28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[transmogrifier]

What are your thoughts on Superman IV?

Never seen any of the Reeve Supermans.

[Peng]

Layer Cake (2004)

Aims for grounded, somehow so laid back it comes off (too) sleepy at times, lacking the momentum to make the familiarly convoluted crime plot really engaging. Daniel Craig has such immediately star-making presence in this to be worth it though. 6.5/10

Strozek (1977)

Can't decide if many of the skimpy details, especially regarding their immigrant lives, are either evocative/poetic or just irritatingly unimaginative. Otherwise the film hits a sweet tonal spot alternating between lovely and mournful though. And that ending is divine, divinely sad. 7.5/10

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)

Just veryyyy slightly below the first one in pure action goodness. May have the best story of the three, but it also shows how deceptively effortless Chan's storytelling in the first Police Story is, with that one maintaining an easy-going charm in between big action set-pieces, whereas Supercop has some lulls in its otherwise engaging storyline. Compensates by having its action spectacle be a rising graph, constantly raising intensity all the way to that truly insane, pull-out-all-stop fiery finish, and also by Chan getting an equal to work alongsides with in Michelle Yeoh's equally charismatic character. 7.5/10

[Skitch]

That shot of him jumping through the hut window just ahead of explosion is remarkable.

[Peng]

It is!



Can’t find it, but I’m also partial to the one where Chan dives into a hut window, accidentally shutting it down after him, so that when Yeoh immediately dives following him, she bounces off it to the ground. Minor touch but it’s both realistic and hilarious.

[MadMan]

I like BD. Sure, his opinions are whack a lot of the time, but he explains himself, and is never abusive.
I like Skitch. Sure, his opinions are whack a lot of the time, but he has passion and verve.
I like Irish. Sure, his opinions are whack a lot of the time, but he is articulate and unpredictable.
I like Madman. Sure, his opinions are whack a lot of the time, but he has a pure love for movies that can't be beat.
Spinal, though? That dude needs reigning in.

trans, never leave us. Also my opinions are full on whack all the time.

[Skitch]

It is!



Can’t find it, but I’m also partial to the one where Chan dives into a hut window, accidentally shutting it down after him, so that when Yeoh immediately dives following him, she bounces off it to the ground. Minor touch but it’s both realistic and hilarious.

Yep that scene is also awesome. If you havent seen Supercop 2, it's totally worth a watch.

[MadMan]

I really want to hear peoples’ thoughts on Furie’s mise en scene, and whether Mark Pillow’s method acting tactic of actually exposing himself to nuclear radiation and becoming Nuclear Man for real hurt or helped the film’s message of nuclear disarmament.

Well it helped since Superman had to defeat him to finally achieve world peace for all mankind. Rocky ended communism in 1985 and Superman got rid of nuclear weapons in 1987. What a time to be alive.

[MadMan]

I am so behind on Jackie Chan films.

Also I love Layer Cake, but that film is really dated already. Craig sure made a great Bond, though.

[Skitch]

My God, that gif. You know theres some dude holding a trigger who was told "the second his knees clear the railing, hit it." And Chan is leap diving like his life depends on it because HIS LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. What a maniac.

[dreamdead]

Diao Yinan's Chinese neonoir Black Coal, Thin Ice is the sort of re-imagining of the purpose of noir tropes that I'd been waiting for without even knowing it. It plays so many noir tropes, but it's undergirded by a strong sense of Chinese economies and low-lifes that take advantage of individuals that it ends somewhere new. It's got an opaque ending that's likely to continue growing in my esteem, and it has two or three sequences (the horse, the first time jump, the final fireworks display) that are absolutely riveting in their insurrectional power.

[MadMan]

Oooh Chinese neo noir? Sign me up.

[StanleyK]

Kar-Wai Wong:

As Tears Go By - 5.5
Days of Being Wild - 7
Ashes of Time - 5.5
Chungking Express - 8.5
Fallen Angels - 5.5
Happy Together - 7
In the Mood for Love - 10
2046 - 7
My Blueberry Nights - 5.5
The Grandmaster - 4



One masterpiece and one excellent movie, but outside of that there's several brilliant moments scattered around that never cohere into a great whole. Also, that choppy slow-motion thing he's so in love with is pretty dang annoying.

[Peng]

My rating would be:

As Tears Go By - 6.5
Days of Being Wild - 8
Ashes of Time - 5.5
Chungking Express - 9
Fallen Angels - 6
Happy Together - 8.5
In the Mood for Love - 10
2046 - 6.5
My Blueberry Nights - 6
The Grandmaster - 8 (up from 7 after a rewatch)

[baby doll]

Kar-Wai Wong:

One masterpiece and one excellent movie, but outside of that there's several brilliant moments scattered around that never cohere into a great whole. Also, that choppy slow-motion thing he's so in love with is pretty dang annoying.

I don't think coherence is really the point in Wong's films any more than in other Hong Kong films of the late 1980s and early 1990s which privilege sensational set pieces over narrative unity (and accordingly tend toward a more episodic construction than is typical in Hollywood cinema). Wong's innovation in this context is to push this tendency toward Sternbergian visual abstraction, hence his taste for slurred motion effects emphasizing colour and movement over denotation.

[StanleyK]

I don't think coherence is really the point in Wong's films any more than in other Hong Kong films of the late 1980s and early 1990s which privilege sensational set pieces over narrative unity (and accordingly tend toward a more episodic construction than is typical in Hollywood cinema). Wong's innovation in this context is to push this tendency toward Sternbergian visual abstraction, hence his taste for slurred motion effects emphasizing colour and movement over denotation.

It's not the structure of his films that I have a problem with, it's the fact that for every 5 minutes of brilliance there's another 5 of dullness (or 10, depending on the movie).

My rating would be:

Since our ratings are otherwise so similar I'm curious about why you liked The Grandmaster so much. That one's easily his worst for me, and the fighting scenes did not suit his style at all.

[Peng]

Since our ratings are otherwise so similar I'm curious about why you liked The Grandmaster so much. That one's easily his worst for me, and the fighting scenes did not suit his style at all.

On my first watch (where this is my first Wong I'd seen) I almost felt the same about the fight scenes, although I still enjoyed it a bit. But I really came around to the film on second watch. Here's what I wrote about it both times (not really spoiler, just long):

7/10

[

Show Spoiler

The main feeling I get out of it is that the director's usual story touches are hamstrung by real history. There are sublime moments between Ip Man and Gong Er, especially in their first fight and the last act, where you can see glimpses of what Wong Kar-wai might have gone further if not reeled in by facts. The actual narrative itself is rather thin, but Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi bring a lot of quiet emotions to their characters that help cover for it somewhat. The cinematography is breathtakingly top-notch, and the fight scenes are complex and beautifully staged, even if slightly overdone on slow motion.

]

8/10

[

Show Spoiler

As much as I said about Ashes of Time of how Wong Kar-Wai's reverence for martial art films might be holding back his own genre entries, I somehow liked The Grandmaster quite a bit more on my second watch. This being my first Wong Kar-Wai a few years ago, I maybe was getting accustomed to his style. Coupled with his flawed adherence to the genre, I ended up admiring the film more than liking it. Still, this being Wong at his more conventional than Ashes helps it gel with that setback more. And this time, I've grown to love the parts that aren't held back by its weird structure, and those parts end up dominating the film in my feeling more than I previously thought.

I don't know how I didn't feel this way the first time, but now the fight scenes really work for me, managing to be both deliberately gorgeous in the best Wong way, and also very thrilling and impactful. Some of them even manage to be superb character-building stuff, such as the one between Ip Man and Gong Er. Speaking of, this second watch helps bring out the connection and the full emotional force of their relationship to the fore as well.

Now not having to focus on extraneous storylines or characters (some of the latter still feel bizarrely like they got their screen time cut down, even though this is the Chinese cut), I am able to zone in on Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi more. Like in 2046, they are superb once again, their steely surfaces hiding a depth of feelings, whether they are together or alone. And as good as she was in 2046, this time Zhang Ziyi gets a more complicated character to play, with longer running time devoted to her, and she completely destroys me in the final reel: regret (and lack thereof), loneliness, and determination all mixed together in a great, heartbreaking performance. For a film purposed after the life of the great martial artist, it takes her character to humble, and along the way richly deepen, his story into a grand, encompassing tragic tale.

]

[MadMan]

As Tears Go By - 8.5
Days of Being Wild - 9.0
Chungking Express - 9.5
Fallen Angels -10
In the Mood for Love - 10

So yeah, I am a fan although I am still behind on his work.

[Mysterious Dude]

The last time I watched Chungking Express, I so wanted to see a whole movie about the blonde lady and her criminal organization, and I could not care less about the lovesick policemen.

[Yxklyx]

A friend got me to go to this:

https://musicboxtheatre.com/films/jo...aved-hollywood

Anyone know anything about this Joe guy?

[Yxklyx]

A friend got me to go to this:

https://musicboxtheatre.com/films/jo...aved-hollywood

Anyone know anything about this Joe guy?

So this was cool - about 500-600 fans most of them subscribed to Shudder Streaming: https://www.shudder.com

I learned all I ever wanted to know about "rednecks".

[Peng]

It's not hard to see myself giving another film of Flight’s equal merits and flaws more of a pass, if the flaws are concentrated more in the first half while saving the best towards the last, but here… well. After the plane lands, the film becomes only a functional, occasionally dull Oscarbait drama that is better directed than the norm (save some truly grotesque song choices), but then takes a turn towards the thudding treacly in the last few scenes. That plane sequence might rank up there with director Robert Zemeckis' best though, so upsettingly visceral in his usual immersive technical precision and the scene's procedural details; the matter-of-factness in which the black box is mentioned just about tears my gut out. The whole sequence's impact and Denzel Washington's fine performance (not a stretch for him, but he takes us through the character's messed-up mindset well) keeps this afloat long enough before the ending almost wipes any past goodwill clean. 5.5/10

[MadMan]

So this was cool - about 500-600 fans most of them subscribed to Shudder Streaming: https://www.shudder.com

I learned all I ever wanted to know about "rednecks".

Yes. Joe Bob Briggs follows me on Twitter. The Last Drive In is a fun new version of the Monster Vision show he used to do on TNT back in the 90s.

[MadMan]

Peng I never saw Flight, mostly because many echoed your issues with the film. I might still rent it, though since I like Denzel Washington as an actor.

[Yxklyx]

Watched Santa Sangre again. Why don't cinematrogaphers roll the camera - I can't think of any other movie where the camera rolls in a scene. It's a very effective and disorientating effect.

[baby doll]

Watched Santa Sangre again. Why don't cinematrogaphers roll the camera - I can't think of any other movie where the camera rolls in a scene. It's a very effective and disorientating effect.

You should see Devils on the Doorstep.