I just re-watched The Hours for the first time in 18 years.

Collette?

Toni, dear.

The Hours was pure Weinstein/Miramar Oscar bait garbage. Kidman won an Oscar because people felt bad that Tom Cruise pulled a surprise divorce on her the year before. That and the fake nose.

The movie should’ve been called Harvey’s Angels. Of course they knew nothing about good old Harvey and especially Nicole who starred in seven of his films.

“... with the quavering voice we've seen a hundred fucking times.”

You see voices, OP? Oh, dear.

I hated it. Obvs the book was derivative, but the movie was derivative and cloying, especially the scenes between Streep and Harris. Blech.

I thought Moore was pretty good, though, in a drab, anhedonic role.

I'd watch Collette read the phone book, and as usual she was wonderful.

Nicole winning a Best Actress Oscar over Diane Lane is one of the biggest Academy Award travesties of all time. Especially since she had less screen time than Julianne Moore, who was nominated as Best Supporting Actress.

[quote] “... with the quavering voice we've seen a hundred fucking times.” You see voices, OP? Oh, dear.

No, I see performances, like I wrote. I'm sorry you can't read.

This really moved me. I saw Cunningham speak at a Barnes and Noble around the time of the movie’s release.

He based Laura Brown on his mother, suggesting that he always sensed that she was miserable having to go through the motions of being a housewife. His mother was dying during the editing, but he was able to watch an early cut with her. Apparently, the child actor hated Julianne Moore, so most of his scenes were played with Stephen Daldry.

He said the three actors approached their roles differently. Kidman prepared meticulously, Moore wanted to jump in rather than rehearse, and Streep merely wanted to know what music was playing in Clarissa’s apartment.

The saddest moment was when the interviewer pointed out that the book and the movie are about debilitating depression and asked if Cunningham could relate. He shrugged and said that you can’t write about what you don’t know.

^ Cunningham is a parasite. He cannibalised the life of Virginia Woolf who is an infinitely superior writer.

He cannibalised the life of Virginia Woolf for his own mercenary ends.

R9, I’m dying to know what Julianne did to the child actor.

R10, or he’s a writer who chose an interesting subject. Depends on how you look at it.

Too many people stretching to pull an "Oh dear" where one isn't deserved these days; OP's sentence parses just fine, as long as you know what a prepositional phrase is, r5.

Not to mention that you can literally see Julianne Moore quavering when she puts on that specific voice. Thankfully she's toned that down in recent years.

Cunningham has a big dick. But the movie is a big meh, and the book is only marginally better.

R12 Give up. When people are so miserable in thier lives that they take to raging anonymously about a decades-old Oscar-winning movie based on a Pulitzer-winning book, then the problem is in their world and you unfortunately cannot talk them into seeing things more reasonably.

I guess I’m a rube. I watch it every few years and I’m entranced. Streep is mesmerizing, especially in her scenes with Harris. My parents had a fucked up relationship and it reminds me of them. I don’t care if it’s “Oscar bait” I love it.

I actually loved this movie. I thought the acting was brilliant, and the ending was absolutely heartbreaking.

[quote]And I still think it's just as dull, bloated and overrated as it was back then.

If you hated it back then, why did you decide to re-watch it, OP?

R18 OP is digging deep in the archives to find new old things to complain about.

Philip Glass's score is wonderful, and stands alone beautifully.

The Hours, Far from Heaven, and The Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio make up Moore's repressed 50s housewife trilogy. She's great in period roles

I disagree about Ed Harris. His last scene with Streep is devastating. Originally Betsy Blair was cast as the older Laura but they decided to reshoot with Moore in age makeup. Blair was a powerful, underrated actress and I would love to see what she did in those scenes with Streep and Danes. Whenever I watch the film I always skip through the Kidman stuff. That’s one Oscar win I’ll never understand.

Julianne bit the child on the face!

I like Julianne Moore from what I have heard her say, and she gets the job done, but she usually feels sort of cool and distant to me in her various roles. She did move me in Still Alice.

And I’m outmoded by the current anti-Streep zeitgeist. I like her in almost everything.

Nicole Kidman really moves me more than most actors, though. She has a pull on my emotions. I jsut rewatched Eyes Wide Shut and I’m so surprised how small her role is because she occupies a huge space in it. I am disturbed by what she has done to her face but somehow she still emotes through her unmoving mask. I dunno, man, she’s just extraordinary to me. The Others would have been such schlock without her performance.

I also really respond to Claire Danes. I think everything from her face to her choice of roles (autistic cattle rancher in Temple Grandin, kidnapped star-woman in Stardust, bipolar CIA agent in Homeland, etc.) are perplexing and interesting. I think she’s underrated. Her role in The Hours isn’t much of anything but I remember the character well.

I saw The Hours when I was in my early 20s and it honestly made me realize I needed to get the hell away from the sterile suburbs to save my sanity. I loved the movie. I haven’t rewatched it for a long time though because it’s so heavy.

The book was worse. Why it was so praised is beyond human comprehension.

You must have too much time on your hands to rewatch something you hated.

The score may be nice on its own but it really overpowers the film and is WAY too florid for my taste. The film doesn’t allow the viewer to feel anything - it’s all signalled by the score. It has a distancing, de-activating effect.

I’m not a uber-fan of Streep’s but I like her in this. I wouldn’t watch it again though.

Moore deserved to win that year for Far From Heaven however Kidman has given Oscar-worthy performances in The Others and Moulin Rouge so, no big deal, I guess. Actors rarely win for their most deserving roles.

I think it’s hilarious that John C. Reilly is always cast as the husband of suicidal wives as if being married to him is all the explanation required.

This movie really needed a scene of Janney and Streep munching each other.

Ed Harris is TERRIBLE in this film. Unbearably bad.

Op described what always bored me about Moores' performances. The only time I ever enjoyed her acting was when she played a bitchy and insane actress in Maps to the Stars. She should do more roles like that.

Oh, and I don’t think the child actor hated Moore but he was hired for a look and was in no way capable of giving a performance. On the DVD commentary, Moore is absolutely ruthless in her assessment of working with child actors - similar to Schwimmer’s complaints about working with a monkey. They’re always going to use the take where the child hit their marks, regardless of what the mature actor is doing. The child wasn’t really an acting partner.

I went in prepared to hate it, (it was an awards screening), sat there with arms crossed -- and ended up loving it. That may have been the last year of great movies for me: "Chicago", "Hours", "Pianist", "Schmidt", and more.

(Kidman does the "Look at my nose!" turn to camera one too many times but she got me in the scene with the dying bird on the ground. Like Jake G., she has become of my favorite actors along the way and I never saw it coming.)

I love Streep and Janney together. They should do another movie where they play a couple. Janney seems to bring out the best in Streep.

Janney’s good in anything.

R30, I love that scene for how matters of fact she is with her grief. I wish more adults would speak to children that way. It would have been a great relief to me as a child to know that sadness is sometimes a part of life and doesn’t make you a weirdo.

There was quite a bit of female lip-locking in this movie. It brought lesbianism to the masses.

Kidman and her fake nose isn't the only make-up issue. Moore in age make-up was a mistake. The make-up distracts from her performance, esp. with all the close-ups. Betsy Blair would have been interesting. Janney is always good. Streep is fine--it's a small character role, and she doesn't overwhelm it by being actressy. Harris does well with frankly bad writing.

The little boy was really poignant. Funny to think it was all about disliking Moore. Reilly has a thankless part, but does ok with it.

The aging makeup ruined Brokeback Mountain for me. Everyone loved it so much and for me, 22-year-old Anne Hathaway in a bad wig being passed off as an aging cowgirl was just too preposterous to take seriously.

R36 - I live in Houston. She is a very realistic version of every woman here.

R37 I’m very sorry. And so is the ozone.

R38 - touché

I love Streep but the scene with her bracelets clanking the whole time is so fucking annoying.

I liked it, but it was a complete downer and wouldn't watch it again. My brother hates "chick flicks", but liked this one. Then he told me it was mostly because of the kiss between Moore and Collette!

[quote] If you hated it back then, why did you decide to re-watch it, OP?

I find myself going back to things that I may not have liked a long time ago to see if I respond to them differently at a different age, with different experiences under my belt. I like to think that I'm not so completely up my own ass that I can't allow that I may have been wrong about something or not in a place to appreciate it at that time. Whatever the outcome, I don't find it a waste.

After I watched "The Hours" last night, I re-watched the Albert Brooks film, "Mother" which I liked very much when I saw it in the movies, and hadn't seen in about 20 years. I was much less enamored of it the third time around, but I also found myself getting really annoyed with Brooks' character and thinking what an asshole he was to his mother. Whereas when I watched it as a 20-something, I was more on his side and understood how annoying it can be to have someone who drives you crazy like that. It wouldn't have occurred to me back then that maybe it was his problem and not hers because of my own relationship with my mother.

[quote] Oh, and I don’t think the child actor hated Moore but he was hired for a look and was in no way capable of giving a performance.

I've read other places that the kid had an attention span issue (and what 7-year old doesn't?) so it was difficult to get him to do what was needed without a lot of trickery. That being said, I had no problem with his performance, and I actually found it pretty spot on. The way he looked at his mother with such concentration, you could tell he knew there was something wrong, which made the scene where she leaves him with the babysitter work so much better because we knew he knew (vaguely) what she was up to, not that she was going to kill herself but that she might not come back.

She's crazy! She's crazy! She's altogether crazy! Virginia WOOOOOOLF!

R43 I thought the little boy who played her son was adorable and did a wonderful job. Sure, it now doubt took many, many takes and lots of editing to get it right, but it worked.

R46 did you see "Akhnaten" last year in New York?

I’m so clueless I didn’t realize Ed Harris was the adult version of Laura’s son

'Akhnaten' is an old Glass work. His stuff is mellow and bland now.

I loved elements and small moments of the movie - but as a whole it’s bloated with unwieldy pretense.

The opening scene of Alison Janney coming home to Clarissa, stripping to her manly underwear and slipping into bed was mysterious and sexy. You never knew where she was coming from, though it was clearly implied that she was fooling around.

I found Nicole Kidman quite moving. I thought she deserved the Oscar.

And I also could watch Toni Colette read the phone book - there is just such an unquantifiable essence to her, it’s hard to describe.

But my god, some of the speechifying and dialogue was just dreadful.

“It was a presentment!!!!!”

Ugh.

The only other thing is, when this came out I was dealing with a period of crushing depression that I thought would be the end of me. So I was a bit susceptible to some of the themes.

In retrospect however, this is a seriously flawed movie.

This is a woman's movie. It was made for women. Just as much as all those tediously weepy Jane Wyman movies.

R50, like almost every other Meryl Streep movie.

[quote][R46] did you see "Akhnaten" last year in New York?

oops I meant R20

R48 are you R 20?

R49 Colette is one of the few major Aussie actresses that I actually enjoy in almost anything. I find the others (Blanchett, Kidman, and Watts) mostly overrated.

This movie was dreamed up for Jane Wyman, Loretta Young, Joan Fontaine, Jeanne Crain with Teresa Wright, Thelma Ritter and Agnes Moorehead in supporting roles.

The parasite (R10) who dreamed it up is really just an old homo just like the equally self-indulgent purveyor of tear-jerker pastiche women's pictures Todd Haynes and François Ozon.

R44 you just made me laugh out loud!

Dance pants and character pumps, Kel!

This picture always makes me laugh out loud.

OK, the nose is comically deformed. Poor Virginia was done an injustice.

Oh, and something about this film makes me want to eat cookies - aren’t they always baking in it or something?

R58 They're baking and cradling coffee cups-- it's a woman's movie.

They should have made this movie in Smell-o-Rama for all those baking and coffee scenes.

All this time I thought it was called The Whores.

Jesus, with that nose, Kidman ought to be doing commercials for American Express.

The nose is ludicrous.

It's a mindless insult to the author R57.

How could the film-makers be so stupid? I know Hollywood idiots believe they buy Oscars by getting actors to pretend to be blind, or crippled, or mentally retarded, or be homely, ugly and be ridden with birth-defects but this nose takes the cake.

The little boy later showed up on "Sex and the City" -- wearing ruby slippers. I think that was his last hurrah.

I wonder how he aged.

R64 He turned out nicely. He's 26 now.

I loved the scene when Harris jumped off the window.

R66, spoiler alert!

Here's the inspiration for the Nicole Kidman Nose

Sorry sorry sorry.

R66, I was kidding. It’s old enough to vote now.

Also, Rosebud was the sled.

So, did that "rosebud" mean anything ?

Virginia Woolf was sexually abused by her older brothers. She had PTSD.

I agree with OP that this film made a big pretence of "pulling back the curtain" but it just obfuscated and was, worse, embarrassingly dull.

R72 Are you claiming that this alleged 'PTSD' was from some alleged 'sexual abuse' from some alleged 'older brothers'?

Are you claiming that this alleged incident drove her to suicide half a century later?

R65, he still doesn't look very bright.

I don't think double casting the Julianne Moore role would've worked very well - we needed to know that she lived and became a monster. Introducing Betsy Blair that late in the film would've been tricky and lacked any connection with the audience.

They should've had Ed Harris play the little boy, y'know, with special effects.

R74 = Julianne Moore. Seriously.