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I rented this yesterday, not expecting anything great, but just a couple of hours of entertaining, 3-star diversion. This is one of the silliest, stupidest things I have ever seen. If you haven't already wasted your money, don't bother.
Follow Ups:
Mind", and two hours, is a terrible thing to waste. Entertaining in a few bits, but ultimately...borrrrring. And the "message" that love will cure schizophrenia? C'mon, Opie! You shoulda stopped with "Apollo 13." Dumbing down a movie about a highly intelligent, complex character is rewarded with "Best Picture." What does that say about the Oscars? And these same folks rewarded "American Beauty" with the same award? Looks like the Academy is suffering from bipolar disorder.
Later in this thread, some praise "Jackie Brown." This is one of the few "recent" movies I watched several times, enjoying the performances and the plot(s) more each time. De Niro, Jackson, Fonda...and the two "leads" were excellent. How often can you say that about a movie nowadays: great ensemble acting?
Also, the careers of the directors of "American Beauty" and "Happiness" are definitely worth following. All ain't lost, yet. If Hollywood can just move beyond its current fad of propelling MTV directors into the film director's chair...
Haven't watched it, haven't read anything enlightening about it, just the usual meaningless reviewer verbiage. I bought it a month ago, haven't watched it, it's unopened. Should I return it? Bear in mind, I didn't find Pearl Harbor the slightest bit annoying...I don't expect to learn anything from movies, nor do I expect fact or intelligence. Is it boring? That I won't forgive...
pulled it (MIND) off the satellite (pay-per-view) last night and enjoyed it so much i watched it a second time with the wifeyes we were both in tears.
i thought it was a lovely film. i'd read/heard several reviews and twice listened to a fascinating interview of Mr. Nash conducted in front of a live audience by a local PBS radio pyschologist. Yes the media psycho is an incompetent interviewer, a blithering idiot even by the standards of ordinary minds, a whining, irritating, "how do you feel about that" predictable bore, but nevermind, every word Mr. Nash spoke in the public radio special seemed a revelation: his mind is unlike anything in my experience. One wished the interviewer would have stayed home and just let Mr. Nash say whatever came to his beautiful mind.
so watching this "story" (Ron Howard is one of Hollywood's best storytellers-- not an historian) unfold, knowing that it was never intended to "tell the truth" or "get the facts right" but simply open a window to the *feel* of this man's world, was for me a riviting, fascinating, emotional thrill. I was particularly pleased with how well Rod Howard "tricked" me into understanding the nature of the hallucinations...brilliant and ultimately terrifying (the little girl dashing in and out of frame at the limits of our peripheral vision...chilling!).
this technique reminded me of the totally misunderstood "Fight Club", a film about a young man's desent into the delusions and hallucinations of schitzophrenia (the film begins with a man in his mid twentys, who almost imperceptabily leaves his lonely life behind (if you can call blowing up your own apartment imperceptable)for a mad world of increasingly imaginary people and situations. the fun is trying to guess which characters are from his "real" life and which are constructions of his growing psychosis. for those who know the classic symptoms and etology of this disease it is a fascinating story. If you don't "get" that Brad Pitt is a figment of the protagonist's imagination--it's merely another stupid, violent, exploitive, teenage-boy power fantasy movie. Works on both levels--it depends on your intellectual/emotional maturity i suppose.
I'm sorry to read that so many inmates here did not enjoy "Mind". I would have thought we music-lovers were not so self-consciously embarassed about succumbing to the emotional impact Ron Howard directed into this story--i thought it added much--these are after all real people; Mr. Nash does have a son who is now in his mid-twenties and suffers from the same affliction. And his wife did stand by him throughout all the trials. The parents here can empathize with how much Mrs. Nash has suffered (almost couldn't bare to watch the bath scene). The film's emotional impact pales by comparison to the real story. This is not a documentary--just Hollywood entertainment inspired by real people and real situations. I think it's brilliant for what it is intended to be.
Perhaps my enjoyment of the film is enhanced because I have had the opportunity to work with a scientist with a five Sigma mind, have been to Princeton and felt the power and the crushing intellectual competition Ron Howard barely hints at in his story. Through the movie I felt the thrill of being in the presence of extraordinary genius and walking the halls where one might turn the corner and bump into Einstein at any moment. Didn't anyone get the allusion with Ron Howard's clever scene with the bicycle? Has nobody here ever seen the classic photo of Einstein riding his bicycle at Princeton?
I feel sorry for those imprisoned by their unwillingness to suspend a harsh and arbitrary "film standard" worldview for a few hours so as to indulge in the emotional fun of classic Hollywood formula popular film. a bit paranoid, don't you think?
I highly recommend "A Beautiful Mind".
Then rent "Fight Club", and see it for the first time.
I cried at the end of LOTR, does that count? A Beautiful Mind did inspire a direct emotional response in my stony heart - the longer I watched it the more annoyed I became. (Yes, I've seen that photo you mention, and one or two apt allusions does not a satisfying cinematic experience make.) I don't dislike this movie for messing with the facts - I don't like ABM because, depite a promising beginning, IMO it succumbs do the script's banalities and pat ending. The failure for me is in the execution, not the subject matter. Did I hear "formula"?Far from being unwilling to connect emotionally, I'm just more emotionally involved with a film when the "storytelling" is less determinedly self-serving. (I have enjoyed some of Opie's films. ABM is not one of them.) So we disagree. But here in the great digital 21st century, you can watch ABM to your heart's content, while I can happily avoid it, now Oscar season has ended.
Fight Club is a whole 'nother story in my book - it was indeed unfairly criticized. Maybe it was because it starred Brad Pitt. (Didn't anyone remember 12 Monkeys?) This was one of the boldest Hollywood films of the past decade. At least we agree on that. I'd much rather see a flawed but brave attempt than a successful nonentity.
I must confess total bafflement regarding my "harsh and arbitrary film standard worldview". Besides, there's barely a paranoid bone in my body (I reserve all my paranoia for John Ashcroft). I don't feel my fun factor is lacking. Not since the advent of DVDs. I am a fun audiogurl and movie lover, fersher. In fact, I just had some fun tonight with ...Say Anything and The Grifters. It was John Cusack fun night at Casa Harmonia.
This weekend it'll be back to the sackcloth and ashes, ploughing through the Sight & Sound top 100...
well don't pay me no mind...I enjoy the Hollywood dreck that gets VK in such a foam, and I love the foreign/indy films too.but too much of the latter makes me depressed or insane...
i'm tired
it's nice not to have to think, just sit sipping and let Ron tell us a story with a happy ending...and then to sleep; perchance to dream.
we all know the story of our lives...we all see dead people...people who, like a Hollywood formula film, are just going through the motions of living...headed for that inevitable, predictable, "happy ending" {...a good husband and father...a dependable employee...solid citizen...never strayed from the straight and narrow, nor took the chance at chasing the white rabbit down the hole...never thought to step through the looking glass...died without ever having lived...Amen.}
after seeing Easy Rider I didn't sleep for weeksthen again I watched "Henry V", crying my eyes out at the beauty of the writing...Kenny B. God bless you, you are brilliant as Harry.
we few, we happy few...
oh yes, I see dead people
doesn't everyone?
so once again into the breach...
wearing the leek proudly on St. Crispian's Day.
i can't watch too much of the good stuff...
who's for invading France?...those bastards! catch me after a film like that and I'm up for anything...anything
holding on to my Hollywood sanity is a life's work enough.
Invade France, I mean. Good idea.Just bought the Criterion Collection Edition of Henry V this week. Like Ken's version too. (But like Walton's score for Olivier's better than Ken's soundtrack.)
My fave JC films are the two I mentioned, in for 3rd & 4th would be High Fidelity & Grosse Point Blank, then Eight Men Out.
Yeah, I know, sometimes I have same reaction to VK's posts. I'm snotty, but sometimes I just wanna be entertained. I like all kinds of films, commercial, classic, indy, foreign... LORDY - the SO just called we're headed to The Piano Player tonight. I better est up.
although it appears that both Nash and Edward Norton's character are under the hallucinations caused by their mental conditions, there's a slight difference. Nash's condition is natural. And I think what he accomplished is even bigger than the man himself. But that won't make a good mainstream movie. What Norton's character suffers is not so much schitzophrenia, but rather a mental condition influenced by the social condition; in the similar manner, that it affects the character of American Beauty. Socially, people were wealthy, happy, fat, and bored. And it's boredom that trickes down to their mentality. America was sluggish at the time, and its reflection shows up in literature.
thanks for your comment.i'd forgotten that Fight Club was a book
did a little research and came within a keystroke of ordering...ah but i don't need a push in that direction
like the Wile E. Coyote (super genius)
i've been over the edge and hanging in space far longer than the permissable time alotment of the physics of *this* universe
...not looking down...
...you?
check out my review of Dead Man starring Jonny Depp in the post that lists sad movies, I think you'll like this one too.mp
A Beautiful Mind stays then, and partly because its merit is controversial here. I find Nash's work interesting, to say the least, and I got the DVD because it was about him, and not for any other reason. After reading the comments here I was considering trading it in for The Wrath of Khan, but I probably wouldn't have understood it anyway.I also have and like Fight Club.
I will get Minority Report when it comes out, another mixed opinion one here. I like Dick's stuff a lot, but do realize that since most people watching movies aren't doing acid, the story must be adjusted to be even mildly comprehensible.
Was just kidding. It's my favorite Star Trek movie. I really do understand it...I think.OT: Picked up the Simpsons 2 too. Wasn't a fan, the very few episodes I caught on telly sucked, Simpsons 1 DVD I started to get interested in by the end. I actually LOL several times in the first couple episodes of 2. It is IMO far superior to the first season, even so far I've watched it surpasses the whole other DVD in every possible way. [I don't have broadcast TV/sat/cable here.]
n
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
in one sitting. I haven't looked at the Khan yet. The Simpsons DVD is good for me because I can grab a half hour here and there in between other stuff. I can easily see now how some could become fanatics, I picked up on a certain progression near the end of the first season DVD, and it is definitely going uphill where I am in the second season, getting very clever.[OT: I would like to see Seinfeld on DVD. I have never seen a Seinfeld episode, not being a TV watcher (broadcast I mean), and everybody says I would like it, I do like his older standup stuff.]
The last season of Simpsons have been good--last year wasn't too thrilling.O.T. A funny series/sitcom on Sunday is Malcom in the Middle--only a half hour as well.
mp
I have "heard of" the two series you mentioned, but have never heard any details about them...since I don't have cable etc. here, I'll have to wait until they put them out on DVD.Is Malcolm in the Middle an old British series? I vaguely recall hearing that name quite a few years ago.
They are very popular here.Family Guy is like the Critic--only more irreverent. Makes great political/social observations in a wacky surreal manner.
Malcom highlights the comical attempts of a dysfunctional family to maintain normalcy. A middle age couple, dealing with the everyday problems of raising four, very different, boys (that should paint a detailed picture!).
I haven't heard that it was a British sitcom.
mp
None of my friends watch TV either, at least I haven't caught them, they don't talk about it if they do, so I'm clueless about the Critic too. It's not because I don't like TV, I just grew up in places that either didn't have TV (no, I'm not THAT old, I'm talking 60's), or had one poor channel, so I never got into the habit. Do I sound like your parents: "we made our own fun"? [Course, not so much time for TV for me back then, after I crawled the 17 miles home from school, where beating was the learning tool of choice.]Malcolm...a pretty British name, not so common this side. Maybe it is one of those (many) TV series that was translated from Britain to here? Or it could be my imagination again. Anyway, I am finding I enjoy TV series on DVD, sans commercials, and have quite a few old and current ones now, mostly comedies as that seems to be what they put out, some of the HBO ones are quite well done.
Picture an animated cartoon of a socially-regressed witty (but not intelligent) male movie critic on broadcast TV & single parent of a less experienced mini me. Yet in his world his personality inadequacies are nothing compared to almost everyone else. What's more he realizes the absurdity of issues that others don't notice and/or don't care. It's sort of a NYC attitude lost in superficial Hollywood environment. As he struggles against the proverbial machine in his usual tirade you don't know whether he'll win over apathy.PS: personally the episodes run the gambit from priceless jewels to unmitigated crap IMHO.
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
99% of TV is pure crap anyway--and it is wonderful not to have to put up with commercials. Your way, you don't waste your time with the drivel.mp
I would rent rather than own. It's a nice flick to see once. Once you know its secrets, the film loses desirability to see again.
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
...I'm so happy other people disliked this piece of bogus filmmaking as much as I did.Of the 5 movies nominated for best pic Oscar, this was my least favorite. I was annoyed just wayching it in the theater. Opie has no clue how to end his movies and simply cannot resist pandering to the cheap and low. Further proof the Oscars are useless when it comes to quality.
.
Opie & Meathead are probably a couple of the better directors in the newer batch, IMHO. It seems like we have a ton of Tim Burtons & Quentin Tarantinos. Neither one can tell a story to save their lives. They studied in the Stephen Spielberg philosophy. They assume if it's gratuitous enough, it’s entertaining. So, that makes up for a lack of plot. What Steve disparately needs is few more malfunctioning sharks.
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
You heard the new Maggie CC yet?
the guys who left together are together opening their own store across the street!!!
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
... gave into corporate more mass market decisions. They are buying based on group sales whereas the store used to buy based on bang/buck local sales.Management siezed control over the store & all the extremely experienced salesmen (I've bought from them in other local stores over the years as I followed the flow of good equipment) quit.
As such I haven't returned. Last time I was there (about 6mo ago), I saw it but the MGCC2 wasn't hooked up. The entire store was cluttered with other store's hand me downs (EG: plasma screens w/o receivers ).
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
I have never been able to warm to Spielberg and I am nearly immune to the charms of Tom Cruise, hence my disappointment with Minority Report, which most critics hailed as terrific. (I'm a big fan of Phillip K. Dick, and sci-fi, but I'm still waiting for the next great sci-fi flick...maybe Solaris, though it'll have to go some to beat Tarkovsky's original.) There are some good things in MR, but Spielberg cannot resist the pull of the "Spielberg" moment. I know this point of view puts me squarely outside the majority.The only 2 films of Steven's that don't make me cringe are Raiders of the Lost Ark (a live action comic book, it is what it is) and Schindler's List. Close Encounters has some nice moments, and AI is an interesting failure. I must be the only person in the universe that is indifferent to ET. Spielberg is gifted, but his taste is something else again. I know movies are manipulative, but there's just something about Speilberg's cinematic sensibility that takes me out of his films. He will always annoy me at some point with that manipulation. Peter Jackson doesn't, Spielberg does. Lucas does. (Lucas can't write dialog to save his life.)
Opie gets trapped in the banal, and even with a good set-up, can't resolve his stories in a satisfying way. BTW, I credit much of A Beautiful Mind's triteness to sapmeister Akiva Goldsman, how this man won an Oscar for screenwriting is totally beyond me. It's not like he didn't have competition - Memento, Gosford Park, LOTR etc.
It's not that I'm too snotty to enjoy popcorn flicks, it's just that too many movie makers go for the big boring effects and idiot plot devices. I can fall in love with a blockbuster (rarely, but I did for LOTR). I just can't embrace dumb.
BTW, I might disagree with you about Tarentino. It's too early to tell, he's been too full of himself. I thought Jackie Brown was a step in the right direction. Burton is great when his obsessions dovetail with the material, but he's another one who has problems with dramatic structure.
I hope Miramax & Harvey Weinstein do right by Scorsese. Harvey - keep yer paws OFF Gangs of New York!
Spielberg can drive me nuts some times but I have just one word for your list of movies by him that you like. Jaws.
Totally agree with you, Harmonia! I'm not snotty either (at least no one who knows me thinks so), but my tastes are just out of the mainstream, I guess. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been moved to tears by a good many films, some blockbusters, some not. But, predictable plot devices turn me off big time. Jackie Brown is definitely a step in the right direction for Tarantino. And, how about Paul Thomas Anderson? I was absolutely stunned by the stylistic originality of Boogie Nights and Magnolia. And Sam Mendes isn't bad either. He seems to have mastered a formula for appealing to the masses as well as sophisticates. Opie is what I call a faceless director. He has good storytelling "skills", and seems to know a great deal about the mechanics of filmmaking and how to manipulate audiences, but he has very little recognizable style of his own, and he, like Spielberg, resorts to some awfully predictable, deliberately manipulative devices that ultimately distract me from total involvement. After all, film IS art, and I can only express my opinions about it. It's not just about the story, but how the story is told. It's interesting to me that my brother and sister, for example, thought Erin Brockovich was a totally forgettable, made-for-tv kind of film, where as I liked it a lot and didn't see it that way at all. Our opinions of A Beatiful Mind are polar opposites. Go Figure.
That movie is a keeper whereas the sequels sucked. At lot could be said about the caliber of acting, but they probably got a working mechanical shark.
;^>Anyway, to me boring FX are ring explosions & smooth CGI characters. Is till enjoy the proper blending of CGI & animatronics with Jurrasic Park. Although, acting caliber again is a great contributing factor. The only thing I can say for Stephen is he doesn't seem to work in a CGI "set". I absolutely hate those movies. It seems to even compromise an actor's ability when dealing with a non-existant set even over the traditional artificial ones.
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
I can't watch Jaws. I've tried, but I start twitching. This, as I said, puts me squarely into the minority. I hate it. I resent it (even though I love the cast). Moreover, I still remember newsreels of people beating sharks to a pulp on Americas beaches after this film debuted.Less talented directors have taken Spielberg's manipulativeness and stylistic exageration and nearly ruined Hollywood.
Not Nicolette
;^>Martin S has a manipulative stylistic exageration that I can't watch. I do realize I'm in the minority though.
» moderate Mart £ « Planar Asylum
This movie is good example how the senseless cookie-cuter organization can mess up even a winning material. It has so many banal, dull and up-front "solutions" that I actually was laughing like crazy looking at what, how and why those guys tried to do. The sad part is that those Hollywood’s “beautiful minds” actually did this movie for us: their customers assuming, our demands and tastes...
The story is, in essence, a fascinating one that could have made an excellent film in the right hands. Another thought is that if I go back, several years now, I find some of my favorite films in any given year won oscars for best picture, etc. Hollywood has been slipping for years. If it were up to me, they would stop paying stars so much (they could do with a few less million a year), and put that money into development of quality material. The slippage seems to be much more severe lately...American Beauty, for example, while not a GREAT film in my book, is a masterpiece compared to this piece of garbage.
I know where you guys are comming from. On the DVD Ron Howard discusses how he made many changes based on screen tests and other audience-focused considerations. It seemed that the test audience often pulled in a different direction than I would have. The director seemed very much focused on pleasing a mass audience. Telling were his comments that you can't make a big-budget film like this without needing to consider the ticket-buying end of the story.I remember the dean of my college once saying that he stopped quoting Shakespeare in his speeches and referenced Archie Bunker instead because more people "got" that.
There's a Simpsons episode where Homer becomes "smart" and goes to see a Hollywood romantic comedy movie. He says during the movie, "Well, obviously the girl's not going to pick the snob," and the audience yells at him for spoiling the movie. "I really thought she was going to end up with the snob," says Doctor Hibbard!
Nevertheless, given what someone like Russell Crowe can pull in, I don't think that you're going to see his quality acting in anything less than a Hollywood film that's made to pull in blockbuster audiences. Crowe was one of the highlights of the film for me.
Yes, I understand what you mean. Interestingly that the subject of this movie provided a fantastic opportunities but they went for "I see dead people" type of the garbage. Can you pretend that this professor eventually have gained the techniques to call and to manage his "hallucination" in perfectly controllable fashion and to apply it to benefit his creative force...
I really think they need to include in the advertising whether or not a focus group was used during the post production of a movie.The 12 monkeys collectors edition DVD has a "focus group" session in the "making of" documentary. Quite repulsive. It shows that when directors/producers ignore the focus group results it makes for a more interesting movie.
Tom §.
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