Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

This forum is to learn about foreign cultures and habits, because language skills are not everything you need as a world citizen...

Moderator:Forum Administrators

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-22, 19:10

vijayjohn wrote:"Those Ghana movies"?

Nollywood?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-07-23, 3:39

linguoboy wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:"Those Ghana movies"?

Nollywood?

Or Ghallywood/Kumawood?

User avatar
Yasna
Posts:2672
Joined:2011-09-12, 1:17
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Yasna » 2017-07-23, 3:50

Today I watched テルマエ・ロマエ (Thermae Romae), about a Roman bathhouse architect who time travels between ancient Rome and modern day Japan. It's a very original story which had me laughing throughout. The architect speaks Japanese in Rome and Latin in Japan. Sounds weird but it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naLPpDqoFu8
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-27, 3:06

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

I got accused of "spoiling" it by discussing one of the characters on Facebook, but really this one comes pre-spoiled. I had fun because my expectations were basically set to zero. (I only went because it was a friend's birthday.) I haven't been to see any CGI-heavy film in the theatre in years, so it's likely I was more impressed by the visuals than more jaded cinema-goers.

How bad is the acting in Valerian? So bad I was cutting the leads extra slack because I assumed neither was a native English-speaker. (Spoiler: Both are.) They had so little chemistry I thought the film stock was going to revert back to crude oil. But, hey, they look gorgeous, right?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2017-07-27, 4:03

I want to see this. Luc Besson is a hugely overrated director who makes hilariously campy sci-fi garbage, and that is precisely what I am in the mood for after this largely depressing summer.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
Luís
Forum Administrator
Posts:7874
Joined:2002-07-12, 22:44
Location:Lisboa
Country:PTPortugal (Portugal)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Luís » 2017-07-27, 6:30

I went to see it yesterday. The visual effects are great, but the acting is terrible (Dane DeHaan is particularly bad) and the plot is just too predictable.
Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-27, 20:15

Good critical piece [TOTALLY SPOILERIFIC!] focusing on the gaping hole in the middle of the screen where Valerian and Laureline's relationship should be: http://www.tor.com/2017/07/25/valerian-is-supposed-to-be-about-love-why-is-it-so-unromantic/
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-07-28, 4:54

linguoboy wrote:How bad is the acting in Valerian? So bad I was cutting the leads extra slack because I assumed neither was a native English-speaker. (Spoiler: Both are.)

This managed to remind me of Skwerl, which I'm surprised to say has only been posted once before on this forum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

User avatar
Luís
Forum Administrator
Posts:7874
Joined:2002-07-12, 22:44
Location:Lisboa
Country:PTPortugal (Portugal)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Luís » 2017-08-20, 16:15

I just watched Левиафан. What a depressing movie. Great cinematography, though.
Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Osias » 2017-08-20, 16:41

Valerian. I liked but Claudia left the theater in the middle of the film. There are some issues but I found it good, anyway.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-08-20, 17:14

Luís wrote:I just watched Левиафан. What a depressing movie. Great cinematography, though.

Tragedies can often make for really good movies.

User avatar
france-eesti
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4236
Joined:2016-01-02, 19:41
Gender:female
Location:France
Country:FRFrance (France)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby france-eesti » 2017-08-23, 20:23

The Beguiled
by Sofia Coppola, acting Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Durst
Sadly, it's been kind of boring all the time, while the promised Thriller was anything but a thriller...
I liked Virgin Suicides, I kinda liked "Lost in Translation", but this one was really lower... That's a shame, because I really liked Nicole Kidman in "The Others" but this role was beneath her...

Okay... Then maybe next time I'll fire 10€ to the cinema, I'll have a better surprise :roll:
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-23, 20:42

france-eesti wrote:The Beguiled
by Sofia Coppola, acting Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Durst

That movie was very controversial in the USA because of the way it focused only on white characters. In the 1971 film version, the woman who spent the most time tending to the soldier was a Black slave named Hallie, and she was written out of Coppola's version.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

User avatar
france-eesti
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:4236
Joined:2016-01-02, 19:41
Gender:female
Location:France
Country:FRFrance (France)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby france-eesti » 2017-08-24, 13:29

You're right! I hadn't realized this! Though I didn't see lots of movies taking place during the Secession war (of course, you have the classical Gone with the Wind) but you're totally right. At the same time, the action takes place in a very locked-up scenery, and the girl-only pension can be an explanation for being a White-only pension (but I'm not accurate enough in this area of the History of America to go further into explaning why it may be this way) :roll:

I also noticed this movie was a bit too wise, too much of "not taking positions" and above all, completely message-free - so I guess they carried on with the "we don't want to take any political side" by not showing any slave... That's just an idea.
(fr) Native - (en) Fluentish - (pt) Fluentish when I was younger - (hu) Can sustain a conversation with a patient and kind magyar or order some beer and lecsó in Budapest - (it) On Duolingo ma posso ordinare uno Spritz ed antipasti in un ristorante :blush:

User avatar
linguoboy
Posts:25540
Joined:2009-08-25, 15:11
Real Name:Da
Location:Chicago
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-08-24, 15:26

france-eesti wrote:You're right! I hadn't realized this! Though I haven't see lots of movies taking place during the War of Secession[*] war (of course, you have the classical Gone with the Wind) but you're totally right. At the same time, the action takes place in a very locked-up scenerysetting, and the girl-only pensionboarding school can be an explanation for being a White-only pensionboarding school (but I'm not accurate I don't know enough inabout this area ofera in the history of America to go further into explaining why it may be this way)

[*] In the USA, rarely called anything other than the "Civil War", although other names do exist.

It's justified within the film by saying that the schools' slaves have "run away". But the point is that this is a deliberate choice on the part of the director (as was the decision to make a film set during the Civil War at all, which is an interesting choice given the current political climate in the USA to say the least).

france-eesti wrote:I also noticed this movie was a bit too wiseclever, trying too much to "not take positions" and above all, completely message-free - so I guess they carried on with the "we don't want to take any political side" by not showing any slaves... That's just an idea.

Basically, Coppola didn't want to deal with the complications of reminding her audience that her protagonists owned other people and forced them to do work for them. I'll leave it up to you to ponder why she might have made that choice.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Varislintu
Posts:15429
Joined:2004-02-09, 13:32
Country:VUVanuatu (Vanuatu)

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Varislintu » 2017-09-15, 16:49

linguoboy wrote:Good critical piece [TOTALLY SPOILERIFIC!] focusing on the gaping hole in the middle of the screen where Valerian and Laureline's relationship should be: http://www.tor.com/2017/07/25/valerian-is-supposed-to-be-about-love-why-is-it-so-unromantic/


Yeah, I sat here and read that and just went "Yeah..!" over and over again. I agree with the writer's take pretty much completely. What a weird movie!

I also saw Baby Driver, which was kind of a stupid movie, and extremely stereotypical through-and-through. But it managed one thing just a little bit better than most of its kind: it actually gave a reason for why the boy and girl liked each other -- they shared an interest in music. They talked about it, on screen, shared opinions. Just that made it much more palatable than Valerian, despite Valerian being a more interesting genre of movie for me.

I'm just so bummed that two of the rare movie nights we get nowadays have been slight disappointments. The best one, hands down, was Your Name (Kimi no na wa), the Japanese anime. And boy was it good! I really liked the plot and how they managed to tell such a complicated tale without it getting completely muddied. It was also a very pretty movie, utilising cutting edge anime technology that looked pretty amazing. I can recommend this movie to all who might suspect they might be interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRfHcp2GjVI

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-14, 21:06

Just so I get some more exposure to Amharic without leaving the house ( :silly: ), I've been watching an Ethiopian movie with English subtitles released this year called Ke'eletat, which apparently means something like 'once upon a time'. I believe that's pronounced [kəʔələtat]. I'm having a hard time following the plot; apparently, it's about a woman who is raped in front of her boyfriend, then has a child as a result but finds out too late to get an abortion, then the child dies, but then she has another child, which she says is her dead child who God resurrected and returned to her, but then some other lady says it's her biological child (???), so then I guess they're fighting over him? Oh, and the kid is precocious but suffers from asthma. The background music also seems really weird and strangely timed with no transition between one piece of music from one style and another in a completely different style, and the motivation for pairing a musical piece with a particular scene is unclear.

But this is probably one of the best Ethiopian movies there is. Apparently, the Ethiopian movie industry is young and doesn't have very many movies yet.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Osias » 2017-11-15, 0:58

I can't find even a wikipedia page for that! :o
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

vijayjohn
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:27056
Joined:2013-01-10, 8:49
Real Name:Vijay John
Gender:male
Location:Austin, Texas, USA
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-11-15, 0:59

Yeah, there really seem to be very few Ethiopian movies out there! I feel like only about ten of them seem to have a Wikipedia article.

You should be able to find something relevant to the movie, though! :P

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Which movie(s) have you watched lately?

Postby Osias » 2017-11-15, 15:02

I don't want "something relevant", I want to know what Wikipedia says!

Also Tvtropes, but that's too much to hope for.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.


Return to “Culture”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests