View Poll Results: The Lost City of Z

Voters
16. You may not vote on this poll
  • Yay

    14 87.50%
  • Nay

    2 12.50%
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 27

Thread: The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

  1. #1
    Kung Fu Hippie Watashi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Big Apple, 3 AM
    Posts
    11,346

    The Lost City of Z (James Gray)

    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

  2. #2
    Kung Fu Hippie Watashi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Big Apple, 3 AM
    Posts
    11,346
    There's a lot in this movie. Part Heart of Darkness, part WWI movie, part British Empire colonialism conquest, part father-son story, part women's liberation. Even at 140 minutes, this film feels like it should a 200+ epic from yesteryear. There's a lot left undiscovered in the jungle and on the WWI battlefield. I would love to see how long Gray's original cut is. What is in there is wonderful stuff.
    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

  3. #3
    In the belly of a whale Henry Gale's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    4,703
    Been really looking forward to this one, but sad I had to miss a screening for it last night.

    Hope to catch up with it soon. Gray really is one of the most underappreciated filmmakers around, and I base that almost solely on Two Lovers and The Immigrant. What's the consensus on his work prior?
    Last 11 things I really enjoyed:

    Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
    Safe (Haynes, 1995)
    South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
    Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
    Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
    What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
    Diva (Beineix, 1981)
    Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
    The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
    Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
    Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)

  4. #4
    Cinematographer Mal's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    1,070
    Dug it, very much. Stellar camera work and Sienna Miller is perfect as the unassuming heart of Fawcett's journey.

  5. #5
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    6,995
    Quote Quoting Watashi (view post)
    There's a lot in this movie. Part Heart of Darkness, part WWI movie, part British Empire colonialism conquest, part father-son story, part women's liberation. Even at 140 minutes, this film feels like it should a 200+ epic from yesteryear. There's a lot left undiscovered in the jungle and on the WWI battlefield. I would love to see how long Gray's original cut is. What is in there is wonderful stuff.
    I went in thinking it was more of a psychological thriller with Fawcett going mad with obsession (I didn't watch any trailers), but this movie completely blew away my expectations with its commitment to naturalistic performances from its cast, phenomenal editing, and an ethereal tone especially toward the end, which is unique for an epic. I'm also ready to declare James Gray the master of composing a final shot. This is only going to get better with time.
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

    615 Film
    Letterboxd

  6. #6
    White Tiger Field Stay Puft's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    3,711
    Quote Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
    I'm also ready to declare James Gray the master of composing a final shot.
    I thought the closing shot in The Immigrant was sort of awkward and poorly composited, but I'll agree that he executes very well here.

    The entire ending sequence, starting with the capture, is breathtaking. The [
    ] just... wow. I was speechless. I felt my soul stirring, the whole weight of existence. "A man's reach should always exceed his grasp."

    There was a lot of little things that bothered me along the way, to the point that I want to believe there's a longer cut that irons out some of the wrinkles (many having to do with the hurried nature of some sequences, a lack of development on some important story elements). This is a big, sprawling film, and like Wats suggests, there's so many ideas fighting for screen time that they don't all necessarily hit their mark. But James Gray has nevertheless worked some crazy magic here, and I'd say this is probably his greatest achievement to date (I would only pause at this point because maybe, maybe I still prefer Two Lovers). It's such an elegant and monumental piece of filmmaking. By the end, I was thoroughly overwhelmed by the immense experience of it all, and found myself sitting in the theatre in a stunned awe.

    I loved it, and I can't stop thinking about it.
    Giving up in 2020. Who cares.

    maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
    Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
    The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
    Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
    Night Hunter (David Raymond) *

  7. #7
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    The Yay Area
    Posts
    5,243
    Quote Quoting Stay Puft (view post)
    I thought the closing shot in The Immigrant was sort of awkward and poorly composited, but I'll agree that he executes very well here.
    Oof. That final shot in The Immigrant is one of my favorite shots of recent years.

    I appreciated this more than I really loved it. Seeing it with my audibly bored parents didn't help matters. I think the problem is the disjointed quality. I get that he didn't want the film to be five hours or whatever, but the time in the jungle seemed rather truncated. I still liked it quite a bit, and all the scenes on their own work quite well. I loved the match cut from pouring liquor down the drain to a moving steam train. So David Lean, that. James Gray is one of the last of a dying breed (along with Scorsese, Tarantino, and the two Andersons) of American filmmakers who really get the old school visceral feeling of theatrical cinema.
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 05-16-2017 at 06:12 AM.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  8. #8
    Screenwriter Lazlo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Charlotte, NC
    Posts
    2,505
    Agree with much of what people have said already. It's a beautiful movie.

    Its achilles heel is Charlie Hunnam, who always has such a strange way of delivering lines that his performances are uniformly distancing. He's a mediocre actor. There are times, especially the finale, that he does well here, but his way of distinctly enunciating every syllable is a problem to me. Has been in every movie I've seen him in. It's like he's an American struggling with a British accent, but that's not the case, so, yeah, weird. The original casting of Brad Pitt could have made this movie a lot better, though he may already be too old for the younger parts and struggled with the accent.
    last four:
    black widow - 8
    zero dark thirty - 9
    the muse - 7
    freaky - 7

    now reading:
    lonesome dove - larry mcmurtry

    Letterboxd
    The Harrison Marathon - A Podcast About Harrison Ford

  9. #9
    Producer
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    2,936
    An hour and a Charlie Hunnam-less lead role away from a masterpiece. Both come to a head when the film transitions to second half, in which the truncated timeline makes the story shift rather narratively unsatisfying, further compounded by Hunnam, serviceable otherwise, not conveying the passage of time and how it might affect Fawcett internally at all. Enraptured by that first hour though. Scene after scene of gorgeous images, intoxicating atmosphere, and lush textures, all with plot momentum that captures the fevered mindset of an obsessed man slowly but surely. Also a knock-out of final 20 minutes, in which some must go where rationality cannot follow them, and some must live in the unknown. That contrast is extraordinary in its lingering sadness and haunting power, encapsulated whole with yet another stunning Gray's final shot. 8/10
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
    The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
    The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
    Sisters (1973) - 6.5
    Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5

  10. #10
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Denver
    Posts
    30,597
    Not sure I understand the raves here. For such a cool environment, it seems like all the critical scenes are ones I've already experienced in other movies. There's nothing that stands out from the other jungle movies that we've already seen. Whereas Gray can do some amazing suspense in We Own the Night, or display great characters in Immigrant/Two Lovers, there's never really any of that here. Cinematography is good.... I guess. But I expect more from Gray at this point.

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


    twitter

  11. #11
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    6,995
    Quote Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
    This is only going to get better with time.
    Sure enough, it was. My review:

    https://615film.com/2017/10/25/hidde...-amazon-prime/
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

    615 Film
    Letterboxd

  12. #12
    3-2-1 Let's Porg Neclord's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Everett, WA
    Posts
    464
    I thought this was pretty great.

  13. #13
    Body Double Rico's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Posts
    121
    Could have used some zombies.

  14. #14
    Body Double Devlin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Posts
    54
    A beautiful film. Sometimes just a way a movie is filmed is enough to captivate me, but there is so much more here. While it's not perfect, I was absorbed by the experience. It has a kind of Malick feel to it. And while it was a slow moving film, I think if it were fleshed out more with about thirty more minutes this would have been even better. What is there, though, is quite impressive.

  15. #15
    Super Moderator dreamdead's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    5,843
    Perhaps a bit more emotionally inert than the best of Gray's films (Two Lovers, The Immigrant), but the skill and craft exhibited throughout are stunning. I wish the film lingered more on Fawcett's inability to be content while in England, which would have lent greater weight to whether or not his son is correct in suggesting that he uses the trips as an escape rather than doing it all for his family. That said, that final shot is a marvel, and the last twenty minutes are especially marvelous in their open-endedness, in their dreamy quality.

    I wish Miller had just a bit more to do after her great speech, too. It hinted at a more complex treatment of the patient wife trope, even though it eventually fell back on it.
    The Boat People - 9
    The Power of the Dog - 7.5
    The King of Pigs - 7

  16. #16
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    The Yay Area
    Posts
    5,243
    Strangely, this is still my top film of 2017 simply by default. I would have expected something to knock it out in the last six months of 2017, but, nope.
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 01-09-2018 at 10:28 PM.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  17. #17
    Errand Boy
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Posts
    40
    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    Strangely, this is still my top film of 2017 simply by default. I would have expected something to knock it out in last six months of 2017, but, nope.
    I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.

  18. #18
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    The Yay Area
    Posts
    5,243
    Quote Quoting Weems (view post)
    I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.
    I think there are many very good films (Lady Bird, BR 2049, Get Out, Logan Lucky, mother!, The Last Jedi), but I haven't seen anything that truly knocked my socks off. Maybe Phantom Thread will change that. This is mostly my #1 because James Gray (again) gets forgotten when it comes to year-end accolades.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  19. #19
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Denver
    Posts
    30,597
    Quote Quoting Weems (view post)
    I feel the same, and I don't like this movie nearly as much as I do Two Lovers. 2017 was a terrible movie year IMO.
    I'll have to go back and look, but it's been one of the better years over the last 3-5 at least.

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


    twitter

  20. #20
    По́мните Катю... Izzy Black's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    1,677
    2017 was weak, but this was not. This one is special.

    Characters in quixotic adventure films are often opaque. I like that Gray goes deep into the psychological trauma of history, culture, and family to provide a rich portrait of his characters. This film is ambitious in its scope, even as Gray was limited in his budget. I concur with others that a longer cut would have been amazing. Nonetheless a majestic experience. Another near masterpiece from Gray. I still think The Immigrant is his magnum opus, but it's close.

  21. #21
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    The Yay Area
    Posts
    5,243
    I also like James Gray films because they get the elusive creature known as Izzy Black to come out of his winter hibernation.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  22. #22
    i am the great went ledfloyd's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    6,230
    Quote Quoting Henry Gale (view post)
    Gray really is one of the most underappreciated filmmakers around, and I base that almost solely on Two Lovers and The Immigrant. What's the consensus on his work prior?
    I don't care much for We Own the Night, but The Yards is great.

  23. #23
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    The Yay Area
    Posts
    5,243
    Quote Quoting ledfloyd (view post)
    I don't care much for We Own the Night, but The Yards is great.
    I think We Own the Night is worth watching. The story is boilerplate ("two brothers caught on opposite sides of the law...it's a thin blue line between love and hate!") but the direction, cinematography, and performances elevate it. There's a really cool car chase scene set in pouring rain.
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 01-15-2018 at 05:42 AM.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  24. #24
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    9,853
    Someone should have warned me that this was so great. The comparisons to David Lean are well earned as he was in my head for much of the movie, specially with the matchcut between whisky down the drain / the train. Gray handles a unique tone and a great variety of themes, so that the film works both like a classic adventure epic and a contemporary revision of those great stories. And of course, the real story of Percy Fawcett is fascinating stuff to build a movie around - I'm surprised at my ignorance on those matters.

    I was as weary of Charlie Hunham as I always am but I was actually pleasantly surprised by his performance. I also have to wonder what a better actor would have been like but it's not like he brought down the film or anything. Pattinson was great in comparison, though.

  25. #25
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Much of this movie was quite well done and interesting.

    Then the ending.

    Fuck this movie.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
An forum