Oh I'm sorry, Did I Break Your Conversation........Well Allow Me A Movie Thread by S&T

You know, I just may go on a Hoffman marathon later this week. There's a few of his flicks I haven't seen.

*SIGH*
 
That's nice like rice venom! Don't forget to post stuff. Try & get inside scoop... I'll rep ya when my limit expires... Good to see cool NTers do their thing. Not many people can say they're actually doing something they love...
 
For those who passed along kind words about my work over the weekend, just want to say that I've just gotten word that I've been credentialed to cover this years Tribeca Film Festival again. So thanks to those of you who follow my work and visit the site from time to time.

:hat congrats. Well deserved. Keep it up.
 
Thanks guys. The list of films that make Tribeca won't be out for at least a month I believe as the festival is April 16-27. But Tribeca is known to have great indies and great documentaries. The Pretty One which hits theaters on Feb 7 made my top 10 of 2013 and I saw it at Tribeca last year. So it's always great to cover this festival as I'll be doing so for the 2nd time.

It's my 5th major film festival I've been credentialed / covered
 
NYPD hunting for Hoffman’s heroin dealer after 70 bags found

By Jamie Schram, Larry Celona and Philip MessingFebruary 3, 2014 | 11:46am

The NYPD on Monday launched an intensive citywide search to identify the drug dealer who sold heroin to troubled Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of an overdose Sunday in his Greenwich Village pad — where cops found nearly 70 bags of the drug.
“An internal email went out to all supervisors asking if anyone has had any experience with those brand names of drugs,” a law enforcement source told The Post. “They’re going to try to find the source.”

Timothy Bugge, the new commanding officer of narcotics enforcement for the Manhattan South precinct, emailed the alert to supervisors asking if they had dealt with heroin labeled “Ace of Spades,” or “Ace of Hearts.”

Cops found nearly 70 glassine envelopes of heroin with those markings in Hoffman’s $10,000-a-month Bethune Street apartment.

The law enforcement source said that a process called “a nitro dump” could be key to cracking the case.
“Basically what that is, is any time we make a narcotics arrest we include the brand name on the arrest report and store it in our system so our investigators can see where those brands are being sold,” the source explained.

Once they determine a location, they can zero in on the dealer or dealers selling that particular brand.

Hoffman was found dead with a hypodermic needle stuck in his arm.

Authorities have warned that heroin addiction is soaring and noted an uptick in the availability of the drug.

Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a heroin mill bust in the Bronx after the agency seized $8 million worth of the drug.

The DEA has warned that people who are addicted to opioid prescription pills are now finding highly pure heroin easier and cheaper to obtain, according to CNN.

It produces a similar, if more dangerous, high because unlike with the pills, there is no way to regulate the dosage of heroin, given the undetermined purity.

Authorities are also concerned about a supply of heroin that is laced with fentanyl – an opiate given to cancer patients to soothe their pain.

The supply has been linked to more than 100 deaths in America – with more three dozen deaths in Maryland since September.

Meanwhile, there have been almost 20 related deaths in Pennsylvania in the last month alone, and another 22 people dying of heroin-fentanyl overdoses in Rhode Island last month.

Fentanyl can be 10 to 100 times stronger than morphine, according to CNN.

It was not clear if the heroin Hoffman used contained the dangerous opiate.
 
http://mentalfloss.com/article/49913/10-movies-roger-ebert-really-hated


10 Movies Roger Ebert Really Hated

1. Armageddon, one star. OK, say you do succeed in blowing up an asteroid the size of Texas. What if a piece the size of Dallas is left? Wouldn't that be big enough to destroy life on Earth? What about a piece the size of Austin? Let's face it: Even an object the size of that big Wal-Mart outside Abilene would pretty much clean us out, if you count the parking lot.

2. The Brown Bunny, zero stars. I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.

When the movie’s director responded by mocking Ebert’s weight, Ebert said, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny."

3. Jason X, half star. "This sucks on so many levels." Dialogue from "Jason X"; rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.

4. Mad Dog Time, zero stars. "Mad Dog Time" is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me care about how bad they were. Watching "Mad Dog Time" is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line.... "Mad Dog Time" should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor.

5. The Usual Suspects, one-and-a-half stars. Once again, my comprehension began to slip, and finally I wrote down: "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care." It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand. It was just that there was less to understand than the movie at first suggests.

6. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, zero stars. [The title character] makes a living prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie. "Deuce Bigalow" is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.... Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

7. North, zero stars. I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

8. Spice World, half star. Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of A Hard Day's Night which gave The Beatles to the movies...the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented--while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts.

9. Good Luck Chuck, one star. There is a word for this movie, and that word is: Ick.

10. Freddy Got Fingered, zero stars. This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
 
:lol It always funny when I see lists about movies Ebert hated. His critique of The Usual Suspects is classic not taking the movie for what it is and expecting something else, something more grand. I don't see how in the beginning or throughout the movie let on this idea that there was more to understand than what was actually in the movie. Don't over complicate things. Reminds me of dudes always looking for clues at the end of an ep, searching for some hidden message or deeper meaning.

:{ @ even rating Spice World. Stuff like that makes it hard to take a person serious.
 
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3. Jason X, half star. "This sucks on so many levels." Dialogue from "Jason X"; rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.
i seen this in the movie theater with my dad.
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Watching a movie called Flawless right now. Searched PSH on the guide and recorded a lot of his stuff that I both have and haven't seen.

Hoffman plays a cross-dresser to De Niro's homophobic cop.

Funniest thing so far? Hoffman, who was not nearly a handsome dude, isn't nearly the most hideous cross-dresser that has ever been. Read about him playing this role and expected to have nightmares about how he looked. :lol

Doesn't seem like a particularly strong script, but I did want to see him play such an unconventional role opposite another elite actor.

Excited to re-watch The Ides of March tomorrow (it's on Sundance). Glad I got to see two of my favorites work together (Hoffman and Giamatti), and in such dueling roles. Always fun.

Still super bummed. 40+ baggies and 20 already-used needles? Jesus, man.
 
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Good point on Ides. Not only those two, but Clooney and Gosling on the other side, kinda like "oh hey, we needed a few more actors to throw in, here ya go" :lol

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. :smokin
If I remember, I caught that recommend early on in this thread, I think.


Still, he will forever be Sandy Lyle to me. Every single scene. |I
 
Speaking of George Clooney films...

The Monuments Men is not receiving very favorable reviews right now...

That's a shame.
Was looking forward to that ensemble of actors.

Ima still check it out but from the sound of it, Clooney may of officially made his first dud as a director/writer.
 
Speaking of George Clooney films...

The Monuments Men is not receiving very favorable reviews right now...

That's a shame.
Was looking forward to that ensemble of actors.

Ima still check it out but from the sound of it, Clooney may of officially made his first dud as a director/writer.

When I first saw the cast (especially Bill Murray) and read the basic plot outline, I was very interested in Monuments Men. The previews I've seen have made me increasingly less interested. Looks like its going to be a pretty paint-by-numbers war movie
 
Speaking of George Clooney films...

The Monuments Men is not receiving very favorable reviews right now...

That's a shame.
Was looking forward to that ensemble of actors.

Ima still check it out but from the sound of it, Clooney may of officially made his first dud as a director/writer.

I've been saying this for months. The Monuments Men has all the signs of being a huge flop.

February releases aren't given to strong / Oscar contender films.

Big casts like this are often mishandled.
 
An Actor Whose Unhappiness Brought Joy

By A.O. SCOTT FEB. 3, 2014

It was clear, at least since he won the Oscar in 2006 for “Capote,” that Philip Seymour Hoffman was an unusually fine actor. Really though, it was clear long before that, depending on when and where you started paying attention.

Maybe it was when he and John C. Reilly burned up the stage at the Circle in the Square in the 2000 revival of Sam Shepard’s “True West.” Or maybe it was even earlier, in the wrenching telephone scene in “Magnolia,” the disturbing telephone scenes in “Happiness,” the sad self-loathing of “Boogie Nights” or the smug self-possession of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” that brought the news of his special combination of talent, discipline and fearlessness.

Further evidence is not hard to find. Mr. Hoffman worked a lot over the past 15 years or so — in ambitious independent movies, Hollywood blockbusters and theater productions on and beyond Broadway — and nearly always did something memorable. (If you remember anything about the 2004 romantic comedy “Along Came Polly,” for instance, it is likely to be Mr. Hoffman’s terrible basketball skills and the equally dubious romantic advice he gives to Ben Stiller in that film.)

His dramatic roles in middle-sized movies (“Capote,” “25th Hour,” “Doubt,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “The Savages” and “Synecdoche, New York,” to keep the list at a manageable half-dozen for now) were distinguished by how far he was willing to go into the souls of flawed, even detestable characters. As the heavy, the weird friend or the volatile co-worker in a big commercial movie he could offer not only comic relief but also the specific pleasure that comes from encountering an actor who takes his art seriously no matter the project. He may have specialized in unhappiness, but you were always glad to see him.

Mr. Hoffman’s gifts were widely celebrated while he was alive. But the shock of his death on Sunday revealed, too soon and too late, the astonishing scale of his greatness and the solidity of his achievement. We did not lose just a very good actor. We may have lost the best one we had. He was only 46, and his death, apparently from a drug overdose, foreshortened a career that was already monumental.

We will be denied his Lear, his Prospero, his James Tyrone in another “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” (He was the son Jamie in a 2003 production of that play.) But he had already, in the last few years, begun to shift from troubled adults to tragic patriarchs. His Willy Loman in the 2012 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” was a scalding, operatic depiction of vanity, self-delusion and raw emotional need, conveyed with force and delicacy sufficient both to deliver the play’s message and to overcome its sentimentality.

What he did in “The Master,” his fifth film with the writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, was even grander. It may take the world a while to catch up with that journey into dark, uncharted zones of the American character, but once it does it will discover, in Lancaster Dodd, an archetype of corrupted idealism, entrepreneurial zeal and authentic spiritual insight.

But also, as that character likes to say, with ostentatious modesty, of himself: just a man. Dodd is flesh and blood, appetite and imagination, a precisely rendered creature of his place and time. Mr. Hoffman’s diction, his barreling physicality, his displays of Rotarian jollity and earnest intellectualism establish Dodd as an exemplary (if eccentric) postwar American, an expression of the same curious cultural ferment that produced Willy Loman.

Of course “The Master” is after something more than reimagined history. Like Dodd himself, it wants to penetrate the perennial mysteries of the human personality, one specimen at a time. Dodd is a healer, a con artist and a self-proclaimed prophet. He is also, perhaps above all, an actor: a performer, an impromptu singer and stand-up comedian, a man with a Method. He calls it the Cause, but his technique of psychological exploration, based on the excavation of memory and the opening up of barricaded emotional territory, shows clear affinities with the process most stage and screen actors use to find their way into a character.

Mr. Hoffman’s way — not necessarily affiliated with any particular school or ideology, and above all the product of his own restless intelligence and relentless drive — took him further and deeper than most of his colleagues would be willing to venture.

Lancaster Dodd could have been a familiar type: a charming, slippery, charlatan. Mr. Hoffman made him more than that. One of his earliest scenes is an interview — part therapy, part interrogation — with Freddie Quell, a disturbed veteran played by Joaquin Phoenix. The unmistakable rumble of Mr. Hoffman’s voice conveys both sadism and compassion: Dodd’s simultaneous urges to help, to seduce and to dominate his new protégé. Later, when Dodd makes a toast at his daughter’s wedding banquet, we see both his arrogance and his insecurity, and catch a flicker of the loneliness that feeds his insatiable and destructive hunger for love.

Dodd at once invites our judgment — he does terrible things in the service of questionable ends — even as Mr. Hoffman compels our admiration. His goal seemed to be not just the psychological truth that has long been the baseline criterion of post-Method acting, but a moral uncertainty that remains too fraught and frightening for many of us, in art or in life, to engage.

This is not just a matter of seeking out gray areas or mapping ambiguities. Hoffman’s characters exist, more often than not, in a state of ethical and existential torment. They are stuck on the battleground where pride and conscience contend with base and ugly instincts.

Lancaster Dodd sacrifices his intelligence on the altar of his ego. Truman Capote risks his integrity and betrays his friends in pursuit of his literary ambitions, his motives a volatile mixture of compassion and morbid curiosity. The schoolteacher in “25th Hour” and the lonely predator in “Happiness” are both indelibly creepy. The frustrated academic of “The Savages” is merely (if also splendidly) misanthropic, and the grumpy theater artist of “Synecdoche, New York” may be merely (if also baroquely) frustrated. The priest of “Doubt” and the would-be criminal of “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” are potentially much worse.

These are not antiheroes in the cable television, charismatic bad-boy sense of the term. They are, in many cases (and there are more, going all the way back to “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and even the 1992 “Scent of a Woman”), thoroughly awful people: pathetic, repellent, undeserving of sympathy. Mr. Hoffman rescued them from contempt precisely by refusing any easy route to redemption.

He did not care if we liked any of these sad specimens. The point was to make us believe them and to recognize in them — in him — a truth about ourselves that we might otherwise have preferred to avoid. He had a rare ability to illuminate the varieties of human ugliness. No one ever did it so beautifully.
Real.
 
For those who passed along kind words about my work over the weekend, just want to say that I've just gotten word that I've been credentialed to cover this years Tribeca Film Festival again. So thanks to those of you who follow my work and visit the site from time to time.
congrats man.
 
10 Films to See In February



The early months of the year can be bleak for a cinephile, but while one catches up on everything worthwhile  from 2013, there are a handful of notable features to seek out this month. While we'll save the VOD titles for our weekly wrap-ups  and when they hit theatrical release, one should note the recommended  Grand Piano  is now available to stream. Moving on to the theatrical releases of February, there's a handful of independent features and some high-profile studio dramas, but animation is king this month. Check out our rundown below and let us know what you're most anticipating in the comments.

Matinees to See:  The Pretty One  (2/7),  Vic + Flo Saw a Bear  (2/7),  Adult World (2/14),  In Secret  (2/21),  Omar  (2/21)

10. Winter's Tale  (Akiva Goldsman; Feb. 14th)

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Synopsis: A burglar falls for an heiress as she dies in his arms. When he learns that he has the gift of reincarnation, he sets out to save her.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: Every Valentine's Day we seem to get a by-the-numbers romance that hits all the marketable notes (see: Endless Love), so it's refreshing when an entry comes along that looks to be doing things differently. Such is the case with the directorial debut of longtime Hollywood producer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. Based on Mark Helprin's celebrated novel, the adaptation could easily collapse under the weight of its ambition, but we're hedging our bets that'll be one of more interesting studio releases this season.

9. The Pretty One  (Jenée LaMarque; Feb. 7th)

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Synopsis: When a woman's identical prettier twin sister dies, the woman assumes her sister's identity, moving into her apartment and the big city.

Trailer

Why You Should See It:  Slowly building up an impressive resume the last two years, Zoe Kazan and Jake Johnson  have now teamed for this high-concept comedy. We reviewed  it out of Tribeca, saying, “It’s when The Pretty One  focuses on Laurel’s identity crisis in the smallest and most intimate of moments that it truly shine. It’s too bad that subplots and clichés hold the film back from being a truly special indictment of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Even still, it’s a funny and unpretentious study of identity.”

8. A Field in England  (Ben Wheatley; Feb. 7th)

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Synopsis: Three soldiers who, fleeing from a Civil War, escape through an overgrown field and are ambushed by two dangerous men, who make them search the field for treasures.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: After being mostly enamored with Ben Wheatley's last two features -- the nightmarish thriller  Kill List  and one of the strangest road trip dramas we've seen, Sightseers  -- I was slightly let down by his fourth film, but it's still one worth seeking out. Heading back to the Civil War, the black-and-white descent into madness is pulled off, but begins to feel repetitive. Our official TIFF review  was more positive, saying, it's "strange, captivating, metaphoric, and utterly obtuse."

7. The Lunchbox  (Ritesh Batra; Feb. 28th)

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Synopsis: A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to an older man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: After recently dipping his toes into the Hollywood system with The Amazing Spider-Man  and Life of PiIrrfan Khan  has returned to his native land for a new drama, The Lunchbox. Initially premiering at Cannes Film Festival last year, Ritesh Batra's debut film stopped by Sundance last week and will arrive in theaters this month. A sentimental, but seemingly well-crafted story of married woman looking for a connection and finds it through her cooking skills, it looks like one to watch.

6. The Monuments Men  (George Clooney; Feb. 7th)

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Synopsis: An unlikely World War II platoon are tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: Once destined to be a late-year prestige drama, after a delay,  George Clooney's latest film is now arriving this week. Early reviews seem to be mixed, hinting that the director doesn't adequately find an engaging tone, but with lowered expectations, we'll be pleased if it's simply a fun '50's and '60's-esque throwback. Hopefully it'll also be worth watching for the cast alone, which includes our director, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bob BalabanBill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin  and  Hugh Bonneville.

5. Non-Stop  (Jaume Collet-Serra; Feb. 28th)

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Synopsis: An air marshal springs into action during a transatlantic flight after receiving a series of text messages that put his fellow passengers at risk unless the airline transfers $150 million into an off-shore account.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: While some cinephiles laud the vulgar auteurism of Paul W.S. Anderson  -- note that his latest, Pompeii, doesn't appear on the list — I believe there are few more promising B-movie directors than Jaume Collett-Serra. As his adaptation of Akira  fell apart, he got back into the  Liam Neeson  business, crafting what looks to be a delightfully preposterous airplane thriller. The inclusion of some of the best up-and-coming actors (Lupita Nyong'o, Corey Stoll, Scoot McNairy, and Nate Parker) also has us looking forward to more than just Neeson front and center.

4. Jimmy P.  (Arnaud Desplechin; Feb. 14th)

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Synopsis: A Native American Veteran suffering from a series of psychological issues develops a deeply powerful friendship with his progressive French psychoanalyst as they discover and attempt to understand the source of his illness.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: After his acclaimed 2008 drama A Christmas Tale, director  Arnaud Desplechin  returned to Cannes last year, reteaming with Mathieu Amalric  for the drama  Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian,  as its original title went by. Although we weren't fans of it at Cannes (one can read our full review), I'm looking forward to giving it a watch, considering the caliber of talented involved.

3.  Child's Pose  (Calin Peter Netzer; Feb. 19th)

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Synopsis: Seeing a way to reassert control over her adult son's life when he faces manslaughter charges, an affluent Romanian woman sets out on a campaign of emotional and social manipulation to keep him out of prison, navigating the waters of power, corruption and influence.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: A key figure in recent Romanian New Wave, Calin Peter Netzer  debuted his latest drama to high praise at Berlin Film Festival last year, where it picked up the top prize of the Golden Bear. After a festival tour that included Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, AFI Fest, and more, along with being Romania's official Oscar entry, it'll finally arrive in limited release this month.

2. The LEGO Movie  (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller; Feb. 7th)

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Synopsis: An ordinary LEGO minifigure, mistakenly thought to be the extraordinary MasterBuilder, is recruited to join a quest to stop an evil LEGO tyrant from gluing the universe together.

Trailer

Why You Should See It: For those expecting a dumbed-down feature-length advertisement for the toy line, our full review  of The LEGO Movie  should be more than enough to convince you otherwise. One of the best studio animations Hollywood has released in the last few years,  21 Jump Street  and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs  directors  Phil Lord  and Chris Miller  conjure up some of the most impressive, detailed animation I've ever seen. With a witty and affecting script that will appeal to both kids and adults, it's a complete blast.

1. The Wind Rises  (Hayao Miyazaki; Feb. 21st)

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Synopsis: A look at the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II.

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Why You Should See It: While I don't consider myself a Hayao Miyazaki  superfan, I've enjoyed his animation, but always felt at a distance to his work. With his final feature, The Wind Rises, the director loses the fantastical elements his career has been built upon (aside from a few dream sequences) and the result is an emotional connection I've rarely felt in the field of animation. The film deals with obsession, guilt, and loss more effectively than any live-action film I saw last year. Unfortunately Disney's release this month will be dubbed, but the film comes with the highest of recommendations.
 
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