[5aces]

I didn't know women react this way if dudes watch pron.

One can only surmise from a male perspective, that watching porn may be construed as a veiled threat to the relationship.
Men desire women but women cherish the desire of a man.
If you are caught out watching porn by a significant other, the assumption by many females is that you find your mate unfulfulling and the passion cools rapidly thereafter.

My take on the film was that being with hard line Scarlett is akin to watching porn itself - fun to look at but unfulfilling.
Julianne was more broad minded and in turn provided real sex that was truly intimate, negating the immediate requirement for porn.

 

[proton007]

One can only surmise from a male perspective, that watching porn may be construed as a veiled threat to the relationship.
Men desire women but women cherish the desire of a man.
If you are caught out watching porn by a significant other, the assumption by many females is that you find your mate unfulfulling and the passion cools rapidly thereafter.

My take on the film was that being with hard line Scarlett is akin to watching porn itself - fun to look at but unfulfilling.
Julianne was more broad minded and in turn provided real sex that was truly intimate, negating the immediate requirement for porn.

 
Well stated.
Scarlett liked to be objectified without giving anything in return.
Julianne's portrayal was brilliant. Broad minded yes, but also reciprocative.
 
I wonder why this movie has a lower audience rating than critics rating on rottentomatoes. Something tells me most of the downvotes were from women...
 
Just quoting what I feel is excellent advice, from one of the IMDB reviews:

The message is not that porn is bad, only the way we think and use it is misleading to reality.

But, this is not the type of movie to watch with the family, the girl; it's funny, but not a comedy in a spoof and clown type of way. Watch this movie alone, think about yourself and how porn effects you. It will benefit you greatly.

 

[Focker]

   
 
 
I wonder why this movie has a lower audience rating than critics rating on rottentomatoes. Something tells me most of the downvotes were from women...
 
 

 
Oh yeah, no doubt. I would love to have a discussion with women about this film...there's so much in there they probably just cannot relate to at all, while at the same time we guys are laughing hysterically when he opines about the clip that cuts to the dude right when he's about to lift off 

 

[proton007]

Oh yeah, no doubt. I would love to have a discussion with women about this film...there's so much in there they probably just cannot relate to at all, while at the same time we guys are laughing hysterically when he opines about the clip that cuts to the dude right when he's about to lift off 

Ha. That clip! Pure genius. I'm sure it was nostalgic for a lot of guys.

 

[proton007]

American Hustle: 7/10 (Subject to revision on second viewing)
 

 
The acting is top notch, so good that you'll forget its acting. The pace is quick, the dialogue is full of cutting one liners, which sadly I could only catch about 80% of.

That brings me to the problem. I couldn't get some of the dialog, maybe because its too quick, or some other reason. I'll have to re-watch this one *with subtitles* once it releases on dvd.

 

[5aces]

Ha. That clip! Pure genius. I'm sure it was nostalgic for a lot of guys.

Deserves to be immortalized:

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler! Over 18+

[VIDEO]http://youtu.be/kI4PIRfG-oQ[/VIDEO]

American Hustle vs. Wolf of Wall Street = ?

Any views?

Addendum: American Hustle was a very dry movie set in the flamboyant 70's, with political corruption vs. con artists vs. office ladder climber.
Bit of of yawn, with not much fireworks. Onwards to check out W of WS, don't think it could be worse but who knows...

 

[kkl10]

2001: A Space Odyssey - 9,8
 
I've lost track on the number of times I've watched this reference work.
This is an imenselly vast and ambitious film and although I already loved it since early age, I was only able to comprehend it's full magnitude after seeing it numerous times across the span of several years. This film requires trained and cultivated eyes and ears to be fully apprecciated.
This work is greater than the sum of it's parts, it's an essay about numerous philosophical themes expressed through some of the most masterful use of cinematic expression.
Intemporal stuff and I love how it managed to evoke in me feelings of awe and fascination towards the unknown like no other motion picture did.
Mandatory stuff!
 
I see lot's of people giving too much attention to the special effects and unfairly judging the movie without really understanding it.
Special effects ought to be given little attention here, in fact it's not what's literally on the screen that matters, it's what it evokes/suggests.
This movie is not about eye candy, (although it has some) this is a conceptually complex work that requires serious intelectual commitment to be trully apprecciated.
 
My only niggle is that some acting looks slightly artificial, it becomes distracting sometimes, something I've come to notice throughout several Kubrick works.
To me this film would be absolutelly perfect with just a bit more naturalistic acting performances.

 

[Muinarc]

"Europa Report" - 5/10

It had potential but I think that going with a "found footage" style film, they were unable to develop any of the characters. This left me not really caring what happened to any of them, and they didn't use any of the isolation one would probably feel being 20+ months of travel from earth to their advantage.

 

[TheMaestro]

American Hustle :
Excellent acting across the board especially from Christian Bale. Interesting story with plenty of humour. A little boring at some parts but not often enough to ruin it. One of my favourite films this year.
8/10

 

[Audio-Omega]

Blood Diamond - 6/10

 

[kkl10]

Black Swan - 8

Good movie.
Great acting by Natalie Portman, competent directing....
I was expecting more from this movie but can't point any flaw, I feel that a slightly different and more interesting route could had been followed...
It's fully exploited by a literal interpretation of moving pictures, does not lead to deeper thinking, no second meaning.
It tries to grab the attention of the viewer and pull off some emotional reactions here and there in a simple and linear manner... does what's supposed to do I guess....
Entertaining while it lasted and managed to take a few emotional reactions from me but in the end I feel there's nothing special here and I'll eventually forget it.

 

[mutabor]

A Separation ( 2011, Iran) 9/10
 

 
A Separation won Oscar as the Best Foreign Language Film. I've watched Asghar Farhadi's latest film The Past ( 2013) prior to a Separation and now I understand that the story of The Past seems like to be a continuation of A Separation. To say the truth I liked his latest film better but I suspect that the novelty factor wears out so it depends which of Farhadi's works you've seen first. Today I've read that The Past didn't get into short list of 9 for Oscars 2014. At first I thought What! but now I think that it is a sequel to a Separation so it's in some sense a repetitive ( but worthy) experience. On the other hand a post-modernist provocateur Kathryn Bigelow somehow managed to make it with two related films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. The latter is already preposterous in current political landscape ( those who follow current condition in the Middle East will understand what I'm talking about).
 
Specific and very rare talent of Farhadi is that he manages to make family dramas so engaging and moving without usual cinematic tricks and pomp for which Hollywood is infamous especially lately.
 
P.S. I want to return to a case of Kathryn Bigelow and show how her every film rotates around violence in a very aggressive form. A woman pretending to be a macho.

 

[kkl10]

On the other hand a post-modernist provocateur Kathryn Bigelow somehow managed to make it with two related films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. The latter is already preposterous in current political landscape ( those who follow current condition in the Middle East will understand what I'm talking about).  
Specific and very rare talent of Farhadi is that he manages to make family dramas so engaging and moving without usual cinematic tricks and pomp for which Hollywood is infamous especially lately.
 
P.S. I want to return to a case of Kathryn Bigelow and show how her every film rotates around violence in a very aggressive form. A woman pretending to be a macho.

 
Strange way to describe Kathryn Bigelow... may I ask why you define her as a woman pretending to be a macho?
Her latest films, the Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty are not about provoking (although they can have such effect for someone specially sensitive about the context of the themes), at least I don't think that's her cinematic goal.
I saw these 2 movies, they're a lot more humanistic than people generally think, despite their rawness and violence depiction.
She has a way of laying bare the insignificance of the motivations that lead a person to warfare or to fatally attact someone else.
She strips away the reason to be of the protagonists when they are no longer in the "battlefield".
Her movies are more intelectual and deeper than a literal reading of the motion pictures.
There's a second meaning behind the scenes in the screen despite the raw and documentary look of her movies, that's why her movies are so good.
She has true cinematic skill, she doesn't use tricks.
 
She happens to treat about sensitive subjects on the middle east but I don't think she is doing it in a way to provoke or cause discomfort.
Her films are mostly about the person not so much about the context of the conflicts.

 

[mutabor]

First Kathryn Bigelow's cinematic attempt was a short film The Set-up ( 1978):
 

 Bigelow's short "The Set-Up," is a 20-minute deconstruction of violence in film. The film portrays "two men fighting each other as the semioticians Sylvère Lotringer and Marshall Blonsky deconstruct the images in voice-over." Bigelow asked her actors to actually beat and bludgeon each other throughout the film's all-night shoot.

 
Her first full-length feature was The Loveless(1982), a biker film which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery. It tells the story of a motorcycle gang that causes trouble in a small southern town. 
 

Interesting that the bikers themselves are rather a peaceful bunch, more interested in shooting the breeze, drinking cola and listening to rock n roll on the jukebox than causing any real trouble - it's the locals, their prejudices, and the sins of a father that lead to the brief but memorable violence. 

 
Near Dark ( 1987)
 

 ... both ferocious and lyrical, a moody horror film with the frontier community romanticism of a John Ford Western and the violent ferocity of a Sam Peckinpah film.

 
Blue Steel ( 1990)
 

 The thriller inadvertently becomes an exercise in erotic violence: Director Bigelow turns the heroine's uniform and gun into fetishism, making her film a field day for Freudian psychologists.

 
Point Break ( 1991)
 

 Part beach bromance, part cult actioner, part search for meaning, it's an adrenalin-pumping thrill ride with so much macho testosterone that it's hard to imagine many male directors with bigger balls than Kathryn Bigelow.

 
Strange Days ( 1995)
 

 Strange Days wants to say something about faith and redemption—about the importance of maintaining one's humanity in a darkened world. That's a worthy intent, but Bigelow is so enamored of high-tech thrills, and so mesmerized by the violence she seeks to condemn, that her efforts at 11th-hour moralizing seem limp and halfhearted

 
The Weight of Water ( 2000)
 

A literate presentation that wonderfully weaves a murderous event in 1873 with murderous rage in 2002. 
 

 
K-19: The Widowmaker. It is the first film where Bigelow switched her focus from crime movies of limited scope to a bigger scale of war action. Her main heroes in sequential military films ( K-19, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) are individualists who suffer from/rebel against the system.
 

 A highly fictionalized, painfully cliched tale.

 
Conclusion: Bigelow started her career with violence as the centerpiece of her stories and later she continued in the same direction. Her teacher who influenced her during college - a French sociologist Sylvere Lotringer who called himself a "foreign agent provocateur" in the US could be proud of his diligent student Bigelow.

 

[kkl10]

Hmm, OK she has featured violence in her movies, but there's still no reason to assume that she's pretending to be a macho or anything similar... otherwise I'm affraid I don't get your point.
It's important to be aware that a person aspiring for filmmaking is always going to pass through a fase of experimentation and discovery in it's earlier period of activity.
As time goes on and more works are created, experience builds up and the output will become clearer in it's style and intention, more refined.
Honestly I can't see what's so special about Kathryn Bigelow treating about violence just because she's a female...
I could probably direct you to other films featuring violence directed by females as well.
 
One particularly cruel and heartbreaking film set in the context of WWII from a russian female director comes to my mind, can't remember the names right now... it's a damn good film.
I believe this director has prominently used violent contexts in her films as well.
 
Also using a number of quotes of unknown sources looselly describing the plots or synopses of her films doesn't really tell much either...
Without actually seeing all her films it's impossible to make any sort of claim about what is her true cinematic language or ideology/political agenda.
 
EDIT: The film I was talking about is called "The Ascent" (1977) directed by Larisa Shepitko. Her ouvre is actually small because, unfortunatelly she lost her life in a car crash when she was 41 old. I highly recommend seeing this movie it's great stuff!