, Quirky kid romance, Wes Anderson's best IMHO

Total Recall.. Better effects than the Arnie one, but no Ronnie Cox.

Dark Night Rises. As good as the other two in the trilogy.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World ... Quirky funny, poignant, lusty romance with an odd lesson for desperate times.

Wanderlust   ... Quirky funny, poignant, lusty romance with an odd lesson for desperate times.

Dark Shadows - Tim Burton and Johnny Deep, quirky, silly, funny.

Bernie, Quirky, funny, true story.

Hunger Games was Margaret Atwood meets Die Hard.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 01:11 PM

I saw The Hobbit a week or so ago. It was OK, but they could have wrapped everything up in 2 hours or less... I got quite restless about 3/4 of the way through.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 12:52 PM

Considering the book was a little over 300 pages - if the other two movies are as long as the first it will clock in at close to nine hours. Plenty of time to tell the whole story. And then some.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 12:05 PM

"The Hobbit: stuffed, bloated, and formulaic, almost a rip-off of the great "Fellowship of the Ring." Lots of battles in which a dozen dwarves slaughter a million goblins. Score seemingly lifted unchanged from _"LOTR." There are one or two beautiful sequences - if you can stay awake."

We're going to see this in the early new year. I do remember remarking to my partner that a trilogy of (inevitably) three hour films culled from The Hobbit's modestly slim lone volume, sounded like "butter scraped over too much bread" even for Tolkien fanboys (which we both are).

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:58 AM

The latest James Bond film is quite good of its type. I can't say I give much importance to James Bond movies...but...it is an entertaining couple of hours and Daniel Craig plays the part very convincingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:56 AM

Lincoln: gripping, historically astute, puts you there and makes you pay attention. Easily Spielberg's best since "Schindler's List" and every bit as good.

The Hobbit: stuffed, bloated, and formulaic, almost a rip-off of the great "Fellowship of the Ring." Lots of battles in which a dozen dwarves slaughter a million goblins. Score seemingly lifted unchanged from _"LOTR." There are one or two beautiful sequences - if you can stay awake.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:55 AM

Oh, and a second viewing of Billy Bob Thornton's (writer, director and actor) brilliantly bad taste 'Bad Santa' - if you don't enjoy dark comedy, this flick won't be appreciated..

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:42 AM

I watched Dredd recently, which is the latest attempt to bring 2000AD's premier crime fighting character to the screen. Pretty good too I say, little on the gory side, but Dredd was well played, or at least as well played as a monosyllabic futuristic law enforcer can be. I liked the ett story arc - at least so much as it can be called one - of Judge Anderson too, as well as the gritty underworld of Megacity One, which looks like the grimy underside of 80's Britain (the Judge Dredd strip was born in the late 80's), Brutalist architecture and all, as ugly as can be imagined - with a few futuristic tweaks naturally.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:16 AM

Well the Mrs. and I saw Les Misérables yesterday. Overall we enjoyed it a lot but:

The closeup shots were too long and TOO close. I don't need to see that Ann Hathaway's nose is about to run while she's crying. Leave me some mystery please.

I don't really care for hand held camera shots, esp in a period piece like this one.

Sorry - but I don't care for Hugh Jackman's vibrato. I know that vibrato seems standard in musicals - but it's just not pleasing to my ears.

Having said that - there were plot points that became clear in the movie that I missed in the stage presentation. The art direction - the look of the movie - was wonderful. And the quality of Amanda Sayfried's voice was a real surprise. I still think it's worth seeing and recommend it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 08:43 PM

I haven't seen Argo yet, but everyone who has tells me it is great. It's about the Americans who sought refuge in the Canadian ambassador's home in Iran and were rescued by a CIA team pretending to be filming a sci-fi film.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 12:42 PM

Hey! Frankenweenie sounds like an inspired idea to me. What could be more fun than a Dachshund who comes back from the dead?

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 12:04 PM

Guest,achmelvich, doesn't look as though it is available according to its listing at IMDB.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 08:15 AM

Saw Looper at the Drive In a couple of weeks ago - that was pretty good.


I also watched Mr. Brooks on DVD last night and enjoyed it very much!

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 06 Nov 12 - 08:01 AM

i have been looking for a french film -'jeanne's house' - for about 20 years. anyone any idea where i might find a copy? as far as i know it's not available on dvd.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 12 - 04:57 PM

Here are the films at our local six screen cinema this week:

Skyfall
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted‎
Taken 2
Silent Hill: Revelation 3D
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted 3D
Silent Hill: Revelation
Frankenweenie

That really is a pretty dispiriting collection.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 05 Nov 12 - 03:24 PM

Husband went alone to cinema to watch Skyfall. Said it was good at first but far too long. He left before the end!

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Nov 12 - 02:47 PM

We enjoyed Denzel Washington in "Flight". I'm not so sure a heroin addict could get clean as fast as the woman in this movie but I won't quibble about the details.