Author Topic: Write about the last movie you watched (2006-2010)  (Read 5997861 times)

FifthCityMuse

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18560 on: August 19, 2009, 09:00:22 AM »
Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
This is so great. It would've totally been a candidate for my top 100 had I seen it in time. The first half plays practically like a propaganda film, very light, very easy, and then there's this dramatic tone shift that is totally jarring and great, at which point it just goes totally into a different place, but it's still so good. I think I'm gonna resurrect the spoiler/marathon thread on this one some time soon and have a discussion there.

B+ (Right at the top end of the B+, so nearly an A-)

Envy (Roberto Rossellini, 1952) (short)
Really quite awful. I can't say I really liked anything about it. I'm not sure if that's because of the utterly awful print, or if I still wouldn't have been a fan if the print was in good condition. I found the content and the characters terribly frustrating.

Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini, 1949)
I want to like this a lot more than I do, because it has some really great stuff in it. Like the Tuna hunt. Or the final scenes. And Ingrid Bergman, who gives a pretty great performance. But I was kept at a distance by the story, which felt so old hat (although this might be blame on me as a modern viewer) and utterly repugnant. I was also really so strongly put off by the voiceovers, which were utterly, totally unnecessary. The last one especially is just so disappointing. And I can already feel myself compensating for it - I'm already, just over an hour after it finished, starting to block out the parts I didn't like. Which was huge swathes of it.

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worm@work

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18561 on: August 19, 2009, 09:57:36 AM »
Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
This is so great. It would've totally been a candidate for my top 100 had I seen it in time. The first half plays practically like a propaganda film, very light, very easy, and then there's this dramatic tone shift that is totally jarring and great, at which point it just goes totally into a different place, but it's still so good. I think I'm gonna resurrect the spoiler/marathon thread on this one some time soon and have a discussion there.

B+ (Right at the top end of the B+, so nearly an A-)

Oh nice! Given that there's a lull in that marathon anyway, I think I want to try and catch up on the ones I missed before really joining the marathon. So I'll try and watch this one too, especially given how much you liked it :).

FroHam X

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18562 on: August 19, 2009, 10:40:40 AM »
Move to LA. I'll hook you up.

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Kevin Shields

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18563 on: August 19, 2009, 01:21:16 PM »


Post Grad[2009]
I related to this film on a personal level and seemed to speak to my exact situation.  After doing everything right, Ryden Malby(Alexis Bledel) expected to jump right into her successful professional career after graduating from college.  Instead real life smacks her in the face and becomes, as her father(Michael Keaton) describes her as, "unhirable".  Particularly in this economy, this is a situation many recent graduates are faced with and can identify with. 

The feeling of despair and dealing with a hurt ego are dealt with well in this fairly conventional romantic comedy. Unfortunately that is exactly what this film is; just conventional.  Instead of focusing on the struggle of the grad, the film decides to slip in the comfortable zone and play by conventions.  The romantic aspect of it would be forgivable if it wasn't so painfully average in its execution.  What disappointed me the most was that it teased originality, but kept throwing in familiar scenarios and ultimately was predictable.  Furthering my frustration was the fact that most of the film focused on Ryden's family, who really didn't have anything interesting to say or have any real plot at all.  There were extended scenes thrown in that felt like were from a completely different movie, not having any impact on Ryden's character or furthering the plot in anyway.  I liked the premise, and it had all the potential to be something new and relatable, but instead is a paint-by-number romantic comedy, and one that is poorly executed at that.


Rating: 2/5


I actually thought about seeing this.  I'm a fan of Alexis Bledel and Gilmore Girls though I think she did a terrible job in the 2nd Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants film.  I was hoping that the film would stray from conventions but from the review, I realized that it wouldn't.  Especially since the film is supposed to be about what post-grads face though I do love the poster of the film.   

Bledel's best performance I think was in the fifth season of Gilmore Girls where that season was about the changing fortunes of the Gilmore Girls.  For Bledel as Rory Gilmore, her character starts to fall apart following an overwhelming year in which she was in her first year in Yale, having to live away from her mom, nearly failing classes which she rarely does, and deal with the presence of her former boyfriend Jess Mariano.  Without her mom and her best friend Lane around and her other best friend/roommate Paris sleeping around with Michael York.  Rory ends up turning to another former boyfriend in Dean Forrester who by this point, had gotten married but still has feelings for Rory.  By the end of that season, Rory loses her virginity to Dean and Lorelai Gilmore isn't happy about what she saw as conflict between mother-daughter arose making Rory leave for Europe with her grandmother in the beginning of the fifth season. 

I thought what Bledel in that fifth season was make Rory more human as she faces boy troubles, her confusion about her own ambitions, and the expectations from her rich grandparents.  She gets another boyfriend in a rich young man named Logan Huntzberger that has some reckless moments and then when she works at an internship for his father's paper.  She gets crushed big time by Logan's dad and loses all of her confidence forcing her to move in with her grandparents after a spat with her mother about dropping out of Yale.  It's a show that often has moments of melodrama and humor but it was a great show for those first five seasons.  The sixth was still good but started to fall apart a bit by its second half and then came the chaos of its seventh and final season. 
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Fugee

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18564 on: August 19, 2009, 02:27:06 PM »
Sunshine - Aside from a couple cringe-worthy lines, this moving was CINECAST!ing cool/10

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18565 on: August 19, 2009, 02:27:54 PM »
Sunshine - Aside from a couple cringe-worthy lines, this moving was CINECAST!ing cool/10

Correct.
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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18566 on: August 19, 2009, 02:30:09 PM »
Sunshine - Aside from a couple cringe-worthy lines, this moving was CINECAST!ing cool/10

AGREED!
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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18567 on: August 19, 2009, 02:37:19 PM »
Though I'd call the lines "cringe-inducing".
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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18568 on: August 19, 2009, 02:41:06 PM »
Though I'd call the lines "cringe-inducing".

I guess that is a pretty big difference.
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facedad

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #18569 on: August 19, 2009, 02:42:02 PM »
Though I'd call the lines "cringe-inducing".

I guess that is a pretty big difference.
Yeah. As good as the film is, I don't think you're given an option but to cringe in a few moments.
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