What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend?

[oilgun]

My local DVD rental store is going out of business like so many others and I got a copy of Todd Solondz's LIFE DURING WARTIME for next to nothing.  I was thrilled!  HAPPINESS is one of my favourite films and this is basically  a  sequel.  Also it's always nice to see Ally Sheedy, she's great in this.  And there is a priceless scene with Charlotte Rampling, that woman is amazing!

[...]
That's saying something, considering that Solondz's other lost souls here include: Joy, a counselor for ex-cons, who falls disastrously in love with her clients; her husband Allen (Michael K. Williams), a semi-reformed obscene phone-caller who now does it "Just a little — on Sundays"; her previous beau Andy (Paul Reubens), a suicide who still haunts, courts and abuses her from beyond the grave; Joy's other sister Trish (Alison Janney), who has moved from New Jersey to Miami to escape a disastrous marriage; Trish's ex-husband Bill (Ciarin Hinds), a convicted pedophile, whom Trish keeps saying is dead, but who's just been released from prison; their college-age son Billy (Cliff Marquette), who wishes his dad really were dead; their 12-year-old, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), approaching his bar mitzvah and tormented with issues of guilt and forgiveness; and their daughter Chloe (Emma Hinz), who, though just a child, already has mastered the family's depressive world view. At the dinner table she says, "Mommy, the baby carrots — they're looking so sad."
[...]
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2006407,00.html#ixzz1mCBvGb5o
As in Happiness, the focal family situation involves Bill, Trish and their kids. Bill, just released from prison, wants to reconnect with his sons to see if they're cursed with his proclivities. Trish, relocating to Florida with her two younger kids, has fallen in love with the stolid Harvey (Michael Lerner), whose need to keep secrets is one of the things she finds most attractive about him. (He: "I can't talk about my sex life." She: "I can't talk about mine either." He: "There's so much I don't understand." She: "Sometimes it's better not to understand.") She obviously thinks that of Timmy, to whom she lied about Bill. "I wanted you to grow up free and happy," she gently explains, "as if he were dead." Their conversations are as taught and fraught as any mother-son chats, with the added toxicity of Bill's criminal disease. Trish tells Timmy that if any man ever touches him, even by accident, "You scream."
[...]

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2006407,00.html#ixzz1mCAbe4mm

[canmark]

BBC: Silent movie The Artist dominates 65th Baftas
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16991077

Silent movie The Artist has dominated the 65th Baftas, taking seven prizes including best film, best director and best actor, for its star Jean Dujardin.

As well as his director prize, filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius picked up the best original screenplay prize.

"Some people thought there was no script because there was no dialogue so the British are very clever," he said.

Meryl Streep won best actress, for The Iron Lady, while Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy won outstanding British film.

[ingmarnicebbmt]

"Wait Until Dark"

Love love love that movie.

[ingmarnicebbmt]

Solondz' HAPPINESS is one of my favourite movies too.

[Jeff Wrangler]

"The Awful Truth"

I stumbled on that by accident Saturday afternoon and ended up watching it instead of doing housework. 

I love Irene Dunne. 

I love those old pictures where everybody was rich and wore fabulous clothes and got into "scrapes." 

[doodler]

"Wait Until Dark"

Love love love that movie.

Saw this on Broadway oh so many years ago, and it was absolutely terrifying. The movie is good, I love it, but the theater experience is much more.

[daannzzz]

"I Remember Mama"

I had never seen this though had known a bout it. I thought it started out a bit stagey ( you can see how it was based on a play) with some over the top performances (Oskar Homolka) but the characters were interesting and it was pleasant...than in the last half it started getting better and then very good. I thought Uncle Chris, as played by Oskar was a bit overdone but.... SPOILER....

.......................................When they all travel to his house for his illness and death it was an awesome scene. Just so well played, staged and filmed but still in such a human and non sentimental way.

[daannzzz]

"These Amazing Shadows"  A documentary about the National Film Registry and film preservation. From a review  "" Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton’s documentary, These Amazing Shadows, is the “equivalent of talking movies with your fellow film-lovers.” If you love film, want to learn some fun facts about the history of American cinema, or want something different to watch, then These Amazing Shadows should be right up your alley.""
We loved this and wished it could have been longer.
  I love that Apple TV and Netflix streaming gives us access to huge amounts of documentaries that we would normally have difficulty finding, let alone know they were even produced.

[Jeff Wrangler]

"I Remember Mama"

I had never seen this though had known a bout it. I thought it started out a bit stagey ( you can see how it was based on a play) with some over the top performances (Oskar Homolka) but the characters were interesting and it was pleasant...than in the last half it started getting better and then very good. I thought Uncle Chris, as played by Oskar was a bit overdone but.... SPOILER....

.......................................When they all travel to his house for his illness and death it was an awesome scene. Just so well played, staged and filmed but still in such a human and non sentimental way.

That's such a lovely film! I finally saw it for the first time last year. I was really glad that I finally got to see it.  Another lovely performance by Irene Dunne as Mama. 

Did you notice Barbara O'Neill, aka Ellen O'Hara of Gone With the Wind, as Uncle Chris' wife?

[daannzzz]

Did you notice Barbara O'Neill, aka Ellen O'Hara of Gone With the Wind, as Uncle Chris' wife?

Not being a huge fan of "Gone With the Wind" I only know about the main actors in it. However her presence was very strong even with out her having any lines at the beginning, and I thought she was great when it came to the scenes on the ranch. I had to look her up on IMDB at the conclusion.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Not being a huge fan of "Gone With the Wind"

Now that's something you don't hear very often!

[ingmarnicebbmt]

Not being a huge fan of "Gone With the Wind"

Me neither - to put it mildly.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

So I take it you didn't see the French stage musical version that was
done a few years ago?

***

Is it just me or is your sig line getting bigger and bigger?  

[Jeff Wrangler]

Not being a huge fan of "Gone With the Wind" I only know about the main actors in it. However her presence was very strong even with out her having any lines at the beginning, and I thought she was great when it came to the scenes on the ranch. I had to look her up on IMDB at the conclusion.

I agree with you about Barbara O'Neill's presence in I Remember Mama.

I've kind of made a game of spotting supporting players from one--usually a very well-known--movie in other roles. A few examples: "Dr. Meade" of GWTW is Judy Garland's grandfather in Meet Me in St. Louis (that's not a particularly obscure example), but I've also spotted "Mrs. Meade" as the housekeeper in Bringing Up Baby.  Clara Blandick, famous as Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz, played Claudette Colbert's mother in Drums Along the Mohawk that same year (1939), and I also picked her out as the proprietor of an employment agency for maids in Life With Father. 

[doodler]

I was almost 60 when I saw GWTW the first time... just a few years ago. Somehow I don't think my life has been adversely affected by missing it for 59+ years. My main impression was it was... l o n g! Very l o n g.  I'e no desire to see it again.