Posted: 12/26/15 at 12:29am
The Danish Girl was terrible. Tacky, boring, and downright offensive. Eddie Redmayne cried for 2 hours and apparently that means he's worthy of an award.
Posted: 12/26/15 at 12:45am
Saw The Danish Girl tonight. Very good film. A. At least Oscar noms for Eddie and Alicia, if not wins. B. Stunning looking film (art direction). C. GORGEOUS costumes. I died over the dresses. D.Pretty mesmerizing film. E. Extremely unoffensive film, important for the trans community, I think.
If I had to say anything negative, it would be that it was a little slow and could have cut about 20 minutes
Posted: 12/26/15 at 1:00am
Redmayne & Alicia are locks for nominations. If the picture category is again expanded this year, it will get one as well.
Posted: 12/26/15 at 1:12am
bunnie3 said: "Like last wk i saw "The Big Short". Hated it. "Prententious bore", imho (for me). Everybody else seems to love it. Oh well.....
Couldn't disagree more. I thought it was one of the least pretentious and least boring films of the year. I liked it way more than I expected to.
Posted: 12/26/15 at 4:44pm
Jane, I saw The Danish Girl yesterday and also felt it was a bit slow. It didn't help that the usher didn't shut the door to the theater so at times I could hear people yapping from the outside hall. I enjoyed it for the most part, but SPOILER had a problem with what I felt was a quickness in his transition. BTW, I saw Joy today. It is getting some poor reviews, but I loved it.
Posted: 12/26/15 at 5:36pm
Artman, I did some research on The Danish Girl on line and read a very informative outline of the book, since the story is based on real people. You can learn a lot more from that synopsis but I still have to call the film a great one and especially the performances.
Posted: 12/26/15 at 11:22pm
ArtMan said: "Jane, I saw The Danish Girl yesterday and also felt it was a bit slow. It didn't help that the usher didn't shut the door to the theater so at times I could hear people yapping from the outside hall. I enjoyed it for the most part, but SPOILER had a problem with what I felt was a quickness in his transition. BTW, I saw Joy today. It is getting some poor reviews, but I loved it.
Why didn't you shut it yourself? There's one theater near me where they never shut the door, so I always have to do it myself.
Posted: 12/27/15 at 7:13am
Because...Hork, I'm the type that once the movie starts I don't miss a thing. If that involves holding my bladder or hearing outside noise I put up with it. If I go to a movie and it has started, even 30 seconds, I don't see it. So to answer your question, if I would have gotten up to shut the door, I would have missed some of the movie. Maybe 45 seconds, but still missed part of it.
Posted: 12/27/15 at 3:36pm
I saw THE DANISH GIRL today and was extremely underwhelmed. The performances were all fine but the film was sluggish and the writers made Lili out to be (to me) an extremely selfish person with nothing really to make the audience like her, besides "she's trans, so we have to like and applaud everything she does".
It was a beautifully shot R-Rated Lifetime movie, complete with an ending that was only missing "Wind Beneath My Wings" playing in the background to take it to full cheese. This is certainly turning out to be a disappointing Oscar season, with all these "prestige" films turning out to be as "blah" as they are.
Posted: 12/27/15 at 4:29pm
"writers made Lili out to be (to me) an extremely selfish person with nothing really to make the audience like her,"
The book pointed out that she was a much less interesting person as a woman than as a man. She decided to give up painting and other interests which tied her to being a man.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 6:02pm
Grab bag of films mentioned here means a grab bag of critical responses:
YOUTH. Oy, I guess I'm one of those folks who would have come out of the theater grumbling about the pretentiousness of this film too, had I not seen it on a screener at home. Yes, there was some stunning cinematography and production design, and yes, a few actors acquitted themselves with dignity (Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine). But why were ALL the women such nasty self-pitying bitches? (Jane Fonda at her most Norma Desmond-ish, Rachel Weisz at her whiniest.) For all it's philosophizing about the nature of life and death, the picture just seemed like warmed-over, second-rate Fellini to me-- all dreamy surface without an idea or story to anchor it all together. And that key moment in which Michael Caine decides whether or not to play that command concert seems to have been left off the screen altogether. Huh?
THE DANISH GIRL. Also stunningly shot and designed, also open to the accusation of pretentiousness. Very weak in it's basic story-telling beats. And I agree with a number of posters above who criticize Eddie Redmayne's performance as one-note. All true. We grumbled about all those things as we left the theater. HOWEVAH-- this movie has stayed with me and deeply affected me in a way few movies this holiday season have (I'd count BROOKLYN in that select group.) There is real power in the relationship set up between Redmayne and the luminous Alicia Vikander. The sequences in their studio as one painting after another is created are hypnotic and true to the sense of real art-making. The torment of facing head-on the taboos of dress and comportment of the other gender are beautifully realized, and something I recognized in scene after scene from my time as an amateur drag queen. God knows The Danish Girl is not a great movie. But it's a film that, for all its failings, I loved a great deal.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 7:18pm
The more I think about THE DANISH GIRL, the more I truly detest it. Especially after I learned of some of the truths about the real people and how the screenplay omitted/changed them to fit into their version of the story.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 7:24pm
I just can't detest a film which stars the great Eddie Redmayne. He and Alicia are mesmerizing. Hence, I was in rapt attention for the entire duration of the film.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 7:45pm
He's great. But sometimes even great actors can't save an awful film.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 8:45pm
Maybe not. But that's where we differ. I thought it was good, in an educational way. And it was beautiful.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 8:54pm
I thought the Danish Girl was actually really offensive to transgendered people. The suggestion that a trans person has a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on where they have different selves of different genders with different personalities is ridiculous. Eddie Redmayne is pretty to look at, but he basically just got onscreen and cried for 2 hours. Now, I haven't seen Pixels or Fant4stic or Pan because I'm not a masochist, but I'd say that the Danish Girl is the worst movie I've seen this year.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:00pm
"The suggestion that a trans person has a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on where they have different selves of different genders with different personalities is ridiculous."
And you know this because......
I suggest you read an interesting piece on the book, based on real people. What you think is ridiculous is what happened.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:10pm
Trans friend of mine saw this and I asked him if that was at all accurate. He said absolutely not and that a movie like that would do more harm than good.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:14pm
So, your friend was there in Denmark in the 1920's and knew intimately Einar and Gerda?
You may decide to believe what you wish, but the fact remains that the film is based on a true story. enuf said.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:22pm
No, here's the thing. This is the movie that grandmas are going to go and see, and this is how they are going to view transgendered people, and to tell people who are not familiar with transgendered people that they exist as two people (seriously there was a line where someone calls Lili two of the best people he ever knew) is counter-productive to the transgender movement. A movie like this has an obligation to an audience, not just to Lili Elbe.
And Jane, come on, her name was Lili, she was not a man. See what I mean? Improper knowledge of things like this is damaging, not helpful.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:28pm
A friend who said she was familiar with the real story said that in real life, the two moved to Paris so they could be an openly lesbian couple. That would have been an interesting little bit to put into the film, no?
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:30pm
Fantod, the only thing I can say at this point is that I'm sorry that you think the story of one person means every single other person who is in that situation will react the same way. And you're insulting all trans persons by presuming they aren't intelligent enough to recognize it is the unique story of one individual and not the rule of all.
Posted: 12/28/15 at 9:48pm
No, I'm insulting the grandmas who will see this and assume it applies to all trans people.
Yes Jordan that would have been really interesting. Unfortunately, that would also require some teeth and the movie seemed to have none whatsoever.
Posted: 12/29/15 at 1:08am
My husband and I talked a lot about Lily's terms for her different gender identities as two different people in one body (the Jekyl & Hyde thing Fantod so objects to). My husband found it offensive as well, but I thought it a very natural way for someone in the mid-1920's to use to explain what they were feeling inside before any of our current terms for the trans condition were coined.
The other thing I slowly realized about THE DANISH GIRL, was that it was mostly told from Gerda's point of view rather than Einer/ Lily's. Had we spent more time inside Einer's mindset for the duration of the story rather than his wife's, we might have gotten a more nuanced view of the trans experience than this movie was prepared to give us.
Posted: 12/31/15 at 1:36pm
There are a number of spoilers listed in this so- be aware.
Someone In a Tree2- I pretty much had the same response as you. The cinematography was wonderful but really, the storyline and characters baffled my understanding. A fully adult ( late 40's at least) son comes to see his father so his dad can complain to him about his "involvements"? . A woman who moves on from a failed marriage in what amounts to a few days? Those incredibly adult children? The Fellini fascination for the grotesque was evident everywhere. That intergender RED sauna shot? All the naked aged bodies w the lascivious lingering shots of the young bodies? ( ok so Miss universe is gor gus- she won a freaking beauty contest!) I didn't see the "whiney" aspects as much. They all got great moments, Lena's as she pour out her anger at her father's past (echoing her pain w her own failed relationship) Fonda ( I kept thinking about Joan Crawford when I saw her) had an incredible scene yes even as grotesque as her makeup was. and then cancelled the effect w the damn airplane scene .Dano had done such nice work- and then came the Mel Brooks moment- reducing that. Giveth and taketh away was the pattern here even w Caine as you point out in the decision to conduct. And Keitel's ending- oh please all I could think of was "well they finally found their ending." I won't do more than mention in passing the "retrospective" scene which was truly lukewarm Fellini.
Oh and yes I'm nitpicking here- but a dementia patient whose mouth is formed into the permanent "O" position don't lean forward and stare w unseeing eyes out a window- unless the director WANTS THAT SHOT!
Wanted to like this much more than I did.
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