My Spooky Valentine

I watched The Talented Mr Ripley at a time when I had the biggest Gwyneth crush. I was probably 14. It was also about two years after I had visited Italy with my mother and aunt. My first time abroad. We went to Rome, Florence, Piza (for an hour) and Venice. Also, I'm gay and watching it for the second time some days ago I realized I have kind of been Mr Ripley for a period in my life.
So I guess this movie should mean more to me than it does (did, actually) but until the more recent viewing it just didn't have any special place in my heart. I barely even thought of it.
But after rewatching it I fell in love with it.  Not because of Italy, not because of Gwyneth and not because I felt connected to the story (though these things matter at least slightly) but because I thought it was a great movie. Well-made on every level. So glad I revisited it!

The reason I rewatched it was the Hit Me With Your Best Shot episode which has this movie as its subject.
I picked this particular image because I liked how subtly Ripley's crazy anger manifests itself here. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character keeps pressing harshly the piano keys despite Tom's suggestion to stop and it's like we're having an "Imma kill you some day" moment a la Birth's opera scene. It's kind of an inside joke between the movie and its audience.

A gondola named desire

This was the first time I watched Summertime. I didn't love it but it was perfectly fine and I was moved in the end.
The reason I watched it was that I wanted to participate in the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series once again.

There are many pretty images in the film and it wasn't easy for me to pick my favorite (for whatever reason I would pick it) so I chose one that I just liked in a special way.

In a way, it's stupid to choose an image that is too dark to show the beauty of Venice or Hepburn's beautifully expressive face but this one makes me think of high-school romance in Venice.

RIP

Your legacy lives in the way I (like many others) watch movies and will live as long as movies exist. Thank you so much for everything you've done, Roger Ebert.

Lovely Bones is what you're having for supper Mr Gollum

This is one more review in which I explain why I disliked a movie. Sorry...

The Hobbit part1 is a good kids movie. Or at least it would be if it was a lot less violent.
For an adult, at least for this adult, it's pretty but mostly boring.
I liked it visually a lot. The nature, the creatures and the camera movements. Somethimes I was thinking "That. is. so. nice".
But we shouldn't judge a movie only based on its cover and the praise ends there.
 I didn't care for any of the characters. I didn't mind spending time with Gandalf again but it's not like he showed me another side of him.
The rest of the characters were pretty simple and uninteresting.
Bilbo was the most interesting sane character but he still wasn't engaging enough. Martin Freeman did a good job though his acting felt a bit like he it was from a 2012 Real Earth drama. I don't know if I was supposed to care about Bilbo's internal journey. I mean, he felt OK at home but he was kinda bored and his ancestor was brave so maybe he should do something extreme and hey these poor folks need help but maybe not but what the hell he'll just do it. Also, he totally stole that ring probably because it was shiny but he spared  Gollum's life so he's forgiven by the audience... Seriously?

I like how in the movie whenever the heroes are close to dying, they get saved by their resourceful minds and not by a cheap trick like the phrasing of this sentence.

Question: Can't the Dwarfs get a home somewhere else? I mean, you were there and now the dragon is there. Get. over it. Gold is nice but there are more important things in life, like friendship and playing with plates after dinner.

I just don't get what powers Gandalf actually possesses. He seems to be nothing more than a good fighter at times. Does het get stronger or weaker according to the plot's needs?

The Gollum scenes were probably the best ones. Serkis's facial expressions are a masterpiece they combine creepiness,  joy (of a twisted kind) and pitiful humanity, making Gollum, as weird as it may sound, perhaps the most relatable character. He/It's a hightened version of the everyday person as opposed to most of the other characters who are either one-note or too familiar by now.


5/10

In Anticipation of movies and better ideas

I haven't been posting much recently but I think I have been writing that phrase quite a lot!
Anyway, I listed to list a list cause, you know, lists!!

This one is kind of more random than usual because it includes the remaining movies from 2012 I'm most interested to watch. Note that I mean the movies with a 2012 USA release date. No idea when they'll come to Greece. 

1) Lincoln
2) Les Misérables
3) Anna Karenina
4) Great Expectations
5) Zero Dark Thirty 
6) To the Wonder
7) The Master
8) Silver Linings Playbook
9) Rust & Bone 
10) Quartet
11) The Place Beyond the Pines
12) Amour
13) Argo
14) At Any Price


Lincoln is my first because Spielberg, Kushner, Daniel Day Lewis etc
Les Miz is my favorite musical (give or take Beauty and the Beast) without having seen it from start to finish. I just adoooorrrreee some of its songs. I'm just not entirely confident that it will work.
Anna Karenina is a classic novel and the director is someone you can't ignore, as is Keira!
Great Expectations is a book that has a character that has always fascinated me: Estella. I'm curious to see what the new embodiment of that Ice Queen has to offer.


I'm also really interested in finding out how Bigelow and her screenwriter have handled such a rich and complex story as the Bin Laden one is.


     

A few words on a sentimental war epic.

I liked War Horse a lot and I have no guilts whatsoever.

It looked beautiful. It was epic.I loved how it depicted war not as a battle between good and bad guys but between people who, whichever side they belong to, at times are excited, scared, angry or generous.

Was it sentimental? Sure. But I can mostly forgive it for that because I think you have the right to show pure, unsubtle emotion when you have explored such grand sources of pain.

Can i say how grateful I am that they cast Niels Arestrup? Such an inspired choice. I think he gave the best performance in the film.

Movies like that should never stop getting made. We don't need only this kind of cinema but I would certainly miss it if it were gone.


7/10

...or am I losing my mind?

Full disclosure: I liked the movie but not enough to see it again only for the purpose of choosing my favorite image so I just saw the first 10 minutes of it. I don't even recall the plot, but I think I remember what's important and that is that Joan is losing it in this movie.

I like this image because it seems as if the doctor is examining how well Joan is taking care of her nails.
Miss Crawford was an intimidating beauty and a true diva, less known for her acting skills (in comparison to Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis etc) and more for her looks and charisma. You would expect her to care about looking gorgeous in every single movie she appeared in, but in the case of Possessed she seems more eager to showcase her craft than anything else.

So, it's funny, to me, that this image, in a way, alludes to Crawford's polished appearance, when the movie cares about anything but that.