Movies

I think I have found one shortcoming of this site format: I can't quote 2 posts in a new post, only 1. I raise this here, as I intended to quote the last post from both bigswifty and Frodo, re: Mamet. so, I just like you both instead.

anyway re: Mamet--as a playwright, I love him. as a filmmaker, it tends to be more like: love every third film, like every third film, hate every third film, repeat ad infinitum. his plays--ones I've seen at least--are personal and psychological, but when he writes for the screen, he tends to go heavy on political thriller kinda stuff, and it can get a little unnecessarily complex at times, to me at least. But, I really, really like Things Change, and I loved Phil Spector, the HBO flic he wrote and directed about (of course) Phil Spector, specifically his legal defense team--and I particularly loved it because, as a crim defense attorney, I thought the way the characters formulated the strategy was the most honest portrayal of the way crim defense attorneys come up with a defense I have ever seen on film--Mirren and Tambor (their characters actually, but I don't remember the character names) go through several realistic discussions where they debate how much they feel they can trust a jury with reasonable doubt versus how much they play the trial defense toward the jury's biases and preconceptions. and, of course, each of these discussions is dome replete with Mametian dialogue too.

Frodo, report back on the play when you can, please. and, yes, glengarry glen ross--great flic and great play (main differences: A. Baldwin's character is not in the play; and in the play, the whole first act is a series of 1 on 1 dialogues taking place in the Chinese restaurant).

I saw Jurassic World this weekend as well. I thought the dinosaurs looked fantastic and the action was really good. And I thought I was going to be put off by the communicating with raptors bit but that didn't even bother me that much, but good god are those people terrible at planning for things that may go wrong. The power goes out way too easily and the group of men that had the job of taking down dinosaurs if they got loose were outfitted with rifles, shotguns, and other things that have virtually no effect on the giant lizards. You are much better running for your life than standing in front of a hungry dinosaur popping of some little cap gun bullshit. They had one guy with one bazooka that knocked the mutant dinosaur off it's feet, one.

"You're a good dad? Fuck you, go home and play with your kids" GGR is so good.

Watched Divorce Italian Style last night. Should've just been called "Old Perv Wants to Fuck". Some of these foreign classics are not what they are cracked up to be.