Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[stanton]

How comes that Spanish people think that Casablanca makes promotion for the White House?

[drinkanddestroy]

How comes that Spanish people think that Casablanca makes promotion for the White House?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_%28film%29#Interpretation

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unrelated question: Is Capt. Renault bisexual?

[rexlic]

I love the casts in both films. I think you're nuts.

Thanks for confirming that Queens locations were filmed for Serpico. I thought it likely but I couldn't tell for sure. It's fun to play I Know Where That Is while watching the movie. I'm pretty sure I spotted a location in Williamsburg in one shot, near where Sergio later filmed. I'll certainly be returning to Serpico to play the Locations Game in the future.

The scene where Pacino, on an elevated subway platform, spots a guy breaking into a place and gives chase, was shot at the Astoria-Ditmars Blvd. station, the last stop of the N and Q lines.  This is the same neighborhood where the scenes with the young Henry Hill in Goodfellas were done.  Two years ago, they tore down the building which housed the pizzeria he worked in with Tuddy; I almost cried.

[dave jenkins]

The acting is incredible - with the exception of Paul Henreid, who is merely adequate

Here we have Ebert talking again. Henreid is as good as he can be considering his part--he's playing a saint. He can't have any failings, and failings are what make characters interesting. But he looks good and he commands respect. It is the effect the character has on those around him that counts.

Btw, I recently saw something where the lyrics to La Marseilles were subtitled. I'd never really understood the words before. I suddenly realized how clever the filmmakers were, because the song is not just the French national anthem, but a call to arms. The chorus goes like this:

Aux armes, citoyens,              To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,            Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons !            Let's march, let's march!
Qu'un sang impur                  Let an impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !              Water our furrows! (repeat)

The song goes on to warn that the failure to act will result in a return to "the old slavery." Every time I've seen that scene (the most stirring in the film, and one which occurs at the movie's exact mid-point) I've always read it as a simple appeal to patriotism. But the words are explicit. The Henreid character is inciting the crowd to direct action. Strasser is right to suddenly want him sidelined with extreme prejudice. And Henreid does a great job here--he really sells the idea that he is the Freedom Christ.

[noodles_leone]

Yep, our national anthem may not be the coolest sounding one, but it is quite badass.

[drinkanddestroy]

So once upon a time, the French actually used to believe in taking up arms?! My my, how far the weak have fallen........ My comment about Henreid had nothing to do with Ebert. (I don't even remember Ebert saying anything about him.) On the other hand, what I said about Renault being queer, THAT was Ebert. He got a lot of flak for saying that Renault was, how did he say it, "subtly homosexual" or something like that? I do agree with Ebert on that, there's at least one, possibly 2 comments by Renault that would indicate he prays at both churches: ASKING ABOUT YOU IN A WAY THAT MADE ME EXTREMELY JEALOUS is the one that's maybe; the more definite one is when describing Rick, he says, IF I WERE A WOMAN... BUT WHAT AM I DOING TALKING TO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN ABOUT ANOTHER MAN....

[drinkanddestroy]

RE: Henreid: when someone is a good actor and enjoyable to watch, they can be enjoyable no matter what their role is. Of course, the way their role is written has a huge effect on how good the performance can be, but someone like e.g. Bogie is enjoyable to watch ALWAYS. Problem for Henreid is that he is surrounded by perfection, which makes his adequacy seem terrible.

[Groggy]

Yep, our national anthem may not be the coolest sounding one, but it is quite badass.

Do you know a better? I always feel anthem envy when La Marseillaise queues up.

[Groggy]

Problem for Henreid is that he is surrounded by perfection, which makes his adequacy seem terrible.

Well-said.

[dave jenkins]

Do you know a better? I always feel anthem envy when La Marseillaise queues up.

Yeah, it IS pretty good (as demonstrated in Casablanca).

[dave jenkins]

Tim's Vermeer (2013) - 9/10. Recently there has been speculation that the 17th Century Dutch painter Vermeer achieved his remarkable photo-realistic effects by means of optics. Both David Hockney (the British painter) and the scholar Philip Steadman have advanced this theory--inventor (and multi-millionaire) Tim Jenison read their books and decided to try a little experiment. First he developed a technique with lenses and mirrors (the lenses were specially ground so that they wouldn't exceed the standards of the 17th Century) to demonstrate that one could reproduce details and colors of a subject directly on canvas without recourse to intermediate stages (Vermeer, apparently, never did any sketching before applying paint). Jenison is not a painter (he has a background in computer graphic design) and had never held a brush before beginning this project. However, he showed that, using his technique, he could achieve photo-realistic effects after hours of painstaking effort. But that was not enough for him. He decided to reproduce a particular Vermeer painting. To do that, he recreated the subject ("Young Girl at the Virginals") in a Texas warehouse. That is, he reproduced Vermeer's room, then the contents of that room, including models in costumes, before painting a single stroke (it's great to be rich). He didn't have the room reproduced, mind--he recreated it himself, teaching himself in the process how to work a lathe (to carve furniture legs) and whatnot until he had faithfully reproduced every detail of the subject that Vermeer had used. Only then did he begin the even longer process of translating the 3D image into a 2D painting using Vermeer's putative technique.

This is an amazing story, told well by the participants and onlookers of the project. Penn Jillette narrates the film (Teller directed), and people like Hockney and Steadman show up from time to time. Martin Mull (!) puts in an appearance. Most of the film, though, is watching Jenison do his thing, which could have become boring were it not for the skillful editing.

[Groggy]

Yeah, it IS pretty good (as demonstrated in Casablanca).

Also nice uses of it in Grand Illusion and Day of the Jackal.

[noodles_leone]

Do you know a better? I always feel anthem envy when La Marseillaise queues up.

I prefer most of the 200 others. I guess it's hard to really like your own national song because of the number of times you ear it, but the French one strikes me as particularly old fashioned. Not to mention the barbarian lyrics It's weird to ear that at huge sport events like the olympic games: everybody's celebrating peace and humanity and when the french win the whole stadium is suddenly screaming that we'll eat what grows in the blood of our enemies (Mr. "Fox NEWS" D&D, I'll bash the french myself in the next sentence so you don't have to). We haven't even had real enemies for over 40 years so it's mainly bluff.

[dave jenkins]

I prefer most of the 200 others. I guess it's hard to really like your own national song because of the number of times you ear it, but the French one strikes me as particularly old fashioned.

Well, it was cutting edge at the time it was written.

I like "The Star-Spangled Banner" and I don't get tired of hearing it. It's partly the words and ideas--grace under pressure--but the tune is quite interesting (and famously difficult to sing). it probably helps that it's short and doesn't have a chorus (I guess there are several verses, but we only ever concern ourselves with the first). It also adapts well to new idioms, as rockers have demonstrated. Both Hendrix and Neil Young have done their instrumental (and perhaps ironic) takes on the melody, but my favorite rendition is the one done by Mark Kozelek/Red House Painters. They go very grungy on the whole thing, reinvesting the song with a sense of steely determination. Kozelek's singing of the words seem both plaintive and sincere, and they really wrap everything up nicely at the end when the instruments fall silent and Kozelek's voice is on its own.

[Groggy]

Star-Spangled Banner's got nice lyrics (which makes sense, it was originally a poem) but I've always found the melody annoyingly banal. Of course, I'm infamously tin-earned so take that with a grain of salt.