Serious Movie Discussion XLII

[Sigh GunRanger]

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.

youre out of your fucking mind man

 

[Bullitt68]

Two weeks from tomorrow I'll be flying back to the States for Thanksgiving through New Year's. This will probably be my only mega post until I'm back in Chicago - which I hope will still be full of people celebrating what is going to be a historic World Series win for the Cubs - so I'm going all in.

For starters, I'm done with my Sorkin kick. I genuinely love The West Wing, but I never have and I probably never will watch the non-Sorkin seasons. It just feels...wrong. Since I wrapped The West Wing, I've caught up with all of my shows currently airing new seasons - Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is just so much fun to watch; New Girl, which still surprises me with how funny it is and which has become my favorite sitcom on the air; Elementary, still one of my favorite procedurals (not to mention the ageless Lucy Liu); and SVU, which is remarkably still going strong, not just limping to the finish line but full-on sprinting.

Nothing in the way of new movies, although @HUNTERMANIA, you still haven't given me my list of movies to watch to pay you back for Burn Notice. I'd like for that to be my first order of business when I get home. I can run to my library and grab Black Swan and whatever else you want me to watch. My no animation rule still holds but I'll watch literally anything else.

Just for the record -- Hercules in New York is by far Arnold's best comedy.

Saunders likes that movie a lot more than I do. For me, it's little more than a historical novelty that's fun for Arnold's presence but nothing more. As far as pre-Conan stuff goes, I much prefer Stay Hungry. It's pretty fucking bizarre in its own right, but it's got more going for it IMO.

Oi, Bullit! You are a fancy typist. What is a word that describes something in-between "very good" and "great"? I need it to describe Whirlpool and Angel Face!

It might be too much for you, but I'd call them "splendid."

I definitively see the similarities between Angel Face and Gone Girl. Jean Simmons certainly has that devilish manipulator thing going. That said, it was noteworthy how relatively ineffective she was as a villian compared to Amazing Amy.

I agree with you that Simmons wasn't as cunning, but she was sure as hell vicious. That look on her face when she gives her stepmom her gloves, I know Igor is Ice Cold, but Simmons literally has ice in her veins there.

It feels like Mitchum always managed to keep her at arms-lenght. She never really managed to ensnare him in her web like Amazing Amy did or Joan Bennett in Woman in the Window. Hell, even Mitchum's girlfriend sees right through her and calls her out on it when they're having their dinner.

For me, in a strange way, this makes the movie even more frustrating. Mitchum hasn't been deceived, he hasn't had the wool pulled over his eyes. He sees right through her, he knows exactly what's going on, but she still brings him down.

The motorcar "accidents" where a riot though. Dat ending man.

At most times, Preminger is the master of the small and the subtle. At other times, it's like he's daring people to come up with a description more extreme than "over the top."

I would rate Whirlpool a tad below Angel Face.

Whirlpool is quite a few steps out in front of Angel Face in my book. Aside from the presence of Gene Tierney, you've also got, as you yourself noted, José Ferrer playing with expert wickedness one of the most brilliantly conceived villains in all of classical Hollywood. The clincher, though, is Preminger's cinematography. The aesthetics in Whirlpool are the most sophisticated in Preminger's entire career, even more sophisticated than Laura IMO.

Part of me wondered if this was just Bullitt's fiendish attempt to lure me into the Gene Tierney = Aphrodite cult that he's running.

It wasn't just that

Normally I hate the word "dated" in film and think that people who use it simply arn't capable of engrossing themselves into the world of the movie they're watching... but I thought the hypnosis stuff felt a bit... dated.

A lot of the stuff from that era when Freud and psychoanalysis was catching on has dated really badly (Spellbound is another example). Ferrer's character is so great, though, and he plays him with such devilish gusto, that I'd buy anything that he was selling

Jose Ferrer man, you don't get villian performances like that anymore. There was some sort of auditory acting back then that has just been lost in today's industry.

True, but even with that, Ferrer is in a class by himself. After the initial influx of stage actors in the 1930s upon the coming of sound, Ferrer was sort of at the head of the class as far as 1950s-era stage-to-screen talent was concerned. He'd win his Oscar the following year for Cyrano (legitimately beating Spencer Tracy, which is no easy feat) and in pretty much every role, whether as a leading man or a supporting player, he always brought his A-game and elevated whatever he was doing. Hell, in The Caine Mutiny, once it shifts from being the Humphrey Bogart show to a courtroom drama, Ferrer is the one who comes in to keep the heat on.

As an added bonus, I saw a third Preminger film, River of no Return.

A few weeks ago, I got to do a lecture for our weekly PhD meetings where I analyzed Whirlpool and I had occasion to bring up River of No Return, so I actually rewatched that recently myself. It's nowhere near Preminger's best, but it's a pretty good movie. And it's one of my favorite of all of Mitchum's performances.

On the script and acting front it definitively felt like a phone-in.

I'll grant you that the script isn't the best - the perfunctory follow-up conversation after what can only be described as Mitchum's attempted rape of Monroe didn't even come close to justifying that weird narrative detour; I got what they were going for what with Mitchum's distrust of women and trying to push past Monroe's fakeness to see what she's really about, but it's such an objectionable route to take if that's your goal that unless you have a clear plan of attack it's best not to try to traverse that minefield - but I thought Mitchum was on-point with his acting. I also really liked Rory Calhoun. For a villain, he's so not villainous, yet I hate him anyway. He actually had a difficult task and I thought he pulled it off impressively.

Marlin Monroe is drop-dread gorgeous.

You can have her. I'll take Gene Tierney any day.

On the Cagney front, I dug into his early carrer and pulled out The Crowd Roars (which is definitively one of those titles that feel like it should be followed with an exclamation mark!).

Cagney should've borrowed the exclamation point from Taxi! And I saw The Crowd Roars on Turner Classic Movies a while back. You're right that it was cool to see Cagney in the Hawks world, but I wasn't as impressed as you appear to have been. Kind of interested to rewatch it now to see if I missed something.

To go back even further in time, I had never actually seen Chaplins Goldrush before. Honestly, I expected a bit more.

Yeah, The Gold Rush is Chaplin's most overrated silent film IMO. It's Chaplin, so it's great, but alongside The Circus, City Lights, or even Modern Times, it's quite clearly a step or two behind.

To jump forward about a 100 years in the future, I finally saw The Conjuring.

For Halloween last year, I went on a big horror movie kick, and of all the new(er) horror movies I watched, I thought The Conjuring was the best of the bunch. Familiar territory but executed very well.

I saw Roman Holiday for the first time. Honestly I did not fall for the Hepburn allure.

Not one of my favorite movies, nor one of my favorite actresses, but I love that movie all the same. It's just too much fun and told too well for me not to like it. As far as Hepburn goes, though, I feel like Charade would be more to your liking if you haven't already seen it.

I'm pretty decided that the top does fall, but I believe that could still entail different conclusions about Cobb's final reality.

Don't fuck with my head, Caveat. If that ending isn't an either/or (reality or dream) situation, then what different conclusions are there to be reached?

The top is a shitty totem, that's the clue.

Pretend it's the end of a Scooby-Doo episode. Walk me through all the clues beginning to end.

Sorkin is great too, minus Steve Jobs which I found utterly bland.

Finally got round to seeing Paths of Glory last night, what a film...

"What a film"? You write paragraphs about your weirdo movies nobody but europe watches and then you watch a bona fide masterpiece from the GOAT and all you have to say is "what a film"?

Not reading this because I haven't seen it.

Fuck, I never spoil shit. I could've sworn I read in your previous post that you'd already seen it and were rewatching it.

Sorkin's women aren't influential enough to cause narrative propulsion. They're vehicles for change, never agents.

Hmm. I think this depends on what we're applying the concept of change to. In Studio 60, Sarah Paulson doesn't write the sketches, she's not changing the trajectory of the show, but she's the one who has the impact on Matthew Perry that allows him to write what he writes. In Steve Jobs, Fassbender is clearly a deficient human being, and while he appears to be king of the world, he's able to (in some measure) shore up his personal difficulties almost entirely on the basis of Kate Winslet. The most interesting cases are Amanda Peet's character in Studio 60, the network president who is spearheading a push to elevate the way TV is produced and marketed and doing it on her own against all (male) opposition, and Emily Mortimer's character in The Newsroom, who is a lot like Paulson in Studio 60 except she also literally runs the show and has the weight as far as the TV politics are concerned of Peet's character.

I guess what I'm saying is that, if by "vehicle" you mean that, rather than being the leads, they're the ones who inspire the leads, then yes, they're often cast in that supportive/subordinate role. The vehicle/agent binary, however, makes me uneasy. I don't think you can make a case for denying that Paulson's, Peet's, Winslet's, or Mortimer's characters have agency and in many cases absolutely cause narrative propulsion.

Donna (The West Wing) plays audience surrogate, Miss Landingham a motherly figure (and it looks, from your post, like the best way she can influence act change is by dying!).

First things first: As will be revealed later (or, depending on how much you've watched since this post, what's already been revealed) Mrs. Landingham is a big sister to Sheen, not a mother (I'm not telling you what happens, though, lest I spoil more shit for you).

In any event, why does this constitute sexism? Is the bar really that low for that term? If the audience surrogate is a woman, then it's sexism? Is Nolan sexist for using Ellen Page as an audience surrogate in Inception? What about T.J. Miller as the audience surrogate in Cloverfield? Is it sexism if it's a female character but just a plot point if it's a male character? And what about Seagal in Executive Decision? The only way he can influence act change is by dying, too. Is Executive Decision anti-men?

This is the type of PC shit that makes me wish I had hair so I could pull it out.

What I anticipate most about C.J. is hers and Danny's sexual tension. When she fucks up, it's secondary to some truth being concealed from her by the boys club. When she does something cool, like making poll predictions correctly, her analytical skill is left undepicted. She insists it isn't flowery "female intuition", but Sorkin doesn't bother to write her insight into the narrative. You can't have complexity of character without complexity of action.

I love the way he writes for that character, and I've never really noticed Allison Janney in anything other than this, but she's phenomenal here. The "seduction" scene with Danny is fantastic.

However, I'd be more interested in your thoughts about Ainsley Hayes, particularly the scene where Sorkin explicitly addresses the issue of sexism (a scene, moreover, that has a corollary in The Newsroom when Maggie talks about "sluts"):

Solutions: 1) Have C.J. fuck up something that has them scrambling. 2) Have the White House fuck up something that she heroically tones down during a press briefing - then have them all contemplate whether that was a good thing.

Based on these points, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on the following plotlines:

1) Season 1, Episode 15 - Celestial Navigation - C.J. can't do the press conference so Josh does it and chaos ensues.

2) Season 2, Episode 11 - The Leadership Breakfast - C.J. is very clear on an important issue but Toby blows past her and the shit hits the fan.

3) Season 2, Episode 13 - Bartlet's Third State of the Union - C.J. uncovers a huge bombshell and takes point on handling it.

4) Season 3, Episodes 1 and 2 - Manchester - C.J. fucks up.

5) Season 3, Episode 3 - Ways and Means - C.J. comes up with and executes a major political play.

6) Season 3, Episode 8 - The Women of Qumar - C.J. resents Sheen's (and everyone else's) attitude towards Qumar.

7) Season 3, Episode 18 - C.J. ignites a backlash that leads to an important storyline for her (one that Sorkin would return to in The Newsroom for Daniels' character).

Charlie determines the direction of his relationship with Zoe. When he decides to ignore the Secret Service's advice, it's because "a man stands up". When he decides not to, it's because he is convinced by Danny that Zoe has a hard enough time with daddy already.

Solutions: 1) Have Zoe break up with Charlie. 2) Have Zoe side with Charlie to complicate her relationship with dad.

I'll be interested to get your thoughts on the Charlie/Zoey storyline in Season 4.

Sam Seaborn rescues his women. His relationship with the call-girl comes from a place of righteousness. This is tone deaf. She was doing fine before he showed up. The throughline of that sub-plot is thus propelled by defence of the rights of a powerful white man.

You realize that this is Sorkin's point, right? That's why they all make fun of Sam and tell him not to rescue her. The same thing happens in The Newsroom with the "mission to civilize." Now, it's not quite the same in The Newsroom, as in that case, those women actually do need to be civilized (but not because they're women). In The West Wing, that character might be a (massive if not preposterous) hypocrite but she's certainly not stupid.

Added to which, if I may be permitted to generalize from your criticism here: This seems, in a nutshell, the problem with people's criticisms of Sorkin's alleged sexism. So many people - and maybe this isn't you, but even if it isn't, it's worth stating - are so on the lookout for sexism that, as soon as they get even a hint of it, they pounce. Nevermind the fact that the content of their criticism is the point of what they're criticizing. Who cares about context when political correctness is at stake?

Later, Ainsley Hayes defeats him during a TV debate. However, it is he who ends up firing the guys that harrass her.

Solutions: Stop rescuing women who don't need it. They got to where they are by kicking ass.

See above clip.

In terms of character traits: Sorkin's females are never feminine.

This is just way too wrong for me to defend with a lengthy rebuttal or a series of clips. It's so astronomically wrong that there's nothing short of a wholesale change in perspective that'll do the trick. I will ask, though: Do you see any connections between the way Sorkin's women act and the way the women in films from classical Hollywood like His Girl Friday or Adam's Rib act? Are they more or less feminine? In what way(s)?

Argumentative Mandy goes down in flames, and never wins an argument with Josh (Sorkin surrogate).

Now compare Mandy in The West Wing to Reese in The Newsroom. They serve pretty much the same function as thematic scapegoats. Or hell, compare her to Brian in The Newsroom. That might be even more accurate since his relationship with Mortimer's character is very similar to the Josh/Mandy relationship, only inverted to where the female character is in the right and the male character is only there to be wrong. When and how many times are male writers allowed to have female characters who are wrong about shit? And does having male characters who are also wrong about shit count as a mitigating factor? How should this be adjudicated?

The show picks and chooses the issues relevant to its fictional world, but when the First Lady champions child labour reform, the show proclaims it a non-issue via Seaborn. The implication: lady Bartlet was letting her motherly nature make a mountain out of a mole hill.

You're cherry picking here. The point wasn't that child labor was a non-issue. The point was that she wasn't schooled on politics. It was also, dramatically, a way to get to the "first fight in the Oval Office" angle. Now, if you object to child labor being used as merely a dramatic tool to the end of orchestrating a marital spat, you'd be on solid ground, but as far as trivializing the First Lady or the issue of child labor, that just wasn't what Sorkin was doing.

Sorkin in fact thinks very little of smart women.

I honestly never would've pegged you as part of the PC police, but Jesus Christ with some of these. Can you still stand by this unbelievably wrong statement after watching this?

I almost threw something at the screen at the end of this clip

I'm sure that reaction makes perfect sense to you but I'll never understand it.

The effect of all this is that dramatically, Sorkin's women are boring.

Literally the last word I'd use to describe them.

Letting women be women might sound odd to our male-world attuned ears

Be honest, Ricky. You chose Death Proof of all the possible examples just to piss me off, just to get that extra little bit of indignation out of me. Moving past my rage, why is it that, to your ears, Sorkin's female characters aren't "feminine" and since they sound just like his male characters are being robbed of their gendered essence yet Tarantino's women presumably are "feminine" and don't sound just like the Reservoir Dogs team and thus are not being robbed of their gendered essence?

All that said, I love the show. It's full of this stuff, but there's tons to admire. Like you, Whitford is probably my favorite person on it.

It also freaked me out when Matthew Perry showed up. Seeing him and Whitford together pre-Studio 60 was really weird. I loved Perry's big episode, though. That's got to be tough just jumping into a well-oiled Sorkin machine like that and having to do so much heavy lifting but he smoked that episode.

I wached The Hustler and really enjoyed it but I couldn't help but compare to The Cincinatti Kid which i thought was way better.

It's going back a ways for me now, but I definitely felt the same way comparing the two.

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?

QFT for two old school SMDers

I finally got around to watching Jackie Brown.

I absolutely adore that movie. Keep going back to it over the years and I expect you'll find it grows on you, especially if you're already a big Tarantino fan. Reservoir Dogs and True Romance are in-your-face, they're intense and they grab you right off the bat. Pulp Fiction is too cool not to like, and the characters are so awesome that you just have to go along for the ride. Jackie Brown is definitely different. It's more laid back, it has a different atmosphere that slowly draws you in until you realize you're completely enveloped in that world. And, as the video you posted confirms, the soundtrack plays a huge part in creating the vibe for that movie.

It's a weird way to describe a movie, but if I had to pick a single word to describe Jackie Brown, I'd pick smooth.

I hope you die slowly.

youre out of your fucking mind man

 

[Rimbaud82]

"What a film"? You write paragraphs about your weirdo movies nobody but europe watches and then you watch a bona fide masterpiece from the GOAT and all you have to say is "what a film"?

Sorry mo chara, I was actually planning on writing a little bit about my actual thoughts in response to europes response...it's just that when I first watched it I was literally fucking stunned by the film and couldn't say much more.

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

Hmmm @Bullitt68 right now I don't think I have anything other than Black Swan that I want you to watch, lol. I was kind of hoping to wait and as I find new things, force you to watch those

Have you seen The Lives of Others? That's pretty good.

 

[Bullitt68]

Sorry mo chara, I was actually planning on writing a little bit about my actual thoughts in response to europes response...it's just that when I first watched it I was literally fucking stunned by the film and couldn't say much more.

<{monica}>

Good answer. As if the firing squad wasn't enough, Kubrick had to hit you with that little coda to bring down the house.

Hmmm @Bullitt68 right now I don't think I have anything other than Black Swan that I want you to watch, lol. I was kind of hoping to wait and as I find new things, force you to watch those

Have you seen The Lives of Others? That's pretty good.

Oh, come on. I know there are plenty of movies other than Black Swan that you love. And even though I've seen The Lives of Others, I'm sure there are at least five movies among the many that you love that I haven't seen. How about you list a bunch of your favorite movies and I'll tell you which ones I haven't seen?

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

<{monica}>

Good answer. As if the firing squad wasn't enough, Kubrick had to hit you with that little coda to bring down the house.



Oh, come on. I know there are plenty of movies other than Black Swan that you love. And even though I've seen The Lives of Others, I'm sure there are at least five movies among the many that you love that I haven't seen. How about you list a bunch of your favorite movies and I'll tell you which ones I haven't seen?

BTW, your 'Oh, come on' reminded me of Mila Kunis, "Oh, come on, Nina, I'm just playing around!" haha one of my favorite scenes in that movie

I think you've seen all my movies, lol -- I think the main thing is that I haven't watched many movies the past couple years or so. Here let me try to list some... which is going to be difficult because I need to get my PC back on so I can look at my files.


Pi
The Fountain
Predestination
Blue is the Warmest Color
Ex Machina
Rush
Shame
Watchmen
Whiplash
Victoria


those are a few that I maybe haven't heard you talk about?

The Machinist
Mr. Nobody
Snowpiercer
Let The Right One In

 

[Drake]

if I had to pick a single word to describe Jackie Brown, I'd pick smooth.

 

[Bullitt68]

Pi
The Fountain
Predestination
Blue is the Warmest Color
Ex Machina
Rush
Shame
Watchmen
Whiplash
Victoria


those are a few that I maybe haven't heard you talk about?

The Machinist
Mr. Nobody
Snowpiercer
Let The Right One In

Well this couldn't have worked out more perfectly as there are exactly five movies there that I haven't seen: Pi (I remember trying to watch it once a long ass time ago but wasn't into it), Blue is the Warmest Color, Victoria, Mr. Nobody, or Snowpiercer (same as Pi, started it once but couldn't get into it).

I'd be happy to watch those five plus Black Swan. Are you happy with that line-up?

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

Well this couldn't have worked out more perfectly as there are exactly five movies there that I haven't seen: Pi (I remember trying to watch it once a long ass time ago but wasn't into it), Blue is the Warmest Color, Victoria, Mr. Nobody, or Snowpiercer (same as Pi, started it once but couldn't get into it).

I'd be happy to watch those five plus Black Swan. Are you happy with that line-up?

For sure! Thanks man, and if you're gonna start a movie, especially something like Pi where you feel like you're not going to like it, maybe we discuss it a little bit and I can let you know some of the ways I interpreted it that made it meaningful to me. Or after you watch it or whatever, IDK. But yeah, very happy

 

[europe1]

I'd be happy to watch those five plus Black Swan. Are you happy with that line-up?

Happy!? Considering your sensebilities and the nature of those films I was ready to put you on suicide watch, bro!

Oh, by the way, thank you for picking excactly those films, Hunter

 

[Bullitt68]

For sure! Thanks man, and if you're gonna start a movie, especially something like Pi where you feel like you're not going to like it, maybe we discuss it a little bit and I can let you know some of the ways I interpreted it that made it meaningful to me. Or after you watch it or whatever, IDK. But yeah, very happy

Sounds good. And FYI: If I'm watching a movie for no particular reason, then I'll decide real fast if I'm going to stick around for the whole thing or if I'm going to move on to something else and kick it to the back of the line. If I'm watching a movie for a particular reason, though - like someone letting me borrow a movie, or someone I like recommending me something, or, in this case, a trade - then I watch it beginning to end no matter what. So now that you've greenlit those movies, they're all getting watched.

Once I've watched them, though, I'm definitely going to want to get your thoughts both on the movies and on my interpretations compared to yours.

Happy!? Considering your sensebilities and the nature of those films I was ready to put you on suicide watch, bro!

It's Martian happiness. I may hate every last one of those movies (don't worry, though, HUNTER, I'm not actively looking to hate them) but I'm always happy at the prospect of watching, getting to think about, and evaluating new movies. Whether I'm extoling the virtues of a great new movie to add to my personal viewing history or whether I'm eviscerating a newly encountered piece of shit, it all comes from a place of supreme happiness.

I'm like the opposite of The Hulk in The Avengers: Where he's always mad, for me, when it comes to movies, I'm always happy.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

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. It's a real moodsetter, even though it takes up so little of the running time, it's effects saturates the rest of the narrative. Just imagine the movie without those moments, it just wouldn't be the same, the ambiance would be completely diffrent. It's one of those examples of a little bit of craftsmanship and creativity impacting the overall film a lot.

And the whole narrative overall is just cool as well.

Yeah I agree, the intro was great.

The story didn't make a whole lot of sense but it's so rare to see a martial arts film which is also an intriguing mystery tale.

Five Element Ninjas is a cursed film for me. Every copy of it that has fallen into my hands has been deficit in some way. Sound and picture out-of-synch and such things. Happy that at least you've managed to see it.

I was pretty surprised how hard it was to find his movies online, in acceptable quality.

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 wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. The film starts with a villain de-arming a little kid. It's supposed to be this really horrible moment but it's just so goofily done that it becomes hilarious.

It came out 8 years after Blindman (1971) which I saw long before Crippled Avengers so I just took it as a sort of HK version of Blindman, with much better production.

The beginning was pretty laughable. The bad guys had just killed the boys mother too which was dramatic but the way his arms were chopped off was too low-budget to be effective, not to mention the boys acting. What really threw me off was that it looked like a girl, but they were saying it was a boy, and I was wondering if the translation was bad or if the boy was just looked like really feminine.

The scene where the crippled avenger goes back to his enemies school for revenge, he was literally tapping people with his iron fist and they would become crippled, like he was some sort of crippling King Midas. I understand he didn't want to hurt people while filming but he was literally tapping them.

It really enjoyed it, it was the right mix of hilarious (for the wrong reasons) and awesome (for the right ones). The bad guys actually got me emotionally invested, they were huge dicks.

There was some cool weapons, interesting techniques, tons of fighting and some really cool training scenes (akin to Dreadnaught)

And the rest of the violence is so hilarious over-the-top too. That metal-arms guy obliterates bones like Shane Carwin obliterates brains. Ip Man did this really great scene where Donnie Yen breaks the bones of his opponents -- yet's Crippled Avengers does the same but it's fucking hysterical because of how bad it is.

But overall... it was just such an undignified film. The whole crippled martial artists angle came off as so crass that it irked me (especially that mentally retarded guy). Unlike something like say, One Armed Boxer (1972) where I just laughed the whole way through.

Jet Li's bone-breaking/joint dislocation scene in the beginning of "Fist of Legend" is my favourite bone-breaking scenes.


The guy who went insane or was mentally challenged was annoying as hell, he definitely hurt the movie.

Mostly I just enjoy the creativity of the fight scenes and the style vs style elements he uses. The final scene was both dumb and awesome at the same time. I mean the mirrors would blind his own guys too, but the use of drums and mirrors to counter the blind and def fighters was pretty brilliant.

That was one of those lines that always stuck with me. So juvenile but just the context and delivery of it was so fun.

I'm going to say something that will force me to hand in my HK film-fan card. I wasn't cognizant of the fact that that was Sammo Hung until now. I guess I just assumed it was some random pudgy Chinese guy. In hindsight... shit he is pretty hard to miss!

When I first saw it, I guess I was most familiar with Majestic Eyebrows (of Big Trouble in Little China fame, where he also played Majestic Eyebrows). But yeah Angela Mao really is the star of that show -- and I remember thinking that her fights were quite thrilling indeed.

His fight scenes weren't anything special in the movie, too slowed down. They wanted Angela to look the best. If you weren't that familiar with him when you watched it then I can see how you would miss him, his scenes didn't exactly stand out.


Angela definitely looked better than Sammo in the movie, which surprised me. My only complaint is she doesn't put power into her kicks. In Police Assassins or Righting Wrongs Cynthia Rothrock really kicks people, hard. It was chock-full of fight scenes.

I didn't really think about that either when I first saw it.

But HK kung fu productions can be so formulaic that one gets a bit dull at noticing things like that. Costumes and archetypes are so ubiquitous that you get blind to the similarities between pieces as anything other than genre-trappings. Wasn't the hapkido master-costume also in both films, as it's a common costume in many other films.?

Probably, tbh I haven't watched Fists of Fury in 15 years probably. I'm way overdue for another watch. I had to google image search fists of fury to make sure it was the same guy.

They also did a similar ending scene where the bad guy gets kicked through the screen wall into the yard.

You probably know this, but that's how Jackie Chan made his name as a stuntman. By doing the stunt for the ending of "Fists of Fury", all the other stuntmen refused, the guy in charge of the stuntman union wouldn't allow any of his men to do it, it was too crazy. Jackie volunteered and nailed the stunt. Bruce was so impressed he specifically requested Jackie as a stuntman for "Enter the Dragon"

That's Jackie flying through the air backwards.

If I'm allowed to do some haphazard theorization in here. I listened to the audio commentery that Pei-Pei did for Come Drink With Me (alongside our main-man Bey Logan). In it she spoke a few words on the Celebrity Culture of Hong Kong cinema. Back then, it was the women who were the stars, the celebrities, the ones who were top-billed and recieved special threatment (until that scoundrel Bruce Lee came along and mucked it all up!)

I'd say women made a comeback in the late 80's and 90's in Hong Kong, but most of the movies never made it out of HK.

Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Stephen Chow & Donnie Yen were the big stars. Sammo and Yuen got lots of work also, but Michelle Yeoh, Sibelle Hu, and Brigitte Lin starred in a ton of HK Martial arts movies themselves and they all seemed to do well. I've recently watched a bunch of their movies on YouTube.

Btw, if you haven't seen Holy Weapon (1993) it's a good Michelle Yeoh movie I watched a couple months back. Also stars the lovely Carol Cheng, Maggie Cheung, Sharla Cheung, Esther Kwan, and Sandra Ng (not really lovely, but she's funny at least) It's a pretty stacked cast, total over-the-top ridiculousness but it's highly entertaining with some really cool and unique fight scenes. The humour was very edgy and crude by HK standards, one of the characters gets a handjob in the bathtub, while being bathed by his masters daughter, for example...

Come Drink With Me is on Netflix in Canada too, it's on my watch-list

Yeah, Paths of Glory is just superb in that way only Kubrick's films can be superb. It sorts of feels like the product of a younger, more raw Kubrick, from the time when he was still angry with the world. The emotions, statements and messages are presented more openly unlike his later career when he would mask them with decorum and subtilty. Lots of his movies contain some sort of negative portrayal of the powerful and wealthy -- those in power -- but in Glory his loathing is laid out right in the open.

I totally get what your saying, but despite it being rawer, the script is totally excellent.

You get Hong Kong classics on Canadian Netflix? Swedish Netflix is mostly the standard fare from the 90's and 00's Hollywood productions...

Canada is such a multi-cultural country, so we get a lot of variety. Lots of Asians here too so pretty much Jet Li's entire HK movie catalogue is on Netflix here, and probably 20 Donnie Yen movies. There's tons of new HK Martial arts films on there as well, but sadly no old Jackie, Sammo, or Yuen Biao HK films...

I watched Jet Li's first movie on there the other week, but got turned off when he literally kills, cooks, and eats a German Sheppard... That's a cultural barrier I'm not ready to overcome.

 

[Ricky13]

Fuck, I never spoil shit. I could've sworn I read in your previous post that you'd already seen it and were rewatching it.

I don't mind spoilers. So don't sweat it.

I guess what I'm saying is that, if by "vehicle" you mean that, rather than being the leads, they're the ones who inspire the leads, then yes, they're often cast in that supportive/subordinate role. The vehicle/agent binary, however, makes me uneasy. I don't think you can make a case for denying that Paulson's, Peet's, Winslet's, or Mortimer's characters have agency and in many cases absolutely cause narrative propulsion.

If you believe they're equally propulsive, despite their subordinate roles, does this result in equal impact (for you); all this fighting with men, lobbying, show-running? On a macroscopic, dramatic level: what does it do for you? Are you tuning in to see C.J. at a press briefing, or for one of the guys to make a speech or take a stand of import? Or is that you are at peace with the fact that that's not what the women are around for?

You ask how we can "adjudicate" this sort of thing. How do we decide how many moments a man should have or arguments a woman should win? I say that's beside the point. This isn't arithmetic. Empathy is a good start for viewers. Watch more (good) women's stuff, then watch Sorkin. What you'll find is pretty rad. While I would never stop a niece of mine from watching him, I would certainly explain that what Josh says about losing to a girl is wrong.

When I watch The West Wing, I'm not angry when this stuff pops up. I joke about that shit. I'm thinking: what's the hold up, brah? Mia Wallace, Elaine Benes and many more have come and gone. We know women are equals. Let's have them do some equal shit.

I'm wary of depictions of "the struggles" of minorities and women because more often than not the narrative hurts itself - there's often inadvertent promotion of the majority element. When Sam helps a harassed female colleague, dramatically it can't help being about Sam and his coming around to her, as opposed to her struggles. I would rather Ainsley got a holy shit action-with-consequence episode. Like an Ainsley bottle episode. Or a moment like the president's takedown of a right-wing religious loon - powerful, replayable, visceral, as opposed to intellectual. Or an awful one like Sam's when he offers to pay Laurie (good scene!).

If that's hard, just tell your story, like the Seinfelds of the world. The other stuff falls into place. Make all kinds of people, black, white, women do extraordinary things and make profound mistakes. (Think about how much that also sounds like Tarantino.) Then you get your Marge Gundersons. Your Mia Wallaces. Your O-Rens.

First things first: As will be revealed later (or, depending on how much you've watched since this post, what's already been revealed) Mrs. Landingham is a big sister to Sheen, not a mother (I'm not telling you what happens, though, lest I spoil more shit for you).

In any event, why does this constitute sexism? Is the bar really that low for that term? If the audience surrogate is a woman, then it's sexism? Is Nolan sexist for using Ellen Page as an audience surrogate in Inception? What about T.J. Miller as the audience surrogate in Cloverfield? Is it sexism if it's a female character but just a plot point if it's a male character? And what about Seagal in Executive Decision? The only way he can influence act change is by dying, too. Is Executive Decision anti-men?

This is the type of PC shit that makes me wish I had hair so I could pull it out.

The Donna thing was one instance in a paragraph of them. I was speaking to a pattern.

Inception had Mal: a one-for-the-ages female character. Regardless, it's an awkward argument. Inception is a single film, and it wouldn't make sense to contrast Nolan's women there to Sorkin's women as a whole.

T.J. Miller isn't an audience surrogate. Different discussion anyway.

I don't know shit about Executive Decision.

However, I'd be more interested in your thoughts about Ainsley Hayes, particularly the scene where Sorkin explicitly addresses the issue of sexism (a scene, moreover, that has a corollary in The Newsroom when Maggie talks about "sluts"):

It's hard to work out what this is about exactly. From what I can tell she is arguing that someone teasing women verbally in a way that involves her sexuality doesn't have to mean the same thing for her, yes? And that in fact, in her case, it empowers her?

Sorkin's speaking for how women could/should feel about verbal sexual teasing?

And he's putting those words in the mouth of a character who wasn't allowed to defend herself from harassment without a man coming to her aid?

Based on these points, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on the following plotlines:

1) Season 1, Episode 15 - Celestial Navigation - C.J. can't do the press conference so Josh does it and chaos ensues.

2) Season 2, Episode 11 - The Leadership Breakfast - C.J. is very clear on an important issue but Toby blows past her and the shit hits the fan.

These are the ones I've seen. (Season 2 Episode 12 is next in fact.)

Josh fucks up the first. The sub-plot, the ensuing chaos, is thus about his mistake, not C.J.'s competence. He even gets to tell the story, establishing a POV.

Toby fucks up the second. Toby's mistake precipitates the next act change, and in the final scene it's him and Leo gearing up for another battle. I can't remember what else C.J. does in that episode, though that's because I didn't enjoy it much in general.

You realize that this is Sorkin's point, right? That's why they all make fun of Sam and tell him not to rescue her.

It's used as comic relief, yes. It isn't Sorkin's point.

Sorkin's point is that Sam is noble for doing so. It's why, dramatically, Sam is righteous when he passionately insists on continuing to help Laurie (to CJ). It's why the issue, as far as "they all" are concerned, doesn't end with Sam laughing about his silly ways and admitting he was an idiot. It ends, if I recall correctly, with a vibrant defence of Sam by C.J. to Danny, because his behaviour is "commendable": he's the one who is right, while everyone else is worried about the optics.

Added to which, if I may be permitted to generalize from your criticism here: This seems, in a nutshell, the problem with people's criticisms of Sorkin's alleged sexism. So many people - and maybe this isn't you, but even if it isn't, it's worth stating - are so on the lookout for sexism that, as soon as they get even a hint of it, they pounce. Nevermind the fact that the content of their criticism is the point of what they're criticizing. Who cares about context when political correctness is at stake?

I have no qualms admitting it's something I'm sensitive to. This sticks out for me. I mean I'm usually watching everything, The West Wing included, like a pretentious arthouse romo, weighing and balancing function in my head, enrobed in the finest silk, trying to be fair to all and sundry. But as soon as Ainsley Hayes is on screen I become an incoherent foaming fuckwit.

(I kid, but yeah, it sticks out for me.)

What I also know is that I'm taking your specific arguments, understanding them, and providing individual rebuttals as much as I can. There are things that people are too bothered about and things that don't bother enough people. If I see something I don't like, I talk about it as the individual issue it is. I'm not sure lumping it in with a movement is useful. I mean, go ahead and do it, but it trivialises a decent debate. It's why I haven't generalised by suggesting your having certain opinions implies you're part of a gaggle of un-woke men that have decided not to open your eyes to a genuine issue. I simply challenge your ideas. It works better that way.

This is just way too wrong for me to defend with a lengthy rebuttal or a series of clips. It's so astronomically wrong that there's nothing short of a wholesale change in perspective that'll do the trick. I will ask, though: Do you see any connections between the way Sorkin's women act and the way the women in films from classical Hollywood like His Girl Friday or Adam's Rib act? Are they more or less feminine? In what way(s)?

I'm like teh Flem with that shit - can't remember classic Hollywood from it being a blur. I can watch them again if you're genuinely curious.

If you really want to know what I mean, I'm going to open myself up to much ridicule and suggest you watch Gilmore Girls to know how a woman would write Sorkin-esque dialogue. And why one rings so true for women and the other doesn't. I'll watch anything you want me to if you watch it, because you actually bother to debate me.

Now compare Mandy in The West Wing to Reese in The Newsroom. They serve pretty much the same function as thematic scapegoats. Or hell, compare her to Brian in The Newsroom. That might be even more accurate since his relationship with Mortimer's character is very similar to the Josh/Mandy relationship, only inverted to where the female character is in the right and the male character is only there to be wrong. When and how many times are male writers allowed to have female characters who are wrong about shit? And does having male characters who are also wrong about shit count as a mitigating factor? How should this be adjudicated?

I have no clue about the contexts within which those men lost those arguments, so I'll leave it there.

You're cherry picking here. The point wasn't that child labor was a non-issue. The point was that she wasn't schooled on politics. It was also, dramatically, a way to get to the "first fight in the Oval Office" angle. Now, if you object to child labor being used as merely a dramatic tool to the end of orchestrating a marital spat, you'd be on solid ground, but as far as trivializing the First Lady or the issue of child labor, that just wasn't what Sorkin was doing.

I'm sure you're right, I remember very little of that episode now. You can take that off my reasons, and place that how you wish within my position.

I honestly never would've pegged you as part of the PC police, but Jesus Christ with some of these. Can you still stand by this unbelievably wrong statement after watching this?

I don't know what to make of that clip. Need to see the show.

I'm sure that reaction makes perfect sense to you but I'll never understand it.

Literally the last word I'd use to describe them.

All that's perfectly fine with me. I'm here for the arguments.

Be honest, Ricky. You chose Death Proof of all the possible examples just to piss me off, just to get that extra little bit of indignation out of me. Moving past my rage, why is it that, to your ears, Sorkin's female characters aren't "feminine" and since they sound just like his male characters are being robbed of their gendered essence yet Tarantino's women presumably are "feminine" and don't sound just like the Reservoir Dogs team and thus are not being robbed of their gendered essence?

This is a genuinely difficult one to answer: that's the magic with QT. All his characters tend not to take shit lying down. A woman is as likely to talk about gangster shit and guns as a man is. So the difference is in the details. How one of the girls has her foot hanging out the car in Death Proof and how it feels so visceral that it's a girl's leg with painted nails when it flies out the car - it feels like a sexual violation. How Mia is too embarrassed to tell Vincent the Ketchup joke at first but opens up after what they've been through. It's little things like "silly rabbit" and "I don't have cooties". How his love for Pam Grier adorns every frame - have you seen how he lights her in that unbelievable bar scene? I want to be her cigarette!

Admittedly it's a feel thing. I again recommend Gilmore Girls because it is a better parallel. It's eye-opening to watch it and then see how women are written otherwise.

 

[chickenluver]

Pretty interested to hear what Bullitt has to say about Snowpiercer and Blue is the Warmest Colour, both coincidentally adapted from French comic books.

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

Happy!? Considering your sensebilities and the nature of those films I was ready to put you on suicide watch, bro!

Oh, by the way, thank you for picking excactly those films, Hunter

Lol! That's why I was like 'um... maybe let me use this over time?' ahha because Bullitt and I like a lot of the same things but we also like very different things and I wanted to pick things he'd find enjoyable and new. Obviously I like each of those movies, though, and I'm pretty happy with how it went down I didn't think I'd be able to find 5 movies he hadn't seen, lol.

What did you think of my selection from your taste's perspective? I know you enjoy Pi (or at least I think I remember that?), but no idea about the others.


And @Bullitt68 if you want to recommend me any movies during this stretch, I'm down to watch some of whatever you come up with.

 

[TheRuthlessOne]

I finally watched Troll Hunter after all this time

Pretty damn good

 

[europe1]

For me, it's little more than a historical novelty that's fun for Arnold's presence but nothing more

In good manners I need to qualify that somewhat. To me, the comedy comes from the plots outlandishness and Arnold's deadpan, straight-faced delivery. It's one of those examples where the laughs come not so much from the jokes themselves but the absurdity of what you're watching. It's such an unironic piece of quick-buck opportunism utilizing Arnold.

That said, I claimed it was by-far Arnold's best comedy. But the laughs had from "Terminator Stallone" and "I lied" respectively, far outweight Herculeas combined tomfoolery. Never seen Stay Hungry though.

For me, in a strange way, this makes the movie even more frustrating. Mitchum hasn't been deceived, he hasn't had the wool pulled over his eyes. He sees right through her, he knows exactly what's going on, but she still brings him down.

"More frustrating"? I can't recall you calling Angel Face frustrating. Just to be clear, do you think that Jean Simmons succeding despite not being able to snare Mitchum is a good thing, or do you see it as a weakness in the narrative?

A few weeks ago, I got to do a lecture for our weekly PhD meetings where I analyzed Whirlpool and I had occasion to bring up River of No Return

Christ that sentence makes me wish I had gone to filmschool...

described as Mitchum's attempted rape of Monroe didn't even come close to justifying that weird narrative detour; I got what they were going for what with Mitchum's distrust of women and trying to push past Monroe's fakeness to see what she's really about, but it's such an objectionable route to take if that's your goal that unless you have a clear plan of attack it's best not to try to traverse that minefield

Yeah that was really jarringly handled.

Something I was going to add -- in the trivia section on Angel Face imdb page, it says that Mitchum slapped Preminger when Preminger told him to slap Jean Simmons for real while filming. Preminger apperently got so outraged that he tried to fire Mitchum... so why in the hell is he writting a freaking rape scene in this film? Is it some sort of elaborate, twisted, revenge on Preminger's part or does he just really want to see Mitchum abuse women?

Mitchum was on-point with his acting. I also really liked Rory Calhoun. For a villain, he's so not villainous, yet I hate him anyway. He actually had a difficult task and I thought he pulled it off impressively.

I'll grant you Rory Calhoun. But the trouble with his scenes was really that you had Monroe there with him, and her characters reactions to what he was doing was just so off and uninspired that it sucked the lifeblood out of the scene. Completely blindsighted by your Mitchum love though, I don't think it was bad or anything but mostly I just got the impression that it was that workmanlike performance you get when contractual obligations are in play.

It came out 8 years after Blindman (1971) which I saw long before Crippled Avengers so I just took it as a sort of HK version of Blindman, with much better production.

Long time since I saw Blindman, can't say it left much of an impression on me. Can't say I would never connect Blindman with Crippled Avengers though, except for both of them featuring someone blind, obviously.

What really threw me off was that it looked like a girl, but they were saying it was a boy, and I was wondering if the translation was bad or if the boy was just looked like really feminine.

Hong Kong cinema has always had this really odd relationship with women playing (or being disguised as) men with absolutely no make-up or whatever. There are several instances where a comely, beautiful-looking woman is taken for a man just because she wears slightly masculine clothing. Come Drink With Me has such a scene, as has the second 18 Bronzemen movie.

These dames are supposed to be passable for gents... apperently.

Culture is weird.

crippling King Midas.

That title could spawn a pretty good chop-socky on it's own

Fist of Legend

1: I really need to rewatch Fist of Legend.

2: I... still probably prefer Ip Man.

The guy who went insane or was mentally challenged was annoying as hell, he definitely hurt the movie.

Yeah. The sheer lowness of the comedy in them hurt plenty of Kung Fu flicks.

Sandra Ng (not really lovely, but she's funny at least)

The Inspectors Wear Skirts movies have put me off viewing more of her material until I reincarnate into something other form of being.

Btw, if you haven't seen Holy Weapon (1993) it's a good Michelle Yeoh movie I watched a couple months back. Also stars the lovely Carol Cheng, Maggie Cheung, Sharla Cheung, Esther Kwan, Sandra Ng (not really lovely, but she's funny at least)

Cool. I'll let my typing fingers keep an eye for it.

Christ, naming all those names just brings to mind how much difficulty I have with memorizing who-has-been-in-what among the HK actress stables.

but got turned off when he literally kills, cooks, and eats a German Sheppard... That's a cultural barrier I'm not ready to overcome.

B-movie genre-legend Richard Harrison (blessed be his name) was in Hong Kong during the 90's and filming a bunch of Godfrey Ho flicks. He told a really morbid story about dogs. They were supposed to film a scene where the villains goons decapitated his dog and send the head to him as a warning. When Harrison unpacked and took a look at the prosthetic they were supposed to be using... he realized that Godfrey had acquired the actual head of a decapitated dog.

Freaking sick. Cultural barriers or whatever, that's a real downer.

 

[Coolthulu]

Saw this recently. It was absurdly fabulous. One of the most memorable movie theater experiences I've had in a long time. Park Chan-Wook is the truth. This & In Order of Disappearance are 1A & 1B for my favorite film of 2016.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Long time since I saw Blindman, can't say it left much of an impression on me. Can't say I would never connect Blindman with Crippled Avengers though, except for both of them featuring someone blind, obviously.

I can't remember much about Blindman either, apart from the soundtrack. I just meant that Crippled Avengers didn't seem so far-fetched and crazy after seeing Blindman.

It's my favourite Stelvio Cipriani soundtrack, Tentacoli is pretty good also, the soundtrack (haven't seen the movie)

Hong Kong cinema has always had this really odd relationship with women playing (or being disguised as) men with absolutely no make-up or whatever. There are several instances where a comely, beautiful-looking woman is taken for a man just because she wears slightly masculine clothing. Come Drink With Me has such a scene, as has the second 18 Bronzemen movie.

These dames are supposed to be passable for gents... apperently.

Culture is weird.

Funny that you mention that, in Holy Weapon everyone kept confusing Michelle Yeoh with a man... She was a bond girl! IIRC other characters thought she was a man in Wing Chun also

Sandra plays a woman disguised as a man in Holy Weapon also, BUT she has a fake moustache at least. Michelle looked like her normal self, she just didn't wear any make-up.

The sequel Flying Dagger was also good, but not as good as Holy Weapon

1: I really need to rewatch Fist of Legend.

2: I... still probably prefer Ip Man.

I watched Ip Man once, and really enjoyed it, but it was late and I was working crazy hours at the time, I can't really remember it at all. Will need to rewatch it one of these days.

Yeah. The sheer lowness of the comedy in them hurt plenty of Kung Fu flicks.

So true, like the sounds this guy makes, turns a good fight scene into a good comedic scene.

The Inspectors Wear Skirts movies have put me off viewing more of her material until I reincarnate into something other form of being.

I've only seen the first one but I enjoyed it... for all the wrong reasons, and tbf the comedy was significantly better than a lot of the comedy from the My Lucky Stars movies, which it was clearly influenced by.

Sandra's funniest movies are The Tricky Master, All For The Winner, Holy Weapon and Operation Pink Squad II... She has her moments but often ends up playing really annoying characters.

Christ, naming all those names just brings to mind how much difficulty I have with memorizing who-has-been-in-what among the HK actress stables.

It doesn't help that imdb doesn't have pictures up for 97% of HK actors, even some of the big name ones.

I always recognize people in HK movies and wonder what else I've seen them in. This past year I've been google imaging people and looking through their imdb's and I've now got a decent grasp on the smaller players in the HK movie realm, but it was a lot of work.

B-movie genre-legend Richard Harrison (blessed be his name) was in Hong Kong during the 90's and filming a bunch of Godfrey Ho flicks. He told a really morbid story about dogs. They were supposed to film a scene where the villains goons decapitated his dog and send the head to him as a warning. When Harrison unpacked and took a look at the prosthetic they were supposed to be using... he realized that Godfrey had acquired the actual head of a decapitated dog.

Freaking sick. Cultural barriers or whatever, that's a real downer.

That would probably make me sick.

Speaking of cultural differences/barriers, I just watched How To Pick Girls Up (1988) this afternoon... In one scene they're in a restaurant surrounded by gangsters, and they translated the word gangsters into the "N" word... It was a My Lucky Stars style comedy about these four guys trying to pick up women... as you can imagine it was horribly dated, and not the least bit politically correct.

 

[chickenluver]

You guys are making me feel bad for laughing at the brain damaged guy in Crippled Avengers.

Saw this recently. It was absurdly fabulous. One of the most memorable movie theater experiences I've had in a long time. Park Chan-Wook is the truth.

Ok so I really want to see this, but I read online that there is a 144 min cut and a 167 min cut, and I can't find any more info about what the differences are, why the shorter cut was made, anything like that. When it was playing near me it said it was the 144 min cut, so I was gonna hold off on seeing it until I knew what was going on.

Could you shed some light on this? How long was the version you saw? I read that some countries with strict censorship cut much of the sexually graphic material out, but I don't think that's what the 144 min cut is. If I had to guess the 167 cut was what premiered at Cannes, and the 144 min cut is the wide theatrical release, but I want to know if Park cut it himself or if the distributors forced the cut.