1992 Quentin Tarantino film. Fcukin awesome. He's such a unique and brilliant movie writer. It's shit like this that inspires people to study film for themselves.
I watched Monster which I taped last week, despite missing the first five minutes because the dumb TV station inexplicably decided to start the film 15 odd minutes before its advertised time.
I couldn't imagine a more bleak story for a film; that of a suicidal prostitute (Charlize Theron) falling in love with a capricious young lesbian (Christine Ricci), and then finding murder to be the only way to sustain the doomed relationship. Though quite depressing, I found myself totally caught up in the drama which is all I ask of a film. Superb performances.
Agreed, good film. Charlize was scary in it, what? And then being sold out by Ricci's character. I'm not sure you'd call Ricci's character adorable....but a great performance all round. Particularly by Charlize. What a character stretch.
Thank goodness we never saw that.. Emma wasnted to go to 27 Dresses
but I wanted to see Attonement and that film was the one we agreed on
seeing and in the end I liked it a whole lot .... See above
There Will Be Blood
This film is the ultimate example of how a sizzling screenplay, stellar acting, and brillant cinematography can be undone by a tone deaf producer who decides to give a pretentious, untalented composer (Jonny Greenwood) an undeserved break. The soundtrack was like Godzilla, stomping destructively all over the place. From the first sounds (like a nail scraped down a chalkboard), I was quietly praying for it to stop.
This movie has quite a bit to do with praying. Those of you who know who the characters in the bible are, will be able to see a lot of the plot in advance.
Without giving too much away, it is about land, oil, avarice, kinship, religion and insanity.
One protagonist is Mr. Plainview, an oilman and inveterate atheist of somewhat Mephistophelian mean, the other, young Mr. Sunday, is a charismatic preacher for the church of the Third Revelation, with an equally diabolical demeanor. It is hard to say who is good and who is bad - for me, the real evil was the hideous original soundtrack.
There was an incident where a mining accident initially deafened one of the characters, and I was like "Oh, God of Universal Salvation! This means the music will stop! From now on in, only merciful silence!" but alas,
This movie is as much about damnation as salvation.
It was only as the credits started to roll the producer put on some Brahms to attempt to help me forget the horrors that went before.
Not everything on the soundtrack was this unintentional and tasteless travesty, but even when perfectly OK music by other people was playing, this was blaring and screeching superfluously over the top of it. Really, it was so distractingly cringe worthy; you could forget Daniel Day-Lewis's masterful performance, or Paul Dano's or the really brilliant and enigmatic Dillon Freasier who plays Plainview’s son.
It's not the musicians fault, either; the orchestra plays the ghastly noise quite capably, and made the best they could of this crud, all the way through a really good movie.
The screenplay, when it is not drowned in the godawful soundtrack, is subtle, layered and masterful.
But it istotally obscured, like a delicate, fresh, perfectly cut sashimi, served submerged in a vinegary, sugary homebrand tomato sauce you didn't ask for. If you wait until it comes out on DVD, select the subtitles, hit mute, this will be a great movie.
Update: Horrifying news (to me, that is). I have just discovered- Jonny Greenwood is the guitarist &c of one of my absolute favorite bands (in my all time top five, or even the top three). I checked on my radiohead CD's - and it is true.
The same person who ruined this excellent movie by egotistically assuming that the audience would only be coming to hear his soundtrack,...colaborated on masterpieces like Pablo Honey, The Bends and OK Computer.
I played these continually in the ninties, hardly played anything else. I don't much like classical, either or Brahms, but after this movie, it was a blessed relief. This movie made me want to listen to classical music. I did not think any sound could be that bad. I have in the past choosen to listen to planes landing, rather than classical music.
I can't explain it. Were the Radiohead songs all Thom Yorke's? Did they not allow Jonny Greenwood to know anything about the movie he was writing for? Or was he just told "give us about two hours of funeral dirge - make it unlistenable"?
I am devastated.
Now I know why people wanted to kill Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney.
1992 Quentin Tarantino film. Fcukin awesome. He's such a unique and brilliant movie writer. It's shit like this that inspires people to study film for themselves.
Agreed, good film. Charlize was scary in it, what? And then being sold out by Ricci's character. I'm not sure you'd call Ricci's character adorable....but a great performance all round. Particularly by Charlize. What a character stretch.
Charlize Theron is a very competent actress. I totally believed in her performance, and I'm glad she won the Oscar. This is why I don't understand the cult of celebritism - actors are meant to become their roles, not project their stardom to the point where it becomes a distraction.
I'm looking forward to seeing her in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. He wrote the story for No Country For Old Men, so it should be excellent.
I'm a film buff and a bit of a Tarantino fanboy, but then again it's probably because of his greatness that I am those things. I mean, Pulp Fiction blew me away by how good it was. It is made so well. I had tears in my eyes for much of the film because I was in awe of the sheer brilliance and genius i was seeing.
My top 3 movies (in undecided order) are probably Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, and The Shawshank Redemption. All moviemaking masterpieces as far as I'm concerned.
Also, I think that those who are more into movies are able to appreciate them more than the average person. Not trying to sound elitist -- it's the same with everything (cooking, sport, singing, etc).
I just watched the Australian film, Russian Doll. I was enjoying it up until the end. Hell, even I fell in love with Natasha Novak, but the stapled on ending is just an abortion. Meh.
I just watched the Australian film, Russian Doll. I was enjoying it up until the end. Hell, even I fell in love with Natasha Novak, but the stapled on ending is just an abortion. Meh.
Surpringly quite enjoyed this film, thought it would be a drag, but was pleasantly surprised. Russell is the star by far. Not a typical western. The storyline is quite different but the basics are still there, the bad guys, good guys, the shooting action scenes, lots of horses . Though you would tend to barrack for the bad guys throughout most of this film
Found the ending a little weird and dissapointing, but understood the reasoning behind it
Was thinking they would have over done his character. Great movie.
. Though you would tend to barrack for the bad guys throughout most of this film