powerhour24
ONE love, blood, life
Death at a Funeral (original version)
I still cannot believe that remake happened, and directed by someone who used to be a highly acclaimed playwright no less.
Death at a Funeral (original version)
True Grit
Some critics saying this is "humorless" and not funny enough? What the fuck, the movie was funny as shit from the start. Numerous laugh out loud moments that most of the theater ate up. Some of the verbal sparring between Damon and Bridges was just fantastic, and it's going to demand future viewings to catch all of those one liners. Damon's character in and of itself is a riot.
How can you dislike the dancing scene, it's probably my favorite scene in the whole franchise.
Plus jump cuts.
So I finally caught up with Heartbeats. Pretty enjoyable and well-observed, but Lance you disappoint me at how easily you're seduced by the slow-motion and the music. When it's overused in the wrong (or young) hands, it becomes a crutch. And it has nowhere near the weight of similar imagery from someone like Wong Kar-Wai, so it becomes eye-rolling after a while. Also, this may sound petty but that girl is nowhere near attractive enough to be fetishized by the camera like that, plus she's kind of busted and looks significantly older than these people who are supposed to be her peers. The camera loves Dolan and the other guy, but her? Not so much.
I liked the mocku stuff with the kids talking about relationships, and that shot with the umbrella near the end was the best thing in the whole film, because it was original, simple, poetic, and poignant. The actual ending was kind of funny but then I realized it was a lot like 500 Days of Summer which can't be a good thing.
Regarding your original remarks, I wouldn't beat myself up over Dolan's upstart success. He's not that talented, and likely had a good deal of luck and made the most of his opportunities.
I don't think it's misused, though possibly overused, and I certainly never implied his work is as sophisticated or weighty as somebody like Wong's. I think as a whole aesthetic (of which the slo-mo is only a small part) though it deserves a bit more credit than you're giving. Lots of really inspired compositions and editing going on too in this, and the film has a certain emotional acuity that I do think reveals a level of artistic maturity that is unusual for guy's his age. 500 Days of Summer this isn't. And yeah, your issue with the girl is fairly petty, especially in regard to her aged and "bustedness" since I think at lot of her casting for those very reasons should be pretty clear given the needs of her character and the themes of the film.
Also, whenever you say I "disappoint you" for something, I cringe a little (insert predictable absent father joke) because frankly it implies a particular expectation between us that I live up to your own particulars/standards of taste or what have you, when I think it's become increasingly clear our views on film and certainly individual tastes are diverging as time goes on. I understand it's often just a minor difference of opinion, and while I take a lot of shit with stride and good humor on this forum, sometimes you come off as unnecessarily patronizing , which I'm less ok with.
Adding scenes that aren't in the books isn't the worst thing in the world. That dancing scene articulates so much about Harry and Hermione's relationship visually (since film, you know, is a visual medium, not some direct translation of the book) without them having to say a word.
As far as the Burrows sequence from Half-Blood Prince, it's one of the only moments in that film with vitality and tension. Plus, it's a piss-poor adaptation of the the core idea of the book (Harry questioning his legacy and the ties between him, Voldemort and Snape) that one scene shouldn't change the rest of the film. They fixed it up by the next one, big deal. The stakes are much higher after the fact anyway.
And on top of all that, you made powerhour use an angry smiley.
It is bad when, you know, they make no sense, visually or otherwise.
The problem is it suggests romantic feelings between H/H, when no such thing ever happened - the locket falsely projected Ron's worst fears.
I disliked Prince's adaptation into a romantics/comedy film too, but the Burrow being destroyed was unnecessary and pointless. We already know things are tough without it. Not to mention for years the Burrow has been Harry's staying place during the summer.
I was lucky enough to get exposed to Buñuel very early in film school, so he didn't become a blind spot like so many others I'm only now getting around too. We were shown his early stuff with Salvador Dali, work from his Mexican period (Los Olvidados is very good and more neorealist than the rest of his films), and then some of the more modern French/Spanish films.
His final run of Belle de Jour-The Milky Way-Tristana-The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie-The Phantom of Liberty-That Obscure Object of Desire is just staggering. I don't think there's any other filmmaker who ended their career at such an old age with that level of consistency.
In addition to the ones above, I'd also recommend The Exterminating Angel, Viridiana, and his somewhat obscure English-language adaptation of Robinson Crusoe.