<p>We just saw Skyfall at a matinee, I had been looking forward to it because I enjoyed Craig in his previous Bond movies, especially Casino Royale.
I must have seen them in the theatre by myself, because H hadn’t seen them.
He liked Skyfall, but I think it jumped the shark.
Characters weren’t believable. I know it is 007, but I think it was poorly edited, there wasnt any tension, just explosives.
& explosives just aren’t very satisfying unless there is a build up of tension first.
I guess I have to be in the mood to see Bond, and previews of another Ironman movie as well as the Disneyland ride that The Hobbit has apparently become, didn’t put me in the mood.</p>
<p>It was nice seeing Albert Finney though.
:)</p>
<p>Very excited to see “Silver Linings Playbook.”</p>
<p>Just saw the hilarious “Bad Teacher” on cable the other night. It’s not new but really hilarious, imo. Justin Timberlake just slayed me. Would watch a sequel.</p>
<p>DH is fixated on Skyfall. I can enjoy Bond films. Somehow I sense this one is not gonna work that well.</p>
<p>Lincoln! All the buzz about Daniel Day Lewis and Oscars–believe it! Fine performances also by Tommy Lee Jones (loved his final scene!), Hal Holbrook and Sally Field.</p>
<p>Please post reviews of the new ones. I have Lincoln, Anna and Silver Linings on my wish list but they are always slow to come to our little local theater</p>
<p>Being a huge history buff, I had very high expectations for “Lincoln”. It was a good movie, but not a great movie. It did not have an emotional core. There were scenes that could have been cut with no harm to the movie at all. The beginning was slow. Daniel Day Lewis is very good, but he does not have the kind, but sad eyes we see in the real Lincoln’s photos. </p>
<p>I loved the art direction. I thought all the interiors looked extremely authentic right down to the gas lines going awkwardly to the gas lamps. The costumes and Mary’s jewelry were also very authentic. I thought the other characters looked very much like their photos, particularly David Straitharn as Seward. </p>
<p>And Spielberg just can’t break himself of the overly sentimental scenes. To see the ending one would think that all those in the White House knew Lincoln was going to meet his death that night in the theater. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I do now want to go back and re-read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” on which the movie is based.</p>
<p>Took an international flight which meant I was able to catch some recently released movies. </p>
<p>Liberal Arts - I don’t really know what to say about this film. Elisabeth Olsen was so wonderful though. </p>
<p>The Amazing Spider-Man - Broke my heart because Martin Sheen getting shot means too many West Wing memories. Both Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone had wonderful and minute performances.</p>
<p>Saw Lincoln yesterday. Much of it was impressive but some parts slow and as an earlier poster said, scenes could have been omitted without hurting the overall film in the slightest. The beginning was awkward at best. Tommy Lee Jones was amazing - so good. </p>
<p>Also Argo - even though knew the ending, the suspense was there throughout!</p>
<p>Saw Skyfall; felt the same as Dad<em>of</em>3 and krlilies – never really took off. Where was the amazing Bond girl? Where’s the obligatory scene where Bond gets tortured or almost killed by the villain? And they couldn’t come up with a new car? First scene, racing an Audi? That’s all you got?</p>
<p>Good thing was the previews: Zero Dark Thirty is now on my list.</p>
<p>The awkward beginning of Lincoln is meant to frame what happens and it does: you see black men as Union soldiers fighting to the death in horrible conditions for their freedom. And you see them directly in the face of the man who emancipated them - and during whose administration Congress let them into the army and even over time paid them the same as whites. Those were the stakes and the movie had to make clear that these people, perhaps these very same people wearing the Union blue, might have been handed back into bondage if the Constitution was not amended to prohibit slavery. Hundreds of thousands of black men fought for the Union. Something like 50,000 died. </p>
<p>I think one of the nice things about the movie is the blindness of the men. They worry about what will happen if the slaves are all freed but they can’t see the difficulty of returning vast numbers of people to slavery, especially when many have literally taken up arms for freedom and when millions of slaves have left their former masters. Would the courts then be required to force northern states to return slaves? That was the law of the land, thanks in particular to Justice Taney (pronounced Tawney) and the Dred Scott decision: the federal government had no right to ban slavery in the territories, only states could make that decision, and blacks could not be citizens and had no rights as citizens. The Fugitive Slave Act would then come back into being and the entire conflict between northern states and southern over its enforcement would continue. But the white men in the movie only see and talk about the issues relating to what might happen with free blacks. In real life the abolitionists were beating on these issues like a drum but we don’t see it in the movie. We only see the objections and their narrow moral blindness.</p>
<p>I’m going to be honest, the year alone would not have helped me figure out the time period. Watching the entire movie and how it’s about the amendments it is obvious it is near the end of the war, but I don’t remember the dates. Sorry.</p>
<p>Best Parts:</p>
<p>Silver Linings Playbook-
-Bradley Cooper - it’s crazy how he does this as well as The Hangover. Amazing role.
-Jennifer Lawrence - she has all the buzz for the movie, and while she had all the right emotion, I just don’t think she was as good as he was.
-The final dance scene - you wait for it for the entire movie.
-Robert De Niro - Best Supporting Actor… so far.</p>
<p>Anna Karenina-
-Production Design - the movie was filmed on pretty much a single stage. Characters would open their bedroom doors and walk onto a train, or walk along a wall as it turns into another building. It was amazing.
-Cinematography - see the five minute dance scene near the beginning which basically summarizes the whole movie: Vronksy is supposed to be set to marry Kitty but he meets Anna and their falling in love and Kitty’s heartbreak are all shown in it. The camera weaves in and out of other dancers (who freeze and unfreeze).
-The SCORE - Loved it. By the guy who did the most recent Jane Eyre one, which I also loved.</p>
Add the Schwarzenegger preview to the mix too. Blech.</p>