Recently viewed films

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Jack of All Parades
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Re: Recently viewed films

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Mistress America by Noah Baumbach and co-written with its star Greta Gerwig last evening with Ms. Lisa. It is one extended apercu of a movie which skewers certain millennials and the urban environment they occupy. As a satire it carves up cultural totems of the young adeptly. Brooke, played by Greta Gerwig, is monstrously arrogant, self-centered, driven and a force of urban nature. Into her orbit comes Tracy, played by Lola Kirk, her would be step-sister and someone who is easily shaped by others. What results as they interact with one another and those in orbit around them is a pointed critique of people desperate to impress and to seem impressive. It is one of the better satires I have seen in years. It also further cements Ms. Gerwig as a master of screen comedy.

https://youtu.be/xq5JgOGEvbY
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Re: Recently viewed films

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Otis Westinghouse wrote:Dying to see Haynes' Mildred Pierce now too (which awaits on DVD)
Can I just say how utterly fabulous the Todd Haynes Mildred Pierce was? Kate Winslet was amazing. The whole production was superb. Dying to see the Joan Crawford noir original film again, even if it is hugely different in content from this series, which was based much more on the book.
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Re: Recently viewed films

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Meru by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi the other evening with Ms. Lisa. This is a documentary about three elite climbers- Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk and their attempt to summit Meru, a 21,000 ft Himalayan peak near straight up including a bulging, near vertical, slab of granite plates near the top that are constantly shifting and is known to climbers as the "Shark Fin". Mt. Meru is imposing: the attempt by these three is equally impressive. Their story is exhilarating when they are on the mountain but the talking head portions and back story is less impressive. The film only came alive for me when they were hanging and moving on that vertical slab of granite. Very much alive.

https://youtu.be/qdWzTqyMtSU
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Infinitely Polar Bear the other night with Lisa. Directed by Maya Forbes and starring Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldano as a couple with their two very much alive young daughters who reside in the Boston area and are dealing with Ruffalo's character's chronic bipolarity. Cameron Stuart is a member of a Boston blue blood family that has a heritage and is class rich if not cash rich. Hence the near poverty that Cameron's family endures. Cameron is over the top, grandiose, delusional and yet someone you cannot help caring about. His ex-wife Maggie is trying to break them out of their destitution. The consequences of that effort are engaging but perhaps self-delusional in that Cameron's manic depression can turn at any time. Hence my incredulousness with the story. But Mr. Ruffalo is always a joy to watch.
https://youtu.be/heHiFQuFWvo
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Re: Recently viewed films

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No Star Wars??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I think it's probably the only film I actually went to the movies to see, but DAMN it was worth the wait. I think I'm gonna see it once more.

In 3D

IMAX 3d.
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Re: Recently viewed films

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mood swung wrote:No Star Wars??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I think it's probably the only film I actually went to the movies to see, but DAMN it was worth the wait. I think I'm gonna see it once more.

In 3D

IMAX 3d.
It's too hard to follow the plot! Over so many sequels and prequels and what have you...

(edited to add: So I got some help - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-16/s ... ne/7013826

Otis Westinghouse wrote:
Otis Westinghouse wrote:Dying to see Haynes' Mildred Pierce now too (which awaits on DVD)
Can I just say how utterly fabulous the Todd Haynes Mildred Pierce was? Kate Winslet was amazing. The whole production was superb. Dying to see the Joan Crawford noir original film again, even if it is hugely different in content from this series, which was based much more on the book.
Have seen some trailers of that one featuring Guy Pearce, it looks good. Must recommend it to a sister who is a fan of Downtown Abbey.
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Re: Recently viewed films

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mood swung wrote:No Star Wars??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I think it's probably the only film I actually went to the movies to see, but DAMN it was worth the wait. I think I'm gonna see it once more.

In 3D

IMAX 3d.
Ms. Mood, I and my wife must be one of only a few who have chosen not to see the movie. Not elitist. I just have never been heavily invested in the series. I saw the first one all those years ago and was entertained but not to the point where I wanted to keep viewing the subsequent films. Give me a chance to watch American Graffiti in repeat though and I am all in...........my choice for the holidays was "Brooklyn" and I came away enchanted much like you seemingly did from "Star Wars".
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Re: Recently viewed films

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bambooneedle wrote:
Otis Westinghouse wrote:
Otis Westinghouse wrote:Dying to see Haynes' Mildred Pierce now too (which awaits on DVD)
Can I just say how utterly fabulous the Todd Haynes Mildred Pierce was? Kate Winslet was amazing. The whole production was superb. Dying to see the Joan Crawford noir original film again, even if it is hugely different in content from this series, which was based much more on the book.
Have seen some trailers of that one featuring Guy Pearce, it looks good. Must recommend it to a sister who is a fan of Downtown Abbey.
Guy Pearce is very good in it too. And the performance by Evan Rachel Wood as the older version of daughter Veda is also fantastic.

There's no real comparison with Downton Abbey other than both are set in the past and a big house is involved. Downton is anachronistic tosh, a soap opera, fun to some extent for a Sunday evening or a Christmas special, but forgotten within hours, whereas Mildred Pierce is something you could watch over and over. Once would never be enough.

The only Star Wars film I've ever seen in the cinema was some godawful prequel. I was 13 for the original and not bothered and now at 51 am still not bothered. The son who wanted to see the prequel back in the day saw the new one too and enjoyed it, so it's stuck with him in some way. he is working in the cinema where it showed, and did a full-day shift on opening day. Insane. Darth Vader suits, light sabres, etc.

I'm quite keen to see The Revenant and to a lesser extent Joy. I loved Silver Linings Playbook but the new one sounds like it will be as annoying as it might be enjoyable. Still, Jennifer Lawrence is said to be outstanding in it, so it's probably worth it just for that.

Nice to see you here, Moodie!
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Re: Recently viewed films

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"The Revenant" by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and with the exquisite and awe inspiring cinematography provided by Emmanuel Lubezki yesterday with Lisa. This one is only done justice by seeing it on a theater screen. It has one of the greatest opening scenes I have ever witnessed at the movies- a depiction of an American Eden-the forest primeval- in full cinema- the wind moving through the trees, the glints of light, the sound of water moving across the land, the crack and creaking of trees as they bend and sway, the vastness of the heavens and the solitary sounds of an occasional bird and then slowly the end of a flintlock enters the lower portion of the frame followed by a foot and more feet and then men and then chaos. The result is a battle scene that will be a text book example of an action scene for centuries to come. I have never experienced the natural world and its sounds, textures, and feel so completely as I have through this movie. One's senses are only expanded as the movie progresses with vast panoramas of natural scenes that powerfully move you as a viewer.

As a story it is too one note with DiCaprio's character's Terminator like determination to get his revenge on his son's killer. It does work for me as an allegory for the American Archetype- flinty, hard, stoic and a killer with aspects of The Last of the Mohicans in DiCaprio's Hugh Glass and his son, Hawk. It can also be viewed as an antediluvian dream and the myth of the American Eden with its notion of exceptionalism and how empty that dream is with the slaughter and ravages that ensued. Tom Hardy's portrayal of John Fitzgerald in the movie speaks to that in an interesting way as he almost steals the film with his bloated sense of entitlement and his realization towards the end that the notion that if he works hard and fulfills his contract he will be justly compensated for his labors is utterly false- the system is rigged against him and all of us.

Innaritu is a modern day movie master; one of a handful for whom I would go out of my way to experience one of his creations any chance I have.

https://youtu.be/LoebZZ8K5N0

Otis, "Joy" was just okay- too muddled and askew-half-baked. It only came alive when Bradley Cooper and Ms. Lawrence shared the screen. She is luminous-one watches her and continuously mutters there is a 'movie star'. She walks with a perpetual aura around her.
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Hmmm, may have to pass on Joy but wow is The Revenant worth seeing. Great description of the opening by you there but I don't really agree about it being too one note, I found very well-paced and powerful in its story-telling. I was gripped to the end, the time flew by. It's one of the best evocations of brutality and the struggle to survive I've seen. The contrast of the beauty of the scenery and the human danger at every turn is superb. Film-making at its very best, doing the things that only film can do to an extreme degree. It made me think how inferior your typical blockbusters are with their chases, explosions, intergalactic pyrotechnics, etc., next to a well depicted tale of revenge and survival using only one quite astonishing scene of CGI, which had me squirming in my seat. DiCaprio is fabulous, Hardy too, and Iñárritu is the master of the visceral thrill. Lubezki's name wasn't known tome, but I see he was also on Birdman and Gravity too. He's also Mexican. What a master of the camera!

Definitely one for the big screen, and I saw it with THX sound and was amazed by how well the multi-positioning of sound was with whispering sounding like it was in your ear, breathing sounding like it was someone asleep in the audience, etc. And some amazing touches like breath steaming up the camera then dissolving into a new scene of cloud/fog, or blood getting spattered on the corner of the camera. Great use of music too, spare, sonorous, stern. Ryuchi Sakamoto co-wrote, but then additional music came from Bryce Dessner of The National, as well as John Luther Adams (I wish I knew who did what throughout!).

In every department this is great film-making. Don't miss.
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"In every department this is great film-making. Don't miss."

Could not agree more, Otis. A masterwork. I, too, enjoyed the score. It was never intrusive as it subtly reinforced tensions on the screen. The visceral elements you mention are enormous while being viewed-at one point I thought it was my own eye balls that were being misted by the moisture that was falling from the heavens on the screen. As one sits in one seat you magically feel as if you are one with the action on the screen and this is not being done with any 3d trickery. Marvelous artistry by all.
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Hi to you, Otis! :D

I swear I already posted this, but cannot find evidence in the thread. late nights, pinot grigio. :roll:

'boo (and anybody else who hesitates): just forget the damn prequels. They are, to me, like the animated series and the graphic novels and the what have yous. Not necessary to the experience. The first one was like life-changing to me. Like finding Elvis. I saw it at least 7 times in theaters and this was when you had to work to do that! so, I'm a bit of a fan girl who was severely disappointed by the prequels. And to a lesser extent, the Ewoks in Jedi. But, it's reborn in a really viable, fan-pleasing way.

And while I was waiting for Star Wars, I saw the preview for The Revenant. It does look cool! But that was FIRST time I ever watched a preview and felt like I might throw up watching the movie!! I might have to wait for the dvd. A bit less intense.
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Pawn Sacrifice by Edward Zwick the other evening with Ms. Lisa and staring Tobey McGuire as Bobby Fischer and Liev Schrieber as Boris Spasky. It is the cold war and Soviet Domination needs to be contested in every conceivable way including in the world of International Chess. Fortunately we have Bobby- if only he weren't such a nut job so severely damaged emotionally and psychologically. McGuire does a credible job emoting the real and imagined demons that haunted this prodigy but I think a better telling of the story was provided a few years back in the documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World". I remember this from 1972 and the mania it sparked. I also still cringe at the American penchant for putting too much importance on beating the other, on being the best.

https://youtu.be/xFHvH9FtACg
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"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" written and directed by Marielle Heller the other evening with Ms. Lisa and starring Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgard and the indomitable and new to me, Beth Powley as the heroine of this movie, Minnie Goetz. It is San Francisco in 1967 and the movie starts with a fifteen year old confidently strutting down the hillside in a city park boldly exclaiming that she 'just had sex today-holy shit' in her head as she confidently surveys the people around her in the park. She is very much alive to the world around her and with that opening this movie takes off-just like young Minnie. It is a coming of age story unlike any I have ever seen. There is no cautionary tale here-instead a celebratory story about a young women and her developing sexuality told with a frankness, enthusiasm and curiosity that equals Minnie's development as a young adult. The movie is disturbing and funny at the same time with its blunt sexuality. But it never crosses over into creepiness. Minnie is an aspiring cartoonist and her alter ego springs to life on the screen as a gigantic character, like the attack of the 50" women from the Fifties; she strides throughout the city and the countryside with her new freedom to be herself.

Minnie is memorable as she wrestles with her femininity, growing into it as the movie winds down. Her mother is narcissistic and she sees Minnie's budding sexuality, which she encourages, as a threat to her aging presence. The boyfriend, the somewhat childlike Monroe, is not such a villain. Questionable though his actions with Minnie may be, it is Minnie who aggressively seeks out their relationship. That relationship opens a Pandora's box of emotions for Minnie and it throws her off balance for a good chunk of the movie. Adulthood, sex and relationships are minefields and Minnie takes them on with brio and an eager heart. You root for her and for what her life might become.

This is one of the better films I saw from 2015- not for the faint of heart.

https://youtu.be/kYb0WRr1eww
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"Learning to Drive" by Isabel Coixet last evening with Ms. Lisa and starring Patricia Clarkson and Sir Ben Kingsley as two slightly damaged souls who through the metaphor of driving learn to regain control and meaning in their lives. What could have been a pedestrian rom-com, culture clash movie is instead a delightful study of two persons and how their individual strengths help each to overcome their individual weaknesses and then regain a semblance of a meaningful life for each of them. It is magic when two seasoned professionals like these actors get to inhabit characters and to flesh each person out as a being. The work these two perform in this piece is a case study in how to take minor material and elevate it into something that resonates with the viewer. The acting is not overdone; it is the subtle shadings they provide that kept me engaged all the way through. They took mediocre material and made it shine in a funny and sympathetic manner. It also helped that the film had the aid of editing by the noted Thelma Schoonmaker who has worked closely over past years with Martin Scorsese. A nice score as well by George Harrison's son, Dhani. This is a quality 'little' film.

https://youtu.be/IThfFYmEGEs
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Grandma, written and directed by Paul Weitz, and starring a delightfully strong Lilly Tomlin with Ms. Lisa the other night. Tomlin plays the aging poet,Elle Reid, now lapsed into literary oblivion, creatively dead, and still not able to deal with the death of her life partner of some 37 years, Vi. As we first encounter her she has just brusquely dismissed her new lover, Olivia. Into this combustible mix walks her granddaughter, Sage, played nicely by Julia Garner. She is broke and pregnant and has an abortion scheduled for 5:30 pm that day. What ensues is an odyssey in one day which is funny, touching, and thought provoking. It is a road trip involving inter-generational conflict. It is Tomlin, though, who carries this movie. Her character is an archetype who holds truth to be essential-both personal and in society; Her Elle is a free human being. She is also a refreshing reminder of what women of a certain age fought hard to achieve for themselves. There is a single scene in this film that strongly reminds the viewer of that fact-during her day long efforts to help her granddaughter, Elle, is forced to call on the man she fled when she came out as a lesbian- Karl- played by Sam Elliott. Their scene should be taught in women's studies in the future. It is a nine minute micro-history of the women's movement-what it achieved and at what cost. Eliott holds his own with Tomlin and these two have a memorable and powerful moment on the screen.

Grandma is a 'little' movie that says a lot. It is a healing, thought provoking and acerbic comedy.

https://youtu.be/I0hJ7NHDglU
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A better bet than Dirty Grandpa, then?

I saw another 'little' film this weekend, Rams, an Icelandic film. Good on the local arts cinema for showing this, which has had good reviews over here, and was pretty well attended considering. Two brothers living in a remote valley in north east Iceland have had a 40 year feud without communicating, despite living in neighbouring houses on the land they grew up on. The fatal sheep disease scrapie afflicts their flock, and this leads to a form of reconciliation. It had a lovely wry humour, some great scenery, a great sense of place, and a sadness at a forlorn and disappearing way of life. I went with my 15 year old who is going to Iceland on a school trip in May, and being something of an obsessive linguist, has been studying the language. He loved it.
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Hell yeah, Otis. I won't disparage that film having not seen it but I strongly suspect what I viewed in the highlights of the trailer is the best that movie has to offer- somehow the thought of Mr. DeNiro frolicking with a nubile coed just makes me want to close my eyes and cleanse my mind. Grandma achieves a great deal in its limited time span- laughter, thought provocation and empathy. It is one intelligent, funny 'little' movie and a large chunk of the credit for those accomplishments needs to go to Ms. Tomlin.

What is it about Iceland that attracts youth? My middle daughter is headed that way with her boyfriend for a vacation. I hope your son has a great time.
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The Martian the other evening with Ms. Lisa directed by Ridley Scott and with a screenplay by a Drew Goddard[what an appropriate name given the father of modern rocketry] and starring Matt Damon as the astronaut botanist Mark Watney who is accidentally left behind on Mars by his crew mates when they have to abort a space mission. It is one of the better things I have seen by Mr. Scott in years principally because of its strong human element and its smart and visually stunning variations on the old Shipwreck story. The horror of loneliness and abandonment and the elemental urge to survive has rarely been portrayed with such humor and terror. Matt Damon's every-man capabilities make this movie work and his constant talking to the camera and his video diaries propel this story. I also have a newly affirmed respect for duct tape. The warmth of this movie's humanism is soothing. That near final image of a sprout at his feet on the park bench is well earned.

https://youtu.be/ej3ioOneTy8
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Bridge of Spies last evening with Ms. Lisa directed by Steven Spielberg and wonderfully aided by a funny and exciting screenplay from the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan. It is the height of the Cold War and the U2 plane piloted by Frances Gary Powers has been shot down over the Soviet Republic on its initial run. Competing ideologies, suspicions, and the potential for a Nuclear holocaust permeates the air around the globe. James Donovan,played by our every-man Tom Hanks, a successful Insurance attorney has been recruited to provide a show defense for an incarcerated Soviet spy, Rudolph Abel, played brilliantly in a marvelously understated performance by Mark Rylance. He manages to do more than just defend Abel; he saves him from execution to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of Powers by the Soviets.

This movie is flat out a well paced, shot and plotted thriller. It is meticulous in its execution but at the same time funny and human. It is not a fussy period piece but an examination of a voice of conscience. Doubling fills the screen scene after scene. You forget how good a director Spielberg can be away from the action or fantasy genre. He offers the viewer in this movie a serious study of the moral cost to the West of using 'methods' that undermine our values- the freedoms we supposedly cherish as citizens. It is a lesson aimed at today's political and ideological world, too. Like his Lincoln of a few years ago, this movie reverberates heavily in today's time. And given my profession, an Insurance attorney is the noble hero and defender of 'freedom', something too many people were willing to undermine back then and something we still have to be watchful about- can you say the field of Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential campaign.

https://youtu.be/7JnC2LIJdR0
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Straight Outta Compton by F Gary Gray last evening with Ms. Lisa. I do not own a single hip/hop record nor do I regularly listen to the music. My sensibility has been resistant to this music over the decades. It is a culture I find difficult to inhabit. But what N.W.A. created in 1988 is art infused with an anger and politics that still reverberates today with the Black Lives Matter movement. This movie is a mixed bag-there are wonderful set scenes of creativity and righteous anger and fear interspersed with mundane cliche scenes of excess, greed, and repugnant misogyny. Gray quite often fills the screen with shots of energy and vitality that are fueled by the propulsive, scabrous and truthful words pouring out of these young men in an urban poetry that is vital and engaging and oddly funny at times. The movie's talking in your face visual style is invigorating if not at times exasperating. Gray and this music took me out of my comfort zone. That should happen more often for me.

https://youtu.be/oyoew4T74_w
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"Mr. Holmes" by Bill Condon and starring Sir Ian McKellen and Laura Linney. Sherlock is now 93 years old and a semi-recluse in Southern England. It is post war 1947 and his famous mind is failing. He is haunted by a life that has been dramatized to his dismay by 'penny dreadfuls with an elevated prose style' written by his former friend Mr. Watson. The realization that his life, dedicated to his massive ratiocinative powers, has left him isolated and alone in the world is frightening. His days are filled tending to his apiaries and trying to retain his memory and fight off the remorse that is enveloping him. The movie itself is shaky in its plot construction but Sir Ian is a wonder to watch. His ability to express just through a facial movement or the aversion of his eyes is a marvel. He puts a most human face on aging with an understated study of how memory and remorse are difficult to control.

https://youtu.be/0G1lIBgk4PA
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Son of Saul just won a Spirit Award for international film. I did see this one and it was very good. It takes place during the Holocaust and it is a rough movie to watch.
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"Room" the other night with Ms. Lisa as directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Brie Larson and a transcendent Jacob Tremblay. It is more about how to cut the cord than a horror or crime movie. Young Jack has more of a life in his 100 sq foot room than you or I probably do thanks to his vivid imagination which has been carefully nurtured by his mother. He can create an entire world in that space that is not limited and that ability of his to create such a world is brought uniquely to life by the camera angles and lens usage by Mr. Abrahamson and the expressiveness of Jack's agile young mind, richly peopled with characters he has created. His is a free soul confined to a small space. He does not know his physical limitations. I greatly enjoyed this movie's celebration of that boundlessness. The physical room is imaginatively anthropomorphized. The second half of the film is not so successful for me. It devolves into movie conventions. But the first half is so alive thanks to the lack of artifice in young Mr. Tremblay's performance. I think the wrong actor was honored for her performance in this movie. Saoirce Ronan should have won for "Brooklyn" and Mr. Tremblay should have won as opposed to Mr. DeCaprio. He is that good in this movie.

https://youtu.be/E_Ci-pAL4eE
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Jack of All Parades
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Joined: Sun Apr 12, 2009 11:31 am
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Re: Recently viewed films

Post by Jack of All Parades »

"99 Homes" the other evening with Ms. Lisa directed and co-written by the astoundingly talented Rahmin Bahrain and starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon and Laura Dern. It is a Faustian tale of people dong unprincipled things that is so delicately crafted you do not hear the tumblers falling into place as it brings an intense spotlight on dark subject matter. Bahrain possesses a propulsive narrative force behind the camera as he steers two spot-on perfect performances by Shannon as Dennis Nash and Shannon as Rick Carver. The Faustian bargain struck between these two characters is devilish in the detail and in its unraveling. It is 2010 Orlando, Florida and the housing bubble has burst big time damaging and harming the populace[as it did throughout the country] with the fallout from predatory lending practices, real estate scams and the folly of dim-witted borrowers too slow or too blind to see the harm they were bringing upon themselves. It is serial eviction incarnate and the collateral damage is massive. The tag line uttered with derision by Carver speaks volumes 'America doesn't bail out the losers; it bails out the winners' could have been ripped from the vile utterances of a certain candidate for the Presidency today.

I love Bahrain as a director-few today can match his ability to tell a complex story with the fluidity and artistry of a master. His movies do not stall; they throb with the blood of life. Just go back and watch "At Any Cost" from a few years back. This is the best movie to date about the financial meltdown we are still living. It does not lose its human component. I cannot praise this film enough.

https://youtu.be/Vh0piQN1_LY
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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