28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[megladon8]

Stalag 17 is better. Totes.

[megladon8]

What's really? That's shocking to me. What other blind spots do you have? Here's one of my big ones:

I've never seen Apocalypse Now.

Hmmm...so many, honestly.

While I have seen Apocalypse Now, I've seen very, very few war movies as I generally find them very unpleasant.

There are several "big important classics" I've never seen. I've never seen any of Marlon Brando's work pre-Godfather. I've never seen a Marx Brothers movie.

Ummm...sorry, you put me on the spot and now I'm having a mental breakdown and can't think of anything.

I'll keep coming back and posting more blind spots as I remember them.

[Skitch]

I don't know what I would answer to that question either.

That sounds shitty like "I've seen everything!", I certainly haven't.

Dance movies. I haven't seen most dance movies, and I actively refuse. Dirty Dancing and Footloose can kiss my ass.

[megladon8]

Singing in the Rain

Never seen it.

[Skitch]

Musicals in general. The concept of a large group of people suddenly all knowing the words to an instant song and dance number is insane to me.

"Just go with it!" They say. "It's happy song dance time!"

They came here as gangs to stab each other, but settled on a dance-off. The greasers are testing and judging him if he loves a woman from another group. I hate all this

[megladon8]

I am also super illiterate with musicals.

But not due to your reasons, Skitch. I think accepting people jumping into song and dance doesn't require any more suspension of disbelief than superhero or sci-fi/fantasy stuff.

I just didn't grow up in a house where musicals were really watched (outside Disney stuff), and never really pursued them on my own when I got older.

[Skitch]

It sure does for me (suspension of disbelief). That's not to say I don't enjoy musical numbers in film, I sure do (Once, Oh Brother, wonderful stuff). I think I'm also damaged from sister who would legit watch Grease 5 times a day (I swear I'm not exaggerating) at max volume, so she could sing along and memorize he dance moves.

Sidenote, I FUCKING HATE GREASE

[Ivan Drago]

I've never seen Gladiator or anything Cassavetes. Those are my biggest blind spots off the top of my head aside from classical Hollywood stuff.

[Mysterious Dude]

I've never seen Predator.

[transmogrifier]

It sure does for me (suspension of disbelief). That's not to say I don't enjoy musical numbers in film, I sure do (Once, Oh Brother, wonderful stuff). I think I'm also damaged from sister who would legit watch Grease 5 times a day (I swear I'm not exaggerating) at max volume, so she could sing along and memorize he dance moves.

Sidenote, I FUCKING HATE GREASE

I love Grease - it is fantastic. Could stick it on and watch it anytime. I love the idea of musicals and dance numbers in general, but the problem for musicals for me is that they live and die on the quality of the songs, naturally; it's like being stuck in a bar with someone else controlling the jukebox - you better hope to hell they have the same taste in music as you do, or it could be a long night.

I think your objection on suspension of disbelief grounds is weird, but I get it; everyone has something in movies that rubs them the wrong way when other people just roll with it. For me, I really, really hate films that have characters dream their memories - I mean, there is a flashback, and then it is suddenly interrupted by the character waking up. No one ever dreams their memories wholesale in real life. I fucking hate that. Just have them staring into space or something, you idiots.

[transmogrifier]

My biggest blindspot is that I blind-bought Andrei Rublev in 2004 on DVD, and I still haven't watched it.

[Skitch]

Oh your judgement of my taste of musicals is 100% valid, as factually proven by everyone else's (critic and public alike) love of musicals. I'm fully aware I'm the oddball on this.

[Skitch]

I also agree with your flashback analysis, that shit is...I feel...insulting to the viewer. It says to me, "you're too dumb to put any puzzle pieces together whatsoever".

[StuSmallz]

I think your objection on suspension of disbelief grounds is weird, but I get it; everyone has something in movies that rubs them the wrong way when other people just roll with it. For me, I really, really hate films that have characters dream their memories - I mean, there is a flashback, and then it is suddenly interrupted by the character waking up. No one ever dreams their memories wholesale in real life. I fucking hate that. Just have them staring into space or something, you idiots.I guess this scene (https://youtu.be/IvHb4uW7bTk) in Aliens (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/aliens/)gets on your nerves then, since it makes use of that device...?

https://i.ibb.co/GsyFJ77/theyareontome.gif (https://imgbb.com/)

[Philip J. Fry]

Rewatched 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front (watched it about 15 years ago). It still hits hard. I noticed this time the lack of score (it doesn't need it anyway). Good shit.

[Morris Schæffer]

Musicals in general. The concept of a large group of people suddenly all knowing the words to an instant song and dance number is insane to me.

"Just go with it!" They say. "It's happy song dance time!"

They came here as gangs to stab each other, but settled on a dance-off. The greasers are testing and judging him if he loves a woman from another group. I hate all this

This is why I find La La Land so magical and engaging. Just boy and girl, they both have aspirations, dream, fall in love. It almost has the magical simplicity of an old school Disney animated flick, but it's an ode to jazz music and all those aspiring artists who dream of making it big too. When musicals go small, that's when they stand Ã* chance to enrapture me. I suspect Singin in the Rain could do it. And it's coming in a brand new 4k uhd later this year.

Edit: is Once a musical ? Just wondrous.

[StuSmallz]

I've never seen Gladiator or anything Cassavetes. Those are my biggest blind spots off the top of my head aside from classical Hollywood stuff.I wouldn't call anything I've watched from Cassavetes to be truly "essential", but Gladiator is a great movie despite its flaws, so I think I'll go ahead and repost my old review of it now:

https://i.ibb.co/HhGq3tm/rs-1024x759-200504101147-1024-Gladiator-6.jpg (https://ibb.co/vXLkR32)

What we do in life, echoes in eternity.

Ridley Scott has certainly had an unusually long, influential, but nonetheless inconsistent career as a director, and Gladiator definitely stands as one of his most noteworthy, but nonetheless divisive efforts. After all, not only did it win the Oscar for Best Picture that year, but it was also a significant commercial success, grossing close to half a billion dollars worldwide (which is especially impressive considering that it's an R-rated, 2 & 1/2-plus hour, non-franchise historical epic, released at a time when Hollywood's grosses were significantly less gargantuan than they are now)... while on the other hand, it still seemed to displease a decent number of film fans and critics regardless, including an infamous 2-star rating from Mr. Roger Ebert himself. But, while my recent rewatch of the film did clarify certain problematic aspects of it that I hadn't really noticed beforehand, helping me to better sympathize with its various detractors, the overall power & effect of Gladiator is still just so strong, that I can't help but declare it to be a flawed modern classic, but a modern classic nonetheless.

To get my newfound issues with Gladiator out of the way right away, I have to say that I now better understand the people who complained that its tone was rather, er, monotone, a its almost relentlessly morose, downbeat nature comes across as being borderline tragedy porn at times, even by the usual standards of a dark revenge narrative, and there are times I can't help but wish Scott had injected just a bit more levity into the proceedings, as too many of the characters seem to do almost nothing but just wallow in their own tortured misery for the entirety of its running time. This is especially true of the main villain, the Emperor Commodus, as he often comes across as a somewhat cartoonish, one-dimensional baddie, but even Maximus's own family, who are his main motivators during the film, get essentially zero character development here, as they basically just exist as plot devices, as people who are there just to die in order to justify Maximus going on his warpath later on. Now, I know they aren't anywhere near being the main characters here, so I'm not expecting much of a focus on them, but something besides just being referenced in dialogue and a few shots of them standing around in a field would've been appreciated, Ridley.


However, all of that being said, one of the main reasons why I still love Gladiator on the whole is, while the emotional beats it hits may be rather repetitive, they're still incredibly intense and unabashedly raw nonetheless; I really became invested in Maximus's epic quest for vengeance "in this life or the next", which is written with sharp, memorable, insightful dialogue, and which Scott portrays through the huge, sweeping scope and grand tragedy of the overall tale. The shots of Maximus's family waiting for him in the afterlife, and the sight of him finally reuniting with them at the end, never fail to pluck at a couple of my heartstrings, and you can feel the righteous rage in every ounce of Russell Crowe's performance here. Besides that, the rest of the cast fills out Gladiator well, such as Richard Harris's old, war-weary Emperor Marcus Aurelius, or Connie Nielson as Marcus's daughter, Lucilla, who is torn between her past love for Maximus, his blind rage at her for being related to the man responsible for his family's deaths, and the fear of her brother's twisted desires, which are alternatively incestuous at certain times, and downright homicidal at others.


And, in addition to all of that, Gladiator draws a lot of strength from capturing the cultural mystique of the Roman Empire at its peak, with the weight of history laying heavily on the film (in a good way), whether it be in the dusty markets of Rome, the mighty catapults and calvary of the Empire's great army, or, of course, the bloody gladiatorial combat of The Colosseum, where about a good half of the film's scenes are set, which play a bit like similar moments from mid-century Hollywood sword-&-sandals epics like Ben-Hur & Spartacus, but updated with a modern emphasis on gallons of spilled blood, and piles of disemboweled guts. And, while the action in Gladiator isn't quite as coherent as I would've preferred, with too much over-editing, shake-y handheld camera work, and overly close framings of the combat that sometimes make it difficult to make out exactly what's going on, just the sight of epic, bloody, gladiator-on-gladiator combat adds a lot to the film, whether it be the recreation of The Battle Of Carthage where the barbarians get to win this time, an intense, relentless fight with a legendary, fearsomely-masked retired champion (where ravenous tigers keep getting released at the most inopportune moments), or one final, man-to-man duel to the death with the loathsome, tyrannical Emperor himself.


Gladiator has all of this and then some, and, again, while I can now better respect and understand why certain people don't care for it, the overall experience of it for me is still just so strong, with its lavish, grandiose period detail, and Maximus's tragic tale of righteous vengeance, that I can't help but love it anyway. This is rousing, operatic, larger-than-life entertainment, the kind that we sadly don't see out of Hollywood much anymore, and with how powerful a cinematic experience Gladiator is on the whole, all I really have left to say now is... are you not entertained?


Final Score: 10
.

[megladon8]

I really need to watch it again. It's been 20 years at least.

[StuSmallz]

I really need to watch it again. It's been 20 years at least.Do you remember liking it, at least?

[transmogrifier]

I guess this scene (https://youtu.be/IvHb4uW7bTk) in Aliens (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/aliens/)gets on your nerves then, since it makes use of that device...?

https://i.ibb.co/GsyFJ77/theyareontome.gif (https://imgbb.com/)

But it doesn't? It's just a regular nightmare.

[baby doll]

I've yet to see a Cassavetes film I didn't like, and I've seen all of them but two (Too Late Blues and A Child Is Waiting; three if you count Big Trouble). What makes his films so great is that it's impossible to judge his characters, who are in a perpetual state of flux. In normal movies, we know how we're supposed to feel about the characters almost instantly and are never forced to reconsider our initial impressions, whereas what makes Cassavetes' films so challenging is that we're never quite sure how we're supposed to feel about the characters: is Mabel Longhetti a saint or a nut? Is Cosmo Vittelli sympathetic or just an ass-hole? I can't think of many directors whose films are more essential, and not just in a completist film buff way ("I need to see these films because everyone talks about them"), but essential to living in the world with other people.

[megladon8]

Another movie I'd never seen before and I'm kicking myself...

Moonstruck was delightful. Loved it.

This is proper romantic comedy.

Can't wait to watch it again.

[Yxklyx]

Heh. Sean Baker only gives The Florida Project 1 star on Letterboxd.

Gladiator is a good solid film - re-watched that recently. Moonstruck is wonderful.

[Yxklyx]

Andrea Arnold's short films on Criterion are really good - as are some other ones I've been watching. I'd rather watch a bunch of solid short films than spend 120+ minutes on something that will often nowadays end up bloated. The lengths of movies have historically been pre-determined to be 90-120 minutes (or more) due to marketing them for cinema viewing but as home viewing becomes more and more popular there's no reason that films have to be that long anymore. These short films are lean and mean and can often be more rewarding. I'm afraid to watch her "feature" length film now.

[megladon8]

The Grand Budapest Hotel was lovely.

[megladon8]

Why have I never seen Saturday Night Fever before?

I don't know.

But now I have. Holy crap that's a great movie.

[Skitch]

I'm curious what MC thinks about Black Crab. Several days later and I'm still thinking about it. I feel like it's not what I was sold with the trailer, in a good way. I feel like I haven't really seen anything like that before (okay, if you break it wide enough, yes, but I mean at a closer personal level, it's an odd duck).

It's also interesting to consider how relevant it is to the current Russia/Ukraine situation, while film folk understand this had to be prepped and filmed a year or two in advance of this conflict.

[transmogrifier]

Question for those of you who subscribe to multiple streaming services: which one has the best movie catalogue? In Korea, we only have access to Netflix and Disney+ at the moment, and I'm becoming more and more disenchanted with Netflix as it culls its movie library (mostly movies from other studios) and remains mostly focused on TV series, which honestly I don't care about at all. I want a streaming service that offers a deep catalogue of older films (Netflix and Disney+ absolutely suck for that). I'm thinking of binning both Netflix and Disney+ and picking up HBO Max when it comes to Korea, but because it is not here yet, the webpage does not let me browse the library - I just get the page "Sorry, HBO Max is not available in your region".

[Skitch]

We picked up hbomax for a month so I could see the snyder cut, and well, we've kept it because they keep releasing interesting stuff and they have a pretty deep library. They suffer the same problem I have with Netflix though, in that, they almost seem to hide the shit I'm interested in. You have to search and search. It's weird. It's like I'm the black sheep viewer and they almost try to hide the cool shit, but that's MC, innit? We aren't the mainstream viewer they're trying to snag.

Yes I'm aware how stupid I sound saying that as I started off with derp a derp me need see superheroes! Lol

[Skitch]

Trans I really wish you could get hoopla and kanopy (I think talked this before?). Kanopy would be totally up your alley I think. If you can access it I would totally hook you up with an American library card to give you entry.

[transmogrifier]

Trans I really wish you could get hoopla and kanopy (I think talked this before?). Kanopy would be totally up your alley I think. If you can access it I would totally hook you up with an American library card to give you entry.

Thanks for the offer! I'll wait for a while to see whether HBO Max gets to Korea (rumors it will be sometime this year) and what its library looks like. Depending on how it is, I'll ditch Netflix and Disney and then maybe re-look at your generous offer for Kanopy. Actually, maybe I should see if Korea has something similar...

Anyway, ideally, I will have just two streaming services and.... acquire other stuff elsewhere.

[megladon8]

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was a treat.

[Idioteque Stalker]

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was a treat.

Saw that for the first time not too long ago. Loved it. Cast is perfect.

[megladon8]

Saw that for the first time not too long ago. Loved it. Cast is perfect.

It was my first time, too. And yeah it's a delight. Had been on my shelf for probably 15 years unwatched.

[Philip J. Fry]

1508272082051809288
So this happened.

[Idioteque Stalker]

yooooo wtfff

[Philip J. Fry]

yooooo wtfffIndeed.

[Philip J. Fry]

HAHAHAHAH!!!

And now he won the Oscar. Damn.

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/Byp1hMH/FB-IMG-1648438444525.jpg (https://ibb.co/StjLkCD)

[Wryan]

Bad taste to make a joke about her if he knew what she'd been going thru. Worse taste to smack someone and cuss him out on live TV at the Oscars on what he surely must have known was going to be his night. Talk about swinging between the highs and lows of a career....and in the span of half an hour. Yikes.

[DFA1979]

The whole thing was wild and I'm pretty sure that was not scripted at all.

[Yxklyx]

We picked up hbomax for a month so I could see the snyder cut, and well, we've kept it because they keep releasing interesting stuff and they have a pretty deep library. They suffer the same problem I have with Netflix though, in that, they almost seem to hide the shit I'm interested in. You have to search and search. It's weird. It's like I'm the black sheep viewer and they almost try to hide the cool shit, but that's MC, innit? We aren't the mainstream viewer they're trying to snag.

Yes I'm aware how stupid I sound saying that as I started off with derp a derp me need see superheroes! Lol

Not a problem with Criterion streaming - that's my go-to site. Prime fills out the rest, sometimes I need to pay a few dollars for the viewing on that one though.

[StuSmallz]

Though I still l don't like the movie...

Basic Instinct’s Joe Eszterhas on that famous interrogation scene, and the film’s lasting impact: The famed screenwriter talks about the relationships that inspired his characters, and the controversies that surrounded the film (https://www.avclub.com/basic-instinct-joe-eszterhas-interview-sharon-stone-mic-1848676250)

[megladon8]

I saw Grease for the first time ever last night. Freaking loved it.

[Skitch]

I have thoughts on Grease. Thoughts absolutely no one likes or agrees with. I'm glad you had an enjoyable experience.

[megladon8]

I have thoughts on Grease. Thoughts absolutely no one likes or agrees with. I'm glad you had an enjoyable experience.

I understand 100% why you have those thoughts and feelings.

There are movies from my childhood that I cannot stand for the same reasons.

[Skitch]

I doubt anyone could lol. My sister damaged me with that movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say she watched it at full volume 3-5 times a day, mimicking the songs and dance moves until she knew them beat for beat.

I hot damn hate that fucking movie to the bowels of my soul.

But I'm not unaware that I'm unique situation lol

[megladon8]

I don't think you are, though. I know lots of people who find it insufferable.

I'm the one who gave Scream 3 a 5 star rating though, so...

[StuSmallz]

Even with the accidental poor timing of the revelation of his aphasia diagnosis right afterward, this article still comes off as a hit piece overall:

White Guys Always Win: The Allure and Legacy of Bruce Willis (https://musings.oscilloscope.net/post/140343302036/white-guys-always-win-the-allure-and-legacy-of)

*facepalm*

[Skitch]

I don't think you are, though. I know lots of people who find it insufferable.

I'm the one who gave Scream 3 a 5 star rating though, so...

Hey man, love what you love, unabashedly. I sure as shit do.

[DFA1979]

Basic Instinct is a near great flick. It probably is very dated though so I think only giving it a 9/10 is about right. With my grade inflation always being high that probably averages out to a 7.5 really.

I don't care for Grease but some of the songs are good. I liked the final act that was neat. I have zero desire to ever see it again.

[Skitch]

Basic Instinct is great and Sharon Stone is legend.

[Philip J. Fry]

The French Connection (1971): Popeye and Cloudy are shitty cops/100.

Cool car chase, though.

[DFA1979]

The French Connection (1971): Popeye and Cloudy are shitty cops/100.

Cool car chase, though.

Ha ha yeah Doyle is an asshole. Great movie. I never saw the sequel.

[Philip J. Fry]

Ha ha yeah Doyle is an asshole. Great movie. I never saw the sequel.Not only that he's an asshole, but he also screws it up over and over and over again. It's interesting seeing movies such as this one and Bullitt not only essentially creating the maverick cop we all know and love today, but also deconstructing it, showing how a cop like that wouldn't really work, only for later movies tossing that aside and going with FUCK YEAH, FUCK SHIT UP GOOD, MAN!!!

[DFA1979]

Bullitt was based off a real cop though and he did sort of achieve his goals. Doyle blows it big time though. One thing I liked about Die Hard 3 is how they keep mentioning that McClane is barely holding onto his job. Also Lethal Weapon did have Riggs looking like he was going to lose his job but then they just ignored that for the rest of the movie. Lethal Weapon 3 had Murtaugh and Riggs getting busted down to traffic cop for a while only for them to then get their main jobs back by doing crazy shit to catch bad guys again.

Incidentally I just viewed a good Italian action cop movie called Rome, Armed to the Teeth where the cop hero gets sent down to citations for being a reckless asshole. It was literally their version of Dirty Harry and The French Connection.

[megladon8]

Desperately Seeking Susan is a cute, original little rom com.

Some great music, a fun premise. I liked it.

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/Jq57BMB/gbu3.jpg


Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money... we're gonna have to earn it.


It may be difficult, or even near impossible to believe now, but there was a time when The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly wasn't really regarded as a great movie, at least when you look at the initial critical reaction to it. And upon hearing that, some of you may wonder, "How can that be? After all, wasn't it a genre-defining classic, and one of the greatest Westerns ever made?". Well, to put it in my own words, I'd say that TGTB&TU didn't so much as define the Western in the first place, but helped to redefine the genre, after Hollywood had spent decades building the myth of a relatively sanitized, morally black-and-white vision of the American frontier. So given that background, it's no surprise that some critics were hostile to the film, as part of a larger bias against Spaghetti Westerns in general; after all, who was Sergio Leone and these other "Eyetalian" filmmakers to tear down their memory of the West from the outside, tarnishing the image of the most quintessentially American genre? However, it's precisely that kind of cultural vandalism that helped distinguish the film in the first place, allowing it to become not just one of the greatest Westerns, but also just one of the greatest movies of all time, in my humble opinion.


This is clear right from the first few seconds of the movie, as a wide shot of a vast, sun-baked desert, the kind of scenery that you could see in any number of Westerns, suddenly becomes an uncomfortably tight close-up of an ugly, sweaty man as he unexpectedly lumbers into frame, showing us the literal face of the "real" West, or at least Leone's unique vision of it, as he will continue to reenvision its familiar iconography for his own purposes here. It's an aesthetic that's both highly dynamic, and as gritty as the grain on the print itself, as the locations here are universally rough and shabby, with nary a sanitary soundstage in sight, as live flies constantly buzz around, and we see a never-ending Mount Rushmore of various sweat, grime (and occasionally blood)-covered faces in great detail, creating what is still the filthiest-looking vision of the American West I've seen on film.


This dirty feeling isn't just limited to the film's visuals, however, as it also extends to the main characters and their lack of traditional morality, with Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes ("The Bad") murdering multiple people, including a child, in just his first few scenes, Eli Wallach's Tuco ("The Ugly") living as a crafty, motor-mouthed Mexican bandito, wanted for at least a dozen different crimes in just as many counties, while Clint Eastwood's gunslinging Blondie (the so-called "Good") is motivated purely by personal financial gain, and only does one truly good thing the entire movie (and even that is still partly to benefit himself). A more accurate title would be The Morally Ambivalent, The Really Bad, And The Almost Just As Bad, but that's a big part of why the film has held up so well over half a century since its original release; it doesn't exist in order to justify some outdated, self-aggrandizing myth of "Manifest Destiny", but in order to present a darker, harsher portrayal of the West, one that feels more honest than many of its cleaner predecessors, regardless of how uncomfortable some may have been with that at the time.


Besides that, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is also exemplary for Leone's amazing overall direction of it, as it serves as a sort of culmination of his career up that point, taking the comparatively smaller scales of the previous Dollars films, and majorly upping the scope in its depiction of the mad, elaborate dash for treasure that is the central plot, both setting the stage for the director's future epics, while also serving as the all-time peak in his impressive body of work. However, while you may picture historical figures having dull, stuffy conversations in ornately decorated rooms when you think of epics, TGTB&TU is an epic that keeps its overall sense of fun from lagging, even with its 2 & 1/2+ hour runtime, as there are plenty of moments of levity, lots of colorful dialogue, and a generally playful mood, as seen in a great moment when a "Confederate" soldier brushes himself off to reveal the blue uniform beneath an accumulation of grey dust, before a sudden cut reveals our protagonists having been taken as prisoners of war in a Union Army camp.


In all honesty, this might just be the most purely entertaining movie I've ever seen, and even watching it now, twenty years after my original viewing, I found myself enjoying myself just as much as I did the first time, with so many moments here constantly bringing a faint smile upon my face, giving me the same exact sensations I felt when I was fourteen. I mean, Ennio Morricone's score by itself is fantastic, and about as iconic as movie music gets (and I'm not just talking about the "coyote yell" of the main theme, either), but how well it's used to underscore the onscreen action here? It's just glorious, glorious filmmaking all-around, resulting in an experience that's pretty much as close to perfection as movies get (hell, even the occasionally obvious English dubbing has its charm), and while the film was responsible for disregarding a lot of the myths surrounding the Old West, it replaced that with just as many of its own, creating reverberations not just throughout the rest of Eastwood's lengthy career, but the entire genre of the Western as a whole. To borrow some language from the Bible, it's the stone that the builders rejected, that ended up becoming one of the cornerstones of the modern Western, one that still stands tall, even to this day; "Go, go, amigo...".


Favorite Moment:


https://youtu.be/ubVc2MQwMkg


Final Score: 10

[megladon8]

Such an incredible movie. Way past due to watch it again.

[StuSmallz]

Such an incredible movie. Way past due to watch it again.Oh yeah; I mean, I had already watched it multiple times before now, but it had been since '03 since I'd done so, so I was definitely overdue for a rewatch. Still, absence definitely made the heart grow fonder in this case, and while it's rare for me to experience anything close to the same level of passion for a years-later rewatch as I did the first time, I absolutely felt it this time, which speaks volumes about just how great a movie it really is.

[Yxklyx]

I must have seen that movie about 20 times and I'll probably watch it again this year.

[StuSmallz]

I must have seen that movie about 20 times and I'll probably watch it again this year.Yup; I'm hard-pressed to think of another movie that's any more rewatchable than it is, to be honest with you.

[StuSmallz]

AV Club, are you for real? (https://www.avclub.com/lord-of-the-rings-supercut-bechdel-test-women-character-1848750798)

[megladon8]

Watched Victor/Victoria the other night. It was great.

Julie Andrews gives a very interesting physical performance.

James Garner's character is gross. But typical of a man of the time.

[Sven]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

[Skitch]

Of course! Welcome!

[Idioteque Stalker]

I mainly lurked back then but I remember you. Welcome : )

[StuSmallz]

Welcome back, Sven!

[megladon8]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

Of course!! Always been one of my favorite people :)

Welcome back, it's great to see you!

[megladon8]

Flashdance.

What a weird movie.

[DFA1979]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

Hey buddy. Welcome back.

[DFA1979]

The January Man is a movie I'm glad I didn't see in theaters or on a paying streaming service. What a blah mess.

Double Team is hilariously bad. So bad it's almost a good movie with some fun action scenes. I'm not sure what people were expecting with that one.

Hudson Hawk is an example of why you shouldn't let a major actor be in charge of the movie. Should have just been a comedy only.

I like Man On Fire as much as the remake. Both are very different animals though. Neither is great but is solid enough to be satisfying.

[DFA1979]

Cutler's Way, The Insider and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) all deserve full length blog reviews btw. Great trio of movies and two out of three were seen on Tubi. The Insider was watched thanks to Hulu.

[StuSmallz]

I still need to watch The Insider really bad, since once I've done so, then I'll pretty much have seen all of Michael Mann's (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/tag/mann/reviews/) "good" movies, according to the consensus.

[Skitch]

I love Hudson hawk. I think it's hilarious.

[DFA1979]

I still need to watch The Insider really bad, since once I've done so, then I'll pretty much have seen all of Michael Mann's (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/tag/mann/reviews/) "good" movies, according to the consensus.

I haven't seen Ali or The Keep yet. I think that's the only main ones I have left from him.

[DFA1979]

I love Hudson hawk. I think it's hilarious.

I did laugh at some parts. The stretcher chase scene is wonderfully mad cap. I would remake the movie, have it only be a comedy and dump the subplots and certain characters.

PS: The look Bruce Willis gave that kid who was beating up their stuffed animal was pretty hilarious.

[Skitch]

The dog jumping out the window kills me

[DFA1979]

The dog jumping out the window kills me

Poor dog but yes. Also David Caruso is actually really great in that flick.

[megladon8]

Logan is so. Damn. Good.

It will never cease to break my heart.

[StuSmallz]

Logan is so. Damn. Good.

It will never cease to break my heart.Hell yeah; I should probably take this opportunity to respost my original review of it, actually...

[Philip J. Fry]

Well guys, Fry just discovered a possibly Don Hertzfeldt-ian new indy filmmaker.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv3faCqNvRs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB7EcMnydS4

[megladon8]

Rewatched all three Nolan Batman films over the last week and a bit, and it confirmed my suspicions...

The Dark Knight Rises is the best of the three, and by a wide margin.

Bane > Joker

Best music of the series. Best action of the series. Most emotional weight of the series.

Phenomenal stuff. In my top 3 live action Batman films.

[StuSmallz]

David Lynch on remastering Inland Empire, revisiting his earlier work and the chances of a Dune do-over (https://www.avclub.com/david-lynch-inland-empire-interview-dune-restoration-1848795394)

[DFA1979]

That's cool, Fry.

Yeah Logan rocks. I saw it in theaters and had all the feels in the afternoon.

Heh meg I think the same thing about TDKR.

[megladon8]

Peggy Sue Got Married was really lovely.

[megladon8]

That's cool, Fry.

Yeah Logan rocks. I saw it in theaters and had all the feels in the afternoon.

Heh meg I think the same thing about TDKR.

We are a rare breed, it seems.

[Grouchy]

I think Begins is the most solid of the three.

[Skitch]

8 was pretty vocal on liking TDKR as his favorite (as I recall).

I love all three, for different reasons.

[Yxklyx]

I think Begins is the most solid of the three.

I prefer Begins as well. The others are rather forgettable to me.

[StuSmallz]

I like all of them, but The Dark Knight is the only one where I feel Nolan was truly firing on all cylinders.

[megladon8]

The flaws in TDK were much more apparent this time.

Not saying TDKR is flawless. Not by a longshot. But TDK has more warts than I used to see on it.

[Skitch]

All three have flaws I see. And they're usually flaws I don't hear the masses talk about. The flaws I hear I'm usually, "huh? That's a nitpick"

[transmogrifier]

Batman Begins is the most boring Batman film ever made. Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are much, much worse, but they aren't boring.

[StuSmallz]

The flaws in TDK were much more apparent this time.

Not saying TDKR is flawless. Not by a longshot. But TDK has more warts than I used to see on it.I agree that the TDK feels more flawed the second time around, (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/the-dark-knight/) but the great stuff in it still holds up as such, and it feels like Nolan used most of his best material for that entry, which leaves TDKR inevitably feeling a bit unnecessary as a conclusion. Still good, just not as essential as its predecessor.

[DFA1979]

I watched and enjoyed The Imitation Game even though according to online sources a lot of the movie isn't true. Hollywood does this a lot though since I guess they don't think the truth is often cinematic enough which is silly to me at times. I should probably discuss that in a blog post no one will read. Maybe later.

[megladon8]

Saw Wild at Heart and LOVED it. What a bonkers shit show and I loved every second of it.

This year's list of first time viewings has been legendary so far

[Ivan Drago]

Being There wrecked me. From Letterboxd:

Peter Sellers' final starring role is as a gardener named Chance in a film that's hysterically funny in its premise; Chance is forced to traverse through the hustle and bustle of Washington DC after the tenant whose garden he tends to suddenly passes away. However, Chance is helpless and alone with no direction on where to go because he knows nothing about the outside world other than what he's seen on television until he is taken in by a tycoon. The situations Chance finds himself in from there are hysterically funny, from the advances he receives from Shirley MacLaine's character to keeping an eye out for Rafael so he can deliver a message to him coated in African-American slang.

But what makes Being There transcendent of other 1970s comedies are the myriad of layers to its story. It can be interpreted as a racial commentary about how easily Chance gets back on his feet and gains the opportunities he receives compared to his African-American former maid, as well as a parable about the power of a benevolent outlook, and the bliss of existence with an unawareness of one's own limitations. And Chance's oblivious kindness has a childlike innocence from start to finish thanks to the powerful performance from Peter Sellers, whose stoic delivery and visual nuances liken him to a person with autism. That angle in particular struck this critic to his very core, because it’s devastatingly wonderful to see everyone treat him so kindly, yet viewers of Being There are left longing for the real world to possess the same level of empathy as Hal Ashby's opus, which is a masterpiece in every way.

[megladon8]

I was pretty disappointed with Hitchcock's Spellbound.

Lots of outdated psycho babble and gross misogyny.

If Bergman's character had remained as strong as she was in the first third, it would be been salvageable. But having her succumb to all the "oh...emotional women!" stuff that she was against was weird.

Dream sequence is pretty neat, though.

[megladon8]

Emma (the 90s one with Gwyneth Paltrow) was really nice.

This was my first experience with the story, and I'm really happy it ended the way it did because I was worried I would absolutely despise it and her. But no, a sweet ending.

Teared up a few times, and had lots of laughs.

Great film.

[Mara]

It's pretty fun! I can't remember who said that Austen names her books after the central problems in the books-- Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, etc. and the central problem of Emma is... Emma.

I'm curious if you've seen Clueless. It's a really innovative take on the story in a way that modern updates rarely are.

[Mara]

Also, I came down on pretty much liking the 2020 Emma. with its odd punctuation, even if it couldn't quite decide if it was an adaptation or a deconstruction.

One of my sisters hated it, though. Like actively despised it.

[megladon8]

I have not seen Clueless but I'm very excited to do so, it sounds charming.

Persuasion is my favorite Austen book, and probably my number 2 book of all time. Wonderful book.

Jen really wanted to show me Sense & Sensibility last night, but couldn't find it. So Emma was her backup.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Emma 2020 is sumptuous visually, but 90s Emma is funnier and more charming overall if you ask me. The way Gwyneth Paltrow bounces around social situations, putting on a nice face in one breath before talking smack the next, is hugely entertaining. Plus the score is lovely.

[Yxklyx]

I watched the two Emmas (along with Clueless) recently and I prefer the one with the period. Clueless is just as good as that one. Sense & Sensibility is superior to all three but nothing compares to the 90s miniseries of Pride and Prejudice (though Steadman's performance grates). The recent P&P film is totally forgettable - there was no reason to make that one.

[Mara]

The P&P miniseries is terrific.

The 1995 film version of Persuasion is really, really good. Maybe my favorite Austen adaptation (and definitely my favorite of her novels.) Netflix has a new Persuasion coming out next month with Dakota Johnson that looks like hot garbage and I am prepared to hate it passionately.

[StuSmallz]

I'll read through this later, but for now, I'm just going to leave it here:

20 of the Most Misunderstood and Misinterpreted Movies Ever Made (https://lifehacker.com/20-of-the-most-misunderstood-and-misinterpreted-movies-1848864261/slides/3)

[StuSmallz]

This was a great read:

The Enduring Feminist Vision of Silence Of The Lambs (https://filmschoolrejects.com/feminist-vision-silence-of-the-lambs/)

[Idioteque Stalker]

Saw Inland Empire for the first time last night, which has me thinking how I often enjoy movies about making movies. I've seen a lot, but I haven't seen them all. I would appreciate any insight you may have into the movies below based on 1) if they're good and 2) how much or how little they are actually about making movies. (Ed Wood is very much about making movies, while Inglourious Basterds is very little about making movies.)

The Dirties
Get Shorty
Saving Mr Banks
The Bad and the Beautiful
Hooper
Hellzapoppin
Shadow of the Vampire
Son of Rambow
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Dolemite Is My Name
Pain and Glory
Matinee
Silent Movie
Day for Night
Tristram Shandy
Wag the Dog
A Star Is Born

[Philip J. Fry]

1522596669107638274
Hah!

[Russ]

Saw Inland Empire for the first time last night, which has me thinking how I often enjoy movies about making movies. I've seen a lot, but I haven't seen them all. I would appreciate any insight you may have into the movies below based on 1) if they're good and 2) how much or how little they are actually about making movies. (Ed Wood is very much about making movies, while Inglourious Basterds is very little about making movies.)

The Dirties
Get Shorty
Saving Mr Banks
The Bad and the Beautiful
Hooper
Hellzapoppin
Shadow of the Vampire
Son of Rambow
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
Dolemite Is My Name
Pain and Glory
Matinee
Silent Movie
Day for Night
Tristram Shandy
Wag the Dog
A Star Is Born

I think the most obvious omission is Richard Rush's 1980 film The Stunt Man (one of my favorites).

Great call on Hellzapoppin and Matinee (two more of my favorites).

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention two candidates (two low budget meta films that draw attention to themselves for all the right reasons):

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation - ("a 1989 American fan film, made as a shot-for-shot remake of the 1981 Indiana Jones adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Using the original film's screenplay and score, it principally starred and was filmed, directed, and produced over a seven-year period by three Mississippi teenagers (Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb).")

And especially this one...

Flooding With Love For the Kid (2007) - Based on the novel First Blood, here's a succinct summarization of Zachary Oberzan's film...

Zack Oberzan was a 33-year-old “failed actor,” in his words, when he decided to make a Rambo movie.

In his 220-square-foot apartment.

For $96 dollars.

With one camera and one mic.

Playing all 26 roles himself.

I highly recommend Flooding with Love For the Kid

As for releases of late, I think Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's (Hausu) final film, Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) may be just what you're looking for. I have the blu-ray, but haven't watched it yet. I'll try to watch it soon and report back.

[Irish]

I think the most obvious omission is Richard Rush's 1980 film The Stunt Man (one of my favorites).

^ Double this.

(GREAT TO SEE YOU RUSS!!! :D)

[Idioteque Stalker]

I think the most obvious omission is Richard Rush's 1980 film The Stunt Man (one of my favorites).

The Stunt Man is a great suggestion that I've already seen. Exactly the type of thing I'm looking for. The other three may not be precisely what I thought I wanted, but I'm glad to have found them nonetheless. Definitely off my radar. Flooding with Love for the Kid has been watchlisted. Thanks Russ.

Other than that, the ones I am most drawn to at the moment are Hellzapoppin, Tristram Shandy, and Shadow of the Vampire.

[StuSmallz]

How the summer of 1982 changed movies forever: packed with essential films like E.T., Star Trek II, Blade Runner, and Tron, one legendary season transformed audience expectations and Hollywood itself (https://www.avclub.com/summer-1982-movies-star-trek-khan-et-blade-runner-thing-1848871001)

[DFA1979]

Whoa hey Russ long time no see.

[StuSmallz]

Not Mad, Just Disappointed: Mothers On The Edge In The ‘70s, And The Present (https://musings.oscilloscope.net/post/157952944871/not-mad-just-disappointed-mothers-on-the-edge-in)

[DFA1979]

I liked The Quick and the Dead a lot more on a final and recent viewing. However the last act still bugs me a bit. Feels like the movie wanted to have a cake that they set on fire yet they're still gonna eat it anyways. The premise is definitely still very unique however which is good.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Uh-oh. I'm starting to feel the pull of Hong Sang-soo. Seems like a pretty deep rabbit hole...

[megladon8]

Enjoyed A Streetcar Named Desire quite a bit.

[StanleyK]

Luis Buñuel's The Young One is an underseen gem. It's the first movie I've seen in a while where I was genuinely gripped and curious where the story was going. Very racy stuff for 1960.

[megladon8]

Really liked Billy Wilder's Sabrina. Lovely story and performances, but I was most surprised by how visually impeccable it was. I didn't expect that.

[DFA1979]

Really liked Billy Wilder's Sabrina. Lovely story and performances, but I was most surprised by how visually impeccable it was. I didn't expect that.

That's a really nice movie. Not one of Wilder's best but still a lot of fun and well made.

[Yxklyx]

Huh, didn't realize that Mike D'Angelo a rather popular critic/reviewer who I follow is color-blind (from his Color Out of Space review).

[Grouchy]

Really liked Billy Wilder's Sabrina. Lovely story and performances, but I was most surprised by how visually impeccable it was. I didn't expect that.
Wilder doesn't get enough credit as a visuals director solely because of his subdued style, but he has crafted some of the most memorable images from old Hollywood.

[DFA1979]

Huh, didn't realize that Mike D'Angelo a rather popular critic/reviewer who I follow is color-blind (from his Color Out of Space review).

That is interesting. I believe I recall him being one of the good ones critics wise.

[megladon8]

Now, Voyager was fantastic. Perfect golden age Hollywood molodrama.

[StuSmallz]

The Legacy And Lunacy of Ishtar: Elaine May's notorious Hollywood flop—undone by production stumbles, studio sabotage, and toxic reviews—carries an odious reputation it doesn't deserve (https://www.avclub.com/ishtar-35th-anniversary-elaine-may-warren-beatty-1848927280)

[DFA1979]

I still haven't seen that movie. I heard it's bad so I have to know for myself. For um, science.

[baby doll]

It's good, but not as impressive as May's first three films. (Mikey and Nicky may be my favourite film by an American woman. Carolee Schneemann's Fuses and Barbara Loden's Wanda are the only other contenders that come immediately to mind.)

[DFA1979]

It's good, but not as impressive as May's first three films. (Mikey and Nicky may be my favourite film by an American woman. Carolee Schneemann's Fuses and Barbara Loden's Wanda are the only other contenders that come immediately to mind.)

I'll have to see all of those first actually. Mikey and Nicky is a huge blindpot for me.

[StuSmallz]

From Top Gun: Maverick to Crystal Skull, the 5 best—and 5 worst—legacyquels of all time: from Creed to The Color Of Money, the follow-ups that worked, the ones that didn't, and why (https://www.avclub.com/best-worst-legacyquels-top-gun-crystal-skull-creed-matr-1848997002)

[Idioteque Stalker]

World Cinema Power Rankings:

1. U.S.A.
2. Japan
3. France
4. Scandinavia
5. Iran

These are the five I would choose to save first. If Scandinavia is cheating, then change to Sweden and swap places with Iran. Losing Carl Dreyer hurts.

What's your list?

[StanleyK]

World Cinema Power Rankings:

1. U.S.A.
2. Japan
3. France
4. Scandinavia
5. Iran

These are the five I would choose to save first. If Scandinavia is cheating, then change to Sweden and swap places with Iran. Losing Carl Dreyer hurts.

What's your list?

I would definitely replace Iran with Italy. You can't leave out Neorealism and Fellini.

After that I would consider switching Scandinavia with the UK, just for the sheer number of important movies they've produced, including David Lean, Powell and Pressburger, early Hitchcock, late Kubrick, Mike Leigh, among many others. I think that's enough to give it the edge over Bergman.

[Mal]

May’s humor/films … uh just fine. Mikey and Nicky is obviously great, though Ishtar is trash.

[Irish]

@baby doll

1) Do you remember a discussion here a looooooooong time ago about John Ford's "Fort Apache"? You posted a link to a PDF paper written by some French (I think?) academic. It was mostly about the ending of the film. I was hoping you still had the paper lying around. I'd like another look at it. (I searched within the thread, but couldn't find your original post).

2) Have you seen Rivette's "La Belle Noiseuse," and if so, what did you think of it? Or of Rivette in a more general sense? I just finished and ... no words, really. But I have a strong urge to spend the rest of the evening looking out my window and drinking wine.

[Ivan Drago]

World Cinema Power Rankings:

1. U.S.A.
2. Japan
3. France
4. Scandinavia
5. Iran

These are the five I would choose to save first. If Scandinavia is cheating, then change to Sweden and swap places with Iran. Losing Carl Dreyer hurts.

What's your list?

In no order:

USA
India
Japan
France
Sweden

[baby doll]

1) Do you remember a discussion here a looooooooong time ago about John Ford's "Fort Apache"? You posted a link to a PDF paper written by some French (I think?) academic. It was mostly about the ending of the film. I was hoping you still had the paper lying around. I'd like another look at it. (I searched within the thread, but couldn't find your original post).If memory serves, I was referring to an interview with Jean-Marie Straub in the first (and only) issue of the journal Enthusiasm, which is still available online (http://newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/451/Enthusiam.PDF?fbclid=IwAR0TAHa Bk8m40qswtvk0AuZVrlDtqFC1inzgm WYq_1bhJSU6j5fw1GSRsKo). The bit about Fort Apache is on page 12.


2) Have you seen Rivette's "La Belle Noiseuse," and if so, what did you think of it? Or of Rivette in a more general sense? I just finished and ... no words, really. But I have a strong urge to spend the rest of the evening looking out my window and drinking wine.I've seen it twice, although the last time was a few years ago, and I don't have much to say about it other than it's great. (I've owned a copy of the shorter version, Divertimento, for several years but I've never been able to get through more than a few minutes: the jump cuts abridging scenes that play out in real time in the original were just too disruptive.) I was something of a Rivette fanatic when I was in my early 20s and watched the New Yorker VHS of Céline et Julie vont en bateau over and over, although, to my ever-lasting shame, I still haven't been able to see L'Amour fou in an acceptable transfer or found the time to watch either version of Out 1. Along with Céline et Julie and La Belle noiseuse, my other favourite is Duelle (une quaratine), although I've yet to see anything of Rivette's that was devoid of interest.

[baby doll]

After that I would consider switching Scandinavia with the UK, just for the sheer number of important movies they've produced, including David Lean, Powell and Pressburger, early Hitchcock, late Kubrick, Mike Leigh, among many others. I think that's enough to give it the edge over Bergman.There's a lot more to Scandinavian cinema than just Bergman, Victor Sjöström, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki, Lars von Trier, and Ruben Östlund being only the first names that come to mind. (Incidentally, one might question how British the late films of Lean and Kubrick were, given that these films were bankrolled partly or entirely by American studios, and in Kubrick's case, all of his films after the '70s have American subjects.)

[Idioteque Stalker]

Victor Sjöström, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki, Lars von Trier, and Ruben Östlund being only the first names that come to mind.

I would add Thomas Vinterberg and Lukas Moodysson to this list. And Dreyer is up there with Bergman. Not familiar with Kaurismaki.

[Grouchy]

May’s humor/films … uh just fine. Mikey and Nicky is obviously great, though Ishtar is trash.
Huge fan of The Heartbreak Kid here. I could watch that movie anytime. Cringe comedy is just my jam.

[Idioteque Stalker]

In no order:

USA
India
Japan
France
Sweden

India currently getting that RRR tilt. ;)

[Irish]

If memory serves, I was referring to an interview with Jean-Marie Straub in the first (and only) issue of the journal Enthusiasm, which is still available online (http://newwavefilms.co.uk/assets/451/Enthusiam.PDF?fbclid=IwAR0TAHa Bk8m40qswtvk0AuZVrlDtqFC1inzgm WYq_1bhJSU6j5fw1GSRsKo). The bit about Fort Apache is on page 12.

That looks like the one. Thank you!


I've seen it twice, although the last time was a few years ago, and I don't have much to say about it other than it's great. (I've owned a copy of the shorter version, Divertimento, for several years but I've never been able to get through more than a few minutes: the jump cuts abridging scenes that play out in real time in the original were just too disruptive.) I was something of a Rivette fanatic when I was in my early 20s and watched the New Yorker VHS of Céline et Julie vont en bateau over and over, although, to my ever-lasting shame, I still haven't been able to see L'Amour fou in an acceptable transfer or found the time to watch either version of Out 1. Along with Céline et Julie and La Belle noiseuse, my other favourite is Duelle (une quaratine), although I've yet to see anything of Rivette's that was devoid of interest.

"Noiseuse" was the first of his I've seen. These New Wave bastards take me by surprise, always pushing the form and showing new things, reminding me what could be. Four hours of wonder and now I'm back in the real world. I can't quite engage with another rando novel or film. Everything on hand is somehow less interesting, obviously staged or contrived or false (most narrative film that comes to mind), or flat out ridiculous (the contemporary rolling Hollywood circus).

Anyway. Great movie.

Criterion Channel has a copy of "Céline et Julie" so I may check that out next. Appreciate all your recs. Thanks again!

[Peng]

1533851037622206465

Mine are:

20s: Un Chien Andalou
30s: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
40s: Laura
50s: Tokyo Story
60s: Yojimbo
70s: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
80s: Dead Poets Society
90s: American History X
00s: Donnie Darko
2010s: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
2020s so far: Free Guy

Least eager to rectify: American History X

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker might be the first time my very completish film streak gets interrupted by bad words surrounding a film (both of the critical and the press kinds), but I will probably get to it one of these days.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Someone stole my idea!

20s: A Page of Madness (to be remedied soon (http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showthread.php?8315-The-Popular-Movie-Blindspot-Thread/page7&p=649771&viewfull=1#post649771))
30s: Dracula
40s: The Big Sleep
50s: Dial M for Murder
60s: Charade
70s: Rocky
80s: Temple of Doom
90s: Edward Scissorhands
00s: Twilight
10s: Avengers Endgame
20s: Spiderman No Way Home

Least eager to rectify: Spiderman

[Idioteque Stalker]

Someone stole my idea!

If KMS78 is trans, then all is forgiven.

[Yxklyx]

1910s - Les Vampires
20s - A Page of Madness (HM Napoleon)
30s - Shanghai Express
40s - Letter from an Unknown Woman
50s - Peter Pan
60s - The Jungle Book
70s - The Aristocats
80s - Back to the Future Part II (HM Top Gun)
90s - 10 Things I Hate About You
2000s - Little Miss Sunshine (HM Catch Me If You Can)
10s - Joker

Some of these are hard to find like Napoleon, Shanghai Express and Letter from an Unknown Woman. Not a fan of Disney or J. Phoenix. Criterion has Les Vampires - I should check that out. Top Gun is in my queue and I see that Little Miss Sunshine has Toni in it so I should check that out as well. A Page of Madness is on Prime for $2 but it's SD and their SD versions usually look like shit.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Criterion has Les Vampires - I should check that out.

I'll be starting this soon. I say "starting" because I plan to view it like a TV series.

[DFA1979]

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a delightful movie. Very funny. The Dracula musical is definitely one of a kind thing.

[Philip J. Fry]

1537863619169464323

[StuSmallz]

The 25 Best Biopics of All Time, Ranked (https://thatshelf.com/the-25-best-biopics-of-all-time-ranked/amp/)

[Philip J. Fry]

1539767660962906112

[Mara]

Inspired by a conversation over on the Discord, I have put together the list nobody asked for: my ranking of Austen adaptations! This list is not exhaustive, as I have apparently seen dozens of these, but just the list of those I think are notable. There are so many made-for-tv adaptations that I could sum up as "fine," but left no lasting impression. I did include one made-for-tv adaptation that is too good to leave off, but am not including loose adaptations like Clueless, Bridget Jones' Diary, etc, or works inspired by Austen's life instead of her novels.

1. Persuasion (1995) Austen's most mature book is translated into a thoughtful, understated and lovely film. This is the only Austen adaption on this list that is brave enough to cast non-beautiful actors as canonically plain characters, and Root and Hinds are electric together. It's a story for adults, more introspective and melancholy than most of her work, while still being swooningly romantic. A+, no notes

2. Pride & Prejudice (1995) The most faithful adaptation of an Austen book ever made, this meticulous miniseries could have been laborious and dragging, but is instead sparkling, hilarious and fun, thanks mostly to stellar casting from top to bottom. Ehle and Firth are absolutely the best Lizzie and Darcy of all time. The expansive run time gives the story room to breathe and explore the nuances of Austen's subplots, which work together to form an excellent whole.

3. Sense & Sensibility (1995) One of Austen's weakest novels is given an incredible face-lift thanks to a brilliant, witty screenplay by Emma Thompson, lush direction by Ang Lee, and terrific interplay between Thompson, Winslet, & Rickman. Even Hugh Grant, an actor I generally dislike, does serviceable work here.

4. Emma. (2020) More of a deconstruction than a strict adaptation, this stylized version of the story is heavy on slapstick and social commentary, but doesn't have much heart, with the exception of Johnny Flynn, who pulls off an unprecedented, interesting take on Mr. Knightly.

5. Pride & Prejudice (2005) It looks absolutely gorgeous, I'll give it that. Macfadyen brings some interesting choices to Mr. Darcy, but Knightley is doing the same character she does in every period piece. She's boring. Many of the film's choices feel inexplicable (why the time period change?) and feel like they exist just to try to make the story feel different than the other 200 adaptations out there.

6. Emma (1996) This more faithful adaptation of the novel is pretty and fun, but spends a lot of time ticking the boxes of what an Austen adaptation is supposed to be (see the three examples from the year before, 1995, above) without bringing anything new or insightful to the table. Most of the cast is fine, with a young Toni Colette being a standout as the awkward Harriet Smith.

7. Mansfield Park (1999) This is a tricky novel to adapt, with a real soggy blanket as a female lead. I respect that the film tries to liven things up, and also to place the story within a more modern perspective on England's brutal West Indian plantations, which is paying for all the lavish lifestyle we see on screen. It works sometimes, but the more modern perspective is often at odds with the story as it is told. (If this Fanny is so self-actualized and progressive, for instance, why does she let herself get kicked around by every other character for 90% of the plot?)

8. Pride & Prejudice (1940) This adaptation has no idea what it is doing, with attempts to simplify the plot leaving it incoherent. Setting the story several decades later does nothing but change the costumes, as no attempt is made to make the dialogue or interactions sound like they take place at any time but 1940. I will say that Lawrence Olivier is a good choice for the mannered haughtiness of Darcy.

9. Love & Friendship (2016) This is an interesting failure. Kate Beckinsale is committed to the villainous Lady Susan, but the film can't overcome the fact that the unfinished novel doesn't have a sturdy enough plot to keep the whole thing afloat.

[Yxklyx]

Saw Inland Empire for the first time last night, which has me thinking how I often enjoy movies about making movies. I've seen a lot, but I haven't seen them all. I would appreciate any insight you may have into the movies below based on 1) if they're good and 2) how much or how little they are actually about making movies. (Ed Wood is very much about making movies, while Inglourious Basterds is very little about making movies.)

...
A Star Is Born

Have not see any of those other films!

Two that come to mind though:

Beware of a Holy Whore
Irma Vep

and of course:

8 1/2

The Fassbinder has more filmmaking scenes than 8 1/2 - actually the Fellini film has no filmmaking. ;)

[Mal]

Gonna have to disagree on Love And Friendship - adored the film and its humor. But I'm not an Austen-ite, so I don't have the perspective via adaptation/text.

[Philip J. Fry]

1540681272414060550

[DFA1979]

Mara I believe the Ang Lee Jane Austin flick was on Tubi last I checked so I may view that one. I really need to read her books first.

[Philip J. Fry]

Mara I believe the Ang Lee Jane Austin flick was on Tubi last I checked so I may view that one. I really need to read her books first.Pride and Prejudice is such a fun read. Killed it in a night.

[Mara]

Mara I believe the Ang Lee Jane Austin flick was on Tubi last I checked so I may view that one. I really need to read her books first.

I would argue that you don't really need to read the books first, especially with Sense & Sensibility, which is not her best work. She's not known for her plot twists, so watching the film first isn't going to spoil anything. The books just go deeper and you get more of her wit.

[DFA1979]

Noted, thanks!

[StuSmallz]

Batman Returns at 30 is still as weird as big-budget blockbusters get: how Tim Burton’s kinetic and kinky sequel pushed the boundaries for the summer movie template (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jun/19/batman-returns-at-30-still-as-weird-as-big-budget-blockbusters-get)

[StuSmallz]

Anyone else hate it when movies succumb to the trope of "Schrödinger's C(h)a(rac)t(er)"? You know, when a character clearly dies in a movie, whether it be in a stand-alone original or part of an existing franchise, but then that movie and/or character gets iconic (or at least successful), the studio wants a sequel, and the filmmakers suddenly regret their decision to kill off them off, so they try a resurrection, either with a very flimsy explanation as to how they survived, or even nothing at all in some cases, meaning that the character is both dead according to the canon of the previous entry, and simultaneously alive in the next one; think Blade 2 with Whistler, The Matrix Reloaded with Agent Smith, or this scene in Halloweenwater (aka Halloween H20) where...




https://youtu.be/ecPIX0ZShFQ

...Michael clearly dies, but Resurrection wants us to believe that that was actually a paramedic who couldn't speak because he had his larynx conveniently crushed by Michael, who then swapped his clothes with the guy and escaped, and he somehow never bothered removing the mask to reveal his true identity to Laurie. Yeah sure, movie.

[Skitch]

Yes.

[StuSmallz]

Thanks, good talk.

;)

[Skitch]

I didn't have anything to add, you already said it. :D

[Mysterious Dude]

The one that really annoyed me was Kingsman 2. I didn't even see it, so I don't actually know how they managed to make Colin Firth survive being SHOT IN THE HEAD AT POINT BLANK RANGE.

[StuSmallz]

The one that really annoyed me was Kingsman 2. I didn't even see it, so I don't actually know how they managed to make Colin Firth survive being SHOT IN THE HEAD AT POINT BLANK RANGE.Well, according to the Wiki, "Harry survived his shooting thanks to Statesman technology, but is suffering from amnesia", so I guess that explains it...? Anyway, we can apparently also include Avatar 2 in this trope, from the reports I've heard...

[DFA1979]

The one that really annoyed me was Kingsman 2. I didn't even see it, so I don't actually know how they managed to make Colin Firth survive being SHOT IN THE HEAD AT POINT BLANK RANGE.

No kidding. That's a great example.

[DFA1979]

Anyone else hate it when movies succumb to the trope of "Schrödinger's C(h)a(rac)t(er)"? You know, when a character clearly dies in a movie, whether it be in a stand-alone original or part of an existing franchise, but then that movie and/or character gets iconic (or at least successful), the studio wants a sequel, and the filmmakers suddenly regret their decision to kill off them off, so they try a resurrection, either with a very flimsy explanation as to how they survived, or even nothing at all in some cases, meaning that the character is both dead according to the canon of the previous entry, and simultaneously alive in the next one; think Blade 2 with Whistler, The Matrix Reloaded with Agent Smith, or this scene in Halloweenwater (aka Halloween H20) where...




https://youtu.be/ecPIX0ZShFQ

...Michael clearly dies, but Resurrection wants us to believe that that was actually a paramedic who couldn't speak because he had his larynx conveniently crushed by Michael, who then swapped his clothes with the guy and escaped, and he somehow never bothered removing the mask to reveal his true identity to Laurie. Yeah sure, movie.

For me it's Malcom in the Jurassic Park books and kind of in the movies, too. He was supposed to be killed off but after he was so popular among the fans Crichton gave in and made it so he wasn't dead.

[DFA1979]

Another good example is obviously Jason Voorhees with Part 5 bombing so naturally they bring him back for Jason Lives.

[StuSmallz]

For me it's Malcom in the Jurassic Park books and kind of in the movies, too. He was supposed to be killed off but after he was so popular among the fans Crichton gave in and made it so he wasn't dead.Aw, the good ol' "Schrödinger's Cast" (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchrodingersCast) trope; Ian's also the very first example listed in the Film examples on that page, even!

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/th4D3RB/blood-simple.jpg (https://ibb.co/b3PX7t1)


Down here... you're on your own.


They say big things have small beginnings, but, while that's true in the case of Blood Simple, the start of the Coen brother's now-legendary decades long career, it's also true that this small beginning is a great one as well, taking a familiar Noir tale of adultery and murder, and filtering it through a sweaty, Neo-style sensibility, crafting a tight, tense work of profound, creeping paranoia, Texas (and Coen brothers)-style, and creating an enviable foundation for everything the iconic duo of filmmakers have made since.




It tells the story of Abby & Ray, a neglected housewife and an average joe bartender respectively, who impulsively strike up an affair while driving through a torrential downpour somewhere down in Texas. Naturally, Abby's husband Marty isn't too thrilled when he finds out about her infidelity, especially since it's with one of his own employees, but when he hires a sleazy, untrustworthy private eye for a "not strictly legal" job as an act of revenge against them, he accidentally sets off a increasingly insane chain of events, one where the dead seem to keep coming back to life, no one ever really trusts each other, and absolutely none of the characters can think straight, through both the real and imaginary pools of blood continually serving to obscure their vision.




So, when looking back on this film, it's striking how much Blood Simple set the stage for the Coens' later modern classics, with echoes reverberating throughout Fargo and their magnum opus No Country For Old Men, (https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/no-country-for-old-men/) and, while it may not have 100% of the substance of some of their later efforts, Simple still has just as much STYLE, with cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld's tense, unnerving tracking shots, composer Carter Burwell's haunting, piano-centric score (which marks the first of his many collaborations with the Coens), and the pacing working to bring things to a slow (pot)boil, being agonizing in the most pleasurable sense of the word, if that makes sense.




And finally, Simple excels through its sheer, palpable atmosphere, which has one foot in the "real world", due to the copious amount of sweat constantly dripping off every character, whether it's from the Texas heat or their addled, fearful states of mind, while also accurately capturing the feeling of being trapped in a dream, albeit a bad one you can't even fully grasp, let alone escape from, as one bad mistake inevitably leads to the next, eventually leading you into an early grave. Add on top of that some sharp dialogue, a great cast all-around (including Frances McDormand herself in a strong debut performance), and traces of the Coens' signature black humor, and Blood Simple is anything but "the same old song"/film, as far as I'm concerned.


Final Score: 9

[Yxklyx]

Anyone else hate it when movies succumb to the trope of "Schrödinger's C(h)a(rac)t(er)"? You know, when a character clearly dies in a movie, ...

Hate is not the word I'd use. Rather fraud, cheat, manipulator. All movies can be turned into manipulation rather easily but when it's so blatant, when a director uses death to manipulate an audience but then says, no I didn't mean that, that's the lowest of the lows.

[StuSmallz]

https://youtu.be/B9qyAzs3Jlg

[Idioteque Stalker]

Hate is not the word I'd use. Rather fraud, cheat, manipulator. All movies can be turned into manipulation rather easily but when it's so blatant, when a director uses death to manipulate an audience but then says, no I didn't mean that, that's the lowest of the lows.

It happened in Rise of Skywalker at least twice, maybe more. One of the many reasons it's one of the worst movies ever.

[StuSmallz]

Roger Corman on the art, and business, of moviemaking: A frank conversation with the filmmaker who gave Hollywood legends like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, and William Shatner their start (https://www.avclub.com/roger-corman-interview-intruder-poe-1849184505)

[Yxklyx]

Before David Lynch there was... Blake Edwards!

I've had this theory that David Lynch was inspired by film in 1961 at the age of 15. The only evidence was from the casting in Twin Peaks where Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, and Piper Laurie all appear. All of them with arguably their most notable performances from West Side Story and The Hustler - in 1961.

Now I just saw the film Experiment in Terror (1962, Blake Edwards) - if you're a Lynch fan you need to see this one (on Criterion now). The protagonist lives in Twin Peaks, San Francisco and the antagonist's last name is --- Lynch!

[DFA1979]

I feel like I've head of that movie before. Maybe via TCM or the local TV guide.

[StuSmallz]

We need to talk about Jennifer Lopez: from Out Of Sight to Hustlers to Halftime, why it's time to reassess the actress behind the celebrity (https://www.avclub.com/jennifer-lopez-halftime-out-of-sight-hustlers-52nd-1849229810)

[Wryan]

Ritchie's The Gentlemen is surely one of his lighter works, but that fleetness makes it all the sweeter. Grant steals it away, which is something considering the excellent work from rest of cast. Loved it.

[DFA1979]

Thinking about how some 2000s-2010s flicks were rather prescient in what they presented. Burn After Reading easily comes to mind concerning the recent Trump fiasco and Snowpiercer may be more a rather apt metaphor for the coming climate change nightmares we are facing. Just saying. And yet both were mocked by folks on this site.

[Idioteque Stalker]

I should revisit Burn After Reading. Snowpiercer no thanks.

[StuSmallz]

This was a great read:

Abuse of VFX Artists Is Ruining the Movies (https://gizmodo.com/disney-marvel-movies-vfx-industry-nightmare-1849385834)

[Ivan Drago]

Two movies into the Three Colors trilogy, here's where I stand so far. From Letterboxd:

Three Colors: Blue

Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s first film in the Three Colors trilogy is a visceral and meditative look at grief and the lifelong process of living with it. The sad circumstances that surround Juliette Binoche’s main character are conveyed with beautiful power through shot compositions that simulate her vision blurred by tears and the motif of the color blue taking shape through an object in Julie’s apartment or stylized lighting in a given scene. The symphonic music depicts both the weight of carrying the tragedy of her husband and daughter’s death and her struggle to move forward with unrelenting grandeur, as do Binoche’s facial expressions in her tremendous breakthrough performance. It may take a second viewing to fully comprehend its philosophical ideas, but for the rest of the trilogy, this critic is along for the ride. 4/5

Three Colors: White

The concept of Krzysztof Kieślowski's second film in the Three Colors trilogy hasn’t necessarily aged well for some people, but with more time to ponder about the roads taken by downtrodden hairdresser Karol Karol after his wife files for divorce and frames him for burning down her own salon, the more his artistic intention is understood as being centering around romantic and economic equality. Karol loved Dominique so much he was willing to bring her down to his level economically and go incredible lengths to reach her level of twisted affection in order to prove his love for her. It’s a type of romance rarely depicted on screen with so much sympathy for both sides thanks to the tender performances from Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy, dry sense of humor as well as the common use of white in the film whether its through motifs like when a bird hilariously sets the tone for Karol's plight, or the tones both characters reflect on their wedding day with silent longing. Between Blue and White, the former remains the better films, but this critic remains excited to finish off Kieslowski's filmmaking swan song with Red. 4/5

[StuSmallz]

50 years after declining Marlon Brando's Oscar on his behalf, the Academy will be apologizing to Sacheen Littlefeather, and hosting an event in her honor (https://www.avclub.com/motion-picture-academy-apologizes-sacheen-littlefeather-1849414632)

Nice!

[Ivan Drago]

Two movies into the Three Colors trilogy, here's where I stand so far. From Letterboxd:

Three Colors: Blue

Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s first film in the Three Colors trilogy is a visceral and meditative look at grief and the lifelong process of living with it. The sad circumstances that surround Juliette Binoche’s main character are conveyed with beautiful power through shot compositions that simulate her vision blurred by tears and the motif of the color blue taking shape through an object in Julie’s apartment or stylized lighting in a given scene. The symphonic music depicts both the weight of carrying the tragedy of her husband and daughter’s death and her struggle to move forward with unrelenting grandeur, as do Binoche’s facial expressions in her tremendous breakthrough performance. It may take a second viewing to fully comprehend its philosophical ideas, but for the rest of the trilogy, this critic is along for the ride. 4/5

Three Colors: White

The concept of Krzysztof Kieślowski's second film in the Three Colors trilogy hasn’t necessarily aged well for some people, but with more time to ponder about the roads taken by downtrodden hairdresser Karol Karol after his wife files for divorce and frames him for burning down her own salon, the more his artistic intention is understood as being centering around romantic and economic equality. Karol loved Dominique so much he was willing to bring her down to his level economically and go incredible lengths to reach her level of twisted affection in order to prove his love for her. It’s a type of romance rarely depicted on screen with so much sympathy for both sides thanks to the tender performances from Zbigniew Zamachowski and Julie Delpy, dry sense of humor as well as the common use of white in the film whether its through motifs like when a bird hilariously sets the tone for Karol's plight, or the tones both characters reflect on their wedding day with silent longing. Between Blue and White, the former remains the better films, but this critic remains excited to finish off Kieslowski's filmmaking swan song with Red. 4/5

It has now been a week since I saw Three Colors: Red for the first time and it has been difficult to translate my feelings about it into words. The final film in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Colors trilogy follows a young student named Valentine who despite success as a model, feels her life is empty thanks to the struggles that come with keeping a long-distance relationship afloat. An accident leads her into the life of a retired judge, who spends his days listening in on his neighbors’ phone conversations. Valentine initially feels shock and fear over this man’s invasion of others’ privacy, as anyone else would, but what ensues between the two forges an unlikely friendship, as they ponder to each other the answers to life’s altruistic questions: are we all connected in a metaphysical sense or is our fraternity a mere result of random chance? And how is our connection formed; our mutual passion for something, or the frustration that comes with a given failure? Or is it generally through our humanity, therefore making the answer all of the above? These are thought-provoking questions Kieslowski asks in his final film, but audiences are given time to meditate over them by pacing Red deliberately slow, but that allows the dialogue of his script and the beauty of his images to sear into viewers’ minds, allowing us to ruminate over them for days on end, and that’s before mentioning the stellar performances of Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignant, as their chemistry cuts through with mesmerizing naturalism. Red is the most dense entry in the Three Colors trilogy, and may require multiple viewings for casuals to wrap their heads around its themes about the philosophy of coincidence, chance, fate, existence and humanity, but the reward is well worth the journey, because it culminates in an ending that’s so incendiary with its power, that it's made me want to watch the entire Three Colors trilogy all over again.

[Grouchy]

In lieu of Woody Allen's (possible) retirement, my top 10 by him:

1. Hanna and her sisters
2. Annie Hall
3. Crimes and misdemeanors
4. Zelig
5. Broadway Danny Rose
6. Love and Death
7. Husbands and wives
8. Sweet and Lowdown
9. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
10. The Purple Rose of Cairo

[baby doll]

Apparently he's not retiring, he's just not going to make movies anymore (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/19/woody-allen-denies-reports-of-retirement-as-he-shoots-his-50th-film).

I'd say Match Point is probably his most fully realized film, followed by Hannah and Her Sisters and Broadway Danny Rose. Annie Hall, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... But Were Afraid to Ask, and "Oedipus Wrecks" from New York Stories are his funniest, and Manhattan is something of a personal favourite although the story and Allen's direction aren't even on speaking terms for much of the film. His most underrated films are probably Manhattan Murder Mystery, Whatever Works, and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, while Crimes and Misdemeanors is his most over-rated, followed by Husbands and Wives and Midnight in Paris.

[Skitch]

Match Point is my favorite from him, but admitting I have seen a lot of his work.

[Peng]

Haven't seen a whole lot, but at the moment:

1. Manhattan
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo
3. Radio Days
4. Love and Death
5. Annie Hall
6. Match Point
7. "Oedipus Wrecks" (New York Stories)
8. Crimes and Misdemeanors
9. Manhattan Murder Mystery
10. Take the Money and Run

[Philip J. Fry]

1574696372548296707

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/hBnKtHx/EB19990711-REVIEWS08907110301-AR.jpg (https://ibb.co/McjR3py)

We'll meet again, don't know where, don't

know when...

In the immortal words of Michael Stipe, while the "end of the world as we know it" may be the last thing you'd expect to make for good fodder for comedy, in the case of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, the unlikely combination of the subject matter and genre ends up being the perfect vehicle for satirizing the inherently absurdly nature of the Cold War, resulting in one of the legendary director's greatest efforts, and my current favorite Comedy movie of all time, in a movie that somehow feels just as fresh and timely today as it did upon its release over half a century ago.


Its plot kicks off with American Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (yes, that's the character's actual name) suddenly ordering his planes to begin bombing the Soviet Union, in retaliation to a supposed attack by the enemy. However, after it's discovered that no such Soviet aggression has taken place, it's clear that the insane, "bodily fluids"-obsessed General actually ordered a pre-emptive strike in a bout of Commie-induced paranoia, as part of a ploy to force Washington's hand in completely wiping out the bad ol' USSR, lest the same fate befall the States when the Ruskies have to counter-attack in response to Ripper's act. And thus, a mad, international dash commences across military and government bureaucracies, in order to abort this act of worldwide suicide, and that's before even factoring in the existence of a secretive "Doomsday Machine" to complicate matters, and make this incredibly dire situation somehow even worse than it already was.


And I know that all sounds like super-heavy stuff, and to a certain extent it is, with the film partially serving as a time capsule of genuine, prodding insight into the policies and mindset of such a tense era, but Kub and company were still able to find joy in the destruction of the world, or at least recognized the insanity present within the Cold War and brought it to the surface, exchanging the serious tone of the source novel Red Alert for that of a satire, starting with little touches like a bomber pilot absent-mindedly reading a Playboy magazine in mid flight, and steadily escalating things from there, until the film climaxes with the now-iconic image of a man "riding" an atomic bomb all the way to its target like it's a bucking bronco, hooting, hollering, and waving his ten gallon cowboy hat all the while.


However, Strangelove not only has the nerve to mock the Cold War around a time when tensions between the two superpowers were at their highest, but also takes its razor-sharp aim at the leaders behind such "MAD" ideas, with the sight of a feckless American President fumbling his way through a one-sided phonecall with a drunk Soviet premier serving to pierce the veil of respectability that often shrouds such officials in real life, and revealing them to be silly, petty men obsessed with the size of their arsenals and the potential prospect of a "mindshaft gap", non-chalantly dismissing the prospect of casualty figures in the millions, in-between stopping to take personal calls from their secretary/lovers waiting for them at home.


Of course, the cast does a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard as well, with George C. Scott's manic General Turgidson, Slim Pickens being, well, Slim Pickens, or Peter Seller's brilliant trifecta of performances, including the titular character's demented grin, wacky "German" accent, and struggles with his seemingly possessed right hand serving to bring every character to vivid life here, and heighten the absurdity, while still somehow keeping things grounded enough to have some sort of relation to the grim reality it's satirizing. Add on top of all of that Gilbert Taylor's cinematography, which balances striking, in your face compositions (which are often in the characters' faces as well) with jarring zoom-ins and ahead-of-its-time handheld camerawork, which gives the film an immediacy that was often lacking in Hollywood at the time, and you get a Comedy of (world-ending) errors, ensuring that if you have to watch the end of human civilization, at least you'll be laughing your head off as you do so.

Favorite Moment:


https://youtu.be/snTaSJk0n_Y

Final Score: 10
.

[StanleyK]

Luis Buñuel:



L'Age d'Or - 4
Gran Casino - 7
The Great Madcap - 5.5
Los Olvidados - 7
Susana - 5.5
Daughter of Deceit - 5.5
Mexican Bus Ride - 5.5
A Woman without Love - 7
El Bruto - 7
El - 5.5
Illusion Travels by Streetcar - 4
Robinson Crusoe - 5.5
Wuthering Heights - 2.5
The River and Death - 5.5
The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz - 7
That Is the Dawn - 5.5
Death in the Garden - 5.5
Nazarin - 7
Fever Mounts at El Pao - 5.5
The Young One - 8.5
Viridiana - 8.5
The Exterminating Angel - 8.5
Diary of a Chambermaid - 7
Belle de Jour - 8.5
The Milky Way - 5.5
Tristana - 7
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie - 8.5
The Phantom of Liberty - 5.5
That Obscure Object of Desire - 5.5

Un Chien Andalou - 5.5
Land Without Bread - 5.5
Simon of the Desert - 7



Took a while to really get going, but once he did, he made a few classics.

[Yxklyx]

Did Todd Solondz ghost-write The Pit (1981)?

Watched this movie the other day on Shudder and it reminded me a bit of Solondz' movies so I did a little digging around. Ian A Stuart is the credited writer and he's written nothing else other than a documentary a few years earlier and a recent interview related to the 1981 movie. It's a B movie but the script is solid. The dialogue is very realistic and characters are fleshed out even with little screen time. So why would a good writer like this never write again? Now to the story. Apart from the horror aspect, there's a 26 year-old woman babysitting an unrelated 13 year old troubled/sensitive boy (ages approximate). She actually lives alone with him for what looks like an entire week. She gives him a bath, while he's naked of course. He's constantly trying to peak at her nude. The boy is infatuated with the babysitter. He cuts out the photo of a nude woman from a magazine and attaches it to the photo of another woman's head. He makes a prank phone call to make said woman undress. This boy would fit right in any of Solondz' movies. Looking at Solondz' IMDB page he would have been 22 at this time. His first writing/directing credits are from 1984. The kicker is - look at his first two films:

Feelings - A sensitive youth despairs, as he cannot endure life without his beloved.

Babysitter - Follows a young male as he recalls the various babysitters of his youth.

[StuSmallz]

Why No Country For Old Men is still the gold standard for page-to-screen adaptations: Fifteen years ago, the Coen Brothers’ Oscar winner redefined "by the book" in Hollywood (https://www.avclub.com/no-country-for-old-men-15-year-anniversary-coen-brother-1849737238)

[Skitch]

Why No Country For Old Men is still the gold standard for page-to-screen adaptations: Fifteen years ago, the Coen Brothers’ Oscar winner redefined "by the book" in Hollywood (https://www.avclub.com/no-country-for-old-men-15-year-anniversary-coen-brother-1849737238)

I haven't read NCFOM, but I always think of Fight Club when this topic comes up. That was a reaaaaaally close adaptation. The book just had more in between scenes, but I chalk it up to a difference in the mediums. The core was spot on.

[Grouchy]

The Maltese Falcon is pretty faithful, down to the exact dialogue.

[Yxklyx]

In Jaws, I love that first meteor streak shown when they're on the boat. It puts the struggle of the three men in perspective, their plight is so insignificant in the context of the universe but at the same time it elevates the events to something legendary. The second meteor streak is mildly gratuitous. :)

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9giAZlEVqzQ/W5iVfdX2wtI/AAAAAAAASRo/BlfG58L8LtMa8Yu8AQ2qsCHHMuUVr5 0JgCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-09-11%2Bat%2B9.26.18%2BPM.png

[baby doll]

The universe is gratuitous.

[DFA1979]

Thoughts baby doll on the Sight and Sound Polls? They're a reminder I should probably watch Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels at some point, which I assume is what your avatar is from. Also it made me actually create a Top 10 of my own which although probably lacking is arguably still better than the one I created over a decade ago or so on this site.

[baby doll]

Thoughts baby doll on the Sight and Sound Polls? They're a reminder I should probably watch Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels at some point, which I assume is what your avatar is from. Also it made me actually create a Top 10 of my own which although probably lacking is arguably still better than the one I created over a decade ago or so on this site.I've seen all of the films on both lists with the sole exception of Come and See and the long version of Fanny and Alexander (I saw the short version years ago, on VHS), and while there are individual choices I'd quibble with (A Matter of Life and Death, for instance, seems to me a far lesser film than The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; I'd also rate Sweetie higher than The Piano, Taipei Story and The Terrorizers higher than Yi Yi, and To Sleep with Anger and Nightjohn higher than Killer of Sheep), overall it seems to me an eminently sane list. If I have anything to complain about, it's that there still aren't enough women, or at least not the right women: does anyone really consider Portrait d'une jeune fille en feu a more interesting film than The Apple, Fuses, India Song, Mikey and Nicky, or Wayne's World? The other big story, as far as I'm concerned, is La Règle du jeu dropping out of the top ten in both lists, which I take to be an indication that people are becoming, at least in some respects, increasingly less civilized and sophisticated about art and life (even if Akerman's film topping the critics' list and placing fourth in the directors' suggests they're becoming more civilized and sophisticated in others).

[DFA1979]

Hmm see I slightly prefer A Matter of Life and Death over Colonel Blimp, but I own and love both. See I love Portrait but it wouldn't make my list either. I think my local library has Come and See so I don't have any excuse unless their copy is all beat up. Thanks for the response.

[StuSmallz]

I've seen all of the films on both lists with the sole exception of Come and SeeWhoa, really?

[baby doll]

Whoa, really?Nobody can see everything.

[Idioteque Stalker]

lol

[DFA1979]

Come and See isn't even on a streaming service right now and local libraries vary in what they have on site. I mean I haven't seen it either lol.

[DFA1979]

I have seen 48/100 from the current list btw.

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/JyG1pd3/image-w1280.jpg (https://ibb.co/dLVTpcm)


Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown...


In the 1970's, in the midst of the New Hollywood movement that redefined American film as we knew it, something interesting began happening; Noir, which had mostly seemed like a relic of the Classical era beforehand, suddenly began being revitalized with fresh updates of the then-dusty genre, whether it be the cynical sexuality of Alan J. Pakula's Klute, or the satire of genre conventions in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. However, while it had plenty of competion at the time, for me, there's one clear-cut winner among all the Neo-Noirs that Hollywood produced that decade, one that wasn't content to just be Noir-ISH, or to parody the genre, but instead, both unbashedly engaged in the familiar old tropes of the genre, while also deconstructing them at the same time, resulting in one of the greatest Noirs of all time, of any period in the genre's history. That movie? The one, the only... Chinatown.


It tells the story of Jakes Gittes, a small-time private eye, one who's content to crack petty adultery cases for a living in 1930's LA, until what seems to be just another case of a cheating spouse unravels into a tangled web of conspiracy, deceit, and murder, and will lead him into the darkest corners of both the city of angels, and the human soul as well. And, while its multi-layered central mystery (courtesy of Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning, clockwork-precise screenplay) is a clear call-back to the often-Byzantine plots of classical Noir, instead of just being surface-level busywork, Chinatown’s intricate, conspiratorial plot is just as compelling and well-written as the best of the genre, never becoming overly convoluted just for the sake of it, but slowly, steadily unravelling its mystery step by tantalizing step, maintaining a very well-justified confidence in its storytelling all the way until the (very) bitter end.


But, the film not only serves as a genuinely affectionate love letter to Noir this way, but also subverts the elements that defined the genre at the same time with its characterizations, as it takes the two most iconic archetypes of Noir, and seems to establish textbook examples of both with its male & female leads, before turning both of them completely and utterly around on their heads by the end. With Faye Dunaway's Evelyn Mulwray, the combo of her initially cold demeanor and genre conventions cleverly manipulate us into thinking that’s just another spin on the treacherous, homocidal femme fatale at first, but a number of shocking story turns reveal that she's completely innocent of the crimes she’s suspected of, rendering her a highly sympathetic figure, and taking an extremely familiar stock character and breathing all-new life into her in the process.


And with Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes, we get a protagonist who first appears to be just another vintage, hard-boiled private eye, the wisecracking type who never truly loses his cool no matter how much hot water he’s in, only for him to be put through a complete emotional wringer, both falling in love, and losing that love in the span of just a few days, as he forms a romance that's unusually genuine by typical Noir standards, even though it ultimately proves to be a doomed one in the end. Through it all, Nicholson puts in an excellent performance in the kind of role he was born to play, as the world's biggest smartass, a man who can both insult people just as casually as he breathes air (even through his sliced-up snhnoz), while also showcasing an underlying emotional vunerablility throughout, one that surfaces more and more as his character unravels right along with the central mystery.


Finally, Chinatown excels through its overall sense of fatalism, as the spectors of dark pasts and the foreshadowing of even darker futures constantly loom over its characters, as Towne uses the titular location as a sort of metaphorical, unescapable purgatory, one that dooms Jake to relive a cycle of tragedy he's experienced before, even though he does eventually unravel that central conspiracy that drives Chinatown’s story. However, it’s ultimately all for naught, as he's completely powerless to either put a stop to the resource-hoarding conspiracy, or even just to save the life of the woman he loves, as his seemingly hard-boiled exterior finally cracks for good at the end, and all an emotionally-devastated Jake can do at the end is walk away as the bad guy actually "gets away with it", to the haunting, trumpet-laden score, and the credits begin to roll for one of film Noir’s greatest works. "Forget it Jake", indeed...


Final Score: 10

[DFA1979]

Love Chinatown, it's one of those movies that I always watch when it's on TCM.

[StuSmallz]

Heh, I didn't even know if it played regularly on TCM these days; I thought it might be too recent for them, or something.

[DFA1979]

It's a 1970s movie so no, it's not too recent.

[DFA1979]

My goal for next year is to watch more movies from POC and women directors, since my top 10 of all time was mostly just old white guys. I started with Desperately Seeking Susan, which I enjoyed a lot even though the story and plot are really basic and not terribly important. What matters is the movie's characters, who I liked a lot, and it was fun to see cameos from actors who became established later on. It seems to me that 1980s NYC is either portrayed as a violent nightmare or a wonderful melting pot, not much in-between, ha ha. Seen thanks to Tubi.

[Skitch]

My goal is to watch more movies. 2022 may have been my lowest count since I was a teenager.

[DFA1979]

Heh 2022 was the most I've ever seen in a year. 278 first time watches, probably at least 40 rewatches.

[Skitch]

Six months living with the retired in-laws was a big part of it.

[DFA1979]

I should honestly touch grass more often.

[Mysterious Dude]

Touch grass? Like in a Terrence Malick movie?

[DFA1979]

Touch grass? Like in a Terrence Malick movie?

Well that would be touching wheat fields, actually..

[MadMan]

Back on the old account cause I tried using the new one, it just keeps refusing to load the site lol. Oh well. Anyways I finally saw Quick Change, can't recall who was a huge fan of that movie here but someone was. I loved it, what a wonderfully funny and entertaining movie. There is a bus scene that is oddly more suspenseful and anxiety inducing than a lot of thrillers I've seen over the past couple of years. The cast is great too, with of course Bill Murray front and center.

A lot of the movie works as both a love letter to NYC and as a satire of it's more outrageous qualities. Viewed thanks to Tubi, which rocks.

[StuSmallz]

https://i.ibb.co/whK7Bn3/crying-game-bfi-00m-vm3.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)


Play at your own risk.


It's a sad fact of life that people will look for any excuse to dehumanize one another; they always have, and sadly, they probably always will, whether it be due to someone's race, politics, gender, or whatever other petty reason we come up with to view another person as less than, well... a person. However, as the late, great Roger Ebert once said, "cinema is a machine that generates empathy", and if that's the case, then Neil Jordan's The Crying Game is a machine that's working overtime and then some, as a film that boldly crosses so many of the lines that we draw to divide ourselves each other, and ends up crafting a daring, compelling, and ultimately unforgettable Drama in the process.


It tells the story of Fergus, a member of the IRA who, in the midst of The Troubles in the UK, participates in the kidnapping of a British soldier named Jody, and holds him hostage in an attempt to free one of the senior members of his "army", under the threat of execution should their demands not be met. However, as the three day deadline draws ever closer with no sign of progress towards their goal, Fergus finds himself unexpectedly bonding with his captive, despite all the historical and situational animosities that should render that impossible, and, following a few shocking turns of events, Fergus finds himself embarking on a sort of personal journey to make amends for his sins, one that will put him through as much emotional turmoil as anyone watching this twisted, but emotionally affecting tale will be in by its end.


Jordan achieves this by meticulously placing a number of unexpected story twists in our path here, but not at all for just the sake of senseless shocks, as the personal and emotional effects of these turns are fully followed up with his detailed, in-depth writing here, helping the most notorious aspect of the movie to avoid ending up as just fodder for an outdated, spoiler-ific punchline on The Simpsons (HUGE SPOILER HERE, OKAY??: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-zzbkT712k&t=294s ), as it become an essential component to the film's most prominent theme, that of dehumanization.


The film explores this theme through a sort of "sliding scale", starting easy, and then getting progressively more difficult as it goes, first having us empathize with Jody and the literal dehumanization he faces as a Black man in Northern Ireland, as he's called a "monkey" by the racist locals there (among other slurs), before it asks us to also empathize with an IRA terrorist (a aspect that Jordan attributed the film's failure in the UK to), before finally doing the same for a transgender person, a highly misunderstood group that movies had almost always portrayed as either psycho killers, or the butt of extremely mean-spirited "jokes" in the past, which is something that Game subverts by daring to treat its transperson with the actual sensitivity and care she deserves, a lesson that many movies unfortunately failed to learn in the movie's wake (looking at you, Ace Ventura...).


Finally, The Crying Game excels through just the sheer level of craft and care that Jordan puts into it, whether it be the multiple parallels that he places throughout (such as the mirrors of its bookending songs "When A Man Loves A Woman" and "Stand By Your Man", the former of which takes on much greater dimension by film's end), the patient, gradual pacing and building of its story, or its characters' complex, ever-evolving relationships with each other, with can be best described as "up-and-down", in the most cinematically compelling sense of the term. It's an uncomfortably intimate experience, but in the best of ways (if that makes any sense), and while the Game might make you cry, the movie is more likely to leave you speechless, not out of frusturation, but out of having a cinematic experience so bold, and utterly challenging such as it.


Final Score: 8.75

[Skitch]

I appreciated Jordan's direction (as I usually do), but the reveal was wild to me. Not in the reveal of the you know what, but in Rea's character reaction to it. I thought that was more crazy. But maybe its an "of that era" situation. I was late to this movie.

[StuSmallz]

I appreciated Jordan's direction (as I usually do), but the reveal was wild to me. Not in the reveal of the you know what, but in Rea's character reaction to it. I thought that was more crazy. But maybe its an "of that era" situation. I was late to this movie.Well, I think someone reacting that way today is plausible if they had no idea, let alone over thirty years ago, when awareness/acceptance of that group was so much lower than it is today (and any kind of transphobia isn't okay to me, but it's not like the movie was trying to endorse his reaction in its portrayal of it, since it focuses just as much on Dil's reaction to his, if not even more). Plus, they show him being sorry for reacting that way later, so it's not much of an issue, if you ask me.

[Skitch]

Well, I think someone reacting that way today is plausible if they had no idea, let alone over thirty years ago, when awareness/acceptance of that group was so much lower than it is today (and any kind of transphobia isn't okay to me, but it's not like the movie was trying to endorse his reaction in its portrayal of it, since it focuses just as much on Dil's reaction to his, if not even more). Plus, they show him being sorry for reacting that way later, so it's not much of an issue, if you ask me.

I don't disagree. It was just odd coming to the film late as I did.

[StuSmallz]

Just wrote a review of Pan's Labyrinth, ya'll: https://letterboxd.com/stusmallz/film/pans-labyrinth/

[MadMan]

Huh, I absolutely loved The Crying Game. I mean everyone on the Internet gave away the twist ages ago. I haven't seen it in years so I wouldn't be able to properly review that one unless I fully refreshed my memory. Rea was great in that flick.

[StuSmallz]

Huh, I absolutely loved The Crying Game. I mean everyone on the Internet gave away the twist ages ago.Not just on the Net, heh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-zzbkT712k&t=294s

[StuSmallz]

Also, I just wrote a free essay on my Patreon comparing/contrasting Shutter Island with Inception, in case anyone's interested: https://www.patreon.com/posts/shutter-island-56789555

[Skitch]

Also, I just wrote a free essay on my Patreon comparing/contrasting Shutter Island with Inception, in case anyone's interested: https://www.patreon.com/posts/shutter-island-56789555

Excellent write up. My problem with Shutter Island (which I like and own on blu-ray), is that I called it in the first five minutes in the theater. This is not a brag, but it pulled me out of the movie. Whereas Inception didn't fuck me until the last five seconds.

[StuSmallz]

Thanks Skitch! And yeah, I can agree with that; I mean, even though I liked Island ​on the whole, it still definitely could've telegraphed its twist a lot less than it did, like how, instead of showing Teddy's nightmares/hallucinations throughout (which was a big tipoff that something was wrong with him in the head very early on), just save that for later in the film, after he suspects he's been secretly drugged, when in reality, it's just him suffering from the effects of withdrawal from not being drugged during this elaborate LARP adventure. That would work MUCH better, I think.

[StanleyK]

Spike Lee:



She’s Gotta Have It - 7
School Daze - 5.5
Do the Right Thing - 10
Mo’ Better Blues - 7
Jungle Fever - 8.5
Malcolm X - 8.5
Crooklyn - 5.5
Clockers - 7
Girl 6 - 2.5
Get on the Bus - 7
He Got Game - 7
Summer of Sam - 4
Bamboozled - 5.5
25th Hour - 10
She Hate Me - 4
Inside Man - 7
Miracle at St. Anna - 7
Red Hook Summer - 5.5
Oldboy - 5.5
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus - 4
Chi-Raq - 2.5
BlacKkKlansman - 8.5
Da 5 Bloods - 5.5



4 Little Girls - 7
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts - 7



Very uneven, but when he's on, there's nothing quite like a good Spike Lee joint. Don't understand the good reviews for Chi-raq though, that has to be one of the most annoying movies I've ever seen.

[Skitch]

clockers i have a weird reaction to. its not good, yet i want a sequel! imagine that

summer of sam deserves a higher score. its intentionally...grating...to mirror that summer.

25th hour is amazing.

she hate me is underrated.

inside man deserves a smidge more respect.

oldboy deserves more disrespect.

da 5 bloods deserves more love. should've been oscar noms all over that thing

[StanleyK]

Yasujiro Ozu:

Tokyo Chorus - 5.5
I Was Born, But? - 5.5
Passing Fancy - 5.5
A Story of Floating Weeds - 7
An Inn in Tokyo - 5.5
The Only Son - 5.5
What Did the Lady Forget? - 5.5
The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family - 5.5
There Was a Father - 7
Record of a Tenement Gentleman - 5.5
A Hen in the Wind - 5.5
Late Spring - 7
The Munekata Sisters - 5.5
Early Summer - 7
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice - 5.5
Tokyo Story - 8.5
Early Spring - 5.5
Tokyo Twilight - 7
Equinox Flower - 5.5
Floating Weeds - 5.5
Good Morning - 5.5
Late Autumn - 7
The End of Summer - 5.5
An Autumn Afternoon - 5.5


Pretty disappointing for someone who's supposed to be one of the greatest ever. It's one thing to have a preferred style and themes, but this guy basically made the same movie over and over again. They all sort of blend together, apart maybe from the ones with Setsuko Hara that stand out a bit more. This meme sums my feelings up:

https://i.imgur.com/J8GqhCD.png

[StanleyK]

Buster Keaton:

One Week - 8.5
Convict 13 - 7
The Scarecrow - 8.5
Neighbors - 7
The Haunted House - 5.5
Hard Luck - 7
The 'High Sign' - 7
The Goat - 8.5
The Playhouse - 7
The Boat - 5.5
The Paleface - 5.5
Cops - 8.5
My Wife's Relations - 7
The Blacksmith - 5.5
The Frozen North - 7
The Electric House - 5.5
Day Dreams - 8.5
The Balloonatic - 5.5
The Love Nest - 7

Three Ages - 8.5
Our Hospitality - 7
Sherlock Jr. - 10
The Navigator - 5.5
Seven Chances - 8.5
Go West - 5.5
Battling Butler - 7
The General - 7
College - 5.5
Steamboat Bill, Jr. - 8.5
The Cameraman - 5.5
Spite Marriage - 5.5



A great filmmaker with the ability to combine physical comedy with amazing camera and stunt work. I just wish I liked The General more than I did, for as impressive as the stunts were, I didn't think it was that funny.

[MadMan]

I'm still behind on Lee but I've seen 8 of his movies. I'm ashamed that I've never seen any Ozu. Keaton I've viewed 7 of his movies.

[Peng]

Howard Hawks:

20s
Fig Leaves - 5.5
Paid to Love - 6
A Girl in Every Port - 6.5
Fazil - 5.5

30s
The Dawn Patrol - 7.5
The Criminal Code - 7.5
Scarface - 7
The Crowd Roars - 6.5
Tiger Shark - 6
Today We Live - 6
Twentieth Century - 8
Barbary Coast - 7.5
Ceiling Zero - 7.5
The Road to Glory - 7.5
Come and Get It - 7
Bringing Up Baby - 9
Only Angels Have Wings - 9.5

40s
His Girl Friday - 10
Sergeant York - 7
Ball of Fire - 7.5
Air Force - 7
To Have and Have Not - 7.5
The Big Sleep - 8
Red River - 8.5
A Song Is Born - 6
I Was a Male War Bride - 7.5

50s
The Big Sky - 8
Monkey Business - 7
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - 8
Land of the Pharaohs - 6.5
Rio Bravo - 9

60s
Hatari! - 8
Man's Favorite Sport? - 6
Red Line 7000 - 7
El Dorado - 8

70s
Rio Lobo - 7

[StanleyK]

Hawks is one of the big gaps in my viewing history that I'm a bit reticent to rectify just because there's so many movies in his filmography. I believe that I'd skip his silent films, which by the looks of it I'm not missing much out on.

[Peng]

I believe that I'd skip his silent films, which by the looks of it I'm not missing much out on.

Yeah Hawks' ethos works best with talkies, although A Girl in Every Port is worth watching because apart from being his best silent, the story/theme/emerging style feel very apiece of his most well-known works.

[MadMan]

I think I've seen 5 movies from Hawks. I forgot he had a lengthy career.

[StanleyK]

It's taken me some time, but I've watched all of the surviving films by Georges Melies, totaling 197 (not counting those that only exist in flipbook form and considering The Dreyfus Affair as a single entry):


1896:
Playing Cards
Post No Bills
A Terrible Night
The Vanishing Lady
The Haunted Castle
A Nightmare

1897:
The Devil's Castle
On the Roofs
The Last Cartridges
The Surrender of Tournavos
Naval Combat in Greece
Between Calais and Dover
The Bewitched Inn
After the Ball, the Bath

1898:
Divers at Work on the Wreck of the Maine
Panorama from Top of Moving Train
The Magician
The Famous Box Trick
Pygmalion and Galatea
Adventures of William Tell
The Astronomer's Dream
The Four Troublesome Heads
The Temptation of St. Anthony

1899:
An Up-to-Date Conjuror
The Sign of the Cross
Haggard's She: The Pillar of Fire
A Mysterious Portrait
Summoning the Spirits
The Dreyfus Affair
The Human Pyramid
Cinderella
The Mysterious Knight

1900:
Addition and Subtraction
The Cook's Revenge
The Misfortunes of an Explorer
The One Man Band
Joan of Arc
The Rajah's Dream, or the Bewitched Wood
The Artist and the Mannikin
The Wizard, the Prince and the Good Fairy
The Magic Book
The Up-to-Date Spiritualism
The Triple Conjuror and the Living Head
The Christmas Dream
The Fat and the Lean Wrestling Match
A Fantastical Meal
Going to Bed Under Difficulties
Eight Girls in a Barrel
The Doctor and the Monkey
How He Missed His Train

1901:
What Is Home Without the Boarder
The Brahmin and the Butterfly
The Clown with the Portable Body
The Magician's Cavern
The Bachelor's Paradise
The Prince of Magicians
Off to Bloomingdale Asylum
Bluebeard
A Hat with Many Surprises
The Man with the Rubber Head
The Devil and the Statue
The Dwarf and the Giant

1902:
The Triple-Headed Lady
The Colonel's Shower Bath
The Dancing Midget
The Eruption of Mount Pelee
A Trip to the Moon
The Shadow-Girl
The Coronation of Edward VII
The Treasures of Satan
The Human Fly
An Impossible Balancing Feat
Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants
Robinson Crusoe

1903:
Prolific Magical Egg
The Marvellous Wreath
Misfortune Never Comes Alone
The Infernal Cake Walk
The Enchanted Box
The Enchanted Well
The Inn Where No Man Rests
The Drawing Lesson, or the Living Statue
The Mystical Flame
The Witch's Revenge
The Oracle of Delphi
A Spiritualistic Photographer
The Music Lover
The Monster
Fairyland, or the Kingdom of the Fairies
The Infernal Cauldron
The Apparition
Jupiter's Thunderballs
Ten Ladies in One Umbrella
Jack Jaggs and Dum Dum
Bob Kick, the Mischievous Kid
Extraordinary Illusions
Alcofrisbas, the Master Magician
Jack and Jim
The Magic Lantern
The Ballet-Master's Dream
The Damnation of Faust

1904:
The Terrible Turkish Executioner
A Moonlight Serenade, or the Miser Punished
Tit for Tat
Every Man His Own Cigar Lighter
The Enchanted Trunk
The Fugitive Apparitions
The Untamable Whiskers
The Clock Maker's Dream
The Imperceptible Transmutations
A Miracle Under the Inquisition
Faust and Marguerite
Tchin-Chao, the Chinese Conjuror
The Wonderful Living Fan
The Cook in Trouble
The Devilish Plank
The Mermaid
The Wonderful Rose Tree
The Impossible Voyage
The Wandering Jew
The Firefall
The Christmas Angel

1905:
The Living Playing Cards
The Black Imp
The Crystal Casket
The Lilliputian Minuet
A Mesmerian Experiment
The Palace of the Arabian Nights
The Enchanted Sedan Chair
An Adventurous Automobile Trip
The Mysterious Island
Unexpected Fireworks
Rip's Dream
The Scheming Gambler's Paradise

1906:
A Crazy Composer
The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship
A Fall from Five Floors
The Chimney Sweep
Professor Do-mi-sol-do, the Luny Musician
The Tramp and the Mattress Makers
The Hilarious Posters
A Desperate Crime
Punch and Judy
A Roadside Inn
Soap Bubbles
The Merry Frolics of Satan
The Mysterious Retort
The Witch

1907:
Robert Macaire and Bertrand
Rogues' Tricks
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Skipping Cheeses
How Bridget's Lover Escaped
Tunneling the English Channel
The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and the Moon
Sightseeing Through Whisky
Good Glue Sticks
Satan in Prison
Delirium in a Studio
In the Bogie Man's Cave
The King and the Jester
Justinian's Human Torches
The Prophetess of Thebes

1908:
The Knight of Black Art
The Good Luck of a 'Souse'
The Genii of Fire
Why That Actor Was Late
The Dream of an Opium Fiend
Long Distance Wireless Photography
In the Barber Shop
The New Lord of the Village
The Miser
Sideshow Wrestlers
The Broken Violin
The Woes of Roller Skaters
His First Job
The Mischances of a Photographer
The Indian Sorcerer
A Tricky Painter's Fate
French Interpreter Policeman
Not Guilty
Buncoed Stage Johnnie
A Grandmother's Story
Pharmaceutical Hallucinations
The Good Sheperdess and the Evil Princess
The Frozen Policeman
Tribulations or The Misfortunes of a Cobbler

1909:
The Devilish Tenant
The Spider and the Butterfly
Whimsical Illusions

1910:
The Doctor's Secret
The Devilish Church Window

1911:
The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen

1912:
The Conquest of the Pole
Cinderella or The Glass Slipper
The Knight of the Snow

1913:
The Voyage of the Bourrichon Family


Many of these only survive as fragments, some just a few seconds long. I assigned a rating to those that consisted of more than one tableau, with a few exceptions:


1. The Dreyfus Affair - 4
2. Cinderella - 7
3. Joan of Arc - 5.5
4. The Christmas Dream - 5.5
5. Blue Beard - 8.5
6. A Trip to the Moon - 10
7. Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants - 5.5
8. Robinson Crusoe - 7
9. Fairyland, or the Kingdom of the Fairies - 8.5
10. The Damnation of Faust - 5.5
11. The Impossible Voyage - 7
12. The Christmas Angel - 5.5
13. The Palace of the Arabian Nights - 5.5
14. An Adventurous Automobile Trip - 7
15. Rip's Dream - 7
16. The Chimney Sweep - 5.5
17. A Desperate Crime - 5.5
18. The Merry Frolics of Satan - 7
19. The Witch - 5.5
20. Robert Macaire and Bertrand - 5.5
21. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - 5.5
22. How Bridget's Lover Escaped - 5.5
23. Tunneling the English Channel - 7
24. The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and the Moon - 8.5
25. The Dream of an Opium Fiend - 5.5
26. Why That Actor Was Late - 4
27. Sideshow Wrestlers - 4
28. The Woes of Roller Skaters - 5.5
29. Not Guilty - 5.5
30. Pharmaceutical Hallucinations - 5.5
31. The Good Sheperdess and the Evil Princess - 4
32. Tribulations or The Misfortunes of a Cobbler - 5.5
33. The Devilish Tenant - 7
34. The Doctor's Secret - 5.5
35. The Hallucinations of Baron Munchausen - 7
36. The Conquest of the Pole - 7
37. Cinderella or the Glass Slipper - 5.5
38. The Knight of the Snows - 5.5
39. The Voyage of the Bourrichon Family - 4


Honestly, it got very repetitive very quickly. There's only so many times you can watch the same match cut trick before getting sick of it. If you're interested in early cinema, I wouldn't recommend you do what I did; select a few of his more noteworthy films and you'll get the gist of it. Make sure, of course, that you watch A Trip to the Moon.

[MadMan]

Wow he made a lot of movies. I've only seen A Trip to the Moon.

[StanleyK]

Wow he made a lot of movies. I've only seen A Trip to the Moon.

And that's just the surviving ones. He has 250+ more that are lost.

[MadMan]

Hugo covered that pretty well, I'll always be haunted by that scene where he burns his sets. I'm not spoiling it, the movie came out in 2011 and no one posts here anymore anyways.

[MadMan]

The Bond series is gonna suck now, Amazon will run it into the ground. I should probably go get the whole series on Blu-ray before I can no longer obtain it on physical release.

[MadMan]

I wonder if anyone here knew back when the site started that slop blockbusters would end up on streaming instead of in theaters.

[StanleyK]

The last time I watched The Lord of the Rings, I didn't like the movies that much, then I read the books and liked them very much indeed. This time around, I read the books and didn't like them as much, then I watched the movies and liked them more, so it kinda evened out. Funny how that works.

[Peng]

Mike Nichols:

4/5
1. Who?s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
2. Biloxi Blues

3.5/5
3. The Birdcage
4. The Graduate
5. Postcards from the Edge
6. Wit
7. Silkwood
8. Carnal Knowledge
9. Primary Colors
10. Catch-22
11. Angels in America
12. Closer
13. Working Girl
14. Gilda Live

3/5
15. Wolf
16. Heartburn
17. The Fortune

2.5/5
18. Charlie Wilson's War
19. The Day of the Dolphin
20. What Planet Are You From?

2/5
21. Regarding Henry