28 Film Discussion Threads Later [Archive] - Page 266

Mara

06-22-2016, 12:15 AM

POSTED IN 2009:

So, every few years I bring this up in the hopes that someone will help me.

There's a film that I saw when I was very young that freaked me out, and there's some imagery in it that I've never gotten over. I've always wanted to watch it again to try and sort it out.

Please remember that I was about five years old when I saw this, and I may not have understood it very well. Here's what I remember.

It was in black and white.

The main character was a woman, I think blonde, who was a murderess. As I remember, she liked to kill people with an axe, and I'm pretty sure once she used a guillotine. It seemed to me that she pretended not to be killing people by putting wood over their necks and chopping at that. (I may be confused, here.) It also seemed that other people knew she was killing people, but pretended not to notice.

It may have been a period piece. I seem to recall a scene in a saloon, or similar.

At the very end, the woman is standing at the edge of a cliff over a river, like she's going to jump. A man says, "Wait! I need to tell you who you are!" and she says, "I know who I am" and commits suicide.

I've done every google search I can think of through the years to try and find this thing. My only hope is that one of you cinephiles may have encountered it.

WELL I FOUND IT.

OH, THAT'S RIGHT, YOU THOUGHT I HAD STOPPED LOOKING.

I NEVER STOPPED LOOKING.

I have been posting on boards looking for this damn film for well over a decade. I posted about it on the old Match/Cut site. The old Axis of Evil site. Rotten Tomatoes. I've been looking for this film since the internet, like, existed.

And, to be perfectly honest, I'm impressed with how much I remember from a film I that freaked me out when I was five years old.

It's Frankenstein Created Woman, 1967.

I mean: review my description of the ending, from above:

At the very end, the woman is standing at the edge of a cliff over a river, like she's going to jump. A man says, "Wait! I need to tell you who you are!" and she says, "I know who I am" and commits suicide.

Now check it out: Link (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22caoi_frankenstein-created-woman-1967_shortfilms?start=5217) (It won't quite embed.)

I also said:

The main character was a woman, I think blonde, who was a murderess. As I remember, she liked to kill people with an axe... It seemed to me that she pretended not to be killing people by putting wood over their necks and chopping at that. (I may be confused, here.)...

It may have been a period piece. I seem to recall a scene in a saloon, or similar.

Here is the scene in the saloon! It's a machete, not an axe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-psrFc69n0w&t=2m24s
(Tried to embed it to start at 2 m 24 seconds, may not work.)

Now, pay attention in that scene to the last second before the slaughter-- instead of seeing the murder, we have a sudden cut away to the next scene, with someone chopping wood. Being a wee bairn I didn't understand that we were in a new scene-- I thought she was killing him by chopping at the wood.

I also said:

I'm pretty sure once she used a guillotine.

Well, she didn't, but THERE'S THE GUILLOTINE, I FOUND IT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SKbAG0k7b0&t=0m34s
(Tried to embed it to start at 34 seconds, may not work)

There are FOUR copies of that guillotine shot in this two-minute trailer.

Well, now that I've found the film that has been giving me nightmares for three straight decades I'm going to pop some popcorn and watch the whole damn thing straight through to try and convince myself it was nothing to be scared of.

IT IS A DAY OF REJOICING

Mara

06-22-2016, 12:36 AM

A couple pieces of extra information; I'm not sure if I've posted them online.

I know I was younger than 5 when I saw it because before kindergarten I moved to New York State and I saw it at my grandmother's house in Utah. Neither my mother nor my grandmother would have shown me such a scary film-- my druggie uncle watched it with me. He was living with my grandmother after he got out of prison. (Eventually I would be forbidden from being babysat by my uncle when he took me tooling around on his motorcycle when I visited once, so this must have been before that.)

A wrench in my search happened when I mentioned the story to my mother once, and she said, "Oh, it might not have been black and white." I said, "No, it was, I remember specifically" and she had to tell me that in 1984 my grandmother only had a black and white television. That threw one of my search terms right out the window.

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:05 AM

Film is pretty dull so far. However, I like Peter Cushing's face and the fact that he can't be assed to stop flipping through a book long enough to answer questions at a murder trial.

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:24 AM

Q: If you know how to preserve a soul after death and are presented with a dead man and a dead woman, what should you do?

A: Save the man's soul, let the woman's soul die, and put his soul on her body. Plus, dye her hair blonde.

PATRIARCHY

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:30 AM

Hey, the three rich secret murderers marked for death are still drinking in the same tavern where they did secret murder six months before! That's pretty cheeky.

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:34 AM

This film, which is 1 hr 28 minutes long, has been promising us cleavagey-revenge-killings pretty much since frame one.

First hint of cleavagey-revenge-killings: 1 hr 9 minutes in.

(I am 90% sure I did not see the first hour of this film in 1984. Might have slept through it.)

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:42 AM

Ohhh this dude hardcore deserves his cleavagey-kill.

I did not think at this rewatching that I would be rooting for the blonde murderess, but here we are.

***
WAIT STRIKE THAT I think she did kill someone with a guillotine. But... in a closet? How did she get a guillotine into a closet? No WONDER I was so confused as a kid.

Tell me what is happening here. (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22caoi_frankenstein-created-woman-1967_shortfilms?start=4260)

Mara

06-22-2016, 01:55 AM

Yup yup yup putting the pieces together now.

Here's what happens in the film:

1. She goes to machete the bad guy in his face.
2. Discretion cut to the same woman, the next day, chopping wood in her home.* The nice doctor comes down and is very gentle with her, and says that "A nice young lady like you shouldn't be chopping wood." Dramatic irony, of course, because we know she's all murdery.
3. We cut back to the saloon that day with people discovering the body of the bad guy.

Confused-child-me understood this as being a single scene. She machetes a guy in the face, then the doctor comes in (the nice one, not Frankenstein), there is wood everywhere, and I assume a body on the floor, and he sweetly tells her not to chop wood anymore, and then the townsfolk are left with the dead body.

Hence:

It seemed to me that she pretended not to be killing people by putting wood over their necks and chopping at that. (I may be confused, here.) It also seemed that other people knew she was killing people, but pretended not to notice.

*Note: this woman is a MEDICAL MIRACLE and I'd like to point out that Dr. Frankenstein is using her as his maid. "Yes, yes, I know I put the soul of a vengeful dead man in your body, but my lunch isn't going to make itself."

Mara

06-22-2016, 02:08 AM

This is the worst-dug grave I've ever seen in my life. That coffin is, like, four inches down.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v254/maragirl/grave.jpg

I'm starting to think that this town has bigger problems than all the murders/suicides/questionable medical experiments. That is some shoddy grave-digging.

Mara

06-22-2016, 02:13 AM

I poke fun, but there are some legitimately creepy things in this film. Mostly involving decapitation.

Decapitation freaks me out.

BUT TO POKE FUN SOME MORE: all three marked-for-death guys in this film go from gasping-in-terror to sexy-times within ten seconds of seeing cleavage.

BOYS: Ah, Hans has returned from the dead! I am to be super-ghost-murdered!

GIRL: *boobs*

BOYS: Hubba hubba MAKE-OUT TIME!

Mara

06-22-2016, 02:16 AM

AND DONE. I have exorcised all my demons.

THANK YOU MY FRIENDS

I AM ALL JOY

Stay Puft

06-22-2016, 03:30 AM

I have exorcised all my demons.

I'm so happy for you, Mara! Haha. That was a delight to read. Especially for someone who grew up watching Hammer films, such as myself.

Russ

06-22-2016, 10:16 PM

Flooding with Love for The Kid (Zachary Oberzan, 2007) ****/****

A remake of a classic that, in many ways, is profound and heartfelt to a degree the original could only aspire.

That "original" was First Blood (itself, based on the book by David Morrell). That's right: the Rambo movie.

The remarkable part about this "remake" is not that it adheres much more closely to the book's themes, nor even the fact that someone else attempts to fill the shoes of the iconic character forever immortalized by Sylvester Stallone. No, the remarkable part is the fact that this is a film by Zachary Oberzan: he adapted, directed, filmed (with no crew), designed, edited, did the makeup and special effects, and performed all the roles (over two dozen). Including all the female roles. And the dogs. He filmed the entire thing in his 220 sq ft studio apartment in New York City. On a budget of $95.51.

And it works.

As hard as that may be to believe, rest assured that Oberzan is fully aware of the inherent absurdity of the undertaking. Several of the supporting roles feature characters with odd accents, or are seemingly played for laughs. But that's not really true of many of the primary characters (Rambo, Sheriff Teasle, Colonel Trautman) who are all played with an earnestness that provides a real (albeit goofy) emotional investment, and is much more accurate in its characterization of the "father-son" relationship between Teasle and Rambo.

Oberzan invites you to use your imagination -- demands it really -- in helping transform his small apartment, and the props contained therein, into the town of Madison, Kentucky and the mountainous forests that surround it. An apartment where kitchen sinks become creeks, shower and bathtub doubles as waterfalls, rivers, mudslides, you name it. Who would have ever imagined that a vertigo-inducing cliff-face could have so stunningly been recreated by a bunk bed? Or that mere closets could be both a Vietnamese prison cell AND a a mountain cave in which to hide out? A refrigerator serves double duty as both a diner and a gas station (which gets blown up, of course), and a police radio is actually a toaster. My favorite is the helicopter, with two chairs (seating sharp-shooter Zachary Oberzan and pilot Zachary Oberzan) in front of an elevated, upside down ceiling fan (with real, whooshing helicopter blade sounds). Add in a few scattered branches around the living room and...Voila! You have a forest (never mind the bookshelf or rack of cd's in the background). In First Blood, Rambo kills and cooks forest critters for sustenance. Here, he kills a teddy bear.

Ah ingenuity. Thy name is Zachary Oberzan. Apparently, he also does a live stage performance of this and oh, what I wouldn't pay to see him perform this live.

You can pay $5 to see this film on Vimeo. I heartily recommend it.

And if you don't believe me...

“Oberzan has not just walked the line between irony and sincerity, he’s erased it.”—VOGUE

"A thrilling and mind-boggling experience...sheer logistic complexity...[an] extraordinary achievement."--FILM QUARTERLY

“One man’s pulp is another man’s perfection...brilliant.”—NEW YORK TIMES

"Bat-shit insane...disarmingly effective – a guerrilla assault on the notion that high production values are necessary for compelling storytelling."--THE GUARDIAN (UK)

"An outsider-cinema masterpiece...Oberzan's mania knows no bounds."--TIME OUT NEW YORK

"A landmark in the history of DIY filmmaking...Oberzan's work uncovers levels of poetry, irony and compassion heretofore unexplored."--GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE

"The excellence of his performances — physically daring, vocally exaggerated, precisely characterized — stabilizes a solo act that might otherwise seem demented."--LA WEEKLY

"A deliberately naive piece of work, and even if Oberzan's performances suggest multiple
personality disorder run amok (at one point, using crude double exposure, he looks up his
own ass), you can't say he didn't mean it...so far, it's the best movie of 2010."-- VILLAGE VOICE

"Oberzan delivers with passionate commitment and a wire-walker's daring...its charm comes from its heartfelt loyalty to the ancient storytelling tradition."--SALON

“An absolutely amazing concept. Wildly creative and energetic.”—DAVID MORRELL, New York Times bestselling author of First Blood

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/e3e1b29d-b810-418c-b012-ebb39e33062a_zpsvcsywhkz.jpg

Grouchy

06-23-2016, 01:26 AM

Hahahahah that was amazing, Mara. I think I remember the original post but even reading it now I wouldn't be able to relate it to that film. Besides, I watched all those Hammer Frankeinsteins and Draculas together on TV when I was a kid. There's a very creepy late one called Frankenstein and the Monster of Hell that you should see.

EDIT: Another good one is Frankenstein must be Destroyed. I started looking for info on those films and I can now sort of remember which one is which.

TGM

06-24-2016, 11:20 PM

So I've been going back recently and catching up on some Disney movies that had come out during that time in my life when I was "too old for cartoons", and here's some thoughts on what I've caught up on so far.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was kinda meh, definitely lesser Disney stuff here. As a musical, there isn't one single song that stands out or stays with you, and several of the songs are shockingly sloppily executed at that. On top of that, I called total bullshit on the ending, and find it almost hilarious how the same directors who gave us Beauty and the Beast proceed to give us the exact opposite message from that movie with this one.

I'll also say this about it, this movie came out during the time when all of these movies were still receiving G ratings as opposed to PG, as they currently do, and holy shit is this a shocking rating for this film. Hell, the violence and language in this movie is borderline PG-13, yet this shit got away with an "absolutely nothing objectionable" rating? How the fuck? I can only assume the MPAA literally didn't even bother watching and merely slapped on the G rating by default because, fuck it, it's Disney.

Mulan was a big step up after that, however. A much more solid movie, though it's also fairly weak as a musical, having only one standout song in the whole thing in the form of "Make A Man Out Of You", but god damn is that song fucking powerful! Even if it is just a montage song! But it's been consistently stuck in my head ever since, and is really just such an awesome song!

But beyond that, I thought this movie was good, but had the potential to be great. It's held back by some poor decision making as it concerns the comic relief, relying far too heavily on a Loony Tunes style of slapstick comedy that really doesn't mesh well at all with the vibe of the movie they're trying to pull off. Where this style was put to much better use in the far more appropriate The Emperor's New Groove, it sticks out like a sore thumb as just not belonging here, and is far too prevalent throughout, particularly in the middle of a number of otherwise serious scenes, dampening their impact in the process.

That aside, I thought the story was pretty damn good, particularly upon reflection, and pretty damn empowering at that. It's just that damn ill-fitted comic relief that holds this back from being a true Disney classic, which is really just kind of a shame.

Lastly, I just watched Pocahontas, and holy shit, why did nobody tell me this movie was so fucking fantastic before now? This is honestly top-tier stuff from Disney, and I never woulda imagined that, as I honestly went into this one expecting the least out of this particular bunch. But this movie absolutely wowed me! As a musical it's top notch, both in terms of its arrangement as well as the songs themselves. Just really phenomenal stuff! And visually it's one of the most interesting and gorgeous movies to come out of Disney. What a just all around fantastic little treat this movie was! I'll be watching this one again pretty soon, I can pretty much guarantee you that.

But anyways, that's it for this bunch, still got some more I'm wanting to get around to, and I'll report back on them with some thoughts, assuming I having anything to say about 'em. ;)

Russ

06-29-2016, 11:10 PM

Onirica / Field of Dogs (Lech Majewski, 2014) ***/****

Remember how Celine and Julie barely did any boating? Well, in that same vein, there are no dogs in this film.

There is, however, a substantial amount of grief and bereavement, endured by the film's protagonist, a devastated poet, having recently lost his lover, along with his best friend, in a car accident that he survived (and saddled with a massive guilt complex). Aimless after quitting his university post, he takes a job as a clerk in a Wal-Mart like superstore. Unable to get past the memories, he falls victim to pain med addiction. He also listens to recordings of Dante's Divine Comedy, a priest's advice, and his philosophical aunt's monologues. She seems to have a more enlightened view of death, liberally quoting Seneca and Heidegger. And this all plays out over a background of real-life tragedies: newsreel footage of devastating flooding in the country, volcanic after-affects from Iceland, and the real-life airline crash that left Poland without a president and most of it's government cabinet.

The above synopsis consists of as much plot as you'll get out of this somber observation of a national consciousness of grief.

At first, I was of the opinion that poet and artist/nee filmmaker Lech Majewski was only showing his strengths in displaying the sumptuous visuals that dominate the film. I also felt that his shortcomings, an absence of narrative discipline, a disregard for plot, and a tendency for impenetrable passages, would certainly limit the film's appeal. At first viewing, I felt all the painterly imagery was desperately in need of an engaging narrative.

Now, with a second viewing in three days, I slightly upgraded my original rating. Because the images that Majewski composed for Onirica are flat-out, jaw-droppingly amazing. We're talking hardcore surrealism here: a mix of Jodorowsky's most astonishing imagery melded with the slickness of Lynch's cinematography. I dare anyone to watch the last half hour of this film and not be greatly moved and/or impressed. I wish I could make the same guarantee for the first 75 minutes.

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

transmogrifier

07-03-2016, 03:21 AM

The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990)

The new Canadian blu-ray is a revelation. Imagine David Lynch channeling Malick's Days of Heaven.

I know Raiders is a fan -- anyone else here seen this gem?

Just seen this. One of the most tangibly despairing films I've ever seen. Some terrible child acting notwithstanding, this is certainly something. I'm not quite sure what though yet.

Sycophant

07-04-2016, 07:03 PM

TGM

07-04-2016, 07:53 PM

Sycophant

07-04-2016, 08:01 PM

I wonder where it really started. My memory was telling me it was one of the early Raimi Spider-man movies, but I checked the first two and it wasn't them. They did have pretty fancy opening credits, though, and I guess we don't really see much in the way of opening credits these days, at least not with the big budget action stuff. Mostly we get weird zooming shots of the title logo as bizarre technoscape.

The one that I saw that baffled me the most was the sequence for The Interview.

I guess at least it's keeping some designers employed! That's maybe a good thing?

Irish

07-05-2016, 02:55 PM

I wonder where it really started. My memory was telling me it was one of the early Raimi Spider-man movies, but I checked the first two and it wasn't them. They did have pretty fancy opening credits, though, and I guess we don't really see much in the way of opening credits these days, at least not with the big budget action stuff. Mostly we get weird zooming shots of the title logo as bizarre technoscape.

I was thinking Mission: Impossible (and the sequels) -- but I think a case can be made that the "overly flash title sequence for action movies" started with Bond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD-YR-3KmyE

Milky Joe

07-06-2016, 12:05 AM

Saul Bass...?

Sycophant

07-06-2016, 02:43 AM

Obviously heavily-produced, heavily-designed graphic title sequences have been with us for quite a long time. But there has certainly been an upsurge of post-film credits sequences with flashy visuals in the last decade or so.

For example, Pacific Rim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oYcfPAjSzE

Or this one from the Seth Rogen The Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQp3rRdPGOc

Or from the genre I most associate with this, Motherfucking Marvel Movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui0AHvSzkH8

They often seem to showcase 3D models from effects sequences. Or, in the case of The Interview, a playful engagement with some feature of the movie's world or thematic concerns--here being North Korean propoganda--mixed with some things that are slightly relevant to particular scenes in the movie maybe.

Sycophant

07-06-2016, 02:46 AM

I would assume as a trend it essentially started with the boom of the big superhero cinematic universe craze. And I would think it has something to do with the fact that audiences are pretty much expected to sit through the credits in such movies in order to get a tease for the next one, so all of those effects give them something interesting to admire in the meantime.

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense as to why it's become a thing. Studios at least giving the people a flashy light show to look at instead of just a boring text crawl.

Sycophant

07-06-2016, 02:47 AM

You know how every Hollywood blockbuster has super-expensive-looking special effects credits now? With all the dramatic panning and rotating around 3-D rendered names against a backdrop of thematically relevant images. When did this become basically mandatory? They baffle me.

I just noticed that in my original post here I didn't specify end credits. I'm specifically talking end credits. No wonder some of you think I'm being terribly stupid.

Irish

07-06-2016, 04:32 PM

I just noticed that in my original post here I didn't specify end credits. I'm specifically talking end credits. No wonder some of you think I'm being terribly stupid.

It seems like this is a variation on the cold open, which became popular sometime in the 80s, maybe? And then calcified in the 90s. You drop the audience directly into the movie and simply tack the title sequence to the end. Then roll the rest of the credits as normal.

Here's the opening to Mission: Impossible, 1996:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFtHB4RevLM

IIRC, the movie starts with a cold open and then jumps to this credit sequence (which was the same way the TV show began). Stylistically, it's comparable to the Iron Man sequence you posted.

Irish

07-06-2016, 04:33 PM

Here's the opening of The Matrix, 1999. I remember this was striking and "controversial" because Warners and Village Roadshow allowed the Wachowskis to alter their logos, which was a big no-no in the 90s. (Today, it's commonplace and unexceptional).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or2m7rYHb_Q

It's a matter of increments. There's only a single title card announcing the name of the movie, with the rest of the credits are at the end of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL4qIIxg8A

This may be the earliest example of what you're talking about, even though it lacks the hyper-animation of recent films.

PS: I don't think anyone thought you were stupid. I find this stuff interesting.

If you're interested in title sequences at all, check out http://www.artofthetitle.com/ and maybe https://typesetinthefuture.com/

Irish

07-06-2016, 04:46 PM

PPS: Here's a bit from Wikipedia. I had forgotten that story about Lucas and the Director's Guild:

Many major American motion pictures have done away with opening credits, with many films, such as Van Helsing in 2004 and Batman Begins in 2005, not even displaying the film title until the closing credits begin. Similarly, Welles's Touch of Evil originally waited until the end to display the title as well as the credits; however, Universal Studios maintained rights to the film and did not implement this change until a 1998 re-release.

George Lucas is credited with popularizing this with his Star Wars films which display only the film's title at the start. His decision to omit opening credits in his films Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) led him to resign from the Directors Guild of America after being fined $250,000 for not crediting the director during the opening title sequence. However, Hollywood had been releasing films without opening credits for many years before Lucas came along, most notably Citizen Kane, West Side Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Godfather.

Nevertheless, "title-only" billing became an established form for summer blockbusters in 1989, with Ghostbusters II, Lethal Weapon 2 and The Abyss following the practice. Clint Eastwood has omitted opening credits (except for the title) in every film that he has directed since approximately 1982.

Mysterious Dude

07-06-2016, 05:03 PM

I don't like it when movies don't even show the title in the beginning. How am I supposed to know the movie's started?!

Ezee E

07-06-2016, 05:41 PM

Yeah, I remember Fincher saying they spent a lot of money to alter the WB logo (or whichever it was) for Fight Club. Now it seems like every single movie alters it in some form.

Dukefrukem

07-06-2016, 05:50 PM

I don't like it when movies don't even show the title in the beginning. How am I supposed to know the movie's started?!

Thank Chris Nolan for starting that trend.

Spinal

07-06-2016, 05:56 PM

I don't like it when movies don't even show the title in the beginning. How am I supposed to know the movie's started?!

Or, how about movies that seemingly skip the opening title only to surprise you by popping it in, like, 20 minutes into the movie?

Watashi

07-06-2016, 07:54 PM

I remember Waterworld being the first movie that altered the studio logo.

Dukefrukem

07-06-2016, 08:03 PM

I remember Waterworld being the first movie that altered the studio logo.

Burbs. 1989

Skitch

07-06-2016, 09:03 PM

I like the way The Mummy did the opening logo.

I really like Panic Room's opening credits.

Irish

07-06-2016, 09:23 PM

Waterworld used the logo as a segue into the actual film (conceptually, this is similar to the way Spielberg used Paramount's logo in Raiders). The logo and the animation around it are unchanged. (Universal's animation in 1995 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99UeY1rCuM) versus Waterworld's opening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UQBzleE_II).)

The Burbs used a retro version of the Universal logo from the early to mid-1960s (http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Universal_Pictures/1963%E2%80%931990) (and also used the logo as an entry point into the film's world).

Both sequences eschew the standard Universal music, which is interesting but also par for the course back then, IIRC.

This is silly, but Universal's animation is by far my favorite (outside the old RKO radio tower). Love the music. Love when they hit the timpani half way through (bum! bum!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXRsNYKc-Xk

Dukefrukem

07-06-2016, 09:37 PM

I always loved Fox's intro as a kid because it felt Epic to me. IT also was the start of most of my favorite movies. Die Hard, Star Wars, ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXWFYPk11GM

Irish

07-06-2016, 09:43 PM

20th Century Fox is great -- that music makes you feel like you will see a goddamn show.

Most interesting to me: The concept behind that logo hasn't changed much at all since the early 1930s. The music is exactly the same too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKmy1p7D8YA

Winston*

07-06-2016, 11:14 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYW2rOYj22w

Stay Puft

07-06-2016, 11:19 PM

It's not a movie, but my favorite studio logo variation was always Futurama ending with 30th Century Fox Television.

Sycophant

07-08-2016, 09:53 PM

Here's the opening of The Matrix, 1999. I remember this was striking and "controversial" because Warners and Village Roadshow allowed the Wachowskis to alter their logos, which was a big no-no in the 90s. (Today, it's commonplace and unexceptional).

This reminds me of one of my favorite things that ever happened in a theater. It was for I think the 3rd Matrix movie. Possibly 2nd. One person in our packed theater gave a short burst of clapping and cheering when the green Warner Bros. logo appeared, as if it was a Lucasfilm logo at a Star Wars film (which is ridiculous, too, but other people do it). The rest of the theater was silent, totally iced him. It was great.

It's a matter of increments. There's only a single title card announcing the name of the movie, with the rest of the credits are at the end of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL4qIIxg8A

This may be the earliest example of what you're talking about, even though it lacks the hyper-animation of recent films.

PS: I don't think anyone thought you were stupid. I find this stuff interesting.

If you're interested in title sequences at all, check out http://www.artofthetitle.com/ and maybe https://typesetinthefuture.com/

Thanks for the link recs.

You may be right. I haven't been able to come up with a clearer precedent for the trend. This might be what really led into it.

Sycophant

07-08-2016, 10:00 PM

While we're on the subject of studio logos, I find the lushly rendered, sweeping intros for contemporary Disney movies, which riff on the old white-on-blue logo, pretty gaudy and stupid looking. Boringly lame CG that feels eternally stuck in the early 2000s, no matter how much they theme it to the particular movie or segue from it into the film's diegesis, as is basically requisite these days.

Also, the logo for Roadside Attractions is always going to make me feel like I'm about to watch a shitty DTV movie my family picked up from Blockbuster in the mid-90s, no matter how many great movies it introduces.

Skitch

07-09-2016, 01:15 AM

I don't want to derail the subject of studio logos (because I love it, seriously) but this doesn't deserve a thread. I would love to hear some thought on Terminus, on Netflix. I really enjoyed it. Very well utilized slim budget, expertly shot, terrific score, well acted, all around very well enjoyed. The Explorers meets Knowing meets A.I. Check it out.

Irish

07-09-2016, 02:02 AM

pssst dude is there a new episode of movie freaks this week or what

Skitch

07-09-2016, 11:58 AM

I edit saturday mornings. Usually out by noonish. Im workin on it. :)

dreamdead

07-14-2016, 12:12 PM

Man, so much of the design of Once Upon a Time in America is fascinating, but the film--for me--struggles to find a consistent tonal approach to DeNiro's Noodles. Whenever he's with James Woods and the other characters, he operates as the moral center in a group of gangsters who are otherwise amoral; when he's with Elizabeth McGovern's Deborah, though, he's so repugnant (especially in the rape sequence) that it's difficult to reconcile (beyond male screenwriters) why she'd still ever harbor any sympathy for Noodles.

There are flickers of a path not followed with Noodles and Deborah, but so little of the film is engaged with her except as a contrast to Woods's Max. She lacks any real personality or agency herself, and Leone--again, for me--never figures out how to recover from Noodles's rape of Deborah. Nothing changes in Noodles' character in terms of sympathy or distance, and while I'm not expecting the film to morally wag a finger at Noodles's actions, Deborah's later indifference to the rape feels less like traumatized comatose way of dealing and rather like an everyday shrug of an encounter.

There's some good cinematic moments throughout in Leone's film (largely the nostalgia in the image from the poster), but this one feels laborious in many spots and lacks the secondary focus on the women that films like The Godfather do better.

Yxklyx

07-14-2016, 05:21 PM

Just seen this. One of the most tangibly despairing films I've ever seen. Some terrible child acting notwithstanding, this is certainly something. I'm not quite sure what though yet.

No, but I saw his next film "The Passion of Darkly Noon" and it was alright. Nothing I'd recommend.

Ezee E

07-17-2016, 01:34 PM

There are flickers of a path not followed with Noodles and Deborah, but so little of the film is engaged with her except as a contrast to Woods's Max. She lacks any real personality or agency herself, and Leone--again, for me--never figures out how to recover from Noodles's rape of Deborah. Nothing changes in Noodles' character in terms of sympathy or distance, and while I'm not expecting the film to morally wag a finger at Noodles's actions, Deborah's later indifference to the rape feels less like traumatized comatose way of dealing and rather like an everyday shrug of an encounter.

There's some good cinematic moments throughout in Leone's film (largely the nostalgia in the image from the poster), but this one feels laborious in many spots and lacks the secondary focus on the women that films like The Godfather do better.

You're totally right. In thinking about the movie right now, I can't really even remember a scene, minus when Young Noodles meets her. But I can recall many many other scenes. I'm sure that can be discussed as part of the opium idea, but it's been a long, long time since I've seen it.

Ivan Drago

07-21-2016, 02:18 AM

A week ago, I saw Airplane! for the first time.

Since then, I've been quoting it at least once a day. It portrays every character type and disaster movie trope to their extremes, and even subverts them. It's a perfect blend of visual comedy, slapstick, wordplay, deadpan humor and parody, and it's one of the most consistently funny comedies I've ever seen. I rarely give anything a perfect score after the first go-around, but this outright earned it and very well could be one of my new favorite comedies ever.

MadMan

07-21-2016, 06:20 AM

I'm finally watching Lady Snowblood. Took me long enough.

Irish

07-21-2016, 02:51 PM

Has anyone seen Yeon Sang-ho's animated feature The King of Pigs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Pigs), from 2011? This is one of the most fucked up stories I've seen in a long time.

Kinda wanna talk about that ending ...

Spinal

07-21-2016, 04:25 PM

Skitch

07-21-2016, 05:41 PM

Top Secret > Airplane

Skitch

07-21-2016, 05:42 PM

I love Top Secret, Airplane, and Lady Snowblood.

Spinal

07-21-2016, 05:43 PM

Top Secret > Airplane

I think so too, but I didn't want to set expectations too high. :)

Skitch

07-21-2016, 06:39 PM

I think so too, but I didn't want to set expectations too high. :)

I just watched again randomly last week. It holds up! So damn funny.

Ivan Drago

07-24-2016, 05:17 AM

I saw a 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa's Ran today. . .and it was absolutely incredible.

With a beautiful and vibrant color palette and jaw dropping landscapes and graphic battle scenes, it boasts some of the most gorgeous cinematography in any movie ever, and the naturalistic sound design both creates a hypnotic tone and builds an unsettling atmosphere as Lord Hidetora's mind deteriorates. Jiro's purge of the Third Castle might be the greatest battle sequence ever committed to celluloid, the story is well told by its motifs and dedication to the setting of feudal Japan, and the final shots are both amazing and heartbreaking all at once.

I can't wait to discover new things about it for years to come, because it's now without question my favorite Kurosawa film, my favorite Shakespeare film adaptation, and one of the greatest films I've ever seen.

Ezee E

07-24-2016, 11:53 PM

Did you guys know Ice Age is the biggest animated franchise in the world with $3 billion between the five movies? Weird.

Dukefrukem

07-25-2016, 12:25 AM

And I think they're planning a 6th too.

Winston*

07-25-2016, 12:43 AM

Did you guys know Ice Age is the biggest animated franchise in the world with $3 billion between the five movies? Weird.

I wonder which is the biggest if you include merchandise sales: Despicable Me/Minions? Probably Frozen by the time the second movie comes out.

Mara

07-30-2016, 11:21 PM

I know I was younger than 5 when I saw it because before kindergarten I moved to New York State and I saw it at my grandmother's house in Utah. Neither my mother nor my grandmother would have shown me such a scary film-- my druggie uncle watched it with me. He was living with my grandmother after he got out of prison. (Eventually I would be forbidden from being babysat by my uncle when he took me tooling around on his motorcycle when I visited once, so this must have been before that.)

Update on Mara and Frankenstein Created Woman:

I had lunch with my uncle this afternoon and we were reminiscing and I shared with him this story of the movie that had frightened me back when he was watching me as a kid. He laughed and asked if it was an old Frankenstein film; I said yes. Uncle said that Grandma had a bunch of old B-horror movies on VHS at the time and that he used to watch them late at night with my brother and I because we would sleep over in the living room where the tv was. He laughed and laughed that I remembered it-- I was only about three or four years old.

Wryan

08-05-2016, 08:00 PM

Barnes and Noble was having a Criterion sale, half off. Bought Wages of Fear, Manchurian Candidate and, *dreamy sigh*, City Lights.

This added to a few other CCs I had procured in the last few months: 12 Angry Men, Sweet Smell of Success, Watership Down and The Vanishing.

Ezee E

08-05-2016, 11:18 PM

MadMan

08-09-2016, 08:24 AM

Top Secret is hilarious but not better than Airplane.

Ivan Drago

08-13-2016, 08:55 PM

What's the MC consensus on Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964)? I just got back from a 35mm screening of it and it might be one of my new favorite films.

Mysterious Dude

08-15-2016, 05:58 AM

Fail-Safe has my favorite translator in a movie. A lot of translators in movies tend to act to the dialogue, but Fail-Safe's translator has his own personality. He translates correctly, but he shows his nervousness, too. It's an underrated performance. "I ask you to believe I wish it were not so."

TGM

08-30-2016, 04:01 AM

So I finally recently got around to watching the Twilight movies, and while I'm not about to call them "good" movies, I think they're certainly nowhere near as bad as their reputation makes them out to be, and I was left with quite a number of thoughts on the movies, which I went into full detail in my latest blog, for anyone who might be interested: http://cwiddop.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-twilight-saga.html

transmogrifier

08-30-2016, 01:20 PM

Favorite trashy (or maybe "uncool" is a better word) Hollywood films that you enjoyed as a kid (and may still do now, who knows). Go!

The Towering Inferno
The Swarm
Jaws 2
Jaws 3
Major League
Romancing the Stone
Police Academy
Revenge of the Nerds
Ruthless People
Teen Wolf
The Karate Kid
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
Young Guns
Short Circuit
Tango & Cash

I watched all of these films way, way, way too much.

Dukefrukem

08-30-2016, 01:37 PM

Jaws 2 and 3 are good ones.

How about:

3 Ninjas
Hocus Pocus
OMG Tango & Cash Yes.
Nothing But Trouble

Honestly I recall going to the video rental store with my father every Friday, and he would ask me what movie I wanted to rent. And I think I just alternated between Monster Squad and Back to the Future until I was 13.

Spinal

08-30-2016, 04:57 PM

Revenge of the Nerds

Definitely this one.

Also ...

Gotcha!
Clash of the Titans
Dragonslayer
Krull
Vacation
Night of the Comet
Bachelor Party
Cloak and Dagger
Condorman
Brewster's Millions
Rustler's Rhapsody
Flash Gordon

MadMan

08-30-2016, 07:01 PM

One of my favorite childhood trashy movies is The Golden Child.

Spinal

08-30-2016, 07:15 PM

One of my favorite childhood trashy movies is The Golden Child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY8O0dShFoo

Dead & Messed Up

08-31-2016, 12:49 AM

Masters of the Universe. Not interested in returning to that one.

Mac and Me. Later on, I apologized to my parents.

transmogrifier

08-31-2016, 01:34 AM

Definitely this one.

Also ...

Gotcha!
Clash of the Titans
Dragonslayer
Krull
Vacation
Night of the Comet
Bachelor Party
Cloak and Dagger
Condorman
Brewster's Millions
Rustler's Rhapsody
Flash Gordon

I've seen almost none of them. Young me was missing out.

StanleyK

08-31-2016, 03:29 AM

Dukefrukem

08-31-2016, 12:29 PM

Hi, folks. I've started to watch movies again after a ~4-year hiatus from anything cinema-related. As such, I have pretty much no idea what essentials from 2012-2016 I should be catching up on. Any recommendations?

For what it's worth, what I've recently seen from the past 5 years (rated out of 10):

Super 8 - 4
21 Jump Street - 6
The Dark Knight Rises - 6
Killing Them Softly - 7
Looper - 8
Blackfish - 6
The Congress - 5
Elysium - 4
The World's End - 7
The Giver - 4
Interstellar - 8
Neighbors - 2
What We Did on Our Holiday - 6
The Hateful Eight - 8
Jurassic World - 5
Mad Max: Fury Road - 6
Paper Towns - 2
Room - 6
Spectre - 5
Straight Outta Compton - 7

Wooow. Good to see you back. Off the top of my head:

Movies you shouldn't see: Tree of Life / Spring Breakers / Only God Forgives
Movies you SHOULD see: Prometheus / Captain America Civil War / Green Room / Cabin in the Wood

Check out the Matchies for more info :)

2015 - http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?6427-THE-MATCHIES-2015-The-Show!/page3
2014 - http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?6059-THE-MATCHIES-2014-The-Show!/page3
2013 - http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?5353-MATCHIES-2014-THE-SHOW
2012 - http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?4967-Match-Cut-s-Top-10-Bottom-5-of-2012-Revealed!

transmogrifier

08-31-2016, 01:15 PM

Hi, folks. I've started to watch movies again after a ~4-year hiatus from anything cinema-related. As such, I have pretty much no idea what essentials from 2012-2016 I should be catching up on. Any recommendations?

My favorites from that time period (not a great one, in my opinion, though there are a lot of films I haven't seen):

The We and the I
Zero Dark Thirty
ParaNorman
A Touch of Sin
The Wind Rises
Boyhood
What We Do in the Shadows
Sicario

Dukefrukem

08-31-2016, 01:28 PM

My favorites from that time period (not a great one, in my opinion, though there are a lot of films I haven't seen):

The We and the I
Zero Dark Thirty
ParaNorman
A Touch of Sin
The Wind Rises
Boyhood
What We Do in the Shadows
Sicario

Agree on:
ParaNorman
What We Do in the Shadows
Sicario

Spinal

08-31-2016, 07:04 PM

Hi, folks. I've started to watch movies again after a ~4-year hiatus from anything cinema-related. As such, I have pretty much no idea what essentials from 2012-2016 I should be catching up on. Any recommendations?

One from each year...

Sing Street
Mustang
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
It's Such a Beautiful Day

baby doll

08-31-2016, 07:31 PM

Hi, folks. I've started to watch movies again after a ~4-year hiatus from anything cinema-related. As such, I have pretty much no idea what essentials from 2012-2016 I should be catching up on. Any recommendations?Off the top of my head...

Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
Barbara (Christian Petzold, 2012)
Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund, 2014)
Frenzy (Emin Alper, 2015)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Here, Then (Mao Mao, 2012)
Modest Reception (Mani Haghighi, 2012)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)

dreamdead

09-02-2016, 03:14 PM

What do you all think are the most vital 2-3 African American films made since 2000? If we were dealing with earlier films, it'd be easy to draw on Burnett or others, but I'm trying to settle on a film that I think is complex but also poses provocative issues about race.

I still grapple with whether anything after Bamboozled is as powerful as that imperfect Lee film; Dear White People does some interesting work, but it too feels incomplete, and I suspect that the series will do a better job at opening up issues than the film.

Thoughts?

Morris Schæffer

09-02-2016, 04:06 PM

Jackie Chan will receive an honorary Oscar.

That reads weird and totally cool at the same time.:cool:

Irish

09-02-2016, 05:23 PM

What do you all think are the most vital 2-3 African American films made since 2000?

Might be a few picks on Slates's Black Film Canon (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2016/05/the_50_greatest_films_by_black _directors.html)

I think Belle, Fruitvale Station, Creed and Straight Out of Compton say more about race while not being about race than films who address the subject directly, like Dear White People and Selma.

(I also think you might be underestimating Dear White People.)

Edit: Also, dammit, Beyonce's Lemonade and Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke.

baby doll

09-02-2016, 07:03 PM

Idioteque Stalker

09-03-2016, 01:54 AM

I really like Dear White People, 12 Years a Slave, Creed, Chi-Raq, and Black Dynamite.

Skitch

09-03-2016, 02:41 AM

What year did Belly come out? Because that.

Morris Schæffer

09-03-2016, 10:39 AM

Definitely this one.

Also ...

Gotcha!
Clash of the Titans
Dragonslayer
Krull
Vacation
Night of the Comet
Bachelor Party
Cloak and Dagger
Condorman
Brewster's Millions
Rustler's Rhapsody
Flash Gordon

Condorman is more engaging to me than a lot of superhero films. Henry Mancini's score is great. And oh that yellow car!!!

Dead & Messed Up

09-04-2016, 05:29 AM

Paprika. Satoshi Kon. 2007.

In the words of Fred Kwan, that was a hell of a thing.

Morris Schæffer

09-04-2016, 09:04 AM

You know how you're watching something and there's an actor who feels oddly familiar and you can't quite figure where you know him from? That's assuming you know him at all?

I've been watching Luther, the BBC show with Idris Elba. Engaging show, good actors, badly scripted on occasion. There's this character called Shenk who's one of the good guys, initially tasked to monitor the Nitroglycerine known as Luther. That's the first pic. So it turns out that's actor Dermot Crowley. The second pic totally geeked me out. :cool: What makes it stranger is that I didn't even know him from that movie, wouldn't have guessed in a million years he was from that movie. I spoilered the 2nd pic. See if you guess it. :p

http://www.dermotcrowley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DermotCrowley-Luther2.jpg

http://66.media.tumblr.com/c31fea2e1f5f0ca113a16ac62b1a13 bd/tumblr_n8r842EzVG1tdjqd9o1_400 .jpg

dreamdead

09-04-2016, 11:32 AM

Might be a few picks on Slates's Black Film Canon (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2016/05/the_50_greatest_films_by_black _directors.html)

I think Belle, Fruitvale Station, Creed and Straight Out of Compton say more about race while not being about race than films who address the subject directly, like Dear White People and Selma.

(I also think you might be underestimating Dear White People.)

Edit: Also, dammit, Beyonce's Lemonade and Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke.

Ah, thanks for the Slate list. I neglected to consult that when thinking about things. I also quite liked Beyond the Lights, and so that's something to think about.

I taught Dear White People in a unit last fall with Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow and Arnold's Fish Tank, concentrating on diversity of perspectives (Black, Asian, woman-centric) and representation. All three yielded good discussion, but I noticed that when students began writing on each of the texts that only Arnold's film offered up truly contradictory and multivalent readings. So it was a helpful experiment to question not just representation but also the sorts of papers that come out of such films--Fish Tank remained open and interesting, but the other two films more or less yielded only small variances in how students approached them. I do think there's more in DWP, especially for a private college campus that has more white students--still, something to think about.

You're right that many of the more interesting films out there don't directly become "about race," and so things like Lemonade stand out as interesting compendiums to think about.

Make your own lesson plan, slacker!

I know this is playful, bd, but I always try to go back and get commentary from the film choices that I settle on. I tend to default to certain films that I'm interested in anymore, and this sort of inquiry keeps things from getting too staid.

TGM

09-04-2016, 11:26 PM

So for my 30th birthday, I decided to take a look back at the past 30 years and choose my favorite movie released from each year: http://cwiddop.blogspot.com/2016/09/30-years-of-movies-my-favorites-from.html

Sycophant

09-05-2016, 01:11 AM

Have we talked about how ugly the Producers Guild of America has made American movie credits in the last 3 years or so?

Irish

09-05-2016, 01:46 AM

Have we talked about how ugly the Producers Guild of America has made American movie credits in the last 3 years or so?

How do you mean?

Dukefrukem

09-05-2016, 02:05 AM

Have we talked about how ugly the Producers Guild of America has made American movie credits in the last 3 years or so?

Actually i think we have... *looks for posts*

Russ

09-05-2016, 02:20 AM

Favorite trashy (or maybe "uncool" is a better word) Hollywood films that you enjoyed as a kid (and may still do now, who knows). Go!

I wasn't exactly a kid, but there was that period back in the mid-80's...I seem to remember watching these guilty pleasures a lot back in the day:

American Dreamer (Rick Rosenthal, 1984)
Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984)
Night of the Comet (Thom Eberhardt, 1984) *** previously mentioned by Spinal, and he was dead-on right
The Party Animal (David Beaird, 1984)
Crimewave (Sam Raimi, 1985)
Explorers (Joe Dante, 1985)
Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985)
The Legend of Billie Jean (Matthew Robbins, 1985)
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (Guy Hamilton, 1985)
Crossroads (Walter Hill, 1986)
River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986)
The Hidden (Jack Sholder, 1987)
Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)
Hairspray (John Waters, 1988)
Pass the Ammo (David Beaird, 1988)
The Serpent and the Rainbow (Wes Craven, 1988)

Henry Gale

09-05-2016, 04:39 AM

Movies you shouldn't see: Tree of Life / Spring Breakers / Only God Forgives
Movies you SHOULD see: Prometheus / Captain America Civil War / Green Room / Cabin in the Woods

Definitely see all of these, StanleyK! With maybe the least essential of the bunch being Prometheus. (And I'm someone who quite likes it!)

Beyond those and what's already been mentioned:

The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer, 2012) and The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer, 2014)
Amour (Haneke, 2012)
A Band Called Death (Covino/Howlett, 2013)
Beasts of No Nation (Fukunaga, 2015)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Inarritu, 2014)
Captain Phillips (Greengrass, 2013)
Edge of Tomorrow (Liman, 2014)
Everybody Wants Some!! (Linklater, 2016)
Ex Machina (Garland, 2015)
The Grey (Carnahan, 2012)
Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn, 2014)
The Guest (Wingard, 2014)
Her (Jonze, 2013)
Holy Motors (Carax, 2012)
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Waititi, 2016)
Inherent Vice (Anderson, 2014)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Coen/Coen, 2013)
The Lego Movie (Lord/Miller, 2014)
Magic Mike (Soderbergh, 2012) and especially Magic Mike XXL (Jacobs, 2015)
The Master (Anderson, 2012)
Nebraska (Payne, 2013)
The Nice Guys (Black, 2016)
The Raid (Evans, 2012)
Samsara (Fricke, 2012)
To The Wonder (Malick, 2013)
True Detective [Season 1] (Fukunaga, 2014)
Under The Skin (Glazer, 2013)
Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013)
We Are The Best! (Moodysson, 2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese, 2013)
World of Tomorrow (Hertzfeldt, 2015)

And more or less all the other Marvel Studios / Avenger films if at the very least their cultural relevancy and completion's sake to fully appreciate whichever one might most interest you otherwise. I'd also have recommended The Night Before and This Is The End but your Neighbors rating may suggest you won't care for more Rogen right now (as significantly better as I think those are).

Spinal

09-05-2016, 04:40 PM

I dunno. It seems like one of the nice things about not seeing movies for the past 5 years is that you could completely ignore the whole Marvel phenomenon and dismiss it as entirely inessential.

Russ

09-05-2016, 06:13 PM

Hey Stanley, try this one:

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

Henry Gale

09-05-2016, 07:00 PM

I dunno. It seems like one of the nice things about not seeing movies for the past 5 years is that you could completely ignore the whole Marvel phenomenon and dismiss it as entirely inessential.

Well I guess that's true if he has managed to step outside of all modern movie-watching for this time then he probably doesn't have the same built-up (largely cultural instilled) urges I've had to see them, since personally I really can't imagine how I'd be able to not have seen any of them in terms of my everyday social circles, online activity, and movie-watching, as their one of the only consistent topics I can talk about with everyone from my grandparents to my young cousins, and more or less everyone in between. But in general I still think it might be a pretty necessary pre-requisite to understanding where big-movie-making is currently at the highest box office level and where it'll likely continue to go, potentially at the expense of the sorts of smaller things we used to take for granted at the multiplex.

Plus I just think they're all very entertaining. I included Guardians in my "essentials" list up there since even though it's probably one of the objectively weaker of my selections, as a Marvel film it's not only the best but the most stand-alone and overall emotional experience for me.

Sycophant

09-05-2016, 10:28 PM

How do you mean?

The "p.g.a" accreditation just seems to add way too much clutter.

On a title card with like five p.g.a. credits looks way too busy and crowded.

StanleyK

09-08-2016, 10:54 PM

Thanks for the recommendations, fellas; I'll try to keep you posted as I go through them.

Movies you shouldn't see: Tree of Life

Too late for that one; I saw it back in the day and I remember it being one of my favorite movies.
In fact, one thing that drove me to ask for suggestions was that I wasn't even aware that Malick, my favorite living director, had released a movie last year. That's when I realized I was way out of touch.

Regarding the Marvel movies, I haven't seen any of them and I'm actively avoiding it. Nothing against the movies themselves, but I know that, due to my completionism, if I see one I'll be compelled to watch all of them (and there's a lot of 'em).

Irish

09-09-2016, 01:27 AM

BTW, they're making Wake in Fright into a television show ... ?

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/channel-10-commissions-a-tv-version-of-classic-1971-australian-movie-wake-in-fright/news-story/64b4a31612ae52dc899c1ef81bab29 66

Ezee E

09-10-2016, 12:46 AM

Phew, another Telluride Film Festival, and another great one. I really think that place could be heaven to me.

And yes, I will brag, Rooney Mara definitely recognizes me. She frequented my theater (one time with Lonergan) and since I manage the outside, she'd usually come straight up to me to get seating inside. Nice person, very quiet, likes talking movies, and definitely dislikes big attention/crowds.

Stay Puft

09-10-2016, 02:23 AM

I really need to get to Telluride one of these years. TIFF has been pretty good to me tho I guess I dunno.

Ezee E

09-10-2016, 04:28 AM

I really need to get to Telluride one of these years. TIFF has been pretty good to me tho I guess I dunno.

From people I talk to, they are completely different beasts, and can't really compare the two.

Telluride is so perfect to me because everything is walking distance, laid-back, and everyone's friendly. Gondola rides inspire conversations of all movies with complete strangers, and the San Juan Mountains are a sight to behold on every corner.

Plus, the Old Sheridan Bar is exactly everything I could possibly want in a bar.

It's just so damn far to get to (six hour drive from Denver).

Stay Puft

09-10-2016, 08:25 AM

From people I talk to, they are completely different beasts, and can't really compare the two.

Oh, I know. That's always been the appeal when I read about it. TIFF is good but often a victim of its own massive size, and often feels pretty typical of other festival experiences I've had. There are also some ridiculous politics that often bother me or overshadow the festival. Telluride sounds like it would be such a nice change of pace, like a nice weekend getaway. Grass is greener, perhaps. Still something I'd like to experience once. Like Cannes, but that one seems a little more difficult for us plebs. Too much wishful thinking there haha.

Ezee E

09-10-2016, 03:00 PM

Oh, I know. That's always been the appeal when I read about it. TIFF is good but often a victim of its own massive size, and often feels pretty typical of other festival experiences I've had. There are also some ridiculous politics that often bother me or overshadow the festival. Telluride sounds like it would be such a nice change of pace, like a nice weekend getaway. Grass is greener, perhaps. Still something I'd like to experience once. Like Cannes, but that one seems a little more difficult for us plebs. Too much wishful thinking there haha.

Yeah, with Cannes/Venice, the cost of getting there makes me think that I should do more things with my time then seeing movies.

Spinal

09-12-2016, 07:17 PM

Sometime within the week, we will be starting a new round of the Fantasy Box Office game. Basically, all you need to do is participate in a draft of the movies (to be released in the next 6 months) you think will earn the most money in their first 4 weeks of release. After the draft, you mostly just sit back and watch the results.

We have 2 open slots for new players. If you are interested, post in the thread titled [Summer '16] FANTASY MOVIE LEAGUE! in the Off-Topic forum. I'll add players on a first-come, first-serve basis.

transmogrifier

09-13-2016, 10:25 AM

- Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
- I know.

Gets me every fucking time.

Dead & Messed Up

09-17-2016, 03:41 AM

Two new flicks:

The Witches of Eastwick - Awfully blustery towards the end, and loses itself a bit in the middle as none of the women want to suss out the exact nature of Daryl Van Horne and his glammers. They just kinda roll with it. But otherwise a silly, fun riff on sexual dynamics. Miller impresses, too, with the way he puts the three actresses in a single frame and lets them play off each other for longer-than-expected takes. Nicholson is Nicholson, at his best in the long middle where he seduces all three women and thrives in his luxury and their smitten presence.

Witness for the Prosecution - Goddamn Billy Wilder. Every year or two, I watch another one of his movies and just enjoy the hell out of myself. The bonus was that, this time, I knew absolutely nothing about the film, only that it was a Wilder joint, so when the twists starting stacking up in the end, I couldn't help laughing at how ingeniously the film keeps topping itself, until it arrives at the perfect (and frankly the only) conclusion, and how Wilder finds the edge of the cliff and keeps from falling into absurd farce. The final 20 minutes must've been so much fun to cut together.

It also warmed this horror-lover's heart to see Elsa Lanchester and Una O'Connor again.

Oh, Elsa, you were the Aubrey Plaza of the 1930s.

https://67.media.tumblr.com/366c259828423ad4dddffa8f654f40 72/tumblr_nd5hpnAoKB1rdfgw4o1_500 .gif

Russ

09-17-2016, 04:16 AM

Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Belladonna, where have you been all my life?

Belladonna of Sadness (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973) PRO

Easy enough to answer since this amazing film has never seen release in the U.S. in it's 40 year history - until now. If you're a member of this target audience, the brand-spanking new blu-ray will have you salivating. Directed and co-written by Eiichi Yamamoto and inspired by Jules Michelet's non-fiction book Satanism and Witchcraft, it details the wedding of Jean and Jeanne (who is, umm, raped by the evil baron and his court on their wedding night because Jean couldn't pay the marriage taxes). It juxtaposes two stories - the divide between the French peasants and the ruling class, and the plight of Jeanne, who succumbs to Satanic influences in order to exact her revenge.

After all that happens in the first third of the film, the only thing I can add is: It's a shame I don't do acid any more because this film was made for just that. It's so gloriously hippy-dippy-trippy in it's psychedlic narrative I literally was applauding the pure verve. But it's not all dayglo-madness, there's beautiful static watercolor paintings and animation techniques far outside the realm of anything else of it's time. Oh. And it's kinda x-rated (but not in any kind of traditional sense). The sexual imagery on display here is of a very twisted and metaphorical kind (think Dante's Inferno by way of Hieronymous Bosch). And in spite of all the extremely erotic (and occasionally, a tad rapey) material, Belladonna ultimately reveals itself as an ahead of-it's-time work of art-cum political, feminist statement.

Whew! I'm drained. Adventurous folks can check out this red-band trailer, with this caveat: The trailer is definitely not safe for work, significant others, or prudes in general. I almost forgot to mention the brilliant soundtrack! It's every bit the equal of the images it accompanies - psychedelic rock-jazz fusion that is glorious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkcLMapo_Y

Gittes

09-17-2016, 03:50 PM

Very curious about Paterson. Love this poster. I wish I knew who designed it.

http://66.media.tumblr.com/b58c2d1834281ce74c30810bebb2e4 a6/tumblr_o53wv7muSx1qej1i6o1_500 .jpg

MadMan

09-20-2016, 07:00 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY8O0dShFoo

Everyone can go for some chips. Hehe.

Also I've been neglecting this place too much lately. Need to get my film on and also update some threads.

baby doll

09-20-2016, 02:52 PM

And more or less all the other Marvel Studios / Avenger films if at the very least their cultural relevancy and completion's sake to fully appreciate whichever one might most interest you otherwise.Would you eat your own poop if it was "culturally relevant"? ("All the millennials are eating their own poop. I guess I should too. After all, it's gluten-free.")

Skitch

09-20-2016, 05:55 PM

Would you eat your own poop if it was "culturally relevant"? ("All the millennials are eating their own poop. I guess I should too. After all, it's gluten-free.")

Thats quite a statement considering your film tastes.

Dead & Messed Up

09-21-2016, 01:33 AM

Thats quite a statement considering your film tastes.

Ooohhhhh...

Dukefrukem

09-24-2016, 11:39 AM

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

dreamdead

09-25-2016, 10:09 PM

Sarah and I went and saw a restoration print of Don Coscarelli's Phantasm. While it makes very little sense in any cognitive sense of the word, with characters flitting about for a scene and then disappearing despite seeming to be more important, it sustains a mood all its own. Sometimes a silly mood, sure, but I was pleasantly surprised by how Coscarelli uses music, and the lack of it, to orchestrate deeper ranges of tension. The music is probably the key here, as the script is gleefully bonkers in navigating in and out of any logical order.

That said, I can see why Bad Robot as a production company would restore it, as it has a lot of their hallmarks--youths in distress, challenges to the older order, movement between horror and sci-fi, and just generally being compulsively watchful.

StanleyK

09-28-2016, 11:27 PM

Among the things I've seen most recently:

I was led to believe Babe: Pig in the City was a good movie and better than the original. I vehemently disagree. I guess George Miller's movies just aren't for me, though I did love Lorenzo's Oil.

Even at just 88 minutes, Rashômon feels overlong and lags in quite a few instances; scenes go on well past the point of being effective and become dull. I feel like this is a constant in the early Kurosawa works I've been watching, which are masterworks in composition but could benefit from some tighter editing.

On a positive note, Punch-Drunk Love is still one of the very best movies I've seen. Some of the earlier scenes with Barry and his sisters are damn hard to watch though.

Yxklyx

09-30-2016, 07:06 PM

I do prefer Babe: Pig in the City over Babe - and yes Rashomon could be tighter.

Irish

10-06-2016, 03:23 PM

Possibly relevant to your interests:

- Turner Reveals Pricing Levels for FilmStruck and The Criterion Channel (http://criterioncast.com/news/turner-reveals-pricing-levels-for-filmstruck-and-the-criterion-channel)

- Turner to Launch FilmStruck Classic Movie-Streaming Service Oct. 19 (https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/turner-filmstruck-streaming-launch-1201880081/)

Top tier is $10.99 per month, which gets you access to the full Criterion streaming catalog.

Spinal

10-06-2016, 06:46 PM

Ezee E

10-06-2016, 09:46 PM

Two week trial. I'll give that a shot for sure.

Mysterious Dude

10-07-2016, 12:57 PM

No Roku app until 2017? Well, I guess that'll give me time to sift through the smoking wreckage of my Hulu watchlist.

StanleyK

10-07-2016, 04:35 PM

Irish

10-13-2016, 06:02 PM

Possibly relevant to your interests:

Brian DePalma interviews Francis Ford Coppola about The Conversation (Filmmakers Newsletter, 1974) (http://www.cinephiliabeyond.org/francis-ford-coppola-brian-de-palma-conversation-two-great-filmmakers/)

Spinal

10-27-2016, 09:22 PM

Box Office Mojo has a genre page for Comedy - Fat Suit (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=fatsuit.htm). All things considered, it seems to be a rather profitable genre.

Gittes

10-28-2016, 05:02 AM

610093857175285760

StanleyK

10-28-2016, 05:27 AM

Nostalghia has possibly the best ending to a movie ever. Nevertheless, watching Tarkovsky's movies this time around I did find most of them to be a bit too drawn out at some points (the biggest culprits being the third hour of Solaris and all of Stalker, which consistently wavers between tedium and transcendence; both are still excellent), with the exceptions being Andrei Rublev and The Sacrifice which are just about perfect.

MASH loses a lot of steam towards the end thanks to the football match that takes over the last half hour, but it's a pretty great movie, unlike my previous, lukewarm assessment of it.

I loved Rushmore, but The Royal Tenenbaums felt almost aggressively whimsical to me. There's something about the narrator and the novel theme that turned me off. I do remember The Life Aquatic being my favorite of his so hopefully that'll hold up better.

The first half of Ikiru is a masterpiece. I wasn't feeling the second half at all, but since I didn't have any problems with its pacing I figured I was finally starting to see eye to eye with Kurosawa. But then The Seven Samurai had the same issues as his earlier films. Whether it's 88 or 208 minutes, the scenes are really good for a while, but then they refuse to end and keep dragging.

I hated Happy Feet and I hated Happy Feet Two even more. That's probably a minority opinion around here, but... I'm not the only one, right? Someone else around these parts must feel the same.

StanleyK

10-28-2016, 05:28 AM

George Miller ratings:

Mad Max - 5
The Road Warrior - 7
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - 4
The Witches of Eastwick - 7
Lorenzo's Oil - 8
Babe: Pig in the City - 2
Happy Feet - 4
Happy Feet Two - 2
Mad Max: Fury Road - 6

That's an average of 5/10, which sounds about right. I don't hate the guy, but the love some of these films get has me scratching my head.

transmogrifier

10-28-2016, 07:39 AM

Babe: Pig in the City is his best film by far.

Ivan Drago

10-30-2016, 01:51 AM

Carnival of Souls is an AWESOME movie. The imagery is genuinely frightening, the tone is nightmarish throughout, and its existentialist themes are as relevant today as they were at its release in 1962. A new favorite of mine for sure.

transmogrifier

10-30-2016, 02:28 AM

Oh, I hated that movie. Found it unbearable.

Irish

11-01-2016, 04:31 PM

Filmstruck is live (the Criterion streaming service thing).

Currently drooling over their basic catalog: https://watch.filmstruck.com/#!/themes/

Holy shi------ https://watch.filmstruck.com/#!/genre/crime

Ivan Drago

11-01-2016, 04:57 PM

Oh, I hated that movie. Found it unbearable.

Eh, different strokes for different folks.

Can we at least agree that Misery is amazing?

Mysterious Dude

11-02-2016, 02:09 PM

Filmstruck is live (the Criterion streaming service thing).

Currently drooling over their basic catalog: https://watch.filmstruck.com/#!/themes/

There are a few Criterion titles on Hulu that seem to be missing from Filmstruck (Ordet, My Home is Copacabana, Profound Desire of the Gods, Ucho, Jacquot de Nantes). I find that vexing.

Ezee E

11-02-2016, 03:13 PM

Watched Carnival of Souls on Filmstruck as my first one.

Seamless transition to the movie. No glitches. Great quality.

The movie was alright. Almost seemed like David Lynch got to film an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode in a way.

Irish

11-02-2016, 05:24 PM

I had a different experience. I put on Madonna's Truth or Dare and the service buffered 3 or 4 times in the first hour.

The website seems flimsy and rudimentary. They've got 3 different analytics trackers on the front page (why?!); the watchlist tops out at 100, but the site doesn't tell you that and clicking "add" on new items does nothing; there's a bunch of required 3rd party services that are blocked by common ad-blockers, etc; there isn't any way to downgrade the service, as far as I can tell; several categories have 0 films in them; some films are miscategorized or not categorized correctly (eg: obvious horror films that don't show up under "horror"); the search is quasi-broken and returns too many false positives.

All that, coupled with the on-boarding problems they had yesterday, makes me wonder (1) what their developers have been doing for the last 6 months and (2) how much real world testing they did.

This surprised me because they're charging a premium to access the catalogue and other, smaller services like Shudder and Mubi don't have any of these issues.

There are a few Criterion titles on Hulu that seem to be missing from Filmstruck (Ordet, My Home is Copacabana, Profound Desire of the Gods, Ucho, Jacquot de Nantes). I find that vexing.

Are you on twitter? @FilmStruck responds to questions. I'd be curious to hear their explanation for this.

Irish

11-03-2016, 06:28 AM

Have we talked about how ugly the Producers Guild of America has made American movie credits in the last 3 years or so?

Saw this article today and thought of you -- apparently there's a big controversy in the PGA right now over these credits.

The PGA created the p.g.a. mark in 2012 to prevent film financiers from buying awards-season glory. A panel of three unnamed arbiters reviews all materials to determine who contributed work on set or in a "decision-making" capacity.

"The purpose of the Producers Mark is to protect the integrity of the 'Produced By' credit," says PGA president Gary Lucchesi. "Drawing distinctions among producers' contributions inevitably results in disappointment for some. We have an appeals procedure to address those cases, and we encourage all producers to take advantage of the entire process."

Bizarre infighting and a lot of politics but I found some of the background info interesting.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fifty-shades-producer-dana-brunetti-sparks-produced-by-credit-debate-943127

Dead & Messed Up

11-10-2016, 08:53 PM

Watched Roman Holiday for the first time last night. Fun and charming, but goddamn it builds up steam as it goes, and that ending practically made me scream in fury, but in such a satisfying way, like the creative team knew exactly how the film should end, which is often so so different from what the audience thinks they want.

Spinal

11-14-2016, 01:16 AM

I used to be a Pan's Labyrinth is good, but not THAT good kind of a person.

I watched it again for the first time in 10 years. It really is that good.

Skitch

11-14-2016, 03:19 AM

I used to be a Pan's Labyrinth is good, but not THAT good kind of a person.

I watched it again for the first time in 10 years. It really is that good.

:D awesome

Dukefrukem

11-22-2016, 03:32 PM

Props to MC for bouncing back from a down year when it came to movie viewings. The 2015 section still has under 200 movie threads and it looks like we come close to ending the year near 200 in the 2016 section.

Still have several big releases coming up in December.

Pop Trash

11-24-2016, 03:22 AM

I'm making a list of Trumpian (yeah, I know) movies for these post-election daze. Really, just any movie that comes to mind when reading news articles lately. So far I have...

- A Face in the Crowd
- Idiocracy
- Network
- Dr. Strangelove
- Children of Men
- Citizen Kane
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller
- The Great Dictator (hopefully this will become *less* relevant, rather than more relevant in the coming years)

Any others ya'll would add?

Watashi

11-24-2016, 06:00 AM

Throw in Mad Max: Fury Road, Back to the Future II, In the Loop, and The Candidate in there.

Spinal

11-24-2016, 03:56 PM

Arrival
Bob Roberts
Hangmen Also Die (worst case scenario)

Mr. McGibblets

11-24-2016, 05:57 PM

Punishment Park

Ezee E

11-25-2016, 12:01 AM

Election.

Pop Trash

11-25-2016, 06:05 PM

Election.

Tracy Flick is Hillary tho.

Also, this if you haven't read it yet:

http://www.avclub.com/article/alexander-paynes-election-has-some-disturbing-new--246283

Skitch

11-25-2016, 06:24 PM

These headlines have made me run the other way, to familiar and happier spaces, places that feel like home, a warm blanket, next to a fire in winter.

Millenium
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Jaws
Highlander
Rambo: First Blood

Its like drowning my emotions in nostalgia, and it feels really fucking good.

Ivan Drago

11-25-2016, 06:42 PM

Add Fail-Safe to that list, Pop Trash.

Dukefrukem

11-25-2016, 07:05 PM

Election.

Man of the Year

Pop Trash

11-25-2016, 07:27 PM

Its like drowning my emotions in nostalgia, and it feels really fucking good.

Member Rambo? Sure, I member!

Morris Schæffer

12-02-2016, 10:59 AM

Entirely useless bit of trivia. The writer of the 1974 Disney movie The Island at the Top of the World is John Whedon.

Grandfather to Joss.

:cool:

Gittes

12-07-2016, 06:28 AM

Contention:

At the end of the day, the only shot that is truly and meaningfully worth a damn in the entire Dark Knight trilogy is the last glimpse of Modine's character in TDKR.

Dukefrukem

12-07-2016, 12:27 PM

Contention:

At the end of the day, the only shot that is truly and meaningfully worth a damn in the entire Dark Knight trilogy is the last glimpse of Modine's character in TDKR.

https://zitzelfilm.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/the-dark-knight.jpg?w=1000&h=700&crop=1

Dead & Messed Up

12-07-2016, 04:13 PM

Contention:

At the end of the day, the only shot that is truly and meaningfully worth a damn in the entire Dark Knight trilogy is the last glimpse of Modine's character in TDKR.

Care to elaborate? (TDKR is my favorite of the three, so I'm intrigued.)

Dead & Messed Up

12-07-2016, 05:47 PM

Happiness - messed me up but good. Dylan Baker's story was the standout. Horrifying. Thoroughly unpleasant. Appreciated how the flick never glossed over their actions or gave them some heartbreaking motivations. Many of them were monsters, but we were allowed to see them as people first, monsters second. Seriously, though, Dylan Baker - one of the braver performances I've seen in a long damn time.

Frequency - Dopey and saccharine and why even bother making such a potent premise about yet another serial killer hunting women? But still sorta works thanks to the strength of the core premise and the decency of the two main characters. The errors on time-alteration are amusing (the guy sees his hand melt away, what?!).

Gittes

12-07-2016, 07:03 PM

I was being intentionally hyperbolic, but it wasn't an insincere post. Still, Duke's response might have already thrown mine into doubt (I have to think about that a bit more; I think I prefer the shot I mentioned). At any rate, I'd be remiss to unequivocally double down on my claim without another proper scouring of the trilogy. It's admittedly more of a hunch backed up by imperfect memories. I just wanted to dramatically toss it out there to see if it'd get a conversation going...

Care to elaborate?

Sure.

Aside from the patina of Pfister's contributions, I remember the trilogy as being visually and editorially stale. The movies acquire a pulse via certain performances and propulsive scores, but I can't recall any one shot that was composed toward ends that were much more than functional or somnambulantly momentous. This is compounded by the editing, whereby Nolan's satisfactory-to-mediocre images collide in a scattershot bid to marshal energy and momentum. The montage shots often feel prematurely shorn. I can't remember if I read this elsewhere or if it's my own thought, but it's as if Nolan is following the rhythm of a "next week on Mad Men" preview. The films often feature generous helpings of pedestrian footage given "awesome" cohesion via Zimmer. Even the bolder shots — a newly orphaned Bruce, Batman grieving Rachel amidst the conflagration, etc. — are kind of rote or just adequately dramatic. It's like Nolan shoots a ton of footage and then shrugs and pours it all into montages whose theme is some vague variation on "Stuff is really going down now! Look here! Now back here! Look at this quick shot of Gordon in an alley! Over here! Look at the chalk on the brick wall!"

So, what's interesting about Modine's last shot is that Nolan more effectively marries form to content. The desultory assemblage of images that is a bland weakness elsewhere becomes, in this instance, a serious asset. The result is kind of devastating. Suddenly, curt narrative and visual efforts — Foley was a minor, thinly sketched character — feel purposive: a comment on the limits of sympathetic recognition and of our ability to gather up, in adequate measure, the pain and loss of all lives. It's a familiar idea, but it's potent. Compare this with Cotillard's last shot, which, IIRC, is not a montage bit, but is still characteristically tepid: standard operating procedure with a dash of "there's no time to waste — let's disrespect our actress by picking a horrible take!" Either that same haste caused Nolan to stumble into actual poignancy with Modine's shot, or he had an epiphany about how the restless oscillations of his editing might now provide a thoughtful conclusion to Foley's arc.

James Wood recently wrote something about the author David Szalay, and one of his observations stuck with me: "He manages to slow down the rhythm of his noticing while simultaneously speeding it up." Nolan does this for the fact of one man's death. Mobilizing Foley's fallen body as another fleeting snowflake in the trilogy's hurried tapestry allows Nolan to seize on two related ideas: the enormous tragedy of death and its banality. It's not the most complex idea, but it's a surer grasp at profundity than other aspects of the trilogy. The editing in his movies often disappoints by suggesting a filmmaker who is wary of leaving behind footage ("let's see what sticks"). Yet by absorbing Modine's last shot into his fungible and/or ho-hum stream of images, Nolan locates something that is decidedly affecting and disconcerting, relative to the rest of the trilogy. He preserves the shock and sadness of a lost life, but also a troubling, Malickian idea about how death necessarily disperses into a world that continues to swirl around us and inexorably rolls forward. Nolan is an ardent fan of Malick, and this is one of the few times where the influence is palpable. It's not a wholly novel maneuver, neither formally nor thematically, but it's an uncommonly sad note that achieves a particular interest within the stifling context of the trilogy.

Lazlo

12-07-2016, 08:30 PM

I guess I'll have to watch The Dark Knight Rises again (which I'm happy to do, I love that movie) because I don't remember the shot in question. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the whole movie since I saw it twice in 70mm IMAX opening weekend (damn, that's a braggy sentence). Weird to realize that fact about a movie I love. Though I haven't tended to rewatch much Nolan at home given the spectacle of the theatrical experience.

Gittes

12-07-2016, 08:42 PM

I guess I'll have to watch The Dark Knight Rises again (which I'm happy to do, I love that movie) because I don't remember the shot in question.

It's fleeting, so I can understand forgetting about it if your last viewing was in 2012, but, for me, it's one of the few enduring bits from the movie that I really admired (alongside other stuff like Hardy's voice and Hathaway's snarling "you don't owe these people any more" line).

Dead & Messed Up

12-07-2016, 09:05 PM

Gittes

12-07-2016, 11:43 PM

Any opposing views beyond that shot of Joker-as-dog? If it helps, I promise I won't respond with a wall of text. :cool:

I know I should have said it's the best shot, rather than the only meaningful one. Pardon the zeal. I'm open to other ideas, as I'm struggling to think of another image in the trilogy that matches its union of form and content, or its quiet devastation, etc. I'm searching my memory for something comparable, but I'm only recalling a whole lot of spectacle, aerial shots, bad fights, etc. I mean, Batman Begins has that Batman descending from above thing ("Where are you?!" "Here"), but, like the Joker shot, it's a rare bit of style without much affective force. I mean, Joker in the car is impressive, but I wish its tacit message hadn't been explicitly spelled out verbally elsewhere in the film. Everything else I'm recalling seems kind of vanilla...

Irish

12-08-2016, 02:25 AM

I like the stab at meaning in Nolan's work (which, despite everything written and overwritten about him, is in short supply).

But I don't see the Malick comparison. Malick is reflective to the point of absurdity. He's overly and fussily concerned with man's place in nature and man's place -- both individually and collectively -- in the passage of time. Those themes appear and re-appear in everything he's done (again, almost to the point of self-parody -- "oh hey, look, there's a shot of the wind moving through the trees").

I don't know what Nolan cares about, deep in his bones, even after viewing every one of his films. (I only know his approach -- stuffy boarding school lit prof -- never varies.)

TDKR is about three things: Self-sacrifice for the public good, second chances and personal redemption, and both literal and figurative "masks" -- the idea that the face you present to the world is different from who you actually are. Every single character in it starts or ends on those notes, and the film makes repeated references to all three themes in almost every scene.

Eg: Bane sacrifices himself for Talia and gets a literal mask for his trouble. Commissioner Gordon publicly backs the Dent Act, something that contradicts his own values. Foley is a ranking bureaucrat more concerned with his career than policework. Each of them begins the film a different place on the "hero or villain" spectrum and each of them has an arc that slowly brings them around to the other side. (The other characters in the film do, eg: Catwoman, who starts as a selfish thief and ends by pulling a Han Solo move to rescue Bruce.)

I remember fans hated Modine's character, people saying he served no purpose, and that his death was ridiculous and purposeless. My only problem with him was that he too clearly illustrated the film's themes. I loved the final shot of him because it checked off his arc. It was perfect filmic redemption (and it only works if he dies). It fits with everything else with the film was trying to say.

But despite the high ideals and deep meanings he attempts (Memento, Inception, Interstellar), Nolan doesn't really have a reflective bone in his body. The way Modine's character ends, that final shot, illustrates that lack of reflection -- because Nolan almost eagerly cuts away from it. The shot is there and then *blink* it's gone. It's gone quickly because he wants to get onto the fist fight on the steps of city hall between Batman and Bane (which is horribly staged and articulated).

I often a "Jesus, dude, that was overdone" to Nolan's films. Production-wise, he seems to skirt the desire to be super-profound while coming dangerously close to Clint Eastwood's "one take and done" aesthetic. That strikes me as pretty far from anywhere Malick wanders.

Dukefrukem

12-08-2016, 02:26 AM

Though I think TDK is a better movie overall, the opening and ending scenes in TDKR are probably better scenes than anything in the rest of the trilogy. Even when including the Nolan montage bit, which I happen to love. The only exception being the unexplained shoehorning of Batman's back healing and rushed bomb ending. What was Bane's plan exactly? To terrorize Gotham for 3 months until the bomb blows up?

Dead & Messed Up

12-08-2016, 02:56 AM

The way Modine's character ends, that final shot, illustrates that lack of reflection -- because Nolan almost eagerly cuts away from it. The shot is there and then *blink* it's gone. It's gone quickly because he wants to get onto the fist fight on the steps of city hall between Batman and Bane (which is horribly staged and articulated).

To be fair, that shot is an eternity in Nolan-time. And it's appropriate that it not be too long, because that shot comes at the moment when Talia's taking control of the villainy (she gets into one of the tanks, says, "Kill them all," we see Modine's body, and then we're off to the final assault between Nuke Truck and Batwing).

Though I think TDK is a better movie overall, the opening and ending scenes in TDKR are probably better scenes than anything in the rest of the trilogy. Even when including the Nolan montage bit, which I happen to love. The only exception being the unexplained shoehorning of Batman's back healing and rushed bomb ending. What was Bane's plan exactly? To terrorize Gotham for 3 months until the bomb blows up?

Bane's m.o. was to increase people's suffering by offering the illusion of hope. So he sticks Batman in a prison that taunts him with the illusion of escape, and he sticks Gotham in an impending apocalypse with the illusion of freedom. The difference is that Bruce knows it's a mindfuck, while some of the citizenry actually think Bane is a sort of demented revolutionary (enough that a class revolution and kangaroo courts occur with surprising speed).

That ties in to what I think is interesting regarding messaging. The film offers two opposite trains of thought, where Bane thinks true suffering requires hope, and where Bruce comes to understand that true strength requires fear.

Irish

12-08-2016, 03:07 AM

To be fair, that shot is an eternity in Nolan-time. And it's appropriate that it not be too long, because that shot comes at the moment when Talia's taking control of the villainy (she gets into one of the tanks, says, "Kill them all," we see Modine's body, and then we're off to the final assault between Nuke Truck and Batwing).

Right -- I'm not arguing against "Nolan-time" as much as I am that there's anything "Malickian" to be had within "Nolan-time."

Irish

12-08-2016, 03:10 AM

What was Bane's plan exactly? To terrorize Gotham for 3 months until the bomb blows up?

My biggest problem with the movie is that it has no good end to Bane's story, unlike everybody else who gets a decent treatment. That's bad form considering he's front and center for most of the runtime.

Well, that, and the fact that if we consider everything does and why he does it, he's not really a villain (especially when his final scenes make both him and Talia way too sympathetic).

Dead & Messed Up

12-08-2016, 03:12 AM

Right -- I'm not arguing against "Nolan-time" as much as I am that there's anything "Malickian" to be had within "Nolan-time."

Yeah, I got no beef with that. The film wears its influences more or less on its sleeve, with Buster Keaton (with its cops running in the street) and Eisenstein (with the class upheaval montage playing like a nod to Strike and October) and Dickens (with the whole "Tale of Two Cities" angle), and there's the obvious indebtedness to Michael Mann that's filtered through all three films to greater and lesser degrees with the whole "urban epic" vibe.

Gittes

12-08-2016, 03:27 AM

That strikes me as pretty far from anywhere Malick wanders.

Hi Irish. Is this still wall of text-y? Tried to keep it brief.

When I brought up Malick, I was talking about the vibes in a single shot (whose power comes from its position in an assembly). Maybe Nolan was channeling one of his cinematic idols, maybe he stumbled into it. Either way, my praise remains. I mentioned it could have been accidental in my post. I wasn't trying to speculate on the reflective differences between the two filmmakers. Your speculations on Nolan's level of thoughtfulness or lack thereof is irrelevant to my admiration of the shot. I'm not talking about the themes that you outlined, either, or how they inform the shot. I'm interested in its pathos as a registration of death and how that's inflected by form. My point is that the shot of Modine benefits from Nolan's style — which I'm otherwise not fond of — and engenders an unusually resonant result. I like Malick's style all the time, but that's not the case with Nolan, so I'm not saying they're stylistic equals. I'm saying Nolan achieved something of the brief, melancholy jolt you sometimes get in Malick via the friction the latter sets up between human endeavours and the broader world that makes them seem fleeting and small.

I wouldn't argue that Malick and Nolan are deeply similar filmmakers, but you're responding as if this is my claim. Here's what changed my understanding and valuation of Malick, way back when. In The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Stanley Cavell talks about how, in Days of Heaven, "the works and the emotions and the entanglements of human beings are at every moment reduced to insignificance by the casual rounds of earth and sky." The Modine image in TDKR is not a perfect quotation of this mood and style, but — as one more cog in a hurried stream of images — it recalls the affective power of Malick's films, which Cavell so eloquently summarizes there. So, what I was referring to is that restless tendency you get in Malick's work, where the striving and dying of people can feel ephemeral and is given a macro context (via, for instance, a shifting array of flora and fauna, as opposed to Nolan's propulsive tapestries, which are usually of a more bombastic or unremarkable order). This macro and micro thing at once diminishes and heightens the human pathos, which connects to the point I was trying to make about our last glimpse of Modine. Whether or not that moment in TDKR was borne of earnest reflection is not essential to my fundamental point. The text itself matters most. As I indicated, I think the brevity of the shot is a virtue. Whether it's a melancholy accident in the hodgepodge haste of Nolan's image assembly, or a deliberate bid toward a kind of Malickian friction, the shot reminded me of Malick, and it moved me.

baby doll

12-08-2016, 06:54 AM

Talking about how good a director Nolan is is so 2010. Frankly, I'm not convinced it matters all that much, given how clumsy his scripts are ("You're new here, character whose name is a significant reference to Greek mythology, so let me explain the premise of the movie, and when I'm done, we'll go over my traumatic backstory that I'll need to face in order to achieve my goals in the final act"). The fact that y'all are talking about him in the same company as Malick (!), Eisenstein (!!), and Dickens (!!!), and citing Stanley Cavell to make a case for what are fundamentally noisy and ugly movies without one iota of charm, feeling, or sexual appeal makes me think you're deliberately saying things just to make my head explode.

Gittes

12-08-2016, 07:43 AM

Hello. I'm not talking about "how good a director Nolan is." I'm not a big fan of the trilogy, as my posts reveal. I'm just speaking to the poignancy of one shot. Malick charts a very different course, to be sure, but no one is collapsing the differences between the sensibilities of these discrete artists. I brought up Cavell, who was once Malick's professor, to describe the aspect of Malick's work that was obliquely echoed in the TDKR shot.

Kent Jones (who might chuckle at what I'm now trying to express) gets at something similar in his review of The New World. He talks about how, "during a violent battle between the Algonquin and the settlers, Malick suddenly cuts to a shot of the sky," and then refers to "the little scene in The Thin Red Line in which the clouds part and sunlight spills over the tall grasses in which two G.I.s have just been shot down." Again, I'll be clear, Malick follows his own star, and the interplay between human effort, time, and the encompassing impassivity of nature is distinct from the inexorable flow of Nolan's action-oriented images. Separate projects. I was talking about how one (1) instance in TDKR exhibits an an overlap in affective power because, there, Nolan also diminished the customary salience of a character's plight by pushing forward to other sights and sounds.

As for the connections DaMU made, I think he's being descriptive, not laudatory? Those references may inform the trappings of the trilogy, but it's not as if Nolan absorbs the full qualitative heft and historical specificity of the artists he — deliberately or otherwise — evokes.

Irish

12-08-2016, 12:00 PM

Dickens (!!!)

In Dead & Messed Up's defense, the Nolans talked about consciously referencing A Tale of Two Cities before the movie was even released. It wasn't something they tried to hide, or an interpretation that was made after the fact.

Also, totally random but anytime this book comes up, I hear these lines in my head:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_elVGGgW8

"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?! YOU STUPID MONKEY!"

Dukefrukem

12-08-2016, 12:31 PM

LOL I love that Episode.

Dead & Messed Up

12-08-2016, 03:30 PM

The fact that y'all are talking about him in the same company as Malick (!), Eisenstein (!!), and Dickens (!!!), and citing Stanley Cavell to make a case for what are fundamentally noisy and ugly movies without one iota of charm, feeling, or sexual appeal makes me think you're deliberately saying things just to make my head explode.

I was only speaking to influences; any suggestions of equivalency or equal standing are yours to mistakenly infer. But hey, I hope that self-righteous anger feels good.

Gittes

12-08-2016, 05:26 PM

The reductive blankets (with lifetime warranties) that are sometimes thrown over the Nolan brothers' work, and the checking off of the themes that lunge forward, pop-up storybook style, reminds me of something. I watched the Westworld finale recently and was pleased to discover that Jonathan didn't inherit his brother's more incoherent, was-that-an-armpit-or-an-elbow approach to action. Mostly legible stuff, alongside a striking use of costume and colour (and there are other strengths that have been overlooked in some of the whinging that's been directed at the show). My point is that films aren't always sustained, unabatedly flat reflections of our favourite complaints or the tidy, salient-theme-counting of our auteurist exegeses. They always resonate in ways that exceed authorial intention and/or talent (it's well-known that the former is a dubious thing, anyway). This applies to Christopher's flawed work. Despite the regrettable hyperbole of my first post in this discussion, and even though I'm not really a fan, I can't confidently say his films are utterly devoid of merit or ongoing preoccupations. The visuals that Nolan assembles may leave something to be desired at times, but Pfister's contributions have elicited ample praise, and there are surely other virtues I've probably forgotten.

That reminds me that someone — Israfel the Black? — once wrote something in praise (or at least in close consideration) of Christopher Nolan's visual style. I remember this from years ago. Maybe it was 2010, if babydoll's remark is any indication, lol. I wish he was still regularly posting here. His in-depth and clinical approach to rebuttals was good, and, IIRC, never seemed motivated by personal contempt and an imperious ego. I wish Qrazy was still here, too. If my memories are correct, he was a bit uncouth at times, and he would probably detest my last few posts in this thread, but his unaffected perspectives on movies often bolstered the discourse. Excuse the tangent, but, while we're at it, Raiders and Kurosawa Fan also ought to return.

Skitch

12-08-2016, 07:33 PM

(enough that a class revolution and kangaroo courts occur with surprising speed).

I might have accepted that comment when the movie came out, but not in our current political climate. :P

Yxklyx

12-09-2016, 03:59 PM

Kirk Douglas made it to 100!

Grouchy

12-09-2016, 04:49 PM

I'm just going to say that I think Malick and Nolan are surely the most overrated directors in the business.

And even though if faced with the choice right now, I'd choose to watch a Nolan film because of the entertainment value, I might be willing to agree that Malick is slightly more talented and has something uniquely his own to say through the medium of cinema, even if I think he has already said it too many times and in a supremely boring fashion.

Dukefrukem

12-09-2016, 04:50 PM

Why makes a director overrated?

Grouchy

12-09-2016, 04:59 PM

Critical consensus compared with my personal decreasing appreciation of their work, which gets worse and worse every time I see a new movie they release.

transmogrifier

12-09-2016, 05:24 PM

I'm with Grouchy. Nolan and Malick are way overpraised by a certain segment of the nerdy hipster movie doodlers.

Dukefrukem

12-09-2016, 05:29 PM

We need this updated but those scores scream "that's about right" to me.

Results:
Memento - 7.9459 (37)
The Dark Knight - 7.8026 (38)
The Prestige - 7.2833 (30)
Batman Begins - 6.7027 (37)
Following - 6.6 (15)
Insomnia - 6.1964 (28)
Average = 7.0885

Those who thought The Dark Knight was balls: Sven, Kurious Jorge, Sychophant
Those who thought The Dark Knight was godly: Morris, megladon8, Ezee E, Ivan Drago, Sxottian
Those who didn't care: transmogrifier

Gittes

12-09-2016, 05:30 PM

I'm with Grouchy. Nolan and Malick are way overpraised by a certain segment of the nerdy hipster movie doodlers.

I know that's another aggressively nonchalant, drop-and-go post, but...if one really likes Malick's movies, one gets a weird epithet? Any way to be a fan of either filmmaker while dodging the label of a "nerdy hipster movie doodler," whatever that is?

Watashi

12-09-2016, 05:34 PM

Irish

12-09-2016, 05:42 PM

We need this updated but those scores scream "that's about right" to me.

I had no idea Batman Begins was so disliked around here. Lotsa low scores in that old thread.

Dukefrukem

12-09-2016, 05:45 PM

My scores didn't count. That's why we need a recount. Maybe I'll do this when I get home.

transmogrifier

12-10-2016, 12:30 AM

I think Begins is easily the worst of the three and fatally dull. The other two, while being clunky and annoyingly theme heavy without any finesse, have their moments of charm.

transmogrifier

12-10-2016, 12:34 AM

Any way to be a fan of either filmmaker while dodging the label of a "nerdy hipster movie doodler," whatever that is?

Well, of course. If I say "A does B", it doesn't preclude others from doing B, or A from doing C, and so on.

Anyway, the phrase "nerdy hipster film doodler" was constructed with my Letterboxd feed in mind, rather than describing anyone on here. I think we are all a little nerdy in our own unique ways.

Gittes

12-10-2016, 01:02 AM

My mistake; I see now that I misread that as a broader complaint. I initially thought “the certain segment” referred to all critics who have extensively praised Malick and Nolan's respective movies. I recall you once mentioning a critical "hive mind" or something, so I thought this was another broadly-targeted expression of your frustrations with modern criticism. So, yeah, I thought you were principally talking about professional critics (that’s what I had in mind after Grouchy mentioned the critical consensus), but I thought it also applied to fans in general. I also thought you were describing a causal thing, wherein too much praise over a line that you have set automatically results in a nickname. Regardless of the target, I still don’t like what seems to me like a derisive label. It's possible I'm still misunderstanding your meaning and intentions with that, but anyway...

Izzy Black

12-10-2016, 04:03 AM

That reminds me that someone — Israfel the Black? — once wrote something in praise (or at least in close consideration) of Christopher Nolan's visual style. I remember this from years ago.

Inconceivable!

Gittes

12-10-2016, 04:16 AM

Inconceivable!

lol. Did I really get that wrong...or is it just something you'd rather disavow now? :cool:

I have a vague recollection of browsing RT or Corrierino and finding, like, a blog post or something on the fight scenes in Begins. Not yours? I think it was one of the first times I saw Nolan's work taken that seriously.

Izzy Black

12-10-2016, 04:30 AM

lol. Did I really get that wrong...or is it just something you'd rather disavow now? :cool:

I have a vague recollection of browsing RT or Corrierino and finding, like, a blog post or something on the fight scenes in Begins. Not yours? I think it was one of the first times I saw Nolan's work taken that seriously.

Yes. I wrote a thing back in '07 or so called a Cinematic Analysis of Batman Begins. It was a breakdown, mostly, of the action scenes, although I did discuss the general aesthetic. But it was largely a negative critique. The takeaway was (supposed to be) that Wally Pfister was a crappy DP and Nolan was a crappy action director. This was back when Nolan fanboyism was rabid though so I got a lot of heat for that one. I remember trying to fend off angry posters in 20+ page threads. Oh, the good 'ole days.

In general, I've been trashing Nolan for the better part of a decade. But I will say this. You narrowed in on a scene or two in particular, and I've also highlighted those scenes before. I think TDK is generally better shot than BB. I've said he can get a nice shot here and there, and that his composition isn't terrible simpliciter, but he's pretty awful at piecing sequences together and is much too impatient with his camera.

Gittes

12-10-2016, 05:26 AM

Yes. I wrote a thing back in '07 or so called a Cinematic Analysis of Batman Begins. It was a breakdown, mostly, of the action scenes, although I did discuss the general aesthetic. But it was largely a negative critique.

Oh, I see. Sorry, I couldn't remember if it was positive, but I do have some recollection of the rigour of the piece. That was probably around the time I was trying to wrap my head around how to start thinking and talking about film in a more incisive way (as some may have noticed, that work is definitely still in progress) and was seeking out guideposts.

The takeaway was (supposed to be) that Wally Pfister was a crappy DP and Nolan was a crappy action director.

I readily agree about his direction of action. I recently made a post about the "startling clarity" of John Wick, which, with some adjustments, would have paired well with Nolan's Batman movies, given the latter's emphasis on credibility. Instead, he opted for this foreshortened, incoherent approximation of violence, which others have argued is another valid route to authenticity. I don't think TDKR represents a marked improvement in this respect, but that's also a point that I've seen others argue elsewhere.

I think some are getting the impression that I've been wholly praising Nolan's style, when I actually spent most of that first post talking about what I dislike about his work (seriously, why did he choose that shot of Cotillard?). I walked back the more forcefully stated qualities of my argument because I'm always concerned about flattening movies — even movies I really dislike — with overemphatic criticism.

Izzy Black

12-10-2016, 06:06 AM

I readily agree about his direction of action. I recently made a post about the "startling clarity" of John Wick, which, with some adjustments, would have paired well with Nolan's Batman movies, given the latter's emphasis on credibility. Instead, he opted for this foreshortened, incoherent approximation of violence, which others have argued is another valid route to authenticity. I don't think TDKR represents a marked improvement in this respect, but that's also a point that I've seen others argue elsewhere.

TDK is an improvement over Batman Begins visually. This to me is without question. TDKR is arguably a regression, but I am far too removed from my viewing of that film to credibly speak on the details. I also had such little investment in the film that I took very little away from it worth remembering, unlike BB and TDK. It may be worth seeing again, however.

I think some are getting the impression that I've been wholly praising Nolan's style, when I actually spent most of that first post talking about what I dislike about his work (seriously, why did he choose that shot of Cotillard?). I walked back the more forcefully stated qualities of my argument because I'm always concerned about flattening movies — even movies I really dislike — with overemphatic criticism.

I had no problem with your discussion of that shot in TDKR. Beyond the initial hyperbole, which you acknowledged, it struck me as fairly innocuous praise of a scene in Nolan, and I enjoyed reading what you had to say. I read some of the more critical reactions to your post as mostly missing your point, if not being altogether uncharitable. I can't speak to the scene myself, since as I said I have nary a memory of that heaping pile that is TDKR, much less specific scenes, but I don't find anything particularly alarming in the fairly modest suggestion that Nolan may have capably pulled off a Malick-esque shot, if that is indeed the case. I say this as a card-carrying Nolan basher.

Gittes

12-10-2016, 07:48 AM

but I don't find anything particularly alarming in the fairly modest suggestion that Nolan may have capably pulled off a Malick-esque shot, if that is indeed the case.Of course, if you ever do revisit TDKR, you may find that you disagree, but yeah, I detected a brief link in terms of the effect produced. Oh, and in the event that you or anyone else is interested, I just wanted to quickly note something about this. It occurred to me that comparable images — shots plainly revealing someone's death after the fact — have come up in No Country For Old Men and Breaking Bad, and probably other examples. The Malick connection came to mind first because his films are rich with the specific effect I had in mind: severe dramatic turns that seem at once weighty and diminutive, important and already forgotten. The wallop of Modine's last shot subtends something like this; Foley's death becomes atomized in Nolan's broader flurry of climax-building. You get the exact opposite in Cotillard's last scene, which, since you probably don't recall, is this drawn out "villain's last word" thing, and also a noticeably bad take that totally doesn't reflect Cotillard's talent and yet was left in anyway.

TDK is an improvement over Batman Begins visually. This to me is without question. TDKR is arguably a regression, but I am far too removed from my viewing of that film to credibly speak on the details. I also had such little investment in the film that I took very little away from it worth remembering, unlike BB and TDK. It may be worth seeing again, however.

I definitely should take another look at these films. It would help me to feel less tentative about some of the criticisms I'm offering. I'm curious about the degree to which my gripes will be borne out by a re-watch of the trilogy. Shots like the one that Duke posted reminded me that I'm probably neglecting some choice images, even if what I'm recalling now seems kind of monotonous or just satisfactory. I may be focusing too much on TDK's aerial shots, the reliance on crosscutting, the forceful grandeur of certain bits, and other adequate or perfunctory visuals, etc.

nary a memory of that heaping pile that is TDKRWhile your wording of this made me laugh, I can't adopt the same invective. TDKR has certainly got weaknesses, though. The spectacle of that opening hijacking scene astounded at the time, but it has settled in my memory as weirdly unstylized: crude, straightforward coverage of an impressive stunt.

However, despite my complaints, my memories are not all negative. I like that Nolan gave Tom Hardy a venue for his bizarre, outsized performance. The one bit of humour that I recall actually working in the film — Bane giving us an impromptu appraisal of a kid's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" — was Hardy's improvisational contribution. Bale wore out his welcome rather quickly after the first film, but Nolan found new vitality via other actors, which went a long way toward leavening the more anemic qualities of the films.

baby doll

12-10-2016, 08:08 AM

Kirk Douglas made it to 100!Yeah, but he hasn't been in a good movie since The Fury (unless we count that episode of The Simpsons, and even that was twenty years ago).

transmogrifier

12-10-2016, 08:50 AM

When I'm 100, the last thing on my mind will be the last time I taught a well-received course

Skitch

12-10-2016, 02:52 PM

My scores didn't count. That's why we need a recount. Maybe I'll do this when I get home.

Please do, I'm not sure if i got in on that.

Skitch

12-10-2016, 02:54 PM

I'm not a Nolan fanboy, but I am excited for every release. He hasn't let me down yet. Maybe its because I watch so many bad films that its nice to be able to count on a Nolan film to at least be a solid film.

Grouchy

12-10-2016, 05:56 PM

Speaking strictly about the Batman films, I think Batman Begins is the best, followed by Dark Knight which is elevated by Heath Ledger's incredible performance. He sells a movie which is otherwise convoluted and overly verbose by making his villain one of the most threatening of all time. Also, I can't remember Israfel's analysis, but there's this (https://vimeo.com/28792404) video analysis of a central action scene in Dark Knight which to me demonstrates very well why Nolan can't direct anything more compelling than two people sitting and talking to save his life.

I liked Dark Knight Rises back when I first saw it but every TV viewing I've made of it has brought it down another notch.

Skitch

12-10-2016, 06:25 PM

I love Batman Begins. The sequels are cooler, but Begins was phenomenal to me. My jaw was on the floor. I was more blown away than when I saw Burton's Batman as a kid.

MadMan

12-12-2016, 08:07 AM

I'm a fan of both Nolan and Malick. Clearly I've always wanted to be the fanboy douchebag hipster people are always bashing.

Gittes

12-12-2016, 08:49 PM

I'm a fan of both Nolan and Malick.

That's totally fine, of course. There's no shame in that.

By the way, I actually can't think of myself as an ardent disliker of Nolan's work. The Prestige is one of my most memorable outings to the theatre, and I actually used to be a great admirer of Begins. I was less enthralled with Interstellar and Inception, though. I'm not terribly excited about Dunkirk, but Mark Rylance is in it, so I must see it. Alas, that smirking extra in the trailer indicates that Nolan is still a bit careless when it comes to micromanaging the complexities of his large-scale productions.

Grouchy

12-13-2016, 02:13 PM

Well, The Prestige is his best and Begins was mostly a huge joy for a Batman freak like me.

Hah, now I need to see that smirking extra.

Gittes

12-13-2016, 05:44 PM

Begins was mostly a huge joy for a Batman freak like me.

I was a big Batman fan when Begins was released (around then, I was reading lot of the comics for the first time). The change of pace and the more sober take was something I greatly admired. I've since come to dislike a number of its characteristics, but it's hardly a terrible film. I think it's probably still my favourite.

Someone once pointed out to me that TDKR feels more like a sequel to BB than TDK. My hunch is that there's something to that and it's kind of interesting. TDK certainly feels like an outlier (and, of course, it boasts the best performance via Ledger).

Hah, now I need to see that smirking extra.

Here. (https://twitter.com/jpraup/status/761327973253414912) I feel bad for the actor, who shouldn't be blamed for this. The mistake is Nolan's and perhaps that of his editorial department. As I've indicated, probably to the point of redundancy, this isn't the first time that a bad take has been noticed in one of his films (although, the example from TDKR is more immediately noticeable). I suspect it won't be in the final film, though.

Grouchy

12-13-2016, 08:24 PM

Hahah that's hilarious. What's the Dark Knight Rises example?

Gittes

12-13-2016, 08:31 PM

Hahah that's hilarious. What's the Dark Knight Rises example?

Talia's death scene. Nolan hires a ridiculously talented actress, but he settles on that take? I mean, every actor has bad takes. It happens. Nolan should have been more discerning. He should have chosen a better demonstration of her skill. I suspect it happened on a hasty day of shooting and/or editing.

Cotillard discusses it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQS0y95yAL0

Grouchy

12-13-2016, 08:35 PM

Hahahah that's just fucking painful to watch.

France is certainly a different culture. Even the worst roasts in the US don't seem to attack someone's job so blatantly.

Gittes

12-13-2016, 08:44 PM

Idioteque Stalker

12-14-2016, 12:47 AM

It's heartening to hear her say she "wasn't really affected by this," though.

Anyone who tries to evaluate Cotillard's efficacy as an actor on the basis of Nolan's poorly selected take should immediately be encouraged to seek out, at the very least, Two Days, One Night and The Immigrant.

I haven't seen Two Days, One Night but I remember the clip the oscars played and it was the highlight of the night for me.

Ezee E

12-14-2016, 02:26 AM

I'm far from a "nerdy hipster movie doodler," but I dig both Malick and Nolan. Though Malick hasn't impressed me of late with his last two features. Never thought I say this, but I wish Malick would go back to being a hermit and release films a decade apart.

Or at the very least with "something" going on. New World and Thin Red Line even had stories that could be traced.

Ezee E

12-14-2016, 02:35 AM

Oh yeah, need to still watch the Two Days, One Night...

Anyone on MC watch Allies?? Swear I haven't even seen the post for it.

TGM

12-14-2016, 02:49 AM

Oh yeah, need to still watch the Two Days, One Night...

Anyone on MC watch Allies?? Swear I haven't even seen the post for it.

I'm assuming you mean Allied?

http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?6586-Allied-%28Robert-Zemeckis%29

Idioteque Stalker

12-14-2016, 05:11 AM

transmogrifier

12-14-2016, 07:53 AM

Spinal, judging by your signature you've been exceptionally good at seeking out movies you'll like as of late. I'm going through the same thing--but I can't help but ask myself if I'm "going soft" or if I'm simply spending my time wisely.

Edit: Or maybe it's just that time of year.

I'm the opposite atm - a raft of meh in a sea of eh.

Irish

12-14-2016, 02:42 PM

Spinal, judging by your signature you've been exceptionally good at seeking out movies you'll like as of late. I'm going through the same thing--but I can't help but ask myself if I'm "going soft" or if I'm simply spending my time wisely.

Edit: Or maybe it's just that time of year.

Not sure if it's the time of year, or Spinal's getting a good run, or just going to more movies --- but he's quickly becoming my pilot fish / stalking horse / animal analogy for new movies.

Spinal

12-14-2016, 04:21 PM

Oh yeah, need to still watch the Two Days, One Night...

Such a good movie. And a great performance.

Spinal

12-14-2016, 04:29 PM

I look back on those ratings and I don't know what I would change! I've really seen some great stuff lately. I finally caught up with The Babadook, which had me on edge like no other film I've seen in quite some time. I think few will question the greatness of Moonlight. A Man Called Ove and Don't Think Twice may not hit as hard for others, but both contained elements that felt very personal and emotional for me. I thought Arrival was a stunner and a movie that reconfigured the way I thought about language and foreign cultures. Hell or High Water was an outstanding exploration of economic hardship and distrust of authority. And The Handmaiden was just gorgeous and naughty and fun.

It may help to know that Captain Fantastic was probably somewhere in there and it didn't get a rating because I didn't make it through the movie.

Spinal

12-14-2016, 04:36 PM

Not sure if it's the time of year, or Spinal's getting a good run, or just going to more movies --- but he's quickly becoming my pilot fish / stalking horse / animal analogy for new movies.

*flex*

Skitch

12-14-2016, 06:03 PM

I've been on a documentary run, and its hard to stop when they're good!

Great:
Little Dieter Needs To Fly
Valley Uprising
Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives
Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig

Good:
The United States of America v James J. Bulger
Lessons of Darkness
Burn

Okay:
Titanic's Final Mystery
First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon

Irish

12-14-2016, 06:06 PM

*flex*

*flex* back atcha, bro

(lol, gotta wait before I rep you again)

Idioteque Stalker

12-15-2016, 12:49 AM

I'm the opposite atm - a raft of meh in a sea of eh.

I feel like I've seen you only once or twice rate a movie over, like, 76.

Idioteque Stalker

12-15-2016, 01:02 AM

I look back on those ratings and I don't know what I would change!

I'm right there with you. All of my recent theater experiences have been great. Stuff I've been streaming has been pretty great too. Ironically enough, the only movies I've disliked recently are Scorsese lesser-knowns I never got around to before--Bringing Out the Dead and Cape Fear.

transmogrifier

12-15-2016, 03:52 AM

I feel like I've seen you only once or twice rate a movie over, like, 76.

Fair. This is from the "top new films I've seen this year" thread:

1. The Conformist (1970) - 85
2. Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) - 81
3. Polytechnique (2009) - 77
4. The Seventh Seal (1957) - 76
5. Margaret: Extended Version (2011) - 75
6. Overlord (1975) - 75
7. The Silent Partner (1978) - 74
8. Muddy River (1981) - 73
9. Red Beard (1965) - 73
10. Linda Linda Linda (2005) - 72
11. Very Ordinary Couple (2013) - 72
12. Destry Rides Again (1939) - 72
13. When the Wind Blows (1986) - 72
14. Juggernaut (1974) - 71
15. Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion (1972) - 71
16. One-Eyed Jacks (1961) - 71
17. The Nice Guys (2016) - 71
18. Waltz with Bashir (2008) - 71
19. Seoul Station (2016) - 71
20. The Reflecting Skin (1990) - 71
21. The Lobster (2016) - 70
22. The Big Short (2015) - 70
23. Green Room (2016) - 70

70 and above are the films that I would defend as good films against all comers. 60-69 I like, but wouldn't really have a horse in the race for any debate over it, unless I thought it was unfairly over- or under-rated.

Idioteque Stalker

12-15-2016, 04:45 AM

Heh, I probably should've checked that thread before I made some grand generalizing statement about your rating habits. That said, I take note when you give something good marks. Out of the ten or so movies I've seen from that list, The Conformist would also be at the top for me. Margaret too is a recent favorite--one I'm currently stacking up against Manchester by the Sea, which was somehow even more brutal.

Winston*

12-16-2016, 12:06 AM

I want to see Collateral Beauty.

Irish

12-17-2016, 02:48 PM

I want to see Collateral Beauty.

I just found out about the "real" plot (the ads are totally misleading) --- and now I'm curious just how big a clusterfluck it is.

Dead & Messed Up

12-22-2016, 05:11 AM

Just watched On the Waterfront for the first time. Technically lovely in how Kazan stages the actors and frames the action (I watched the 1:66 version), excellent performances obviously, with Brando, Malden, and Cobb as the highlights (Eva Marie Saint is lovely, but her character is mostly limited to empowering Brando's). A relief to finally see that "contender" line in its proper context and appreciate it as part of a larger story, as opposed to seeing it as a stifling monument to Great Movie Lines. The score works way too hard, and the Jesus metaphor and upbeat ending lack the nuance of previous scenes that emphasized the fundamental difficulty of making hard choices - here, the story resolves with an ostensible fist-pumping "fuck yeah" to beating the bad guy.

Bizarre to learn that the flick was Kazan's way of defending his complicity in HUAC. The film operates just as well as an indictment of HUAC, with Cobb offering the same kind of melodramatic fervor of Uncle Joe, and with Brando as the principled man who suffers friends who throw him under the bus to avoid their own hard choices.

Anyway, glad to watch it; there were many long sequences where I loved what I was seeing, even if the sum seemed a bit less than the parts.

Ivan Drago

12-27-2016, 05:20 AM

Started my free trial of Filmstruck today with a revisit of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The movie is even better than I remembered it, but has anyone else had any stuttering issues with the video? Plus background movement looks like it's in smooth motion every now and again. Then again, my internet here is spotty. If it doesn't get better when I get back from the holidays, it'll start to bug me.

That being said, it's worth it for the selection alone. Watching Freaks right now and the Adult Animation section next. Also love the introductions for each channel and certain films. Despite the quibbles I have at the moment, I couldn't be happier that such an app like this exists.

Mysterious Dude

12-28-2016, 03:25 PM

I'm waiting for Filmstruck to get a Roku app (supposedly coming in "early 2017").

When Hulu lost the Criterion collection to Filmstruck, my queue went from having over 200 movies to having only 25, and it's going to lose even more after New Years. Looks like Hulu is losing almost every movie made before 1990.

Ezee E

12-28-2016, 05:56 PM

Yeah, I stopped Filmstruck simply because I just haven't had much time to watch movies from home. Sad, but improv and prepping for Australia is taking up the time, so woe is me.

Winston*

12-29-2016, 01:31 AM

Such a good movie. And a great performance.

Maybe my favourite film of the decade.

Dead & Messed Up

12-29-2016, 06:13 AM

Just watched The Boys From Brazil. Competent if uninspired thriller for the mo, more interesting for its moral questions than its execution. There are a few scenes that lurch toward camp, like a fight at a highbrow Nazi party and a wrestling match between two Oscar-caliber actors chomping down on their unconvincing accents. And when it's not amping the camp, the flick's style operates mostly functional - the highlight is probably the opening 20 minutes, where much is communicated wordlessly and tension builds surrounding a bug placed in a Nazi stronghold.

More interesting than the plot (based on the novel by Ira Levin of Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives) is the moral argument towards the end of the film, where the protagonists must decide whether or not to execute children in the name of the common good. If you know the story, you know why this is a vital question. But of course they run the risk of sinking into the same moral abyss as the Nazis, in no small part because their argument for killing children is based on genetics, and Hitler was all about those sweet genetics.

There's also the interesting touch of the ferocious dogs at the end of the film. Like the titular children, they were born and bred toward a single, unified, and violent purpose. It's a clever symbol, even if it leads to some hoary action.

Probably worth a watch (especially since it's on Netflix), but it's a shame that the premise and actors involved didn't generate something more idiosyncratic and memorable.