Amending my top 10
SJRaff
Upon seeing "The Boxer" tonight I have to amend my years top ten list:
1. Titanic
2. The Sweet Hereafter
3. The Boxer
4. LA Confidential
5. As Good As it Gets
6. The Wings of the Dove
7. Boogie Nights
8. Mrs. Brown
9. Deconstructing Harry
10. Face Off
Stephen Rafferty
Los Angeles
Tiocfaidh Ar La
Alex Crouvier
SJRaff wrote:
>
> Upon seeing "The Boxer" tonight I have to amend my years top ten list:
>
> 1. Titanic
> 2. The Sweet Hereafter
> 3. The Boxer
> 4. LA Confidential
> 5. As Good As it Gets
> 6. The Wings of the Dove
> 7. Boogie Nights
> 8. Mrs. Brown
> 9. Deconstructing Harry
> 10. Face Off
>
Great choices, mine is probably very similar to yours... but anyone
thinks WING OF THE DOVE is just another period bodice ripper? Or BOOGIE
NIGHTS too blatantly allusive (a silly paradox, I am out of vocab, man)
to Scorsese's works? The more and more I see NIGHTS, the more annoyed I
am.
Alex Crouvier
Fat Tuna
Alex Crouvier <trojan50...@geocities.com> wrote in article
<34C48F...@geocities.com>...
> Great choices, mine is probably very similar to yours... but anyone
> thinks WING OF THE DOVE is just another period bodice ripper? Or BOOGIE
> NIGHTS too blatantly allusive (a silly paradox, I am out of vocab, man)
> to Scorsese's works? The more and more I see NIGHTS, the more annoyed I
> am.
>
>
> Alex Crouvier
>
Then maybe you should stop watching it!
MuseMalade
Alex Crouvier wrote:
>
> SJRaff wrote:
> >
> > Upon seeing "The Boxer" tonight I have to amend my years top ten list:
> >
> > 1. Titanic
> > 2. The Sweet Hereafter
> > 3. The Boxer
> > 4. LA Confidential
> > 5. As Good As it Gets
> > 6. The Wings of the Dove
> > 7. Boogie Nights
> > 8. Mrs. Brown
> > 9. Deconstructing Harry
> > 10. Face Off
> >
>
> thinks WING OF THE DOVE is just another period bodice ripper? Or BOOGIE
> NIGHTS too blatantly allusive (a silly paradox, I am out of vocab, man)
> to Scorsese's works? The more and more I see NIGHTS, the more annoyed I
> am.
>
I think THE WINGS OF THE DOVE is a wonderful film. It plays
*cinematically* without shortchanging its stern examination of moral
choices, and its psychological toll. Maybe I'm partial to well-made
period flicks, but compared to something like horribly oblique and
pretentious PORTRAIT OF A LADY, or the stuffy statis of recent
Merchant-Ivorys, I think the accolades given to WINGS is pretty well
deserved.
Your indictment of BOOGIE NIGHTS is also unfair. Unlike Scorsese and
Altman, Anderson is sympathetic to his characters. This results not
only in its "redemption of the idealized surrogate family" that some
critics have griped about, but also in an emotionally compelling
narrative. NASHVILLE and GOODFELLAS, as much as I admire and even love
those films, are films with a distinctively misanthropic or in the case
of Scorsese's film, an anthropologic outlook. Ultimately, Anderson's
sympathy prevents him from pushing BOOGIE NIGHTS closer to the
"truthful" gaze of GOODFELLAS. But it's a fantastic film, nonetheless.
Sure he swipes off Scorsese and Altman, but Scorsese himself swipes off
of Rossellini, Minnelli, Ford, etc. It's not the camera moves that
reveal the uniqueness of a filmmaker, but his approach to the material
and his characters. That's why I'm completely unpersuaded by attacks on
Anderson or Tarantino based on the "he swiped this shot off of..."
arguments.
MuseMalade
Alex Crouvier
MuseMalade wrote:
>
> Alex Crouvier wrote:
> choices, and its psychological toll. Maybe I'm partial to well-made
> period flicks, but compared to something like horribly oblique and
> pretentious PORTRAIT OF A LADY, or the stuffy statis of recent
Oh, don't even mention PORTRAIT. Its bright day-glo opening sequence of
women talking to the camera is so inept. Jane Campion must be proud to
be able to connect to the plight of wronged suppressed women in THE
PIANO that she lost her cinematic cool. Same thing with the jarring
switch to color and contemporary reality at the end of SCHINDLER'S LIST.
Why destroys that beautifully bleak B&W world Spielberg and Kaminski
have meticulously constructed earlier with some phoney hearttugging A&E
moments?
Alex Crouvier
Alex Crouvier
MuseMalade wrote:
> Your indictment of BOOGIE NIGHTS is also unfair. Unlike Scorsese and
> Altman, Anderson is sympathetic to his characters. This results not
> only in its "redemption of the idealized surrogate family" that some
> critics have griped about, but also in an emotionally compelling
> narrative. NASHVILLE and GOODFELLAS, as much as I admire and even love
> those films, are films with a distinctively misanthropic or in the case
> of Scorsese's film, an anthropologic outlook.
NASHVILLE's view may be too methodical for your taste but you are not
saying BOOGIE NIGHTS rises above it, are you? And thank God, GOODFELLAS
adopts anthropological approach, these gangsters are too immoral and
vicious to be glamorised, Muse. And looking at the way GOODFELLAS
becomes a popular college rental title, Scorsese doesn't have to make it
glam to be viciously immoral. One college doofus took infantile offense
when I was pulling his leg, and he actually did the "How am I funny?'
routine on me. Kids nowadays.
> Ultimately, Anderson's
> sympathy prevents him from pushing BOOGIE NIGHTS closer to the
> "truthful" gaze of GOODFELLAS. But it's a fantastic film, nonetheless.
It's fanatstic, i enjoyed it immensely first time around. Less so, after
that. The later violent half is a necessary part of the film's
rise-n-fall structure. But on closer viewing, it is unnecesarily
violent. That's the question I have asked to this newsgroup (if only
intelligent guys like Derek Janssen joins the discussion instead of
sending me 'I-dare-you' hate emails with a vengeance): how does violence
play a part in the downfall of a pron industry? The film makes no
apparent ..uuuhh, organic connection between the pre-80s sex and the
post-80s drugs and violence. In fact, BOOGIE is just another film about
a young drifter who stumbles into drug and violence and finds redemption
later. That way it is not much different than the cautionary
rags-to-riches stories like GOODFELLAS or >gasp< SHOWGIRLS, among
others of course.
> Sure he swipes off Scorsese and Altman, but Scorsese himself swipes off
> of Rossellini, Minnelli, Ford, etc.
Right, right...
> It's not the camera moves that
> reveal the uniqueness of a filmmaker, but his approach to the material
> and his characters.
This is where Anderson does not shine. (Read above)
Alex Crouvier
Gary Pollard
Portrait of a Lady is quite possibly one of the most inept adaptations of a
book ever made, and is witness to the fact that if your brain is scrambled
by any ideology, including feminism, your artistic reflexes get completely
fucked up.
Campion is so determined to make Malkovich's character a bad MAN that she
makes the heroine a moron for marrying him. This is a mistake that James did
not make. His character was self-deluding and self-indulgent, but not just
plain evil. And you are right, the women at the beginning were pathetic.
Some already said that "The Piano" was radical feminism illustrated. This
one was worse. And the foreign "Antonia's Line" even more pathetically
man-hating.
Gary
Alex Crouvier wrote in message <34C58A...@geocities.com>...
Edward Johnson-ott
Alex Crouvier <trojan50...@geocities.com> wrote:
>Great choices, mine is probably very similar to yours... but anyone
>thinks WING OF THE DOVE is just another period bodice ripper? Or BOOGIE
>NIGHTS too blatantly allusive (a silly paradox, I am out of vocab, man)
>to Scorsese's works? The more and more I see NIGHTS, the more annoyed I
>am.
>
I was amazed by the fuss over Wings Of The Dove. It struck me as standard
issue Masterpiece Theatre fodder. The photography was nice but the story
was so simplistic and emotionally hollow.
Ed Johnson-Ott
NUVO Newsweekly, www.nuvo-online.com/film/
archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott
Gary Pollard
Henry James is simplistic? In a world that thinks "Titanic" is deep?
Gary
Edward Johnson-ott wrote in message
<6a3vet$1c88$1...@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>...
Alex Crouvier
Gary Pollard wrote:
>
> Henry James is simplistic? In a world that thinks "Titanic" is deep?
>
> Gary
>
No, Gary, not the Henry James novel, but the adaptation of a Henry James
novel, which happens to be a film directed by Ian Softley and starring
Helena Bonham Carter. The film arguably is, not the novel.
Alex Crouvier
Gary Pollard
Oh, there's plenty of chance for adaptations to wreck a story, I don't deny
that. And I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it (which is why my post
was a question)
But I'd have thought it would have to star Steven Seagal to reach the same
shallows as the big ship.
Gary
Alex Crouvier wrote in message <34C5C3...@geocities.com>...
Paul Adams
Gary Pollard wrote in article <6a3sbi$5j...@news.asiaonline.net>...
>Portrait of a Lady is quite possibly one of the most inept adaptations of
a
>book ever made, and is witness to the fact that if your brain is
scrambled
>by any ideology, including feminism, your artistic reflexes get
completely
>fucked up.
>
>Campion is so determined to make Malkovich's character a bad MAN that
she
>makes the heroine a moron for marrying him. This is a mistake that James
did
>not make. His character was self-deluding and self-indulgent, but not
just
>plain evil. And you are right, the women at the beginning were pathetic.
>
>Some already said that "The Piano" was radical feminism illustrated.
This
>one was worse. And the foreign "Antonia's Line" even more pathetically
>man-hating.
Speaking of rotten movies based on books by Henry James with a feminist
theme, and returning to the earlier mention of Merchant-Ivory films, has
anyone besides me seen _The Bostonians_? Blech...
P Francesca
Gary Pollard wrote in message <6a3sbi$5j...@news.asiaonline.net>...
>Some already said that "The Piano" was radical feminism illustrated. This
>one was worse. And the foreign "Antonia's Line" even more pathetically
>man-hating.
I can see reasons why The Piano would be called feminism illustrated but can
you flesh out the radical part? Granted that for some all feminism is
radical.
Wasn't too enthusiastic about Antonia's Line but again can you point out how
this is "pathetically man-hating?"
Gary Pollard
P Francesca wrote in message ...
>I can see reasons why The Piano would be called feminism illustrated but
can
>you flesh out the radical part? Granted that for some all feminism is
>radical.
Equity feminism presupposes a belief in the equity of men and women. Radical
feminism points to some inherent evil and proprietary nature in men. Campion
tends to be a little too much - women wonderful, men suck to be any kind of
equity feminist.
>Wasn't too enthusiastic about Antonia's Line but again can you point out
how
>this is "pathetically man-hating?"
Can you think of a man in that movie that was not a joke or a swine? Let's
imagine a movie that exalted the gay man above the heterosexual because all
women were sluts, but in which the gay hero impregnated a woman and "used"
her just to have a kid, and then dumped her immediately after (for our
applause). Don't you imagine it would be seen as just a tad misogynistic? Of
course it does not harm this point of view that the director is a feminist
and a lesbian one at that.
Gary