Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[The Cat]

Dark City is the best.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Dark City is the best.

Both Brazil and Dark City are great films. I can't imagine the theatrical release of Brazil making any sense. That entire ending sequence is full of surrealistic imagery; just cutting the reveal that it was all a dream and he's being tortured wouldn't work (which is a great ending).

 

[The Cat]

Both Brazil and Dark City are films. I can't imagine the theatrical release of Brazil making any sense. That entire ending sequence is full of surrealistic imagery; just cutting the reveal that it was all a dream and he's being tortured wouldn't work (which is a great ending).

Have you seen the directors cut of Dark City?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Have you seen the directors cut of Dark City?

Yes. I own it on DVD.

I love the way the movie looks. It's this noir look, but it's different from Blade Runner; everything is much more mechanical.

 

[Totenkindly]

Yes. I own it on DVD.

I love the way the movie looks. It's this noir look, but it's different from Blade Runner; everything is much more mechanical.

Yeah, I prefer the Director's Cut on that one -- it fills in some more backstory, especially with Bumstead. And Richard O' Brien as Mr. Hand is just so excellent.

it is one of my favorite film endings -- bittersweet but hopeful, sunlight pouring out, with the music swelling and accentuating all of it with a tinge of mystery.

Both Brazil and Dark City are films. I can't imagine the theatrical release of Brazil making any sense. That entire ending sequence is full of surrealistic imagery; just cutting the reveal that it was all a dream and he's being tortured wouldn't work (which is a great ending).

There are a few versions of Brazil out there, the Criterion release might have three of them. The most obvious "different endings" are the "Love Conquers All" version that they were trying to peddle on American television (which has the "happy ending" where Sam escapes the torture and lives happily in the wilderness with Jill) and the regular and Director's Cut ending which typically end up with essentially being the "Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge" and about how "Sam has gotten away from us, Jack" and the bittersweet tag of the theme song being whistled.

Yeah, I can't recall whether the LCA version has all the surreal elements (like Harry Tuttle being destroyed by paperwork), but it definitely in my mind makes it a hard sell to try and say all of that was "real". It's amusing that Gilliam's darker ending actually won the LA Times Critics award I think for Best Screenplay.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, I prefer the Director's Cut on that one -- it fills in some more backstory, especially with Bumstead. And Richard O' Brien as Mr. Hand is just so excellent.

it is one of my favorite film endings -- bittersweet but hopeful, sunlight pouring out, with the music swelling and accentuating all of it with a tinge of mystery.

I first watched the theatrical cut but plugged my ears because I was warned about the narration that ruins the awesome reveal that

everything we have seen was taking place inside a gigantic spaceship

. The whole movie is reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting (if you don't know, just look up Nighthawks) with these weird sci-fi elements interspersed, completing the uncertainties about time and place that are central to the story. As viewers, we don't even know when we are, much less what is going on.

There are many films from the end of the millennium that cover similar themes and territory, which is something I find endlessly fascinating. What were people aware of, exactly? People must have been aware of something; it shows up too often to be a coincidence.

Perhaps it's absurd that I'm using spoilers for a 26-year-old film, but I'm justifying it by the fact this movie is by no means ubiquitous, and so if someone reading this wants to watch it, they should experience it as I did (well, they should watch the Director's Cut).

There are a few versions of Brazil out there, the Criterion release might have three of them. The most obvious "different endings" are the "Love Conquers All" version that they were trying to peddle on American television (which has the "happy ending" where Sam escapes the torture and lives happily in the wilderness with Jill) and the regular and Director's Cut ending which typically end up with essentially being the "Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge" and about how "Sam has gotten away from us, Jack" and the bittersweet tag of the theme song being whistled.

Yeah, I can't recall whether the LCA version has all the surreal elements (like Harry Tuttle being destroyed by paperwork), but it definitely in my mind makes it a hard sell to try and say all of that was "real". It's amusing that Gilliam's darker ending actually won the LA Times Critics award I think for Best Screenplay.

Don't forget when Sam jumps in the coffin to escape from the police, and it's a gigantic slide.

I've only ever seen versions with the dark ending. I didn't know there was a third version, so I'm not sure if I've seen the regular, the Director's Cut, or both. That ending, though, is so good. It makes for a much better movie than him saving and winning the girl. I also noticed that Jill behaves quite differently in their actual encounters and that there's a severe mismatch between fantasy and reality. Does she ever reciprocate any interest of any kind, or even express a desire for his help?

I (and probably everyone else who likes this movie), think this movie is better by not having them escape together as lovers in the countryside. The movie is much better if it's about a person unhappy with the reality they live in, and deciding to get lost in his fantasies, with this ultimately being his only method of escape.

 

[Totenkindly]

I first watched the theatrical cut but plugged my ears because I was warned about the narration that ruins the awesome reveal that ...

Yeah, it's one of the big flaws of the theatrical version IMO.

There are many films from the end of the millennium that cover similar themes and territory, which is something I find endlessly fascinating. What were people aware of, exactly? People must have been aware of something; it shows up too often to be a coincidence.

it was a time when the end of the world was coming (lol, Y2K) + the Internet was taking off so computers were also taking off. The X-files were big. I'm not sure how to literally tie it together but potentially part of all that kind of stuff or a reaction to it.

Don't forget when Sam jumps in the coffin to escape from the police, and it's a gigantic slide.

Yeah, the whole last 15-20 minutes or so is pretty bizarre to watch. It only really makes sense if we find out it is a tortured mind searching for a way out.

I've only ever seen versions with the dark ending. I didn't know there was a third version, so I'm not sure if I've seen the regular, the Director's Cut, or both. That ending, though, is so good. It makes for a much better movie than him saving and winning the girl. I also noticed that Jill behaves quite differently in their actual encounters and that there's a severe mismatch between fantasy and reality. Does she ever reciprocate any interest of any kind, or even express a desire for his help?

Yeah, that's another big thing -- Jill in reality vs Jill in Sam's tortured perspective. You have to kind of sift through Real Jill vs Idealized Jill.

I (and probably everyone else who likes this movie), think this movie is better by not having them escape together as lovers in the countryside. The movie is much better if it's about a person unhappy with the reality they live in, and deciding to get lost in his fantasies, with this ultimately being his only method of escape.

It feels more honest, that is for certain. The reality is the bureaucracy is gigantic, ponderous, and crushes everything under its wheels and spits out the pieces after. It's nice to think about the lone hero struggling against the monster and winning -- but the reality is that the hero can't really make a difference when the mountain stomps on him. All he can do is survive inside himself. He never gave up, but he couldn't win.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watching "Anatomy of a Fall." A lot of the film is apparently in French, only part in English, so I had to turn on subtitles.

Honestly, I wouldn't blame her if she killed her husband. One could imagine her lashing out after his bullshit in the opening minutes of the film. But it's doing a good job of confusing whether it was accidental or an unintended (or intended) product of a confrontation. I'm curious to see how this pans out.

I think Swann Arlaud is cute -- kind of an aging Jean-Paul Baubier from Marvel, in appearance. He could also play Ozpin in a live-action RWBY.

I think the saddest bit is when a spouse dies and the other regardless of whether she did it has to impugn his memory by suggesting he had psychological problems or a drug addiction just to prevent a conviction.

---

The emotional complexity of this film is astonishing, in terms of how long term relationships work and how intricate the emotions can get. I have no clue how this will end.

I do, however, want to punch the smug prosecutor in the face. That's impressive, I usually don't get angry. It's worse how hypocritical he is. In fact, he was so hypocritical that it was maybe the worst part of the film, I had trouble believing he was a real person -- although I don't really know what the French court system is like.

---

That was one of the best films I've seen all year.

Sandra Huller possessed so much nuance in her voice and face. Incredible performance.

I really like how they emphasized her "outsider" status in France by keeping her as a German who spoke mainly English and struggled with expressing herself in French. It made her more of an enigma and more suspicious in some ways. Even the argument with her husband sounded more like a German cultural approach vs his cultural background. The film might have more time spent speaking French than English, so subtitles are necessary.

As one of the centerpieces of the court sequence, it was really hard to listen to and/or watch the recorded fight between herself and her husband. It felt very real to me, having grown up in a family where my parents fought all the time and then when I had fights in my own marriage. I could see truth and distortion in what each of them was saying, both really locked into their own viewpoints... and then of course momentary rage bubbling into bits of violence that leaves large marks of shame, why would either of them ever want to discuss those moments outside of their relationship? It's that kind of complexity that makes the whole thing feel embarrassing to listen to, like I am intruding on a very private space (and the characters were even fictional) -- like, these are the kinds of things couples might rage at each other over but also keep the secret and/or never share the depths of those kinds of conflicts because it is very personal between the two of them. It felt so real.

I also like how I came away feeling like maybe the best resolution had been reached, without me ever being 100% sure that the wife was innocent or guilty of what she was accused. And how can you ever know these things for sure, when there is not conclusive evidence or witnesses to a crime? If you can avoid making a decision, you do. If you are forced to make a decision, then you pick the one you can live with and that you want to believe.

I see so many places where this film could have gone wrong if it had been made by Americans as a "crowd pleaser" -- thank god it never veers from its position and tone.

 

[Totenkindly]

If I was 25, I'd do an impromptu 2-3 hour drive to NYC to see this in a theater.

The Prestige - Now Playing In Theater at Metrograph

Crowley’s third turn as production designer for Christopher Nolan was this taut, twist-filled psychological thriller that moves from a lushly…

metrograph.com

 

[The Cat]

If I was 25, I'd do an impromptu 2-3 hour drive to NYC to see this in a theater.

The Prestige - Now Playing In Theater at Metrograph

Crowley’s third turn as production designer for Christopher Nolan was this taut, twist-filled psychological thriller that moves from a lushly…

metrograph.com

Sometimes I like to imagine "The Prestige" is an actual prestige and its Christopher Nolan's way of explaining how Christian Bale became the kind of guy who loses it on an extra. His mourning his twin, who was sacrificed on the Alter of Hollywood, by a key grip on the set of The Dark Knight Rises.

 

[Totenkindly]

Sometimes I like to imagine "The Prestige" is an actual prestige and its Christopher Nolan's way of explaining how Christian Bale became the kind of guy who loses it on an extra. His mourning his twin, who was sacrificed on the Alter of Hollywood, by a key grip on the set of The Dark Knight Rises.

Well, Bale can be kind of a dick at times, although his character is the more reasonable in The Prestige honestly.

 

[The Cat]

Well, Bale can be kind of a dick at times, although his character is the more reasonable in The Prestige honestly.

Well yes, but we knew that about Hugh Jackman when he did Oklahoma AND Australia. Those are not the films of a sane or reasonable man.

 

[Totenkindly]

The movie Stephen King hated so much that he sued the studio

Stephen King is one of the most heavily-adapted authors in history, but one movie based on his work irritated him so much he took legal action.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

Yeah, that film had literally nothing to do with his story.i remember being shocked when I saw it, at how unrelated it was.

Not that the story would have made a good film, it's a wild short.

 

[The Cat]

The movie Stephen King hated so much that he sued the studio

Stephen King is one of the most heavily-adapted authors in history, but one movie based on his work irritated him so much he took legal action.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

Yeah, that film had literally nothing to do with his story.i remember being shocked when I saw it, at how unrelated it was.

Not that the story would have made a good film, it's a wild short.

I would enjoy the heck out of a comedy series that was loosely based on Steven King being a successful writer but also having a sense of artistic integrity trying to just make it through his year while this kind of thing happens with movie studios. I would love Charlie Day to play the lead as the writer, and Steven King to play the villainous Movie studio executive. I think he would have fun really making that villain arch

 

[The Cat]

Film Title: Me and My Shadow.
A random premise it could be about:
A lonely boy whos family moves to an old farm house in rural Maine discovers a darkly magical world of living shadow beings. Being lonely and kind of an odd duck, the kid befriends the "Imaginary" shadow beings who begin to protect the boy from very real dangers. A tense psychological thriller that will warm your heart this Christmas.
Tagline: Whatever happens, they've got us.

put this song in a minor key on an out of tune piano and have some sickly looking children sing it slowly it'll make box office.

​

Go forth Internet. Take it and make it so. Bonus points if you find away to put black eyed kids in it and making them heartwarming.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I thought An Evening With Beverly Luff Lin was a hilarious movie. It's basically "What if David Lynch directed a comedy?"

But I can definitely understand why people would hate it.

 

[Totenkindly]

So how many people have watched Saltburn yet?

While people have spoken about similarities between this and The Talented Mr. Ripley film, I feel like there's some differences in psychology between the two. Both covet, but even though it's been years I think Ripley was more anxious/fearful (am I correct?), where Oliver seems more angry -- and this influences how the film plays out.

I appreciate Emerald Fennell -- I appreciate directors who seem to have a vision and leave a unique stamp on their films, and some of the ways this film is shot (the staging, the framing, the colors and silhouetting, etc.) makes it a distinctive work, just as Promising Young Woman also had its own feel. I think viewers who get hung up on the "shocking" plot bits are kind of missing the meat of the film and the twisted psychology among many of the characters.

About Oliver:

I think the big revelation not in that he "loved" Felix and his family but in fact simultaneously HATED them can ripple back throughout the film. The stuff that seemed kinky and twisted and potentially disgusting to some viewers in this light can totally be seen as simultaneously obsessively lustful while at the same time also violently disparaging. It totally scans in how those scenes were shot and acted -- every effectively -- that he simultaneously desired to be and yet despised these other people.

Like, the whole erotic moment with Venetia, he got her to do something she found both enticing and disturbing to her, and now it seems it was just a manipulation to make her feel worse about herself in the end. Or the moment with Farleigh on the bed at night, it feels like such a mix of desire and disdain... especially when we learn more about what Oliver has been up to. These are violent acts against their emotions and personhood that leaves them feeling dirty afterwards, he seems to take pleasure in seeing how revved up he can make them while leaving them feeling repulsed simultaneously.

Even his "kindness" to them, like a moth beating at the glass, compulsively "polite," in light of his actual loathing of them, can already read as offensive, his sick way to rubbing their noses in how ineffectual, weak, and clueless they were to either detect his disgust for them or their inability to bypass the rules of civility he was playing by and just grab him by the throat so to speak, recognizing him and calling him out for what he is. It's like they either couldn't see into Oliver or chose NOT to see into Oliver because it's not the way they wanted to live. I think Barry Keoghan was a great choice for this role because he tends to be inscrutable anyway, in most of his other film roles. I can remember him in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which actually feels similar in some ways -- this kid who is "off" and seems nice but has some underlying manipulative intent arising out of hidden anger, but you can never call him out on it directly because he can just dart around the accusation.

I think Oliver kind of walked the thin edge between desiring and hating Felix until Felix called him out purposefully about how much of a liar he was and made him take an extended visit with his parents, to kind of rub his nose in it. Felix made him feel small and tore way the veils of Oliver's deceptions, and it was horrifically embarrassing to him and he couldn't bear to live in that knowledge. It makes you wonder what Oliver found so embarrassing about belonging to a middle-class family who lives in the suburbs, with two parents who obviously wanted him in their lives and other sisters. What twisted him and turned him off to them? Why did he so much hate the normalcy of what he was born into?

 

[Totenkindly]

I just watched Past Lives. Really nice film, it resonates a great deal and also is supposed by emotionally reflective visuals and music backdrop.

Plotwise it isn't very complex, basically childhood friends who reconnect twice more in their future, but it's really about the lingering connections we make when we intersect others are crucial times of our lives and how they tend to linger regardless of the years that pass. I experience a lot of this at my age, remembering different periods of my life and despite not knowing what has happened to some people for a few decades or more, I still wonder. And there are people I once had stronger connections with, where those connections remain without any communication over the years. If something had been different, what might have changed? Why do these connections exist? If we have existed previously, what might those connections have meant then?

People come to mean something to us personally, even if who we are means that our life directions will be different and we cannot remain together.

I really like the visual imagery. Like, there's one image of a puddle at night on the street with a lot of blue lights reflected in it, along with a contrasting street light, with the rain pattering into it and occasionally a big ripple that distorts the image for a few seconds. It is very much like our past and our memories, where a few details stand out while the rest of the details are in the background, and the memory itself isn't necessarily stable (the ripple) while still somewhat resembling itself. We have a grasp of the memory but it's more fluid than anchored at times.

The whole film has a dreamlike quality to it as it flits forward through time. it's really about these connections between three people.

I like it when Arthur tells Nora that, despite her living in the US since being a girl, she still dreams in Korean because when she talks in her sleep it is in Korean. She did not know she did this. He doesn't know Korean... but it's a part of her world that he cannot enter, so he is trying to remedy that.

I dunno, it's easily among the best films I've seen all year due to its emotional insight into human beings.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Did anyone else watch May December, and feel like they grasped what was going on. I'm going to post my review in the spoiler, but I'm feeling like I might have missed some of the things going on. Still thinking about it. I only scored it a 7/10 -- definitely worth watching, but as a whole I'm not sure how I feel. (This is coming from someone who read a lot about the Letourneau case in the past as it unfolded, I was around 30 when everything hit the news, and I followed it on and off over the years when it would show up.)

This is a film that improves as it goes, as the onion gets unpeeled further and further.

There's also an honesty to Melton's performance, a man who is supposed to be 36 but also feels like he could be much younger -- a boy trying his best to be a man so that his children might be able to be their age.

Moore feels like is breathing and living this part, her Gracie is similar to Joe in that she is a woman in her late 50's who also has a child-like fragility about her where she has the naivety of one much younger -- or at least carries herself as such even while understanding deep down the reality of things... yet she cannot fully embrace that knowledge without it cracking her.

Portman (who can be a great actress) is intentionally portraying one more suited for soap operas, a not-so-good actress who also is more concerned about herself and her roles than the people whose lives she is portraying. While perhaps some of her words to Joe are true, it's hard to know whether she actually cares about any of these people whom she is meeting. Or, maybe phrased differently, there are moments in the film where her character Elizabeth exudes veiled shock or offense at things she learns, and yet she also holds those truths at arms length so she can live in her comfy little actress bubble, making a career and money off what to someone else is their actual life or coping mechanisms they use to survive. Her "reality" might ultimately be as illusory as Gracie's, in that she pretends to experience meaning in what are ultimately superficial performances, while at the same time Gracie exists at a more superficial level because she's scared of what she might feel if she really grappled with her past actions and their impact on people in both her families.

Another thing the writing does smartly as it goes -- everyone has a reality of their own, a different way of looking at the situation, a different stance, a different method of dealing with the discomfort of Gracie and Joe's relationship. Often these understandings are based on the direct impact of what happened -- with more discomfort or bitterness coming from those directly impacted. These various narratives accumulate as the film progresses, some in sync, some in conflict, and sometimes conflicting accounts could both be true or even both partly true but not quite on the mark.

I think one of my biggest issues here (and it is somewhat a side issue, but impossible to dodge with so many docudramas out and especially from Netflix, where the veracity of the content could be defunct). Yes, this film intends that "all resemblance to actual people alive or dead... is coincidental" -- but it's not, as it's very clearly using a lot of basis from Mary Kay Letourneau's life. The easiest way to resolve this would have been to cast an actor from a different demographic to play her young husband. Yes, Melton is great, honestly... but I wonder how many people will watch this and overlay their understanding of Mary Kay Letourneau with certain revelations of the fictional film. This blurring of reality with fiction is already a plague on our society and this doesn't really help.

I thought this movie was interesting but a little slow in parts. I could do without the clanging piano score which I ultimately found distracting, and I was not too fond of the giant signpost it put on things.

First off, that scene with Gracie and Elizabeth trying on makeup in the bathroom is interesting because of Portman's dialogue. This must have been either improv'd or written specifically for her.

Why?

Because it echoes things she's all said in interviews within the past few years. Interviewers will try to reconcile the way she presented herself when younger ("I'd rather be smart than be a movie star", which dates back to around the time of Star Wars prequels, I believe), and she would respond with an answer about how her family members were academics and she felt this huge pressure to also become one. It's not far off from the dialogue in the scene.

Also: Remember when Elizabeth said she wanted to be on Boardway, and she said her parents told her "You're too smart for that"? And then Gracie asked her something like "Are you that smart?" And Elizabeth just shrugged it off and said "I don't know." Whether that last part is Portman's attitude or not (although I assume it is), I found that oddly liberating in light of what's been going on in my mind recently (which we've talked about elsewhere).

There is a meta-level to this movie, but I don't find that it detracts from the rest of the movie. It's not Asteroid City.

The thing that strikes me about Joe is how willingly compliant he is. He never grumbles or hesitates when Gracie asks him to do something. She cuts him off at 2 beers, for instance, and he immediately accepts it, without any sign of emotional pushback, and there are many other examples. Maybe normal relationships between adults can be like that, but it seemed odd to me.

I like that this movie is taking a situation like this seriously, and that, yes, when it happens to boys, it does fuck them up. This should probably be obvious, but the thing I remember about the Letourneau story isn't the last name. It's the jokes, about how "lucky" the boy was to experience it. I always thought that was odd. Why was the cultural response to treat a story like this as a horrible thing if it happens to a girl, but when it happens to a boy it's like they won the lottery? That never made sense to me.

I liked the metaphor of the Monarch lifecycle. Perhaps the point is that we're like butterflies, and humans need to follow our lifecycles.

That last scene or two was unsettling, wasn't it? Essentially it's implying Elizabeth is becoming Gracie, isn't it?

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought this movie was interesting but a little slow in parts. I could do without the clanging piano score which I ultimately found distracting, and I was not too fond of the giant signpost it put on things.

Yeah, it seems like it was done as its artistic style, to kind of lend itself to a lurid exaggeration of things. I think it was meant to emphasize how the tabloids blared updates of cases like this all the time, but when you dig deeper, it's about the real lives of real people. (Like when Joe says, "THIS IS MY LIFE," and not a "story" to be acted out.)

So there is a tabloid-like screech hanging over everything, but then there are lots of quiet moments in the film to drive home it's not really about a tabloid approach. Does Elizabeth ever really separate the two? She seems less a dramatic actress and more like a soap-opera actress.

I haven't really paid much attention to the Portman interviews over the years, so good call.

Yeah -- the whole thing with Joe that you mention is kind of showing how she has kept him arrested at an infantile state in some ways. (I think it's great his kids are NOT that way.) It's like their dynamic froze because he had the role of the dutiful boy who wants to please a mother figure and never really embraced his manhood despite having done so in the most physical of ways. During the film, we see him struggling to break out of them and embrace himself as the age he is now. The tricks Gracie uses to avoid conflict and conversation are hard for a boy to challenge because he doesn't want to hurt/displease the woman figure in his life, but it's effectively undermined his adult persona.

Which is ironic, because Gracie herself seems kind of trapped in a girl (rather than woman) persona. She seems very fragile in some ways, and avoidant of conflict/pain.

The whole imbalance in society thing still lingers, in terms of treating sexual experience for boys as some rite of passage even with older partner, whereas girls outside of marriage are treated as if it is a corruption of sorts.

I will note that after the MKL case broken in the 90's, I think we've gradually seen more and more actual cases brought to light and older women prosecuted for sexual escapades with boys who are not legally adults. The quantity of cases in the news now took on more national significance, to the degree I might be seeing more news articles about the women using boys than men using girls. Or at least it gets larger headlines. Lots of cases where a 25-35 year old woman loses her teaching position / goes to jail for having sexual encounters with boys in her middle/high school class. Is it a sign of progress? Yes and no? It still feels like sexual experience for young men is venerated, sexual experience for young women is not.

I do think the MKL case was one of the youngest I had heard about, and where the woman actually persisted in it even after getting arrested. IOW, it wasn't the situation, but interest in a very specific boy.

The best I could guess about the repeated images of the butterfly is maybe that it referred to Joe, who it seems was starting to change and come to deeper realizations of what he might have lost of his childhood and young adult years.