28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Irish]

The news would bother me less if RT

- was less ubiquitous (their ratings appear on a lotta commercial streaming services, giving them credibility)
- their methodology didn't suck (they don't weight the ratings)
- the diversity angle was more than a marketing gimmick (increasingly that's all it ever is)
- they actively culled their list of "approved" critics (since newspapers fired their staff writers, rankings are routinely decided desperate stringers and by bozos who had blogs in 1998 and signed up early)
- YouTubers didn't behave like YouTubers (ie, popular opinion wasn't decided by people willing to shill for a Funko bobblehead and a ticket to a red carpet premiere)

[baby doll]

As the kids these days say, I stan for that.

Are the kids actually saying this? What does that even mean?

[TGM]

I can attest that they do indeed say that. Just scroll through twitter for five minutes, you'll see it.

[baby doll]

I can attest that they do indeed say that. Just scroll through twitter for five minutes, you'll see it.

The only person I follow on Twitter is Alan Alda.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Are the kids actually saying this? What does that even mean?

It's a way of saying you're a fan of something. I think it might come from the song "Stan" by Eminem.


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[baby doll]

It's a way of saying you're a fan of something. I think it might come from the song "Stan" by Eminem.


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That's what I was thinking at first, but then I was like, "No, the kids today don't know that song. The kids today were infants when that album came out." Next you'll be telling me the kids today are also crazy about Tamagotchi and the dancing baby on Ally McBeal.

[TGM]

Decided to revisit my various Best of the Year lists from over the years, and take a look at how they might be revised if I were to redo those lists nowadays. Also felt it was a bit fitting, seeing all the various revisiting years back posts we've seen here lately. Check it out, for those interested, and share some of your own choices, as I ask at the end of the post. What were some of your favorites from years past that may have fallen off for you? Or vice versa, movies that you weren't quite so hot on at the time, but which have really grown on you? http://cwiddop.blogspot.com/2018/08/...revisited.html

[Dukefrukem]

I just recently did this from 2000-2017 and there were a lot of changes in my top 10.

Sucker Punch came out in 2011? Wow that feels like 20 years ago. That's one that's at the bottom of my 2011 list.

[Grouchy]

I'm not saying he's a hypocrite for acting in commercial movies, I'm just saying he draws an arbitrary line at superheroes as if those were the only silly FX extravaganza Hollywood flicks there are.

[TGM]

I just recently did this from 2000-2017 and there were a lot of changes in my top 10.

Did you post it anywhere?

[Dukefrukem]

Did you post it anywhere?

Kind of. I had mentioned it a few pages back, but didn't post it. I suppose those who use Letterboxd saw it.

And while re-doing some rankings I made some fun lists.

Edit: And apparently Leterboxd appears to be down at the moment. That's a first.

[TGM]

Watched Howl's Moving Castle for the first time last night. God damn what a hell of a movie. That was fucking awesome!

[MadMan]

Rotten Tomatoes apparently has decided to add like 200 new critics that can be included in the Tomatometer score, including podcasts and YouTube channels.

Might as well just use IMDB scores at this point.

And that matters...why?

[MadMan]

Unbreakable is great.

That it is. Valerian was more bland than white bread.

[transmogrifier]

And that matters...why?

I prefer critics to be actual critics rather than randos with a webcam. There are a million sites where you can get average ratings from audiences. We don’t need more dumbing down of cinema analysis.

[Skitch]

I prefer critics to be actual critics rather than randos with a webcam. There are a million sites where you can get average ratings from audiences. We don’t need more dumbing down of cinema analysis.

I agree, which is why I discounted RT's opinions in total when I found out how they aggregate about ten years ago.

[MadMan]

I prefer critics to be actual critics rather than randos with a webcam. There are a million sites where you can get average ratings from audiences. We don’t need more dumbing down of cinema analysis.

I agree, but I stopped taking RT seriously ages ago. I prefer to rely on sites like this one and my own opinion.

[Irish]

Every once and awhile I'm reminded that they actually released a freakin' "Assassin's Creed" movie ... into 3,000 theaters. WTF.

[baby doll]

On the Rotten Tomatoes thing, I actually don't read very many reviews these days, especially since Jonathan Rosenbaum retired from regular reviewing duties. I just choose what to watch based on the film's director and which festivals it played at. If it's a director I know and admire, I'll see it. If it's a director who's films I haven't liked in the past, I need to have some reason to believe it will be different from their other movies. If it's a director I'm unfamiliar with, I'll check it out if it played at a major festival (Cannes, Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno, NYFF). Clearly this is not a perfect system but on the whole it seems to work well enough.

[MadMan]

I had no idea Rosenbaum retired. I am really out of the loop.

[TGM]

Cross posting for anyone who might not visit the creative collective thread. But I just released a new short film, and would love it if you all would check it out, and maybe let me know what y'all think.

[Peng]

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) - Frequently mesmerizing, but only the last act is outright transporting for me. The slow nature beginning being invaded by the presence of men makes for a thrilling contrast, and nitty-gritty human routines in vast spaces are my personal slow cinema jam. Some of the transitions to footage that seems a bit like banal coverage do take me out though; at times the approach wabbles uneasily between the poetic and the mundane. Still, that third act. The Grid is as great a audio-visual experience as advertised, and ending on a reverse concept of 2001's bone-satellite/primitive-technology matchcut (breaking down instead of leveling up) is powerfully sublime. As one billboard here says, grand illusion indeed. Prefer Baraka by quite a bit though. 7.5/10

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) - More than 80 years later, the film's harsh depiction of system's injustice still leaves a mark, with the social commentary being second to its tough, unsentimental pre-code drama. This is largely thanks to Paul Muni's powerful performance, whose increasingly rough exterior never eclipse his vulnerability underneath; almost hard to believe that he is the same man who portrays Scarface's titular gangster in the same year. And of course, one of the great haunting last scenes ever in filmdom. 8/10

[Wryan]

As utterly ridiculous as the notion of "Jack Sparrow is Keith Richards so let's get Keith Richards" is, it's just flat disarming that the scene works as well as it does. Damn but it does have gravitas and a wonderfully subtle power. That's probably helped immensely by all the freakin texture and design work that goes into this scene. The set and costume design and lighting of it all is just wonderful and so inventive. At World's End is certainly the worst of the original three (Davy Jones and a leviathan and the roller-coaster silliness of the action scenes lift the second one just enough for me), but if more of the movie had this kind of commitment to its universe, I think it would have worked a lot better.



This moment earlier in the same scene also illustrates the point, I think:

[Dukefrukem]

The four sequels are so bland and left no impression on me that I dont recall a single scene except there was a giant squid at some point.
These two clips made me feel like I was watching it for the first time.

[MadMan]

I really liked the second flick. I quit the series after the third one.