General Movie Questions (and hopefully answers)

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SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

neutral posted:

My second question is about the different soundtracks to Man With A Movie Camera. Does anyone have preferences? I've listened to the Cinematic Orchestra's version and it was still awesome, but I know that's far from the definitive.

I don't care much for the Cinematic Orchestra score, and am fairly indifferent to the Nyman score. I recently watched the film with the Alloy Orchestra score for the first time and while I'm not particularly fond of the overuse of faux diagetic effects, overall I think it's my favourite score for the film.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2008 21:20

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 00:22

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

muscles like this? posted:

Huh, that actually makes sense. I just don't know why they didn't bother SAYING that in the movie.

I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone complain that the Matrix films didn't have more blank exposition.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2008 19:32

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

muscles like this? posted:

Except it would just have had to been one line and the scene doesn't really make sense as it stands.

I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone complain that the thing that doesn't make sense in the Matrix films is what Neo does for a living.

Also: no. That scene makes so much fuckin' sense it's probably the canonical cyberpunk cliche. It's obvious. Painfully. Explaining it would be like flashing an intertitle in the middle of the title number in Singin' in the Rain (1952) reading: `This implies Gene Kelly has fallen in love'.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2008 00:24

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

Who cares if it's MP3s, secret porno tapes, bootlegs of Ebaumsworld, or credit card numbers? The scene really makes no sense to you without knowing?

I bet you think it doesn't matter what's in the box in Belle de Jour (1967), what's in case in Pulp Fiction (1994), or what's in the trunk in Repo Man (1984), either. I mean...it would have only taken them one line to explain 'em, man.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2008 00:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

twistedmentat posted:

I guess you could consider Birth of a Nation one of the first, as it was based on the newly established myths of the resurgent Klan.

...and Dixon's novel and play The Clansman.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2008 03:00

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

trapped mouse posted:

Here's a question about Visitor Q:
If a movie's that disturbing, I want it to be at least half as good as it is disturbing. It seemed to make no sense.

The entire film is an elaborate (if somewhat esoteric) defence of traditional Japanese values. This is not a joke.

The Visitor doesn't destroy the family---the family is already dysfunctional in pretty much every way it could be. He shows up to restore proper social order in the house.

If you look at the film as a sort of surreal (and scatological) morality play, all of the seemingly bizarre elements take on pretty mundane meanings (e.g., the mother's lactation being a re-awakening of her maternal nurturing). Feel free to re-ask more detailed questions, but I think this is pretty much what you've been `missing'.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2008 23:04

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

thrakkorzog posted:

Walken is probably the worst offender, but you can't tell me that Pacino wasn't pretty much on auto-pilot for The Devil's Advocate, or that De Nero was method acting for Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Walken is the worst offender? Even if you've somehow forgotten the entire career of James Woods here, I have one word for ya: Shatner.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2008 11:17

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Encryptic posted:

I'm in the middle of watching Unforgiven and I was thinking - what are some other "must-see" Westerns out there? I've seen a number of the well-known ones and enjoyed them (Tombstone, Dances With Wolves, Leone's Man With No Name trilogy, The Magnificent Seven, etc.) but I know there's others out there that are well-regarded.

I'm going to resist the urge to answer this in the form of an essay on the Western as a historic film genre. So here's a plain ol' list, with minimal comments:

Stagecoach (1939). Probably the classic Western, and one of the greatest films ever made. This is one of those films that reams and reams of critical analysis can (and have) been written about, and I'll make no attempt to get into it here. Suffice it to say that this film is nearly an encyclopedia of the Western: the setting, the narrative grammar, the archetypal characters, and so on. Understand Stagecoach and you understand the studio era Western.
My Darling Clementine (1946). John Ford made a lot of Westerns, and while they're all worth consideration individually they're most important, I think, collectively as they define much of the language and mythology of film---certainly of American popular film through the studio era. That said, My Darling Clementine is interesting in what Ford does differently here than elsewhere in his oeuvre. This is probably the lightest of Ford's Westerns, and manages to be the best film about the gunfight at the OK Corral and the film that seems to be the least concerned about it. I think what we're really seeing in the film is Ford's vision of a (most would argue fictional) utopian ideal embodied in the American West. Most Westerns (Ford's included) were about resourceful and hard-fisted men carving a future out for themselves (usually out of the American Indian). My Darling Clementine is less about this than the rustic ideal that they're striving for.
Red River (1948). There's this story, probably apocryphal, that John Ford watched John Wayne's performance in Red River and told director Howard Hawks `I never knew he could act'. That's a great line even if not true, and I think it actually says more about Hawks' direction than Wayne's acting. This is one of the great Westerns. Like Stagecoach, it encapsulates nearly everything that can be said about a particular sort of Western film.
High Noon (1952). One of the most important Westerns and, arguably, films ever made. The tropes it establishes are so familiar now that they're almost transparent to us but were inflammatory enough at the time that films were made as angry responses to the moral universe the film presents. The scandalous suggestion made by the film? That good, honest townsfolk might take expediency and safety over pure righteousness, and therefore side with a bunch of dangerous bandits over an aging sheriff. This is another Western about which much can be written, but I'll confine myself to just saying that this is one of the great films.
Shane (1953). This is one of the most interestingly inflected of the classic studio Westerns. This is by no means a revisionist Western: there are literal white hats and black hats, and the invocation (if not enunciation) of Ye Olde Code of the West. But there's also a sort of ambivalence toward the heroic myth of the Western that also remains unenunciated but which is nevertheless the film's most striking feature.
The Searchers (1956). One of John Ford's most problematic Westerns; made near the end of the era of the classic studio Western, this is one of the last mainstream films to portray the heroic White Man fighting tooth and nail against the bloodthirsty redskins. That said, the center of the film is a story of personal obsession, and John Wayne handles it surprisingly well. Wayne was not much of a character actor, and Ford didn't really have much use for characters' nuanced inner struggles. A standount in many ways.
Django (1966). Probably the most memorable and influential of the non-Leone `spaghetti Westerns'. But where Leone transcends the genre tropes to make classic films, director Sergio Corbucci here wallows in them. This is explotation cinema at its loudy, bloody, and ludicrous best.
Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966), a.k.a. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. You already said you've seen the Man With No Name films, but I'm including it anyway in case someone else sees the list and need the recommendation. One of the great films, with the iconic score by Morricone and some of Leone's most striking direction. Contains the best gunslingin' showdown ever set on film.
Se Sei Vivo Spara (1967) (1967), a.k.a. Djago Kill... If You Live, Shoot!. My favourite of the Django films, and a strong contender for the best Western title ever. This is another Italian `spaghetti Western' full of stylistic and dramatic excesses.
C'era una volta il West (1968), a.k.a. Once Upon a Time in the West. Less well-known than Leone's Man With No Name films, this is the most consciously revisionist of Leone's Westerns and some think his best.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Another iconic Western. Like so most of the Westerns of the period, this was really a revisionist Western, although not revisionist in the sense that Leone's or Peckinpah's Westerns are. I think we can be permitted in reading a bit of Vietnam into the story of young, optimistic, and enterprising Americans being unable to escape inevitable defeat in a foreign land. Most of the film is much lighter than most revisionist Westerns, which I think is the reason we remember so well the grim and iconic ending.
The Wild Bunch (1969). Peckinpah's most influential film. I won't get into discussing it's importance here. The sensational violence that was its most remarkable feature when it was originally released seems less over-the-top today, but is still striking. It remains as much of a paen of utter bitterness as it ever was.

...and that's quite a list. I've arbitrarily cut myself off at the end at 1970 to avoid having to work through the crop of modern revisionist at-what-price-the-American-West Westerns. And I didn't include any silent Westerns (again, to avoid having to wade through a lot of notable titles without being able to name many truly iconic ones). I've also avoided mentioning a lot of interesting but less important titles---like Fuller's Westerns, or the ones Hellman directed for Roger Corman.

Feel free to ask if you want more.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2008 20:33

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

NeuroticErotica posted:

You've got a good list going, I just want to add that the Italians did Westerns better than the Americans.

Well, the Italians did a certain kind of Western better than Hollywood did. But in the spaghetti Western the American West is really just a canvas on which chaotic amorality can be displayed. The American Western---even the Hollywood studio Western---offers a far broader view. Ford's idealism, Hawks' mythmaking, Fuller's ambivalence, Ray's...however you want to characterise Johnny Guitar (1954), and so on. And that's not even touching the whole let's-do-the-whole-thing-over-with-us-as-the-bad-guys thing that characterises post-studio era Westerns. Or Western kitsch (Zachariah (1971), say).

The Hollywood Western has, or has had, pretty much everything American film has ever had. The Italian Western has always been a subgenre ghetto of exploitation cinema. The Italians do exploitation better than Hollywood does---but then again pretty much everybody does exploitation films better than mainstream Hollywood does.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2008 02:36

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

(I mean, between Sergio Leone and John Ford, who would you really reduce to being an exploitation filmmaker?)

Er, neither. But of the two Leone. No question. What's your point?

# ¿ Oct 26, 2008 04:52

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

Wait, so Sergio Leone, a man famous for directing Italian westerns (which according to you are a subset of exploitation films), is not an exploitation director? You'll have to explain that one.

Leone's films were not, by and large, exploitation films. Per un Pugno di Dollari (1964) (A Fistful of Dollars) looks, feels, and was produced very much in the style of the typical spaghetti Western, and is a film you could call an exploitation film without blushing. But by the end of the Man With No Name trilogy, Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (1966) (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) is called a spaghetti Western by convention but it's a (comparatively) high-budget film with an actively anti-exploitation mood. His later Western films...the comedies and C'Era una Volta il West (1968) (Once Upon a Time in the West) are called spaghetti Westerns entirely by virtue of the fact that they're Italian-made films set in the American West; they have virtually nothing to do in terms of style, theme or production methods with exploitation films. And of course Once Upon a Time in America (1984) isn't a Western (like his earlier films, not discussed here).

So I'll grant you that he made one or maybe two films that we can comfortably call exploitation films. So if you ask me to call him or John Ford (who made no films that could by any stretch of the imagination be called exploitation films) an exploitation filmmaker I'd pick Leone. But I wouldn't say without qualification that Leone is an exploitation filmmaker.

We Are Citizen posted:

Anyway, I was all ready to type out a big explanation of how John Ford was an exploitation filmmaker, but then I checked the Wikipedia entry for "Exploitation film" and I guess I was wrong about what exploitation films are. I'd considered them to be any films that were made very quickly and cheaply in order to exploit audience interests, (by which definition Ford would certainly qualify)[...].

I think you don't understand either what kind of films Ford made, or how the studio system worked in general...or I suppose possibly both.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2008 19:53

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

This is what I'm saying: Leone made Italian westerns. Not only that, he made the Italian westerns, the three films that spawned and are representative of the entire subgenre. So if Leone's Italian westerns aren't exploitation films, how can you say that Italian westerns are a subgenre of exploitation films, rather than of westerns in general?

Because I don't have some addlepated notion that statements about Westerns in general, Italian Westerns in particular, or Italian Westerns made by Sergio Leone need to follow some absolutist stricture as decreed by We Are Citizen.

Spaghetti Westerns are a subgenre of exploitation film. Sergio Leone made Spaghetti Westerns. Not all of Leone's films are exploitation films. The End.

We Are Citizen posted:

So instead I'll ask: what, exactly, was A Fistful of Dollars exploiting? What made it an exploitation film instead of just another action movie set in the American west?

It was made dirt cheap and featured what was for the time sensational violence. That's pretty much the definition of an exploitation film. It's also a fairly well-made film, although neither as original nor as technically accomplished as Leone's later films.

We Are Citizen posted:

Maybe I don't, because I don't understand how William Beaudine cranking out three or four generic westerns every year makes him an exploitation filmmaker, but John Ford cranking out three or four generic war movies every year doesn't. Is it just because Ford was a great director who made genuinely great films every now and then, whereas Beaudine was a hack?

John Ford didn't make exploitation films. He made, by and large, comparatively big-budget and very mainstream (critically and commercially) films.

So I guess a summary thus far would be:

You don't seem to know what an exploitation film is
You don't seem to know what sort of films John Ford made
You don't seem to know what sort of films Sergio Leone made

# ¿ Oct 28, 2008 10:46

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

How about this: Once Upon a Time in the West is a western. Once Upon a Time in the West was made in Italy. Once Upon a Time in the West is not an exploitation film. Therefore, not all Italian westerns are exploitation films. The End.

Okay, sure. What's your point?

We Are Citizen posted:

So budget is the issue? William Beaudine's films weren't any less mainstream than Ford's, they just had lower budgets. Hell, A Fistful of Dollars was a mainstream film.

I think A Fistful of Dollars is now closer to the American mainstream then when it was released, but when Leone made it it sure as hell wasn't seen as mainstream as it is now. Something like, I dunno, Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Blood Simple (1984) or a film along those lines. Maybe this is another one of those film concepts for which you're using your own idiosyncratic definition. Leone's first Western was certainly popular in the Italian market during its initial theatrical release, but it didn't get much critical or popular attention until it was re-released, and really didn't get enshrined as part of the popular canon until sometime in late '70s (i.e., after it was shown on American television---complete with shot-for-the-television-market additional exposition). And a lot of the attention it received followed the U.S. release of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly at the end of '67 (which is a film which did have mainstream success on its initial release).

That's not to say A Fistful of Dollars wasn't successful---it was made for next to nothing and made far more than it cost to produce. But I guess I'm again at somewhat of a loss to figure out what you're actually trying to argue. You seem to be all over the place and are often arguing from miscomprehension of the subject matter. Are you still objecting to my original comments that Italian Westerns didn't have the breadth of expression that Hollywood Westerns have, or are you just trying to quibble minutiae to save face after having to admit to having no idea what an exploitation film is?

# ¿ Oct 29, 2008 00:35

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

It seems to me that "Italian westerns are a subset of exploitation films" and "All Italian westerns are exploitation films" mean basically the same thing, and that the first statement can't be true if the second is false.

That's silly even for a strawman.

We Are Citizen posted:

Yes. To be specific, my argument was that Italian westerns were less limited than American westerns, since Italians westerns weren't usually about the American West the same way American westerns were.

...which is to say, your argument is based on a baffling unfamiliarity with or misreading of the Hollywood Western. And Italian Westerns, for that matter.

We Are Citizen posted:

The only thing left to argue about is whether A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More count as "real films" or "exploitation films."

Although I'm not entirely sure I want to explore what you're hiding in that phrase `real films', I'm guessing this is just a false dichotomy.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2008 11:02

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

Why? If Italian westerns are a subset of exploitation films (which you said they were), doesn't it follow that all Italian westerns are exploitation films? And if not all Italian westerns are exploitation films (which you also said), then doesn't it follow that Italian westerns are not a subset of exploitation films?
Dogs are a subset of mammals. Therefore, all dogs are mammals. That's the logic I'm using. If it is flawed, please correct me.

So your argument is based on the idea that film genres are defined by formal prepositional logic? Really?

We Are Citizen posted:

I can totally see how this makes Italian westerns more limited than Hollywood westerns.

...and now you're more or less asserting exactly the opposite position you
were advocating a couple posts ago (`I'd say that that makes American Westerns the ones that are really limited')?

I'm really just trying to keep track of what you're trying to say here.

We Are Citizen posted:

It seems ridiculous to me that you (SubG) can toss A Fistful of Dollars in the Exploitation Film Bin and then turn around and put The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on the _____ Film Pedestal, where "_____" is whatever you want to call movies that aren't exploitation films.

I'm not doing that.

We Are Citizen posted:

Basically, the more I learn about "exploitation films" the less I like the phrase.

A less charitable person than I might suggest that you should in the future endeavour to learn the meaning of terms of art before attempting to lecture others on their use.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2008 01:24

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

Well, the hypothetical person that your hypothetical person is arguing with could make the counter-argument that "exploitation film" is not a term of art, but a term of disparagement for certain kinds of art.

This hypothetical person really should listen to my advice about figuring out what a term means before lecturing on its use.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2008 03:11

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

We Are Citizen posted:

I'm trying to figure out what exploitation films are. I thought I had it after reading the Wikipedia article on the subject, but that article must have been wrong if you insist that "exploitation film" is not a term of disparagment, since the article states that "Exploitation film is a type of film that eschews the expense of quality productions in favor of making films inexpensively, attracting viewers by exciting their more prurient interests." That right there draws a dichotomy between "exploitation film" and "quality production."

No, it's making a distinction between `expensive' and `exploitation'. Among other things. I'm not going to have an argument with wikipedia through you, but while I think wikipedia offers a level of detail slightly below the average undergraduate intro-to-whatever text I don't think the article on exploitation films is misleading. I think you just have lousy reading comprehension.

We Are Citizen posted:

And if the term "exploitation film" isn't necessarily a bad thing, why did you feel the need to exempt those Italian westerns you liked (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West) from your earlier claim that Italian westerns were [a subset of] exploitation films?

I didn't. If you'll notice my first post on Westerns in the thread recommended two Django films, which are absolutely exploitation films. I don't call The Good, The Bad and The Ugly an exploitation film because it isn't one (except perhaps by some very broad definition which would include all Italian-produced Westerns). And the fact that A Fistful of Dollars is (by any reasonable meaning of the term) an exploitation film doesn't entail a value judgement about the film's merits as a film.

This has nothing to do with me liking or disliking either film. I mean ask any longtime reader of CineD...with the exception of NeuroticErotica I'm probably the person who can be found most frequently lauding exploitation films and various other genre flicks (Troma films, Hammer films, Full Moon flicks, Shaw Brothers films, blacksploitation films, luche films, and so forth).

# ¿ Oct 30, 2008 11:27

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Encryptic posted:

New question: When does Denis Leary appear in the director's cut of Natural Born Killers? One of those "blink and you'll miss it" scenes?

Just before the prison interview sequence, I think. It's just him in a cell ranting about Mickey and Mallory. I think it's intercut with a bunch of other talking head clips, like the Steven Wright bits.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2008 01:27

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

jjack229 posted:

I know that relative to other decades the 80's had horrible music, hairstyles, and clothes, but was it really that much more focused on consumerism and materialism than the 70', 90's, or now?

It wasn't so much that the consumerism and materialism were more prevalent in the '80s, it's that popular culture lionised the ubercapitalist as hero. Gordon Gekko (from Wall Street (1987)) wouldn't be a convincing villain in any other decade.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2009 01:19

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Filming with sync sound as a matter of course is a comparatively new development (internationally at least). This is mostly because of the technical difficulty of shooting in synch prior to the existence of digital timing. For a long time if you wanted decent sound quality you had to use a separate camera and sound recording equipment. This required an elaborate mechanical interlink between the camera and recorder and the gear was expensive and finicky.

New sync sound systems started being developed in the early '60s that were more portable, and they were used by for example many of the French nouvelle vague directors. But this was motivated by a desire for a more immediate, intimate feel in film over a concern for recording quality. Studios continued to shoot films the way they had for years. This was partially because of institutional inertia and partially due to other factors. Cinecitt�'s studio was famously close to Rome's main airport, for example.

Anyway, I doubt that you can find any Italian films made around when I Fidanzati was made (1963) that were filmed with synch sound. I don't think it was common practice in most Italian studios until the mid '70's. Hong Kong studios and most Bollywood studios held out even longer.

# ¿ May 27, 2009 19:08

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Pman5000 posted:

Does anyone know the title of a movie about a Redneck guy that trains to be a Ninja.

Every Steven Segal movie ever.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2009 00:22

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

twistedmentat posted:

In Big Trouble In Little China, at the start they're gambling, though it doesn't show what they're doing. Is there any idea?

They're playing fan-tan. Jack actually says as much.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2009 22:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Honest Thief posted:

Something that always bothered me, why did Dirty Harry came back to the police after the end of the first movie? I guess it could have been a similar situation to Sherlock Holmes's death and ressurection, but the ending of the first movie makes it somewhat hard to believe he would just go back like if nothing happened. Are the sequels in fact prequels?

They're not prequels. The change is never really explained. I think the second film (Magnum Force (1973)) is a not-so-subtle commentary on the implied politics of the first film. The end of Dirty Harry (1971) seems to imply that the only way capital-J Justice can be served is by the actions of individuals who are willing to work outside of the `system' (which the film presents as inherently corrupt and feeble). Magnum Force seems to backpedal not only by having Harry retrieve his badge between films but also in presenting an overall narrative that expressly rejects the sort of vigilantism advocated by the first.

Most of the later films are just generic cops-n-robbers schtick, and are difficult to parse as presenting a political message.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2009 23:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

twistedmentat posted:

In WW2 films, are the tanks and other heavy equipment mock ups, reconstructions or the real thing?

Yes.

It really depends on the film, when it was made, and what the budget was. These days a lot of the tanks and planes and so forth are just CG. Between the time when the Soviet Union was imploding and when CG effects took over an awful lot of old T-34s and so on were standing in for all kinds of armour; most of the German tanks in Saving Private Ryan (1998), for example, were modified T-34s. Earlier, a lot of tanks used in films were just whatever the Army would lend to studios plus some paint; most of the German tanks in Patton (1970) were in fact M-48 `Patton' tanks and the U.S. tanks were mostly Korean-era M-24s.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2010 08:03

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Regression posted:

Thanks for the reply, you might be right. The reason I find it important is that the question of is Deckard a replicant (if I remember correctly) is a major issue in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - and I feel this very fascinating question didn't get enough "time" in the movie, apart from that one line of Rachael's.

No, the novel doesn't suggest it even to the extent that the film does. There's a lot more exposition involving Deckard's conflicted feelings about his profession, but there's no implications beyond that.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2010 00:13

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

hog wizard posted:

^^^ Some people are either too young to have even seen sfx in Aliens as good at the time or they've just been spoiled by movies like Avatar and District 9. Speaking of which...

I think `spoiled' is the right word. I don't think it actually has as much to do with whether the effects in a film made in 1986 are as `good' as a film made twenty years later as it does with a shift in audience expectation about what effects are supposed to look like.

Modern CG effects---particularly in big-budget Hollywood science fiction films---tend to be radically overdetailed and elaborately lit in ways that don't look any more natural than a guy in a rubber suit trampling a cardboard Tokyo in the '50s. The difference is that we know and expect CG effects in our films, and the more fiddly details we see in the effects the better we react to them as effects. If that makes sense. Effects seem to be moving in the direction of being better looking effects rather than looking more seamless or more `real'.

So someone who's grown up with elaborate CG effects who thinks Aliens (1986) looks bad isn't reacting to the effects not looking `real'---he's reacting to them not looking like CG effects. In the case of Aliens this is particularly illuminating, as most of the `big' effects are in fact actual physical objects being gaffer lit rather than 3d models being lit by a lighting algorithm and so forth. Many of the effects are as `real' as a fictional thing can be---a full-sized xenomorph puppet looks as much as a `real' xenomorph as anything could---and that is exactly what a modern audience doesn't expect to see.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2010 23:40

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

I don't think it's cut and dried with some change in the special effects community wholesale losing the interest in making seamless special effects or modern audiences appreciating said effects.

I'm not proposing some sort of universal and invariable law of cinema or anything. I just think it's one of those things about film tastes that is faddish and variable as everything else about film, and right now it seems like the current fashion is for a particular flavour of visual effects. I think you can see the same sort of thing in, for example, animation styles. There isn't anything inherent in the medium that requires the Pixar style of 3D animation to be `right'---it isn't a question of realism or whatever---but right now it is effectively the institutional form of cartoon animation, in the same sense that the Disney style was dominant in prior decades.

I think the models used for the xenomorphs in the Alien franchise are actually a great example of this. Compare the original models and suits used in Scott's film that started the franchise with the full-sized models used in Alien vs. Predator (2004). There's a distinctly different style to each incarnation of the xenomorphs, and there aren't any technological limitations to explain it (it's not like Stan Winston couldn't have added all the fiddly stippling and so forth to the original models). My contention is that it's the audience sensibilities that changed, and one of the primary motivators for this change was the prevalence of CGI in film (and video games and so forth).

Edit: Winston worked on Cameron's film, not Scott's. But my point's the same.

SubG fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jan 27, 2010

# ¿ Jan 27, 2010 06:12

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

I don't think that's a particularly good example as every film in the Alien and Alien v P franchise has introduced radical modifications to the Xenomorph, often without narrative support and happening both before and after the CG revolution. Cameron's are substantially different from Scott's, owing to them being commoditized rather than being a singular star in the film so it's half practical and half aesthetic. Fincher's is also different, but with a narrative reason for it as it comes from a dog/ox rather than a human. Jeunet's are very different, often both CG and practical and that's a stylistic choice. And then they change up in the AvP 1 and again in AvP 2, being closer to Camerons but still quite different. In all of those cases, the changes aren't lending themselves to CG but rather just to the director putting their stamp on it.

I disagree. The main changes to the look of the xenomorph between Scott's film and Cameron's were purely functional---Cameron wanted the actors in the suits to run around more, and the suits were designed to accommodate this requirement; as far as I know there were no deliberate changes made purely for aesthetics (I'd be willing to be demonstrated wrong here; I'm just going from information remembered from interviews here).

The overall design of the aliens was the same in Fincher's film, and the suits used were in fact designed around the suits used by Cameron, only modified to allow movement on all fours.

Alien Resurrection (1997) was the first of the films to include CGI xenomorphs, but Jeunet wanted to be able to use both the models and suits created for the previous film as well as CGI effects, so Blue Sky's computer models were based entirely on the physical models created previously by ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics) for Alien³ (1992).

The first time the xenomorphs were redesigned more or less from scratch was for Alien Vs. Predator (2004), where ADI and the visual effects producers redesigned both the xenomorphs and the predators.

This is a lot of :goonsay:

about the aliens, but I'm just going over it to outline the comparative lack of change in overall visual sensibility in the design of the aliens themselves. The films certainly look different from each other; I'm just talking about the composition of the xenomorphs themselves, as an exemplar of the overall visual effects design.

Anyway, it's worth pointing out that most of the creature effects in both AvP films were done with 1/3 scale models, not with CGI. So if you're looking for support for your argument, I think that's a stronger point than anything about the changes between each of the films (which I've just discussed). But my point isn't (as it seems like you might think) that I'm saying that the changes in look of the visual effects is due to the limitations of CGI or something like that. I'm saying that the visual effects changed substantially, that these changes reflect differences in audience (and therefore filmmaker) sensibilities concerning visual effects, and that the prevalence of CGI effects is one of the main factors in this change of sensibilities.

To approach the question in slightly different terms: Alien Vs. Predator was released in the same year as Doom 3, and they have very much the same visual sensibilities---I won't attempt to catalogue all of the characteristics, because I think most of us are familiar with the shiny, bumpy plastic look---and I don't think this is a coincidence, despite the fact that neither could be based on the other.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2010 22:16

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Akuma posted:

Nah, the most noticeable change is that the heads were very prominently ridged instead of smooth. That can't be for any reason other than aesthetics.

Not according to the designers; the ridges were added for, well, rigidity. The actors kept banging their heads into things, and this damaged the old smooth alien costume heads.

haveblue posted:

I think it is, since the reasons are completely unrelated- AvP was a purely aesthetic decision strongly influenced by the franchise history, whereas Doom 3 did it to show off the fact that the technology to produce that effect in a video game had only just been developed.

I don't buy it. There's a distinctive look and feel to both of them, and the idea that it's sheer coincidence is pretty difficult to swallow. Put another way: do you think you could roughly place the era when an effects sequence was filmed just by looking at it?

Bringing it back to the original point, would anyone actually argue that the difference between these two versions of a UFO are that one is more `realistic' than the other?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2010 00:26

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

Again, this is an aesthetic choice.

I agree; that's my point. I'm just saying that one of the main things which is driving aesthetic choices in visual effects these days is the prevalence of CGI. And because popular films end up being stylemakers and trendsetters, you find later films adopting elements of the looks of the visual effects of popular films. I'm not saying that anyone would sit down and say, `we need something that looks more like high-end CGI'. On the other hand I do think people might look at films like District 9 or Avatar and decide that they want something that looks like that, or is as good or better than that, and so the elements of visual style that they use will get incorporated into the visual lexicon of contemporary filmmaking.

I can talk about specific examples or elements of visual style, but it's not like I can prove anything here, and I'm not trying to. And I'm not sure exactly what you'd want proven anyway. E.g., do you believe that there are different, recognisable effects sensibilities or aesthetics at all? Your comments the effects in the different versions of The Day the Earth Stood Still appears to suggest you do. If so, why is it so difficult to credit the idea that (contemporary) film effects themselves are one of the primary influences on what audiences expect/accept in film effects?

Ape Agitator posted:

Practical effects still get play today and aren't an albatross that sinks a film's special effects.

I'm not arguing that they would; that's more or less my point in using AvP as an example.

lizardman posted:

Cameron saw the creature being put together and told the team not to add the outer layer because he thought it looked interesting.

Cool. What's the source for this? I'm actually interested; the design of the aliens is just an example and not my entire point, but I'd be interested to hear what the visual effects designers themselves have to say.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2010 07:31

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

I really wish you would because I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what you're saying. I can think of dozens of examples of movies which try to emulate the overall look of a movie (goddamn how many "looks like The Matrix" movies have we all seen?) but I can't think of ones that aim to match only the special effect system of another movie. Help me out.

I'm not saying that a filmmaker would set out to just clone the effects from a film. And I agree with you that visual effects, and in particular CGI effects, are just one of many factors that go into producing the overall look and feel of a film. I'm just saying that CGI qua CGI is having---and already has had---an effect on general visual sensibilities, and in particular the current sensibilities concerning visual effects.

So a specific example: the design of the aliens in District 9. More specifically: they have all kinds of squiggly poo poo going on in their mouths. Squiggly writhing poo poo is one of the things that CGI does pretty well, and so you see designs with all kinds of squiggly writhing poo poo. Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean is another example. Another interesting case of this is seen in the additions to the 2004 re-release of the Star Wars films with the additional CGI effects. In, for example, the cantina sequence there's a shot where a latex-masked alien is replaced with an obviously CGI critter with a bunch of face tentacles.

The 2004 Lucas tweaks illustrate another common example of the sort of `CGI-ism' I'm commenting on---poo poo that's just too hyperactive. If you look at the Jabba sequence inserted into the first film one of the things that stands out (to me) is how ridiculously over-animated Jabba is. He's always twiddling his eyebrows and undulating and wobbling around. Obviously Lucas could have done a pixel-perfect rendering of the version of Jabba we were already familiar with from Return of the Jedi (1983). But that's not what a creature effect looks like now---it looks like the spastic blancmange that the 2004 edits give us.

Does that make more sense? And my point is that although this sort of thing is initially driven by CGI effects (in Lucas' case), even if you were doing something like Jabba via puppetry or whatever now it would exhibit the same stylistic cues---because that's what an effects sequence looks like now.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2010 00:24

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

I just don't think there's a wholesale rejection of old special effects driven movie which would support your premise.

That's like saying that Technicolor wasn't a major influence on film in the period from the '30s to the '60s because there wasn't a wholesale rejection of black and white film.

And if we look at this as an example there's a certain sort of very obvious progression: once all films were shot and presented in black and white (although some were of course hand-tinted); now all effectively all films are shot and presentend in colour. But while this is the broad, obvious effect of the introduction of colour film, there are a lot of other influences the introduction of colour had on the visual `language' of narrative film: a film presented in black and white may now have an anachronistic or historical connotation, an association that would not have been carried by a black and white film made when all films were black and white; a film can identify particularly important elements by shifting from colour to black and white or vice versa or by selectively colouring certain objects or sequences; the use of contrast in composition is less prevalent in colour film than it was in black and white film, and is often used to connote different moods; and so forth.

You seem to think I'm talking about the former sort of change---it all used to be one way and now is another. I'm not. I'm saying that we're seeing---and to some extent already have seen---a shift in the visual grammar of narrative film, specifically involving certain kinds of cues which are---not necessarily intentionally---being used to convey information to the audience about how they should be reacting to what they're seeing on the screen. This sounds very dry and academic, but I really think it's something that's really straightforward and simple, it's just difficult to talk about. And sometimes it's difficult to even recognise, because we're so familiar with the elements of style that they're transparent to us.

Carrying this again back to the original comments, I think when a lot of modern viewers comment on how `dated' effects look in older films---not just the Alien films, but also more broadly in general---we (generic `we') tend to parse this in terms of whether or not the effects are seamless or `realistic'. My observation is that this really has nothing to do with it; what we (generic `we') tend to react to in effects sequences is how well they conform to what our notions of what an effects sequence looks like.

Earlier hog wizard responded to the ship screenshots from the two versions of The Day The Earth Stood Still by commenting that a `realistic' UFO is `something that doesn't make sense, not a god drat flying saucer'. This is entirely a modern expectation; in 1951 everybody knew that UFOs looked exactly like flying saucers. My observation is that hog wizard's reaction to the effects of the first film have nothing to do with how plausibly presented the effects are, it's that the visual style of the thing being presented that he finds `unrealistic'. My further contention is that our expectation that advanced technology looks like swirly mist and beams of light and sizzly electricity is something that appears to be motivated by (or at least is coincident with) the rising prevalence of CGI effects in film. In the same way the institutional version of a super-advanced computer keyboard is now the floaty glowing stuff we first saw in (as far as I can recall) Minority Report (2002)---as seen in, for example, District 9.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2010 00:48

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Ape Agitator posted:

I just can't get past the way you mix aesthetic preferences with special effects, which I don't think is right.

I think it's unavoidable, unless you believe in some sort of inherent visual grammar of cinema that's `built-in' to the medium or an audience's (or rather all audiences') experience of it.

Without wanting to get into too much unnecessary bloviation about critical theory, here's a broad, general claim: there is no such thing as a purely uninflected image. What I mean by that is that there is no way of presenting an image (in general, but let's just talk about film here) without it carrying some sort of connotations which are not inherent in the image itself but are a product of how and to whom it is presented. This sounds like a bunch of light, airy abstraction (not to say bullshit), but just stay with me for a minute. Look at, say, a page of comics. It's pretty easy to see that there are a lot of things there that we understand purely by convention: what order to view the panels in; the difference between a speech bubble and a thought bubble; certain kinds of lines drawn around an object imply motion (something being fast or vibrating or whatever); words which appear in bold, stylised lettering near actions represent noises; and so forth. None of these things are inherent in the comic medium. There are other way the same things could be represented, and the same elements of style could be used to represent completely different things. It would just confuse the gently caress out of a reader, because they're used to a conventional mode of representation in comics.

My point is that this is equivalently true in film. Things like eyeline shots, cross-cutting, fades, non-diagetic sound, Dutch angles, and so forth are all things which we understand by convention and are not things which are inherent in the medium. So how we understand these things, and how we interpret what they're intended to literally mean in terms of the narrative and what we take them to imply or connote are a product of the images and sounds in conjunction with the body of convention by which we have acquired our understanding of the grammar with which all these elements are used.

With me so far? My point in sorta belabouring this point is to illustrate that while the construction of a film can consist of a lot of stylistic choices, these choices do not exist in a vacuum. These choices are made, realised, and appreciated in terms of---can only be in terms of---the broader conventions of the medium.

A lot of the examples I've used here are a lot more dramatic than what we've been talking about in re special effects. In particular most of the examples I've given have involved how different elements of the narrative presentation relate to each other---how one image is related to another, or how a sound is related to an image or event, and so forth. So I'm not saying it's exactly the same thing with what we're talking about. But I am saying that when you look at a particular stylistic choice---like Lucas deciding whether to have a laconic mountain of a Jabba or a twitchy cartoon earthworm---that this isn't a choice that's being made or which can be understood in a void, as an independent choice isolated from all the other, similar choices being made about how other alien critters and whathaveyou are being represented in other contemporary films.

I think that there are directors (and other people in filmmaking) that do make stylistically inventive choices, and choices that play against the grain of convention. But that doesn't divorce them from that convention, nor does it do anything to weaken the influence of those conventions on film as a whole.

And note that this does not entail a belief that a bunch of art directors or whatever need to sit around and say, `Well, this is what the institutional version of an alien is, and that's influenced by recent CGI effects, so let's try to make our alien look more like a recent high-end CGI effect'. Just like you don't have to believe that Disney illustrators and animators understood neoteny (except intuitively) and nevertheless can believe that neoteny had a lot to do with the development of the designs of their characters.

Or without all the :words:

: I'm not mixing aesthetic choices with special effects; I'm saying that special effects are necessarily aesthetic choices. And, further, that the current special effects aesthetics are dominated by elements of style that come from and are particularly suited to modern CGI effects.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2010 09:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

VorpalBunny posted:

PLUTO made $7,103,973 worldwide but probably has made more money in DVD sales, since it's kind of a kid movie.

You'd have to compare the rental numbers with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), which also lost in the neighborhood of a hundred million. It cost around US$140 million to produce, and took in about US$30 million in theatres, but since then has taken in something like US$75 million in rentals.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2010 21:47

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Jay Dub posted:

From what I know about Blood Simple, I read once that the Coens actually wrote major portions of the film as they shot it.

What? There was an almost complete shot-for-shot storyboard of Blood Simple. (1985) before they shot the first scene. As far as I know this is true of all of the Coen brothers' films; it's one of their signature eccentricities.

SubG fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Feb 11, 2010

# ¿ Feb 11, 2010 00:30

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

itrorev posted:

There was something in Highlander that always bugged me... why did the Kurgan wait so damned long to fight Conner? (Was there something I missed?)

I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the Kurgan is as metal as gently caress. Remember that flashback where he's got that armour? Metal as gently caress. In fact the Kurgan may be the most metal bad guy in cinema history, slightly edging out the main bad guy from that Riddick film. And that guy is the head of a bunch of dudes called Necromongers (who look like they might be a GWAR cover band), and at one point he kills a guy by reaching into him, ripping out his soul, and then punching it. But this is the Kurgan:

When you're that fuckin' metal I think you can pretty much kill guys on your own timetable.

So in summary I think that any theory that explains the Kurgan's actions must take into account that he is metal as gently caress.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2010 08:48

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Dr_Amazing posted:

For noir movies I also recommend "DOA"

Surely the best classic noir to feature a slide whistle.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2010 19:15

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Psmith posted:

I could have missed it but did anyone mention The Long Goodbye? It's got one of the most famous noir characters in Philip Marlowe who is played brilliantly by Elliot Gould. One of my favorite Altman movies.

It's a good film (although one I can't quite bring myself to actually enjoy), but it's really a deconstruction of the film noir genre rather than being an example of noir itself.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2010 06:44

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

Penpal posted:

Also, a general movie question: Have any really good DP's gone on to direct really good films?

J. Michael Muro was DP on a couple films (although he's best known as one of the best stedicam operators in the business), and he directed Street Trash (1987). And if you don't think Street Trash is a really good '80s splatter film we will fight.

Edit: Although I think he directed Street Trash before being DP on any notable films...so he didn't go on to direct any really good films.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2010 22:34

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 00:22

SubG: Aug 19, 2004; It's a hard world for little things.

...of SCIENCE! posted:

Zardoz is one of the few movies I would totally support getting re-made, because it has some genuine good ideas and could make some great sci-fi. As it is it's a masterpiece of unintentional hilarity, though, what with Sean Connery getting erections and shooting people while prancing about in a red speedo inside a giant floating stone head that barfs guns.

`I will not go to Second Level with you.'
[Hand waving and ululation]
`I will not go to Second Level with you!'
[Hand waving and ululation]
`I will not go to Second Level with you!' [weeps]

# ¿ Apr 24, 2010 03:47

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > General Movie Questions (and hopefully answers)

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