This gets a Good. I liked this movie a lot. I thought Mos Def was very good and is in the early running for a 2007 Beeb. I also thought Bruce Willis and David Morse were good. I enjoyed the story, I liked the tension of the movie, I liked the sense that there was more attention paid to character development in this movie as compared to a standard action film. All in all, I thought this was very good. Maybe not a great movie, but very solid in my book. I would recommend it.
16 comments:
Looks like a lot of critics liked Mos Def's performance, but it's going to take a lot more than a good Mos Def perf and a "good" recommendation from the Common Beeb for me to see an action film starring Bruce Willis.
The short list of Bruce films I have liked: 1) The Sixth Sense; 2) Pulp Fiction; and 3) The Verdict (flawless in his role as an uncredited courtroom observer).
The last action film I remember digging: Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels, which I saw on TV (or DVD).
Think of it as slumming, you could give it a shot sometime? Right?
I hadn't realized that Bruce was in one of my all-time-favorites, "The Verdict" (for which Paul Newman should have won the Oscar). That's an excuse to see it again. I love Bruce Willis, anyway, and love action films in general.
I also love The Verdict, but not because of Bruce Willis's uncredited non-speaking role as someone sitting in the courtroom.
It was not being able to go see The Verdict that allowed me to choose to watch Joust playing itself instead of Tootsie.
Please explain "Joust playing itself instead of Tootsie." Why could you not go to see "The Verdict?" Have you ever seen it? I remember crying (as in sobbing) when PN didn't win, and have stayed angry about it all my life. Maybe, when I do my RNR's I will give an award for most deserving films/performances that didn't win (or were not even nominated.)
Ruth,
We're so on the same page, the words are overlapping. PN's performance is the performance that influenced me the most in my life. I plan to learn that monologue that Lumet filmed in one long shot with only a move in with the camera just because I want to have it in my brain. I don't even know who won that year. And I don't care...Bruce Willis was good too.
"Watching Joust Play Itself Instead of Tootsie" is a story of mythic import in our family. Brian was seven years old when Tootsie and The Verdict came out. I suspect that Mom and Dad believed The Verdict was too old for him (and Lisa, too), so when they went to see it at the mall in Odessa, they bought tickets for Brian and Lisa to see Tootsie. Brian found Tootsie to be so boring, that he left in the middle and chose to wait in the lobby watching the video game "play itself" (not having any quarters, he couldn't actually play the game himself). What, I ask you, could be more pathetic than a seven-year-old, alone in the cineplex lobby, watching Joust play itself over and over again?
What a great story about 7-year-old Brian. He was the most impressive child I have EVER known. My family are always doing impressions of him as a toddler.
Jack - so good to hear someone who totally agrees with me. The actor who won that year was Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. It's interesting to read the comments by the users on IMDb about The Verdict, especially when they share my conviction that PN should have and deserved to win. I think (and many others agree) that the Academy tried to make up for their mistake by awarding him the Oscar for "The Color of Money." I like Ben Kingsley and admire his work; however, the static nature of the part of Gandhi couldn't hold a candle to the multi-layered texture and strength of Paul Newman's performance of a lifetime. I assume you're talking about Galvin's summation speech. That's a wonderful monologue.
Well, given it's import in family history, I guess I should probably see The Verdict, huh?
For Bruce Willis's performance alone--a mighty yes.
I used to like Gandhi, until I read Salman Rushdie's attack on its politics. Now I have mixed feelings about it. I seem to remember that Rushdie felt the film did a disservice to history of India by depicting Gandhi as a one-man band.
For Paul Newman's performance of a lifetime and the best he ever gave, including the roles for which he is best known, a mighty YES! Then, a review, please. I think I might rent it tonight.
i think we are missing the mythic import of the fact that i was left alone in the theater watching tootsie--maybe when the budding of my total embrace of androgyny and gender bending began? I loved tootsie. and i love drag queens and i love mannish women and womenly men.
Do you think that if Brian had stayed in the theater alone and you had watched Joust, that he might have gone gay and you might have ended up working for the defense industry? What would happen if the two of you did the reverse experiment today, thus undoing the childhood shaping experience?
freaky friday dude. we should totally try it.
: )
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