Open Thread Into Darkness
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at 5:48PM Behold my "best shot" from Hud (1963)
NOT REALLY. See, that is my favorite shot in the 1963 classic and my favorite shot does take place in the black of night but my screencap trickery is mysteriously failing me today and all I'm getting is this blankness when Paul Newman's beauty should be readily visible to the eye. So my post will be up in the morning. If you're still wanting to watch this masterful film, please consider your own late entry in the black of night tonight or any time tomorrow. Or go visit these Best Shot participants to read their takes on the movies: We Recycle Movies , The Film's the Thing, Film Actually, The Entertainment Junkie, and Antagony... It's one of the great 60s films and mysteriously little talked about today.
In the meantime, WHAT'S ON YOUR CINEMATIC MIND? Seen anything good lately?
Reader Comments (20)
Most recently saw Behind the Candelabra. Liked (did not love) it, but it made me mournful. Not to get curmudgeonly, but I wonder about films like The Hours and Far From Heaven and other high-minded adult drama that because of their nature (period costuming and production design, etc) require a budget. Would those films have been released theatrically today or would they have gone to HBO? I know that the currents of the film industry ebb and flow and that these things are cyclical, but Behind the Candelabra going to HBO is emblematic of the direction modern cinema is going and it makes me very sad.
Top of the Lake! The storytelling is a bit wobbly, but there is such a wealth of beautiful, thoughtful, skillfully expressed content that it's easy to forgive.
I'm still reeling from Spielberg surprising all the naysayers and making (from what I hear) fantastic choices all around with the help of his jury. I'm not sure why people were surprised that he has such great taste in film. He's a huge cinephile and has as big a love for movies as Scorsese; he just doesn't elaborate on it as much as the latter does.
I love foreign movies. I do wonder about the foreign releases that'll never see domestic soil because the distributors saw no commercial or critical potential in them. And I think there's a strong possibility that I'd appreciate them as the small but mighty gems worth falling for.
I watched Revolutionary Road recently and became very sad that Kate Winslet won for The Reader and not RR. I think Kate is a good actress, she's not a favorite or anything, but I think Revolutionary Road was some really good work and definitely superior to The Reader.
Watched "I Am Love" during a very rainy three-day weekend in Upstate NY. A recent post on TFE guilted me into watching. Simply adored it. My Amazon order shipped today - I'll have the Blu-Ray tomorrow and I fully intended to watch it again!
@Philip H - I completely agree with you !
Oh Drew I watched Top of the Lake recently too and I agree with you! Not perfect but with seven hours of it there was lots to like too. Wasn't the title sequence lovely? I thought Peter Mullan and Elisabeth Moss were great. Her accent was a bit all over the place but it was it was kinda ok with the character. And I love seeing NZ on screen- so pretty! Also it reminded me of Bjork's Joga which is never a bad thing.
I'm really on a bit of an Elisabeth Moss tear as I've been catching up with Mad Men too. Peggy Olsen's the best! That bit in the last episode of season 5 where she's in the hotel room and looks out the window and sees the dogs humping- the expression on her face! It had me laughing days after just thinking about it.
I'd love to see Moss in a screwball comedy or I think she'd be great in that young Hillary thing they're doing. But who would be young Bill? Garret Hedlund is the best I could come up with but I don't know.
Just sitting down to watch A Place in the Sun. Excited for Monty, Shelley, and Liz.
Otherwise, saw Epic with my little niece this weekend - it was 'meh' but she loved it :)
I'm excited for all of the Best Shots from Hud! Love me some Paul Newman.
Philip, ITA. She's great in RR and should have won for that. And the film The Reader is an abomination. Cinematic dishonesty at its most execrable.
brookesboy -- i'll never understand why The Reader gets people that upset. I just can't fathom it. I don't think it's great or anything but fail to see what it is about it that makes people so crazy because you hear this all the time.
SVG -- isn't Moss terrific?
Billy -- yay! my work here is done.
I saw "Upstream Color" and wasn't as baffled by it as people said I would be, but it was a very good film.
Before that I watched "Last Exit to Brooklyn" for the first time, so I've been thinking about Jennifer Jason Leigh's lack of any Oscar nominations and her weirdly unsatisfying stint on Revenge (now THAT was baffling).
I'm still waiting on the day i can finally watch Stoker. It never made it to my area and i believe it is coming out on DVD soon. Limited release always bites me in the ass. Only God knows when i'll get to see Before Midnight.
with FRANCES HA out, i been thinking about the performances in noah baumbach's films. jeff daniels & laura linney, nicole kidman, and greta gerwig are aces in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING and GREENBERG. i'm super excited to see FRANCES HA with all the positive reviews supporting it!
I'd love to see a Criterion revisitation of "Hud." Such an underrated highligh. Newman is such a cad. The car he drives says so much about his personality. This remains one of my favorite Newman performances ever. And Melvyn Douglas gives one of the better Best Supporting Actor winning performances from the 60's. I'm not a big fan of Patricia Neal's performance (which belonged in supporting).
Contemplating the sense and meaning behind Holy Motors, which I just viewed.
Thanks for the HUD piece, Nat!
Been wondering how I can get more of Mads Mikkelsen without watching the dreadful Hannibal. And Sidse Babett Knudsen, now that I'm addicted to Borgen. In fact, I want more Danish cinema and TV.
Also, did I mention how good What Maisie Knew is?
Nathaniel R - for me, it had to do with the way the film used her illiteracy as some sort of redeeming character trait, like, "sure, she made hundreds of people die in that fire because she thought it was her job to keep them locked up, but she COULDN'T READ! That makes it ok! And now she's learning to read at the exact same time it dawns on her that what she did was wrong! See? Instead of mourning for those people who died, let's sympathize with this Nazi because she COULDN'T READ!"
Ugh. Just: no. You want to turn a Nazi into a flawed, complicated, three-dimensional person? Great! Too bad they tried and failed.
I also wished her awards traction that year was for RR instead.
The good has to be Frances Ha and Before Midnight, two great movies from two of the best, still underrated directors working in the US today.
I found Trek to be terribly mundane stuff, a shame considering the chemistry of the cast. Even Cumberbatch, who I've read some people loved in this movie, had nothing to do in this movie.
DJ, ITA. The overarching "tastefulness'' of The Reader in its production, photography, and musical score lays a trap for any audience who later are treated to glamor shots of an extermination camp. Daldry embalms the Holocaust with artfully spilt tears while asking us to pity a relentlessly unrepentant death-camp guard. But the movie's most brutal offense comes when it openly suggests that not only is illiteracy a greater shame than mass murder, but that it somehow alleviates her guilt. It doesn't get any more dishonest than that. The director tries to create a moral complexity that cannot be justified. He never should have tried. The Reader is another tasteful rendering of a historical cataclysm that grows fainter each time.
It covers absolutely no new ground for the genre, but I absolutely loved The Iceman. Everything was right: the cast, the art direction/costumes/makeup/hair, the editing, the direction. Mob dramas are a dime a dozen but The Iceman has something interesting to say about how the people who aren't in the mob but know it's around behave.
Otherwise, Trance was the last great one I saw. It hit me hard and worked for me. I turned to my brother and said it was Inception for smart people. I was mostly joking. It helps to know a lot about the art world, hypnotherapy, and psychology to get everything that's going on. Rosario Dawson should be nominated at the Oscars for it, but this film will be forgotten. She's stunning in it. It's like if Zero Dark Thirty had actual character development. Very similar arcs.