Does anyone remember "Ordinary People" from 1980. It won a few Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director (Robert Redford). It's a great film and over the years it's become a classic. If you haven't, rent it. Movies don't get much more powerful than this.
Otherwise known as the film that robbed "Raging Bull" and Martin Scorsese of their Oscars.
Quote from: MacGuffinOtherwise known as the film that robbed "Raging Bull" and Martin Scorsese of their Oscars.
hehe.....You just killed the thread! :wink:
Quote from: MacGuffinOtherwise known as the film that robbed "Raging Bull" and Martin Scorsese of their Oscars.
Yes, thank you. That's why I will always be biased against this film.
I read a 2nd draft of the script when I was in film school, and had nothing to do. There was a little script library down on Water Street in Vancouver, so I headed out and did the whole thing in a few hours. I dunno, but unless they did some great re-writes, it didn't seem all that great. That being said, I still want to see it one day, if for nothing else so I can compare a script to a movie I hadn't seen yet.
i just saw it recently (mostly due to PTA screening it for his crew for magnolia along with Network, and not to its undue best picture win), and thought it was good. it was good and sad, reminded me a bit of moonlight mile (or rather the other way around). but if you havent seen it i would say its worth watching.
Pauline Kael despised it, but I have a fondness for this autumnal/wintry type of film (in tone and composition, I mean). It's much along the lines of Woody Allen's Interiors- Bergman goes American suburbia, in this case.
about time some one mentioned this movie here, ha, im actually friends with noah hutton, timothys kid, it was cool i got to hang with them and deborah winger one time...good times
Quote from: Mellow Fellowabout time some one mentioned this movie here, ha, im actually friends with noah hutton, timothys kid, it was cool i got to hang with them and deborah winger one time...good times
Did Winger's personality at all reflect all the things you hear (I think she's a terrific actor, but I've never read or heard about even one instance where she really got along with cast or crew)?
"Ordinary People" shouldn't be compared with "Raging Bull". They are both classics and they are both great in their own way. If "Raging Bull" came out a year before or after "Ordinary People", then maybe people out there could stop comparing them. Take them as individual efforts. Personally, both movies were at number 1 on my top ten list of 1980. Both were the best films of the year.
Quote from: godardianPauline Kael despised it.
Yeah, but she hated everything.... any similar recomendations to Oridinary People?
regarding deborah winger as was inquired, she seemed pretty awesome to me, made really good food
Quote from: Duck SauceQuote from: godardianPauline Kael despised it.
Yeah, but she hated everything....
Aren't you forgetting a little movie called...
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN!?!? :wink:
Ordinary People's got a hell of script.
Quote from: EL__SCORCHOOrdinary People's got a hell of script.
Based, as I recall, on a book I've never read. Or even heard of aside from the movie, though it was apparently a passing best-seller type of thing... that's why I'm afraid to read it, I don't want to compromise a perfectly good movie experience by associating it with some therapeutic potboiler of a book. I'm of the opinion that if a bad movie can ruin a good book, then the converse must also hold true.
Quote from: Mellow Fellowabout time some one mentioned this movie here, ha, im actually friends with noah hutton, timothys kid, it was cool i got to hang with them and deborah winger one time...good times
two of my best friends are good friends with noah as well. they went to a college program over the summer with him. in fact, i think they recorded music together. i wouldn't be surprised if you met.
It's unusual that there is almost only one piece of music throughout this film, Canon in D. That's just about it. It's amazing how Robert Redford can make such a great film with only one piece of music in it.
The book Ordinary People was highly praised, at least by Time magazine.
I have mixed feelings about the film. I remember when it came out, it didn't look that interesting. But people kept raving about it, so I saw it, and I had a rather neutral response -- not bad, not good, just there.
I think if Gene Hackman had played the therapist, and if Ellen Burstyn had played the mother, it would have been much better. I felt that both Judd Hirsch and Mary Tyler Moore are pretty one-dimensional actors, and I simply didn't buy Moore as a Nurse Ratched type.
However, I do know some people who related strongly to the film, had similar relationships to their parents, etc. Undoubtedly, there was some core of truth to the film.
I think Mary Tyler Moore was very good in it, she was successfully unlikeable to me but not to the point where I couldnt sympathize. Burstyn would have been better, but MTM still was great/
I actually just saw this a few weeks ago. I thought it was very good -- the comparisons to Bergman are quite appropriate. But the psychiatrist subplot hasn't aged well, I think. Especially if you've seen the (inferior) 'Good Will Hunting,' which follows exactly the same healing trajectory. Other than that, it was an incredible movie. I love the rather fragmented storytelling approach; every scene feels like a brief interlude, almost an individual episode, and the way they slowly start to build on each other is very effective.
It's been awhile, but I loved it, especially the scenes with the psychologist. It is sad, but I don't think Scorsese will ever get his deserved Picture/Director Oscar. That shouldn't interfer though with the judgement, the Oscars are quite horrid really.
my favorite moment was on the golf course where the fight between the two parents took place. it was such a climax of building tension, similar to the affect magnolia had on me when he we keep seeing Phillip Baker Hall becoming sicker and sicker on live TV until he finally passes out.
Robert Redford (the director) is 66 today! Does anyone agree with me that he's a better director than he is an actor? Apparently the Academy thinks so since he beat Martin Scorsese for "Raging Bull" that year. But the Academy is hardly ever fair or even right.
Figured this would be as good a place as any for some more Redford news:
Robert Redford on art and politics
WASHINGTON (AP) — Paint helped turn Robert Redford into an actor.
"I was first sort of recognized as a person through my art," said Redford, who began his career as a painter and was in town to deliver a speech at the Kennedy Center on supporting the arts.
"I spent a lot of time (in school) finding things more interesting out the window or not coming in at all, so I was always getting in trouble. I spent a lot of time at the blackboard, either being punished, or drawing because that's something I could do," Redford said in an interview with AP Radio.
"There was no real program in school at that time," he said. "I was fortunate that it went that way for me because God knows where I'd be without that support."
Also, Redford is throwing his support behind something he has shunned in the past — a sequel. He and Larry Gelbart are co-writing a script that follows up on 1972's "The Candidate."
Redford doesn't ever do sequels because he says he has too many other stories to tell, but he was intrigued by the thought of where character Bill McKay would be 30 years later.
"The thing that really pushed it across for me already having said no was the idea that the character I am today would be president, looking at an ad running against him of himself as a younger man when he stood for something he no longer stands for," he said. "He's so far removed from that person. Me looking at myself as a younger person just felt kind of good."
"The Candidate" was about how politics stresses style over substance. So what about Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Redford said he was opposed to the California gubernatorial recall in general, but was staying neutral when it comes to Schwarzenegger.
"I don't know Arnold, but he's a colleague. The only thing I would say is that I think given his money and whatever celebrity he does have, he'd probably be more effective out of politics and doing what he wants outside rather than inside."
ok everybody who rented this and and network after you saw the magnolia dvd rasise your hands
I'm happy to say that I saw it way before I saw the "Magnolia" documentary.
I saw this movie on IMDB's movie of today and started thinking back on it. It's a really excellent drama, one of the first and best to analyze dysfunctional families. All the performances and the direction by Redford were great. I hated that it was up against "Raging Bull" cuz they're totally different from each other.
Quote from: Small Town LonerI hated that it was up against "Raging Bull" cuz they're totally different from each other.
yeah, all movies released in the same year should be exactly the same.
Quote from: PubrickQuote from: FinnI hated that it was up against "Raging Bull" cuz they're totally different from each other.
yeah, all movies released in the same year should be exactly the same.
I'm not saying they should all be the same, but those two movies were both great in their own way and it's unfair to choose one over the other. But that's what the award shows have to do.
Quote from: PubrickQuote from: Small Town LonerI hated that it was up against "Raging Bull" cuz they're totally different from each other.
yeah, all movies released in the same year should be exactly the same.
that is a rather brilliant idea...
much like the chinese year of the monkey, rooster etc.
for instance...2006 is year of the dark comedy or action adventue or whatever and all directors must submit their entry...
of course the "year of" categories could be announced well in advance to allow for pre production, etc. and could be cyclical as well
a global cinematic olympics/world cup/ dick whipping contest if you will...
p...i do
not to hijack, so a comment on o.p.
easily a top five in terms of films that inspire my dramatic writing...in fact not my favorite film in terms of performance but the sibling/family thing draws blood every time we go...
loved the previous comment about the music...or lack thereof