A Dangerous Method -- David Cronenberg/Viggo Mortensen's latest

having watched the making-of features on the lotr dvds -- "let's not go back to our hotels and camp out and watch the sunrise!" "but viggo we have a 6 am makeup call tomorrow." "aw come on, i'll kill, skin, and cook a goat by hand if that sways yr vote" -- i believe it to be true.

Let's not forget bro sired a child with Exene Cervanka.

man christoph walz, what a dumbass

remember viggo on fox news w/kucinich during election season?

man christoph walz, what a dumbass

no, Christoph Waltz, what a dumb original choice.

wd've played like a Martin Short SCTV sketch w/out laughs

so M. Butterfly is the only other time DC adapted a play?

s'okay. its real biopic-y, which i wasnt expecting and i think weakened the movie. the final shot is the same as the final shot in eastern promises. i liked viggo best in it

loved a history of violence, but am starting to have serious doubts about act III cronenberg

its real biopic-y,

I found this very much NOT so!

ppl got on Knightley's case, and she's uneven, but it's the toughest of the 3 principle parts. Viggo is a v funny gameplaying daddy Freud.

Hope to see this within the week. I'd have to go all the way back to Dead Ringers for a film I loved, but I continue to hold out high expectations for every one. (Part of the problem, no doubt.)

Liked this a lot. Knightley's role is indeed the trickiest but I love the way Cronenberg puts her most extreme bits of performance conspicuously in center frame, with her positioned closer to us than Fassbender, as if to say: "deal with it."

http://www.torontostandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/freud-jung.jpg
(l-r) Young Freud, Young Jung

yeah, knightley's role is really tough. i thought it was a really game, even brave performance, even if it didnt always work.

this is a really good interview that fleshes out some of the movies themes:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/11/an-interview-with-david-cronenberg.html

Anyone thought this thing was too short? I didn't feel the supposed warmth between the two men. Also: some of the cuts were inexplicable. Why did Hampton and Cronenberg make such a fuss about the trip to America only to film two scenes aboard ship? Why are we told the two men's friendship frayed when we're barely introduced to them?

It was vintage 1904 Viennese warmth. Like frozen hot chocolate.

for those who care about such things, Viggo wuz robbed of a nomination.

they preferred the psychological depths of a Jonah Hill capturing the essence of someone who never existed

a lady sitting behind me yelped out 'WHAT???' when the last scene ended, so i think she was expecting more too. i think the thing is that the material doesnt feel particularly dramatized, i wanted something with more juice

the America thing... yeah when they were boarding the ship i was expecting/hoping they'd do more with that. i thought all the exchanges between freud and jung were very good. maybe one of the two main relationships should've been foregrounded more to really do justice to either of them

thought this was mostly excellent, though it does hit the fast forward button a bit too much. all of the leads were good, especially viggo, who fuckin' nailed it as freud.

vigo was great, though as a friend of mine said, it would have been pretty dope if they had casted kelsey grammer and david hyde pierce as freud and jung respectively

lol

its real biopic-y,

I found this very much NOT so!

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Sunday, January 15, 2012 2:20 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i thought this was happily un-biopic-y. agree re: fleshing some stuff out more but i get the sense there was an attempt to stay true to the source material (which was prob lacking in this capacity).

in a lot of ways it's a slight movie but i think it will stick with me, for the acting and for how earnest it was in attempting to actually talk about ideas and stuff.

keira's performance was noticeably high-effort but i liked it--enjoyed how she seemed like she was teetering on the edge right up to the final scene.

in a lot of ways it's a slight movie but i think it will stick with me, for the acting and for how earnest it was in attempting to actually talk about ideas and stuff.

― call all destroyer, Friday, February 10, 2012 2:33 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

I guess "slight" carries a different meaning for me after reading about how enchanting The Artist is for 2 months, while ADM struggles to get seen.

You're being defensive. It's the definition of a good minor movie.

nah, I doubt I saw a dozen better last year.

A minor movie can still make a year-end list; you've included lots of films to which you've given mild positive reviews over the years.

this probably would've been my favorite movie when i was 19. it just came out too late...

is ADM really struggling to get seen?

also, what does it have to do with 'the artist'

ADM is at the local multiplex now, which is better than I thought it would get. Awards not responding though.

the artist is doing well because it's a friendly movie that had an ENORMOUS media push from the beginning. i mean, how many movie ads do you see on TV anymore, much less for a foreign film?

i get the feeling ADM has gotten minimal support from its distributor.

i have no idea what to expect from this one. i'm kind of dreading it.

is the artist actually doing well? i heard something on npr that implied that it wasn't

It isn't really, no.

Considering the number of theatres its in and the marketing push it has gotten, that is.

well it's made more money than most foreign films make in the US, that's for sure.

they are certainly pushing it really hard, though. like nothing i've ever seen actually, in terms of films that seemed destined for "art houses."

btw in industry parlance the multiplexes that reserve a few screens for "offbeat" fare like ADM are called "smart houses" (get it?) -- basically your standard multiplex but in a bit city or a town with lots of people with college degrees.

i get the feeling ADM has gotten minimal support from its distributor.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, February 9, 2012 11:40 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

well they clearly wish it was a different movie from the one cronenberg made

i have no idea how the artist is being pushed, i guess i dont really care? it seems like such a silly movie for self-confessed cinephiles to get upset about. i mean its a very slight and not that great movie, but if people really want to get excited about a black-and-white, silent french film... it is kind of not the worst thing to happen?

welcome back to ilx bro

*glances meaningfully at half-unpacked suitcase*

I think my colleague who put The Artist on his Ten Worst list wd disagree w/ you, bro.

Both ADM and The Artist are foreign films. One just had the belching power of H Weinstein behind it.

ADM's North American gross to date is $4.6 M; The Artist is $20.6, and I figure it might reach 45-50 with the Oscar win.

slocki, i don't have an opinion on the artist as movie -- i haven't seen it. i was just saying that it's being marketed real aggressively, which doesn't reflect on the film one way or the other.

lol putting the artist on a 10 worst list is exactly the kind of meta-snobby critical overreaction i'm talking about

seeing this on Tuesday

lol @ calling ADM a "foreign" film

its about foreigners

the artist from what i hear is basically kinda like good-natured semi-parody of silent films in a way, like the oss films are of spy thrillers? problem w/films that are "not bad" or "pretty good" getting huge critical acclaim is that then people feel the need to overcorrect and call them crimes against cinema or w/e, when if they'd just remained under the radar they wouldn't catch the vitriol w/o a doubt.

iMdB (which goes by where the production companies are based):

Country: UK | Germany | Canada | Switzerland

xxp