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  • Film & TV Moderators: ghostfreak

Film: Laurel Canyon

Strawberry_lovemuffin

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 11, 2002
Messages
15,527
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Has anyone seen this?

With Frances McDormand and Kate Beckinsdale. For anyone who doesn't know, it's about two straightlaced 20-something academics (Kate's character is an MD doing a dissertation, her boyfriend is a doctor) who go to visit the boyfriend's mother, who is a free-spirited record producer... and discover sides of themselves they never knew.

It's won a bunch of awards, and had RAVE reviews.

I *loved* it.... I thought it was subtle, funny, and extremely well done. We were sitting on the edge of our seats during the scene where the mother kisses her son's girlfriend (Kate). Awesome.

But what the FUCK was with the ending????! No satisfaction at all :(

Or am I just being precious... perhaps I'm too used to "hollywood" endings?
 
I've seen it several times on cable and liked it overall.

I also found the ending somewhat unsatisfying, although I wasn't hoping for a Hollywood ending. I was hoping Beckinsale would dump the insecure, controlling, Oedipally-conflicted boyfriend...it needed to be done. They both needed the release.

Or maybe I just wanted to see the conclusion of the threesome scene. ;) Beckinsale was HOT, HOT, HOT in the pool and especially the hotel room scene, doing her strip tease. I also loved the musical scoring with the hotel room scene...don't know the name of the song (French undoubtedly, with the lyrics "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Jesse James"...great choice for conveying the "outlaw" nature of the activity) but it was VERY sultry.

Overall I thought the movie was well done, though I didn't completely buy McDormand's character or performance...to me she didn't convey enough of a sense of the "free spirit" that she was supposed to have been formerly. I think that if the writers wanted to develop her character more strongly as the one of the primary "antagonists" of the conflict between Beckinsale and the boyfriend, they should have given more of a sense of McDormand's dual inner struggle between both her desire to reign in her persona in an effort to reconnect with her son, and to juggle the corporate demands on her art (i.e., the "hippie sellout").

Maybe, too, it was just my having seen McDormand in other roles and having typecasted her a bit.
 
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Good movie. Beckinsale was hot, McDormand had nice tits for an old chick. I liked Christian Bale the best though.
 
I've only seen the shithouse advertisement in the cinemas that says... : are you sure you are in the right film.... check www.cinemacheck.com (or whatever the fuck it was... maybe some 1800 number) and it was showing the opening scenes of Laurel Canyon... portraying it as a bad thing... so maybe I'm just prejudiced... although how Kate Beckinsale can do a bad film without being ridiculously hot is completley beyond me ;)
 
Well heres my 2 cents.
I thought it was a completely retarded, overstated, embrassing film myself, I am ashamed I paid to see it at the cinemas. There really was nothing good about any of the characters at all.
I also think Kate Beckinsthinger is wooden, superficial and unpleasant to watch, can't stand her.
I agree with the cinemacheck thing :P It haven't hated a movie so much in ages.
 
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