Lurker > Seginustemple

9 by Nolan: Following, Memento, Batmen, Prestige, Interstellar, Inception, Dunkirk
6 by Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bills, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained
6 by Fincher: Alien 3, Se7en, Fight Club, Benjamin Button, Social Network, Gone Girl
2 by Anderson: Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom

Only big directors I've seen all of are Lynch, Tarkovsky, and Kieslowski. I'm close on Kubrick, the Coens, and apparently Nolan which I didn't even realize.
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Xeybozn posted...

I agree with this, but I kind of felt like Dragline's reaction to the car wash girl was so over-the-top that it almost felt like the character was trying to prove to everyone he wasn't gay. I wouldn't have thought much of it if he didn't then go on to spend most of rest the film obsessing over "his boy" Luke. I doubt that's what they were going for and it doesn't really matter much for the story, just something mildly interesting.

Oh I can totally see that, he's diagnosing himself with the notgays. I mean it is '67. And yeah the "my baby boy" stuff, reminiscing about his smile at the end - complete with smile flashback. Maybe it's just his big southern heart but either way find someone who looks at you the way Dragline looks at Cool Hand Luke when he's stuffing hard-boiled eggs into his mouth.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Cool Hand Luke

Violation! The movie opens by visually exclaiming this word, which effectively defines its central conflict between spirit and state. The rules and regulations violate Luke much more than he can violate them. The symbolic act of liberating parking spaces is met with years of incarcerated road-building. I think the Marxist film theory hammer is worth a swing here - I'm seeing an implied alienation of labor between who builds the roads and who collects the rent on them. That's infrastructure capital, right? The means of distribution?

I mean I don't think it's specifically trying to be Marxist, there's too many allusions to Jesus and such. Swifty pointed out the 50 eggs/50 prisoners absolving them of their sins idea, that's a good call. They even wink at it with the whole "oh why couldn't you have said 35" and "50 seemed a nice round number..." exchange. The rice scene also reminded me a bit of The Last Supper (Dragline will ultimately betray Luke). Most of the music's lyrics (Harry Dean Stanton on guitar! What was up with that weird zoom on his face?) were explicit about it and of course the scenes in the rain and the grave and the church directly dealt with it. And then the last shot I think is really great - we see the chain gang maintaining the road and the camera flies out to a god-perspective, framing the road as a cross. Then the faked picture of Luke fades in, now taped back together in the same cross shape as the road. I'm not even religious, I just like how the symbolism all clashes together here. The reconstructed myth of Luke, the state's path layered with the spiritual path.

There are some minor nitpicks. Like a lot of prison movies it can be a bit manipulative in how kindly it depicts the criminals, crimes are only victimless or accidental. Newman and Kennedy's quiet/loud personalities anchor the movie well but I do wish some of the other prisoners were developed more. Like, you got a young Dennis Hopper but he doesn't get any lines. Hindsight! At the end Dragline is talking about getting Koko out to make the 'terrible trio' again and I'm like, who the fuck was Koko? Was there a third guy? I've seen this before and I still have no idea which guy was Koko. My only other minor criticism is it seemed obvious that Luke's mom is not that much older than him. I felt like they played up the age makeup and "cough cough I'm so old I'll be dead before you get out" and I'm thinking naw she can't be that much older than Paul Newman, right? Turns out the actress Jo Van Fleet is 11 years older, but still.

The male bonding in this movie is out of control. Bunch of shirtless sweaty dudes doing fight clubs and egg clubs and manual labor and showering together. To borrow a phrase from RedLetterMedia, I suspect they threw in that car-wash scene and two girls on Luke's arm to establish a clear case of the notgays. Favorite scene - the work race. that's where the spiritual triumph comes in. As for boiled eggs, the scene honestly doesn't move the needle for me. I liked them to begin with, this isn't gross enough to turn me off but isn't making me crave them. What got me more was when Luke asked the kid for pepper and chili powder, I started thinking about that Paul Newman brand Salsa dip. You know, Newman's Own. I think he makes coffee and dogfood too. Speaking of which, the damn dog died of 'running itself plumb to death'? Is that really a thing? I replayed that scene back with CC on to confirm that's what the guy said, then it followed it up with [DOG BOY SOBBING] and I couldn't stop laughing. I'm sorry.

Luke represents the American Dream. Free parking, overeating, and boning two chicks at once amen 9/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I believe this means Colin Farrell leads as the B8 Movie Club favorite actor with two starring roles
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You bow to no one, azuarc

First Reformed
Mad Max
The Lobster
Ex Machina
Kill Bill
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Perfect Blue

Anime films are a blind spot for me so this was a great pick, maybe the best one I've seen (Akira is the other big one I know). The weirdness factor is right in the sweet spot, the twists and reveals are cleverly played, and I loved the meta story-blurring with the TV production. I kept thinking 'Inland Empire meets Selena'. There are so many mirrored themes bouncing off each other in a swift 80 minutes - stolen identity/impostor syndrome, dissociative identity/acting, manufactured persona/manufactured celebrity. Doppelgangers and dream sequences are practically required for this kind of psychodrama.

The Rumi reveal really got me, I feel like I should have seen it coming since one of the things Mima reads on the website is how she was impressed by the other woman's acting, which she specifically said to Rumi earlier. It was right there! It also makes me question how many of the scenes are actually the real Mima and how many were Rumi's delusion. The rape scene, for instance - is that just Rumi acting out in her head what she believes Mima's career move is metaphorically doing to her image or was that actually a scene in Double Bind?

It seems like the movie is ambiguous enough at points to leave some room for interpretation as to what's real. Is the truck death a dream? How much of Double Bind is a dream? Johnbobb pointed out that the scenes where Idol-Mima is floating along in a chase sequence would be pretty tough for Rumi, so it seems like there has to be some element of her that's purely Mima's illusion. I will point out there's also a brief moment where Idol-Mima appears in the train window's reflection, and it's pretty funny to picture it as Rumi busting her ass running alongside the train.

Favorite moments - Idol-Mima's face turning to Rumi's as she's being choked was really effective. The scene where Mima sees the security guy in the hallway, turns back to call for the other actor and then it cuts back to the guy being impossibly close. Just a well-paced jump scare. The doppelroom reveal, it would be so unnerving to wake up and look out the window and realize you are in a duplicate of your home. And the photographer's murder, the way the music slowly took over as the visions kept flashing during the kill was really operatic. Of course the Power Rangers opening scene was great too.

I can't believe I didn't notice the 'handheld' camera shake until y'all pointed it out, nice meta touch 9/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Ah shit I forgot to vote, my bust. I'm down for Cool Hand Luke anyway though.

Congrats on the newborn, Suprak!
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You bow to no one, azuarc

kateee posted...

when was the last time you watched it?

Probably over ten years ago, and now that you mention it I haven't seen Clue in even longer so I shouldn't say that's a good movie either

When The Wind Blows (1986)
Waking Life (2001)
Perfect Blue (1997)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968)
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kateee posted...

did this apply for Murder by Death?

I found it here https://archive.org/details/MurderByDeath but damn I really should have gone through it again before nominating

Murder By Death

Whiff, sorry guys. I'm disappointed in myself. You ever revisit a movie and it's way worse than you remembered? And in the process of revisiting it you inflict it on other people? In my head this was a *better* version of Clue with a great cast and a hilarious Peter Falk performance. It is not better than Clue. I do still think Peter Falk is a gem (and he's not in it enough!), the rest of the cast is great on paper and the concept of spoofing classic detectives is right up my alley but damn most of the jokes just aren't funny. Many are just annoying and dumb.

The blind gags go on way too long and it's all Guinness gets to do until the end. Peter Sellers doing the Charlie Chan thing is actually completely obnoxious and gets way too much screentime - in theory this could work like RDJ in Tropic Thunder but there just isn't anywhere near that level of nuance to the caricature here. Like...it almost becomes more offensive than Charlie Chan simply by being unfunny.The Poirot guy only gets one good joke, when he correctly remembers his character is supposed to be Belgian and not French. The Charleston and Mrs. Marple characters are just kinda there (the old nurse is pretty funny I guess). Really the best thing about this is Peter Falk's ridiculous Bogart impression bouncing off Eileen Brennan's straight man performance, but the movie spends like 40 minutes screwing around with Sellers's awful accent before it even gets to them and it's just painful. I guess I remembered them being in it more.

I do like the setting and I think the movie could have leaned a little more into the madman fun-house concept it flirts with. Trap doors, revolving bookcases, animated suits of armor, why not. Scooby-Doo shit is what I'm here for. I mean you have Oscar winning actor Alec Guinness playing a blind butler in a mystery spoof, you'd think there's no way you can't get a good revolving bookcase gag out of that, right? That's just like a law of physical comedy. But that's this movie. It's got Oscar winning actor Alec Guinness playing a blind butler and it doesn't deliver a good revolving bookcase gag.

4/10 what was I thinking
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The Love Witch

I'm big on style points so this worked for me. The camp acting, rich technicolor w/ bold sets and lighting, swanky score, the whole arch 70's aesthetic. Sometimes we pit style against substance, but I think style can be substance. 'The medium is the message' sort of thing. Clearly this Anna Biller is very hands-on, I believe credited as the set and costume designer as well as editor, writer, director - there's an auteur vibe to all of it, you feel the unified vision. The pink tea room was a highlight, I loved how it's visited on two separate occasions but the extras haven't moved, like it's a place frozen in time.

Apparently there was an occult scene coming out of San Francisco, Idk if that was an invention of the movie but it sounds believable. It's funny to me that horoscopes have become such a casual pop culture thing but similar stuff like tarots decks are still considered to be occult and weird. "I should have known...he was a Pisces" was one of my favorite line reads. Not the type of thing I associate with all that Aleister Crowley sex magick business, but I don't doubt they're connected. Side note - when the cult was doing their ritual in the nude the girl speaking looked cold as heck. They needed to stoke that fire a little better!

I'm not sure how to read the feminist angle, is there some truth in Trish's accusation that Elaine's been 'brainwashed by the patriarchy' or is she just owning the power of the male-gazey 'feminine ideal' construct to her own ends? Maybe a little of both? It's a very dark tale of self-empowerment, but then I guess it's supposed to be black comedy. I mean she ends up killing three dudes!

A very stylish 8/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Wait, Murder By Death won? Shit can I like retract the nomination because I will straight up say right now that movie is not nearly as funny as I remembered, I fucked up on that one I TAKE IT BACK
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Camden posted...

The trailer for Murder By Death, boy, one of those characters hasn't aged particularly well.

The Peter Sellers character does come off pretty bad now but I will say the whole gag is that Charlie Chan was a stereotype character played by a white guy. Doesn't mean it's not offensive in this movie, but that's what they're riffing on
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Honestly there are free youtube uploads for most of these but the quality suffers

Black Narcissus (1947)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Murder By Death (1976)
Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)
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The Love Witch
Man Bites Dog
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made
Wild
Synchronic
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Stalker

Stalker tends to get the 'sci-fi' label and I think that can mislead people's expectations. It is based on a sci-fi short story about aliens (Roadside Picnic) but the movie strips the premise of any definite scientific explanation and uses it more as a vehicle for the characters to have long-winded philosophical dialogues and spiritual soliloquies. We may have been hoping for a fantastical 2001 Stargate sequence at the end, or a Wizard of Oz to appear as Swifty indicated (good call actually). But Tarkovsky isn't concerned with razzle dazzling us, he wants to keep us in a meditative trance. Alpha brain wave type shit. Average shot length over a minute type shit. It's important that the characters stop at the threshold of the room, but the camera enters and places the viewer inside.

I like a lot about Tarkovsky's style, especially emphasis on texture. He is fascinated by all things grimy, dingy, warped, corroded, wet, abrasive, decaying, just plain nasty as fuck. The setting is always a character in his films. I like his slow camera movements, they have a slightly voyeuristic bent - the way the camera creeps around it's like the Zone itself is observing the men at times. At other times it's disinterested in them, moving away from them while they're talking to hover over junk in the water or zoom in on a tree for a minute. It puts the viewer in a weird state of mind.

The dialogue gives you a lot to ponder, I think the nature of the Zone or what it might symbolize are clearly open to interpretation. The story still hints at aliens in the beginning, and Tarkovsky's pretty religious so there's the god/faith angle. The Zone could represent art or cinema itself, I think there's a pretty strong meta reading to each person getting something different out of the magic room based on what they bring into it. There is also some hinting at nuclear power in the background, and unfortunately this was a reality as the shooting location was harmfully radioactive.

I do think there are a few flaws, you could lose the silly chase sequence at the beginning before they get on the handcar and save like twenty minutes. Go from the bar to the tracks, get right into it. The last scene with the Stalker whining in bed gets old too. His emotionally fragile performance works for most of the movie but at that point it's a bit grating.

Ultimately it's not my favorite Tarkovsky film (I think The Mirror is his masterpiece) but it does grow on me every time I come back to it. Worst rogue-lite ever though 8/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I had a free day, it was raining, it was a mood! Got through Stalker too, but I've seen it before. You're right that it wouldn't be surprising if most people don't watch/finish that one, it's definitely something you have to be in the right frame of mind for. Writing it up now...
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You bow to no one, azuarc

When Marnie Was There

This was my first Ghibli but I took that with a grain of salt. I gather this is adapted from a 19th century European tale and not even directed by the main Miyazaki guy, I imagine it's not considered "core" Ghibli. So I don't think it reflects much on the studio that I wasn't as into this as I hoped I would be.

Honestly I found it frequently confusing. A lot of my reactions amounted to "huh?" and "what?". It wasn't so much the ghost mechanics but more like not following their relationship dynamic or either character's headspace. It made more sense in hindsight but before the whole grandma reveal (ahh, that's why she has a grandma name!) it was just unclear why these two characters were so automatically close, and then afterwards it was like, weren't they kind of flirting the whole time? I mean Marnie did the whole DiCaprio Titanic thing and then sensually taught Anna how to row. Patrick Swayze at the pottery wheel vibes. Was it supposed to be a ghost grandma romance?

I did like a lot of it though. The opening statement about being outside the invisible circle was great. The water motif was really effective - the rain and tide externalizing emotional states, ferrying across the lake between living/dead has a cool mythological vibe. The animation is excellent, one shot in particular of Anna running in profile stood out as looking really fluid and alive. The way the lighting is rendered on the backgrounds has a rich, romantic quality to it. I can see why people crush on the aesthetic of the Ghibli.

Ultimately I think the characters just didn't track for me. Maybe some of that is from watching two movies about foster kids bonding with elders back-to-back, that NZ kid stole some of Anna's thunder. Some of it is from nonsensical ghost grandma flirting. Or it was a projected memory, or something? I don't know.

5/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Hunt For The Wilderpeople

This one was hot and cold for me, I was into it for most of the runtime but the last third sputtered out. It developed a lot of effective emotional tension early with the wife dying and the the kid having to forge a bond with her estranged husband, but by the end it felt like the only tension was coming from the cartoon villains chasing them around. It ended up relying a lot on charm, which it did have in spades. The kid was very likable, NZ accents are very likeable, even the cheeky references to other films got me. The other Waititi films I've seen are Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do In The Shadows, clearly he's got a knack for comedy. But I do think there was room for a bit more emotional depth in this one. One scene that stuck out to me was the funeral service - the self-insert character was funny but I couldn't help but think "damn dude, let it breath a little". Like I get the sense that Waititi's instinct here was too quick to lighten the mood when he could have been more confident in the emotional impact of the scene.

It generally hits the mark as a buddy adventure though. I am a sucker for any setting involving jungle/forest/woods. The kid is totally a natural and it's cool to see Sam Neill in something recently. I mean I'm sure he's been working but I don't remember seeing him in anything since Event Horizon which is like 25 years old now.

6/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Damn Camden ninja'd my idea of choosing only 20th century movies. Excellent picks too!

El Topo
Stalker
North By Northwest
Badlands
The Poseidon Adventure

Been pretty busy lately but I should be able to catch up with the last two by next week
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The Goonies
Before Sunrise
When Marnie Was There

I also haven't seen any Ghibli yet but the Goonies nostalgia is too strong
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You bow to no one, azuarc

One last thing I forgot to mention about Fargo's Nordic heritage - according to Wikipedia the main musical theme is based on a Norwegian folk song called "The Lost Sheep".
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Fargo

I'm a Coens fan so this is the first movie I got to re-watch for this club. Bonus! A couple things stood out to me this time. First was how the icy winter setting presents a visual inversion of noir (a genre they love playing with), it's 'film blanche' so to speak. The iconic poster of the body face-down in a pure white landscape exemplifies this. Secondly is how the region is specifically back-grounded by Nordic heritage. Most of characters' surnames (Lundegaard, Gunderson, Gustafson, Grimsrud) are explicitly of that region, even the fake name Jerry gave the hotel at the end (Andersen) has Nordic connotations - of course it should be noted that according to the movie's 'true story' disclaimer all of the characters names are indeed fake in order to protect identity. But they are region-accurate, this Nordic heritage is where the Minnesota accent comes from. And I don'tcha know enough about Norse mythology to recognize if there are any larger storytelling connections to be made, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Coens were keen on that angle too (maybe not as overtly as O, Brother's allusions to The Odyssey but along those lines). I haven't seen the series on FX yet so I'm curious to see if they delve into that stuff more.

Several of the Coen films' favorite subjects are here - kidnappings and ransoms, briefcases of money, hitmen, larger-than-life villains - Peter Stormare has tough competition in this category but his nostril-smoking dead-eye performance might be the creepiest behind Bardem in NCFOM. Macy is really creepy too, and I think it works that we don't get a reason for his character needing money beyond simple greed, no initial justification of needing to pay for cancer treatment or something. It hardly matters when his scheme revolves around traumatizing his family for it. MacDormand shines as the story's beacon of light, and her character embodies an inverted noir trope by running counter to all the grim hard-boiled detectives with nihilistic voice-overs.

Admittedly I still don't know what to make of the Yamagita character. I've read different takes, some think he's just to provide a sense of realism because his scene is so random, which feeds into the 'based on a true story' teasing. Sounds plausible, I'm more persuaded by the reading that his erratic behavior indirectly makes Marge more suspicious of Jerry's. The scenes are back-to-back so there's a logic to that...although I still don't get why Marge couldn't just directly be suspicious of Jerry to begin with.

This isn't my favorite Coen flick but that's okay because they have a lot of good ones.

9/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Okja
Dolemite Is My Name
Marriage Story
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Hell or High Water
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You bow to no one, azuarc

45 Years

I must have been in the right mood because this one got to me. Charlotte Rampling has this callous exterior with just enough vulnerability to affect a lot of pathos when it shows. Tom Courtenay is stuck simping for a corpse in a glacier *ahem* glassier but he's just too sweet to fault him for it. I think the baby reveal needlessly absolves his character and stretches belief a bit, though. I know lots of movies about relationships ask us to suspend disbelief about miscommunication (fair enough, I guess you gotta have a plot somehow) but this one's really sneaking in the premise that not only did this never come up but old gal never even checked those photos in the attic for 45 years. I mean you gotta be kicking yourself to have had the evidence in the house half a century without knowing!

But I don't think it's really a problem. I'll quote a review from criticker user VinegarBob - "To criticise this film on the basis of the plot contrivance the events are centred around is to miss the point. This is a precisely crafted character study of an urbane woman driven to inarticulate rage over the accumulation of a thousand tiny injustices." and that's exactly what worked for me about it. It stuck to its lane and felt emotionally real by way of a great lead performance. This isn't a movie I'd be keen on re-watching but I'm glad I saw it once.

8/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

make us publicly humiliate and degrade ourselves for it
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Lost In Translation

This one's been on my radar so long I felt nostalgic finally watching it for the first time in 2021. Check out how dated the trailer feels already, it makes it feel like the movie came out in the 80's - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6iVPCRflQM

Not of all of it aged well, right off the bat it leans into the short jokes and l/r syllable gags that I kinda roll my eyes at. ScarJo/Murray's sudden romance didn't feel totally organic and overuses this trope of justifying their connection by pinning all their marriage troubles on stock nagging wife and inattentive husband characters. Some of you mentioned it was more believable as a friendship than a romance and I'd agree with that. I have kind of a similar deal with Vertigo where I can see why a 50-year old Jimmy Stewart is charming in conversation but am I supposed to think his looks caught Kim Novak's eye? I mean, eye of the beholder I guess.

And Murray certainly is charming. I am futher convinced RDJ's Tony Stark is just a Bill Murray impression with a goatee. I appreciated the classy Caddyshack reference (I assume) with Mt. Fuji looming in the background, that was a nice shot. A lot of what really worked for me in this was the aesthetic choices, a lineup of excellent needledrops over emotive wordless scenes, neon lights passing by in the car window's reflection, cool blue indoor pools, Scarlett looking pensively out over the city, lots of stuff that could come off like corny navel-gazing but it's done so well and does a great job wordlessly developing the leads and making Japan itself an important character in a way that, you know, mocking the height of their shower-heads does not. The Alone In Kyoto sequence was great. And this scene in particular - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec9jY9kPIp4 is the key scene of the movie to me. It's just kinda magical.

8/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Steely Dan - Do It Again
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Fargo
Little Shop of Horrors
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Fuck I am falling behind here

I really picked the worst time to go back to college now I'm stuck in these bullshit online classes that somehow suck up all of my time. I'll get to some of these this weekend though.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Macklemore - Thrift Shop

not really my favorite but I feel like it needs a shoutout still
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Can't be world champions if they never beat anyone from the Japan X-League
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You bow to no one, azuarc

GameStonk posted...

Is there a major American sport where the team can have as much of an impact on an individual's legacy as football?

Not even close. Quarterbacks are on the field about half the game and half of that they hand it off but America loves narratives about individual achievement.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

idk why I even bother with this sport sometimes
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Lupe Fiasco
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You bow to no one, azuarc

David Bowie - Telling Lies
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I gotta vote for Five Easy Pieces

Thoroughbreds

I don't think this quite lived up to the quality of Heathers/American Psycho but I can see why that was the comparison point. The leads forged an interesting chemistry as they batted a ball of sociopathic tendencies between them, seemingly transferring Amanda's energy to Lily as the movie progresses (perhaps Lily saw herself in Amanda's reflection?). Apparently Cooke and Taylor-Joy can execute Command Cry, that scene of them having a weep-off on the couch was impressive and kind of creepy. And hilariously punctuated by evil stepdad's confused interruption. The meta aspect of them watching a movie here makes me wonder if there's some empathy test going on but it's played like it's black comedy so who knows.

At first I was inclined to take a Fight Club reading, like Amanda is an alter-ego enabling Lily and isn't really there. That doesn't totally hold up since there's a few times when characters do acknowledge both of them at once. But I do think Lily/Amanda fit into an archetypal ego/id pairing that go down a dark path in a cautionary tale of self-actualization.

Yelchin was good but his sub-plot ended up being filler, the logic of which had me scratching my head. Their plan for not getting caught is hiring a two-bit drug dealer to crash through a window to announce his arrival to kill the guy? And on top of it they decide to blackmail the drug dealer? I mean it's not like I know how I would get away with murder but that just seems like it would go wrong a dozen ways. Like, the best outcome I would expect is p90x stepdad ninja-strikes your boy from the shadows and then goes on a 5-mile run.

I would have liked more scenes with Mark (the mark for the kill is what they were going for I'd guess). I got a kick out of his whole aggressively fit, Ben Stiller in Heavyweights kind of antagonism. He was just a little too periphery for killing him to make sense, but I guess it's not supposed to be justified. I suppose the 'no smoking' scene kind of suggests he's right about some things, even. I did like that he had an off-screen presence with the rowing machine, it's actually relatable that the constant pulsing would drive a lot of resentment.

Overall I thought there would be more to do with horses. 6/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

how is it I keep hearing that physical game sales are dead but physical money will last forever
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
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Baten Kaitos
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Wow damn I literally just got into her this week RIP
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Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell
OutKast - Roses
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You bow to no one, azuarc

No Vote

I gotta catch up on Thoroughbreds still I'm falling behind
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Johnbobb posted...

Genesis - Invisible Touch

Esperanza Spalding - Touch In Mine
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I didn't know you could say bullshit on CNBC
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The name of the movie is going to be Gamestoppers, right?
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7k and nope

damn I was just browsing it a few days ago too and didn't sub
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Steely Dan - Ricky Don't Lose That Number
Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five
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You bow to no one, azuarc

In Bruges

At first I really thought this was going to be like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. One guy's big and jolly, one's small and prickly and they're stuck together on a holiday road trip. As the movie progressed the parallels obviously became strained and harder to justify - 'oh it's like PT&A but crossed with the Boondock Saints', 'okay it's like PT&A only Steve Martin shoots a kid', 'it's like PT&A except John Candy explodes upon falling to his death...'. I didn't want to let go of this comparison for some reason.

It took a while to warm on me too, Ray was unlikable for at least a third of the movie and I thought the look of it was kind of ugly, although you could make the case that's intentional. I'm still not sure that the romantic subplot added all that much. But once Ken got the big phone call and Ralph Fiennes showed up I was sold, his character was great. Loved that they showed a bit where he sincerely apologizes to his wife for calling her an inanimate object, and then later on Ken sincerely takes back the insult to his kids.That felt like a refreshingly un-Tarantino/Scorsese way of characterizing these killers.

Snake5's had a thoughtful writeup that highlighted some good connections I missed, the fairy tale/dream stuff and meta commentary on the hitmen sub-genre. I think there's also some noir reference in there, Touch of Evil is playing on a tv at one point and the climactic fall from the bell tower is how Vertigo ends (and Black Narcissus). I wasn't raised with any religion so when it comes to biblical allegory in film I tend to assume I'm always missing some of the nuance. I know the basic stuff by proxy but I don't mind whenever an allegorical movie is a bit on-the-nose with its point. I might have been able to get the whole purgatory reading without the Hieronymous Bosch scene spelling it out but I can't say I object to the clarification. And I like Snake's reading of the blood of christ scene way better than what I came up with, which is that Ken actually touched it right before Ray botched the job and that's why he forgave him.

The suicide theme stood out to me too, starting with the insinuation towards the dwarf actor and finishing with it happening over his accidental death. I expect a lot of the dialogue will hit different the second time through knowing what's coming

8/10 Damn good movies so far
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You bow to no one, azuarc

tom brady's pretty good, mostly lucky
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You bow to no one, azuarc