Three current movies worth seeing

[Ulysses]

After a long drought with very few watchable films, just caught three worthwhile movies the last couple of weeks.

Lost in Translation - maybe slightly overrated in reviews, but definitely entertaining and very good.

American Splendor - maybe not great, but very good and very entertaining. I loved watching this.

Thirteen - outstanding film. Sort of like "Kids" but a little milder and not so much stuff in there that feels like it's just there for gratuitous shock value. I thought this was a really, really good film.

[ACPlayer]

Add to those:

Swimming Pool - about a writer's summer in France with an interesting ending.
Dirty Pretty Things - gritty picture of a, hopefully, imaginary behind the scenes goings-on set in England.

[Cyrus]

Harvey Pekar is a genius. I have been following his 'epics' for more than a decade and he is a true master. Imitating him is easy but rarely successful.

American Splendor (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345468309/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/104-0399102-1304726?v=glance&s=books&st=*)

The New American Splendor Anthology (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0941423646/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/104-0399102-1304726?v=glance&s=books&st=*)

[Rick Nebiolo]

Ulysses,

The only movies I've seen in the last few months were Seabiscuit and Open Range (the firse excellent and the second good). Went to Yahoo to check out clips and reviews of all three of your films.

"Lost in Translation" looks good but who is going to give an actor 2 million to do a whiskey commercial? Murry can be good in this type of role.

"13" looks like a required movie for most parents of 11 and 12 year old girls.

The clip for "American Splender" made it seem only OK but the critics gave it straight A's.

~ Rick

[angry young man]

Lost in Translation - maybe slightly overrated in reviews, but definitely entertaining and very good.

more than very good, best movie I've seen all year. Maybe directors other than Wes Anderson are starting to realize how talented Murray is. Thirteen is also good, lots less offensive than Kids.

Incidently if you're looking to rent a movie and were hoping to see a third rate imitation of the the Hustler (down to specific cons pulled) with terrible writing pick up Poolhall Junkies. Sure to disappoint. On the other hand Confidence wasn't quite as bad as I expected.

[angry young man]

[Ulysses]

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"Lost in Translation" looks good but who is going to give an actor 2 million to do a whiskey commercial? Murry can be good in this type of role.

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Lots of Japanese companies. It's pretty crazy. Japanese commercials, especially cigarette and liquor ads, are huge moneymakers for both big US stars and has-beens.

[Ulysses]

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Maybe directors other than Wes Anderson are starting to realize how talented Murray is.

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Yes, Bill Murray was excellent in this. Friends and I had this interesting discussion after watching this movie: Who other than Bill Murray could pull off that role?

[M.B.E.]

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Swimming Pool - about a writer's summer in France with an interesting ending.

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What did you make of the ending? Was it supposed to mean that the whole thing was the writer's imagination? And if so, starting from when, precisely?

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Dirty Pretty Things - gritty picture of a, hopefully, imaginary behind the scenes goings-on set in England.

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Yes, I liked this too. Had a very good ending. Unfortunately for such an intricate plot, it's medically impossible.

Also among recent releases I liked "Matchstick Men" and "Capturing the Friedmanns". I thought "Thirteen" was worth seeing but not terrific.

[ACPlayer]

yest , I took it to be all the writers imagination, possibily from the time she first has lunch at the little cafe and has a look at the waiter, but I really could not tell that. What was your view? I would really like to see it again in about six months.

[M.B.E.]

The French girl might have been "real", but just posing as the publisher's daughter.

For one thing, if all the events in France were really just in Charlotte Rampling's new book, then wouldn't the publisher at the end have commented something like, I see you used my villa as the setting for your new novel, and given me a fictional daughter.

And there were all those scenes in the film where she was trying to reach him by phone, and wondering whether he'll come join her for a weekend or whatever, but she's never able to actually talk to him, only exchange messages -- it doesn't really fit well with the "simple" explanation that the whole thing was just fiction/fantasy or whatever.

It would be worth while trying to search this on the net, see if Ozon has given any explanation in interviews.

[ACPlayer]

My take on the French girl was that she personified and embodied everything that Rampling's character was not and was a fiction in her mind. The mindless,sexuality that she may like, but did not experience in her repressed life. I believe she created a character which was directly opposed to her own life image.

I also felt that her encounter at the cafe, ignited a sexual feeling that then led into this fantasy that became the movie and the novel that she wrote.

It is obvious that the her attitudes towards sex were quite repressed.

I also believe that the mental imagination of the fantasy was intermingled with her day to day life at the french coutry side.

That is why I felt that the fantasy may have begun with the waiter at the restaurant.

In a sense it was a movie about a writer putting herself into her book and experience it.

[M.B.E.]

ACPlayer -- I saw "Swimming Pool" a second time tonight, and I think you're right about it. There were two scenes near the start where she looks at the swimming pool (I think even before Julie arrives; it was still covered by the tarp) and then goes straight to her laptop to start writing.

Also there was a scene, I think after she finds the diary, where she goes to her laptop and you see there's one directory called "Dorwell Takes a Holiday", and she makes a new directory called "Julie". That's not entirely consistent with what she says to Frank and Julie when the three of them are smoking weed downstairs: she specifically says it's odd writing a crime novel set in London while she's in such beautiful surroundings. But if Dorwell is taking a holiday, it wouldn't be set in London, would it. (That's the same scene where she says her latest novel was "Dorwell Wears a Kilt", which the other two found hilarious.)

Julie may have been more than Sarah's repressed fantasy -- Julie may also have had attributes of Sarah's actual life when she was that age.

You said: "I also believe that the mental imagination of the fantasy was intermingled with her day to day life at the french coutry side."

I think you're right about this on some level, but I wonder if there's some skeleton key that lets you pick apart certain events and categorize them as real or imaginary. Or does every scene contain an element of each, inseparable. My hunch is the latter.

Like near the end, Sarah has sex with Marcel -- she lures him inside to distract him from looking at the freshly dug earth where they buried the body the previous night. You have to think that their sex is real, even though the buried body is not.

At the end, when she shows her publisher that her new book is already in print, it's title is "Swimming Pool" and the cover is of a girl in a lovely blue swimming pool on an air mattress.

[ACPlayer]

Would love to see it again.
I think you're right about this on some level, but I wonder if there's some skeleton key that lets you pick apart certain events and categorize them as real or imaginary. Or does every scene contain an element of each, inseparable. My hunch is the latter.
The memory is fading, but I really thought it was where she picked up thoughts and fantasies and intertwined fantasy and reality. For example, I dont believe she had sex with the gardener, but saw him and wondered what it would be like if she called him up. Kind of like, I my imagining calling over the hot waitress and suggesting a silent, anonymous sexual encounter.

Julie may have been more than Sarah's repressed fantasy -- Julie may also have had attributes of Sarah's actual life when she was that age.

Possible tho there is nothing that I recall to suggest that.

All in all, it was quite a movie. IMO.