Lurker > Seginustemple

seen:
Power Rangers
Big Fish

faves:
M
It's Such a Beautiful Day
Barry Lyndon
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I'll throw my late hat into the horror ring

The Shining - legendary for good reason, tone/atmosphere elevate a classic ghost story to a genre high
Lost Highway - for my money the creepiest Lynch movie
The Thing - for all the tension, paranoia, and vfx what gets me the most is the way the thing screams
Silence of the Lambs - the part where Clarice is in the dark and Bill has night-goggles? chills every time
Alien - Giger's design is timeless
The Fly - credit to the 80's emphasis on practical effects, that stuff made a big impression as a kid
Dead Alive - ultimate goofy gross-out horror from a green Peter Jackson
Night of the Living Dead - not a zombie guy but the old standard still impresses
The Ring - doesn't hold up but I have to respect how much it freaked me out as a kid
Wishmaster - a guilty pleasure, people wish for things and this genie fucks them over...that's it
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Cut Throat City

I respect that this bites off more than it can chew, a modern crime thriller set in the Katrina aftermath is a solid concept. I think the problem is it juggles too many characters, and has a hard time threading the social commentary through the plot in an organic way - as much as I enjoy Ethan Hawke drunkenly lecturing a gravestone about the local racist history it does come off forced. The veteran supporting cast is solid as you would expect, I wasn't super compelled by the main crew though. T.I. was surprisingly good.

The ending plays out confusingly, my impression was that the FEMA heist is just Blink finishing the comic book with a martyr fantasy ending but it felt like a strange diversion. Then the stinger twist with Miracle taking over was completely unnecessary, almost hilariously so. But I admire the choice. RZA is channeling Fuqua and it's bound to get tropey sometimes. Similarly I can't fault a Wu-Tang member for making a chess metaphor about street wisdom, but I did laugh when it happened (can't help but think of that dumb SNL skit). You gotta keep your queen protected, son!

George Bush doesn't care about black people 6/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Secret Sunshine

sold on 'one of the strongest performances I've ever seen'
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You bow to no one, azuarc

no vote homie
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You bow to no one, azuarc

It's Such a Beautiful Day

I wasn't sold at first because the narrator was giving me Elliot Rodger Manifesto vibes (maybe the reading a little too dry/ironic), but it ended up being funny and uplifting enough overall to make the bleak and depressing bits work. The musical sequences are standout, the leafblower drowning out Strauss was hilarious and the rainy bus-ride over Wagner actually pretty moving. The cosmic turn at the end provides a strong finish without becoming either sappy or incomprehensible, and really takes advantage of dynamic range by filling the screen with color after an hour of b/w stick figures in minimal peephole framing. Bringing the viewer from dull grey memory fragments to the vivid present and fantastic future. For being an apparent one-man project this is remarkably well-crafted and orchestrated. 9/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Aguirre, The Wrath of God
Hard Eight
Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop
Three Colors: Blue
The Player
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Barry fuckin' Lyndon

It was...pretty good. Production quality is high as expected, apparently Kubrick used magic NASA lenses or some crazy shit to shoot the entire countryside in perfect focus. He really liked the zoom-out maneuver on this movie, didn't he? I think that contributes to the impersonal distance of it, there is a psychological effect that goes with constantly moving away from the characters. The omniscient and somewhat sarcastic narrator puts even more space between the audience and protagonist, as we're frequently told what's going to happen beforehand. I ended up feeling like it was more about social commentary than characters - the absurd pageantry of navigating the class divide, contradictions of formal beauty and ugly content. My favorite scene was Barry smuggling himself out of Prussia using makeup to disguise himself as the deposed Chevalier. It's all about the presentation. Not my favorite Kubrick right away but it's in the top half 7/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Oh fuck it's me again already? I'mma try to knock some out this weekend.

Lost Highway (David Lynch - 1997)
Bamboozled (Spike Lee - 2000)
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog - 2005)
The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin - 2015)
Long Day's Journey Into Night (Bi Gan - 2018)
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Harakiri

Sorry I've been slacking here I've been hella busy this month
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You bow to no one, azuarc

no vote I'll watch all these sumbitches
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Great job on the spellweaver figure, that was my character when I played Gloomhaven. The lighting effect is excellent

lots of cool stuff in this topic, love the card sets
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Luca
Vivo

I done seen the rest
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Admittedly I rec'd Barry Lyndon because I got the blu-ray as a Christmas gift and needed a reason to finally get around to it

Maybe tomorrow if nothing comes up >_>
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You bow to no one, azuarc

M

9/10

Excellent. Appears to form part of the template for noir and gangster movies for decades to come. To compare to the other Lang I've seen - the gulf between Metropolis and M is huge and they're only four years apart. On top of synced sound it also has a much greater editing vocabulary (like cross-cutting for irony) and bolder camera involvement and even world-building (this one-take is so cool, I love the window sliding open to let the camera through after the sneaky cut): https://youtu.be/_0C2Te59egQ?t=2550), which makes it feel more modern. Of course part of the appeal now is the window to the past, here looking at a time when casual smoking filled every closed room. Seriously, the amount of smoking in this movie is wild. Cheech and Chong movies don't have this much smoke. It looks amazing on camera but I bet if I walked into one of those rooms I'd be gagging.

I too was expecting a case of mistaken identity about Peter Lorre's character. There are a few false accusations early in the movie, and the opening scene with the children playing an 'eeny-meeny-miney-mo' game had me thinking this was all going to be about arbitrary finger-pointing. The social commentary ends up expanding into street justice and mob mentality but is balanced by the guy actually being the killer. The voices-made-me-do-it defense is pretty weak but the actor does sell it, he's a lot more convincing than some of the real people in those JCS interrogation videos. Very memorable performance as one of cinemas earliest serial killers.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Fried Barry
Censor
Gaia
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Ichi the Killer

A break will be nice, I think we're all at least 3 weeks behind at this point anyway
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Big Fish

It really is Tim Burton's Forrest Gump, a strange and heartwarming Alabama voice-over epic. Burton's sensibilities are deployed well here, he keeps an uncanny edge to the fairy tale aspect without it getting too wrapped up in his idiosyncrasies. I'm not sure anyone in this movie manages a believable southern accent, but that's okay. Both Edward Bloom actors charm their way through it, they're so damn likable. Great casting decision, and I like that both have a different take on the character. I actually find it hard to see Ewan McGregor's version turning into Albert Finney's version, but that adds to the character's self-mythologizing.

The scene with the popcorn frozen in mid-air is an iconic movie moment, I remember that being like a big technical achievement when it came out. And yeah it's a super romantic notion that time stops upon love at first sight - but I forgot that Bloom basically turns into a stalker in this moment. The romance his him pursuing an engaged woman he doesn't know because he thinks its his destiny, honestly he kind of deserved to get laid out by the fiance. He could have just hung with the barefeet community where Missi Pyle was hitting on him. I would have been stuck there for a while >_>

I'm surprised I haven't seen the son in more stuff, he looks so much like Joaquin Phoenix I was fooled for a minute. He did a good job as the frustrated skeptic with the turn at the end. And he added to something I felt in all the 'present day' scenes, this vague early 2000's nostalgia where it's not exactly retro but still makes you feel old. This happened with Lost in Translation too. It's a good feeling though. 8/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Oh cool, I didn't realize this was a Wu-Tang thing
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You bow to no one, azuarc

The King
Cut Throat City
Gunpowder Milkshake
Blue Jay
Snowpiercer
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You bow to no one, azuarc

kateee posted...

after I finish most of what sticks in my mind is the distractingly nonstop shaking camera, poorly written dialogue and indifference towards the characters.

Yeah the shaky zoom cam was a strange choice. I took it as showing the instability/stress of the relationship or like a home movie effect, but either way it is pretty distracting. I think he just likes stylizing things to call attention to themselves, this is a guy who added Von to his name in film school to sound more interesting.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Melancholia

What an opening sequence! Lars isn't afraid to quote the masters - Wagner, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Bruegel, Millais. I feel like I have to walk back my criticism about Portrait of a Lady on Fire's use of Vivaldi at the end, because this movie milks Wagner's most famous thirty seconds the entire time. It works at first but eventually overplays the same familiar clip.

The wedding half plays up so much stress about pageantry and social graces and anxiety about being trapped forever, but I felt like the story begged some questions about how we even got here. Like if Justine is so perceptive and intelligent why is she marrying captain bonehead? Is she just now realizing she doesn't want this? I'm sure I missed some exposition but I found the situation very vague. It's fitting that in real life Kirsten Dunst is married to Jesse Plemons, the guy from the previous depressing/vague movie we watched.

By the time we're in the second half I dislike all the adult characters, which I don't doubt is Lars' intent as the dialogue dips into some nihilistic "all life is evil" shit. Maybe Melancholia is actually just Lars von Trier headbutting Earth with his galaxy brain. But I find it hard to enjoy or appreciate in the end, despite all the artistic flare and style. Not my cup of tea 4/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

kateee posted...

i think another aspect of this is that for the janitor, it's also the only thing he has to fall back on i.e. he has no life memories of his own. it's just a lifetime of regrets over the inaction in his own life so he has to live vicariously through the media.

Exactly, it's not like it's bad that he ended up well-read and cultured but the 'life wasted' regrets in other areas make it a bitter consolation. Kind of a cautionary tale about balancing your inner/outer life.

I forgot to mention that the art discussion happens at the dinner scene, hinting at the theme of media consumption - as well as the scene of the janitor eating lunch while watching the diner drama, and the connection between commercial jingles and sugar addiction
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Wasn't sure how I felt about this one at first. After letting it sit for a few weeks I gave it a second watch to clarify what was going on. I think I 'got it' the first time - it's the janitor's psychodrama and the couple is like his last two brain cells bouncing around his memories while he freezes to death. Head-space exploration is central to Kaufman's work so that much was expected, this one is just less obvious about who's head we've been exploring since it frames Lucy (or whatever her name is) as the subject for most of the runtime.

One thing I appreciated more on re-watch was the commentary on how much the media we consume can dominate our memories and thoughts. Lucy drops the the Oscar Wilde quote about "most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their live a mimicry, their passions a quotation". The old guy's mind is stuck on 'trivial pursuits' and almost everything running around his head is a media reference. Even when he has his own opinion about some movie it gets overtaken by Pauline Kael's opinion from a book he read. Daydreams are directed by Robert Zemeckis. With the cold grips of death near there's still some shitty commercial jingle stuck in his head. And then his dying fantasy is just scenes from Oklahoma and A Beautiful Mind (which I completely missed the first time, it's pretty funny). I think there may be some nods to Citizen Kane too, both in that theater scene and in the general snowglobe inner world. Or maybe that's me inserting my own media reference points, which Kaufman has surely expected the viewer to do.

Interestingly the film appears to preempt a line of criticism, as Jake's dad can't understand art where the subject isn't in frame. He doesn't know how to feel about it, and instead of putting himself into the painting he'd rather it simply tell him how to feel. Again hammering this theme of mimicry prevailing over original thought while making an argument for it's own lack of hand-holding and virtually absent subject character.

Ultimately though it's very dour and lacks the charm of an Eternal Sunshine. It's really not bad but good gravy I hope it's not the kind of media that will be stuck in my brain when I'm dying in a cold truck somewhere. 6/10
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You bow to no one, azuarc

It's Such a Beautiful Day
Promare
Ernest and Celestine
5 Centimeters per Second
Winnie the Pooh

Promare's style looks appealing but a stick figure movie is too unique to pass on
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You bow to no one, azuarc

redrocket posted...

Smashing two words (be they names or otherwise, doesnt matter) together to make a new word is just as much an English convention as anything else.

Exactly, this is how we get words like Metroid and Castlevania in the first place
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You bow to no one, azuarc

DeepsPraw posted...

"kafkaesque" actually follows English conventions and isn't two authors' names awkwardly smashed together

You can still figure out what Metroidvania means even if it's an unconventional term, it's not super complicated. I mean there should still be a better way to describe the genre but "search action" isn't it
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You bow to no one, azuarc

foolm0r0n posted...

That's notoriously a word that you say when you want to sound smart for describing something but don't know how, since you have no idea what the word actually means but you also know no one else knows what it means so they'll just go along with it

Oh yeah I was really flexing the high school canon there. Do you have trouble understanding Orwellian and Shakespearean too?
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Kafka was a novelist in the search action genre
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You bow to no one, azuarc

"Metroidvania" is like "Kafkaesque" for video games, you really only need a passing familiarity with the reference to understand the term
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Enter the Gungeon
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I am talkin' the 90's cheesefest with Billy Zane
https://www.dvd-forum.at/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/das-phantom-news.jpg
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I gotta catch up on the last few weeks soon

Swiss Army Man
The Phantom
The Deer Hunter
Barry Lyndon
What Dreams May Come
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I was about ten years ago, not anymore
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I have no doubt that Disney would farm Twitter bots or whatever to push that narrative but then I also have no doubt there are legions of real zealots eager to simp for the mouse
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Idk how they can stand on this being a pandemic decision when Disneyland is open for business
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You bow to no one, azuarc

M
The Naked Island
Boy
La Haine
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I've seen M pop up so many times just googling random words that start with the letter I feel like I'm obligated to watch it at some point
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You bow to no one, azuarc

No One Likes the Tuna - a Fast and the Furious rewatch podcast that goes one movie per episode, and when they get to the end of the series they just start over. They started when there were only seven of them and they're on the twentieth watch cycle now
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a tricky one, I've been stuck on the writeup for a bit
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You bow to no one, azuarc

I've seen A Knights Tale and Big Fish. Been a while for both but I really liked Big Fish as a kid, was probably my favorite Tim Burton movie
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You bow to no one, azuarc

La La Land
Big Fish
Before Sunrise
A Knights Tale
Count of Monte Cristo
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You bow to no one, azuarc

You're not alone bro I find these movies very nostalgic now. Brings me back to high school
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You bow to no one, azuarc

KamikazePotato posted...

Reversing their stance 12 years later doesn't mean shit. The damage is already done. No one they influenced towards the right-wing in the past is going to change their tune now.

Well that seems kinda defeatist. If we're talking about people who won't change their minds on climate change after a decade was it really a cartoon that made their mind up? Sure it was a bad take but I'm skeptical it had a lasting sway on anyone's beliefs that they didn't already have
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You bow to no one, azuarc

All I remember from von Trier is Nymphomaniac and being surprised by full-frontal Even Stevens

edit: and that I keep getting him confused with Paul Verhoeven
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You bow to no one, azuarc

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Not to mention, the entire premise lacks even a HINT of self-awareness. The villains plan is to literally trap people inside of the Serververse aka HBO Max. But the movie itself IS an ad for HBO Max.

It sounds like that's actually very self-aware
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You bow to no one, azuarc

oh shit my baddd. apologies to John Carpenter it's only cause I watched it recently

Melancholia
The Vanishing
A.I.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Escape From New York
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You bow to no one, azuarc

The only one I'd seen this time around was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and for the new I'll go 3. The Vast of Night 2. Hoop Dreams 1. Enter the Void

which may not line up exactly with how I rated them but some movies just leave a good aftertaste if that makes sense
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Camden posted...

So, what movies are people here looking forward to in the future?

Oh yeah I'm definitely looking forward to Dune, been waiting on that one for a while now. And The Northman, which is still a ways off but after The Witch and Lighthouse I'm invested in anything Robert Eggers is doing
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Radix posted...

(also apparently that game didnt have any voice acting so uh lets hope for not that)

Hmm, I didn't hear any in the trailer. I wouldn't expect them to actually get like Tim Curry or Billy West for this but at least some soundalikes would be nice...
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SwiftyDC posted...

they adopt these sacred animals from this movie into the show?

They end up with the same ones in the show but they look a little different since it's not CGI. And it was already their third set of zords, they had to churn out the collectible toys.
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You bow to no one, azuarc

Johnbobb posted...

woah how did I not remember this amazon babe being in the movie. Think the last time I watched this was pre-puberty :|

Yeah I completely forgot about her, I'm thinking she's there less for the kids and more so our dads didn't fall asleep in the theater
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You bow to no one, azuarc