Raxivace's 2017 List of Movies or (Neo-General Chat)

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:36 pm

86. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 (2017) - This is the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:49 pm

^Hahaha.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:49 pm

87. Talking Comedy (2011) - Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Louis C.K., and Ricky Gervais have a roundtable discussion about stand up comedy and their different approaches to performing it. This is arguably more of a podcast than any kind of documentary film, though it's an interesting watch in its own right if you like any of the people involved and care about the actual craft of what they do. I fell out of following comedy several years ago once stopped being able to laugh at much of anything anymore, though from an intellectual perspective it's neat just to hear people talk about why they make the choices they do in their storytelling and even disagreeing among themselves quite a bit.

88. Rhapsody in August (1991) - Akira Kurosawa's second to last film. This is kind of an update on his previous film I Live in Fear- that film dealt with a Japan a mere 10 years after the atomic bombs were dropped. August deals with three generations of a family some 45 years later, and how the sheer terror of what happened in World War II has been lost from generation to generation (And has arguably continued even further with modern generations that seek to re-militarize the country). The film is basically Kurosawa's plea for the youth to forget what their grandparents went through, even as (Because?) former enemies such as Japan and America now have a much more friendly relationship, as seen with Richard Gere's character in the movie.

Come to think of it, even the ending seems to echo I Live in Fear's. That movie ends with Mifune glaring at the blazing sun, believing it to be Earth having been destroyed in nuclear war. This movie ends with Sachiko Murase running through a torrential rain storm, in her elderly dementia believing the bombs that killed her husband have been dropped again.

89. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) - Well for starters it isn't the final entry into this series. Actually, while this is by no means a masterpiece The Final Chapter is probably the best of these movies so far. The cast all around are stronger (Particularly a pre-Back to the Future Crispin Glover), the actresses they've cast basically just to get naked are prettier, and if read as the actual conclusion to the story of Jason it has a mostly coherent arc- even if Jason has been defeated, its implied that the boy Tommy Jarvis will become another killer himself (I can only assume this is supposed to be a younger version of the character with the same name in the recent video game). Even the idea of a random guy trying to hunt down Jason (Apparently a brother of a character killed in Part II) is a much stronger concept for a tertiary character than, say, the random biker gang from Part III. The production values here all around seem more solid too.

90. Split (2017) - A bit of a return to form for Shyamalan. I'm not sure what exactly is in the air considering the recent trend of movies about young women being kidnapped in (Such as in Room and 10 Cloverfield Lane), but Shyamalan constructs a pretty solid horror/thriller around it. I've heard accusations that this film glorifies suffering and abuse, and I'd be curious to know what others think about this- haven't quite decided myself.

As much of a nostalgia bomb the connections to Unbreakable at the very end are too I can't help but wonder if they're not a bit too attached on to what is mostly a stand-alone movie. Still, I couldn't help but get some chills down my spine once I recognized that bit of music that started playing.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Sep 07, 2017 9:32 pm

91. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) - Sort of tries to follow the ending of part IV by implying maybe Tommy Jarvis has actually started killing people and become a copycat killer mimicking Jason. In general the movie tries to return to the sort of mystery movie that the original Friday the 13th initially was- if the problem with the original movie's mystery was that it wasn't designed with traditional ideas of fair play in mind, this one goes too far into the opposite direction by being too predictable. The stuff they try to do with Tommy in the mental institution is interesting in theory but none of it really sticks and from what I can tell this film has been almost entirely ignored by later entries.

92. Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) - This is where these movies take a turn and start introducing supernatural elements. Jason is straight up revived by a bolt of lightning Frankenstein-style and starts killing again. Actually, there are multiple nods to the Universal Frankenstein series in the movie that are pretty fun to spot- my favorite is probably the grocery store named “Karloff's".

This was probably my favorite movie of the bunch- the film basically loses all of the pretensions that this could ever be especially serious and just focuses in on trying to be scary and surprising and there are some nice bits of humor in here. Not a great film by any means but it's a decent sequel to Part IV that more or less ignores Part V.

93. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) - Jason starts killing again blah blah blah, but this time the gimmick is that one of the potential victims just straight up has crazy psychic powers. Can psychic girl defeat Jason?

It's not much of a question since from the beginning the girl is kind of just more powerful than Jason ever was with the crazy Jean Grey shit she can do. It's an interesting idea and the plotline about the psychiatrist trying to exploit her abilities is weird, but the tension is just never quite there.

94. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) - Jason rides a boat, kills people on the boat for an hour, and then runs around Manhattan. The premise of being able to sail from fucking Camp Crystal Lake to New York City should tell you what kind of movie this is. When survivors from the boat finally reach land in NYC, they're mugged like immediately.

I had fun laughing at it. It's just so fucking goofy that it's hard for me to dislike.

95. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) - Amazingly this is the second time one of these movies with the word “Final" in it was not actually the final entry into the series. Jason kind of turns into BOB from Twin Peaks and is some kind of spirit now that possesses people (Though as a result of him always jumping around there feels like there isn't much consistency between scenes of his attacks). A bounty hunter played by an actor from The Leftovers Season 2 is after him, and while that character is ridiculous the main cast for once is not horny teenagers but instead a separated couple and their newborn baby.

I'm guessing they want audiences who saw the original Friday the 13th in 1980 to identify with this couple and their kid as they probably have children on their own now. It's a nice attempt at changing things up (There's even a brief bit where a dude drops some teens off at Camp Crystal Lake and jokes that if they're having pre-marital sex and doing drugs that they're probably going to be murdered), but the characters themselves aren't great.

This film also has bunch of horror references, from Freddy cameoing in the end, a box that looks like a reference to Carpenter's (IMO rather overrated) The Thing, to the Necronomicon appearing in the Voorhees film. Supposedly a jungle gym in the movie is even a replica from one in Hitchcock's The Birds. The idea of this being a “meta-film" trying to talk about 80's slashers in general is interesting but it never really says anything especially interesting.

96. Night of the Living Dead (1990) - The famous horror special effects artist Tom Savini directed this Romero (and co.)-scripted remake of the classic film. It's done well, but it doesn't really add anything especially new to the movie either (A problem not faced by Zack Snyder's later remake of Dawn of the Dead IMO). The most notable changes are in how some character arcs play out, such as with Barabara ending up a bit more like the female lead of Day of the Dead (Whose name escapes me at the moment. BTW Day was remade as well so of course I'll watch it at some point), and the way Ben dies is different and much less impactful though there's a nice bit where as he is dying he finds the now useless key to the gas pump.

The original Night invented the modern conception of zombies- this 1990 version is just a well done, well casted zombie movie which the original Night was also anyways. A lot of the social commentary of the original has been stripped away (And if modern events have shown us, that commentary is sadly not yet outdated either. Hell even back when this came out, Do the Right Thing had come out the year before in 1989.), and this remake was shot in color. I appreciate the other more subtle changes but I would have liked to see some more substantial ones as well. In a lot of ways it just seems too faithful.

I picked up an e-book recently about Romero's zombie movies and the remakes of them, so naturally it has a chapter on Night 1990. I'll give it a read eventually and perhaps will post something about it- might change how I look at the film.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 5:50 pm

97. Jason X (2001) - haahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I knew this was the "Jason goes to space" movie. I didn't know it was the Jason gets cryogenically frozen and travel 450 years into the fucking future movie too. It's straight up a clone of something like Alien: Resurrection but turning a fucking Friday the 13th movie into that is so bonkers and crazy that I can't help but love that they fully committed to that strange, wonderful idea. The movie is goofy as hell and that's okay. The character of Jason is also credited as "Uber Jason" which may put this as a contender for the greatest thing ever.

This is the actual end of the original Jason continuity from what I can tell, so of course the word "Final" is nowhere to be seen in the title when it actually ends the story for real.

98. Freddy vs. Jason (2003, Rewatch) - I had seen part of this movie before on TV years ago, and revisiting it its pretty fun even if it doesn't quite match the crazy premise of Jason X. It's a genuine followup to Jason Goes to Hell even if it ignores Jason's actual powers in that movie- Freddy has somehow pulled Jason out of hell and is manipulating him into killing Elm Street kids into thinking Freddy himself is doing the killing so there's enough belief in him for him to come back to life. Jason keeps on killing though beyond Freddy's control, and Freddy gets pissed about this so they eventually fight. Also there's some teens caught in the middle I guess and while they're not annoying or anything they're not really remarkable.

It's a fun monster bash.

99. Friday the 13th (2009) - Yeah I dunno about this reboot. After how campy the Friday the 13th movies had been for like 20 years this one tried to be a genuinely scary horror film again and it just isn't super effective at that. Jason's serial killer cave with an elaborate system of strings and bells to detect intruders is an interesting idea (Kind of connects the film to that thing I mentioned earlier about cinema about kidnapped women with Room, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and Split), but it doesn't quite work at being especially scary.

In general this seems to resemble torture porn more than anything else. Not that the other movies didn't have a bunch of kills, but here it looks like the focus is more on the kids actually being killed and suffering and dying (Some of them slowly, like a girl who is burned to death at on point). It's a hard movie to actually see too- the color palette sees really muted I guess (I'm bad at talking about color so I may be using the wrong term to convey this), and everything kind of seems like it could be fading into a void of indiscernible shapes at any time. It follows the "chaos cinema" stylistic convention that I'm always complaining about too in action scenes so our view of Jason is almost always distorted- lots of handheld shots of the camera being swung around, rapid edits during these segments that aren't done for clarity etc. It makes what is a simple movie very disorienting in a bad way at times. While he didn't direct it it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Michael Bay was a producer on this movie considering the stylistic elements I just described.

It may be recency bias talking but this may legit be the worst movie in the entire franchise.

For some reason the Pabst Blue Ribbon line from David Lynch's Blue Velvet is quoted almost verbatim at the beginning of this film. The dude that plays Jason in this film also played the arm wrestler guy in Twin Peaks: The Return so that's a fun connection.

-------------------------

I believe I've now seen all of the Friday the 13th movies- I usually am not into slashers but I had fun with them (Even if I should probably go back to watching some more arthouse stuff for a while to bring balance to this universe). If I had to pick a favorite of these movies it probably be either Part IV: The Final Chapter or Part VI: Jason Lives, with Jason X being comfortably in third place.

Post by **Gendo** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:03 pm

I only ever saw the original Friday the 13th, and Freddy vs Jason. Have you seen all the Elmstreet movies? I think the first one is a genuinely good and scary horror movie, while the rest go on a steady shift towards being over-the-top fun. I especially remember liking New Nightmare.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Sep 09, 2017 11:12 pm

I saw the original Elm Street and New Nightmare as a child and had fun with them- New Nightmare in particular seemed like a really cool take on the character, almost the kind of premise I would have imagined 60's Godard using before he got all tied up in Maoism.

I'd like to watch through those again as well as the ones I haven't seen at some point. October's coming so maybe I'll dedicate some of my horror movie marathoning to those.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:04 pm

100. The Old Dark House (1932) - Kind of a forgotten James Whale movie, but it's pretty fun. It's very much a proto-And Then There Were None type of story, as its about a bunch of people becoming trapped in a mansion on a terribly stormy night that may or may not have a have a dangerous person hidden inside. It's a lot more comedic than I expected, but still pretty neat. Boris Karloff plays a spooky butler in the movie that gets drunk a lot.

101. The Mummy (1932) - Despite being directed by the great Karl Freund I'm not sure this one holds up super well. The first 10 or 15 minutes are excellent and build a lot of tension, but after that and we enter the "present" era things lose a lot of steam and it kind of retreads Todd Browning's Dracula. Still, Karloff is good as Imhotep and there's some excellent makeup work with him.

102. Chungking Express (1994) - I really liked this one- kind of feels like its in the same vein of something like Before Sunrise from the next year. The two love stories with the two cops and the two mysterious women they become attracted to are quite charming. I think it's interesting that the two stories are so disjointed- I feel like typically in a movie like this they would be intercut in some fashion with occasional crossover, but there's not a whole lot of that here.

I'd be curious to know what others think of this one (IIRC Jimbo said he didn't like it or Wong Kar-Wai in general). I will say one thing I didn't enjoy about the film was the way that the brief action scenes were filmed- not that it really matters in a film that 98% isn't that, but the handheld camerawork combined with what Google tells me is called "step printing" just doesn't work for me at all, as unique as it looks. I seem to remember As Tears Go By having similar scenes.

103. Freaks (1932) - It's weird that Todd Browning's Freaks has been sold to me as a horror film for years and years when its just a drama. It's a good drama though, about America's shitty and fucked up treatment of people with physical deformities and disabilities. What I like about this movie is that it focuses on these characters as actual people, not focusing on their deformity in a way that a well intentioned but ultimately morally insidious picture like The House is Black that purely and totally "otherizes" its subject does.

Anyways the acting is a bit stuffy even for an early talkie but I think it works well enough.

104. The Phantom Carriage (1921) - Another one I wouldn't really call a horror film. It's more of a ghostly morality tale akin to something like A Christmas Carol, as supernatural elements are used to teach a flawed man an important lesson about kindness and love. It's pretty solid as far as these go.

There's a scene in this film with the man chasing after his wife and child. At one point they locked themselves in a room and he tears it down with an axe- it really reminds me of similar scenes in Kubrick's The Shining as well as D.W. Griffith's earlier Broken Blossoms. I wonder if there was a chain of influence here.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:36 pm

I finished watching the second season of Master of None, which I really, really liked and thought was even better than the first. Who'd have thought Tom Haverford from Parks & Rec could put out a show of such quality?

I also started season 3 of Narcos but it's kind of boring.

I saw Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, which I absolutely loved. Anchored by great performances, it initially gives off a Before Sunset kind of vibe, but then it goes down a different, unnerving route. One that I'll watch again for sure.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Sep 25, 2017 3:36 am

I haven't seen Masters of None, Parks & Rec, or Narcos. :(

I haven't seen Certified Copy either but I saw Kiarostami's first two short films. I didn't like either one a whole lot tbh, so while I'm sure his later stuff is better it didn't really motivate me to really dig into his filmography either.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Sep 25, 2017 5:39 am

You haven't seen Parks & Rec... what comedies have you seen? Arrested Development? Curb Your Enthusiasm? The Office (I haven't seen the UK or US version, but Parks & Rec was similar to that in style)?

I don't think I've seen his short films, but you should definitely check out his later output. I legit cried (masculine tears) in Close-up, and The Wind Will Carry Us was visually spellbinding, working magic through its glacial pace (taking precedence over plot, which I can't remember too much of). To be fair, I need to dig into Kiarostami too. Haven't seen A Taste of Cherry and Ten, also cited amongst his stronger works.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 1:18 am

I saw a couple of Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes many years ago, but never gave the show a serious watch.

This might be surprising to hear, but I don't really watch a lot of comedy, at least not anymore.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:18 pm

I finished watching season 3 of Fargo, and I loved it. The makers really know how to emulate the style and tone of the Coen brothers (although I'm not sure where the show gets its metaphysical impulses from - referring to that cryptic, mesmerizing bowling alley sequence in episode 8). David Thewlis' memorably eccentric gangster is one of the best characters the show has ever had. To see him exist in a universe alongside a noble, 'straight' hero such as Carrie Coon's Gloria is what makes this show really work. As I'm a cynic, you guys can probably imagine how I 'read' the so-called ambiguous ending (which has such a nice symmetry with the season prologue - a commentary on the 'fluidity' of truth, of "alternative" facts, feeling so relevant especially in the internet age where even presidents can get away with saying anything).

I'm both sad and happy about the news that this third season might be the final. If they can't maintain the quality (and the quality has been so good), then I'd rather it go out on with a bang.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Nov 03, 2017 3:51 am

Been a while since I've posted what I watched. Didn't end up watching as much as I'd like for Halloween though. :(

105. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

106. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

107. Branching Paths (2016)

108. Some Like It Hot (1959)

109. Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale (2017)

110. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin V - Clash at Loum (2017)

111. Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 (2017)

112. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

113. Polybius: The Video Game That Doesn't Exist (2017)

114. Spielberg (2017)

115. Blade Runner 2036: Nexus Dawn (2017)

116. Blade Runner 2048: Nowhere to Run (2017)

117. Carrie (1976)

118. The Fog (1980)

119. The Butcher Boy (1917)

120. The Beguiled (2017)

121. Zombi 2 (1979)

122. David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)

123. Convict 13 (1920)

124. The Scarecrow (1920)

That's too much to write about all at once for me, but if anyone wants to know my opinion on any of these films just ask.

I will go out of my way to say though that Carrie is a kind of a bad film that somehow lowered my already low opinion of Brian De Palma, though it has at least once very well put together sequence in it (The sequence with the pig's blood being spilled onto Carrie).

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Nov 07, 2017 8:03 am

Unlike you, I quite enjoy De Palma's operatic style. His pastiche works are eye-catching and fun, if nothing else. Scanning his list of features, I have to say that I also found Sisters and Dressed to Kill to be endlessly entertaining, and I'm sure Blow Out was too, although I can't remember if I've seen it.

I just finished watching the five part documentary titled OJ: Made in America. After watching the passable TV show (People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story) that worked as well as it did because of two strong performances in Sarah Paulson and Courtney Vance, this documentary came like a breath of fresh air, absent of any fictionalized melodrama and starting from scratch - with the history of racial injustice in LA/USA crisscrossed with OJ Simpson's humble beginnings and leap into stardom. I don't think I'll ever quite get over how a murderer was allowed to walk free in some kind of twisted payback for all the wrongs committed against the black community, but at least, I can understand this "American tragedy" all a bit better.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Nov 07, 2017 3:23 pm

Don't get me started on Dressed to Kill again.

OJ: Made in America is something that's been on my to-watch list for a while now. I know a lot of people really dug it- I don't have any particular opinion on OJ's guilt or innocence myself, but everything I've heard about the doc sounds fascinating.

True crime in general is really interesting to me, both because the ethical questions the cases themselves raises (Such as how often money determines the justice one receives, as seen in both Making a Murderer and The Jinx), as well as the ethical questions about the actual filmmaking (The idea of real tragedy being packaged and sold is something that always feels a little uneasy to me, especially when something like Serial season 1 causes internet people to start harassing the actual people from the story).

Fascinating stuff.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Nov 08, 2017 11:42 pm

Random though: a quadruple feature where each film has a title based on one of the four cardinal directions.

North by Northwest, East of Eden, ????, West of Memphis.

Not sure what a good movie for the Southern direction would be...

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:45 am

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:59 am

Actually that would fit pretty well, in its own weird way.

The only other one I could think of is Song of the South, and I sure wouldn't use that!

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 2:33 pm

125. Crook's Tour (1941) - A sort of sequel to The Lady Vanishes, this features Charters and Caldicott from that film and Night Train to Munich being mistaken for spies and going on a comedic misadventure. I think Crook's Tour is easily the worst of these three films but it has a few gags that landed well for me and the actual characters are fun. John Baxter is no Alfred Hitchcock or Carol Reed though.

126. Neighbors (1920) - Another Buster Keaton short, this one a kind of Romeo and Juliet-ish story of two warring neighbor families. Buster is the son of one family and he falls in love with the daughter of the other and yadda yadda yadda. Some good stunts in this one (Such as Buster being carried by a stack of like four dudes to get into a building window), but there's a weird segment in the middle of the film where Buster gets covered in soot while on the run and the police start chasing him thinking he's a black criminal. Buster as a director unfortunately was a bit regressive on race, and I don't think the jokes where Buster accidentally scares the black people by hiding from the cops under white sheets and rising up to see if the cops are (Making himself look like a Klansman if you're not generous, or just a ghost if you're a bit more charitable) really work to begin with and are pretty disconnected from the actual story of the rest of the short film. That being said, at least he actually cast black actors in the film and I can't say that about a lot of other white filmmakers from this era.

127. Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) - I went in expecting not to think much of this, and actually I found the parallel universes and other variable space/time to be fun gimmicks to add onto the formula of the first film. The detective character in particular accruing watches and lanyards of his victims as he succumbs to cannibalism, and the weirdly ambiguous nature about whether he had been lying about the old woman or not was a nice touch. The CGI effects didn't look good in the first film and they arguably look even worse here, but I gotta be honest I think this film is a little underrated. Not a great film but I had fun with it.

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 4:36 pm

Raxivace wrote:126. Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) - I went in expecting not to think much of this, and actually I found the parallel universes and other variable space/time to be fun gimmicks to add onto the formula of the first film. The detective character in particular accruing watches and lanyards of his victims as he succumbs to cannibalism, and the weirdly ambiguous nature about whether he had been lying about the old woman or not was a nice touch. The CGI effects didn't look good in the first film and they arguably look even worse here, but I gotta be honest I think this film is a little underrated. Not a great film but I had fun with it.

Yup, pretty much my feeling on it.

I think I'll give Cube Zero a rewatch soon.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:05 pm

Yeah I'm pretty curious about Cube Zero now.

Cube and Cube 2 may not be great but I think they're the kind of films that that people would be more willing to give a fair shot if in 30 years they were released in an Eclipse Series boxset with some catchy title like "Capitalism Run Amok at the Turn of the Millennium" or something like that. They certainly weren't the outright cinematic disasters I had expected.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:21 pm

Cube was pretty great. The sequels were extremely terrible.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:46 am

Raxivace wrote:OJ: Made in America is something that's been on my to-watch list for a while now. I know a lot of people really dug it- I don't have any particular opinion on OJ's guilt or innocence myself, but everything I've heard about the doc sounds fascinating.

I admit I will be annoyed if you still do not have an opinion on his guilt or innocence after watching the documentary.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Nov 10, 2017 5:08 am

Yeah I honestly just don't really know anything about the OJ case beyond that it was/is very controversial.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:29 pm

128. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Finally, an MCU movie with a decent villain. Actually the really pared down cast does wonders for this film compared to other MCU entries. Characters have mostly sensible arcs! The entire film isn't nonsensically edited action scenes! Humor isn't used at inappropriate times to undercut actual dramatic moments! Michael Keaton! Michael Mando!

This still has the problems all the Marvel movies have about all the edges being shaved off (Next time you watch them, try counting how many times the movies want to say Stark is actually a shithead but then back off so they aren't too subversive), but it was at least better about it than iffy films like Winter Soldier, Civil War, Age of Ultron, or Guardians 2.

129. Cube Zero (2004) - This movie kind of exists to satirically take the piss out of the franchise and question its assumptions. That the Cube series is effectively dead now perhaps means that the movie succeeded, one way or another.

I feel the movie is about as effective more or less as the other two entries as a film, but thematically its the most ambitious since it adds a meta-fictional element about meta-fictional films onto the previous themes of the series. The anti-corporate themes return and are even more blatant here, though different now that we're following the perspective of (Actually fairly sympathetic) lower class workers that actually operate the Cube or believe themselves to be anyways. Even their over-the-top rich guy boss seems to answer to some unseen force. Like with The Cabin in the Woods (Itself inspired by the Cube series, if not this film in particular), Cube Zero asks through these characters why we the audience would ever watch this kind of film to begin with- why do people root for these victims, these people whose pasts are literally erased so they can be objectified into corpses (Consider the memory erasing drugs used on the victims, or the intel files that are all suggested to be lies to justify the deaths), to die? Why isn't the fantasy of these movies to heroically journey into the movie/the Cube to save the victims? Cube Zero perhaps cynically suggests even this fantasy it suggests is hollow, as one character is punished for his attempt at heroism by literally being turned into a character from the first Cube. All of this transformation and memory erasure and even a bit of mind control perhaps a nightmarish version of acting and casting.

Cabin in the Wood suggests an Ebert-esque view that the horror genre is mostly regressive nonsense demanded by the audience that should be destroyed. Cube Zero argues that films like Cabin in the Woods aren't actually as removed from the systems they critique that they would lead us to believe- that it's not the desires of the audience to blame, but the the forces of filmmaking (Shady producers and so on) we can't actually see. I don't think I completely agree with either film's conclusion- surely a combination of both audience response and studio demands both play a part in what we see on screen, no?

Also there was an actor in here I could have sworn was a young Jorge Garcia but it turned out not to be him.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 6:12 pm

Is O.J.: Made in America considered a TV miniseries or a movie? I've been specifically not listing TV shows as a part of my listing on here but that presents a bit of rub with this one.

Anyways I watched the first part and that alone was already super good, but I'm unsure how to classify it.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:22 pm

It's a 7.5 hour documentary "movie" that's broken down into 5 parts... making it resemble a miniseries. Lol. Not sure if that helps, but it should count as 'one' movie for listing purposes.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Nov 12, 2017 1:36 am

130. Suicide Squad (2016) - I was a little hesitant on watching this since I had heard bad things and wasn't a fan of a previous film of David Ayer's, Fury (2014). I liked it. I think its ultimately a decent "people on a mission" film, and I found the different characters enjoyable.

131. Wonder Woman (2017) - I quite liked this movie and its my favorite of three superhero ones I watched in the last few days. I just think its funny that for all that some people claimed they hated Snyder and were glad he wasn't directing...much of what Patty Jenkins did here was emulate Snyder's own directorial choices. So many shots in this movie are straight out of 300- I lost count the number of times there were slow motion shots that existed to say "Look at how cool and also gorgeous Gal Gadot looks as she kills dudes". I'm not complaining, mind you, I just think its funny.

maz89 wrote:It's a 7.5 hour documentary "movie" that's broken down into 5 parts... making it resemble a miniseries. Lol. Not sure if that helps, but it should count as 'one' movie for listing purposes.

Alright I'll just do that then.

I get stupidly OCD about this kind of thing- if I count it in my list as TV series than I'll feel like I need to include every other TV series on this list that I've watched this year and have to go back and edit accordingly. I've watched more TV than usual this year too which would make this a bit of a nightmare lol.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Sun Nov 12, 2017 7:28 am

Raxivace wrote:130. Suicide Squad (2016) - I was a little hesitant on watching this since I had heard bad things and wasn't a fan of a previous film of David Ayer's, Fury (2014). I liked it. I think its ultimately a decent "people on a mission" film, and I found the different characters enjoyable.

It gave me a headache when I saw it in the cinema. And while Leto was pretty good, it still made me miss Heath Ledger (I'm halfway through I'm Not There, and that is also making me miss Heath Ledger).

Raxivace wrote:131. Wonder Woman (2017) - I quite liked this movie and its my favorite of three superhero ones I watched in the last few days. I just think its funny that for all that some people claimed they hated Snyder and were glad he wasn't directing...much of what Patty Jenkins did here was emulate Snyder's own directorial choices. So many shots in this movie are straight out of 300- I lost count the number of times there were slow motion shots that existed to say "Look at how cool and also gorgeous Gal Gadot looks as she kills dudes". I'm not complaining, mind you, I just think its funny.

Gadot's support of IDF has always turned me off from watching this one. An example of a case in which I can't seem to separate the art from the artist... Eh, I'll probably get around to it eventually.

Raxivace wrote:I get stupidly OCD about this kind of thing- if I count it in my list as TV series than I'll feel like I need to include every other TV series on this list that I've watched this year and have to go back and edit accordingly. I've watched more TV than usual this year too which would make this a bit of a nightmare lol.

I totally get that and can get similarly OCD about such stuff. It doesn't make sense to include one TV show and not the others you've seen. Fortunately, you didn't have to.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Nov 13, 2017 4:49 am

132. O.J.: Made in America (2016) - Yeah I don't even know where to start with this one, holy shit. This was a very good true crime documentary in an era where some very good ones have been made recently.

I think what impressed me the most about it was how it situated O.J.'s rise and fall in the context of American history and Los Angeles history more specifically, and all of the racial and economic tension of the era (That never really went away, I suppose). It really gives a lot of context and weight to say, how the film parallels the younger O.J.'s desire to be seen as himself and not specifically as a black man (All of those commercials and movie clips!) to Cochran's unspoken implication of prosecutor Christopher Darden being something of an Uncle Tom figure for the white prosecutors, and then all of that later is paralleled with O.J.'s embrace of black America later in life. It would be one thing for a talking head merely to say that- this film uses it long running time to really embrace you into the attitudes of the time with a decent amount of depth before getting there. This film is far, far more than a mere recounting of facts- its a good work of cinematic documentary art.

I have a lot of thoughts about this one, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to organize them in any kind of individual post that really surmises this long film. Maz, are there any particular points of interest you want to discuss?

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Nov 13, 2017 2:44 pm

Raxivace wrote:Maz, are there any particular points of interest you want to discuss?

I think you've already spoken about what makes the documentary work so well as it does. It helps set the context of that rattling "not guilty" verdict (especially for a non-American like myself), unfair and unjust and devastating as it was. When they showed the polar opposite reactions of white and black people hearing the verdict live, it really landed home the point just how deep rooted the divide really was/is.

In starting from his humble beginnings, the documentary also lingers on a troubling aspect of OJ's personality that was apparent since he was a kid: his tendency to be dishonest. Friends laughed as they recounted stories of him persuasively twisting the truth where it served to get him off the hook (something about him smooth-talking out of a sticky situation at the principal's office). OJ could never offer a single coherent explanation of what happened to his swollen finger. He lied about owning the gloves and the shoes (in the civil case). His hammy performance in putting on that glove (people forgot he was a comedic actor) was so obviously over-done (the fact he had stopped taking his anthrax medicine only became apparent from the interview shown here). It's insane to think how much he got away with. I love that brief moment in the present day interview with Barry Schneck (the forensic expert on OJ's defense team, I think) when he is asked about OJ's guilt and Barry says something like, "What? We PROVED there was doubt. What else matters?" (paraphrasing). That's the legal system right there. The truth doesn't matter; what matters is how skilled you are at debating and clouding the minds of the jurors.

Like you said, it is tragic the way OJ - someone who happily disassociated himself from race, or being 'black', his entire life - became painted as some kind of champion for black civil rights. All those black people cheering for him, fanatically happy that 'one of their own' got a pass from a racist, corrupt system, were living in utter delusion. But the documentary tells you why they were happy to be deluded.

Must be said it was frustrating to hear the younger black juror claim the prosecution did a terrible job of proving OJ did it and then use that as a basis for un-apologetically setting OJ free. While there is no doubt Darden & Clark fucked up the case by not being up to speed on Furhman's thorny past and falling for that shitty glove move, that didn't excuse the jurors from failing to consider the insurmountable evidence (physical and otherwise) and voting blindly based on the performance of the prosecution (or LAPD). The older juror's responses sum up everything you need to know about the verdict.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:54 pm

The truth doesn't matter; what matters is how skilled you are at debating and clouding the minds of the jurors.

To be fair that is also the defense's job- to raise doubt about the prosecution's interpretation of events, not to find the truth.

While I think they raise some interesting points about some aspects of the case (The drop of blood on the fence stands out to me, and I don't think an explanation for that appearing is ever really provided), I'm not sure its enough to suggest even a "Police framing a guilty man" theory. I'd have to imagine that the gloves not fitting went a long way into convincing the Jury and suggesting the frame theory, but holy shit that should have been easy for the Prosecution to defeat.

The police in general did seem to botch a lot of things here. The evidence collection probably should have been more professional to begin with. Also, how the fuck do you miss one of the Jurors having a history with the Black Panthers?

That being said O.J. probably killed those two people. It's easy 20+ years after the fact to say "Oh if I had been on the Jury I would have voted Guilty", but if I had been a Juror and only seen what they saw I can't say whether or not I would have believed enough reasonable doubt had been raised or not. I also would have only been like three or four years old at the time and it would be weird for a toddler to be a juror.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Mon Nov 13, 2017 10:16 pm

Raxivace wrote:
The truth doesn't matter; what matters is how skilled you are at debating and clouding the minds of the jurors.
To be fair that is also the defense's job- to raise doubt about the prosecution's interpretation of events, not to find the truth.

You're right - it's their job... even if they know their party is, ya know, guilty. I guess this is a point that's bigger than just this one case.

Raxivace wrote:That being said O.J. probably killed those two people. It's easy 20+ years after the fact to say "Oh if I had been on the Jury I would have voted Guilty", but if I had been a Juror and only seen what they saw I can't say whether or not I would have believed enough reasonable doubt had been raised or not. I also would have only been like three or four years old at the time and it would be weird for a toddler to be a juror.

Lol, yeah. But if those two jurors provide a window into what was going in the minds of the jury back then (that older juror, in particular, admitted that she voted not guilty as payback for transgressions against blacks), it seems as though they had made their minds up long before any evidence was presented (the deliberation didn't even last a full day). But yeah, the prosecution team made it even easier. I wonder if Darden still turns in his sleep at night over the glove move.

BTW, if you do intend to check out the Emmy award winning FX show, People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, know that it would have to be primarily for two strong performances in Sarah Paulson and Courtney Vance who play Clark and Cochran brilliantly on the small screen. Sterling Brown is also quite effective as Darden.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Nov 14, 2017 5:23 am

maz89 wrote:I wonder if Darden still turns in his sleep at night over the glove move.

Probably. The way documentary portrays it at least, that singular moment crushed what could have been a very promising career. The way that dude just broke down in that press conference after the verdict was announced was rough. History seems to be a little kinder to him now at least.

BTW, if you do intend to check out the Emmy award winning FX show, People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, know that it would have to be primarily for two strong performances in Sarah Paulson and Courtney Vance who play Clark and Cochran brilliantly on the small screen. Sterling Brown is also quite effective as Darden.

I wasn't really planning on it. With high profile cases like this I'd rather just watch a documentary, unless a big name filmmaker is making the film or it has big Oscar buzz or something.

I'm much softer on documentaries, especially talking head ones like Made in America, when it comes to like, aesthetics (Though even a movie like this still has a lot of actual filmmaking choices that are interesting), but I feel like when it comes to making a narrative film about important subject matter (Especially ones based on high profile criminal cases) a lot of Hollywood directors just make something that looks and feels bland- Spotlight and even All the President's Men if I'm being honest immediately come to mind for me.

Like I watched four full documentaries on the West Memphis Three case a few years back- does a fictionalized film about the same case from a no-name filmmaker like Devil's Knot really have anything to add to the conversation? Maybe Devil's Knot actually does, I never bothered to watch it.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Tue Nov 14, 2017 10:40 am

In line with what you're saying, the dramatized TV show is also mostly bland and mediocre... barring those two strong performances, which is why I mentioned them.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Nov 14, 2017 11:19 pm

133. Nude (2017) - A documentary about two nude art photographers. Half of this film is just nude photoshoots of pretty girls, and the other half is actually trying to say something about everyone involved...maybe? It's actually kind of weird- the two photographers are constantly bickering about their different methods and approaches the photography. We see that actually there are lot of women in the production and editing of these photos, but I never quite got what the film was going for with giving us this knowledge. The women themselves that are the subjects of the photos are interviewed several times, but most of them don't have too much to actually say- one girl just thinks its a fun way to make money and is mostly just concerned about getting her conservative mother to accept it. Another girl doesn't have a problem with the shoots but is unsure how to really tie it into the rest of her social media career coherently. An African-American girl feels exploited by the racism in the fashion industry specifically, and while there's an earlier scene where she mentions she doesn't actually like the photo of her used for an art exhibition a whole lot it's unclear to me whether we're meant to take the fashion industry comments as applicable to the nude photography or not.

There's also this weird running through-line in the film about one of the photographers continually meeting with his daughter, and the film ends with him using his own daughter for a nude photoshoot. It's weird, but it kind of shows my problem with the movie as a whole- it feels like the film has a perspective but desperately is trying to pretend "lol this movie doesn't have a perspective, ~draw your own conclusions~ from this weird stuff we found and structured in a way to provoke a reaction". Even then, if you're trying to say nude photography exploits women then fine, but what the hell is this movie if not literally the same thing?

134. The Haunted House (1921) - Another Keaton short. This one features Buster accidentally thwarting a bank robbery and then being confused for the bank robber himself. He ends up hiding in a haunted house attraction of some kind, getting scared by ghouls until the robbers themselves track him down.

It's interesting how a lot of these shorts begin with something completely unrelated to the actual title. Haunted House begins as a bank heist comedy, The Scarecrow doesn't come in until like the last few minutes of that short, and Convict 13 starts out as a golf comedy before Buster hits his head and has some weird dream about accidentally swapping places with a prisoner on death row. It's kind of fun seeing how he goes from these off-kilter beginnings into the actual subject matters of the titles.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Nov 15, 2017 3:35 am

135. The Naked City (1948) - The on-location, black and white cinematography of New York City in the 40's is absolutely gorgeous here. It really does feel like stepping back in time. As great as it is the rest of the film isn't as notable- the core plot is a pretty standard mystery as we follow cops solving the murder where the victim feels like a macguffin more than anything. None of the characters are particularly interesting in general. I appreciate the influence this film had on the "gritty" noirs that tried to emphasize realism, but those films never did as much for me as the more stylized ones that were influenced by Hammett, Chandler, and the like.

I will say that the voice-over in The Naked City is odd. I'm guessing its meant to evoke the documentary films of the time, but the goofy third person narration doesn't really work for me and almost seems at odds with the realist aesthetic the movie is going for. Perhaps if it had more interesting things to say than commenting on like, pointing out a character made a wrong turn during a chase scene or whatever it would work better for me. As is it feels kind of inconsistently applied when it just comes in and out of the movie at random intervals.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Fri Nov 17, 2017 6:23 am

136. The American Friend (1977) - Pretty fun neo-noir. Bruno Ganz plays almost a proto-Walter White, a German man believing he is going to soon die of illness so he wants to leave something behind for his family by becoming an assassin, except he has a The Third Man type of relationship with Dennis Hopper's detached American cowboy that is referred to in the title instead of the pseudo-parent/teacher or father/son relationship that's at the heart of Breaking Bad. There are two really good assassination scenes (First on a subway station and then later a proper train), where Ganz just kind of bumbles his way into killing dudes and its great.

There's probably some kind of allegory here about America and Germany's relationship (One of the assassination targets is even specifically referred to as Jewish), but I'm not quite able to make out what it means.

137. Une Femme Coquette (1955) - Godard's second short film. For a while it was infamously difficult to find, but apparently earlier this year some kind soul managed to get a copy of it up online. Hooray for the internet.

You can see some of Godard's interests pop up here- prostitution, the relationship between men and women, a heavy use of narration that almost borders on essayistic etc. It's not as developed as his later films, nor as wild as Breathless and so on, but its an interesting glimpse at younger Godard's mindset.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:59 am

138. Contempt (1963) - I feel like I keep saying Godard movies feel strangely normal, but damn this movie feels strangely normal for him. It's a fairly conventionally done marriage drama in the style of something like Journey to Italy, though with a lot more movie references (Including the characters actually seeing Journey to Italy at one point, and also Fritz Lang playing himself).

Even then though, the way references to The Odyssey are used as commentary on the disintegrating marriage is interesting (In the film, Lang is attempting to make a film adaptation of Homer's poem. God how I wonder what that might have been like if it ever really happened.), and seems to predict Godard's later reliance on literature and philosophical texts movies like Histoire(s) du Cinema and Goodbye to Language. It also matches the cynical ending (Which IMDb suggests is a reference to the "lost" ending of Magnificent Ambersons) well, as the much more optimistic story of Journey to Italy uses The Odyssey's mirror universe twin in The Aeneid as a reference point itself.

This may be easy mode Godard, but its nice to have and enjoyable.

EDIT: Oh wow, apparently Scorsese used "Theme de Camille" from this movie in Casino. I'll have to look out for that next time I give it a rewatch.

139. Hard Luck (1921) - Another Buster Keaton short, though this one didn't really work for me. It feels like it changes directions a lot for a 20 minute short- first Buster is trying to kill himself in different ways and failing (Unusually dark for him), then there's a hunt for an armadillo, and then something about a bank robber? The print I saw online was hard to see to begin with and was further distorted by YouTube artifacting, so it was hard for me to really get into it.

This gag where Buster tries to kill himself by jumping in front of what looks like a car in the distance was really good though.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Wed Nov 22, 2017 9:49 am

Raxivace wrote:138. Contempt (1963) - I feel like I keep saying Godard movies feel strangely normal, but damn this movie feels strange normally from him. It's a fairly conventionally done marriage drama in the style of something like Journey to Italy, though with a lot more movie references (Including the characters actually seeing Journey to Italy at one point, and also Fritz Lang playing himself).

Even then though, the way references to The Odyssey are used as commentary on the disintegrating marriage is interesting (In the film, Lang is attempting to make a film adaptation of Homer's poem. God how I wonder what that might have been like if it ever really happened.), and seems to predict Godard's later reliance on literature and philosophical texts movies like Histoire(s) du Cinema and Goodbye to Language. It also matches the cynical ending (Which IMDb suggests is a reference to the "lost" ending of Magnificent Ambersons) well, as the much more optimistic story of Journey to Italy uses The Odyssey's mirror universe twin in The Aeneid as a reference point itself.

This may be easy mode Godard, but its nice to have and enjoyable.

EDIT: Oh wow, apparently Scorsese used "Theme de Camille" from this movie in Casino. I'll have to look out for that next time I give it a rewatch.

I love Contempt. You're right in that it's fairly conventional compared to his other elliptical works, but I like that it's still subversive in its own way (for example, Bardot's naked body is dutifully displayed in the prologue as if to say, 'can we proceed to the more important stuff now'?). It's a movie in which Godard admits he doesn't understand women, and we see it happening over and over again during the course of the movie - in the apartment, in the picturesque seaside villa. The breakdown of communication, the inability of the two to truly understand each other and connect, each conversation hitting a snag. The music is haunting, as is the tragic ending.

Damn, I didn't know Journey to Italy was featured in Contempt but that's a cool reference. I also don't remember how Odyssey is used as a commentary on the marriage, which makes me sad. Elaborate pls?

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:10 am

There's a lot of talk in the movie about why Odysseus left Ithaca in the first place, and why exactly he took so long to return, how much did he care about his wife etc. There's the conventional explanation about duty and the Trojan War, but a character in Contempt brings up the idea that he left because he stopped loving Penelope altogether. Contempt of course, ends with Bardot leaving her husband with another man (Who himself is kind of a standin for Penelope's suitors. This puts the screenwriter hoping he'll sleep with Bardot in a weird context). There's the idealized version of Odysseus' love that's presented, the questioning of that idealized myth, and then the "reality" of Bardot and the screenwriter's relationship falling apart and turning into the "Contempt" of the title. The contrast seems to focus on how real relationships are often filled with bickering and even devolve into hate, something not present even in the great romance of antiquity that we hold up and idealize. The Odyssey is one of the foundational works of western narrative art, but with what we now about how people really are, is it a lie?

I don't think the film brings this up, but there's also an idea that's been thrown out before by people smarter than me that Odysseus wasn't really being "held captive" so much by Calypso for those seven years, if you get what I'm saying, and that this might reflect badly on his devotion to Penelope.

It's a shame Jimbo isn't here, he'd probably have some good stuff to say about this.

(for example, Bardot's naked body is dutifully displayed in the prologue as if to say, 'can we proceed to the more important stuff now'?

Apparently the producers actually requested this, though Godard puts his Godard touches on the idea (Like the red and blue filters) that really makes it stand out beyond Bardot being naked.

Kind of reminds me of the opening to Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, now that I'm thinking about it, though I liked Contempt's opening much better.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:18 pm

140. The Problem With Apu (2017) - Comedian Hari Kondabalu made a documentary about the character of Apu from The Simpsons, and how Hank Azaria's portrayal of him has had a negative affect on South Asian Americans. Kondabalu interviews many people about the character, including other South Asian actors and comedians (Such as Kal Penn, Hasahn Minhaj, Aziz Anzari etc.) who share personal accounts of working in growing up in America and working in Hollywood as a South Asian, Whoopi Goldberg who helps put Apu in the tradition of minstrelsy, a film scholar who contrasts Apu with the character from the Satyajit Ray films he is named from, and even talks to former Simpsons co-producer Dana Gould about how the character was written (Very tellingly, Gould says that if The Simpsons was first being created today, the Apu character probably wouldn't be the way he is). Kondabalu's ultimate goal is to interview Azaria himself on camera about Apu, though unfortunately the film ends with a bit of an anti-climax as Azaria ultimately does not agree to be interviewed.

I think deconstructing the Apu character and how he has been perceived is a noble goal and one The Problem With Apu mostly succeeds at. The Simpsons may not have had any ill intent with the creation of the character, but even when the show largely satirizes other cultures, when Apu was the only Indian character in mainstream media (Other than like, those guys in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom) that people were familiar with for many years, even a satirical character like Apu being the only point of reference for many can lead to negative consequences.

The only real quibble I have with the documentary (And this is a minor part of it) is that it puts Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Tropic Thunder as a part of the tradition of modern racism in film (Such as Scarlett Johansonn playing Major Kusanagi in the live action Ghost in the Shell). Isn't the point of his character in that film to attack the pretensions of method acting AND blackface that are both tied to Hollywood's history? I could understand an argument that Ben Stiller of all people as a director isn't the person to make that attack in a way that say, someone like Spike Lee might be, but I think that particular film perhaps isn't one of the best examples to use without more in-depth analysis.

141. The Peanuts Movie (2015) - Don't have a lot to say about this but I thought it was cute. The 3D that resembles claymation was interesting, and the way the "real" scenes being kind of flatly shot contrasted against the more dynamic camera work of Snoopy's Red Baron fantasies as well Charlie Brown's own daydreaming and memories being done in more traditional looking 2D animation was kind of interesting. The sudden cuts between these different styles kind of reminded me Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress of all things, and how that used cuts between reality, fantasy, and movies within the movie to similar effect. I'm not sure how much that cutting is within the classic Peanuts cartoons but it might be interesting to go back and look at.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Sun Nov 26, 2017 3:53 pm

Problem with Apu seems interesting. I like the reference to the Sanjayit Ray classic - was that the inspiration for the name of the Simpson character? It's unfortunate Azaria copped out but not very surprising - it's kind of like expecting OJ to give an in interview in a documentary about his murders (yes, an extreme comparison).

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Nov 26, 2017 4:18 pm

maz89 wrote:was that the inspiration for the name of the Simpson character?

Yeah, they named him after Ray's Apu. The Simpsons in general (At least in those early years) had a lot of references to classic cinema.

When I was in college, I even had film professor who joked that the reason to study film was to understand everything The Simpsons referenced. :P

It's unfortunate Azaria copped out but not very surprising - it's kind of like expecting OJ to give an in interview in a documentary about his murders (yes, an extreme comparison).

An interview with O.J. for the doc would have been interesting, but part of me thinks it wouldn't reveal much at all.

From an actual artistry point of view, the way he and his impenetrable personality haunt over all 8 hours despite never being directly interviewed is super interesting too, so its hard for me to imagine what Made in America would even be like with that key aspect changed. It would still certainly be a good watch, but I'm betting it would feel like a very different movie in some ways.

maz89 · Post by **maz89** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:37 am

Rax, was it you who recommended Imamura's A Man Vanishes? I find it simultaneously kind of dull and intriguing, and I keep putting it off after watching it for a few minutes. Guess I'm not in that frame of mind.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 11:48 am

Nope, wasn't me. Might have been Jimbo who recommended that.

Some of those art films you do have to be in the right frame of mind for though, yeah.

Lord_Lyndon · Post by **Lord_Lyndon** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 9:30 am

Hello Rax from an old acquaintance from imdb. My username was Commander_Ikari. I'm glad I found you here. I really hope you are doing well. Hopefully you remember me. I stopped posting on imdb boards almost three years ago, so I wouldn't be suprised if you had forgotten me.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:48 pm

It's been a while but I actually do remember you. I've been doing well myself- I hope things have been going fine for yourself also.

See any good movies lately?

Lord_Lyndon · Post by **Lord_Lyndon** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:33 pm

I saw two that stand out for me. First one is Arrival (2016). I never thought I would cry at the end of some sci-fi movie. I must say I was deeply moved. Amy Adams, who is one of my favourite actresses, was fantastic. Second one is Kick-Ass (2010), a sort of unconventional superhero/action/comedy movie. I really had a great time watching it, and I loved Chloe Grace Moretz' role in it. Nick Cage was also very cool. Always have a great time watching him.
I also loved two Linklater movies: Boyhood (2014) and Before Midnight (2013). I gave them 9/10 on imdb (Do you still rate movies there? I started doing it on a regular basis in 2014.).
I saw two very good Asian movies recently and I would like to recommend them to you in case you haven't seen them. First one is Chaser (2008), an interesting serial killer movie from Korea. Second one is The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003), a film by legendary Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. Also check out some other Kitano's movies if you haven't already. By far my favourite Kitano is his most popular film Fireworks (1997).