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CharlieFoxtrot posted:The other thing is that while Bond and Bourne films are very much about the lone spy doing stuff, the MI films (except the John Woo one I guess) lean more heavily on the supporting cast. I wouldn't say they're ensemble pieces, but the other characters carry more weight than, say, your typical Bond Girl Oh I don't know, they normally carry around 200 pounds at least once in each movie.
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May 26, 2016 11:19
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Snak posted:It also doesn't help that several of the MI sequels (I believe) started out as unrelated scripts that were adapted to the MI franchise. I might be wrong about that though. It may be the MI movies too, but it is definitely all but one of the Die Hard movies. Unrelated - I watched Unforgiven for the first time last night. So, I feel like I missed something that made Gene Hackman's character "the villain." As far as I could tell, he was just a sheriff that didn't allow guns in his town. Then when people broke the law, he took them (albeit violently) to jail. I was waiting for the scene that showed the is a super corrupt sheriff or something. Clint Eastwood's character is more of a villain, as his backstory is a ruthless killer, and then is okay killing just about anyone who stands in his way of getting his money. Also, I didn't understand the point of the opening and closing crawls.
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May 26, 2016 16:46
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Hockles posted:It may be the MI movies too, but it is definitely all but one of the Die Hard movies.
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May 26, 2016 16:51
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Hockles posted:It may be the MI movies too, but it is definitely all but one of the Die Hard movies. I think the point was that it was more realistic instead of being a typical western movie with good/bad guys. In the real west, poo poo happened. Munny was a (smart) coward too, scaring the town so he wouldn't be shot in the back at the end. Then he raises his kids and is never caught.
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May 26, 2016 16:56
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Torturing Morgan Freeman to death and propping his corpse up on a porch feels slightly villainous
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May 26, 2016 17:09
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One of my favorite things about Unforgiven is how it avoids glorifying violence OR using it to get us riled up by being visual exploitative. We see no details of either the assault on Delilah or torturing and killing of Ned. It's almost a character POV thing. Bill Munny hears about these events, and gets mad about them off of his perception of them, but he doesn't see either of them happen, and we don't either. The only "action scene" that we really see is the brutal violence at the end. I think it's really effective, and I feel like it was a deliberate choice by Eastwood, informed by his previous films. He's often portrayed a hero, or anti-hero, whose violent actions we cheer on. Many of his characters set up the villain and hero in parallel, ramping up good violence versus bad violence until the hero (or antihero) is ultimately victorious in a "violence-off" against the villain. Unforgiven doesn't do this. Instead it gives us time understand the characters as people, through their words and actions. Some of those actions are violence, but because we aren't explicitly shown much, the violence functions as information rather than direct manipulation of the viewer. Leaving the viewer, like Munny, to draw his own conclusions about how it makes them feel. At the end of movie, Munny and the viewer are on the same page: they "know" of the bad actions committed by the villain, and then they take part in violence together.
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May 26, 2016 17:29
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Unforgiven's final shootout is an interesting scene. The violence is shot in the same heroic style as in more traditional Westerns, such as Shane for instance, but the narrative implications are completely different. It's not the depiction of a good man triumphing over a group of villains, it's William Munny enacting his vengeance on the man who killed his friend, giving up the humanity he tried to preserve throughout the course of the entire film in the process. Munny manages to reassemble the Western mythos that was systematically broken apart in the previous two hours, but doing so only damns him further. Just look at the final exchange between him and Little Bill:quote:Little Bill: I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house. There's no justice or redemption in Munny's killings, just as there was none in Ned's death or the death of the men who sliced up a prostitute. Even the closing text refuses to give us any sense of catharsis, instead ending on a dour note: quote:And there was nothing on the stone to explain to Mrs. Feathers why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. There's obviously a lot more to the film, but I think these two quotes neatly encapsulate the basic structure and themes. Unforgiven is a revisionist Western not necessarily because it opposes the common genre conventions, but because it's willing to carry these conventions to their ultimate (and bleak) conclusion. Samuel Clemens fucked around with this message at 18:18 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 18:15
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Samuel Clemens posted:There's no justice or redemption in Munny's killings, just as there was none in Ned's death or the death of the men who sliced up a prostitute. Even the closing text refuses to give us any sense of catharsis, instead ending on a dour note: Yeah, and I think the fact that there aren't similar scenes of the bad guys graphically killing people to compare and contrast Munny's killings helps keep them from feeling like a "payback" style of justice or retribution in the eyes of the audience. It's so good.
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May 26, 2016 18:39
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Snak posted:Yeah, and I think the fact that there aren't similar scenes of the bad guys graphically killing people to compare and contrast Munny's killings helps keep them from feeling like a "payback" style of justice or retribution in the eyes of the audience. It's so good. Not to mention (I think) the only other kill by a protagonist is met with that character's immediate disgust and renouncement of violence altogether, despite talking a big game the entire film.
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May 26, 2016 18:43
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Everblight posted:Specifically, it's Live Free or Die Hard (5, the lovely father/son one). I think that's A Good Day to Die Hard. Live Free or Die Hard was the one with Justin Long and Timothy Olyphant.
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May 26, 2016 19:31
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Timby posted:I think that's A Good Day to Die Hard. Live Free or Die Hard was the one with Justin Long and Timothy Olyphant. Oh man. I read that post and didn't even blink at the name being wrong. I saw both of those movies in the theater.
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May 26, 2016 19:44
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Timby posted:I think that's A Good Day to Die Hard. Live Free or Die Hard was the one with Justin Long and Timothy Olyphant. OMG you are100% correct and Die Hard sequels are the worst
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May 26, 2016 20:09
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Everblight posted:OMG you are100% correct and Die Hard sequels are the worst Die Hard With a Vengeance is good.
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May 26, 2016 20:12
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Die Hard With a Vengeance is good. No it is not.
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May 26, 2016 20:28
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Die Hard with a Vengeance is a pretty good action/heist movie, but like all Die Hard sequels, it's not really a Die Hard movie.
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May 26, 2016 21:07
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Snapchat A Titty posted:Die Hard with a Vengeance is a pretty good action/heist movie, but like all Die Hard sequels, it's not really a Die Hard movie. The entire plot is that all of the hoops that Jeremy Irons makes Bruce Willis jump through are actually a diversion from his real plan. The very first challenge had a very good chance of getting him killed (in universe), and only didn't by sheer luck. And the story holds the villain up as some kind of mastermind.
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May 26, 2016 21:14
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Snak posted:The entire plot is that all of the hoops that Jeremy Irons makes Bruce Willis jump through are actually a diversion from his real plan. The very first challenge had a very good chance of getting him killed (in universe), and only didn't by sheer luck. And the story holds the villain up as some kind of mastermind. Also there's a really weird bit where Jeremy Irons' character is lying to just ONE henchman about what the plan is and everyone else is in on the gold theft.
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May 26, 2016 23:41
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muscles like this? posted:Also there's a really weird bit where Jeremy Irons' character is lying to just ONE henchman about what the plan is and everyone else is in on the gold theft. It's a movie that could be a fine action romp, but fucks it up by insisting that it is a thriller with a twist. Like, if it wasn't trying so hard to be smart, it wouldn't matter that it's loving dumb as poo poo. Also it has "Johnny Comes Marching Home" as like, it's main villain theme, which, I mean, I'm a fan of that song, but it comes off cheap as gently caress in the film. Like some hack was just "yeah let's use an arrangement of this".
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May 26, 2016 23:44
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muscles like this? posted:Also there's a really weird bit where Jeremy Irons' character is lying to just ONE henchman about what the plan is and everyone else is in on the gold theft. I think that's in part or largely because Irons' character is having an affair with that dude's girlfriend. Also the movie is great if only for the scene where Jeremy Irons pretends to be the guy from the city engineer's office.
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May 27, 2016 16:58
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Snak posted:The entire plot is that all of the hoops that Jeremy Irons makes Bruce Willis jump through are actually a diversion from his real plan. The very first challenge had a very good chance of getting him killed (in universe), and only didn't by sheer luck. And the story holds the villain up as some kind of mastermind. Well he's also pretty arrogant.
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May 27, 2016 17:16
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Just watched Unforgiven for the first time ever on this thread's recommendation and with some of the points on this page in mind. It still reads as a bog-standard Western to me. Guy gets pulled back in, does a job, it goes pear-shaped, he gets a reasonable amount of revenge. Bittersweet and beautifully-shot, but not exactly the deconstruction of the western the way Fury Road completely disassembles the action movie.
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May 27, 2016 17:22
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Snak posted:It's a movie that could be a fine action romp, but fucks it up by insisting that it is a thriller with a twist. Like, if it wasn't trying so hard to be smart, it wouldn't matter that it's loving dumb as poo poo. They were trying too hard to do the Die Hard 1 thing where it turns out that no, he isn't some principled terrorist. He just wants money.
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May 27, 2016 18:12
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Die Hard with a Vengeance is one of the movies where I really felt the bad guy should have gotten away with it. Like, he didn't beat Mcclain because McClain survives, just let him beat the FBI, etc.. and ride off into the sunset with his ill-gotten gains.
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May 27, 2016 21:27
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Everblight posted:Just watched Unforgiven for the first time ever on this thread's recommendation and with some of the points on this page in mind. It still reads as a bog-standard Western to me. Guy gets pulled back in, does a job, it goes pear-shaped, he gets a reasonable amount of revenge. On a surface level, the basic plot beats are certainly evocative of more traditional films, but Unforgiven constantly goes out of its way to undermine them. Take the scene in which Little Bill tears down the stereotype of the heroic gunfighter. Or the death of Bunting, which is messy and undeservedly cruel. Or the final exchange between Munny and the Kid, in which the former rejects any attempt to frame the killings as a matter of justice. All of these scenes resemble the revisionist Western much more so than the traditional one. Also, I think this is the first time I've heard someone refer to Fury Road as a deconstruction of action films. Could you elaborate a bit on that thought?
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May 27, 2016 23:01
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Blazing Saddles apparently has a TV version that includes added scenes.IMDB.org posted:The TV release has five extra scenes that weren't in the theatrical release: I've dug around a bit, but I can't find the scenes in question, or a tv version available anywhere. Does anyone have a line on these? I was able to find the first one here in extremely low quality, but that's it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLVYcDscfL8
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May 28, 2016 01:20
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The SE DVD and Blu-Ray have about 10 minutes of deleted scenes as an extra. My guess is that the scenes were retained for the TV cut to make up for stuff that was edited. They also included the campfire scene with the TV version soundtrack (no farts or belches).
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May 28, 2016 03:53
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Samuel Clemens posted:On a surface level, the basic plot beats are certainly evocative of more traditional films, but Unforgiven constantly goes out of its way to undermine them. Take the scene in which Little Bill tears down the stereotype of the heroic gunfighter. Or the death of Bunting, which is messy and undeservedly cruel. Or the final exchange between Munny and the Kid, in which the former rejects any attempt to frame the killings as a matter of justice. All of these scenes resemble the revisionist Western much more so than the traditional one. Action films are almost inextricably tied to masculinity and the patriarchy. FR is explicitly about how that mindset must be rejected and feminism embraced if we are to triumph.
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May 28, 2016 06:00
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Everblight posted:Action films are almost inextricably tied to masculinity and the patriarchy. FR is explicitly about how that mindset must be rejected and feminism embraced if we are to triumph. Yeah, Die Hard and Fury Road would be a hell of a double feature whiplash.
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May 28, 2016 09:15
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Dragyn posted:Blazing Saddles apparently has a TV version that includes added scenes. With enough digging you could probably hunt this down http://ifdb.fanedit.org/blazing-saddles-extended-edition/
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May 29, 2016 02:05
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Is there a particular reason, beyond stylistic trends, that opening credits sequences have gotten as rare as they are? And why especially do movies increasingly forego the "[Studio] Presents a [Production Company] Production" bit, which doesn't even take very long? Is this mostly the directors or are studios fearing you'll lose people's attention if you take a couple of minutes to list names?
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May 29, 2016 03:54
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Maxwell Lord posted:Is there a particular reason, beyond stylistic trends, that opening credits sequences have gotten as rare as they are? And why especially do movies increasingly forego the "[Studio] Presents a [Production Company] Production" bit, which doesn't even take very long? I blame the cold openings of TV dramas for priming the pump, and the ever-shortening intros (to squeeze in more content in the face of ever-lengthening ad windows) for training the audience to react that way.
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May 29, 2016 03:56
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Maxwell Lord posted:Is there a particular reason, beyond stylistic trends, that opening credits sequences have gotten as rare as they are? And why especially do movies increasingly forego the "[Studio] Presents a [Production Company] Production" bit, which doesn't even take very long? Never forget http://www.artofthetitle.com !!!
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May 29, 2016 04:03
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Maxwell Lord posted:Is there a particular reason, beyond stylistic trends, that opening credits sequences have gotten as rare as they are? And why especially do movies increasingly forego the "[Studio] Presents a [Production Company] Production" bit, which doesn't even take very long? Asking about a trend in film within the past 30 years? Bet on Star Wars. Wikipedia posted:Opening credits Presumably, having a $250,000 fine went away after the DGA realized they hosed up by forcing one of the biggest directors in the world to drop out of the guild. I think they just fell out of style after that. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 04:25 on May 29, 2016 |
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May 29, 2016 04:20
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The '56 version of Around the World in 80 Days jumps right into the film. No logos or text of any sort. The title is even the very last part of the end credits. The titles (by Saul Bass!) are also inventive that they're a limited animation recap of the movie with all the actors listed in order of appearance. The Magnificent Ambersons has all the credits at the end (like Citizen Kane), but forgoes any on-screen text in favor of Orson Welles speaking the names.
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May 29, 2016 05:56
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No one likes opening credits, even when people were "trained" to be used to them. Give me my movie, give it to me now.
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May 29, 2016 11:09
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Everblight posted:Action films are almost inextricably tied to masculinity and the patriarchy. FR is explicitly about how that mindset must be rejected and feminism embraced if we are to triumph. Thanks, that makes it much more clear. Though I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with the notion that action as a genre is inseparable from the patriarchy. It certainly tends to promote traditionally masculine values, but then those aspects are present in FR as well. It's not like the main characters solve their conflict through a constructive dialogue. cheerfullydrab posted:No one likes opening credits, even when people were "trained" to be used to them. Give me my movie, give it to me now. Counterpoint
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May 29, 2016 11:50
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Samuel Clemens posted:Thanks, that makes it much more clear. Though I'm not sure I'd entirely agree with the notion that action as a genre is inseparable from the patriarchy. It certainly tends to promote traditionally masculine values, but then those aspects are present in FR as well. It's not like the main characters solve their conflict through a constructive dialogue. Nope, still a bunch of nonsense between me and my movie.
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May 29, 2016 12:38
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You're what's wrong with the world
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May 29, 2016 12:51
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The Seven opening credits are fantastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq-4fua3lM
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May 29, 2016 15:06
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Well-done opening credits are a great way to get the audience in the right mood. Take the opening of Halloween, for instance, which perfectly sets up the sense of dread that follows you through the rest of the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tGvktfjjk Or the opening to Tintin, which is a wonderful homage to the comics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZfwSyWhhGc
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May 29, 2016 15:35
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