V For Vendetta out this week!

See Lost in Translation, Ghost World and Girl with a Pearl Earring for reference. Hell, she was even good in Eight-Legged Freaks.
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Maybe Lost in Translation. And certainly 'Girl'. But I don't know, I've never seen her do anything outside of a moderetly intellegent, somewhat quiet and kind of funny character. I've never seen her on screen as anyone other then a proxy for the real Scarlet. Compare, for instance, with Meryl Streep or Audrey Tautou: both have done radically diffirent roles with varying (but always good) results, while the most radical thing Scarlet has ever done is play as the quiet Protestant maid in a Flemish painter's house. Yeah, that's really Herzog stuff right there.

And I have to say, Audrey > Scarlet. And that is hard for me to say as an American.
 
Audrey Tautou? I'm sorry, I might have missed her actually giving a good performance. Please point it out.

And I hate Streep. For no clear reason, though, she's a fine actress.
 
And I hate Streep. For no clear reason, though, she's a fine actress.
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Buahaha, I remember this. It is weird how seperated your tastes can be from your opinions of people's acting abilities.

Audrey Tautou? I'm sorry, I might have missed her actually giving a good performance. Please point it out.
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She's at least done somewhat more varied work then Scarlet. Going from Amilie to À la folie... pas du tout is a bigger jump then Scarlet is likely to do in her entire carrer.
 
John Uskglass said:
Buahaha, I remember this. It is weird how seperated your tastes can be from your opinions of people's acting abilities.
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For all I care she could be a neonazi babykiller canibal, it has nothing to do with her acting.

John Uskglass said:
She's at least done somewhat more varied work then Scarlet. Going from Amilie to À la folie... pas du tout is a bigger jump then Scarlet is likely to do in her entire carrer.
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A la folie, pas du tout? You kidding me?

God, I hate that movie.

And I was talking about diversified acting, not necessarily diversified movies. If you go that rout I could just pitch the Island against the Horse Whisperer or Lost in Translation against Eight-Legged Freaks. Those movies are at least as far apart from one another as Amelie is from A la folie

I don't see any fluxing in performances, though. Sure, she's crazy, but mostly because you're told she's crazy.

Then she goes back to Auberge Espagnol and just goes into complete Tautou-mode again.

Wonder how she'll do in Da Vinci. And I should still see Poupées Russe.
 
Kharn, I'm a bit curious, have you seen Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?

CCR, did you watch Hitler: The Rise of Evil? Peter O'Toole played an... interesting President Hindenburg (his entire performance was looking sad, like a kicked puppy).
 
Peter O'Toole is an Irishman. Sometimes he can't help being drunk for the entire shooting of a film

But The Ruling Class and Lawerence of Arabia ALONE would have made him one of the best actors ever.
 
I like Scarlett Johansson a lot because she looks like the type of girl you'd want for your girlfriend; she's got a 'homley' yet smokin' hot air to her. As for her acting, I dunno, didn't really notice it. Then again, I only saw Lost in Translation with her in it, so I can't judge her diversity. I 'believed' her though; she fits awesome in the lonely girlfriend discontent with her partner role (which is the only type of girlfriends I have seen). I decided to like her at the opening scene of Lost in Translation with that bum of hers on the bed. -squirt-
 
<derail>

The problem with LiT though is that neither SJ-and-husband nor BM-and-wife really make credible married couples. They've been married for two years, they're young, yet they don't talk? They're not intimate? It's a sure sign of weak writing: the only way the movie can nudge SJ and BM together and make us feel they're made for each other is to make their respective spouses seem like utterly bland assholes.

Count me in among the "loved the comic, fear the movie" crew for V for Vendetta.
 
Per said:
The problem with LiT though is that neither SJ-and-husband nor BM-and-wife really make credible married couples. They've been married for two years, they're young, yet they don't talk? They're not intimate? It's a sure sign of weak writing: the only way the movie can nudge SJ and BM together and make us feel they're made for each other is to make their respective spouses seem like utterly bland assholes.
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Uhm, that was kind of the whole point of the relationship between Scarlett and her photographer husband. The whole encounter between him and that blonde actress "John, you're my *favourite* photographer" hints even more at marital problems.

They're a mismatch, pure and simple, it was intended to be brought over that way.

Bill Murray's wife is different. They've been married for a long time, his biggest problem is not his wife but his own midlife crisis. He loves his kids and he's even still vaguely fond of his wife, but they're just fed up, which happens after enough years.
 
actors i like:

pacino ( without seeing scarface/scent of a woman )
morgan freeman ( deep impact/shawshak)
hopkins ( waterworld/speed )
deniro ( hell just about everything )
tim robbins ( shawshank only )
angelina jolie ( hackers/mr&mrs smith/tomb raiders )
brad pitt ( legends of the fall/mr&ms smith )
kurt russel ( stargate/tango&cash )
james spader ( stargate/boston legal )
harrison ford ( indianna movies )
whole cast of west wing
whole cast of red dwarf
whole cast of the american pies
stallone ( tango&cash/some of his action flicks)

i actually dont enjoy many actors in particular, i more go for their roles in specific movies really.
 
Kharn said:
Uhm, that was kind of the whole point of the relationship between Scarlett and her photographer husband. The whole encounter between him and that blonde actress "John, you're my *favourite* photographer" hints even more at marital problems.

They're a mismatch, pure and simple, it was intended to be brought over that way.
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We can't really tell whether they're a mismatch since we don't see anything of a marriage. The photographer might just as well have been her brother, or some guy she found hiding under the bed when she checked in and didn't have the heart to report to the staff, or a life-sized cardboard cutout; it wouldn't change much. He's a plot device, not a human being. Same thing with the actress; she's just there to be made fun of and be shallow so that SJ's and BM's limited interaction during a limited time will seem more deep and connected. I know it's set up that way, it's just the easy way out.


Bill Murray's wife is different. They've been married for a long time, his biggest problem is not his wife but his own midlife crisis. He loves his kids and he's even still vaguely fond of his wife, but they're just fed up, which happens after enough years.
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True, but again, the wife never becomes a real person either. The one time BM wants to talk, she shuts him off completely, because the movie isn't really interested in any human reaction on her part, or anything that might make her seem sympathetic; she's a plot device with which to drive BM towards SJ (and vice versa).

That's not to say it is, on the whole, not a good movie.

I'd like someone's opinion on the mystery of the ending, though. It seems to go roughly like this:

BM and SJ say goodbye in the hotel lobby. SJ enters the elevator, presumably to go up to her room. BM possibly talks some more to his gang then gets into the cab, which presumably sets off for the airport right away, presumably by the most direct route. After a little while, BM sees someone who might be SJ (although there's no apparent reason why he'd think it might be her), gets out of the cab and follows her. Everyone in the audience must now expect that it'll turn out not to be her, but - gasp! - it is. They hug one last time (awww).

This raises the questions of how did she get there and why would she be there. I can come up with these wild and wacky theories:

1. It's magical realism. There's no reason why she would be there, no way she could get there in time. She's there anyway because it's what the script needs for a final send-off! It's cute so it doesn't have to make sense.

2. It's a glitch. Something was left in the cutting room that shouldn't have been, BM either spent an hour extra waiting in the lobby or there was a hostage situation or something.

3. It's a cultural thing. Japanese cab drivers are evil and this one has been driving BM around in circles for an hour, giving SJ plenty of time to finish her business at the hotel, leave for somewhere and be miraculously spotted.

4. It's a plothole. It never occurred to the writer/director that it didn't make sense and no one else ever bothered to tell her until the movie was done.

5. It's a fantasy. It's all happening in BM's mind, SJ isn't really there, of course not, because that would be silly. This would sort of lessen the significance of the scene, though.

6. It's a detective mystery. SJ wasn't satisfied with the farewell at the hotel, so as soon as BM was out of sight, she set her CUNNING MASTER PLAN into action. Stabbing the button to open the elevator doors again, she leapt out and grabbed her trusty pogo stick, taking a shortcut to where his cab would pass. (Either that, or the elevator actually goes down to a sekrit garage, with pogo sticks.) Once there, she discarded the pogo stick, tidied her hair, turned and nonchalantly started walking away from where the cab would pass, hoping for the 0.173% chance that BM would spot her, think it might be her, and actually get out of the cab to chase her down. Her grand reward: a hug (awww).

Any other suggestions? I'm sort of leaning towards 1 or 4.
 
Per said:
Any other suggestions? I'm sort of leaning towards 1 or 4.
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7. There were a UFO incident in the movie studio, and it was filmed in real time, but as in every thing else, the US government forces crapped the long version of the movie and shortened it to, not to reveal the truth, that Elvis is still a live. :lol:
 
Well, saw the movie tonight. Thought it was AMAZING. Real powerful message, great setting, well depicted. Won't say much more as I couldn't really review it and nobody would take my opinion worth much so I'll just leave it at that. :).
 
Just got back from the theatre. I loved the movie. But, for some reason I don’t really feel like writing a lengthy review, which is what I usually do with movies I really liked or extremely hated.

I think I should have invested the time to read the novels before seeing the movie, like I did with Sin City. But overall, great performances, awesome atmosphere, and it’s definitely not a typical comic book movie. Also, I liked the fact that it was so low on action scenes (i doubt people expected this). The ones they had were relatively short but well made.

John Uskglass said:
V feelt hollow without the Anarchist ideology.
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As I said, I haven’t read the novel, but I didn’t get the impression he was “hollow”. I thought the anarchist theme was implemented throughout.
 
I saw it few hours ago, and thought it was an excellent movie, but many of the reviews I'm seeing online seem to hate it with a passion (one such review even claimed it was pro-terrorist!). I don't see why; I agree with KQX and Simple Minded about the movie. I've never read the novel, but I'm planning on getting it from a friend so I can see the differences between the movie and novel.

Here's one part of the movie that surprised me: When they were showing the cells that the experiments were taking place in with homosexuals I felt just so much brutal hatred for the fictional government for doing such things (espcially when they showed the mass graves). Really just makes you wonder how far governments will go to achieve their ends.

But yeah, it was an excellent movie. I guess if you read the novel, just try to think of it as a stand alone thing. After all, movies are based on books and sometimes have to change things to adjust to modern settings and time limits.
 
Saw it yesterday. As a movie it wasn't bad, though the ending was pretty goofy. It wasn't a good interpretation of the comic though. The main things that stick out are multiple pointless deviations for the worse from the story and characters in the comic, chief of which was V himself. I won't write a long review, I'll just say I think the way they handled V was stupid and made everything else that happened seem ridiculous, both superficially and on closer examination of what he we're supposed to believe he was and was capable of.

I think all the overt references to 9/11 were awful both in artistic terms and in terms of commentary on or creating discussion on that event. They should have taken to heart the line that pops up constantly, "Art lies in order to tell the truth" instead of blatantly tying it to a real event - it comes off more like an amateurish propaganda and "conversation-starter" film than as something that might have some deeper truth or meaning to it.

All in all, a better movie than I expected and definitely watchable but it's not in the same league as the comic on any level.
 
To be fair Montez, The Mariner's Song by The Decemberists is as good a story of revenge as V.
We are two mariners
Our ships' sole survivors
In this belly of a whale

Its ribs are ceiling beams
Its guts are carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me
I was a child of three
And you, a lad of eighteen

But I remember you
And I will relate to you
How our histories interweave

At the time you were
A rake and a roustabout
Spending all your money
On the whores and hounds
Oh Ohhhhh

You had a charming air
All cheap and debonair
My widowed mother found so sweet

And so she took you in
Her sheets still warm with him
Now filled with filth and foul disease

As time wore on you proved
A debt-ridden drunken mess
Leaving my mother
A poor consumptive wretch
Oh Ohhhhh

And then you disappeared
Your gambling arrears
The only thing you left behind

And then the magistrate
Reclaimed our small estate
And my poor mother lost her mind

Then one day, in spring
My dear sweet mother died
But before she did
I took her hand as she, dying, cried:
Oh Ohhhhh

"Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave
*sigh*"

It took me fifteen years
To swallow all my tears
Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory
Took pity and hired me
To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ
Of these holy men
Did I ever, once, turn my mind
From the thought of revenge
Oh Ohhhhh

One night I overheard
The prior exchanging words
With a penitent whaler from the sea

The captain of his ship
Who matched you toe to tip
Was known for a wanton cruelty

The following day
I shipped to sea
With a privateer

And in the whistle
Of the wind
I could almost hear...
Oh Ohhhhh

"Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave

"There is one thing I must say to you
As you sail across the sea
Always, your mother will watch over you
As you avenge this wicked deed"

[haunting, sailor-esque musical interlude lead by mandolin, accordion and tuba]

And then that fateful night
We had you in our sight
After twenty months at sea

Your starboard flank abeam
I was getting my muskets clean
When came this rumbling from beneath

The ocean shook
The sky went black
And the captain quailed

And before us grew
The angry jaws
Of a giant whale

[instrumental noise]
oh ohhhhhhhhhh
[screaming]
ohhhhh
[screaming]

Don't know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between his teeth

But, oh! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive
As well as me

It gives my heart
Great joy
To see your eyes fill with fear

So lean in close
And I will whisper
The last words you'll hear
Ohh Ohhhhh
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