NP - Into the Woods/Birdman

[Charles Albert]

Just saw Birdman..........and my mind is reeling....

Had no idea what to expect, and find myself sitting there 10 minutes
in wondering if Michael Keaton can possibly be this good. Can't
remember the name of the 80s sitcom which made him famous, or any of
the string of movies in which he usually evidenced a reasonably good
spit take and range from A to b. Emma Stone and Ed Norton were great,
but Keaton was a revelation.  I thought it would be years before I saw
anything to rival Christian Bale's job in American Hustle.

Didn't see "Art vs Schlock" as anything more than one of several
tropes harnessed to a much "higher" purpose. The movie ranges
remarkably wide, deftly fusing humor, passion and pathos. The same
shooting techniques which I found annoying in Traffic were masterfully
utilized to convey the contrasting scales of the theater, the expanse
of the stage versus the cramped and seedy corridors and rooms behind -
the sterility of the former and the nearly compulsory intimacy of the
latter.

I needed every minute of the credits to gather my wits sufficiently to
drive home.

Was Raymond Carver just a foil, or need I put him on the must read list?
love,

cfa



On 1/2/15, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> I've always found it surprisingly difficult to walk out of even the
> crappiest movies. Sheer lethargy or excessive politeness? Or maybe it just
> seems snooty to walk out of a movie that other people seem to be enjoying? I
> recently sat through a movie I absolutely hated while texting a couple of
> friends about how bad the movie was. That movie - Obvious Child - has ended
> up on a lot of people's Best Of lists, solely, so far as I can figure,
> because it's pro-choice. I expect more from a movie - plot, decent dialogue,
> character development, believability - something! I was tempted to walk out
> of Interstellar, once it became clear that it was irredeemably bad. Don't
> think I could have forced myself into Into, or, for that matter, any of the
> Hollywood Blockbusters this year.
>
> It does seem a particularly bad year for movies. Much as I was underwhelmed
> by Inherent Vice, I'd probably rank it the second best, after Selma. Selma
> was inspiring and topical, and din't insult the intelligence by falling for
> the standard-issue Hollywood biopic cliches. Can't say the same for The
> Imitation Game, which made me cringe (though not nearly as much as
> Interstellar did). What it this thing where filmmakers now think it's
> reasonable to toss the same platitude at us multiple times, to the point of
> nausea or high blood sugar?
>
> I'm racking my brains to think of other movies I liked this year. I enjoyed
> Big Eyes, though it's forgettable. Much as I hated the poorly-motivated
> characters and the excessive misogyny go Gone Girl, it was at least
> entertaining. Boy was certainly a film-making coup, but, aside from the
> gimmick and it's being a believable story about likable people, it's not
> very memorable. Birdman was OK, though it didn't have anything fresh to say
> about Art vs Schlock, and the constantly moving camera started to nauseate
> me after a while. A very small, low-budget movie called It Felt Like Love
> made a good impression on me (though it had a 2-day theatrical run) because
> it's set in non-hipster Brooklyn, and told a timeless Brooklyn coming-of-age
> story.
>
> I haven't seen Nightcrawler or The Homesman - maybe I'd like them?
>
> Laura
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: David Morris
>
> Sent: Jan 2, 2015 10:19 AM
>
> To: jochen stremmel
>
> Cc: P-list
>
> Subject: Re: NP - Into the Woods - movie
>
>
>
> I did eventually leave, after too much patience, when it became clear that
> it wasn't going to redeem itself.
>
> On Friday, January 2, 2015, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> why didn't you leave?
>
> 2015-01-02 5:29 GMT+01:00 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
> Do NOT go see this!  I cringed! I squirmed for its end to come. My brain
> hurt enduring this crap!
> David Morris
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l