Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Doctor Cringelord]

Good old Topher Grace. He's continuing to do solid work as the Incel du jour (re: Twilight Zone 2020, etc).

He does exude a slight Bundy vibe

I just remembered he actually did play a serial killer in Predators. Always thought he’d have taken a similar trajectory to Michael Cera, but he’s really leaned into creepier roles. Forgot he was also David Duke. Shit, this guy might be up there with Sam Rockwell and Daniel Day Lewis when it comes to blending into his roles

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

 

[Peter Deadpan]

I hate you.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

 

[Totenkindly]

The US never released a bluray of Presumed Innocent (based on the Scott Turow book) as far as I know, although they might have done a combo bluray at one point. The thing is, it is way out of print because, well, USA sucks that way...

I only had a crappy quality DVD of the film, but managed to find the German release on bluray which was region free + of course had the original English voicetracks on it (along with dubs in other languages, if I so care). It took 2-3 weeks to get here, but it did arrive yesterday and I watched half by now. Main thoughts:

- I never realized John Williams scored this film. It's not a lot of soundtrack and it doesn't use lietmotifs or anything, it's more mood and ambiance -- but it's quite lovely. As an adult, I didn't really get into a lot of Williams' more popularized themes because they seem kind of on the nose to me (like, all the big 80's blockbuster films he scored), but I've loved a lot of his smaller, less bombastic work starting in the 90's, including AI (it's really gorgeous, lush stuff). Well, here, I saw this film back in the 90's and I remember the music cues always lingering with me... and it ended up being Williams.

- The casting is pretty exceptional, and there are solid performances especially by Ford, Dennehy, Bedelia, and Scacchi. I don't mean to shirk the rest of the cast -- all the rest give solid performances (esp John Spencer as Lipranzer, but they are all entertaining and most of them long-term character actors).

- I hate films where the audience has to assume things about a character, but Scacchi truly pulls off this presentation of a woman who everyone knows is clawing her way up the chain out of ambition and yet the men fall for her anyway... tough, alluring, manipulative, drop-dead gorgeous, independent. Pakula lets the camera linger on her many times, to stoke that emotion of desire. All the men know they are being used, yet all that matters at the time is having her. She evokes the same reaction in the audience as she does the characters in the film; her resolution is both horrible and yet totally unsurprising. As Lipranzer says, "The woman was bad news."

- Dennehy meanwhile is like vintage Dennehy, he's so much what you'd expect from him in terms of this character that it becomes even larger than the expectation. I miss him, he died early this year I believe.

- And Ford gives this beautifully conserved performance -- everything is internalized, he's burning the candle of obsession inside but the hotter it burns, the more he swallows it so that it threatens to consume him, he's like a man collapsing inward upon himself... and yet the film manages to draw out this mystery of whether he is guilty of this crime or not until the final few minutes. It just leaves you wondering; CERTAINLY it's plausible and even probable, but did he? It's exactly why they don't want Rusty to testify in his own behalf, because they will see how obsessed he was with Carolyn -- again, another beautiful example of the audience experiencing exactly what the characters claim to be.

- I like how the official case resolves. That kind of thing happens, here it's a bit more shady, but it allows the mystery to prolong and wonder whether justice was done, especially with some of the denouement of the trial threads.

All in all, it's odd to me that it's kind of fallen off the zeitgeist radar, almost no one talks about this film anymore. But it's a nicely crafted, wonderfully acted little gem, and one of Harrison Ford's more interesting, non-typecast performances.

 

[Totenkindly]

Started watching Fatal Attraction after some years.

Glenn Close is really great. Yes, the borderline tendencies are very clear in Alex's behavior, but I'm talking especially about the early interactions when she's flirting with Dan (Michael Douglas) before the affair. Like, nothing is on the nose really, it's all about her body language and tone and minute facial expressions, where you can see it change just from hanging out together to him realizing about the same time the audience does that things could go towards an affair, and... she is just very skillful in conveying this in a both interesting and mysterious way... which is the whole point of flirting (the "does s/he or doesn't s/he" question, "will this happen or am I just imagining?"), the whole goal is to play off that mystery and not be quite sure of what is going to happen until it does... it is what draws people in.

I also love scenes that feel very unique and yet convey alarm / something not quite right.

Obviously Alex's intensity is one thing, there's always a sense she could spiral off the rails. But I think the first major scene is where Dan pulls the "heart attack" joke in the park. It's a joke in somewhat bad taste but still somewhat in the bounds of "okay" because most people would just laugh, even if originally concerned, and understand he was just being a putz but nothing was meant to be harmful, so everyone laughs it off.

Meanwhile Alex is hurt by his laughter and completely straight-faced tells him off by saying her father died of a heart attack, which humiliates Dan in turn. He is completely mortified (showing he does have a conscience) and apologizes profusely to make sure she is okay, to make up for his mistake. Maybe a better way to understand it is that Dan's joke was impersonal but Alex's revenge is very very personal and goes way beyond an equitable joke, although obviously to her it's equitable. Dan has the response when Alex reveals SHE is joking that she should have had to the first part ... just accepting her laughter (embarrassing as it was) as part of a joke that didn't quite work, but no harm meant.

And there it is getting into the core of Alex's psychology -- to her, Dan's laughter was so painful and humiliating that she felt the need to hurt him in turn, not just to hurt him but also to convey how hurt she was in a way that did not still leave her vulnerable. Also, she needs the reassurance that he is concerned for her, which she gets by promoting this shocking lie to trigger a compassionate response from him. But it's so far over the top; it's the first true sign that something is really off.

The original ending:

It is really clear from the writing (and it was an adaptation of the script by the book author) what the original ending was: Where she commits suicide just like Madame Butterfly in the opera. Dan even drops a line about how the opera was the first one he saw, and as a child; and it terrified him when the music swells and Butterfly kills herself precisely because she realizes her lover doesn't love her and is in fact coming with his actual wife to adopt the child she bore him -- so she stoically gives the boy an American flag, goes in the back, and commits ritual suicide. So it's like this convergence with the themes of her favorite opera as well, plus a way to strike at Dan to prove that she in fact can affect him emotionally, she knows it will hit him and she "won't be ignored," she wants to know she has emotional power to impact him even when she's dead. Maybe that scans like abuse, but it's also because she so desperately craves affirmation that she is heard and actually matters as a person... and this is what she's left with.

The problem, though, is that it tested poorly. Why? Because of the rest of the film. Anne Archer is breathtakingly innocent and gorgeous and doesn't deserve what happens to her and Ellen (with the bunny scene), even if it's partly Dan's fault. Instead of the audience remaining sympathetic with Alex, Alex becomes a villain because she ends up striking out at a very young girl and also pits herself against the perfect wife who has the most legitimate claim on Dan, and the audience is left feeling like there needs to some kind of come-uppance. Hence, Alex drifts into a "crazy bitch who must be put down" role, and the wife is the only one with the moral high-ground who can do this -- and in fact, deserves to do this as the horribly wronged party, since Dan is complicit and cannot be judge and jury -- and so the audience is kind of channeled into wanting that kind of catharsis.

But it's really a damned shame, because the movie starts so interestingly before it devolves into this morality play with a mentally ill woman at the center. Borderline patients are notoriously hard to counsel due to the distortions of perception that puts them at odds / mistrusting the intentions of the people they might start growing close to. But the film just kind of makes her into a villain and writes her off.

There's also a factor in whether Dan did anything wrong by committing the affair. Maybe it was an issue in the culture at the time of the film's release. As an independent person, I viewed all their pre-conversation as setting ground rules for their relationship, and it seems very clear they just planned to hook up and remain discrete about any physical relationship. I think maybe Alex even intended to stick with this because she was getting something out of it that she craved; the problem is that the well inside of her was so dry that she couldn't be satisfied with a purely physical act without some kind of enduring emotional connection as well. She did seem to be the one to promote that "they were both adults and discrete" and thus these encounters were just that, with Dan being more hesitant, so it's understandable he is surprised by all the emotional responses after. Dan is also pretty much "what you see is what you get" from the start, but Alex (maybe because she's trying so hard to be desirable and also not develop an over-attachment) comes off also as very independent and capable of taking it all in stride, when she is anything but.


Note that I'm only about 40 minutes into this rewatch, so I might add to or revise this a bit based on what the rewatch refreshes about my recollection of the later film, esp in terms of how Dan starts reacting to Alex.

EDIT: Okay, I finished the rewatch. Personally I feel like she slips away from Borderline behavior into just pure psychosis by the end, the film doesn't really seem to want to stay within a certain set of behavior but just wants to make Alex into an escalating threat by the end. (Based on my reading of Borderline and also by living with someone for a year in a spiraling awful situation, where I was realizing they were likely Borderline and then later after we stopped living together, they revealed to me they had been diagnosed as Borderline and were doing better.)

Still think Glenn Close is excellent in terms of her demeanor and facial expressions, as far as that goes, although the final sequence just loses a lot of nuance and goes off the deep end.

The part about her dad:

I totally did not remember him finding the newspaper clipping of her father's obituary, he seemingly DID die of a heart attack so the lie was in pretending she had made it up! But that also one of the primary issues I experienced dealing with my roommate -- my inability to know when they were being truthful about something. I remember by the time I moved out I was exhausted and in a thorough state of confusion over not being able to decipher the truthfulness of their statements about literally anything, even the most basic things.

The film is actually pretty well-directed in terms of the acting coherence and the framing / distance for the various shots, lingering at the appropriate moments on facial expressions, and you can see a lot through people's faces. Even the notorious bunny scene, it's got a nice interplay between the wife and the daughter cutting back and forth to build the tension -- he could have totally gotten away without the flash of the pot at the end, I feel like he just did not trust the material enough. (He does this too in the garage sequence -- we would not have needed to see Alex ducking around the garage, we would know exactly who did what happened and just pick her up tracking his car after.) The quick shot is redundant, honestly. But overall, for the type of story being told (how many times have we seen artless films within this genre?), the directing work is decent.

Back to the original ending:

AS mentioned before, Alex basically kills herself in her apartment alone, after Dan almost strangles her, while playing Madame Butterfly in the background as an emotional parallel to the film -- versus showing up at their house in a psychotic break trying to kill everyone. That seems more believable in context of Borderline. The other part of that plotline is that Dan left his fingerprints all over the knife when he takes it from her after he breaks into her place and almost throttles her. Well, since the police know about the escalation between the two of them and how Dan was becoming unwound, and he literally did break through her door, and his prints are on the knife, and people can testify as to the affair and the questions Dan was asking about it etc.... he is arrested for Alex's murder (which was really a suicide). The thing is that Anne finds the tape he left in his study on the recorder, expressing Alex's state of mind and planning, and it helps exonerate Dan we believe, although I think the film would have ended by then.

I think the saddest part is when Alex "casually" offers a ticket to Madame Butterfly, which he understandably refuses, as if she just happened to have an extra one laying around or was planning to get tickets... and then it cuts to her dark apartment later... I think that bit (and yes, then the cutting between Dan's more social life vs Alex's empty one) is one of the most sympathetic moments for Alex in the film, before her behavior starts going off the rails.

 

[Totenkindly]

Movie Accent Coach Reviews Robert Pattinson Devil All the Time Accent | IndieWire

 

[Totenkindly]

All the reasons why the Divergent series was cancelled with one movie to go

Frankly, the opening film wasn't really that great, even if it was average compared to other YA dreck releasing at that time -- not enough to push a franchise series through to completion. Not the actors' fault. First film was average, the rest was downhill.

Out of all that mess (aside from the Hunger Games juggernaut, which actually did have some decent films in there), I think "The Maze Runner" was fairly decent for an opener, leading into the final two films of the trilogy which ended up not being that great. The rest of that genre was like a killing ground.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I’d like to see a proper adaptation of The Destroyer series of books. This was adapted in 1985 as Remo Williams, but it tanked at the box office. It’s not a half bad movie, but not without issues.

The most glaring thing was the casting of white actor Joel Grey as the Korean sinanju master Chiun. Supposedly the producers wanted a Korean actor but couldn’t find one. Really? There weren’t working Korean American actors (or in the very least actors who could pass better than Grey) available? Yellow face in 1985? It’s cringey, though to his credit, Grey doesn’t go full Charlie Chan stereotype with the role.

Fred Ward is really likable as the title lead. From what I’ve read, the producers wanted a more blue collar sort of secret operative to contrast with cultured characters like James Bond. In that regard, Ward really nails it. I always thought he was a good character actor, though I can see how he got overshadowed by more charismatic action stars of the era. Ward was apparently always destined to play middle aged sidekicks to younger leads or occasional heavies. I have a feeling this movie’s failure didn’t do him any favors when auditioning for later lead roles.

Check out Kate Mulgrew in an early role. She plays an army major trying to investigate a corrupt weapons manufacturer, and I can see just a hint of Captain Janeway here. She sells it as a confidant Officer trying to navigate through a sexist, male dominated military. This is subtle and not in your face, but I like that she starts out as more than a helpless damsel (though she somewhat devolves into one by the end, in classic Bond girl fashion)

The plot of the 1985 film is a bit pedestrian compared to other action movies in the mid 80s, but this alllows the characters to breathe and grow a bit. The relationship between Chiun and Remo is particularly endearing.

I like the idea of a super secret government agency whose sole purpose is finding and eliminating corrupt businessmen and bureaucrats. This could be really popular in today’s climate, if executed properly. Especially when you add the blue collar appeal of the title character. I had read a few years back that Shane Black was attempting a reboot, but I haven’t seen any news lately and can only assume it ended up in development hell. Perhaps no one wanted to bank an adaptation when two prior adaptations had bombed and garnered little interest (the second being a failed TV pilot in 1988, also infamous for casting a white actor in yellow face for no good reason). That said, it could work, and wouldn’t be the first time a semi obscure series of espionage thriller novels had been successfully adapted. Come to think of it, this would probably work much better as a tv series

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Spider-man vs Sidious. Setting: main senate chamber on Coruscant.

Who wins?

 

[Lord Lavender]

Spider-man vs Sidious. Setting: main senate chamber on Coruscant.

Who wins?

I love those sorts of questions. Hmmmm this is a tricky one. For this ill use Maguire Spiderman and OT Sidious since those I am most familiar with. Spiderman has the advantage in mobility and strength and Sidious has the advantage o some strong powers. I actually lean Spiderman in this I think Spiderman can easily incapacite Sidious with his webs and agility like I picture him shooting webs all over him and then doing a big powerful flying kick. Force users in SW don't seem to have supernatural toughness going by the films (Luke almost dies for example from exposer) though EU SW (Which I'm not super familiar with) might tell more about Force powers.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I love those sorts of questions. Hmmmm this is a tricky one. For this ill use Maguire Spiderman and OT Sidious since those I am most familiar with. Spiderman has the advantage in mobility and strength and Sidious has the advantage o some strong powers. I actually lean Spiderman in this I think Spiderman can easily incapacite Sidious with his webs and agility like I picture him shooting webs all over him and then doing a big powerful flying kick. Force users in SW don't seem to have supernatural toughness going by the films (Luke almost dies for example from exposer) though EU SW (Which I'm not super familiar with) might tell more about Force powers.

Yes! Spidy would use that huge senate arena to his advantage. As Palpatine hurled the senate pods at him, he’d just leap and swing from pod to pod. And his reflexes and sense of time dilation has to be at least as good as Sidious.

I think he’s only in real danger if Sidious is fast or lucky enough to get Spidy in a force choke hold or get in a lightsaber strike. Spidy will probably keep avoiding him though, hoping Sidious eventually gets worn out. This seems to be his MO against more powerful enemies—run, dodge, get some strikes in if possible, dodge some more, use the environment to his advantage and try to trap the enemy if conventional punches and kicks are too weak.

And if it’s Peter under the influence of the venom symbiote, then I think Sidious would sense the anger and aggression and attempt to sway Spidy to his side. Spidy would actually make an excellent bounty hunter or assassin if he lived in the SW universe. If he somehow had force abilities, he’d basically be unstoppable but even without the force he’d be a powerful opponent to most SW characters


I was gonna make a joke about a MCU-SW crossover, but this is actually a legitimate possibility with both under Disney ownership. They’d probably ruin it somehow, but the thought of Hulk and Spidy and the others tossing stormtroopers like ragdolls is somewhat appealing

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Damn the Toby Maguire Spider-Man movies were so great. While I’m glad they finally got to use him in the MCU, I do miss something about the self contained universe of the 2000s trilogy. I think it made for really great character growth that is often lacking or rushed in a lot of the MCU movies I’ve seen.

Though part 3 could’ve used less villains and more time focused on the conflict between Harry and Peter. That really should’ve been the main plot line of that movie, the heart, since the other 2 films had built up to it so perfectly. Instead the whole Harry subplot felt a little condensed and shoehorned. If anything, they should have kept Sandman and Harry but saved Venom for the 4th Raimi film that they were originally planning. He had said he wanted Spidy to face his greatest enemy yet in 4, a villain who exhibit particular cruelty. Venom would’ve been the perfect one to use. Instead he got turned into a glorified cameo, one which got the character wrong. He didn’t even want to use venom in 3. Do the studio could’ve trusted his instincts, having come off 2 very popular movies, but instead they meddled and forced him to release a subpar film, then punished him for this by canceling 4 and rebooting the entire franchise. I really wanted at least one final Toby film so we could see Peter coping with married life and adulthood while trying to continue fighting crime. It’s cool they keep rebooting him as a wisecracking teenager, but I hope this time they will allow the character to grow up some before they decide to do another reboot. The comics showed adult Peter too, dealing with the aches and stresses of middle age and so forth

Part 3 is just a clusterfuck of storylines, with none of them taking center stage. Each storyline feels like a subplot in that film, it’s just so muddled.

 

[Tellenbach]

So basically, the plot of Drive is to showcase the various traits of the Scorpio sign (mysterious, protective, bad-ass), right? They even got a Scorpio (Ryan Gosling) to play the lead. There seems to be a fascination with this sign on youtube, but I think it's kind of silly.

 

[Jaguar]

That's as painfully superficial as a reviewer calling The Guardian a movie about a bunch of guys jumping out of helicopters.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Disney would merge with Yutani Corporation in 2033, forming the Disney-Yutani Funtime & Particle Weapons Research Family Entertainment Corporation. By 2102, they would begin terraforming distant worlds to reflect their vision of a profitable, family friendly universe. The star system SO-3521 was eventually purchased and converted into the Disneygalaxy Theme Park. Tourists from across the galaxy would marvel at the thrilling rides. On the acidocean world of Mickey IV, they could experience the Space Pirates of the Zargon Nebula ride. The icy moon of Elsa was of course home to both a Frozen themed ride, as well as a ride based on the movie Alive. By 2579, Disney-Yutani had purchased God. In 3133, Disney-Yutani scientists discovered midichlorians, unlocking the ability to harness and tap into the force. Emperor Igor XII then adopted the title Darth Phineas. When the reincarnated forms of George Lucas and Andrew Bird appeared, there was hope they might overthrow Phineas, but they instead signed a contract to write and direct the next 20 Star Marvel Cars crossover holofilms

Well, at least it's not the people who make those minions movies. That would indeed be a disturbing universe.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Well, at least it's not the people who make those minions movies. That would indeed be a disturbing universe.

Oh they’ll own that eventually too. OR some other conglomerate will eventually swallow up Disney and everything they own. Either way we’re headed to the same place

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

 

[Tellenbach]

I was watching youtuber MechaRandom42's rant about the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. Next, I watched her reaction to the Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer. The contrast in reactions is truly hilarious. She appears to be a rabid fan of the original film and was disgusted with the lack of respect shown to the original. No one wants to see a remake; it wasn't funny; the trailer sucked, lol. I don't think this film flopped because people are sexist; it flopped because it wasn't very good and people wanted the original cast.

Without overtly stating it, she's criticizing the "wokeism" trend in Hollywood. The latest expression of wokeism is Mulan :the last Avenger or as another youtuber called it "Asian Elsa". Go watch the reaction videos about Mulan from asians; they're more entertaining than the movie. Someone actually created an entire channel just so she could rant about Mulan. Another said "This goddamn film is so cringey." I think they're being unfair. Maybe Mulan really was a mutant who could run along walls and kick arrows.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I was watching youtuber MechaRandom42's rant about the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. Next, I watched her reaction to the Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer. The contrast in reactions is truly hilarious. She appears to be a rabid fan of the original film and was disgusted with the lack of respect shown to the original. No one wants to see a remake; it wasn't funny; the trailer sucked, lol. I don't think this film flopped because people are sexist; it flopped because it wasn't very good and people wanted the original cast.

Without overtly stating it, she's criticizing the "wokeism" trend in Hollywood. The latest expression of wokeism is Mulan :the last Avenger or as another youtuber called it "Asian Elsa". Go watch the reaction videos about Mulan from asians; they're more entertaining than the movie. Someone actually created an entire channel just so she could rant about Mulan. Another said "This goddamn film is so cringey." I think they're being unfair. Maybe Mulan really was a mutant who could run along walls and kick arrows.

I think the GB 2016 cast made an easy scapegoat to blame for that movie’s flaws. However, I think that movie’s biggest problems were shitty writing and lack of vision in the director.

Just compare the style of joke delivery in the two films. You have the original with very dry, witty writing. Then the remake with jokes that feel like someone in a board room in Hollywood said to “make it kinda like a mix between Judd Apatow and the live action Scooby Doo films. Make sure to put some outdated ‘black’ humor in there too.”

I like the 4 actors from the 2016 film, but they were given a shit script. Most of the jokes fall flat to me. They feel like they were written for the lowest common denominator.

I’m not sure what to think about Afterlife.