2 Champions of Shaolin was very clearly lower-tier Chang Cheh, but it's rare that he'd make a legit stinker. Even though this one doesn't even come close enough to get a whiff of
The One-Armed Swordsman or
The Assassin, it's a solid effort with enough Cheh touches to elevate it a notch above most of the standard fare.
Shaolin Wooden Men, an early Lo Wei/Jackie Chan collaboration, was more of a mixed bag. Some of it was extremely dull, some of it was extremely stupid, and some of it was really cool. The fact that it was a pre-
36th Chamber of Shaolin training movie gets it a few points, but the stuff at Shaolin is really goofy. Once Jackie leaves and goes out into the world, it gets better. The best scene is when Jackie helps a family deal with gangsters at their tavern. Watching Jackie here is like watching Bruce in his films with Wei: Neither of them had the freedom to do what they wanted but Wei did give them enough freedom to where you can see the greatness to come. So much of the martial arts is "first this move, then this move, now this move," that annoyingly theatrical, dance-like pacing that is so affrontingly anathema to combat. Then, you get to the tavern, and it's what would become vintage Jackie with the speed and the creativity in using the environment to thwart his attackers.
Tonight I'm hoping to have enough energy to rewatch
Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and then watch for the first time
Enter the Fat Dragon.
I saw it as a kid, but it's not one of my child nostalgia films like The Goonies or The Breakfast Club.
It was around when i was twenty and having seen it 10 or so times (cause it's always on tv) that i was just like, "ya know what? I take this movie for granted. I can't find a single false note in the whole thing."
Not even a minor gripe with a lame line, a goofy delivery from a minor character, nothing. The action, the comedy, the drama, the adventure of it...the music...it's all handled so well.
Hmm. Maybe before or somewhere during my impending Clint Eastwood marathon I'll go back to the Back to the Future trilogy.
Nice to see you guys enjoying a bit of a reunion.
did everyone just completely miss the fucking amazing post by
@Caveat on
Gone Girl?
Good looking out. I actually did miss that.
First off,
Caveat, here's what I thought after I first watched it:
Well, I've always thought Fincher was overrated and I still stand by that, but even with that qualification, I will never again be able to say that the man's resume is without at least one legitmately great film. Gone Girl was fucking fantastic. I've gotten the sense in watching Fincher's films that he really depends on his scripts. I don't think he has a single writing bone in his body, so if the script sucks, he's not going to be able to do anything about it because he's all about visuals and mood and emotion. The reason Gone Girl is so great is because it was based on a novel and the author adapted her book herself. That kind of safety net allows Fincher to work at a much higher level; give him strong material, and he'll make the shit come alive. All through high school I read books like Gone Girl voraciously, so I knew all of the beats of this one before they came, but that didn't hurt my experience because I was so impressed with Fincher's filmmaking. When I thought I'd be a filmmaker and would read three or four books a week for screenplay material, the kind of adaptations I hoped I'd be able to make were on the level of Gone Girl.
In my history of Fincher viewing, I can't recall ever really feeling any extratextual inspiration, but Gone Girl was pure Hitchcock but through Fincher's visual filter. In terms of managing the beats, it was part Suspicion and part Vertigo, and he balanced the parts masterfully. He allowed just enough doubt in the first half to make it compelling and have me running through my mental checklist of facts every five minutes, and then when he made the switch, he didn't flaunt his prestidigitation but simply went on with his storytelling with Hitchcock's surehandedness and diligence.
I also loved all of the performances. Even that piece of shit Tyler Perry was great. I was afraid I'd hate the movie when I saw his name in the credits, but I loved him ("You two are the most fucked up people I know" :icon_chee). The story itself was far-fetched, but it worked well enough on the surface level to not hinder how superbly it worked thematically. The darkness of that portrait of marriage had a blackness that was extremely compelling but, interestingly, it never really crossed over into the type of bitter comedy that Hitchcock would've found irresistable. Fincher told this story without finding any humor in the situation; he treated his demented heroine the way Otto Preminger treated Jean Simmons in Angel Face, and I felt as bad for Affleck in Gone Girl as I did for Mitchum in Angel Face, only Affleck played that character so fucking well in the way he figured out enough to not only know his wife's game but also to know that, by the end, he had no more moves to make. The board was hers and he knew it.
Man, that's the kind of movie that gets in your head and stays there. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was also a very strong effort, but it didn't feel like Fincher connected with those people, that world, and that story the way he did Gone Girl. It felt more like a chore on his part than a genuine inspiration. Again, since the script was strong, it worked very well, but at no point was I marveling at the cinematography or really digging the mood or anything. Just seemed like he was letting the script drive everything, falling back on his Se7en shit when he needed to make it "thrillery," and that was a wrap for him. I know that's making it sound like I'm really apathetic and I don't want to make it seem like I wasn't interested in the movie or didn't enjoy it while I was watching. It just never reached the level of Zodiac and was absolutely nowhere near Gone Girl.
I think I'm still staying with Interstellar and Nightcrawler as my one-two punch for 2014, but with Gone Girl, I've found the third film for my pedestal. Awesome, awesome movie. I have to give it up to Fincher for that one.
As to your points after your rewatch (and, before I start, let me state for the record that I have still only seen it the one time, so I'll be staying at a relatively general level here):
I felt far less removed from the chaos of the second half when I was actively anticipating it.
Meaning that you were able to become more intensely involved without having to worry about playing detective? Or meaning the first time through you weren't affected but the second time you were? Just curious.
I realized that after the first watch I never questioned whether Nick really ever got violent with Amy. He denies it in front of the cops, though with some hesitation, and when she's describing how she wrote her journal she only refers to the happy early times as the true ones. Just because we saw the flashback doesn't mean it necessarily happened, imo, though I entirely believe that she witnessed the kiss between Nick and his mistress when we saw that scene unfold in her memory.
This is the Hitchcock territory I was alluding to. Hitchcock very famously included a "false flashback" in his film
Stage Fright, and he also famously denounced it as a terrible mistake on his part. I actually don't mind the false flashback, especially in the context of
Gone Girl. Unfortunately, I don't remember the film well enough to remember exactly what was going on with that flashback or how I responded.
I'm curious about how we're supposed to feel about Amy once things are all said and done.
I think the *correct answer is that she's a psycho bitch
*FTFY.
if we give a little credence to her claim that she returned to the version of Nick he presented in the interview she watched, maybe she doesn't have to be a complete lost cause.
I don't know if you're a big reader and/or a big fan of classical Hollywood, but with the way you're scrutinizing the implications of relationships/marriage, you'd probably enjoy Stanley Cavell's book
Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wws5ObJsUv0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pursuits+of+happiness&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=pursuits of happiness&f=false). For Cavell, the main idea is the idea of remarriage where the "re" is meant to indicate the main issues in a marriage: First, what do the people involved understand (a/their) marriage to be (and, by extension, if their understanding changes, are they willing to continually redefine/reaffirm their marriage, i.e., are they willing to continually be remarried?), and second, is each one's "other half" a) suitable for them in terms of inspiring them to be the best person they can be and b) suited to them in terms of being inspired to be the best person they can be? And the fact that you ended your post on pretty much this exact ground is why I think you'd enjoy this book.
Two key passages from early in the book establishing the terms of Cavell's argument:
"[Comedies of remarriage] may be understood as parables of a phase of the development of consciousness at which the struggle is for the reciprocity or equality of consciousness between a woman and a man, a study of the conditions under which this fight for recognition (as Hegel put it) or demand for acknowledgment (as I have put it) is a struggle for mutual freedom, especially of the views each holds of the other. This gives the films of our genre a Utopian cast. They harbor a vision which they know cannot fully be domesticated, inhabited, in the world we know. They are romances. Showing us our fantasies, they express the inner agenda of a nation that conceives Utopian longings and commitments for itself."
"What is it about the conversation of just these films that makes it so perfectly satisfy the appetite of talking pictures? Granted the fact, the question can only be answered by consulting the films. Evidently their conversation is the verbal medium in which, for example, questions of human creation and the absence of mothers and the battle between men and women for recognition of one another, and whatever matters turn out to entail these, are given expression. So it is not sufficient that, say, the conversation be sexually charged. If it were sufficient then the genre would begin in 1931, with Noel Coward's
Private Lives, a work patently depicting the divorce and remarrying of a rich and sophisticated pair who speak intelligently and who infuriate and appreciate one another more than anyone else. But their witty, sentimental, violent exchanges get nowhere; their makings up never add up to forgiving one another (no place they arrive at is home to them); and they have come from nowhere (their constant reminiscences never add up to a past they can admit together). They are forever stuck in an orbit around the foci of desire and contempt. This is a fairly familiar perception of what marriage is. The conversation of what I call the genre of remarriage is, judging from the films I take to define it, of a sort that leads to acknowledgment; to the reconciliation of a genuine forgiveness; a reconciliation so profound as to require the metamorphosis of death and revival, the achievement of a new perspective on existence; a perspective that presents itself as a place, one removed from the city of confusion and divorce."
From this perspective,
Gone Girl could be an allegory of remarriage run amok. Amy's heart is in the right place (that's the only olive branch I can extend, and it doesn't extend very far); she wants the kind of relationship that Cavell describes as the utopian one of the mutual acknowledgment between two people and their commitment to bettering their lives as individuals and as a couple (and you acknowledged as much when you noted that Amy "still expresses a desire for intimacy [...] which shows a pretty intense commitment"). However, when it's clear that she's not going to achieve this with Nick, that Nick is not suited to her, she loses her shit. What's more, she violates the democratic principle of remarriage: That each individual be free to pursue their own happiness, that their happiness be one freely
shared/freely shared. If she can be happy with a sham marriage that makes her husband miserable, then it's not a true marriage. The mutuality isn't there and both the concepts of marriage and of happiness are ultimately corrupted.
Now, with what you mentioned about the "feminism angle": There could be a way to interpret this less as an allegory of remarriage run amok and more as the
failure of remarriage - and a failure that is the fault of
men. Amy, the representative of Woman (not as
inherently crazy but as
driven crazy - i.e., driven crazy
by men, here by Nick, the representative of Man), gets fed up with how sucky her "perfect guy" is and just goes ape shit. I don't remember the movie well enough to actually want to take up this interpretation right now, but there was so much going on that, while I will never waver from considering Amy a psycho who should die in a very public car accident (or some other comparable scenario where Nick can in no way be implicated), her craziness doesn't invalidate an interpretation of the film that sees it as questioning, in shrewd and provocative fashion, the current state of marriage in the American context.
Hopefully watch Fury Road this weekend so will report back
Depending on the kind of time/interest you have, I think we'd all appreciate it if, after you watch it (not before), you threw in your two cents on the civil war that broke out following what
@europe1 refers to as "The Mad Max Heresy" the first shot of which was fired here:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/serious-movie-discussion-xxxvix.3003143/page-13#post-108772271
And if that link doesn't take you right to the proper post, just go to post #606 in here:
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/serious-movie-discussion-xxxvix.3003143/
I just feel I'm fed up of going to see essentially the same movie over and over again in the cinema.
Speaking for myself, I'm pleasantly surprised at how fresh they're keeping this stuff (in the MCU at least). There are absolutely similarities/continuities, but there's usually enough variation to where I enjoy the similarity and appreciate the inventiveness.
Not something I'd ever really thought about.
I thought about it. And I argued about it. A lot.
Dragon's official
Django thread was lost to the migration, so I don't have my initial write-up after I saw
Django in theaters, but I remember being supremely disappointed and worried that Tarantino had lost a step. I was so bummed, in fact, that I put off rewatching it for as long as I could because I was worried I'd just keep hating it more and more until it turned into
Death Proof and every thought of it would make me want to find Tarantino and shake him until he explained WTF he was thinking. When I finally did rewatch it (as part of my most recent Tarantino marathon ahead of seeing
The Hateful Eight, with the following material taken from a much more extensive recap of my latest thoughts on Tarantino), I found I liked it a hell of a lot more than I did initially, though I still hate the ending:
I'm still shocked by this, but I found myself really loving [Django] this second time around. I still feel exactly the same about Waltz's death scene, it was indefensibly stupid and contradicts everything about that character up to that point, but now that I knew it was coming, I was able to keep everything that preceded it in perspective, and I have to say that everything that preceded it was pretty fucking good. Django is WAY campier than anything Tarantino had ever done before, and Sigh's point about it feeling like Tarantino was parodying himself is definitely valid, but it didn't really get out of control until the end, at which point the shit was already off the rails. For about two hours, though, Django was operating right there on the same level as Inglourious Basterds, maybe even a notch above on the strength of Waltz's and DiCaprio's performances. Like ufcfan was saying, the two of them together makes for outstanding viewing. Again, going back to what I was saying to you, Flem, Candie thinks he's so fucking cool and that he's always the smartest guy in the room, but Tarantino has the distance to write him as being far from as cool/smart as he thinks he is. I love when Samuel L. Jackson sniffs out the con and breaks the news to DiCaprio. If he'd have figured it out himself, he probably wouldn't have minded it as much, but because he was played for a fool, he lost his shit. That's extremely sophisticated characterization and credit to Tarantino for being able to write such a fascinating character and to DiCaprio for bringing him to life so vividly.
I think that the key thing with Schultz, as I've come to think about the movie more, is that he gives the image of being someone who expertly plans out every detail and is very much in control, but, in reality, he is a showman and a wild risk taker [...] He is almost a contradiction- thoroughly plans things to a fault but is a dangerous risk taker.
I don't think this is a contradiction, though. Planning things and taking risks aren't mutually exclusive. He more precisely takes
calculated risks, and that's what gets me about that death scene. There was either zero calculation or he calculated that he was going to kill Candie and then let himself get killed without even trying to survive (not suicide but damn near). If you go with the first option and say he didn't calculate anything, then it's unacceptable because that's not that character. If you go with the second option, it's still unacceptable because that's not that character, either.
And the hang-up for me is still that little huddle he has with Django on the way to Candieland:
"Don't get so carried away with your retribution [and] lose sight of why we're here ... Stop antagonizing Candie. You're going to blow this whole charade, or more than likely get us both killed. And I, for one, don't intend to die in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, USA."
I never have been able and probably never will be able to understand how it makes sense to go from having no intention of allowing himself and/or Django to get killed for retribution and antagonizing Candie to having every intention of allowing himself and/or Django to get killed for retribution and antagonizing Candie. The most undignified possibility in Schultz's mind is dying in that racist shithole, and if it's the last thing he does, he'll make sure it doesn't happen. . .until he decides to let himself get killed in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, USA
Unfortunately,
@Dragonlordxxxxx's official
Django thread was lost to the migration, but I still have the posts I made at the time where I was arguing with
@Sigh GunRanger and
@Da Speeit and I still stand by every word:
It's like asking why does Mr. White shoot Mr. Orange, or why Aldo still gives Landa the swastika, or why Bill still walks those 5 steps. Tarantino is about men with codes, and principles, even if they're not advantageous to their positions. He ain't shaking that man's hands. Candie is scum, and debasing Beethoven was final straw. Plus there is the factor that Schultz was indeed a sore loser, and the fact that he was one-upped in his charade bruised his pride a bit.
For me, the problem wasn't
that he did it, but
how he did it, the silly, acquiescently suicidal style of it. I thought he would've been more cunning and at least gone about it in a strategic way that would've given himself and Django the best possible opportunity to get the upper hand in the situation.
"It doesnt seem like something the character would do", after it's foreshadowed for the whole movie.
It was foreshadowed in the sense that you knew he was going to kill DiCaprio. But it was not foreshadowed that he would do it like an idiot with no thought to his or Django's survival. It is not a logical progression of his behavior as seen previously, but a radical break, and these two positions---either it's a logical progression that had already been foreshadowed or it's a radical break as a result of the stress of dealing with DiCaprio---are not compatible and your equivocation weakens your position here [...] Waltz's character, while impulsive, was never carelessly so, and the break from calculating assassin to impulsive egomaniac was not as logical and smooth as some of us would've preferred.
Shultz begins to crack around the Mandingo fight.
I'm looking forward to my second viewing so I can focus more specifically on his particular character arc, but just going off of my first and only viewing, I can't accept the jump from when he says to Django that he has no intention of letting him kill the two of them just so he can get the egotistical satisfaction of "getting at" DiCaprio to his being totally cool with letting himself and Django get killed just to "get at" DiCaprio. He's telling Django not to antagonize DiCaprio to satisfy his own egotistical desires, then all of a sudden
that's exactly what he's doing!
He's not used to absolving control of a situation
I agree with you on this, but I disagree with the way lack of control manifests in his behavior. The way I see it, he can't tolerate not being in control, so he has to do everything in his power to
regain control. . .until all of a sudden he decides to stop trying to regain control and just commit suicide and leave Django to the wolves.
His suicidal action doesn't follow based on what we've already seen of his personality. It's one thing if he would've yelled for Django to move, shot DiCaprio, but couldn't keep from getting shot by James Remar. At least that would've shown that his cunning assassin mind was still functioning. He would've had a plan, as he always did, it just wouldn't have worked. That would've made sense plot-wise and character-wise.
There would be no retribution for Candie's acts of horror if Shultz did not take it upon himself to kill him.
Agreed, but his need to kill DiCaprio in no way mandates a need to do it in as silly and unstrategic a fashion as possible, and
that's the sticking point. Not
that he did it, but
how he did it.
His whole plot with wanting to bait and switch Candie and dick him over by not purchasing the mandingo for the ridiculous amount of money at all is very, very dangerous. He implies that they wouldn't even get an audience with Candie if they didn't make the play on the fighting slave, but I call bullshit on that. Still think he could have easily got to Candie by playing the "I'm a German, you have a German-speaking slave. That is so rare and I will pay a lot of money for her." But Schultz finds someone like Candie (rightly) so detestable, that he has to screw him over and not do the purchase on the straight and narrow.
Again, this is laziness on Tarantino's part. The reason why Schultz goes through all of that shit is, at the most basic and obvious level, so Tarantino has a movie, but it's clear that what you mentioned would've been MUCH easier. I also think your point about Schultz finding Candie detestable is already a bit generous for Tarantino's sake, because the one thing Schultz prizes over everything else is his practicality yet none of that shit is practical.
he feels for the guy. He sympathizes with Django, wants to see him reuinited with his wife. He's a character that does things becuse he thinks it's the right thing to do. He's driven by his values and ethics.
So, because he feels for Django, he condemns the two of them to die? Because he wants to see Django and his wife live happily ever after as a free man and a free woman, he shoots Candie with no concern for his, Django's, or Hildie's safety? He thinks the right thing to do is whip the entire plantation into a homicidal frenzy with no escape plan for Django and his wife? His values and ethics permit suicide and a willful disregard for the safety of the only person close to him?
Sorry, I'm not buying it.
I think you're to into the Aristotelian idea that Man Is A Rational A Animal. Your arguments base themselves on the fact that Waltz has shown himself to be very practical and crafty, and that he should have stayed that way. But... why should that prevent him from snapping? Especially whence being driven to those extremes?
This is the battle I've had with myself over this issue. Perhaps I'm putting too much of myself into this, because I personally would always do whatever gets me out alive no matter what and that would never fucking waver and I don't give a fuck how many poor bastards have to get fed to the dogs if it means I live to fight another day, but that's how I see Schultz. I see him as the guy who walks out knowing it's Candie 1 and Schultz 0 and that he's got to come back and make that shit up. I just can't see him as the guy who says fuck it and disqualifies himself from the game completely, especially when it goes against the
one fucking thing he was determined to not let happen no matter what: Him dying on that shit kicking plantation.
The reason why Waltz snapps is becuse he cares so much. He's sensetive, emotional even. He wants his sunshine and rainbows ending. And when he dosen't get that, he acts irrationally. But that's the thing about acting irrationally. It often only further injures the people you care about.
I'm still hung up on that little huddle before Candieland. Like you're saying, you can see that Schultz is way less comfortable with the charade than Django, who is mixing it up nicely with Candie and who is having no problem "getting dirty." But Django brings that up, and he throws it back at Schultz about how he's the guy who had Django kill a man in front of his son without batting an eye, that this is the world he lives in and he has to get dirty. Schultz, always rational and practical, acknowledges that Django is correct, he is in the right, he has his head screwed on tight, and he has not lost sight of what they're doing there. He can see it, he knows what's what. I can't accept that so much of what is fundamental to him can be so easily overthrown to the point where he literally gives up his life with no consideration for Django's or his wife's lives.
And that's to say nothing of everything that comes after he dies, about which all I can say is...
I really enjoy the scene with the 2Pac/James Brown tune playiing and Django tearing the whole place up with duel pistols.
'Greatest movie of the milennium'??
You got yourself an old school circa 2009 SMD deal brother!
Not to saddle you with more shit just when you agree to the deal, but since just watching the third and final chapter of a trilogy on its own without having the whole journey fresh in your mind so that you can appreciate the brilliance with which Nolan brings it all home, I'm tempted to ask that you (re)watch the whole trilogy from beginning to end. If you're willing to raise the stakes from one-for-one to three-for-three, then I'd be willing to not only rewatch
Oldboy, I'd also be willing to rewatch
The Assassination of Jesse James and then a third movie of your choosing.
This way, we can do the old school circa 2009 SMD deal good and proper
Check out Hug Dog back and multiquoting!
I think multiquoting makes it official. He's still one of us.
