Saturday, August 28, 2010

Open Thread

What's on your cinematic mind?

P.S. I am studying the fall film festivals now but will be back a little later for a 90s flashback special. Over the next several days I will be working on Oscar predictions and chart updates and such. And note: there will be Emmy live-blogging on Sunday night, so be here if you don't have party plans.
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24 comments:

Walter L. Hollmann said...

I had a strange dream where I was part of the Algonquin Round Table, with everyone played by the actors in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. Except for my bff Mrs. Parker, who was played by Juliette Lewis. Weird. I blame "Meet the Hollowheads", which I just saw last night. How do movies like that get made? I love it, but...how?

NATHANIEL R said...

haha... juliette lewis subbing for jennifer jason leigh. That was like a total 90s dream!

--- said...

After your Bring It On post, I've been thinking about what I think are my favorite high school movies.

I think my list looks like this:

1. Election
2. Heathers
3. Mean Girls
4. The Breakfast Club
5. Juno

(Kind of ironic that the movie that inspired this list isn't on it)

What do you guys think?

Michael said...

I'm on a Nicole Kidman high after reading her interview with Marion Cotillard for Interview Magazine. But at the end of the interview it said "Nicole Kidman is an Oscar-winning actress appearing in upcoming films like Rabbit Hole [yay!!] and Just Go With It [WHY!?!?]." Is Just Go With It going to be her Norbit or Bride Wars?

gabrieloak said...

I just completed my order form for TIFF so these movies been on my mind for several days. I can already see I'm going to make some exchanges:

Legend of the Fist (from the director of Infenal Affairs)
Dhobi Ghat
Late Autumn (Tang Wei!)
The King’s Speech
Stone
Made in Dagenham
The Trip (Hope this is good Michael Winterbottom)
The Conspirator
Beginners
You Will Meet a Dark Stranger
Hereafter
Never Let Me Go
127 Hours
Another Year
Little White Lies
Black Swan
Rabbit Hole
Heartbeats
Good Neighbors
Potiche
Henry’s Crime
Brighton Rock
Blue Valentine
Peep World
What’s Wrong with Virginia (Hope Dustin Lance Black succeeds again)
Three
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
It’s a Funny World
Sarah’s Key
Even the Rain
The Big Picture
Kaboom (Gregg Araki!)
West is West
Julia’s Eyes
Love Crime
Janie Jones (Alessandro Nivola plays Abagail Brelin's father!)

JJ said...

Dylan- Jawbreaker is my FAVORITE high school movie.

Also, while this is an open thread, is it bad that I thought the trailer for My Own Love Song was a Funny or Die video at first? It wasn't until about mid-way I realized it was serious.

bbats said...

@Dylan
I hated Juno, but I'm not really sure why. Maybe in ten years I'll give it another go. But you forgot Battle Royale.
ps, Election #1 = yes.

NATHANIEL R said...

bbats & dylan -- ugh i hate jawbreaker.

but my list would be like

1 Heathers
2 Election
3 Bring it On
4 Mean Girls
5 The Breakfast Club

or some such like that... those 5 for sure but in varying orders depending on the mood.

Anonymous said...

Love Jawbreaker. That scene when the girls strut to Imperial Teen was awesome, and every other girl in my high school tried to do that walk in the halls.

/3rtfu11 said...

How come Susan Sarandon and Sigourney Weaver aren’t more greatly appreciated?

Kathy Bates and Anjeclia Huston would gain a serious cinematic resurgence if they decided to take a dip in doing foreign films. Kathy is a newly admitted Francophile. She’s not afraid of nudity. She’s been studying the language for about four years. Huston speaks Spanish. She should be on Almodovar’s radar!

I take back the mean things I’ve said about Gwyneth Paltrow. I like her a lot as an actress but she’s still bitchy.

I’m so in love with Guy Pearce I want to kidnap him away from his wife.

Jazz said...

@ /3rtfu11
i so would love Anjelica to have a cinematic resurgence.
Almodavar and Huston would be interesting and exciting.
He'd probably cast his muse Penelope so that would be even more interesting.
Could they play mother and daughter?
ok so i should stop rambling.

I'm going to rewatch bits of last week's Mad Men whilst deciding what to watch at the cinema tomorrow.

/3rtfu11 said...

Clueless – Ignoring a four star high school movie means the criteria for these picks is elsewhere.

NATHANIEL R said...

/3rtfull -- EEK i forgot clueless. great movie. okay now i have a top six.

Jason said...

Speaking of high school movies, I watched "Camp" this morning, and it was...you know, alright. I think this kind of soft satire would have been better at a tight 85 minutes instead of nearly two hours.

I kept waiting for Anna Kendrick to do something, anything, given the acclaim she received for this role...and her big scenes finally came, but still, 5 minutes of hard work for an ISA nomination? I thought Robin deJesus was great and glad he's become a 2-time TONY-nominated star.

Something about the tone at the end re: the Michael/Dee and Michael/Vlad flirtations left me a little skeeved...I wasn't sure if the movie was serious enough (or dealt with mature enough characters) to be so casual about experimentation with one's sexual orientation, but then again I'm 12 years out of my teens and don't know what's going on at theatre camp these days, so maybe I'm just being naive.

anna said...

I watched "Strictly Ballroom" today (for what was probably the 10th time or so, I'm in love with that film) and the fact that it was released all the way back in 1992 makes me feel old somehow...

Concerning the fall film festivals: I sadly won't be attending any, but I'm really curious to hear about Tom Tykwer's "Drei". It's been 10 years since he last made a film ("The Princess and the Warrior") in German and I'm also really looking forward to finally seeing him work from his own material again. It's about time.

anna said...

Plus, I saw Sebastian Schipper, one of the leads in "Drei", in person once and I think he's hot. :p
(and, it has to be said, a very talented director in his own right)

NATHANIEL R said...

anna -- i don't know this person of whom you speak but i totally agree that tom tykwer returning to German cinema means must see. The Princess and the Warrior was so interesting and then ... zip.

i feel like he and franka potente breaking up (they were a couple right?) was really bad for both of their careers.

Jason -- i would assume at musical theater camp there's sexual experimentation. But then, my only experience with one was a lame version of it when i was a teenager and i was way too uptight for any sexual experimentation. even with myself! lol.

Henry said...

How young everyone was and how dated in the 80's Mannequin was. Kim Cattrall was hot, though...

Jason said...

NR -- I guess I just thought the movie was so adamant about "gay is gay and straight is straight" for 90 minutes, and I found that so refreshing in a LGBT-themed film, and...how to say it...important to impress upon teens, because the sooner one learns that you can't change people in that way, the better. Maybe that's cynical, but that will save some time of mooning over people one will never get in the long run. And then they kind of chucked it away (with explanation, but still) and left a huge feeling of "OH BUT MAAAYBE," which is fine, but it felt like a 180 that left me perplexed.

But yes, it is probably because I rarely leave my Comforting Bubble of Chastity myself (and never at that age) that I don't really understand the concept of casual sex with randoms of all genders.

Kyle said...

Speaking of Tom Twyker...I'm currently reading Cloud Atlas and found out he's scripting the film version. Amazingly good book, reminds me quite a bit of James Joyce's Ulysses in how it changes stylistically. Check it out if you're ever looking around for a new book.

Kyle said...

Tykwer..sigh

anna said...

Nathaniel,
If you've seen Tykwer's earlier films you've seen glimpses of Sebastian Schipper. :) He played the bartender in "Winter Sleepers", Mike, the bicycle thief, in "Run Lola Run", and a security guard in "The Princess and the Warrior".
He's also directed 3 films himself, sadly though I don't think they're easy to find in the US. His first film, "Absolute Giganten", is one of my favourite films of all time.

anna said...

Sorry, I messed up the second link:
Absolute Giganten

Volvagia said...

My List of Best "High School Movies"?

1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. Heathers
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Brick (It is technically in High School.)
5. Mean Girls.

And I want a movie about the making of Paul's Boutique. (If any album deserves a film, that one is it.)