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Gosford Park doesn't live up to its cover (1 Viewer)

Adam Lenhardt

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Personally, I'd rank Ernest Goes to Camp over Citizen Kane.;)
And I can see both ways... Prior to getting online, I had problems with the heavier British accents. Since, I have done several projects through NetMeeting online, and now it's literally a non issue.
Also, though it's getting better, for a long time there was extremely little British content in mainstream America. About the only outlet for British television content, for instance, was imported BBC stuff that PBS used to show.
Perhaps exposure is a factor in why American accents are understandable in the UK, but not vice-versa. That said, I'd say the majority of the population doesn't have a problem with British accents.
(Side story: When I saw Harry Potter in theatres, half the audience though the British accents were sooooo funny that they had to imitate every line of dialog after it was delivered.:rolleyes:Thank God for DVD.)
 

TonyD

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This is a film that gets better with repeat viewings.
i thought it was a bore. a movie about a bunch of snobbish bores does nothing for me. i want to watch a movie once and be able to know what i saw.
sometimes i like to watch a movie again to see if i can find deeper meaning but i don't think there was any deeper meaning in this movie.
i know what i saw and i didnt like it.
the ending was dull.it had no wow i never would have guessed that. it was more like "o, thats why blank did it, o well"
sure it had a little twist there at the end but when it comes down to it .. so what. and one of the characters most effected by the end even had a so what attitude about the outcome.
i also did not have trouble understanding the dialects of the people.
who were all those people. i must have missed it when it was mentioned what brought them all to that house in the first place.
dont mis understand me. i dont dislike a movie just because it doesnt have gubs ablazen every few minutes.
a movie with this type of pacing needs to make me have interest in the people in the movie and i could not care any less then i did for these people.
even the help were people i never want to hear from again.
 

PatrickL

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The first time I saw it, I thought it was Altman's most worthwhile movie in years. After seeing it several times more I think it's better than that - it's one of his best films, period.

Mike Martin said:
Mr. Fry performed, I felt, too broadly. I can only blame Mr. Altman for the result.
This isn't a result of Altman aiming but failing to bring Mr. Fry's performance in line with the spirit of everyone else's. Clearly, it is exactly what Altman wanted, to spin the tone of the movie. (He announces that he will do so with the very first shot of the Inspector, which is coupled with the off-screen sound of Weissman talking about making his Charlie Chan movie, saying something to the effect of "you have to have something different, you can't have the same shit over and over again.") The concept of the Inspector character is exactly what I would expect in an Altman genre-revision picture: rather than coming in with some genuine authority and clarity, genre expectations are sabotaged when the Inspector arrives with strong class biases and personality flaws which prevent him from making any sense of what is actually going on. His working relationship with his second is a concise, deliberately broad miniature of some of the relationships between upper and servant classes in the house. Fry's portrayal of the Inspector belongs to a long line of Altman characters that are both obviously ridiculous, and yet human - he seems pathetic when he tries to assert himself as a member of the upper class in the scene where he questions Lady Sylvia. First, he's blissfully unaware that he's betrayed himself when he offers to pour out tea, and then he's keenly aware of his social irrelevance when he does it wrong by not putting in the milk first.

Anyhow, to the main theme of this thread: I understood the British accents just fine in the theatre, although I did have to strain to understand some of Mary's dialogue. I was having trouble understanding the disc though, and have since abandoned watching the movie with the 5.1 mix. For some reason I find it easier to hear all the dialogue in the movie when I downmix to stereo. Odd.
 

TonyD

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quote:
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i know what i saw
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quote:
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who were all those people. i must have missed it when it was mentioned what brought them all to that house in the first place.
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:D
DJ
dj are you agreeing with me or laughing at what i said.
 

Mitty

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Just noticed this thread.

...I would have thought that an Academy Award winner would have kept our attention.
An Oscar isn't a guarantee that the movie will be entertaining or stimulating for absolutely everyone who views it. They're not (at least in theory) about awarding films for reaching and satisfying the widest audience.

They're not the People's Choice awards after all.
 

Richard WWW

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I, personally, will not be returning to this thread because some of the posts are too mean-spirited. For Pete's sake, why do people take others' disagreement over the worth of a movie to be personally insulting and bite back like that? There is a certain current of intellectual snobbery here that is particularly distasteful.
 

Dome Vongvises

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I got done watching Gosford Park after my lunch break. I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen in recent memory.
And the suggestion of somebody else in this thread, I turned on the subtitles (or captions as it is called in the DVD), and it helped immensely.
I thought it was pretty funny really. True, the cover to the DVD can be misleading (although a different interpretation could be that it's like another other "kick me" sign).
Yes, the murder might've been the hook, but the focus of the film was more on the comparisons and contrasts between two very different classes of people. To be honest, I found it quite fascinating that at one time, there existed such a social class hiearchy.
But eh, what do I know? I enjoyed this film as equally as much as Dude, Where's My Car?. :)
 

BarryS

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I watched Gosford Park tonight for the first time and found it very enjoyable. It is a bit confusing however with so many characters and names, so I feel that a second viewing is in order. I'm a fan of Altman and appreciate his style as a director and I wasn't disappointed with Gosford Park. If anyone can take a huge cast and juggle multiple plotlines and weave them togther, Altman can. The scenes between Kelly McDonald and Emily Watson in particular were my favorite, and of course, Maggie Smith steals the scene whenever she's on camera. A fine film indeed, and I look forward to an even more enjoyable second viewing.
 

Paul D Young

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Feb 8, 2001
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Just watched it with my wife and we both enjoyed it a lot. Anyone who has trouble following the movie should watch it with my wife. She is no movie expert but for some reason she is attracted to all Robert Altman films and was able to follow the movie like she made it. I kept pausing it and saying, "OK, who is this guy again? And who is he married too?" (I was very annoying.)
Without her I might have not enjoyed the movie as much. Only problem was, she insisted that we leave the subtitles on and I found them to be distracting as I had no problem with the accents.
I must mention however, that I found this thread to be extremely entertaining (almost as much as the movie). As long as you were not the one being insulted. From a third party point of view, the comments seemed like pretty lighthearted jabs at each other which I very much enjoyed reading. I had trouble finding this thread though as I searched for "Gosford" and not "Godsford". Maybe that's why nobody has posted in it since August.
(I had to get one in myself, see ;).)
 

Dharmesh C

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The characters are terrifically defined, but it fell apart after Stephen Fry made his appearance, they left it too late. I wanted a better whodunit, but came away feeling really disappointed and cheated out of suspenseful finale. I appreciate that Altman wanted to stay away from the cliche whodunit, but the film just dies when Fry appears.

I wanted more!

Was this shot in Super35 or Scope? I thought it was scope.
 

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