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Thread: 28 Film Discussion Threads Later

  1. #71576
    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    It's the AV Club. They are probably angry that the hobbits and dwarves weren't allowed to be played by actual real-life little people and that the orcs are examples of body-shaming by having them all be ugly.
    Well, while I do get tired of the hoary old "evil = ugly" trope, and I'm obviously a fan of The AV Club in general, some of the virtue-signaling there does go a bit overboard at times, especially with Tom Breihan's writing, who I'm otherwise a big fan of. I mean, in his write-up for Guardians Of The Galaxy for his "Age Of Heroes" retrospective on the history of Superhero mnovies, he seriously wrote:

    And yes, it’s fucked-up that a black woman as charismatic as Zoe Saldana should have to have blue and green skin in her two biggest roles.


    It's like, Tom, I love your work in general, but what the fuck?
    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    Also, The Fellowship of the Rings just isn't that great of a movie. Obviously they had to put it on the list somewhere because this is the internet, and nerds would freak if they didn't, but it's not a movie you can make a strong case for in terms of form and style. Basically what I keep hearing from people is some version of, "Jackson and his collaborators did a pretty good job of getting as much of the book into a movie without overwhelming people who haven't read the books." In other words, it's the most expensive episode of Masterpiece Theatre ever filmed.
    I sincerely doubt they put Fellowship on the list just to placate LOTR nerds, since it was already objectively one of the best-regarded movies of '01 in the first place (besides, if that was the case, then I'd imagine they would've put it a lot higher than just #18). Anyway, just speaking for my own personal opinion of Fellowship, I hadn't read any of the books by the first time I watched it (and knew essentially nothing about the world and lore of Middle Earth in general), so how much of Tolkien's writing Jackon & company did or didn't include in the movie was 100% irrelevant to me personally; I just thought it was a great movie on its terms.

  2. #71577
    Quote Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
    Why does Irv leave the "rocker panels" for last when they're looking for the cocaine in the Lincoln Continental?
    You're talking about that scene from The French Connection, I assume?

  3. #71578
    Quote Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
    I sincerely doubt they put Fellowship on the list just to placate LOTR nerds, since it was already objectively one of the best-regarded movies of '01 in the first place (besides, if that was the case, then I'd imagine they would've put it a lot higher than just #18). Anyway, just speaking for my own personal opinion of Fellowship, I hadn't read any of the books by the first time I watched it (and knew essentially nothing about the world and lore of Middle Earth in general), so how much of Tolkien's writing Jackon & company did or didn't include in the movie was 100% irrelevant to me personally; I just thought it was a great movie on its terms.
    And what terms would those be exactly? Just as straight-ahead blockbuster filmmaking, Jackson's direction didn't strike me as particularly inventive or purposeful. The trilogy has a whole basically has four kinds of scenes, repeated ad nauseam: epic battles between the forces of good and evil, expository dialogue scenes filmed TV-style in repetitive alternating close-ups, helicopter shots of Hobbits trudging over mountains, and portentous close-ups of Ian McKellan intoning nuggets of timeless wisdom.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  4. #71579
    Quote Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
    Well, while I do get tired of the hoary old "evil = ugly" trope, and I'm obviously a fan of The AV Club in general, some of the virtue-signaling there does go a bit overboard at times, especially with Tom Breihan's writing, who I'm otherwise a big fan of. I mean, in his write-up for Guardians Of The Galaxy for his "Age Of Heroes" retrospective on the history of Superhero mnovies, he seriously wrote:.
    Sam Barsanti may be one of the worst writers to ever do it for a living. His mix of condescending haughtiness about social issues, terrible attempts at humor, and bland writing style makes him infuriating. I am sympathetic to a lot of the same causes as the AV Club, but they are exceptionally narrow-minded and intolerant to any types of discussion over anything they find unquestionable, and thus they attract the same sort of people to the comments section. It's funny, Jeff Wells, who is a good writer when he sticks to movies, has gone in the opposite direction by devoting 90% of his blog to being a complete and utter crank about excessive "wokeness" (while still hating Trump) and this has infected his views of movies, where he spends most of the time hating of movies that don't fit his narrow interests - and surprise, surprise, his comments sections attract people who just seem to hate everything.

    This is why love Letterboxd - the lack of centralized forums prevents the site from being infected by ideology. It's mostly just people talking about movies.
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  5. #71580
    Producer Yxklyx's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
    You're talking about that scene from The French Connection, I assume?
    Yeah.

  6. #71581
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    Zoe Saldana isn't black.
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  7. #71582
    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    And what terms would those be exactly? Just as straight-ahead blockbuster filmmaking, Jackson's direction didn't strike me as particularly inventive or purposeful. The trilogy has a whole basically has four kinds of scenes, repeated ad nauseam: epic battles between the forces of good and evil, expository dialogue scenes filmed TV-style in repetitive alternating close-ups, helicopter shots of Hobbits trudging over mountains, and portentous close-ups of Ian McKellan intoning nuggets of timeless wisdom.
    I don't necessarily feel PJ's directing was particularly "inventive" either, but it didn't have to be in order for the trilogy to be very well-directed on the whole, because the aesthetic choices he made were still consistently effective, rousing, and dynamic on the whole. And besides that, the main reason why I feel the LOTR movies are great is how well their storytelling balances the epic with the personal, with the huge battles, sweeping landscape shots, and Shore's score providing the wow factor, but with the emotion being provided by the character-centric details, whether it be Arwen's sacrifice of a mortal life for Aragon's love, the confused look Legolas gives after Gandalf dies (since he's an immortal elf who's never seen anyone die in his life), or how it ends on the small note of Frodo saying he's glad that Sam's his friend, as they trudge off towards the dark land of Morder together (and all of that's just in Fellowship alone!). I'm getting the feels right now just thinking about it, I tell ya!
    Quote Quoting Yxklyx (view post)
    Yeah.
    Artificially-generated suspense, I suppose? I dunno; I was never a big fan of that movie in general anyway. Still, it isn't as egregious as that part in Basic Instinct where Michael Douglas thinks someone is lying to him because he can't find any record of a person having attended a certain school, but then it turns out he just misheard the name he was given in the first place; c'mon movie!

  8. #71583
    Quote Quoting megladon8 (view post)
    Zoe Saldana isn't black.
    The man can't even get acting "woke" right, eh?

  9. #71584
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    I lol'd.
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  10. #71585
    Quote Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
    I don't necessarily feel PJ's directing was particularly "inventive" either, but it didn't have to be in order for the trilogy to be very well-directed on the whole, because the aesthetic choices he made were still consistently effective, rousing, and dynamic on the whole. And besides that, the main reason why I feel the LOTR movies are great is how well their storytelling balances the epic with the personal, with the huge battles, sweeping landscape shots, and Shore's score providing the wow factor, but with the emotion being provided by the character-centric details, whether it be Arwen's sacrifice of a mortal life for Aragon's love, the confused look Legolas gives after Gandalf dies (since he's an immortal elf who's never seen anyone die in his life), or how it ends on the small note of Frodo saying he's glad that Sam's his friend, as they trudge off towards the dark land of Morder together (and all of that's just in Fellowship alone!). I'm getting the feels right now just thinking about it, I tell ya!
    "Rousing" and "dynamic" are probably the last words I'd use to describe Jackson's aesthetic choices ("effective" depends on what effect is intended); on the contrary, the film's visual and aural rhetoric--the sweeping helicopter shots and muted colour scheme and bombastic orchestral score--seem designed to cow the viewer into submission, and to make them feel that what's happening on the screen is really, really significant. (This is not a trilogy one could accuse of being light on its feet.) There's an underlying insecurity lurking behind Jackson's stylistic choices, as if he were worried that viewers might look at this story of goblins and wizards and whatnot and see it as simply light entertainment rather than a grand epic on par with Wagner's Ring cycle, and to compensate, Jackson turns up the music and turns down the lighting (especially in the second film, which is almost unrelievedly nocturnal). The end result is that the plot devolves into a series of Big Moments in which this impossibly large army dukes it out with that impossibly large army and someone gives an inspirational speech as much to the camera as to the other characters, which have the effect of crowding out the character-centric details you refer to.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  11. #71586
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    I'd like to see some of the woke critics read their work or speak to it out loud and see if they can keep their straight face.

    Barbarian - ***
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  12. #71587
    The Pan megladon8's Avatar
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    99% of them are white people speaking on behalf of others, which I think makes it even worse and cringier.
    "All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"

    "Rick...it's a flamethrower."

  13. #71588
    I'm the problem it's me DFA1979's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    We'll just fuck it up as usual.
    Well that's just your opinion, man.
    Blog!

    And it's happened once again
    I'll turn to a friend
    Someone that understands
    And sees through the master plan
    But everybody's gone
    And I've been here for too long
    To face this on my own
    Well, I guess this is growing up

  14. #71589
    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    "Rousing" and "dynamic" are probably the last words I'd use to describe Jackson's aesthetic choices ("effective" depends on what effect is intended); on the contrary, the film's visual and aural rhetoric--the sweeping helicopter shots and muted colour scheme and bombastic orchestral score--seem designed to cow the viewer into submission, and to make them feel that what's happening on the screen is really, really significant. (This is not a trilogy one could accuse of being light on its feet.) There's an underlying insecurity lurking behind Jackson's stylistic choices, as if he were worried that viewers might look at this story of goblins and wizards and whatnot and see it as simply light entertainment rather than a grand epic on par with Wagner's Ring cycle, and to compensate, Jackson turns up the music and turns down the lighting (especially in the second film, which is almost unrelievedly nocturnal). The end result is that the plot devolves into a series of Big Moments in which this impossibly large army dukes it out with that impossibly large army and someone gives an inspirational speech as much to the camera as to the other characters, which have the effect of crowding out the character-centric details you refer to.
    LOTR isn't just light entertainment, though; it's a gargantuan Fantasy Epic (and one of the most iconic ones ever created, to boot), about the struggle for the fate of literally an entire world. In that context, I feel that the aesthetic choices Jackson went with were extremely suitable for it, and complaining about helicopter shots or bombastic music in a trilogy like it feels like saying "Oh, an omnious score, slowly creeping cinematography, and disturbing imagery... in a Horror ​movie?!".

    Last edited by StuSmallz; 12-08-2021 at 11:34 PM.

  15. #71590
    Quote Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
    LOTR isn't just light entertainment, though; it's a gargantuan Fantasy Epic (and one of the most iconic ones ever created, to boot), about the struggle for the fate of literally an entire world. In that context, I feel that the aesthetic choices Jackson went with were extremely suitable for it, and complaining about helicopter shots or bombastic music in a trilogy like it feels like saying "Oh, an omnious score, slowly creeping cinematography, and disturbing imagery... in a Horror ​movie?!".

    The best horror movies, such as Val Lewton's '40s B movies, often do without clichéd visual/aural rhetoric, and are all the better for it. Moreover, the effectiveness of a particular stylistic device depends in large part on its being rare. One jump scare (or helicopter shot) can be effective but twenty in the same film is simply tiresome. Apart from being redundant (surely one of the most iconic gargantuan fantasy epics ever created doesn't need to remind us how iconically gargantuan it is), the problem with Jackson's rhetoric is that he keeps drawing on the same limited menu of devices over and over again, which after nine hours start to get seriously old and lose whatever effectiveness they originally possessed.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  16. #71591
    Two weeks until I'm free for 10 weeks. Can't wait to actually catch up on some movies (though I am getting a jump on this by watching a Power of the Dog and French Dispatch double-header at the theater tomorrow and Don't Look Up at the theater on Saturday).

    I plan to watch spend one full day planted in front of the TV watching the extended editions of LOTR just to spite Baby Doll (I joke; I was planning to do that anyway. The spite is just an added bonus )
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  17. #71592
    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    I plan to watch spend one full day planted in front of the TV watching the extended editions of LOTR just to spite Baby Doll (I joke; I was planning to do that anyway. The spite is just an added bonus )
    What movies other people choose to watch is none of my concern. You do you.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  18. #71593
    Last Seen:
    Pantheon, S2 (C. Silverstein, 2023) ☆
    Pantheon, S1 (C. Silverstein, 2022)
    Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garc?a (S. Peckinpah, 1974)
    Crouching Tiger, Hidden, Dragon (A. Lee, 2000)
    Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (J. McNaughton, 1986) ☆
    Blowup (M. Antonioni, 1966) ☆
    Io capitano (M. Garrone, 2023) ☆
    Raging Bull (M. Scorsese, 1980)
    Network (S. Lumet, 1976) ☆
    Sideways (A. Payne, 2004) ☆

    First time ☆

  19. #71594
    Last Seen:
    Pantheon, S2 (C. Silverstein, 2023) ☆
    Pantheon, S1 (C. Silverstein, 2022)
    Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garc?a (S. Peckinpah, 1974)
    Crouching Tiger, Hidden, Dragon (A. Lee, 2000)
    Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (J. McNaughton, 1986) ☆
    Blowup (M. Antonioni, 1966) ☆
    Io capitano (M. Garrone, 2023) ☆
    Raging Bull (M. Scorsese, 1980)
    Network (S. Lumet, 1976) ☆
    Sideways (A. Payne, 2004) ☆

    First time ☆

  20. #71595
    Cinematographer StanleyK's Avatar
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    Paul Verhoeven:

    Turkish Delight - 4
    Katie Tippel - 5.5
    Soldier of Orange - 7
    Spetters - 5.5
    The Fourth Man - 8.5
    Flesh + Blood - 7
    RoboCop - 7
    Total Recall - 8.5
    Basic Instinct - 5.5
    Showgirls - 2.5
    Starship Troopers - 7
    Hollow Man - 4
    Black Book - 7
    Elle - 8.5
    Benedetta - 5.5



    Pretty good filmmaker overall, but maybe a bit overhyped. Critical reevaluation of something like Showgirls is going too far imo.

  21. #71596
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
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    Watched Vivian Qu's Angels Wear White on the Criterion Channel. Highly recommended for those who enjoy films like Jia's, where the villain (of sexual assault) is visible early and then you wait to see how extensively the film will interrogate Chinese culture and suggest that justice is possible. There's a few instances where a lingering shot makes too plain the social critique (a shot reminding us that the police stations exists to "Serve the People"), but the film has great pacing and is overall understated. Happy that I clicked on it last night...
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  22. #71597
    Quote Quoting StanleyK (view post)
    Pretty good filmmaker overall, but maybe a bit overhyped. Critical reevaluation of something like Showgirls is going too far imo.
    It's not boring.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  23. #71598

  24. #71599
    An animator fed up with all the detail work on Akira snuck in a complaint.

    "Why do we have to fill in this far! Knock it off! Enough"


    lololol

  25. #71600

    There Will Be Blood (Anderson, '07)



    I have a competition in me... I

    want no one else to succeed.


    [
    ]

    Final Score: 9.25
    .

    Last edited by StuSmallz; 12-28-2021 at 06:49 AM.

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