Serious Movie Discussion XLI

[Bullitt68]

The Martian was a lot better than i thought it was going to be [...] and i liked how the NASA PR subplot pitched in.

Does Jeff Daniels at least have a big role in it?

Firstly, get well soon.

Next: I don't even know where to start with this hair-splitting nonsense. But as ALWAYS, I'll try. For you, only for you.

This is why I like you, Ricky. You're Mr. Detail. I'm like Kramer, I'm over here cutting slices so thin that I can't even see them. And that doesn't bother you. You can always go another round. And, for me, that's especially useful in the context of superhero stuff. Initially, in my response to you in my last mega post, I was more assertive, just straight up refuting your claim. But then I'm always wary in superhero territory. I know these movies pretty well now, but since the comic book mythologies are so fucking deep, I'm always worried I'm taking shit out of context or misunderstanding something. Usually, I just throw out the Bat Signal for @Dragonlordxxxxx and he comes in and tells me what's what. Before I posted my response to you, after I thought better of being so assertive in territory where I was far from an authority, I actually even did some Googling on the Avengers characters and saw that there's some controversy over whether Thor is actually a God or a demigod. In any event, you always sweat the details, so I figured before getting into any arguments I'd split a few hairs first and see where that'd take me, and I knew you'd be up for it

It's not about humanness or mortality, but fallibility as a creature with the ability to succeed, err, love or hate in equal measure. That's why he's made to run the full spectrum of emotion - love for his father, adoration for his mother, concern for his brother, and love with a cotdamn human.

Now this I can get on board with. Hair splitting FTW

It's why I like Phase 1. Yes, it's campy, and it's shot shitty, and it's smug and messy but it never forgets the good story shit. Sure I have to deal with logical leaps and Kat fucking Dennings, but at least it's working hard, making me care before threatening my allegiances.

I think I like Phase 1 more than you. And I definitely like Thor more. Thor is my favorite of all of the individual Marvel superhero movies, but I don't get campiness, smugness, or messiness from it. It wears its heart on its sleeve and its emotionality is raw and honest. That'll always get my respect.

And Kat fucking Dennings is actually pretty fucking good in those movies.

Phase 2 disregards all this good story shit. The point of my post was: Civil War wants to get to the catharsis by implying the good stuff without doing the hard yards. Cap saving Bucky? Because friendship. Spidey saves the day (and the movie)? Because billionaire needs help.

According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki (where I've spent a lot of time in recent months) Civil War is the first movie in Phase 3. To be as schematic as possible, the theme of Phase 1 seemed to be "get your shit together," with all of the individual superheroes accepting who they are and what they can/should do, while the theme of Phase 2 seemed to be "consequences," with all of the superheroes having to reflect on what being who they are and doing what they do means and the impact they have on the world(s) around them.

Based on your post here (and please correct me if I'm wrong), it seems like, as Phase 3 is kicking off, you're feeling that they're starting to take shit for granted and are operating under the mistaken notion that they've already put in enough character work to not have to waste time on that shit anymore, which is resulting in cheapened spectacles.

I haven't gone into Dragon's thread for the movie, but just for my own curiosity, is this something other people are noticing? I did confess to being disappointed in The Avengers 2. I would hate to think they're starting to slip now, just as I've finally come to embrace this cinematic universe

And no, it's nothing like your Fury Road nonsense.

(I'll hold back on the Vision stuff because it relates to a pivotal event in the film that probes the presence/absense and nature of his personhood.)

Fair enough.

Too lazy to go to the "Rate the last movie you saw" thread

Well so much the better, because you found a much cooler thread

Off the top of my head

Tired of talking about MMA with the plebs?

 

[HHJ]

Tired of talking about MMA with the plebs?

a bit actually. Seeing Fedor fall is bad enough,and the trolling of course is bad enough,but to see delusional people scramble to put a positive spin on the fight is too much for me to bear. hahahah

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Does Jeff Daniels at least have a big role in it?

It's as big as any other secondary character...but maybe not big enough if that's what you're tuning in for.

 

[europe1]

I'm happy that I finally have some time for a mega post

How did the whole Brucesploitation episode blow over, btw?

That's going to take some time to process, I know. It was a shock to me, too, but it's just so painfully obvious. He's a skinny and gangling dork whose level of cool is a variant of "Dad Cool" at best,

Clint Eastwood is quite possibly the lamest action hero ever.

Lamer than people like Steve Barkett?

Sorry... the statement just got me thinking.

Anyway, for the individual play-by-play: The Enforcer didn't suck, but it wasn't very good.

The Enforcer is kind of the part where Harry went through a process of flanderization. Like that scene where the drives his car into the shop and guns down the criminals. Sure, it may be a fun action scene idea on its own, but it doesn't really seem like something that the guy from the first film would do. To over-the-top and action-movie-y.

Sudden Impact did suck,

Pretty sure it's the first Clint movie I ever saw. So out of pure nostalgia I'm not going to say it's below-avarage but I'm going to say *hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge*.

The Dead Pool got my hopes up, but the ending sucked, and it sucks even more since, aside from the "twist" being stupid, the end of the film also stands as the last chapter of the Dirty Harry saga, yet the wrap-up is so abrupt and perfunctory. I did at least get a kick out of Liam Neeson and "James" Carrey

Man Deadpool is just bad. It doesn't even feel like a Dirty Harry movie. A really spiritless closure to the series.

Once I finished with the Dirty Harry movies, I went back to Coogan's Bluff. Wow. I don't even really know what to say. Forget about how dated it is. It was like watching Clint Eastwood trying to be Paul Newman. And Paul Newman isn't even very good as Paul Newman. But Clint doing it? Ugh. I love Lee J. Cobb, so that was a bright spot, but that's about it.

Seriously? You're signaling out Eastwood as the main problem of that movie? Coogan's Bluff big sin is just that it's very... average. And I love Cobb too, but he didn't leave an impression for me at all.

Frankly, the main allure of Coogan's Bluff outside seeing a non-graying Eastwood, is how hilariously dated it is.

Oh, there's a treat in store for you. Between The One-Armed Swordsman and The Assassin, as far as Cheh's entire career is concerned, their relationship is that of the Fedor/Nog relationship. If it weren't for The One-Armed Swordsman, The Assassin would undoubtedly be Cheh's greatest. It's not good enough to dethrone The One-Armed Swordsman, but other than that film, even an excellent film like Golden Swallow looks like garbage by comparison. The Assassin is absolutely one of Cheh's best, one of the best of all of the swordplay films, and just one of the best of all the Shaw Brothers films IMO.

I should also mention that I absolutely, positively, categorically loathe all drunken boxing shit as well as all "old man beats up everybody" shit, and that one has both in spades.

Very, very rarely do I think this works. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow is one of those rare four-leaf clovers where it actually manages to be funny.

So glad you liked Fury. I saw that so long ago that it was a time before I was actively seeking out Spencer Tracy movies. I only watched it because Lang directed it. I think the only other Tracy movie I'd even seen at that point was Boys Town, and Tracy is. . .a bit different in Fury. In any event, I was so taken with that movie. I actually prefer it to M and rank it right up there with Lang's best.

Comparing M to Fury is actually rather interesting, since they both share a theme of mob mentality yet are on opposite ends in terms of storytelling and style. M is very experimental and eccentric, while Fury by Lang's standard was rather conventionally communicated.

Presently, I guess I'd rank them about the same. I suspect I'd have to re-watch M just to make my mind up. I'd say that Fury is a more consistently-superb affair though while some parts of M are definitely better than others.

That was the last ill-fated attempt on Cagney's part at independent filmmaking. It tanked at the box-office, pretty much destroyed what was left of Cagney Productions, and ultimately sent him back to Warners Brothers (where he'd make White Heat as his first film back, so hurray for The Time of Your Life bombing!).

Kind of funny how he got to do something more diffrent when he returned to the studio than when he was independent. Sure, White Heat may be a gangster movie like the ones he did in the 30's, but the character has so many psychological disturbances that it allows Cagney to explore entierly new hunting ground to awesome effect.

(though I'll always have a soft spot for the Judo tour-de-force Blood on the Sun).

I can watch this scene any day, any place, any time.

You're making me a very sad Bullitt. Watch it. It's glorious. And if that ending doesn't move you, then you don't have a soul.

Ugh. Bonnie and Clyde isn't "superbly" anything. I hated it the first time I saw it, and over the years, whenever I try to give it another chance to see if I missed something, I hate it more and more. Forget about being overrated. That's just a bad movie.

No way, Jose. Beatty and Dunaway nailed their chemistry from the very first scene. And that ending death scene is an absolute standout. The hillbilly goes under the truck. The swift shifting between Bonnie and Clyde's eyes. Then the hailing gunfire starts. Cue excruciating death scene. That's a perfect ending right there.

Another sucky "classic." Not as bad as Bonnie and Clyde (Jack's in it, so it can't be all bad) but still pretty bad. And that ending is retarded.

Between this, B&C, Excorcist, French Connection, and inumerable other examples... I'm starting to think that you just don't like movies with downbeat endings. Was it some sort of childhood trauma that you experienced? Did a large dog bite you just when the bullet hit Dunaway's skull and you've associated the victory of antagonists with pain every since? Or are sad endings just a cultural taboo up there on planet Mars where you live? Does it shock you when Earth cultures break this sacred taboo? Or do the Martian goverment even allow such films to be shown? Will the goverment hurt you if you admit that Chinatown is awesome? Oh... okay, I understand now, I understand just fine.

@JSN used to pimp this one like there was no tomorrow. I remember giving it a try a long ass time ago and I didn't even make it ten minutes before I turned it off. That one's just not for me.

Frankly, if you would have claimed to like The Fountain then this is what I would have expected to happen next.

And in terms of the present-day, anybody on this planet can watch Bullitt and it's really not dated. It's just a cool movie.

It will never date becuse it elevates cooleness to its very reason for existence. The film itself is about exploring how stoic and professional its prominent characters are. There is next-to-no excess baggage in this, no concept of coleness that is culturally bound to a certain decade. It's all stripped-down to the bare essentials of what cooleness is percieved to be.

In that way, I've always associated Bullitt more with movies like Point Blank or Le Samourai, rather than Dirty Harry which I associate more with that grimy and politically-angry feel of the 70's, like the French Connection or Get Carter.

On the subject of Bullitt vs Harry, I refeer you to the case of M vs Fury. I'd have to rewatch them to truly make my mind up, but Bullitt is the more consistently good film while Harry is a movie with peaks-and-valleys.

and maybe not everybody is going to prefer Bullitt to Fast Five,

Dude! Think it but don't bloody say it!

That scene where Jacqueline Bissett is asking him if anything can reach him, that look on McQueen-the-greatest-nonverbal-actor-ever's face. Dirty Harry is a passing headline-grabber. Bullitt is an enduring meditation.

I guess I was to busy staring at Jacqueline to notice.

I'm not sure how you're using the word "prequel." Do you mean that, despite being made in the 1970s, Dirty Harry feels of a piece with the 1940s films? Or do you mean that, as one of the first big 1970s movies, it's what kicked off the renewed cycle of noir films like Chinatown?

Haha no I was talking more in terms of a character arc. Most detectives in Noir films seem to be disgruntled ex-cops after all. Of course, in the sequel we see that that doesn't happen and that Harry still has faith in policework, but judging soley by the ending of the first film that seems like a likely trajectory.

Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies

Intresting. The local University has it. Might be doing a little reading this summer.

And, to go back to what I was saying about why I'd hesitate to use the term noir to elucidate the Dirty Harry films, it's the fact that Harry does have hope, does have some sense of law and order and honor and duty and justice, that I don't think it quite fits. Sam Spade just doesn't care, and so much of what he does is arbitrary and self-sabotaging. Harry can't help but care, and that's what pisses him off the most, and that's what's more in keeping with the later action movie cycle.

Well I feel that kind of depends on what films you allow to define Noir (which is already painfully over-extended category, people even talk about White Heat as a Noir). Sure Sam Spade is probably a detective simply because he thinks it's amusing and he likes to hang around these nefarious criminals. But can you say that Philip Marlowe has the same cynicalism? Or many of the Alan Ladd roles like the Glass Key?

Bruce Willis is IMO the closest to his noir antecedents, with The Last Boy Scout being probably the closest action movie to any kind of noir heritage,

I chuckle at the mere mention of that film. The Bruce Williest of all Bruce Willis films.

 

[Ricky13]

@Bullitt68 - bear with my shit here. Believe me I done thought this shit out.

This is why I like you, Ricky.

In any event, you always sweat the details, so I figured before getting into any arguments I'd split a few hairs first and see where that'd take me, and I knew you'd be up for it

Aww shucks. I can't be mad at you.

Just a heads-up: I know nothing about comics, and I'm quite adamant in any assessment of these Marvel things that they should stand on their own. And I think it's got a lot to do with how I've gone from going "HOLY SHIT CIVIL WAR WAS SO GOOD OMGZZZZ" to "Fuck Marvel and this non-movie".

It started occurring to me when I was listing the must-watch MCU films for Flem or Chickenluver, worried they wouldn't "get" Civil War if they didn't see certain ones. Then went to see Civil War again and literally covered my face through half of it in embarrassment for both it and myself, and how I'd been so over-the-top with my first review. Realised at that point that doing a movie marathon prior ruins any chance you'll enjoy the damn thing by virtue of it actually being any good functionally, because it isn't. I remember feeling like these Marvel fuckers took money right out my back pocket after telling me I shouldn't keep it in my front pocket! This is what they want - for you to buy into this Marvel un-Cinematic Universe.

The reason @europe1 for instance, found the motivations so shitty is not because they are shitty, but because they don't dramatise it at all. Everything is assumed. I've explained that a lot, but this time I'm going to hit on thematic failures.

I think I like Phase 1 more than you. And I definitely like Thor more. Thor is my favorite of all of the individual Marvel superhero movies, but I don't get campiness, smugness, or messiness from it. It wears its heart on its sleeve and its emotionality is raw and honest. That'll always get my respect.

And Kat fucking Dennings is actually pretty fucking good in those movies.

And I can get on board with that, totes. It's a textural thing, and no two viewers are tonally in sync. As actual films, as moving images telling you things through action and consequence, Phase 1 is fucking right. Even the jokes have narrative drive.

This silly little joke is quite literally a showcase of Thor pre-trials. He's a loud, brash twat who can't see beyond himself.

Same with this:

This doesn't work at all if Hulk hadn't interrupted Loki's pretentious speech just prior. And it's married to an aspect of character that they built on so much during the film until then: his pouty teenage angst that you just want to kick in the balls. He's one of the least powerful villains ever, everyone kicks his ass in that film, but good lord how his defeat works.

According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki (where I've spent a lot of time in recent months) Civil War is the first movie in Phase 3. To be as schematic as possible, the theme of Phase 1 seemed to be "get your shit together," with all of the individual superheroes accepting who they are and what they can/should do, while the theme of Phase 2 seemed to be "consequences," with all of the superheroes having to reflect on what being who they are and doing what they do means and the impact they have on the world(s) around them.

You're right in a sense. Phase 1 is character introductions, and the best ones each have a moment that defines the hero. For Cap, it's the grenade scene in The First Avenger (best scene functionally of any in this universe, for my money). For Thor, it's the mug. For Iron Man, it's Tony seeing that dude sacrifice himself. For Hulk, it's the "I'm always angry" scene.

So for me this shit was always intriguing because it established some cool archetypes to work with for Phase 2. Tony is the daddy issues guy post-PTSD. Cap is the traumatised soldier, literally a PTSD poster-boy. Lost girlfriend from being on ice, lost best friend in war, thrown into a world that does not share his values. This is why Civil War is their face-off - these white boys got problems.

I expected exploration, the consequences of such hard character work. But all we've got is rehashing and poor commitment to stakes instead of actual change in Phase 2, which is the death knell for function, and it's all because of the bottom fucking dollar.

They tease these serious issues without making anything happen, then return quickly to status quo. You know what would happen in a real story if Tony Stark created Ultron in such a careless manner, secondary to a cocktail of daddy issues and misapplied concern for the human race? He would die so the protagonists, The Avengers, reassess and implement real change. Think about how Whedon was willing to sacrifice Coulson in The Avengers and how that's what gets them all fucking fired up.

But what happens instead in Age of Ultron?

Tony does it again while Banner just stands there like a flaccid ballsack, so they can introduce another beloved comic character for the next movie. It's so transparent it hurts that I didn't see it. And I realise now why Whedon left at that point.

Sorry to go on, but I hope you're paying attention because in a sense this shit is fascinating. Think about Winter Soldier. For the first half, that thing had me by the balls. Wow! This is like some Three Days of the Condor shit, right? Cap is the noir protagonist, firm in his ideals but unsure of the greater forces, as a PTSD-ridden idealistic soldier thrown into a world he doesn't understand. Cap is first shown what Fury's contingency plans are, those huge aerial battleships, and immediately smells the crap.

It's perfect, because soon Fury "dies" but we don't know how. It's a mystery. Very cool - a superhero noir. Just good implied world-building. Cap investigates; he is certain that the government is behind things due to their misguided notions of security (the battleships). And what a cool little allegory - government doing some shady shit in the name of "safety". So Cap dives down the rabbit hole to get down to the bottom of this, and he's totally right.

Oh wait no.

It was comic book nazis all along who had nothing to do with this story in any functional or thematic sense.

But Cap is so pretty. And he and dreamy Winter Soldier do punchy punchy so nice.

Just - fuck off. It's all cowardice. Because damning the government, exploring this as a parable, does not lend well to serialisation over 13 movies in half the number of years. It works if it's 2 films separated by many years (Alien and Aliens). But they haven't got time for classics with relevant metaphors that will stand the test of time 20 years from now. They need another MacGuffin (in this case, Hydra) for their heroes to showcase their power and wit against in the next movie. Ever wonder why the fights literally feel like the heroes are sticking their tongues out at the villains?

They need asses in seats, so they do phenomenal character introductions. Think about how awesome it is the first time we see The Vision. Black Panther and Spidey have similarly poignant intros in Civil War. And it's all because they've figured out this really fine line between introducing these topics and then undercutting the tension with badass characters that are either witty or share comic chemistry. Make no mistake, their character work is perfect. This is a perfect scene, and think about how it deftly switches between comedy ("The city is flying") and heft ("You are an Avenger") while the threat of death is chaotically palpable:

I haven't gone into Dragon's thread for the movie, but just for my own curiosity, is this something other people are noticing? I did confess to being disappointed in The Avengers 2. I would hate to think they're starting to slip now, just as I've finally come to embrace this cinematic universe

It depends on what you want out of your viewing. I think they're fantastic if you're looking at it as a TV show that will likely never commit. And who doesn't love those? They're eye-poppingly beautiful people who have a knack for comic timing, and Scarlett just gets fitter. I think they're great fun. But T1, T2, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, Alien, Aliens, they are not, and never will be. All this shit, my tirade, has not been about Civil War being a bad movie. It's about it not being a movie at all, really, and in no realm is it one of the best superhero films of all time.

 

[Rimbaud82]

Just watched Masculin féminin, which was absolutely brilliant I have to say. I had been meaning to watch more of Godard, the only one I had seen before was Contempt which I also really enjoyed.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

I've watched Blade 2 to some extent like 10x this week. Shit is always on.

 

[europe1]

Just watched Masculin féminin, which was absolutely brilliant I have to say. I had been meaning to watch more of Godard, the only one I had seen before was Contempt which I also really enjoyed.

I am really weak on the French Masters outside Melville. So my revenge-trolling for what you said about Mad Max will have to wait until another time.

I've watched Blade 2 to some extent like 10x this week. Shit is always on.

Pretty badass movie though. The CGi is about as horribly dated as Matrix Reloaded but outside of that it's all good. Blade teaming up with the badest Vampires around to take down the new kids on the block? Just wish Donnie Yen had a role of more prominance though, he even gets killed off-screen if memory serves. Dude always gets shafted in American productions, unfortunately.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Pretty badass movie though. The CGi is about as horribly dated as Matrix Reloaded but outside of that it's all good. Blade teaming up with the badest Vampires around to take down the new kids on the block? Just wish Donnie Yen had a role of more prominance though, he even gets killed off-screen if memory serves. Dude always gets shafted in American productions, unfortunately.

Definitely my favorite of the trilogy.

Yeah, he gets killed off screen. They only show Lighthammer feasting on him post-death....

Didn't really make sense to do it that way, especially in that movie. There's a viewers understanding that most of that team is going to die in their mission and the fun becomes the way they die...or because they are vamps...the idiosyncrasies of the character expressed in the form they take when they turn.

Kind of robbed of both with his character.

 

[theskza]

John Adams on HBO sucks

 

[Dragonlordxxxxx]

Usually, I just throw out the Bat Signal for @Dragonlordxxxxx and he comes in and tells me what's what. Before I posted my response to you, after I thought better of being so assertive in territory where I was far from an authority, I actually even did some Googling on the Avengers characters and saw that there's some controversy over whether Thor is actually a God or a demigod.

In the comics, Thor and the other high Asgardians are considered gods. In the first Thor movie, it's hinted that they are demi-gods. In Thor: The Dark World, they basically reduced the Asgardians to space aliens.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a special watch for me. It's one of the first movies that made me feel like it wasn't acceptable to just watch and enjoy - I actually wanted to think more about it and figure out the mechanics. It was also the first movie I watched with my ex, so it's personally significant in that way as well.

When I was a psychology student there was a lot of hubbub about the contributions emerging fields like neurophysiology and cognitive neuroscience would bring to the discipline. The proponents were excited to have a new way of accessing the brain, teasing apart the connections, and watching it function in real time. Dissidents claimed that neuroscience might be helpful but that it wasn't likely to break new ground in the psychological sense, because it would just be tracing the underlying physiology of psychological functions that were already, for the most part, communicable. Films like ESOTSM cause me to recall the latter especially because they capture so many subtleties of memory that can come from simply paying attention and introspecting hard and noticing how your own consciousness changes through time. It's amazing some of the shit that people have become aware of that way.

Memory is eminently corruptible - recollections can become contaminated even by emotions and strong associations felt at the time of remembering. So it's noteworthy that Joel is not only being led through his old memories of Clementine as they're erased, but also dragging her into even earlier memories in order to spare his conception of her from complete deletion. Their trips through his old memories cause his character to become scrambled as he tries to exist simultaneously as his current and past self. But this is mostly just humorous; more interesting is the role Clementine comes to play as she's incorporated into each scene. In one I found especially jarring on this watch, she takes the role of a young girl who pulls kid-Joel away from the influence of some others who had just convinced him to smash a dead bird with a hammer. Her presence allows him to reflect on the shame of the moments - and maybe some of the anxiety of his life - and shows how she gave him a way out of that. Her significance in the present has influenced his understanding of his past. That's how it works.

I really love that dynamic. The way Joel experiences his own memories as they're being deleted by some fictional neuro-service makes for an interesting enough plot and perspective, but making the memory of Clementine aware of what's happening and having him converse with her takes it to the next level. I know post break-up I've spent a lot of time reflecting on old conversations, and wondering what it would be like to run through old memories of us with her, and hear her take on them, so it all hits home for me. The emotional crescendo comes when they're in the beach house at the end, in their very first memory together, resigned to the fact that they better enjoy it because soon it will all be gone, and this water comes rushing in. What a completely terrible feeling, to be watching live as you lose a huge piece of yourself, as water comes flooding in to drown your last memory of someone you loved - and in that memory you run away from her out of your own anxiety and weakness. And in the last moments you finally talk to the voice of her about why you ran away, and she's sorry for being so disdainful, and you wish you could just hang onto some piece of her and start again with her all over. God that's a tough scene.

I love how the memories just run through as they normally would and Joel has to pull himself out of the current to become active in them. I love how quick scenes repeat with slight adjustments, and how the scenery falls apart as the memories are erased. I love the commentary from the outside as well, though the rest of the characters are pretty irritating. I also love how disheveled and aimless Kirsten Dunst looks after her character finds out her own memory has been erased. That's how it should feel - like your identity has been uprooted and your personhood tampered with. There's a hidden horror there that the film doesn't even have time to get into, her little rebellion at the end notwithstanding.

Finally Joel and Clementine, reunited against all odds, each get to hear everything shitty about themselves from the mouth of the other as the tapes they recorded before having their memories erased are returned to them. Keep in mind they've just met again spontaneously, as far as each of them is aware. So now we have a shy guy meeting an impulsive girl, feeling strangely connected and familiar to her, then listening to all his deepest and most private relationship flaws in her voice as she sits beside him in the car. It's just SO FUCKED UP I can't get over it. The humour it invokes is almost a nervous one that keeps the deeper terror of the whole situation buried.

Anyway I really like this film, it brings the feels for me, and that's a little bit about why. Enjoy.

 

[edco76]

I thought Civil War was the tits! It may be my favorite Marvel movie yet.

X-Men was fucking straight up bad though. Like, really kinda hard to sit through tbh.

Midnight Special was pretty damned special though. I was kinda expecting a Spielberg type romp with a cute kid with people after him. I was not prepared for an intense as fuck, creepy, mindfuck.


Sorry, can't write too much. I'm on my phone.

 

[KOQ24]

I thought Civil War was the tits! It may be my favorite Marvel movie yet.

X-Men was fucking straight up bad though. Like, really kinda hard to sit through tbh.

Midnight Special was pretty damned special though. I was kinda expecting a Spielberg type romp with a cute kid with people after him. I was not prepared for an intense as fuck, creepy, mindfuck.


Sorry, can't write too much. I'm on my phone.

Never seen a Jeff Nichols Film?

 

[edco76]

Never seen a Jeff Nichols Film?

nope

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a special watch for me. It's one of the first movies that made me feel like it wasn't acceptable to just watch and enjoy - I actually wanted to think more about it and figure out the mechanics. It was also the first movie I watched with my ex, so it's personally significant in that way as well.

When I was a psychology student there was a lot of hubbub about the contributions emerging fields like neurophysiology and cognitive neuroscience would bring to the discipline. The proponents were excited to have a new way of accessing the brain, teasing apart the connections, and watching it function in real time. Dissidents claimed that neuroscience might be helpful but that it wasn't likely to break new ground in the psychological sense, because it would just be tracing the underlying physiology of psychological functions that were already, for the most part, communicable. Films like ESOTSM cause me to recall the latter especially because they capture so many subtleties of memory that can come from simply paying attention and introspecting hard and noticing how your own consciousness changes through time. It's amazing some of the shit that people have become aware of that way.

Memory is eminently corruptible - recollections can become contaminated even by emotions and strong associations felt at the time of remembering. So it's noteworthy that Joel is not only being led through his old memories of Clementine as they're erased, but also dragging her into even earlier memories in order to spare his conception of her from complete deletion. Their trips through his old memories cause his character to become scrambled as he tries to exist simultaneously as his current and past self. But this is mostly just humorous; more interesting is the role Clementine comes to play as she's incorporated into each scene. In one I found especially jarring on this watch, she takes the role of a young girl who pulls kid-Joel away from the influence of some others who had just convinced him to smash a dead bird with a hammer. Her presence allows him to reflect on the shame of the moments - and maybe some of the anxiety of his life - and shows how she gave him a way out of that. Her significance in the present has influenced his understanding of his past. That's how it works.

I really love that dynamic. The way Joel experiences his own memories as they're being deleted by some fictional neuro-service makes for an interesting enough plot and perspective, but making the memory of Clementine aware of what's happening and having him converse with her takes it to the next level. I know post break-up I've spent a lot of time reflecting on old conversations, and wondering what it would be like to run through old memories of us with her, and hear her take on them, so it all hits home for me. The emotional crescendo comes when they're in the beach house at the end, in their very first memory together, resigned to the fact that they better enjoy it because soon it will all be gone, and this water comes rushing in. What a completely terrible feeling, to be watching live as you lose a huge piece of yourself, as water comes flooding in to drown your last memory of someone you loved - and in that memory you run away from her out of your own anxiety and weakness. And in the last moments you finally talk to the voice of her about why you ran away, and she's sorry for being so disdainful, and you wish you could just hang onto some piece of her and start again with her all over. God that's a tough scene.

I love how the memories just run through as they normally would and Joel has to pull himself out of the current to become active in them. I love how quick scenes repeat with slight adjustments, and how the scenery falls apart as the memories are erased. I love the commentary from the outside as well, though the rest of the characters are pretty irritating. I also love how disheveled and aimless Kirsten Dunst looks after her character finds out her own memory has been erased. That's how it should feel - like your identity has been uprooted and your personhood tampered with. There's a hidden horror there that the film doesn't even have time to get into, her little rebellion at the end notwithstanding.

Finally Joel and Clementine, reunited against all odds, each get to hear everything shitty about themselves from the mouth of the other as the tapes they recorded before having their memories erased are returned to them. Keep in mind they've just met again spontaneously, as far as each of them is aware. So now we have a shy guy meeting an impulsive girl, feeling strangely connected and familiar to her, then listening to all his deepest and most private relationship flaws in her voice as she sits beside him in the car. It's just SO FUCKED UP I can't get over it. The humour it invokes is almost a nervous one that keeps the deeper terror of the whole situation buried.

Anyway I really like this film, it brings the feels for me, and that's a little bit about why. Enjoy.

Always thought that movie was really awesome. I forget how much i like it until I'm reminded of it.

I loved how they threw you into the procedure without you realizing it and you slowly become aware of what's going on...and totally not in a confusing or hard-to-do way.

That was one of my favorite things about Inception - which i think did an even more clever thing with it. You go through all the pre-mission stuff very comfortably until the end when Mal is like "you really sure that wasn't a dream too?" You think back and you are finally tuned into that possibility...and I'm actually taken for that ride every time i watch it.

 

[daken7]

Just watched movie 43


I have no words to articulate my thoughts with which to accurately describe what I just put my poor old brain through....

 

[JSN]

I don't know if I was touched or offended when they recycled Eternal Sunshine... into a True Blood storyline. It was like masturbation- it felt good but really dirty and shameful at the same time.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Glad you liked this one. And, just as with your take on Gone Girl, I like the way you interpreted the film. However, I'm surprised you didn't mention that extraordinary scene where he visits the guy in jail. That's one of the most hauntingly brilliant sequences in a movie I've seen in recent memory. Any movie, any subject matter, that's just a flawless sequence. And when you tie it in with everything you're talking about with how/where religion fits, whether individually or institutionally, in contemporary society, even in my atheism I want to hug that mini-Hannibal and tell him God will make it all better

I did see your comments about that, and honestly it's not that I didn't respect the scene (although I can't really evaluate it among other similar scenes in other films), it's that given all the interesting conflicts throughout the film the priest vs. psychopath one was a little too easy for me. Part of what made me (pleasantly) uncomfortable about the film in general was that each conflicting ideology had to manifest between real, complex citizens of a small town, which complicated any simple judgement. Throwing a psychopath in there made me a roll my eyes a little, though I did appreciate the reactions from the other characters after Fr. James had met with him.

That scene just wasn't going to win my favour among all the other great ones regardless of how well it was done. Maybe I've just watched Hannibal too many times to appreciate that kind of back-and-forth anywhere else .

Always thought that movie was really awesome. I forget how much i like it until I'm reminded of it.

I loved how they threw you into the procedure without you realizing it and you slowly become aware of what's going on...and totally not in a confusing or hard-to-do way.

That was one of my favorite things about Inception - which i think did an even more clever thing with it. You go through all the pre-mission stuff very comfortably until the end when Mal is like "you really sure that wasn't a dream too?" You think back and you are finally tuned into that possibility...and I'm actually taken for that ride every time i watch it.

Agreed. Two weird alterations happen in the first 22-or so minutes - first we get the (second) meeting of Joel and Clementine, then as the opening credits run we get thrown back to Joel pre-memory wipe, then we transition to Joel as the procedure is being done. But stunningly it all runs very smoothly - the only latent discomfort it really triggers involves placing blue-hair Clementine in the timeline once you get to know her through the memories - during which her hair is always changing colour anyway. It all comes together later in the film when the memories go back to the beach in the beginning and you realize they're recapitulating in the post-procedure timeline, which is adorable.

Being John Malkovich was even more strange but less captivating for me. Malkovich himself was a riot, with Gere and Diaz contributing in understated roles alongside him, but other than the meta-level call out in the beginning I didn't find the film really did much but play around with its philosophical subject matter. It was highly entertaining for sure, despite being the brand of magical realism that irks me (where the explanation for the magic is avoided rather than assumed as part of the background) but it seemed to me more goofy than thoughtful. I'm going to take up Synecdoche, New York - written and this time directed by Kaufman who wrote Eternal Sunshine and Malkovich - sometime later this year, and I expect it to be even weirder.

Citizenfour was also a bit of a let-down. It was very cool to see Snowden's reveal happening in real-time, and the director clearly wanted to add little to the raw events which is an approach I can appreciate, but I didn't feel like I learned any more than I did watching Snowden on John Oliver a while back. I was impressed with how calm and articulate he was throughout - and maybe I've spent too much in the War Room, but isn't that a little weird? Lol. I found myself asking who the hell Greenwald was to be handling such sensitive information on his own as one man (a journalist), but at the end I had to be impressed with what he was able to produce and manage in so little time. The whole event is just a mindfuck for me, and I guessed I looked to the doc for a little more clarity (perhaps unfairly) and didn't find it.

I didn't post my thoughts on Mad Max (1979) or Garden State last week after I watched them and not much is coming to me now, but if anyone else wants to discuss them I'd be down go to back to them for review.

I'm now at 30/100 films watched for the year and picking up the pace, and also getting more comfortable doing 2+ hours in one sitting. Shit's gonna get cray in December.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Agreed. Two weird alterations happen in the first 22-or so minutes - first we get the (second) meeting of Joel and Clementine, then as the opening credits run we get thrown back to Joel pre-memory wipe, then we transition to Joel as the procedure is being done. But stunningly it all runs very smoothly - the only latent discomfort it really triggers involves placing blue-hair Clementine in the timeline once you get to know her through the memories - during which her hair is always changing colour anyway. It all comes together later in the film when the memories go back to the beach in the beginning and you realize they're recapitulating in the post-procedure timeline, which is adorable.

Do you feel like the technology is the antagonist or is it the positive memories?

The movie definitely plays like having the procedure is a mistake, but Joel fights for the memories that in reality led him to a place of misery. It's interesting how heavily the positive memories register and influence Joel and how the negative ones are just simply recalled in his desperate attempt to preserve Clementine.

Joel's quest inside his mind has a distinctly romantic feel, but it is the endeavor of an emotionally unhealthy, destructive person. And they do the right thing at the end by not giving it another go.

Being John Malkovich was even more strange but less captivating for me. Malkovich himself was a riot, with Gere and Diaz contributing in understated roles alongside him, but other than the meta-level call out in the beginning I didn't find the film really did much but play around with its philosophical subject matter. It was highly entertaining for sure, despite being the brand of magical realism that irks me (where the explanation for the magic is avoided rather than assumed as part of the background) but it seemed to me more goofy than thoughtful. I'm going to take up Synecdoche, New York - written and this time directed by Kaufman who wrote Eternal Sunshine and Malkovich - sometime later this year, and I expect it to be even weirder.

Ever see The Science of Sleep? I remember liking it a lot, but i haven't seen it since...jeez i dunno...i think the last time i talked about it was when i first found this thread.