Movies Serious Movie Discussion

[moreorless87]

Watched Abdellatif Kechiche's Secret of the Grain/Couscous/The Grain and the Mullet(is a single film of his not renamed for the foreign markets?), surprisingly hard to get hold of in the UK considering how well Blue is the Warmest Colour did. Family drama about an aging redundant Algerian immigrate boat repair worker in southern France looking to start a couscous restaurant involing his extended family and new partner plus her daughter. Less tightly focused and dramatic(although still plenty of drama) than the more famous latter film but with a similar kind of naturalism with a lot of very extended scenes, the opening of the restaurant at the end must last a good 45 mins of the 2 1/2 hour runtime(including some lengthy belly dancing). Also I think nice that like Blue its not really as focused on your standard liberal social issues(race, religion or sexuality) but rather on class, something a lot of US/UK film makers seem afraid to cover. Nice balance as well between respect for a classic kind of older male understated dignity with the lead character(supposedly strongly based on the directors father) and showing the strength of his young adult daughter inlaw who drives a lot of the story.

 

[Bullitt68]

Well, I got my PhD last week, which means that henceforth you shall all refer to me as Dr. Bullitt.

I actually thought of jokingly changing my name to "DrBullitt68" but the joke isn't worth the effort to figure out how to change my name

On a more serious note, I literally have an SMD shout-out in the Acknowledgments of my PhD thesis. I've said it before at different times and in different contexts, but it's not an exaggeration to say that I literally wouldn't be here if it weren't for this thread. It was in here that I learned (a) just how much I fucking loved watching, thinking about, reading about, writing about, and arguing about movies and (b) how to seriously think about, write about, and argue about movies. For all of that, though, this thread hasn't just played a huge role in my academic life; this thread simply became a huge part of my life. Period. I've loved shooting the shit about movies with you guys in here over this last decade and I'm looking forward to many more decades of serious movie discussion.

But seriously, you guys have to call me Dr.



Anyway, on the movie watching front, I'm on a nostalgic comedy kick. Last night, I rewatched Talladega Nights on Netflix just because it's awesome and I hadn't seen it in a year or two. Then I noticed Wayne's World 2 was on Netflix and decided to find a stream for Wayne's World and get my double-header game on. The "shyeah, right" stuff is a bit dated, but other than that, these movies hold up REMARKABLY well. Those characters are still funny as hell, the casts for both films were awesome, and the writing was so clever, especially when it came to the (way ahead of its time) movie/TV references. This reference in particular caught me completely off-guard:



And then I spent the whole night repeating out loud, over and over, with the accent, this gem of a story:



"I had to beat them to death with their own shoes."

Lastly, I can't not post these two fantastic scenes:





In honor of Mike Myers' comedic genius, I'm thinking about having an Austin Powers marathon tonight. I honestly don't even remember the last time I watched any of those, but along with the Wayne's World movies they were a huge part of my childhood.

I think 10 Cloverfield Lane was elevated tremendously by Goodman. The guy is one of my favorite actors.

Meh, he does nothing for me. Just a big fat guy with a deep voice who pauses pensively a lot. To his credit, though, the movie would've been dog shit without him.

If they want to make Cloverfield a brand then it probably should be more like what the Halloween movies were intended to be when Season of the Witch came out- individual horror/sci-fis that have no real connection to the previous narrative. Trying to shoehorn these things into some coherent post-apocalyptic story is not going so well.

What they should've done was what they originally said they were going to do: A series of films of the same night but from different people's perspectives. Working from the idea that Hud wasn't the only person in NYC with a camera that night, they were going to make unique yet overlapping stories detailing the same horrific night.

That would've been fucking awesome.

I wasn't a massive fan of Annihilation which wasn't I'd agree as deep as it thought it was but I wouldn't make the same criticism of Ex Machina. I mean I can see from your other posting you might have an issue with its politics but for me this was not film making akin to say The Last Jedi or the Ghostbusters remake. I mean for one thing it was more focused generally than those films(both of which I think used politics as a cheap shield whilst actually having very little to say) on its message but also it wasn't just taking an easy pop at the "alpha" but actually asking something more of its audiences who obviously would relate more to the Celeb character.

Honestly, I remember almost nothing from that movie, so I have no idea what its politics were. I just remember it being pathetically unoriginal and sinfully boring.

In terms of the look of Annihilation I think it was more about questionable choices in terms of cinematography than looking "cheap", beached out minimalism mixed with ultra bright colours in places that didn't look as "dreamy" as intended a lot of the time. Don't think budget was really an issue when you look at something like say Monsters made on an absolute shoe string.

Whether it was due to budget and/or imagination issues, the bottom line is the visuals were weaksauce.

I think this was probably pushing more against Garlands abilities [...] I mean when your trying to go up against Tarkovsky comparisons will be harsh.

I've talked a lot of shit about Tarkovsky over the years, but at least the dude had an imagination and a vision. Garland is just trying to patch other people's ideas together with nothing of his own to contribute...and he sucks at patching to boot.

That ended up in the so bad it's funny category for me, nowhere near as funny as The Snowman, but still funny enough.

Neither had any charm, though, so I couldn't enjoy the experience of their shittiness. They just filled me with rage instead.

One thing that I really like about The Forbin Project is that the AI truly is machine-like. In most movie that features an AI, there is some anthropomorphic element that makes them more relatable, some personifying aspect that gives them character. Like Ultron's humor. Or just putting a face on the AI such as in Skynet (both with the Terminators and the actual Kkynet in the later films). However, in Colossus, there is none of that. When the AI gets the upperhand on the protagonist in the ending, it's dialogue is chillingly cold, truly without a human element to it, just a machine following its rationale without any anthropomorphic drama added to it.

I've got nothing to add. I co-sign every sentence there.

I really enjoyed The Getaway but struggle to see why it would be some sort of ultimate Peckinpah/McQueen achievement.

In short, because (a) for Peckinpah it's a great companion piece to Straw Dogs, what with the fractious marriage and the protagonist's crisis of masculinity, and because (b) for McQueen it's the perfect combination of boiling inner turmoil, which allowed him, the GOAT nonverbal actor, to act an ocean of emotion without saying a word while also giving him ample opportunities to let that inner turmoil boil over and result in externalized rage and violence. It afforded each man the opportunity to do what they do best in a bad ass plot context.

One funny thing I noticed. This movie's screenplay is written by Walter Hill. He actually re-used one of his tricks in this film later in Driver (1978). In Getaway, the antagonist tells McQueen that he never uses a bulletproof-vest (and of course, when McQueen shoots him, he actually does, just having said so to fool him). While in Driver, the titular Driver tells his companions that he has a code of never carrying a gun. So when his assosiates double-cross him, he's actually wearing a gun and just said that to have them underestimate him.

Yeah I... just don't see that level of self-awareness

My penchant for hyperbole may have been misleading. I'm not trying to make it seem like he's as introspectively articulate as Edward Norton in Fight Club or anything like that. But I am trying to make it seem like he's got a greater level of awareness than De Niro had in Raging Bull. He's more than just an angry dude with momentarily wounded male pride.

I had to scratch my head a lot longer to figure out exactly what I thought about Sand Pebbles.

It's a weird one. Not because anything in the movie is weird, but because the mix of emotions it evokes makes for a weird feeling. As I said, it's tragically beautiful, which is a paradox that results in a strange emotional brew.

The conflict laid with the two parts of the movie [...] However, as I mulled over the movie in my mind, it dawned on me what a seamless character arc this movie presented [...] His character arc is the spinal tissue that connects the different parts of the film.

Yep. It's not really appropriate to think about it as a film of two parts - or, really, of any number of parts. Same with stuff like Citizen Kane and Raging Bull. You can break these movies up like that if you want, but they're really character studies more than anything else, and character studies can thread you through any number of parts however disparate because what the movies are really "about" isn't anything on the level of plot but rather the characters themselves.

McQueen's character is not at all as cool or mature as his usual roles are

And think about that for a minute. The "King of Cool" was able to bring so much innocent heart and ignorant goodness to that Simple Jack-esque character. That was a significant departure for him and he made it look easy. He so effortlessly seeped into the skin of that character to the point where one of the most unbelievable characters for him to have ever played on paper is one of the most believable and moving characters that he's ever played onscreen.

I didn't really like the Attenborough-Maily relationship though. It seemed like way to much of a caricature. It's conceptual stockness just looked bad in comparison to everything else.

Aw, come on. Outside of the Mako stuff, that auction scene is the most powerful scene in the movie and it's because Attenborough sells the fuck out of that love.

I watched Spitfire with Katherine Hepburn, one of the movies that she purportedly campaigned hard for and made sure she earned her reputation as box-office poison in the pre-Philidelphia Story days. It was thoroughly mediocre.

Yeah, even as a die hard Hepburn fan, that one's a little rough

I have yet to see a single Ingmar Bergman film.

My Olympic filmmaking pedestal is Kubrick-Hitchcock-Bergman. You're missing out on one of the GOATs, dude.

What would you recommend to start with?

The Seventh Seal all the way IMO. Then Wild Strawberries, the Magician, and the Virgin Spring. Smiles of a Summer Night is an uncharacteristic Bergman comedy from that same time period and very charming. Once you've gotten through those move on to his 60's and 70's era films, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Silence, Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Passion of Anna, Cries and Whispers. Scenes from a Marriage was a great six-part TV series entirely written and directed by Bergman, one of the best things he's done IMO.

I'm with chicken on the movies he's listed, but I'd order the viewing as follows: The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, Wild Strawberries, Persona. Then, if you still wanted more from Bergman, I'd recommend Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence, Cries and Whispers, and Scenes from a Marriage. And then, if you still wanted more, you could just start crossing shit off on IMDb in whatever order you wanted.

I'm so torn

Ahhh that makes me

If only I had been more active. If only I had seen the movies Rimbaud82 wrote about. If only I had thrown around a couple of Rickson by armbar. Then... maybe.


Curse that stupid SMC, curse it all the way to hel--oh shit I'm its leader.

No sticky

Bumping for sadness.

Was great while it lasted.

Why @Bullitt68? Why?

I'm guessing most of the former regulars feel like this. I know I do:

Thanks to @Flemmy Stardust, @Bullitt68 for getting me into classic film. I grew not only as a movie lover but as a thinker because of you guys. I'm genuinely a better person for it. I disagreed with you guys on almost everything, but it was always so healthy.

Also found a true buddy in @Caveat here.

Much love also to @HUNTERMANIA, @europe1, @Rimbaud82, @chickenluver, and of course, my perennial hatefuck, @HenryFlower.

This is especially sad for me because I don't post outside of SMD really. And I doubt I will much. This place was perfect for me, personality-wise.

Good luck to the SMC! Be worthy you bastards. You've replaced a beautiful thing.

Yours aye,
Ricky

Oh man- didn't even see this. But saw Ricky's post and feared the worse. Went back and while this is sad news, it's better than say, the thread getting shut down altogether or you guys bailing.

Will be looking to bump the SMD often.

 

[moreorless87]

If you don't know by the way the Ralph Brown character from Waynes World 2 is basically him redoing his Danny the drug dealer character from Withnail and I...

 

[ufcfan4]

If you don't know by the way the Ralph Brown character from Waynes World 2 is basically him redoing his Danny the drug dealer character from Withnail and I...

Had no idea of this until I read IMDB trivia after re-watching Wayne's World 2 in late 2017. Afterward I watched this on Youtube and was quite amused.

Ralph Brown steals every scene he's in in Wayne's World 2. I'll have more to say about that film in response to Dr. Bullitt.

 

[europe1]

I literally have an SMD shout-out in the Acknowledgments of my PhD thesis.

I actually thought of jokingly changing my name to "DrBullitt68" but the joke isn't worth the effort to figure out how to change my name

Doctor Martian... yes, Dr Martian... that fits. Like Marvin the Dr Martian.

but it's not an exaggeration to say that I literally wouldn't be here if it weren't for this thread. It was in here that I learned (a) just how much I fucking loved watching, thinking about, reading about, writing about, and arguing about movies and (b) how to seriously think about, write about, and argue about movies. For all of that, though, this thread hasn't just played a huge role in my academic life; this thread simply became a huge part of my life. Period. I've loved shooting the shit about movies with you guys in here over this last decade and I'm looking forward to many more decades of serious movie discussion.

Jesus, you post this right after the thread has been un-stickied? You might as well be playing the Bagpipes ala Scotty at Spock's funeral in Star Trek 2 just so to drive the emotional dagger home.

protagonist's crisis of masculinity

I thought it was interesting how Ali MacGraw's character in the first 30 minutes or so was written as being obsequious in the extreme towards him, almost basing her entire personality on trying to please him. It creates this very weird contrast between them, almost like he was damaged or something (which, I suppose, he was). It makes the crisis of masculinity seem more internalized, more like an emotional trauma he has developed in prison. In Straw Dogs it was more triggered by Hoffman's views on his wife vis-a-vis society, a more outside, tangible "treat" if you will.

As I said, it's tragically beautiful, which is a paradox that results in a strange emotional brew.

One thing I thought of about the Sand Pebbles after I had posted about it is... that it's one of those movies were practically every principle character dies while trying to fulfill their ambitions and desires. Attenborough and Maily die trying to live together. The Preacher dies while trying to prove to the Nationalist that he is a stateless person. The Captain dies while trying to salvage his honor by saving the Missionaries. And McQueen dies trying to save his love interest, literally expiring around the farming machinery that was his ticket to a life out of the navy. Everyone basically dies trying to do what their heart and principles tell them to do.

You can break these movies up like that if you want

Well, it is sort of divided that way through the intermission. The first chapter focusing on Mako, the second on McQueen's love-interest, I suspect I sort of guided my brain towards thinking of it in a more episodic manner, which I mentioned, makes the movie a disservice.

And think about that for a minute. The "King of Cool" was able to bring so much innocent heart and ignorant goodness to that Simple Jack-esque character. That was a significant departure for him and he made it look easy. He so effortlessly seeped into the skin of that character to the point where one of the most unbelievable characters for him to have ever played on paper is one of the most believable and moving characters that he's ever played onscreen.

Man, I thought Paulie Verhoeven had finally crashed and burned forever after making Black Book, but Elle was seriously good. Took me completely off-guard on how effective it was. Verhoeven's films have always had their thematic undercurrent of being interested in peoples... perversities (for lack of a better word). But Elle feels like the film where he finally let go of the reins and really delved into how people's... uhh... more unseemly desires, actions, and cravings interact with their ordinary selves. This is a movie about a woman who gets raped and how she responds to it, not wanting to act like she's a victim and be in control of her facualties, and during the course of the narrative noticing and understanding the "perverse" sexuality of others around her. I mean, these are some seriously treacherous waters he's navigating, really one of those movies that could have easily gone wrong, but Verhoeven seriously sells the human aspect of these events; strange, complicated and lewd as they are -- without ever cheapening the implications of the subject matters he's depicting. In no small part due to Isabelle Huppert, who gives an A-Class performance for sure.


You know which film wasn't well-directed or well-acted? Fucking Annialation man! There I was, sitting down to what I thought was going to be an eminent Stalker pastiche, and then I got treated to a movie as flawed as that. I mean, the Sci-Fi nerd in me almost wants to like the movie purely on a conceptual level, and some cool scenes like the screaming bear. But this is one of those movies where no one acts like their profession, soldiers not acting very soldier-like and scientist not acting very science-like (for example, they're attacked by a fucking alligator and the soldier just stands there, not even mastering her rifle?). And unlike, say, Prometheus, I certainly don't get the impression that that was intentional. Coupled with the really poor acting it made everything a hard swallow.

As for the visuals...

In terms of the look of Annihilation I think it was more about questionable choices in terms of cinematography than looking "cheap", beached out minimalism mixed with ultra bright colours in places that didn't look as "dreamy" as intended a lot of the time. Don't think budget was really an issue when you look at something like say Monsters made on an absolute shoe string.

Sometimes it felt like they spilled a whole bucket-full of 2nd-rate Avatar into my beloved Stalker man!

In the future, if I want to watch an Stalker-pastiche, I'll stick with Visitor of a Museum (1989), thank you very much!


What else did I see? Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) was overall a very uneven comedy with some of the most gobsmacking, out-of-nowhere, hilarious 4th-wall-jokes I've ever seen. There is this blonde woman who shows up through the film, and at one point, one of the characters asks whom she is, and another replied "she's a "special friend" of the director whose making this movie". This comment came at about the mid-way point, and I was totally cock-eyed, thinking I had misheard or something. But then it just keeps spiraling out of control. A waiter does a double-take, and then the characters comment on it and start practicing their double-takes. And then, in the ending, a character says that the stolen money which launched off the plot never actually happened anyways, and that it was just a ploy for the director to get the plot in motion. I sort of want to rewatch it and see if it's some sort of brilliant masterpiece and see if I was just missing a whole bunch of stuff.

They Made Me a Criminal (1939) had this really intense, mean-spirited start to it. There are double-crosses galore, everyone is phony, and it's a dog-eat-dog world, with everyone ready to sell each other out. That sort of off-kilter cynicism that you only really find in the 30's. Then the protagonist runs into The Dead End Kids and it becomes a roughhouse, slumdog comedy with them. Still pretty good but one of those movies that wavers the longer it goes on.

I also liked The Shape of Water. There's some pretty obvious thematic stuff in it, like turning the Creature from the Black Lagoon on its head and making it so that the woman sympathizes with the Monster and falls in love with it. Marginalized people being maltreated in inhumane, hegemonic, "utopic" societies (and that spurring the protagonists to love the Monster in the first place, another fellow outsider). Themes of ecologism, and so on. I didn't react as strongly to the movie's depiction of "fascism" (let's just call it that) as I did in Pan's Labyrinth, it somehow felt more jarring here, and I wonder why that is since Pan's Labyrinth likewise contained a lot of hyperbole and exaggerations so to make its didactic point that inhumanity is really, really bad. Maybe because in Pan's Labyrinth it's seen through the eyes of a child and therefore feels more fitting? Never the less, I liked Michael Shannon's villainous performance. It had this sort of neurotic, needy undertone to it. And I liked smaller details, like his fingers grotesquely rotting (symbolizing his monsterhood) and the fact that he gets his own position wrong in the Samson parable he's making. But the movie also seems rather bloated and could have been told in a more economical way, like a lot of stuff with the gay painter could have been trimmed or streamlined.

 

[ufcfan4]

Well, I got my PhD last week, which means that henceforth you shall all refer to me as Dr. Bullitt.

I actually thought of jokingly changing my name to "DrBullitt68" but the joke isn't worth the effort to figure out how to change my name

Huge news. Congratulations, man! Awesome achievement.

Anyway, on the movie watching front, I'm on a nostalgic comedy kick. Last night, I rewatched Talladega Nights on Netflix just because it's awesome and I hadn't seen it in a year or two. Then I noticed Wayne's World 2 was on Netflix and decided to find a stream for Wayne's World and get my double-header game on. The "shyeah, right" stuff is a bit dated, but other than that, these movies hold up REMARKABLY well. Those characters are still funny as hell, the casts for both films were awesome, and the writing was so clever, especially when it came to the (way ahead of its time) movie/TV references. This reference in particular caught me completely off-guard:



And then I spent the whole night repeating out loud, over and over, with the accent, this gem of a story:



"I had to beat them to death with their own shoes."

Lastly, I can't not post these two fantastic scenes:





In honor of Mike Myers' comedic genius, I'm thinking about having an Austin Powers marathon tonight. I honestly don't even remember the last time I watched any of those, but along with the Wayne's World movies they were a huge part of my childhood.

What'd you think of Talladega Nights on the rewatch? I remember finding it funny initially, but I've never really been tempted to revisit. Ferrell and Reilly is a good pairing, but I'm also sometimes not so sure what to think about Step Brothers either. I mean, there are moments where I'm watching it where it just delves too far into the bizarre and ridiculous. There are elements that I do enjoy for sure, but it can't touch Dumb and Dumber for me if we are comparing comedies that highlight dumb behavior from man-children.

I've loved Wayne's World since I was a kid, but one thing that we are in complete agreement on is how solid the sequel is in its own right. I remember when I was young, a lot of people gave the sequel a bad rap, and I think that influenced some of my perceptions on it. But re-watching it just a few months back, I was taken by how funny it is and how really on par it is with the predecessor. Ralph Brown as Del Preston is just phenomenal. That Ozzy story never gets old. "I'm in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon and Ozzy won't go on stage unless he has sixty brown M&Ms..." Garth's and Wayne's uncomfortable look of feigned interest the second time that he is telling the story is hilarious.

If I give the first film an edge, it is probably because Lowe and Fuller are funnier than Walken as the bad guys, but otherwise, it's one of those rare comedy sequels that is right there with the original. The guy who played Jim Morrison was awesome too. And the scene where Tim Meadows breaks out his Sammy Davis, Jr. impression always cracks me up.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Well done Dr @Bullitt68 !!

 

[moreorless87]

Ultimately not sure unsticking this thread really makes that much difference, activity tended to go in fits and starts even when it was stuck at the top.

 

[moreorless87]

You know which film wasn't well-directed or well-acted? Fucking Annialation man! There I was, sitting down to what I thought was going to be an eminent Stalker pastiche, and then I got treated to a movie as flawed as that. I mean, the Sci-Fi nerd in me almost wants to like the movie purely on a conceptual level, and some cool scenes like the screaming bear. But this is one of those movies where no one acts like their profession, soldiers not acting very soldier-like and scientist not acting very science-like (for example, they're attacked by a fucking alligator and the soldier just stands there, not even mastering her rifle?). And unlike, say, Prometheus, I certainly don't get the impression that that was intentional. Coupled with the really poor acting it made everything a hard swallow.

What I think it does highlight is the difficulty of creating a more subtle piece of atmospheric cinema like Stalker or perhaps even more relevantly Jonathan Glazers last couple of films. You always tend to get some talk about "just pointing a camera at someone looking blank", especially when that someone is an attractive actress like Kidman in Birth or Johansson in Under the Skin yet I think here you see what that would actually look like. The reality is for those kinds of films to work your often looking at the combination of very subtle performances combined closely with sympathetic direction which didn't really seem to be Galand's forte.

I don't really want to bash Garland as he can clearly direct more conventional drama well with Ex Machina but I still think he'd have been better off here dropping a bit of the high mindedness and going for more of a standard body horror. I mean Portman in Black Swan obviously comes to mind, that's not a performance lacking in subtley but its rather more direct than the Glazer examples and I think she does much better convincingly showing grief/guilt with her husband and the need for a change of underwear confronting the various monsters than the kind of dreamy otherworldliness attempted elsewhere. Indeed that the film doesn't really seem to know exactly what that dreamy otherworldliness is trying to say is probably the key weakness.

I also liked The Shape of Water. There's some pretty obvious thematic stuff in it, like turning the Creature from the Black Lagoon on its head and making it so that the woman sympathizes with the Monster and falls in love with it. Marginalized people being maltreated in inhumane, hegemonic, "utopic" societies (and that spurring the protagonists to love the Monster in the first place, another fellow outsider). Themes of ecologism, and so on. I didn't react as strongly to the movie's depiction of "fascism" (let's just call it that) as I did in Pan's Labyrinth, it somehow felt more jarring here, and I wonder why that is since Pan's Labyrinth likewise contained a lot of hyperbole and exaggerations so to make its didactic point that inhumanity is really, really bad. Maybe because in Pan's Labyrinth it's seen through the eyes of a child and therefore feels more fitting? Never the less, I liked Michael Shannon's villainous performance. It had this sort of neurotic, needy undertone to it. And I liked smaller details, like his fingers grotesquely rotting (symbolizing his monsterhood) and the fact that he gets his own position wrong in the Samson parable he's making. But the movie also seems rather bloated and could have been told in a more economical way, like a lot of stuff with the gay painter could have been trimmed or streamlined.

The film does definitely give the impression to me of being an attempt to create a more mainstream US version of Pan's Labyrinth. Whilst a good piece of cinema by conventional standards I don't think it quite reaches that level as you say partly due to the two sides not merging as effectively.

Pan's does I think have the benefit of more realised supporting characters, Vidal especially is I think an excellent creation being both monstrous yet very believably insecure and even somewhat pitiable, Mercedes as well I think makes more a very effective link between the protagonist fantastical world and the real world. Shannon gives a good performance but I don't think you really get down to the meat of the character, there are hints at an obsession with conformity and sexual domination/submission but they never really feel like they come together in the fashion of Vidal's obsession with his legacy though his father onto his son. Likewise Jenkins dealing with homophobia is introduced nicely but never really feels like it gets fully realised and Octavia Spencer for me ends up playing an incredibly clichéd character, god knows how that performance got an Oscar nom.

Again I think its really Hawkin's side of the story that comes off most successfully, playing on the idea that a lot of people who are subjects for pity end up being treated in a rather condensing fashion as childlike victims, that they might be emotional mature and sexually active often tends to get overlooked. I mean I'v no desire to see explicite fish monster sex but I think the film probably would have been better off more wholly focusing on that side of the story over the cold war elements.

 

[Bullitt68]

Watched all three Austin Powers movies last night. They're not as funny to me anymore, certainly not better than the Wayne's World movies, but I was pleased nonetheless with how funny and enjoyable they still are. Goldmember is clearly the weakest of the three (though the scenes with Mike Myers freaking out as both Dr. Evil and Austin Powers at Fred Savage's mole are as funny as anything in the trilogy), and I still think the second one is the best, but all three are fun to watch.

I didn't even remember this scene, but I think this was the hardest that I laughed and the scene that I rewound the most (also loved seeing Michael McDonald there):



That scene reminded me of the Rambo spoof from Weird Al's UHF where he sends up the complete lack of bad guy shooting aim:



Not sure what I'll be watching tonight. Big Daddy is on Netflix, which means I might have to do a little Adam Sandler marathon. I also have the Back to the Future trilogy saved on Netflix.

Also, this gif reminds me: Rob Lowe keeps showing up in what I've been watching. I remembered him being in Wayne's World, though not right away, and I forgot that he was the young Number Two in Austin Powers. I also remember him from Tommy Boy, which I'm thinking of watching along with Black Sheep. He's one hell of an underrated straight man. And I loved this scene with him:

If you don't know by the way the Ralph Brown character from Waynes World 2 is basically him redoing his Danny the drug dealer character from Withnail and I...

That movie has always just been a title to me, I never watched it and honestly never even knew what it was. Thanks for posting that clip. It makes his character in Wayne's World 2 even funnier

Once I make the edits and submit the official final version, I'll link to it in here and you guys can see the shout-out.

Doctor Martian... yes, Dr Martian... that fits. Like Marvin the Dr Martian.

Jesus, you post this right after the thread has been un-stickied? You might as well be playing the Bagpipes ala Scotty at Spock's funeral in Star Trek 2 just so to drive the emotional dagger home.

I thought it was interesting how Ali MacGraw's character in the first 30 minutes or so was written as being obsequious in the extreme towards him, almost basing her entire personality on trying to please him. It creates this very weird contrast between them, almost like he was damaged or something (which, I suppose, he was). It makes the crisis of masculinity seem more internalized, more like an emotional trauma he has developed in prison. In Straw Dogs it was more triggered by Hoffman's views on his wife vis-a-vis society, a more outside, tangible "treat" if you will.

It's kind of an inverse thing. In The Getaway, the wife's "solution" to her husband's "problem" is to just try in every way, shape, and form to please him, to do whatever (she thinks) he wants, while, in Straw Dogs, the wife resents her husband's "problem" and her "solution" is to just try in every way, shape, and form to piss him off, to do whatever (she thinks) he doesn't want. In both films, the marriages in question are fragile, yet, true to Peckinpah's unconventional character, it's the marriage between criminals that has the stronger base, that's able to weather the psychological storm, and that's able to grow in strength through the trials and tribulations, while, in Straw Dogs, the "happy marriage" has no real base and the fundamental lack of care and respect is exposed in the most horrific "test" of love you could ever imagine.

I don't know, man, I just love getting inside Peckinpah's head with those two movies. They make for such an incredible one-two punch.

One thing I thought of about the Sand Pebbles after I had posted about it is... that it's one of those movies were practically every principle character dies while trying to fulfill their ambitions and desires.

That's what I'm saying, it's a brutally painful movie that hits with such an emotional punch, and yet, for all of the tragedy, it somehow has a beauty and a warmth to it. Hell, I'd be tempted to call it sweet if it weren't for all the horribly sad deaths and everything

Man, I thought Paulie Verhoeven had finally crashed and burned forever after making Black Book, but Elle was seriously good.

Hell yeah, that's an awesome fucking movie. I got to see that in the theater with a room full of people all of whom I got to watch jump and twitch at the intense parts and roll with laughter at the funny parts. That was a very cool movie to have seen with an audience.

Verhoeven's films have always had their thematic undercurrent of being interested in peoples... perversities (for lack of a better word). But Elle feels like the film where he finally let go of the reins and really delved into how people's... uhh... more unseemly desires, actions, and cravings interact with their ordinary selves. This is a movie about a woman who gets raped and how she responds to it, not wanting to act like she's a victim and be in control of her facualties, and during the course of the narrative noticing and understanding the "perverse" sexuality of others around her. I mean, these are some seriously treacherous waters he's navigating, really one of those movies that could have easily gone wrong, but Verhoeven seriously sells the human aspect of these events; strange, complicated and lewd as they are -- without ever cheapening the implications of the subject matters he's depicting. In no small part due to Isabelle Huppert, who gives an A-Class performance for sure.

Once again, I co-sign every sentence here. But if you'll humor me for a little bit, let me run this theory of mine by you. I told both my ex, who I saw it with, and my dad, who watched it a while later, this theory and both thought that I was crazy. It's about that scene when she gets jumped after finding that baby seat thing:

1) I think there's an obvious Hitchcock reference there with the Dial M for Murder/scissors thing. Do you agree on this reference?

2) I also think - and this is where I was told that I was crazy - that there's an equally obvious Kubrick reference when she rocks the seat back-and-forth just like Malcolm McDowell rocks that big dick back-and-forth at the Cat Lady's place in A Clockwork Orange. Do you agree on this reference?

You know which film wasn't well-directed or well-acted? Fucking Annialation man! There I was, sitting down to what I thought was going to be an eminent Stalker pastiche, and then I got treated to a movie as flawed as that. I mean, the Sci-Fi nerd in me almost wants to like the movie purely on a conceptual level, and some cool scenes like the screaming bear. But this is one of those movies where no one acts like their profession, soldiers not acting very soldier-like and scientist not acting very science-like (for example, they're attacked by a fucking alligator and the soldier just stands there, not even mastering her rifle?). And unlike, say, Prometheus, I certainly don't get the impression that that was intentional. Coupled with the really poor acting it made everything a hard swallow.

Huge news. Congratulations, man! Awesome achievement.

Well done Dr @Bullitt68 !!

What'd you think of Talladega Nights on the rewatch? I remember finding it funny initially, but I've never really been tempted to revisit.

Oh, I fucking love that movie. Always have. It's right there on Anchorman's heels as far as Will Ferrell's best IMO. Like Anchorman, Talladega Nights takes a big dip in quality after the first act, but it's still funny as hell throughout and the first act is fucking riotous. That grace scene is one of the funniest scenes in recent memory and the scene at the hospital is just one of my favorite comedy scenes ever.





"So, when you say 'psychosomatic,' you mean like he could start a fire with his thoughts?" / "No, not at all."

I love that exchange

My main gripe with it has always been Sacha Baron Cohen. That character was so poorly conceived and poorly executed that it feels like they were trying to make him as unfunny and irritating as possible. But other than that, it's always been one of my favorite recent comedies.

I'm also sometimes not so sure what to think about Step Brothers either.

I actually have that one on my Netflix list, as well. I've always been pretty lukewarm about it. I've been hoping that it'd be like The Other Guys, which I didn't really like on my first viewing but which I now absolutely love, but this is going to be my third viewing and I'm starting to think it's just not my kind of humor.

There are elements that I do enjoy for sure, but it can't touch Dumb and Dumber for me if we are comparing comedies that highlight dumb behavior from man-children.

Oh, from Ferrell's output, only Anchorman can really compete with prime Jim Carrey, and it loses just about every competition. The Ace Ventura movies, Dumb and Dumber, and The Cable Guy are some of the GOAT comedies in my book, and Liar, Liar and Me, Myself, & Irene also trounce most contemporary comedies IMO.

I've loved Wayne's World since I was a kid, but one thing that we are in complete agreement on is how solid the sequel is in its own right. I remember when I was young, a lot of people gave the sequel a bad rap, and I think that influenced some of my perceptions on it. But re-watching it just a few months back, I was taken by how funny it is and how really on par it is with the predecessor. Ralph Brown as Del Preston is just phenomenal. That Ozzy story never gets old. "I'm in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon and Ozzy won't go on stage unless he has sixty brown M&Ms..." Garth's and Wayne's uncomfortable look of feigned interest the second time that he is telling the story is hilarious.

If I give the first film an edge, it is probably because Lowe and Fuller are funnier than Walken as the bad guys, but otherwise, it's one of those rare comedy sequels that is right there with the original. The guy who played Jim Morrison was awesome too. And the scene where Tim Meadows breaks out his Sammy Davis, Jr. impression always cracks me up.

I'm with you on pretty much everything here. As a kid, I preferred the sequel, but like you I'd now give the first one a slight edge even though I love them both.

 

[moreorless87]

Watched all three Austin Powers movies last night. They're not as funny to me anymore, certainly not better than the Wayne's World movies, but I was pleased nonetheless with how funny and enjoyable they still are. Goldmember is clearly the weakest of the three (though the scenes with Mike Myers freaking out as both Dr. Evil and Austin Powers at Fred Savage's mole are as funny as anything in the trilogy), and I still think the second one is the best, but all three are fun to watch.

I didn't even remember this scene, but I think this was the hardest that I laughed and the scene that I rewound the most (also loved seeing Michael McDonald there):

.

Personally I tend to think that Austin Powers was one of those comedies like Ghostbusters, Ace Ventura or Archorman that really didn't need a sequel because the original already played with the characters from so many different angles, there wasn't much left for the sequels to do but go over the same ground less effectively. Waynes World on the other hand tended to stick more to the basic concept leaving a lot of room for the sequel to be a bit more self aware and playful.

 

[Bullitt68]

Personally I tend to think that Austin Powers was one of those comedies like Ghostbusters, Ace Ventura or Archorman that really didn't need a sequel because the original already played with the characters from so many different angles, there wasn't much left for the sequels to do but go over the same ground less effectively.

Regarding the sequels to Ghostbusters and Anchorman, I agree, but I disagree as strongly as humanly possible on Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. That's one of the best sequels ever. I literally can't imagine my life without that movie in it. Hell, I even loved the Ace Ventura cartoon growing up.



There's no such thing as too much Ace Ventura

 

[Bullitt68]

Watched a bunch of stuff last night in virtually random order. I rewatched Step Brothers, and @ufcfan4, I'm still not crazy about it. The laughs are sporadic and they're not very hard. Obviously, I love them watching Above the Law, which gets it a ton of bonus points, but it just doesn't have the hilarity of Anchorman or Talledega Nights. Lower tier Ferrell for sure.

I also rewatched Big Daddy. That's a pretty damn good movie. It doesn't have the hilarity of Happy Gilmore or The Waterboy, but it's very funny and it's got a lot of heart. And fucking hell Leslie Mann was (and, to be fair, still is) hot as shit. The cleavage game was on point in that movie.

I finally got around to watching The Intern. De Niro is the fucking man, obviously, but I was surprised at the quality level of that movie. No masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but De Niro's character was well-conceived and well-written (that he was well-acted goes without saying), he and Anne Hathaway worked well together, and the story wasn't half bad even though it kind of fizzled out by the time it got to the lame (non-)ending.

And then I ended the night with a rewatch of the always and forever awesome Road Trip. From the second I saw the first trailer for that movie, I knew that I'd love it, and I still do. Tom Green killed it ("Unleash the fury!"), Seann William Scott killed it ("Did I say two fingers? Better make it three"), Andy Dick killed it ("Would you like a fresh towel? Maybe you could roll that up and smoke it"), and holy shit did Fred "The GOAT Angry Dad" Ward kill it. On the strength of Secret Admirer and Road Trip, Fred Ward is the Fedor of angry movie dads. And his delivery of the line "I'm not mad" is one of my favorite line deliveries, both on its own and in context, in any movie ever

 

[moreorless87]

I'm not generally a massive Farrell fan but Step Brothers was probably my second favourite of his behind(some way behind mind you) Anchorman, I wouldn't say it was perfect and IMHO draws on the same concept a bit too often but was genuinely funny in places.

After the 60's Polanski viewing I went back and watched Chinatown for the first time in years. I still do tend to think it doesn't quite have the ambition of stuff like Repulsion of Knife In the Water but it is IMHO as near as I can think of a film that's pretty much without fault plus I I'd say is Jacks best ever performance balancing the likeble and the creepy. You could argue I spose its rather different from most Noir revivalism that followed it does feel like an attempt to make a pure noir film with an updated style.

 

[Sigh GunRanger]

Well, I got my PhD last week, which means that henceforth you shall all refer to me as Dr. Bullitt.
.

Congrats. Whats the phd in exactly?


And I rewatched Manhunter last night and liked it a ton more. Im more into the 80s aesthetic now, so that helped, and Peterson is excellent at selling the unhinged aspect of Will Graham without overselling it. (Something I think Darcy on the tv show does a bit)

 

[moreorless87]

I spose technically TV but I finally got around to ordering Kieślowski's Dekalog on bluray so if I vanish from the forum for awhile its either watching them or having jumped off a bridge afterwards.

 

[Bullitt68]

The nostalgia viewing continued. I rewatched the original Die Hard trilogy and FUCK do those movies FUCKING RULE! Die Hard is a masterpiece. That's all there is to it. And Die Hard with a Vengeance isn't that far behind. I even rewatched Live Free or Die Hard, which is a damn good addition to the series, though I hated seeing the PG-13 McClane spare that henchman at the end. Utter bullshit. The real McClane would've shot that dude without batting an eye (like he did the "Don't shoot!" guy in Die Hard with a Vengeance). Then I was going to watch the most recent one but I still can't bring myself to do it. I'm scared of what it'll feel like to watch a bad Die Hard movie, and since I've heard nothing but bad things about it, I'm staying away from it.

Then I rewatched Blade. Another awesome nostalgic action movie. Not as cool as it was when I was 10, but still very cool. And that opening scene will always be a classic. However, you couldn't have paid me to watch the rest of the trilogy. For as into Blade as I was and as happy as I was on that nostalgia train, when I tried firing up the next two, my nostalgia boner instantly disappeared.

So instead I went to Desperado. Campy as fuck and Banderas isn't the greatest actor, but still a hell of a lot of fun. Another awesome opening scene (credit to Steve Buscemi for that). And man, prime Salma Hayek...

Congrats. Whats the phd in exactly?

Depends how technical (re: pretentious) you want me to get. I got the PhD in a department of journalism, media, and cultural studies; my thesis falls in the disciplinary domain of film studies; and the stuff in my thesis is part of a branch of film studies called film-philosophy. So it's a PhD in film studies, but it'd be more accurate to say in film-philosophy, and while I'm technically a film scholar, it'd be more accurate to say that I'm now a film-philosopher.

And I rewatched Manhunter last night and liked it a ton more. Im more into the 80s aesthetic now, so that helped, and Peterson is excellent at selling the unhinged aspect of Will Graham without overselling it. (Something I think Darcy on the tv show does a bit)

That's the shit, man. Love that movie and everything about it. And even though I do love Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, William Petersen will always be the Will Graham.

I spose technically TV but I finally got around to ordering Kieślowski's Dekalog on bluray so if I vanish from the forum for awhile its either watching them or having jumped off a bridge afterwards.

It's a good thing that there were no bridges around when I watched it, otherwise I would've jumped off it to end the boredom. That and the Three Colors trilogy...never got the love for him.

 

[moreorless87]

It's a good thing that there were no bridges around when I watched it, otherwise I would've jumped off it to end the boredom. That and the Three Colors trilogy...never got the love for him.

You didn't keep watching for the post credits car chase scene?

 

[Bullitt68]

You didn't keep watching for the post credits car chase scene?

 

[moreorless87]

A little cruel but I can't help but think...

Watched the first couple of episodes opf the Dekialog last night, the first definitely into bridge territory dramatically but superbly filmed, might be my favourite looking work of his so far next to Veronique. Message wise I must admit I did find it a bit questionable though, I spose you could argue it exists more as a tragedy but really I don't see it as that legitimate a judgement on the character as represented.

The second episode very different in look and I can see the advantage of switching cinematographer for each one in terms of not repeating itself. Much more subtle in itself approach and I think dramatically operating in a nice middle ground without being judgement on religious issues. I notice the same actor is there as an orderly in the hospital who played the homeless man in the original seemingly observing events, maybe implied to be some kind of angel or an audience stand in?