Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Totenkindly]

Train to Busan.

Basically, like World War Z -- if WWZ had actually been good. Fast zombies, and boy do the zombie extras really seem to enjoy doing their bit. There are just so many crazy moments in this film, whether on the train or in/around the train stations. The characters also almost threaten to have depth; there's some archetypical development that serves the film just fine and we don't get a ton of details about each, but each death still often generates either relief or sadness. There are moments too where the film almost breaks into some really complex moral evaluations, although it never quite marinates.

But it was a really enjoyable film, with a lot of "holy ****" moments.

 

[Totenkindly]

So my two favorite Mission Impossible films are Rogue Nation (#5) and Fallout (#6) -- and they're really kind of a two-part story that also ties some stuff up from the third film.

I wanted a comfort film last night, so I rewatched Rogue Nation. Except this time, I had actually been doing some reading outside of the film, that then inadvertently I brought back into it.

I had been watching some "Top Ten" lists on YouTube and one was famous opera arias. They featured Nessun Dorma from Puccini's "Turnadot," and it sounded familiar to me, and I had read through the entire story of the opera and the song's role in it. (Basically, Princess Turnadot is very cold and will only wed the prince who can answer her three riddles correctly; anyone who fails in the challenge is put to death. Princes try; princes fail; princes die. The opera is about one would-be suitor who falls in love with her and takes the challenges despite watching another prince lose his head right in front of him, but he does answer the questions correctly. Turnadot is appalled at this turn of events, because now she's locked into this marriage she never wanted. However, the prince says if she can guess his name before dawn, then he will allow her to execute him anyway. She threatens her entire city with death if they do not discover his name before dawn... but no one does. So it looks like he is victorious. But then in a gift of love he offers her his name, placing himself at her mercy. At this, realizes she loves him / he's worthy of her & isn't going to coerce her into anything, so she works through her ambivalence and tells her father that she has discovered the prince's name, and his name is "love". So the story ends well, with them together. At least, that's the gist as far as I perceived it.)

Of course, this is the famous opera house scene in this film, which I loved when I originally saw it and didn't realize it was the same aria that features so prominently in it, where the prince is singing while everyone is trying to figure out his name. Now when I was watching it, I was like, okay. Basically Hunt runs across an enigmatic woman (working with Syndicate) who liberates him unexpectedly. It's never clear through most of the film where she falls, though, especially to Hunt and his friends (although we see some scenes with her elsewhere and have a better understanding of her). It also seems very clear they are attracted to each other, they are like kindred spirits and equally capable. This puts Hunt at risk, because he is trusting her (when she might not be trustworthy) and meanwhile searching for the answers to the unfolding mystery of the syndicate. In a way, he's beholden to her and it leads him to risk himself, just like Turnadot; and Ilsa is a "cool" enigmatic personality, who could spell his doom, just like Turnadot. Hunt is more of an open book to her first, and she comes more clean much later in the film.

It's interesting too that the three riddles of the Princess have the following answers: Hope, Blood, and Turnadot. (Sorry, but not much of a spoiler.) Of the basic triangle in the film, Hunt = Hope, Solomon Lane (the main villain/terrorist) = Blood, and Isla = Turnadot.

The movie storyline is not a literal mirror of the opera, but it was meant to reflect up on it --because now since I was paying attention, basically any scene with Hunt + Ilsa where they are talking about themselves (the quasi-romantic scenes) is swiping musical motifs from the aria woven into the score. So that is pretty blatant regarding intent, Turnadot is reflecting on their relationship regularly.

As a side thing, Ilsa's last name is Faust, so that's pretty obvious -- she made a Faustian bargain with MI6 first (one that she wants to escape from but can't, because she realizes that "they don't care whether we live or die") and then with the Syndicate. A lot of the film finds her immersed deeper and deeper in territory where her death is imminent and it's not clear whether she will escape. (Actually, it's interesting to me that Isla is German and Faust is German, but Ilsa Faust is a British operative. *shrug*) Anyway, I appreciate films where they actually attempt to layer in this stuff and give thoughtful names to their characters as well as providing analogies/connections with other art.

 

[Totenkindly]

BLACK WIDOW Reactions Say Long-Delayed Film Was Worth the Wait

I hope this is true.

 

[Totenkindly]

Why isn't Pixar as good as it used to be?

yeah, Pixar was the creme de la creme for a number of films, until Cars started coming out. It was easy to just chalk up Cars as a bad kid's trilogy... but then Pixar continued to dip a bit. Brave, for example, felt like a step down in some ways and was the non-Cars turning point, although it has its moments (and Mordu is pretty awesome) -- a lot of the jokes are recycled cliches about Scots, for example, and feel second-hand rather than inventive, or involve cheap body humor. So it's no longer a given that their films are going to be great. They don't typically make BAD films, but they might only be middling now. I'm still not sure whether Soul was a great film or just a somewhat decent but flawed one.

I watched about 40 minutes into Luca yesterday and was bored AF. I'll have to force myself to finish it, because otherwise I might not. It's not bad, yet it's just not very engrossing. It's not the casts' fault, it's the story itself. It also seems to borrow from too many other films. Like, if I wasn't told it was Pixar, I wouldn't be sure.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Just the whole premise of Luca sounds a little boring, but I’ll reserve judgment until watching it, I suppose.

I think Up, Toy Story 3, and Wall-e were the pinnacles for Pixar.

That whole first act or so of wall-e, before we meet humans, is just pure art for me

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It occurred to me that Ernie Hudson is the best actor out of the original ghostbusters. Just look at all of their acting credits. He’s played comedic sidekicks, villains, simpletons, etc, and all very convincingly. We all love Bill Murray, and although he’s branched into non comedic roles, he struggles with a certain woodenness. He is charismatic as fuck, but that only carries an actor so far. Case in point: The Razor’s Edge. I actually really like this movie and it led me to read the novel, but Murray was not great in it. He didn’t become good at those solemn, troubled straight man roles until he hit later middle age—example Lost in Translation and Rushmore. Dan Akroyd I would probably rank as the second most versatile actor from the original 4 ghostbusters, as he’s blended well as an ensemble player in stuff like Driving Miss Daisy and My Girl. As much as I love Ramis, his strengths were always writing and directing over acting. Egon seemed to more or less be a highly exaggerated version of Ramis, based on interviews and footage I’ve seen of him

 

[Totenkindly]

Yeah, totally agree about Ramis. Acting was not really his gift. This is really obvious if you watch Stripes; his acting there pretty much just consists of laughing and smiling at anything Murray says. He has no idea how to act in front of a camera, no instinct for it.. But he seemed to be a decent director and writer, and a decent human being.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It occurred to me that Ernie Hudson is the best actor out of the original ghostbusters. Just look at all of their acting credits. He’s played comedic sidekicks, villains, simpletons, etc, and all very convincingly. We all love Bill Murray, and although he’s branched into non comedic roles, he struggles with a certain woodenness. He is charismatic as fuck, but that only carries an actor so far. Case in point: The Razor’s Edge. I actually really like this movie and it led me to read the novel, but Murray was not great in it. He didn’t become good at those solemn, troubled straight man roles until he hit later middle age—example Lost in Translation and Rushmore. Dan Akroyd I would probably rank as the second most versatile actor from the original 4 ghostbusters, as he’s blended well as an ensemble player in stuff like Driving Miss Daisy and My Girl. As much as I love Ramis, his strengths were always writing and directing over acting. Egon seemed to more or less be a highly exaggerated version of Ramis, based on interviews and footage I’ve seen of him

Also he was in Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. In 3d!

 

[Totenkindly]

I knew there was a good reason I hated most of the live remakes, their only reason to exist was just to try to be more enlightened and in the process bungle the stories. Even Maleficent was kind of lame, we didn't really need to develop her humanity; it needed to own her alien-ness. It has been all storytelling at its least provocative and least adventurous.

Cinderella didn't bother me as much. it pretty much leaned into expectations, at least.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Yeah. Disney is fake woke. I like actual layers and subtexts of social commentary in films but this doesn’t feel like deep or meaningful commentary that makes people think or look at societal issues in a new light. It feels like lazy pandering to keep an evolving target demographic interested in their movies and merchandise. It just smacks of a board of directors looking at charts and graphs of market and social trends and going where the money is. It’s insulting and I think any fans who actually fall for it (I suspect it’s fewer with every live action remake) deserve to be bamboozled. Meanwhile the socially conservative types who predictably get outraged for all the wrong, equally superficial reasons and threaten to boycott Disney….well, they pose no real threat to Disney’s bottom line and in a way they help Disney by creating an impression that these films must be groundbreaking, controversial works of woke social commentary due to all of the outrage and debate that happens on social media (free advertising! Make a simple announcement and watch the hype build itself up!) over something as silly as a black girl being cast as a mermaid. I also have to wonder how sales of the original Little Mermaid probably spiked right after that announcement, with many of the #NotMyAriel dumbasses rushing to order copies out of fear of their original Ariel being cancelled and erased. It’s all a pretty brilliant marketing scheme on Disney’s part

At least Pixar tries to weave in actual commentary (to varying degrees of success), but even they’re ultimately making decisions based on where the money is. Film companies are not trend setters, they are trend followers and will always first go wherever the money is. Highlighting injustice is only a concern for them if it gets people buying tickets and talking about their products

And you know, sorry for the high and mighty tone of my post there. I’m ultimately just as big an idiot sheep as the next person. I look at my bookshelf and see dvd box sets (hey, Ripley is a Disney Princess now, for all intents and purposes) and high dollar collectible plastic figures (Jason, Godzilla…..oh look is that a Wall-e?!?) and the irony isn’t entirely lost on me

 

[Totenkindly]

Yeah. Disney is fake woke. I like actual layers and subtexts of social commentary in films but this doesn’t feel like deep or meaningful commentary that makes people think or look at societal issues in a new light. It feels like lazy pandering to keep an evolving target demographic interested in their movies and merchandise. It just smacks of a board of directors looking at charts and graphs of market and social trends and going where the money is. It’s insulting and I think any fans who actually fall for it (I suspect it’s fewer with every live action remake) deserve to be bamboozled. Meanwhile the socially conservative types who predictably get outraged for all the wrong, equally superficial reasons and threaten to boycott Disney….well, they pose no real threat to Disney’s bottom line and in a way they help Disney by creating an impression that these films must be groundbreaking, controversial works of woke social commentary due to all of the outrage and debate that happens on social media (free advertising! Make a simple announcement and watch the hype build itself up!) over something as silly as a black girl being cast as a mermaid. I also have to wonder how sales of the original Little Mermaid probably spiked right after that announcement, with many of the #NotMyAriel dumbasses rushing to order copies out of fear of their original Ariel being cancelled and erased. It’s all a pretty brilliant marketing scheme on Disney’s part.

Yeah, I am interested in actual commentary that is reflected in character and plot, I'm just feeling like the last twenty years of Disney has mostly just been veering in this direction. It's basically a lot of the superficial flagging, rather than meaningful exploration, that annoys me. Like the Mulan remake -- if you didn't like it, it was so heavily flagged on the surface as a woke film that something must be wrong with you, but honestly it wasn't a very good film, it was a middling effort playing off the prior goodwill of the animated version. The two hour Aladdin was also full of flags, but there was no meaningful discussion of this because the social argument was all about people defending or attacking Will Smith for not being Robin Williams; Smith was actually one of the better parts of the film, the rest was a lot of self-important noise without much substance.

Film companies are not trend setters, they are trend followers and will always first go wherever the money is. Highlighting injustice is only a concern for them if it gets people buying tickets and talking about their products.

Well, this is why I've become more immersed in indie films over the years, as well as foreign films. They seem less about the money in general because they've already been working under the supposition they won't have much of it, so they have to make up for it in other ways. But yes, the film industry in terms of Hollywoo? They have their expectations set pretty high in terms of financial reward and so they are dumping $200 million and more into what should be a more lucrative cash grab. Middle of road films seem to have suffered. It doesn't mean that the big rewards films haven't been good at time, but you can rest assured some of these films would not be coming out unless that large payoff was pretty much a given; they are not doing charity work.

So basically that is the way of the beast. You would just hope that SOME of that cash would get redirected towards smaller, less lucrative projects that possess actual thought and/or meaning. That might be a better way to evaluate a particular production company, how they balance their offerings.

And you know, sorry for the high and mighty tone of my post there. I’m ultimately just as big an idiot sheep as the next person. I look at my bookshelf and see dvd box sets (hey, Ripley is a Disney Princess now, for all intents and purposes) and high dollar collectible plastic figures (Jason, Godzilla…..oh look is that a Wall-e?!?) and the irony isn’t entirely lost on me

Ripley is probably a [brood] Queen, not a Princess.

I don't think everything that comes out of expensive studio projects is bad. Sometimes there's some meaningful stuff in there. Sometimes you get creators who actually do care about their projects, to them it's a dream to develop some property they've always wanted to work on and have things to comment on regarding it. The thing is, it will always been offset by whoever is paying money to fund the picture and how much return they are expecting for their investment. And corporations are not people. They exist to provide revenue. So their interest in social mores and values is always going to be influenced by the bottom line.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Holy fedora, King Solomon’s Mines (the 1985 cannon film) had to be the most blatant Indiana Jones ripoff ever.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

The Substitute 2 makes the first film look like high cinema. Who did the ADR and sound design? Anyone else hear the weird disembodied voice in this clip?

Also, some of the “slang” and insults in this movie are so nonsensical. Like why does one of the thugs call the main star “ass beavis”?

And what exactly is a “comp ass”?


I’ve decided to watch the whole series (I have a cheap 4 pack DVD set I found at a yard sale). I fear they’re going to get worse with each installment. But hopefully they also get (unintentionally) funnier.

 

[Totenkindly]

Finally finished Minari -- a nice pic from A24 about a young Korean family trying to make do in '80s Arkansas. It is ultimately about the resilience of families (via the metaphor of minari, or water celery). The father wants to do his own work, farming Asian plants; the mother is concerned because of the uprooting and impact on kids; the young boy suffers a heart condition. The mother's mom is brought over from Korea to watch the kids while the parents work as hatchling sexers, a role for which Youn Yuh-Jung earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and other awards as well.

The grandmother is kind of designed to get award attention, she's quirky, a bit cantankerous/rebellious against expectations, and ends up being part of the glue holding the family together although her own health issues later in the film also set up a crux point around which the entire family can either cohere or fall apart.

A few points about the film:

• It's interesting -- a young Korean family trying to fit into rural south (and religious) culture in the 80's. This goes differently than the cliche you'd expect in today's films, where religion is portrayed more antagonistically and as a villain (a reputation it has sometimes deserved). Things here feel a bit more realistic, with a bit of clueless racism (one kid who apparently has never met a Korean, asks the Korean boy why his face is flat, and the boy just says "it's not," and they just end up being friends, despite some quirky aspect). Everyone is trying sincerely to navigate the new addition of the family to the area.
• It's pretty funny -- Especially the kids and the grandmother. There's also a nice payoff with the kids loving Mountain Dew (the family I think refers to it as "spring water" or some adoring term) and how this feeds into an ongoing conflict between the boy and his grandmother until he comes around later in the film.
• It's positive and lighter than expected. There's a bad argument or two, and a bad thing or two that happens, but the film doesn't try to overdramatize anything, it just leaves it sit with the viewer on how to respond.

This was shoved into the Best Foreign Features category in Golden Globes, I think, but people had some obvious issues with that, in which I am generally in agreement. Yes, half the film or more is in Korean with subtitles... however, it's not a foreign film, this is an (US) American family trying to make it in US America (in fact, in the south!) and it represents values that are embraced by US Americans. The board seems to have gotten hung up on a technicality and not adjusted to the changing demographics of the US. To put it simply, the southern country baptists in the film seem more affirming to the family than the film org board.

 

[Totenkindly]

Finished "The Father" this evening, basically peering through the eyes of a man experiencing mental decline/disorientation related to old age. Some thoughts:

• The film itself is beautifully done because we are basically (without prior notice) given the same viewpoint as Anthony's dementia. the film is disorienting, bewildering, things change from expectation, people we thought we knew are replaced, and until the end of the film, it's not really possible to know the actuality of anything we've been experiencing through Anthony's eyes. And Anthony's viewpoint isn't "crazy" -- he is trying to generate coherence to his perceptions, making sense of it all, but every time he thinks he has figured it out, things change. We are riders in Anthony's head.
• The set is rather awesome. it all seems to be the interior of a flat. So the basic structure and layout remains the same, but details change, transforming the flat into various locales through the film. Is it Anthony's flat? His daughter'? Is he in a doctor's office? A hospital? A home? It seems to all be the same set, just with changes made, leaving it unclear what the location actually is.
• Anthony Hopkins has typically been known for playing gruff men, or otherwise men with a stoic exterior who remain emotionally impenetrable inside. "The Father" is a bit different for him. Yes, some of Hopkin's typical affectations are present, but he also has some really unexpected moments, displays of joviality, bursts of energy, going from cheerful to mean to confused and back again. And by the end of the film, there's a bit where Hopkins gives the most raw, most vulnerable performance I have ever seen from him. (I couldn't help but cry myself.) If there was ever any confusion over why he got a Best Actor for this, watching the film will wash that away. Unlike some actors in his generation who have been phoning in performances or doing throwaway films in their twilight years, Hopkins goes all in and sells this with everything he has. it was a deserving performance from a talented actor in his 80's.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched the 4K copy of "In the Line of Fire" (1993) that just got released. They did a really nice polish of the film, which has seemed to be plagued with bad quality on DVD and bluray. It looks and sounds pretty nice now, the colors are more balanced, the detail and clarity is there.

This has always been a kind of film like "A Few Good Men" to me -- it's put together pretty tightly, in terms of construction (dialogue, plotting, etc.) but that at times can make it feel less organic and a little too contrived/manufactured. However, ITLOF isn't as bad as AFGM that way, there are actually a few really great scenes that are allowed to breathe. (One is a phone conversation between Leary and Horrigan; another is when Horrigan has been kicked in the teeth too much and is ruminating on his feelings to Raines; might be others as well.)

It also has the novelty of showcasing Fred Thompson before he became a US Senator, but there's other character actors that show up here like Steve Hytner (Kenny Bania off Seinfeld), Tobin Bell, John heard, Gary Cole, Dylan McDermott, patrika Darbo, Josh Malina, etc. And also has an electric/orchestrated soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (!)

I hadn't realized there was three Oscar noms for this film, in non-throwaway categories (Supporting Actor for Malkovich, Best Screenplay, Best Editing). The writer hasn't done alot of scripts in the business, but I think he made $1 million off this one, and that's in the 90's.

Horrigan is kind of a dinosaur hard-ass whose mouth keeps getting him in trouble. They add a nice melancholy to the film with him being the only active agent who served on detail to Kennedy, and his guilt over that failure destroyed his life; he's kind of a dour, self-hating man by this time. Rene Russo (as Agent Raines, kind of a love interest) is interesting to watch, in how she interacts with Clint Eastwood, she can play sympathetic with style remaining his equal in strength. The film does a lot to mask the villain's identity until partway through the film (they use partial face shots and zooms as a technique), where they need to finally do a scene that only involves him and not Eastwood. Malkovich usually makes interesting choices, he's has often gotten pulled into playing villains but is typically not run of the mill in his present. He's got a kind of introverted quirky style until suddenly he can erupt into anger or fierce coldness.

So despite how tight the script is, the film is still enjoyable in terms of its dramatic beats and dialogue.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

8 Mile is my new background movie. It's quite moving.

 

[Tomb1]

I seen Nobody. I liked it but the violence was not choreographed anywhere near as sharp and edgy as John Wick. I appreciate the Challenger (whether it was a '72 or '73 doesn't matter spec-wise) but they act like its a '70 Chevelle or a '70 pro street Nova...even John Wick's Boss 429 is a lot more formidable. hell my 2010 Challenger at 390 horsepower and 410 pds. of torque buries that challenger. those challengers only had about 290 pounds of torque and that's assuming all parts are at optimum capacity.

 

[Totenkindly]

So I was watching "The Matrix Reloaded" in 4K. I've only gotten up to the beginning of the highway chase sequence, right now -- basically around the mid-point of the film, because Highway Chase basically closes Act II, and then Act 3 is the infiltration of the power grid and/or Neo finding his way into the Source.

• My biggest gripe with the film is that it is poorly paced. There's an initial action dream sequence, plus a throwaway fight between Neo and three Agents to kind of frame Neo's power level and the state of the agents arrayed against him, but then there is a good 30-35 minutes of useless "nothing happens" material, a lot of mediocre dialogue, dramatic moments that don't quite pan out, and/or the entire rave sequence which can be moody or silly depending on your state of mind. There's a lot of pseudo-philosophical talk that tries to appear enlightened but is kinda content-less. Like, if you cannot do great dramatic sequences or good dialogue with real content that will help explain the film better, directly, then you should get rid of it or rewrite it. The Wachowskis tend to not do as well when they are trying to do non-action philosophy, they do better slipping aphorisms into more active sequences.
  
• Pretty much this trilogy has revolved around the efforts of impressive character actor work. Everyone loves Keanu, but he's really bad at dramatic line delivery. He does work like a dog to get his action sequences right though. Anyway, the most impressive dramatic bits in this film always come from secondary memorable characters: Monica Belluci as Persephone, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Lambert Wilson as the Merovingian, Gloria Foster as the Oracle, Helmut Bakaitis as the Architect, even Harold Perrineau as Link (the "everyman" viewpoint of the film). They are all distinctive and great thespians, they dominate the scenes they are in. (There's also a few other quality actors but they really did not get great dialogue/parts, so... not mentioning them.)
  
• I suspect they did some work on "old" CGI portions of the film, because even the Burly Brawl sequence didn't look as bad as I remembered due to outdated graphics. (They looked awesome for a year or two, but that was 2003-2004 (?) and CGI quickly leaped ahead, and the visuals simply did not age well.) There's only two moments now that I've noticed Neo being an obvious CGI creation now and even then he didn't look as bad as remembered (one is when he "does the Superman thing" and flies up in front of the moon, and then other is when he does a leaping spin kick in the Burly Brawl in slo-mo about 2/3 of the way through the fight). I *think* they went back through for the 4K release and added more detail to his face that 4K could handle -- basically more skin tone + the presence of 5 o clock shadow that we can clearly see on the real Keanu's face throughout that portion of the film. I think he looked way too polished/smooth and single-hued before, which is why he looked fake; but the extra detail and coloration really went a long way in improving the sequence so as to not take the viewer out of it. If someone else watches the 4K on a decent setup, let me know what you think.
  
• There were always complaints that Neo didn't fly away early in the Burly Brawl. I've never agreed with them, for a few reasons: (1) Neo didn't know there were multiple Smiths until the beginning of the fight, there were only six at the time, and he didn't know what to make of it yet, (2) he was able to handle multiple agents, he had already killed Smith himself once, and there were only six as I've noted to start with, and he was handling himself just fine, (3) as the fight commences, he slowly realizes that there are more and more Smiths, until the tally easily gets up in the 30's, but by that point he has no TIME to fly because he is hard-pressed from every side, because (4) we know he needs a few seconds to concentrate to fly, at that time in his life, it was even established at the beginning of the film that he can't just take off but has that 2-3 second buffer where he really has to focus and gather his mental energy together, and (5) the only time in the fight he had enough space/time to fly away was at the mid-point, when he's slammed back into the bricks, and instead of flying, he grabs a pole out of the concrete and proceeds to beat the Smiths senseless with it. Basically that was the one moment where he had enough space to get out, but Neo is not a strategic thinker + he hasn't yet lost a fight, so he still thinks he can deal with it -- plus he really dislikes Smith and just doesn't want to back down yet. Once it is clear that it's "inevitable" he will be overwhelmed by superior numbers, he finally creates some space and gets out of dodge. I don't recall him making any further errors in that regard after this point, he seems to take Smith far more seriously after this fight.
  
• My favorite fight is still the Château skirmish between Neo and about 8-10 of his henchmen (probably all programs left from Era 2 of the Matrix). It's impeccably choreographed with multiple things going on at once, and people are just grabbing new weapons left and right, so it has a variety of styles expressed. (In this, it reminds me of the fight in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where Shu Lien and Jen Yu are having it out in the training room -- Shu Lien is obviously superior skill-wise and pulls weapon after weapon off the wall during this fight, but Jen Yu is using the dragon sword and it simply is capable of breaking all the lesser weapons eventually. Another strength of the Château sequence is its music, which frames and paces the action beautifully. But also the sequence serves as a thematic tie in: so far Neo has been shown in the summer of his strength, like a god, but here there's a moment where he's forced to block a two-handed sword with his bare hand (and DOES!) while kicking the guy away.... but it draws blood, dripping to the floor. "You see?" says the Merovingian, a little disdainfully. "He's just a man." It's a huge bit of foreshadowing about where the series is going -- Neo might have superman-like powers, but he's still mortal and eventually his strength is going to wane. It's such dark foreboding, hinting at the losses of Revolutions. [Persephone says the same, when talking to Trinity about her love with Neo -- "I envy you... but such a thing is not fated to last."]
  

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Watched the 4K copy of "In the Line of Fire" (1993) that just got released. They did a really nice polish of the film, which has seemed to be plagued with bad quality on DVD and bluray. It looks and sounds pretty nice now, the colors are more balanced, the detail and clarity is there.

This has always been a kind of film like "A Few Good Men" to me -- it's put together pretty tightly, in terms of construction (dialogue, plotting, etc.) but that at times can make it feel less organic and a little too contrived/manufactured. However, ITLOF isn't as bad as AFGM that way, there are actually a few really great scenes that are allowed to breathe. (One is a phone conversation between Leary and Horrigan; another is when Horrigan has been kicked in the teeth too much and is ruminating on his feelings to Raines; might be others as well.)

It also has the novelty of showcasing Fred Thompson before he became a US Senator, but there's other character actors that show up here like Steve Hytner (Kenny Bania off Seinfeld), Tobin Bell, John heard, Gary Cole, Dylan McDermott, patrika Darbo, Josh Malina, etc. And also has an electric/orchestrated soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (!)

I hadn't realized there was three Oscar noms for this film, in non-throwaway categories (Supporting Actor for Malkovich, Best Screenplay, Best Editing). The writer hasn't done alot of scripts in the business, but I think he made $1 million off this one, and that's in the 90's.

Horrigan is kind of a dinosaur hard-ass whose mouth keeps getting him in trouble. They add a nice melancholy to the film with him being the only active agent who served on detail to Kennedy, and his guilt over that failure destroyed his life; he's kind of a dour, self-hating man by this time. Rene Russo (as Agent Raines, kind of a love interest) is interesting to watch, in how she interacts with Clint Eastwood, she can play sympathetic with style remaining his equal in strength. The film does a lot to mask the villain's identity until partway through the film (they use partial face shots and zooms as a technique), where they need to finally do a scene that only involves him and not Eastwood. Malkovich usually makes interesting choices, he's has often gotten pulled into playing villains but is typically not run of the mill in his present. He's got a kind of introverted quirky style until suddenly he can erupt into anger or fierce coldness.

So despite how tight the script is, the film is still enjoyable in terms of its dramatic beats and dialogue.

There were some funny exchanges between Malkovich and Eastwood in that movie. Unrelated but it reminds me of Stallone and Lithgow trading barbs in Cliffhanger