The best of your comments on the latest films and music
If any proof were needed that Jeff Bridges has ascended to that place in the firmament reserved for the universally beloved, then the reaction to our feature last week is surely enough. Here's just a sample. NattyNooNoo: "I love him." DerekSmalls: "He is the dude." Kaivalagi: "Love his dudeness." Musigny: "Great, great actor." (The tide of adoration was a bit much for goldennuggets: "Isn't there at least one bad story about him ? surely, he's beaten up a cat or something?") Much discussion also ensued as to Bridges's best work on screen: lots of votes (and quotes) for The Big Lebowski, naturally, but plenty of people namechecked earlier, less ubiquitous work, notably Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (BifferSpice: "Terrific performance in a terrific film") and Fearless (davewicked: "This was the film that really made me stand up and pay attention to his subtle brilliance"). Let's just leave the final word to FinneyontheWing: "The king of emphatic mise-en-scene. He really ties the room together."
Peter Bradshaw's review of The Hangover Part II also inspired fevered discussion but, as is often the way, the thread branched out in unexpected directions ? largely on the merits of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Bradshaw, fairly controversially, gave Basterds a one-star review (twice!) in 2009, and posters now took the chance to rehash. And the verdict is broadly supportive: HumanBoeing thought it was "one too many", while Gelion opined that "Tarantino is the M Night Shyamalan of the 1990s ? two good films, and then nothing since then". Not too many people stood up for Basterds, though AliRehman thought "it had some fantastic moments, which make it worth watching". It fell to rtlee to bring the QT discussion back to the ostensible topic, The Hangover Part II, with a (presumably sarcastic) suggestion: "Maybe Tarantino can do the third one ? I am sure it would be brilliant."
The music coverage this week was somewhat overshadowed by the Music Power 100, but Toby Manhire's interview with New Zealand outfit Phoenix Foundation brought with it an acronym we'd never heard before ? GCBB, look it up ? prompting rupertrm to come up with another: "NAGB. Nice article, great band." Laura Barton's paean to Josh T Pearson didn't exactly bring out the fan club, though benjaminT observed, "He's challenging Warren Ellis for best beard in rock ... ZZ Top don't count due to having a lifetime achievement award." Things got a bit tastier on Dave Simpson's review of Journey's Eclipse album; Simpson gave the record a bit of a shellacking, and got stuck into the thread, replying at length to Kalyr, who accused him of "not even attempting to review the record on its own terms". Simpson retorted, memorably: "I found the album mostly overblown, smothered in axe wank and big 1980s-style production."
Perhaps it's just better to return to simpler pleasures: reciting favourite lines of movie dialogue. Anne Billson has an interesting theory that the VCR triggered the demise of the quotable film script in the decades since Apocalypse Now. Of course, though, it's the perfect excuse to offer contradictory evidence. Quite a few lines from The Social Network were held up for inspection ? including one from Giftedcynic: "You are going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." Meanwhile BaddHamster came up with Withnail and I's "I feel like a pig shat in my head", qkds suggested Sideways's "Quaffable, but uh ? far from transcendent", and MiddleClassHero put forward Martin McDonagh's In Bruges: "I thought that'd be the one good thing about dying ? that you wouldn't be in fockin' Bruges." We can all agree with that, surely.
Krista Allen Hayden Panettiere Jules Asner Whitney Able Kelly Clarkson
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