|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I made a choice not to see it based on the previews making it look like a by-the-numbers cliched spy movie. Is this assessment wrong? I think the marketing tried to sell it as something it's not. There are a lot of long shots of countryside, where the camera will pause and hold instead of a quick cut into the next scene. It's slow paced. I've only seen a few movies that weren't Hollywood, so I don't know what to compare the movie to, but it wasn't what I expected.
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 11:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 18:15 |
|
|
SynthesizerKaiser posted:I saw The American a week or so ago and enjoyed it. However, I see that a lot of people don't like it, calling it the "worst movie ever", boring, etc. I figure most people who don't like it were looking for George Clooney as Jason Bourne.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 12:04
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I made a choice not to see it based on the previews making it look like a by-the-numbers cliched spy movie. Is this assessment wrong? I didn't even get that much story or plot from the trailers. The most I got out of it was "George Clooney - with a gun!"
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 15:40
|
|
|
Gonna be kind of a stupid question, but I didn't spend enough time in Europe to really figure this one out and google is failing me: Do they make kids movies or absurdist movies for soccer/football like they do for baseball in America? I have fond memories of some disney(?) movie where the kid breaks his arm and has a nasty fastball, or the Major League movies.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 16:03
|
|
|
SynthesizerKaiser posted:I saw The American a week or so ago and enjoyed it. However, I see that a lot of people don't like it, calling it the "worst movie ever", boring, etc. I figure most people who don't like it were looking for George Clooney as Jason Bourne. There were some pretty articulate criticisms of the American and none of them were "it didn't have enough action in it".
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 16:15
|
|
|
Synnr posted:Gonna be kind of a stupid question, but I didn't spend enough time in Europe to really figure this one out and google is failing me: Shaolin Soccer is absurdist, and bloody funny. Can't think of any others but they must exist.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 16:15
|
|
|
Synnr posted:Gonna be kind of a stupid question, but I didn't spend enough time in Europe to really figure this one out and google is failing me: I don't know if Bend It Like Beckham counts, but it exists.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 19:33
|
|
|
SynthesizerKaiser posted:I think the marketing tried to sell it as something it's not. There are a lot of long shots of countryside, where the camera will pause and hold instead of a quick cut into the next scene. It's slow paced. I've only seen a few movies that weren't Hollywood, so I don't know what to compare the movie to, but it wasn't what I expected.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 19:38
|
|
|
I'm sorry if this is the wrong thread for this question. I thought there was a more specific thread but I couldn't find it skimming through the lst five pages. I just watched Phantasm for the first time. (General opinion is a basically favorable  ) But out of nowhere it reminded me of the ultra schlocky 70's horror movie I saw about 15 minutes of 15 or 20 years ago on late night TV. Had to be from the 70's it was so cheesy. The main character seemed to be a little boy (or young teenager) who was in cahoots with an evil teddy bear that was egging him on/directing his malice. One scene had the kid catch a woman exercising in her living room and threaten her with her daughter's life. The daughter was out playing or something and the kid made like he'd kidnapped her. He made the woman take the top off and took pictures with a Polaroid before the daughter came running in from wherever she'd been. Eventually I think the hi-jinks progressed from harassment and misconduct to real evil. If I'm not confusing it with another film there was a lot of blood at the end but it look just like a jar of maraschino cherries spilled all over the place. This may or may not be the same film with a construction worker buried in the kid's bedroom wall who comes tumbling out. Man. That could actually be three movies. Anybody know about the teddy bear one though? I’ve discovered a special place in my heart for ultra schlocky 70's horror movies and I’d like to catch up with this one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 22:54
|
|
|
Synnr posted:I have fond memories of some disney(?) movie where the kid breaks his arm and has a nasty fastball, or the Major League movies. That would be Rookie of the Year. Home of the wonderful "funky butt-loving" scene. (Not a scene with actual funky butt loving but a scene where the line is uttered and it's hilarious.) Don't know about the rest of it though. It's funny; as football/soccer crazy as the rest of the world is you'd think it would be like baseball movies here but I can't think of any that I've heard of.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 22:59
|
|
|
Synnr posted:Gonna be kind of a stupid question, but I didn't spend enough time in Europe to really figure this one out and google is failing me: Goal isn't really kids absurdism, but its a tad absurd and is a movie for kids (or at least kid friendly-ish, I saw it on a plane so maybe things got cut). I can't say I recommend it, but if it is your thing, I think there are a couple sequels.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2010 23:17
|
|
|
King Plum the Nth posted:Man. That could actually be three movies. Anybody know about the teddy bear one though? I’ve discovered a special place in my heart for ultra schlocky 70's horror movies and I’d like to catch up with this one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 00:59
|
|
|
Posting in the right thread this time: I watched No Country for Old Men the other day for the first time and I'm going to need someone to break it down for me. 1) What was the movie telling me? Or was this one of those "you just have to experience it" kind of scenarios. 2) I sort of liked the chaotic neutral, neutral evil, and neutral good boxes the characters seemed to fit into. 3) I felt that the ending was disjointed. Because the story followed Llewelyn's perspective, with him gone, it was sort of like "blah, now what?" for the rest. 4) What was the point of Woody Harrelson's character? Who was he working for?
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:00
|
|
|
Factor Mystic posted:Posting in the right thread this time: I'll give you my condensed take, which is probably more informed from my overall experiences with the Coens and McCarthy than the individual movie itself. All of this should be preferenced with "I think the movie, among other things, is about . . ." Spoilered just in case. This is a about a man's realization of the absurdity of evil, whether in pure or human form. It ends with Tommy Lee Jones because it is his story - him coming to terms with the fact that the world is an evil place and evil often doesn't follow any rhyme or reason. He has wrestled with this his whole life, with his Dad (?) being shot down in cold blood, his abandoning of his fellow troops out of fear, and his views that the world keeps becoming more uncivilized before his very eyes. It is just this scenario that is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. I tend to think the story is really a response to the idea that we live in a more evil time than the past, as it is set twnety years or so in the past itself, in that the world has always been evil, you just recognize it more the older you get. I don't remember who Woody Harrelson's character was working for, but I always considered him someone who recognized the absurdity of fate and realized it didn't matter if he was on the good or bad side, so he might as well make a buck. That is a fairly vague recap of my feelings on the story. I don't think you are supposed to have a right or wrong answer for most of it (the Coens, and McCarthy, are both strong enough storytellers that you would know every last detail if they intended for you to know those details). I might have mixed up a couple things from the movie with the book, as I haven't seen the movie since it was in theaters and haven't read the book since a couple years before that. Basically, though, it fits pretty square in the Coen's consistent fascination with nihilism/absurdity/fatalism, as well as McCarthy's themes (at least from his later work) on the humanity (or lack thereof) that resides at the core of different people (I don't really know how to phrase McCarthy's themes).
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:25
|
|
|
Factor Mystic posted:Posting in the right thread this time: This is something first time viewers of the movie almost always miss out on, which adds incredible confusion, but Tommy Lee Jones is actually supposed to be the main character. This is why the movie and its ending are so polarizing. Woody Harrelson was working for Stephen Root's character. I think Root was the financier or something behind the botched drug deal and was especially interested after Anton killed his two drug lord employers so he could take the money for himself. I havent watched it in awhile but I think they're intentionally vague about this. grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Sep 16, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:25
|
|
|
Factor Mystic posted:Posting in the right thread this time: Woody Harrelson's character was working for the man in the office building that he talked to when Harrelson was first introduced. The same man also employed Chigur and the random groups of Mexicans. Basically he hired all of them at different points to recover the money. Chigur killed him basically because he was offended that the man didn't trust him to get the job done on his own. That's why he said something to the effect of "Why did you give the Mexicans a transponer? You already had the one tool you needed." As far as the meaning of the movie itself, I think it's just about the random, inescapable nature of violence. The only ones who aren't killed by Chigur, or manage to harm him in any way, do so only by pure luck. General Dog fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Sep 16, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:31
|
|
|
cletepurcel posted:This is something first time viewers of the movie almost always miss out on, which adds incredible confusion, but Tommy Lee Jones is actually supposed to be the main character. This is why the movie and its ending are so polarizing. And before anyone smugly points out that if the audience doesn't get that Jones was the protagonist then the movie failed, it was supposed to be a reveal more than something we knew from the start. Something to reflect back on and realize.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:40
|
|
|
I just watched The Proposition. I liked it, and thought it was beautifully filmed, but I had a hard time swallowing the ending. When Guy Pearce's character kills his nephew and his brother at the end, it seems to come out of nowhere. His younger brother is already dead, so it doesn't do him any good to kill his brother; in fact it would seem like he'd want to see revenge enacted against the captain, since he broke the deal. I understand that he's supposed to have evolved and that he's rejecting the dark side of his nature, but I never saw much evidence of his evolution as a character leading up to this point.. Am I missing something?
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 02:42
|
|
|
Liberty Valance posted:I just watched The Proposition. I liked it, and thought it was beautifully filmed, but I had a hard time swallowing the ending. When Guy Pearce's character kills his nephew and his brother at the end, it seems to come out of nowhere. His younger brother is already dead, so it doesn't do him any good to kill his brother; in fact it would seem like he'd want to see revenge enacted against the captain, since he broke the deal. I understand that he's supposed to have evolved and that he's rejecting the dark side of his nature, but I never saw much evidence of his evolution as a character leading up to this point.. Am I missing something? Yeah, I may be in the minority here for agreeing with you. It has a lot going for it - cinematography, casting, etc. But it just seems a bit lacking in real character development - especially Guy Pearce and Danny Huston both seem to be really in need of more screentime to expand on their characters or whatever central ideas Cave/Hillcoat were trying to get at.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 03:12
|
|
|
Liberty Valance posted:I just watched The Proposition. I liked it, and thought it was beautifully filmed, but I had a hard time swallowing the ending. When Guy Pearce's character kills his nephew and his brother at the end, it seems to come out of nowhere. His younger brother is already dead, so it doesn't do him any good to kill his brother; in fact it would seem like he'd want to see revenge enacted against the captain, since he broke the deal. I understand that he's supposed to have evolved and that he's rejecting the dark side of his nature, but I never saw much evidence of his evolution as a character leading up to this point.. Am I missing something? For one thing, obviously Charlie and Arthur had a disagreement sometime before the movie begins, explaining why Arthur went one way and Charlie and Mikey went another. This probably happened right after the unseen rape/murder of a pregnant Eliza Hopkins. So, the implication is that Charlie is fed up with Arthur's needlessly cruel, vicious ways (see also: the scene where he puts John Hurt's character out of his misery instead of allowing Arthur to torture him). More importantly, watch the facial acting when Charlie walks into the Captain's house at the end of the movie. When Charlie tells Arthur that Mikey's dead, Arthur just kind of gives an "Oh well, poo poo happens" shrug and clearly doesn't seem to give a poo poo. My take is that, right there, Charlie realizes that all Arthur's talk about "family" and how important it was is bullshit, and all he really cares about is violence and cruelty for its own sake. The evidence of his character's evolution is definitely very subtle, but it's also definitely there if you're looking.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 03:30
|
|
|
SubG posted:Sounds like The Pit (1981) to me. IMDB posted:Tagline:Jamie wouldn't kill anyone...unless Teddy told him to! Yup, I think we have a winner. I love how decades bleed together; the aesthetics we associate with the era having nothing really to do with the calendar years. Thank you! \/ Sweet. So how much of what I remembered is actually in the movie. I'm sure the Mom/topless thing -- one of the IMDB reviews was oddly specific about that -- how about the maraschino cherry gore and the construction worker in the wall? King Plum the Nth fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Sep 16, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 18:29
|
|
|
The Pit is an amazing movie. So much so that I had a friend who made a concept album based on it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2010 19:08
|
|
|
Voodoofly and the others posted:I'll give you my condensed take, which is probably more informed from my overall experiences with the Coens and McCarthy than the individual movie itself. All of this should be preferenced with "I think the movie, among other things, is about . . ." Spoilered just in case. Interesting, that Tommy Lee Jones was the main perspective. I sort of like that. Oh, another question. How did the mexicans (?) find Llewelyn in the motel near the end? As a viewer I didn't know where he went so I assumed nobody else did either then BAM out of nowhere everyone converges on the same crappy motel. Then Chigur shows up later. For that matter, how did Tommy Lee Jones know where to go? Based on the talk I'm guessing other mexicans were also after him and happened to beat Chigur, which fits with the "evil is random" type premise.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 00:04
|
|
|
From what I can remember, there was a transponder in the duffel bag, so Chigur and the Mexicans both had responders which enabled them to converge on him.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 00:20
|
|
|
Klungar posted:From what I can remember, there was a transponder in the duffel bag, so Chigur and the Mexicans both had responders which enabled them to converge on him. But Moss got rid of the transponder in the hotel before he went to Mexico, right? I thought Carla Jean's mother told the Mexicans where she was going. I think the Mexicans tracked down Carla Jean from Moss' phone records. I wanna say Carla Jean told Sheriff Bell where Moss was staying, but I haven't watched the movie in a while.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 00:26
|
|
|
Nah, the bit at the end was because Carla Jean's grandma accidentally told the Mexicans where they were going. The Mexicans were following Carla Jean because they had the VIN plate from Llewelyn's truck. As for Sheriff Bell and Chigurh going to the motel they went there after the report of the attack that killed Llewelyn.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 00:29
|
|
|
Factor Mystic posted:Ok, I can buy this. I've read The Road so I was sort of prepared for a statement on humanity rather than a real story, but it still didn't really click. The Tommy Lee Jones character being the perspective of the story was somewhat more apparent in the book, since the book has (from what I remember) brief passages of his conversations with someone to start and sporadically throughout the rest of the book. I think that is actually a reason I prefer the movie, as the movie clues you in on his perspective from the start, but in a much more subtle fashion that becomes more clear as the movie goes on.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 01:16
|
|
|
I'm watching The Amityville Horror for the very first time (yeah, yeah, I know) as we speak and I have a question about the infamous fly scene. I'd been aware of the massive amounts of flies, but not that they were inside/on the priest as well. How were they able to attract so many flies to one place? Rotting meat? Strategically placed sugar?
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2010 03:42
|
|
|
I can understand the usefulness for a film that uses costumes to show a time period/genre or enhance a character but what does a costume designer do when everyone's wearing street clothes for the most part? Pick out one outfit and it's done? What about in scenes with a ton of extras? I've seen casting calls for music videos where they ask you not to wear certain colors/logos, is it the same for scenes like busy streets?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2010 10:10
|
|
|
PaleInkedBoy posted:I can understand the usefulness for a film that uses costumes to show a time period/genre or enhance a character but what does a costume designer do when everyone's wearing street clothes for the most part? Pick out one outfit and it's done? What about in scenes with a ton of extras? I've seen casting calls for music videos where they ask you not to wear certain colors/logos, is it the same for scenes like busy streets? Even if an actor/musician is wearing contemporary clothes, rest assured there is a wardrobe trailer somewhere with a dozen versions of that outfit. The look is dictated by whatever the director is going for, and the costume designer does their very best to fulfill that. Usually, if there are large scenes with many background players, the extras are told what to bring from their own closet and the costume designer will tweak accordingly. If the production requests no colors/logos, it's for rights clearance purposes (for the logos) and to match the production design of the scene (for the colors). If the heroine of the film is in a striking red dress walking down main street, then everyone around her should be in muted or dark colors so she pops out that much more.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2010 10:29
|
|
|
Some users, one of them smg I think, on some other thread mentioned a connection between Manhunter and Blade Runner; it's been quite a while since I last saw Manhunter, but I couldn't guess what they're referring to. So basically, what are they talking about? Honest Thief fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Sep 18, 2010 |
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2010 22:28
|
|
|
A question about the ending of Shutter Island: Did Daniels decide to put himself through the lobotomy instead of living with the knowledge of what he did?
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 01:37
|
|
|
El Bandit posted:A question about the ending of Shutter Island: Yep.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 01:39
|
|
|
Toebone posted:Yep. I thought it was meant to be ambiguous.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 06:24
|
|
|
KingaSlipek posted:I thought it was meant to be ambiguous. I thought it was pretty straightforward.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 06:25
|
|
|
Same here. I mean there's is a margin of ambiguity, manifested by "Chuck's" reaction, but Teddy's final line is a pretty strong indicator of his fate.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 06:35
|
|
|
LesterGroans posted:I thought it was pretty straightforward. To avoid confusion, that no doubt happened IF Daniels knew he was crazy. I thought the question was asking for whether or not he realized he was insane, because otherwise it really is a trivial thing to ask.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 08:36
|
|
|
KingaSlipek posted:I thought it was meant to be ambiguous. I think the soundtrack to Shutter Island strips away any possibility of ambiguity. If the closing shot of the lighthouse doesn't spell it out, the soundtrack is sure gonna let you know.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2010 18:18
|
|
|
So you are saying there is absolutely no chance he did not realize, better, believe he was crazy? (I cannot infer anything from the soundtrack and i don't remember the closing shot)
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 07:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 18:15 |
|
|
I recently watched The Final Cut starring Robin Williams. It was ok, not great. I think my problem was that the concept was much better than the execution. My question is that on the imdb quote page they have quotes that weren't on the DVD version. I don't see any kind of special edition and I didn't see the quotes in the preview, so I was wondering if anyone knew what some other options could be? Was the foreign release any longer? Was there a foreign release? I guess my issue is that the scenes that those lines seem to be cut from probably would have fleshed out Williams' character and made the movie more coherent. I'd like to see that version of this film.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2010 10:22
|
|
