28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Yxklyx]

I'd put Last Night (1998) over Stories We Tell on that Canadian list...

[MadMan]

I still haven't finished Holy Motors. I did however watch and enjoy the cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension. Now I know another film that inspired Wes Anderson.

[Spinal]

Mark me down as one who feels like A Serbian Film is a legitimate artistic endeavor with purpose and vision. I think if we give Romero's Dawn of the Dead credit for having anti-consumer society subtext, then we have to acknowledge this film's desperate, bleak vision of governmental intrusion, manipulation and cruelty. While the film may not reach the artistic heights and political clarity of Pasolini's Salo, it does deserve to be a part of the same conversation. I had worried that the film would be simply a nihilistic catalog of grotesqueries. However, what drives the film is a protagonist engaged in a fight for respectability and the preservation of his family. Milos is forced to commit despicable acts; however, he clearly has a moral center. Sure, his business is sexuality. But, the videos we see of his past films are relatively innocent and playful, no darker than anything that might be found on the Playboy channel. It is the villainous director who sees an opportunity to exploit his gifts with his sickeningly corrupt and depraved vision. The film's horrific final scenes are effective because it is always clear what Milos has been fighting for. The pure, dumb bliss of copulation is twisted into something violent, devastating and ultimately unbearable. Although A Serbian Film effectively maintains a haunting, unsettling atmosphere, it is not a film about mystery and suspense, so much as a nightmarish reveal that we may be powerless to stop some of our worst fears from coming true -- that our finances, our family, our security, even our sexuality are in the hands of powerful people more evil than we can imagine.

[Russ]

Wow, Spinal. Color me surprised. I mean, I'm there with you, I just didn't anticipate any other "favorable" response coming out of this forum.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Heh. Human Centipede III has a 1 on metacritic right now. Never seen that.

[D_Davis]

Mark me down as one who feels like A Serbian Film is a legitimate artistic endeavor with purpose and vision. I think if we give Romero's Dawn of the Dead credit for having anti-consumer society subtext, then we have to acknowledge this film's desperate, bleak vision of governmental intrusion, manipulation and cruelty. While the film may not reach the artistic heights and political clarity of Pasolini's Salo, it does deserve to be a part of the same conversation. I had worried that the film would be simply a nihilistic catalog of grotesqueries. However, what drives the film is a protagonist engaged in a fight for respectability and the preservation of his family. Milos is forced to commit despicable acts; however, he clearly has a moral center. Sure, his business is sexuality. But, the videos we see of his past films are relatively innocent and playful, no darker than anything that might be found on the Playboy channel. It is the villainous director who sees an opportunity to exploit his gifts with his sickeningly corrupt and depraved vision. The film's horrific final scenes are effective because it is always clear what Milos has been fighting for. The pure, dumb bliss of copulation is twisted into something violent, devastating and ultimately unbearable. Although A Serbian Film effectively maintains a haunting, unsettling atmosphere, it is not a film about mystery and suspense, so much as a nightmarish reveal that we may be powerless to stop some of our worst fears from coming true -- that our finances, our family, our security, even our sexuality are in the hands of powerful people more evil than we can imagine.

I agree.

I've seen and forgotten a lot of movies in my life.

Even movies I like I've forgotten.

I will probably never forget A Serbian Film. I've seen it one time, and I find myself thinking about it often. It is a tremendously powerful film full of haunting imagery.

[dreamdead]

So there are two different versions of The Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen, one with a montage of sex scenes expurgated and one with quite handsomely explicit penetration included. Somehow I unknowingly chose the version without the sex scenes when I first watched it back in April. This go-around with Sarah I chose the longer cut on youtube, and hey. That's unexpected. The film itself remains a marvel, testifying to the general uniformity of narrative film (and suggesting an awkward number of films view the "unpossessable" woman as a courtesan) and situating clever inversions of classic imagery (Oldboy's fall, 2001's starchild, among many). Just a delight.

[Skitch]

In case anyone was wondering, Neil Marshall's Doomsday is one hell of a rotten piece of shit.

[Dukefrukem]

In case anyone was wondering, Neil Marshall's Doomsday is one hell of a rotten piece of shit.

Welcome to the Axis/annex circa 2009.

[Irish]

Has Marshall ever made anything that was as fun as Dog Soldiers or as freaky as The Descent?

[Dukefrukem]

That one episode of Game of Thrones that one time.

[Sven]

Also, in case anyone was wondering, Ishtar is NOT one hell of a rotten piece of shit, but rather a brilliant and not at all unfunny movie.

[Skitch]

Welcome to the Axis/annex circa 2009.

Hadnt seen it since the theater so thought I'd give it a 2nd chance. Ouch.

[Ezee E]

Centurion is even worse.

[Winston*]

Kind of enjoyed Doomsday even if it's just a Frankenstein pastiche of half a dozen much better genre movies. Centurion was just boring.

[Dukefrukem]

Centurion is even worse.

I dont remember it being that bad. In fact, I remember it being kinda good.

[D_Davis]

In case anyone was wondering, Neil Marshall's Doomsday is one hell of a rotten piece of shit.

It's terrible.

[D_Davis]

Has Marshall ever made anything that was as fun as Dog Soldiers or as freaky as The Descent?

Nope. I'm beginning to think he just got lucky, twice.

[Ezee E]

Nope. I'm beginning to think he just got lucky, twice.

Well, the talent is there, but he gets carried away with certain parts of his script that lead to exaggerated violence and character emotions. Doomsday is especially guilty of this.

The Descent is so good because it's pretty minimal.

[Morris Schæffer]

Mark me down as one who feels like A Serbian Film is a legitimate artistic endeavor with purpose and vision. I think if we give Romero's Dawn of the Dead credit for having anti-consumer society subtext, then we have to acknowledge this film's desperate, bleak vision of governmental intrusion, manipulation and cruelty. While the film may not reach the artistic heights and political clarity of Pasolini's Salo, it does deserve to be a part of the same conversation. I had worried that the film would be simply a nihilistic catalog of grotesqueries. However, what drives the film is a protagonist engaged in a fight for respectability and the preservation of his family. Milos is forced to commit despicable acts; however, he clearly has a moral center. Sure, his business is sexuality. But, the videos we see of his past films are relatively innocent and playful, no darker than anything that might be found on the Playboy channel. It is the villainous director who sees an opportunity to exploit his gifts with his sickeningly corrupt and depraved vision. The film's horrific final scenes are effective because it is always clear what Milos has been fighting for. The pure, dumb bliss of copulation is twisted into something violent, devastating and ultimately unbearable. Although A Serbian Film effectively maintains a haunting, unsettling atmosphere, it is not a film about mystery and suspense, so much as a nightmarish reveal that we may be powerless to stop some of our worst fears from coming true -- that our finances, our family, our security, even our sexuality are in the hands of powerful people more evil than we can imagine.

Gotcha.

[Irish]

From here:

Has a director ever gotten so bad you start to wonder whether you were wrong to love their earlier movies?

[baby doll]

From here:

Has a director ever gotten so bad you start to wonder whether you were wrong to love their earlier movies?

I haven't really liked any of Almodóvar's films since Talk to Her, and having revisited all of his movies since All About My Mother in the past eighteen months or so, I've found that I still don't. I still find Talk to Her impressive, but everything since then (with the exception of I'm So Excited, as I haven't seen it) strikes me as mechanical and lifeless.

I also need to take another look at Amores perros to see if it doesn't suck, because 21 Grams sure did. Oh, and his 9/11 short--almost forgot that one. And while I didn't hate Babel or Biutiful, and Birdman has some real virtues, I suspect I'd rate his debut less highly than I did in the early 2000s.

I was a big fan of Oliver Stone as a teenager, but seeing Natural Born Killers again this year was pretty disillusioning. It's like, "Hey, this shot-reverse shot is getting kinda boring, so why don't we arbitrarily cut away to an extreme close-up of somebody's tit just to keep the audience interested?"

I'm also less enamoured with Todd Solondz these days compared to when I was a teenager (though Dark Horse is quite good), and want to take another look at Welcome to the Dollhouse to see how it holds up. (I remember the part where the sister gets kidnapped seeming incredibly dopey even at the time.)

[Sven]

Has a director ever gotten so bad you start to wonder whether you were wrong to love their earlier movies?

Dario Argento (early stuff still good). Kenneth Branagh (early stuff not good). Sam Raimi (50/50).

[transmogrifier]

Almodovar still has it; Bad Education and The Skin I Live In are great. That reminds me, I need to see Volver.

[baby doll]

Almodovar still has it; Bad Education and The Skin I Live In are great. That reminds me, I need to see Volver.

He's still got the technique, but even Volver, which has more substantial characters than either Bad Education or The Skin I Live In (perhaps his two iciest films), eventually devolves into a series of dramatic revelations that feel obligatory rather than spontaneous.