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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > A few musings, that's all...
icon3.gif A few musings, that's all...  [message #5765] Thu, 07 November 2002 00:05 Go to next message
lenny is currently offline  lenny

On fire!
Location: Far Away
Registered: March 2002
Messages: 1755




I didn't watch the movie when it hit the theatres. Movies are expensive in this country (about US$7.50-8.50 a pop or more if it's a really long one - sigh: "The Two Towers", come this december).

So today, acting on a hunch, I bought the DVD instead. Twice as expensive as going to the cinema (and then some), but at least now I can watch it as many times as I want out of the comfort of my own home. And, I get to listen to the director's commentaries too, which I have yet to do.

It's only a little over one and a half hours long, but it feels like a lot more. Not because it is slow and boring, no.

It is a movie, like every good movie, stuffed full of imagery and impressions in almost every scene. Some are so full of it, I had to rewind a few seconds and just lean back and experience it all over again...

Stephen King's books have never been good movies if the content matter was horror-based in my opinion. True, I have not seen "Cujo", or "The Shining", so I don't know about them. But "It" was awful. "The Tommyknockers" was plain BAD (how can you cast that Smits guy as Gardner? That's stupid!). "Carrie" was... Well, lacklustre, I'd say. ...And so on.

But the movies based on drama have been fantastic. I've heard tons of great stuff about "The Green Mile", and "Shawshank Redemption" is clearly one of the best movies ever made. And "Stand By me" moved me more than almost any other movie has ever done, before or since. Who cannot help to love it?

So acting on a hunch, I picked up "Hearts in Atlantis". And it was a powerful tale indeed. Not the best of them, but it was a sight to behold all the same!

The reason I liked it was because of the strong lead character I think. No, not Anthony Hopkins, who of course gets all the thunder on the cover. We don't even get to see the face of the true star of the movie (just his hand), much less his name...

Anton Yelchin. That is his name, and I don't know anything about him, except he has an abundance of acting talent brought forth by a tremendously expressive face full of emotions, and some truly magnificient eyes. Don't know if it's done on purpose, but we get many scenes with that face and those eyes in close-ups. They're almost liquid, those eyes. They give him great intensity somehow.

One particular line made me sit up and think. It wasn't some thought-provoking poetic thing like you might expect - no. It was just a simple question delivered in an utterly convincing manner that sparked recognition in me, woke up a dormant memory that forced me to pause playback and go through my entire collection to find out where that sense of deja vu had come from. I knew I'd heard it before of course, in EXACTLY that tone of voice too!

It was said by another kid actor, an even younger one, and one undeservedly hated by many I'd say. In fact, I actually rather liked his performance. It was Jake Lloyd, in Episode One of the Star Wars saga.

Weird coincidence...


I won't tell what "Hearts in Atlantis" is about. You should find that out yourselves if you haven't watched it. All I'll say is, that like "Stand By Me", it is a tale from a kid's perspective. A bit about kids being kids, a bit growing up, and a bit about growing old too. A tale of closing a circle, in a way. And it is a great, and a wonderful one.

Go see it.



"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
icon14.gif I agree, Lenny! Terrific movie, indeed!  [message #5766 is a reply to message #5765] Thu, 07 November 2002 00:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
david in hong kong is currently offline  david in hong kong

On fire!
Location: American working in Thail...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 1101




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"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
icon7.gif Re: A few musings, that's all...  [message #5771 is a reply to message #5765] Thu, 07 November 2002 11:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mt is currently offline  mt

Toe is in the water

Registered: November 2002
Messages: 93



Thanks Lenny! And welcome back!

Wink

MT
icon8.gif FAAAAAARRRRRKKKKK!!!!  [message #5783 is a reply to message #5766] Thu, 07 November 2002 19:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
lenny is currently offline  lenny

On fire!
Location: Far Away
Registered: March 2002
Messages: 1755




TIMMY!!!

Aagh! I'd spent an hour of my life literally writing the most marvellous (in my own opinion) post about the commentaries track of this movie (and others), and got the error screen because I'd mistyped the password. Upon pressing the "back" button, I found that my post was not cached in the browser. It was ALL GONE.

Wasted.


Aaaaggghh! This SUCKS! *POUTS*

It has never happened before, it has always remembered my stuff previously when I'd forgotten to enter or mistyped the password. Has some change been made to the infrastructure that caused this to happen, or was it just a cosmic fluke?



"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
Re: FAAAAAARRRRRKKKKK!!!!  [message #5794 is a reply to message #5783] Fri, 08 November 2002 12:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796



cosmic fluke. Login before you post if want to avoid cosmic shit.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
You're right, I should log in properly.  [message #5797 is a reply to message #5794] Fri, 08 November 2002 14:52 Go to previous message
lenny is currently offline  lenny

On fire!
Location: Far Away
Registered: March 2002
Messages: 1755




Unfortunately, sometimes I don't notice I'm not logged in before I've already typed up the post. Sad

The same thing happened to me in England btw, I was writing a long email through my hotmail account, and I got auto-logged-out:ed during typing. Then it refused to accept my password when I tried to log in again, and since I had selected a higher security level the "back" button presented me with a clean form. My mega-email was all gone. Sad

Agh. I shall see if I can manage to try to cobble that post together again some day.

-L



"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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