28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[DFA1979]

Basic Instinct is a near great flick. It probably is very dated though so I think only giving it a 9/10 is about right. With my grade inflation always being high that probably averages out to a 7.5 really.

I don't care for Grease but some of the songs are good. I liked the final act that was neat. I have zero desire to ever see it again.

[Skitch]

Basic Instinct is great and Sharon Stone is legend.

[Philip J. Fry]

The French Connection (1971): Popeye and Cloudy are shitty cops/100.

Cool car chase, though.

[DFA1979]

The French Connection (1971): Popeye and Cloudy are shitty cops/100.

Cool car chase, though.

Ha ha yeah Doyle is an asshole. Great movie. I never saw the sequel.

[Philip J. Fry]

Ha ha yeah Doyle is an asshole. Great movie. I never saw the sequel.

Not only that he's an asshole, but he also screws it up over and over and over again. It's interesting seeing movies such as this one and Bullitt not only essentially creating the maverick cop we all know and love today, but also deconstructing it, showing how a cop like that wouldn't really work, only for later movies tossing that aside and going with FUCK YEAH, FUCK SHIT UP GOOD, MAN!!!

[DFA1979]

Bullitt was based off a real cop though and he did sort of achieve his goals. Doyle blows it big time though. One thing I liked about Die Hard 3 is how they keep mentioning that McClane is barely holding onto his job. Also Lethal Weapon did have Riggs looking like he was going to lose his job but then they just ignored that for the rest of the movie. Lethal Weapon 3 had Murtaugh and Riggs getting busted down to traffic cop for a while only for them to then get their main jobs back by doing crazy shit to catch bad guys again.

Incidentally I just viewed a good Italian action cop movie called Rome, Armed to the Teeth where the cop hero gets sent down to citations for being a reckless asshole. It was literally their version of Dirty Harry and The French Connection.

[megladon8]

Desperately Seeking Susan is a cute, original little rom com.

Some great music, a fun premise. I liked it.

[StuSmallz]

Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money... we're gonna have to earn it.


[

Show Spoiler

It may be difficult, or even near impossible to believe now, but there was a time when The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly wasn't really regarded as a great movie, at least when you look at the initial critical reaction to it. And upon hearing that, some of you may wonder, "How can that be? After all, wasn't it a genre-defining classic, and one of the greatest Westerns ever made?". Well, to put it in my own words, I'd say that TGTB&TU didn't so much as define the Western in the first place, but helped to redefine the genre, after Hollywood had spent decades building the myth of a relatively sanitized, morally black-and-white vision of the American frontier. So given that background, it's no surprise that some critics were hostile to the film, as part of a larger bias against Spaghetti Westerns in general; after all, who was Sergio Leone and these other "Eyetalian" filmmakers to tear down their memory of the West from the outside, tarnishing the image of the most quintessentially American genre? However, it's precisely that kind of cultural vandalism that helped distinguish the film in the first place, allowing it to become not just one of the greatest Westerns, but also just one of the greatest movies of all time, in my humble opinion.


This is clear right from the first few seconds of the movie, as a wide shot of a vast, sun-baked desert, the kind of scenery that you could see in any number of Westerns, suddenly becomes an uncomfortably tight close-up of an ugly, sweaty man as he unexpectedly lumbers into frame, showing us the literal face of the "real" West, or at least Leone's unique vision of it, as he will continue to reenvision its familiar iconography for his own purposes here. It's an aesthetic that's both highly dynamic, and as gritty as the grain on the print itself, as the locations here are universally rough and shabby, with nary a sanitary soundstage in sight, as live flies constantly buzz around, and we see a never-ending Mount Rushmore of various sweat, grime (and occasionally blood)-covered faces in great detail, creating what is still the filthiest-looking vision of the American West I've seen on film.


This dirty feeling isn't just limited to the film's visuals, however, as it also extends to the main characters and their lack of traditional morality, with Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes ("The Bad") murdering multiple people, including a child, in just his first few scenes, Eli Wallach's Tuco ("The Ugly") living as a crafty, motor-mouthed Mexican bandito, wanted for at least a dozen different crimes in just as many counties, while Clint Eastwood's gunslinging Blondie (the so-called "Good") is motivated purely by personal financial gain, and only does one truly good thing the entire movie (and even that is still partly to benefit himself). A more accurate title would be The Morally Ambivalent, The Really Bad, And The Almost Just As Bad, but that's a big part of why the film has held up so well over half a century since its original release; it doesn't exist in order to justify some outdated, self-aggrandizing myth of "Manifest Destiny", but in order to present a darker, harsher portrayal of the West, one that feels more honest than many of its cleaner predecessors, regardless of how uncomfortable some may have been with that at the time.


Besides that, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is also exemplary for Leone's amazing overall direction of it, as it serves as a sort of culmination of his career up that point, taking the comparatively smaller scales of the previous Dollars films, and majorly upping the scope in its depiction of the mad, elaborate dash for treasure that is the central plot, both setting the stage for the director's future epics, while also serving as the all-time peak in his impressive body of work. However, while you may picture historical figures having dull, stuffy conversations in ornately decorated rooms when you think of epics, TGTB&TU is an epic that keeps its overall sense of fun from lagging, even with its 2 & 1/2+ hour runtime, as there are plenty of moments of levity, lots of colorful dialogue, and a generally playful mood, as seen in a great moment when a "Confederate" soldier brushes himself off to reveal the blue uniform beneath an accumulation of grey dust, before a sudden cut reveals our protagonists having been taken as prisoners of war in a Union Army camp.


In all honesty, this might just be the most purely entertaining movie I've ever seen, and even watching it now, twenty years after my original viewing, I found myself enjoying myself just as much as I did the first time, with so many moments here constantly bringing a faint smile upon my face, giving me the same exact sensations I felt when I was fourteen. I mean, Ennio Morricone's score by itself is fantastic, and about as iconic as movie music gets (and I'm not just talking about the "coyote yell" of the main theme, either), but how well it's used to underscore the onscreen action here? It's just glorious, glorious filmmaking all-around, resulting in an experience that's pretty much as close to perfection as movies get (hell, even the occasionally obvious English dubbing has its charm), and while the film was responsible for disregarding a lot of the myths surrounding the Old West, it replaced that with just as many of its own, creating reverberations not just throughout the rest of Eastwood's lengthy career, but the entire genre of the Western as a whole. To borrow some language from the Bible, it's the stone that the builders rejected, that ended up becoming one of the cornerstones of the modern Western, one that still stands tall, even to this day; "Go, go, amigo...".


Favorite Moment:

]


Final Score: 10

[megladon8]

Such an incredible movie. Way past due to watch it again.

[StuSmallz]

Such an incredible movie. Way past due to watch it again.

Oh yeah; I mean, I had already watched it multiple times before now, but it had been since '03 since I'd done so, so I was definitely overdue for a rewatch. Still, absence definitely made the heart grow fonder in this case, and while it's rare for me to experience anything close to the same level of passion for a years-later rewatch as I did the first time, I absolutely felt it this time, which speaks volumes about just how great a movie it really is.

[Yxklyx]

I must have seen that movie about 20 times and I'll probably watch it again this year.

[StuSmallz]

I must have seen that movie about 20 times and I'll probably watch it again this year.

Yup; I'm hard-pressed to think of another movie that's any more rewatchable than it is, to be honest with you.

[StuSmallz]

AV Club, are you for real?

[megladon8]

Watched Victor/Victoria the other night. It was great.

Julie Andrews gives a very interesting physical performance.

James Garner's character is gross. But typical of a man of the time.

[Sven]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

[Skitch]

Of course! Welcome!

[Idioteque Stalker]

I mainly lurked back then but I remember you. Welcome : )

[StuSmallz]

Welcome back, Sven!

[megladon8]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

Of course!! Always been one of my favorite people

Welcome back, it's great to see you!

[megladon8]

Flashdance.

What a weird movie.

[DFA1979]

Hey, does anyone remember me? Maybe for the best that people don't. Start from scratch, right?

Hey buddy. Welcome back.

[DFA1979]

The January Man is a movie I'm glad I didn't see in theaters or on a paying streaming service. What a blah mess.

Double Team is hilariously bad. So bad it's almost a good movie with some fun action scenes. I'm not sure what people were expecting with that one.

Hudson Hawk is an example of why you shouldn't let a major actor be in charge of the movie. Should have just been a comedy only.

I like Man On Fire as much as the remake. Both are very different animals though. Neither is great but is solid enough to be satisfying.

[DFA1979]

Cutler's Way, The Insider and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) all deserve full length blog reviews btw. Great trio of movies and two out of three were seen on Tubi. The Insider was watched thanks to Hulu.

[StuSmallz]

I still need to watch The Insider really bad, since once I've done so, then I'll pretty much have seen all of Michael Mann's "good" movies, according to the consensus.

[Skitch]

I love Hudson hawk. I think it's hilarious.