Has anyone else seen and enjoyed director Richard Linklater's trilogy, Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013)?
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I love the story of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. I first saw the silent 1923 version with Lon Chaney. This led me to read the Victor Hugo book, but I don't remember liking it all that well or perhaps it was a bad translation. The 1939 remake with Charles Laughton was better, IMO. The remakes seemed to get worse with time (Anthony Quinn in 1956) and a Walt Disney animation which I've never seen. I just now I became aware of a 1996 version with Salma Hayek which, being male, must be visually distracting. Has anyone seen them all? Which one follows the book most closely?
24 comments:
I saw the trilogy's first two... vaguely remember them.
The premise is fantastic.
@Lem: I think that the third one, Before Midnight, is impossible to appreciate unless you're middle aged and married with kids. It's not as rough as Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, but it reminds...
@Lem: I think having lived in Europe makes the trilogy better for me.
I went looking to see what rating I had given them but I couldn't find them because I dumped the dvd plan and stayed with streaming only.
I'm sure I gave it over three stars because I usually don't watch a movie unless rotten tomatoes says its good. They have rarely let me down
Missed all of those. Did see whos afraid of Virginia Woolf. That was intense.
Looking for it I came across a movie I stopped watching and had forgotten I stopped watching it.
When you look for a movie on Netflix it tells you "is like" blank and blank.
Take This Waltz 2011 with that actress that was married to the joker in Batman... the one that killed himself with a drug overdose.
April Apple said...
Missed all of those.
At least watch the first one, Before Sunrise
Pretty intense dialog. It must be at least as good as My Dinner With Cold Duck
It's "Downton Abbey" time.
Later
I saw Who's Afraid also.
I was very impressed with both actors impeccable delivery of difficult dialog. It probably helped that they were married at that time, I believe.
In movies 99.99 of the dialog sounds and often times even looks contrived. But there are some rare moments like in Wolf when briefly it looks and sounds as real as a real dialog gets.
There were scenes like that in Whos Afraid.
I agree Hunchback '39 is the best. It has the lovely Maureen O'Hara, along the Chuck Laughton.
"who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe?"
For some reason, I used to think this was a horror film. So I never saw it, till ten years ago.
Liz Taylor made an excellent frowzy loud-mouth shrew.
I agree Hunchback '39 is the best. It has the lovely Maureen O'Hara, along the Chuck Laughton.
@rcocean--"who's afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" For some reason, I used to think this was a horror film. So I never saw it, till ten years ago.
Maybe because it came out just a few years after Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
I also think Virginia Woolf does qualify as a sort of horror film. Taylor's badgering screeching is about all that sticks in my mind about it.
Just caught that "Chuck Laughton," rcocean. :)
The 1962 movie Manchurian Candidate with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury was just on tv last week. Been a while since I've seen it, but it was a really good movie.
Lived through WAoVW, that's like a family reunion for me.
HoND - avoid the Disney version - it is an abomination. A general rule for living a good life is to avoid anything with Jason Alexander in it.
The '39 version is good. But having climbed the circular stone staircase to the top of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and having walked among the gargoyles and bells, none of the movies have any similarity to the real place. But it is still a good movie. I had a hunch Charles Laughton would do well in it.
No movie version could follow Hugo's book too closely - there are too many story lines, and some of them just won't translate well to the screen.
I have seen a lot of movies this winter - I could go on and on, but I will spare you the details. Some of them stand out, others fall short of how I remembered them, and some just shouldn't be watched at all.
@lem/
"It probably helped that they were married at that time."
Clue: They weren't acting, lol
Virgil, you beat me to it. I think they were playing themselves, because I never found her a convincing actress elsewhere. One hell of a movie.
If you want to see the "Real" Elizabeth Taylor check out "Ivanhoe."
It is no "Game of Thrones" but it is good old fashioned fun. This is the movie that all of the new movies are trying to copy and beat out. But the romance and the style and the pageantry is just great.
With Elizabeth Taylor as the Jew.
Check it out at TMC or Netflicks.
I read on "Ain't It Cool.com" that they are doing a mash up of
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf" with a role reversal.
It is based in Madison Wisconsin.
It's gonna be way cool.
If Victor Hugo were alive he would be puking his guts up right now.
I am very curious to see what the storyline of "The Winter Soldier" will be.
I know it will entail the return of Bucky but will they do the whole Communist assassin thing or make it more politically correct.
It is kind of neat that all of these old Marvel Comics are coming to the big screen and that they are so popular. It is a return to the big studio style. Great stuff.
"With Elizabeth Taylor as the Jew."
No acting required!
"Maybe because it came out just a few years after Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"
Right on! Yes, I saw "Baby Jane as a kid on TV and it scared me to death.
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