Talk About Movies: Part 4

Not sure I would race to use Wes Anderson's style as a litmus test for any actors or actresses capabilities. Though I am a noted Anderson detractor.

Jay Kelly was fine. Wouldn't necessarily say good. But definitely not bad. Good overall theme to it but didn't do anything that new.

As a direct comparison, Sentimental Value has stuck with me more and had more gravitas. I will be very sad when Stellan Skarsgard doesn't act. Love me my Scandinavians.

Happy New Year everyone

Seems to be a Marx Brothers marathon on TCM. Not sure how late it goes.

Marty Supreme was my favorite movie of the year. Great cast led by Chalamet, and Kevin O’Leary delivers a surprisingly great supporting performance.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Scott Cooper, 2025

Good, low-key telling of the making of - what I consider - Springsteen's best album, Nebraska. Jeremy Allen White channels Springsteen's dark vibe during this time quite well, even if he doesn't look much like him. I liked the childhoord flashbacks, with a great Stephen Graham playing his father. The flashbacks are obviously cliche, but they work.

There's nothing revelatory about the movie, but I enjoyed it. I think they could've done without the little romance Springsteen has with a local gal (played wonderfully by Odessa Young - nothing against her), but ironically, what the movie could've used was less "movie" and just strip it down to being nothing more than being about the music - just like the fight Springsteen is having - in the movie lol - to keep his songs the same as they sound on the lousy cassette tape he recorded them on.

Now THAT could've been a very interesting, albeit not very commercial, film lol. More about his inspirations - Flannery O'Connor, John Houston, Terrance Malick's Badlands, etc... And if the filmmakers had maybe used the actual true story as inspiration for their movie, they might've had a more memorable film.

Still, definitely worth watching if you're a Springsteen fan.

How does it rate against the Bob Dylan one from last year? I liked that a lot since I know so little about Dylan. I don’t know much more about Springsteen, so it might work for me.

Here, I thought JAW was the weak point of the movie. He does the moody tortured artist ok (see The Bear), but just doesn't capture the physicality of Springsteen. I think I liked every other performance better (except Jake Johnson).

Watch the Netflix doc Springsteen on Broadway instead. Then watch the Billy Joel doc on HBO.

Loved the Springsteen on Broadway. Billy Joel is on the list

Marx Brothers films have been a New Year's Eve staple for years, well before streaming. Loved watching them.

Last night's double feature was Talk To Me, first feature from the Philippou brothers. Nice horror film, bloody as hell.

Also watched Rio Bravo by Howard Hawks. Quite the cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan, and Angie Dickenson.

Dean Martin plays a deputy who has been an alcoholic for the past three years and is suffering from withdrawal. He gives up whiskey but beer is okay. I wonder if that was the usual take on alcoholism when Rio Bravo was made. Hard liquor bad? Beer okay?

Walter Brennan is fantastic as the aging sidekick. See Brennan in the film and others where he plays the goofy comedic sidekick and, for example, My Darling Clementine where he plays the menacing patriarch of the Clanton gang.

Hawks was a director who could do everything, from comedy to westerns to film noir equally well. He made Rio Bravo, Scarface, Bringing Up Baby, and The Big Sleep.

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Didn't see it

one thing I didn't mention is that during the time he was making Nebraska, Springsteen was also suffering from depression...and that's a big part of the movie.

And horror too.

I often thought of Rob Reiner as a modern-day Hawks.

I always thought of Reiner as the American version of Alan Parker, or a modern John Huston....but Hawkes is a good comparison, too.

Bright Star by Jane Campion

The film is about the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Knowing about Keat's poetry and having read the letters of Keats to Fanny Brawne, I knew how the film would play out. Knowing the story, though, hardly makes a difference.

This film is beautifully shot, and the actors, Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, and Paul Schneider as Keats, Brawne, and Keats' patron, Brown, are terrific.

Bright Star is a love story between Keats and Brawne, but it is also a love story between Keats and Brown. At the end of the film, Browne reads a letter announcing Keats' death and says, I didn't realize how he had wound himself around my heart.

I loved that the film uses both Keats' poetry and his letters to Brawne. It makes the film so much richer and intimate.

My favorite poem is Keats' "To Autumn," which speaks of life overflowing from Spring to the beginning of Autumn before the harvest and ends with the stubble plain after the harvest. Both, for Keats, have their own music.

Such a beautiful film, and I'm glad I've finally had the chance to see it.

*Years ago during Monday Night Football Howard Cosell used an analogy that began, "As John Keats wrote in his second letter to Fanny Brawne. . . ." I wondered how many football fans got the reference.

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And a couple more things about Bright Star. The end of the film shows Keats' hearse next to the Spanish Steps. The Keats/Shelley house is right next to it. I tried to visit a couple years ago, but there was a water leak, so we couldn't go in. Sorry I missed it.

And stick around for the credits. Ben Whishaw does a beautiful reading of "To a Nightingale."

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I love that movie...and I chose "Bright Star" as my short-form literature pick for our Art Of the 20th Century draft many years ago lol.

The leads were great.

“Stick to beer” was a default take into the early 90s at least.

He was pretty good as the trillionaire kid in the new Alien thing.

FYP. 😀

Cosell aging like fine Scotch imo.

One guy I used to play poker with ran into Cosell in a toilet and asked how he was doing. Cosell responded, "I've been to Zaire, Africa, Paris, France . . . " and so on.

I always liked Cosell.

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The Chalamet erasure in this thread is WILD to me. He absolutely crushed it in Dune 1+2, he was terrific in Ladybird and Call Me By Your Name. I've yet to see Marty Supreme but I'm a Safdie Bros fan boy so I'm sure I'll enjoy that. Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in and go to bat for the guy. He also does a great Bob Dylan impression.

Genuinely forgot he was in Ladybird.

Will see Marty Supreme soon and cast my official die on him.

He’s the best young actor alive.

The duality of man.

The PR people are trying to avoid the inevitable doomed comparisons to Balls of Fury.