Movie/film thread: resurrected

"12 Years A Slave": I wonder if I am getting harder to please, ( no, not that way guys!  ) but I found myself yawning quite a bit in this 133min movie. I understand that it is based on the 1853 autobiography of Solomon Northrup who was kidnapped in 1841 and forced into slavery. My elderly neighbour squirmed through most of the movie and we have all read about or heard about the cruelty to the slaves. I actually thought that many of the slaves in the movie were too clean and tidy and spoke too freely given my understanding of how things would have been in those times. My neighbour also tells me that the Steve McQueen,the Director, was not the one who is the well known actor. It is getting good reports here, so if any of you folks have seen it, will you let me know what you think?

I agree with you Calach about "American Hustle".

Rashomon

I hadn't seen this one yet. I thought it was great, and the more I thought about it the more I liked it, which is rare for a movie. A good work on phenomenology and epistemology. I recommend it especially for those who have a) a bent for philosophy and b) haven't read about it [no wiki! don't do it!]. All this provided one hasn't seen it of course; the movie is closer in age to the atom bomb than to the iPhone.



Any other movies in this strain? All I can think of is: Memento, The Matrix, The Truman Show[], Waking Life[], and Inception [].

My elderly neighbour squirmed through most of the movie and we have all read about or heard about the cruelty to the slaves.

There's a similar movie called "Amistad" that gets me worked into a frustrated, outlet-less rage when I see it.

As it happens, I watched me some Kurosawa last night too. In my case, it was Ran. Those samurai had themselves some gigantic bald heads. No wonder they used elaborate headgear in battle. Also, the fool, Kyoami, was distracting. I kept wanting to know for sure whether he was male or female.

In summary, Akira Kurosawa's Ran, a story of hair and madness. Two thumbs up.

Watched Wolf of Wall Street and actually didn't notice the 3 hours whizz by.THought soundtrack alone was awesome.And Leo did very well.But then I am a sucker for Scorsese.

Nebraska

I watched the whole thing because June Squibb is fantastic as a straight talking old lady, but also because I wanted to see how Bruce Dern and Will Forte would pan out as father and son. The movie's a sentimental look at middle and old age and extended (American, mid-western) family, and it's actually very pretty with the black and white and the vistas. But I couldn't work out who Bruce Dern was, or what kind of father he was meant to be. His character's available in words (as a man he drank, was mean), but what was getting acted out wasn't too clear to me. Not a bad film, though.

"Mandella: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM". As most of you probably know, this is the story of Mandela's extraordinary life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected President of South Africa. I really enjoyed the movie, but it made me wonder about my Husband's ancestors from South Africa and the way they may have treated some of the folk who worked for them given that one old Granny was called "old mother lion" (translation) by these folk. So many things that we will never know.

"LONE SURVIVOR". This movie was based on the failed June 28th 2005 mission "Operation Red Wings". Four members of SEAL team 10 were tasked with the mission to capture or kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shahd. Marcus Luttrell was the only member of his team to survive. Stars Mark Wahberg, Ben Foster and Eric Bana. I like movies based on real events. I couldn't believe the decision that was made which ultimately lead to the deaths of the team members. My neighbour again squirmed through most of this movie as there was plenty of blood and guts. My neighbour says that I am too hard, but there would have been no question about the decision I would have made. The main drawback in this movie (in my opinion) was the amount of walking, through the mountains, that these guys did and which we had to watch.

The Act of Killing (2012) (Documentary/Acid trip)

I just saw this film on Netflix and it blew my mind, even though I had heard of it via interviews and brief reviews.  It's about Indonesia (the only real China connection is that ethnic Chinese people were the victims of many of the murders discussed in the documentary) and the aftermath of the 1965 coup d'etat.  The filmmaker, Joshua Oppenheimer,speaks Indonesian and interviews "Movie House Gangsters" and others involved in paramilitary and gang killings of suspected communists following the coup.  Surprisingly, a lot of them want to talk about their war crimes/plain old murders, etc. and in fact brag about their actions.  Bizarrely the mainly old men who were the killers, want to reenact some of their favorite murders "for history".  It's hard to describe why any of this is really all that bizarre, but you just have to see it for yourself.  Of course it may reaffirm your lack of faith in your fellow man.  Subtitled.  Oh!  I guess it's up for an Oscar this year.

Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin)

I don't know how to critique modern Chinese film, to be honest. Of this one, I wish to say it was uneven, but good. Possibly great. I don't know how real the specific vignettes were, but the world they're surrounded by is intimately modern Chinese. It seems real. Even down to the awkwardness of some of the acting.

 

"Non-Stop" starring Liam Neeson was a very interesting movie, given what is going on at the moment with the missing plane. In the movie, he plays the part of U.S. Air Marshall Bill Marks. During a transatlantic flight from New York to London he receives a series of cryptic text messages. Someone on the plane, is threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless an amount of money is transferred into an off-shore account. Liam becomes a suspect himself as the plot unfolds.
As a matter of interest, I read, this week that about 18 or 19 yrs ago, Liam had turned down playing the part of James Bond  which Pierce Brosnan played. His wife-to-be, Natasha Richardson said,"If you play James Bond we're not getting married!"

"Quartet" starring Maggie Smith,Tom Courtenay and directed by Dustin Hoffman.Small British endearing movie about a home for retired musicians.I found it lovely.. but that's because I am a Sassenach..(Pom?)

Snowpiercer

To combat global warming a chemical is released in the atmosphere to cool the earth but it works to well. A man who foresaw this  built a train called Snowpiercer running on a perpetual motor that circles the globe and now the last of humanity is aboard. For 17 years the train has been running but there is a class struggle aboard.

Really liked this movie, I have no idea why.

The Cabin in the Woods

I'm not a horror movie aficionado. I think most of them are all the same and quite stupid but this one was a little different. Good actors and a different story than usual. Reminded me how Scream changed the genre a little.

Stil, I checked Amazon; Snowpiercer isn't scheduled for release on this side of the Atlantic until mid-June.  However, they do have 2 graphic novels listed that have the same title.