Ryan McNeil
One-hundred-and-some-odd episodes in, The Matineecast is pretty much known for being planned, structured, and tweaked to a fault. Every once in a while though, I just wanna sit down with a friend and roll tape.
This is one of those times.
Here’s what’s in store in episode one-hundred-and-sixteen…
Runtime
47 minutes
Up for Discussion
1. Introduction
2. THE NEW SLANG – Review and reaction to BEGIN AGAIN with guest Dave Voigt (1:51)
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Comments and feedback are welcome, and thank-you very much for listening.
Enjoy!
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Dave isn’t wrong… and Ryan is right, he’s hard on it…
It’s a film I knew was mediocre and trying too hard, but somewhere in the middle just started to make me smile. It is too close to Once for us to truly separate it though.
THE SPLITTER SCENE!!!
I said it before, I’ll say it again – I eat, sleep, and breathe a deep-seeded love for music…but until this film came around, I’d never once considered wandering around the city sharing a soundtrack like that. While I wonder about its genesis, I’m deeply thankful that scene exists since a new generation of film and music fans might share in mimicking that glorious experience.
FYI, Begin Again is John Carney’s SEVENTH film, though most of them are Irish.
Again…a 45 minute conversation on one film, and that’s your comment?
I really liked Begin Again. It’s a little lightweight but that is about as much as I can say against it. As a film I don’t actually think Once is that much better, There are two basic differences: Once has better music; it also has more charm mainly because it is less polished and has a cast of unknowns.
My takeaway from the movie was “Ghost Instruments” scene, the cello bow didn’t bother me. At this point we had already seen the scene and the reaction to the performance, they could have left it there and said Dan sees something in Gretta that the rest of the audience don’t but that wouldn’t be half as powerful. The splitter scene didn’t really work for me, it really did come across as trying too hard.
The girl you didn’t recognise in Pompeii is Emily Browning. She was in The Uninvited (a terrible American remake of A Tale of Two Sisters) and Sucker Punch that I seem to remember you really liking! Her next film may be of more interest to you as I know you are a sucker for movies about music: God Help The Girl, written and directed by Stuart Murdoch from Belle & Sebastian. It doesn’t have a release here or in Canada yet but the trailer has just hit IMDB.
Looking forward to episode 117, Boyhood is by far my favourite movie of the year to date.
I misspoke.
I *recognized* Emily Browning in Pompeii – having suffered through Sucker Punch and being intrigued by Sleeping Beauty. What I didn’t do in the five months between seeing the film and recording this podcast was *remember* that she was in it. For me, that’s more indicative about the quality of Pompeii than Browning’s part within it.
If you feel like doing a bit of extra listening, go back into my series of podcasts from TIFF and see if there’s a change in my tone between the day I watched it and this recording ten months later.
Wow, that was quite the podcast! Dave seemed very against the movie. Definitely looking forward to seeing the movie myself and forming my own opinion. I was actually planning to see Begin Again today, and it ended up not happening. I am still hoping to see it in theaters, though, if I can. I really like Mark Ruffalo, and this looks like an interesting role for Kierra Knightly. I feel like she’s always in period-type roles and movies, so I was kind of excited to see her in something different. I really liked her in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, so I’m hoping she’s as good in this movie.
Confession: Knowing Dave’s dislike of the movie was what spurred me to record a conversation about the film. Ordinarily, I don’t do that since I like to let a conversation come more naturally…or when I do it’s with my wife joining me in the guest seat (listen to the STOKER episode!).
Pretty sure it’s still playing in Chicago, so do track it down. Something tells me that you’ll be more on my side than on Dave’s.
Well, Ryan, I just got back from it. Whatever told you I’d be on your side more than Dave’s was, indeed, correct. I really enjoyed it! I actually had your guys’ conversation in the back of mind for most of the movie, and I can see where he’s coming from – but not to the extent at which he felt it. There were some moments where I felt like it was a bit pretentious, or perhaps Mark Ruffalo wasn’t at his greatest. I also considered Dave’s thoughts on how NYC playing a role in the movie, and how that didn’t really work (IMO). But about 45 minutes in, I got lost in the movie and just really, really enjoyed it. I did like Kiera Knightly more than Mark Ruffalo, but there were some great scenes in the movie, and I appreciated that Knightly’s character stayed true – that whole belief in staying true to her music in the end.
I’ll stop now, since I actually want to review it over on my site. 🙂 Thanks for the thoughts though – definitely worth seeing, in my opinion.