Anyone saw No Country For Old Men in festivals? I can't remember who did.
Anyway, I loved it.
Anyone saw No Country For Old Men in festivals? I can't remember who did.
Anyway, I loved it.
Movie Theater DiaryQuoting Donald Glover
So you know, I was only able to identify you as EyesWideOpen by this rating from the old site that is still boggling my mind.
I watched Double Indemnity the other night. I remember some accusations about bad writing over at the previous site. While I do not agree that it is poorly written, I do think that the dialogue is self-consciously clever. I think I'm guilty of this in my creative writing sometimes. I have this ridiculous habit of rhyiming words and using alliteration when it's often just distracting. Wilder's witticisms, I think, are distracting. It's a layer of artificiality that didn't really work for me. This is partly because Wilder is intentionally playing up the noir tropes. Noir, in general, is not my favorite genre. The first meeting between Neff and Dietrichson was particularly bad in this regard. It always felt as though a femme fatale was speaking, never a woman.
The aspect of noir that I really do like, however, is its expressionist qualities. Lang is the most obvious example of this. Double Indemnity has a few moments of expressionism, but there is a very large difference between using a lot of shadows and the frightening, delerious play of light and shadow in, say, A Touch of Evil. I think Wilder mainly just uses a lot of shadows.
anyone saw new lumet's? critics're raving about it. wonder why it doesn't create more buzz, aside from the absolutely horrendous title. no matter how hard you try, it just doesn't roll off your tongue.
i might check it out since i'm lumet's fan.
This is a trope in the literary genre these films are based upon. Cool characters who know they're cool, talking like they're cool, and acting like they're cool - because they are. It's all about these incredibly cool characters who can talk circles around normal people.
Yeah, I know. It's always been an off putting facet to the genre for me because they're not usually cool. They're insurance salesmen and murderous housewives, in this case. Petty people. I have little attraction to them.
Or maybe I just don't like cool people.
Wishful thinking, perhaps; but that is just another possible definition of the featherless biped.
I can't argue with your liking it or not, but I do find it strange that you seem to be bothered by artificiality in a genre which, as you say, is full of expressionistic flourishes. Realistic dialogue doesn't seem like something one should expect or demand out noir films, but I suppose I can see how this could cause someone to dislike the genre. Well, not really, but I'm trying to be polite.
FWIW, one of my favorite passages of dialogue in any film period is in that first Stanwyck/MacMurray encounter:
Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.
Walter Neff: Who?
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?
Walter Neff: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.
Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
Walter Neff: How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety.
Walter Neff: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Walter Neff: Suppose it doesn't take.
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Walter Neff: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
Walter Neff: That tears it.
There's cool, as in the general positive modifier that is its most common colloquial usage. Then there's classic cool, the kind of cool that even a family-murdering, election-rigging, white-slaving asshole can have. They don't always overlap.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of cool people. But I do love them in movies.
But that's the thing, they're cool simply because they act and talk like they are. These characters are like the ultimate white-collar fantasy - salary men and their woman who are able to act upon repressed, secret, and dark desires. Through the genre conventions they are given the liberty to do the things that normal people cannot, and will not.
Somewhere in my above post, I meant to write the sentence, "Classic cool is pure artifice."
Well, my dad and I watched Vanishing Point tonight and I can't say I was too impressed.
Car chases don't usually impress me much anyways, so it didn't really have a lot going for it to begin with.
I was surprised by how similar it was to Easy Rider in its themes, and even in its ending.
And saying that I liked this more than Easy Rider really says a lot about how much I liked Easy Rider
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I've gotta go, but I'll respond in a few hours.
Wishful thinking, perhaps; but that is just another possible definition of the featherless biped.
I just saw it a couple night's ago and really liked it. The story is fairly simple, but it's edited together in a way that each new scene adds an additional layer to the plot and constantly redefines the characters. Hoffman and Hawke are both great, though I do wish the film went a little deeper into their relationship with their father.
Hey Raiders, are we still going to be continuing the Director consensuses?
Sure why not?
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Rian Johnson) - 9
STRONGER (David Gordon Green) - 6
THE DISASTER ARTIST (James Franco) - 7
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker) - 9
LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig) - 8
"Hitchcock is really bad at suspense."
- Stay Puft
For me, the great appeal of this film is the esoteric knowledge of DJ Super Soul, and his spiritual connection with Kowalski and his personal journey into oblivion. I find the film pleasing on a variety of levels beyond the cars and chases.
Lumet is one of my favorite directors, so I hope I'm able to see it in theaters. You're right about the title, though.
Eh...personally I didn't see anything much past one big car chase movie. Some hippie philsophy thrown in there - some of it for gags, some serious - and just a general "gettin' in a big car and goin' as fast as you can frees your soul!" feeling to the whole thing.
I really have no interest in cars or driving. I'm 20 and I haven't even gone for the first test yet.
I'm sure there's more to get from this movie on repeat viewings, but it's just not a movie I enjoyed enough to really want to see it again.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
you've seen it?
LOL.
That's not really what the film is about though, and even if it were just about cars, I think it is well made enough to transcend simple likes or dislikes for the setting or a thing used in the film. Kind of like slasher films. In real life I really don't like serial killers, but I do like movies like Halloween and F13.
So you've never been on a road trip with a group of friends? Man, that's one of life's great pleasures, at least for me. I'll never forget the time me and some friends drove from California to Austin, Texas, stopping at the UFO Museum in Roswell along the way. The open road, driving, and the freedom these two things allow can offer up all kinds of metaphors for life.
I rented the following movies:
*Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
*Dave Chappelle's Block Party
*El Mariachi
*Repo Man
I think I'll watch Block Party first.
BLOG
And everybody wants to be special here
They call your name out loud and clear
Here comes a regular
Call out your name
Here comes a regular
Am I the only one here today?
I'm not a fan of El Mariachi but Block Party and Cowboy Bebop are both excellent.
Well, I guess my general feeling of discomfort with travelling kinda holds me back from anything like that. I get really panicky.
I like just sticking around home...or NYC, my second home
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Have you ever even been inside a car?
Sure why not?
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Rian Johnson) - 9
STRONGER (David Gordon Green) - 6
THE DISASTER ARTIST (James Franco) - 7
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker) - 9
LADY BIRD (Greta Gerwig) - 8
"Hitchcock is really bad at suspense."
- Stay Puft
Well, I kind of enjoyed 300 on several different levels. First, it's a completely ridiculous film, and also pretty funny. I laughed out loud several times, especially at the characterization of Xerxes. But I was also quite impressed by the digital backdrops, which I didn't really notice too many problems with. The whole thing looked like a commercial, though, what with its highly saturated colors. And I noticed that whenever there was blood splatter, it always looked like chunks of dirt being thrown, to me.
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