Atonement
Juno
There Will Be Blood
Sweeney Todd
===========================
另外推荐几个早些时候的（讨论过的就不推荐了）：
"Once": 今年最甜的故事了。DVD马上就要出了。
"Into the Wild": 还有电影院在放吧？
"I'm not There": 喜欢Blanchett的，决不能错过。
"Hot Fuzz": 太tm的British了。
[分享]冬季电影(TBC)
[分享]冬季电影(TBC)
圣诞假期快要到了，好电影攒着，在这时候上线角逐奥斯卡。接下来的几周正是热闹时候，推荐几个电影，谁看过的，就过来说一下？
Atonement
Juno
There Will Be Blood
Sweeney Todd
===========================
另外推荐几个早些时候的（讨论过的就不推荐了）：
"Once": 今年最甜的故事了。DVD马上就要出了。
"Into the Wild": 还有电影院在放吧？
"I'm not There": 喜欢Blanchett的，决不能错过。
"Hot Fuzz": 太tm的British了。
Atonement
Juno
There Will Be Blood
Sweeney Todd
===========================
另外推荐几个早些时候的（讨论过的就不推荐了）：
"Once": 今年最甜的故事了。DVD马上就要出了。
"Into the Wild": 还有电影院在放吧？
"I'm not There": 喜欢Blanchett的，决不能错过。
"Hot Fuzz": 太tm的British了。
Violent delights.
Butterfly and Diving Bell. Not on my list of to-see but you might like it. It's supposed to be a mixed comedy.年底还有啥外语片出来吗？
Saw this article by Ebert about "The Walker" coming out soon. Some interesting tidbits about Lauren Bacall.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... E/71211004
Schrader: Indies are scavenger dogs,
scouring the planet for scraps
/ / /
by Roger Ebert
Reading over my notes after interviewing Paul Schrader, the writer-director of “The Walker” and many other splendid films, I heard his voice coming through so loudly and clearly that it struck me the conventional form of an interview (“He paused,” “he said,” etc.) would only obscure his style. In London, the newspapers sometimes string together quotes and present them as if the subject has written them for publication. I thought I would try something like that.
All you need to know going in is that Schrader’s film stars Woody Harrelson as an unpaid gay escort of rich society women in Washington, D.C. One of his friends, a senator’s wife, finds the dead body of her lover. My review appears Friday.
Paul Schrader speaking:
This film started with my “American Gigolo.” I was wondering what that character would be like in middle age, and I realized he would be funny; that his skills would be social. He’d be like a society walker, and that struck me as an interesting occupational metaphor. All of my man-in-a-room films are occupational service metaphors: a taxi driver, a drug dealer, a gigolo, now a society walker. It fit rather neatly into a kind of age 20, 30, 40, 50 progression. If in “Light Sleeper” I took him out of the front seat and put him in the back seat, in “Walker” I took him out of the closet and put him in Washington, D.C. In my mind those four films are linked. I don’t think I’ll do another one. It was too hard to finance this one.
It’s a character piece, and one of the reasons that I had trouble getting it financed was that everyone wanted me to hype up the Washington thriller aspect. But that’s such a set genre, the Washington thriller, that I figured if I went into that, I wouldn’t have a character piece anymore. Movies are about things that happen and people who do things and this guy’s mantra is, “I’m not naïve, I’m superficial.” So he’s not the stuff of which movies are financed. I knew I needed to have some plot because otherwise people would tire of these ladies talking. So I created a kind of a plot but I tried to keep it far enough in the background so that you wouldn’t think, oh, this all about the plot, because it’s really about this guy, Carter Page. It’s similar to “Taxi Driver” or “Gigolo” or “Light Sleeper” in that way; they all have a plot but you don’t really remember the plot so much as you remember the character.
Woody Harrelson arrived as a surprise to me because I when I wrote it I had sort of financed it with Steve Martin and Julie Christie and then that fell out. Now I was looking for an actor. Woody’s agent called me up and asked, “Have you thought about Woody?” I said no. I mean, nothing Woody’s has done would make me think about him for this role. He’s not on any list I’ve ever made up. Jeremy, his agent, said, “Well, I was talking to him. He wants to do something really different. Would you like to meet with him?” I said of course I would, because I’ve been looking for an actor who could do comedy and Woody is a good actor despite his public persona of being a kind of a doofus. And so we met and he was plugged into it and off we went. There was some trepidation; there was a point in pre-production where I felt I might be jumping into an empty pool, but he finally got into it and took off.
He worked out. He really did. I’ve got a friend in Virginia who this character is based on in some ways. His father was a general and a professor at VMI, his grandfather was in politics in Virginia; he’s kind of like this character. I hired him as an associate producer on the film, in London and on the Isle of Man, and he was with Woody a lot and a lot of what Woody is doing is this guy, and it really helped out.
The term, “The Walker,” is fairly new. It was coined by John Fairchild of W Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily to describe Jerry Zipkin, who was Nancy Reagan’s walker, and Fairchild always used to call him, Jerry (“The Walker”) Zipkin. When Nancy wanted to go to some event, Jerry would take her.
Getting a picture financed, you have a problem with a passive protagonist, you have a problem of a character study, you have a problem of a non-plot driven film. These films are getting harder and harder to make. One of the ironies of my career is I tend to be working overseas more often. “The Walker,” a solid, all-American film, was financed out of the UK. No money from America. “Adam Resurrected” was financed out of Israel and Germany. “AutoFocus” was financed out of America but “Affliction” was financed out of Japan. “In Touch” was financed out of France. The role of the independent filmmaker is like a international scavenger dog, scouring the planet for the scraps that have fallen from various tables. And that’s what we do. But now with the dollar completely in the toilet, I think opportunities are gonna be better. Canadian films are gonna start shooting here before long.
Working with Lauren Bacall was an experience. Betty is a tough old bird. She has a reputation, which she has earned, as being a tough lady. My initial response to her was to play her game. She wants a lot of praise and after a number of days, I realized that there was no praise that was enough, and she wanted to be praised in the presence of other actors so that you got stuck if you had to tell her how great her last take was and there would be Kristin Scott Thomas sitting there, Woody there. And no matter what you said to her, it wasn’t quite enough. So I decided after about a week to just be real professional, basically: “Good, very good, Lauren, thank you, let’s move on,” and not get into the effusive flattery.
She didn’t like that and Kristin told me that I was the main course for dinner on a number of evenings as Lauren launched into me. But I think her work started getting better when it wasn’t all this courtship and flattery. It’s interesting about Lauren, because she’s just 83 now. She is the same age as Sidney Lumet, younger than Arthur Penn, yet you think of her as being older because she was famous so young. She was 19 when she was married to Humphrey Bogart, so you think of her as somehow an actor from the 1940’s which she was, you know, in a way.
She has some of the best lines, I collected all those bon mots over a period of years. Somebody asked me I would be interested in writing a TV series based on this character. I said, look, it took me years to collect all those funny lines; you expect me to write a show every week? I’m not that good.
The Woody character genuinely sympathizes with the women. It’s not a job. These guys who do this, for the most part, don’t do it for money. They may get gifts. They love girl-talk. It’s a very ancient profession. I’m sure Versailles was full of them. And the kinds of things that would make a heterosexual man whither in agony, endless talk about fabrics and who’s done what, is endlessly entertaining. What makes Carter interesting is that he’s using it as a protection against the legacy of his father and grandfather. He can’t compete with them except as a black sheep, so he can become the guy that’s whispered about. That’s why he’s still in Washington, D.C., and that’s what makes the character interesting to me, because he shouldn’t be in Washington anymore. He should be somewhere else. But he’s still there because he’s still tied to his father, he’s still tied to the notion of being a black sheep. The essence of character is contradiction. Why is he still in Washington? Why is he both in and out of the closet? Then you start to have an interesting character.
When Kristen discovers her lover’s body it’s instinctive for him to make that call to the cops for her. She couldn’t afford the scandal. That’s the kind of guy he is. Woody was a little uncomfortable with that and we added a moment when someone sees him, so he sort of has to make the call. But Carter is a well-mannered man and he realizes that she can’t be the one who finds that body and somebody else should find it. He doesn’t think that it’ll be a big deal. I walk into my friend’s apartment, see a body, call the police. What’s the big deal? Well, turns out to be a big deal.
The thing is, you should stand up for your friends even after they desert you. Somebody said to me after seeing the film that his question to Kristen at the end -- “Why didn't you stand up for me?” -- is one that’s unique to movies because you don’t usually hear that. Usually a movie makes it clear. Why didn't you stand up for me? She can’t understand it.
此喵已死，有事烧纸
Saw this on Salon.com:
Obviously this documentary is not the one that caused some controversies in Bay Area Chinese American community a few months ago."Nanking": How a doctor, a Nazi and a few Bible-thumpers saved hundreds of thousands of lives
At first, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's documentary "Nanking" (recently short-listed for Oscar consideration) might sound like a hopelessly blinkered approach to one of World War II's worst atrocities. The Japanese military's infamous "rape of Nanking" in 1937 -- which included the massacre of 200,000 civilians and the rape of at least 20,000 women -- is told mostly by actors reading the testimony of a handful of Westerners who remained in China's then-capital when it fell to the invaders.
We also hear devastating first-person accounts from both Chinese and Japanese survivors, but they exist in the film largely to buttress the words delivered by Woody Harrelson ("playing" the real-life American surgeon Bob Wilson), Mariel Hemingway (missionary schoolmistress Minnie Vautrin), Jürgen Prochnow (German businessman John Rabe) and other actors, as they address the camera in a sort of staged reading. There are bits and pieces of other evidence, including the famous newsreel footage of the atrocities shot by an American missionary named John Magee and smuggled out by George Fitch, head of the Nanking YMCA. But even more than most historical documentaries, "Nanking" must try to establish the visceral reality of events we can't see.
I can't quite explain why it works, but by God, it does. Although Harrelson, Hemingway and the other actors are not doing full-on performances -- they're sitting in chairs, wearing neutral, formal clothes that suggest the period without quite being costumes -- they make the horrified witnesses come alive as people who decided for personal or spiritual reasons to take their chances in what was about to become the worst place on the planet. Furthermore, as unlikely and white-man's-burden-ish as it may seem, Wilson, Vautrin, Rabe and Fitch were among the war's greatest heroes (and are remembered as such by the people of Nanking).
These Westerners believed that the Japanese, at least at that point, were anxious to avoid dragging foreign powers into the war, and hence were unlikely to attack neutral outsiders. Rabe, in fact, was no neutral -- he was a Nazi Party member who represented imperial Japan's most powerful ally, and sported his swastika armband prominently. Armed with nothing more than bluster, this motley crew established a special sanctuary zone in the heart of Nanking, where they reportedly housed more than 200,000 of the city's poorest and most vulnerable residents. While the Japanese military never officially recognized the zone and raided it occasionally, they avoided the kind of wholesale slaughter and pillage they inflicted on the rest of the city, and left the Westerners unmolested. Many thousands of people survived who would otherwise have been killed.
Little glory came to these people for their efforts, and they were all but destroyed by what they had seen. Minnie Vautrin, who saved countless Nanking women from being raped and murdered, committed suicide after returning to the United States. John Rabe became an outcast in Nazi Germany for his outspokenness and later a Soviet prisoner and a pauper. (The people of Nanking sent him money.) Wilson and Fitch simply faded gratefully into obscure private lives. But "Nanking" both calls attention to a horrifying set of war crimes that remains little known in the West and crafts an impossible-but-true hymn to the power of the individual conscience.
"Nanking" is now playing at Film Forum in New York, with national release to begin Jan. 11.
此喵已死，有事烧纸
今天看了atonement，片子拍得很美，摄影和配乐都属一流。但是mcewan的小说呢⋯⋯开头野心勃勃，细腻周密。但一到中后段，故事要展开了，力量就显不足。最后还放个通俗剧结尾草草收场。刚看的他的on chesil beach，也是一个虎头蛇尾的样子。有无数让人赞叹的细节，巧妙的安排，但是故事一展开，就有向肥皂发展的趋势。
今年我看过的最喜欢的米国片，除了no country for old men，还有就是once和into the wild。这3个，连上there will be blood，应该能提名金人吧。
＝＝＝＝＝＝以下是最新表情符号＝＝＝＝＝＝
今年我看过的最喜欢的米国片，除了no country for old men，还有就是once和into the wild。这3个，连上there will be blood，应该能提名金人吧。
＝＝＝＝＝＝以下是最新表情符号＝＝＝＝＝＝
Violent delights.
IMAX就算了, 我肯定会晕到吐. 
哼，孙同学列了张单子，自己就跑掉了。
今天看了Juno和The Savages。两个都是我喜欢的类型。Juno前半部分似乎很一般，很表面化，我也有点腻了剧本里不停的wisecracks，太努力地cute了。但是中间忽然笔锋一转，把真实人生拿出来给你看，哎，有点意思。这部片子高明的地方在于（不那么明显地）颠覆了中学生类型影片的套路，从John Hughes的Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles之后大家都拼命模仿的俗套里，少男少女的生活和烦恼里似乎从来就没有成年人的介入，完全是自己的小宇宙，跟成人世界似乎隔绝。Juno 就很好地处理成年人和少年人之间的交汇，既不进行言不由衷的说教，也不刻意迎合讨好少年观众的市场口味。其实这里面的几个成年人角色比少年角色更有戏一些。
The Savages 对我来说简直是horror movie，虽然立意是半喜剧类型。中年人各种危机和困境，个个都敲到我心坎儿上－－老爹得了痴呆症，只能送进养老院；事业卡在瓶颈；恋爱一团乱麻；背上还背着多年的心理和感情包袱。。。总之，太典型了，实在太典型了。或许处境不同的人有不同感受，影院里不时有笑声，我是一点也笑不出来。
两部影片里的演员都非常非常出色－－想必干这行并且爱干这行的人们都是倒帖也愿意抢到这样的角色和剧本来演的。Juno里的角色比较broad。看Law and Order时我就迷过JK Simmons (秃头无废话硬邦邦的Dr. Skoda)，另外三个成人也都是电视名演员：Jason Bateman(Arrested Development), Allison Jenney (The West Wing), Jennifer Garner (Alias)，都很不错，尤其是Garner，过去我对她不怎么看好，现在要反省一下。
Laura Linney 那是不用说了，她一露面简直就是质量的保证。意外发现原来她还挺漂亮的，身材很好（过四十了喔）－－只不过人家不靠漂亮吃饭，平时就没注意到。Philip Seymour Hoffman 实际是配角，戏不多，而且很低调，完全没有让他大放光彩的地方，非常subtle地，三下两下就把这个人物描绘得精准得吓人。在这里跟他Before the Devil Knows You're Dead里面一点都搭不上，简直神了。我的肚腩fetish小小地发作了一下，但镜头太少没有让我得到满足。
今天看了Juno和The Savages。两个都是我喜欢的类型。Juno前半部分似乎很一般，很表面化，我也有点腻了剧本里不停的wisecracks，太努力地cute了。但是中间忽然笔锋一转，把真实人生拿出来给你看，哎，有点意思。这部片子高明的地方在于（不那么明显地）颠覆了中学生类型影片的套路，从John Hughes的Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles之后大家都拼命模仿的俗套里，少男少女的生活和烦恼里似乎从来就没有成年人的介入，完全是自己的小宇宙，跟成人世界似乎隔绝。Juno 就很好地处理成年人和少年人之间的交汇，既不进行言不由衷的说教，也不刻意迎合讨好少年观众的市场口味。其实这里面的几个成年人角色比少年角色更有戏一些。
The Savages 对我来说简直是horror movie，虽然立意是半喜剧类型。中年人各种危机和困境，个个都敲到我心坎儿上－－老爹得了痴呆症，只能送进养老院；事业卡在瓶颈；恋爱一团乱麻；背上还背着多年的心理和感情包袱。。。总之，太典型了，实在太典型了。或许处境不同的人有不同感受，影院里不时有笑声，我是一点也笑不出来。
两部影片里的演员都非常非常出色－－想必干这行并且爱干这行的人们都是倒帖也愿意抢到这样的角色和剧本来演的。Juno里的角色比较broad。看Law and Order时我就迷过JK Simmons (秃头无废话硬邦邦的Dr. Skoda)，另外三个成人也都是电视名演员：Jason Bateman(Arrested Development), Allison Jenney (The West Wing), Jennifer Garner (Alias)，都很不错，尤其是Garner，过去我对她不怎么看好，现在要反省一下。
Laura Linney 那是不用说了，她一露面简直就是质量的保证。意外发现原来她还挺漂亮的，身材很好（过四十了喔）－－只不过人家不靠漂亮吃饭，平时就没注意到。Philip Seymour Hoffman 实际是配角，戏不多，而且很低调，完全没有让他大放光彩的地方，非常subtle地，三下两下就把这个人物描绘得精准得吓人。在这里跟他Before the Devil Knows You're Dead里面一点都搭不上，简直神了。我的肚腩fetish小小地发作了一下，但镜头太少没有让我得到满足。
此喵已死，有事烧纸
TMD，就是结尾看的老子很抑郁。Not only their mistake back then costed the second war in Afganistan, but also, US is making the same mistake again after this second war. Afganistan is still a mess, people are still suffering, and it is very likely another Taliban, if not the same Taliban, will come in power again. 
有事找我请发站内消息
顶着锅盖说一句，我不喜欢查理的战争。
估计主创人员在这个时候选这个本子来拍，是要表达政治观点的。近年来这种片子越来越多，但总嫌松散空洞肤浅。这倒也正常。因为反恐战争毕竟进行的时间不长，人们心中对它还没有形成明确的概念。不过这部电影特别的令人失望。剧情波澜不惊，人物平面单一。如果是两个陌生的演员来演，我可能都会闷到睡着了。
电影里那两个我喜爱的演员，也挺叫人伤心的。TH额上有深刻的皱纹，那张脸也失去了朝气。JR尽管涂了厚厚的白粉，艳艳的红唇，竟还不能遮去老态。而且TH不够风流，JR不够贵气，与电影中的人物设计相差太多。唉，他们的黄金岁月已经逝去。
回来接到朋友圣诞祝福的电话，我提起这部电影。他说与男主角的原型，国会议员查理喝过酒，又说了点他的八卦。真实的男主角Charlie Wilson比TH帅了不是一点点(这个角色由裘德洛演还差不多)。他大学毕业的时候全年级第八--倒数的，而且风流成性夜不归宿，整个一花花公子，可是偏能在政坛玩得风生水起（政界这种人很多啊很多），国会议员作了20多年。然后我又跑到Joann Herring的网站逛了一圈，这位社交名媛生于德州政治世家豪门大族，谈笑有鸿儒往来无白丁。长相倒不是特别标致，但乔模乔样意态撩人。她说：“我开车的时候，有人跟我竖中指，我回眸一笑，送他一记飞吻。”聪慧如斯，美丽如斯，所以可以大二就退学嫁人，一嫁再嫁，越嫁越好，有一回仅仅约会五次就决定结婚；还能够与多国首脑做朋友，派队上谈笑间就影响政局。―-活脱脱埃及艳后的款儿。
估计主创人员在这个时候选这个本子来拍，是要表达政治观点的。近年来这种片子越来越多，但总嫌松散空洞肤浅。这倒也正常。因为反恐战争毕竟进行的时间不长，人们心中对它还没有形成明确的概念。不过这部电影特别的令人失望。剧情波澜不惊，人物平面单一。如果是两个陌生的演员来演，我可能都会闷到睡着了。
电影里那两个我喜爱的演员，也挺叫人伤心的。TH额上有深刻的皱纹，那张脸也失去了朝气。JR尽管涂了厚厚的白粉，艳艳的红唇，竟还不能遮去老态。而且TH不够风流，JR不够贵气，与电影中的人物设计相差太多。唉，他们的黄金岁月已经逝去。
回来接到朋友圣诞祝福的电话，我提起这部电影。他说与男主角的原型，国会议员查理喝过酒，又说了点他的八卦。真实的男主角Charlie Wilson比TH帅了不是一点点(这个角色由裘德洛演还差不多)。他大学毕业的时候全年级第八--倒数的，而且风流成性夜不归宿，整个一花花公子，可是偏能在政坛玩得风生水起（政界这种人很多啊很多），国会议员作了20多年。然后我又跑到Joann Herring的网站逛了一圈，这位社交名媛生于德州政治世家豪门大族，谈笑有鸿儒往来无白丁。长相倒不是特别标致，但乔模乔样意态撩人。她说：“我开车的时候，有人跟我竖中指，我回眸一笑，送他一记飞吻。”聪慧如斯，美丽如斯，所以可以大二就退学嫁人，一嫁再嫁，越嫁越好，有一回仅仅约会五次就决定结婚；还能够与多国首脑做朋友，派队上谈笑间就影响政局。―-活脱脱埃及艳后的款儿。