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Comments
Bumping because why not
Just saw the french film Forbidden Games (quite the misleading title, IMO). It's uh... it's pretty damn tear jerking, alright. I'm also surprised by the amount of subtext there is in the male and female leads' relationship, considering they're about 10 and 5 respectively.
Now that Malk's back, let's try to get a date for this thing.
I'm gonna enter training for my job tomorrow so I'm not sure when I'll be able to have a free day but I even then, my training hours are pretty lax so I could do it in the middle of the night/australian morning.
Friend of mine is promoting limited screening of Iron Sky, Which I hope to attend. Hope it is successful.
That movie was okay.
I was highly impressed by Paranorman. Really good writing, and i loved the climax.
^I'm looking forward to seeing that in theaters later. The makers deserve the support, considering how complex of a process stop motion is.
You should. Really turns the usage of zombies and witchhunts on its head.
Just saw Paulie for the first time in a long time. Probably the only children/family film that can still tear me up a bit.
I want to join the Film Club. Is it possible to successfully revive it?
i'd say so. Where there's a will
~makes a pentagram drawing on the ground from Schitzo's blood and lights the candles~
HIC EN SPIRITUM
SED NON INCORPORE
EVOKARE LEMURES DE MORTUIS
DECRETUM ESPUGNARE
DE ANGELUS BALBERITH
EN INFERNO INREMEABLIS
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
WA TA NA SIAM
oi. satanic contracts are only working in wednesdays
Diggin' up since we have that in the list of useful threads.
Recently watched a couple of weird films. Tetsuo is that weird-ass shit about a guy transforming into a pile of metal. It's Japanese, but you know that already. What surprised me the most was that it seemed to have a coherent plot once you put your mind to it.
The other is Violent Shit. Actually I wouldn't call it that weird, just bloody, German, and on spare change budget. You know, a slasher. Bonus points for the title.
I intended to watch Violent Shit 3, but before I got to watch it, my attention was caught by Khadak. It's a Belgian film (I almost typed "Belgian shit") about a teenage Mongol shepherd who happens to have hallucinations which might just be his shamanic powers. It's weird as fuck. Spent the second half repeating "I'm not getting it". Still worthy of attention. It's like, the premise is understandable, it just gets harder and harder to say what is real and what is a vision, not to mention whether it's shamanic visions or epileptic hallucinations. The singing scene is fun (not to mention contains metal as fuck line "sky awaits the death of dawn"). Gal's hot in that dress. Dude's got a nice retro outfit.
To-watch list: Violent Shit 3, Aelita, and perhaps Snowpiercer.
Update: I tried watching Aelita, but I guess I am not into silent cinema. Violent Shit 3, on the other hand. Needs a while to hit its stride. Music could enjoy some improvement. Now, the plot is all I could have asked for.
Today I watched House at the End of the Street at work, which is a horror movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Aside from learning that I am a textbook horror movie victim (since I was about as trusting as her character was of eventual horror movie murderer boy) I was actually surprised by how many turns in took in theme. By the middle of the movie I was disappointed ("The guy everyone told you to avoid because he's mildly creepy/bad things happened to him is a murderer!") but then the end really brought the whole thing back and I think it's actually my favoraite horror movie owing to me actually caring about the plot.
I also was impressed by the direction (aside from the obvious horror movie idiot moments, which it really could have done without because it was brilliant otherwise. The simple yet effective battle between murder boy and the policeman was a great example of this) and the use of flashbacks for the backstory was like, subtle and not uselessly textbookey at all.
So I've just watched Ex Drummer. Called "a basic sequence of insane events", "a feel bad movie" and
"the worst Flemish film ever made"
, this celluloid equivalent of a punch in the face followed by vomiting puts the "punk" back in "punk rock".
One day, an accomplished writer is visited by three guys looking for a drummer for their rock band. No, they had no particular reason for visiting him, they just heard somewhere he can play drums. They have a gimmick: every one of them is handicapped in some way. The violent part-time rapist-murderer has an awful lisp (not to mention he lives upside down), the junkie husband of a junkie woman is partially deaf, and the gay with massive set of maternal complexes can't bend one of his arms, presumably due to an awkward incident involving masturbation and a passing train. Impressed, the writer decides to join, just to see what kind of shits and giggles would he discover. His handicap? He can't play drums.
So I've just watched Mad Max: Fury Road. Drove a car to the cinema. Didn't figure I had to drive it back. Holy shit.
----
Don't pay attention to all that feminist shit, the film is awesome.
Although once in a while it feels like there's too much talking (there is a handful of non-action scenes), by the end you're gonna squirt high-octane. In the family of car-related cinema, this is The Fast and the Furious' edgy ex-convict big brother.
Starring both of everyone's post-nuclear favorites - "Mad" Max Rockatansky and the Last of the V8 Interceptors, it pits the duo against a chrome paint-huffing, V8-worshipping warrior death cult. And along the way, the big bad's right hand (ie. Charlize Theron) finds it the best time to drop the job... along with some of his most prized "property".
Tealdeer version: I recommend.
So I was planning to come to this thread and ask if anybody at all would maybe like to watch some old films with me. I'm reading this book on screenplays and a few of the movies used as examples really intrugued me.
Why I'm so surprised is that the Richard Gere version of Breathless was listed as having one of the most unsympathetic protagonists of all time, and that Quentin Tarantino (whose opinion I take about 0% seriously) liked it, so of course I wanted to watch it.
Formal List
I was thinking if I/we did one-a-week, that'd be fun right?
The book's favorite example is the movie Body Heat, which sounded interesting but I didn't click with it. Plus Breathless just seems more ridiculous.
I'm all for reading your opinion once a week. Now, concerning watching, I will make no promises.
The premise of the plot is that a sadistic band of outlaws slaughters a Navajo camp and Joe, a survivor, takes it upon himself to track them down.
Kind of kitschy, did what it could and even had some notable moments, but the end result left you with a feeling it didn't quite reach the level it wanted to. For example: the villains are more complicated than it seems first, but in the end it doesn't manage to convince you they are more than one-dimensional. Would be interested in seeing it remade well.
I was really impressed by the special effects, they're very far removed from the CG of today (and I think mostly nowadays horror movies rely too much on concept or not showing the monstrous aspects at all, as opposed to body horror). I legit think I might have nightmares from when the one guy's body exploded when they try to resuscitate him with the EKG. I want modern filmmakers to try their hand at doing stuff like that, instead of the overreliance on post.
As for the resuscitation scene (BTW, what is EKG an acronym for?), the headcrab is a real icing on the cake.
You know what I like when it comes to special effects? That one they used in Highlander and Conan the Barbarian. Rotoscoping, I believe. It's weird. Awkward. You can see it does not really fit the live action, but that is what makes it work in these scenes. Makes you feel that the otherworldly forces it depicts do not really belong to the human world.
Oh it turns out EKG is the thing that keeps track of our heart rate and not a synonym for defibrillator (they just happen to be used together a lot).
I haven't seen many movies with rotoscoping, probably because it fell out of favour. Turns out both Conan and Highlander were made in the 80s, but Conan seems insufferable so I'll add Highlander to the list.
The term 'human drama' has been tossed around a lot lately so it rarely ever applies, but today I really felt like I was watching one. As I said before, this is a movie about a family moving on after the death of one of their two sons. They face a lot of issues, such as survivor's guilt and just not wanting to deal with it.
It was a well done movie all around, and I cried a few times through it. Through it's story it made a lot of fine points too. I was going to go into it taking notes throughout and I started out strong for the first forty minutes, but then I just got sucked into it's universe that I had to make up my notes later.
The movie begins in a very idealized setting. Rich, WASP-ey people (heavy on the Protestant, even) who have a massive house, but the way the layers peel back from the onion is not only intriguing but genuinely compelling. Sutherland plays an incredible father to Conrad, the disturbed young man, who is seeking control so "people stop worrying about him".
Control is the major theme of this film, and not just with Conrad, but with his mother as well. Even though he feels he doesn't "connect" with her, they share this "need" for controlling situations. For Beth, it's genuine control; when things don't go her way she grabs the situation and tries her best to wrestle it to the ground, and she succeeds most of the time (as the film goes on, she's less able to stop all the unraveling around her). Conrad, even though he doesn't believe they connect, internalizes this urge for control.
Then again, his mother is practically hammering it into him from the moment he gets back from the hospital (after he tries to kill himself, before the beginning of the film). She suggests he do this or that, and will not mince words when he shows weakness.
In fact, the one time he catches her in a weak moment (sitting in the unchanged room his dead big brother used to call his own) she can barely make her sentences straight and wrestles from the situation so hard all he's left with is communicating with someone who is barely there.
Aside from the main theme, we have the sparing use of music throughout the film. When it's not necessary (for example, a scene set in a restaurant) there is absolutely no music, the focus is completely on the character's dialogue or pointed noises that signify something a character is interacting with (like when Conrad slams his swim team locker).
And this focus on the dialogue is not just for show, because the dynamics among the cast are amazing. The dialogue is able to convey their feelings without ever having anybody describe how they feel, and the interactions are far and beyond the sort I've seen recently. The script even pokes fun at this, when Conrad's psychiatrist Dr. Berger tells him he can't hide behind one liners. Every conversation is magic to listen to, every confrontation legitimately electric. I loved how this movie could just like... really play with emotions, make me feel what the character was feeling and make me care. It was so amazing I put nine exclamation marks next to my note early on in the movie (<_<).
The Scenes I Thought Were Cool
The party scene, which genuinely captured how these affluent people only want to skim the surface. It's either business or pleasure, no actual feelings allowed. This is also an important scene for Beth, because when Calvin starts talking about Conrad going to therapy with a friend of theirs she's immediately there to grab him and suggest that he's had a bit more of his fair share to drink. Later in the car, she confronts him with her embarrassment at his statements; saying he's damaged the family's privacy.
Early on in the movie, Beth refuses to address Conrad's melancholy or very existence at the dinner table, instead focusing on his clothing; "Is that a hole in your shirt? Leave that on the table and I'll fix it."
In one of the first sessions with his psychologist, Conrad remembers how comfortable he felt at the hospital, how much he felt like something genuinely resembling "comfortable" was there. Of course, at this point he's still not learning to move on yet. He calls a friend of his from the hospital up and wants to reminisce, but she's "moved on". In reality, she's just trying very hard and has even given up on seeking real help, instead making up by being overly cheery and even shouting at him from across the restaurant to be cheery as she leaves. She later kills herself.
When Beth attempts a genuine conversation with Conrad, she feels a slight loss of control at his suggestion of them getting a pet and implodes on him, leading him to shout "WOOF! WOOF!" at the top of his lungs just to get her to stop accosting him. It was surprisingly well done.
Immediately after, in the first flashback of the film, Conrad sees the wonderful relationship his mother had with his older brother. This is when he decides that his mother hates him.
Conrad blows up during a family meeting and his mother, shaken to the core, drops a plate as she's preparing food later; "I think it can be saved," Beth says to her own mother.
When Conrad learns his friend from the hospital has killed herself, he goes back to a bathroom and starts running the water, clearly contemplating another suicide attempt. Instead, he rushes off to Dr. Berger and they have a breakthrough. Conrad tells him he's feeling like his existence isn't helping anybody and Dr. Berger says "[Your existence] is good, I know because I'm your friend." I cried so much.
When Beth stops trying to find control at home, she decides she'll find it wherever Conrad isn't and suggests a vacation with just her and Calvin. On this vacation, visiting her brother, Calvin, having had a few sessions with Dr. Berger himself, snaps and calls her out on how she refuses to lose control of situations and just feel in the moment. A genuine fight between spouses out in the open is such a sore spot that even modern movies refuse to touch in a serious light. Beth also snaps at her brother, who suggests everything will "be okay".
The film ends with a son saying "I love you" to his father. How often does that happen? Not just in an ending scene, but in a really serious context at all?
General Notes
Apparently Pachelbel's Canon surged in popularity after being in the movie, which is surprising because I only recognized it from other stuff I've heard it in.
Also, there's a BONNIE PINK song called Ordinary Angels, which I personally loved before this movie and now I kind of love it more because it ties to it very well. Over the years, I'd totally forgotten that was a cover of an Australian song! Can't find her cover on YouTube, but the original is practically everywhere.
Today, I made a whole bunch of notes whilst watching, because this movie had me thinking a lot. In fact, there are probably a few themes that only become relevant through a rewatch (there are things that even I only noticed after looking over my notes).
This movie starts as one thing, but the main protagonist refuses to let that become the leading narrative, which leads to an extremely explosive last third (I say this in the most low-key way possible, because it's not exactly an actioney or explosive in dialogue movie anyways).
Again, I noticed that it rests on the dialogue on it's characters, but almost everybody who speaks has something important to say and a new angle to introduce. This really impressed me because the narrative managed to carry a lot of different concepts, probably because of it's themes being so easily built upon.
This film was about the truth, the real truth, what you believe to be the truth and even what you want to be the truth at the time so something works out for you. It was also about privacy, how much a private citizen's privacy really needs to be infiltrated by the pursuit of truth and how the pursuit of justice can be perverted to decimate one's privacy.
This movie features deuteragonists; a main protagonist and our... basically antagonistic protagonist. These are Mike and Megan. Mike's father was a gangster, and so when Megan's paper publishes a piece about him being investigated, people start to draw the obvious conclusions.
Strangely enough, this is not Megan's intention. Megan is driven by a crazy ambition and a set of nonexistent rules to journalism, most of the time these default to "what I perceive to be the truth must always be printed no matter what, because the people deserve to know and draw their own conclusions" (even though the latter means drawing the conclusions she wishes them to draw, because she genuinely believes in them), but when her Editor is available he's there to whisper these rules to her. Her editor's motives seem to run somewhat in line with hers, but he's too jaded to rethink his actions. The journalistic priviledge and what they believe is right trumps all.
A more malicious form of Megan's complete belief in herself lies in the Department of Justice's Anti-Crime Strike Force leader; Elliott. He feels as if he's been made a fool of by the investigation into the murder of a crime-tzar slash union-head-guy Diaz, and that clearly affects his judgement. He decides his best bet is to pressure a man whose father had connections to crime, but he has none himself. That's our protagonist Mike; who basically finds himself in the midst of a smear campaign that is based on coercing him to work with the DoJ.
During the course of the movie, Mike loses his workforce and basically his whole business because of said smear campaign. I hate to bring this up so early, but he refuses to take it, and uses this same system of deception to fight back.
This ties directly into a subplot involving Mike's friend that neatly ties into the privacy theme. Mike's best friend who he grew up with, Teresa, is heavily implied to also have come out of the gangster bloodline without being pulled into the life. To protect Mike, she contacts Megan and tells her a huge secret; Mike escorted her to have an abortion at the time of Mr. Diaz' disappearance, but it's 1981 and she works at a Catholic school so if only Megan could vindicate Mike without exposing her. Megan's overambitious attitude (I repeatedly wrote "overambitious" next to her name throughout the movie), combined with her boss' voice in her ear, leads her to write the whole thing out and print it. Teresa then kills herself.
But even in this, as Megan and Mike develop romantic feelings for each other, Megan can't come to trust Mike completely, which leads to him never seeing eye to eye with her again. It's clear that when Mike puts his plan into action at the end of the movie, he hopes Megan will stand by him, but a slip-up by one of Elliott's suborninates leads her to getting wind of Mike's plan, and she carries out the piece he hoped she never would.
Finally, I'd like to mention the film's amazing structure and it's use of very silent twists (I don't want to say 'turns' lest I rid them of their gravity). The movie is divided into three brilliant phases of action; Mike doesn't even appear until about twenty minutes in, before this Megan is the presumed MC, and then after Megan accidentally causes Teresa's suicide and Mike decides to take revenge, we shift gears again and head towards like, the most heated climax I have ever seen where only 2-3 lines had voices raised. It was an amazing scene, with a "force" of a character" (the US Attorney General) who navigates a mess of this Kudzu Net of Intelligent Actors to lead us to a conclusion.