Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Totenkindly]

I though he was pretty good as Jim Morrison, but lots of people can't stand that movie.

I have heard he was good too, I just never saw The Doors since I didn't much care about Morrison.

 

[ceecee]

I though he was pretty good as Jim Morrison, but lots of people can't stand that movie.

I think his role in Wonderland as John Holmes was fantastic. Even better than Morrison.

 

[Stigmata]

I watched W again. It’s funny. Dreyfuss is Dick Cheney

Yeah that was a perfect casting choice, same with James Cromwell as the Elder Bush and Thandiwe Newton as Condoleeza Rice.

Jame Brolin's performance felt a little off in that movie to me, though. Still have been meaning to check out Vice, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Saw "THe Green Knight" today with my son.

Yesterday a guy in my gaming group sent out a scathing e-mail about the film and called it a "piece of shit." I thought it pretty clear that he went into it expecting one kind of film but it's an A24 arthouse film, not a heroic sword and sorcery film. And that is how it played out for real. it's a pretty wonderful piece of film making, full of ambiguity and more about the inner journey of Gawain, not about an external quest with battles. Remember the end of Inception, where the deal is we don't give a shit whether the top falls or not, because it's about how Dom has learned to accept this reality as his own regardless and thus now is with his kids again? This film is similar. it doesn't matter what happens right after the ending, because the movie journey was just resolved regardless inside of Gawain. In fact, the film is kinder to Gawain than most versions of the story in writing.

It's also a cool film that tells a story from the director's vision but is ambiguous enough that viewers can still discuss what different things meant.

if you know the actual story, the film is a bit more comprehensible. Otherwise, it's kind of surreal. In this version, Gawain is not yet a knight and is drifting. His mother Morganne and/or Morgawse has been stuck caring for him but wants to both make a name of him AND throw him out of the nest, so she summons the Green Knight to visit Arthur's court. The Knight asks for someone to strike him a blow, and in a year's time he will return the same blow upon the man. Gawain agrees, partly due to just having admitted he has nothing to summarize his life -- it's all been empty and pointless -- and takes an extreme blow of actually lopping off the knight's head. Instead of dying, the knight picks up his head, says "One Year" and rides off.

The rest of the story is about how Gawain approaches that fateful meeting in a year's time, where he fully expects to die.

Lowery (A Ghost Story, Pete's Dragon, The Old Man & The Gun) has shown a wide variety of film styles and this hearkens back more to A Ghost Story, with its ambiguous realities and internal character work and eerie desolate ambiance. If you go expecting external conflict, you'll be a disappointed. It's really about this journey by Gawain, the various things he faces, and their impact on his sense of integrity and character, culminating in a truly great end piece where everything is put on the table.

I am expecting only certain audiences to appreciate it, it's not a film for everyone, and some will even be confused. (I can only shed light on some events in the film, but I'm not entirely clear of the specifics after one viewing.) This is the way it was supposed to be, though.

I saw it. It was really good.

I liked the the Lady's monologue about Green. I found the movie to be existentialist. The use of circular motions to indicate the wheel of time was cool.

Is this all there is? Well if it is all there is, why not make something of it? That's my take on the movie. I took "off with his head" to mean... go off with your head intact. I took taking the sash off to be an act of bravery... how can his act of facing the knight mean anything if he is protected from harm? He makes to choice to live a life that counts for something rather than embracing the safe and easy way out (which comes to ruin regardless and is not really "safe") Apparently in the story (which I looked up after the fact), it could also be interpreted as an act of honesty for his earlier omission.

Alicia Vikander had a very shimmering quality to this. I liked how her appearance was constantly in flux.

Is she also one of the witches at the beginning? Given the original story, I suppose she is playing Morgan Le Fay in which case that makes a hell of a lot of sense. I definitely like that interpretation.

Also loved that fox... he reminded me of my cat most of the time.

That sequence at the end reminded me a lot of a bit in the Herman Hesse novel the Glass Bead Game. There is a section in it called the "indian life" . The conceit is that the main character imagined what his life might be like if he was in India of old. In the story a prince is usurped by his brother and goes to live a cowherd, and one day comes across a yogi. There is an extended vision sequence where he imagines that he takes revenge on his brother and reclaims his birthright, only for it to all come to ruin as his kingdom falls under an invasion. He awakens out of his dream, and makes a similar realization of the importance of striving for something greater. BTW Hesse was familiar with Jung and that section was supposed to be about Intuition while the book as a whole is about Thinking.

It is interesting to me that a lot of the themes I picked up on people have detected in the original poem/story as well, according to the Wikipedia page. There is a tendency to think people in ages past were dumbasses but that's not really true. And we have lots of dumbasses running around today, too.

 

[Burning Paradigm]

Forest Whitaker's performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland was riveting. He portrayed the man so well to a T I felt like I was in the throes of the man himself; the mercurial temperament, the memory shortcomings overcompensated with paranoia and extreme bursts of anger. He definitely deserved the Oscar for Best Actor that year over all the other nominees. But, beyond that, I think the film falls short in fully portraying the extent of Amin's crimes (with a brief reference and montages here and there; the spillover only really happens in the last few minutes of the movie). It feels more like a tantalizing horror picture with no discernible motives from any of the characters.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I just watched A Ghost Story. I liked the Green Knight better; I found the Ghost Story to be a little too-slow moving and not as interesting (the fact that the ghost costume isn't the most expressive probably didn't help). It did deal with some of the same themes. I did like it and would probably rewatch, but I consider the Green Knight to be a better movie with more "going on" so to speak. To be fair it also seemed to have a higher budget (I don't know why but I get the impression A Ghost Story was kind of a low budget movie) so perhaps it's unfair to hold the two movies to the same standard.

 

[Totenkindly]

I just watched A Ghost Story. I liked the Green Knight better; I found the Ghost Story to be a little too-slow moving and not as interesting (the fact that the ghost costume isn't the most expressive probably didn't help). It did deal with some of the same themes. I did like it and would probably rewatch, but I consider the Green Knight to be a better movie with more "going on" so to speak. To be fair it also seemed to have a higher budget (I don't know why but I get the impression A Ghost Story was kind of a low budget movie) so perhaps it's unfair to hold the two movies to the same standard.

I think I'd agree that The Green Knight is the more complex (aka better) movie in that regard, Lowery is showing more confidence and really stepping out there, after his earlier films. He feels more in command on his style.

I need to rewatch A Ghost Story. I remember it being not what the title suggested, and i loved it because of the ambiguities and the diffuse exploration of grief. I had never seen anything quite like it. I admire when a filmmaker steps out and does his own thing rather than just recycling old expected tropes. I do think it's a decent film, just not as accessible.

Might respond to The Green Knight comments later, I was abstaining until more people commented to say anything specific about the plotting. But I guess I see it overall as a movement from a boy aspiring to be "brave" and thinking he can just lay claim to courage and maturity as part of receiving a title ("Hey, I'm now a knight because I did something that looked heroic"), whereas in reality there is no short road to that level of courage and nobility, it is something that is earned through suffering ambiguities of life, taking risks, engaging life daily, and then choosing one's own integrity even in the face of suffering and death. It is a real coming of age story IMO and it is what makes the ending so beautiful and also does Gawain kinder than the legends, where he doesn't necessarily bear up as bravely and instead must bear the scar of his shame for the rest of his life.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched a number of films over the last week or two.

I already mentioned The Suicide Squad in its own thread. Definitely a worthwhile view, very entertaining, and again shows how easily Gunn can take these kinds of comic licenses and imbue them with humor, warmth, and interest. We also watched the original Suicide Squad (2016) first -- it had some okay but was generally incomprehensible and undaring (for example, they introduce a character solely to kill him off and it's obvious). The CGI of the sorceress is mostly terrible and the editing doesn't much help in general. All in all, a rather muddled mess that loses any sense of character arc aside from obviously only really caring what happens to Harley and Deadshot.

Watched American Animals. THen I had to look up the actual crime, and the film follows it fairly closely. It's like a docu-drama that is also pretty funny -- it intersperses interviews with the actual four young men who committed the crime, while enacting it with four decent actors (including Barry Keoghan and Evan Peters). The editing is pretty phenomenal, and it masters the tone so well. My son watched it and said he actually felt terrified by it, with all the tension. I didn't quite feel scared but I know what he means, it really has a way to ratchet up the tension. It's just a crazy film, in terms of how much they thought out how to do it, ALMOST succeeded in the original theft, but also completely overlooked some pretty obvious things that got them caught fairly quickly. All that effort for a botched crime, and then seven years in jail for each.

My son and I rewatched "The Terminator" last night, which neither of us had watched for some years now. It was definitely rewarding, a reminder that before Cameron became more known for excess, he was originally a pretty tight storyteller who knew how to properly frame and build a story. It's not an entirely perfect film, but it scored 100% on RT and an 80% on Metacritic (which is impressive), and it's because of the parallel narrative storytelling. He knows how to cut between Reese and the T2 to build tension, and is constantly quietly contrasting and comparing the two. Also, it delivers on the development of Sarah COnnor, who just seems passive and easily passed by in life, and you can literally see her change over the course of a day or two when confronted by Reese about her future self -- it gave me chills when she finally snaps, "ON YOUR FEET, SOLDIER!" at the film's end and drags Reese further into the factory. THAT is the Sarah Connor we know, we just caught a glimpse of her. It's just good filmmaking on a pretty slim budget (6 million? at the time, Beverly Hills Cop had a 13 million budget and Indiana Jones had 20 million to spend.) Also good casting. Michael Biehn as Reese always stuck with me after I saw this film, I loved that guy -- when Sarah cries and says "so much pain," it's what I am feeling too watching Reese. He's suffering PTSD and utter detachment, and the only bit of his humanity he had left was his adoration for Sarah and what she meant to humanity, even if John was hogging the limelight.

THe Pink Panther Strikes Again (with Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom) was a childhood holdover I now have shared with my son, who thought it was pretty funny. It might be one of the campiest Pink Panther films but watching it again after the distance of some years, aside from the jokes still being mostly accessible nowadays, Herbert Lom might have been one of the first to spoof the megalomaniac trope; Bond tended to take its villains a bit more seriously, but they specifically play up Dreyfuss as insane and with a nervous tic, and the loud booming voice, the maniacal laughter, and the doomsday machine / criminal network. It's something Austin Powers and modern trop pop culture took and ran with (Brain, etc.) and now it's become a bit old, but back then it was more novel. I kinda love this film despite its silliness. It's funny when you think Kato is an assassin, and they trash Clouseau's apartment, then you discover he's just his assistant being stupid.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Doctor Anaximander

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a fun movie

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a fun movie

I need to see that. That's the one with the bomb worshippers, right?

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I need to see that. That's the one with the bomb worshippers, right?

yeah, the mutants who wear normal people face masks to conceal their faces, although there's never really any good reason to have the masks since they are already hiding underground. It's also never clear how they had such convincing masks fabricated.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

yeah, the mutants who wear normal people face masks to conceal their faces, although there's never really any good reason to have the masks since they are already hiding underground. It's also never clear how they had such convincing masks fabricated.

And Charlton Heston insisted they blow up the Earth because he didn't want there to be any sequels, lol. He forgot that the first movie had TIME TRAVEL.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I'd say Conquest is probably the best of the sequels of the classic Ape films, in terms of quality, writing, etc. Very dark film too

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'd say Conquest is probably the best of the sequels of the classic Ape films, in terms of quality, writing, etc. Very dark film too

Interesting. The original is the only Planet of the Apes movie I've seen. I haven't even seen the one with Apraham Lincoln at the end.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Interesting. The original is the only Planet of the Apes movie I've seen. I haven't even seen the one with Apraham Lincoln at the end.

Conquest is very heavy handed and overt with the racial commentary. I think it's a bleak, scathing statement about race and slavery in the USA.

Apraham Lincoln sounds like some dumb shit out of the Tim Burton remake. I barely remember that movie. I mostly remember Marky Mark doing his usual confused tough guy act while saying something like "what? talking monkeys?" in his boston accent

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

And Charlton Heston insisted they blow up the Earth because he didn't want there to be any sequels, lol. He forgot that the first movie had TIME TRAVEL.

It's funny because Brent and Taylor make a big fuss about stopping the bomb but then Taylor gets all pissy and detonates it himself. It's a pretty cynical ending.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Conquest is very heavy handed and overt with the racial commentary. I think it's a bleak, scathing statement about race and slavery in the USA.

Apraham Lincoln sounds like some dumb shit out of the Tim Burton remake. I barely remember that movie. I mostly remember Marky Mark doing his usual confused tough guy act while saying something like "what? talking monkeys?" in his boston accent

Apraham Lincoln definitely is.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I'd like to see an end to autistic characters in shows and movies.

 

[ceecee]

I'd like to see an end to autistic characters in shows and movies.

At least portrayed the way they currently are. But I suppose it's a fashionable disability to showcase at the moment, which is why they do it. I don't think many autistic people look at these shows and movies and go - woah relatable!