Just watched "Donnie Darko" -- can't wait to get the director's cut -- and now on to "October Sky". Can you tell that BBM has sent me on a Jake Gyllenhaal spree?

Better that than a Heath Ledger spree. He went on about how it was such a relief to get away from the set of BBM for that of Cassanova, because Ennis was such an emotional downer. Well I saw Cassanova and unless you just love the look of Venice or the period music forget it.

Or Oliver Platt covered in mint jelly and lard. Mmmm. I mean eek! . Honestly, I only saw preview clips, but I found myself saying "Wow, the fabric for that just' au corps would make a kicking modern suit."

We watched 'To Sir, With Love' on cable tonight. First time I had seen it. It was very very good! Sidney Poitier was remarkable.

Did you see "Jarhead" yet?

I saw "The Producers" this past New Years Eve with 3 friends in Baltimore. The theatre was almost full. The funny thing is that the majority of the audience was pretty old. I don't know if that was a result of the holiday or just that Broadway musicals appeal to that segment.

Anyway, I never saw the stage version with all the critical acclaim it received, so I really can't compare it to the movie. I will say there was plently of laughter from the audience including my small group. I suppose we did not go into the movie looking for academy award performances, just some lighthearted entertainment and that it delivered.

Will Ferrell performed well, while Nathan Lane and Uma Thurman were typecast as usual. Matthew Broderick was ok, but nothing to write home about.

[ January 02, 2006, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: phillyrunner ]

I saw "Jarhead" a month ago as a precursor to seeing Jake G. in "Brokeback" I didn't care for the movie, too much vulgarity, sophmoric humor and bad acting for my tastes. The only redeeming value is seeing Jake partially clad. But hey if you like "testosterone" flicks then it might be for you.

Phillyrunner, I can believe you didn't like Jarhead. I loved it. Jake G alone makes it worth watching and there's lot of eye-candy. Of course, there's a lot of profanity, it's the Marines for crying out loud. I like the fact that the movie focused on them rather than the politics of war. I'm planning to buy this DVD and BBM when they come out.

I was thinking afterwards about The Producers and to me the humour was sort-of Carol Burnett Show-ish/1970's kind of funny. And I suppose this is because the musical was based on a 1968 Mel Brooks movie. I think that's why it attracts an older crowd: they like that sort of thing. Funny costumes. Mugging for the camera. Silly Nazis. Prancing queens.

I liked Jarhead and actually found Jake G. less attractive all beefed up than he was cowboy hatted in Brokeback or nerdy in Proof. I thought the movie was interesting in part because it was a war movie where virtually nobody kills or gets killed, yet the soldiers are still traumatized by the events.

[ January 03, 2006, 06:23 AM: Message edited by: canmark ]

I saw "The Family Stone" on New Year's day and it was OK. Loved Luke Wilson in it. Sarah was a bit extreme. There was a hot beautiful black man named Brian White. Claire Danes looked beautiful. Diane Keaton was Diane Keaton. Overall, it's a bit of a melancholy movie, so you've been warned.

But one interesting aspect that I wanted to see what people thought. During a family dinner right before Christmas, everyone's gathered and discussing stuff. In Diane Keaton's family is a gay son who is partnered with a black man (who is the aforementioned hottie ) and they're thinking of adopting. Well, Sarah Jessica Parker's character (an uptight New York publishing executive or something) asks the boyz what they thought about the whole "nature vs. nurture" and whether they feel their environment will affect the baby they adopt. Craig T. Nelson, who plays the father of the family, says they've always believed being gay was genetic. Diane Keaton says she always wished her sons would grow up gay (her other two sons are straight, played by Luke Wilson and Dermott Mulroney). A beat later, Jessica Parker's character says "You didn't really mean it when you said you wished all your sons grew up gay? I mean, who would wish that on their children?" That totally enraged Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson and they were totally offended and it created an uproar.

I thought the reaction was so liberally tainted and so over-the-top. I can see how Diane Keaton's character might be offended or put off, but her reaction in the movie was overboard, I felt.

I think the point raised by Jessica Parker was a legitimate point of discussion. Do parents ever wish their child to be gay? Given how society still perceives gay people as oddities, and in the extreme, perversions, why would any parent want to subject their child to a life of growing up in isolation and discrimination, with no legal rights like their other children?

Awhile back, Rosie O'Donnell (and believe me, I am not holding up Rosie as a role model) said she would never wish her children to grow up gay because they would be subjected to a life of oppression. So as a parent, she would embrace her gay children but she wouldn't wish they grew up gay if it wasn't in their genes.

So I felt Diane Keaton's character really overreacted and the film really jumped on the topic without really fleshing it out. There are points of views on both sides, and it's a fantasy for Diane Keaton to believe that wishing her children grow up gay is seen today as a good thing. It's still not, which is why Jessica Parker's character's statement is more true than Keaton's reaction.

What do you guys think? Especially those who saw the movie and the reaction?

I don't think it was over the top for that family situation. When line you forgot to put in was that Jessica Parker also said, don't you want your kids to be normal. Which inflamed Diane, not only because she had a gay son, but he was also deaf. So she was basically calling him abnormal. Not something a parent wants to hear.

The stone family has completely accepted their son, his partner, his disability, and they fact they want children. To them that is normal. They would have no problem is another one of their children was gay or if one of their grandchildren was gay. They have already dealt with it.

As to wishing they weren't gay. Well I suppose. But then again there are an awful lot of other things far worse for children to be than just gay. And wishing for straight children doesn't guarantee a better life for them.

I wonder do black parents wish their children looked white, so they could pass in society, they would have far less problems than the ones who looked black. I doubt you would find many black mothers who say that.

true kujhawker. But keep in mind that the question posed by Jessica Parker's character was before a child is born, do you wish it to be gay? (And for your argument, to be black?) It was more on the lines of if you could pick your child, what would it be? I think it's a given that if your child is born gay, that you would accept them and consider them normal like the Stone family did. But what would you do if you could choose? I think it's an interesting question and still feel the reaction as portrayed in the movie was a bit overreactive.

Originally posted by canmark Canmark, I don't know what you were watching but the scene of burned human carcasses was pretty gruesome.

But those people weren't killed by the protagonists (ie. Jake's unit): they found them already dead. In fact, that was the main frustration of the Peter Sarsgaard character: he knew he was going to be kicked out of the military for lying on his application, and he never had the chance to kill the enemy. He was begging that general to let Jake take a sniper shot, but he was not allowed. A plane came and blew up the enemy. That seemed to be a point: that the sniper, the soldier, was redundant in that kind of warfare.

The irony, perhaps, is that while the film seems to show that hand-to-hand combat was nullified in the first gulf war by smart bombs, fighter jets and bombers, in the second gulf war--particularly the current 'insurgency'--most of the battle is on the ground, guerrilla warfare. While previously impotent, Jamie Foxx's crew would, presumably, be well needed and used now.

Yes I agree with you on the frustation of Jamie Foxx's group not being able to kill anyone after all the training they went through. I guess that was the point of the movie, technology now does the killing not the soldiers. Of course the current war we are in shows that groundtroops are still in vogue unfortunately.

'Technological' warfare is pretty unfortunate, too, to the people who are under the bombs, like Iraqi civilians.

Tropical Malady and Mysterious Skin are both available on DVD, both deeper, more eccentric explorations of gay themes than another movie being discussed to death everywhere.

It's awards season. Some new nominations came out today. Conspicuously absent is Munich. Noms by both guilds bode well for Crash, a dark horse due to its early release and mixed reactions.

Producers Guild nominees for Best Picture (in alphabetical order): Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line.

Writers Guild nominees for Original Screenplay: Cinderella Man, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale and The 40 Year-Old Virgin.

Writers Guild nominees for Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, The Constant Gardener, A History of Violence and Syriana.

watched FUN WITH DICK AND JANE.

jim carey is sooo f**kin' hilarious.

Reports are saying that Jon Stewart will host the Academy Awards.

I finally saw Good Night, and Good Luck. I thought it was interesting, although a bit hard to get into. It was beautifully filmed, and the musical interludes by Diane Reeves... heavenly. Still, I don't see it as a "best picture," although it may garner some votes from the many older Academy voters who remember (and maybe were victims of) the McCarthy hearings. But it does deserve some nominations.

Am going to try and see The Squid and the Whale next in my pre-Oscar screening mission.

Just saw "Ed Wood" -- one of the most beautifully shot b/w films I've seen. Ed's wife: "Ed doesn't judge anybody!!!" Ed: "If I did, I wouldn't have any friends" Sounds like me.

Oh man chi-town I just love Ed Wood. It's on my list of all time favs!

There are musical interludes???

Dianne Reeves (with musicians who used to perform with George Clooney's aunt, the wonderful Rosemary Clooney) performs music to punctuate the story. As I posted earlier in this thread, I found the film more didactic than dramatic and preferred the PBS "American Expreience" on the Murrow/McCarthy episode.

~Adam

I must confess that, despite my advanced aged, I'm really not all that familiar with Edward R. Murrow and his journalistic battles with Senator McCarthy (and my knowledge of Roy Cohn, who's seen briefly in the tapes of the hearings, is limited to Angels in America), so the film was a bit of a history lesson for me. I wish I had seen the PBS piece, as I'm sure it was better.

As for the "musical interludes," they are sort-of like breaks between "chapters" in the film, where Diane Reeves, dressed as a jazz singer (which, of course, she is) is singing standards (like "One for my baby (and one more for the road)," "How high the moon") with a jazz band. I don't have any of her CD's, but I might get the movie soundtrack.

Oh, and the parallels between McCarthy's 'you're either with us or you're against us' attitude was not lost on me. Interesting how some of the leading films this year (ie. Munich's final image of the World Trade Center towers in the background; Syrianna's suicide bomber and oil-influenced American counter-terrorism) comment on the current political climate and Bush's new world order.

Canmark, you might want to see Point of Order, a 1964 (shrewdly edited) doc on the Army-McCarthy hearings that's newly out on DVD.

Saw Terrence Malick's The New World, which is coming out nationally in a slightly shorter cut on the 20th. If you expect a TV-type linear docudrama on the Jamestown colony and Pocahontas, forget it, but if you've found any of his previous films ( Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) poetic, you will probably appreciate it.

The New York homo weekly GayCity News' critics Steve Erickson and Ioannis Mookas list several of my favorite 2005 films on their best-ofs -- 2046, New World, Mysterious Skin, Pulse, Grizzly Man -- and whaddya know, no Brokeback in sight. Hurrah for independent thought.

Saw Mrs. Henderson Presents at a weekday matinee full of seniors. They seemed to like the film, the humour, and the naked bits. I thought it was OK.

Glory Road is Disney/Bruckheimer predictable, with some laughs and some duds (eg. Black guy: "Bad means good." White guy: "Then what does good mean?"). Still, a very important team and game: unknown Texas Western with the first-ever all-black starting lineup defeating the all-white University of Kentucky (with Pat Riley--as a player). Desperate Housewives's Mehcad Brooks (Matthew Applewhite) plays one of the players.

My favorite line: "F@&$ Boris Karloff!"

I just saw "Caché," by Michael Hanneke, the Austrian director who did "The Piano Teacher," "In the Time of the Wolf," and "Code Inconnu." It's really a subtle, stunning film that's provoked all kinds of commentary on different sites, and as in all of Hanneke's films, there's at least one scene that could be described as shocking. I had to cover my eyes....

Given that it's based on a true story and has already happened, I would say yes, very predictable.
??

Whereas I can now never see Sarah Jessica Parker without hearing her voice asking, "Do I really have a face like a horse?"

Just saw King Kong, and it may have ended my 8-year relationship.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? wink

I'm playing catch-up, this week and just saw Geisha and King Kong. With the former, I agree that the book was so much better. But there's a broodiness to the book which I'm glad they didn't capture. I don't think I could have endured, first, the moaning and aching for her sister, then the longing and aching for the chairman.

King Kong was just waaaaay too long. Like the original, the big dramatic moments, it's known for, are great. But it takes forever to get to them. The aerial shots of New York from above were amazing! The kid with the machine gun was ridiculous. It makes we want to re-think Gus Van Sant's Psycho.

Sadly, it may go down in history as Jack Black's greatest performance ever. Thank God for all the hot, wet seamen .

" Munich" is a long heavy handed message movie- the opening sequence is brilliant but then it becomes repetitious- but Eric Bana is terrific-and he spents a lot of time shirtless. wink

Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto is one of the most criminally underappreciated films in memory; Jordan and Cillian Murphy, as an Irish cross-dressing queen in 1970s Belfast and London, should be winning prizes for their ballsy work in the best queer movie of 2005. Be sure to turn the subtitles on when the DVD is released, though.

Be grateful Gus Van Sant did not get his hands on " Brokeback Mountain"

Why do you say that?

Have you seen his last few movies? Did you manage to stay awake during " Gerry "?

True, Gerry is rather...


...languid. But I thought Elephant was the best thing he's done since Drugstore Cowboy. Haven't seen Last Days yet, though. To be honest, I don't think his version of Brokeback Mountain would've been all that much different than Ang Lee's (which was fairly leisurely paced itself).

I love slow movies with ideas, like Gerry (and The New World, which opens wider today). Van Sant's aesthetic is very different from Ang Lee's.

Woody Allen's Match Point is a mixed bag; good, reptilian performance by the smokin' hot Jonathan Rhys Meyers and a wildly uneven one by Scarlett Johansson. But the critics swooning for it are overlooking some incredibly clunky dialogue and a heavyhanded "life is crap and unfair" theme.

I watched The Constant Gardener last night. It's a compelling movie with a lot to say about powerful companies effect on people's lives, but it's essentially a sad, tragic love story with a big downer of an ending. I thought BBM ended tragically, but I think this movie tops it. It didn't bother me though, cause I love sad, tragic tales.

Ralph Fiennes is very, very good (and very sexy, I think). Rachel Wietz (who won the Golden Globe for her performance --- and having seen it, I think Michelle W. deserved the award) is also good, but I found her character grating. Overall though, good movie and I can understand why it's getting all the critical acclaim. It got 10 British Oscar noms yesterday. I'm sure the Academy will give it a few as well.

It takes awhile to get into and sometimes it's a bit confusing because of the shifts back and forth in time, but there's one scene towards the end of the movie will literally have you holding your breath it's so suspenseful and terrifying.

Anthony

I saw The Constant Gardener yesterday, too. I thought it was interesting, although I wish it had a bit more structure. The plot meanandered a bit, I couldn't get straight who all the characters were, and I thought there would be more of a "thriller" aspect (Fiennes is working alone against the gov't--and receiving death threats--to find out what happened to his wife).

I thought Rachel Weisz was really good, and could see why she won the GG. Even though her character appears in only about a third of the film, she's always in your mind (of course, it helps that the plot involves the husband trying to find out what happened to her).

I watched The Aristocrats last night. Funny, filthy, and fascinating.

I just came back from Casanova -- fairly amusing, rather mindless farce.

Finally saw The Squid and the Whale, which was good in that indie/dysfunctional family drama sort-of way.

I ended up seeing Capote yesterday -- in part because I wanted to compare Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance to that of Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

The movie was very interesting. I feel like I want to read "In Cold Blood." Hoffman did a great job, but if I were voting for Best Actor I'd still go with Ledger. If I can use a sports cliche here, he really elevated his game. Hoffman's done good work before. Ledger's gone beyond what was expected based on his past performances.

Saw The New World, a very arty, dreamlike film. I have never seen any of Terrance Malick's films before, and was not all that knowledgeable about the Pocahontas story, but found the love story to be extreamely captivating.

Just read that AMC and Loews Cineplex have merged.

I want to see Squid and the Whale. Sounds funny and heard a lot of good things about it. And I love Laura Linney. But where is it showing? Is it going to wider release soon or is it on the way out? I guess I have to look for the DVD. Sigh. I've been checking the listings at the Embarcadero in San Francisco because I figure it'll be there, but so far na-da.

I read it so long ago I can't quite remember what I thought, but I'm a big fan of Capote and can say that Handcarved Coffins (a "nonfiction novel" like In Cold Blood, albeit much shorter and contained in Music for Chameleons, a collection of short stories) is very good. And Breakfast at Tiffany's, a "short novel," is well worth reading. The movie version featured George Peppard at his most gorgeous.

batboy, The Squid and the Whale was released a couple of months ago and is on its way out. But, if it snags some Academy Award noms it might get renewed life.

Joe, you absolutely should read the book. I think it's brilliant - I've read it six or seven times over the years. If you recall there's a line in the movie where Capote's editor reads the book for the first time and tells Truman "it will change the way people write books." I thought that line was a perfect description. The book was a sensation when it was published; nobody had ever blurred the line between fiction and non-fiction like that before; it essentially established a new genre in American literature that I think very few people have ever done as well.

That said, I found Capote surprisingly dull. I agree Hoffman's performance was excellent, but Ledger's impressed me so much more.

[ January 26, 2006, 08:14 PM: Message edited by: Munson Man ]

The best thing I can say about "Capote" the movie is that I hope it will make people want to read his books. Hoffman's performance was ok- but after a while I thought he was doing Jack Benny not Truman.