Bronxgirl48 wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2024, 4:23 pm
These narcissistic sociopathic murderers think they're smarter than everyone else, most especially the police, so in their sick minds always believe they'll never get caught. That of course is the pathology.
Recently watched Oxygen's disgusting Selena and Yolanda, The Secrets Between Them. Yolanda's family attempts to whitewash their psychopathic relative: "She did pull the trigger and shoot but didn't mean to" Right. Yolanda: "I loved Selena" Right. What Yolanda really loved was attention, money, and the ultimate power of getting into a celebrity's inner circle. Poor Selena obviously didn't see the danger since Yolanda was so cunning and manipulative.
Yolanda Saldivar is eligible for parole next year.
She's now linked to Selena forever, which probably makes her feel special. I'm sure appearing in the docu is part of her parole "campaign".
I couldn't watch the Selena and Yolanda docu-series.
Supposedly Yolanda was going to reveal a great "secret" that she shared with Selena.
OH, NO!!!!!!!! She's up for parole ALREADY???????????? I'm sure her appearing in the show is part of her parole "campaign".
Bronxgirl48 wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2024, 4:23 pm
These narcissistic sociopathic murderers think they're smarter than everyone else, most especially the police, so in their sick minds always believe they'll never get caught. That of course is the pathology.
Recently watched Oxygen's disgusting Selena and Yolanda, The Secrets Between Them. Yolanda's family attempts to whitewash their psychopathic relative: "She did pull the trigger and shoot but didn't mean to" Right. Yolanda: "I loved Selena" Right. What Yolanda really loved was attention, money, and the ultimate power of getting into a celebrity's inner circle. Poor Selena obviously didn't see the danger since Yolanda was so cunning and manipulative.
Yolanda Saldivar is eligible for parole next year.
She's now linked to Selena forever, which probably makes her feel special. I'm sure appearing in the docu is part of her parole "campaign".
I couldn't watch the Selena and Yolanda docu-series.
Supposedly Yolanda was going to reveal a great "secret" that she shared with Selena.
OH, NO!!!!!!!! She's up for parole ALREADY???????????? :( I'm sure her appearing in the show is part of her parole "campaign".
ooooh, maybe we can get yolanda on a work release as paula zahn's personal assistant!!!!!!!
Dinner at the Ritz (1937) Paris and the French Riviera serve as the backdrop for this very elegant whodunit, starring the effervescent Annabella, along with David Niven and Paul Lukas. The plot points involve bank fraud, diamonds, high stakes gambling, disguises and, indispensably, romance. Oh, and there’s an American detective who can’t get a good cup of coffee (hard to believe). It's free on Youtube
Cinemaspeak59 wrote: ↑February 26th, 2024, 2:46 pm
Dinner at the Ritz (1937) Paris and the French Riviera serve as the backdrop for this very elegant whodunit, starring the effervescent Annabella, along with David Niven and Paul Lukas. The plot points involve bank fraud, diamonds, high stakes gambling, disguises and, indispensably, romance. Oh, and there’s an American detective who can’t get a good cup of coffee (hard to believe). It's free on Youtube
In Paris between the Wars?!
That is hard to believe.
Lorna wrote: ↑February 25th, 2024, 1:29 pmyou know, Thanks to HOLDEN, I made it a special point to rewatch GOSFORD PARK this cold and dreary morning and I'm glad I did- it's a film that DEMANDS rewatching, in fact one's second viewing is an entirely different experience provided it comes within a week or two of the first viewing (or in my case my first time seeing in in two decades)
What a delightful film- layers and layers and layers.
this is how great CINEMA used to be- it tells more in a little over two hours than many eight episode "special series" on amazon or netflix ever do.
I still cannot for the life of me believe ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY gave this film an "F" - I KNOW THIS HAPPENED, EVEN THOUGH IT HAS BEEN SCRUBBED FROM THEIR WEBSITE!
I think someone should scan the review from a had copy of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and post it so that EW's folly can be there for all to see.
It is irksome that they can just remove it from the official record on their website as if it never happened.
Oh dear, I am going to probably be the lone dissenter on FAR FROM HEAVEN. (small voice) I couldn't stand it! (then again, I was never a Julianne Moore fan) I "get" (oh boy do I get, since there is nothing subtle about this movie) the director's Sirk "tribute" but never for one minute did I think this was anything but parody. As soon as Moore called Dennis "darling" I knew she was in on the joke. Neither the story or characters had any dramatic depth -- just shallow hipster irony that would have played better on SCTV.
On a lighter note, I love TOPKAPI. (and that music!) Dassin has a pre-credit Melina Mercouri seductively drawing the audience into her criminal schemes and we (guiltily) love it!
Who else thinks the decor of Ingrid's London apartment in INDISCREET is terrible? I was watching it again the other day and my eyes were revolted by that hideous wallpaper plus all the garish living room colors. Practically ruins the entire movie for me.
The Sirkus atmosphere in FFH is very noticeable in the first twenty minutes or so. After that it seems to
fade. Of course back in the day Dougie couldn't have put a peeking out of the closet gay dude or a close
friendship between white and black couple on the screen. Pretty good and I appreciate it didn't end with
some 1950s Hollywood contrived conclusion. When they showed a close up of Quaid in his dreary motel room,
I thought it might turn into the dreaded corny suicide thing, but then the camera pulls back and we see a
tall Capote type in the bed. Sweet relief. The same goes for the ending to Moore's story. I do have to wonder
if that relationship could have caused that much consternation in Hartford, CT. when it was then a city
of about 160,000, even considering her small social circle. Maybe.
The DirecTV guide synopsis was A married man displays homosexuals tendencies. Hi honey, I'm home. Sit
down here, I've got something to show you. Let me just open my briefcase, I've got some charts and
graphs here that will explain everything. Now hon....
I guess I will have to try Far from Heaven again. The one time I did see it, I kept waiting for it to seamlessly look like the 1950s like the reviews said....and it never got there for me. It never felt quite realistic enough in terms of the looks of the actors, the lighting, and even the score (and I usually love Elmer Bernstein's musical scores), it all seemed like a restless facsimile, even though Julianne Moore gave a good performance. It just didn't quite click, although I will say it is a better film than the other Moore film of 2002, The Hours, which plays like a two hour dirge of endless misery (Moore's good in it though, and the Phillip Glass score was accomplished). Maybe I will appreciate Far from Heaven more the second time around, the praise here makes me think I was missing something that first time around. As for Dennis Haysburt, I think he worked better with Michelle Pfeiffer in 1992's Love Field. Maybe they could have gotten Lawrence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, or Denzel Washington for the part here....
I think that the film's general failure to make much of an impact at the 2002 Oscars in spite of strong reviews was due to three things.
A) The film was lionized in New York and on the East coast, but the reception was a bit frosty in LA and on the West Coast. This was the same kind of reception that deep-sixed some other would be Oscar contenders in the years before this, such as The Age of Innocence or The End of the Affair, both strong films that got shoved aside at the Oscars for giving nominations to something much lesser (The Fugitive and American Beauty, say) The NY film critics circle certainly went crazy for it though giving it most of its top prizes that year, although weirdly, Best Actress wasn't amongst them (the NY critics gave that prize to Diane Lane in Unfaithful, the sensual, probing look at the damage an extramarital affair had on a suburban couple, and sure enough Lane was also up for the Oscar that year)
B) Far from Heaven was released by the newly renamed Focus Features, a division of Universal Pictures aimed at doung indie films. They were also pushing the Roman Polanski holocaust film The Pianist that year. Focus (as well as its predecessors USA Films, Universal Focus, PolyGram, Gramercy, and October Films) has proven to be a great distributor when it comes to getting nods, but they never have won Best Picture, and they seemingly work best in getting nods when they put their weight behind only one film. There was great evidence that year that Pianist was making more emotional headway with Academy members, so they just decided to push that one more (and frankly if the Oscars had been open for voting a week or two later than they were, Pianist would likely have won Best Picture that year)
C) The 2002 Oscars were the height of the power of Miramax and the notorious Harvey Weinstein. He was personally involved, to one level or another, with four of the five Best Picture nominees that year (Chicago, Gangs of New York, The Hours, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It should be noted that Gangs was originally due for release in 2001, and was completed by then, but its release was held up for a whole year while Miramax people dithered over whether to keep a shot of the Twin Towers in the closing time lapse montage after they were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. The towers remained in the film, and honestly that single moment carried more of an emotional wallop than anything else in the film.) and also had a few other horses in the race such as Frieda. Focus could not compete with that level of reckless hoopla, and so the Weinstein films got some additional coattail nominations that knocked out some worthier, less-talked about contenders from other studios.
In the supporting actor race, Quaid had received either a Golden Globe nod or a SAG award nod, but not both. In any case, he was regarded as being a contender, and it was considered a bit of a shock when he didn't get in that year (and neirher did Richard Gere who was widely predicted for a career nod for Chicago.)
The actual supporting actor lineup that year was....
Chris Cooper/Adaptation *** (he won, and he's a decent actor, but I didn't really like the film)
Ed Harris/The Hours (showy part, miserably depressing film)
Paul Newman/Road to Perdition ( the best of the five performances nominated)
John C. Reilly/Chicago (a coattail nod, the surprise nominee, likely based on his being in three of the BP nominees that year. He's good, but he was better 16 years later playing Oliver Hardy in Stan and Ollie, and there was no nomination for him then)
Christopher Walken/Catch Me If You Can (widely regarded as being the second place finisher. Good performance, but again I didn't like the film.)
Here alphabetically, are the fims I thought were the best of 2002 (although two didn't have wide releases until 2003)
About a Boy
About Schmidt
Changing Lanes
Chicago
The Emperor's Club
Femme Fatale (extremely, overly kinky, with a story that makes no sense, but in purely cinematic terms, it is remarkable)
Frida
In America (festival premiere)
The Kid Stays in the Picture (documentary)
The Man on the Train (festival premiere)
Moonlight Mile
Possession
Road to Perdition
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (animated)
Sunshine State
Unfaithful
It's been a while since I saw Tess, and I was so impressed with the visual beauty that I don't know if I noticed that the camera rarely shows Nastassja Kinski's face. I would say the film is worth watching though, although if it bugged you because of that detail, it might be best to abandon ship. As a strange coincidence, I am currently two thirds if the way through reading The Return of the Native, and I plan on finishing it tonight before bed. Hardy's a very good writer. I would say that the best film based on one of his novels is the 1967 version of Far from the Madding Crowd, but truth be stated, if you can't find that version, they did a very well-done remake in 2015 that's one of the more satisfying films of the 2010s (that remake is on Max, which I PMed you my link to yesterday.)
Oh, Topkapi is a lark, so enjoyable and fun, and even the code-enforced ending is a delight, but that prologue is quite delightful. Melina Mercouri was never better.
As for the saga of Entertainment Weekly, Gosford Park, and the "F", I did try looking a while back on their website for that mark of infamy, but couldn't find it. I know that in 2001 their two main movie critics were Owen Gleiberman (now the main critic at Variety) and Lisa Schwarzbaum, and that they had some other critic grading films when they came to video/DVD. And frankly, it does seem very strange that such an accomplished film would get an F from a high profile magazine. Gleiberman, incidentally a former protege of Pauline Kael, has a very unique, idiosyncratic view of films (he favors darker-edged films and he is known for giving raves or positive reviews to some films left for dead and panning some much praised titles), so theoretically he could have been edgy and have given it an F, but he typically loved Altman films, so going that far against his normal love for the director seems off (I went over to Metacritic where each review is given a 0 to 100 numerical grade. You can pull up any critics' grading pattern. Of the films he gave Fs to in his tenure at EW [marked as 0 at Metacritic], the only one I actually recall liking was 1990's Joe Vs. The Volcano. And despite all the heat he got for it, he was right in saying that the 2000 Coen brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou was unbearable). I don't know as much about Schwarzbaum, but she tended to like period films, so her hating Gosford Park also seems outside of her wheelhouse. Maybe it was their video reviewer who hated it.
It's been a while since I saw The Sterile Cuckoo. I recall that the Minnelli character was a bit frantic and needy, but also extremely lonely and rather sweet ... but I know that her character is very polarizing here, as more than one here has called her character a psycho. I liked it a lot when I saw it though, finding it to be very moving. A shame that Wendal Burton didn't decide to remain in films; he was very good in this one. This was (unless you cound her wordless bit at the end of In the Good Old Summertime) only Liza's second film, after 1967's low-key Charlie Bubbles.
As for Selena's killer, I think jail would be the proper place for her to remain. I know I shouldn't pass judgment, but I feel that she should reflect more in her tiny jail cell over the viciousness of what she did and try to take personal responsibility instead of trying to minimize it or explain it away. Murder is an exceedingly grave sin, and while even some killers have truly morally reformed behind bars, it does not feel as though Yolanda is one of them. She just reeks of excessive self-love and vanity. I am beginning to wonder if ID wants some once notorious people back on the streets....they also did a special once about the Menendez brothers and how there is a new wave of sympathy for them online from people too young to recall details from that media circus. In that particular case, while the parents were far from innocent, it doesn't mitigate the fact that two such cold-blooded, premeditated murder, and two graphic ones at that, deserve years behind bars, even in spite of what sexual, physical, and mental abuse the killers underwent before they snapped.
FANTASTIC VOYAGE -- Raquel Welch, in an unflattering wig and tight wetsuit, gets attacked by antibodies that eventually crystalize -- "I can't breathe!", making it imperative for the male crew to frantically remove them from her entire body but most especially the chest area. Edmond O'Brien, nervous and sweaty as though he were in one of those 1950's noirs, continually pours extra sugar into his coffee while whining and fretting about the mission. Stephen Boyd just looks shell-shocked throughout. The capillary special effects seemed familiar to me until I realized it actually resembled Ingrid Bergman's wallpaper in INDISCREET.
CinemaInternational wrote: ↑February 27th, 2024, 12:50 am
As for the saga of Entertainment Weekly, Gosford Park, and the "F", I did try looking a while back on their website for that mark of infamy, but couldn't find it. I know that in 2001 their two main movie critics were Owen Gleiberman (now the main critic at Variety) and Lisa Schwarzbaum, and that they had some other critic grading films when they came to video/DVD. And frankly, it does seem very strange that such an accomplished film would get an F from a high profile magazine. Gleiberman, incidentally a former protege of Pauline Kael, has a very unique, idiosyncratic view of films (he favors darker-edged films and he is known for giving raves or positive reviews to some films left for dead and panning some much praised titles), so theoretically he could have been edgy and have given it an F, but he typically loved Altman films, so going that far against his normal love for the director seems off (I went over to Metacritic where each review is given a 0 to 100 numerical grade. You can pull up any critics' grading pattern. Of the films he gave Fs to in his tenure at EW [marked as 0 at Metacritic], the only one I actually recall liking was 1990's Joe Vs. The Volcano. And despite all the heat he got for it, he was right in saying that the 2000 Coen brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou was unbearable). I don't know as much about Schwarzbaum, but she tended to like period films, so her hating Gosford Park also seems outside of her wheelhouse. Maybe it was their video reviewer who hated it.
I looked on the Internet Archive and could not find Entertainment Weekly’s review of Gosford Park (the web pages were not saved frequently enough). However, the EW archive does have a table of letter grades given to the film, and the EW reviewer appears to have given it an A-.
This graphic is from early in 2002 (the film was released at the very end of 2001). Perhaps it is another reviewer that gave it the low grade, or to your point it might have been later for a video release.
1. IT IS MY DEEPEST, DARKEST FEAR THAT SOME DAY I WILL BE ASKED TO GIVE TESTIMONY BASED ON MY RECOLLECTION OF AN EVENT AND THAT SOMEONE'S LIFE WILL HINGE ON IT. My mind is A VERITABLE RASHOMAN in that I am always elaborating EDITING improving and recasting my memories. I AM THE FIRST TO ADMIT THAT I AM IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER A RELIABLE WITNESS.
2. HOWEVER I SWEAR ON JOAN CRAWFORD'S SHOULDERPADS THAT I REMEMBER "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY" giving THE DVD RELEASE of GOSFORD PARK an "F." in their "ON VIDEO" section and I recall the reviewer saying he knew he would catch Hell for it.
3. the main reason I recall this so vividly is because I had been (please don't judge me, it was a different time)- a devoted reader of EW- I pretty much read (and often disagreed with and emulated) their reviews and style. and i just recall being SO GOBSMACKED that they would give GP an F that from that day on, I have never read ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY again or even picked up a copy.
Last edited by Lorna on February 27th, 2024, 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
As for the saga of Entertainment Weekly, Gosford Park, and the "F", Maybe it was their video reviewer who hated it.
YES, YES, IT WAS FOR THE DVD RELEASE, not the initial run in theaters.
(And I want to say it was a male reviewer)
I SWEAR THIS HAPPENED THO!!!!!!!
ADDED ELABORATION NO ONE ASKED FOR, BUT IT BOLDENS THE STRENGTH OF THE MEMORY: I EVEN REMEMBER READING IT ON A PLANE!!!!!!!
...maybe it could've been PREMIERE?????
Rotten Tomatoes says Premiere's reviewer, Glenn Kenny, gave it a "Splat" on Nov 22, 2001. The full review doesn't seem to be available, but the first line is "Altman's fecklessness pretty much reduces the like of Derek Jacobi and Alan Bates to bit players who haven't been given any bits."
I'm sure her appearing in the show is part of her parole "campaign".
