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mycophobia posted:Before trilogy are some of my favorite films Thousand dollar question, which is your favorite?
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Aug 14, 2022 06:36
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Carillon posted:Thousand dollar question, which is your favorite? Sunset I think, but it's close. I like that it takes place in real time and the pace is perfect
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Aug 14, 2022 14:04
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Stuff I watched this weekend: Battle At Lake Changjin - Kind of liked how the battle scenes here only rarely concern themselves with actually resembling a regular war film and instead are just ridiculous, melodramatic Tsui Hark scenes. What a kid thinks war is like when playing in the backyard. It could have afforded to be even more over the top, like Tsui Hark's earlier filmography or something like RRR, but as it is it only sometimes hits that level. Otherwise it's too long and I didn't care about any of the characters. Oh and for all the crying about Chinese propaganda, the American soldiers are generally treated as normal, scared human beings who don't want to be there - a far more sympathetic portrayal than you will see of America's enemies in most of our war movies. Not sure if I will watch the sequel any time soon. 6/10 Asteroid vs Earth - Speaking of the Chinese government, the PRC character in this has the best 30 seconds of the entire film. An asteroid is coming to hit stock footage of Hong Kong and he prepares himself by writing a farewell note in giant, childish hanzi, clearly written with a sharpie on a piece of printer paper instead of with a calligraphy brush, puts on his 19th century Manchu uniform, walks past his samurai swords and watches the asteroid obliterate him and his home. Why bother writing the note? 1/10 Closely Observed Trains - you think being under nazi occupation is bad? try talking to a girl! this guy's fighting his own "battle of the bulge" if you know what i mean. 7.5/10 Million Dollar Baby - I put off watching this for so long because I knew what happened and didn't want to be bummed out. But yeah, this is Eastwood's best film as a director. 9/10
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Aug 15, 2022 05:42
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Gaius Marius posted:Hard Eight I know he had done short films before hand, but drat for a first feature PTA came out swinging. Right from the opening shot of the diner I could feel that style of his. Story isn't as good or as large in scope as his next two, but it's got that same hosed up father son dynamic they had, but with a lot more concentration on the principals. Favorite thing about the movie is how unglamorous it portrays the casino night life. The hotel rooms, even the suites are dingy garbage, the casinos are dim and filled with obnoxious assholes, and in the end everyone but the house just ends up poorer. Seriously the highest amount of cash one person has in the film is $6000, it's pathetic. James Bond made gambling look exciting and refined, This movie makes it look like the waiting room into hell. Great soundtrack too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eF8kpTbyzQ
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Aug 15, 2022 09:43
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Before Midnight we've officially entered the too real zone. I don't know if I've ever seen such a realistic fight on screen before. Both sides have perfectly valid points, are needlessly cruel, bring up unrelated bullshit, accuse the other side of not listening, and are instantly regretful of their actions. Gotta say, movies a 9 but I'm not rewatching it like I will the first two
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Aug 15, 2022 12:18
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I love all three of them but I think Before Midnight is my favorite for that reason. It's almost like watching real people!
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Aug 16, 2022 05:19
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TychoCelchuuu posted:I love all three of them but I think Before Midnight is my favorite for that reason. It's almost like watching real people! Ending the Second Film with Jesse choosing not to get on a plane being one of the best things he's ever done, and then opening the Third with not getting on a plane being one of the hardest things he's ever done is a real motherfucker of a gutpunch. I know they're going to miss the nine year mark, but I really hope we get at least one more film out of those two. The Unforgiven I;m pretty sure I got this because Hepburn was in it, and then watched it because I confused it with Unforgiven. Not a bad movie at all, Huston was really trying to say something about how racist society was. Certainly the town is portrayed far harsher than the Kiowa are, and maybe it's just my modern sensibilities, but Ben choosing to fire on the Kiowa made even the family feel pretty reprehensible. It's a totally hosed situation for everyone though. That said the film itself is still pretty sixties about it all, even if the Kiowa aren't just full on murder mooks. The real standout to me was the first scene with Abe as he rides into frame holding his saber like an avenging angel. Maybe it's just Gish being there, but I was getting some real night of the hunter vibes from it all. Speaking of Gish, she puts work in in terms of eye acting, there's some scenes where they look like they're gonna fall out her head. I would criticize Cash managing to drive back the Kiowa nearly single handedly, but they cast Audie Murphy so that criticism is fully invalid. I also want to know what's up with Burt, he's doing a good job, but of the two movies I've seen him in this year both have had him trying to gently caress his sister, it's an odd role to go back to the well on.
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Aug 17, 2022 02:29
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Carillon posted:Thousand dollar question, which is your favorite? Before Sunrise was my favourite when I watched the first two in my early 20s, then Before Sunset edged it out on rewatch 8-9 years later. Before Midnight is the only one I haven't rewatched but I agree with everything said above - extremely real and painfully relatable in a lot of ways, just incredible storytelling all around between the three movies.
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Aug 17, 2022 06:38
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Valley Girl I see how it is, Nic Cage shows up to his ex's dates and sleeps on her lawn and it's "cute" and "romantic" but when I do it it's "pathetic" and "restraining order" Safety Last I've seen some Chaplin and Keaton back in the day, but something about Harold's movie appeals infinitely more to me. His dude is such a go getting doofus. Right from the get where the movie is framed to look like he's in prison and about to be hanged only to zoom out and show he's just waiting for a train, dude's an expert on that kind of humor. Training Day In my heart I understand that this is what Jesse was doing between Sunrise and Sunset. Denzel is putting out and out of the park performance as a corrupt LAPD dude who oozes charisma, Ethan Hawk is also doing a more subtle but still great performance as his rookie partner. The plot is absurd in execution and lacks the subtly of a more grounded movie about police corruption like Serpico, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting. Seeing Snoop in a wheel chair was hilarious but Dre was way too over the top gotta stick to producing man. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Aug 19, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 22:18
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Three Colors Blue Should've known this lad was gonna be a sad affair, but I don't think I was prepared for such a grieving film. Most films the sadness is a slow burn, look at blue valentine where you see a relationship explode. This one is extremely to the point, one moment her, her husband and her daughter are laughing, and then bam they're dead and she wishes she was. The way she copes after the deaths is the driving heart of the film and it's pretty interesting to see. She cuts herself off from all other human contact. Or at least attempts to. The thesis of this movie seems to be not hell is other people like the main character seems to believe but that heaven is other people, despite all her attempts at exile she is continually forced to deal with others. When she ignores the man being beaten she ends up needing to borrow a blanket from the neighbor husband, she tries to ignore the petition to get the woman expelled and accidentally gains a friend, she tries to cut out Olivier only for him to double down on trying to break her out of her misery, even her mother whose got dementia can't recognize her, but still recognizes her as family. She can't escape from other people, but once she accepts that she's finally able to move on in a healthy way and regain some of the life she lost. An interesting movie that's very well shot and layered with meaningful camera work, but personally I wasn't vibing with is at all. Veronique and her dunce An early Rohmer short about a woman trying to tutor an obstinate young lad. The kid feels like something of a prototype of Antoine Doinel with he precociousness, but the film doesn't exactly have much to say except the way we teach kids is pretty poor and you need to actually know what your teaching before you teach. Also that some people can be real book dumb but really emotionally intelligent, that girl got loving played.
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Aug 21, 2022 05:03
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The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil I thought the cop would have been the protagonist but even he is unlikable in comparison to a serial killer and a gangster. I think that the way his character was written threw me off for the whole movie and my enjoyment of it.
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Aug 21, 2022 06:17
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Gaius Marius posted:Three Colors Blue Not sure given your reaction if you're considering White and Red, but I'd definitely be curious to hear what you think of them if you do go for it. Personally, I felt there was a lot of heavyhandedness in the movie, from the cutting to blue, the score swelling so dramatically, her running away, etc. But funnily enough that really worked for the story. Grief is heavyhanded and can be paradoxical, and this captured that really well for me. It felt obvious, but super truthful if that makes sense.
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Aug 22, 2022 01:18
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Carillon posted:Not sure given your reaction if you're considering White and Red, but I'd definitely be curious to hear what you think of them if you do go for it. Personally, I felt there was a lot of heavyhandedness in the movie, from the cutting to blue, the score swelling so dramatically, her running away, etc. But funnily enough that really worked for the story. Grief is heavyhanded and can be paradoxical, and this captured that really well for me. It felt obvious, but super truthful if that makes sense. Yeah in retrospect the swelling score really works to show just how overwhelming even simple things could be for someone under so much grief. To us a man playing a snippet on flute is at most annoying, but to Juliette's character it's this all consuming cacophony that drowns out her thoughts and reason. Three Colors: White If you put a gun to my chest and told me to guess what the next part of the Colors trilogy would be, I would never in a billion years guess. The Count of Monte Cristo (Polish Dub). I was flabbergasted. Starting it near the end was nice, I think that's the only place it crossed over though, a bit odd for a trilogy. The actual scene was brutal, Karol being able to to make any defence for himself because of his lack of French, and Julie Delpy just dragging him in court, the man was impotent in more ways than one. Really I think they might of made her character too viscious, roasting him in court, dropping his luggage out her car, framing him for arson, it's loving ruthless. And it took me most of the movie trying to grapple with exactly what her thoughts were. I actually appreciate that they didn't just have it be fifty fifty between her and Karol, the viewer being as in the dark about her thoughts as Karol was is a good place to be in when watching it even if it's frustrating, I think we've all got that one Ex who we're always wondering what she thinks of us, or why it collapsed. In this movie Karol is that man, and watching him turn that pining into sheer ambition is fun as hell. In terms of themes though either I'm struggling or perhaps the director was, probably me. It seems that Dominique was attracted to Karol because of his talent and drive in Poland, but when they moved to France she found him entirely different with the language barrier and his inability to express any real drive instead of being a being of pure reaction. I think she's truthful when she says she loves him but that he doesn't understand her when she says it. She fell in love with someone who wasn't a wet sock of a man, someone who won competitions and didn't talk about how his dick doesn't get hard in a courtroom. France introduced an invisible wall between the two with the sheer difference of the locales, the language, the difference in wealth, even his status as best hairdresser in Poland vs another hairdresser reduced to busker, changing his comb from a tool of the trade to a vulgar instrument. It's only when he becomes the kind of success orientated dog that will do anything to suceed that he wins her back, but in doing so he's mistaken the desire for love for the desire for revenge and with the barrier (mental) between them destroyed the barrier (physical) arises of his own creation, just as he had them demolish the wall of his mansion only to rebuild it even thicker. In the end a movie about mistaking what want and losing because of it, Mikolaj thinks he wants to die but really just wants a friend, the criminals think Karol just wants a job but really he wanted to swindle them, Dominique thinks she wants to belittle and denigrate Karol but really she just wanted him to push back, Karol thought he wanted to punish Dominique when really he just wanted her back. At least that's my reckoning of the film. It's a hard one to analyze, Dominique is in so few scenes it can be hard to read her. And Karol himself can be somewhat an enigma at times. Lastly, I know it's a polish director and I didn't wanna be one of those people who think every Polish has seen every other Polish film the way people think every foreigner is expert in their entire countries cinema. But even in Blue with the apt buying and the alienation, I was feeling that the movie reminded me of Polanski's The Tenant and then in this one that feeling was even greater with Polanski's character in that film being comparable to Karol in his awkwardness and inability to navigate a foreign land. Edit, thinking about it now. Towards the end after his ex is arrested he looks outside his brothers window through his comb. Imagine the perspective, of one looking through parallel bars. He might have trapped her in a prison, but so too is he trapped in one, kept away from her even as she's closer than she's been for years. He started his trade as a hairdresser, used that comb to busk until he found a fellow pole willing to help him out, and then used it to enact his revenge trapping them both in a prison. Quite a life for a single comb. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Aug 22, 2022 |
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Aug 22, 2022 05:58
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The weekend watches: High and Low - The highest rated Kurosawa I've never seen. Guess I was just more into samurai when I was younger movie nerd and never sought this out, but then I feel like without this ranking so high on Letterboxd it would almost be a forgotten entry into his filmography. You never see it talked about the way, say, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ran or Yojimbo are. It's a real shame though, as this might just be the best police procedural style story ever. I expected the entire film to be like the first hour, characters in a single room debating among themselves as to the best course of action. I would have been perfectly fine if that was the entire thing, I was even drawing comparisons to 12 Angry Men in my head. But no, it switches gears entirely in the second half, after the fantastic train sequence, to become a story about police tracking down the kidnappers from the scant clues you get in the first half of the film. The entire time I was expecting Gordo to be the mastermind behind the plot. Does it make sense? Not at all, but just the way he moves to the background later on, the way the movie just completely shifts perspective, I was expecting a big twist and I thought maybe the debate at the beginning, where he took the stance of short term cost in favor of long term profit, was going to be foreshadowing, as if his self victimization had some sort of hidden silver lining. When the actual kidnapper, being tailed by the cops, met him in the streets I totally expected the reveal to come there. But no. Anyways, it's both a really clever crime story and seems to saying something about the ruthless nature of Japanese corporate culture at the time. Gordo lives on a hill like the rich family from Parasite but he's not at the top of the class structure, and all it takes is one decent act to send him tumbling down. 9/10 Brokeback Mountain - If this movie came out either 5 years later or 5 years earlier I'd probably wouldn't think of this as the "gay cowboy movie lol" but it came out when I was middle school and all the dumb jokes by stupid boys (including myself) have unfortunately forever burned that kind of thing into my mental schema for this movie. Actually watching it, I'm surprised to find that 1. it's not set in the old west but rather the mid 20th century and 2. it deals more with the long term fallout and anguish of the two men's affair more than their initial tryst up in the mountain. Heath Ledger really was taken from us too soon. His portrayal of Ennis Del Mar, a character who outwardly presents himself as a sort of sometimes-snarling-mostly-quiet Robert Redford type but is actually an emotionally fraught, self loathing man in denial about the tragedy he's living through until it's too late is completely believable. Ang Lee has a strong filmography, yet the fact that it is so varied makes it easy to forget about him a lot of the time. You could never guess that this is the same director that made Crouching Tiger or Life of Pi. 8/10 Grave of the Fireflies - One of those films I never saw because I felt like I had already seen it, you know? And it's a real bummer. Idk though, much like Come and See I think it was a little too built up for me as I wasn't quite as sad as most people seem to be. You know what's going to happen from frame one and it's almost a relief when it does happen. At least now the poor kids get to be happy ghosts and go on the ghost train to see their mom. The real emotion this made me feel was frustration. It wasn't the war that killed these kids, it was all the passive adults who did nothing but shrugged their shoulders and figured someone else would take care of it. All that said, I do think this is one of the best animated movies I've ever seen, it's just so straightforwardly what it is that it's hard to write about it. 9/10 Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer - literally me fr 7/10 Also somewhat recently I watched the two Buster Keaton films Seven Chances and Steamboat Bill Jr. and my feelings about the two are the same. With Keaton you get 40 minutes of a Chaplin film, with some clever vaudeville sight gags followed by 20 minutes of the craziest Jackie Chan poo poo you ever seen in your life. Everyone talks about the falling house gag in Steamboat Bill, and rightly so as the front of the house weighed a ton and they couldn't practice it or anything, but honestly the rest of that sequence with the crazy wind storm is just as top notch. Charlie had better politics but Keaton had better moves. No rating.
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Aug 22, 2022 06:50
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Gaius Marius posted:Yeah in retrospect the swelling score really works to show just how overwhelming even simple things could be for someone under so much grief. To us a man playing a snippet on flute is at most annoying, but to Juliette's character it's this all consuming cacophony that drowns out her thoughts and reason. My partner was super against the idea about Dominique ever finding Karol attractive, essentially saying that she says she's attracted to K, but we're given no evidence or support for that. My explanation was similar to yours, in that him in Polish was super different to him in French, and that I think there's enough there to support it. That said, the movie does require you as the view to do a whole bunch of extrapolation. The revenge plot in particular was a whole bunch of telling you that they fixed the murder on her and trusting you to believe it. There are so many extremes too, like you go from Dominique making him homeless to him trying to gently caress her, to her setting their place on fire to pin the arson on him. Then it's oh we're back and she's crying so that means that she loves him and they have sex, to oh he's gone and now she's in prison for his murder. This more than the others felt like it was about the fall of the soviet union and the characters were agents of national change. I do think Karol's brother is pretty great in this, both the character and the actor are always a joy to see on this screen. To me the whole thing felt less emotional and more tactical, rather than revealing deeper truths, everyone felt in service of the plot and a message. I wish they'd developed Dominique.
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Aug 22, 2022 09:09
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Night Teeth on Netflix is some fun, lovely schlock. Hot vampires and blood feuds in Los Angelos, oh my!
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Aug 22, 2022 17:50
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TV Zombie posted:The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil Saw this movie on a plane, it was pretty good! It's true the cop was the least likable of the three
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Aug 23, 2022 03:22
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Carillon posted:My partner was super against the idea about Dominique ever finding Karol attractive, essentially saying that she says she's attracted to K, but we're given no evidence or support for that. My explanation was similar to yours, in that him in Polish was super different to him in French, and that I think there's enough there to support it. That said, the movie does require you as the view to do a whole bunch of extrapolation. The revenge plot in particular was a whole bunch of telling you that they fixed the murder on her and trusting you to believe it. Polanski pulled Sharon Tate so something about those Poles must've been very compelling. Carillon posted:I do think Karol's brother is pretty great in this, bth the character and the actor are always a joy to see on this screen. To me the whole thing felt less emotional and more tactical, rather than revealing deeper truths, everyone felt in service of the plot and a message. I wish they'd developed Dominique. I sort of appreciate that we never really see Dominique outside of Karol's view because it forces us to view her the same way he does, this object of obsession, love, and hate. Someone inscrutable to him, it's worth noting that the first solo scene she gets is after he's faked his death and thus proven to her how deranged he is in his love for her, and of course actually satisfied her. Now that he understands her, we can see her alone in the hotel because he can imagine it. “But the cinephile is … a neurotic! (That’s not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it’s because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life doesn’t give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.” ― François Truffaut Three Colors Red The third installment in the trilogy opens with our main character, a model, a person whose purpose is to be viewed from afar going through her daily routine. She takes a photoshoot and is disappointed to find the company doesn't like the photo she finds best, an image where she was directed to feel anguish, A false feeling, a borrowed feeling. A chance encounter between a dog and her fender sends her to the house of a retired judge. Having had such authority his views on justice have become warped, and his broken heart has closed him off from the world, he chooses instead to become a spectator of the world, listening and viewing from his house the goings on of his neighbors, the drug dealer, the closeted gay man, a couple about to break up, he watches, listens, and judges them. But he does not interfere, or rather in his view he cannot intervene. He's lost the will to do anything requiring choice. When his dog runs away he accepts it, and when it's returned he accepts it. It's only when Valentine confronts him that he shakes off the learned passivity and rejoins the world. But he nearly succeeds in closing her off instead, at first his view almost wins out when she fails to confront the family of the closeted man, but when she calls the drug dealer to tell him off he realizes that he does not have to live in his voyeuristic world, he posts his letters confessing guilt. Allowing him to rejoin society, even if it's as a pitiable figure, just as everyone else is headed head long into calamity. Valentine's possessive and unseen boyfriends continually tries to direct her like she's his puppet, the law student loses contact with his girlfriend only to watch her both having sex with a new man, and then to eat dinner with him. Himself being separated from her by glass in both instances, Valentine's photos are blown up and hung on the road, her looking out into the distance and watching a pack of Hollywood gum. The director turns his gaze to us, the final character of the trilogy, the viewer and asks, is this what you want? To be like Kern, passively gazing at the screen, the films, Hollywood. If Kern's actions are repulsive than what of our own. Did we not intrude on Julies life after her husband and daughter died, gaping at her in the her most intimate and unguarded moments? Did we not watch a man be humiliated by his wife only to in turn humiliate her? Did we not watch a young girl die, a man ask his friend to kill him, a woman break down into laughter at a joke her dead husband said, what makes us different from him? Kern predicts and prognosticates on all manner of things, but it is only when he meets Valentine that he's able to break through his role as spectator, his windows are broken physically and metaphorically, the glass that separated him from his objects of observation. His window is gone and he can rejoin the world. He can once again live, just as we the viewers should. Through the trilogy the Director has shown us Grief, Revenge, Love and Loathing but more importantly he's shown us the value of Human Connection. Julie and Oliver find love in writing a song designed to unite the peoples of Europe, Dominique and Karol finally reconcile after he proves that he understands the sort of passionate and deranged love she requires, it's even implied that Valentine and The New Judge will find love with eachother. The final piece is the ferry accident, another traumatic experience for the principals of all the movies, but now that we've seen them acquire the tools to live their lives we don't need to fear that they'll all make it out okay. It's a grand spectacle of emotion that serves to destroy the final edifices of the film, a film should not end with the cast of the trilogy meekly being pulled out of the water by rescue crews surrounded by the dead, but it happens in life. Every single day beautiful moments of love and terrible tragedy are happening right outside your door. The final shot is a double of Valentines ad, but this time it is no false gawking at an artifice, it's real and total emotion. Just like Kern with his broken windows and destroyed radios she's moved from someone who's viewed and directed to someone active in the world just as we should be. Three Colors Red is far and away the best of the trilogy, and one of the best movies I've seen. From the casting of Mr.Mynightatmaudes to the direction and color work, every single scene was designed and directed perfectly to draw the viewer into the film only to rebuke them for the worst of their voyeuristic tendencies, but never with a harshness. The trilogy serves as entertainment, but also a sort of parable about the human experience, it's ups and downs, the connectedness of events and the randomness of fate. I could compare the films to Rohmer's moral tales, but those while interesting also tended to deliberately twist their morals for entertainment, these films manage to be entertaining but also educational about how to live life, it's a true masterwork of cinema.
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Aug 26, 2022 02:57
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Sleepaway Camp Stunning, it feels like a movie directed by an alien. The acting can be truly awful, but the use of real locations and real kids gives it a level of verisimilitude that isn't common in the genre. It has some horribly dull kills like the shower one, and then some absolute bangers like the curling iron. Aunt Martha is a loving fever dream of insane acting choices, but you do feel an absolute compulsion to root for Angela and Ricky. Transgressive, oddly sentimental and nostalgic, truly bizarre. Sleepaway camp might not be a great film, but it's a great example of how weird movies get when you cut out everything but the directors vision.
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Aug 26, 2022 05:45
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Just watched Good Time last night and my skin crawled when Ray fell off the building.
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Aug 26, 2022 15:20
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Orphan: First Kill is some lurid trash that completely justifies itself with Isabelle Fuhrman just doing 110% acting every single time she's on camera. Double-billing it with the original Orphan would be a great time.
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Aug 26, 2022 15:41
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Penthouse I love watching movies like this where the dialogue is razor sharp and snappy as hell, it's a sad reminder how saggy the dialogue is in modern movies. The plot is somehow overcomplicated and too simple, but the rapport between the leads, and the excellent finale push it above the rest of the pack.
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Aug 28, 2022 01:49
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I'm as shocked as anyone that League of Superpets was a decent film. A lot of heavy lifting by the voice cast (not Kevin Hart or The Rock but Marc Maron, Kate McKinnon and Keanu as Batman). Lots of goofy Easter Eggs for DC nerds and the new Green Lantern lady was cool and I would watch a whole movie with her in it. Almost as shocking was that Paws of Fury Legend of Hank was decent. Yes it's Blazing Saddles but with Samurai and made for kids and somehow it works
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Aug 28, 2022 03:36
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unlimited shrimp posted:Just watched Good Time last night and my skin crawled when Ray fell off the building. I thought it was pretty funny
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Aug 28, 2022 05:25
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Just saw Nope. First reaction: I don't get it. Second reaction: I think Jordan Peele found out that the rider in that first mechanical camera footage was a black guy and worked backwards to justify recreating that scenario in modern times. Aside from some really unclear enunciations, the actors were good. But Honestly, I don't think I liked it. Dr. Ken Jeung's role was weirdly adjacent. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Aug 28, 2022 |
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Aug 28, 2022 18:48
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That's not Ken Jeong, that's Steven Yeun.
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Aug 28, 2022 19:59
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Gyro Zeppeli posted:That's not Ken Jeong, that's Steven Yeun. Oh. Well that's stupid off me.
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Aug 28, 2022 20:30
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I watched behind enemy lines and it was nice to have a movie that was well shot, had tension and 3 acts that wrapped up in about 90-95 minutes. I appreciated the movie not being 2.5 hours long
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Aug 29, 2022 08:55
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Tonight's movies: Intolerance - DW Griffith's apology for Birth of a Nation, this silent epic deals with various kinds of prejudice throughout history, although notably not the kind people actually picketed Nation over. It's ambitious as hell in scale and scope but when it comes to silent films I usually find these types of epics to be among the hardest to watch. As a medium it's just not well suited for intricate plotlines or long running times. Griffith's use of cross cutting in his earlier epic was groundbreaking as a technique to build tension but here cutting between stories just makes the whole thing more discombobulated and hard to follow. You'll get a scene introducing the characters and setting of one story and before they even do anything you'll get another setup for another story and so on, it takes about half an hour for something to actually happen. I made it about an hour and twenty minutes before I turned it off. If you really want to watch a century+ old historic epic then I remember Cabiria being better than this. No rating. The Host - One of those movies I've been hearing about since I was 14 but never bothered to watch until I caught it randomly today. Great creature feature much better than Mosquito, which I'm not reviewing but also watched this weekend. In many ways the family dynamic here feels like a proto Parasite. Too bad about the CGI tho. 7/10 Faces - Cassavettes has real insight into the middle aged characters in his films, there's a real emotional authenticity flowing under the surface of everything he makes. At the same time, I must unfortunately report that I really, really, really don't like the long, meandering dialogue scenes. They drag for so long, I'm constantly having to back up to figure out what's even being conveyed or to hear a line that was poorly recorded. The last 20 minutes or so works so well because there isn't as much dialogue, and I want more of that and less than whatever the hell the first 40 minutes is. 6/10 e: Fit another short one in The Unknown - This silent film was made only 10 years after Intolerance but might as well have been one hundred for how much cinematic language evolved since then. It's well paced, short and I actually got into the story. And what a story! Joan Crawford plays a circus girl who resents the grasping arms of men, always pawing at her. Lon Chaney seems to be the perfect match, being an armless man, except he harbors a dangerous secret: two of them in fact. He actually does have arms. And three thumbs. 7/10 Mantis42 fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Aug 29, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 09:12
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I watched Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge back to back tonight. I'd seen Purple Rain many times but never Graffiti Bridge. GB was a step down visually and in overall depth of its story but I loved the final act a lot. The Kid going from using music as a weapon against his rival to a plea for unity was beautiful and made me wish the total package had the same stylish quality and edge as Purple Rain.
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Aug 30, 2022 09:35
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TheKingslayer posted:I watched Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge back to back tonight. I'd seen Purple Rain many times but never Graffiti Bridge. GB was a step down visually and in overall depth of its story but I loved the final act a lot. The Kid going from using music as a weapon against his rival to a plea for unity was beautiful and made me wish the total package had the same stylish quality and edge as Purple Rain. Now watch Under the Cherry Moon. That’s probably my favorite of the Prince movies, although they’re all what I would generously call guilty pleasures.
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Aug 30, 2022 15:44
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The Thin Man poo poo I thought Loy and Baxter had chemistry, Her and Powell are absolute fire though. Comdiec timing is on point, wit sharp as a razor, and they're just so drat cute together. The actual plot was a little saggy. Penthouse was better in those terms, but drat there's a reason this one's a classic.
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Aug 31, 2022 02:03
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Gaius Marius posted:The Thin Man poo poo I thought Loy and Baxter had chemistry, Her and Powell are absolute fire though. Comdiec timing is on point, wit sharp as a razor, and they're just so drat cute together. The actual plot was a little saggy. Penthouse was better in those terms, but drat there's a reason this one's a classic. Dare you to watch the rest of the series.
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Aug 31, 2022 04:34
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Glorious on shudder with JK Simmons voicing a lovecraftian god. A modern classic?
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Aug 31, 2022 15:48
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Supermarket Woman by Junzo Itami (1996) was a lot of fun like all of his films I have watched so far. He continues to take little niche subjects, though important to Japanese culture, and make interesting, humorous stories out of them. I truly did not expect this movie that is centered around the tastes and wisdom of housewives in a small supermarket to end with a dramatic car chase involving a truck with some incredible custom lights and a chandelier.
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Aug 31, 2022 18:53
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dekotora are cool as poo poo
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Aug 31, 2022 18:59
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Three Thousand Years of Longing is a nice, sweet romantic fantasy. From some of the critical reactions I was expecting something really dense and impenetrable but while the structure is unusual it's not hard to get. Has a few flaws because of said structure being a bit weird but it's engaging and visually sumptuous and there's some stuff worth chewing on.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:33
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Mantis42 posted:I thought it was pretty funny Yeah my reaction caught me off guard. Something about how matter-of-factly it was presented relative to all the close-up drama with Pattinson.
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Sep 2, 2022 04:37
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Nope. More like Yup. It's got all the Spielberg/Shamalyan bits and more, a gory allegory about Hollywood and how it treats those who seem to exist just for spectacle, but it's also a spectacle in and of itself. Michael Wincott is back with a vengeance and looking his age but sounding just like he did 20+ years ago in The Crow. Stephen Yeun rules in his small but memorable role. Keke Palmer steals the show in some of the later scenes and just.. wow what a film!
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Sep 3, 2022 04:10
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Turbinosamente posted:Dare you to watch the rest of the series. I woulda started today but they pulled em off criterion. La Notte Antonioni just does not miss. This movie starts with the camera moving down an elevator like it's descending into hell, and drat if the rest of the movie doesn't play out that way. The environment is devoid of life, the characters rampantly vacuous, and the emotion is dulled to the smallest pangs. There's a lot of movies that are hardline against rampant modernism, capitalism, and commercialism e.g. American Psycho or Wall Street but nobody shows how absolutely crushing and empty it all is like Antonioni. I hope I get to one day see a movie with Jeanne Moreau where she gets to be happy
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Sep 3, 2022 04:14
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