Rod wrote: Ahhhhh, I looooooooooooooove this film. And I think your top 10 of 2002 is great, dolcevita...minus Gangs of new York...yuck.
Everyone says that. I'll gladly Back-n-Forth someone whose willing to stand-up to my fangirl-ness when it comes to that film.
Rod wrote: It's my second favorite movie of 2002 actually...it's in there with The Hours (which many people criticized for not going deep enough into their depression and the cause for it...I think it was self-explanatory, but...) Far From Heaven, About a Boy, Chicago, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and others.
The acting was superb. Zooey Desachanel was very good in her small role, I agree. Jennifer Aniston...it was, IMO, the biggest snub of 2002. SHe was completely deserving of an Academy Award (nomination). Not for a second did I think of Aniston, or, more importantly Rachel. I don't know what else can be said about her performance...she was 100% beliavable.
Okay. I'll take you on that since both you and PE say that she was convincing. I don't think she's a bad actress at all, I just think she was already a bit too well known and not in a way that was manageable. I actually found alot of her habits and facial gestures to be very Rachel-esque. But I've only seen friends maybe 10 times in its entire run, so it may have just stood out to me more. I'll say her casting was like Bardot in Contempt. She did a great job with what she was given, but I never forgot who she was. Sometimes directors do this on purpose because they want the history of the actress to be part of the film. I don't think that was the intent here though. It was the intent with Jake G. Because his past role was an angsty teen, and they wanted him to bring that history to this movie. I just think he went overboard and was given too superficial of a role for that to work.
Rod wrote: It's also a hilarious movie. Granted you feel guilty about finding ssome situations so funny given the context of the humor, but I love dark humor like the one in the movie. It's a movie in which you more or less know how it's gonna go, but you enjoy the characters going through the journey regardless and, yeah, you feel a little disgusted watching her make some of the decision she does. But part of what makes it so great is the irony in it all.
I don't know, but the ending is as disgusting, as it is funny, as it is...satisfying. And I jsut loved every single thing about this film. I don't understand the comparisons to Madison County...I mean, there have been many other films done on a somewhat similar subject...but the same can be said aobut just about everything else...and as long as they add something to the genre, then I welcome them.
Just about every great movie begins witha great script, and Mike white has done a wonderful job here.
A great movie, and one that has grown on me with time. i love it.
I think the hilarity was misplaced. It wasn't dark at all...it was just situational. Which was the problem. American Beauty had "Dark" humor. This just has comic relief because the director wasn't willing to explore the questions too profoundly. Everytime it would get interesting it would get broken up by some comic relief or an easily anticipated "turn of events." So that you never had to deal with anything too seriously, not did you have to read the script as incorporating humor that would later make you deal with it seriously. It was a comic movie, but the director wanted it to be serious, and couldn't navigate the two.
The Comparison to Madison has to do with the landscape the two were set into, and the primary issue being a woman having to come to grips with how her life is not where she intended it to be. The questions of family and considerations of allegiances are very similar, but I thought Bridges made a much more convincing arguement as to how the heroine navigates her decisions in life. It is never a situational force of hand, it is not like anyone "finds-out" at a key moment, or an unexpected pregnancy, etc. It is just Streep struggling to figure out what she thinks she can get out of her own life. Aniston's take on it is too dependant on extremeties, and again, the running narration just made it way too boring and simple for me. Not once are you left wondering what she was thinking or why she respinded to something as she did. Those ambiguities are what lallows you to think about the movie after the fact. I really, didn't think about this movie once after I saw it with the expecption of trying to understand why I didn't really like it.
-Dolce
|
You didn't like Jennifer Aniston in this? This is honestly one of the best performances of the year and was snubbed the Academy for a nomination and what shocked me was how she could do a movie like this when she has done so much... crap. (Besides Friends) The supporting cast is good as well, Reilly does a good job playing Justine's pot addicted husband (though it is quite odd that all the roles I've seen him in were in the role of a... husband) and Jake Gyllenhaal (who I kind of find annoying) is pretty decent. And I thought that the ending where she had to pick her "destiny" was another reason I loved it. Justine chose to do what was right for her, she chose to stay with her husband and raise her baby properly. (I think she knew she was pregnant before that crossroad thing I believe, gah, going blank)
There was this sort of thought in my mind that made it feel odd because I've seen her for 10 years on a TV Show but as the movie got on I forgot about that.
Yeah, I'm pretty interested in seeing what others thought of the movie. (Or if no one saw it... hehe)