[Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

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indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

based on the press photo I just saw Ridley Scott looks like Kelsey Grammer if you deflated him a little bit

# ? Jul 2, 2021 01:39

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:27

F Stop Fitzgerald: Dec 12, 2010

indigi posted:

tarentinos dialogue is Kevin Smith tier

nice try, troll

# ? Jul 2, 2021 01:40

Laterite: Mar 14, 2007; It's Gutfest '89; Grimey Drawer

babypolis posted:

once upon a time is good you nerds

tho it was funny watching it the teather outside the US. everyone else in the audience was clearly extremely confused

it's the best acting Leo's ever done by far, imo. just the whole sequence where he's shooting the tv show and having a breakdown in rehearsals and then loving nails the monologue, like holy poo poo.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 01:41

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

F Stop Fitzgerald posted:

nice try, troll

it isn't bad necessarily but it's like he's sitting next to the screen nodding along or winking at you the whole time

# ? Jul 2, 2021 01:43

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

Jackie brown is good

# ? Jul 2, 2021 02:19

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

https://twitter.com/spacejammovie/status/1410629277947596802?s=20
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1410252684691652609?s=20

i love culture

# ? Jul 2, 2021 03:40

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

Jesus save us

# ? Jul 2, 2021 03:47

smarxist: Jul 26, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

Aglet56 posted:

Jackie brown is good

even the worst Tarantino (Death Proof) is "watchable"

# ? Jul 2, 2021 03:57

mazzi Chart Czar: Sep 24, 2005

Did pop culture end?
Did nobody notice?

# ? Jul 2, 2021 03:57

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

it did and youll never guess what its crowning achievement was

https://twitter.com/HWD/status/1409535260363214862

# ? Jul 2, 2021 04:12

DR FRASIER KRANG: Feb 4, 2005; "Are you forgetting that just this afternoon I was punched in the face by a turtle now dead?

Some Guy TT posted:

it did and youll never guess what its crowning achievement was

https://twitter.com/HWD/status/1409535260363214862

oh my fuckin god who gives a fuckin shiiiiiiiit

# ? Jul 2, 2021 04:16

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

Atrocious Joe posted:

the new ridley scott movie has produced the best set photos I've seen in ages

Unironically pumped to see ridley Scott reexamine The Duellists with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Also once upon a time in Hollywood wasn't all bad, the duality of leo/Brad being the fake cowboy compared to the real stuntman (cowboy) was pretty good. Although it did rely heavily on a stereotypical manly man beating up hippies and women lol.

I mostly just can't stand tarantinos insistence on breaking the 4th wall and including filmmaking elements as key parts of his narratives.

thatfatkid has issued a correction as of 05:42 on Jul 2, 2021

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:38

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

The only movie you should be caring about this month is mobile suit Gundam Hathaway's flash

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:44

mazzi Chart Czar: Sep 24, 2005

Stairmaster posted:

The only movie you should be caring about this month is mobile suit Gundam Hathaway's flash

Thank you lain.
Love ya.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:49

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

Atrocious Joe posted:

the new ridley scott movie has produced the best set photos I've seen in ages

adam driver is in the benedict cumberbatch catagory of actor's popularity i don't understand

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:51

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

mazzi Chart Czar posted:

Thank you lain.
Love ya.

Not relevant to my post. Topic closed.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:54

Okuteru: Nov 10, 2007; Choose this life you're on your own

smarxist posted:

even the worst Tarantino (Death Proof) is "watchable"

It's 45 minutes of nothing happening followed by arguably the greatest car chase scene ever conceived by man.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 05:54

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

crepeface posted:

adam driver is in the benedict cumberbatch catagory of actor's popularity i don't understand

adam driver is goofy looking but a good actor. he somehow manages to put on an engaging performance in even the new star wars

# ? Jul 2, 2021 06:36

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

he was pretty good in girls (the hbo series)

girls is easy to hate on because lena dunham's public persona is so loathsome, but i really liked the show and i always felt that it had a very critical eye towards millennials and new yorkers, although somehow the writers and actors never seemed to get the memo and always said stupid poo poo in interviews. like i remember this one episode where lena dunham's character finally gets her big break and gets accepted to an MFA program in idaho or something, but once she gets there she finds herself overwhelmed by academia and lacks both talent and motivation. she lashes out by writing a deliberately edgy story about domestic abuse, which her classmates obviously hate, and she uses this as a flimsy excuse to say that she doesn't fit into the program. she also goes to a frat party with a bunch of freshman in an attempt to relive her youth and etc. it's pretty heavy-handed, but it's clearly accusing its characters of having arrested development, weaponizing social justice, etc.

then in the behind-the-scenes interviews that HBO appends to the end of the episode, lena dunham is like "yeah so in this episode, hannah is really stressed because she feels like she doesn't fit in, so she has a tough time reaching out to other people who could help her" or some poo poo. basically i understand girls on a much deeper level than lena dunham

# ? Jul 2, 2021 06:48

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

Forceholy posted:

It's 45 minutes of nothing happening followed by arguably the greatest car chase scene ever conceived by man.

Umm mission impossible 2 still exists

# ? Jul 2, 2021 07:32

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Atrocious Joe posted:

adam driver is goofy looking but a good actor. he somehow manages to put on an engaging performance in even the new star wars

It does seem like he was the only character the writers actually wanted to actually do things.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 07:33

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

Yeah Adam driver was the only actually interesting part of the sequel trilogy.

He was also good in Silence. That film would've been much better if he was the lead and not Andrew Garfield.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 09:38

Tubgoat: Jun 30, 2013; by sebmojo

This thread is far more upsetting than the Climate Change or Covid threads.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 10:37

FacelessVoid: Jul 8, 2009

i don't really like any of tarantino's films, but once upon a time was okay.

quote:

It's 45 minutes of nothing happening followed by arguably the greatest car chase scene ever conceived by man.

any part of fury road is greater than any other car chase by an order of magnitude.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 12:03

Alhazred: Feb 16, 2011

thatfatkid posted:

Also once upon a time in Hollywood wasn't all bad, the duality of leo/Brad being the fake cowboy compared to the real stuntman (cowboy) was pretty good. Although it did rely heavily on a stereotypical manly man beating up hippies and women lol.

"The hippies" were a bunch of racists that wanted to start a racial war by killing a pregnant woman. Manson and his crew's final goal was to reinstate slavery. gently caress'em.

Alhazred has issued a correction as of 12:26 on Jul 2, 2021

# ? Jul 2, 2021 12:21

Good soup!: Nov 2, 2010

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/spacejammovie/status/1410629277947596802?s=20

The cutting edge of pop culture

# ? Jul 2, 2021 12:35

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/spacejammovie/status/1410629277947596802?s=20
https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1410252684691652609?s=20

i love culture

# ? Jul 2, 2021 12:40

Okuteru: Nov 10, 2007; Choose this life you're on your own

FacelessVoid posted:

i don't really like any of tarantino's films, but once upon a time was okay.

any part of fury road is greater than any other car chase by an order of magnitude.

Y'know, you're right.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 12:57

HootTheOwl: May 13, 2012; Hootin and shootin

Aglet56 posted:

he was pretty good in girls (the hbo series)

girls is easy to hate on because lena dunham's public persona is so loathsome, but i really liked the show and i always felt that it had a very critical eye towards millennials and new yorkers, although somehow the writers and actors never seemed to get the memo and always said stupid poo poo in interviews. like i remember this one episode where lena dunham's character finally gets her big break and gets accepted to an MFA program in idaho or something, but once she gets there she finds herself overwhelmed by academia and lacks both talent and motivation. she lashes out by writing a deliberately edgy story about domestic abuse, which her classmates obviously hate, and she uses this as a flimsy excuse to say that she doesn't fit into the program. she also goes to a frat party with a bunch of freshman in an attempt to relive her youth and etc. it's pretty heavy-handed, but it's clearly accusing its characters of having arrested development, weaponizing social justice, etc.

then in the behind-the-scenes interviews that HBO appends to the end of the episode, lena dunham is like "yeah so in this episode, hannah is really stressed because she feels like she doesn't fit in, so she has a tough time reaching out to other people who could help her" or some poo poo. basically i understand girls on a much deeper level than lena dunham

When I was watching girls I thought this was supposed to be the point and I found it difficult because every time I'd see Dunham outside of the show she's be trying to explain how their decisions are good, actually, and I'd just be like "what?"

# ? Jul 2, 2021 13:03

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

Alhazred posted:

"The hippies" were a bunch of racists that wanted to start a racial war by killing a pregnant woman. Manson and his crew's final goal was to reinstate slavery. gently caress'em.

The manson family in the film were depicted as a standin representative for all hippies. You're bad at reading film.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 13:04

Farm Frenzy: Jan 3, 2007

Lol

# ? Jul 2, 2021 13:15

Echo Chamber: Oct 16, 2008; best username/post combo

That's a very generous reading of Girls.

If anything, the Girls controversy was my first major cultural rift with liberalism and "the conversation"; it's first big moment where we realized we were gaslit by an impenetrable liberal cultural establishment that pretends to be built on merit and talent, and subversion; when it would have been simpler to say racism and nepotism. Media critics went to great lengths to say you don't get it, but then the literal creators of the show pretty much confirmed they weren't being that self aware.

Adam Driver is good though.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 13:51

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

You know my favorite part about this Tarintino discourse is just how it shows our culture is stagnated that we're still stuck on defending the hippies, ie the Boomers. Our whole society can't move beyond these loving people.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 13:53

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

KomradeX posted:

You know my favorite part about this Tarintino discourse is just how it shows our culture is stagnated that we're still stuck on defending the hippies, ie the Boomers. Our whole society can't move beyond these loving people.

It's almost as if generational change of keystone aspects of culture (showbiz) is slow af and the people that Showbiz is made up of/run by are those very same peeps.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 14:07

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Atrocious Joe posted:

adam driver is goofy looking but a good actor. he somehow manages to put on an engaging performance in even the new star wars

they used to say about brad pitt that he was a character actor trapped in a leading man's body, well the opposite is true for adam driver

# ? Jul 2, 2021 14:24

mandatory lesbian: Dec 18, 2012

galagazombie posted:

it never ceases to amaze me that in a Hollywood filled with rapists and pedophiles there exists such a large group that wants to cancel Tarantino for having one of the most benign kinks imaginable. it�s downright Puritan.

Tbf he did make himself a character in that vampire movie just so he could suck salma hayeks toes, thats kinda skeevy

# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:28

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

smarxist posted:

even the worst Tarantino (Death Proof) is "watchable"

Death Proof is pretty good, imho

http://joglikescomics.blogspot.com/2007/04/posting-on-recent-films.html posted:

Death Proof

This film is Quentin Tarantino�s primary contribution to the recent stratosphere-kissing blockbuster smash Grindhouse, although it now seems it might be known in the future as its own little thing, certainly in European nations and likely on dvd. I think it�s therefore worthwhile to discuss it as its own movie, though I�ll readily admit that�s partially because I saw Grindhouse over a week ago and I can already barely recall anything about the rest of the program.

Well, ok, there�s two major things I remember. The first is that Rob Zombie�s fake trailer (amidst a bevy of fake trailers by various directors) was flat-out terrible, and I mean �Saturday Night Live lunging toward 1:00 AM oh look at the celebrity guest host mugging� terrible, which kind of surprised me considering how knowledgeable Zombie seems to be about the broad source material. But it�s far too overtly, artificially parodic, while the rest of the contributions divine much of their humor from emphasizing recognizable characteristics from their chosen subjects so that the humor can �naturally� flow from homage.

I actually thought it was sort of interesting how Eli Roth (and god, I recall when that fellow was doing stuff like a tongue-in-cheek audio commentary for the early Troma dvd release of Bloodsucking Freaks) focused on tropes from a genre of films, while Edgar Wright looked to characteristics of a genus of trailers. It�s a very wide net the �grindhouse� label casts, especially when you mentally associate it with �drive-in� movies; I blame Something Weird Video for putting out those Drive-In Double Feature dvds back in the day, which were pretty much exactly the same thing as Grindhouse (two features, trailers, vintage advertisements) only slightly more extensive and all-authentic. Then again, the whole idea for this thing allegedly came from Tarantino showing people movies at his house anyway.

The second major thing I remember about the non-Death Proof portions of Grindhouse is Bruce Willis. All throughout Robert Rodriguez�s Planet Terror feature, I was inordinately distracted by the way Willis was shot. I don�t believe he ever interacts with any of the other main characters on a face-to-face basis, in that he and someone else are in the frame at once. Really, anyone who appears on screen with Willis could easily be portrayed by someone who just happened to be standing in the room at the time of shooting, if my memory serves correctly.

At first, I thought this was a clever means of positioning Willis conceptually as a sort of special Hollywood guest star who presumably knocked off all his scenes in one day and got carefully edited into the actual picture. But then I realized that�s probably what Rodriguez actually had to do, regardless of what he�s paying homage to, and that made me think about the fuzzy line that can be drawn between gleeful �fake� badness and actual economic/creative compromise on films of this sort. Regardless, if this was a real grindhouse feature, Willis� name would be plastered absolutely everywhere. Here, I do believe he�s actually uncredited, though his image appears in the newspaper advertisements.

And need I even mention the greatest failure of Grindhouse in remaining true to its sources? The ads are everything in a low-down feature, so much that you could probably make the argument that the essence of the film extends well out of the screen itself and into the marketing, to the point where The Last House on the Left (let�s say) is incarnated as much in its legendary trailer as its actual being. That was necessary, without $50 million+ in production budget alone behind a film. But I can't even remember the loving ads for Grindhouse, and that's a real shame.

(granted, the contemporary mega-advertised �blockbuster� film is a sort-of child of vintage exploitation or �trash� films anyway, Jaws having been conceived as a classically exploitable thriller complete with shark effects so lovely that the director was famously forced to conceptualize tighter, and Star Wars acting as an elaborate homage to disposable Saturday serialized juvenilia - in this way, the path of �accepted� film history and the shadow history of exploitation are not entirely separate)

Death Proof, however, does something a bit different.

There�s been a lot of debate on this film already. Some of it�s classic �what did they have in the briefcase?� fan speculation without a lot of support in the film itself (the reels are in the wrong order! it�s two different films with the same star fused into one!). Some of it�s more direct �God Tarantino, stop being so boring with the dialogue� stuff. I guess I�ll get this out of the way right now - not only did I not find the dialogue particularly boring, I also didn�t think it was particularly more bountiful than in, say, Kill Bill: Vol. 2. Really, I thought Death Proof sort of won the entertainment contest all around, if only because it boasted (a) the film�s best (and as luck would have it, final) action scene and (b) hands-down the film�s best performance, courtesy of Kurt Russell.

But I have to admit that Death Proof does have two things working against it on the pure entertainment front: it follows Rodriguez�s hyperactive feature, which is coming from a completely different direction in its homage, and it�s extremely mannered in its structure, so much that it draws attention to its own construction.

I will explain with a plot synopsis. Spoilers, obviously.

Death Proof initially concerns a quartet of women, some with connections to the entertainment industry, out looking for good times. They chat about random things, one of them has a trick played on her, and general amusement is had. They eventually encounter an old-school macho guy called Stuntman Mike, who embodies many traditional slow-burning masculine values. But Stuntman Mike is also a crazed killer, with a death-proofed stunt car that�ll kill anyone in or out of it, save for him. He picks up a woman, and kills her by smushing her to death in the passenger�s compartment with his slick driving moves. Then, he rams the quartet�s vehicle head on and kills them all. Stuntman Mike survives, as we�re told (Psycho-style) about his sexual connection to vehicular collision.

The movie then, for all intents and purposes, starts again. We follow another quarter of women, some with connections to the entertainment industry, out looking for good times. They chat about random things, one of them has a trick played on her, and general amusement is had. But these girls are a bit different; like Stuntman Mike, they also have an affinity for fast driving, vehicular mayhem, and yes - killing. As becomes increasingly clear, this quartet -- or at least two of them, with an additional one eager to be accepted as part of the group -- act as a sort of girl gang, like something out of Russ Meyer. Stuntman Mike attempts to kill them, but their nerve and driving skills are too much for him.

They proceed into a campaign of emasculation, ruining Stuntman Mike�s car, forcing him to drink like a fish, destroying his driving skills, making him cry and moan, and ultimately forcing him into a nasty crash, after which he is dragged out of the car (which, truth in advertising, has not killed him), and beaten to death on the street. The final blow is delivered by the aforementioned young and eager one, Stuntman Mike�s face crushed under her boot - there�s no doubt she�s proven her mettle to the other girls, the Stuntman is killed in a manner ironically similar to his passenger from earlier in the movie, and Quentin Tarantino�s foot fetish reaches an unimaginable extreme.

Hey, I found it entertaining. The final chase scene (as lengthy as the initial vehicular killing is short) is pretty excellent, and in possession of a real enthusiasm about shooting long, unbroken takes of people authentically clinging to hoods at absurd speeds. Tarantino supposedly shot the entire chase scene himself (he served as his own DP for the whole movie, yes, but I mean he didn�t use 2nd unit either), only using computer effects to remove a few wires from the frame, and there is a genuine air of authenticity to everything, of people shooting chases because they love the sensation of chases, and want to preserve it as naturally as possible.

But I think Death Proof is more interesting as a work of criticism than anything else. For its first half, boy - it drat near comes close to being Quentin Tarantino�s Funny Games, complete with gleeful acknowledgement of the audience�s complicit nature in enjoying murder movie mayhem. Just look at Russell�s smirk at the audience right before the killing begins - it�s as if he�s saying �don�t worry folks, the chit-chat�s over, I�ll start killing some women now.� And then, when the murder happens, Tarantino backs the movie up no less than three separate times, so we can gaze upon the grotesque mutilations done to each and every one of the quartet with maximum clarity.

The trick is, I don�t think Tarantino has much of a sweeping statement to make about society or violence or whatnot. I�m not even entirely sure he wants to say anything, or if he�s even particularly equipped as an artist - he just doesn�t strike me as being the type of filmmaker with the detachment or the relative humorlessness of a Michael Haneke. But I do think Tarantino has an interest in experimenting with genre tropes, acknowledging their social implications and smashing seemingly disparate elements together and seeing what happens.

So, we�ve got two groups of women, both of whom act out their own somewhat similar storylines. Some criticisms of the film I�ve read seem to take the first half of the film as �punishment� against the type of woman Tarantino doesn�t favor, as opposed to cool, tough chicks who like good movies and fast cars. My problem with that interpretation is that I never once got the feeling that Tarantino �hated� the first quartet of women. Indeed, they obviously share the director�s taste in music, they�re given sweet little dramas that unfold on the sidelines, and they rarely do anything particularly unsympathetic. Meanwhile, though it�s evident that the second quartet loves action and namedropping influential films, they�re also arguably thieves, they clearly injure at least one innocent person during their pursuit of revenge, and they play an utterly reckless, dangerous prank on one of their friends - compare that to the innocuous joke played by the first quartet.

But in the end, Tarantino treats all of these characters, even the evil ones, as particularly vivid, rounded archetypes. The first quartet are doomed, not because they�re sexually promiscuous or vapid or anything, but because that is their role to play as characters in a slasher film. Yet Tarantino doesn�t give us a �last girl.� He kills them all, and replaces them with new women, absolutely none of whom manage to be killed by Stuntman Mike.

The stuntman himself embodies dual masculine power types, both invincible slasher and fast-driving macho man. Death Proof turns into a chase movie (the print even cleaning itself of scratches in the process), and the Stuntman is delighted to participate; he always sees himself on camera (again, note his grin to the viewer), and finally gets to act in the old-school chase scene of his dreams! I can�t imagine Mickey Rourke (who was initially cast in the role but quickly discharged) playing the character - he�s far too prone to sleaze and sinister looks, while Russell has just enough twinkle in his eye to sell the dreamer in the killer. It�s sex to him, and apparently sex to the girls too, as evidenced by Tarantino�s loving shots of Zoe Bell grinning ecstatically, legs spread on a car hood, shirt gradually hiking itself further and further up her belly. I�m pretty sure at one point Tarantino even juxtaposes this against Stuntman Mike�s phallic hood ornament. Also, he has one of the girls scream �I�m gonna tap that rear end!� about three or four billion times during the final movement of the chase, in case anyone was having difficulty.

Ah, that�s the irony for poor Suntman Mike. He wanted to be in a mighty chase film, but had to settle for being a slasher. And then he got his wish, only to wind up powerless against the type of women who might populate Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Tarantino beautifully evoking a real camaraderie among them, so bloodthirsty. The Stuntman�s traditionally masculine traits are useless against women who share the same, and have no time for rugged manly consideration. These girls may love Vanishing Point (and I wonder what they�d make of Monte Hellman�s Two-Lane Blacktop?), but their actions tell us that the power-drunk flailing of Stuntman Mike needs not be exclusively male, not in movies with less strict formula - if Tarantino has any statement to make, it�s that ramming different low-down genres together can create a dizzy upsetting of expectations on the level of what we expect from our garbage.

One last thing - the argument can be made, it occurs to me, that Tarantino is only reinforcing a patriarchic viewpoint by soaking his finale in violent aggression, characterizing his final girls� victory through traditionally masculine means. Fighting, pummeling, killing. It provides an illusory, even dangerously fraudulent view of �empowerment� while supplicating the very notion of feminine victory before the male gaze, the type of chest-beating �win� that merely reinforces the dominant paradigm of feminine subordination. To this, I can only remind you that the film is titled Grindhouse. And even when it is not titled Grindhouse, it responds to films that are soaked in aggressive activity. But never is Tarantino�s view of things about how a film of this sort concerns men and woman, no.

It need not know gender. It need only know genre.

And even then, why choose just one?

# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:42

indigi: Jul 20, 2004; ^{how can we not talk about family

when family's all that we got?}

wow cool review

# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:47

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Is the Hateful Eight worth watching?

KomradeX has issued a correction as of 16:11 on Jul 2, 2021

# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:54

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:27

thatfatkid: Feb 20, 2011; by Azathoth

Hateful 8 is a solid meh. It's alright up until the needless intermission and the completely bizarre flashback.

# ? Jul 2, 2021 16:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

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