28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Dukefrukem]

That's a great post, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from the ending, which I do think was lazy, no one stops to think HOW those aliens were able to travel to Earth in the first place? Did they travel through space in lightning bolts too? I'd like to see that side of the story in an adaptation- what was the government doing when they first realized what was happening? We knew they were watching us- but from where? Were there ships still above Earth somewhere?

[Gittes]

That's a great post, but it leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from the ending, which I do think was lazy

What kind of ending would you have preferred?



no one stops to think HOW those aliens were able to travel to Earth in the first place? Did they travel through space in lightning bolts too? I'd like to see that side of the story in an adaptation- what was the government doing when they first realized what was happening? We knew they were watching us- but from where? Were there ships still above Earth somewhere?

Ah, I see. Well, a lot can be imagined and inferred based on Morgan Freeman's recitation of Wells' prose (from the beginning of the film):



"No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that our world was being watched by intelligences greater than our own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns, they observed and studied, the way a man with a microscope might scrutinize the creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over this world. Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us."

Personally, I think the welcome novelty of this film is that it opts to focus on a single family rather than adopting a more capacious scope that includes military stratagems, the concerns of world leaders, etc. (i.e., Independence Day). The details you're mentioning end up being a necessary casualty of the familial focus (Cruise and Spielberg referred to this as "the biggest small movie" they ever made).

Would you agree that War of the Worlds achieves a certain verisimilitude by forcing those details to the edges and ellipses of the film? Spielberg's elected focus entails something more readily relatable and plausible. Ray's view of this global disaster is blinkered, which makes a great deal of sense, as he's only one man swept up in a crisis that totally exceeds his agency and comprehension. Since the narrative is sutured to Ray and his family, we also share in Ray's limited understanding. This generates credible rewards for the viewer. In other words, Ray and his family wouldn't be made privy to the kind of information you're discussing, and so, neither are we: we share in their realistic confusion and incomprehension, and their plight begins to resemble a horror of increasing believability.

Part of the terror of this film lies in these epistemological limits. The extraterrestrial threat is made all the more alien and frightening by virtue of the fact that their provenance and methods are only vaguely adumbrated. If Spielberg overloaded the narrative with specific information about the aliens (such as how, exactly, they orchestrated their attack), then he would run the risk of sacrificing the credibility that he so capably achieved. I think there needs to be a certain degree of ambiguous space between the fantastical conceit and the spectator. A convincing representation of aliens requires a delicate balance of specificity and ambiguity, and War of the Worlds is exemplary in that regard. Too much clarity and detail might have left us with aliens that seem demystified and overdetermined, and therefore, more readily viewed as artifice.

Of course, Spielberg offers us fascinating, sustained glimpses of these aliens and their unworldly instruments, but he also maintains their mystery and inscrutability. In doing so, he honours the spectator's own necessarily speculative "understanding" of extraterrestrials. To put it in banal terms: we fear aliens because we don't know anything about them. So, in a way, this lack of knowledge actually ends up serving as a criterion of sorts when we assess which representations of aliens pass muster as believable, and which seem more noticeably false and contrived. A degree of the arcane and the incomprehensible, of machinations and methods unknown, needs to be secured in order to deliver a credibly frightening depiction of extraterrestrial life.

[Dukefrukem]

I kinda figured you'd hit back with the single family aspect rather than 'This is what's happening across the world' and that's obviously the scope of the film they were aiming for, but it just leaves me with an unsatisfied taste in my mouth. Don't get me wrong, I own this and I watch it for the first half. The second half is where it loses me and I fall asleep (with the exception of the classic Spielberg tentacle-in-the-basement scene which is on par with the Raptor scene in JP and the Spider scene in Minority Report).

[Gittes]

the classic Spielberg tentacle-in-the-basement scene which is on par with the Raptor scene in JP and the Spider scene in Minority Report).

We're in agreement here; all of these scenes are tremendous. I love the variation we get in War of the Worlds, but I still prefer the kitchen scene in Jurassic Park, which is just astoundingly great.

[Dukefrukem]

Does anyone know the history behind every movie or TV show using the same police banter over the radio?

[Gittes]

A little bit more on War of the Worlds (some spoilers for Signs follow):

I was thinking about what I wrote above regarding representing aliens and striking a balance between ambiguity and specificity, and it reminded me of Signs. I think the aliens in the latter film are also handled quite effectively (other obvious connections include the familial focus and the similarly contentious ending). The oblique glimpses we get throughout the film are quite haunting (the alien on the roof, Gibson's first sighting in the cornfield, and that horrifying birthday party footage, whose effect is heightened by Phoenix's totally credible shock, etc.), but I think Shyamalan may have gone a step too far with the overexposure of the alien at the conclusion of the film. This might have something to do with how the alien itself is rendered and presented; the artifice is a bit too apparent.

War of the Worlds also exposes the aliens, but I'm a fan of the design that Spielberg went with, and the blend of CGI and practical effects. I think the scene where they investigate the basement is spectacular. However, back at the time of its release, I recall someone arguing that the film might have been better had Spielberg held back on revealing the aliens, so that the first alien we see is the one that emerges out of the downed tripod at the end, gasping its last breath. While I'm a fan of the aliens scouring the basement, I'm also attracted to this idea, as I imagine that remarkable shot of the dying alien would be made even more impactful if it were the only time we see an alien.

[Izzy Black]

Mitty, any prior aliases/forums?

[Irish]

Did I miss something? There's no thread for Steve James' Life Itself?

[Gittes]

Mitty, any prior aliases/forums?

I lurk at a couple of forums, which included Match-Cut until I registered and began posting late last year. This is the only place I post at, though. Why do you ask?

[Ezee E]

Does anyone know the history behind every movie or TV show using the same police banter over the radio?

To me, it's just pure laziness more than anything. There's sound effects libraries, and that's probably the best one there currently is. Rather than spend the money on recording new ones, just use what's available. Not exactly something that can be foleyed.

I'm assuming this because of my own editing history.

[Ivan Drago]

Finally got around to seeing The Act of Killing. Holy fucking crap. Its imagery is so powerful and harrowing, its vérité style generated a haunting tone that was unrelenting throughout the entire film, and it probably features the darkest form of metacinema I've ever seen, reversing the roles of its subjects with the filmmakers on more than one occasion; portraying the dictators as directors, while Oppenheimer and his anonymous crew become the dictators.

These thoughts aren't detailed in the slightest, but it's been a day later, and I'm still left speechless. 20 Feet From Stardom won Best Doc last year why?

[Dukefrukem]

To me, it's just pure laziness more than anything. There's sound effects libraries, and that's probably the best one there currently is. Rather than spend the money on recording new ones, just use what's available. Not exactly something that can be foleyed.

I'm assuming this because of my own editing history.

Do they pull the radio from some stock sound effect database or something? I mean it's everywhere.

[Ezee E]

Do they pull the radio from some stock sound effect database or something? I mean it's everywhere.

Yeah, pretty much. Default ambient noises. Every studio may have something different. Kind of how Final Cut Pro is preloaded, there's also libraries that can be purchased, which déjÃ* contain that very audio bit you speak of.

Restaurant ambient noise is very recognizable to me too.

[Izzy Black]

I lurk at a couple of forums, which included Match-Cut until I registered and began posting late last year. This is the only place I post at, though. Why do you ask?

Just curious. I recognize most posters here so I was just wondering. Excellent posts :D

[Lazlo]

Lol wut?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/9149h49KdYL._SL1500_.jpg

[Gittes]

Just curious. I recognize most posters here so I was just wondering. Excellent posts :D

Ah, OK. Thanks!

[Gittes]

Can those who have read Dahl's The BFG, which Spielberg is adapting into a feature film for a 2016 release date, comment on which actor might be suitable for the eponymous role? I've seen a lot of people suggest Daniel Day-Lewis. While I can't speak to the giant's characterization in the book yet, I can sort of see how that would work in a cosmetic sense, given Quentin Blake's illustrations. Day-Lewis would inevitably knock it out of the park, I imagine, and it would be pretty exciting to see him in a film of this nature.

I've been thinking about Spielberg collaborators and Max von Sydow has also come to mind. Might he also be a suitable choice?

The script is being written by Melissa Mathison, by the way. She penned E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

[Winston*]

Jim Broadbent, maybe?

[Raiders]

Michael Caine would be my choice.

That said, while The BFG is a good source for a film, I want him to actually get to work on the Coen brothers scripted, Tom Hanks starring, Cold War thriller before moving onto this.

[Gittes]

The release date for the Cold War spy thriller is October 16th, 2015, so it will indeed arrive before The BFG.

On another note, the October Criterion titles have been announced, and it's a very nice lineup:

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[Ezee E]

Tati might be worth getting.

Sidenote, I saw Road House for the first time, at the Alamo Drafthouse. Very fun time.

[Irish]

I'd add the original Insomnia to that list, Mitts. Great movie.

[DSNT]

I'm getting Tati, My Darling Clementine and La Dolce Vita. Already own regular DVDs for the other two.

And Insomnia arrives Tuesday. Never seen the original so looking forward to it.

[Ivan Drago]

I'm getting Tati, My Darling Clementine and La Dolce Vita. Already own regular DVDs for the other two.

And Insomnia arrives Tuesday. Never seen the original so looking forward to it.

DISSENT!!!! Welcome back, bro!!! :D

[Gittes]

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lku98lQIcG1qd1wn9o1_500 .jpg

Sorry.

[Spinal]

Product placement is getting out of hand.

[MadMan]

I laughed.

[MadMan]

Well I finally saw Oldboy (2003) and well...um...goddamn. That was one fucked up movie. I'm not sure if I liked the ending, though. Overall it was really excellent, powerful, gripping, the usual quality things you look for in a modern classic that shatters already conceived notions about what a revenge movie should be.

[Gittes]

Spoilers for Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Returns and Batman & Robin follow.

This argument was partly inspired by Akiva Goldsman's remarks in a Batman & Robin special feature. Upon checking, it's not quite what I had remembered, as I thought he specifically mentioned something about how the beauty of Batman's mythology is that it's so adaptable and accommodating. He has been, and can be, so many things. He didn't quite put it in those words, but he did emphasize the various changes Batman underwent throughout the decades and how he's a "durable icon." This stuck with me, evidently, and informed what I'm trying to get across here. (Goldsman also argues that the ostensible misfires of the Batman mythology somehow enabled more memorable iterations and that you need one in order to get the other. That part isn't quite as consonant with what I've written, although Goldsman does prove quite dexterous, as, with that remark, he manages to simultaneously condemn and elevate the worth of Batman & Robin).


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I was deeply enamoured of Batman: The Animated Series as a child, and I recently decided to revisit a few episodes. "Beware the Gray Ghost" made for a particularly great viewing experience. If I'm not mistaken, my much younger self wasn't especially taken with it when it first aired (although, I believe the character of the Gray Ghost inspired some measure of fascination). At any rate, this episode achieves a unique resonance decades later, and now possesses a self-reflexive power that it couldn't possibly claim at the time of its initial airing (save, of course, for those viewers who were fans of the live-action Batman series, to which this episode is clearly paying tribute, as Adam West voices the Gray Ghost). Now, with the passage of many years, there's something movingly familiar about Bruce's boyhood affection for a televisual detective of sharp mind and elegant design. The flashback to his enraptured viewings of the Gray Ghost's adventures are tenderly represented, and teeming with romanticized nostalgia; for older viewers gazing back on Batman: The Animated Series, the wistfulness of these scenes is now truly our own.

In other words, while the power of this episode was carefully established years ago, it could only be most keenly felt now, with the requisite perspective and longing brought on by the passage of time. The flashbacks evoke a period where I inadvertently imitated Bruce's rapt gaze, and ardently followed daily episodes of what I would later fondly remember as one of the absolute greatest representations of Batman. Bruce's youthful admiration of the Gray Ghost now resembles something like a Rockwellian glimpse into formative years of leisure and discovery, replete with the keenly felt ache of being brought into startling contiguity with your childhood while nonetheless remaining acutely aware of its irrevocability. On a related note, this episode outlines an interesting schematic opposition between the maniacal toyshop owner's rapacious collecting of merchandise and Bruce's modest, sentimental shrine to the Gray Ghost; it's almost as if the story is enacting a bit of didacticism, gently encouraging its viewers to cultivate meaningful bonds with the media they consume, instead of indulging in the mindless, compulsory acquisition of licensed products.

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The nostalgic appeal of "Beware The Gray Ghost" gestures toward something more than our youthful experience of the series, though. More broadly, it points to a distinct period in Batman's history. When the animated series first aired, Batman Returns still felt vital, fresh, and indelibly linked to the distinct appeal of the eponymous Byronic hero. The baroque stylization and vaguely lugubrious tone of Burton's films informed the animated series, even though the latter departed from the movies in numerous respects. Yet these two branches of the mythology came to represent a moment where Batman still seemed allied with the fantastic and the strange. In retrospect, these years felt like the Caped Crusader at his most pliable and unpredictable. This was evinced not only by Burton's inventive appropriation of the hero and the considerable variety of the animated stories, but also his eventual transition into gaudier and goofier excess with the arrival of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. During my childhood, it felt like Batman was especially well-poised to descend upon any number of distinct aesthetic and narrative worlds (I'm less conversant with Batman's comic book stories, outside of a few notables like Year One and The Long Halloween, but I'm certain that this argument would be well supported by the inevitable diversity of that enormous catalogue).

This results in a kind of narrative unruliness, which the animated series vividly showcases. The writers offered us pathos-infused, revisionist tales like "Heart of Ice," and somber pieces of body horror like "Feat of Clay," while also indulging in more frivolous romps, like "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne," or the memorable but ludicrous introduction to The Riddler, "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" Batman ably navigated an expansive narrative universe that, by turns, bore the shifting weight of adventure, tragedy, horror, absurdity, oneiric introspection, and an assortment of eccentricities. All of this played out, of course, long before Christopher Nolan seized Batman and diluted his fluidity and extravagance into, of all things, something "credible," and, at times, anemic.

Batman & Robin serves as a more contentious example of the accommodating flexibility of Batman's mythology. Schumacher's film has inspired so much condescension and contempt, but it's also something of a lurid curiosity. This is what happens when you really test the elasticity of the character and his attendant allies, foes, and iconography. The ignominous distinction of Batman & Robin is that it deploys its titular characters with a kind of cavalier insouciance, and the proceedings are motivated less by any discernible reverence for the heroes than salivation at the prospect of lucrative ancilliary merchandise (in other words, it's a feature length variation on the sensibilities of that maniacal toyshop owner from "Beware The Gray Ghost"). Still, the result is perhaps not as offensive as it is bizarrely fascinating. In certain respects, it's an appalling subversion of what so many of us love about Batman, sure, but the joy, such as it is, lies in observing that subversion develop: the result is something like seeing your beloved superhero drunkenly saunter through an interminable maze of funhouse mirrors. This is a film of tremendous temerity, and therein lies the (perverse?) appeal. There's something to this, something compulsively watchable about Batman going off the rails, and seeing him careen straight into a heady motion picture amusement park, where aesthetic and narrative excess is the rule of the day, and the only governing principle is a kind of wanton delirium.


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Schumacher brazenly sheds most of the ponderous trappings of Forever, which lent that movie a thoughtful edge (compared to Batman & Robin, it's a film of aesthetic and narrative restraint). In Batman & Robin, we get something closer to the serialized live-action escapades of Adam West and Burt Ward, which similarly foregrounded the silliness of superheroism. Hence, Batman's preternatural resourcefulness is taken to its logical and absurd conclusion: he even has a Bat credit card! Stunts like these obliquely recall the way Adam West similarly rendered Batman's ingenuity ludicrous, particularly when he deftly maneuvered out of some diabolical trap at the last possible moment (typically through recourse to a utility belt replete with every possible permutation of handy gadgets).

This sense of prodigious variance, of friction between distinct tendencies, can be felt even within the constraints of a single film (i.e., in Batman & Robin, the irreverence and revelry pause for surprisingly affecting scenes between Bruce and a dying Alfred). In the case of Batman Returns, Burton memorably stages a grotesque collision between beloved holiday iconography and the gloomy, expressionistic ornamentation of his Gotham City. The resulting confection is the stuff that dreams and nightmares are made of: capacious parks blanketed in snow, Christmas trees of gargantuan proportions, kitschy feline emblems, ludicrously designed baby carriages travelling through sewers, kitties nibbling on the pallid flesh of a dishevelled secretary, etc. Burton's most surprising gambit, however, and the one that perhaps most memorably speaks to the protean nature of the mythology, is his decision to carve out space for a bit of authentically human drama. I'm referring to Bruce and Selina's dance at Max Schreck's ball, which, following the eccentric heights and horrors of the film, is something of a marvellous incongruity. These hyperbolized figures are never quite as small as they as they are at this juncture, and one of the many pleasures of the scene is watching Bruce and Selina engage in a drama of decidedly human dimensions.

The achieved effect relies heavily on Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer's performative talents. To watch their faces throughout the dance is to witness a cascade of believable nuances, each underwriting an array of expressive feats (from the seductive rapartee of those initial moments to the quiet agony at the end of the dance). As one devastating revelation follows another, and the intensity steadily amplifies, Keaton and Pfeiffer moor the events to a foundation of convincing human emotion. For instance, when Selina reveals that she has come to the ball to kill Schreck, Pfeiffer's seething and manic intensity is dialled just right. She never quite tips over into anything distractingly histrionic (although, the nature of the character grants her a wide berth, within reason). The effect is enthralling. Soon thereafter, when she reveals that she's carrying a gun, Keaton ably conveys Bruce's attempt at simultaneously muting his alarm and placating Selina. When he hits a critical key ("Who the hell do you think you are?"), a bleary-eyed Pfeiffer loses herself to delirious laughter ("I don't know anymore, Bruce"), and her expressions seem to bear the strain of so much endured trauma: it's a performative masterstroke. Then Bruce and Selina kiss, of course, which seems like the only suitable outlet for the kind of intense energies being generated. Even as a child, I marvelled at this scene, which comes across as a kind of remarkable interloper (what are these genuine adults doing in my superhero movie?), but possesses a unique fascination that I enjoyed even then.

Not quite satisfied, Burton launches the scene into the stratosphere, as Selina, spacey and sullen, spies the mistletoe on the ceiling and murmurs the line from earlier in the film, thereby disclosing their respective alter egos. At this point, the spectator has already been privy to a kind of disclosure: as they danced, Selina and Bruce briefly emerged from the otherworldy splendour of Batman Returns and, surprisingly, bared themselves to each other, and to us, as vigilantes of profoundly human shading. Even after the cat and the bat are out of the bag, the revelation is not quite enough to shake the naturalism and momentum that Keaton and Pfeiffer have sustained. Instead, once again, these two lovers are drawn into an urgent embrace, holding each other as they exchange startled reactions ("Does this mean we have to start fighting?").

Then, a moment later, the ground gives way to an enormous motorized rubber ducky, and a dapper penguin man begins wreaking havoc. :)

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[Kurosawa Fan]

Mitty, what the heck is going on? You've deleted and reposted that same post about ten times now.

[Gittes]

Mitty, what the heck is going on? You've deleted and reposted that same post about ten times now.

Especially with posts that have taken up a lot of my time, I tend to delete older versions when I feel the need to apply revisions and rethink certain aspects. It's just a fussy, aesthetic thing; I don't like seeing that italicized "edited" addendum at the bottom of something I've written, so I circumvent it when I get the chance (particularly when it's something substantial, although I've also done this when images don't show up correctly, for whatever reason, in edited posts). My apologies if this inconvenienced you somehow. Confidently committing to a final draft before posting would seem like a logical fix, but I sometimes find my mind working away and thinking about minute adjustments even when I thought I was finally satisfied with what I submitted.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Especially with posts that have taken up a lot of my time, I tend to delete older versions when I feel the apply revisions and rethink certain aspects. It's just a fussy, aesthetic thing; I don't like seeing an italicized "edited" addendum at the bottom of something I've written, so I circumvent it when I get the chance. My apologies if this inconvenienced you somehow.

No, not an inconvenience. I just refresh the "New Posts" page while I'm at work from time to time, and this thread kept popping up, but it was always the same post from you. At first I thought it was a bug with the site, but then I realized it had to be something you were doing. Just confused is all, no big deal.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I know it's horror-centric, but since I figure most of you like Polanski's work, I responded to a piss-poor Cracked article about overrated horror classics (http://horrorfilms101.blogspot.com/2014/07/feature-rosemarys-baby-cracked-and.html). The emphasis is mostly on bad reasons to dislike Rosemary's Baby. Reposted text below:

Bullshit. That was the first word I thought while I read the Cracked article "4 Classic Horror Movies That Get More Love Than They Deserve." The article is one of roughly 450,000 lists produced by Cracked, a pop-culture site notable for its endless internal battle between genuinely off-beat subjects and shallow, clickbaity presentation. Cracked emphasizes countdowns and middle-school humor even as it de-emphasizes meaningful citations and cogent arguments. Knowledge plays backup to jokes. This is less a problem when the site's dealing with more absurd subjects, more troublesome when it's dealing with history or... say... classic cinema.

Two quick examples. The "4 Classic Horror..." article culminates with a dressing-down of Brett Ratner's Red Dragon. A film from a decade ago remembered mostly as a marginal improvement on preceding series chapter Hannibal. Another example, when discussing The Ring...

"I don't pay enough attention or do enough research to know if it started with this one in particular, but at some point around the late '90s or so, Hollywood fell in love with remaking Japanese horror films."

[Sidebar: it takes 60 seconds of Googling to determine that Asian horror remakes started in 2002 with The Ring.]

The most frustrating portion of this article, however, arrives early, as the entrance point for unworthy classics is Rosemary's Baby. For those not in the know, Rosemary's Baby was produced in 1968, directed by Roman Polanski, based on the 1967 novel by Ira Levin - who also wrote The Stepford Wives, The Boys From Brazil, and A Kiss Before Dying. To quote Walter Sobchak, not exactly a lightweight. The story focuses on Rosemary, a newlywed and soon-to-be-expecting mother who suspects her nosy neighbors are involved with a cult.

Heralded upon release, Rosemary's Baby became an Oscar winner and a legacy horror film. It earned high marks on AFI's 100 Thrills. It foretold the coming of films like The Exorcist and The Omen and influenced a generation of "bad birth" movies. A "classic" in every sense. Loved then, loved now, cited constantly. Which is to say, if someone's going to shoot the film down, the son of a bitch needs to be packing an elephant gun. The Cracked article is more of a pea shooter.

The argument begins.

"Even if you've never seen or heard of Rosemary's Baby, if you watch it today, you will figure out what's going on about 10 minutes into the movie..."

A problem right away. This criticism assumes that the filmmakers tried to put something over on the audience. In fact, there was little doubt at the time of release as to what Rosemary's Baby was building towards. Not only was the story available on bookshelves, but people knew the film's secret by concept alone. As Roger Ebert notes in his 1968 review, "When the conclusion comes, it works not because it is a surprise but because it is horrifyingly inevitable." Rosemary herself announces "This is no dream, this is really happening!" at the 45 minute mark, making clear to the viewer what she will forget when she wakes later.

This kind of storytelling obviously has the effect of taking away a traditional form of suspense, the kind in which viewers know only as much as the heroes (Shyamalan's Signs is a good example). Rosemary's Baby replaces that familiar suspense with a more subsumed kind of dread - the dread of tragedy and dramatic irony, which comes from watching sympathetic heroes fall headfirst into an abyss they couldn't see and we couldn't miss. And let's not even get into the paradox of suspense, the common phenomenon in which viewers still feel suspense despite knowing an outcome. In short, knowing a story's destination doesn't divest us a priori of engagement. There must be something else failing in Rosemary for this kind of attack to carry any weight. But that "something else" is never mentioned.

And so the poor reasoning continues.

"Oh! What about that scene where they finally reveal the baby, though? Right: For one thing, it's hard to even spot. If you've ever heard someone gush about the "baby scene" in that movie, allow me to shatter any perceptions of awesome you may have with this screenshot."

There's a deeper problem here, but let's address the most obvious error first: the demonic image in the climax is not the baby. It's a flashback to Satan. Specifically, the Satan from an earlier dream sequence. Reason one: Rosemary steps away from the crib and looks up in realization of who the "father" is, clearly flashing back. Reason two: the face we see is attached to a body that is visibly thrusting.

Ignoring the matter that the article can't differentiate between a baby and a turgid sexing demon, the bigger problem here is the misguided idea that the movie's ending is about seeing a monster-baby. Wrong. Polanski completely denies the viewer an image of Rosemary's child, emphasizing only its black, cloaked bassinet. What he does show, in abundance, are the reactions. Rosemary's crushing despair. Guy's shame and evasion. The conspirators' joy - an old lady chirps "Hail Satan!"

Which means that the horror we're supposed to glean from the ending is supposed to come from character, not image - emotion, not shock. The "horror" isn't found in a demon baby, but in the more relatable and awful idea that everyone is against you, and that evil will win.

The last meaningful comment in the article states:

"...why do people continue to recommend Rosemary's Baby as if it's some sort of essential watching in the "movies where the old people next door are Satanists" subgenre?"

The answer to this question is simple. The "movies where the old people next door are Satanists" is not a big subgenre. If somebody doesn't at least name-check Rosemary's Baby, the goddamn founder of the sub-genre, then that person does not know what the word "essential" means.

This article's half-assed reasoning makes a bit more sense when the author suggests that readers, instead of watching Rosemary's Baby, should watch The Devil's Advocate, another religious conspiracy picture with the shock of supernatural reality at the end. Recommended mostly for Pacino's camp overacting in the climax, the film is admittedly a not-bad one. So long as the viewer ignores Reeves's middling performance, the thudding symbolism, and the unbelievably cheap final twist.

[Sidebar: better alternatives would be oldie The Seventh Victim, newbie The House of the Devil, or Polanski's other female-centered paranoia fest, Repulsion.]

The use of The Devil's Advocate as some sort of meaningful alternative suggests that the article is a marginal troll job (remember that line about not bothering to research?). Certainly there's not much value in attacking article author Adam Tod Brown, who's a comedian first and foremost. His podcast, the nakedly risible Unpopular Opinions, suggests he's more interested in disagreement than discussion. Hard to blame him. Who doesn't like a good controversy?

Am I giving him what he wants by throwing an argument back into the internet ether? Not exactly. My problem is not that he attacked Rosemary's Baby. My problem is that he did it so poorly. That his foremost attack hinges on him not understanding how the plot's meant to work. That a subsequent attack hinges on him not knowing what he's looking at. There are fundamental, obvious mistakes in the commentary, little real thought, a flip manner that reveals a serious lack of care. There are a few rules about discussion that I think most people should live by. The most important is this: if you don't know what you're talking about, it's time to stop talking.

[Irish]

Holy shit, the fucking Cracked Guy recommends The Devil's Advocate over Rosemary's Baby? Gimme a break.

[EyesWideOpen]

I don't know if any of you remember Bronson from the RT days but he writes at Cracked now.

[Pop Trash]

Pennies from Heaven from 1981 is a very strange film but I mostly dig it. I can't quite decide if Steve Martin was miscast or not. Also, the song and dance sequences seem so disjointed from the rest of the film but this might be intentional. The thing looks great too; Gordon Willis shot the hell out of it.

[Mara]

An Oral History of Galaxy Quest (http://www.mtv.com/news/1873653/galaxy-quest-oral-history/)

[Kurosawa Fan]

An Oral History of Galaxy Quest (http://www.mtv.com/news/1873653/galaxy-quest-oral-history/)

Quite the shift in that oral history. I went from thinking, "Boy, Rickman's a bit of an ass" to "Wow, Tim Allen is an insufferable ass!"

[Mara]

I can't believe they almost didn't shoot the garbage scene. That scene is fantastic.

I'm also glad that several people involved have the same favorite line I do: "We have to get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!"

[Kurosawa Fan]

I can't believe they almost didn't shoot the garbage scene. That scene is fantastic.

I'm also glad that several people involved have the same favorite line I do: "We have to get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!"

Yes! Best line in the film, though Pegg and Frost's favorite line is right up there.

[Yxklyx]

Pennies from Heaven from 1981 is a very strange film but I mostly dig it. I can't quite decide if Steve Martin was miscast or not. Also, the song and dance sequences seem so disjointed from the rest of the film but this might be intentional. The thing looks great too; Gordon Willis shot the hell out of it.

Yeah, I remember it shifted tones a lot - making for some very unsettling scenes.

[Irish]

I'm watching the Story of Film docu by Mark Cousins on Netflix. It's interesting because the films he talks about are interesting. And I like the non-Hollywood, non-Western approach he takes at times.

But holy shit is the writing bad. The narration is all over the place. The commentary is uneven. It's painfully obvious Cousins has never had voice training (he's got weird inflections going like every third word, which makes declarative statements sound like questions). He violates his own decade-by-decade structure at will, going off on large tangents about different genres. Almost every major figure he mentions by name is "the best" at what they did during the decade they did it. And then he'll sorta include random biographical information-- "Here's FW Murnau's house . But he made [I]Sunrise in Los Angeles [shot of the Hollywood sign]." I'm not sure I really needed to know that Eisenstein was bisexual. Or that Howard Hawks kept working when he found out his kid was injured in a car accident.

I'm on episode 4 or 5. I dunno if I'm gonna last through all 15. Jesus.

[Gittes]

I haven't watched Story of Film yet, but I think I read one of Cousins' pieces in Sight & Sound, and I've noted that Mark Kermode (another critic, whose work I'm more acquainted with) holds him in high regard. From what I gather, he has a very unique critical voice (and, apparently, literal voice; I've noticed others mention the way his statements can occassionally sound like questions).


And then he'll sorta include random biographical information-- "Here's FW Murnau's house . But he made [I]Sunrise in Los Angeles [shot of the Hollywood sign]." I'm not sure I really needed to know that Eisenstein was bisexual. Or that Howard Hawks kept working when he found out his kid was injured in a car accident.


Is it because you simply don't find these details interesting or because they don't specifically pertain to the content of the films discussed? I could see how someone might detect a kind of tabloid interest in such tangential remarks. I admittedly find most of what you mentioned pretty interesting, though. Eisenstein came up a lot throughout university, but never that particular detail. This reminds me of learning, in class one day, that Christian Metz committed suicide; discussing any personal details about the scholars we were studying was rare, and this was a particularly surprising revelation. If I recall correctly, I think this also came up around the same time that the ambition, and ultimate failure, of Metz's ''grande syntagmatique'' theory was being discussed, which, in my mind, inevitably triggered the idea of some kind of association (which, in retrospect, seems woefully speculative and dubious).

[Irish]

Is it because you simply don't find these details interesting or because they don't specifically pertain to the content of the films discussed? I could see how someone might detect a kind of tabloid interest in such tangential remarks. I admittedly find most of what you mentioned pretty interesting, though.

It's interesting if it informs on the work or lends additional insight. The series is presented as cinema studies 101, though, and the presentation is uneven. Like, he'll mention random biographical details on some filmmakers and not others. The details are given without context, and no attempt is made to tie those details into the rest of the copy he's reading.

On a couple of them, he'll go into detail about how somebody died -- drug overdose, suicide, cancer, whatever -- and say, with a forced gravity, "And this is where they died [shot of generic LA apartments or parking lot]. The second or third time he did it, I just burst out laughing. It really plays like they had enough money to fly to specific locations (LA, Paris, Tokyo) to get coverage but not much was left over after that.

There's some interesting stuff early on about the genesis of film grammar across cultures (like the use of deep focus in Japan five years before Citizen Kane) .. But the rest of it is unbearable.

I don't watch a lot of documentaries (and may have been spoiled by Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through Film) but I don't think I've ever seen a docu that was this shabbily produced.

[Gittes]

Somehow, you're making me more interested in getting around to finally watching this. :D

[Irish]

You should definitely watched the first couple of episodes to see if it suits you. (I really do like the way he covers stuff I haven't seen elsewhere -- even small mentions of silent Indian films are interesting.)

But I'm also curious as hell whether I'm crazy, or this thing is as badly produced as I think it is.

[dreamdead]

Rewatched Basic Instinct on streaming since Sarah hadn't ever seen it. There was so much Hitchcock-referencing, from music structure to set location to angles of shots that the film feels like nothing less than a 90s sex-and-coked-up adaptation of Vertigo. More interesting, and awkward simultaneously, was the way in which the film uses Jeanne Tripplehorn's character, as every scene she's a part of she is psychologically if not physically raped. Odd realization to consider, in that every scene (with one exception, I think) with her ends with her shaken, grabbed, or violated. That said, this film indicts men's predatory instincts quite decently. Lurid filmmaking all around, but I'd love to see this kind of overt take on murder thrillers more often.

[DSNT]

I'm on episode 4 or 5. I dunno if I'm gonna last through all 15. Jesus.

Just avoid the Baz Luhrmann section. He was a producer for the series and gets way too much screen time. Sure, he has his fans, but he shouldn't get more attention than Murnau, Renoir, Ford, Bresson, Eisenstein, etc ..

I was hypnotized by the entire series, but a lot of that was because of how much I love film. It also turned me onto a number of foreign releases that I never otherwise would have considered. For instance, I just rented Sholay and recently watched Xala, neither of which would have been on my radar without TSOF.

I would stick with it at least through the 50s-70s.

[Irish]

Rewatched Basic Instinct on streaming since Sarah hadn't ever seen it.

Now watch the sequel. I dare you. :P

[Irish]

Just avoid the Baz Luhrmann section. He was a producer for the series and gets way too much screen time. Sure, he has his fans, but he shouldn't get more attention than Murnau, Renoir, Ford, Bresson, Eisenstein, etc ..

I was hypnotized by the entire series, but a lot of that was because of how much I love film. It also turned me onto a number of foreign releases that I never otherwise would have considered. For instance, I just rented Sholay and recently watched Xala, neither of which would have been on my radar without TSOF.

Absolutely agreed about the foreign stuff. He mentioned a few Japanese films I'd never heard of & now very much want to see.

I'd be more enthralled -- the content itself is fascinating -- if it worked as a docu on any level. "Hey, we're talking about Italian neo-realism, so let's outro on a shot of a Los Angeles beach while a libretto plays on the soundtrack." Wait, what?


I would stick with it at least through the 50s-70s.

It's a tough road. To keep from getting too pissed about it, I actually turned on the second half of Scorsese's docu and watched that again.

[Gittes]

Xala

The ending to this film is brutal and unforgettable.



I'd be more enthralled -- the content itself is fascinating -- if it worked as a docu on any level. "Hey, we're talking about Italian neo-realism, so let's outro on a shot of a Los Angeles beach while a libretto plays on the soundtrack." Wait, what?

:lol:

[DSNT]

The ending to this film is brutal and unforgettable.

Embarrassed. I just repped this post after temporarily misremembering the nature of the ending. So that comment is going to sound pretty insensitive.

For some reason I was thinking they urinated on him, but now I remember they spit. That was indeed brutal.

[Gittes]

Embarrassed. I just repped this post after temporarily misremembering the nature of the ending. [/SPOILER]

No worries; it happens.

On another note, I found this great image, which was clearly designed to appeal to those who possess both substantial nostalgia for the Sega Genesis' Sonic the Hedgehog catalogue, and an appreciation for the films of Werner Herzog.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3880/14739358021_364fecc000_o.jpg

[Irish]

Watching Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner.

There's a surprising amount of detail here that is new to me--

Dustin Hoffman was the original choice for Deckard?

Darryl Hannah was influenced by Herzog's Nosferatu in designing Pris?

Edward James Olmos came up with the "city speak" gibberish on his own?!

Tyrell is a replicant? There was supposed to be a crypt on top of the corporate pyramid?!

[Mara]

Despite mostly existing to enrage the internet over Oscar injustices, a revisit of Shakespeare in Love was kind to it. It is funny, warm, sly, and occasionally affecting (though I think it works better at its comic moments than its tragic ones.) A solid supporting cast helps.

However, a rewatch of Branaugh's Love's Labour's Lost after over a decade confirms that it is a total mess. It is ill-conceived to a baffling extent, especially with musical numbers and some of the casting choices. (Alicia Silverstone? Matthew Lillard????)

I mean, I really like stylized old musicals, I love Shakespearean comedies. And yet I'm watching the whole thing going "WHY WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?"

[Irish]

I've never understood the backlash. Shakespeare in Love is a great movie, a song for English majors, funny, resonant, and contains small truths. The only exception in it is Gwenyth Paltrow, who I still find stiff and unconvincing (that accent!).

[dreamdead]

The Accused is the type of social film that's very much of its age, tied to an overbearing techno score and rather one-note portrayal of men against women, across social class, job environment, and interests. That said, Jodie Foster's portrayal of a rape victim and her attorney's attempt to get those who egged on the repeated violations to be held accountable is the kind of story that remains empowering even if all of the verbal assaulters come across as complete caricatures of malicious evil. Where the film does better is in its study of Foster's character, who has just enough flaws to make one question the jury's decision. Formulaic in film style, but valuable for recording how monumental a woman's response would have been.

[Stay Puft]

I don't know if this has been confirmed - I've just now seen this being posted on Japanese blogs that I can't actually read, so it could just be more of the same rumors from previous weeks - but it looks like Studio Ghibli just shut down its production department. Goro Miyazaki's television series is still happening (it's being produced outside of Ghibli) but that would make When Marnie Was There the final Studio Ghibli film.

[DSNT]

I've seen it in a few places and think it must be true.

http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2014/08/studio-ghibli-closes-doors.html

[Stay Puft]

Well there has been some clarification since then and it looks like Suzuki was saying they're weighing their options, with closing production being likely, but not final. But given the course of events over the last few years, all the signs were pointing in this direction anyways, so... it's still not OVER over, but it's kinda over.

[Qrazy]

Well there has been some clarification since then and it looks like Suzuki was saying they're weighing their options, with closing production being likely, but not final. But given the course of events over the last few years, all the signs were pointing in this direction anyways, so... it's still not OVER over, but it's kinda over.

What's the problem, have their recent productions not made money?

[Stay Puft]

What's the problem, have their recent productions not made money?

That, and from what I'm reading, the studio culture has been a problem as well. They haven't been fostering talent properly, nobody has been moving up the ranks. Miyazaki and Takahata are both retired now, and these guys pretty much were Ghibli (they founded the company together to do their own thing). Takahata's final film was considered a commercial failure at the box office, and Yonebayashi's film has flopped even harder, so it's not looking good for the production department. There have been rumblings for a while now that Ghibli was going to step back from production and become a studio that exclusively manages IP, and that's what it looks like is finally happening.

[KK2.0]

I'm so sad that it came to this but it was bound to happen I guess, animation can be a stressful work and Miyazaki and his partners deserve rest. The "they haven't been fostering talent properly" part was sadly the main reason imo, although I find it hard to understand how that no one growing within the studio culture for the past decades didn't stand out, Miyazaki had to put his son directing and I can only imagine the pressure on Goro to fill the shoes of his father.

[Dead & Messed Up]

If there is a Hell, it has round the clock showings of Mr. Bean's Holiday. He's not funny so much as he is uniformly loathsome and insufferable.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Now I know what it felt like when Jesus was crucified, because I'm watching Mr. Bean's Holiday.

[Spun Lepton]

Question for you, DaMU. Did you like the TV show?

[Spun Lepton]

... for the record. The Bean movie was a step down from the TV show. I haven't bothered with Holiday.

[dreamdead]

Lovers of blacklisted work or generally obscure classic 40s-60s Hollywood leftist works, what's quality from this excerpt of the longer NYTimes article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/movies/the-blacklist-at-lincoln-center-and-anthology-film-archives.html):


Drawing on both series, you could assemble the syllabus for a course on the concerns of the American left during the ’30s and ’40s. The threat of gangster capitalism is articulated by Polonsky’s “Force of Evil” and the lesser known “I Stole a Million,” directed by the party member Frank Tuttle from a script by the Communist sympathizer Nathanael West. American nativism is criticized in “Three Faces West,” a 1940 John Wayne vehicle made by two Communists: Samuel Ornitz, one of its screenwriters, and Bernard Vorhaus, its director. Homegrown Nazism is attacked in “Northern Pursuit,” one of two movies in the Anthology series directed by Raoul Walsh, a Republican, from screenplays by Communist writers. The democratic ideology of World War II is celebrated in “Pride of the Marines,” written by the Hollywood 10 member Albert Maltz and starring the progressive paragon John Garfield.

Racial prejudice and fear of nuclear war are synthesized in Losey’s first feature, “The Boy With Green Hair,” while Polonsky’s 1969 comeback, “Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here,” a western inflected by the writings of the Third World psychologist Frantz Fanon, provides a New Left addendum. Although the 1959 heist thriller “Odds Against Tomorrow” (co-produced by one of its stars, Harry Belafonte, and contributed to by Polonsky through a front) provides a measure of racial awareness, missing from the syllabus is the subject that Hollywood Communists most wanted and were least able to address, known in party jargon as “the struggle against white chauvinism.” That interest should be covered in the last installment of Anthology’s series with post-blacklist Hollywood movies by Jules Dassin (“Uptight”) and Herbert Biberman (“Slaves”).

[Dead & Messed Up]

Question for you, DaMU. Did you like the TV show?

No. Every time I've seen Mr. Bean's face, I've wanted to punch it.

I'm doing some closed captioning overtime, so I kinda have to watch it.

[Morris Schæffer]

No worries; it happens.

On another note, I found this great image, which was clearly designed to appeal to those who possess both substantial nostalgia for the Sega Genesis' Sonic the Hedgehog catalogue, and an appreciation for the films of Werner Herzog.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3880/14739358021_364fecc000_o.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/HerzogZwei-Cover.png

I got your back Mits. 2 for the price of 1!!!!!

[Dead & Messed Up]

No. Every time I've seen Mr. Bean's face, I've wanted to punch it.

I'm doing some closed captioning overtime, so I kinda have to watch it.

Also, just have to point out that we go in order of what's scheduled at work, and so you just pick up whichever movie is next on a big fat list. The one I just missed that was before Mr. Bean? Double Indemnity. The one after Mr. Bean? Carpenter's The Thing.

The irony here is far funnier than any of Bean's tedious holiday mishaps.

[Spun Lepton]

Also, just have to point out that we go in order of what's scheduled at work, and so you just pick up whichever movie is next on a big fat list. The one I just missed that was before Mr. Bean? Double Indemnity. The one after Mr. Bean? Carpenter's The Thing.

The irony here is far funnier than any of Bean's tedious holiday mishaps.

Aww. The Mr. Bean show was a little hit-or-miss, but when it hit, it was hilarious. Thoughts on Black Adder?

[Dead & Messed Up]

Aww. The Mr. Bean show was a little hit-or-miss, but when it hit, it was hilarious. Thoughts on Black Adder?

...have not seen.

[Russ]

Black Adder is awesome. Especially Series 2-3.

[MadMan]

Based on what little I've seen of both I too prefer Black Adder over Mr. Bean.

[transmogrifier]

The Office > Father Ted > The Thick of It > The Young Ones >>>> Blackadder > Fawlty Towers > regular British sitcoms >>> Mr. Bean

Haven't seen much of the Monty Python series, but love the movies of course.

[Mara]

Continuing my Shakespeare immersion.

I hadn't seen Nunn's Twelfth Night since it was in theaters, but I remembered being very disappointed and summing it up as "joyless." A revisit confirmed that is more or less accurate. An argument could be made that you can't fault a film for not being funny if the director doesn't want it to be funny, but in this case I would disagree. The source material is so hilarious-- it is Shakespeare's funniest play, I dare you to disagree with me--sparkling with wit and joie de vivre, that it takes an unrepentant sourpuss to suck all the happiness out of it. Nunn directs every scene like the characters just figured out this whole "human mortality" thing. They sob. They argue. They sulk in dark corners. They wear drab clothing and get drunk not because it's fun, but to numb all the eternal pain. In fact, the fabulous "carousing" scene that drives the Malvolio subplot, where he interrupts their party and they punish him over the rest of the play for being an Enemy of Fun, is mostly the actors slumped drunkenly against walls, looking like they are about to burst into tears.

Even the outdoorsy garden scenes are shot in late autumn and contain lots of dead leaves and visible breath. Everyone looks miserable.

Ben Kingsley plays the most stony-faced fool I've ever seen, and I'm counting the production of King Lear I saw a few years ago where they had the fool be an old dying man with dementia. Kingsley was more grim. I don't think he cracked the smile for the duration of the film. I mean, sure. I get the whole fool-as-eternal-truth-teller of Shakespeare. I think there is certainly a place for some melancholy in the character. But Kingsley looked like he was showing up for a colonoscopy appointment.

The only person who had any fun at all was Richard Grant as Andrew Aguecheek. Even then he looked somewhat chastened most of the time, as if people were telling him not to be so silly in between takes. Aguecheek has one of the most potentially sad lines in the play-- "I was adored, once, too"-- and he sold the hell out of that moment.

Which sort of brings me round to my point. Shakespeare's comedies don't have to be played like Marx brothers films; they can have depth, and problematic moments, and heartbreak. But those moments don't land the way they are supposed to unless they show up in contrast to the lighter moments. The balance is important. We can admire and respect his work without treating every word he wrote as if he was summing up the entirety of the human condition. Everyone stop having fun! This is Important Stuff! This is The Bard of freaking Avon, stop smiling!

Which leads to actors overselling every line of Shakespeare because he's Shakespeare and ruining it for the rest of us. It's okay to have a funny scene! You don't have to say every line like you just staggered on stage carrying Cordelia's dead body.

Anyway, I don't want to make it sound like a horrible film, because it's not. But I don't like it.

[Mara]

In contrast, Branagh's As You Like It was significantly better than I expected. Reviews were brutal, so I avoided it when it came out, but the end result was perfectly charming. It may have benefited from my low expectations.

By the way, I read through a number of the reviews that criticized the source play. Don't you dare, reviewers. That play is a delight.

Any way, good stuff first: coming right off of Twelfth Night I was relieved that Branagh kept the tone light and cheery. AYLI it not as laugh-out-loud funny as TN, but it is good-natured and breezy. Howard was winsome and dewy as Rosalind; I've never seen a part where I liked her more. Brian Blessed killed it as Duke Senior and Duke Junior; that's a part that is easy to underplay but he brought real kindness and gravitas to it. I understood why people would follow him and why they loved him. And David Oyelowo, who I do not know at all, was wonderful as Orlando. Orlando can come across as stupid or ridiculous based on his actions in the play, but Oyelowo gave him charm and goodness.

Everything was lush and gorgeous-looking, which fits perfectly with the bucolic, pastoral tone of the play. Everyone is laying out in the sunshine and bathing in rivers and braiding flower-crowns to put on sheep.

The not-so-good: I suspect that Branagh decided to set his film-version in Japan because he really likes Japanese architecture and clothing, because it's certainly not because he wanted to feature any Japanese people. Of the four "characters" that are even mildly Asian, one has all his lines cut, one is the butt of a particularly nasty joke, and two look like they each have at least three Anglo-Saxon grandparents. I agree that Japanese architecture and clothing are beautiful, but I'm not sure how I feel about appropriating an entire culture to tell a story that is all about white people.

The scene where Orlando was attacked by a lion was ridiculous. Even given that there are no lions in Japan. (There are none in France either, Mr. Shakespeare.)

The script could have used some trimming, particularly when it came to Touchstone (Alfred Molina!) and Audrey. It is really fun to set up the pieces to end the play with four weddings, but in film it just felt overstuffed. (Jacques: "There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark.")

Finally, an issue that I don't know how I feel about it: Branagh chose to have Rosalind in no way pretend to be a boy. She puts on boy's clothes, sure, but does nothing to obscure her face or body. They don't even cut her hair or tuck it in a cap-- it is just back in a ponytail. A person would have to be insane to mistake her for a boy, and yet she is mistaken, by both the man who loves her and her own father.

In contast, Imogen Stubbs in Twelfth Night cuts her hair, binds her breasts, puts on man's clothing and a false mustache, lowers her voice, stuffs a sock down her pants, and attempts to mimic male mannerisms and gestures.

Here's the thing: is Viola actually more convincing as a man than Rosalind? Well, no. Not really. They both totally, completely look like girls. Trying to convince us that they look like boys isn't going to work, so how hard are we going to try and sell it? I think maybe we just need to accept this little fiction and move on. Like Clark Kent putting on his glasses, in a Shakespeare play if a woman puts on pants she is unquestionably, without doubt 100% a boy.

[Mara]

Two illustrated points:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/12th-night.jpg
Pictured: Feste, delighting everyone with his songs and jokes and merriment.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/asyoulikeitBryce-Dallas-Howard2.jpg
Pictured: a very masculine manly man.

[Gittes]

I thought some of you might find this interesting. Mark Kermode, the British film critic, who is very good (funny, articulate, perceptive, etc.), has released a couple of videos to announce his list of the worst films of 2014 so far, which is accompanied by some entertaining commentary:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyCD1-Kjgko&list=UUCxKPNMqjnqbxVEt1t yDUsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uq54Pf0WIs&list=UUCxK PNMqjnqbxVEt1tyDUsA

[Mysterious Dude]

I thought some of you might find this interesting. Mark Kermode, the British film critic, who is very good (funny, articulate, perceptive, etc.), has released a couple of videos to announce his list of the worst films of 2014 so far, which is accompanied by some entertaining commentary:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyCD1-Kjgko&list=UUCxKPNMqjnqbxVEt1tyDUsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uq54Pf0WIs&list=UUCxKPNMqjnqbxVEt1tyDUsA

Is it good that, before now, I've heard of only three of those movies?

[Gittes]

Is it good that, before now, I've heard of only three of those movies?

Out of curiosity, which three?

[Dead & Messed Up]

Also, just have to point out that we go in order of what's scheduled at work, and so you just pick up whichever movie is next on a big fat list. The one I just missed that was before Mr. Bean? Double Indemnity. The one after Mr. Bean? Carpenter's The Thing.

The irony here is far funnier than any of Bean's tedious holiday mishaps.

The last half hour of Mr. Bean's Holiday has some diverting, extremely broad swipes at art films, setting its climax at Cannes and setting up Willem DaFoe as a self-impressed aesthete whose vanity project is a funny bit of bleak tripe. He keeps insisting there's "nothing" at the core of him, and he's so hollow inside that the word "nothing" echoes.

And there's a genuinely good Tati-style bit where Bean obliviously walks from a second-story roof down to the beach courtesy of different-sized cars, from semi to bus to conversion van to car to pickup truck, each arriving just in time to give him steps. Which reminded me of the car ballet at the end of Playtime.

I still found the film a tedious bore replete with tiresome mugging, but at least those brief moments made the whole thing a not-total waste of time.

[Mysterious Dude]

Out of curiosity, which three?
The Other Woman, 300: Rise of an Empire and The Canyons. I admit I was also vaguely aware that Adam Sandler and Arnold had new movies.

[Mara]

Yes, still with the Shakespeare comedies.

Revisited Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing for the first time in several years. This was an old love of mine-- I saw it twice in the theaters, which I think might have been the first time that happened. It was showing at the crappy one-screen art theater in Lansing, Michigan when I saw it first, and I loved it so much that when it got a wider release six months later after being nominated for a few awards, I went with my mother and saw it at the theater in the mall. I owned it on VHS and probably watched it sixty times through high school and college, though heaven knows where my copy ended up. This film was directly responsible for me, still a teenager, totally sobbing when Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh broke up, because Beatrice and Benedick should be happy forever. The summer after it came out when I visited my father my best friend and I wrote passionate pages-long letters to each other about the film.

I have a relationship with this movie, is what I'm saying.

And it really is a lovely production. Everything is gorgeous Tuscan landscapes, hot sun and tan skin. Everyone is falling out of their clothing at any given moment, and every conversation is sparkling wit with a heavy undertone of ribald sexuality. Thompson and Branagh kill it as the leads, of course, but much of the supporting cast is also excellent, including a surprisingly strong turn by Denzel Washington, who handles the difficult language with finesse. Branagh's habit of casting plenty of classically trained theater actors in all the minor roles stands him well here.

Unfortunately, he also casts people with a name but puts them so far outside their comfort zone that it fails badly. Keanu Reeves (who gets a bad rap; he is a serviceable actor in a certain kind of part) is floundering and out of his depth here. And though Michael Keaton is deeply committed to Dogberry, his growling, greasy, heavy-breathing performance doesn't land at all and clashes tonally with everything else.

Overall, though, this film still holds up quite well.

Plus, the music is amazing.

[Spinal]

Plus, the music is amazing.

Patrick Doyle is a delight.

[Mara]

Patrick Doyle is a delight.

The internet tells me that he is actually in the film as Balthazar during this scene, singing:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4xn90GoMU

[Spinal]

I actually owned the Needful Things soundtrack on CD.

[Mara]

RE: Shakespeare's "Comedies" (in name only)

Radford's The Merchant of Venice doesn't really work. And this is where I hit a brick wall and realize I could never be a professional critique person, because I don't think I can tell you why it doesn't really work. I can point out good and bad parts of the film, but I don't have a solid reason why it doesn't cohesively fit together. "It doesn't pop," I thought at one point. "Hmmm," I thought at another. But mostly I thought, "This isn't really working."

Individual elements are excellent. Shylock is a hell of a character, and I've seen the play several times and know how easy it is to overplay the character; he is a ruined man by the end, and his speeches lend themselves to shouting. Given Pachino's reputation I was afraid he would be gnawing on all the scenery. Instead, he gives a restrained, heart-broken performance rooted firmly in human frailty. I think it is one of the finest Pacino roles I have ever seen.

Mirroring him is Jeremy Irons, and if the whole film was just these two proud, flawed, oppositional men clawing at each other, the film would be just about perfect. Antonio is a very good man in certain situations who is also a very bad man in others, and that balance can be hard to find. Irons plays him as a mixture of proud and pitiful, sad and angry. They just did away with pretense altogether and had Antonio as being hopelessly besotted with Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) who may or may not reciprocate, but is certainly aware of his advantage.

The flaws of the film come more into focus as we look at the other plot of the play. If Antonio and Shylock's story is a tragedy about two great, flawed men who conflate into disaster when forced into proximity, Portia and Bassanio are acting out a romantic comedy with passing around of rings and love-tokens, cross-dressing, love-challenges, and a happy ending for everyone.

There are two ways to bring these two plots into the same story, and I feel like Radford decided to treat them as disparately as possible; using the light comedy of trifles to foil the terrible tragedy of greed and revenge. But if I'm allowed to have an opinion on this, it's the wrong tack. Shakespeare is a masterful plotter, and I don't think he stuck these two stories into the same play because he had two half-finished plays and was in a hurry. There are strong thematic ties between the two stories, and I feel that minimizing those similarities does both a disservice.

We have two stories of strong-minded women who have been given no control over their own lives by an intractable father, who treats them as one of his possessions. Shylock loves his daughter, Jessica, but is not shown as having a clear idea of her own agency, and she responds by robbing him blind and running away. Portia's father probably loved her, too, and had some mixed-up idea of protecting her, but the ridiculous codicils of his will only serve to tie her hands when she should be most free. We do not know how Portia would have reacted if thing had not worked out in her way, but I doubt that she would have acquiesced to marrying where she did not like, and probably would have defied her dead father after all.

We have stories of mercenary men. Antonio is a merchant who makes his living buying and trading at profit, but he sneers and spits at Shylock, who makes his living by charging interest of money lent. Bassanio has spent all his inheritance, has borrowed heavily, and spent all of that again. He borrows further in the hopes of an advantageous marriage; it is unclear how he intends to repay his friends if the match doesn't work out in his favor. The fact that Bassanio loves Portia (if he does) and that she loves him (which she certainly does) is peripheral to the fact that he needs money, and she has it. It is first and foremost a business transaction, and emotional concerns are secondary.

We have stories of people who think more highly of themselves than they probably deserve. Shylock sees himself as a righteous man, unjustly persecuted... which he is. But he is also vengeful and exacting. Antonio sees himself as generous and loving... which he is. But he is also rabidly anti-Semitic, proud, self-righteous and cruel. Bassanio sees himself as a man beloved and precious... which he isn't, because Bassanio's kind of an asshole and I'm not giving him an inch on this one. Grow the hell up, Bassanio. Portia is beautiful and brilliant and rich and desired, which advantages she entirely enjoys. But she is also insulting and condescending to her suitors, and in the fantastic courtroom scene at the climax of the plot she easily favors drama and spectacle over compassion and clarity.

Portia.

One of Shakespeare's best heroines. Clever, self-directed, pro-active, and funny. Proud, bored, stuck-up, and manipulative. Portia is a wonder.

But, to get back away from the play and back into the film, Portia doesn't do a hell of a lot in this version. Lynn Collins gives us a decidedly blank Portia. She is lovely, and she spends a lot of time wandering around vaguely, looking lovely. There are no seeds in the characterization that give us a woman who will dress herself as a man and travel unprotected, put herself in front of a Duke, and dexterously save a man's life. It comes out of nowhere. Once she is in position, she also doesn't own the scene at all. Collins' Portia looks nervous and quavery, even a little lost. Why would anyone listen to her? She looks like a fool.

There are other elements I could discuss: the richly-realized Venetian setting; the careful costuming, etc. But I look at the characters, and I look at the tone, and I keep thinking... this doesn't really work.

[Mara]

By the way, I'm also going to revisit Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream soon and Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew.

If anyone can recommend others beyond that, I'd appreciate it. I'm really looking for versions that use Shakespeare's words, but am willing to look at looser adaptations (10 Things I Hate About You is good and I should track it down, She's the Man was terrible but I watched it anyway.)

These are the plays that interest me: All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Twelfth Night.

Watched or rewatched recently:
Branagh's As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing
Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing
Nunn's Twelfth Night
Radford's Merchant of Venice
Fickman's She's the Man (Twelfth Night, kinda)

Have seen at some point:
Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream (will rewatch)
Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (will rewatch)
Junger's 10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew, kinda) (should probably rewatch)
Czinner's As You Like It (not sure if I could find this again) (Oh, YouTube has it.)

Never seen:
Komar's Measure for Measure (it looks awful... should I see this?)

[Mysterious Dude]

I saw Ashes and Diamonds in the theater. It was a digital print, and it looked so perfect, I doubt it looked anything like the film did in 1958. I couldn't even see any film grain. I wonder if they used the same smoothing process that was reportedly used in the Blu-ray version of Predator (unseen by me, but some comparison screenshots were making the rounds a few years ago (http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/old-films-on-blu-ray-are-they-worth-it.html)). I know this is a weird complaint, but it just looked so inauthentic. It felt like watching a DVD projected onto a large screen.

[dreamdead]

The snark embedded in this recent rewatch and subsequent take-down (http://jezebel.com/i-re-watched-garden-state-and-will-never-feel-again-1621698232/all) of Garden State is entertaining enough, but what's with the growing attack on "independent" white-upper-middle-class life-awakening films? Is there this much vitriol for the larger studio releases of this mindset (masked alternatively as rom coms or bromances), or is it because these are championed by the studios, and bought by the masses, as somehow more authentic and observant about life and experience?

[Irish]

But what's with the growing attack on "independent" white-upper-middle-class life-awakening films?

I'm not sure I understand the question, fully, (who is attacking what, exactly, and where?) but---

Movies like Garden State or Veronica Mars or Sex Tape or whatever Woody Allen is doing seem almost quaint now. Small scale, Babbit-like, #firstworldproblems don't seem particularly interesting at the movie theater. At least not enough to pay $15 to see them on first run.

The more interesting question is what you're doing hanging around Jezebel so early in the morning. ;)

[baby doll]

I saw Ashes and Diamonds in the theater. It was a digital print, and it looked so perfect, I doubt it looked anything like the film did in 1958. I couldn't even see any film grain. I wonder if they used the same smoothing process that was reportedly used in the Blu-ray version of Predator (unseen by me, but some comparison screenshots were making the rounds a few years ago (http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/old-films-on-blu-ray-are-they-worth-it.html)). I know this is a weird complaint, but it just looked so inauthentic. It felt like watching a DVD projected onto a large screen.Yeah, I got the same vibe watching Vertigo and Rio Bravo projected digitally. I'm kinda hoping the entire film industry is going to do a total 180 at some point and be like, "Fuck it, let's go back to celluloid 'cause it's just better."

[Spun Lepton]

The Office > Father Ted > The Thick of It > The Young Ones >>>> Blackadder > Fawlty Towers > regular British sitcoms >>> Mr. Bean

Haven't seen much of the Monty Python series, but love the movies of course.

Oh, holy ... I'll have to wrack my brain to remember all the wonderful - and not-so-wonderful - British and Irish television comedies I've seen.

Monty Python > Red Dwarf > Father Ted > That Mitchell & Webb Look > The IT Crowd > Black Books > The Young Ones > Spaced > Black Adder > Bottom > Mr. Bean > The Office > Faulty Towers > Hyperdrive

[EyesWideOpen]

I don't want to live in a world where someone thinks The IT Crowd is better than The Office.

[Spun Lepton]

I don't want to live in a world where someone thinks The IT Crowd is better than The Office.

I don't do well with "look at how awkward this is" comedy.

Edit: Frankly, I'm surprised that nobody is outraged that I put Bottom ahead of The Office. :)

[DSNT]

So got the syllabus to my first graduate film studies class: Hollywood Classic Cinema. The screening list is not bad.

Rouben Mamoulian. Queen Christina (MGM 1933)
Josef von Sternberg. The Scarlet Empress (Paramount 1934)
Gregory La Cava. My Man Godfrey (Universal 1936)
John Ford. The Grapes of Wrath (20th Century Fox 1940)
Frank Capra. Meet John Doe (Warner Bros. 1941)
Preston Sturges. Sullivan’s Travels (Paramount 1941)
Alfred Hitchcock. Suspicion (RKO 1941)
William Wyler. The Heiress (Paramount 1949)
Billy Wilder. Double Indemnity (Paramount 1944)
Howard Hawks. The Big Sleep (Warner Bros. 1946)
Orson Welles. The Lady from Shanghai (Columbia 1946)
Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain (MGM 1951)
George Cukor. A Star is Born (Warner Bros. 1954)
Elia Kazan. A Face in the Crowd (Warner Bros. 1957)

I've seen a good chunk of these, and might gain a newfound appreciation for the musicals thanks to the class. Some I haven't seen that I've wanted to, like the Kazan, Welles, Sturges. Should be a good class.

[Sycophant]

The snark embedded in this recent rewatch and subsequent take-down (http://jezebel.com/i-re-watched-garden-state-and-will-never-feel-again-1621698232/all) of Garden State is entertaining enough

I've read too much stuff like this over the last decade to enjoy it anymore. Rehash a plot but use "fuck" and other vulgarities a lot and take cheap shots at people's appearances. Whoop-de-doo. Fun enough when a friend's on a rant, but the smug righteousness emanating from the article's tone

The article's most substantial and sustained complaint (aside from the Natalie Portman thing that Nathan Rabin drove into the ground a decade ago) is that a story about a disaffected, distant, depressed young white man with money isn't worth telling just because of who it's about. I understand that a disproportionate number of these movies exist. Underlying the complaint seems to be an assertion that money and privilege fix everything (note: I do not mean to diminish the grave nature of social and economic inequality), and that a person who has wealth and privilege can't have any problems. I understand that cosmically, globally, and socially, these aren't the most dangerous problems, but I can't snuggle up to the idea that a movie that's essentially about loneliness, frustration, and depression is rendered invalid because it examines these things.

Not to liberate the film from all its problematic elements. I'm sure they're still there in spades. Haven't seen the film in almost a decade, and was still fond of it with reservations about some of the simplistic characterizations and overwrought emotional content. But I'm not sure this achieves much of anything.

Though I guess in the end, the article's ultimately meant as entertainment itself.

[Mr. McGibblets]

I'm not sure I understand the question, fully, (who is attacking what, exactly, and where?) but---

Movies like Garden State or Veronica Mars or Sex Tape or whatever Woody Allen is doing seem almost quaint now. Small scale, Babbit-like, #firstworldproblems don't seem particularly interesting at the movie theater. At least not enough to pay $15 to see them on first run.

The more interesting question is what you're doing hanging around Jezebel so early in the morning. ;)

Have you seen the Veronica Mars movie?

[Irish]

I can't snuggle up to the idea that a movie that's essentially about loneliness, frustration, and depression is rendered invalid because it examines these things.

I agree with most of your other points-- but personally, there's a certain exhaustion at play here too. These topics aren't inherently bad or uninteresting but they are well trod ground. We've had nearly a century of it. Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Something Happened, Eric Rohmer, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Belle du Jour, Woody Allen, Microserfs, White Noise. &c.

To that enormous canon, Zach Braff is going to add special meaning? It's hard not to roll one's eyes.

[Sycophant]

To that enormous canon, Zach Braff is going to add special meaning?

Maybe he could? Can no one from here on out? Did the book close on this in the 90s?

[Spun Lepton]

Just remembered a few more.

Monty Python > Red Dwarf > Father Ted > That Mitchell & Webb Look > The IT Crowd > Black Books > The Young Ones > Garth Marenghi's Darkplace > Spaced > Black Adder > Bottom > Mr. Bean > The Office > Faulty Towers > The Mighty Boosh > Hyperdrive > The Comic Strip

Edit: Remembered another one!

[Izzy Black]

I think Rabin's critique is still the most damning and relevant, but while the film doesn't break any ground, there are some funny bits in there, I thought. I also liked the Zero 7 drug sequence. It reminded me a little of The Rules of Attraction (a much better film).

[MadMan]

Mara's posts remind me that I have not viewed too many Shakespeare adaptations. Or read enough of the Bard's plays.

Recently I viewed The Birdcage. It was funny touching and wonderful. Too bad Nathan Lane and Robin Williams only made one film together.

[Mara]

Hoffman's A Midsummer Night's Dream is serviceable. It's not going to knock your socks off, but it's not annoying enough to turn anyone away. The cast ranges from excellent to, you know, fine.

Actually, the bookends of the film are pretty good. Despite the inexplicable need to change the location from Greece to Italy (when you spend 75% of the story in the middle of the woods, why bother?) the in-town scenes are visually interesting and strong.

But everything in the forest is a bit of a mess. The soundstages look cheap and silly. The fairies look extremely silly. The special effects? Silly.

The fact is, there are things we are willing to overlook in a stage performance that you can't get away with on film. For example: plastic wings, pasted-on plastic horns, pounds of body glitter, etc. But try as I might, I couldn't think of a good way to fix these problems. CGI may have helped a little. But can they really film three-quarters of the movie outside in an actual forest, in the dark? What, on film, will look realistic to make a dozen people into believable fairies?

After much thought, I think I'm going to have to agree with a thread that Alex Weitzman did on RT, like a decade ago, when he said that the best way to do this play (or was it The Tempest?) would be high-quality animation. He mentioned Miyazaki specifically. I spent several hours thinking about it, and I became nearly sick thinking about how much I would love that. Someone do that? Please?

I know I saw this one in theaters, but I don't think I've seen it since then. There are several actors in it that I now particularly like, but who I didn't know at the time, includingAnna Friel, Dominic West, David Strathairn, and Sam Rockwell. In fact, given how little I remembered about the film, I was pleased when a scene showed up that I had forgotten, but which I now recall was very moving to me at the time: where Rockwell (as Thisbe) tires of being mocked and suddenly plays his final scene in P&T completely straight, and gives a bravura performance that deepens and adds interest to his whole character. It's a perfect example of how to add pathos to a comic character.

Also of note: Kevin Kline made an excellent Bottom. He found a balance between being pathetic and being a deeply human, empathetic person. Very well done.

[Wryan]

So got the syllabus to my first graduate film studies class: Hollywood Classic Cinema. The screening list is not bad.

Rouben Mamoulian. Queen Christina (MGM 1933)
Josef von Sternberg. The Scarlet Empress (Paramount 1934)
Gregory La Cava. My Man Godfrey (Universal 1936)
John Ford. The Grapes of Wrath (20th Century Fox 1940)
Frank Capra. Meet John Doe (Warner Bros. 1941)
Preston Sturges. Sullivan’s Travels (Paramount 1941)
Alfred Hitchcock. Suspicion (RKO 1941)
William Wyler. The Heiress (Paramount 1949)
Billy Wilder. Double Indemnity (Paramount 1944)
Howard Hawks. The Big Sleep (Warner Bros. 1946)
Orson Welles. The Lady from Shanghai (Columbia 1946)
Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain (MGM 1951)
George Cukor. A Star is Born (Warner Bros. 1954)
Elia Kazan. A Face in the Crowd (Warner Bros. 1957)

I've seen a good chunk of these, and might gain a newfound appreciation for the musicals thanks to the class. Some I haven't seen that I've wanted to, like the Kazan, Welles, Sturges. Should be a good class.

Nice list! Kazan's Face in the Crowd knocked my socks off.

[Morris Schæffer]

http://www.avforums.com/news/are-the-theatrical-versions-of-the-original-star-wars-trilogy-coming-to-blu-ray.10599

Star Wars OT theatrical versions quite possibly coming to Blu-Ray. Would be even cooler if they were 4K releases as a 4K restoration has already been done.

[Briare]

Would you guys recommend the mini series version of Scenes from a Marriage or the US theatrical cut? Got it from the library but ended up being too busy for it now its overdue and I can only squeeze in one or the other.

Thoughts?

[dreamdead]

I've only ever done the miniseries of the Bergman set, but it's phenomenal. I don't know how effective its amassing power would be trimmed by 2/3.

[Spinal]

I've only ever done the miniseries of the Bergman set, but it's phenomenal. I don't know how effective its amassing power would be trimmed by 2/3.

Only seen the theatrical cut and it certainly gets the job done as well.

[Irish]

http://www.avforums.com/news/are-the-theatrical-versions-of-the-original-star-wars-trilogy-coming-to-blu-ray.10599

Star Wars OT theatrical versions quite possibly coming to Blu-Ray. Would be even cooler if they were 4K releases as a 4K restoration has already been done.

Debunked in various places as bullshit.

Disney does not own the rights to Star Wars (ANH). Fox does.

[baby doll]

In principal, I'm on the side of the people who want to see the version of the film released in 1977 (just as I'd like to see the 1982 version of Blade Runner), but I'm still perplexed by people who get really pissed off about Lucas' various alterations, as if he were desecrating a masterpiece. I mean, I loved it when I was eleven, but surely no amount of technical downgrading would suffice to make it a great movie when the characters are scarcely less plastic than the action figures based on them.

[Irish]

Doesn't the original Blade Runner still exist? I was under the impression the DVD/Blu special editions or whatever included all versions of the film (1982, 1992, 2007, work print, whatever).

As for Star Wars-- serious inquiry: How much character do you need in genre pictures?

[Mara]

Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew is a beautiful film. It is a well-acted, thoughtful, visually striking film.

But can it be a great film when the source play is such a problem? It's very difficult to talk about The Taming of the Shrew without talking about misogyny, like we can't talk about Othello without talking about racism, or The Merchant of Venice without talking about antisemitism. All three of the problem characters in these plays are not one-note stereotypes, but fully-fleshed people with good and bad qualities, and dreams and ambitions and flaws. Othello is the hero of his story, although a tragic hero who dies by his own flaws. Shylock is the antagonist of his story, but is the most interesting person in the entire cast. And I have no idea if Katherine is the protagonist or the antagonist of her own play. But even given these interesting, complex people, there are really troubling aspects to the stories.

And I think it matters that we delineate whether or not a work of art (a play, in this case) is misogynistic/racist/antisemitic, or if Mr. Shakespeare himself is. We can look at his other works for answers. When he talks about Judaism in other plays, it is often casually (though not violently) antisemitic. He may have been a little more progressive than his counterparts, but he was still a man of his time and "Christian" is often used as shorthand for a good person, and "Jew" as... not. Regarding race, in almost all of his plays, Shakespeare mentions that beauty is pale-skinned and ugliness is dark. Desdemona loves Othello despite his skin. But that's pretty much the scope of Shakespeare's racism; he doesn't portray dark-skinned people as being bad people, but he makes plenty of aesthetic judgments. Othello doesn't kill his wife because of his race, but because he is a human person consumed with jealousy.

But scholars are endlessly baffled by The Taming of the Shrew because the misogyny seems to come out of nowhere. In every other play, a woman who speaks her mind and fights for her own happiness is lauded and rewarded. Petruchio says:

"I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything."

He is not the first or last man in a Shakespeare play to say such a thing. But he is the only one who is (at least nominally) not a villain.

Juliet's father says:

"An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend.
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For, by my soul, I’ll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good."

But Juliet's father is an antagonist, and he is punished for this.

Hermia's father says:

"As she is mine, I may dispose of her—
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death—according to our law
Immediately provided in that case."

Again-- A BAD GUY.

But Petruchio gets exactly what he wants at the end of the play, and I think we are supposed to be happy about it. Where did this come from? Almost every production I've seen of The Taming of the Shrew deals with this issue by subverting it somehow. I've seen it done where Kate learns not to be subject to her husband, but that her life is easier if she pretends that she is. I've seen it done where Kate is the one who "tames" Petruchio by learning how to manipulate him to get what she wants. The most successful productions I've seen toss the idea of a happy ending together but is about two cantankerous personalities who fall in love and find a way to live together like a team instead of tearing each other apart.

I have an unusual relationship with Zeffirelli's film because I think it was the first Shakespeare film I ever saw. My parents had taped it on VHS off television and I first watched it when I was 8 or 9. I watched it dozens of times over the next five years, trying to puzzle it apart. I loved the feisty Katherine and her screaming matches with Petruchio. But even as a child, I found the end baffling. Anyway, when I was in my early teens our VCR ate the tape and so I haven't seen it in twenty years.

I remembered it as being firmly on the side of "Petruchio wins because Katherine is awful" side of the argument, mostly because of my clear memories of the final scene, where Katherine's final speech ("men rule and women drool"-- direct quote) is played entirely without irony. But Zeffirelli's take is actually much more complex than that, based on several interesting narrative choices:

*Bianca is shown as being just as antagonistic and unpleasant as Katherine, when nobody is looking. She pretends to be sweetness and light around her father and suitors.
*Petruchio is shown as being a brute. He is a belching, dirty man with no manners. Therefore, his brutal actions are not shown as being admirable.
*The script made deep cuts in Petruchio's behavior towards Katherine. Although he denies her dinner on her wedding night, they cut all the other scenes showing her begging for food as she starves over the next several days. In fact, the camera lingers on bowls of fruit, etc. placed around, so we can assume Kate is eating. They also completely cut the fact that he is keeping her from sleeping, and we see her slumbering in bed a couple of times. By the way, these are traditional brain-washing tactics: nutrient deprivation, sleep deprivation, and love-bombing. No wonder Kate is confused between the sun and the moon by the end.
*They also added a certain amount of tit-for-tat where Kate gets back at Petruchio. She knocks him out cold at one point, and then takes his household away from him (charming his servants, replacing his filth with her own items, and generally running things.)
*The play is coy about whether or not Petruchio and Kate are sharing a bed while warring with each other. Per this film, they are not.

The trickiness of the play aside, Zeffirelli's production is excellent. He makes great use of space; the actors run all over the sets, sometimes destroying them, and are pushing over tables and shattering chairs, climbing walls, and clambering over rooftops. Both Taylor and Burton give physically impressive performances.

In everything else, however, Burton outshines Taylor. Though she is good at the physical stuff and has an expressive face, Taylor fumbles a little bit with the language, and every line comes out in the same shrill, pinched tone. She is, however, extraordinarily pretty. This might be the height of her prettiness. She is so pretty it made my teeth hurt.

Burton is a perfect Petruchio. He is larger than life; all flailing arms and bellowing voice. He manages to be charming despite Petruchio's flaws, wandering into downright seductive a few times. His personality is to boisterous, so bon-vivant, that he takes up all the air in the room. No matter what insanity is going on with the plot, he always looks like he is having a delightful time.

Long story short (too late!) I wouldn't hesitate to call this one of the best Shakespeare-to-film adaptations out there if I didn't have such ambivalent feelings about the source play itself.

The original tagline on the poster for this film was "A motion picture for every man who ever gave the back of his hand to his beloved... and for every woman who deserved it. Which takes in a lot of people!" So let's just think about that.

[Mara]

Total side note: Burton drunkenly sings out several snatches of songs during the film, and I wasn't able to catch all of them, but at least one was stolen from Twelfth Night. I wonder if they went raiding in other plays for the rest.

[Dead & Messed Up]

In principal, I'm on the side of the people who want to see the version of the film released in 1977 (just as I'd like to see the 1982 version of Blade Runner), but I'm still perplexed by people who get really pissed off about Lucas' various alterations, as if he were desecrating a masterpiece. I mean, I loved it when I was eleven, but surely no amount of technical downgrading would suffice to make it a great movie when the characters are scarcely less plastic than the action figures based on them.

Consider the emotional connections we forge with our first favorite toys, or the first car we own, or the first book that hits us in the solar plexus, the album that requires us to sit down, take a moment, and just listen, man. And yes, I'm equating material possessions with artworks, because I had that teddy bear, and that dodgy '84 Chevy Celebrity, and I still own that torn paperback of Michael Crichton's Sphere (I know, Sphere), and Pink Floyd's The Wall, and while I know that there's no shortage of better toys, cars, books, and albums, if someone came out and said they were gonna improve the sound chip in that teddy bear's lullaby or take a knife to Crichton's purple exposition (and even worse, pretend like the original was never there at all), I would express outrage. I would tell that person to screw off before I punch them in the kidney.

[Lazlo]

Consider the emotional connections we forge with our first favorite toys, or the first car we own, or the first book that hits us in the solar plexus, the album that requires us to sit down, take a moment, and just listen, man. And yes, I'm equating material possessions with artworks, because I had that teddy bear, and that dodgy '84 Chevy Celebrity, and I still own that torn paperback of Michael Crichton's Sphere (I know, Sphere), and Pink Floyd's The Wall, and while I know that there's no shortage of better toys, cars, books, and albums, if someone came out and said they were gonna improve the sound chip in that teddy bear's lullaby or take a knife to Crichton's purple exposition (and even worse, pretend like the original was never there at all), I would express outrage. I would tell that person to screw off before I punch them in the kidney.

Not to mention the historical value of preserving what sci-fi blockbusters looked like in the 1970s and 80s, the Star Wars trilogy being the most culturally impactful of them all.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Not to mention the historical value of preserving what sci-fi blockbusters looked like in the 1970s and 80s, the Star Wars trilogy being the most culturally impactful of them all.

Seriously.

[Sycophant]

As for Star Wars-- serious inquiry: How much character do you need in genre pictures?

Serious answer: A lot.

I mean, if they're gonna be any good.

[Mara]

It occurred to me that Kiss Me, Kate would fit in the narrow parameters of films that I'm looking over. But I don't feel motivated to rewatch it, as I seem to recall it was stupid.

[Mara]

I'm sure you're all sick of this Shakespeare stuff, but...

I'm starting Czinner's As You Like It and can barely keep up with how thoroughly they're chopping the script. The unwritten rule for Shakespeare to film adaptations is that you can excise as many lines as you need, or rearrange them, or change the chronology slightly, but you can't add anything. Except, for some reason, having characters shouting each other's names.

But this film is changing lines, taking out speeches and substituting in abridged or simplified language, and sometimes changing the entire meaning.

Tell me what the point is of changing the exchange:

CELIA: But is all this for your father?

ROSALIND: No, some of it is for my child's father.

[Meaning: she has fallen in love, and is pining for the man she wants to marry.]

To:

CELIA: But is all this for your father?

ROSALIND: No, some of it is for my father's child.

Meaning... what? Herself? Or did she just flub the line?

[Mara]

I'm not going to be able to finish. Olivier was slumming it in this nonsense.

[Winston*]

The original tagline on the poster for this film was "A motion picture for every man who ever gave the back of his hand to his beloved... and for every woman who deserved it. Which takes in a lot of people!" So let's just think about that.

Holy shit.

[Mysterious Dude]

Star Wars has great characters.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Star Wars has great characters.

They aren't terribly deep, but they're vivid as fuck and more than effective for the type of simple serial/adventure the film is.

[Dukefrukem]

I think we just think they are vivid as fuck because of Harrison Ford. He's the only one with personality in the 3 movies. The rest are just kinda there to exist with the exception of 3PO and maybe.. MAYBE Chewy.

[baby doll]

Doesn't the original Blade Runner still exist? I was under the impression the DVD/Blu special editions or whatever included all versions of the film (1982, 1992, 2007, work print, whatever).I haven't looked into it. The Blu Ray I got only has "The Final Cut," but there may be a more expensive box set with the other versions as well.


As for Star Wars-- serious inquiry: How much character do you need in genre pictures?It's not so much a matter of characterization as conviction. The characters in Star Wars are little more than props who exist solely to deliver exposition and push the story forward. It's prefab cinema, assembled out of spare parts old westerns and samurai movies, but it doesn't amount to much more than the sum of its effects as it lacks the internal consistency of Lucas' models to the point that Darth Vader, hitherto the scariest black man in the universe, is suddenly rehabilitated at the end of Return of the Jedi.

[transmogrifier]

My pick for the worst scene in the entire original trilogy (before Lucas added bloody musical numbers) is the death of the Emperor. It never rang true on the story level and it's also clumsily directed.

[Irish]

It's not so much a matter of characterization as conviction. The characters in Star Wars are little more than props who exist solely to deliver exposition and push the story forward. It's prefab cinema, assembled out of spare parts old westerns and samurai movies, but it doesn't amount to much more than the sum of its effects as it lacks the internal consistency of Lucas' models to the point that Darth Vader, hitherto the scariest black man in the universe, is suddenly rehabilitated at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Hm. But how is that conviction any less than other genre flicks made around the same time? All of them are more or less rote: Jaws, Alien, The Terminator Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Road Warrior, The Thing, etc. They all work off archetypes. They all sacrifice character for plot. Few of them have any small, quiet moments that don't involve hitting a beat.

Star Wars has bad dialogue and mediocre acting. I think its gravest sin is that it largely eschews subplots and any kind of complexity. It's linear and simple. This would be fine if the damned thing hadn't been so popular. There's a direct line between it and where we are now, through Simpson-Bruckheimer to Michael Bay to Marvel. And now we're permanently stuck with exposition heavy "blockbusters" that contain zero depth.

I agree about Jedi, but it's also unfair to blame the first film for the failings of the third (which was mostly about making a Kenner toy cash-in).

[Pop Trash]

I think we just think they are vivid as fuck because of Harrison Ford. He's the only one with personality in the 3 movies. The rest are just kinda there to exist with the exception of 3PO and maybe.. MAYBE Chewy.

Don't forget Alec Fucking Guinness.

[Dukefrukem]

You could also argue Peter Cushing.

[MadMan]

I have no idea how much the amazing Blade Runner box set with the briefcase and everything costs, especially on Blu Ray. I just own the cheaper DVD release that had all four versions, which I found at Half-Price Books.

[Spinal]

I'm not sure if the characters in Star Wars are well-written. But they are certainly well-realized for the most part. I would argue that Carrie Fisher also elevates her role with her performance.

[Ezee E]

I think they all do. Hell, Admiral Ackbar made quite the impression with his two minutes of screentime.

[Mysterious Dude]

I would argue that Carrie Fisher also elevates her role with her performance.
Mark Hamill deserves more credit, too. How many actors can make dialogue like "Greetings, exalted one" work?

[Dukefrukem]

Mark Hamill deserves more credit, too. How many actors can make dialogue like "Greetings, exalted one" work?

Of we include Hamill then we're back to square one.

[baby doll]

Hm. But how is that conviction any less than other genre flicks made around the same time? All of them are more or less rote: Jaws, Alien, The Terminator Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Road Warrior, The Thing, etc. They all work off archetypes. They all sacrifice character for plot. Few of them have any small, quiet moments that don't involve hitting a beat.

Star Wars has bad dialogue and mediocre acting. I think its gravest sin is that it largely eschews subplots and any kind of complexity. It's linear and simple. This would be fine if the damned thing hadn't been so popular. There's a direct line between it and where we are now, through Simpson-Bruckheimer to Michael Bay to Marvel. And now we're permanently stuck with exposition heavy "blockbusters" that contain zero depth.

I agree about Jedi, but it's also unfair to blame the first film for the failings of the third (which was mostly about making a Kenner toy cash-in).It's all about tone, and in Star Wars, nothing that happens seems to carry much weight. Darth Vader blows up an entire planet without it causing any ripple effects in the story; it's just a bit of spectacle to keep the viewer diverted for fifteen seconds and then forgotten. (Raiders of the Lost Ark is a somewhat better film but it's similarly weightless--a series of thrilling set pieces at the expense of any sustained narrative.)

[Izzy Black]

I think Irish's point is that the genre itself isn't particularly notable for its depth of narrative development or characterization. Your problem with Star Wars generalizes, which means one might be inclined to dismiss the entire genre.

I'm wouldn't call myself a huge Star Wars fan, but I don't find its characters nearly as weak as other examples of the genre. Han Solo is charismatic and engaging and has a clear arc that's easy to follow. Luke also has a very clear arc. Nothing to deep here, as Irish notes, but film employs tried and true archetypes fairly effectively I think. Well, at least the first one does, which I think is basically a western set in space.

[Izzy Black]

As for the Alderaan example, its destruction is not inconsequential to the narrative. It's where Luke and Han are travelling when they discover its destruction and run into debris as the Falcon is trapped in a tractor beam. This left them without any allies from the planet to contact or to help them. It's also Leia's home planet and fuels her motivation and backstory in a way similar to how Luke loses his own family, which gives them some symmetry well before we learn they are siblings.

The film could have explored greater moral depths of the blast or the impact on the survivors and their connection to the Rebel Alliance (as in the expanded universe), but the film doesn't really pretend to be deep. Its locus of dramatic development is squarely on its main cast anyways.

[Mysterious Dude]

The entire plot of the movie is about trying to destroy the Death Star. The destruction of Alderaan is a demonstration of what the Death Star can do.

[Irish]

The entire plot of the movie is about trying to destroy the Death Star.

Arguably not ohmygod we're grown men having this conversation. This is one of the things Star Wars does that modern blockbusters don't -- it contains a reversal, ie, the hero's goals change over the course of the film.

Luke's initial goal is to rescue the princess. He wants to do that because he's a rube with dreams of glory. And he thinks she's hot. Nobody cares about the Death Star until after Leia is rescued, which is the second act climax.

[Mysterious Dude]

One of the first things that happens in the movie is Leia putting the Death Star plans into R2-D2 so they can be given to the Rebellion. Luke may not realize it, but almost everything he does is because of the Rebellion's plot to destory the Death Star.

[Irish]

Sure-- the third act is set up in the first ten minutes.

But that's hardly what propels the story forward (which is Luke's need to be a classical hero). For me, that's one of the movie's small charms. The entire story kicks off because some farmboy saw a picture of a pretty girl.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Sure-- the third act is set up in the first ten minutes.

But that's hardly what propels the story forward (which is Luke's need to be a classical hero). For me, that's one of the movie's small charms. The entire story kicks off because some farmboy saw a picture of a pretty girl.

I will watch this movie soon and come back with a complete story breakdown relating to classical three-act structure, hero's journey, and correlated runtime.

Either that, or I will toast a bagel and then eat that bagel.

[Gittes]

All of them are more or less rote: Jaws, Alien, The Terminator Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Road Warrior, The Thing, etc. They all work off archetypes. They all sacrifice character for plot. Few of them have any small, quiet moments that don't involve hitting a beat.

Well, Jaws has, for example, that lovely moment between Brody and his son at the dinner table, and the wonderful "Show Me The Way To Go Home" singalong. Such moments elevate the characters beyond any sense of the rote and formulaic.

At any rate, I'm not sure why an absence of "small, quiet moments," which Jaws does provide, necessarily equates to wafer-thin characters. Also, while the characters in Jaws may be archetypal, this shouldn't always be used pejoratively, especially given the fact they achieve a certain credibility and are, in my perspective, fairly indelible. For example, Quint may be familiar, sure, but to focus on that at the expense of Shaw's performance and the writing, and the particular way in which the archetype is seized and inflected, seems ill-advised.

More generally, this seems like a problematic way to think about films whose pleasures and virtues do not necessarily depend upon characters of exceptional depth. Some great films aren't significantly hurt by an ostensible paucity of character depth, as their excellence lies in other formal and narrative strengths, which compensates for any alleged problems regarding character depth. A holistic appraisal is necessary.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "hitting a beat" as it seems like any given moment in any given film could be read as hitting a beat of some sort.

[Raiders]

Yeah, Jaws seems a poor example. It's pretty much built upon its central characters. They are bits and parts of existing stock and archetypes, but they are hardly rote or plastic.

[Pop Trash]

Yeah, Jaws seems a poor example. It's pretty much built upon its central characters. They are bits and parts of existing stock and archetypes, but they are hardly rote or plastic.

Right. The social dynamics between the three men is vastly more interesting than a lot of more conventional, non-blockbustery dramas.

[baby doll]

As for the Alderaan example, its destruction is not inconsequential to the narrative. It's where Luke and Han are travelling when they discover its destruction and run into debris as the Falcon is trapped in a tractor beam. This left them without any allies from the planet to contact or to help them. It's also Leia's home planet and fuels her motivation and backstory in a way similar to how Luke loses his own family, which gives them some symmetry well before we learn they are siblings.

The film could have explored greater moral depths of the blast or the impact on the survivors and their connection to the Rebel Alliance (as in the expanded universe), but the film doesn't really pretend to be deep. Its locus of dramatic development is squarely on its main cast anyways.Okay, it's been a few years since I saw the movie so my memories about what exactly happens in the story are a bit sketchy, but while I grant that the destruction of the planet serves to motivate later developments, particularly the destruction of the Death Star by the rebels (and therefore isn't completely forgotten about), neither it nor anything else in the film carries a whole lot of emotional weight as the whole movie is little more than a series of big moments in search of a plot. Even when Alec Guinness kicks the bucket, it's this kind of engineered "sad scene" that serves merely to cause a sensation in the viewer (cue sad music and Luke expressing anguish in close-up). It's a film that diverts without ever really engaging the viewer.

[MadMan]

All I know is that if we are comparing Star Wars and Jaws to Michael Bay just because they are blockbusters then its a sign that the blockbuster as a whole has really gone downhill, and yet after seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that was fantastic and everything I could want in an action movie I don't feel that's true.

[Irish]

Well, Jaws has, for example, that lovely moment between Brody and his son at the dinner table, and the wonderful "Show Me The Way To Go Home" singalong. Such moments elevate the characters beyond any sense of the rote and formulaic.

At any rate, I'm not sure why an absence of "small, quiet moments," which Jaws does provide, necessarily equates to wafer-thin characters. Also, while the characters in Jaws may be archetypal, this shouldn't always be used pejoratively, especially given the fact they achieve a certain credibility and are, in my perspective, fairly indelible. For example, Quint may be familiar, sure, but to focus on that at the expense of Shaw's performance and the writing, and the particular way in which the archetype is seized and inflected, seems ill-advised.

More generally, this seems like a problematic way to think about films whose pleasures and virtues do not necessarily depend upon characters of exceptional depth. Some great films aren't significantly hurt by an ostensible paucity of character depth, as their excellence lies in other formal and narrative strengths, which compensates for any alleged problems regarding character depth. A holistic appraisal is necessary.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "hitting a beat" as it seems like any given moment in any given film could be read as hitting a beat of some sort.

I don't know how to respond without droning on for pages, so I'll shorthand as much as I can:

- I was responding to babydoll's post. I wasn't arguing that archetypes or necessarily rote characters were a negative aspect to any film. Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing are movies that rely heavily on plot and get by with thin characters. They're both great films. I was curious, with babydoll, why he considered something a failure in Star Wars to be a success in (probably) several other movies.

- Films have limited type to tell a story, so they have to use shorthand quite a bit to save time. This is most noticeable in genre, especially mid century westerns (because they're all playing off the same basic mythology).

- Character is hard to do in action films, even harder in sci fi, because there's so much ground to cover. You've got to inch the plot forward and worldbuild at the same time. That doesn't leave a lot of time left over for well rounded characters.

- The character dynamic in Jaws is similar to a dynamic we'll see in any triumvirate of characters. Very loosely they're representations of id, ego and superego. Or even more loosely: Body, mind and soul. The most obvious example of this dynamic is in the original Star Trek, between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. You can see it a little bit in DC Comics between Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. And also in The Three Muskateers in Athos, Porthos, and Aremis. And Harry Potter in Harry, Ron, and Hermione. (When it's just two characters, it becomes more "soul and mind." Eg: Holmes and Watson, Mulder and Scully).

- Every film I listed has its own quiet moments, ie, moments that don't necessarily drive the plot forward (including Star Wars). But they're also not really driven by character. It's the other way around. The plot drives the characters. Most of those movies are good movies because they hide this very well. Shitty movies don't, which is why they're shitty movies.

- I meant narrative beats. If you look at modern blockbusters, every scene in them is devoted to explaining the plot and pushing it foward. Eg: Pick any Marvel movie, the Transformers, GI Joe, Die Hard, Bond, etc. They also have linear plots and the hero only ever wants one thing (Eg: Any Bond, Captain America, etc). That isn't necessarily bad, but it's hard to argue it's not simple and -- across all these films -- repetitive.

[Gittes]

I don't know how to respond without droning on for pages, so I'll shorthand as much as I can:

- I was responding to babydoll's post. I wasn't arguing that archetypes or necessarily rote characters were a negative aspect to any film. Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing are movies that rely heavily on plot and get by with thin characters. They're both great films. I was curious, with babydoll, why he considered something a failure in Star Wars to be a success in (probably) several other movies.


Yeah, sorry. My post is framed as a rebuttal, but I should have made it clearer that I was just throwing in my two cents.



- The character dynamic in Jaws is similar to a dynamic we'll see in any triumvirate of characters. Very loosely they're representations of id, ego and superego. Or even more loosely: Body, mind and soul. The most obvious example of this dynamic is in the original Star Trek, between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. You can see it a little bit in DC Comics between Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. And also in The Three Muskateers in Athos, Porthos, and Aremis. And Harry Potter in Harry, Ron, and Hermione. (When it's just two characters, it becomes more "soul and mind." Eg: Holmes and Watson, Mulder and Scully).

Yeah. While these similarities seem valid, I think the problem with dwelling on such factors (I'm not arguing that this is what you're doing, though) is that you risk eliding the distinction and specificity of the individual films. This is a criticism that has been lodged at David Bordwell, for instance. In his numerous accounts of the classical Hollywood paradigm, he tends to place a considerable emphasis on the continuity of certain storytelling tendencies -- even arguably innovative or radical narrative and formal techniques are rhetorically addressed so as to cohere within that larger, enduring tradition. In other words, the fact that the character dynamic in Jaws recalls other films is a valuable point, but it's obviously an insufficient indication of the distinguishing nuances, strengths, and idiosyncrasies of the text.



- I meant narrative beats. If you look at modern blockbusters, every scene in them is devoted to explaining the plot and pushing it foward. Eg: Pick any Marvel movie, the Transformers, GI Joe, Die Hard, Bond, etc. They also have linear plots and the hero only ever wants one thing (Eg: Any Bond, Captain America, etc). That isn't necessarily bad, but it's hard to argue it's not simple and -- across all these films -- repetitive.

This seems fair, although I haven't seen many of the examples you noted.

[Izzy Black]

Okay, it's been a few years since I saw the movie so my memories about what exactly happens in the story are a bit sketchy, but while I grant that the destruction of the planet serves to motivate later developments, particularly the destruction of the Death Star by the rebels (and therefore isn't completely forgotten about), neither it nor anything else in the film carries a whole lot of emotional weight as the whole movie is little more than a series of big moments in search of a plot. Even when Alec Guinness kicks the bucket, it's this kind of engineered "sad scene" that serves merely to cause a sensation in the viewer (cue sad music and Luke expressing anguish in close-up). It's a film that diverts without ever really engaging the viewer.

I said the film wasn't particularly deep. I don't think it's trying to be either. It's a just this fun little fantasy adventure/western. I liked the characters and thought it had an engaging plot. Obi Wan's death relies on conventional techniques (musical cues, cutaways), but I don't think that makes it less effective. It's a beautiful cue from John Williams' classic score and I feel the scene has punch. I also think it's compelling how Luke's demeanor changes in the film after that scene.

[Gittes]

So, I watched Seconds a few months ago and I guess it qualifies as haunting, since creepy memories of the film have been coming back to me recently for some reason. I do mention a few spoilers in the remainder of the post, so if you haven't seen the film, I do not recommend that you read any of this.

I definitely felt perturbed as soon as the opening credits sequence began, and this sense of unease persisted throughout the entire film. Its strangeness somehow seems even more potent now that the experience has settled in my memory. The conceit alone is disturbing, but the achieved effect owes so much to, among other things, Frankenheimer's off-kilter framing and the way that everyone around John Randolph/Rock Hudson exudes a kind of serenity and professionalism that also seems vaguely sinister. The whole film embraces a fish out of water eeriness (i.e., so many moments where the incomprehension of Randolph/Hudson is juxtaposed with people who exhibit a knowingness that feels ominous and threatening).

As I said, I've found myself thinking back to it as of late for some reason. Very particular pieces of the experience have come to mind when, for instance, I'm in the shower at night, or when I'm getting ready for bed and everything is dark and quiet. At such moments, my mind suddenly wanders to Randolph receiving the phone call from his apparently deceased friend, or the delirium of that bizarre wine-stomping ritual, and the way Hudson eventually capitulates to its enveloping energy, or the disquieting notion of Hudson visiting his wife near the end of the film in a scene that transmits a very unconventional sense of ghostliness.

I always force myself to think about something else because it feels like I'm recalling the highlights of a really unsettling nightmare (i.e., the image of Hudson's blissed-out mug as he joins the wine-stomping revelry is somehow very unnerving).

[Dead & Messed Up]

Anymore, I just respect that the first Star Wars film is fun, that it's not too heavy, that it's an adventure film that feels excited by its premises. Amazing to see that what the Hollywood machine has done recently is create films that try to match its spectacle and hero journey story clarity, and so very very few of them gun for the tone. Probably because it's easier to strike a pose of two-dimensional earnest seriousness than to incorporate wit and humor and cheer. I guess the best of Pixar and Marvel output are the closest things we have to heirs of Star Wars.

[transmogrifier]

Seconds is a great film.

[Gittes]

It's fascinating. In my filmgoing experience, I can think of few other movies that have made such an unsettling impression and achieved a similarly accurate sense of oneiric unease. One of the few, obvious comparisons I can think of is Lynch's work -- namely, Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire, which were also awe-inducing and revelatory examples of the medium's capacity for a particular type of haunting strangeness.

[Raiders]

Seconds is a great film.

Yeah, Frankenheimer + Wong Howe = awesome-sauce

I watched it after having seen almost all of Frankenheimer's other well-respected films and was shocked by how unique it felt. As Mitty said, very unsettling and off-kilter. Superb visual filmmaking.

[Ivan Drago]

So got the syllabus to my first graduate film studies class: Hollywood Classic Cinema. The screening list is not bad.

Rouben Mamoulian. Queen Christina (MGM 1933)
Josef von Sternberg. The Scarlet Empress (Paramount 1934)
Gregory La Cava. My Man Godfrey (Universal 1936)
John Ford. The Grapes of Wrath (20th Century Fox 1940)
Frank Capra. Meet John Doe (Warner Bros. 1941)
Preston Sturges. Sullivan’s Travels (Paramount 1941)
Alfred Hitchcock. Suspicion (RKO 1941)
William Wyler. The Heiress (Paramount 1949)
Billy Wilder. Double Indemnity (Paramount 1944)
Howard Hawks. The Big Sleep (Warner Bros. 1946)
Orson Welles. The Lady from Shanghai (Columbia 1946)
Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain (MGM 1951)
George Cukor. A Star is Born (Warner Bros. 1954)
Elia Kazan. A Face in the Crowd (Warner Bros. 1957)

I've seen a good chunk of these, and might gain a newfound appreciation for the musicals thanks to the class. Some I haven't seen that I've wanted to, like the Kazan, Welles, Sturges. Should be a good class.

Hey, DSNT......where do you go to grad school?

Because this was the exact same syllabus as my undergraduate class on Classical Hollywood cinema. :eek:

[Yxklyx]

Hey, DSNT......where do you go to grad school?

Because this was the exact same syllabus as my undergraduate class on Classical Hollywood cinema. :eek:

That's an excellent list of films from that period (except that there's no comedy - all serious films).

[Sycophant]

Sullivan's Travels and Singin' in the Rain are comedies. I'd be fine with it if someone classed My Man Godfrey as a comedy, too.

[quido8_5]

Has The Day after Tomorrow somehow gotten a following? I support first and second year teachers and, as part of a getting to know you survey, they put down their favorite movies. Typically, their bland, but I've had two people put that disaster of a film as their favorite.

On a related note, finding it really hard not to judge them for that pick. I'm sure they're very admirable people, but what a bad choice.

[Dukefrukem]

Has The Day after Tomorrow somehow gotten a following? I support first and second year teachers and, as part of a getting to know you survey, they put down their favorite movies. Typically, their bland, but I've had two people put that disaster of a film as their favorite.

On a related note, finding it really hard not to judge them for that pick. I'm sure they're very admirable people, but what a bad choice.

No, it's not even Emmerich's best. How someone could pick that has their favorite movie boggles the mind.

[MadMan]

Seconds (1966) is a chilling and great film. Frankenheimer was brilliant in the 60s.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, although I didn't express myself in the matter, Seconds is a brilliant ride.

[DSNT]

Hey, DSNT......where do you go to grad school?

Because this was the exact same syllabus as my undergraduate class on Classical Hollywood cinema. :eek:

University of South Carolina. I know it's not NYU or anything, but it is local and they have a decent course selection This semester I had to pass on a The French Film Experience and a class on Tarantino films because the schedule didn't work, but I'm not complaining about this syllabus.

And I'd say that Queen Christina has some comedic elements too.

[DSNT]

And to join the chorus, Seconds is fantastic. I've thought it underrated, but this thread disproves that.

[Ivan Drago]

University of South Carolina. I know it's not NYU or anything, but it is local and they have a decent course selection This semester I had to pass on a The French Film Experience and a class on Tarantino films because the schedule didn't work, but I'm not complaining about this syllabus.

And I'd say that Queen Christina has some comedic elements too.

DUDE. I think your class is taught by one of my old professors! I sent you a PM.

[Gittes]

After writing those posts about Frankenheimer's film, my mind wandered to other notable examples of films whose disturbing content made a similarly lasting impression. So, in the interest of pursuing that topic, I decided to share some of my other haunting viewing experiences. The examples that came to mind aren't at all recent, and the achieved effects aren't quite comparable to the specific eeriness of Seconds. They are nonetheless very memorable, personal examples of films and TV shows that scared the living daylights out of my younger self. In the remainder of this post, I focus on Frailty, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Fire in the Sky (by the way, if anyone has any stories of their own to share, I would definitely be interested in reading them).

I'll start with Frailty (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264616/) because the explanation is necessarily succinct. I didn't have a clear sense of what the film was about prior to entering the theatre and I was quite floored by the strangeness that transpired. I remember carrying around certain images for a very long time. I never revisited it and, at this point, I can only recall small bits and pieces. I know that the part that really disturbed me occurs near the end, but my memories of this are quite vague: the moment in question follows the key revelation of the film and it features a malevolent character appearing somewhere near clotheslines. That's all I can remember. This was the cinematic image as sinister interloper: a horror the mind wants to repel as soon as it is perceived. I haven't come across many online discussions of the film, so I'm not entirely sure about its reputation. I'm only certain that I felt like I had crossed the threshold into theretofore unfelt levels of discomfiture. That could just as easily apply to the remaining examples, as well.

"The Tale of Apartment 214" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0514386/) is the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode that scared me the most. I actually did revisit this one a few years ago and, naturally, I didn't find it especially scary. At the time of its original airing, however, I was absolutely petrified (the remaining explanations include spoilers, by the way). I'm mostly basing this on fading memories, so please excuse any potential inaccuracies. The story revolves around a young girl, Stacey, who moves into a new apartment building with her mother. She befriends Madeline, the friendly old lady who lives down the hall. After the suggestion of spent time and built bonds, Madeline asks Stacey if she would visit her the next day. She gently stresses the importance of this arrangement and indicates that it would mean a lot to her. Stacey kindly agrees but, alas, her friends tempt her with an impromptu offer of concert tickets. Against her better judgment, Stacey goes to the concert and misses her date with Madeline. When she returns later that night, she discovers that Madeline's door is ajar.

So, my considerably younger self was probably riveted at this point. Stacey warily advances into Madeline's apartment, which, of course, is completely dark and vacant. After some directorial indulgence in the apparent spookiness of the situation, I think the door closes behind her and...Madeline suddenly appears! And she's totally apoplectic. This is nothing like the super friendly, grandmotherly neighbour from the earlier scenes (here's a screen grab (http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3849/14874441460_7cc7d245b6_o.jpg)) , so I'm probably already sufficiently unsettled. What happens next is the part that I won't forget. Be warned, it'll likely sound risible and woefully unsurprising. Still, it actually felt like the scariest thing in the world at the time. Stacey is terrified and Madeline angrily wails something like, "Do you know why it was so important that you visit me today? Why I didn't want to be alone today?" Cut to a dramatic close-up of her increasingly menacing face (meanwhile, I'm awash with panic and dread) and then: "Because today is the day that I died!" This revelation, believe it or not, was fairly alarming at the time. A number of elements colluded to produce this bizarre moment whose terror felt assaultive (i.e., the narrative twist, the tone of Madeline's voice and her anguished expression, the shot scale and other formal aspects, etc.). I can still remember precisely how this made me feel. I was paralyzed with fear. I distinctly recall desperately wanting to crawl away into some escape hatch, urgently wanting to burrow myself into a hole, etc. I was possessed by the futile desire to just get away from the vulnerability of the present moment, from the sense of being enveloped by the abject horror of this sweet old lady turned angry ghost. Oh, and this is just coming to mind now: is the name Madeline meant to be a Vertigo reference? It's spelled differently, so maybe not, but the ghostly emphasis made me think that it might be an allusion (this is likely dubious and unimportant).

Now, on to the supremely upsetting Fire in the Sky (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106912/). This is one that I am decidedly not interested in revisiting, as I suspect my current reaction wouldn't be all that different from my initial experience. To be clear, when I talk about Fire in the Sky, I'm really talking about the section aboard the alien spaceship, which is all I have seen. Like the Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin, this is a film that, for me at least, has inadvertently come to be defined by a very specific section. I was introduced to the scenes in question through a spontaneously arranged VHS screening in the basement of my childhood best friend. Portent was in the air. For some of you, this experience probably sounds somewhat familiar: a friend emerges as the bearer of a novel experience, like the more benign example of a classmate bringing a cool toy to school or showing you a secret in a video game, etc. In this case, I'm not sure if my friend was steeling himself for another viewing by enlisting others to accompany him, or if he was taking some perverse pleasure in exposing us to the immense terror of the film's images. It was like being inducted, with considerable trepidation, into some kind of disreputable club. What I saw that night chilled and terrified me. It was an elliptical viewing experience, of course: the horror seen intruded through the cracks between fingers, and was punctuated by the brisk closing of eyelids, and other such gestures of epistemphobia. Bad vibes.

At the time, I totally thought that this was some low budget obscurity, a piece of esoterica that few other people would be familiar with, etc. I often talked about it to others as if it was indeed some kind of arcane text, never expecting to find a glimmer of recognition in their eyes. However, many years later, at university, my former girlfriend was telling me about her own memories of disturbing movies. She was describing something she saw while on vacation during her youth. It was very late at night, and I believe she was sleeping on a pullout couch in the same room as her parents, who were fast asleep. She told me about what she inadvertently bore witness to that night, and how she found herself seized in that cruel mode of spectatorship where compulsive fascination and acute repulsion conjoin. Her sense of absorption coincided with the equally powerful sense that what was being seen was surely best left unseen. I quickly realized that this was, in fact, the very same object of horror that had left me terror-stricken in that basement all those years ago. The details were identical, and the way she talked about it betrayed a sense of gravity and trauma that I recognized as my own. It was a small moment, but we delighted in the ensuing thrill of recognition and kinship that can accompany such coincidences.

[DSNT]

DUDE. I think your class is taught by one of my old professors! I sent you a PM.

The PM confirmed it. Same teacher ... Craziness. The world is small, my friend.

[Qrazy]

No, it's not even Emmerich's best. How someone could pick that has their favorite movie boggles the mind.

It was the first film to accurately predict and tackle climate change. It's a trailblazer.

[Dead & Messed Up]

It was the first film to accurately predict and tackle climate change. It's a trailblazer.

Outracing the cold remains one of the great achievements of socially relevant filmmaking.

[DSNT]

Speaking of Frankenheimer in the 60s, The Train is pretty awesome too. Burt Lancaster getting Arthur Penn fired and then hiring Frankenheimer was absolutely the right decision.

[transmogrifier]

Yes, The Train and Seconds. Most filmmakers would kill to make two films as awesome as those. I also prefer the second French Connection film as well, but that is not a common opinion.

[Irish]

I need to rewatch Seconds. All I can remember about it is that the first half is creepy and the second half is absurd.

[Sven]

Speaking of Frankenheimer in the 60s, The Train is pretty awesome too. Burt Lancaster getting Arthur Penn fired and then hiring Frankenheimer was absolutely the right decision.

The Train is fantastic, but I can't help but lament the absence of a Penn version. I like Penn, and he was undoubtedly gonna make an interesting movie.

[DSNT]

I need to rewatch Seconds. All I can remember about it is that the first half is creepy and the second half is absurd.

I'd agree with that, but creepy and absurd in a good way .. It is the type of flick that grabs you on a second viewing. It is also one of the more underrated Criterion releases. They did a fantastic job with it.


The Train is fantastic, but I can't help but lament the absence of a Penn version. I like Penn, and he was undoubtedly gonna make an interesting movie.

Penn's version would have been interesting for sure, but I think not as powerful and thrilling as the final version. He pretty much had only done TV by that point, and this was an ambitious production. Plus if he hadn't gotten canned, he probably wouldn't have done Bonnie and Clyde. My favorite of his is Night Moves.

[Sven]

Penn's version would have been interesting for sure, but I think not as powerful and thrilling as the final version. He pretty much had only done TV by that point, and this was an ambitious production. Plus if he hadn't gotten canned, he probably wouldn't have done Bonnie and Clyde. My favorite of his is Night Moves.

A fine point. Night Moves blew my mind.

[Kirby Avondale]

I'll start with Frailty (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264616/) because the explanation is necessarily succinct. I didn't have a clear sense of what the film was about prior to entering the theatre and I was quite floored by the strangeness that transpired. I remember carrying around certain images for a very long time. I never revisited it and, at this point, I can only recall small bits and pieces. I know that the part that really disturbed me occurs near the end, but my memories of this are quite vague: the moment in question follows the key revelation of the film and it features a malevolent character appearing somewhere near clotheslines. That's all I can remember. This was the cinematic image as sinister interloper: a horror the mind wants to repel as soon as it is perceived. I haven't come across many online discussions of the film, so I'm not entirely sure about its reputation. I'm only certain that I felt like I had crossed the threshold into theretofore unfelt levels of discomfiture. That could just as easily apply to the remaining examples, as well.

To be fair, I find it far more unsettling (deeply so) when Powers Boothe isn't a bad guy.

[Russ]

Everyone loves a list.

So, a question I posed at another forum was if there was a consensus for the best cinematic years of the 2000s? (Like, for the 70's, the consensus choice is usually 1975)

I responded that 2004 really rocks my world, followed closely by 2001 and 2000 (I could probably make a case for any of the three).

Yours?

[Dead & Messed Up]

Everyone loves a list.

So, a question I posed at another forum was if there was a consensus for the best cinematic years of the 2000s? (Like, for the 70's, the consensus choice is usually 1975)

I responded that 2004 really rocks my world, followed closely by 2001 and 2000 (I could probably make a case for any of the three).

Yours?

I know quite a few like 2007, not least of which for the trifecta of No Country, Zodiac, and There Will Be Blood.

[Irish]

Probably 2003. I remember having a lot of fun at the theater that year.

The last two years have been exceptionally good.

And there were dark times-- when everybody was talking about stuff like Hugo and The King's Speech and The Artist.

[DSNT]

2001 for me. There's Mulholland Drive, Spirited Away, Pulse, The Fellowship of the Ring, Amelie, In the Bedroom, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Piano Teacher, Ghost World, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra ... and so many more.

[baby doll]

I could pick just about any year from the 2000s at random and come up with a list of terrific films, but I'll throw out 2000 as a particularly remarkable year for Chinese cinema (Devils on the Doorstep, In the Mood for Love, Platform, Yi Yi), 2008 as a strong year for Latin American cinema (Los Bastardos, The Headless Woman, Tony Manero), and 2009 as a good year for European cinema (Dogtooth, Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl, Police, Adjective, Un prophète, Vincere, The White Ribbon).

[baby doll]

And there were dark times-- when everybody was talking about stuff like Hugo and The King's Speech and The Artist.Any year, defined in terms of "what everybody was talking about" was a lousy year. 2010 also had Arrietty the Borrower, Carlos, Copie conforme, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Film socialisme, The Ghost Writer, Greenberg, Hereafter (yes, Hereafter dammit!), Mysteries of Lisbon, Post Mortem, The Strange Case of Angelica, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and 2011 had L'Apollonide—Souvenirs de la maison close, A Dangerous Method, The Deep Blue Sea, Le Gamin au vélo (my favorite film of the decade so far), Hors Satan, Impardonnables, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Margaret, Melancholia, A Separation, The Turin Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

[Izzy Black]

My favorite one-two punch is 2000 - 2001 (general release dates only)

2000:

1. Beau travail (Claire Denis)
2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai)
3. The Yards (James Gray)
4. The Captive (Chantal Akerman)
5. Time Regained (Raoul Ruiz)
6. In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa)
7. Code Unknown (Michael Haneke)
8. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier)
9. Fidelity (Andrzej Żuławski)
10. Freedom (Sharunas Bartas)

HM: Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer), Little Otik (Jan Svankmajer), Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)

2001:

1. Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
2. The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke)
3. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
4. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr)
5. A Fine Day (Thomas Arslan)
6. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis)
7. Va savior (Jacques Rivette)
8. Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat)
9. Lovely & Amazing (Nicole Holofcener)
10. Waking Life (Richard Linklater)

HM: What Time Is It Over There? (Tsai Ming-liang), Comedy of Innocence (Raoul Ruiz), In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard)

[Stay Puft]

My favorite one-two punch is 2000 - 2001 (general release dates only)

Same. You've already covered a bunch of my favorites and I'd toss in Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000), Mulholland Drive (2001), Millennium Actress (2001) and so on. Those back to back years provided an endless supply of riches.

[MadMan]

Love the mention of Frailty, as that film is beyond creepy. I remember watching it on a nice afternoon and looking through the blinds I felt the world as being a little darker because of that movie. Its one of my favorite viewing experiences, right up there with the overcast fall day upon which I viewed The Blair Witch Project. Mitty you also rock for mentioning Are You Afraid of the Dark?, although I don't think I've seen the episode you discussed in your post.

As for me my favorite modern years are 2003, 2004 and 2009.

[Izzy Black]

Same. You've already covered a bunch of my favorites and I'd toss in Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000), Mulholland Drive (2001), Millennium Actress (2001) and so on. Those back to back years provided an endless supply of riches.

I forgot about Vertical Ray of the Sun! Such a great time for cinema : D

[Izzy Black]

To be fair, I find it far more unsettling (deeply so) when Powers Boothe isn't a bad guy.

Indeed, but I definitely find it most unsettling when McConaughey's character is vindicated. It's very much an Old Testament God we're dealing with here. It brings to mind Trier's Breaking the Waves.

[Ivan Drago]

For me, 2001 is my favorite modern year. Three movies from that year are in my top 10 of all time (Mulholland Dr., A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Donnie Darko).

[Marley]

Does anyone happen to have an extra invite to KG? My old account there doesn't work for some reason. :frustrated:

[Pop Trash]

For me, 2001 is my favorite modern year. Three movies from that year are in my top 10 of all time (Mulholland Dr., A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Donnie Darko).

THIS. SO MUCH.

EDIT: I do have to say I really like 2007 as well. 2003 is my least favorite.

[Gittes]

Love the mention of Frailty, as that film is beyond creepy. I remember watching it on a nice afternoon and looking through the blinds I felt the world as being a little darker because of that movie. Its one of my favorite viewing experiences, right up there with the overcast fall day upon which I viewed The Blair Witch Project.

Nice description. I love reading specific, evocative accounts of notable spectatorial experiences.

I remember being really drawn to the fascinating novelty of The Blair Witch Project. I was totally intrigued by the promotional rhetoric and was immediately attracted to the promise of this new experience, whose allure lied in its vague claim to supposed authenticity (this is how I reacted to the commercials, not what I actually think about the film itself, which is obviously a work of fiction whose power relies on its engagement with the trappings of documentary cinema).

I bought the VHS and that's how I first viewed the film. I should revisit it sometime. Perhaps I'll do this in October. If my younger critical faculties are to be trusted, the ending was remarkably terrifying. Also, for whatever reason, one of the lines from the film, screamed with considerable urgency by one of the characters, is embedded in my memory: "Tell me where you are, Josh!"


Mitty you also rock for mentioning Are You Afraid of the Dark?, although I don't think I've seen the episode you discussed in your post.

Great show. The title sequence alone was something I dreaded as a kid.

[Raiders]

I find the concept of a "favorite year" rather strange given the randomness involved (decades and movements, yes, single year... not really), but looking at the greatest concentration of great films, for me it probably 2004, though 2000 could also be the answer.

Films in my top 100:
1. TROPICAL MALADY
2. 2046
3. DEAD MAN'S SHOES

Great films:
4. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
5. NOBODY KNOWS
6. BORN INTO BROTHELS
7. THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
8. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
9. THE PLACE PROMISED IN OUR EARLY DAYS
10. BEFORE SUNSET
11. UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK JOHNSON

Really good:
12. KUNG FU HUSTLE
13. THE WHITE DIAMOND
14. THE AVIATOR
15. I HEART HUCKABEES
16. VERA DRAKE

And I could even go on... Collateral, Shaun of the Dead, Howl's Moving Castle, Undertow, Bad Education... all of which are damn fine films and could be in the top ten in other recent years.

[Russ]

Other very good to great 2004 films include:

Mind Game
Palindromes
The Taste of Tea
Hotel
Calvaire
The Incredibles
Survive Style 5+
Star Spangled To Death

Truly an insanely awesome year for cinema.

[Morris Schæffer]

Beauty and the Beast 3D bluray!! That was breathtaking on my 55 inch Panasonic.

[Dukefrukem]

Favorite year for me would be 1954 or 1968.

[Dukefrukem]

Thoughts on the 100 Most Iconic Shots of All Time?

It's Spielberg heavy but hard to argue with a lot of them. The most surprising to me is the upside down Spider-man shot.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPB2U2dCFI4

[dreamdead]

Steven Sodebergh's Schizopolis might be the first of his films that I wholeheartedly embraced. Rather odd given how much that film works to distance and alienate emotional connection, but that Brechtian quality makes the architecture of the writing that much more empathetic. At times the low budget aesthetic works against it, reducing it to a smarter Office Space, but I was thoroughly impressed. I even liked Soderbergh as an actor here.

"Can you tell the computer's not on?"

[quido8_5]

University of South Carolina. I know it's not NYU or anything, but it is local and they have a decent course selection This semester.

I went to NYU, you're not missing out on anything except for inflated egos and endless dissections of Plato's Cave. I ended up double majoring just to keep my brain alive.

In other news, I finally watched The Fisher King a couple of days ago and can't believe what I've been missing all this time. What a humane, beautiful and hilarious film. Gilliam's direction is perfectly suited for the material and loved how unpretentiously quirky it was. Also, Mercedes Ruehl = hell yes.

Considering favorite years: While I tend toward Raiders' opinion that it's kind of silly, I still find it an intriguing question. Not sure if I missed it, but has anyone said 1999? Might not be my favorite year, but surely one of the most important. I'm also partial to 1979 and 1967.

[Raiders]

Considering favorite years: While I tend toward Raiders' opinion that it's kind of silly, I still find it an intriguing question. Not sure if I missed it, but has anyone said 1999? Might not be my favorite year, but surely one of the most important. I'm also partial to 1979 and 1967.

We were only doing the 2000's.

[Izzy Black]

I went to NYU, you're not missing out on anything....

NYU's film program is first rate, albeit too expensive.

[DSNT]

I went to NYU, you're not missing out on anything except for inflated egos and endless dissections of Plato's Cave. I ended up double majoring just to keep my brain alive.

In other news, I finally watched The Fisher King a couple of days ago and can't believe what I've been missing all this time. What a humane, beautiful and hilarious film. Gilliam's direction is perfectly suited for the material and loved how unpretentiously quirky it was. Also, Mercedes Ruehl = hell yes.

I've heard that about NYU, and I've also heard Izzy's opinion. The nice thing about being in a smaller academic department is you get close to all the teachers. I meet with the head of graduate program on Wednesday who wants me to pursue a phd and teach film. NYU wouldn't give me that opportunity.

Speaking of The Fisher King, Gilliam recently announced that it'll come out on Criterion. My guess is a release early next year. Can't wait!

[Russ]

The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2013) - pro +

Assuming the 84 year old director never makes another film (and this is his first in over two decades), this career-defining autobiographical effort is one helluva swan song. To the common criticism that he indulges his excesses...I say GOOD! It's a welcome event when a visionary filmmaker like Jodorowsky is unrestrained by the financial demands of a studio system. The alternating father-son POVs takes a little getting used to, but all the usual eccentricities are present in spades, albeit with a gentler and more nostalgic edge, like watching Fellini's Amarcord as reflected in a carnival funhouse mirror.

Completing the autobiographical theme is the contribution of multiple Jodorowsky offspring in a number of significant areas, with son Brontis in the lead role of his father, Jaime, and son Adan delivering one of the finest film scores in recent memory.

BTW, the Blu-ray is absolutely stunning.

[Ivan Drago]

I saw The Identical because I had a free movie ticket, and it was shot here in town, so I thought I would give it a fair shot despite its tomatometer.

The only positive to this piece of embarrassing dreck is hearing Ray Liotta scream church sermons in his Tommy Vercetti voice.

I don't even feel like making a thread on it, because as a filmmaker here in Nashville, I'm embarrassed. I hate this movie so fucking much.

[MadMan]

Speaking of The Fisher King, Gilliam recently announced that it'll come out on Criterion. My guess is a release early next year. Can't wait!That's excellent news. I watched it back in my early college days and loved it. Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges together in a Terry Gilliam movie that is equal parts funny and tragic.

[dreamdead]

We (re)watched Carpenter's They Live last night. It was a movie. It was a movie that seemed relatively circumspect and understated, but once Piper enters the bank (cue "It's time to chew bubblegum..." speech), the tone that Carpenter had achieved of a cultural alien (Piper) trying to blend back into capitalist America just fades away and it doubles down on non-sequitur speechifying and silly character decisions. Half of the time we were yelling at the screen for Piper and Keith David to grab more weaponry from the dead soldiers, but do they? Nope--they ascend to the roof with Piper packing a pistol. Brilliant. Likewise, they never grab more of the watch-teleport thingie even after they realize the value that they wield. In sum, it's just a more nonsensical film than childhood remembers (fancy that) and undoes the more interesting elements of Carpenter's societal study and capitalist critique.

[Grouchy]

I believe They Live! is supposed to be a science-fiction comedy.

[Pop Trash]

Why would Carpenter have logic and reason mess up 97 minutes of AWESOME?

[Dead & Messed Up]

I believe They Live! is supposed to be a science-fiction comedy.

Yeah, for me part of the pleasure is that the film's villains are challenged by a man that is quite possibly the person worst-suited to fight an entrenched alien conspiracy - a kick-first, talk-later brawny dope who survives to the end mostly through dumb luck. Kinda like how Big Trouble in Little China's biggest "hero" is alternately confused, befuddled, and flummoxed by everything happening around him at every given moment (although I'd concede that film is more knowingly goofy and less socially challenging).

[Dukefrukem]

Plus there's this


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9rrgJXfLns

[Spun Lepton]

I consider They Live! to be one of Carpenter's minor successes, usually ranked along the lines of Prince of Darkness. The story is relatively scattershot, the satire is a little deflated, and let's face it ... Piper isn't exactly the best actor. But, the tongue-in-cheek tone and the silly bombast make it very watchable. I'll revisit it every few years. The fight scene never fails to amuse me, too. Even after a dozen viewings, it still surprises me how long that bit is.

[Pop Trash]

I consider They Live! to be one of Carpenter's minor successes, usually ranked along the lines of Prince of Darkness. The story is relatively scattershot, the satire is a little deflated, and let's face it ... Piper isn't exactly the best actor. But, the tongue-in-cheek tone and the silly bombast make it very watchable. I'll revisit it every few years. The fight scene never fails to amuse me, too. Even after a dozen viewings, it still surprises me how long that bit is.

They Live has gotten quite the highbrow following as of late. Jonathan Lethem wrote an entire book about it and Slavoj Zizek talks about it extensively in his doco The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. Not to mention, Shepard Fairey's entire "OBEY" clothing line is straight from it.

[Pop Trash]

Cobra is a weird movie. It has potential to be some sort of stylish nightmare (apparently Nicolas Refn is -unsuprisingly- a fan) of Reagan-era Satanic Panic, and indeed some scenes play very well as action-cum-horror, but tonally it is all over the place. The attempt at Schwarzenegger one-liners and other goofy humor just falls flat. The "love story" (I use that term loosely) is a major groaner that feels shoehorned in to give Stallone's then main squeeze Brigitte Nielsen a role and she is quite a terrible actress here. On the plus side, it does feature a pretty rad car chase.

[Spun Lepton]

Cobra is a weird movie. It has potential to be some sort of stylish nightmare (apparently Nicolas Refn is -unsuprisingly- a fan) of Reagan-era Satanic Panic, and indeed some scenes play very well as action-cum-horror, but tonally it is all over the place. The attempt at Schwarzenegger one-liners and other goofy humor just falls flat. The "love story" (I use that term loosely) is a major groaner that feels shoehorned in to give Stallone's then main squeeze Brigitte Nielsen a role and she is quite a terrible actress here. On the plus side, it does feature a pretty rad car chase.

If this ever lands on Netflix, I'll watch it in a heartbeat. There were a number of cheesy 80s action pictures that I missed when they first premiered. (Back then, if it wasn't horror or comedy or a mix thereof, I was disinterested.) It's made a name for itself as a particular shade of bad and I really want to see it.

[quido8_5]

NYU's film program is first rate, albeit too expensive.

It's also so far up it's own ass that it can't take time to be progressive. Yes, it's expensive, but I had a scholarship, so I can't really fault them there (I actually kind of like that a bunch of rich kids get reamed because they want to live in New York City). I have major academic beefs with Cantor, in particular, not NYU at large. Analog film editing and discourses about the hero's journey does not a first-rate-program make. They're coasting on a reputation that hasn't been earned since the early nineties.

[MadMan]

They Live is wonderfully goofy and outrageous, with Carpenter stretching his satire of Reagan 80s America to nice lengths. Cobra on the other hand is quite bad from what I remember, and the only notable thing about is that Mark Wahlberg has a Cobra poster in his apartment in The Other Guys. Which amuses me every time I watch that movie.

[Pop Trash]

If this ever lands on Netflix, I'll watch it in a heartbeat. There were a number of cheesy 80s action pictures that I missed when they first premiered. (Back then, if it wasn't horror or comedy or a mix thereof, I was disinterested.) It's made a name for itself as a particular shade of bad and I really want to see it.

Same here. I always wanted to watch it when I was a kid but my dad wouldn't let me...not because it was completely violent but because he thought it sucked (he let me watch all the Rambos and Rockys). It mostly only "sucks" because it can't sustain a single tone. It can't decide if it wants to be a crowd-pleasing Top Gun type of movie, an absurd action fantasia like Commando, or (the most interesting angle imo) a creepy neon lit view of American cities in the 80s as a cesspool where merely walking down the street will get you ax murdered by vague cult lemmings.

[Ivan Drago]

Eraserhead is great. Eraserhead at midnight in 35mm with surround sound speakers is fucking great.

[Russ]

Anyone seen films from this list (http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/the-essential-lgbtq) and able to recommend some lesser known LGBTQ films for more than their political import?

I know the question was asked a few months ago, but definitely add this to your list: Getting Go, the Go Doc Project. Just saw it. It's on Netfllix and it's terrific.

[Dead & Messed Up]

There's a bit in The Skeleton Twins where Bill Hader is depressed that he didn't become a famous actor and Kristen Wiig is like "Almost no one's a famous actor. The rest of us just spend our days trying not to regret where we ended up".

At first I nodded along, knowing full well that's how I tend to spend my days. But then it was like, hang on, you two are both famous actors. Fuck you for presuming how the "rest of us" live.

In conclusion: movies are phony bullshit.

Hell, how about the implicit proposition that famous actors don't regret where they ended up. I'm sure a healthy chunk of famous actors feel trapped and regretful and wonder what-might-have-been's when the sun goes down.

[Pop Trash]

To Be And To Have is getting re-released on blu ray. It's one of those wonderful films I saw 10+ years ago that I thought was going to be lost to the sands of time. One of the best films about teaching and early childhood education I've ever seen. The Dissolve guys seem to love it to. Their review:

http://thedissolve.com/reviews/1085-to-be-and-to-have/

[dreamdead]

Been using this year to catch up on the home invasion subgenre, and The Strangers is rather impressive from a tension perspective. Great use of subtle appearances behind and around the main victims, and the main arc of the leads is good. The narrative that the film conveys in the opening fifteen to twenty minutes, where it's just internal silence and suffering, is, if not complex, committed to the characters more than typical genre fare. There's a fair amount of character choices that are silly throughout, none worse than the friend who enters the house silently, but the film does gain volume by leaving so much of the villain intentions vague. And that's some of the most hilarious use of Joanna Newsom ("should we go outside?").

Silly final minute or so, though. Trying too hard to one-up Carrie's final scare.

[Dukefrukem]

Been using this year to catch up on the home invasion subgenre, and The Strangers is rather impressive from a tension perspective. Great use of subtle appearances behind and around the main victims, and the main arc of the leads is good. The narrative that the film conveys in the opening fifteen to twenty minutes, where it's just internal silence and suffering, is, if not complex, committed to the characters more than typical genre fare. There's a fair amount of character choices that are silly throughout, none worse than the friend who enters the house silently, but the film does gain volume by leaving so much of the villain intentions vague. And that's some of the most hilarious use of Joanna Newsom ("should we go outside?").

Silly final minute or so, though. Trying too hard to one-up Carrie's final scare.

Agreed. And so much better than You're Next.

[Sven]

Did anybody here actually make it through Troy? I had to bail after an hour. That was after giving it a second chance. Stunning in its awful.

[Dukefrukem]

Did anybody here actually make it through Troy? I had to bail after an hour. That was after giving it a second chance. Stunning in its awful.

I made it through, but it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

[Ezee E]

That, Kingdom of Heaven, and probably 2-3 others of that variety were never completed by me.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Did anybody here actually make it through Troy? I had to bail after an hour. That was after giving it a second chance. Stunning in its awful.

Only tried once and never even made it to the hour mark. Truly abysmal on all levels.

[Watashi]

Troy is pretty silly, but we have slim pickings when it comes to Greek mythology movies, so I'll take what I can get. It's certainly better than headache-inducing Clash/Wrath of the Titans.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Never watched it. Saw the spear fight on Youtube between Bana and Pitt. Thought it was pretty good. Like a less awesome Rob Roy scene.

[DSNT]

I made it through, but it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
I saw it in theaters, so had no choice than to sit through it. Pure hell.

And the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut is underrated. I think the studio hacked it to pieces.

[baby doll]

Troy is pretty silly, but we have slim pickings when it comes to Greek mythology movies, so I'll take what I can get.Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is pretty awesome. Also, I haven't seen his version of Medea but Lars von Trier's is pretty trippy.

[Dukefrukem]

I saw it in theaters, so had no choice than to sit through it. Pure hell.

And the Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut is underrated. I think the studio hacked it to pieces.

I saw it in theaters as well.

And I was going to bring up the KoH DC after E's post. I still think both movies are bad, but the DC is a tad better.

[Sven]

KoH: DC is an oft-cited "worst film I've ever seen" by me. Compared to Troy, it seems exquisite and masterful.

[Watashi]

The only thing I remember about Kingdom of Heaven is Edward Norton's masked performance which I thought was very good.

Also, how Liam Neeson played the Crusader version of Qui-Gon Jinn.

[Grouchy]

Jason and the Argonauts, anyone?

http://theargonauts.com/about/images/jason-and-the-argonauts-battling-skeleton-warriors.jpg

I saw the restored Pasolini's Medea recently. Can't imagine how Von Trier's version could manage to be trippier.

[Winston*]

I saw Jason and the Argonauts at the cinema last year. It's really boring when the Ray Harryhausen parts aren't going on.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I saw Jason and the Argonauts at the cinema last year. It's really boring when the Ray Harryhausen parts aren't going on.

Bah.

::waves hand dismissively::

[Mysterious Dude]

http://www.fkpribyslav.cz/media/galleries/34/wrdtheear0464911006162gd.jpg

I watched the Czechoslovakian film Ucho (The Ear) recently. It's about a married couple who return home from a party. The husband is a government official and his boss has just been arrested. He believes that his home is bugged (he calls the bug "the ear"). His wife is drunk and mocks his paranoia, and sometimes talks to "the ear" sarcastically.

It's pretty amazing that the film was even made. I think it may have been made during the Prague Spring era, when Czechoslovakia briefly experimented with liberalization before being crushed by the Soviet Union. I was occasionally reminded of The Lives of Others, about a similar topic, but while that film was about a past event, Ucho was made by people who were actually living it, and there is a sense of immediacy and terror that is absent in The Lives of Others.

[bac0n]

So, I watched Bloodsport the other night for the first time in about 20 years. A few observations:


I'm pretty sure the guy who did the soundtrack for this movie took the sound track to the animated transformers movie from the same era, replaced in the lyrics "you've got the touch!" with "my body's on the line tonight!" and called it a day.
Jean Claude Van Damme is contractually required to show his ass on any film that doesn't also star Sylvester Stallone.
Jean Claude's curious outfit consisting of a tank top with front cut down to just below his chest, and slacks yanked up to just an inch below that could not have made it easy for him to elude Forrest Whittacker, who was actually pretty fit back then.
Every actor sharing a scene with Jean Claude was visibly embarrassed to be second fiddle to someone who's acting was that bad.
Bolo Yeung's left and right pecs are remote controlled.
Van Damme's delivery of lines is like Shatner's, except take all of Shatner's pauses, and bunch them in the center of Van Damme's statement. (eg. To honor you [pause] [pause] [pause] [pause] [pause] means everything to me.)
The kid who played young Van Damme is missing parts of his brain.


Thoughts?

[Scar]

Yeah, it hasn't been twenty years. You were probably too drunk to remember watching it at my house.

[Pop Trash]

I've been meaning to watch Bloodsport. I don't think I ever watched it back in the VHS days. I remember Double Impact fairly well. The whole "one actor playing twins" seemed mind blowing to 11-year-old me (I hadn't discovered Dead Ringers yet).

Speaking of 80s action, Rambo II holds up pretty well if you divorce yourself from the politics and how parodied it was after it came out. Actually, the politics are a bit more slippery than people remember. There's a lot of rage towards the bureaucrats who use soldiers as pawns in war that I think even a lot of left leaning people can get behind. I love the scene where Rambo just melts down and unloads a M-60 on a bunch of computers when he gets back. I think that's even more symbolic now to what war has become.

[Scar]

Just don't watch Rambo III.

[dreamdead]

First 25 minutes of Besson's Le Femme Nikita I was utterly perplexed as to what I was watching. After all of the training business, though, the film really perks up. The balance between Nikita and the two men who desire her was complex for Beson's standards, and Anne Parillaud has a really interesting screen persona throughout. Surprising good finale throughout.

[Pop Trash]

Just don't watch Rambo III.

It's tempting. It can't be worse than Cobra...OR CAN IT?!

[bac0n]

Yeah, it hasn't been twenty years. You were probably too drunk to remember watching it at my house.

Yeah, I was too drunk. I have ZERO recollection of having watched it at your place.

[Scar]

Yeah, I was too drunk. I have ZERO recollection of having watched it at your place.

Yeah, that sums up most of our get togethers over here.

[Scar]

It's tempting. It can't be worse than Cobra...OR CAN IT?!

Ooof. Its probably better than Cobra. But thats not saying anything.

Skip to the orgy of violence known as Rambo, ie Rambo IV.

[MadMan]

Bah Rambo III>Rambo II and IV. Still I like all of the entries in the series, even though Rambo IV left something to be desired.