Big Screen"The Ghost Writer"
"The Social Network"
"I Love You, Phillip Morris"
"Black Swan"
"The Town""Toy Story 3"
"Inception"
"Let Me In"
"Tangled"
"City Island"
Little Screen"Morning Joe"
"The Middle"
"In Treatment"
"The Big Bang Theory"
"The Soup"
Actors Acting Bale ("The Fighter")
Portman ("Black Swan")
Brosnan ("The Ghost Writer")
Leo ("The Fighter")
Eckhart ("Rabbit Hole")
Heaton ("The Middle")
Byrne ("In Treatment")
Murphy, voice ("Tangled")
6 comments:
I manage an arthouse cinema and we've had 'The Social Network' running for over two months now. Consequently, I have seen The Social Network more times than most, and I must say, the film does not live up to the hype and praise its receiving.
Its not that The Social Network is a bad film. Its good. But it is not a 'great' film, and I think a lot of people are going to look back on it in a year's time and ask themselves why they were so enamored with it in the first place. Upon repeat viewings, a lot of scenes reveal themselves to be complete bollocks, and the attempts to 'sex-up' the story just seem silly and contrived.
Jeff! With due respect, there's a bit of fuzzy thinking behind your logic. No film was made to be seem repeatedly and in such a short, concentrated timespan. There's an old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempts." I think that's what's going on here. If you can think of a title, any film, that could withstand such unrealistic scrutiny, share! Let me know. In the meantimes, from my three viewings, "The Social Network" remains the best film of the year. Hands-down.
I love your list! It's so original, not the usual predictable list with descriptions. Because all of your "bests" truly speak for themselves. thank you.
Saw "Catfish" a couple of weeks ago on DVD. Excellent movie. Nothing like I thought it would be.
I got to see "The Ghost Writer" last night on Showtime HD. It was letter-boxed and in high definition, so it was as close to seeing it in a theater as can be approximated at home. (In many ways, it was better, thanks to the absence of rude patrons and under-lit movie screens, to name just two problems with in-theater movie watching.) Anyway, I thought it was a remarkable movie. The atmosphere was terrific (I could practically feel the chill from the fog on the island) and I truly relished the pacing: time and again, I found myself thinking how scary and truly unsettling this movie was, not despite, but BECAUSE of, its deliberate pace. None of the innumerable current examples of frantically paced, supposedly "hip" movies hold a candle to "The Ghost Writer" in this regard. The performances were excellent, as well, with Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, and Tom Wilkinson doing some of their best work, and Olivia Williams doing her very best work. My only quibbles came at the very end. First, not to sound like one of Hitchcock's "plausibles," but I could not suspend my disbelief enough to accept that people would pass McGregor's note to Williams at the book store. Coming in the immediate aftermath of her husband's assassination, that struck me as unbelievable. Second, I couldn't believe McGregor would do something so remarkably stupid and foolhardy. I could live with these flaws, if for no other reason than they led to that astonishing last shot of the papers in the wind. But they were flaws, nonetheless, in a movie that was otherwise near perfect. Thanks for recommending this one. I might not have seen it, otherwise.
Anytime, Bill. Happy you got to see it. A terrific film.
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