Raxivace's 2018 List of Movies or (Neo-General Chat: The Second Raid)

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Jan 02, 2018 2:22 pm

New year, new list of movies to start. I'm not entirely sure its accurate, but by my count I had saw 164 movies last year- hopefully I can best that this year.

1. Une Femme Mariee (1964) - The journey through 60's Godard seems to never end. This is at least closer to what I tend to expect from him though. Ostensibly its the story of a woman cheating on her husband, though Godard seems less interested in the plot as much as contrasting images of the beauty of women with their representations in fine art such as statues, advertisements, by extension even film in the opening sequence that seems to be derivative of the one in Contempt, and how some women seek to match those standards of beauty. Godard undercuts this interest in beauty and sex though by bring up Auschwitz and the Holocaust several times (The first time I think Godard has done this in a film, though it will continue to be an interest for him).

My guess is that Godard is trying to say that we're too obsessed with pleasure and so on to care about terrible things in the world such as the Holocaust. Assuming I'm understanding him correctly, I personally think that's kind of a dumb point to try and make. The Holocaust wouldn't have been prevented if people were less horny. Perhaps I'm not understanding the intent here.

Also I can't believe Columbia Films of all companies distributed this. Seems really off the beaten path for them.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:46 am

Stranger Things Season 2 - I felt more or less the same way about this season as I did season 1. Enjoyable, good cast, but as much as it loves referencing 80's movies it doesn't quite ever get an identity of its own. This particular season references Aliens so much to the point that Paul Reiser joins the cast, playing a riff on their character from that film.

I will say that the foreshadowing for the ending with the Dragon's Lair arcade machine with Dirk the Daring being burned was a little more clever than the Dungeons 'n' Dragons foreshadowing from season 1.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:39 pm

Un Femme Mariee is with Made in USA as being the two Godard 60s films that I probably remember the least about, even though I remember liking them both. The most I remember is that it struck me as a mash-up of Vivre sa vie, Masculin/Feminin, and 2 or 3 Things..., all of which are probably superior films (even though I probably enjoyed Un Femme more than 2 or 3 Things..., the latter was at least far more interesting).

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:55 pm

Well, Made in U.S.A. is my next Godard to watch, so I guess I can't count on you to help me make sense of it.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:02 pm

Raxivace wrote:Well, Made in U.S.A. is my next Godard to watch, so I guess I can't count on you to help me make sense of it.

I do remember thinking it one of his more interesting experiments with color; Contempt and Pierrot seem almost subdued (color-wise) by comparison. In retrospect it takes a bit of the gangster element from Breathless but filters it through his more jagged, fragmentary, kaleidoscopic approach to narrative of the late 60s... it may even foretell a bit the mystery/gangster/noir-ish element of Detective from '85, but not quite as opaque.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:46 pm

2. The Breakfast Club (1985, Rewatch) - My Criterion blu came in the other day so I gave this a rewatch. What really struck me this time is how much funnier the movie was than I remembered, particularly the first twenty minutes. I remember the first time I watched it I was a little troubled by how Hughes seemed to be reinforcing the kind of BS stereotypes of other high school movies, and while I still think there's truth to that he does give his characters more depth than I think I was giving him credit for.

I checked out the deleted scenes on this release too. Most of them are just slightly different versions of pre-existing scenes, a few extra gags cut from the movie etc., though the janitor's first scene used to be way different. Originally he talks a lot of shit about all of the kids, going as far as to predict that several of them are going to die young and unhappy while the rest merely will be unhappy their entire lives. I feel like that really would change the film, since in the final cut he's more or less the moral center of the story.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:05 am

BTW Jimbo have you been watching Godard's documentary work too? The list I've been working off of, as long as it is, didn't even have the damned documentaries and some of them sound like a struggle to get through.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:43 am

It depends on how you classify them. From about 2 or 3 Things... onward Godard was not shy about mixing fiction and documentary. Perhaps the only 100% Godard documentary I've seen is Ici et ailleurs and it was pretty in-line with the black hole that is 70s Godard. Here's what I wrote:

Ici et ailleurs - Jean-Luc Godard - 4.0/10

Released after Numero Deux but shot before it, this
short (less than 1hour) documentary/essay film was
Godard's first foray into video and his first attempt at
deconstructing the medium into its bare essentials.
Here, Godard juxtaposes the Palestinian revolution with
the "life" of a bourgeoise French family, and in doing so
meditates on how easy it is for one image or one sound
to replace another, even noting how film itself
necessitates this replacement. That something so
disturbing as war and death can be so easily replaced
and drowned out by the mundanity of middle-class life
is clearly something that deeply disturbed Godard, and
is likely what lead to his radical attempts at maintaining
two-or-more images and sound in Numero Deux.
Typically, this is all more interesting in concept than in
execution, and it's hard to call this film entertaining (or
even genuinely enlightening) in any classic sense. This
is very much Godard trying to find himself after his "end
of cinema" that was Weekend.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Jan 05, 2018 3:21 am

3. Made in U.S.A. (1966) - Yeah I just couldn't quite get into this one, though there were things I liked about it. The color really popped, and I like the idea of Anna Karina in the detective role (Is the title supposed to be a pun on this? Made in U.S.A./Maiden U.S.A.?), and some of the lines were amusing ("I have the feeling of moving about in a Walt Disney film starring Humphrey Bogart. Therefore, it must be a political film."), but this film had the strange combination of the narrative feeling both opaque while some of the allusions had the subtlety of a gunshot- like the two thugs being named Richard Nixon and Robert McNamara.

I read that Godard was inspired by Hawks' The Big Sleep, and other than the few Bogart references the only thing I found in common between these two was that I often didn't know what was going on. I haven't been feeling that good today though since its been starting to get cold outside (Snow is on the ground even) so that may have (And probably does) something to do with it.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:59 pm

4. It (1990) - I don't think I'd ever seen the original It in its entirety before, so I wanted to check it out before watching the newer version. Some of the movie feels kind of dopey, like the girl's father beating the shit out of her for...receiving a poem in the male from an anonymous boy? Like I get the point is that the adults are shitty and especially so in this town, but I'm not sure the exaggeration entirely works. Same with Tim Curry's Pennywise, who feels silly even at times when he's supposed to be threatening.

That all being said I think the childhood portion of the movie still mostly works, though once focus shifts fully over to the adults it loses a bit of steam. Part of it might be that Pennywise's return feels a bit...arbitrary in some ways, in the adult portion of the story. I've heard the 2017 adaptation focuses entirely on this first section with the kids, which is interesting to me since it seems like it has less to gain from a revisit than the adult portion does. I'll have to see how it compares.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:56 am

5. Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2018) - I expected this to be awful based on the little I saw about it online, and it turned out to actually be kind of decent.

It's a riff on Romero's Day of the Dead, with the premise being that an outbreak of Swine Flu (Seriously) caused the zombie apocalypse. A group of military personnel and refugees are holding out in a bunker. Like Romero, a scientist finds a particularly intelligent zombie who prove to be the cure to developing a vaccine against this zombie disease. Unlike Romero, the scientist is played by a hot girl (Who is also our main character) and the intelligent zombie is a stalker from her past who has retained genuinely malevolent intentions and no sympathetic qualities whatsoever. Romero typically staged the zombies as more of a natural disaster where the actual antagonists tended to be in the human characters- Bloodline makes the zombies themselves more of the focal threat, though one of the military characters is clearly meant to be reminiscent of the assholes of Romero's originals.

It's not nearly as good as Romero's film (A lot of the acting in the first 20 minutes or so is genuinely bad, though it rises to average after that), but as far as DTV movies that only loosely has connections to what its borrowing from go, Bloodline is enjoyable enough if you're not expecting anything on Romero's level.

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 4:25 am

I'm a fan of the IT miniseries. Yeah it's not “good", but it's enjoyable. Tim Curry is fantastic like always.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 4:29 am

I will say I think the two best scenes with Curry's Pennywise are I think the first two in the movie, with the little girl and her tricycle and then with Georgie. Might even be the best two scenes from the entire thing.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:41 am

Raxivace wrote:3. Made in U.S.A. (1966) - Yeah I just couldn't quite get into this one, though there were things I liked about it. The color really popped, and I like the idea of Anna Karina in the detective role (Is the title supposed to be a pun on this? Made in U.S.A./Maiden U.S.A.?), and some of the lines were amusing ("I have the feeling of moving about in a Walt Disney film starring Humphrey Bogart. Therefore, it must be a political film."), but this film had the strange combination of the narrative feeling both opaque while some of the allusions had the subtlety of a gunshot- like the two thugs being named Richard Nixon and Robert McNamara.

I read that Godard was inspired by Hawks' The Big Sleep, and other than the few Bogart references the only thing I found in common between these two was that I often didn't know what was going on. I haven't been feeling that good today though since its been starting to get cold outside (Snow is on the ground even) so that may have (And probably does) something to do with it.

Sounds about right. Glad you appreciated the color too.
I think the main reason MIUSA doesn't entirely work is that it's neither fish nor fowl; ie, it's not quite a "Godardian genre film" ala most of his early-to-mid 60s work, but neither is it as radical/experimental/genre-free as Masculin/Feminin, 2 or 3 Things..., or Weekend. Still, it maybe the last fun/frivolous film Godard made for nearly two decades.

Raxivace wrote:4. It (1990) - I don't think I'd ever seen the original It in its entirety before, so I wanted to check it out before watching the newer version. Some of the movie feels kind of dopey, like the girl's father beating the shit out of her for...receiving a poem in the male from an anonymous boy? Like I get the point is that the adults are shitty and especially so in this town, but I'm not sure the exaggeration entirely works. Same with Tim Curry's Pennywise, who feels silly even at times when he's supposed to be threatening.

That all being said I think the childhood portion of the movie still mostly works, though once focus shifts fully over to the adults it loses a bit of steam. Part of it might be that Pennywise's return feels a bit...arbitrary in some ways, in the adult portion of the story. I've heard the 2017 adaptation focuses entirely on this first section with the kids, which is interesting to me since it seems like it has less to gain from a revisit than the adult portion does. I'll have to see how it compares.

I only remember watching that with my cousin as a kid because she loved horror but was deathly afraid of clowns. I remember thinking it rather dull and silly, but I kinda remember liking the atmosphere.

"receiving a poem in the male" -- Freudian slip?

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 06, 2018 4:12 pm

I meant "mail", though I don't think I've ever heard that as euphemism before though.

Masculin/Feminin is a good comparison to Made in U.S.A. since I think its largely a better combination of Godard's political interests with narrative and bits of experimenting. With U.S.A. he goes on and on about Communism but I don't think I ever understood how exactly it related to what narrative is there even from the beginning. Godard's gonna Godard, I guess.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jan 07, 2018 11:42 am

One last thing to add about the 1990 It- apparently, of all people, George Romero was meant to be the original director and it was supposed to be like 10 hours long. I really wonder what his version would have been like.

6. Too Many Cooks (2014, Rewatch) - Still probably the best bit Adult Swim ever came up with. The way it slowly degrades from affectionate parody of dated sitcoms to overplaying the joke to gruesome satire back to parody is super clever.

7. It (2017) - Yeah I know I'm late to the party here but this is better than the 1990 version by quite a bit. Removing the Godfather II style parallel cutting in favor of focusing entirely on the childhood portion of the story (Presumably the sequel to this film will largely focus on the adults) was kind of a bold choice and I think it works. All seven of the main kids get at least some characterization and a little arc, and all of the actors really do sell their characters (Even the goofy poem plotline actually works here and the father figure comes off as legitimately menacing instead of just some kind of a rube).

I think this incarnation of Pennywise being inherently different is just not gonna work for some people (One comparison I saw online was that he was more of a Christopher Lee kind of reserved until he just can't hold it together anymore in contrast to the original's Bela Lugosi-esque charisma) though I found it fairly effective. His much more violent killing of poor Georgie in this version was certainly shocking, though I liked that it made how this version of Will desperately trying to believe that Georgie is “just missing" all the more tragic.

I'm real curious to see how the sequel will work now, especially since all of the adult material has to kind of stand on its own more. In some ways it makes this first movie kind of like Rebuild of Evangelion in that clearly there are thematic echoes being set off here, though it's hard to see how they'll reverberate in the future. For example, this version has this weird theme of all the shitty adults being hypnotized by television with some kind of darkly funny lines that reflect the story (“It's fun to play in the sewer!")- perhaps that will turn into some kind of internet theme in the sequel, which is to be set in modern times.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 am

8. mother! (2017) - Still really processing this one, but it's pretty interesting. It's basically the same story as Aronofsky's previous film Noah (Though it has a different plot), looking at how patriarchal misogyny inherent to Christianity and how, metaphorically, its repeated over and over and over again over generations. The difference is that while Noah filtered that story through epic blockbuster filmmaking a la Lord of the Rings and such, mother! filters it through more obviously arthouse cinema- the big one I found myself thinking of was Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel though this is hardly some cheap copy. On top of that the narrative in mother! stays firmly rooted in the perspective of Jennifer Lawrence's character, giving a female perspective on patriarchy whereas IIRC Noah was more male oriented. It makes these films interesting contrasts to each other, as they approach similar themes and ideas about the fundamental immorality at the center of Biblical tales from such different angles.

The ideas more specific to mother! I'm still parsing out though- as much the movie makes blatant references to different characters and stories in the Bible Lawrence's character herself doesn't quite neatly fit into any of them. Is she Mary Magdalene? Is she Mother Earth itself? Is she a standin for every women ignored or abused? In any of these of contexts, what does it mean for Javier Bardem's Jesus-y Artist character (A kind of direct inversion of his wannabe grim reaper in No Country for Old Me) to be married to the much younger Lawrence without seemingly wanting to ever have sex with her while still wanting children? Michelle Pfieffer's character even asks about this once or twice. And what they hell is that yellow liquid that Lawrence keeps drinking? I find all of these questions to not have immediate answers, though they're some interesting ambiguities to think about.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 12:10 pm

^ You just made me even more psyched for seeing mother! I loved Noah and I'm always fascinated by Aronofsky's projects since even when they don't entirely work they're almost always interesting.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:53 pm

Raxivace wrote:The ideas more specific to mother! I'm still parsing out though- as much the movie makes blatant references to different characters and stories in the Bible Lawrence's character herself doesn't quite neatly fit into any of them. Is she Mary Magdalene? Is she Mother Earth itself? Is she a standin for every women ignored or abused?

All of the above!

Raxivace wrote:In any of these of contexts, what does it mean for Javier Bardem's Jesus-y Artist character (A kind of direct inversion of his wannabe grim reaper in No Country for Old Me) to be married to the much younger Lawrence without seemingly wanting to ever have sex with her while still wanting children?

I think he kind of just wants her around. I wouldn't call him "Jesus-y" though--he's God, Yahweh. Their baby is Jesus.

Raxivace wrote:And what they hell is that yellow liquid that Lawrence keeps drinking?

Laudanum. It was consumed by some Victorian women to sooth their nerves. The only clue Aronofsky ever gave about the yellow stuff was to blurt out something about "think Victorian times" or something like that. He and Lawrence have been pretty open about other stuff though. Maybe too open.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 7:38 pm

9. The Disaster Artist (2017) - The story of the making of the cult classic The Room, focusing more on the relationship between Tommy Wisseau and Greg Sestero than anything else. James Franco directs and stars as Tommy, and while he nails Tommy I think he tries too consciously make it too obviously an Oscar baity type movie. A lot of his handheld camerawork honestly looks worse than The Room itself does, though the script is far more coherent. Dave Franco is good as Sestero too.

I did think it was kind of odd how much weird shit from the book version of The Disaster Artist is left out here. Some of it is pretty prevalent to Wisseau's and Sestero's relationship too (Beyond just being goofy stories). OTOH my understanding is that test audiences didn't find the film version believable as it is, so perhaps that's why its a bit watered down. It's still a good movie though, its just that the film focuses so much on how goofy Wisseau is while the the book works beyond that as both an intensely sympathetic portrait of a very bad artist as well as the story of failed actor in Hollywood. I understand that what makes a good book is different than what makes a good film, but James Franco's interpretation feels like it could have mined more from it.

BTW it was really surreal to see Wisseau on the stage at the Golden Globes last night. Never thought I'd see the day.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 7:55 pm

Faustus5 wrote:I think he kind of just wants her around. I wouldn't call him "Jesus-y" though--he's God, Yahweh. Their baby is Jesus.

Ah that seems like it fits pretty well, though it would change how I read the film a bit.

Laudanum. It was consumed by some Victorian women to sooth their nerves. The only clue Aronofsky ever gave about the yellow stuff was to blurt out something about "think Victorian times" or something like that. He and Lawrence have been pretty open about other stuff though. Maybe too open.

Interesting, though it still raises the question about why she would have a substance from Victorian times.

Reminds me of how Lawrence insists she doesn't have modern medicine in the house.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:08 pm

Raxivace wrote:Ah that seems like it fits pretty well, though it would change how I read the film a bit.

It goes on (and maybe you already caught this):

Ed Harris = Adam
Michelle Pfeiffer = Eve
Donham Gleeson = Cain
Brian Gleeson = Abel

The room with the crystal = paradise, from which Adam and Even were expelled by Bardem (God) for their transgressions with it.
The sink busting = the Flood.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:33 pm

Yeah those ones I had caught on my own, though I'm still deciding what I think is being said with some of those characters.

It's a shame people seem to have rejected mother!. I think it's pretty fun to think about.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:11 pm

10. Cobra Verde (1987) - The final collaboration between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. The beginning of this film is a little unusually convoluted for Herzog- Kinski's character plays Francisco Manoel da Silva. After a terrible drought kills his farmland he goes to work for a mining company, until he gets mad and murders his boss. After that da Silva becomes the bandit Cobra Verde (Who claims to be Brazilian but considering how emphasized his blonde hair and blue eyes are this may not be the case). He meets a slave trader who hires him to help maintain his plantation, until Verde gets all three of his daughters pregnant. The trader then sends da Silva to Mahoney, West Africa to either acquire more slaves or die trying. da Silva ends up successfully getting slaves, sets up an operation in a castle in Mahoney, and ends up at war with King Bossa Ahadee. This is all set up in the like the first 30 minutes.

So yeah most other Herzog films seem to have way simpler premises, though it does make this one feel more unique. Like a lot of great Herzog there's a lot of emphasis on man being placed against nature, and the sheer insanity of Kinski as he travels the world, committing great evil. The end reveals that he even consciously understands how evil fuckin' slavery is, though why he participates is not something he seems willing to directly share. It perhaps is just for the financial gain, though he also goes on about how nothing he has done has made him any less unhappy or feel any less alone in the world. Who can say.

Also some of the dialogue in here doesn't feel like it's synced very well. The version I watched was in German, and I don't know if there's other versions available a la Nosferatu and if they have similar issues or not.

11. Cops (1922) - Another Buster Keaton short, and this one is quite good. Like you might guess from the title, this one involves a lot of Buster getting chased around by huge swathes of coppers though it ends on the particularly dark note of Buster getting rejected by the girl he was interested and then willingly letting the cops murder him. Seriously, the final shot of the film is a tombstone that reads “The End" with Buster's straw hat resting upon it. It works too because the gag at the beginning of the film where he's positioned behind a fence makes you think he's in jail and that the short might end with a reversal of fortune of Buster actually going to jail but NOPE.

My absolute favorite moment in the short though is Buster grabbing onto a moving car.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:59 pm

^ Haven't seen Cobra Verde, but I remember really enjoying Cops too. That GIF is like something out of a cartoon. I'm guessing they must've had some kind of fall mat just off screen so Buster just had to hold on long enough to get jerked off camera. Still an impressive stunt.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 5:15 pm

I don't know which is more impressive- that he somehow never ended up dismembered doing a movie, or that we still have most of his body of work like 90+ years later.

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 7:49 pm

Well sure, if we're counting 18 minute long movies, I could watch a whole lot more this year!

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 8:16 pm

An 18 minute short is as much a movie as an eight hour one is.

Inb4 "Well actually there's a difference of 462 minutes.

"

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:53 pm

Raxivace wrote:An 18 minute short is as much a movie as an eight hour one is.

Inb4 "Well actually there's a difference of 462 minutes. "

Now I'm wondering though; how do we draw a line between a short movie and an episode of a TV show? Of course, even with longer movies we can ask the same question... how is a 2-part Star Trek episode (coming it at 2 hours minus commercial time; so 1:20 or so) different than a Star Trek movie? We can't say it's because it's made for TV... some movies are made for TV. Is it a mostly arbitrary distinction?

What would make a single episode of a sitcom count less than an 18 minute film for if it's a movie? Perhaps if it's part of a series of shows? Of course, some movies are part of a series as well... and some shows only last 1 episode. I suppose the distinctions can't be 100% arbitrary, as the MPAA rates movies, and TV shows are rated differently.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 11, 2018 11:10 pm

In a lot of ways it does feel arbitrary these days, with some interesting grey areas here and there. Shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents or The Twilight Zone or even One Step Beyond come to mind for example, where each episode was basically its own little short film. There used to be film serials such as Les Vampire sthat had "episodes" but released theatrically (And that was done from 1915 to 1916). An anime series like Space Battleship Yamato 2202 also has feature length "episodes" being released theatrically right now, with the understanding that they'll eventually be cut up into even smaller episodes for television airing at a later date.

I suppose you could technically be pedantic and treat each episode of any given television show as its own film but I feel like you'll just get bogged down by that pretty quickly.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 2:36 pm

Raxivace wrote:I don't know which is more impressive- that he somehow never ended up dismembered doing a movie, or that we still have most of his body of work like 90+ years later.

I'd say the former given just how crazy some of the stunts he did were. I mean, in the famous "house falling" scene if that set had gotten nudged a foot-or-so in any direction, or if for any reason his calculation of the window clearance was off, he would've been flattened (and you can see it actually brushes his left arm). Film preservation is doable when care and attention is given to it, as it tended to be for the biggest hit films and stars.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 2:49 pm

Gendo wrote:
Raxivace wrote:An 18 minute short is as much a movie as an eight hour one is.

Inb4 "Well actually there's a difference of 462 minutes. "
Now I'm wondering though; how do we draw a line between a short movie and an episode of a TV show? Of course, even with longer movies we can ask the same question... how is a 2-part Star Trek episode (coming it at 2 hours minus commercial time; so 1:20 or so) different than a Star Trek movie? We can't say it's because it's made for TV... some movies are made for TV. Is it a mostly arbitrary distinction?

What would make a single episode of a sitcom count less than an 18 minute film for if it's a movie? Perhaps if it's part of a series of shows? Of course, some movies are part of a series as well... and some shows only last 1 episode. I suppose the distinctions can't be 100% arbitrary, as the MPAA rates movies, and TV shows are rated differently.

It depends on the individual works under considerations, but one thing that makes most TV projects different (even made for TV movies) is that they're often structured around the commercial/episodic break points, while films are 100% continuous and doesn't have to abide by any format or structure. In practice, this may not yield much of a different content-wise, but it often makes for a pacing that's unique to TV where you generally have X amount of time to fit in a scene or to get to a cliffhanger or to finish an episode.

That said, plenty of films made for TV have also been shown continuously in the theater. Some works--like Ingmar Bergman's Fannie & Alexander and Scenes from a Marriage--even had a TV version and an edited (for time) version for theaters. Others like Mysteries of Lisbon were originally written for TV but are now typically viewed as a film. It's also worth noting that in the early days of cinema and before TV, there were "serial" films that were basically the equivalent of TV series. Beyond the formatting element, the distinction is pretty arbitrary.

Though I will say that for sitcoms most are shot differently than TV dramas and films. They almost all utilize a a set-based, flat-lighting, 3-camera set-up popularized by Karl Freund (who also shot Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the original Dracula) on I Love Lucy. A classic case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 6:13 pm

Eva Yojimbo wrote:
Raxivace wrote:I don't know which is more impressive- that he somehow never ended up dismembered doing a movie, or that we still have most of his body of work like 90+ years later.
I'd say the former given just how crazy some of the stunts he did were. I mean, in the famous "house falling" scene if that set had gotten nudged a foot-or-so in any direction, or if for any reason his calculation of the window clearance was off, he would've been flattened (and you can see it actually brushes his left arm). Film preservation is doable when care and attention is given to it, as it tended to be for the biggest hit films and stars.

See I was just going for the dismemberment/body of work pun there. :(

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 3:23 am

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:55 am

So Netflix produced an anime called Devilman: Crybaby that I just finished watching. Imagine Spider-Man for a moment, and imagine instead of Peter Parker getting his spider powers by being bitten by a radioactive spider at a science fair, he instead went to a drug crazed orgy that turned into a drug crazed massacre when his best friend loses his shit, which then summoned a demon that fused with Peter Parker in the midst of the chaos turning him into half of a devil and also half of a man. Hence Devilman.

The original Devilman manga from 1972 was pretty fucked up, and this adaptation is pretty true to it and in a lot of ways elevates the material with a strong visual style and, rather smartly, reducing some of the plain text of the manga to just subtext and adding a few new ideas of its own. The original Devilman was a huge influence on Evangelion too, and its kind of funny to see this adaptation likewise being influenced by Eva.

It's only 10 episodes long and pretty quick to get through. It also is insanely violent and sexual though (Often in the same scene, such as one part where a girl fucking kills a dude mid-coitus and then literally rapes his corpse), so if that's the kind of thing that will disturb you uh stay the hell away from this by several miles. If not though this is very much worth a watch.

Also I just can't get over that this was produced by the same people that brought us something like Stranger Things and are also financing the finishing of The Other Side of the Wind. They don't even feel like projects in the same wheelhouse.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:57 pm

12. DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) - A movie with a really trashy b-movie spirit in that its basically just an excuse to have hot girls in kung fu fights with improbably little clothing, much like the trashy video games it's based on. I liked it but it's basically a guilty pleasure for me just like the games are, though in a sense it may be one of the truest video game-to-film adaptations out there.

13. The Deer Hunter (1978) - With Oscar season coming up I'm going back to watching some Best Picture winners I haven't seen. I haven't seen any of the other nominees from this year, but I gotta be honest I didn't think much of The Deer Hunter. The opening wedding segment is like 80 minutes of this three hour film and just drags on and on and on. Things get better afterwards, but never quite rise to greatness. The Russian Roulette scenes are memorable and solid, but there are like five of them. For as much time as we spend with some of these characters I don't feel like I ever really get a read on them either.

Apocalypse Now came out the year after this did. I know it's a different movie with a different tone and different goals, but man I couldn't just help but think of that and how Coppola is kind of just decimating Cimino here. It reminds me of one comment I saw online that suggested Deer Hunter was the Crash of the 70's but in regards to war instead of racism. I don't think it's quite that on the nose but it's a comment with an edge of truth to it.

14. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - Another solid Bond film. Like From Russia With Love it keeps things (relatively) restrained, though the big noticeable departure here is the unusually dark gut punch of an ending. In a way it's kind of the perfect capstone to the 60's era of Bond- I'm not sure this ending would have made sense, say, before President Kennedy was shot.

I haven't seen any of the 70's Bond movies before so I'm really curious what those are like going forward now. Last thing I'll say was that I was pleasantly surprised by George Lazenby here.

15. Thirty Day Princess (1934) - A newspaper comedy where an actress has to pretend to be a princess visiting the United States. She meets a reporter, Cary Grant, who is covering her travels in the U.S. but they fall in love. It's pretty traditional classic Hollywood, but a nice little film and brisk at like 75 minutes too.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 9:33 am

16. The Fate of the Furious (2017) - Pretty decent but would be better if it was called The F8 of the Furious as it should have been.

17. Blade Runner 2049 (2017, Rewatch) - Still super dope. One of the most gorgeous films I saw last year, looks great on blu-ray. I noticed it had a shot that looked a lot like one in Thirty Day Princess this time, oddly enough.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Wed Jan 17, 2018 9:46 am

Raxivace wrote:So Netflix produced an anime called Devilman: Crybaby that I just finished watching.

Sounds really interesting. I have vague memories of the original being referenced back when I was heavily into anime, but I don't think I ever saw anything.

Raxivace wrote:12. DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) - A movie with a really trashy b-movie spirit in that its basically just an excuse to have hot girls in kung fu fights with improbably little clothing, much like the trashy video games it's based on. I liked it but it's basically a guilty pleasure for me just like the games are, though in a sense it may be one of the truest video game-to-film adaptations out there.

I remember the games. They kinda sucked compared to the Tekken/Street Fighters out there. The jiggle was all it had going for it.

Raxivace wrote:The Deer Hunter (1978)

Pretty much agree on this. I liked it as a teen when I was a sucker for these on-the-nose dramas, but it was just blah on rewatch in my 20s after seeing Apocalypse Now. Interesting comparison to Crash. I can kinda see it.

Raxivace wrote:14. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - Another solid Bond film. Like From Russia With Love it keeps things (relatively) restrained, though the big noticeable departure here is the unusually dark gut punch of an ending. In a way it's kind of the perfect capstone to the 60's era of Bond- I'm not sure this ending would have made sense, say, before President Kennedy was shot.

Definitely one of the series' best. That ending is pretty much the only moment of genuine emotion in the series. Diamonds tried to capitalize on it but ended up just being a typical Bond otherwise. The rest of OHMSS is solid as well.

70s Bond isn't as consistently good as 60s Bond, but The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the series' highlights. The rest are more meh, with Moonraker being the point where it got silly (though it's strangely more endearing than the rather drab Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun).

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:17 am

Watched some more movies today- the first one featured a terrible monster that horrified everyone, bringing nothing but chaos as he moved both ships and mountains, seeming to desire nothing more than wage a meaningless war on humanity, and the second movie was about Godzilla.

18. My Best Fiend (1999) - Werner Herzog's reflective documentary about his work with Klaus Kinski and the five films they made together: Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, and Cobra Verde. A lot of the stories about Kinski are pretty crazy and interesting, though many of them have been disseminated into interviews and such that Herzog has given over the years (I.e. the stories about their attempts at murdering each other, Kinsi's general fucking insanity, Kinski trying murder film extras and so on). Still, it's nice to have them all collected in a fairly coherent package (Though that being said I was a little surprised how much focus there was about Fitzcarraldo here since there's already a very good making of documentary about from Les Blank called Burden of Dreams).

There was kind of an interesting bit about a weird way that Kinski would “twist" onto screen by crossing his legs in a weird fashion when he had to enter a close up shot from right behind a camera, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it here. It looks fairly seamless when they show a clip from Aguirre where he had done this, and was something I had never heard before at least.

19. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017) - From what I can tell this is the first time there's been a Godzilla anime. It's kind of strange to me that it didn't happen until now since IIRC there were at least two American Godzilla cartoons on television when I was young.

Anyways I wasn't super into this one. The premise is that Godzilla takes over the Earth, humanity flees on a spaceship to find another planet, can't find one, and comes back to Earth through some kind of timestream and ends up like 20,000 years into the future. Godzilla and some other monsters are still ruling, so they try and kill them. The tension isn't all quite there though, since the film was announced as the first part of a trilogy and they imply too heavily that there's more one than one Godzilla on Earth before they actually reveal it.
The idea is cool if not particularly, but the film focuses mostly on the human characters and they're just not especially interesting (Save for the lead guy who wants REVENGE against Godzilla for ruining the Earth but he's still your kind of standard archetype for this kind of thing). Gen Urobuchi of Puella Magi Madoka Magica fame was a writer on this, and while I didn't like that show or the last several of his I watched very much, I think this is actually worse than all of those in some ways since the aesthetic is just kind of glum and not especially interesting to look at. A lot of grays and dark blues and faded whites and so on, and I'm not sure I particularly like how it looks with the CG animation used here. Also this Godzilla is fat, he needs to cut back a bit.

Still, it had some decent action bits and the final assault was fun. The effectiveness of the assault on the first Godzilla perhaps makes the appearance of the second Godzilla and the sheer pointlessness of even engaging him that much more impactful.

It's at least kind of interesting to compare this to other recent attempts at retelling the Godzilla origin story, like Godzilla (2014) with Bryan Cranston, or Hideaki Anno's vastly superior Shin Godzilla. They all feel like very different films, even with the same monster at the center of them.

20. The Rough House (1917) - A Fatty Arbuckle short, but one that Buster Keaton helped direct! I'm not sure how much was Arbuckle and how much was Keaton though.

The bit at the beginning where Arbuckle tries to put out a fire with what looks like a teacup was good. Also at another point Arbuckle plays with his food at dinner that I think Chaplin is referencing in The Gold Rush.

^This bit here I mean. Arbuckle basically does the same gag a few years before Chaplin would.

It's also kind of weird to see early Keaton smiling and laughing and generally emoting in these early pictures before his Stone Face persona was cemented (Somebody better appreciate the pun here). Other than that I don't have much to say here- The Rough House is alright but I prefer Keaton's work once he branches off on his own.

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:31 am

You're on a pace of more than 1 movie per day. Don't think I'll be keeping up!

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:42 am

Gendo wrote:You're on a pace of more than 1 movie per day. Don't think I'll be keeping up!

I've got several longer movies coming up which will probably lower me back down to around 1 a day for a while.

Like I've got Dances With Wolves tomorrow or perhaps the day after and the shortest version of that I can find is "merely" three hours long, though it is also the director's preferred version of that film if the internet is to be believed.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jan 18, 2018 4:01 am

Eva Yojimbo wrote:
Raxivace wrote:So Netflix produced an anime called Devilman: Crybaby that I just finished watching.
Sounds really interesting. I have vague memories of the original being referenced back when I was heavily into anime, but I don't think I ever saw anything.

The one thing I'm certain of Eva taking from Devilman is the ending shots of EoE. I think parts of Shinji and Kaworu's characters might be from the original manga too, though altered very heavily. Kuribo told me he thinks part of Asuka's battle in EoE might have been inspired by the manga too.

I remember the games. They kinda sucked compared to the Tekken/Street Fighters out there. The jiggle was all it had going for it.

Its got a sizable fanbase in it for the gameplay nowadays, going to tournaments and such, though "the jiggle" is still a huge part of the games and has been developed in new and exciting ways in recent years. That's actually caused in an issue in the tournament scene, forcing the skimpier outfits and bikinis for characters to be banned in competitive play for being distracting. Others have argued that that's a valid psychological tactic to use against your opponents, creating a kind of funny debate.

The Deer Hunter (1978)
Pretty much agree on this. I liked it as a teen when I was a sucker for these on-the-nose dramas, but it was just blah on rewatch in my 20s after seeing Apocalypse Now. Interesting comparison to Crash. I can kinda see it.

In a way I feel like The Deer Hunter perfectly encapsulates everything I don't like about 70's Hollywood. Like yeah its got decent performances, but there's nothing to really wrestle with in the movie, nothing that isn't quite on the surface, not very many particularly striking shots in the name of a realist aesthetic etc.

It's not even bad but it's just kind of there, yelling its message.

70s Bond isn't as consistently good as 60s Bond, but The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the series' highlights. The rest are more meh, with Moonraker being the point where it got silly (though it's strangely more endearing than the rather drab Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun).

I'm actually kind of looking forward to Moonraker to see how silly it really is. If a movie isn't good, goofiness can at least make it fun.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 11:40 am

21. Dances With Wolves - Looks beautiful, and at least in the three hour cut I like how there's not so much in physical conflict as much as people just learning about each other. I had kind of been dreading this potentially being cringey after seeing so many comparisons with James Cameron's Avatar over the years, and on that front it actually ended up not being so bad and ended up being a bit more nuanced than I expected without falling back too hard on white savior or noble savage bullshit (Or at least not nearly as hard as Avatar did, even if there were still elements of it there).

OTOH I dunno if it had to quite privilege Dunbar's perspective over the Sioux characters as much as it did- its not that I'm against the voiceover necessarily, but perhaps the Sioux characters could have used more scenes to focus on their individuality instead of being presented quite as much as a collective group (Maybe that's added in the four hour cut that Kevin Costner apparently doesn't like). The way Dunbar's narration is tied into the journal too and the whole plotline about Dunbar somehow losing it and getting caught by the white soldiers while trying to find it is pretty messy. If it was so important to him, and the idea of others finding it represented such a threat, then surely he would have kept it close to him when visiting the Sioux? Maybe the narration needed to be there for mass audiences, but this aspect could have been done better.

Beyond all that though, it does feel a bit didactic. I respect its attempts at being respectful and think it still is a pretty enjoyable watch, but when I think of previous westerns that are masterpieces, like The Searchers for example, they wrestle with their own problematic aspects in biting, more interesting ways than Costner's attempt at respect. It's awfully calm for a movie touching on genocide, and I'm not sure it should be.

Also its interesting that both this and Unforgiven won Best Picture. I think in a lot of ways they actually do pair well together as revisionist westerns, with Wolves being a take on the classical Hollywood western about Native Americans (I had some of those early Ford films in mind though IMDb tells me its loosely a remake of a Sam Fuller western I haven't seen) and Unforgiven being a riff on conflicts between gunslingers done by filmmakers like Sergio Leone. I think Unforgiven is still easily the better picture but I did like Dances With Wolves.

Lastly this absolutely should not have won over Goodfellas, what the fuck. I saw Awakenings and The Godfather: Part III too and while I like those movies I think Dances is probably still better than them. Never saw the last nominee, Ghost, though.

Post by **Gendo** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 3:45 pm

Gendo wrote:Dances with Wolves - Finally saw this. Beautiful film. Very well done.

Ghost is one of my favorites, but I never knew until now it was nominated for best picture.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 2:29 am

22. The Post (2017) - An unusually political film from Spielberg. While ostensibly about the Washington Post's decision to publish articles based on the leaked Pentagon Papers, this is pretty blatantly Spierlberg going after President Trump's "fake news" nonsense and general attempts at undermining the concept of free press.

Me speaking disparagingly about Spotlight may be cliche at this point, but I really couldn't help think of it as I watched The Post. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks just have stronger, more defined characters than anyone in Spotlight did, and even Bob Odenkirk in a secondary role comes off stronger as he channels elements of his Jimmy McGill persona from Better Call Saul here. Spielberg just keeps things fast and moving, never letting things stay dull. It's bolder too to try and tackle issues of the Trump administration before the first year is even up.

Yet, I'm not sure how much weight this film will carry several years down the line, once Trump is out of office. I suppose that's the dilemma with films going for immediate political relevancy- do them too soon and they can become quickly become forgotten or irrelevant once the times have moved on. Wait too long, and these movies lack any bite. I think keeping the criticisms grounded in historical drama is a smart move, but we'll see how The Post ages. In the meantime its enjoyable.

23. Trump Rally (2016) - An observational minidocumentary composed of snippets of interviews, edited together from footage shot on iPhones, with Trump voters at a rally in Las Vegas, when he was still trying to secure the RNC nomination. I think it does a decent job of letting these people speak for themselves, particularly why they're voting for the orange goblin. Very much a people damning themselves with their own words kind of thing, though as a film that's interesting to document.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 4:04 pm

24. Driving Miss Daisy (1989) - How the hell does this win Best Picture while Do the Right Thing doesn't even get nominated? I normally don't give ratings, but I'm going to make an exception here just so I can give this a bad score. 4/10

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 10:08 pm

Raxivace wrote:24. Driving Miss Daisy (1989) - How the hell does this win Best Picture while Do the Right Thing doesn't even get nominated? I normally don't give ratings, but I'm going to make an exception here just so I can give this a bad score. 4/10

As CineFix pointed out; Driving Miss Daisy let people feel that racism was a product of old people who were from a different time, and not something that they had to worry about. While Do the Right Thing basically does the exact opposite.

CashRules · Post by **CashRules** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:42 pm

Morgan Freeman hates black people. Denzel Washington also hates black people. But nobody hates black people with as much hate as Tyler Perry.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:11 am

Gendo wrote:As CineFix pointed out; Driving Miss Daisy let people feel that racism was a product of old people who were from a different time

I feel like even on these grounds Driving Miss Daisy is still pulling its punches about the past pretty hard. Like I think 12 Years a Slave has a similar problem in treating racism as "product of old people who were from a different time" as you put it, but at least condemns the white people of that era pretty harshly for obvious reasons. In contrast, this movie would have you believe racism primarily exists on the road to Mobile, Alabama but other than those bad eggs people were pretty chill for the most part.

Beyond that though DMD is just boring af.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:10 am

Raxivace wrote:
Eva Yojimbo wrote:
Raxivace wrote:So Netflix produced an anime called Devilman: Crybaby that I just finished watching.
Sounds really interesting. I have vague memories of the original being referenced back when I was heavily into anime, but I don't think I ever saw anything.
The one thing I'm certain of Eva taking from Devilman is the ending shots of EoE. I think parts of Shinji and Kaworu's characters might be from the original manga too, though altered very heavily. Kuribo told me he thinks part of Asuka's battle in EoE might have been inspired by the manga too.

Interestinger and interestinger... what specific ending shots?

Raxivace wrote:
I remember the games. They kinda sucked compared to the Tekken/Street Fighters out there. The jiggle was all it had going for it.
Its got a sizable fanbase in it for the gameplay nowadays, going to tournaments and such, though "the jiggle" is still a huge part of the games and has been developed in new and exciting ways in recent years. That's actually caused in an issue in the tournament scene, forcing the skimpier outfits and bikinis for characters to be banned in competitive play for being distracting. Others have argued that that's a valid psychological tactic to use against your opponents, creating a kind of funny debate.

I can't imagine anyone taking the gameplay seriously given the competition out there (Soulcalibur is another gem I forgot), but that's hilarious about the "controversy."

Raxivace wrote:
Pretty much agree on this. I liked it as a teen when I was a sucker for these on-the-nose dramas, but it was just blah on rewatch in my 20s after seeing Apocalypse Now. Interesting comparison to Crash. I can kinda see it.
In a way I feel like The Deer Hunter perfectly encapsulates everything I don't like about 70's Hollywood. Like yeah its got decent performances, but there's nothing to really wrestle with in the movie, nothing that isn't quite on the surface, not very many particularly striking shots in the name of a realist aesthetic etc.

It's not even bad but it's just kind of there, yelling its message.

Hmmm, your comment got me thinking if I could find any examples of 70s Hollywood to contradict that, but outside Coppola's best, I'm drawing a blank. Even Scorsese's major 70s films kinda fit that description (though done much better than TDH). Outside that the best I've got are Malick's, Once Upon a Time in America, and Mccabe and Mrs. Miller.

Raxivace wrote:
70s Bond isn't as consistently good as 60s Bond, but The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the series' highlights. The rest are more meh, with Moonraker being the point where it got silly (though it's strangely more endearing than the rather drab Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun).
I'm actually kind of looking forward to Moonraker to see how silly it really is. If a movie isn't good, goofiness can at least make it fun.

I actually think the silliness of Moonraker fits Moore's rather light-hearted, insouciant take on Bond. Do me a favor though; don't read anything on For Your Eyes Only before/after seeing, and come here and hazard a guess as to what director you think praised it (it's someone you'd never expect).

Raxivace wrote:24. Driving Miss Daisy (1989) - How the hell does this win Best Picture while Do the Right Thing doesn't even get nominated? I normally don't give ratings, but I'm going to make an exception here just so I can give this a bad score. 4/10

I was more around a 6/10. While basically agreeing with your criticism I did enjoy the writing and acting. But, yeah, it's nowhere near the quality of DTRT. Another example of the Academy's middle-of-the-road conservativism.

Raxivace wrote:21. Dances With Wolves -

I remember just being pretty bored by this in my teens, but that was so long ago I couldn't say anything meaningful. Interesting comparison with Unforgiven, and Goodfellas certainly should've won that year (Ghost is maudlin poo).