tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925606367227514818.post7537533007681653923..comments2024-03-27T15:36:10.416-07:00Comments on Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: The Place Beyond the Pines and 42Ken Burke; Pat Craighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18358623927080966157noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925606367227514818.post-14578988691661732982013-04-24T17:35:40.540-07:002013-04-24T17:35:40.540-07:00Hi rj, Damn! Am I going to have to refund your tic...Hi rj, Damn! Am I going to have to refund your ticket money again? Obviously, we diverge on <i>The Place Beyond the Pines</i>, but it's always good to get your take on things and your parallels with the recent horrors in Boston are well stated. I share your embrace of our freedom and our escape valve with cinema (to wit, my next review will include <i>Oblivion</i> which is about as escapist as you can get).<br /><br />Keep those comments coming because they add nicely to the original. Maybe we'll be more in sync next time (I still find fascination with <i>Pines</i>, though, but remember that I started this whole enterprise by praising <i>Melancholia</i> so my tastes have been suspect from the beginning). KenKen Burke; Pat Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18358623927080966157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2925606367227514818.post-74394734431871119412013-04-22T20:12:13.540-07:002013-04-22T20:12:13.540-07:00I stopped reading your Pines review at the spoiler...I stopped reading your<i> Pines</i> review at the spoiler alert thinking the references to <i>Citizen Kane</i> and <i>The Godfather</i> meant something great was waiting at the local Palladium. I found a movie that could have been a winner given the cast and production values, but in the end the script was a disappointment. This thing could have been written by a Freshman in your film class (realizing that you would have encouraged the aspiring screenwriter and he would be one of the few to benefit from your encyclopedic cinematic recollections while still receiving three hours of credit). With that said, it's clear the Coen Brothers often pulled off equally ridiculous plots, but then classics like <i>Oh Brother</i> benefit from a far superior starting point with works like Homer's <i>The Odyssey</i> lighting the way. <br /><br />I will say <i>Pine's</i> contrived plot had a few eerie parallels to the recent Boston Marathon tragedy. With due respect to the victims and the thousands impacted by the perpetrators, those guys were working off a warped script, much like Ryan Gosling's Luke, thinking they could terrorize and still go to school the next day, followed by car jacking because you had your car in the shop, unbelievable gunfights, car chases, running over brothers, and then nearly escaping by hiding in a boat. The army of police had to be clued in by the homeowner noticing blood on the tarp. I was almost expecting someone to turn into a frog followed by a dam break. Life is often stranger than fiction. I am glad we still have the freedom to move around freely and have cinema to provide a temporary escape from the real world. rjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13025728540081089210noreply@blogger.com