Serious Movie Discussion XLII

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But anyways, this documentary is highly recommended. It's truly amazing and a great example of just how powerful movies/documentaries can be. Oppenheimer can no longer return to Indonesia btw, for fear of his life.
Yeah that was a really great doc. The scene that really stuck with me is the guy that whose "step-father" (probably real father) had been killed in the purges participating in their reenactments. When he was playing a torture victim he was so convincing that I thought he must either be the most talented amateur actor in Indonesia, or he's channeling the horrible memories of the actual events.

Are you sure Oppenheimer cannot return to Indonesia? He's since made a follow up to The Act of Killing called The Look of Silence, this time focusing on a relative of victims of the massacres.
I'm sure I've seen one or two film adaptations but I really don't recall anything about them, maybe I'll investigate.
You haven't seen Universal's Frankenstein released in 1931 starring Boris Karloff as the monster? Honestly as someone who knows the original story well that movie might not do anything for you. It's pretty different. For me it's THE all time horror classic though.
One of the things I really like about Five Deadly Venoms is that opening scene where the various venoms are introduced. It's so stylized and cool, as if the old master is telling the tale and what we see is the young pupils imagination of what he is being told.
Yeah the Venoms had not actually met each other in the story at that point right? So that demonstration could only be in the imagination.
Ah man, Crippled Avengers. What the fuck was that movie? It was one of those films where you asked yourself, "Seriously, this actually exists"!?
I actually liked it more than Five Deadly Venoms.
As long as we're name-dropping Kung Fu movies with Muay Thai in them, One Armed Boxer feutured a duo. Whom hilariously enough did a spastic version of the wai khru ram muay before every fight, accompanied by traditional music, of course.:rolleyes:
Oh yeah I remember. That was pretty silly. Some of these movies tend to blend together for me. The first One Armed Boxer is the one with the tournament featuring all the various nationalities right? The evil Japanese, the Muay Thais, and my personal favorite the "Indian Yoga master" with the stretchy arms. The movie was pretty good. I thought the immediate follow up was way better.
If you watch it and end up enjoying it, feel free to add me to your enemy list.:D
More of a Dracula guy?
 
I finally got around to watching Jackie Brown. Was the last QT movie I had yet to see. Was solid. Was waiting for a major twist the whole time but it ended pretty happily, etc. lol. Felt weird for a Quentin film. Probably my least favorite of his but not a bad movie by any means. Just an interesting one.

Now this song is stuck in my head... :p

 
I finally got around to watching Jackie Brown. Was the last QT movie I had yet to see. Was solid. Was waiting for a major twist the whole time but it ended pretty happily, etc. lol. Felt weird for a Quentin film. Probably my least favorite of his but not a bad movie by any means. Just an interesting one.

Now this song is stuck in my head... :p



Least Tarantino-esque of his movies for sure and I'm betting that's because it's an adaptation rather than an original screenplay. Still there are definitely many of his stylistic flourishes and some of the dialogue/character development is great.

I really think that might be his most underrated film in a lot of ways. Seems to slip through the cracks but there are so many good scenes and quite a few awesome performances in it. DeNiro in an uncharacteristic supporting role as that sad sack ex con is great. Bridget Fonda as the druggie surfer chick is great. Sam Jackson is menacing. Grier is great, etc. Robert Forster arguably steals the show.
 
Least Tarantino-esque of his movies for sure and I'm betting that's because it's an adaptation rather than an original screenplay. Still there are definitely many of his stylistic flourishes and some of the dialogue/character development is great.

I really think that might be his most underrated film in a lot of ways. Seems to slip through the cracks but there are so many good scenes and quite a few awesome performances in it. DeNiro in an uncharacteristic supporting role as that sad sack ex con is great. Bridget Fonda is the druggie surfer chick is great. Sam Jackson is menacing. Grier is great, etc. Robert Forster arguably steals the show.
Very well put! I did like DeNiro in that role, don't see that often for him. & Samuel was quite unpredictable. Lol, silly little side not but the kiss scene between Jackie & Max was hilarious to me just cause Forster has such a big floppy mouth. Looked like he was trying to eat her :D :p
 
Oh yeah I remember. That was pretty silly. Some of these movies tend to blend together for me. The first One Armed Boxer is the one with the tournament featuring all the various nationalities right?

It was more like a series of duels than a proper tournement but yeah, that's the one.

The evil Japanese

With vampire fangs:p.


More of a Dracula guy?

Well... yeah, but that's besides the point. I mostly just think that Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is an absolutely abysmal movie.:D It falls flat at every turn. Virtually every other film that has been made bearing the Frankenstein branding is a better sit. You have to stoop to titles like Frankenstein's Island or The Oozing Skull to find Frankenstein-esque products that are even poorer than that one... and those afromentioned movies are pretty damn bad.:D
 
What are your favorite Frankenstein movies @europe1 ?

Black Swan, obviously;)

Haha, jokes aside, I see that my Halloween candy has come early this year.<cheer> I stand with chickenluver that The original Universal Frankenstein movie is the best. Just an iconic flick. Colin Clive and Karloff are just off the wall, and it has that superb Universal-era atmosphere going. But as I said, I'm more of a Dracula fan, so Frankenstein movies aren't my area of expertise. I haven't even seen the other Universal Frankenstein movies -- like Bride of Frankenstein -- except the cross-over ones like Frankenstein meets the Wolfman and House of Frankenstein.

It was ages ago since I watched the Hammer Frankenstein movies. I guess the first, Curse of Frankenstein, is the second best. I remember really liking that one (dat Peter Cushing charm). That scene where Victor distracts an artists by asking him his opinions of a painting, and then throwing him off the floor, is just a riot.:p Christopher Lee was better as the Mummy though than he was as Frankenstein's monster. I also remember thinking the sequels got a bit absurd and overdone... but I can't really remember why.

Scratch that... Young Frankenstein is probably the second best. But that's a parody, and a bloody damn funny one at that!:D

I honestly can't think of many B-movie Frankensteins that stand-out. As I said, I'm not really partial to Frankenstein movies.


Passing the ball, do you have any partial favorites?
 
Thinking a bit more about it, I guess I got a bit fed up with the Hammer Frankenstein sequels because they de-mystified the Frankenstein process. Victor Frankenstein just gets to good at the experiment, and as a result is liberally switching brains between people at will, without the whole "monster" part occuring. It made the experiment part seem more like a plot-point, a tool to make certain developments happen, rather than something grand, groundbreaking and awe-inspiring in-and-of-itself. That sort of dynamic just sucks the excitement and sense of specialty out of the series, for me.

That said, it was a long time since I saw them. If I watched them today, that sort of "creativity" might be more appealing to me.
 
Black Swan, obviously;)

Haha, jokes aside, I see that my Halloween candy has come early this year.<cheer> I stand with chickenluver that The original Universal Frankenstein movie is the best. Just an iconic flick. Colin Clive and Karloff are just off the wall, and it has that superb Universal-era atmosphere going. But as I said, I'm more of a Dracula fan, so Frankenstein movies aren't my area of expertise. I haven't even seen the other Universal Frankenstein movies -- like Bride of Frankenstein -- except the cross-over ones like Frankenstein meets the Wolfman and House of Frankenstein.

It was ages ago since I watched the Hammer Frankenstein movies. I guess the first, Curse of Frankenstein, is the second best. I remember really liking that one (dat Peter Cushing charm). That scene where Victor distracts an artists by asking him his opinions of a painting, and then throwing him off the floor, is just a riot.:p Christopher Lee was better as the Mummy though than he was as Frankenstein's monster. I also remember thinking the sequels got a bit absurd and overdone... but I can't really remember why.

Scratch that... Young Frankenstein is probably the second best. But that's a parody, and a bloody damn funny one at that!:D

I honestly can't think of many B-movie Frankensteins that stand-out. As I said, I'm not really partial to Frankenstein movies.


Passing the ball, do you have any partial favorites?

No expert on Frankenstein movies, just wondered to see if there was anything I should look for. You said you're a bigger Dracula fan? I didn't like the early 90's version that everyone seems to love. IDK, maybe I should give it another try.
 
No expert on Frankenstein movies, just wondered to see if there was anything I should look for. You said you're a bigger Dracula fan? I didn't like the early 90's version that everyone seems to love. IDK, maybe I should give it another try.

Just jumping in real quick to say Coppola's Dracula is literally one of the worst movies ever made. And no, @europe1, that's not just my Martian brand of hyperbole. That movie is an unconscionable piece of shit. Everyone involved in that movie should be ashamed of themselves.
 
Just jumping in real quick to say Coppola's Dracula is literally one of the worst movies ever made. And no, @europe1, that's not just my Martian brand of hyperbole. That movie is an unconscionable piece of shit. Everyone involved in that movie should be ashamed of themselves.

Yeah, I didn't like it at all.
 
You said you're a bigger Dracula fan? I didn't like the early 90's version that everyone seems to love. IDK, maybe I should give it another try.

Well for me, Bram Stoker's Dracula is the definitive style over substance flick. It's allure lies very squarely in it's visuals and presentation. If that type of artsty visage is seductive to you, then it's a real experience. The film is just jam-packed with so much low-cunning when it comes to special effects and camera-trickery that the effect of it is something truly special.

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I can post these all day. So many amazing visuals in this film. Practically every shot has something eye-catching going on.


That said, the narrative and many of the performances are just bad. The film's narrative thrust just dies somehow when Fangy MacBite-y arrives to London. Everyone makes fun of Keanu's absolutely abysmal performance... but Wiona Ryder is just a cold fish herself in that film. Hopkins acts like he's mad. But that said, Sadie Frost and especially Gary Oldman is really striking in their roles. Unlike Hopkins, they bring the right sort of crazyness to their performances.

It's really the focus on the plotline that drives the movie downwards. If Coppola had just ditched the ardent adheerance to the surface plotting of Bram Stoker's novel, and instead directed it with that sort of narrative loseness and dreaminess that many older horror movies used to have (like the original Dracula from 1931 or many Italian horror movies), thus de-emphasising the plotline, I think the experience would have been a lot less jarring and more palpable for people. Especially considering all the amazing visuals he worked with in this film.
 
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Just jumping in real quick to say Coppola's Dracula is literally one of the worst movies ever made. And no, @europe1, that's not just my Martian brand of hyperbole. That movie is an unconscionable piece of shit. Everyone involved in that movie should be ashamed of themselves.

I hope you die slowly.:mad:
 
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Well... yeah, but that's besides the point. I mostly just think that Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is an absolutely abysmal movie.
I thought we were talking about Danny Boyle's stage adaptation?

And yeah, Young Frankenstein is really good. I grew up with Mel Brooks and that was always a favorite, but after becoming so fond of Universal's Frankenstein, the main source of parody for Brooks, I love it even more.

Just jumping in real quick to say Coppola's Dracula is literally one of the worst movies ever made.
Wtf happened to Coppola? Did he just blow his creative wad so hard in the 70s that hasn't been able to make anything worth a shit since?
 
I thought we were talking about Danny Boyle's stage adaptation?

Whoops. Sorry chickenluver, quoted the wrong part it seems. :D

I grew up with Mel Brooks and that was always a favorite,

I only grew up with Blazzing Saddles and Spaceballs.

... still a pretty decent childhood with only those two though.:D
 
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Wtf happened to Coppola? Did he just blow his creative wad so hard in the 70s that hasn't been able to make anything worth a shit since?

I've heard very good things about Rumblefish.

Maybe One from the Heart did to him what Heavens Gate did to Cimino? These super flops that killed New Hollywood and just sucked the spirit out of their creators.
 
I've heard very good things about Rumblefish.
Yeah me too actually.
Maybe One from the Heart did to him what Heavens Gate did to Cimino? These super flops that killed New Hollywood and just sucked the spirit out of their creators.
Yeah maybe. One From the Heart is a weird case. He was supposed to make a low budget movie to bring himself out of debt after Apocalypse Now, then it ended up going insanely over budget and putting him more in debt. Seems like his film career has been on unsteady ground ever since. I think Apocalypse Now broke him. It was worth it I guess.

Conversely, in the case of George Lucas he had a mega success but still got his spirit sucked out of him smh.
 
It's going back a ways for me now, but I definitely felt the same way comparing the two.

I really loved The Cincinnati Kid...it was high up there for my favorite McQueen films.

I don't remember thinking much of The Hustler, and I think I also watched it in close proximity to The Sting, which - starring Newman and being a con movie - I also felt was overwhelmingly better.

I remember not being at all interested in any of the Piper Laurie scenes especially.

My memory is such shit now, because i bombarded it with too much at once in my 2-year classic film run.
The thing about CK is how cool Edward Robinson is in it. There's a great word of mouth build up to their game, and it means something for them to play. Also conceptually, poker is understood you don't play for just one hand. You play until you're out of money. Pool is an easy game to be cinematic, since there is a definitive winner and loser at the end. That's why it's a little hard to give a shit that Eddie ends up broke, after he beats Fats so much through their first duel. Who the fuck plays for 40 hours straight?
 
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