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Post by northboggiechick on Dec 23, 2004 14:51:09 GMT -5
HI folks! Happy to see this new thread...have a r&r movie suggestion...has nobody heard of "The Commitments" It's a great movie about a rag-tag group of teens in Ireland trying desperately to get a band together and get famous. The music is fabulous and the individuals are all fascinating characters in their own right. There's also a new movie out on rentals now about a reunion of folk singers of the '60's called "A Mighty Wind" that will have any one of you rolling on the floor & splitting a gut - it makes me laugh out loud just to write about it ;D . Happy Holidays everyone - and joyous movie watching.
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Post by Little Feat on Dec 24, 2004 13:19:58 GMT -5
The book is a difficult read, but is far superior to the movie, on lots of different levels. Ah, the difference between the book and the movie. I know I'm in a minority here, but I'll take the book everytime. Anytime I watch film, I see, smell, feel all the production people. When I read, I never think about the author and what he was doing at that moment in the story. Film can be a powerful medium but I personally find more consiistant entertainment and freedom in reading a book. It's my 2 cents and I'm sticking to it... Rick
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Post by chadgumbo on Dec 25, 2004 16:12:05 GMT -5
No disagreement here Rick, as I have found that whenever I read the book prior to seeing the movie, I always feel as though the film flying by so quickly (maybe that's an indictment on the speed of which I read ). And, of course, inevitably characters from the book are cut, sequences from the book are cut, and on and on. Nothing like a good book to read! So when this thread begins wind down, maybe a new thread - Feat Fans' Bookclub, or some such thing can get a kick start. Merry Christmas Feat Friends -chadgumbo
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Post by jashley on Dec 27, 2004 17:58:09 GMT -5
Sometimes a Great Notion might very well be my favorite book. It is the toughest and most clear eyed look at life I have ever read and I read a lot. Scott, your right the movie version loses it's chance at greatness by shying away from the toughness and honesty that made the book a classic. I also liked Cukoo's Nest but Kesey's masterpiece is Notion (it's a shame that this great writer only ever really wrote two books, but both are great I guess he was satisfied with batting 1000). Thanks for bringing it up though Tipi because I had forgotten the name change and have been trying to find the movie for years to give it another chance, now maybe my dumb*ss will be able to find it.
Yes, when I refered to a good r&r movie I wasn't thinking about concert footage but an honest look at the r&r lifestyle both on stage and off. Almost Famous was O.K. and had some moments of truth but as far as being an accurate picture of what being in a band is all about I feel it narrowly misses the mark (a little too santitary perhaps). I am glad North Boogie (great to have a woman's opinion) brought up the Commitments because I do feel it is the best effort yet to show the process of putting a band together. I haven't been able to find the book but I am still looking. I liked the Doors Movie but the unrelenting depression in the movie ruined it for me. Didn't Stone think the Doors EVER had fun. I have to disagree with the Hard Days Night detractors here, flawed but moments of absolute genius in that movie. I admit the movie gets a little goofy at times but give it another look there enough great moments to justify the price of admission. Still the best R&R movie so far in my humble. By the way do you remember Help, an attempt to put the Beatles in a thriller context, as the English would says,absolute shitte. I don't think that Hollywood has ever made a truely good movie about R&R because the powers that be have always viewed R&R as a fad or novelty and not a serious art form. It did take untill Bull Durham (I haven't seen the other baseball movie mentioned in this stream, I'm looking for it now) to get a truly great baseball movie maybe there is still hope for a great movie about R&R. I guess I should shut up and write it and have Scorcese direct.
I just had the book is better than the movie dicussion with a friend. With the book you have no "filters" between you the author and the imagingation, I love movies but books are better. For some reason the only exception I can think of are Steven King books, usually the movie is better, see the Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption. I feel Hanks is better in the Green Mile than even in Philadelphia. Speaking of Philadelphia, one of the truly great soundtracks, Bruce and Neil were both nominated (deservedly) for the academy award but Gabriel's song Love Town was even better and should have won the award that year.
I just saw the new Manchurian Candidate. This is one of the few times that they have changed the original and the new movie is great and at the same time didn't detract from the original. Highly recommend, Denzel's best performance in awhile. I also recently saw Colateral, highly recommend. I'm picky about action movies and don't like many but this is great. Again Tom Cruise's best performance in a long time. I, Robot was a major disappointment, I've been wanting to see this movie for a while and it was just stupid, I like Will Smith usually, even in bad movies, but he sucks here.
I expected a fight when I made Woody Allen my top pick for director. He seems to have people who love his work and those who hate his work....Which are you (and why)?
You guys gotta rent Saving Grace. Only one other mention on the tread and one of the funniest movies I have seen in years. If you rent it and don't like it, send me an e-mail and cuss me out, I can take it. No one has mentioned Something About Mary either, stupid yes but I almost peed my pants watching it. And as great diggers of movies what about Caddy Shack, my favorite guilty pleasure.
I love this tread. I love to talk about music, politics, and movies with smart people with good taste and now this forum has it all.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas and I wish all a great New Year. Have fun but be safe I don't want to lose any of you.
Peace j ashley
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Post by chadgumbo on Dec 28, 2004 2:19:36 GMT -5
My wife wanted to make the trip to Mall of America the day after Christmas, which is less than an hour and a half north of where we live. After the madness of running around getting gifts for everyone in the first 24 days of December, a shopping mall was the last place I wanted to be on the 26th. But my 2 sons and I ended up tagging along nonetheless. While Chris (my wife), unbelievably, found enough shopping to hold her interest for 3 hours Ben, Phillip, and I headed off to the theater. We bought 3 tickets to Meet the Fockers and settled in for a couple of hours. I had been looking forward to seeing this movie, as I had thought the first, Meet the Parents, was a first rate comedy. And while Fockers was funny, that's about all it amounted to... just funny. I walked out wishing I had waited until it came out on DVD for a home rental. The various predicaments that Gaylord (Ben Stiller) finds himself in during the first movie just seemed to take on a life of their own and everything he did just seemed to snowball or have a domino effect on the next event that takes place. You had this slow but steady build up for the ultimate confrontation with retired CIA control freak Jack (DeNiro). In the second movie, however, you can sense that ultimately things are headed for a confrontation between old man Focker (Dustin Hoffman) and DeNiro's "Jack". But the events just don't seem to have that rhythm like the first film. The scenes are funny, but they're not interconnected to one another. There's no domino effect. It was as if the writers simply tried to create a series of scenes that would first simply irritate Jack, then Mr. Focker, then Jack, and then Focker again. It was like everything was just tit for tat and let's just try to make each scene funny until we can get to the confrontation between the 2 fathers. Admittedly it is a funny film, and if you're dying to see it by all means go ahead and scratch that itch. But if you think you can wait a few months, save a few bucks and rent it instead. -chadgumbo
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Post by Scott Hays on Dec 28, 2004 10:11:16 GMT -5
Well, Rick ... I cannot disagree with your statement that the book is almost always better than the movie ("always", a word I consciously try to avoid, may be closer to the truth). But a few movies come close, even when they make major changes to the book, which -- of course -- they have to do. Here are three nominations for "Movies That Most Closely Honor the Novel From Which They Were Taken". To qualify, a movie does not need to actually show the book on the screen (virtually impossible, and almost always artistically unsatisfying when attempted), but carefully construct things that can be shown in a way that maintains the core of the book.
Catch-22 (an impossible book to make into a movie, but one that came awfully darn close)
Slaughterhouse Five
Clockwork Orange
Two that come close (and maybe get a cigar), in my opinion, are To Kill A Mockingbird and ... many will argue with me here, possibly ... The Lord of the Rings (particularly The Fellowship of the Ring).
I was really happy to see "The Commitments" make this thread. Great movie. It is part of a triology, by the way ... I personally don't find the other two movies as powerful or fun to watch, the "The Snapper" has its moments. The third title has slipped my mind ("Red ...."? comes to mind, though it might be part of Snapper). One of the other two is about an ice cream truck.
And, changing the topic slightly, I was reading a review yesterday of Bill Murray's new movie (which I have not yet seen), and one of the smaller parts in it was written specifically for one of my all-time favorite actors -- Bud Cort. That made me think fondly of two movies that really affected me back in the early 70's. The first was "Harold and Maude", starring Mr. Cort, of course, in his first major role). The second was "If", starring Malcolm McDowell (in his first role). Malcolm, of course, then went on to be in "Oh Lucky Man" (a great soundtrack album by Alan Price accompanied it), which dovetailed back into "If" in a most interesting way -- Lindsay Anderson remains one of my favorite English directors -- and the aforementioned Clockwork Orange, all before his career took a turn to the more mundane and purely entertaining.
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Post by Mike on Jan 3, 2005 19:58:29 GMT -5
This seems like the right place to put this. I finally got around to renting "Festival Express" over the holidays, and what a trip. It seems that our own Mr. Gradney was quite the "radical dude", but then, all of the best people were. ;D
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Post by BigToe on Jan 4, 2005 11:30:48 GMT -5
Anyone familiar with "Trainspotting" ? This one was pretty powerful, I thought, although sometimes difficult to keep up with some of the dialoge. Big Toe
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Post by Angels4BobSeger on Jan 4, 2005 12:14:10 GMT -5
It's A Wonderful Life.
And I do own a James Stewart website also. ;D
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Post by jashley on Jan 5, 2005 15:42:32 GMT -5
Welcome Angel, I was afraid that we were becoming a very male centric site but we seem to be adding some female members and opinions. Great to have another Ohioan too. I'm just an hour north of Col in Mansfield, I'm sure you'll find a lot of Feat Fans here in Ohio, seems to be a stronghold for them. Also, there are a lot of Jimmy Stewart fans here, read on up the thread per "Rear Window" etc. I still think, even though I love Cary Grant (no not in that way), that the Hitchcock/Stewart alliance was the best pairing for both.
The Dummy (me) was wrong again. I recently found a third Ken Kesey novel, "Sailor's Song", at the library. This was written in the mid 90's, and seems to have picked up a little influence from Vonnegut and Kinky Friedman, by the way, try Kinky's books. I like this latest novel from Kesey but maybe not quite as much as the first two, still worth the read.
Finally saw "Boys Don't Cry", very impressive, Hillary Swank's performance knocked me out. Please don't be put off by thumbnail discriptions of the movie this is a great look at intolerance. Speaking of movies about intolerance, please see "Chocolate", Juliette Binoche (sorry ladies for being a sexist, but looking at this lady is worth the price of admission), and Johnny Depp at his best (I'll watch any movie with Depp, it may not work but it will at least try), I don't know how this movie was not a monster hit, one of the many great movies that has gotten mostly overlooked. Again, I'll give my you can cuss me out garantee.
Scott, Your referance to Catch-22. Another of my favorite books. I agree with you that this was a much better movie than the critics gave it credit for being (it got absolutely slammed) but although a very valiant attempt to adapt the book, the book was so complex that I still feel that you HAVE TO read the book. Heller's best (by far). This movie did get overlooked to a great extent by coming out at app. the same time as "Mash" but in some ways Catch-22 was better (Alan Arkin was great), even though I liked "Mash" too. "Clockwork Orange" is much better that the book, probably Kubrick's best along with "The Shining", also better than the book. I hate to atmit it and I'll probably start an argument but many of Kubrick's movies to me are too "cold". See "Eyes Wide Shut", I personally feel this movie is terrible. How can Nicole Kidman be so good in some movies and so bad in others, in "Eyes" I thought she was either overdosing on Valium or reading off cue cards, Cruise wasn't awful but also probably his worst performance. A much better movie with similar themes is "Vanilla Sky", Cruise is much better here also. I know somebody is going to bring up their work in the Ron Howard movie, the title is escaping me now (HELP) but I thought that movie had some good moments although admittedly flawed. Now someone is going to slam me about "2001"; well, I recently saw that again, and though there was some interesting things in the movie (esp. if you are on acid) the acting in that movie is not very good (and Lord Lord my *ss got tired, longer is not always better). Slauterhouse Five was not a bad movie, Valerie Perine's performance is worth watching the movie for, but the book is still much better, maybe I'm prejudiced I love Vonnegut's work. And finally, you are right one of the great overlooked movies is "Harold and Maud".
Bigtoe, You're right "Trainspotting" was great. If you liked that there was another movie with Ewan MacGreagor that you would like called "Shallow Grave" (I think, please help the dummy if I'm wrong). Three roomates take in a fourth border who dies before they get to know him and he leaves a large suitcase full of money and the thrill ride commences (a way tougher take on "Three's Company") this may be hard to find but worth the hunt.
Chad, Your computer skills are obviously outpacing mine, you posted a picture you handsome devil you. You also have much more patience and are braver than me if you went to a mall the day after Christmas.
Sorry for being such a longwinded butt-head but I do love to talk about movies.
Peace j ashley
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Post by chadgumbo on Jan 5, 2005 21:29:16 GMT -5
Jashley wrote:Actually I hadn't the foggiest notion of how to do that until I received some excellent tutoring over on the Seasons Greetings thread from Dave (aka DPK) and our host with the most, webmaster - Rick Moore. What Dave suggested was to simply open a free account with photobucket.com, drop in a couple of pictures there (so that you have a photo that "exists on the internet.") From there you can go to your profile and type in where it is your photo is located at photobucket and voila, there you have it. Be sure and check out my lovely bride on the Seasons Greetings thread if you haven't already. She likes Little Feat, but not to the extent that I do. She's a die hard Jimmy Buffett fan. So when I informed her that Billy Payne played keyboards throughout Jimmy's latest CD that sparked her interest in the Feat again. Today as I was driving about town I caught a portion of a talk radio show topic. It was a top 10 list of the best actors/actresses of all time. I didn't catch where it was the list had originated, but I found it interesting that only one woman made the top 10 (it was Julia Roberts at #3), and the only deceased actor to make the list was John Wayne. I couldn't help but think where is Humphrey Bogart? Jimmy Stewart? Katherine Hepburn? and why limit it to 10 (especially if you're not even going to separate men from women and have a top 10 of each). Combining the sexes you've got to have a minimum of a top 50 don't you think? Anyway, I'll have to think about who I would include in such a list of my own and write more on this topic again when I've had a chance to give it a bit more consideration. And speaking of "hard to find" movies, how about The Missouri Breaks? It was a western made in the mid-1970s and starred Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. A pretty good film, but I never see it on any of the Turner networks (which are committed to showing westerns on a regular basis), and I can't find it in the video store I use for rental either. Well I've rambled enough. Got to get a few things done elsewhere before I call it a night. Goosfraba -chadgumbo
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Post by featphoto on Jan 6, 2005 7:29:13 GMT -5
Jashley wrote:And speaking of "hard to find" movies, how about The Missouri Breaks? It was a western made in the mid-1970s and starred Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. A pretty good film, oh jeez, did you really think so? I thought it was gawdawful ...
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Post by chadgumbo on Jan 7, 2005 1:24:52 GMT -5
A resounding thumbs down for The Missouri Breaks from Hank I've only seen the film once, and that was when it was in theaters back in the mid-70s. From what I recall it was a bit slow in developing the plot, but I also remember feeling as though I had seen a pretty good movie when I walked out of the theater. I was probably 15 or 16 at the time. I also remember thinking Ghost Story was an excellent film the first time I saw it and then years later, seeing it a second time on television, not being nearly as impressed as I had been the first time around. Perhaps the same would be true of MO Breaks. But it never seems to be on any of the cable stations and I haven't found it in any of the rental stores I use. Being a bad film wouldn't be enough to keep it off the air. HBO and every other movie channel out there has never let quality (or the lack thereof) stand in the way before. On the other hand... ok ok before I start sounding like that guy on Green Acres who can never fall on side of the fence or the other on any topic that ever comes up, I'll just say good night for now and keep looking for it on TNT. Goosfraba all -chadgumbo
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Post by Tipi on Jan 7, 2005 10:18:28 GMT -5
Jashley wrote:. Be sure and check out my lovely bride on the Seasons Greetings thread if you haven't already. She likes Little Feat, but not to the extent that I do. She's a die hard Jimmy Buffett fan. So when I informed her that Billy Payne played keyboards throughout Jimmy's latest CD that sparked her interest in the Feat again. -chadgumbo Hey guys and gals, I've been hibernating but had to weigh in ... Chad, did you also tell her that Sam the man was a coral reefer for the years without feat? How about when Jimmy found out they were going to be cutting a new album this fall he sent his jet to pickum all up so they could do it at His studio in the keys, and intends to add his parts later? Jimmy B is just Another of the many fine musicians who know the undeniable truth: We are the smartest music fans in the world! On an different note, MG the TQ and Sangki have let me down, as they refused to do a Duet of Rollum Easy at Kareoke Jamaica. Any who as D. Bromberg would say "have the mind" that's my request. That, and Yellow Bird. While not a Feat song, I would love to hear Paul sing it! Yellow Bird up high in banana tree Yellow Bird you sit all alone like me (ahaaaa) Did your lady friend leave the nest again, That is very bad, makes me feel so sad Did she fly away in the sky away? You are luckier than me! Have a blast all you lucky yellow birds! Peace T "coocoo for Coco Puffs"
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Post by featphoto on Jan 7, 2005 10:54:38 GMT -5
I've found that part of the difficulty in making a favorites list is remembering all those little films that I really liked but had since slipped my mind (ah, age) ... I ran across just such a movie a couple of days ago on cable: Cookie's Fortune. it stars the likes of Glenn Close, Liv Tyler, Julianne Moore, Ned Beatty ... it's even got Lyle Lovett in it (for no apparent reason, I might add) ... I first saw it by chance (again, on cable) and loved it ... it's a very subtle mystery/character drama (with some very funny moments) about an old woman's death and how various family members deal (or don't deal) with it. plus, it has a really smoky delta blues guitar/dobro kinda sound track. if you see it in your tv directory, take the time to watch it. it really is wonderful; one of those films that didn't make any noise (that I recall) but has a lot of stuff going for it. it's an Altman film, which may tell you something.
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