This generation of players -led by Crosby- will certainly go down in Canadian lore. That second Cup and most recent international gold vaults him into rarefied hockey air.
MOVIES 2016
-
@Private:
Possibly Britain’s Imperial past and the USA’s founding myth underpinned such casting for imperial Rome. Which lead to discovering that British actors were rather good at portraying unsympathetic characters. General Veers may be right: would Laurence Olivier, Charles Loughton or Peter Ustinov ever have conveyed the nobility of soul that Kirk Douglas gave Spartacus? It’s a bad film to use as an example, though, with some variations in casting from this supposed “rule”.
I haven’t seen Spartacus, but I did see Peter Ustinov play Nero in Quo Vadis, where he does a marvelous job of portraying the Emperor as a pathological narcissist. One of his best lines comes near the end of the movie, when an enraged mob is storming his palace. Faced with his impending doom, Nero blends terror and pettiness when he expresses his incomprehension at the idea that his own subjects are intending to kill him: “How can they bear the thought of living in a world without me?”
Watching that film was a weird experience for me because one of the main characters, Petronius, is played by Leo Genn, who I remembered very well from the WWII movie The Longest Day, in which he plays a British officer on Eisenhower’s staff.
-
Ben Affleck did an ok enough job, I think, hard to be as good as Bale, anyway. He cant escape the script.
What was so lacking is some dry or dark or you name it humor in this movie. Granted, I might not have captured every nuance a native speaker would have, but they could have done so much more, and still stayed dark and world-ending.
I struggled the whole movie if I should find Lex credible, but all in all the movie is not as bad as critics say, imo, although clearly, to me, far inferior than Nolans. It cant escape from being called a bit shallow, thats true, a bit too schematic.
-
@CWO:
I haven’t seen Spartacus
Well you must Marc. In my view it is far and away the best of the swords and sandals epics. I’ve probably seen it 20 times over the years and it still engages my emotions (to the detriment of my few masculine credentials!).
-
@Private:
In my view it is far and away the best of the swords and sandals epics. I’ve probably seen it 20 times over the years and it still engages my emotions (to the detriment of my few masculine credentials!).
“It is only within the last two hundred years that Englishmen have become ashamed of tears. Our forefathers were not ashamed to weep openly, and the references to tears in the literature of England proves to us that, to the men of other days, a man incapable of tears was believed to be a man hard, inhuman, and inaccessible to mercy. Looking at Winston Churchill at that revealing moment, I thought that in some extraordinary way he belongs definitely to an older England, to the England of the Tudors, a violent swashbuckling England perhaps, but a warm and emotional England too, an England as yet untouched by the hardness of an age of steel.”
– H.V. Morton, Atlantic Meeting -
@Private:
@CWO:
I haven’t seen Spartacus
Well you must Marc. In my view it is far and away the best of the swords and sandals epics. I’ve probably seen it 20 times over the years and it still engages my emotions (to the detriment of my few masculine credentials!).
As long as you don’t notice that in the big battle half the Roman army is just a painted backdrop.
-
As long as you don’t notice that in the big battle half the Roman army is just a painted backdrop.
In fairness, so were most of the Imperial Stormtroopers in that spectacular scene in Return of the Jedi when the Emperor arrives at the Death Star, where a very large guard of honour is waiting for him. Their absolute rigidity as they stand at attention wasn’t just the result of superb military discipline.
-
@CWO:
In fairness, so were most of the Imperial Stormtroopers in that spectacular scene in Return of the Jedi when the Emperor arrives at the Death Star, where a very large guard of honour is waiting for him.
I’m sure the Emperor said “I’m only going to ask this once, are there any exhaust ports that lead directly to the main reactor on this new Death Star?”
-
I’m sure the Emperor said “I’m only going to ask this once, are there any exhaust ports that lead directly to the main reactor on this new Death Star?”
Probable answer: “No, but in order to plug that gap in the old design we had to leave large parts of the structure of the new design completely open.”
-
It’s time the Empire forgot about these defective wonder weapons and started relying on good old fashioned FLI.
-
Is anybody going to watch Warcraft?
-
Of course… another time sink of mine is WoW.
-
I watched “The Witch” on the weekend, and I really really liked it.
It’s just a matter of time before we see a new member with the username “Black Philip” :evil:
-
@Young:
I watched “The Witch” on the weekend, and I really really liked it.
It’s just a matter of time before we see a new member with the username "Black Philip"Â :evil:
I’m still amused by the fact we have a member named “RougeOne”… I be he doesn’t even realize what he did.
-
Went to see a much anticipated Jason Bourne last night. Was not a pleasant experience.
Spent $20 and I probably stayed for 30 minutes of the movie. I became annoyed and then angered over multiple things, looked over to my wife and said “Do you want to go home?” Asked if I was sure, I said, “I would much rather be home with our dogs then have to sit through the rest of this.” My only regret is that I didn’t get to hear ‘Extreme Ways’ start playing at the end.
Incredibly disappointed. I am a huge fan of the first three Bourne films. Legacy was terrible. I had hoped for this to be a return to what was good. Greengrass and Damon would indicate that it was, but the truth is different. From what I actually saw, Matt Damon was fine. He didn’t write it, so he can’t help that he barely speaks, but his physical presence was pretty vintage Jason Bourne. Greengrass became the problem.
I will enumerate below and try to keep it pretty generalized and spoiler free. Since I saw maybe a quarter of the film and have read about the rest, I really don’t know many spoilers anyway.
Calling this a Shaky Cam film does not do justice to its constant and mind numbing presence. It was the overarching visual style of this movie. Greengrass is known for employing it, but I have never, ever seen it so bad and so omnipresent. Supremacy and Ultimatum had some, but it was mainly during action and, as I recall, even more coherent. In Jason Bourne, the shaking started immediately and did not let up. Even scenes at Langley in a situation room or around a conference table had a constantly moving, POV type shot. I distinctly remember a scene where the audience was viewing something stationary and the camera just shook for no apparent reason. Completely unnecessary. Action scenes were 98% incomprehensible. Combining the shaky cam with very quick editing compounded the effect to the point that you could hardly process images as they blurrily came across the screen. One other review I read aptly called Greengrass’ technique “photographic impressionism”.
Julia Stiles was particularly uninspired. She has, in times past, seemed a little distant as Nikki Parsons, which I chalked up to her character. However, this time her dispassion was painfully evident. The one scene in particular I can reference is when she and Bourne meet in the midst of a riot in Athens. She preaches to Bourne in an expository manner about what he has experienced, what he knows and how he feels; somewhat pleading with him. Amid all the chaos around her and the knowledge that she is probably being hunted, she delivers her lines completely flat and deadpan. Her voice doesn’t even modulate. Like she is reading the dialogue for the first time and half-trying to impart some very reserved emotion. It was so blatant to be distracting, especially given their stressful surroundings.
Tommy Lee Jones filled the role of basically every other (very grizzled) old CIA boss we have seen in the franchise. Nothing new there. My wife said he looked like a corpse and I had to agree.
I was somewhat impressed with Alicia Vikander as a young CIA computer data analyst, or something. She acted her part quite well, even if she also filled the established Pam Landy role of naive and idealistic inside circle operative.
Beyond the characters and shaky cam, the story itself was not very engaging. Obviously I didn’t see it through, but the premise appeared to center around an Edward Snowden - Steve Jobs - Apple -like hacking or leaking of classified documents. In trying to update Bourne for a post 2010 world, the story came off as being extremely derivative. When fictional characters or companies are synthesized analogues of recognizable ones in reality, it rubs me wrong. I kinda reminded me of watching Blackhat (with Chris Hemsworth), which coincidentally dealt with computer hacking and exotic locales. That was a lifeless movie itself, so any comparison to it is not a good sign.
There were a number of not-so-subtle callouts in the film that made me feel like my intelligence was being coddled. Or maybe they were just conveniences to visually explain the plot. Either way they were included to make it more understandable, when it really didn’t need to happen. Focusing the camera on certain on-screen words, unnecessary verbal and written exposition and even just the same archetypal characters gave the impression that the audience needs these cues to understand who the characters are and that it is a Bourne movie.
All in all, very disappointed. In one word, the film was incoherent. If you do go see in theaters, which I cannot in good conscience recommend, the farther away you sit the better; less chance of a migraine.
If Frimmel saw this movie, he may not have made it out of the theater alive. Might have blown his brains out while still in his seat. If we don’t hear from him, then we all know what happened.
-
Not seen this yet Hoff, but will probably give it a go despite your review.
Hand cam and quick editing are de rigor for action films these days but can be distracting and annoying. If the point of hand cam is to involve you in the action, then Revenant succeeded in doing that to the highest filmic degree I have ever experienced and I don’t remember any hand cam. That’s not to say that the technique was not used, but rather that if it was, it served the story so well, rather than distracting from it, that I don’t remember it.
My fingers are still crossed for this Bourne film. Greengrass makes great films.
BTW - I have been impressed with Alicia Vikander in every film I have seen her in. She provided true emotional heart in “Testament of Youth”.
-
Yeah, just warning you. If I was in your position I would probably go see it too. I like to form my own opinion.
I recognize the intent of shaky cam and when used succinctly I think it can be beneficial. This was constant. Literally ever shot minus the wide shots with text telling you what location you were looking at. Overkill is an understatement. It literally made me angry when I sat there watching a shot of some cops stationary with their motorcycle and was just thinking to myself… Don’t do it, please don’t do it. Don’t shake the… And they did. Cops didn’t move or go anywhere. The camera just shook irrationally.
I really would like to hear what some other people thought about it.
-
I love your reviews Hoff, I could talk movies with you for weeks… well done.
-
Movies that shake the camera are indicative of a new approach to save money on special effects. If it shakes, it means basically it was filmed in a closet and they had no money for anything.
it it had a panoramic view of the action, it would be cost prohibitive. Thats why to make for example a large battle scene, they show few soldiers moving in a small space to look like alot of men. The last movie that did a proper war movie was the Longest Day and Waterloo and perhaps a few others ( very few).
Horror movies use this technique all the time so you don’t see the catering service guy making hot dogs or the Porta-potty’s.
-
@Young:
I love your reviews Hoff, I could talk movies with you for weeks… well done.
Haha, thank YG. I’d love that. I’d like to see if your opinion is similar to mine, if you see the film.
-
@Imperious:
Movies that shake the camera are indicative of a new approach to save money on special effects. If it shakes, it means basically it was filmed in a closet and they had no money for anything.
On a related point, the shaky cam technique can save money in other aspects of moviemaking, all the way from preproduction (such as writing), to production (such as scene blocking and other directorial preparations) to postproduction (such as editing). After all, if the finished product is going to look incoherent on the screen, why waste time and money in having it make sense at the earlier production stages? Up until recently, the James Bond films were notable for action scenes which, as the decades went by, went faster and faster in their pacing but were still completely understandable in terms of what happens on the screen. A few films ago, however, we started getting Bond action scenes that I found difficult or even impossible to follow. Frenetic pacing is exciting by its very nature, but in my opinion its effect is offset when the material is presented in a manner which comes across as a confused mess. I saw Star Trek Beyond last weekend, and that’s how I reacted to some of the action sequences, notably the scenes involving Kirk and Chekov and the alien woman aboard the wrecked saucer – the scenes which culminate in the saucer flipping over, or at least in what I think is the saucer flipping over, given the chaotic way in which the whole thing plays out.
When I first started running into these kinds of messy action sequences a few years ago, my reaction at the time was to wonder: is this a case of a bad film editor wrecking a well-directed sequence or is this a case of a badly-directed sequence that even a good film editor wasn’t able to save? I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that the answer is actually: it’s intentional, and the director and the editor are both doing it.
Suggested Topics
