2024 MOVIES DISCUSSION THREAD

[Contentious C]

Hey, hadn't done this in a minute.  New page, good time as any.

The Duellists - Too bad House of Gucci didn't involve Adam Driver and Jared Leto chopping flaps of skin off each other.  I'm not usually a fan of any Carradines in basically any capacity, but this is one of Keith's best roles, if not his best. And cripes, is this a beautiful film, and coming from a guy who would be known for stunning visuals as much as anything else.  But...there's really something about how much he let the scenery participate or even dominate the rest of what was there.  Given the flack that Napoleon caught, it sounds like Ridley's first movie in the era might be better than his last one.  Heck of a debut.  I could do without the narration, but it makes an interesting double-bill with French Lieutenant's Woman as grimier portrayals of past Britain than what we'd eventually get out of the Merchant-Ivory lot.

The Canyons - You know, at 27:04 when that UPS truck comes into the shot, I was really hoping it just...wouldn't turn, and it would spare us all from this bullshit.

Somehow, of all the movies out there that have ended up with some kind of strange critical reappraisal, this is, stupefyingly, one of them.  But there isn't a moment of this all-too-serious, badly acted, hacked together, stakes-free whiskey dick of a movie that deserves to be held up as having something to say. The gutted theaters and vacant buildings don't have any legs to them, since they're throwaway non sequiturs that reflect and/or symbolize precisely fuck-all within the context of the film itself. Even if the casting had somehow been immaculate - and it would take a literal miracle for anyone with a brain and a pulse to have willingly worked on this film - the characters themselves are written so poorly and have so little emotional resonance that you want them all to fail, miserably, as though their only-talked-about horror film were real and they became its victims. And the rest of the script...Jesus tapdancing Christ, Bret, why did you think kink or swinging was going to shock or interest anyone?

I really don't know what Paul Schrader was thinking, choosing to work on this. I can only imagine that he, in fact, managed to murder a yoga instructor in Century City sometime in the 80s, and Bret Easton Ellis helped him hide the body, so his payback for that favor was to shart out this bathwater-quality dramatization of their youthful hijinx.  Ugh.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE quit sniffing directors' farts and telling them they're gold.

Still not as bad as The Crow: Wicked Prayer, though.

You Hurt My Feelings - I still can't really get too far past the wannabe-Woody Allen feel of Nicole Holofcener's movies: truly, how many upper-classers in New York City need movies made about them?  Really, I want an answer, hopefully one that isn't evidently, "every fucking one of them".  Please Give was an interesting-at-times look at white guilt, and there's a little of that here, but the overarching story is only just all right.  What does work here is the humor, but it's just a little too bad that the initial scene between the actually-married David Cross & Amber Tamblyn is a bit of a highlight in terms of laughs, rather than merely a prelude to bigger things to come.  Still, you may laugh your ass off in a few places, so maybe it isn't a waste of your time.

A Knight's Tale - Wait, so...this was just proto-Slumdog Millionaire with more anachronisms and a less perverse morality system? 

Huh.  That's a thing, I guess.  But this is just way too long, not terribly well-written, and it only has, I dunno, 2 or 3 scenes in the whole movie that aren't a snooze?  It's also just a really strange stylistic choice to have your entire cast casually singing along with the 70s tracks being overlaid because otherwise average American dummies won't find it amusing, I suppose.  Oh, and Edward the Black Prince was the Black Prince for a fucking reason: Rufus Sewell's whole "Aldhemar" character may as well be based on shit Edward actually *did* and people Edward supported (or certainly didn't condemn), so face-turning him is, well, sort of ridiculous.  But hey, we're just here for silly bullshit and making money off the poor dumb Americans, so, mission accomplished, maybe? 

[(BP)]

The New York Times piece on the production of The Canyons is infinitely more entertaining than the movie. 
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/here-is-what-happens-when-you-cast-lindsay-lohan-in-your-movie.html

[Curt McGirt]

I just hit the part where they say Bret Easton Ellis was engaged in a Twitter war against... J.D. Salinger (who clearly did not have any internet access)... and have to stop from laughter for a moment. 

This is rich. Thank you, gonna enjoy this a lot.

EDIT: The second funniest part was the Times letting the article get through without proofreading and realizing that they'd misspelled James Deen's fake and real names 

I like Schrader, I really do. I mean, come on. First Reformed. Mishima. Blue Collar (which I still need to see all of). Auto Focus. And that's not even touching the writing, which, fuck, he wrote Bringing Out the Dead AND Rolling Thunder?! But this was a debacle of the first order. I bet every cigarette Lohan smoked was secretly a primo. 

Judging from what happened to his career after this (with Oh, Canada starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman and Michael Imperioli in the pipeline already) I'd say he had the last laugh.

Edited February 11 by Curt McGirt

[(BP)]

The Canyons definitely felt like his last gasp, so everything from First Reformed onward has been a pleasant surprise. 

[Contentious C]

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

The Canyons definitely felt like his last gasp

His last, overly throaty, smoke-drowned, chewing-gravel-the-whole-time gasp.  God, Lohan's voice is what I'm going to be hearing when I end up in Hell.

[Octopus]

Derp. Not sure if I posted it here or not, but here’s my film:

Ode to the Whale of Christ. Directed by David Matthew Johnson

A Modern Silent Film, by David Matthew Johnson. A black and white film with a rhythmic abundance of text that scatters across the screen and a meditative pace that creates a visually compelling sensory experience.
She carries He, a man eternally asleep. We witness She’s struggle carrying, feeding, bathing, and caring for He, until She can lift He no longer.

Spoiler

Reviews:

“A stylish short movie that dares to be black & white and silent. Yet, it is never silent.” – Luminous Void

“[David Matthew] Johnson succeeds in one of the most difficult creative operations: making aesthetics and content coincide. This homogeneous creative act is a film of rare fluidity of writing, original but discreet, intimate and lyrical, up to the disturbing finale. The breaking of modern conventions allows Johnson to free himself from the burden of structures and the film, in its frequent written parts, seems to urge the spectator himself to compose his vision. A rare and precious work.” - Prisma Rome Independent

“ ‘Ode to the Whale of Christ’ is an extraordinary film that has a deep influence on the viewer. David Matthew Johnson makes an inventive use of silence.
By silence he totally captures the attention of the viewer, pointing out that very important, sacred acts take place here. Furthermore, he introduces a tension, which at times takes your breath away. The silence severely intensifies the viewer's emotional involvement in the drama.” - Dr. Konstantinos Akrivos PhD - Short Encounters

"“Ode to the Whale of Christ, minus its explicit religious symbolism, is also an account of everyday human toil, the kind fated to simultaneous perseverance and utter absence of reward. The mercilessness which She subjects herself to is easily a representation of self-harm masked as service. Her care in the absence of his response is easily an account of historical emotional and physical labor in empty marriages.” - Indie Shorts Mag

WATCH HERE

[HarryArchieGus]

22 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I just hit the part where they say Bret Easton Ellis was engaged in a Twitter war against... J.D. Salinger (who clearly did not have any internet access)... and have to stop from laughter for a moment. 

This is rich. Thank you, gonna enjoy this a lot.

EDIT: The second funniest part was the Times letting the article get through without proofreading and realizing that they'd misspelled James Deen's fake and real names 

I like Schrader, I really do. I mean, come on. First Reformed. Mishima. Blue Collar (which I still need to see all of). Auto Focus. And that's not even touching the writing, which, fuck, he wrote Bringing Out the Dead AND Rolling Thunder?! But this was a debacle of the first order. I bet every cigarette Lohan smoked was secretly a primo. 

Judging from what happened to his career after this (with Oh, Canada starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman and Michael Imperioli in the pipeline already) I'd say he had the last laugh.

20 hours ago, (BP) said:

The Canyons definitely felt like his last gasp, so everything from First Reformed onward has been a pleasant surprise. 

Piling on the Love for the remarkable 'First Reformed'. I recently revisited the excellent 'Affliction'. Fucking Nick Nolte! But also Coburn and the always great Sissy Spacek. Very curious of 'Oh Canada'. I'm a high voter on the more recent and underrated (if flawed; that's Schrader's MO) 'Master Gardener'. I need to see Mishima yesterday. 

18 hours ago, Octopus said:

Derp. Not sure if I posted it here or not, but here’s my film:

Ode to the Whale of Christ. Directed by David Matthew Johnson

A Modern Silent Film, by David Matthew Johnson. A black and white film with a rhythmic abundance of text that scatters across the screen and a meditative pace that creates a visually compelling sensory experience.
She carries He, a man eternally asleep. We witness She’s struggle carrying, feeding, bathing, and caring for He, until She can lift He no longer.

  Hide contents

Reviews:

“A stylish short movie that dares to be black & white and silent. Yet, it is never silent.” – Luminous Void

“[David Matthew] Johnson succeeds in one of the most difficult creative operations: making aesthetics and content coincide. This homogeneous creative act is a film of rare fluidity of writing, original but discreet, intimate and lyrical, up to the disturbing finale. The breaking of modern conventions allows Johnson to free himself from the burden of structures and the film, in its frequent written parts, seems to urge the spectator himself to compose his vision. A rare and precious work.” - Prisma Rome Independent

“ ‘Ode to the Whale of Christ’ is an extraordinary film that has a deep influence on the viewer. David Matthew Johnson makes an inventive use of silence.
By silence he totally captures the attention of the viewer, pointing out that very important, sacred acts take place here. Furthermore, he introduces a tension, which at times takes your breath away. The silence severely intensifies the viewer's emotional involvement in the drama.” - Dr. Konstantinos Akrivos PhD - Short Encounters

"“Ode to the Whale of Christ, minus its explicit religious symbolism, is also an account of everyday human toil, the kind fated to simultaneous perseverance and utter absence of reward. The mercilessness which She subjects herself to is easily a representation of self-harm masked as service. Her care in the absence of his response is easily an account of historical emotional and physical labor in empty marriages.” - Indie Shorts Mag

WATCH HERE

Right on, an Octopus joint!
 

[Curt McGirt]

Mishima is aaaaawwwwwweeeeeesome. It was a completely unknown discovery for me while I was dogsitting at a friend's apartment and was looking through his VHS tapes. Had never heard of it! What a find. 

Pretty sure The Card Counter is on my DVR somewhere and I really need to watch it (along with like 50 other movies on it but that's neither here nor there). 

[Curt McGirt]

Kiss Me Deadly is on one of the movie channels we got free on Dish and I've never ever seen those street cars that look like moving staircases before! What ARE those?!

[Cobra Commander]

It's been a huge few days of me watching movies that I hadn't seen before.

Heathers. Would it be in questionable taste to note that I watched Heathers to help avoid the breaking news cycle over the KC Parade shooting. Since, well, Heathers involves high school students being murdered and the such. In a way it was doing the sort of stuff that a Stranger Things would want to do, but it was made in the 80s instead of the 2010s/2020s. I can see why Winona's agent(s) did not want her to do this movie. Also take your pick on if Christian Slater doing a Jack Nicholson voice for an entire movie is annoying or worthwhile.

I also saw Welcome To Marwen today, joined in progress. I can understand why they soft-pedalled some parts of the actual story since it's already a unique enough story. Some parts of it probably age better than you'd think. But there's also been more memorable movies with Nazis since Marwen (Jojo Rabbit, a recent movie that i've actually seen). I'm not sure, is Steve Carell's star back on the rise or what? because I think he sorta pivoted into utilizing his success to just do whatever.

And now, I'm watching Barbie on HBO but it's too early to offer any real comments on that. Around the 20 minute mark, I can say that the aesthetic/color scheme is fun. I'll pretend to be surprised even if I've read about some of the plot a few months ago.

edit: they accidentally created the best film adaptation of The Stepford Wives during the 2nd half of the Barbie Movie?

Also, I guess I don't really wanna know about the Oscar standards that made Gosling eligible for Best Supporting Actor instead of Best Actor. No comment on Gosling getting a nomination but Robbie not getting one but he's real fun. Ferrell as the head of a group of clueless male Mattel execs was amusing.

So at least I saw one movie with an Oscar nomination going into the Academy Awards

Edited February 17 by Cobra Commander

[Contentious C]

On 2/15/2024 at 7:07 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Kiss Me Deadly is on one of the movie channels we got free on Dish and I've never ever seen those street cars that look like moving staircases before! What ARE those?!

Which channel was this?  If you mean the 1955, I can't find it anywhere unless I buy the Criterion (not that I'm not tempted).

[odessasteps]

 

[Curt McGirt]

7 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Which channel was this?

Same film, and The Film Detective. Same channel that gets the Something Weird on Wednesdays. All kinds of stuff shows up: noir, tons of poverty row stuff, occasional horror. Some occasional color classics too. 

[The Comedian]

12 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

Also take your pick on if Christian Slater doing a Jack Nicholson voice for an entire career is annoying or worthwhile.

FTFY.

Hey, he's made one more Gleaming the Cube than most of us...

[Contentious C]

4 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Same film, and The Film Detective. Same channel that gets the Something Weird on Wednesdays. All kinds of stuff shows up: noir, tons of poverty row stuff, occasional horror. Some occasional color classics too. 

Ah, turns out it's on Archive.org for fucking free any old time.  I spent 20 minutes trying to install apps and look up other shit, and there it was all along.  Derpes are incurable.

Edited February 17 by Contentious C

[Mike Campbell]

A guy I'm friendly with made the proclamation that "Hereditary" is the scariest film made in the last ten years. So, since it was streaming on Max, I fired it up on Thursday night after the rest of the family had gone to bed. It's not a half bad film, and I've always been high on Toni Colette, but at no point did I think it was scary. It had a few scenes that definitely grab your attention, but that's pretty much it. 

[Contentious C]

Her Head Hit a Tree is the most overrated movie in recent memory, as far as I'm concerned.  Midsommar had its problems (like that godawful "tell you everything and look ridiculous doing it" triptych and scene that sets up the initial premise), but is far better once you're into the weeds of it.

[Curt McGirt]

I was loaded to the point of forgetting the story, but I remember laughing my ASS off at it watching it at home. It just struck me as hilarious. Aster's Midsommar was too, mainly because the cast/victims were so unlikeable, but it was so predictable as soon as the Wicker Man crap started that it engendered disdain. 

SPOILERS

Spoiler

I mean this thing opened with a woman having a hose taped to her face and plugged to an exhaust pipe, bug-eyed and dead from asphyxiation and her sister just howling, it was so OTT that you have to laugh at it or else walk away. Or maybe that's my excuse for that scene hitting my sicko funny-bone where I respond like that to some things that are just overwhelmingly gross or traumatic. Either way. 

The way it's set up is insane too, she stuck it to her head with duct tape, and ran it right to the computer? Looks so complicated it's like someone did it to her. Couldn't she have just... sat in the car? 

 

[Curt McGirt]

2 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Her Head Hit a Tree

OH MY FUCK 

[Contentious C]

5 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

 

SPOILERS

  Hide contents

I mean this thing opened with a woman having a hose taped to her face and plugged to an exhaust pipe, bug-eyed and dead from asphyxiation and her sister just howling, it was so OTT that you have to laugh at it or else walk away. Or maybe that's my excuse for that scene hitting my sicko funny-bone where I respond like that to some things that are just overwhelmingly gross or traumatic. Either way. 

The way it's set up is insane too, she stuck it to her head with duct tape, and ran it right to the computer? Looks so complicated it's like someone did it to her. Couldn't she have just... sat in the car? 

 

Yep, this is my biggest problem with the movie.  It's SO elaborate.  Here was my Letterboxd remark, in case anyone wanted to see it. 

[Curt McGirt]

I forgot about the rest of it. Now that is just overwhelmingly stupid. 

Spoiler

If you got the drugs and you want a quiet painless death then take the drugs bitch. Doesn't look like all that work did you much favors either, judging from your face.

 

[Mike Campbell]

I fired up Mission Impossible III last night, since I've had the Blu Ray box set for close to four years and have only ever seen the first two. And holy shit, I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to do it. Easily my favorite of the first three films so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best antagonist of the first three films by a freaking kilometer. And I'm seriously sad that his character wound up dying, because of how great he'd have been as a Blofeld sort of recurring villain for future movies. And the scene where Hunt is making his escape through the elevator shaft and takes over the radio frequency and plays a loop of "We Are Family" over the Walkie Talkie had me laughing my ass off.

[Curt McGirt]

I've watched Goodfellas a thousand times and never thought of this, but if the higher-ups in the Lucchesi family found out about Billy Batts getting killed, why didn't they whack out Jimmy too? And for that matter (if they knew he had something to do with it since Billy was last seen in his restaurant), Henry? 

[(BP)]

29 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

I've watched Goodfellas a thousand times and never thought of this, but if the higher-ups in the Lucchesi family found out about Billy Batts getting killed, why didn't they whack out Jimmy too? And for that matter (if they knew he had something to do with it since Billy was last seen in his restaurant), Henry? 

I thought about this on my last watch too. I’m pretty sure Paulie compromised with the Lucchesi family so it’d be one of his for one of theirs. They wanted satisfaction and were reasonably sure it was someone from Paulie’s outfit. Of the three, Tommy is clearly the easiest one to point the finger at for Batts, plus he’s the biggest liability. Jimmy is an earner and Henry hadn’t become unreliable yet. 

Edited February 20 by (BP)

[Mike Campbell]

51 minutes ago, (BP) said:

I thought about this on my last watch too. I’m pretty sure Paulie compromised with the Lucchesi family so it’d be one of his for one of theirs. They wanted satisfaction and were reasonably sure it was someone from Paulie’s outfit. Of the three, Tommy is clearly the easiest one to point the finger at for Batts, plus he’s the biggest liability. Jimmy is an earner and Henry hadn’t become unreliable yet. 

Plus, the guys who were in the restaraunt with Billy can vouch that Tommy was the one starting shit, and Jimmy and Henry were trying to keep the peace.