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Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:59 am
by Mister Tee
Hmm....I'd just put the movie in my Netflix queue a week or so ago. Given this split, I'm really looking forward to it, now.
Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:31 am
by Eric
Anyone who is blind/deaf to the offerings of Balthazar deserves cruelty. Anyone who espouses their blindness/deafness on a board of halfway intelligent film fans is begging for it.
Edited By Eric on 1256880755
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:55 pm
by Penelope
Sabin wrote:If I said that I thought both of you were queens, would that help?
Personally, I prefer Empress. 
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:51 pm
by Sabin
If I said that I thought both of you were queens, would that help?
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:20 pm
by Penelope
How about, Damien, instead of ridiculing me, which has seemingly been your favorite activity these past few months (and thus the source of my curiousity into why certain people are cruel and enjoy humiliating other people), how about elucidating your reasons why Au Hasard, Balthazar is a worthy film? Can you do that without resorting to invectives against another person? I mean, it is rather ironic (and hypocritical) that you ridicule a person for not liking a film that is specifically about spirituality and kindness as opposed to cruelty and humiliation.
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:54 pm
by Damien
Penelope wrote:Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966; Robert Bresson) 1/10
Pretentious, dull, horribly acted religious fable. At least François Lafarge in his tight pants is nice to look at.
:O
There are no words.
1/10 :laugh:
Edited By Damien on 1256875052
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:33 pm
by Penelope
Okri wrote:Penelope wrote:Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966; Robert Bresson) 1/10
Pretentious, dull, horribly acted religious fable. At least François Lafarge in his tight pants is nice to look at.
Yeah, I didn't care for it either. Is it your first Bresson? If it is, don't let it deter you.
Yes, it was. It wasn't so much Bresson that had me put it at the top of my Netflix queue but, rather, the fact that I've lately been seeking out films that explore the theme of cruelty, which has been much on my mind lately.
Two films I watched earlier this week - The Best Way to Walk and Valentino - explored the theme of cruelty (and its byproduct, humiliation) with considerable skill and effect, without hammering the issue over the audiences head. Having heard that Au Hasard, Balthazar was a meditation on cruelty (aside from other things), I moved it to the top of my list.
Now, I don't mind slow, meditative, deliberately paced films - just recently I adored Broken Sky and I've even grown to admire if not exactly love The New World. But, for me, the biggest mistake in Au Hasard, Balthazar is that everything is on the surface and the (badly acted) characters behave like numbskulls. With Bresson's film, I didn't get the sense that there was anything going on under the surface and, because of that, I found myself not particularly caring what happened to the poor donkey (besides, didn't Anna Sewell cover this nearly a century earlier in Black Beauty?).
Ken Russell's Valentino could very well be the antithesis of Bresson's film, what with Russell's usual outré excess - yet it's a much more affecting film: the casting of Rudolf Nureyev as Valentino makes the theme of cruelty vis a vis the idea of masculinity that much more interesting. And Patrick Dewaere in The Best Way to Walk gives one of the best portrayals of how cruelty originates in suppressed sexual desire. These films, despite some flaws, had a subtext that Au Hasard, Balthazar completely lacked.
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:31 pm
by OscarGuy
Sweeney Todd - In Concert
This is the George Hearn/Patti LuPone performance on DVD.
Most every aspect of the play was good except one and I think you can fairly easily guess it:
Patti LuPone. What an awful, awful performer. The character isn't known for her musical ability, but at least when Lansbury did it, she wasn't screeching operatic notes and sustaining crappier ones. The finale was really quite good until hear mealy-mouthed delivery arrived and held notes that should never have been held were hit. She ruined nearly every scene she was in, but still managed to get a rousing round of applause for her two big numbers (By the Sea and Worst Pies in London).
And although I think he was too clean cut vocally at times, Neil Patrick Harris did quite well as Toby.
I don't remember names and I'm posting in haste, so forgive me, but the actress who played Joanna was better than I had expected after hearing so many renditions that weren't quite the right strength in the upper register. Anthony was good, but has been done better. The judge and the beadle were also solid, but was not a fan of their operatic indulgences. Yes, the play can lend itself to that kind of performance, but I've always been more of a fan of traditional musical interpretation.
I can only imagine what could have been done without the overt operatic excesses and by kicking the obnoxious LuPone to the curb.
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:13 pm
by Okri
Penelope wrote:Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966; Robert Bresson) 1/10
Pretentious, dull, horribly acted religious fable. At least François Lafarge in his tight pants is nice to look at.
Yeah, I didn't care for it either. Is it your first Bresson? If it is, don't let it deter you.
Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:01 pm
by Penelope
Au Hasard, Balthazar (1966; Robert Bresson) 1/10
Pretentious, dull, horribly acted religious fable. At least François Lafarge in his tight pants is nice to look at.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 11:38 pm
by dws1982
Rabbit Proof Fence
As part of my decade-ending catch up project, in which I watch films I missed the first time, or take another look at films that might warrant it.
Yawn. This was one of those movies Phillip Noyce made when he was taking his stab at respectability after having wasted the 90's one forgotten genre films. It's well made and all, and is very solidly photographed, but Noyce is gunning so hard for respectability that it mostly feels dull and lifeless.
Noyce seems to be going back to hack mode, with a spy thriller starring Angelina Jolie due out next year.
Up next on my catch up project: Time Out, Ballast, and Silent Light.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:42 pm
by Penelope
Valentino (1977; Ken Russell) 7/10
Yeah, this wasn't the real Valentino, but it was entertaining enough and I also thought that, for the first time, the masochistic nature of Russell's films actually made you feel for the "victim." Maybe it was the casting of Rudolf Nureyev, who was charismatic but certainly not an actor, but his delicate quality brought out a sympathy for Valentino.
Leslie Caron was extravagant, Michelle Phillips was hopeless, Carol Kane had seemingly wandered in from another set. The only truly great performance in the film was provided by Felicity Kendal.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:21 pm
by Big Magilla
My memory may be a little shaky re Andrews' certain nomination but her performance was a crowd pleaser in a film everyone from young kids to little old ladies loved. Pennies From Heaven, though it had its moments, was a very uneven film. Bernadette Peters won the Globe over a very weak field, as did Andrews, but Peters, try as she occasionally did, was never a movie star. Andrews was Hollywood royalty from the moment she stepped on a sound stage and had been overdue for a third nomination.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 11:00 am
by Damien
Mister Tee wrote:Magilla, I do have to slightly dissent on Andrews as sure-fire nominee that year. I know in some circles Victor/Victoria is viewed as a masterwork, but it wasn't unanimously acclaimed, it was released early in the year, and its box-office was only so-so. I was in fact surprised it did so well in total nominations; I'd expected Preston, score, sets and costumes for certain, but the rest were on the bubble.
I agree with Tee, and I'm someone who thinks that Victor/Victoria is by far the best film of 1982. The movie opened in March, nearly a year before the nominations, although, in those pre-screener videos days, MGM brought it back to theatres late in the year (at least in L.A., where I was living at the time). And there were quite a few trade ads (by that era's standards).
Julie had won the Golden Globe, but Bernadette Peters had won the Globe the previous year for another great performance (Pennies From Heaven) with no Oscar nomination to show for.
My friends and I were all thrilled and amazed at all the nominations the movie received -- we were hopeful for some noms, but in those days there wasn't the constant gauging of Oscar chances we see today. It was about all we could talk about. The Screenplay nomination was a surprise, and Lesley Ann Warren's great performance wasn't a given. Odd that neither "Crazy World" nor "Le Jazz Hot" was nominated for Best Song.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:48 am
by Mister Tee
To expand a little on what Magilla's said: you have to put yourself in the context. Frances arrived in early December and Lange's performance was viewed as a revelation. As Magilla says, she had been a complete joke after King Kong, and, though Postman Always Rings Twice had given her some cred, that movie was not widely seen or liked. Frances, on the other hand, fit snugly into the Susan Hayward/Diana Ross bio-of-self-destructive-female-performer genre, and she was instantly tagged as the Oscar front-runner...
...until two weeks later, when Sophie's Choice came along, and Meryl Streep got the kind of reviews you'd have written for yourself if you could have got away with it. (And in those days, you didn't hear about movies 3-6 months out the way we do today, so all this surprise happened in real time) When the first critics' awards came out -- NBR and LA -- it was clear Streep was going to carry the day. It looked like Lange was a victim of bad timing...
...until the NY Critics surprised us again, choosing Lange as best supporting female for Tootsie, which had opened around the same time to wild acclaim. The NSFC (which also voted Tootsie best film) followed suit, as, gleefully, did the Globes, and by the time the Oscar nominations came out, the fix was in. Lange was everyone's prediction on Oscar night.
I agree that Close gave, for me, the outstanding supporting performance that year, but I think it's easy to underrate Lange's contribution to in Tootsie. She (and her relationship with Hoffman) give the film a richness beyond the easy laughs, and is alot of why the film is so memorable for so many of us.
Magilla, I do have to slightly dissent on Andrews as sure-fire nominee that year. I know in some circles Victor/Victoria is viewed as a masterwork, but it wasn't unanimously acclaimed, it was released early in the year, and its box-office was only so-so. I was in fact surprised it did so well in total nominations; I'd expected Preston, score, sets and costumes for certain, but the rest were on the bubble.
Keaton did, I believe, rank just behind Streep and Lange in the critics' voting for lead actress.