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Posted

When Climax was due to be played at the late Art Theater in Champaign, IL they put that poster up on the wall. I saw it and thought "who the fuck is Gaspar Noe? Oh yeah, I remember Irreversible, I think. Cool poster." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll give him an A in carnival barkery. 

Posted

Two I will possibly be the only one to vote for

Bird People: This is a hard one to tackle.  The first half is rather painful, about a man staying in a hotel who just decides to up and abandon his family, and the majority of it is a protracted webcam conversation with his wife.  The second half is hard to explain without giving it away about a maid in the hotel named Audrey even though the title

kind of does


but it's this extraordinary burst of magic realism which contrasts sharply with the painful, blunt first half.  I'm not sure entirely how the two tie togeher but the cinematography in the second half is just amazing.

Ip Man 3 None of the Ip Men are quite as good as the first, but I like the third better than the first because it has Donnie Yen vs. Mike Tyson.  And Mike Tyson doesn't even try to do a different voice, nor is there any explanation why this proficient boxer/American property developer (Seriously!) has a massive face tattoo back in the 1950s!  I appreciate that level of giving the people what they want (Yen vs. Tyson!) without some complicated plotting to explain why.

Posted
20 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

When Climax was due to be played at the late Art Theater in Champaign, IL they put that poster up on the wall. I saw it and thought "who the fuck is Gaspar Noe? Oh yeah, I remember Irreversible, I think. Cool poster." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll give him an A in carnival barkery. 

I still really want it on a t-shirt!

Posted
On 4/2/2020 at 5:38 AM, (BP) said:

One minor thing about Cold War that I think is worth pointing out is that it has the best use of the song Rock Around the Clock I’ve ever experienced. It’s been used in innumerable period pieces, but this is the first one where I felt like I was really watching young people get on the dance floor because they were hearing a new song, and it’s a bop. 

*thumbs up*

 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2020 at 6:19 AM, Brian Fowler said:

The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2 seem like obvious contenders

I don't think too many people realize the significant cultural effect that these two films have had on the action movies of varying budgets that have followed.  A lot of the hand to hand fight scenes have either mimicked the Silat choreography or have actually had one of the actors from the Raid joints in the fight scenes.

My entire theater marked out while watching John Wick 3 when John took on Mad Dog from The Raid and The Assassin from Raid 2.  Talk about dream tag teams.

You see a lot of fight choreographers going with Silat, Krav Maga, Keysi Fighting System, or a combination of Kali and JKD these days thanks to films like the Raid joints and the Bourne trilogy.  You don't see too many traditional karate based fight scenes anymore.

Sadly, I don' t think the Raid movies have created a watershed of financial success for director Gareth Evans.  I feel that he's still waiting for his big break.

Edited by J.T.
  • Like 1
Posted

The first time I heard of Keysi was Batman Begins. Maybe not the first movie to use it, but in the promotional materials leading up to it they made a big deal of how much thought was put into the psychology of his fighting style.

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
24 minutes ago, (BP) said:

The first time I heard of Keysi was Batman Begins. Maybe not the first movie to use it, but in the promotional materials leading up to it they made a big deal of how much thought was put into the psychology of his fighting style.

Yeah, in movies like Batman Begins and The Raid, the protagonist doesn't have the luxury of trading strikes with a single opponent for a long period of time.  He has to incapacitate his foes quickly either by sudden KOs, bone breaking, nerve plexus strikes, and the like. 

Batman and Jason Bourne do not fuck around in a brawl.  They get the job done quickly with ferocity and an economy of movement.  They know when, where, and how to strike an opponent.  Jason Bourne and John Wick are also wise enough to utilize weapons first, improvised or otherwise, and resort to bare hands only when necessary.

Styles like Keysi, KM, and the others were designed for self defense against single or multiple aggressors and they have grown in popularity with choreographers who want their hand to hand fight scenes to have a realistic and gritty feel to them.  Hand to hand fight scenes in action movies were giving way to more gunfights, but the Raid films IMO were important in bringing hand to hand fight scenes back en vogue.

Edited by J.T.
  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Sadly, I don' t think the Raid movies have created a watershed of financial success for director Gareth Evans.  I feel that he's still waiting for his big break.

He is supposedly directing Deathstroke so I would say he got it (not that we will ever actually see the movie)

Posted

Speaking of fight choreography, I like the fight scenes in HAYWIRE so much that the film might make my list (even though everything that isn't a fight scene is kinda meh).

Posted
1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

He is supposedly directing Deathstroke so I would say he got it (not that we will ever actually see the movie).

Evans was quoted in an article about his Netflix horror joint, The Apostle, saying that he hasn't heard from DC or WB about the Deathstroke project since the initial conversations.  

I think he's still waiting for his huge payday.

Posted

Watched I AM NOT A WITCH (2017) last night. It's about a young girl in an unnamed African country (based on Zaire and Ghana) who is identified as a witch by her village and so sent to a "witch camp," which is apparently a real thing. As a government witch, she presides over trials and is responsible for making it rain, etc. The film is darkly comic, and then just dark, and the tone is handled quite well, but the cinematography and the lead actress's performance really make this one worthwhile. Will make my list, somewhere.

 

 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

My sister and I watched that on Tuesday using our complimentary 90 day subscription to The Africa Channel streaming service. 

I started off with the usual "What the fuck is this?" attitude and was mesmerize a half hour later.

Good pick, dude!

Edited by J.T.
  • Like 1
  • 2 months later...
Posted (edited)
On 4/4/2020 at 10:30 AM, New Blood said:

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

One of my favorites. I have it in my top 5 for this list. It was a pleasantly meditative ride. 

Trailer for anyone interested.

EDIT: cheating to add “ Uncle Boonmee Who Recalls His Past Lives “ so it pops up in search. I’m a stinker.

Edited by Octopus
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
On 3/30/2020 at 4:33 PM, caley said:

 

We Are the Best! is one of my favourite movies I saw all decade (Am working at trying to get a copy so I can watch it again!) about a couple Swedish girls whom, in a mutual hatred of P.E., decide to form a punk band despite a complete lack of musical ability or knowledge.  It's such an incredibly accurate and fun and knowing look at a very specific time of life.  Anyone who ever had a punk phase will recognize so much of it.  Their performance and what happens after is one of my favourite cinematic memories of the decade.  Find this.  See this.

 

Things to Come: Everyone is going to bat for Mia Hansen-Love's 'Eden' which is funny because despite really loving two of her flicks, it really left me cold (My theory is that people are just so into the music as it's about the French house music scene circa the mid-to-late 90s with Daft Punk and all that they tend to overlook that the movie doesn't really give much to learn about its main character but maybe it's just me) but no one talks about this WONDERFUL little flick.  Isabelle Huppert plays a middle-aged woman who is suddenly beset by the end of her marriage and a number of other personal tragedies and tries to cope with it all.  Huppert is great as always as she tries to cope with these tragedies then find meaning in her life to go on.  The ending of this one gave me such a warm, perfectly fulfilled feeling in the quiet joys one can take in life.

 

Mia Hanson-Love’s films just landed on the Criterion Channel, so maybe I’ll get to this. I should probably watch CERTIFIED COPY before, though.
 

WE ARE THE BEST is a delight.

 

  • Like 1
Posted

SHIN GODZILLA was way better than I expected. Government satire + high quality kaiju madness.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE is about the Colombian drug trade, so it follows the typical drug lord narrative, but the main characters are all indigenous Wayuu people, and the conflicts that arise are refracted through the Wayuu’s cultural practices. Also, it’s beautifully shot. 

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