Movies Serious Movie Discussion

As a HUGE fan of his, I have to ask: What had you seen of his before Lonely Are the Brave and The Vikings that contributed to your low(er) opinion?

In any event, if you're coming around on him, then yes, definitely check out Champion and The Bad and the Beautiful. I'd also recommend Gunfight at the OK Corral, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, and Seven Days in May. And then, a personal favorite of mine, both for the movie (the definition of a hidden gem with an absurdly amazing cast) and for Douglas' performance (his final film before his stroke), is Greedy :D



Now that I think of it I love both Gunfight at OK Corral and Paths of Glory and Douglas is superb in the latter. I think my beef with him comes from Spartacus. That movie is such a drag and I have the impression that it's Douglas' fault. He did great job basically basically producing The Vikings and taking the bad guy role (to lure Curtis in), but turned it as likable badass who slayed and died for Odin. Spartacus feels like a pompous ego show in comparison.

Seven Days in May has been on my radar for ages because Lancaster is one of my all time favorites too. I'll watch it asap as it seems to be out as bluray.

Got nothing on Seagal, but yeah, it's a good one. That was Douglas' favorite of his own movies. Underrated film and performance.
I think it's easily equal to the bar brawl in Out for Justice. The out-of-the-blue hostile one-armed man and the jovial and "helpful" Mexican crowd just makes the scene a masterpiece. Great combination of tension and humor.
 
Now that I think of it I love both Gunfight at OK Corral and Paths of Glory and Douglas is superb in the latter.

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I knew it was impossible for someone to have seen performances of his and not be impressed :D

I think my beef with him comes from Spartacus. That movie is such a drag and I have the impression that it's Douglas' fault [...] Spartacus feels like a pompous ego show in comparison.

Usually, when actors get too big for their britches, the result is let's say less-than-stellar (e.g. Brando's One Eyed Jacks and McQueen's Le Mans). In Douglas' case, he was definitely overstepping on Spartacus and I have a hard time believing that him taking the reins from Kubrick improved the film. Nevertheless, Spartacus is still a fantastic movie IMO and I love Douglas in it.

Seven Days in May has been on my radar for ages because Lancaster is one of my all time favorites too. I'll watch it asap as it seems to be out as bluray.

If you also like Lancaster, then you should check out all of their collaborations. You know that they were friends in real life and made half a dozen movies together, right? Their first collaboration I Walk Alone (the fourth film that either man had appeared in) is a particularly good film noir as well as a favorite of Scorsese's.

Also, because I find it hilarious:



I think it's easily equal to the bar brawl in Out for Justice.

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Every Seagal bar scene, whether it's from Above the Law, Out for Justice, On Deadly Ground, Fire Down Below, or Exit Wounds, is better than any other bar scene from any other movie, Lonely Are the Brave included.

Not saying the scene in Lonely Are the Brave isn't awesome, thanks mainly to Douglas' performance before the fight itself, but it's not on the Sensei's level.
 
Usually, when actors get too big for their britches, the result is let's say less-than-stellar (e.g. Brando's One Eyed Jacks and McQueen's Le Mans). In Douglas' case, he was definitely overstepping on Spartacus and I have a hard time believing that him taking the reins from Kubrick improved the film. Nevertheless, Spartacus is still a fantastic movie IMO and I love Douglas in it.
True. Expectations for Kubrick movie are on another level, so even a very good movie could seem disappointing for some.

If you also like Lancaster, then you should check out all of their collaborations. You know that they were friends in real life and made half a dozen movies together, right? Their first collaboration I Walk Alone (the fourth film that either man had appeared in) is a particularly good film noir as well as a favorite of Scorsese's.
I didn't! I'm not that much into film noir, but I'll give I Walk Alone a try if I run into it.

Also, because I find it hilarious:


Just saw this two days ago from Netflix. :D

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Every Seagal bar scene, whether it's from Above the Law, Out for Justice, On Deadly Ground, Fire Down Below, or Exit Wounds, is better than any other bar scene from any other movie, Lonely Are the Brave included
I don’t approve of this bar fight scene dogma, but I think it’s a hard genre to get right and Seagal has unique talent for it.

Not saying the scene in Lonely Are the Brave isn't awesome, thanks mainly to Douglas' performance before the fight itself, but it's not on the Sensei's level.
It’s not just about Douglas’ performance. Everything is just perfection. The set up, the pacing and the anticipation, the one-armed man’s dirty tricks (which could almost be out of an early Yuen Woo Ping -movie) with fine balance of sadistic violence and humour, the character built-up involved, crowd participation...
 
So, 23 pages in and I'm not reading all that to catch up.

I'm a huge film aficionado, and have been for decades. Ask me about how I became so into film sometime, it's an interesting (and TRUE!) story.

Just throwing somethings out there that are fresh in my mind:

Ladybird is fantastic, for those of you who have not yet seen it. No action, no plot twists, no overt humor, no scares, no dramatic tension. It is a remarkable look at the powerful undercurrents of the transition from child-to-adult, the reactions of both parents and children, and what is really happening. The director and writers do an excellent job of letting you recognize what is happening without spelling out every last detail in capital letters (i.e. idiots won't understand what is happening). If you are over 30 and/or have children, it's worth at least one watch.

Roller Town is an absolutely brilliant comedy that you currently can NOT purchase in ANY format. It is available on Amazon PRIME Video for a limited time. Try to watch it before it disappears. I generally hate comedies, but I laughed my a$$ off through-out this film. Will Ferrell (of SNL) actually appears in this film based solely on the quality of the material.


Best Nolan Film: The Prestige
It was early, and from speaking with people I don't think most of them really understood the film. It really HAS to be seen at least twice to understand.

The Babadook is an amazing horror/metaphor film for those of you who have raised toddlers.

Other favorite films that frequently don't get quite the place in film discussion they deserve include:
Sunset Blvd., The Orphanage, Pirates of Silicon Valley, Touch of Evil, Moonrise Kingdom, Punch-drunk Love, Amadeus, The Last Emperor, Destiny, and many more.

Talk to me! I'm certain I'll have a lot to write :)
 
So, 23 pages in and I'm not reading all that to catch up.

I'm a huge film aficionado, and have been for decades. Ask me about how I became so into film sometime, it's an interesting (and TRUE!) story.

Just throwing somethings out there that are fresh in my mind:

Ladybird is fantastic, for those of you who have not yet seen it. No action, no plot twists, no overt humor, no scares, no dramatic tension. It is a remarkable look at the powerful undercurrents of the transition from child-to-adult, the reactions of both parents and children, and what is really happening. The director and writers do an excellent job of letting you recognize what is happening without spelling out every last detail in capital letters (i.e. idiots won't understand what is happening). If you are over 30 and/or have children, it's worth at least one watch.

Roller Town is an absolutely brilliant comedy that you currently can NOT purchase in ANY format. It is available on Amazon PRIME Video for a limited time. Try to watch it before it disappears. I generally hate comedies, but I laughed my a$$ off through-out this film. Will Ferrell (of SNL) actually appears in this film based solely on the quality of the material.


Best Nolan Film: The Prestige
It was early, and from speaking with people I don't think most of them really understood the film. It really HAS to be seen at least twice to understand.

The Babadook is an amazing horror/metaphor film for those of you who have raised toddlers.

Other favorite films that frequently don't get quite the place in film discussion they deserve include:
Sunset Blvd., The Orphanage, Pirates of Silicon Valley, Touch of Evil, Moonrise Kingdom, Punch-drunk Love, Amadeus, The Last Emperor, Destiny, and many more.

Talk to me! I'm certain I'll have a lot to write :)


The re-watchability of The Prestige is what always stood out to me above and beyond Nolan's other movies. Even with The Dark Knight, which I have tied with The Prestige as my favorite Nolan film, it loses something if you watch it and then give it another viewing too quickly. The Prestige is a rare film where even if I watched the DVD yesterday, if I was flipping channels and saw it on cable today (and it's on a lot), I would absolutely watch it.

For those who haven't seen it, I'm not going to spoiler tag this because we're over ten years past the release lol, but I will warn about spoilers.


To me, it's a film that just delivers in every aspect. Nolan's visual style, the performances of Bale, Jackman, Caine, as well as the supporting cast, the nonlinear narrative, the re-creation of the stage shows of the period. What The Prestige also does exceedingly well, in my opinion, is it gradually shifts the likability of one of the main characters. Angier starts out as the obvious sympathetic character to root her- he's a likable, affable guy while Borden is sullen and cold. He experiences something deeply traumatic in watching his wife die while he is helpless to save her, while Borden appears to have been instrumental in her death and does not take ownership of that fact. Yet as the film progresses and Angier's life becomes consumed with revenge and one-upmanship rather than just with his own success, he becomes an unlikable character as well. The film does this subtly and incrementally so that when Angier first steals the Transported Man, you're still on board with him, but by the point he sends Johanson in as a spy, it's becoming increasingly difficult to empathize with him. That moment where ScarJo says, "This won't bring your wife back," and Angier quickly replies "I don't care about my wife, I care about his secret," really highlights what the guy has sunk to.

Additionally, after the big reveal at the end, you can definitely go back and watch the way that Bale plays the difference in the Borden twins. I really always dug the notion that the one brother had a conscience where the other seemed far more cavalier about what happened to Angier's wife. Intriguingly, the more sympathetic brother was not even the one who switched up the knot on Piper Perabo, thus leading to her death, yet he is the one who shows up at the funeral and clearly wants to convey a sense of remorse to Angier.

What appears initially to be Borden being dodgy about whether or not he tied the knot the wrong way is, of course, ultimately just a matter-of-fact point about the character. He doesn't know because he personally wasn't there and didn't do it. And then you have way in which the living a double life comes to tear the two Bordens apart. They are sacrificing for their art but the sacrifice ruins lives. Most notably, it out right kills poor Rebecca Hall. That's another scene that is intense and well-acted but becomes even better when you know the circumstances of how Bale was pulling off his signature trick.

The less-of-an-asshole brother, the one who married Sarah and is the father of their child, approaches the other brother as Fallon and expresses his difficulty in dealing with Sarah's anger and suspicions. He seems to be at the end of his rope and basically entreats the brother for help in quelling her emotions. The brother, then, instead engages in a lengthy, bitter argument with Sarah. And rather than attempt to do what his brother desperately asked him to do in calming the situation, he instead flatly and unemotionally informs her that he doesn't love her (a truth of course that was emphasized throughout the film when Sarah points out that on certain days she can tell Borden means it and on other days she knows he doesn't). But the emphatic and cold way he expresses this to her in the midst of that fight prompts her to take her life.

It is a rough scene to watch and it makes even more of an impact when you know that element.
 
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Got around to watching Blade Runner 2049 for the first time since a couple of viewings on cinema release.

Can't say my opinion changed THAT much, strangely I had less of an issue with the soundtrack in a home setting, perhaps because the blaring noises were less obtrusive without cinema ultrabass.

By its own standards an excellent film but compared to the original(which would probably be in my top 5 films) I did think that it was a little more plot heavy, not quite as interesting visually(falling back to a smaller number of visual cues) and a little messy. I still get the feeling I'm watching two different scripts merged together, a Blade Runner sequel in the Deckard plot and an independent film in the K/Joi plot. Ford definitely gives one of his best performances in recent years and its obviously very nice to look at but ultimately I think sticking with the K plot would have been more successful(and cheaper) as the sole focus. It does I think do a very good job building up both his position with the LAPD and his relationship with Joi only to write them off rather too quickly and simply for me.
 
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I decided to make this a movie marathon weekend. Today I'm going to do a double-header with Braveheart and The Patriot. I haven't seen either in FOREVER but I noticed The Patriot on Netflix and decided that'd be a fun double-header. And yesterday I watched a bunch of shit.

First, I watched that new movie Annihilation from the Ex Machina guy. Big surprise: It stunk. Annihilation was a little better than Ex Machina on the strength of Natalie Portman's acting, but they're both so lame and lack both intelligence and imagination. I could practically see the guy writing the script and patting himself on the back for what his limited imagination thinks qualifies as "deep." And the special effects in Annihilation were embarrassingly bad. It looked like a movie made for the Sci-Fi Channel :oops:

Then I rewatched Cloverfield (still a fucking amazing movie, so intense even on what was like my seventh viewing) in order to finally be able to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane (not very good and honestly should've just been made as its own movie the way it was written; the Cloverfield tie-in makes zero sense and doesn't make the movie any better) and The Cloverfield Paradox (shitty movie that I ended up fast-forwarding through most of with an even more retarded attempt at a tie-in). The window on that franchise closed a long time ago. They need to just call it a day and stop tarnishing the memory of Cloverfield.

Still in a sci-fi mode, I then rewatched a movie I only saw once way back in the day in an undergrad sci-fi film class called Colossus: The Forbin Project. I loved it when I first saw it and it stuck with me to where I actually remembered virtually the whole movie but I've wanted to rewatch it for a while. It's hands down the most underrated sci-fi movie ever made and was so ahead of its time (it's Skynet before Skynet, Ultron before Ultron, etc.).

Further probing Netflix offerings, I watched that new movie Green Room that I'd heard a lot of hype about. So not worth the hype. It was a solid enough little thriller, but the cast sucked (except Patrick Stewart of course) and the ending was lame.

Lastly, for sheer nostalgia, I watched the new Power Rangers movie. I knew that nostalgia alone would carry me through it no matter how awful it was, but I was surprised that it actually didn't suck. They went in the complete opposite direction from the goody two shoes group to a ragtag Breakfast Club of screw-ups, but I liked the dynamic between the kids and I thought Elizabeth Banks did a superb job as Rita. And, of course, I loved the Amy Jo Johnson/Jason David Frank cameo. I know these will never be MCU-caliber, but I actually kind of hope they make more Power Rangers movies :D
 
Had you seen it screened on film before? A friend of mine and I saw it in 70mm in Chicago a little while back and I'm wondering if the re-release is substantially different. Granted, I'm a Blu-ray man myself, so I don't get hard at the thought of celluloid like a lot of movie geeks, but since it's Kubrick, I'm curious about shit I wouldn't normally care about.

Nope, it was my first time seeing it on the big screen. All I can say it looked amazing.
 
I decided to make this a movie marathon weekend. Today I'm going to do a double-header with Braveheart and The Patriot. I haven't seen either in FOREVER but I noticed The Patriot on Netflix and decided that'd be a fun double-header. And yesterday I watched a bunch of shit.

First, I watched that new movie Annihilation from the Ex Machina guy. Big surprise: It stunk. Annihilation was a little better than Ex Machina on the strength of Natalie Portman's acting, but they're both so lame and lack both intelligence and imagination. I could practically see the guy writing the script and patting himself on the back for what his limited imagination thinks qualifies as "deep." And the special effects in Annihilation were embarrassingly bad. It looked like a movie made for the Sci-Fi Channel :oops:

Then I rewatched Cloverfield (still a fucking amazing movie, so intense even on what was like my seventh viewing) in order to finally be able to watch 10 Cloverfield Lane (not very good and honestly should've just been made as its own movie the way it was written; the Cloverfield tie-in makes zero sense and doesn't make the movie any better) and The Cloverfield Paradox (shitty movie that I ended up fast-forwarding through most of with an even more retarded attempt at a tie-in). The window on that franchise closed a long time ago. They need to just call it a day and stop tarnishing the memory of Cloverfield.

Still in a sci-fi mode, I then rewatched a movie I only saw once way back in the day in an undergrad sci-fi film class called Colossus: The Forbin Project. I loved it when I first saw it and it stuck with me to where I actually remembered virtually the whole movie but I've wanted to rewatch it for a while. It's hands down the most underrated sci-fi movie ever made and was so ahead of its time (it's Skynet before Skynet, Ultron before Ultron, etc.).

Further probing Netflix offerings, I watched that new movie Green Room that I'd heard a lot of hype about. So not worth the hype. It was a solid enough little thriller, but the cast sucked (except Patrick Stewart of course) and the ending was lame.

Lastly, for sheer nostalgia, I watched the new Power Rangers movie. I knew that nostalgia alone would carry me through it no matter how awful it was, but I was surprised that it actually didn't suck. They went in the complete opposite direction from the goody two shoes group to a ragtag Breakfast Club of screw-ups, but I liked the dynamic between the kids and I thought Elizabeth Banks did a superb job as Rita. And, of course, I loved the Amy Jo Johnson/Jason David Frank cameo. I know these will never be MCU-caliber, but I actually kind of hope they make more Power Rangers movies :D


I think 10 Cloverfield Lane was elevated tremendously by Goodman. The guy is one of my favorite actors. That was a very creepy performance. I also like Winstead as well.

Agree that the "tie-in" was ludicrous. It really was its own self-contained horror/survivalist film and then in the last ten minutes it tries to become something else and it really doesn't fit the initial tone of the movie.

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

I agree that the original was awesome though.
 
First, I watched that new movie Annihilation from the Ex Machina guy. Big surprise: It stunk. Annihilation was a little better than Ex Machina on the strength of Natalie Portman's acting, but they're both so lame and lack both intelligence and imagination. I could practically see the guy writing the script and patting himself on the back for what his limited imagination thinks qualifies as "deep." And the special effects in Annihilation were embarrassingly bad. It looked like a movie made for the Sci-Fi Channel :oops:

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

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

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

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

I think this was probably pushing more against Garlands abilities than Ex Machina which was obviously more limited and conventional in scope, I mean when your trying to go up against Tarkovsky comparisons will be harsh.

I thought Annihilation was good.

That screambear was some freaky shit.
 
I thought Annihilation was good.

That screambear was some freaky shit.

There was certainly enough there to make for a decent viewing for me and without the expectation from Ex Machina I'd probably be more positive.

As I said before this did actually feel like a film that would have benefited a bit from Garlands old master Danny Boyle at the helm. I mean I'm not sure the latter would be able to come up with a film like Ex Machina but really for me this material seemed much more suited for straight horror with Portman and co shitting themselves to attacks of mutant beasts ala 28 Days Latter rather than some attempt by Garland to come up with his own Stalker.
 
The Cloverfield Paradox (shitty movie that I ended up fast-forwarding through most of with an even more retarded attempt at a tie-in).

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

The window on that franchise closed a long time ago.

Seems like just a way to earn nerd-creed to me. Can you connect the dots, audience!? Oh, look how smart we are for connecting everything. Our franchise is deep and creative, ja!?

Still in a sci-fi mode, I then rewatched a movie I only saw once way back in the day in an undergrad sci-fi film class called Colossus: The Forbin Project. I loved it when I first saw it and it stuck with me to where I actually remembered virtually the whole movie but I've wanted to rewatch it for a while. It's hands down the most underrated sci-fi movie ever made and was so ahead of its time (it's Skynet before Skynet, Ultron before Ultron, etc.).

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

It was a solid enough little thriller,

I sort of liked the very stark, brutal sense of violence in that film. Uncomfortable.



I watched Sand Pebbles and The Getaway. Never got around to watching Angel Heart.


I really enjoyed The Getaway but struggle to see why it would be some sort of ultimate Peckinpah/McQueen achievement. It's a taut, terse thriller. It had a lot of those Peckinpah quirks that give his movies that little extra when it comes to effectiveness. That really evocative editing, constantly shifting between disparate elements, allowing sounds to linger from one scene to another, the constant presence of children and civilians in shoots-out so to accentuate the "grit" (for lack of a better term) in the situation. That ending shootout in the hotel just shows that Peckinpah was a king of such scenes.

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

The McQueen/MacGraw relationship was obviously the backbone of the film.

Oh, it does. That gif just has one of the slaps. I said "slap whooping" because that's what that scene is. McQueen slaps the shit out of her. And it's such a perfect Peckinpah scene because the brutality is double-edged inasmuch as his anger is directed at himself, as he put her in the position to do what it is that he considers slap-worthy, yet he's taking out his anger on her...and taking out his anger on her despite knowing that he's really mad at himself just makes him madder. It's that beautiful brutality that only Peckinpah can pull off, though it must be said that Ali MacGraw helps a lot as she does a fantastic job as that character.

Yeah I... just don't see that level of self-awareness in his eyes man. He's angry at her for diddling the Head Honcho -- having done so to get him out of jail, since he told her to get him out through any means necessary. He just didn't expect that "any means" would entail hanky panky.

It seems more like he's angry that his cunning scheme unexpectedly wounded his ego. He ain't angry at himself for putting her in that situation, he's angry that the situation birthed such an unexpected humiliation. It's not so much an internalization of his failure towards her -- as it is frustration and vexation with the unexpected way things turned out.

In that scene near the end, when they are at the junkyard (great character scene by the way), MacGraw tells him "we've come a lot of miles but we're not close to anything." To me, it reads more like McQueen realizing how unfairly cold and unloving he has been to her. Through the narrative, she's practically fawning over him, while he's emotionally distant and introverted, due to how spiritually worn down he has become in jail (even before he realized that she fucked the Head Honcho). After that scene, he is loving and intimate with her.



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

*This is really one of those movies with a thorough sense of time-and-place. Gunboat China with all its historical peculiarities. Really loved it.

*This is also one of those movies that uses sound, silence, and ambient noise expertly to conjure atmosphere. Looking through his IMDB page, I realized that the director, Robert Wise, was one of the early go-to boys for Val Lewton. I think that imprint may have stuck with him.

*The action manages to be jarring, realistic and hard-hitting -- while also being completely unglamorous. Really impressive. And Wise don't shy away from presenting a socially complicated situation, with even McQueen's crewmates wanting to see him dead to save their own hides.

Anyways, when I had initially finished Sand Pebbles, I felt oddly on the fence about it. Sort of like something didn't jive, and that I should like it more than I did. The conflict laid with the two parts of the movie. The first one centers on McQueen and Mako, and their budding mentorship. In a lot of ways, the Sand Pebbles ship mirrors the social situation in China. You have the Westerners living grand and comfortable lives, the coolers doing the menial work and getting the short end of the stick, and a solid wall of estrangement between these two casts in society. McQueen and Lo Pan's friendship inevitable cause them to bump up against that cast society. However, that societal aspect sort of wanes in the second half, when the story focuses more on McQueen and his love interest. The transition jarred me, somehow, like if we jumped from one kind of a story into another kind of a story, though I still liked it.

However, as I mulled over the movie in my mind, it dawned on me what a seamless character arc this movie presented. McQueen's character is not at all as cool or mature as his usual roles are, Hollman is more in the "school-boy" stage of his life as the movie commenced. He begins as this guy who just wants to be left alone with his engine, allowing the navy to take care of everything else. Hence his emotional distance from Candice Bergen in the first half. However, his mentorship with Mako lulls him out of his shell. He is a loner -- but he finally manages to bond with another loner, through their work on the engine. Then Mako dies. The next time he meets Candice, he tells her that "the engine doesn't matter as much anymore".

The McQueen at the beginning of the film would never have jeopardized his standing with the navy or his engine. His relationship with Lo Pan changed that. He grew emotionally, learned the fulfillment of bonding with another human being. So when he meets Candice again, he is much more able to act on his budding romantic emotions. He knows that his job just isn't everything in his life anymore -- even though he obviously still highly values it, and can't just walk away from it without a lot of existential anxiety since it's such a big part of him. His character arc is the spinal tissue that connects the different parts of the film.

So yeah, Sand Pebbles was one of those movies that I initially held at arms-length, but found more cohesive and fulfilling the more I thought of it.

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



Anyways, what else did I watch?

Wind River I really wanted to like but it just had some serious problems. It's one of those movies were everyone garishly states the themes of the movie outright -- instead of just allowing the situation presented to speak for itself. And the bad guys plans were just head-scratching (what excactly were they trying to accomplish by killing an FBI agent, it'll just bring even more heat on them). Killing Them Softly sort of did the same thing, but much more successfully since it proposed the themes as conflict between characters and a result of the current socio-cultural climate of the USA. The Lunchbox brought a lot of heartfelt, everyday pathos. Mr Holmes was good in that it used the wizened Sherlock Holmes character to tell a story more about the importance of common humanism rather than Holmes superhuman detective skills. Mannequin in Red was a striking proto-Mario Bava picture. No idea we made films as good as that in Sweden. The Master is probably one of the best movies of the decade. And lastly, I watched Spitfire with Katherine Hepburn, one of the movies that she purportedly campaigned hard for and made sure she earned her reputation as box-office poison in the pre-Philidelphia Story days. It was thoroughly mediocre.
 
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That ended up in the so bad it's funny category for me, nowhere near as funny as The Snowman, but still funny enough.



Seems like just a way to earn nerd-creed to me. Can you connect the dots, audience!? Oh, look how smart we are for connecting everything. Our franchise is deep and creative, ja!?



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



I sort of liked the very stark, brutal sense of violence in that film. Uncomfortable.



I watched Sand Pebbles and The Getaway. Never got around to watching Angel Heart.


I really enjoyed The Getaway but struggle to see why it would be some sort of ultimate Peckinpah/McQueen achievement. It's a taut, terse thriller. It had a lot of those Peckinpah quirks that give his movies that little extra when it comes to effectiveness. That really evocative editing, constantly shifting between disparate elements, allowing sounds to linger from one scene to another, the constant presence of children and civilians in shoots-out so to accentuate the "grit" (for lack of a better term) in the situation. That ending shootout in the hotel just shows that Peckinpah was a king of such scenes.

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

The McQueen/MacGraw relationship was obviously the backbone of the film.



Yeah I... just don't see that level of self-awareness in his eyes man. He's angry at her for diddling the Head Honcho -- having done so to get him out of jail, since he told her to get him out through any means necessary. He just didn't expect that "any means" would entail hanky panky.

It seems more like he's angry that his cunning scheme unexpectedly wounded his ego. He ain't angry at himself for putting her in that situation, he's angry that the situation birthed such an unexpected humiliation. It's not so much an internalization of his failure towards her -- as it is frustration and vexation with the unexpected way things turned out.

In that scene near the end, when they are at the junkyard (great character scene by the way), MacGraw tells him "we've come a lot of miles but we're not close to anything." To me, it reads more like McQueen realizing how unfairly cold and unloving he has been to her. Through the narrative, she's practically fawning over him, while he's emotionally distant and introverted, due to how spiritually worn down he has become in jail (even before he realized that she fucked the Head Honcho). After that scene, he is loving and intimate with her.



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

*This is really one of those movies with a thorough sense of time-and-place. Gunboat China with all its historical peculiarities. Really loved it.

*This is also one of those movies that uses sound, silence, and ambient noise expertly to conjure atmosphere. Looking through his IMDB page, I realized that the director, Robert Wise, was one of the early go-to boys for Val Lewton. I think that imprint may have stuck with him.

*The action manages to be jarring, realistic and hard-hitting -- while also being completely unglamorous. Really impressive. And Wise don't shy away from presenting a socially complicated situation, with even McQueen's crewmates wanting to see him dead to save their own hides.

Anyways, when I had initially finished Sand Pebbles, I felt oddly on the fence about it. Sort of like something didn't jive, and that I should like it more than I did. The conflict laid with the two parts of the movie. The first one centers on McQueen and Mako, and their budding mentorship. In a lot of ways, the Sand Pebbles ship mirrors the social situation in China. You have the Westerners living grand and comfortable lives, the coolers doing the menial work and getting the short end of the stick, and a solid wall of estrangement between these two casts in society. McQueen and Lo Pan's friendship inevitable cause them to bump up against that cast society. However, that societal aspect sort of wanes in the second half, when the story focuses more on McQueen and his love interest. The transition jarred me, somehow, like if we jumped from one kind of a story into another kind of a story, though I still liked it.

However, as I mulled over the movie in my mind, it dawned on me what a seamless character arc this movie presented. McQueen's character is not at all as cool or mature as his usual roles are, Hollman is more in the "school-boy" stage of his life as the movie commenced. He begins as this guy who just wants to be left alone with his engine, allowing the navy to take care of everything else. Hence his emotional distance from Candice Bergen in the first half. However, his mentorship with Mako lulls him out of his shell. He is a loner -- but he finally manages to bond with another loner, through their work on the engine. Then Mako dies. The next time he meets Candice, he tells her that "the engine doesn't matter as much anymore".

The McQueen at the beginning of the film would never have jeopardized his standing with the navy or his engine. His relationship with Lo Pan changed that. He grew emotionally, learned the fulfillment of bonding with another human being. So when he meets Candice again, he is much more able to act on his budding romantic emotions. He knows that his job just isn't everything in his life anymore -- even though he obviously still highly values it, and can't just walk away from it without a lot of existential anxiety since it's such a big part of him. His character arc is the spinal tissue that connects the different parts of the film.

So yeah, Sand Pebbles was one of those movies that I initially held at arms-length, but found more cohesive and fulfilling the more I thought of it.

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



Anyways, what else did I watch?

Wind River I really wanted to like but it just had some serious problems. It's one of those movies were everyone garishly states the themes of the movie outright -- instead of just allowing the situation presented to speak for itself. And the bad guys plans were just head-scratching (what excactly were they trying to accomplish by killing an FBI agent, it'll just bring even more heat on them). Killing Them Softly sort of did the same thing, but much more successfully since it proposed the themes as conflict between characters and a result of the current socio-cultural climate of the USA. The Lunchbox brought a lot of heartfelt, everyday pathos. Mr Holmes was good in that it used the wizened Sherlock Holmes character to tell a story more about the importance of common humanism rather than Holmes superhuman detective skills. Mannequin in Red was a striking proto-Mario Bava picture. No idea we made films as good as that in Sweden. The Master is probably one of the best movies of the decade. And lastly, I watched Spitfire with Katherine Hepburn, one of the movies that she purportedly campaigned hard for and made sure she earned her reputation as box-office poison in the pre-Philidelphia Story days. It was thoroughly mediocre.

The Master was not one of my favorite PTA movies, but I think it's probably one of the best acted films of the 2000s thus far. Amy Adams is consistently good in everything, but the real captivating performances were from Hoffman and Phoenix. It was just something else. There are two scenes from that film I can watch over and over again. The first is when the late actor from Silicon Valley on HBO confronts PSH about The Cause and Hoffman goes from calm and collected to increasingly defensive and unhinged.

The other is the processing scene where Phoenix's Freddy goes through the Master's interview protocol.



An acting tour de force, really.
 
The Master was not one of my favorite PTA movies

The only Paul Tommy Anderson films I've seen are Boogie Nights, Blood and Punch-Drunk. Master is my favorite among those.

but I think it's probably one of the best acted films of the 2000s thus far.

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but the real captivating performances were from Hoffman and Phoenix

I can't find a gif good enough to communicate my agreement with this statement.

The first is when the late actor from Silicon Valley on HBO confronts PSH about The Cause and Hoffman goes from calm and collected to increasingly defensive and unhinged.

So true. It's so seamless. It changes your whole assessment of the character in one smooth go. It feels so natural. Dammit, ufcfan! I've already used the bloody Jeremiah Johnson nod gif one time! Did you conjure a whole blasted post just so to try and make me spam that gif repeatedly over and over again!? Admit it, you did! Well it won't work I tell ya!

There are two scenes from that film I can watch over and over again

I would add the final meeting between them to that list. With Hoffman emotionally trying to rope Phoenix back into the Cause, using his warped world-view's logic to try and compel him to do so. While Phoenix shows a new inner strength in his character growth, a new certainty in where he stands in life, no longer so emotionally damaged and searching for any kind of companionship as when they first meet. Like always in this movie, the performances are just so seamless.

An acting tour de force, really.

Ah fuck it...

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Havent seen Jurassic World yet, but I kind of loved Fallen Kindom and it's the best since the first. The action was well shot, the cgi was much improved, and the story didnt seem that dumb to me. Even though the movie doesnt lose gas at the end, the clear highpoint is up to them leaving the island, as that whole sequence was exciting. The dino fight, the stampede, the great shot underwater, and that poor Brontosaurus on the dock:(

What shocked me is how much I actually cared for the dinosaurs as animals this time, so it made the whole debate about if they should live interesting. Even in the first, they felt more like attractions or monsters, and never like a fully autonomous species. The new dynamic of dinosaurs being a part of our world now is very intriguing and opens up a lot of stories.


And yes the indo raptor scenes were clearly B movie humor. The wink in the cage, and the ridiculousness of it using the door knob to get in the bedroom. <45>My audience and I were fully laughing and I think it was intended. At the very least, it's the kind of stupidity that adds to a movie and doesnt make you want to bang your head.


Definitely thought the bidding was undervalued. 10 million for a dinosaur is a bargain.
 
The only Paul Tommy Anderson films I've seen are Boogie Nights, Blood and Punch-Drunk. Master is my favorite among those.

I can't find a gif good enough to communicate my agreement with this statement.

So true. It's so seamless. It changes your whole assessment of the character in one smooth go. It feels so natural. Dammit, ufcfan! I've already used the bloody Jeremiah Johnson nod gif one time! Did you conjure a whole blasted post just so to try and make me spam that gif repeatedly over and over again!? Admit it, you did! Well it won't work I tell ya!

I would add the final meeting between them to that list. With Hoffman emotionally trying to rope Phoenix back into the Cause, using his warped world-view's logic to try and compel him to do so. While Phoenix shows a new inner strength in his character growth, a new certainty in where he stands in life, no longer so emotionally damaged and searching for any kind of companionship as when they first meet. Like always in this movie, the performances are just so seamless.

I have to admit I was never THAT massive a fan of his earlier work, I mean they were all good films but for me without quite the edge to push over into greatness, especially as they were often getting quite close to the Coens in style.

There Will be Blood does for me push into greatness(but ironically I'm on the side of the Coens No Country being the best film that year) although I think its wider acclaim goes somewhat hand in hand with it not being the most sutble film ever made. The Master I think ends up being almost as striking but with arguably a greater depth of character to it, both leads would probably be in the running for the top 10 performances this decade. Doesn't draw you in as quickly as Blood as a result but I think reaches higher in the end.

His most rewatchable film though is I think Inherant Vice, only got around to that earlier in the year and I'v already watched it twice more. First viewing I was actually a little unsure of it due to the difference in style relative to Lebowski but really I think dropping the Coen influence for his own more stately style ends up setting it apart more successfully.
 
I re-watched Jurassic Park, Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park 3.

I forgot how classic Jurassic Park is, it is one of my favorite films of all time, I would also say the same for The Lost World, too. But Jurassic Park 3... the actress and actor who played the 'Kirby' family, who were too annoying. I was happy when the movie ended. Dinosaurs are always cool in movies, but JP3... no
 
Watched Bergman's Persona for the first time in probably 15+ years, remember enjoying it as a mind bending late night viewing but certainly connected much more this time around even if any exact reading of it still isn't easy.

What stood out as well for me is that post millennium its influence has arguably become stronger than ever, I mean Mullholland Drive is the obvious one but more recently Black Swan and in a lot less specifically in closeup heavy mysterious/intense dramas (often with with two isolated women), even goes so far as to throw in some sex(indeed I think a strong contender for the most erotic scene ever filmed despite showing no nudity). I do struggle to think of a film pre 1970 that feels more contemporary, even among European new wave films I think its quite unique on focusing so heavily on performances by facial expression alone. Certainly doesn't play second fiddle to anything modern visually either, years spent on monochrome photography since perhaps has made me better able to appreciate that.
 
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