Films you should watch, if they get here
Published:
December 22, 2008 at 10:04pm
While away, I watched:
Burn After Reading
Milk
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
All were fascinating, really superb. You can Google them, so I’m not going into what they’re about, who’s in them, and all the rest. But might I ask you to petition your local cinema boss to put to death the grand Maltese tradition of a film intermission, which borrows from theatre in turning a film into two acts bisected by 15 minutes of blank screen and a visit to the popcorn counter? Nobody else does it, and it’s such a relief to watch a film from start to finish without being whipped out of that other world by lots of shuffling knees and bottoms heading for the lavatory and another Diet Kinnie.
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Oh I whole heartedly agree with the intermission bit. I remember the astonishment and bewilderment on the faces of those non-Maltese, who I’d take to see a film in Malta, when half way through the lights would come on. It still takes me by surprise whenever I’m in Malta watching a film. You get so engrossed in the film, that you forget you’re actually in a cinema. (Well if the film is any good!) …And then poof, the magic is gone.
If people know that there will be no intermission, they’ll stock up on drinks and snacks before the film, so the cinema isn’t really going to lose any trade. I’d perhaps leave the intermission for those films obviously aimed at younger children, whose attention span and bladder are not as well developed as those of the rest of us.
I had forgotten that they do that in Malta! It makes no sense to stop the film half through. It ruins the whole thing actually. And if they do this thinking people will buy their mentos and diet kinnie in the intermission, they might actually buy a bigger kinnie and probably a mentos + maltesers if they know there’s no inter-mixin.
Recently somebody recommended to me “4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days” about illegal abortion in communist Romania. (I have not seen it yet, I can only see it on DVD)
“Burn after reading” was in Malta a couple of months ago.
[Daphne – Did it do well here, do you know? It’s totally engrossing, and watching Brad Pitt (!) and George Clooney play parts so out of character is fun.]
All my foreign friends think it’s a joke, it just ruins the movie.
I have to disagree on you on two accounts there. For starters, I love the intermissions here. We don’t have them in Sweden and they have really added to my cinema experience. I suppose it’s one of those things where you will disappoint a bunch of people by keeping them and a whole other bunch if you take them away.
Also, Burn After Reading, while being enjoyable, was a bit of a disappointment for me. I love the Coen brothers and perhaps I had too high expectations watching it, but it just didn’t do much for me. Even Emma Thompson, another favourite of mine, didn’t convince me in her role at all.
I’m dying to watch Doubt. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the most interesting actors in Hollywood. If you have seen him in Capote yet, head to your nearest video store immediately.
[Daphne – For me, it was Meryl Streep who stole the show in Doubt.]
I can’t understand how none of the cinema groups have not picked on this, as a marketing ploy over their competitors. Hey we are the only cinema in Malta without intermission !
Burn After Reading was showing in Malta, for quite a while already. Best movie of the year, in my book. Watched Milk and Frost/Nixon on the net. Very good too. Looking forward to watching Doubt. Awguri.
Oh and i agree 100% that the intermission should go. Should have gone ages ago, as a matter of fact!
The intermission as such doesn’t bother me. It’s the people who cannot shut up and make it impossible to focus on the film (unless there’s a bit of ‘ekxin’ which doesn’t require translation).
Once the mega-screen TVs become a tad more affordable I’ll kiss Eden good-bye.
[Daphne – When I watched Quantum of Solace, I had a running commentary behind me. Xi grala t-tfajla? Mietet? Le, hemmhekk qeghda, fil-bowt. Eh! Kienet mimduda. X’qal? Ma fihmtx.]
As a one film a week addict, I have long given up on local cinemas unless it is a film which deserves the widest possible screen in which case I see the film at the end of the run to have the least possible number of people around. I don’t have an opinion on intermissions – some people like them and some don’t. To me it’s the cost of seeing the film in public. It’s amazing the number of excellent films out there which do not make it to the local cinema. I saw ‘Outsourced’ last week – it has no hope of appearing here because there are no big names but it has a few good points to make about this ‘fashion’. 2008 favourite for me was ‘No Country for Old Men’ although I had to read the book eventually to understand it fully…
I’m so glad Doubt has been made into a film. I wasn’t able to watch it when it was staged at St James last year – only a year after it had won the Pulitzer – but it had met with a very good reception.
It would be hard to get used to films with no intermission. I rather enjoy the opportunity of stocking up on Party Time (a guilty and unhealthy pleasure) and having a brief socialising session. It’s part of the fun.
Who needs to go to the cinema, when you can watch films from the comfort of your own home?
[Daphne – There’s no comparison. I never watch films on television. And one does need to leave home occasionally. It’s not a cave.]
I’ve just seen the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Whilst it was good, and it made me cry, I too was outraged that the intermission is still there. And I mean, why for a two-hour film, does one need food and drink? Toilet before so that you are comfortable, but that’s all there is to it.
Happy Christmas, everybody.
“Daphne – There’s no comparison. I never watch films on television. And one does need to leave home occasionally. It’s not a cave”
Not if you buy a projector and some good surround system.
[Daphne – And build an extension to the house….]
Good good, now go and watch Tropic Thunder, if it’s still on.
P.Shaw – 4 months is a great movie. Watch it.
Pat – erm Emma Thompson was not in Burn after Reading.
[Daphne – That’s right. The main roles were played by Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton.]
Paul: Ouch, big blunder of me there. My bad and thanks for correcting me. Still didn’t care too much for the movie though.
Great selection, Daphne. And I agree with you, there is no comparison to the cinema. My family had two in Zurrieq, and one in St Paul’s Bay. I grew up watching films…. one is still a cinema, complete with old projectors and seating. It’s mothballed in fact. It used to seat 700 people. One day, I intend to restore it to its former 1960s glory and run The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur in original Cinemascope, and a slew of Bogey movies, if I can still find the reel versions.
I like the intermission bit. It gives you the opportunity to go to the loo, or buy those nachos you had no time to buy beforehand. And they do do it elsewhere. At least here in Holland in all the arthouse cinemas.