August was a dead quiet month for me. Well actually it was extremely busy. But my film watching focus was on films to consider for The Blue Mountains Film Festival, which I can’t really share my thoughts on here. But I thought I would still post this up quickly, just to share my thoughts on the couple of cracking things I did manage to check out.
Worth Watching:
- Behind the Candelabra (2013), Steven Soderbergh – Apparently not deemed ‘too gay’ for Aussie cinemas which is fantastic. Soderbergh in top form. The film looks great and the performances are extraordinary. Damon is really good as always, but Michael Douglas just kills it as Liberace. One of those rare films that is essentially all just sitting around and talking, but which is never less than totally engaging.
- Weeds Season 6 (2010), Jenji Kohan– Having the Botwin family on the run is a nice change-up for this series, which had grown ever so slightly stale (seriously, only ever so slightly). Rarely has a screen big or small seen a hero as flawed as family matriarch Nancy Botwin. Whilst there is no core storyline as strong as many of the previous seasons, and also less of the peripheral characters that made the show so incredible, a fantastic last couple of episodes are the sweet icing on what is still an excellent season of telly.
- Pacific Rim (2013), Guillermo Del Toro – Del Toro has done a hell of a job bringing this passion project to life. This is a film that is rambunctious fun, thanks to its playful tone. And Del Toro’s designs perfectly bring to life those childhood dream robot vs monster fights. Whilst I’m not entirely on the bandwagon with this film, it is still one hell of a ride in what I think has been a pretty decent blockbuster season.
Not Worth Watching:
- Absolutely nothing.
If you only have time to watch one Behind the Candelabra
If you only have time to watch two Pacific Rim
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Hmmm, I endured the first one, even though Matt is oftentimes painful to watch Rob Lowe was hilarious. I didn’t really care for pacific rim though even though I adore Idris Elba.
That’s interesting you didn’t think much of Behind the Candelabra. It has gotten pretty much universal love as far as I can see. I can understand not being entirely sold on Pacific Rim too, even though I enjoyed it.
its just Matt Damon there’s something about him, whenever I watch him on screen I almost have involuntary dry wretch. Perhaps if he wasn’t in it i would have liked it a lot more, also maybe if someone like PTA directed it instead of soderbergh, because the story as definitely lacking.
Haha, wow. That is quite the reaction you have to Damon. I quite like him. I do get what you are saying about the lack of story. The narrative is not really the focus of the film.
I also got the sense that mat damon was just reaching for his brokeback mountain moment in the sun, which sickened me, considering the subject matter , i found his performance exploitative of the culture. i enjoyed michael’s performance, loathed soderberghs direction, loved rob lowe, ( who doesn’t hes such a mad fucker),
and loathed matt damons performance and character, i have a feeling that is was so one sided. His character seemed to work hard for liberace yet none of this was emphasized in the film, he was basically seen as a worthless gold digger the whole way through, regardless of the representation of the way that liberace saw him I felt that the audience was entitled to see his real character as well, since he made up such a big part of the film, i also think that the film could have delved a little deeper into liberaces past relationships and the life that Matts character had after liberaces death. There also needed to be more emphasized drama or action of some kind, the film barely even delved that heavily into liberaces performances and left out so much about his life while focusing one this one main relationship without going to the effort of building any of the characters that thoroughly. personally i think it was a fairly lazy effort which was left to the actors to carry the story and matt damon wasn’t up to the task, Michael however shone very well.
I agree that Douglas was better than Damon. But I didn’t get any sense from Damon’s performance that he was not being genuine in any way. I thought his performance was pretty good. How exactly do you fell his performance was exploitative of gay culture? I definitely think that those aspects you mentioned could have been explored in more detail. But that would have made it quite a different one than the one Soderbergh wanted to tell. You don’t have to like Damon or Soderbergh, or their work. But I personally don’t feel that there was anything malicious about what they brought to the film.
Looking forward to getting as far as S6. I’ve just started watching Weeds, and really enjoying it (only 6 eps in though…).
Nice. My fiancee and I only started watching Weeds a couple of months ago, and have tore through them on DVD. Tis a fantastic show, especially the first 2 or 3 seasons. But even the later ones are still well worth checking out.
I really, really want to see Behind the Candelabra! Didn’t like Pacific Rim!
That’s interesting man, I thought you might have liked Pacific Rim. Good luck getting a hold of Candelabra, tis well worth it.
I’ll be on the lookout for Candelabra. I don’t think they’d give it a theatrical release over here but maybe I should be available to rent soon.
And I didn’t hate Pacific Rim, but it was way too cheesy for my taste.
There was definitely more than a hint of cheese with Pacific Rim.
Too much for me! haha
I loved Pacific Rim, thought it was just great big fun. Really want to see Behind the Candelabra too.
Great big fun is basically the perfect summary of what Pacific Rim was all about.
PACIFIC RIM!!!
So I’m guessing you were a fan then?
Yep 😀
I loved Behind the Candelabra, way more than I thought I would 🙂
Glad to hear man. Pretty much everyone seems to have loved the film.