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I've sometimes wondered if there was more than one Blofeld … more precisely, if the real Blofeld preferred to stay in the shadows and use stand-ins to take the fall if something went wrong.
Agreed. This is one of the few films to capture the tone & atmosphere of not only the epic, but the legendary & the mythic. The so-called "over the top" acting is perfectly suited to that tone & atmosphere; anything less (i.e., "more realistic") would diminish the power of the storytelling. Everything here is larger-than-life & should be!
liscarkat is absolutely right. For example, watch Route 66, which was filmed all over the USA in the early 1960s, and you'll hear those regional idiosyncrasies a-plenty.
Androids is deeply moving, isn't it? For all the wildness & Surreal wonder of PKD's vision, what strikes me the most is the humanity & compassion in it. There's a love & empathy for what people can be at their best, but also a clear-eyed awareness & recognition of what they can so sadly & easily be at their worst.
I have a real affection for Ubik, because it's the first PKD novel I ever read. And Galactic Pot-Healer is wonderfully bizarre, while at the same time being quite moving. But I wouldn't disagree with your 3 choices, either.
For me, even the most so-so PDK novel has its great moments.
I've been doing more reading about Orson Bean, and while I can still appreciate his work strictly as an actor, I'm utterly appalled by the extremes of his later-in-life beliefs. So your deleted post did me a service.
Let me also recommend his early 1970s Western <i>Posse</i>, a terrific little film in which he plays a cynical, scheming lawman who puts on a charming façade in order to make the leap into politics. He intends to use the capture & trial of outlaw Bruce Dern as his ticket to the big leagues … but Bruce has other ideas ...
Of course it's weird and trippy, that's part of its charm!
Perhaps not an important movie, but a delightful one that the Beatles themselves liked very much, after being initially wary of it. It captures the vibe of that time beautifully, as I well remember from my teenaged years. Certainly nothing pretentious about it, as its storyline is straightforward and its message is clear: Love is all you need, all you need is love.
I'm no fan of his later-in-life politics by a long shot myself, but that doesn't change my admiration for his work. He voiced a wonderful Bilbo Baggins in the TV-movie of The Hobbit, for instance.
Agreed. An exquisitely delicate story that could so easily have gone wrong, but does everything just right. I wish there were more films like it today.
I think the length & the slow pace are required to create an experience of immensity & vastness. But again, it really needs to be seen on the biggest movie screen possible to get that across to the viewer.
It's not your sort of film & nothing wrong with that. You get nothing out of it. Others do. And there's a great deal to be found in it, for those who are open to it.
It's definitely more faithful to the book. If Jackson had followed its example and made one solid film, without any of the awful fan-fiction he concocted to pad out & cheapen the original, he would have produced a classic. Instead, he pandered to 21st Century demographics too much. The cartoon is always true to the spirit of Tolkien, with its essentially good-hearted humor emerging naturally from the character of Bilbo. But the humor never clashes with the more serious tone that develops as the journey continues & Bilbo grows as a refreshingly humble & modest hero.
Most importantly, the cartoon remembers that The Hobbit is a children's story, albeit one that grows more complex & grown-up toward the end. I do miss Beorn and the Arkenstone; if it had been half an hour longer to weave those strands into the narrative, it would have been nigh perfect. That said, what we got is still very good indeed. I especially like the inclusion of so many of Tolkien's songs to move the story forward! And the voice work is uniformly excellent.
I wish more filmmakers didn't feel the need to "improve" what was already a classic story ...
Uniformed guards would have been the antithesis of what Woodstock was all about. Everyone pretty much trusted everyone else there. That doesn't seem possible from today's viewpoint, but it was possible then.
Part of the beauty & strength of the film isn't just in what they talk about, but in how they talk about it. Neither one is impatiently sitting through the other's words, simply waiting to make his own rebuttal. They're both actively listening to one another, because they both genuinely want to know what the other one thinks & feels. And each one is more than willing to agree with the other's counterpoint if it make sense to him; neither one is obsessed with always being right, or being the winner. Each one admits to feeling a little lost, confused, uncertain. They don't necessarily have all the answers (and maybe even none of the answers), but they do have good questions. Each one comes away from their conversation having changed a little, having grown a little, having learned a little more. And probably with more & better questions, too.
The novel addresses that, in fact. In it, Turner is given one of the notebooks to peruse, and he tosses it out the door as he's about to jump to his death. Smith smiles and calmly tells him that there are two more copies. Turner stares at Smith and then simply jumps.
He didn't spell, he showed, in fluid imagery that clearly depicts the encounter with the Unknown as uncomprehendingly glimpsed by Bowman, and his transformation into a higher form of humanity by that Unknown. Everything in the film has presaged that moment & is there for the viewer to see & read all along. It was so when I first saw the film in 1968 & it's still so now. The ending is understood as an experience that is ultimately beyond words, yet can be framed & somewhat grasped by words.
Kubrick isn't lazy, he's poetic. And not everyone gets poetry. Nothing wrong with that, just different innate temperaments & worldviews.
They might well have mixed feelings about the internet, and rightly so.
Proud of the prison they've made for themselves!
Andre felt as if he should get out before it's too late, then asked, But where to? Because every place was rapidly becoming the same place. And that process is pretty much completed by now.
But can we maintain the light, life, as Andre advises, even under these circumstances?
It's quite coherent, beautifully structured & paced, with a true sense of the vastness of Time & Space & our place in all of it.