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2019 Q3 MOVIE DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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So back when me and Xav were going to the cinema a lot, we'd see quite a few Tom Cruise movies. Your Mission Impossibles and Live Die Repeats and that. But to begin with, I was resistant, because I had this thing in the back of my mind like "Not Tom Cruise. You don't like Tom Cruise" and I couldn't figure out why because in his 2000s movies, he's really likeable and charismatic. So today, for the first time in my life, I watched Top Gun. And now I remember why I used to dislike Tom Cruise so much - his 80s movies. Because he really is a massively smug, insufferable prick in this movie. He's supposed to be the hero, he's supposed to be the guy you're rooting for, but he's just a massive twat.

It also hammer home why everyone thought Tony Scott was in Ridley's shadow so much. Because even though he went on to make some really good films afterwards, this is the one that was most people's first and strongest impression of him. And it's so cheesy! The cheese is too strong. Just this cloying, overbearing soundtrack, constant sunset, soap opera camera angles, stereotypical Don Simpson cocaine binge bollocks. And the romantic subplot, with the classic "I'll stalk you til you love me" arc, and the complete lack of chemistry between the lovers. No wonder everyone thought he was secretly gay, if he can't act like he's convincingly attracted to 1986 Kelly McGillis. If I never hear Take My Breath Away by Berlin again, it'll be too soon. And Playing With The Boys by Kenny Loggins, for that matter.

Anyway, I figured out how I managed to not see the movie until 33 years after it was originally released. I hated mainstream culture during the 80s, and so there's quite a lot of things that everyone of my generation thinks of as shared childhood cultural experiences that I never actually had.

Top Gun. An Eighties classic. Didn't enjoy it at all.

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If you're looking for a Tom Cruise '80s flick that holds up, go with The Color of Money. Same year as Top Gun, but it plays Cruise's natural smugness the other way and makes him look the the punk he is. Helps that Paul Newman's there as the movie's protagonist to counterbalance the douche. 

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When did Cruise flip the switch from being the self satisfied git he was (or at least, played all the time) in the 80s, to being the action hero with a death wish that he is now? Was Magnolia his way of washing his hands of being a jerk? Or was it not getting nominated for Last Samurai that put him over the edge? Because he was definitely still 80s Tom as late as Jerry Maguire, and that was 1996. I've not seen Eyes Wide Shut, but if we want to say Kubrick saved him from his ego, that's cool.

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Cruise doing his own stunts allegedly goes back till at least the mid '90s, but it's only been over the last few M:I movies that people have really sat up and taken notice and those things are seemingly getting nuttier as he gets older. Between that and the widespread love for Edge of Tomorrow, sometime around the middle of this decade is when it seems most people started settling into enjoying the crazy bastard's work.  

Tom Cruise as a cocksure attorney with Aaron Sorkin's words pouring out of him as to be his peak douche movie. But that might just be a matter of me having heard so much Aaron Sorkin dialogue that it now sets me off. 

Colour me surprised that Cruise and McQuarrie weren't dragged into the black hole of scum opened up by Singer being a monster and getting Me Too'ed. 

Edited by West Newbury Bad Boy
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If you look back at his career, Tom Cruise seemed to almost hunt out roles from great and/or celebrated directors. Scorsese and Kubrick and the like. He was never content to get by just on being a superstar, he wanted to be better rounded.

Then he suddenly said "fuck that, I'm gonna hang off the side of an airplane for real in my movies" and it's the best career decision anyone has ever made.

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This might be an “only for Piranesi” post

It’s funny that Jessica Harper starred both Phantom of the Paradise and then Shock Treatment but not Rocky Horror itself. 

Her imdb for a decade or so is something

Phantom

inserts (an British X movie also starring Dreyfus and Hoskins) 

love and death (woody)

suspiria

the evictors (AIP horror movie)

stardust memories (woody again)

shock treatment (RHPS sequel)

pennies from heaven

my favorite year

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Probably happened after the shark had him at a distinct disadvantage and let him up again so it would be a "fair" fight; i.e., crap they didn't pull in the first two movies.

The sound editing was pretty special, though; the Casablanca bits and the scenes inside the hotel with the shotguns sounded right somehow (not that I'd know what certain guns sound like being fired inside or outside, but noticing the changes in weaponry and how sound carried were nice touches).

Edited by Contentious C
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4 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Probably happened after the shark had him at a distinct disadvantage and let him up again so it would be a "fair" fight; i.e., crap they didn't pull in the first two movies.

Doesn't the first one end with him throwing his gun away so he can have a fair fist fight with the drunk old Russian dude? 

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I am watching FIGHT ZATOICHI FIGHT and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it before. I saw a few before I bought the box set, and I definitely watched a few Kenji Misumi ones out of order, but now I’m trying to watch them all. Problem is they the names are so generic and they all follow a formula, so the typical description (“Zatoichi helps a woman in peril and ends up in a fight between two yakuza clans”) isn’t that helpful.

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About a month ago at a charity garage sale I found a Cannes film festival DVD set so I grabbed it (worked out to less than a buck for it btw) and was amazed to find on the way home that it was a Chinese 6 disc set.  So things happened I kinda forgot about it only to open it last night and discover it’s a 10 disc set!!

Some of the movies

Taxi Driver, Kagemusha, Farewell My Concubine, Paris Texas (misspelled as Texas Raris), Dancer in the Dark, Blow Up, L’Eclisse, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Pulp Fiction and a whole bunch of others

I just felt like sharing, haha!

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