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Showing results for tags 'Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress)'.
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The Fisher King was a tough, tough movie for me to "get into" - after the first 30 minutes or so, I was nearly certain I was going to dislike it strongly. Then, other things started happening, and I didn't know what to think. Then, from the time when everyone was at the Chinese restaurant up until the time when Parry got Clockwork-Oranged, I thought that interval of the movie was so good I couldn't believe it. Then, the ending became forced and gratuitous. This film is a patchwork of weird, bad, good, great, odd, hackneyed, overacted, funny, bizarre, pathetic (i.e., pathos), terrifying (e.g. The Red Knight), and I've never seen anything even remotely like it in my entire life. Feeling melancholy about Robin Williams, I wanted to watch something of his that I was unfamiliar with, and I'm *so* glad I did. He was wonderful in this role, and really carried the movie if you think about it closely - many people say that Jeff Bridges and Mercedes Ruehl were equally good, but it's just not true - without Robin Williams, this movie wouldn't have worked. More than just about any other movie in this forum, I'm interested in hearing other peoples' opinions, be they positive, negative, or somewhere in-between. Even one-paragraph comments about certain scenes would be most welcome by these eyes - after all, isn't that what these forums are about, discussion? Netflix asked me to rate it out of four stars (so their algorithms can help me select future films), and assumed I'd give it 2.5, when in fact I gave it 3. So what does everyone else think about The Fisher King? And what drugged-up, twisted mind thought of such a bizarre movie, anyway? One of the beauties about this forum is that there's no need to do plot synopses which I feel are both a waste of time, and, simultaneously, great big spoilers. Many movies discussed here are older, and even those that aren't, I vote NO on plot summaries (though people are certainly welcome to write them if they issue spoiler warnings) - they're a remnant from an old-fashioned method of movie criticism that is needless in this medium. -
When I was young, I saw Roots (1977) and Holocaust (1978), and they were both very hard on me, nearly impossible to finish. But I don't think any film or series has been more difficult for me to watch than 12 Years A Slave (2013). It took me two days to get through it, and I'm surprised I did (I simply cannot watch people being tortured, even if it's "just a movie.") SPOILERS Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is that, for a couple of hours, it made *me* a slave. From the time Solomon Northup woke up in chains, up until the time when I was mercifully allowed to see Brad Pitt (a character who I've never been so relieved to see in a movie), I was immersed in sheer Hell. It was as close to a visceral reaction as I've ever had from a film. This movie is tough, tough going, and spares nothing in terms of brutality. I have never wanted to jump through a movie screen, and choke the living shit out of people, as much as I wanted to with 12 Years A Slave. I once asked a friend of mine if he watched Shoah. "Yes, I watched the whole thing because I promised myself I would," he said. This is sort of like that - if you want movie-watching pleasure, steer well-clear of 12 Years A Slave, but if you're looking to examine things in this world, you owe it to about twelve-million people to suffer through, and suffer you will. Some quotes that resonate with me: "It's a film made for a mass audience, but it doesn't want them to feel comfortable for a second." -- Tom Huddleston, TimeOut.com "It's the unhappiest happy ending I've ever seen ...." -- Dana Stevens, Slate.com "It is a film that necessity and education demand seeing." -- David Thompson, The New Republic "I've never seen a sequence [referring to the extended hanging punishment scene] that so elegantly uses duration to lay out an ecosystem of power and powerlessness ...." -- Wesley Morris, Grantland.com "Indeed, it's embarrassing for America that a British director, Steve McQueen ("Shame"), should have had to make this film at all, and that in 2013 it should constitute a breakthrough in cinema for American slavery to be depicted as something entirely evil." -- Mick LaSalle, SFgate.com There will be more, but I need a break.
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