The Movie Thread

[Big Fingers McGee]

This should probably go in the Mick LaSalle thread, but it works here to - Mick speaks out agains media violence.  Very well said.

http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Violent-media-poisoning-nation-s-soul-4160035.php

He's right, tho' I don't think Dark Knight Rises is in anything approaching the same category as first-person shooter video games. I see ads for those every night on cable and I'm dumbfounded that people spend hours on end playing them.  Interesting that he thought DKR was "anti-life" and a "wallow in cruelty & destruction"... yet called Django Unchained the most entertaining movie of the year. Django has gallons more blood than DKR.

Saw Dark Knight Rises last week - ridiculously over the top? Sure. Excessively violent? C'mon!

[ggould]

We went to see Promised Land yesterday, and really liked it.  I only wish there was some sort of thought given to the trailers they show in theaters.  Here I was, about to watch a movie with a decidedly slower pace, with beautiful photography, and I was still subjected to the Gangster Squad preview!  Way to harsh my mellow dudes!

[RGMike]

We went to see Promised Land yesterday, and really liked it.  I only wish there was some sort of thought given to the trailers they show in theaters.  Here I was, about to watch a movie with a decidedly slower pace, with beautiful photography, and I was still subjected to the Gangster Squad preview!  Way to harsh my mellow dudes!

I feel like I've seen that Gangster Squad trailer a hundred times.   When I saw Not fade Away they showed a trailer for the next Tyler Perry movie; it looked like utter shite.

I liked Promised Land too, nicely played but that last-minute "twist" was a little hard to swallow.

[ggould]

We went to see Promised Land yesterday, and really liked it.  I only wish there was some sort of thought given to the trailers they show in theaters.  Here I was, about to watch a movie with a decidedly slower pace, with beautiful photography, and I was still subjected to the Gangster Squad preview!  Way to harsh my mellow dudes!

I feel like I've seen that Gangster Squad trailer a hundred times.   When I saw Not fade Away they showed a trailer for the next Tyler Perry movie; it looked like utter shite.

I liked Promised Land too, nicely played but that last-minute "twist" was a little hard to swallow.

Without spoiling it for the others, there are holes in the plot for sure.  I did suspect something was fishy, considering I certainly didn't expect Matt Damon to turn evil or lose.  I was a little surprised at the exact twist.

[RGMike]

Caught up with Ted this weekend via VOD. My love/hate relationship with Seth McFarlane is well-documented: Hate Family Guy, love American Dad, find McFarlane himself quite smart and personable on talk shows.  I didn't think Ted was laugh-out-loud, fall-on-the-floor funny but it was consistently amusing; I smiled a lot. Granted, riffing on '80s pop-cultural schlock is McFarlane's stock-in-trade, but I thought the extended Sam J Jones cameo was fairly inspired. Still think using the Peter Griffin voice for the teddy bear was awfully lazy, and referencing it in the dialogue does not magically make it OK.

[RGMike]

Gotta love this trailer for the new Coen Bros flick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5ngyALMRR4&feature=player_embedded

It's "loosely" based on Dave van Ronk's posthumous memoir. Greenwich Village folkies in the early '60s, plus John Goodman -- what's not to love?

[RGMike]

Some great quotes from the unmitigated pans that Movie 43 has been getting...

NY Post: "If you mashed-up the worst parts of the infamous Howard the Duck, Gigli, Ishtar and every other awful movie I've seen since I started reviewing professionally in 1981, it wouldn't begin to approach the sheer soul-sucking badness of the cringe-inducing Movie 43."

H'Wood Reporter: "Despite the dizzying array of talent involved both in front of and behind the camera, this godawful exercise is so painfully unfunny, so screamingly bad that it immediately qualifies as one of the worst films of all time."

Onion AV Club: "The sketches aren't united by a half-ignored framing device, so much as by an enduring fascination with bodily functions. Movie 43 is the most star-studded collection of jokes involving menstruation, flatulence, incest, bestiality, Snooki, and nutsacks ever assembled, but the stars don't elevate the material-they just descend to its level."

[RGMike]

So... who'll play Bowie and who'll play Iggy?

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2013/02/07/david-bowies-berlin-years-with-iggy-pop-inspire-new-biopic/

[Tinka Cat]

So... who'll play Bowie and who'll play Iggy?

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2013/02/07/david-bowies-berlin-years-with-iggy-pop-inspire-new-biopic/

Maggie Smith and Tard the Cat, respectively.

[Lightnin' Rod]

So... who'll play Bowie and who'll play Iggy?

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2013/02/07/david-bowies-berlin-years-with-iggy-pop-inspire-new-biopic/

I don't think Kirk Douglas and/or Anthony Quinn are available*.  Kirk looks a little like Iggy these days, however.


*Tentatively titled Lust For Life as was the 1956 Van Gogh biopic, starring Kirk as Vincent and Quinn as Paul Gauguin.

Bonus trivia in the "you learn all kinds of things late in the day when you are bored at work" category: 
Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch
Iggy Pop was born James Newell Osterberg, Jr
David Bowie was born David Robert Jones
And Anthony Quinn, not to be outdone, was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca.

[Here'sToYa!]

So... who'll play Bowie and who'll play Iggy?

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2013/02/07/david-bowies-berlin-years-with-iggy-pop-inspire-new-biopic/

It's interesting that the first paragraph states that the Berlin years were the stuff of sex, drugs and rock & roll myths. I read recently that Bowie said he cleaned up in Berlin after being coked out of his mind in LA. He didn't like heroin, which was rife in Berlin. Of course, that's not taking Iggy into account.

[Lightnin' Rod]

No comments from anyone about the Oscars yet.  I personally wasn't up to date on most of the nominees, but I did rent Argo yesterday afternoon, so it was the only best picture nominee I had seen.  I have to tell you, I don't get it -- it was good, but not *that* good.  There must have been better movies...

[RGMike]

No comments from anyone about the Oscars yet.  I personally wasn't up to date on most of the nominees, but I did rent Argo yesterday afternoon, so it was the only best picture nominee I had seen.  I have to tell you, I don't get it -- it was good, but not *that* good.  There must have been better movies...

there were. It was an above-average year for film. This was just a weird confluence of (a) Affleck got "snubbed" for a Best Director nom after seemingly being a shoo-in, so he got a lot of sympathy; (b) They liked Lincoln but didn't "love" it; (c) The critics' pick, Zero Dark Thirty, got embroiled in controversy regarding torture; (d) Argo ultimately is about Hollywood as much as it is about the CIA.

"good but not *that* good" is pretty much the standard in Tinseltown these days.

[Tinka Cat]

No comments from anyone about the Oscars yet.  I personally wasn't up to date on most of the nominees, but I did rent Argo yesterday afternoon, so it was the only best picture nominee I had seen.  I have to tell you, I don't get it -- it was good, but not *that* good.  There must have been better movies...

aw, man. You shoulda seen it on the BIG SCREEN!   it made all the difference..

it was ... bigger?

heh, seriously the only movie in that category I saw, too.  A decent thriller and knowing it was based on real-life made it interesting, too.  I did find myself rolling my eyes a tad in the airport chase scene, though.

Not a huge Ben Affleck fan, but I did like the rest of the cast of (to me) unknown actors, one of which won an oscar last night for male supporting role.

[mshray]

I saw 6 of the best pix noms, and at least 3 in every acting category.  Maybe Beasts... will change my mind when I eventually see it, but I really did think Argo was the best picture that I saw this year.  Hard to argue with DDL for actor, although I actually thought that was only the 4th or 5th best role in his career, whereas I thought Denzel gave the best perfomance of his life in Flight.  I would have taken Naomi Watts over Jennifer Lawrence, but over-acting oftens wins.  I was most surprised and pleased by Ang Lee's win.

I am still waiting to hear what RGMike thought of the host.