Haven't finished it yet because it's soooooo long, but "The Best Years of Our Life."  Snore.  Ah, maybe it's an interesting period piece (1946) but I had great expectations for this one.  Winner of seven Academy Awards.  Oy, the pre-John Williams score!  Dana Andrews again.  Seem to keep finding Dana Andrews films.  Wonder what ever happened to him...  He was huge in the 40s.

I guess I'll finish it tonight.  David fell asleep after about 1 hour.  I stuck it out.  Yawnnnnnnn.  

Frederick March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews (of course), Teresa Wright and the lovely Virginia Mayo, who adds some liveliness to the whole dismal thing.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Secret ending revealed: Ed Norton is actually a dead superhero.

Batman Begins

I know opinion of this film here ranges to both extremes, with "meh" in the middle, but I really like it. Dark Knight in a year and a half? Better buy some Frank Miller books soon, or I may go crazy from the waiting.

A Scanner Darkly

Usually movies in which the characters take lots of drugs and display "hilarious" and eccentric behavior leave me incedibly cold, but this is a notable exception. The sci-fi elements aren't too over-the-top, and the painted-on style ceases to be a distraction after the first couple minutes. Robert Downey Jr. is fun to watch, Keanu's face is actually animated for once! (Through the miracle of CGI, of course).

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

I suppose you now feel rejuvenated and ready to take the streets of Little Havana after this double feature, Smokey.

Myself, I was gearing up to watch Reds -- the 25 year anniversary DVD -- but my son confiscated it and put it in his collection.  Now I have to count on his remembering to return it to me.  Hoping to see it over the post Christmas days and hours.  It is a looooooong film as I recall and I'm expecting some jim dandy extras too!  For those of you who never saw it, I'll just say that interspersed between the story, they have lots of real life contemporaries of John Reed, Louise Bryant, Emma Goldman and Eugene O'Neill, the Bolshevik Revolution and the US Socialist movement.  Warren Beatty did not use their names as their faces appear and you have to be really in the know to know WHO they were.  Hoping the extras will lend some clarity to those parts.  

Anyway, I'm eager to see how this film holds up now that it's 25 years later, and now that I am no longer a Leftie Lucy.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I actually liked marie antoinette much more than barry lyndon but totally felt the same as you while I was watching it that they are similar. I am a big fan of sofia coppola and I quite like TVS and LIT as well. I think she is (or whoever is responsible) great with MOODS. from the melancholic suburban TVS scenes to all the lights and parties of LIT. I liked literally everything in marie antoinette, and I think these moods are most prominent here than the two previous movies. most notably the birthday party with "ceremony" playing as well as the country house.

I watched Magnolia today! Amazing!

I just watched The Notorious Bettie Page, and I thought it was just swell. If I end up liking American Psycho -- which I ented recently but didn't watch -- as much as I enjoyed this and I Shot Andy Warhol, I guess that'll make me a Mary Harron fan.

They really did a great job getting the period tones down. The music was great, and Gretchen Mol was fantastic. Regardless of the stylistic experimentations, the directing was fairly inobtrusive. And I found it interesting that I always noticed whenever the film switched from black-and-white to color, but never when it switched back...

Now I'm getting a little angry...

Today I read the news about the nominations for the Golden globes in January. I find this movie "Little children" listed in many categories. When I come near to the "screenplay" category I see the name Todd Field near this title. "What the fuck?!" I say.... I do a little researching on the net and I realize that Todd Field, after the amazing job done with In the Bedroom (a movie I adore in so many aspects, even though I'm not american and probably unable to catch some nuances that only - some -americans can) he directed this little thing called LITTLE CHILDREN, with two actresses that I truly love (Winslet and Connelly). The movie, briefly summarizing it, tells the suburbian story of some lives that range from apparent tranquillity to perversity. There are playgrounds and pools crowded with people who seem to have come out of a soap opera- but which one? - , couples betraying themselves (a woman decides to betray her husband because he is boring; a man decides to drown his problems and worries in the internet porn sites); a pederast who comes out of jail and seems to suddenly threaten the community... and so on. I think the actual story's not that important, but there is a narrator to it anyway. Todd Field first of all is an actor. Apart from his role in Eyes Wide Shut I spot him in some other movies. So he knows well how to direct actors, and that's most of the power of his films - Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, William Mapother, Marisa Tomei and Nick Stahl were all great and truly genuine in IN THE BEDROOM. Plus, the visuality of his work comes out in some remarkably lucid but unreal way.

Now, I only watched the trailer because this movie is still uknown and in the darkness here in Italy, but I'm willing to see it if it ever comes out here and I think it will because it's between the Globes nominees... I heard it was a catastrophic flop in the U.S., so I hope Little children has more luck in its european release. Regularly, movies that go bad in the U.S. that way are quite remarkable successes here, at least among the expert audiences.

If someone's seen it, please let me know your feelings about it without letting me know anything of twists in the plot. Thank you.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Are we there yet?

This Christmas I got a present I wasn't expecting. The gift of hate... a hate directed towards Brian Levant.
Hopefully the feeling will dissipate by tomorrow, but right now, I hate the person that made Jingle all the way and this pile.
Once again the formula is LOUD NOISES! and BREAKING THINGS!.

Some people (it made $80 million at the box office) may say that I taking this too seriously, and that it's just a bit of harmless fun. But I disagree; this is harmful "fun", the kind that makes you want to punch someone. Like Full House did.

Outlaw, you probably don't know the pain of living in Europe and wait a century to see a movie from the U.S.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

From Page 6 of this thread...bottom of post

"I'll be going to see Kate Winslet in Little Children this week...oh yeah and it just happens to be the latest film by Todd 'In The Bedroom' Field and looking forward to it."

From page 7 of this thread...      

Little Children - I'll refrain from the Kate Winslet comments, except to say her performance was superb as was Jennifer Connelly (although sometimes I have trouble with her) and Patrick Wilson. The movie has a lot of humor, I laughed out loud several times. You might think, okay, how many films have we had about adultery? I usually go with movies that have "cinematic" value to see in the theater, but at year's end when all the Oscar fodder comes out, I might make a few exceptions. This was a very good film, adultery aside and it was very well shot. Todd Field beats the sophomore jinx for the most part. You could probably wait till the DVD comes out, but I would recommend checking it out eventually.

from page 9 (this one is from one sauve folk) 

"...but the best film I saw last week was Little Children, the sophomore effort by Todd Field. I thought In The Bedroom a promising debut, but this one floored me. Skip the blockbusters & go see this surprising, challenging little picture (starring Kate Winslett, Jennifer Connelly, Hard Candy's Patrick Wilson & the return of Jackie Earle Haley)."

Hope this of some help. "If you liked Notes From Underground, you'll love The Idiot"...oops wrong director. If you liked In The Bedroom, you'll love Little Children.   

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Poor Booth! What's going on with your movie choices this week? Is this some secret masochism at play?

Geez!

Have you ever heard the one about the scorpion and the frog? Maybe you're the frog going into these horrible films expecting they won't be scorpions because they assure you they'll be good and funny! Then after you watch them you realize they lied.  Scorpions are like that. 

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Francis Ford Coppola presents :

The Junky's Christmas (narrated by William S. Burroughs)

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

I'm not meant to watch High Fidelity.  A friend loaned me her copy, but it's a burned dvd and it won't play in my supersophistimacated player, which is cleverly disguised as a Playstation 2.  But I did manage to get the first half-hour working, which made me want to finish it.  So I went to my local place and rented it.  And that disc doesn't even start up.  So bah, and further, humbug.

I did manage to watch The 40-Year Old Virgin, though, and much laughter ensued.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

 How would you like to come back to my tardis and take a look at my time vortex?