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2023 MOVIE DISCUSSION THREAD

RIPPA

By RIPPA
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elizium

elizium

Posted
Posted (edited)
13 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Recommend not watching Ultimatum and trying to forget that Supremacy existed.

(Yes, I know that's a contrarian opinion. But Jesus fuck Ultimatum was a terrible movie and it's editing Oscar was a crime against cinema.)

Agreed on the editing. All 3 had that late 90s-early 2000s style action camerawork that included lots of quick cuts and dutch angles (I don't know if that explains it well, but there's a certain look that screams that time frame to me), but Ultimatum took that shit and ran with it. Some of the action sequences were really frustrating to watch

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elizium

elizium

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Jason Bourne was definitely a bit of a wet fart to end the series. Making his dad the one that started the program was pretty silly. An example of a series overthinking things. And Alicia Vikander's whole arc was basically a speed run of the same thing they did with Pamela Landy. It was nice getting Bourne back, as its now my second favourite Damon role behind The Informant!, but I honestly think I liked Legacy better.

Original trilogy fucking rocks though, with Identity my favourite of the bunch.

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BrianS81177

BrianS81177

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A few recent movies I watched:

Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves: This was a hell of a good time and was way better than I thought it would be. It's on either Peacock or Paramount Plus starting today (I think) so you should definitely watch it if you haven't already. It's a fun adventure, and has a lot of humor that they use in just the right spots. You don't need to know anything specific about D&D to enjoy it either. Watch it first chance you get.

65: On paper, Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs with a laser rifle sounds like a pretty fun, mindless time. In practice... it's alright I guess. It feels like the script was written by Chat GPT or something. It's not a terrible movie, it's just not what you would hope when you hear "Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs". It's worth a rent for 5 or 6 bucks if you want to kill 90 minutes watching something you don't have to think too much about. But man it could have been so much better.

Renfield: I could say much of the same stuff about Renfield as I did about 65. It was ok but could have been SOOO much better and it wastes a golden premise. How do you cast Nic Cage as Dracula and then have him give a tepid, restrained performance? Awkwafina (who I usually like) kinda phones it in. You could have replaced her with someone with little acting experience and gotten a similar performance. My biggest complaint though is the end of the film which I will put in spoilers in case anyone hasn't seen it yet:

Spoiler

Dracula's blood being a magic "cure-all" just completely undermines the stakes of the entire film. It feels very much like a studio executive insisted that they have a happy ending to the movie so audiences wouldn't complain about it being sad. I think a better ending would have been Renfield opening up his own support group in another city with the hint that he is using his powers to scare off all the abusers of his new group.

 

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elizium

elizium

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Couple for me:

Air: I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it was really necessary. Like its an interesting story, but not that interesting. Was pretty bored with it until it got to Sonny deciding to go after Jordan exclusively and then I feel like it picked up. Enjoyed Affleck really leaning into Phil Knight's weirdness. Viola Davis was fantastic, I get why Sonny was the focus, but I wish she could have gotten another scene or two. Gets a little too cute at points, especially with the "Hey its the 80s! We're in the 80s! Look at all this 80s stuff!" moments, the montage during the opening credits was probably enough, but they went back to it a couple times. I'd have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure Hakeem Olajuwon's name is written down on "Hakeem" on draft boards, even though he was still going by "Akeem" at that point. Recommendation if the subject matter interests you, but you're not missing much if you skip it.

Lords of Chaos: Oh lord what a bunch of dorks. Just the dumbest, dweebiest collection of dudes you've ever seen in your life. Really enjoyed the campy, cringiness of the whole thing (black metal is very campy), but overall liked the documentary, Until the Light Takes Us, better. The documentary does probably take these guys too seriously though. I like that the movie doesn't try and make these guys seems cool, except there's no way Varg was having as much sex as they would have us believe. If anything they didn't go far enough in showing was a contemptible piece of shit Varg is. Favourite scene is dumbass Varg trying to play cool with the reporter and immediately implicating himself and stumbling over trying to describe any ideology he supposedly has. I love that they are all undone because these dark minions of Satan can't help but be gossipy school kids with each other. Recommended for a laugh. Hated when they showed the dead cat. Wanna show violence against humans? Cool, go for it, do your worst. But as soon as you bring an animal into it, I check out.

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driver

driver

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Yesterday after hearing a watch along on Ghost Watch on a podcast(Zac Amico's Midnight Spook Show to be exact) I watched it on Tubi. I posted it about it and a Brit friend who watched it "live" replied with "it shit me right up!"

I liked it.

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AxB

AxB

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When Ghost Watch first aired, in 1992, there was nothing before or after to let people know it wasn't a shoot. And on top of that, those are all real BBC TV presenters appearing on it, and the actors playing non-celebrity roles were all unknowns.

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Travis Sheldon

Travis Sheldon

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3 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

1. Yes, and 2. which I don't have. Shit. They ever put it out on physical media?

I usually get the Black Friday promo for Hulu and I'm done for the year.

Would have to think that DIsney would eventually put it out on disc since it's part of a (once) major franchise, but who knows these days.

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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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Heh, knowing them they'll probably put it in The Vault. Funny how they think movies acquire value in there like a rising stock or something. "I swear, when we put this on our streaming service again in a decade, so many more people will sign up it won't even be funny!"

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Brian Fowler

Brian Fowler

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6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Heh, knowing them they'll probably put it in The Vault. Funny how they think movies acquire value in there like a rising stock or something. "I swear, when we put this on our streaming service again in a decade, so many more people will sign up it won't even be funny!"

I think it used to actually work to get big theatrical returns and then people rushing out to buy VHS.

But it's just such a dated idea.

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elizium

elizium

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Local art house does Trash Cult Tuesdays, so went tonight for a double feature of The Doom Generation and Mod Fuck Explosion.

Doom Generation was a 4K restoration and was gorgeous, especially since I've only ever watched it on VHS before. I think it made me appreciate Araki as a filmmaker more, as there are some beautiful shots that I've never noticed before. Still love all 3 lead performances, but especially James Duval is who is naturalistic at playing a beautiful, sweet idiot.

Had never heard of Mod Fuck Explosion before and it was a hell of a crowd pleaser. Definitely comes out of the same trashy underground LA art scene as Araki, who's thanked in the credits and Duval has a small role. Reminded me of a mix of John Waters and Kenneth Anger. Follows high school girl London, as she deals with her lude and benzo addled mother, crush on classmate M16 (who calls her up to read her newspaper articles about suicide and murder), her yearning for a leather jacket, and pressure from her mod brother X-Ray Specs who wants her to take part in the big Mod-Biker rumble the film leads to. It follows the story, but is also broken up by fantasy sequences and digressions. Died laughing, it really hit a sweet spot for me. Trigger warning for racism, as the bikers are a Japanese gang, so there are a lot of slurs. Director Jon Moritsugu, who also plays the lead biker, is also playing around with how Asian people are normally represented in film. His lines, and his alone, are dubbed over in a over the top fashion.

Insanely stylish film, I was jealous of everyone's outfits. Both sides, mod and bikers, looked cool as fuck. The soundtrack was also top notch. Me and my date looked up the LP after I guess they weren't able to get the rights of everything used in the film, which is a shame because it was a bunch of surfy garage music and riot grrl stuff that I'd never heard before.

Moritsugu also recorded a greeting to Winnipeg that was played before the film and he seems like a delightfully cool and bizarre weirdo.

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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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Well damn. 

Mod. Fuck. Explosion. : Jon Moritsugu : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Anyway, I watched most of Three Days of the Condor on TV earlier. The Ebert review said Faye Dunaway had three quotes that blew the roof off, and they were all sexually-oriented and incredibly funny. My favorite was Robert Redford saying "I'm not gonna rape you" and her reply being "Well, the night is still young." Redford is waaaaaaay too nice to play a CIA spook but you have Max Von Sydow crushing it (as always). His exchange with Redford at the end, and Redford's subsequent exchange with another guy right after, say megatons about US espionage and assassination. My real complaint is that about 75% of the scenes in the film have A GODDAMN PHONE RINGING OR BEING TALKED ON. There was more ringing than on the last ep of White House Plumbers, and that's a lot! 

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elizium

elizium

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The one thing that internet archive rip is missing from the copy we watched last night is before the credits it would show each of the classic movie logos, like Warner Brothers and Universal, but then scratch them out. 

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elizium

elizium

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22 hours ago, elizium said:

Reminded me of a mix of John Waters and Kenneth Anger.

There's a hot rod fantasy sequence in Mod Fuck Explosion that I thought was inspired by Scorpio Rising. Watching some Kenneth Anger movies today, I realized that it's actually from Kustom Kar Kommandos, right down to the puffy duster being used to wipe down the car.

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elizium

elizium

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Watched The Devils for the first time and it may be the perfect Ken Russell movie. Sleazy, audacious, visually cool as hell. Oliver Reed obviously puts on a hell of a performance, especially in the back third, but my favourite character is the witchfinder (never ask me to remember character names, it likely won't happen). Just a great weirdo dick. Sauntering into the movie just tossing holy water everywhere and his performance just goes up from there. Out of the half dozen or so Russell films I've seen (off the top of my head....Tommy, Gothic, Lair of the White Worm, Whore, Altered States, Lisztomania, Salome's Last Dance...I think that's it), I'd probably rate it as the best over Gothic. But Lair of the White Worm is probably still my favourite, it's goofy, flawed, and inconsequential but I will rewatch it every year without fail. And not just because I have an insane crush of Amanda Donahoe, it's just fun as fuck.

Started watching his Valentino.....it is less good. Will finish it at some point over the weekend, but oh boy is it bad so far. Weirdly sexless for a Russell film, but also for a film about a literal sex symbol. Terrible acting with everyone putting on their worst "I got to see a man about a dog" Twenties accents. Headlined by Nureyev who is at least 15 years too old for the role and acts like he's reading cue cards. He's also pale as a ghost, you're playing Valentino man, get some sun. At least 1970s Carol Kane is there.

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