Let us give thanks for celluloid
Watched a slew of movies during Thanksgiving stay with Ty and Di. On Wednesday, when we arrived, we watched an hour of the stand-up comedian Louis C. K., before turning in. Across the Universe (2007), directed by Julie Taymor, is visually entrancing, although the boy-meets-girl story is all too predictable. The fun here is hearing the Beatles songs mesh with the loosey-goosey plot. Evan Rachel Wood plays upper-class American Lucy and Jim Sturgess plays the working class Liverpudlian Jude.
Another visual entertainer, but in a very different way, Getting Go, the Go Doc Project (2013) is framed as a video documentary by a college student named Doc (Tanner Cohen), of his crush on NYC go-go dancer Go (Matthew Camp). Written and directed by Cory Krueckeberg, this is a better gay movie than most. The acting is believable. I love all the split-screens and frames-within-frames that convey the multiplicity and simultaneity of on-line life. After this, I'm off to stalk Matthew Camp on Facebook.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was so god-awful that we stopped watching it after 15 minutes. House of Boys (2009), directed by Jean-Claude Schlim, boy-meets-boy-in-whorehouse-and-falls-in-love-and-ends-up-taking-care-of-partner-infected-by-AIDS, is totally unrealistic. The only reason to watch it is Layke Anderson who is cute and a decent actor. His dance numbers are the best things in the movie.
We were knackered after the bus trip home, so what did we do for the evening, but to watch another movie. A Coffee in Berlin (2012) follows a young college dropout as he encounters various weird folks around the city, beautifully shot in black and white. A neighbor who is unable to make love to his wife since her breast cancer surgery. An underachieving actor friend. A high-school classmate whom he once bullied for being fat, but who is still in love with him. And, finally, fatefully, an old man returning to the old neighborhood who told the story of how his father made him throw stones at a Jewish store and how he cried and cried, not for the smashed lives, but for the fact that he could no longer ride his bike in all the shattered glass. Tom Schilling plays Niko Fischer very naturally. As he puts it to the woman, who is still a fat little girl in her own mind, you look at people and think they are so strange. Then there comes a moment when you realize that they are not strange and that you are the problem. Written and directed by Jan Ole Gerster.
Enjoyed The Giver (2014), based on Lois Lowry's book of the same name. Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep brings some depths to their respective characters The Giver and Chief Elder, who could otherwise be cardboard figures. Brenton Thwaites as Jonas is eminently watchable. Katie Holmes was given too little to do as Jonas's mother. Directed by Phillip Noyce.
Another visual entertainer, but in a very different way, Getting Go, the Go Doc Project (2013) is framed as a video documentary by a college student named Doc (Tanner Cohen), of his crush on NYC go-go dancer Go (Matthew Camp). Written and directed by Cory Krueckeberg, this is a better gay movie than most. The acting is believable. I love all the split-screens and frames-within-frames that convey the multiplicity and simultaneity of on-line life. After this, I'm off to stalk Matthew Camp on Facebook.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was so god-awful that we stopped watching it after 15 minutes. House of Boys (2009), directed by Jean-Claude Schlim, boy-meets-boy-in-whorehouse-and-falls-in-love-and-ends-up-taking-care-of-partner-infected-by-AIDS, is totally unrealistic. The only reason to watch it is Layke Anderson who is cute and a decent actor. His dance numbers are the best things in the movie.
We were knackered after the bus trip home, so what did we do for the evening, but to watch another movie. A Coffee in Berlin (2012) follows a young college dropout as he encounters various weird folks around the city, beautifully shot in black and white. A neighbor who is unable to make love to his wife since her breast cancer surgery. An underachieving actor friend. A high-school classmate whom he once bullied for being fat, but who is still in love with him. And, finally, fatefully, an old man returning to the old neighborhood who told the story of how his father made him throw stones at a Jewish store and how he cried and cried, not for the smashed lives, but for the fact that he could no longer ride his bike in all the shattered glass. Tom Schilling plays Niko Fischer very naturally. As he puts it to the woman, who is still a fat little girl in her own mind, you look at people and think they are so strange. Then there comes a moment when you realize that they are not strange and that you are the problem. Written and directed by Jan Ole Gerster.
Enjoyed The Giver (2014), based on Lois Lowry's book of the same name. Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep brings some depths to their respective characters The Giver and Chief Elder, who could otherwise be cardboard figures. Brenton Thwaites as Jonas is eminently watchable. Katie Holmes was given too little to do as Jonas's mother. Directed by Phillip Noyce.
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