General Movie Thread

[Christina]

Saw Tron: Legacy.

IT WAS AWESOME.

LIKE, LOONIE TUNES CRAZY AWESOME.

[Steve of Bloomington]

Saw Tron: Legacy.

IT WAS AWESOME.

LIKE, LOONIE TUNES CRAZY AWESOME.

You are maybe the only person I've heard that liked it. I should have gone on opening night, so as to catch it before all the hating. I will probably still go see it.

[Pidgeon]

True Grit ended with Iris Dement singing a hymn. You can't get much better than that.

[dave from knoxville]

True Grit ended with Iris Dement singing a hymn. You can't get much better than that.

I liked it lots. Damon did a really good job as a lawman with dandyish leanings. "Gentlemen, shooting at cornbread from the prairie isn't getting us any closer to Pepper."

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

***SPOILER ALERT***




My theory is that Thierry had actually shot all that footage and didn't know what to do with it, but around the time when he started hanging out with Banksy, Banksy had the bright idea to create Mr. Brainwash and finish the film himself.  But I wholeheartedly agree with Omar that we'll never know, and that's great.

[cavorting with nudists]

I am that odd creature, someone who doesn't have much use for the Coens, but I liked True Grit very much. Maybe that makes it a Coen Brothers movie for people who don't like the Coen Brothers, but I'll take it.

[roubaix]

Ha ha, that makes sense b/c I wasn't thrilled with it.  It was good but not great.

[masterofsparks]

It does make sense because it's very un-Coensy. Their devotion to the source material is such that, of all their movies, it felt like the one anyone could've made.

[Steve of Bloomington]

I felt like the Doctor with the bear head was a very Coen Brothers moment. That and the gallows scene: 'before I'm hanged I'd like to say.....'

[masterofsparks]

I felt like the Doctor with the bear head was a very Coen Brothers moment. That and the gallows scene: 'before I'm hanged I'd like to say.....'

Even though the dialogue is straight from the book (as far as I can remember), the negotiation between Mattie and the merchant felt very Coen Brothers. I suppose this, and other similarities, are because Charles Portis was probably a big influence on their writing. Therefore, my saying that the movie doesn't feel like their other stuff is probably not entirely accurate. I said that because I can see how closely the movie follows the book, but that's probably because the book and the author played such a big part in who Joel and Ethan Coen are.

[Omar]

I felt like the Doctor with the bear head was a very Coen Brothers moment. That and the gallows scene: 'before I'm hanged I'd like to say.....'

Even though the dialogue is straight from the book (as far as I can remember), the negotiation between Mattie and the merchant felt very Coen Brothers. I suppose this, and other similarities, are because Charles Portis was probably a big influence on their writing. Therefore, my saying that the movie doesn't feel like their other stuff is probably not entirely accurate. I said that because I can see how closely the movie follows the book, but that's probably because the book and the author played such a big part in who Joel and Ethan Coen are.

That was indeed a very Coens-y scene; nice casting of character actor Dakin Matthews, who has popped up in about 200 TV shows over the years.  I particularly enjoyed his work as Headmaster Charleston on Gilmore girls.

[dave from knoxville]

It does make sense because it's very un-Coensy. Their devotion to the source material is such that, of all their movies, it felt like the one anyone could've made.

Wait til you see MY take on it.

[cavorting with nudists]

It does make sense because it's very un-Coensy. Their devotion to the source material is such that, of all their movies, it felt like the one anyone could've made.

The problem with this is: I haven't read the Portis book, but I have read No Country for Old Men, and the movie definitely follows it very closely, and no one says "anyone" could have made that. (My own problem with that one wasn't that it was afflicted by what I would pejoratively term Coenism, but that it was almost pointless: a perfectly faithful illustration of the book that had everything except what was best about the book, i. e. Cormac McCarthy's prose.)

I'm afraid that those of us who claim True Grit is among their best (I would say it and Miller's Crossing are the only ones I genuinely liked) are going to stand convicted of sentimentality or something by Coenists who presumably miss their characteristically cold facetiousness and think we only like it because it has heroes an' shit.  I really don't care that much about heroism and like plenty of movies that have no sympathetic characters. I just thought that on this one, they got out of their own way and didn't let their own self-regarding cleverness interfere with showing what master filmmakers they admittedly have become.

[masterofsparks]

It does make sense because it's very un-Coensy. Their devotion to the source material is such that, of all their movies, it felt like the one anyone could've made.

The problem with this is: I haven't read the Portis book, but I have read No Country for Old Men, and the movie definitely follows it very closely, and no one says "anyone" could have made that.

The difference being that one of these books was written in 1968 (when Joel was 14 and Ethan was 11) and the other in 2005. Which goes back to my earlier point, that Charles Portis's writing had a profound influence on these two as young men, playing a big part in the artists they would later become, and No Country For Old Men was just a book whose filmic adaptation was very well-suited to their style. In other words, Charles Portis is so important to who the Coen Brothers are that they have no choice but to follow the source as closely as possible.

When I say that it seems like anyone could've made it, I was referring only to the screenplay. Visually, it's very much in their style. Roger Deakins did a really exceptional job on the cinematography here.

[Pidgeon]

It does make sense because it's very un-Coensy. Their devotion to the source material is such that, of all their movies, it felt like the one anyone could've made.

Wait til you see MY take on it.

...?

What is it?