Coming from a New Yorker, this is particularly meaningful, but that is not why I highlighted it. It's a powerful way of getting inside a moment, when one is in-city if not citified, and inured to the background noise-that-isn't-really-noise-but-ambient-sound in a way that allows for space but gently cushions with comforting familiarity.
Sorry for my oafish characterization, but thanks for that phrase, because I felt it immediately and deeply.
Thanks Roy, it sounds fascinating, but definitely like the kind of movie you need to be in the right headspace to appreciate. A friend of mine saw it when she was already feeling nostalgic about a couple of things in her own life, and she spent the rest of the evening after the movie crying on and off. So I've been waiting to be in a positive but patient mood before I check it out.
You mentioned "Tokyo Story" last month. It got me thinking - I found a copy of "Early Summer" on YouTube and watched it one quiet night. I like films where
nothing much happens in an important fundamental way. This sounds similar.
I don't know if I would go out to see this but I will sure watch it streaming.
Good writing about a good film is something I always enjoy, and this one I will watch, because there isn't a scene where a baby is cut from the womb of a dead woman.
I did finally get around to watching Videodrome last weekend, and, yeah, it's a LOT more fucked up than Crimes Of The Future. Trying to decide if Debbie Harry or Kristen Stewart is better.
Roy's comment about the present film makes me think of my love for the Hernandez Bros comics, esp. Love & Rockets. I like the SF/fantasy aspects of the stories, but I'm equally entertained by the Locas stories where it's just set in an essentially normal suburb, or Heartbreak Soup, set in a tiny Mexican (?) town. I've no great affection for tales of average lower-middle-class randos yet I'm fascinated by these comics.
"so much of it takes place not only between the lines, but between the actions, as the import of what is said and done, or not said and not done, dawns on you."
I should see this. I'm jonesing for exactly this since Monday, when I finally watched The Last Detail. For the first half it felt minor, a movie about Nicholson bending rules to show a younger guy a good time before he goes to prison. The second half sneaked up on me with all its unseen stuff. Tuesday I woke up crammed with reflection, floored by the realization that a line Nicholson says -- "Kid like that's better off in prison. Too many things can happen to him out here" -- is really a line about why he himself got out of real life, joined the navy.
Speaking of unseen -- I have decided that Nicholson and Hal Ashby put one of my all-time favorite movie moments in here, three seconds long: Nicholson is talking and something catches his eye out of frame, he flashes with anger, then goes back to what he's saying. You are trusted completely to understand he's seen a pretty girl. Jesus.
I suspect if someone made this movie today, they'd cut to a bodacious ass boom-booming side to side. Jack would look sad and left out, not furious at a world he can't have. In the next scene we'd learn he's estranged from a daughter, and so's the prisoner he's escorting. They'd end up AWOL on a cross-country journey of discovery and reconciliation.
Aye yi yi, no, make me see the real world better, not a bullshit world. You guys, I am open to movie suggestions -- and adding Past Lives to my list.
"more hum than clatter"
Coming from a New Yorker, this is particularly meaningful, but that is not why I highlighted it. It's a powerful way of getting inside a moment, when one is in-city if not citified, and inured to the background noise-that-isn't-really-noise-but-ambient-sound in a way that allows for space but gently cushions with comforting familiarity.
Sorry for my oafish characterization, but thanks for that phrase, because I felt it immediately and deeply.
2 marks for the phrase and the whole review.
Thanks Roy, it sounds fascinating, but definitely like the kind of movie you need to be in the right headspace to appreciate. A friend of mine saw it when she was already feeling nostalgic about a couple of things in her own life, and she spent the rest of the evening after the movie crying on and off. So I've been waiting to be in a positive but patient mood before I check it out.
This sounds like one I want to see! Thanks, Roy.
You mentioned "Tokyo Story" last month. It got me thinking - I found a copy of "Early Summer" on YouTube and watched it one quiet night. I like films where
nothing much happens in an important fundamental way. This sounds similar.
I don't know if I would go out to see this but I will sure watch it streaming.
I enjoy the movie reviews - Thanks!
I’ve put it on the list. Thank God it won’t get remade with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Good writing about a good film is something I always enjoy, and this one I will watch, because there isn't a scene where a baby is cut from the womb of a dead woman.
Movie time!
I did finally get around to watching Videodrome last weekend, and, yeah, it's a LOT more fucked up than Crimes Of The Future. Trying to decide if Debbie Harry or Kristen Stewart is better.
Roy's comment about the present film makes me think of my love for the Hernandez Bros comics, esp. Love & Rockets. I like the SF/fantasy aspects of the stories, but I'm equally entertained by the Locas stories where it's just set in an essentially normal suburb, or Heartbreak Soup, set in a tiny Mexican (?) town. I've no great affection for tales of average lower-middle-class randos yet I'm fascinated by these comics.
"so much of it takes place not only between the lines, but between the actions, as the import of what is said and done, or not said and not done, dawns on you."
I should see this. I'm jonesing for exactly this since Monday, when I finally watched The Last Detail. For the first half it felt minor, a movie about Nicholson bending rules to show a younger guy a good time before he goes to prison. The second half sneaked up on me with all its unseen stuff. Tuesday I woke up crammed with reflection, floored by the realization that a line Nicholson says -- "Kid like that's better off in prison. Too many things can happen to him out here" -- is really a line about why he himself got out of real life, joined the navy.
Speaking of unseen -- I have decided that Nicholson and Hal Ashby put one of my all-time favorite movie moments in here, three seconds long: Nicholson is talking and something catches his eye out of frame, he flashes with anger, then goes back to what he's saying. You are trusted completely to understand he's seen a pretty girl. Jesus.
I suspect if someone made this movie today, they'd cut to a bodacious ass boom-booming side to side. Jack would look sad and left out, not furious at a world he can't have. In the next scene we'd learn he's estranged from a daughter, and so's the prisoner he's escorting. They'd end up AWOL on a cross-country journey of discovery and reconciliation.
Aye yi yi, no, make me see the real world better, not a bullshit world. You guys, I am open to movie suggestions -- and adding Past Lives to my list.