Jane Campion.

I'm a big fan of Holy Smoke, though I'm not crazy about the last five minutes. Winslet & Keitel were excellent excellent excellent. A very singular film. And big respect for the Neil Diamond.

Amateurist, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts as empathy is one of the last words I would use to describe her.

what a strange question!!

anyway, it's sad that directors seem to have a shelf life of about 5-7 years nowadays before everyone moves on. does anyone care about jane campion any more? some of her films are astonishing.

A few moments I loved in Sweetie: The dad asking the nodding-off slacker boyfriend "What I mean to say,Bob, is- has she got a chance?" about Sweetie's showbiz prospects; the Aussie cowboys dancing and yodeling to their boombox.

The Keats movie is good, even if Ben Whishaw is a little too emo even for this role. Lovely to look at w/out prettifying the early 19th century too much.

Can't agree with you about Portrait; Ian Softley's Wings of the Dove is a shrewder, better acted approximation of an unfilmable novel.

I mean, for all its subtleties, James' Portrait is easy to parse. Campion's movie is emotionally and rhetorically unreadable; you don't who does what to whom and why.

this aint Cliff Notes, bubba.

really like this bright star movie. in a genre (biopic) that i generally do not go for, i could find nothing wrong with it, it's really quite beautiful. and i was down with whishaw, i mean dude WAS a great doomed star-cross'dly-in-love romantic poet, if anyone is gonna be allowed to be emo...

wings of the dove was mediocre, campion's james movie was odd and not entirely successful but a good effort at least

s1ocki, I don't think it's fair to call this a biopic, esp since I saw the trailer for Amelia before this -- ugh. Keats' life is seen solely in terms of his relationship to Fanny Brawne, even if she's not in all his scenes.

Paul Schneider was much more polished than previously, even if his Scot accent may not have been.

Whishaw looked like he should be fronting the Stone Roses.

I liked this, tucked into Hoberman's review:

The requisite end titles suggest that Fanny consecrated her life to Keats’s memory; in fact, she married and had three children who eventually became rich on the sale of the letters she sensibly saved.

s1ocki, I don't think it's fair to call this a biopic, esp since I saw the trailer for Amelia before this -- ugh. Keats' life is seen solely in terms of his relationship to Fanny Brawne, even if she's not in all his scenes.

i agree. to me the best biopics are the ones that focus on a slice of the subject's life, rather than being cradle-to-grave.

but to tell the truth, fanny is more the star of this than keats is! she's in more scenes, it's more her story, which i think was a great choice. i mean even the title of the film could be said to refer to her.

yes, of course. like Amadeus ;)

(if amadeus was called "jealous guy")

i really want to see this, I think I love all her films. Yes, even In the Cut.

im waiting for someone to use teh expression "high campion"

I'm loving this movie.

Bright Star, that is.

it is great imo.

Another Campion film in which a small child serves as alert observer.

rly good film. ab-corn kills it.

ooh glad to hear this, will view.

yes i absolutely loved this. it took a while for me to adjust to the tone and work out what it was she was trying to achieve. initially i thought it was too modern, that the characters were speaking out of tone, out of period, that the characters weren't carrying themselves correctly and that she was making mistakes... but of course this is a huge part of what she is doing. i thought it was quite thrilling and unique, ultimately. the power dissipates a bit towards the end but there are some absolutely breathtaking scenes.

I love Whitshaw and Cornish's chemistry: how the movie captures the hesitation (nearly an hour passes before they kiss), then commits to their belief in the last half. Lots of effective uses of silence too (I love the scene in which Cornish just stares at Whiteshaw's dirty hand like it's a beautiful dick or something).

overrated.

Paul Schneider is best.

What the hell does that even mean, unless you're Armond White and distrust consensus?

The movie was well reviewed and made a few top tens. It wasn't even an award finalist.

what is your objection to this movie, besides ben whishaw looking too "emo" xxp

best how?

and what's overrated?

xxxp

I don't know what's his evidence. Consulting Metacritic a little while ago, not a single positive review lapsed into effusiveness.

is he saying that you are overrating whishaw and corninsh?

DR MORBIUS WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!?!

he's saying it's wrong to like a very effective movie.

I LIKE IT.

Not a patch on The Girlfriend Experience, tho.

but Soto, don't post DURING a movie.

is that an attempt armond white style "better than" thing?

whatev, kinda like Obama < Clintons, sad as it is

but Soto, don't post DURING a movie.

Eh, I'd four minutes left.

i agree with quite a few of the criticisms of the movie itt (even though overall i really enjoyed it) (although i really don't see how it's anti-queer and reactionary but i was confused in the first part of the movie because i thought kirsten dunst was peter's sister lol) but it's depressing to see every post in the thread raging at a jane campion movie; she's such a great and interesting director imo. i recommend In The Cut (2003) for haters willing to give her another shot

having never been to montana, i was able to suspend disbelief about the landscape. (i suspect that even if i had been to montana, i wouldn't care, because i'm not fussy). but the landscape was really beautiful and the valley surrounded by mountains fit the claustrophobic atmosphere. also some of the most stunning shots were the slow-mo close-ups of horses' backs which mirrored the relief

i saw this in theatres and most ppl are watching it on netflix, and i think i usually like everything 15% less by default when i watch on netflix. just something about the interface cheapens it

i think the best things about this were the cinematography and benedict cumberbatch's performance

Campion's best movies are all after The Piano. Her Henry James adaptation is one of the strangest and best. I owe Morbs for making me re-think my original response.

Interesting, because I (mostly) gave up with Il Piano. Will have to revisit.

xxp the landscape didnt look outrageously out of place to me either, i'm sure it'll look like NZ next time i watch it now that i know, but i bought it at the time (having also never been to montana). it looked unusual but i just chalked it up to not being filmed in california or arizona like most US westerns.

Oh man In the Cut was really good. I saw that movie three times, once in a theater and then twice on an airplane, I liked it so much. I should rewatch it.

I think this is a great film, and what I like is that it isnt Brokeback Mountain II, though it seems like that's where it's going for a while. But it's a pretty good take on the dangers of toxic masculinity. Set aside everything in the film and what happens at the end happened because a dude wanted to always look like a hardman who don't need no stinking gloves.

I loved the book, along with every other book of hers (Susanna Moore) I’ve read, can’t remember how I felt about that movie. Disclaimer: I had a co-worker way back when who went to college with Meg Ryan and used to refer to her as “Peggy,” which may have biased me somehow.

Susanna Moore’s first novel, My Old Sweetheart, reminded me a bit of ILB favorite Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping but I liked it a bit better.

Most people have never been to Montana or New Zealand. And most people couldn't tell you what the differences between the two landscapes might be, save -- maybe more koalas in the second?

I would have had no idea where this was filmed, or that it wasn't the US, if people on this thread hadn't repeatedly stated that the landscape looks like NZ and not Montana.

If the film was set in NZ and you told me that it had been shot in Montana then, on the basis of the pictures (if maybe not the economics), I would have found that equally plausible.

I've not been to Montana or New Zealand but I have seen plenty of films set in Montana and New Zealand, don't think you really need first hand experience to notice it.

montana or new zealand

https://carrollvanwest.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/cropped-img_0085.jpg

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/12/07/11/34/new-zealand-224510_960_720.jpg

are those koalas

Orcs imo

lol I guess when I say the landscape was obviously wrong it's really just because I've driven through Montana. But also because those particular landforms, the way the hills in the movie are shaped, really don't look like anything I've seen anywhere in the continental U.S. I didn't mind that it was obviously not Montana, I accepted it as basically the evocative set for a theatrical performance.

OTM.

I'm sure there are parts of NZ that look just like Montana, but those particular mountains looked especially volcanic and more like Hawai'i. Howzit Brah?

Campion's best movies are all after The Piano.

does Holy Smoke hold up? I haven't seen it since 1999, but at the time I thought it was pretty great/wild and overlooked

I've been to both Montana and the part of NZ where the film was filmed. I have very fond memories of that area, so was motivated to the see the movie as much by the NZ scenery as anything else. If I didn't have that specific experience I doubt that I'd have even suspected it wasn't Montana. The one scene early on where the two bros are riding through small volcanic formations would have been the only give-away, but I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in Montana there are similar formations. (Think it might be the Pisa range between Wanaka and Queenstown).

Campion's best movies are all after The Piano.

One thing's for sure, I'll never watch An Angel at My Table ever again.

That's my feeling about Sweetie.

(first pic was montana, second pic was new zealand)

Why do you guys dislike those two earlier movies so much?

AAAMT works. Sweetie concentrated on grotesqueness for its own sake without making me see the germaneness. It's been many years, though.

Among other things, it's a biopic, which is like seven strikes against it from the get-go.

well, sure, it's just like The King's Speech and The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

I didn't think Cumberbatch's performance worked while I was watching it but when I think back at what a ridiculously macho figure he cut it made me think about his relation to the other characters, and to what extent he was fooling anyone; e.g. Did Jesse Plemons's character feel sorry for him? Is that the real reason he puts up with him?

sweetie is fucking amazing. everything about it is so heightened - the colors, the framing, the performances - but it still has a real emotional core while also being very funny. the score is all gospel choir music, which doesn't make any sense but somehow still works. it's not particularly grotesque or gross imo? there's more beauty in it than grossness, especially when they leave sweetie behind to go visit the mom out west.

otoh i don't really get the critical revival of "in the cut," that's the movie that made me feel gross

I need to watch Sweetie again. It's been almost 30 years.

The Thomas Savage novel The Power of the Dog, which I've almost finished, is pretty excellent.

I really liked the book of In the Cut, probably said so recently, perhaps in this thread, but the movie I didn't dig so much.

Still haven't seen In the Cut but will check it sooner than later.

While I have your attention, did you ever get around to finishing Rio Bravo?

Sam Elliott, no longer on my Christmas card list:

“You want to talk about that piece of shit?” Elliott told the host before launching into a tirade about why the film centered around Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), a hardened and sexually repressed ranch owner in 1920s Montana, is a major misstep for the genre.

“There was a fucking full-page ad out in the LA Times and there was a review, not a review, but a clip, and it talked about the ‘evisceration of the American myth,’” he said. “And I thought, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?’”

Drawing a bizarre comparison between Campion’s vision of cowboys and Chippendale dancers wearing “bowties and not much else,” Elliott then added, “That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie look like.”

“They’re all running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie,” he continued, to which Maron countered by reminding him “that’s what the movie’s about.”

“The Power of the Dog” has indeed been praised by many for how it thoughtfully deconstructs toxic notions of masculinity and repressed homosexuality against the backdrop of the American West. The film dominated this year’s Oscar nominations with nods for stars Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Cumberbatch, as well as a history-making honor for Campion.

Elliott, who’s appeared in a slew of classic Westerns throughout his decades-long career, next turned his attention to the New Zealand director. Despite acknowledging Campion as a “brilliant” filmmaker, he took issue with her shooting the film in her native country.

“What the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American West? Why the fuck did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana? And say this is the way it was? That fucking rubbed me the wrong way,” he said.

"There’s all these allusions to homosexuality throughout the fucking movie,” he continued, to which Maron countered by reminding him “that’s what the movie’s about.”

Wait 'til he watches some of his former co-star Lady Gaga's videos.

is anyone gonna tell him about the big lebowski?

or Blazing Saddles?

Is Sam Elliott parked at the commissary?

Jeez, what a foul mouthed, wretched little creature.

sam elliott watching power of the dog https://t.co/6DqsAgu1q5

— Good Steely Dan Takes (@baddantakes) March 1, 2022

is anyone gonna tell him about the big lebowski?
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open)

or Blazing Saddles?
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Or Red River!

power of the dog is even better on a rewatch imo. the power dynamic seems so different when you know from the beginning how sad phil is and how crafty pete is.

opens in a theater near me next week & i'm very much looking forward to revisiting it on a big screen

n/a is otm, and it quite helped that I read the novel b/w my first and second viewings.

boom

Jane Campion responds to Sam Elliott's #ThePowerOfTheDog comments: "I'm sorry, he was being a little bit of a B-I-T-C-H. He's not a cowboy; he's an actor. The West is a mythic space and there's a lot of room on the range. I think it's a little bit sexist." https://t.co/I32wQ8lCiF pic.twitter.com/Tftq4AoXCy

— Variety (@Variety) March 13, 2022

kinda put her foot in her mouth shortly thereafter tho

Lol “kinda”

it's kinda likely to cost her an oscar

Haven’t they voted already?

Voting runs March 17-22.

I bet she still wins. She will get fewer votes, but it's hard for me to imagine any of the other nominees overtaking her at this point.

yes, think she will win best director and the film will win best picture

Called it.