28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[StanleyK]

Where the Wild Things Are - Good movie, but goddamn is the soundtrack insufferable. That and the overuse of shakycam are the main things that prevented me from finding it great.

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Also, I'm wondering if the kid learned anything at all in the end. The mom and sister don't even get a 'sorry' from him. Maybe I missed the point, but I thought Carol was a stand-in for him and the story was about him seeing what his behavior looked like from another perspective (i.e., thoughtless and hurtful).

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[Ezee E]

I really want to know the cost of the bill Conrad Van Orton has to pay at the end of The Game. This will forever be my greatest film mystery, aside from the three seashells thing.

Felt like there's some film essay that figured this out. Couldn't find it, so I must've made it up.

[Spinal]

I don't know how or why Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet exists, but it's such a grand and affecting adaptation of the Shakespeare classic from the lens of truly cinematic gonzo WTFery that I want to find the time capsule that it came from.

I would like to put it back in that time capsule and then hit that time capsule with a nuclear bomb. It pained me when this movie was used in my son's English class, as they were studying Romeo and Juliet. It's like the cinematic equivalent of white teachers using rap to teach kids about math or nutrition of whatever. Condescending and dopey.

[Irish]

It pained me when this movie was used in my son's English class, as they were studying Romeo and Juliet.

Whaaaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuuuck. I woulda stormed the next PTA and started throwing shit.

(My teacher used the Zeffirelli version.)

[Skitch]

I would like to put it back in that time capsule and then hit that time capsule with a nuclear bomb. It pained me when this movie was used in my son's English class, as they were studying Romeo and Juliet. It's like the cinematic equivalent of white teachers using rap to teach kids about math or nutrition of whatever. Condescending and dopey.

Thats how I feel about Baz movies in general.

Thats crazy about your son's class. Either that teacher is really struggling to reach kids or they've given up entirely. Either way, thats unacceptable.

[TGM]

They used that movie to teach my class as well when I was in high school. :P

Anyways, it has its issues, but I still really dig that particular movie all the same.

[Grouchy]

Doesn't seem all that bizarre to me. It retains the Shakespearean dialogue.

Anyway, it's a great film, from before Baz Luhrmann turned to shit.

[Dukefrukem]

We watched the one where the girl drops the sheets and you see boobage. I was shocked they allowed that to happen. I think it was 10th grade English?

[Mysterious Dude]

My class watched the Zeffirelli version and the Luhrmann version. Then we wrote essays about which one we liked better. Every single person in the class preferred the Luhrmann version (including me).

[Dead & Messed Up]

We watched the one where the girl drops the sheets and you see boobage. I was shocked they allowed that to happen. I think it was 10th grade English?

Same.

And it was Olivia Hussey.

We all learned something that day.

[amberlita]

The Baz version is an awful movie with a great soundtrack. They wrote “sword” on the side of guns, guys. ��

I can pretty much recite the Zeffirelli version by heart. Seen it a couple dozens times at least.

[Ivan Drago]

I was shown the Zefferelli version my freshman year of high school. It's been forever since I've seen it.

Anyway, it's been a couple days since I watched the late-90s one for the first time and I still have no idea if I liked it or not. It's something so obnoxious in style from its overuse of slow motion and speed ramps to over-the-top acting and rapid-fire editing that in theory I should hate it, but it's so absurd and surreal in its concept while retaining the grand spectacle and emotion of the classic play that I was able to get a LOT of enjoyment out of it, and even be affected by the tragic ending. It was certainly a unique theater experience.

[TGM]

They wrote “sword” on the side of guns, guys. ��.

That's precisely the sorta stuff I loved about that movie.

[Ezee E]

That's precisely the sorta stuff I loved about that movie.

Ditto.

[Peng]

We were shown the Baz version when we studied the play in school too (Thai international middle school, but still), I think it's because it contains no nudity, funny considering how more violent it is. I had already watched both versions before then; the Zefferelli is one of my favorites ever, but the Baz I still liked a whole lot (the chemistry can't obviously be up to the red-hot one of the older version, but it is still good, and Claire Danes is great in it). This may sound like sacrilege, and I don't know if the Baz is the first one to do that, but I really love the just-miss of the death scene, where Juliet wakes up as Romeo just finishes drinking the poison. The original scene works great in a play, but this adaptation choice really fits the cinematic version; and it's the one part where I prefer the Baz over the older one.

[Spinal]

It pains me... PAINS ME ... that Olivia Hussey's breasts are found to be more objectionable by teachers than Baz Luhrman running roughshod over the play itself.

[Grouchy]

I should see the entire Zefirelli one. It's one of those films that used to be all the time on TV so I watched bits and pieces of it and never got around to watching it from the start.

[Skitch]

I should see the entire Zefirelli one. It's one of those films that used to be all the time on TV so I watched bits and pieces of it and never got around to watching it from the start.

Its really wonderful.

[Winston*]

It's like the cinematic equivalent of white teachers using rap to teach kids about math or nutrition of whatever.

As someone who has spent a lot of time trawling youtube for good maths videos, there are so many of these kinds of videos and they are all the worst. If you record one of these, you should be banned from teaching for life.



Also, Romeo + Juliet sucks shit.

[Ivan Drago]

Ha, I know two people who have done motion graphics on higher budget videos like those. Both of them said it's absolutely soul crushing.

BTW, of all the movies coming near me on this list, I've seen Persona, The Seventh Seal, and Wild Strawberries. What should I prioritize?

[Spinal]

Ha, I know two people who have done motion graphics on higher budget videos like those. Both of them said it's absolutely soul crushing.

BTW, of all the movies coming near me on this list, I've seen Persona, The Seventh Seal, and Wild Strawberries. What should I prioritize?

Winter Light
The Virgin Spring
Scenes from a Marriage

If I only could pick three.

[Grouchy]

The Virgin Spring is one of the most disturbing dramas ever filmed. Summer with Monika is hot, so there's always that.

I told a Jewish friend of mine who is mixed on the Coens (loves some, hates some) to watch Hail, Caesar! He was mixed on it as well, but one thing he said that stayed with me was that the Coens are the only Jewish filmmakers who constantly make Christian-themed movies. I thought that was an interesting observation. There are certainly themes of redemption and even martyrdom in all of their work.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Clue - 1985 - B

Whenever the characters stand around and bicker with each other, the dialogue bounces along joyfully with double-entendre, puns, cynical asides, and a touch of the effervescence found in something like a Thin Man or Lady Vanishes. Whenever the film leans into its cartoon sensibilities, however - most often during pitched action accompanied by an overactive cartoon score - it feels like something critical has disappeared. This all comes to a head during a climax where Tim Curry runs a symposium on doing the exact wrong thing in the exact right way, racing around like a Looney Toon come to life (impressive) but to diminishing returns as you realize that's the sole joke, and it's still going.

That might seem like a condemnation, but the film mostly works, sliding carefully into its Old Dark House environment with some gravity and mystery before revealing itself as a pure comedy (even Whale's classic dipped into genuine thrills), which makes for a subversive and enjoyable middle act. Michael McKean, fresh out of Spinal Tap, gets in some of the best jokes. He pratfalls through a broken table with pitch-perfect nonchalance, and his theater-sized slap of Mrs. Peacock shocks him as much as everybody else. Martin Mull's Mustard and Lesley Ann Warren's Scarlet also find the film's ideal wavelength of deadpan absurdity, him the blustery idiot, her the annoyed seductress. Oddly, Christopher Lloyd and Madeline Kahn feel left behind - why hire Lili Von Shtupp and have her play demure?

[Dukefrukem]

Need to watch that now.

[transmogrifier]

Need to watch that now.

Counterpoint (I watched this recently as well):

35/100


An unfunny comedy is torture to sit through; an unfunny screwball comedy is that plus a migraine plus someone screaming in your face for two hours.