Ahira's Hangar

Well, I finally got around to watching the movie version of Phantom of the Opera (based on the Broadway musical) tonight. I think most people who enjoy it on stage will also enjoy the movie, as they are very close (though the movie has lusher sets, including some outdoor scenes). Since I enjoy the musical, I enjoyed the movie.
Quote:
RAOUL
No more talk
of darkness,
Forget these
wide-eyed fears.
I'm here,
nothing can harm you -
my words will
warm and calm you.
Let me be
your freedom,
let daylight
dry -your tears.
I'm here,
with you, beside you,
to guard you
and to guide you . . .
CHRISTINE
Say you love me
every
waking moment,
turn my head
with talk of summertime . . .
Say you need me
with you,
now and always . . .
promise me that all
you say is true -
that's all I ask
of you . . .
RAOUL
Let me be
your shelter,
let me
be your light.
You're safe:
No-one will find you
your fears are
far behind you . . .
CHRISTINE
All I want
is freedom,
a world with
no more night . . .
and you
always beside me
to hold me
and to hide me . . .
RAOUL
Then say you'll share with
me one
love, one lifetime . . .
Iet me lead you
from your solitude . . .
Say you need me
with you
here, beside you . . .
anywhere you go,
let me go too -
Christine,
that's all I ask
of you . . .
CHRISTINE
Say you'll share with
me one
love, one lifetime . . .
say the word
and I will follow you . . .
BOTH
Share each day with
me, each
night, each morning . . .
CHRISTINE
Say you love me . . .
RAOUL
You know I do . . .
BOTH
Love me -
that's all I ask
of you . . .
(They kiss)
Anywhere you go
let me go too . . .
Love me -
that's all I ask
of you . .
(CHRISTINE starts from her reverie)
CHRISTINE
I must go -
they'll wonder where I am . . .
wait for me, Raoul!
RAOUL
Christine, I love you!
CHRISTINE;
Order your fine horses!
Be with them at the door!
RAOUL
And soon you'll be beside me!
CHRISTINE
You'll guard me, and you'll guide me . . .
(They hurry off. The PHANTOM emerges from
behind the statue)
******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

Duchess wrote awhile ago Quote:My older son and I watched Finding Nemo this weekend and that movie was a real hoot! The animation was stunning, many of the characters, such as the sharks...IMshO this is the best animated feature around (BTW, I liked Shrek lots too, FN is way better). Ellen DeGeneres and Alyson Janey steal the movie as Dorie and Peach. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i>Edited by: taraswizard at: 4/7/06 6:25 pm
</i>

Kinda a complicated review. At Kevin's Watch I gave this movie a somewhat ok, it did hold my attention and I did enjoy it. One problem: don't watch The Ring again right after you watch this--then you realize, "God this movie rips it off freely!" White Noise is a complilation of borrowed motifs-it's like The Ring meets James Patterson (Double Jeopardy and Kiss the Girls) meets Ghost-and believe you me I would have barfed on the spot if Halley Joe Osmet suddenly appreared . Fortunately good acting and cool locations keep it together and the neat, appearing, techo stuff; until you finally realize that all they're really doing is playing with a very basic graphic equalizer. There's a very cool plot twist (or let's say an "AHA" moment) and Deborah Unger, who seems to be popping up in all sorts of films lately, is not only very hot, but holds her own.

That White Noise gets a C+ at all is due to Michael Keaton-he's got this strange charisma that holds together even bad flicks. This film made me want to watch The Hollow Man (with Bacon, not Keaton), Frequency (Dennis Quaid) and Pacific Heights again. If Keaton didn't win the Oscar for PH it's beyond me--so damm creepy he was cool! All in all WN is a fairly good detective story wrapped in half decent horror film trim-the ending, imho, could have been freakier> but that probably would have run them smack into the bizzare debacle the The Forgotten finished with... *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 8/11/05 10:15 pm
</i>

Harold and Maude. Ok, if you're of a certain age, and that's probably more like mine, Danlo's and Dragonlily's than the average Hangarite, this was one of the must see movies of your adolescence. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon. and comments. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

Watched National Treasure tonight. Sort of a dumbed down, Americanized version of Brown's Da Vinci Code. It was really silly, but was just entertaining enough to sit all the way through. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

Well, I watched Sideways this morning, and that's two hours of my life I wish I could get back.

The acting was very good, the setting, the editing, all very good. Very well made and produced movie.

But I absolutely hated the story, about a middle aged, self-absorbed, shallow, and selfish man, who casually and cruelly uses other people for his own entertainment. And his buddy, a depressed drunk who knows his friend is being bad, but enables him anyway.

While I did get a guilty chuckle out of a few scenes, I actually felt bad about laughing, given the subject material.

I guess I just prefer silly comedies like Bowfinger, where you laugh with the characters rather than at them. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

Cry the Beloved Country 1995. Staring Richard Harris and James Earl Jones. The third cinematic adaptation of the Alan Paton (1903 - 1988) book (Cry the beloved Country1951 and Lost in the stars). This one of all IMO is the truest to the original source material. For many in my HS this was a required text for 10th graders, but my particular class we did not read it. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

Sahara was a fairly decent action movie set in Africa and featured Penelope Cruz playing a WHO doctor on the trail of what initially looks like a deadly plague and Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn as treasure hunters who are looking for Confederate gold in the middle of the desert. I liked it better than the last movie of this sort I saw, the rather dumb National Treasure.

Warm Springs told part of the life story of Franklin Roosevelt. Though made for television by HBO, it had a great cast with Kenneth Branagh as FDR, Cynthia Nixon as Eleanor Roosevelt, and Kathy Bates as a physical therapist whose career centers around helping polio victims. The movie begins with a 40ish FDR beginning his political career. At this point in his life, he is a spoiled and self-centered man, born into wealth and power. It does not shy away (though does not graphically show) from his womanizing. Then he comes down with polio and everything changes. For the first time in his life he knows suffering, knows what it is to face discrimination. His wife, in an effort to bring meaning back to his life, takes up his career of public speaking in an attempt to bring him back to politics. She fights her lifelong shyness to do so. And in trying to bring meaning back into his life, she brings meaning into her own as she takes up the causes of the poor. The movie showed how FDR found a home in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he could swim and even walk in the warm, mineral laden waters. It showed how he brought hope to the sick and the suffering, though he had trouble finding hope for himself. The discrimination shown towards the polio victims reminded me of the fear and outright hatred that was shown towards some of the early AIDS victims. And in the background of the movie is the vicious system of racial segregation in the South at that time. Sadly, while FDR came to hate the discrimination shown towards the sick, it would be up to his successor, Harry S Truman, so begin the fight against racism, when he integrated the American armed forces. This was a very well done, quiet and thoughtful film. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Amercian history.

******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 9/18/05 10:29 pm
</i>

Regarding Duchess's review and comments on Warm Springs well I saw the movie on HBO this last summer and thought it was great. But I'm a fan of Kenneth Branagh and I think Cynthia Nixon is adorable and cute. But I really liked the movie and thought it was true to the spirit of the time. I liked the way the film documented the "false walking" technique that FDR used throughout his public life (where he used a cane, or crutch, on one side of his body and then used one of his sons to support the other, and this gave the impression that he could walk with assistance). Additionally, I thought that Ms. Nixon's attempt to imitate Eleanor's speech was a little affected and a little grating.

Additionally, for any of us under the age of 55 it's impossible for us to imagine how polio scares so paralyzed (pun not intended) public life before the perfection of the Salk vaccine. It was known to be a contagion, but virology was an embryonic science at the time. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

Sideways 2004, dir. Alexander Payne. Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Paycheck) and Thomas Hayden Church (Wings on TV). I enjoyed this movie alot more than Duchess did (she did not seem to like it all), but not as much some critics raved about it. I liked lots of things about this movie, Giamatti plays an everyman character who sees less to his life than there is, Church is a man who probably sees his life just he way he thought it would be. The story is distinctly modernist and I enjoyed it lots.
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Miles (Giamatti), wannabe novelist, wince afficianando and middle school teacher, and Jack (Church), small time actor, life long buddies, embark on a road trip to California's central coast wine country of wine tasting, golf, and relaxation as a send off for Jack's upcoming nuptials. However, Miles is depressed about his two year old divorce and Jack is not even close to be mature or commited enough to be considering marriage. In the beginning we meet Maya (Virgina Madsen), a waitress/student at a local restaurant, who already knows Miles from his regular trips to the area. Maya is very obvously intrigued and attracted to Miles, and is flirty with him from the beginning, but because of Miles depression he does not reciprocate. Then we meet Stephanie (Sandra Oh), who becomes involved with torrid, intense, affair with the soon to married Jack, and Stephanie does not know about the upcoming nuptials; BTW, Stephanie, is a friend of Maya's. Slowly, Miles allows Maya into his world, and a true romance begins to flame; however, when both women learn of Jack's deception, both men face indingant rejection (Stephanie's being the expectedly more extreme). Then Jack has farcical encounter with another local waitress. As one begins to see Jack is a walking disaster, and maybe not the nicest person, he uses Caroline his fiancee for comfort and stability, he uses Stephnie for excitement and thrills, and Miles to clean up the train wreck. Miles sees Jack off on his wedding, and has final meeting with his now remarried ex-wife. Miles returns to his everyday world of teaching 8th graders, and then receives a phone call from Maya.

The background of this movie is California wine country, but not the well known area north of San Francisco. It is the lesser known area of California's central coast.

Sorry for being so spoilery. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

I truly hated that movie; however, if I ever go back to California, I do want to spend a day or two in the Santa Barbara wine country, where it was set. I have been to the city (and mission) of Santa Barbara, and thought they were lovely -- but I never explored the nearby countryside. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

I'm couldn't take anymore of the curlyhaired guys' whining and had to stop it a little over 1/2 way... *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>

I finally got a chance to watch Batman Begins last night and I thought it was very good.

Though everyone (including Danlo) told me how good it was, somehow I never got around to seeing it in the theater, but I finally watched it on video.

I am not a fan of the previous Batman movies, so this one was a very pleasant surprise.

******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

Boy, I haven't been in this thread for awhile...

I've been tryingto catch up with tv shows on dvd and haven't watched many films...

That said, I would like to put in a lot of good words for Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic. The acting was superb, the story was great, the music was great.

While I love Broadway plays, I do not watch many movie musicals. All too often the director will blindly copy what happens on a stage, which often does not work as well on film.

Film musicals which seem to work best for me are those which are written and produced for film, such as Prince's Purple Rain.

Believe me, this one works, and works mightily.

You get to see Cash's horrible childhood, and how he grew up to have an even more tortured adulthood. Pheonix is Cash, he is simply amazing in that role! Cash eventually finds a moral compass and a reason to live in the love of June Carter (well played by Witherspoon) and of her family. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

I am in the middle of a trial membership to Netflix, and have watched thee movies recently:

Bringing Up Baby ~an old classic I had never seen, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and filmed in the 1930's. Hepburn is ditzy and adorable in her pursuit of Grant, though nowadays she would probably be locked up in jail as a stalker. Baby, a tame leopard, is beautiful. Really pretty silly, but still watchable.

King Kong ~ the recent remake by Peter Jackson. It was a bit too long, but we still all enjoyed the opening sequence in Depression era New York City and the island sequences were nonstop action, and pretty fun. The one complaint any of us had was the way Ann Darrow did not show any dirt, hair tangles, shredded clothes, cuts, or bruises following her adventures in the jungle.

The Seven Samurai ~ another classic I had never seen. What a good movie! I think it might have been even longer than King Kong but it was so interesting that you didn't feel your butt going to sleep. A village of farmers are being reaved by bandits, so try to hire samarai to protect them, even though all they have to pay the hired ronin with is food. Absolutely wonderful film. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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