28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[MadMan]

I have watched 120 some movies this year. Watching a movie every day seems like work. No thanks.

[Irish]

Help me out, MC.

I'm trying to remember a film that came out in the last half decade. Korean director, I think, with American-ish actors. Made in English. It was sorta a hyper-stylized, thin re-telling of Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." Tells the story of a teenage girl whose stepdad? mother's boyfriend? keeps making overtures to her. We're led to believe the man is dangerous and possibly murderous, but by the end of the film it's apparent the girl is more than a little off. Half plays as a coming-of-age movie. There's a charged scene of the girl putting away her saddle shoes and opening a box with stilletos in them, which the stepdad/boyfriend left on her bed.

I can picture the faces of the actors but I can't remember the name of the film! It had a one-word title. Something like "Sliver" or "Shocker" or the like.

[baby doll]

Help me out, MC.

I'm trying to remember a film that came out in the last half decade. Korean director, I think, with American-ish actors. Made in English. It was sorta a hyper-stylized, thin re-telling of Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." Tells the story of a teenage girl whose stepdad? mother's boyfriend? keeps making overtures to her. We're led to believe the man is dangerous and possibly murderous, but by the end of the film it's apparent the girl is more than a little off. Half plays as a coming-of-age movie. There's a charged scene of the girl putting away her saddle shoes and opening a box with stilletos in them, which the stepdad/boyfriend left on her bed.

I can picture the faces of the actors but I can't remember the name of the film! It had a one-word title. Something like "Sliver" or "Shocker" or the like.

Stoker?

[Grouchy]

Yeah, that's Stoker. Park Chan Wook of Oldboy fame directed.

By the way, his last The Handmaiden is excellent. Might be his best so far.

[Irish]

AHA! STOKER!

Thanks, gents!

[Lazlo]

2017 Stats:

357 viewings (352 individual movies with a few rewatches; the most ever in one year I believe)
29.8 per month
6.9 per week

Crossed over 3,000 movies seen in my lifetime.

First Film: Hook
Last Film: Sleeping Beauty

Actors (Slanted due to a Denzel Washington career run-through and a complete Star Wars series re-watch):
Denzel Washington - 14 films
Anthony Daniels - 10
Frank Oz - 9
Samuel L. Jackson - 9
John Goodman - 9
Warren Beatty - 8
Keanu Reeves - 7
Ewan McGregor - 7
Carrie Fisher - 7
Kenny Baker - 7
James Earl Jones - 7
Warwick Davis - 7
Laurence Fishburne - 6
Sigourney Weaver - 6
Harrison Ford - 6
Ian McDiarmid - 6
Alan Tudyk - 6
Peter Mayhew - 6
Adam Driver - 6
Terri Douglas - 6

Directors (Slanted due to a De Palma career run-through and a Disney Animated Canon re-watch):
Brian De Palma - 9
Clyde Geronimi - 7
Hamilton Luske - 5
Rian Johnson - 4
James Cameron - 4
Denis Villeneuve - 4
Edgar Wright - 4
Wilfred Jackson - 4
Ridley Scott - 4
George Lucas - 4
Pablo LarraÃ*n - 3
Chris Columbus - 3
Warren Beatty - 3
Lana Wachowski - 3
Lilly Wachowski - 3
Tony Scott - 3
Jack Kinney - 3
Shane Black - 3
Christopher Nolan - 3
Ben Wheatley - 3

[Russ]

While the following film review is over 10 years old, I've only just stumbled upon it, and I'm smitten with it.

Who can correctly identify the film that is being reviewed? (I have redacted the "dead giveaway" parts of this review).

Paris, 1973. Wakey Wakey (5, 5). Mantic / ludic. Frustration / Exhilaration. Self-referentialism / dark flippancy. "Naïve larks." Insignificance / tall stories. Wordplay / puns. Freewheeling originality. Doubles / doublings. Bagginess / convoluted. Hermetic / precious. Liberation / constriction. Watching > acting. Semiotics: signs, wonders and meanings. Surreal farce / self-indulgent artifice. "7bis, rue Nadir aux Pommes." M.Proust / H.James / L.Carroll (1, 7, 5, 3.) Joycean-playful, densely allusive text – yes, catnip for critics (9, 4). Hallucinations / nightmare. Circularity (of Circular Ruins.) On-the-hoof airiness / clodhopping-galumphing. Jeux sans frontieres. Dense webs of allusion (and illusion, elusion) in which we, they, and redacted become helplessly entangled. Familiars: cats (great, stupid last shot). Familiar: the solitary black fish, endlessly circling in a too-small bowl (Harold, like Madlyn, in constant peril… What's his perspective?). "Spectators" emerging groggy, shaken, from the "dark" (3, 5, 2, 6). Repetitiveness / poetic. "Cosmic twilight pimps." I C real drabness (anag., 6, 8.) Playful / daftness. Sinister / surreal. Childhood innocence / sinister Suspiria faux-childishness. Obfuscation / silliness. Galumphing, overextended improvisations. Anything-goes kaftan-wafty looseness inspires cult following (6, 5). Magic / performance. Hollywood, the Haunted House (Barbet Schroeder: Single White Female, Reversal of Fortune, Murder By Numbers). Hermetic / hermeneutic. Layers / obfuscations (6, 11). Theatricality / hallucinations. Oneiric / newly vague. The Naïve Lark ("ooh… nasty!"). Circularity / repetitions (5, 4, 6). Endlessness: A way a lone a last a loved a long the* * PARIS* * 1922-1939. Paris, 1973. [But, with Renault, it's already 1974.]

I know at least a couple of people here will pick up on the references. And please tell me, in 2018, why the HELL this film has yet to be released by Criterion.

Also, I love the phrase, "catnip for critics"

[baby doll]

While the following film review is over 10 years old, I've only just stumbled upon it, and I'm smitten with it.

Who can correctly identify the film that is being reviewed? (I have redacted the "dead giveaway" parts of this review).


I know at least a couple of people here will pick up on the references. And please tell me, in 2018, why the HELL this film has yet to be released by Criterion.

Also, I love the phrase, "catnip for critics"

Jacques Rivette's Céline et Julie vont en bateau.

[Russ]

Correct!

[TGM]

Watched Before I Wake last night on Netflix. And yeah, it's a rare misstep for Mike Flanagan. I've loved all the rest of his work that I've seen thus far. He's usually a pretty inventive director, and has seriously become one of my favorite horror directors, someone who I always highly anticipate a new project of his. And this is a movie that's been teased for release for years. I've gotten trailers for it so many times over the past several years before movies, and always thought it looked interesting, yet it never actually released in theaters. But finally this week Netflix released it. So needless to say, I had high hopes, yet this one really didn't deliver, and really wasn't worth the wait.

It's honestly really cheesy, and the main monster just looks goofy as hell and way too well lit whenever he appears, so it's never actually scary or even creepy. And Flanagan is usually great with the creep-factor in his films, so to see that aspect just seemingly disappear here is a bit of a head scratcher. It almost feels like his movie was taken away from him in post-production, and someone else went in and really poorly and cheaply inserted all of the CGI effects without him, never taking into account how those effects should actually look to be their most effective, only worrying that they were literally present. Now, I don't know if that's actually the case here, but taking the rest of his filmography into account, it certainly feels that way at least.

If looked at as more of a fantasy drama than a horror film, it starts to work a little better I suppose. Yet there's still elements that really don't sit well with me, particularly at the end of the film [

Show Spoiler

the mother apparently thinks very little about the sudden death/disappearance of her husband

]. So yeah, a bit disappointing.

[Morris Schæffer]

Paddington 2 is getting some crazy ass positive reviews.

140 / 0 on RT, 8.6 avg rating.

[Ezee E]

Paddington 2 is getting some crazy ass positive reviews.

140 / 0 on RT, 8.6 avg rating.

Hopefully that one guy that gave a negative review of Lady Bird comes through once again to ensure nothing's perfect.

[Morris Schæffer]

Hopefully that one guy that gave a negative review of Lady Bird comes through once again to ensure nothing's perfect.

Let's pray for One Guy's return!

[Spinal]

The first Paddington was awfully damn good.

[Morris Schæffer]

The first Paddington was awfully damn good.

Part 2 kinda flopped, 10 mill from 3700 venues. I'm not a major fan of the original, but I regret this since part 2 really seems to be the kind of movie that would, deservedly, go on to untold riches.

[D_Davis]

Streaming services are fucking with aspect ratios. Not sure if this has been posted here or not.

Can't believe this is still an issue.

[Skitch]

Who is that guy? Is he a poster here or something?

[Grouchy]

He's great. His videos where he recommends underrated movies to his parents while getting drunk are hilarious.

[D_Davis]

Who is that guy? Is he a poster here or something?

Don't know. Just thought the topic was interesting.

[Skitch]

Don't know. Just thought the topic was interesting.

The topic is interesting. I think he misunderstands one thing though...I bet money HBO and Starz do that because if they dont, they get complaints that it doesn't fill the screen. And I bet those complaints are 100 to 1 asking for the proper aspect ratio. I agree it shouldn't be that way (dur), but most people don't know or care.

Can we discuss this fella's piranha teeth? Whats going on there?

[Dukefrukem]

Can we discuss this fella's piranha teeth? Whats going on there?

Totally!

[Irish]

Duke! Cleanup on aisle 3! Calling Duke to aisle 3!

http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showth...l=1#post585398

Anyway---I've never quite understood the ratio fetishists. I grew up watching pan-and-scan VHS and saw hundreds of films that way. It doesn't bother me all that much. I'm not gonna throw a fit between about the difference between 1.66 and 1.85.

But streaming services chopping up movies is another indication that they don't really care film as a medium or an art, which grates on my nerves because they often pretend otherwise.

[Dukefrukem]

Duke! Cleanup on aisle 3! Calling Duke to aisle 3!

http://matchcut.artboiled.com/showth...l=1#post585398

Anyway---I've never quite understood the ratio fetishists. I grew up watching pan-and-scan VHS and saw hundreds of films that way. It doesn't bother me all that much. I'm not gonna throw a fit between about the difference between 1.66 and 1.85.

But streaming services chopping up movies is another indication that they don't really care film as a medium or an art, which grates on my nerves because they often pretend otherwise.

What am I missing here?

[Ezee E]

.19 difference is hardly enough to RUIN a movie. It certainly won't sway an opinion.

[D_Davis]

I grew up with pan and scan too, and hated it. Bought the widescreen VHS whenever I could. Loved DVDS when they embraced proper aspect ratio. Will always prefer to see the entire composition. Watching a film without proper aspect ratio is like listening to music with certain frequencies notched out. Not ideal and can ruin the work.