I'm as surprised as you. I just really dig ASM and 25th Hour.Quoting Idioteque Stalker (view post)
I'm as surprised as you. I just really dig ASM and 25th Hour.Quoting Idioteque Stalker (view post)
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 ☆
Gonna just ignore the end of that last page. I'm bummed that the Spike Lee movie pack I found back in July didn't have 25th Hour. To the Barnes & Noble!
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
No Country for Old Men vs. Kill Bill Vol. 1 (ouch)
25th Hour vs. Spirited Away (YAWN)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vs. Shaun of the Dead
Mulholland Drive vs. Before Sunset (yawn)
There Will Be Blood vs. Memento
Zodiac vs. Children of Men
A Serious Man vs. Wall-E
Inglourious Basterds vs. Yi Yi (OUCH)
Wow, so Before Sunset is even more overrated than even I had imagined.
Before Sunset is almost perfect.
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
I low key can't stand it.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I high key couldn't even finish it.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
I honestly have little interest in seeing any of the trilogy. Please tell me how it is any different from your average white people meet cute movie.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
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
I really shouldn't post while drinking but fuck it I don't care today. Think I'll watch Dogtooth when I get home sounds like it's messed up enough for how I feel right now.
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
Lots more whining.Quoting DFA1979 (view post)
The thing is, I love this move completely, but I don't care if you don't want to watch it, or that Skitch can't even finish it. I don't write essays on demandQuoting DFA1979 (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Not encouraging haha.Quoting Skitch (view post)
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
I just asked why I should watch it not asking for an essay or whatever. Also I find this hilarious considering how for years people on this site and the Corrie dogged me for not giving them a full review of a movie I liked. Why am i here again I donno I mean folks have asked me to stay and I'm like why? Why bother? Anyways fuck it.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
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
Sorry Idiot I'm glad you did this contest and you set this up only for people to literally spit in your face. You're a good dude.
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
And you shouldn't care. You do you bro! Lord knows I've got plenty I love that everyone hates.Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
To the haters: Baby, you all miss that plane.
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
Indeed. And I apologize in advance because I will be voting for Before Sunset in every match up except oneQuoting Skitch (view post)
Last 10 Movies Seen
(90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)
Run (2020) 64
The Whistlers (2019) 55
Pawn (2020) 62
Matilda (1996) 37
The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976) 61
Moby Dick (2011) 50
Soul (2020) 64
Heroic Duo (2003) 55
A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
As Tears Go By (1988) 65
Stuff at Letterboxd
Listening Habits at LastFM
Oh yeah, that one's messed up.Quoting DFA1979 (view post)
The women in LOTR don't "threaten the patriarchy" that much within the narrow context of Middle Earth society (whether they did so in the real world is another question, though), but that's an irrelevant point, since the trilogy is obviously portraying a fantasy world where sexism against women is not shown to be anywhere near as rampant as it is in the real one, either in the medieval times that inspired Tolkien in the first place, or even in 2021 (I mean, Theoden literally proclaims that Eowyn is to rule Rohan in his place if he dies in Return Of The King, which is exactly what happens). Furthermore, LOTR's positive portrayal of such women is a good thing, especially in the context of how previous movies (including Basic Instinct) had typically portrayed female empowerment, which is in the inherently negative manners you admitted, as it tended to be connected to emotional instability or immorality, either of the sexual kind, or the homicidal (with the first often leading to the latter), usually culminating with the woman in question ending up either in jail or dead. In other words, these characters were portrayed as a threat to the patriarchy in order to serve as an implicit warning against women from being assertive or sexually liberated, since it often lead to doom for both them and the men in their orbit, and such characterizations were themselves the product of a patriarchal system (Hollywood) that set up those limits and consequences for female characters in the first place, the same system that primarily valued women for their looks/bodies, where sexual abuse ran rampant (and still does to a certain extent, if the fallout of the Weinstein scandal is anything to go by), and multiple actresses were pressured into having abortions, including Davis & Crawford themselves.Quoting baby doll (view post)
Anyway, regarding the points about Basic Instinct, while it's always possible to go too far in either direction when it comes to portraying female empowerment, like the way that the relatively mindless "girl power!" sentiments of something Captain Marvel ignores the way that the title character is absorbed into the propaganda of the American military-industrial complex, Basic Instinct still goes too far in the opposite direction by being a genuinely offensive, regressive portrayal of female empowerment, and a stark contrast to the way that the female portrayals in LOTR, Fury Road, and (to counterbalance this with a good Verhoeven movie) Total Recall not only hold up as progressive even today, but are also still endlessly fascinating to analyze, because it's not some either/or choice between movies being either enlightened or interesting; they can (and should) be both, and to act otherwise is nonsense.
Last edited by StuSmallz; 08-27-2021 at 06:17 AM.
I'll just limit myself to voting and ignoring the dumb bullshit certain people post from now on.
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
Quoting DFA1979 (view post)
Should we finally just try to move this back-and-forth over to the "28 Films Later" thread now, where it would be more on-topic?
Last edited by StuSmallz; 08-26-2021 at 06:40 AM.
Waaaaaaaay back in 2008, I wrote the following for the non-administrative top 50. I stand by pretty much all of it, though some of the NGO talk would probably warrant greater coverage in how the characters struggle to be good liberals...Quoting DFA1979 (view post)
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
With regard to The Lord of the Rings, it seems to me that the first question is: how genuinely progressive is its depiction of a world ostensibly less sexist than our own? I would argue not very, since the films' female characters gain assertiveness on the battlefield at the expense of sexual expression. In other words, the efforts of Jackson and his co-writers to imagine a non-sexist fantasy world are constrained by the sexist attitudes of the world in which the films were actually produced and consumed. It's evident that mainstream audiences in the early 2000s readily accepted the assertiveness of the films' female characters on the battlefield to the point that it aroused virtually no comment, but I doubt the same audiences would have as readily accepted them having Dionysian bisexual orgies. (Needless to say, there can be no female liberation without sexual liberation.)Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
The second question is: how interesting is the film's depiction of a non-sexist fantasy world, limited though it may be in its omission of female sexuality? Again, I would argue not very since the films' unambiguously affirmative stance towards female empowerment (as distinct from emancipation or liberation) leaves nothing for the spectator to do but nod in agreement: Yes, this is how things ought be but aren't yet. The films' attitude is essentially pious and nothing is more boring in art than piety, since it doesn't allow for contradiction, messiness, tension, ambivalence, or complexity.
This is, not incidentally, why so much liberal film criticism is not only insufferable but overly simplistic. In characterizing films in binary, either/or terms (progressive/regressive, enlightened/unenlightened, feminist/misogynist), such criticism fails to grapple with the complexity of pop culture as a site of ideological contradiction. To take the example of a classical film in which the heroine dies at the end, Josef von Sternberg's Dishonored has both progressive and conservative elements and much of the film's fascination results from the productive tension between them. Inevitably the prostitute heroine dies (by firing squad, no less), yet the film in no way endorses this, instead regarding her as a sort of martyr and contrasting her genuine (if sexually transgressive) patriotism with the hypocrisy of the male military officers. (Jonathan Rosenbaum has characterized the film as "an antiwar statement that a prostitute can do more for her countryman than a female spy.") Yet the film's attitude towards its heroine is far from straightforward, as evidenced by the famous close-up of her instinctively fixing her lipstick just before she's shot. On the one hand, the heroine/Marlene Dietrich is to be admired for her beauty, while on the other, her exaggerated, slightly campy makeup denotes the lack of an authentic essence. Basic Instinct evidences a similar split attitude towards its heroine, combining fascination and condemnation, although as I've pointed out elsewhere on this forum, she's never punished for her transgressions and the seeming phallic victory of the Michael Douglas character is highly provisional and could be reversed at any moment: if he's still alive at the end of the movie, it's only because Stone wants him alive for now. The contradictions of Sternberg and Verhoeven's films make them a lot more exciting to watch (and re-watch) than the bland liberal pieties of Portrait d'une jeune fille en feu or The Lord of the Rings, neither of which I have the slightest desire to see again.
Last edited by baby doll; 08-26-2021 at 03:52 PM.
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
Your convo remains on topic despite LOTR getting voted out. Anything even tangentially related to "best of the 00s" is welcome here. Pretty sure he wasn't referring to you anyway. Feel free to carry on.Quoting StuSmallz (view post)
I was more of a lurker back then, but this was and still is a great thread. I suppose we can assume you'll vote BS all the way to the end, unless a seismic shift has occurred...Quoting dreamdead (view post)
Last edited by Idioteque Stalker; 08-26-2021 at 04:36 PM.
With ~24 hours left to go, we have three nailbiters:
Mulholland Drive vs. Before Sunset
There Will Be Blood vs. Memento
A Serious Man vs. Wall-E
If you've been thinking about voting and have a preference in these match-ups (or any others), now would be a great time to vote by posting in this thread or sending me a PM.