|
Not sure if I'll get to movie watching today...there was a big storm last night which revealed a leak in my roof. Gotta make some phone calls and hopefully get that taken care of.
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 15:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 23:45 |
|
|
jivjov posted:Not sure if I'll get to movie watching today...there was a big storm last night which revealed a leak in my roof. Gotta make some phone calls and hopefully get that taken care of. Speaking only for myself here, but I don't think you need to explain this kind of thing. We realize you have a life outside of watching these movies. I appreciate the write-ups you're doing regardless of how long you need to take in between doing them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 15:51
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:Speaking only for myself here, but I don't think you need to explain this kind of thing. We realize you have a life outside of watching these movies. I appreciate the write-ups you're doing regardless of how long you need to take in between doing them. Eh, I usually don't feel the need to justify myself too much; but when I promised to have a review up by a certain date and then don't, it just makes me feel like I owe an small explanation. In any event though, the roofers can't come out til tomorrow afternoon anyway, the roof leak isn't over any of my electronics, might as well try to watch a movie today.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 16:25
|
|
|
Lol just lol if you're not using your leaking roof as an excuse to emulate Kurosawa's use of rain in your own house.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 16:27
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:Lol just lol if you're not using your leaking roof as an excuse to emulate Kurosawa's use of rain in your own house. Brb gonna cancel that service call
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 17:22
|
|
|
How strange it is to go back to black and white after seeing how colorful Ran was.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:39
|
|
|
Some movies work best in black and white, so I'm glad he went that route.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:42
|
|
|
jivjov posted:How strange it is to go back to black and white after seeing how colorful Ran was. I love vivid colors in film and Ran and Kagemusha really make me wish Kurosawa had been able to do more work in color.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:44
|
|
|
Honestly Kurosawa is one of the few directors that could consistently make amazing looking movies in both color and b/w. His idol John Ford was another, though I don't think his color was quite as good as Kurosawa's. Most directors don't seem to take any advantage of color whatsoever, so they might as well be filming in b/w anyways- and hell their stuff probably looks a little better as a result. Someone like Kevin Smith immediately comes to mind, to make a bad comparison for this thread. Then again it didn't work that well for Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing adaptation.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:48
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:Honestly Kurosawa is one of the few directors that could consistently make amazing looking movies in both color and b/w. His idol John Ford was another, though I don't think his color was quite as good as Kurosawa's. Most directors don't seem to take any advantage of color whatsoever, so they might as well be filming in b/w anyways- and hell their stuff probably looks a little better as a result. I feel like Kurosawa was working from a more technicolor ideal with his color films. They can look very striking, but they're lit and designed very artificially. Obviously it can look very good, but it's not something that I'd want in everything.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:56
|
|
|
Dodesukaden is another, less appreciated, color film Kurosawa did. That movie has an overall interesting look and style, and I honestly don't believe it would have worked as well in b/w.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:58
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:I feel like Kurosawa was working from a more technicolor ideal with his color films. They can look very striking, but they're lit and designed very artificially. Obviously it can look very good, but it's not something that I'd want in everything. That's why I think it would have been really interesting to see a wider range of Kurosawa films in color. For instance, if he had done a gritty crime story ala High & Low, but in color. I doubt he'd have gone for the same aesthetic as Ran, I'm sure the colors would have been a little more muted and realistic. But maybe not, and that would still be something I'd want to see.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 19:59
|
|
|
Random Stranger posted:I feel like Kurosawa was working from a more technicolor ideal with his color films. They can look very striking, but they're lit and designed very artificially. Obviously it can look very good, but it's not something that I'd want in everything.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 20:12
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:I might just have a preference for an "artificial" look, I guess. So much of what I see that is striving for a "gritty" aesthetic or whatever only ends up looking very drab to me as a result. Yeah, that's it's own kind of artifice. I was talking about how the standard for shooting by the time Kurosawa switched to color was more naturalistic. It's not about which style is better, of course, because you want the right tool for the right job. Just that Kurosawa seemed to favor the earlier style.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2016 20:41
|
|
|
 Seven Samurai Released April 26th 1954, Directed by Akira Kurosawa What an epic. There is very good reason why this is quite often near the top of many "Best Movies of All Time" or "Movies You Should See Before You Die" type lists. I have so many disparate thoughts bouncing around in my head about this one, this review may end up being a bit more 'stream of consciousness' style than they usually are. One of the first major things I noticed was the use of the environment. The rain at the final battle, the field of flowers in which Katsushirō first meets Shino, the geography surrounding the village and it's importance to the battle plan. Kurosawa really likes to make the world itself important to the film, rather than just having events happen in a vaguely-farming-town-shaped-space. As for the titular Seven Samurai, I am really shocked at how well each of them is characterized. Even the ones that don't get more than a central scene or two feel like like distinct characters. Of the Seven, I think Heihachi is really the only one underserved by the plot. When he was introduced as being "the lighthearted one that will pick our spirits up in hard times", I knew that he was essentially marked for death...and sadly he didn't really get a second strong moment before that happened. Gorobei, Kyūzō, and especially Kikuchiyo all get much more to do before their own ends. Bringing up something that happens in Ran (even though I haven't actually watched it for this review series yet) and comparing back to Seven Samurai, I'm noticing a pattern of the more heroic figures getting shot, rather than killed in other ways. I don't know if this commentary on the introduction of firearms to more 'honorable'/direct sword-based warfare is something Kurosawa is bringing in from his own personal opinions, or if it's just a viewpoint he is trying to represent thematically...but it is noticeable. I want to talk about Toshiro Mifune's character for a bit. His coarseness and frequent scratching made me think of his character from Rashomon, but his overall arc of being from a peasant background, desiring to be a samurai to prevent other villages from experiencing what he had gone through, and ultimately dying in service of this ideal really fleshed him out for me. I wish his deception about being a samurai hadn't been revealed the other six quite so early, I feel like that particular bit of tension could have been better used a little later in the story. Maybe around the time he was discovered sleeping on his watch, or when he ran off to get a rifle on his own. I did some reading on Kurosawa's filming style for this movie, and his 3-camera setup really lent itself well to filming the action scenes. I'm quite excited to see this play out more going forward (and am looking forward to my rewatch of Ran and the battle scenes therein). I was honestly a bit surprised at how much of this movie was devoted to assembling the team of ronin to defend the village. I would have thought Kurosawa would have wanted to spend more time with the entire group playing off one another and the villagers, but there's a surprising amount of characterization built into the early vignettes of the characters. That said, Shichirōji's introduction was a bit contrived...sure is lucky that Kambei ran into him out in the street, right? As for the villagers, I enjoyed that several of the residents had plot arcs of their own..but the whole thing between Shino and her father, Manzō, just felt really off putting to me. I wonder if we were supposed to take Manzō as being deranged or otherwise impaired; the scene where he stares at Shino for a few minutes before chasing her around town trying to cut her hair felt that way to me. Overall, this is one of the Kurosawa films where I really could spot a tiny handful of flaws I didn't like...but recognized that the overall work as a whole was still amazingly solid. If this (and Ran) are representative of Kurosawa's period piece epics...I'm still, as I've said before, in for one hell of a ride. Up Next: The Magnificent Seven Released October 23rd 1960, Directed by John Sturges
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 02:03
|
|
|
The one sad thing about this movie is that 1954 was such a good year for movies. If you take this one off the table, you still have, bare minimum, Rear Window and Gojira for expertly made and shot films. Then you have this giant behemoth come in and blow everything else out of the water. As a huge Godzilla fan, I really wish it didn't premier in the same year- but it did and God drat does it deserve every single bit of praise it gets.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 02:33
|
|
|
Burkion posted:The one sad thing about this movie is that 1954 was such a good year for movies. 1954 was a good year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 02:43
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:Sansho the Bailiff, On the Waterfront and Journey to Italy were this year too, and I think they're easily masterpieces that would go alongside the three you mention. There was also Dial M for Murder, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, Creature From the Black Lagoon, and The Far Country which are all good films in their own right but don't quite reach the same highs imo. AND for giant monster buffs, one of the best in the genre from America came this year, THEM! It similarly does not reach the same highs, but is a notable film in a year filled with exemplary films. loving Hell 1954. It's almost a shame the 1953 War of the Worlds didn't get delayed slightly to appear in this same fabled year, as it is one of the best looking films of the decade, though the content doesn't quite stack up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 02:52
|
|
|
So, a few things about Seven Samurai. I think the film really benefits from its length. You noted that all the samurai get developed and that's in part because the film has room for ten main characters. It also lets there be an ebb and flow to the story. But there's another aspect to that, too. Seven Samurai is one of the most perfect examples of efficient storytelling in cinema. Yes, a nearly four hour film is efficient in storytelling in a way that shames other movies in their sloppiness. Look at how elegantly all the characters are introduced and framed in just a minute or two each. And then the way that the second half of the film is structured to clearly define the space and plans of action. Every time I watch an action scene I say to myself, "Why isn't this as well structured as Seven Samurai?" I think knowing who Kikuchiyo works better for the peasant versus samurai theme. He's acting as the bridge between the two and isn't really accepted by the samurai until the end. But to act as that bridge, it needs to be clear who he actually is. It also allows for terrific scenes where he pops the illusions that the two sides have about each other. And he needs to come from farmers so that he can't understand the implications of the armor and weapons that were hidden away (just in case you missed it since it was only implied, they were killing samurai who fled battles for the rewards and all of the samurai there to defend the village were down on their luck from being on losing sides). I am holding my tongue so hard on the firearms and samurai bit.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 04:23
|
|
|
I thought Miike did a really excellent job in reproducing the "getting the team together" part when he did 13 Assassins. That part of the movie really feels like a straight-up remake of Seven Samurai.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2016 16:54
|
|
|
For anyone who was concerned, my leaky roof turned out to be nothing serious, and I was all stressed out over nothing!
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2016 01:45
|
|
|
To slightly hijack and time travel in your thread, I recently watched The Idiot. It's incredibly frustrating that we'll never see Kurosawa's full version of the film, because what we did get is magical. It's far too choppy and screen wipey (particularly in the early stages) to be considered more than 'potential masterpiece', I think, but I did enjoy the film nonetheless. Some of the imagery - Taeko's introduction, tea with Akama's senile mother, the confrontation between Ayako and Takeo, snowy Sapporo - will stay with me for a long time.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2016 10:20
|
|
|
Apologies for the delay on Magnificent Seven. No real excuse; just busy and finding trouble convincing myself to dedicate two hours to a movie and another one to a review lately...I'm aiming for Monday to get it done though.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2016 02:24
|
|
|
Not dead; same non-excuse as before. Lack of motivation; my apologies.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2016 11:57
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:Speaking only for myself here, but I don't think you need to explain this kind of thing. We realize you have a life outside of watching these movies. I appreciate the write-ups you're doing regardless of how long you need to take in between doing them.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2016 15:21
|
|
|
Anyone know anything about Sherlock Hound? Apparently Miyazaki directed 6 episodes of the series, 4 of which were edited down into a couple of movies. Worth tracking down and reviewing for the thread?
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 01:20
|
|
|
I've never seen anyone talk about it before, though it might be worth tracking down for precisely that reason.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 18:16
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:I've never seen anyone talk about it before, though it might be worth tracking down for precisely that reason. Cursory googling isn't turning up anything for the movie edits...but all the individual episodes are on Hulu. Might make for a fun little bonus feature.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 18:28
|
|
|
Also just added the documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness to the list of things to watch. I've slotted it in right after The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, despite the documentary coming out first, due to the fact that the documentary covers the making of that film.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 19:08
|
|
|
jivjov posted:Anyone know anything about Sherlock Hound? Apparently Miyazaki directed 6 episodes of the series, 4 of which were edited down into a couple of movies. I remembe r loving that show as a kid (it used to be on french-canadian television).
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 19:15
|
|
|
I'd recommend adding Samurai Spy to your list at some point. It has timeless cinematography, and it is essentially a cold war film with ninjas, made during the height of it.
void_serfer fucked around with this message at 19:19 on May 23, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 23, 2016 19:17
|
|
|
I noticed that the streaming Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus has just added Ran. That means that the only Kurosawa films not available for streaming on some service at the moment are The Quiet Duel, Dersu Uzala, Dreams, and Rhapsody in August.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2016 04:13
|
|
|
Once again, thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse, I'll be watching something out of order! They're doing a Father's Day screening of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and my dad likes spaghetti westerns. Plus he's never been to the Alamo before, so we're gonna do that mid-June. E: Just learned that the title of this movie does NOT have the Oxford comma. drat. jivjov fucked around with this message at 04:02 on May 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
That movie is fuckin' good as hell so enjoy the rare opportunity to see it screened theatrically.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 03:53
|
|
|
As great a film as it is, it seems like a strange choice for a Father's Day film, beyond the whole "hey, Dad's like western's, right?"
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 03:55
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:That movie is fuckin' good as hell so enjoy the rare opportunity to see it screened theatrically. Yeah, we actually watched GBU in my high-school Film Analysis class split across THREE SEPARATE CLASS PERIODS (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)...so I've seen it before and remember liking it...but I'm really excited to see it all in one go. Incidentally, the bit from the main leitmotif of GBU was one of the first things I figured out how to play on an ocarina (after exhausting all the songs from the two N64 Legend of Zelda games). I remember when "Oh hey, an ocarina isn't just some fantasy instrument, its in this famous movie!" showed up in EVERY list of Zelda trivia. Schwarzwald posted:As great a film as it is, it seems like a strange choice for a Father's Day film, beyond the whole "hey, Dad's like western's, right?" I think that might literally have been the thought process.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 04:05
|
|
|
I am extremely jealous. Sergio Leone's westerns are some of my favorite movies. Don't feel bad about seeing them out of order: there's no continuity between movies.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 06:10
|
|
|
Honestly if there was any continuity, The Good The Bad and the Ugly would come first. You basically see the Man with No Name become the character, costume wise at least, he is in Fist Full Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2016 06:27
|
|
|
Anyone here ever see Cruel Gun Story (1964, Dir. Takumi Furukawa)? I just finished watching it and it's quite good. It's a heist noir in the vein of The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing, though I think I liked it more than either of those (Definitely more than the Huston film at least). What I really liked about it was how methodical it was...the first half of the movie is about a dude getting hired to pull the heist, a crew getting gathered to pull it off, the actual heist itself being planned, the materials to perform the heist being gathered, and then finally actually watching everything play out and seeing the unexpected turns it takes, and then the violent aftermath. The whole process kind of reminds me of Seven Samurai's slow, gradual build, though only in 87 minutes. Like a lot of these low budget Nikkatsu movies there's some glorious footage of urban Japan at the time- this particular film interestingly contrasts that with an abandoned American military party town where the criminals hide out. I'd recommend this movie to anyone who likes this kind of stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2016 02:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 23:45 |
|
|
Raxivace posted:Anyone here ever see Cruel Gun Story (1964, Dir. Takumi Furukawa)? I just finished watching it and it's quite good. I do have a big soft spot for heist movies; I may have to slot that one in in the bonus features list.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2016 04:38
|
|