I will miss Roger Ebert if he goes before me. Who, but Ebert, can speak such great truths in movie reviews (as follows) and not be accused of “damning by faint praise”?
After you get to a certain point with an actor, you don’t much care what he does, you just want to watch him doing it. So it is with Duvall and Murray.
And who, but Ebert, can get away with using a word like . . oleaginous . . in his reviews?
Yeah, I kinda thought the word related to good olf oleo-margarine but, really, when is the last time I read/heard anyone use the word anywhere?
Movies, for the most part, are not brain food. Fewer are soul food. A few more achieve the desired goal of entertainment, escapism, but amongst the latter genre I’ve become increasingly put off by “the audience”, so I rarely go to the movies anymore. (I go, in part, to “suspend disbelief” and to be drawn into the story. I do so hate being drawn back into a theater seat/auditorium by the endless flipping up of mobile phone screens, the running commentary or dialogue of those who just cannot not hear themselves talking, etc.)
Based on Ebert’s review I’m going to pay my fare to see “Get Low”. Why? Because . .
After you get to a certain point with an actor, you don’t much care what he does, you just want to watch him doing it. So it is with Duvall and Murray.
If you haven’t seen “Winter’s Bone” I recommend it, for brain and soul. It’s not an extraordinary script/tale (it’s quite good) so much as it is such great “film craft” – without “the benefit” . . cough . . cough . . of big name actors. It left me leaving the theater feeling a bit of the same feeling I get when watching teams/players playing in the NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” and Final Four.
Like someone actually poured a bit of their soul into acting in the movie, filming the movie, directing the movie, editing the movie.
Now THAT sense or feeling, in watching a movie and leaving a movie theater, is rare in my movie going experience lately.
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