Movies Serious Movie Discussion

[Deleted member 110072]

Le Samourai is a concept that's been reused so many times I think there was a knowing element in Jarmusch's Ghost Dog, its been over a decade since I watched it but my memory is that besides shifting the setting there is a significant shift to the film as a whole and especially the lead character. Rather than an isolated hardass I think you see him as more childlike, someone who has latched onto the recycled concept in the way cinema as a whole has to deal with an otherwise harsh life.

 

[Yotsuya]

I'm currently watching a ton of Robert Aldrich.

Attack!

Nobody does cynical better than Aldrich.
This might be my fave Jack Palance performance along with The Big Knife and Ten Seconds to Hell (all Aldrich.........huh ?!).He's intense as hell.
When he gives Eddie Albert a death Threat you know it's serious.

Great supporting cast too with Lee Marvin,William Smithers,Robert Strauss.
Eddie Albert has a thankless role as the irredeemable coward who got his position thanks to Politicking.He turns the evil up a little too much at the End, should've stayed at the incompetent drunk.
These Depictions of WW2 weren't that common until the 60s, especially not this nasty.

The Production Budget was small and the Battle scenes had to be limited, but it's shot in a way that hides it pretty well.In fact, the Battle scenes are as intense as it gets.


This comes closer to Paths of Glory than it should have any right to be.

Top-10 war movies for me easy.

 

[europe1]

Anyway, on to Melville. I swear, europe, I don't set out to make you think that I'm a Martian. I must genuinely be a Martian. But I have to say, I'm not that big a fan of Melville.

Reading this I started out mad — but then I soldiered on to the individual reviews and honestly it does seems like you are a fan of him based on what you said. So I can only conclude that this was some sort of 4th-dimensional chess move on your part, clandestinely professing admiration for an obvious genius like Melville while also launching a psychological attack on me. Nice play, Dr Lecter.

It seems that you like him more as an "actors director" considering how many strong performances there are. And I do agree that he's great at facilitating that. Not to mention the aesthetic.

Le Silence de la Mer was superb.

Yeah I've always heard high praise for this one so I really should go around to see it.

Next up is probably Melville's most famous and most beloved film, Bob le Flambeur. I've got to be honest, this was also a terrible movie. I will never understand why anyone would possibly want to elevate this to some kind of crime pedestal.

Yeah Bob le Flambeur is the first one I saw first the one I remember the least of. I just recall it being thoroughly mediocre and didn't at all understand it's repute. Back then [when I first was getting into older cinema] I figured that it was one of those movies you had to watch twice or know the historical context off.

I've read articles about how Bob brilliantly combines American Noir with European Arthouse for the very first time but... I just don't feel it at all.

another monumentally overrated crime film, suffers from, which is that the attention to detail in the planning was handled so matter-of-factly, as if it were intrinsically fascinating, that it was instead terribly boring

You're accusing it of being a Michel Criton novel?

(though be fair Andromeda Strain was kinda good)

I then moved to Two Men in Manhattan. Now this was a damn good crime flick.

Guess I'll deploy the BJ headnod here.

In fact, I actually chuckled at the fact that, since it wasn't actually an American film, the female characters could get naked and the male characters could say things like "Oh, shit!" which is a phrase that absolutely belongs in the noir world but which because of the Hollywood censors of the era stars like Bogart and Mitchum could never actually say

Sometimes at random moments in my life I chuckle at the fact that in the forties wearing a Chinese dress was used as euphemism for having done porn.

(Honestly, though Martha Vickers was too sexy for any moral code to constrain.)

Next up was Léon Morin, Priest.

Ah man I thought you were going to hate this one as religious mumbo-jumbo.

Totally agree with you on the performances. Jean-Paul Belmondo is just a fountainhead of raw charisma. It was really cracking.

Personally, I don't really remember much examination regarding the Nazis or Frances WW2 psyche. I just remember the interpersonal interactions between Belmondo and Riva and how they related to theological questions. The film does several wonky and interesting things with how it handles religion that I can't remember seeing done anywhere else. Like making Riva believe that God's existence is an objective fact (rather then as a faith, which is what Belmondo wants to impress). Or how Riva's nascent religiosity is inherently attatched to her attraction for Leon Morin the person (which seeing as he's a celibate priest is kind of a problem).

It's like the film presents one person who is inherently a materialist, and the other who is inherently metaphysical, but when you turn the materialist religious she's still going to see the whole world through a materialist prism which just causes all sorts of problems.

Personally, I think that the film suffered from a slightly incoherent, or at least unfocused, script.

Slight?

SLIGHT?

It's like Le Doulos is trying to be the goddamn Big Sleep! <45>

The film even uses all those nicknames to try and confuse you even more!

I think this is a super-confusing film that is anchored by three really strong pillars.

1: Belmondo's fantastic charisma. I agree that it suffers when he isn't around.

2: It's pathos concerning "brotherhood" (very much a John Woo inspiration).

3: Those goddamn visuals, man.

(talk about foreshadowing symbolism)

I have a lot more to say about Le Deuxième Souffle. You should definitely track this one down, europe

Delon is, of course, awesome, but the plot is dumb to the point where it was almost like Melville himself found coming up with a plot to be a chore, as if he just wanted to film Delon walking around and looking at people, and the ending was lame

Is this your Chinatown-esque: "Surrendering to the Death Impulse is baaaad" inclinations coming back to haunt us?

I think focusing on the plot of this movie is the wrong avenue to take in assessing it. The film just isn't structured around such a concept. It's like criticising prime BJ Peen for having terrible kicks. His game worked perfectly fine without them! This is the "hang out with the existentialist hitman" mood-piece. Delon's reaction and handling off stuff is more important than anything else that happens in it.

Now, to continue with what will be your least favorite part of this wrap-up, europe, I found Army of Shadows to be another dull stinker. Le Samouraï is something of a turning point for Melville in that it's the film where he truly became a visual master. Pretty much all of his films have excellent camerawork, but mastering color and really establishing a distinct eye allowed Melville to create a unique aesthetic that is present in every film from Le Samouraï through to the end of his career. Army of Shadows is one of his most aesthetically impressive films, and Lino Ventura turns in another very strong lead performance, but the movie just felt bloated and dull. This film suffers from the same thing that a lot of his crime films do, which is that, call it minimalism or call it something else, he's kind of a Bressonian stylist in that everything is very muted, very subdued, very quiet, very slow, which creates for me at least a sense that the stakes aren't as high as they should be, the intensity level isn't where it should be. This should be an insanely intense film, but the characters walk around like Bresson's zombies, not emoting, lacking any verbal dynamism. It's just scene after scene of intense shit handled in the dullest way possible.

Yeah I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you watched the wrong movie or something.

Consider this. How are "La Résistance" movies usually structured? Their climactic moments are usually "blowing up a bridge so that the Nazis can't re-supply their troops" or something like that. It's centred on heroic actions of resistance.

In Army of Shadows — being part of the rebellion is dominated wholesale by survival. You do not heroically fight the Nazis by blowing up bridges, you survive while your friends die around you, managing only victories so minute they barely register. The climactic action is killing a potential snitch (who may be the greatest hero among you) just to save the cause. That's the sort of soul-rending scenarios it presents you with as a rebel. It's to resistance what Battle of Algiers was to Guerilla War.

As for the dullness of the film. Yeah... again... I just don't know what to say. This movie is just a goldmine of great character moments for me.

The immediacy with which Mathilde replies "understood" and then aborts the mission as they're trying to smuggle the Resistance-members out from the prison, leaving them to die.

Lino Ventura trauma after he survived the firing squad.

Mathilde's death. She's not only been the bravest among them, but also the most emphatic and supportive. And now she has to be killed by her own people for the cause.

Even tinier details like Lino jumping out of the aeroplane, meeting De Gaule, tricking that young Communist revolutionary in the beginning.

Like... this isn't just "great" dramatic moments. These are some of the best I've ever seen.

Maybe it's just some cultural thing? American mannerism being more direct and blunt and so you're not attuned to the poignancy of the gestures? [I'm trying hard not to use the typical French slur against Yanks — boorish]

Le Cercle Rouge

I just love that character arch. It's so tiny. Yet so extraordinary.

But this one is the worst offender in the category of lame cops to follow. And the crime plotting and heisting is also rather dull

Unlike Bob, I think the set-piece in this movie is pretty damn great and tense.

It also leads to a downright hysterical moment.

After a 17-minutes long set-piece done in absolute silence — the cops are watching the recording and one of them goes "They don't say much, huh?" <45>

And then, finally, I watched Un Flic, which was very weak and not even a little compelling. Richard Crenna made for a pathetic master criminal and Delon's icy cool shtick didn't work well on the cop side. He was kind of a lame Frank Bullitt to me. Just a dud.

When that big "muh brootherhood!!!" emotion scene comes in the end — with Delon in the backseat of the car — I went all, "wait, we're doing a scene like this for THIS movie?" It almost felt a bit jarring.

Also, that helicopter set-piece... couldn't have looked good even in the 70's.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Now that I'm on the Criterion Channel, I might be tagging you artsy-fartsies @Rimbaud82, @moreorless87, and @HenryFlower a lot in the next few weeks. I hope that it's not too annoying. I'm definitely going to try to watch as many movies as I can this weekend, so buckle up

For starters, I decided to make today a Carl Theodor Dreyer day. I didn't go all the way back to his silent films, but I did go through all of his sound films: Vampyr, Day of Wrath, Ordet, and Gertrud. I'd seen them all before - Vampyr many times over the years, Ordet twice, and Day of Wrath and Gertrud just once each - but it'd been a while since I'd seen any of them and around a decade since I'd seen the last two.

Vampyr is still awesome. That was another movie that I thought of while watching The Lighthouse. Dreyer was so many decades ahead of his time with the disorienting surreal-ish horror thing that it's just crazy to watch that almost 100-year-old experiment today. It's definitely clunky, what with the low budget and the early sound technology, but the visuals alone are worth it. Still a classic.

I remember you commented when I watched Vampyr recently. It was great, as you say such a surreal ahead of it's time film. Big fan.

Day of Wrath is probably his most popular film other than The Passion of Joan of Arc but I find it a little underwhelming, mainly because the cast is so weak. Lisbeth Movin as Anne and Anna Svierkier as Herlofs Marte are the only actors who brought it. Everyone else was weaksauce, especially the lifeless Thorkild Roose and his bland nothing son Preben Lerdorff Rye. The most powerful scenes were the scenes with Svierkier suffering her torture before being burned at the stake, which of course recalled The Passion of Joan of Arc, and then the scenes with Movin first getting her mother-in-law's goat with her Bible reading and then "killing" her husband. On the whole, though, this is rather light by Dreyer's standards, merely a fraction of the greatness of The Passion of Joan of Arc cut with a more traditional family piece hearkening back to something like Master of the House.

Been meaning to watch both these, but have yet to get round to them...

Ordet

is his sound masterpiece. Nothing beats The Passion of Joan of Arc IMO, that's Dreyer's crowning achievement, but Ordet is right there in the #2 spot IMO. Excellent script, great ensemble acting from everyone involved, and masterful staging and cinematography. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer really went to town with close-ups, but more often than not he was a filmmaker who liked to utilize space. Well, Day of Wrath only hinted at the mastery of space that Dreyer would boast come Ordet. Dreyer is seldom referenced when discussing filmmakers who use long takes, and it's because they're seamlessly integrated in a very precise and intricate overall design, one where neither the visual storytelling nor the verbal storytelling takes precedence. This is also IMO Dreyer's best use of religious material. I love the Christ allegory, but even more I love that Dreyer doesn't stop there. Yes, Ordet is basically a retelling of the Christ saga, particularly the Gospel of John, but the Christ figure isn't the main character. He's the Looney Tune brother kept off to the side for the majority of the action. Instead, Dreyer fully immerses us in the family life, in the loving marriage that will be threatened by a difficult pregnancy, in the young love that is threatened by parental interference, and in familial and social lives threatened by egotistical stubbornness. There's really no shortage of compliments to be paid to this film. I really love this one and am glad I got to rewatch it.

It's been a few years since I watched Ordet, but I was a big fan of it. I think there is a great tension that exists between the otherness of Johannes and the everyday, normal life of the rest of the family (which as you say is depicted in wonderful detail). I think Ordet is so impressive in how it works both as family drama, but also as a spiritual or biblical allegory. When I watched it I found that that I identified with both elements. The ending is just incredible too, the way Dreyer treats the sacred and profane together throughout the film just perfectly comes to a head at the climax.

I think that you're trying harder than the film deserves. You're right when you say that it's a mess. And I'll go one further: The cinematography isn't even that good. He did the black-and-white "Look at this serious art film" thing but that's it. Nothing stood out to me as even noteworthy much less magnificent. Béla Tarr uses black-and-white, but he also brilliantly composes and lights his shots, his camera movements are intricate and elegant. (I was extra pissed while trying to watch The Lighthouse because it seemed like such an incompetent ripoff of The Turin Horse.) Even Ari Aster, to stick to the thread of my previous post, blows Robert Eggers' shit off the screen. Midsommar is one of the most aesthetically impressive films that I've seen in recent memory, a virtual masterclass in composition to say nothing of the way that he used movement and color.

The Lighthouse struck me immediately as one of those films that spends its entire running time trying to score cheap arthouse points in lieu of being a good movie.

Goddammit Bullitt why do you have to come out with this stuff. I fully endorse @HenryFlower's sentiments you are eloquently frustrating. I have seen The Lighthouse 5 times now (once in the cinema) and I absolutely love it. I actually think The Witch (which I also love) takes itself way more seriously - and Eggers himself has said this - it has much more of a super serious student film vibe. It manages to work anyway, but nonetheless.

The Lighthouse on the other hand, I am honestly shocked you think that. Yes there's no doubt in some ways it is self consciously an art film™ with it's allusion to 20s and 30s cinema, greek mythology and jungian psychology but although all that's there in whatever level of mess or otherwise you wanna ascribe to it I think it really doesn't take itself as seriously as The Witch. Not that I am saying I don't think it doesn't has technical, artistic or aesthetic value either, but a part of that is the way in which it also plays with it's self defined artsiness. It has pre scripted fart jokes, meta jokes about its own literary allusions and mermaid vaginas. Hell even my girlfriend who's favourite film is Mammia Mia enjoyed when I made her watch it (in return for watching Hamilton) and she has a hatred of Wilem Defoe deeper than words can express.

Gotta say I haven't seen half of these french films you've been watching, not a single Marcel Carné film.

Renoir is still pretty fresh in my memory, so I skipped going back over his stuff - I've never been that crazy about The Rules of the Game, which is considered not just his best and not just one of France's best but one of the overall GOAT, or even The Grand Illusion; I much prefer The Human Beast and the unfinished A Day in the Country - but Melville is another one whose films are just foggy memories. There's honestly so much French stuff on the Criterion Channel that I'm probably going to check out a few more people beyond just Carné, Ophüls, and Bresson. I haven't watched Melville's or Truffaut's stuff in ages, I could stand to (re)watch some Clouzot and Tati, and I never really bothered with the Cahiers crowd's film work beyond Truffaut and Godard so I could even check out what they've got from Rohmer, Chabrol, and Rivette.

The only Renoir I have seen is The River (1951) which I thought was shite in all honesty. Melville is another, been meaning to watch them but just havent got to it yet.

 

[Dreaming Dead]

What are some movies that take place in the early middle ages, or in the middle ages in general?

 

[KOQ24]

What are some movies that take place in the early middle ages, or in the middle ages in general?

Flesh+Blood
Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut.
The Name of the Rose
The War Lord (1965)


I'm on a Robert Wise Binge

Odds against Tomorrow

A great sendoff for the Classic Noir Age and Robert Wise's last Noir.
This Film takes a very Character Driven approach as the Heist only takes up about 1/3 of the Film, maybe even less.The Life background of Belafonte and Ryan is well laid out and explored.None of them is ever completely sympathetic or villified.
Ed Begley is great in support.

There's a great Nightclub sequence with Belafonte being an absolute asshole.
The racial Tension between both characters is similar to "The Defiant Ones" except that the impending Doom of all characters is palpable.

It's pretty clear that this Heist can only end one way as everything is seemingly going wrong for the 3 main characters and it all ends in fitting Doom.

A great Jazz score on top of it.
An absolute Gem from Robert Wise.

 

[Rimbaud82]

What are some movies that take place in the early middle ages, or in the middle ages in general?

The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) - fascinating tale of medieval identity theft based on a true story, one of the most historically authentic films I have ever seen.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

I'd guess his reaction to the Lighthouse trailers like mine was that it seemed like a rather superficial, what came to mind for me was those old French and Sanders Bergman parodies...



Ultimately of course neither of us has actually seen it to judge of course, I will most likely but I'm less inclined to rush to pickup the bluray at a premium.

 

[Yotsuya]

What are some movies that take place in the early middle ages, or in the middle ages in general?

All the King Arthur movies and The Vikings (1958) are the only ones I can think of that actually take place in early middle ages.

 

[Dreaming Dead]

Flesh+Blood
Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut.
The Name of the Rose
The War Lord (1965)


I'm on a Robert Wise Binge

Odds against Tomorrow

A great sendoff for the Classic Noir Age and Robert Wise's last Noir.
This Film takes a very Character Driven approach as the Heist only takes up about 1/3 of the Film, maybe even less.The Life background of Belafonte and Ryan is well laid out and explored.None of them is ever completely sympathetic or villified.
Ed Begley is great in support.

There's a great Nightclub sequence with Belafonte being an absolute asshole.
The racial Tension between both characters is similar to "The Defiant Ones" except that the impending Doom of all characters is palpable.

It's pretty clear that this Heist can only end one way as everything is seemingly going wrong for the 3 main characters and it all ends in fitting Doom.

A great Jazz score on top of it.
An absolute Gem from Robert Wise.

The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) - fascinating tale of medieval identity theft based on a true story, one of the most historically authentic films I have ever seen.

All the King Arthur movies and The Vikings (1958) are the only ones I can think of that actually take place in early middle ages.

Wow, you guys rule. Out of all of these, the only one I'm already familiar with is Kingdom of Heaven, which is a fine movie.

I will begin with The Return of Martin Guerre. I hope the sole subtitle file I found in my language will work!

 

[Rimbaud82]

Long time no post....went through a bit of a dry spell

Wilde (1997)

Well, this was fine.

Considering the eccentricity of Oscar Wilde's life and work - if the two can even be separated - this was an unfortunately rather cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers, bog standard biopic. It does a fairly reasonable job all things considered, and is far from a terrible film but I would say it feels a bit shallow in it's efforts to cover a lengthy period of Wilde's life. In biting off more than it can chew, and in failing to delve too deeply beneath the surface of Wilde and the society in which his aesthetic and sexual ideals came up against (not to say it makes zero effort), it all comes off as rather average.

Of course the obvious highlight is Stephen Fry in the titular role. While some of the characterisations of the other figures in Wilde's life leave a lot to be desired (at times even cringeworthy), Fry is so good as Wilde that it does elevate the material of the film somewhat. In some respects he does almost seem to be simply playing himself, but his striking physical resemblance and status as a witty public entertainer-cum-intellectual largely dissolves the distinction as you watch the film. Not to pass over the affinity between the two men as regards their sexual orientation either.

All in all, just a totally ok movie. Certainly watchable, enjoyable at points but not one that lingered with me or forced me to reflect very much after it was over.

Little Joe (2019)

From what I saw beforehand this seems to have reviews ranging from excellent through mediocre to outright bad. Personally I actually liked it a lot more than I was expecting I would. It definitely does suffer from a degree of listlessness in terms of the pacing, but I found that it ultimately did manage to draw me in with it's bold visual style and unsettling, Kabuki-tinged soundtrack. Of course with a terrible story this would be irrelevant, but I have to say that the aesthetics felt almost as important in carrying the film here.

Conceptually Little Joe is pretty much something akin to Invasion of the Body Snatchers crossed with Brave New World set in a plant breeding lab. If that makes any sense at all. Part sci-fi thriller and part psychological interrogation the film concerns Little Joe, an artificially designed plant which apparently gives off pheromones with the ability to make its owner happy. Amidst family tensions, motherly guilt, angsty teenagers and romantic frustration it becomes clear that perhaps Little Joe is exerting a more sinister influence... With plenty of gaslighting and ambiguity the film explores these themes of free-will, the morality of unbridled scientific experimentation and familial tensions.

I wouldn't say it's quite a fascinating film, but I found it interesting enough and surprisingly engaging. In large part, as I mentioned, of it's wonderful visual aesthetic and unnerving sound design.

Birds of Passage (2018)

Ciro Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent (2015) is one of my absolute favourite films (as SMD embers shall know) so I was very excited to watch this one. I missed it in the cinema and only got around to it recently. Off the bat I have to say that I didn't love it as much as Guerra's earlier film. It lacks Embrace of the Serpent’s vitality and sense of spiritual intensity, but Birds of Passage is nonetheless an intriguing film in it's own right.

Taken in its most essential form the plot is one we have seen over and over again throughout film history - a dramatic rise and fall, rags to riches tale set amidst the inevitable savagery of the drug trade. What lends this film it's own unique character is the manner in which this almost archetypal story is embedded within the traditional culture of Colombia’s indigenous Wayuu people. Wary of outsiders, who they call alijuna meaning "the one who damages", the Wayuu are a people with their own complex system of morality, traditions and taboos. Guerra depicts these people in a very vivid fashion (though I can’t speak to the accuracy), not quite romantic but poetic in a languid, alien sort of way.

Through the lens of two families in particular, the film traces the manner in which the introduction of the drug trade to the Wayuu people eventually leads to the erosion of these traditions and of the way of life. Beginning with some small marijuana trafficking in the 1960s, greed and a lust for power eventually bring bloodshed and gang violence to this community. This is driven by the drugs trade but shaped by the contours of Wayuu society with its complex web of family alliances, moral debts and arbitrators, which it threatens to sweep away.

Essentially Birds of Passage can be categorised as a kind of ethnographic gangster film. It's an interesting approach and an interesting story (partly based in real historical events). While I would still say it's a very good film, for me it doesn’t reach the heights of Embrace of the Serpent.

Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti (2017)

Has some things to like but on the whole not a particularly memorable film. It focuses on Gauguin’s time in Polynesia, where he created some of his most famous works, clearly a period of his life worth exploring. However, in it’s presentation of Gauguin as a tortured artist it basically just falls into the standard tropes that come along with that.

It’s passable enough, and Vincent Cassell puts in a pretty solid performance as Gauguin the misunderstood genius. The problem is both that this is something we have seen done over and over again, and that in doing so it turns into the seriously problematic figure of Gauguin into something almost Hagiographic. It’s not to say that the film portrays him as a saint - we see the damage he does to his own family as he abandons them in his great escape to Tahiti, as well as his incredibly selfish relationship with his wife/exotic muse Tehura. Yet despite some hints towards these things, along with a very shallow engagement with post-colonial ideas more generally, I just feel that it is more constantly affirmed that as Gauguin writes in a letter home “Those who criticize me...know nothing about an artist’s nature”.

Part of this is perhaps a problem inherent to all biopics of artists of course. The inherent closeness of the portrayal tends to obscure everything else at the expense of their own thoughts, making it all too easy to fall into this trap of transforming a flesh and blood human being into some kind of hagiographic personification of the struggling genius. Of course this is almost a question about the genre itself though, since if an artist is worth making a film about then the popular culture version typically implies something fascinating, otherly and almost superhuman about them. But I digress....

Not to say the whole film is just horrible either. It has a few decent moments, particularly through the middle portions as Gauguin interacts with the islanders. However, even aside from it’s questionable omissions and airbrushes it just comes off as rather drab and dreary despite the vibrancy of the Polynesian setting and the vibrancy this clearly inspired in his own art. Not to imply it should have focused on some happy go lucky version of island life either, but the style of the film struck me as overly-brooding and too wrapped up in their version of Gauguin’s perspective at the expense of the world around him.

 

[gogoGomi]

Hey there everybody. Hope all is well. Please link me where Bullitt shares thoughts on the Bruce Lee scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Curious to hear his take which I have full confidence he must have shared here at some point.

Personally I turned the film off after the second scene with the little girls contrived performance being intolerable. I turned it off while I was on an airplane with little to no other means of distraction.

Tried watching John Wick 3 but it was unwatchable, like a fashion ad with gun violence.

Enjoyed Destroyer available on Hulu.

Also enjoyed Uncut Gems though the constant tension was uncomfortable it was undeniably effective storytelling.

Absolutely love all Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, unapologetically. But alas, not serious movies I suppose.

 

[Yotsuya]

Tenet
Another failed prestige act by Nolan. This time he wasn't even close of pulling it through, as the constant distraction by spamming action and pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo overwhelm the high concept act itself by wide margin. Time travel stuff and inverted action scenes are constant underachievers.

The Lodge
Very gripping horror for adults. Scary, psychologically mostly quite convincing and the mystery kept me on my toes the whole duration and and beyond, which is rare. Even though a lot is given away towards the end there remains a nice feel, that a lot remains implicit too. Cinematography was pure 10/10.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

I admit I was disapointed when I saw Nolan had gone back to Inception part 2 after Dunkirk, I think that film benefited significantly from pushing atempts at clever(although honestly I think most of them very superfical) plotting into the background in favour of just focusing on building atmosphere and tension, what he's best at.

 

[HenryFlower]

Nolan back on his bullshit.

 

[Gmork]

This thread title and description is dorky and pretentious af. Arthouse or cinephile film discussion would be fine. Just need to get that out of the way.

The Lodge was mentioned earlier, I really think that movie got a raw deal as it was consistently compared to Hereditary, and I really don't think that's fair. Taken on it's own it's a very well crafted and effective elevated horror experience. I don't think it's critical reception is reflective of it's quality.

No theaters open in my state, so I haven't gotten around to Tenet.

 

[Bullitt68]

This thread title and description is dorky and pretentious af. Arthouse or cinephile film discussion would be fine. Just need to get that out of the way.

Before the SMD was established here in Mayberry - all the way back in 2008 - it was useful in dissuading the non-serious on the one hand and incensing the personality types that'd be willing to spend hours/days/weeks/months/years/decades seriously discussing movies into coming in to post on the other. It was always fun when latter-type folks like you would come in to tell us off for our pretentious ways, but even more fun is when, after years of being in here, folks like you would make posts like this in response to the newer newbies

No theaters open in my state, so I haven't gotten around to Tenet.

Same. I'm still dying to see it even though people have seemed to be severely underwhelmed. @HenryFlower and @Rimbaud82 talking shit about it, that's one thing - they're what I call artsy-fartsy types - but even Nolan fans are saying that this is a swing and a miss. That's what's making me nervous.

Hey there everybody. Hope all is well. Please link me where Bullitt shares thoughts on the Bruce Lee scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Curious to hear his take which I have full confidence he must have shared here at some point.

Holy shit, here I am talking about the early days of the SMD and then I see a post from one of the oldest of the OGs. Nice to see you around these parts, Gomi. To your request, ask and you shall receive. I made probably a dozen posts in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood thread before and after the film was released, but below are the ones in which I discuss the Bruce Lee scene. To save space, I edited the text of each post to just "Post #1," "Post #2," etc.

Post #1

Post #2

Post #3

Post #4

Post #5

Post #6

Post #7

Absolutely love all Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, unapologetically. But alas, not serious movies I suppose.

To me, the emphasis of this thread was not on serious movie discussion but rather on movie discussion that was serious. That is, it's less about what movies we talk about and more about how we talk about them, namely, seriously. That said, I've made plenty of posts in here after Marvel binges. I was never current with them - and I saw none of them in theaters - but I always made sure to periodically catch-up, including this last year when I finally caught up with everything through Avengers: Endgame. I much prefer Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and I even think that the X-Men/X2/X3/The Wolverine/Logan line of X-Men films are superior, but I also really love Iron Man and Iron Man 3, Thor and Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I've been loving the new Spider-Man movies. I figured that after Avengers: Endgame that'd be it for me with Marvel movies, but after Spider-Man: Far From Home I'm genuinely looking forward to what's next for Tom Holland's Spidey.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

Honestly I'v found other superhero franchises have really paled next to the better MCU films over the last 6-7 years. Both Nolan's Batman and the X-Franchise(bar Logan) now tend to come across as rather self important and wooden, neither for me really got under the skin of their characters nearly as successfully as the MCU did fro around Ironman 3/Winter Solider onwards. By the time of End Game it was pretty impressive managing to have the climax of a franchise be about 3/4 character focused scenes rather than just larger and larger CGI battles.

Watched the Second Sight remastered release of Roeg's Walkabout a couple of times now and honestly I think that might have elevated it above Don't Look Now as my favourite film by him and arguably the purest example of his style(maybe the opening of Eureka might have a case). I wonder whether the choice of subject was almost a reaction against his time as a cinematographer on Lawrence of Arabia, similar kind of desert environmental work but replacing the stately epicness with his roving camera movements and editing.

 

[Yotsuya]

The Lodge was mentioned earlier, I really think that movie got a raw deal as it was consistently compared to Hereditary, and I really don't think that's fair. Taken on it's own it's a very well crafted and effective elevated horror experience. I don't think it's critical reception is reflective of it's quality.

I somewhat liked Hereditary, but compared to The Lodge it was postmodern quackery.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

I admit prefer the "arty horror" that comes from the "arty side" in recent years...

Under The Skin
Berberian Sound Studio
Killing of a Sacred Deer
Highlife

There just seems to be more focus to it, a more definite idea of what its trying to achieve rather than simply coming up with materal to give the impression(often much less genuinely strange and unsetlling though IMHO) of artful strangeness. Something like say The Endless did actually have some substance to it in the end I spose but was too happy to play around with UFO Cult oddballness before getting to it.