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 Country Strong 

What grade would you give this film?
A 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
B 14%  14%  [ 1 ]
C 29%  29%  [ 2 ]
D 43%  43%  [ 3 ]
F 14%  14%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 7

 Country Strong 
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loyalfromlondon
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Post Country Strong
Country Strong

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Country Strong (originally titled Love Don’t Let Me Down) is a 2011 country drama film about fictional country singer Kelly Canter, portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow. Also starring Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund, and Leighton Meester the film was directed and written by American filmmaker Shana Feste. It premiered in Nashville on November 8, 2010, and had a wide release in the United States on January 7, 2011. This is the second film in which McGraw and Hedlund have worked together, the first being Friday Night Lights in 2004 where they played father and son.

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Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:13 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
Pretty Average Soap Opera Type Picture and the Writer should be shot for the ending of the 2 women characters.

Like that girl would really go to that hick town when she made it...or even stay with the guy at all.

Nope.


Fri Jan 07, 2011 9:12 pm
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Post Re: Country Strong
It plays exactly like a country song. There's a little bit of simple melodrama mixed in with brief glimpses into true tragic elements, alcoholism (although Kelly's only shown drinking twice...that makes sense), with an ending that's bittersweet (or formulaic and manipulative depending on how you view it, not to mention it can be seen coming like a Mac truck barreling down a highway).

Spoiler: show
If you were disappointed with the film The Rose and how it didn't show her suicide, then this is the movie for you! Oh, and I want to punch the writer who thought it was a good idea to set everything in motion by using her visit to a Make a Wish kid with leukemia. It was the one nice scene in the movie and then they go and completely ruin it when the main plot literally cuts it off. Fuck you Shana Feste!

And I know Tim McGraw's character is supposed to be a complete asshole, but considering Kelly was five months pregnant with his child, drunk while performing on stage, then falling ten feet off said stage causing a miscarriage (I should mention this is all implied and not seen), should we really feel that badly that she kills herself after her perfect Dallas performance? What about McGraw? The last shot we see of his character is of him breaking down in the hospital lobby when he learns that she's dead. He probably won't put a shotgun in the back of his throat...


In other words it's fucking shit.

No Stars

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Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:26 pm
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Post Re: Country Strong
So Country Strong has the same plot as Black Swan?

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Sat Jan 08, 2011 10:13 pm
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Post Re: Country Strong
LOL :P This was terrible. That being said, I had a blast watching it.


Sun Jan 09, 2011 3:01 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
Country Strong is a lovable mess of a movie.

It's actually a lot like this week's other new release, Season of the Witch, in that it has some great components wasted in the directionless directing and screenwriting. The four leads would've been fantastic in a better movie. Some of the songs and their production numbers were awesome, though often interrupted by the bothersome script. Even the overall story idea was fun in it's hyperventilating dramatics.

Another missed opportunity.

Since remakes are invading our moviespace, here's a ripe plum for the picking in 2026 - - I see a 40 year old Lindsay Lohan in the starring role, accompanied by two young stars of the future celebrating their 3rd birthdays later this year, and of course, Tim McGraw reprising his role as the impotent husband.

Yep, I would love to see this movie done right, but as it stands Country Strong just cruelly teases us with glimpses of the greatness that could have been.


2 out of 5.


Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:37 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
As a film it's so bad. If it didn't have name stars like Gwyneth Paltrow attached it would have been a Lifetime Original Movie. It certainly feels like one. The characters are so one-note and the script is just cliché after cliché. I'm not asking for all movies to have some original concept, but if you're going to recycle a formula please do it well. "Country Strong" is a laughable and at times cringe-worthy mess of a melodrama. The only one who is able to come out of this movie mostly unscathed is actor Garrett Hedlund, who was actually pretty charming. I usually like Gwyneth Paltrow and Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, but this movie is almost enough to make me rethink just how much. I also had a problem buying a young country starlet giving up a career on the brink of big things to go live happily ever after on a ranch with a guy, satisfying her passion for singing by performing Saturday nights at a bar, all in the name of "love." What kind of message does that send to young women? Certainly a problematic one, not to mention entirely unrealistic. And the outcome of Gwyneth's character is such a phony attempt at manipulating the audiences into giving a damn.

The only reason this doesn't get a completely failing grade is because it's mildly entertaining. If you want basically the same story but with a male protagonist and done well (and with actual authentic country music, not the modern pop-country you'll find here) then watch "Crazy Heart."

Grade: C-


Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:15 am
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llegó a la casa vía marítima
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Post Re: Country Strong
This reminds me of the Natalie Portman movie "Where The Heart Is".

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Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:19 pm
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Post Re: Country Strong
Where the Heart Is was WAY better than this. :P Just watched it with my friend and it sucked. :P

5/10

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Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:37 pm
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Post Re: Country Strong
movies35 wrote:
Where the Heart Is was WAY better than this. :P Just watched it with my friend and it sucked. :P

5/10


This is not better than Insidious :P.


Fri Apr 22, 2011 12:21 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
It is. ;)

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1. La La Land
2. Other People
3. Nocturnal Animals
4. Swiss Army Man
5. Manchester by the Sea
6. The Edge of Seventeen
7. Sing Street
8. Indignation
9. The Lobster
10. Hell or High Water


Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:11 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
This is the kind of film that you are supposed to root for the main character even though she's a complete bitch. There isn't one redeeming quality about Paltrow's character except that she can sing. But she's a drunk, stuck up, cheating, whoring, dispicable human being but because she can sing, I'm supposed to root for her? Fuck her and this movie.

3/10


Fri Apr 22, 2011 10:43 am
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Post Re: Country Strong
Not an awful movie, but very much a misguided one. The actors are good in general, though. None of them deserve even an iota of blame. I've always thought Tim McGraw had a compelling, lived-in quality on screen, not too dissimilar from, say, Josh Brolin. This was true in Friday Night Lights, in The Kingdom, and it's still true here. One of the better musicians turned actors going. Garrett Hedlund nicely broods and smolders as a Ryan Bingham-esque upstart country singer. He seems a lot more confident and comfortable here than he did in the Tron sequel. And Gwyneth Paltrow, in addition to nailing the singing (you don't have to see the movie to know she accomplished this), gives a convincing, boozy, larger-than-life performance. She's fun, and at times heartbreaking, to watch.

The movie also has several nice elements. Whereas Crazy Heart sidestepped it, this digs into the hesitant relationship between "the real deal" (grumbling, whiskey-swilling cowboys) and the new pop class (glitzy stadium tours and overly finessed production) at the heart of modern country. There's an amusing moment where a starlet, played by the adorable Leighton Meester, is excited to hear she's been compared to Carrie Underwood, then inquires who Townes Van Zandt is. The milieu--with its Live Nation banners and costume fixation--feels real enough.

But all the colorful performances and music-industry humor in the world can't overcome the fact the entire enterprise is built on a false, maybe even offensive belief. At one point a character says fame and love can't coexist and, much to my surprise and dismay, the movie ends up completely agreeing. This isn't, in the end, a portrait of a famous, award-winning tortured soul (the Paltrow character) who, because of her alcoholism and personal losses, can't keep it together anymore. It's a portrait of a good girl who left small-town, stay-at-home ideals behind, made a Faustian deal with the fame monster, and achieved a period of fame followed by inevitable, melodramatic ruin. And she's contrasted with the Hedlund character, who, of course, thumbs his nose at fame and doesn't pay any mind to money and just wants to play good music for good, hard-toiling people in an out-of-the-way dusty bar on a warm Saturday night, HALLELUJAH GODDAM. And between these two is the Meester character. It's a war for her soul. Will she embrace those dirty arenas and labels and big-name producers and travel the road to depression and destruction? Or will she follow torn-jean-clad Hedlund to the land of the real?

It's just a bogus, old-fashioned conceit. Fame doesn't have to destroy. A fetish for the "common people" (thanks, Jarvis) despite potential isn't necessarily redemptive. So small-minded. It also all seems especially hard on women. I can't imagine Paltrow, clearly an intelligent woman, and burgeoning female writer/director Shana Feste buy it themselves, yet, despite good intentions and good music, they've made a movie promoting it. A pity.

C-

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Mon Aug 29, 2011 11:59 pm
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