Last movie watched...

[shaolin_monkey]

I finally got my free copy of Avatar to go with my Blu-Ray player.  The 3D was very good indeed on my new telly, but the more I see this film the more contrived I think it is.

[Mabs]

Oh, talking of True Grit, i hope you managed to get those knobs at LOVEFiLM to send you the correct copy of the film Sauchie? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it once you do watch it! 

[El Chivo]

Sinister
Not expecting much from this as i don't really rate Ethan Hawke in anything much
he's done so far, but he is pretty good in this & it's not bad at all, i was slightly cacking myself on occasion (altho watching it late at night in an empty house helps i spose)

Chi

[Frank]

Oh, talking of True Grit, i hope you managed to get those knobs at LOVEFiLM to send you the correct copy of the film Sauchie? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it once you do watch it! 

The knobbery was all mine, Mabs, having added the film to my rental list without noticing the picture of John Wayne's head next to the film's title. It's passé to praise the Coens now they're regular Academy favourites, but I thought everything about the film was as extraordinary as the beautiful cinematography and performances you highlighted in your post. It's a great demonstration of how there are so many more powerful and important elements to film making than plot - it sticks mostly to the story told by the book and previous film, but manages to feel and say something completely different.

If I hadn't seen the names of the Coens and Roger Deakins during the credits I would have assumed it was a Tim Burton film, from the number of black silhouettes of bare limbed, tortured looking trees jutting from monochrome landscapes, and the tone of the film is definitely Gothic (capital G), regardless of whatever other notional genre to which the film belongs. That brilliant scene with the bear on horseback is what the entire film is about, it really reinforces the feeling that the characters have crossed the river (Styx) into the land of the dead in their pursuit of justice for a corpse.

The antithetical last words of the men during the hanging which opens the film and the reactions of the crowd, the creepy scene of the hanged man in the tree whose de-toothed corpse returns draped across the back of the bear's horse, Domnhall Gleeson's concern that his corpse receive a proper burial, Little Blackie (!), Mattie proposing she should literally sleep with the dead then doing so figuratively (Grandma), the post-mortem manipulation to which Rooster subjects the corpses of the men he's killed in the witness box - everything in the film is concerned with the use to which we put the now-useless corpses of the dead which surround us. Not least Mattie, who uses the corpse of her father to escape her family and the strictures imposed on women in Victorian society.

Given that the film is so concerned with dead bodies and what happens to corpses once their story is apparently over, the ending seemed fitting to me; everybody is either dead or might as well be. Even the still-living narrator's had a sizeable chunk of necrotic tissue removed, although I don't think we learn what happened to it. Their stories are effectively over and their power diminished, like that of Frank James and the Western genre, but we get to find out what purpose is found for them after their life and story is effectively over, and what that means to Mattie.

It could be argued that making a Western today is a necrophiliac enterprise, but it probably always was, and the creepy - almost supernatural - tone of this film seemed entirely appropriate. The concern with bodies, the use to which they're put and the paradoxical concern of the living with doing right by them, all reminded me of The Three Burials of Melquiedes Estrada, so seeing Barry Pepper looking almost like an extra from The Walking Dead returning to the West as the oddly civil and fair minded Lucky Ned seemed entirely appropriate. I really loved this film.

[Jim_Campbell]

I would have assumed it was a Tim Burton film

Wouldn't the whole 'not being shit' thing have tipped you off to the contrary? :-)

Cheers!

Jim

[I, Cosh]

I would have assumed it was a Tim Burton film

Wouldn't the whole 'not being shit' thing have tipped you off to the contrary? :-)

Ha! Was planning to post exactly this but beaten to the punch by that man Campbell.

[Frank]

I would have assumed it was a Tim Burton film

Wouldn't the whole 'not being shit' thing have tipped you off to the contrary? :-)

I liked the ending of Planet of the Apes!

[TordelBack]

I would have assumed it was a Tim Burton film

Wouldn't the whole 'not being shit' thing have tipped you off to the contrary? :-)

Ha! Was planning to post exactly this but beaten to the punch by that man Campbell.

Yeah, but you wouldn't having been who-o-oring for some tie-in comic you stuck word balloons on... 

[Mabs]

@sauchie

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, mate! What you've stated in your review is spot on; the whole film does have an eerie almost supernatural tinge to it. And your metaphorical comparison of our protagonists river crossing to that of the river Styx is also spot on. And in order for Mattie to bring Chaney to justice, she has to make a sacrifice or pay a price [spoiler]which results in her losing her arm to the snake bite.[/spoiler]

Its such a great film. I will definitely watch it again when i get the time.

[Jim_Campbell]

Yeah, but you wouldn't having been who-o-oring for some tie-in comic you stuck word balloons on... 

I don't know what you mean.

Cheers!

Jim

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

A Good Day to Die Hard.

Tips style review: A Shit Day to Shite Hard

Homer Simpson Style review: It was just a bunch of stuff that happened

Mr Plinkett style review: NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE AND EVERYBODY IN THIS MOVIE IS A FUCKING IDIOT

[Hawkmumbler]

A Good Day to Die Hard.

Tips style review: A Shit Day to Shite Hard

Homer Simpson Style review: It was just a bunch of stuff that happened

Mr Plinkett style review: NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE AND EVERYBODY IN THIS MOVIE IS A FUCKING IDIOT

[Mardroid]

Big Fish. Just now. (Actually it occurs to me that 'just now' is a contradictory statement but I'm sure you get what I mean.)

Magical. Whimsical. Strange, and sentimental in a good way. I liked it a lot.

[Buttonman]

Yeah I like 'Big Fish' too - always get a lump in the throat when t[spoiler]he son takes over the tall tale as the old man conks out. Also the funeral is great where all the characters turn up just a bit less colourful than described.[/spoiler]

Finally got around to 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' last night. Secret Santa gave me the Blu-ray for Christmas and I didn't really fancy 3 hours of cold detective work. Turned out to be really good. Cast of familiar faces and some cracking scenes - not for the squeamish!

[TordelBack]

Big Fish is good Munchauseny fun alright.

As to tonight's viewing, Iron Man 2.  A bit talky and hard to figure in places, and not as good as the first one, but a very entertaining prequel to Avengers lifted considerably by Don Cheadle's well-judged Rhodey and Scarlett Johansson's truly astonishing loveliness.