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JANUARY 2017 MOVIE DISCUSSION THREAD


RIPPA

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Ah, Lady in the Water... Such a pretentious piece of shit. I remember it well.

The one thing that still stands out from that is when Paul Giamatti discovers the girl, says, 'It's just a child!' in astonishment, and the very next scene is him having the half-dressed girl on his lap. Awkward.

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Guys, I have a question. Who is the most prolific successful screenwriter of the last 50 years? By that I don't mean whose films made the most money, or who has written the most, but who has consistently written films that have made profit and generally been received well? So kind of a combination of both.

Shane Black only has 17 writing credits, but got paid a lot for only 6-7 big movies (Lethal Weapon Series, Last Boy Scout, Long Kiss Goodnight, Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).

There's a hell of a lot of older screenwriters that you could include, John Huston did everything, acting, directing, writing, which is so impressive. (African Queen, Treasure of Sierra Madre, Maltese Falcon) 

William Goldman has 33 writing credits including novels and has written some of my favourite films. (Princess Bride, Misery, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy)

Luc Besson seems to be the answer to my question so far. He has 62 credits, several of which have either become franchises, or been adapted several times for TV or other languages. I'm basically in love with his back catalogue, he has a mixture of disposable actions films, cult classics and sci fi. (Transporter, Taken, Fifth Element, From Paris With Love, Kiss of the Dragon, Leon the Professional.) He's also worked consistently since the 80s. 

Who can you think of?

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17 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Guys... Guys... Guys...

The Raid: Redemption is really fucking good

The Raid 2 is also batshit insane awesome.

Those movies and Merantau have proud spots on my DVD shelf.  Iko Uwais is my favorite action star that barely anyone else in the world has heard of.  He and Johnny Tri Nguyen really need to be in a project together.

 

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7 hours ago, King Leonidas Of Sparta said:

Guys, I have a question. Who is the most prolific successful screenwriter of the last 50 years? By that I don't mean whose films made the most money, or who has written the most, but who has consistently written films that have made profit and generally been received well? So kind of a combination of both.

Shane Black only has 17 writing credits, but got paid a lot for only 6-7 big movies (Lethal Weapon Series, Last Boy Scout, Long Kiss Goodnight, Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).

 

Tarantino has slightly less credits to his name than Black, but a much higher batting average.  

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Lawrence Kasdan (as a writer only): c = critical success. $ = Box Office success

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - CCCC$$$$$$

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK - CCCC$$$$$$

BODY HEAT - CC$$$

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE - I liked it but neither I guess

RETURN OF THE JEDI - CC$$$$$$

THE BIG CHILL - CCCCC$$$

SILVERADO - CCC

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST - CCC($)

GRAND CANYON - CCC($)

THE BODYGUARD - $$$$

WYATT EARP

MUMFORD - What the hell is this????

DREAMCATCHER

THE FORCE AWAKENS - CCCC$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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So the theatre chain here showed a special 65th anniversary screening of Singing In The Rain today. I took my 20 year old nephew and his best friend to see it and it was spectacular. They'd never seen it, and I've literally seen it hundreds of times. I worked in recreation in nursing homes for 23 years and it was always the go to video to show when it was down time to get paperwork done. Despite that, it's still one of my favorite movies ever. And I got to see it on the big screen. 

The two kids loved it, and called it wonderful and I was in tears of joy the whole time. 

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1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said:

I'm officially jealous. It must be beyond glorious on the big screen.

Dude, when Debbie Reynolds first performs in "Dream of You" at the party, I started bawling. 

I think there's showings tomorrow. It's a nationwide thing done by TCM.

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That reminds me - I always wonder how those reshowings of classic movies do

Like the Alamo theater here was advertising a couple of them before Rogue One. They were like those "sing-a-long" ones with props and everything (like you often here about for Rocky Horror)

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7 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Dude, when Debbie Reynolds first performs in "Dream of You" at the party, I started bawling. 

I think there's showings tomorrow. It's a nationwide thing done by TCM.

Not anywhere less than an hour's drive from me though

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I've said this before but me and Zeidler get a ton of classic film showings due to Champaign-Urbana being Roger Ebert's hometown. Everything is digital now (and some of it is freakin' streaming downloads) but I've got to see some great stuff -- The Thing (1982), Scarface, Reservoir Dogs, Night of the Living Dead, the list goes on. It's kept our local Art Theater (which is the actual name of the place) open after ditching their projector and modifying their business model to a co-op; the Virginia Theater as well. Even the local chains get in on the action once in a blue moon. 

Speaking of Cat 'o Nine Tails... yeah, not Argento's best. 

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Well, I live in fairly rural mid-northern Michigan.

The Mt Pleasant theater is infuriating because they advertise all the Fathom events, but they don't play them here, have to go to Lansing or Grand Rapids.

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Saw Hidden Figures this weekend at my new favorite theatre (It's got recliners!). Everybody in this movie is on point. Janelle Monae's gonna have the crossover career Whitney Houston wishes she had.

 

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I was a huge Lawrence Kasdan fan back in the day.  Silverado might be my favorite movie ever (I'm really not a movie geek) and is one of the few films I've seen multiple times from start to finish.  Really dug Grand Canyon when I saw it in the theater.

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Last weekend, we watched Speed from 1994, with Keanu Reeves. This film is so old that it's set on a bus, and not a single one of the passengers owns a mobile phone. Truly, the past is another country. Explaining the bit where Keanu commandeers a sports car and the guy driving starts going off on "This is my car, I own this car, I bought it with my own money", I had to tell a twelve year old that Los Angeleno cops famously have a habit of pulling over nice cars driven by black people, on the assumption that it's a stolen vehicle was interesting. He was like "But... that's racist! That's really racist, how are they allowed to do that?" and I had to explain that whilst they aren't technically allowed to do that, they just do it anyway, and have for decades.

The other odd thing about this movie is, it was always supposed to be a break from the 80s action movies with their high body counts, where the hero kills dozens or hundreds of people - and now in the 90s we have a villain who only successfully kills single figures, and a hero who kills one person but only after repeatedly failing to take him alive. But looking back at it now, rather than bring in a new era of non-lethal action movies, the body counts are actually a shitload higher in modern action films. Into the thousands in some of the Superhero stuff.

Sandra Bullock sure peaked early, didn't she? After Demolition Man and Speed it looked like she'd be in loads of good films, and then she just wilfully became the distaff McConaughey, only without the late career comeback.

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She won the Oscar for Best Actress in THE BLIND SIDE and was nominated again for GRAVITY.  THE HEAT was a big hit for her also.  There was definitely a Sandraissance, but she hasn't worked a whole lot since then.

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Bullock also did Crash and the Miss Congeniality movies. But she struck gold as a producer for several of her latter films and The George Lopez Show.  Not to mention that she was making $20 million a movie at one point. That has her worth into the 9-figure mark.  She can pick and choose her roles with ease and with her two kids, I can see why she did that.

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On 1/16/2017 at 4:44 AM, RIPPA said:

That reminds me - I always wonder how those reshowings of classic movies do

Like the Alamo theater here was advertising a couple of them before Rogue One. They were like those "sing-a-long" ones with props and everything (like you often here about for Rocky Horror)

I think the key answer is "better than a first-run family movie would do in the same time slot." Fathom never run those events on weekends aside from maybe Sunday night, and aside from the Austin Ritz (which is a 100-year-old historical site) the Alamo rarely does either.  But you can probably make more money by getting 1/3 of a theater's worth people to come out, pay $5 to watch a grindhouse movie or a bona fide classic or two eps of Doctor Who and then sell snacks or beer than you could showing a kids' film on Tuesday at 8:30pm.  Hell, when I was in college the Houston Alamo used to do free anime on Tuesday (at the height of ADV's dominance of the US industry, the staff and actors would come out too and show things that weren't yet released) and classic Looney Tunes on Wednesday for exactly that reason.

 

And while the music video dance parties aren't really my thing, the Alamo quote-along parties are AWESOME. I've been to Scott Pilgrim twice and Spaceballs once, and it's highly recommended.

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