Raxivace's 2019 List of Movies or: (Goodbye to Neo-General Chat 3D)

[Lord_Lyndon]

The film also prematurely (emotionally) climaxes around the 1--hour mark with a wonderful voiceover montage of Nozomi meditating on what she's learned about life, and the film never really recovers from this apex.

This was my favourite moment in the film. Really beautiful stuff. Anyway... Nice review Eva.

99. Barfi! (2012, Dir. Anurag Basu) - This is a love triangle romantic comedy movie between Barfi, a goofball of a man who is deaf and mute, a woman Shruti, and Jhilmil- an autistic girl. It's a pretty good movie overall, basically being an update on Chaplin's Tramp character with influence from others like Buster Keaton thrown in.

The only real problem I had with the film is that the handheld camerawork + rapid editing in first chase sequence seemed like a bit much to me, though to be fair this is often a problem I have with modern Hollywood as well. The shot compositions themselves often look quite good themselves though.

The Chaplin/etc. homage works so well here though, I think, because unlike say how De Palma only copies superficial aspects of Hitchock, Basu not only replicates classic gags from silent comedians, but he really captures the kind of tone bittersweet tone that Chaplin was often going for as well, in addition to a degree of social commentary on the experiences of the deaf/mute and the like.

Barfi! might make an interesting contrast with The Artist, which is similarly a silent film homage that came out the year before though I think is way more self-conscious and postmodern about what its trying to do. Here having

I'm glad you liked Barfi!, Rax. I seems you liked it more than I did. But I recommended it to you precisely because of those homages you mentioned. I know you like old Hollywood films and I thought you might like this one as well.

[Lord_Lyndon]

I saw some new films:

Tere Naam (2003; Satish Kaushik)
Piku (2015; Shoojit Sircar)
Queen (2013; Vikas Bahl)
PK (2014; Rajkumar Hirani)
Udaan (2010; Vikramaditya Motwane)
Fall in Love at First Kiss (2019; 'Frankie' Chen Yu-Shan)

I finished watching Indian films. I saw 13 in total in last 2 months. I won't be watching Bollywood films anymore. Magic that was there 7 years ago is long gone. However... I have to say that PK (2014) was truly amazing. I laughed and I cried and I had so much fun. I really think you should see it, Rax. It is basically a satire/comedy on theme of religion. I would love to hear your opinion.
Last film I saw is a Chinese/Taiwanese romantic comedy. It is something people would call a 'chick flick'. It was even directed by a female. But I loved it. It has 5.8/10 on imdb which tells me I'm the only one who loved it. I found it thanks to Jelly Lin Yun. She is one of my favourite Chinese stars. It is good to see I can still have this much fun watching films.

[Raxivace]

I finished watching Indian films. I saw 13 in total in last 2 months. I won't be watching Bollywood films anymore. Magic that was there 7 years ago is long gone. However... I have to say that PK (2014) was truly amazing. I laughed and I cried and I had so much fun. I really think you should see it, Rax. It is basically a satire/comedy on theme of religion. I would love to hear your opinion.

Sure I'll try and get to that PK movie as well at some point.

Maybe you just need a break from Bollywood stuff? You have waaaaay more experience with it than I do, so you can probably speak to its merits and flaws much better than I ever could, but a movie like Barfi! makes me think that system is perfectly capable of generating interesting and new things (Even if what's "new" is a synthesis of old ideas with new contexts).

Of course its always healthy to check out cinema movements from other countries as well...

[Raxivace]

104. 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year (2009, Dir. Constantine Nasr) - A TCM documentary special narrated by Kenneth Branagh about the Hollywood films released in 1939. It's both short at 75 minutes and broad in scope (With some very good films like Son of Frankenstein just being kind of elided over, however as on of those film documentaries that are just talking heads gushing about their favorites or movies they worked on its fun enough.

105. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997, Dir. Roger Spottiswoode) - I'm fairly certain this is the last Bond film I hadn't seen before, though I'll know for sure when I get The World Is Not Enough.

Anyways my reaction is this is like an entire notch below GoldenEye in terms of quality, though I did enjoy this. The weirdest thing about the movie to me though is how it seems so much like what I would expect a post-Trump Bond movie to be about in subject matter. The villain being a corrupt newsman who generates international conflicts (He even compares himself to William Randolph Hearst at one point) just so he expand the reach of his organization into China so he can control most of the world through what is essentially "fake news" almost would seem on the nose if this movie wasn't over 20 years old. That villain is played by Jonathan Pryce too who is always is a treat.

Not much else to really say about this one.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I guess my past is more of an open book given the trail I left behind at EGF and stuff. Not that that was my first forum or anything, but it was mostly the first where I got really into reviewing/talking about films and stuff. Most everything before that was much more casual.

Tbh it's probably high time for me to admit that our entire friendship has been nothing but an elaborate attempt by me to steal your credit card information after building a psychological profile of you based on your EGF posts. Any day now I'll get that PIN from you.

Good luck getting my PIN as even I don't remember it!

First thing I watched was Demme's Philadelphia of all movies.

The first film I remember watching while thinking that this was truly something different than anything I'd seen before was Seven Samurai, probably because it was foreign and old and long and more about characters/themes than action. I know I saw some American classics before then, but I don't recall which ones.

Dude just think of it as a bunch of walls of text. And what do you get when you a bunch of walls together? A house. A house of text.

Why couldn't you do FPSs on the N64? Maybe it was just because we didn't have anything else at the time, but they seemed perfectly, errr, doable.

At the time something about the controls just did not click with me for some reason- it wasn't until the dual stick setups of the next generation that FPS's really clicked with me.

It's kind of irrelevant now though since I ended up getting the game anyways (You can tell I got a used copy due to all the bite marks on the cartridge. I'm amazed it even works.) but surprisingly the game is actually clicking with me this time.

I actually always liked the N64 controller in terms of its layout and feel, especially in terms of having most all of the buttons readily available to your right hand while your left just controlled the joystick (and left-shoulder/Z button.). Though I've gotten used to it, I still find it awkward on the PS4 controller having to take your left hand off the joystick hit the left d-pad for stuff.

Cool that the game's clicking for you. If you end up liking it, make it a point to check out Perfect Dark as well since it refined much of what was in Goldeneye.

I've never actually seen the earliest Godzillas, but I remember briefly getting into some of the films around the time I played Super Godzilla on SNES (it was a pretty awful game, but I still got into the franchise). Checking out that box set it looks like I've seen around half of them. Even back then I don't remember thinking any of them were actually that good, but they could be silly fun.

Lol I had that same SNES game. I remember having fun with it as a kid, but I haven't gone back to try it at all.

That game was endless walking to get almost nowhere only to find once you got there you'd get into battles that were nonsensical and repetitive. The fact that you couldn't actually walk Godzilla into/over anything without taking damage was BS, as was the fact that he moved like a snail through water.

Even if it turns out not to be accurate, it still sounds like interesting subject matter, and definitely unlike anything Fincher's worked on so far. I still think he's at his best in suspense thrillers, but Social Network really showed how well he could do character-driven stuff.

Yeah if it's a good movie I'll call it a good movie (Fincher seems to have a pretty solid trarck record anyways), but this particular bit of misinformation has been has been driving me crazy for years. Me and my father nearly went to fists over it once just because he believed Ben Mankiewicz on TCM over me.

LOL, at least your dad thought he had a reliable source. I've often argued with my parents over stuff where they had no source at all other than their weird preconceptions... though they typically listen to me on film-related stuff.

Here's what I wrote about ~10 years ago:

That's a great review.

You mention the black characters falling into caricature and I agree that's a flaw in the film. However it did make it all the more surprising to me that the big emotional climax of the movie took place in a black church. The priest character at least seems to stand in contrast to the earlier black characters and for someone who is only in a single scene or so he seemed reasonably well characterized to me.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about the ending taking place in a black church.

105. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997, Dir. Roger Spottiswoode) -

I more or less agree on this. I never got the hate for it beyond it not being a good as Goldeneye. I still consider it a pretty solid mid-tier Bond film and I agree that the villain is more interesting in hindsight given today's political/news climate.

[Raxivace]

Cool that the game's clicking for you. If you end up liking it, make it a point to check out Perfect Dark as well since it refined much of what was in Goldeneye.

Yeah I'll probably go back to Perfect Dark at some point.

It's funny, I figured I was more or less done with Rareware as a company after Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts but between coming back to GoldenEye and Banjo being announced as DLC for Smash Bros. Ultimate here I am caring about them again.

LOL, at least your dad thought he had a reliable source. I've often argued with my parents over stuff where they had no source at all other than their weird preconceptions... though they typically listen to me on film-related stuff.

Yeah well he's started watching Fox News in the last year and half or so too, so let's not give him too much credit.

I more or less agree on this. I never got the hate for it beyond it not being a good as Goldeneye. I still consider it a pretty solid mid-tier Bond film and I agree that the villain is more interesting in hindsight given today's political/news climate.

I didn't know there was a large amount of hate for TND- that seems kind of odd to me though I haven't outright disliked many of these Bond films either (If anything my problem with the franchise it that only a few of the films really achieve greatness, not that many of them are outright bad).

Maybe the Bond fanbase is just unpleasable to some extent? Like I remember Spectre got a lot of hate when that came out, and that was another one I thought was perfectly fine.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Cool that the game's clicking for you. If you end up liking it, make it a point to check out Perfect Dark as well since it refined much of what was in Goldeneye.

Yeah I'll probably go back to Perfect Dark at some point.

What difficulty you playing Goldeneye on btw? I remember some levels on 00 Agent being hard af.

I more or less agree on this. I never got the hate for it beyond it not being a good as Goldeneye. I still consider it a pretty solid mid-tier Bond film and I agree that the villain is more interesting in hindsight given today's political/news climate.

I didn't know there was a large amount of hate for TND- that seems kind of odd to me though I haven't outright disliked many of these Bond films either (If anything my problem with the franchise it that only a few of the films really achieve greatness, not that many of them are outright bad).

Maybe the Bond fanbase is just unpleasable to some extent? Like I remember Spectre got a lot of hate when that came out, and that was another one I thought was perfectly fine.

"Hate" might be too strong, but I think after the hype of Goldeneye, TND seemed to have been met with either dislike or indifference. I don't know if it was the Bond fanbase or just moviegoers in general. Seems the few hardcore Bond fans I've met like most of the films. I'm with you in thinking it's a good series that only reaches greatness (and awfulness) a few times.

[Raxivace]

What difficulty you playing Goldeneye on btw? I remember some levels on 00 Agent being hard af.

I'm only playing on the easiest difficulty lol.

I'm getting used to the game but I'm still just barely squeaking by in some of these early levels. 00 Agent would probably destroy me.

[Eva Yojimbo]

What difficulty you playing Goldeneye on btw? I remember some levels on 00 Agent being hard af.

I'm only playing on the easiest difficulty lol.

I'm getting used to the game but I'm still just barely squeaking by in some of these early levels. 00 Agent would probably destroy me.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I only tackled 00 after I'd beat the game on both of the easier levels and had some of them pretty well memorized. I still remember the Cradle, Aztec, and Control being some of the hardest levels I'd ever played.

[Raxivace]

106. That Day, On the Beach (1983, Dir. Edward Yang) - Two friends, Jia-Li and Tan Weiqing reunite after a 13 year gap. Through extensive flashbacks we learn about what has happened in their lives in the previous 13 years, their tragic loves and tragic losses.

I have to admit I had trouble following this because of fairly amateurly done subtitles- this already had a fairly intricate flashback structure for “active viewing" but subtitles made it a little harder to follow than I think was intended. From a Bordwellian narrative structure pov this is interesting though- from starting with the shorter flashback about pianist Jia-Li to moving into the more elaborate flashback about Weiqing- and said second flashback, despite ostensibly being framed as a story being told by Weiqing to Jia-Li, is constantly moving forward and backward through time, and even changing protagonists at one point (Which perhaps betrays our expectations that such a sequence being framed as a story being told might be, though there's nothing to say that these events themselves are necessarily objective and not elaborations and interpretations provided by the character). That the film ends on an Inception-esque question of ambiguity (Namely, did Weiqing's husband Cheng Dewei drown that day on the beach or not? If so, was it an accident or suicide? Or did he steal money from his company and flee to Japan? Most importantly, should it matter to us since it doesn't seem to matter to Weiqing? What do we make of her seeming to not care? One article I read suggested the movie is about how idealistic notions of love are eventually destroyed by capitalism, and that Dewei is still kind of a dick either way, though I think that undersells how much Dewei himself is victimized, especially if it drove him to suicide.).

I hope this gets a nice blu-ray in America at some point with an actual good translation because I'd love to revisit it. It's a good film.

107. Ikki Tousen: Shugaku Toshi Keppu-roku (2011, Dir. Rion Kujo) - Fairly mindless OVA about fighting and T&A. Not much to really say here.

108. Fyre (2019, Dir. Chris Smith) - You guys remember the Fyre Festival? Well this documentary argues that the entire project was ill-conceived from the beginning as it goes into its planning and ultimate bungling, particularly nailing Billy MacFarland as the one responsible for why the whole thing was a huge disaster.

Something I wish the documentary focused more on was the actual experience of being at the Fyre Festival, and how social media tied into all of this. Its interesting that the Fyre Festival was both given life and basically turned into a joke by social media, though that's stated kind of matter of factly here when it seems like there's more that could be mined out from that observation.

There's another doc called Fyre Fraud on this same topic that came out at around the same time, would be interesting to compare.

109. Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018, Dir. Peyton Reed) - It's a Marvel movie. I appreciate that they try to keep the stakes on a lower level in these Ant-Man movies (Pun intended), though I feel like the drama doesn't work quite as well here as in the first movie. The main villains have a decent motivation, though not quite enough characterization for me.

I mention the main villains because Walton Goggins' minor villain character takes up a fair amount of screentime here that should probably be spent on them instead. I love Goggins, so it pains me to suggest he should be cut from the film, but his presence really doesn't contribute to the core parent/child themes here at all.

I really wonder why they just didn't make Evangeline Lilly the lead here, with Paul Rudd more firmly in a supporting role (The story seems naturally set up to have him there as it is). Perhaps Disney didn't think Lilly was really marketable as a lead (It's been a long while since Lost at this point, and it's not like she was a lead in The Hobbit trilogy.), though I think she does a perfectly serviceable job in the role. Or maybe they didn't want The Wasp of all characters to be the first “female lead" on an MCU movie which is pretty silly. As it is though it's The Wasp and her family drama that the movie revolves around, and the villain being the "dark mirror" of the hero as they so often are in the MCU is specifically a reflection of The Wasp and not Ant-Man.

Lastly, the Infinity War tie-in at the movie's end feels very out of place and tacked on for the story this particular film is telling. Since Ghost already presents us with a version of The Wasp who lost her family, wouldn't make more sense for the Thanos snap to present The Wasp as actually being forced into that role and seeing how she would react instead of Ant-Man?

110. Captain Marvel (2019, Dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck) - It's a shame that this is the first female-lead MCU movie because 1) It should have probably happened ages ago in this franchise by this point and 2) This particular movie kind of really sucks. The entire first act is just a confusing mess, almost every character is completely underwritten, visually the film is very dull (Though this is a typical Marvel problem with their homogenized style across the MCU), and while Brie Larson is a fine actress she seems really miscast here. Her character is written as typical Marvel quippy lead but Larson performs here in such a broody way that seems at odds with her actual lines. After an entire two hour film I still have no real read on who she even is supposed to be as a character- perhaps you could argue that the point is the patriarchal alien society she was indoctrinated into repressed her to the point her losing her individuality though that doesn't explain the quips or why the problem still persists by the movie's end.

I have not seen Avengers: Endgame yet but if it ends with Captain Marvel defeating Thanos then it makes this movie feel like nothing but an attempt to slightly justify a possible deus ex machina ending to that movie (If not a literal one since Marvel is basically a god summoned through a pager). I'll make that call once I actually see Endgame though.

This is to say nothing about the weird politics of the film where the feminist references are ultimately in service of how…the Air Force should help deport refugees out of America, I mean Earth.

I think you could legit case that this is one of the worst MCU films, if not the worst one outright. I feel like I often say that when I watch a batch of these movies but the bar really does feel lowered here.

111. High Sierra (1941, Dir. Raoul Walsh) - Humphrey Bogart has gotten out of prison after many years, and is about to get into the robbery business again. The movie mostly seems to be about Bogart's perhaps contradictory desires of being a romantic who looks to the stars and wants to save people (Particularly with how helps fund the surgery of a woman with a clubbed foot named Velma that he's fallen in love with), and well the fact that he can be a ruthless gangster and thief that shoots cops dead on the spot. It really reminds me of that tagline from Boardwalk Empire: "You can't be half a gangster", though Bogart tries anyways.

John Huston worked on the script for this too, and its interesting to see someone else direct Bogart with his material, especially when The Maltese Falcon came out later this year. It really does seem to soften Bogart's image a bit from earlier roles, which perhaps paved the way for stuff like Maltese Falcon and Casablanca and other such leading roles for Bogie. Not that his character in High Sierra still doesn't do terrible things, but he's far more sympathetic than his characters in something like King of the Underworld (1939) or The Roaring Twenties (1939) were.

[Derived Absurdity]

I haven't seen all of them but Infinity War is the worst MCU movie.

[Raxivace]

Infinity War is by no means a great film but I think its at least better than Age of Ultron and Captain Marvel.

Like for all of Infinity War's problems (Like characters not being consistent with previous films and such, Thanos being kind of underdeveloped, harming future MCU movies like Antman & The Wasp by forcing them to incorporate stuff from this film etc.) I can at least sort of see what it was going for as an individual film (It just happens to make the supposed benefit of the MCU- the interconnected storytelling- far more questionable than the inherent virtue that fans and marketers and fan-marketers think it is). Age of Ultron has stuff like the bizarre sidequest that Thor goes on that makes no sense in its own movie (For comparison's sake, while I think Thor's sidequest in Infinity War is kind of dumb in the larger context of his character arc, I at least understand he's trying to forge a weapon to kill Thanos. I have no idea wtf he's doing in Age of Ultron) and the way the heroes defeat Ultron by...actually just making another Ultron more or less that's just not evil lol is thematically silly.

In other words, while I think Infinity Wars is flawed I think a lot of its flaws come from how it does(n't) connect with other MCU movies well whereas Age of Ultron gets dumb on its own terms (Though to be fair I don't think it connects well with other MCU movies either- mainly Iron Man 3. Remember when Tony Stark was supposedly done with being Iron Man?).

Captain Marvel never even establishes much of anything that it can actually contradict at any point, and I don't ever buy Brie Larson in the role which is something I've never thought about another MCU character period, let alone a lead. These movies usually at least cast well.

[Derived Absurdity]

That's all true but it's difficult to separate out Infinity War's flaws as a standalone movie and its flaws when put alongside the other movies. Like the fact that Thanos sucks as a villain and that many of the characters are inconsistent are flaws with both the movie by itself and how it incorporates itself in the larger canon. With movies that function only as small parts in a larger whole judging them solely by themselves is not only of limited use but also often not really even coherent. Part of Infinity War's quality has to be measured by its relationships to the other movies.

[Eva Yojimbo]

106. That Day, On the Beach (1983, Dir. Edward Yang) - ...I hope this gets a nice blu-ray in America at some point with an actual good translation because I'd love to revisit it. It's a good film.

I've been wishing for this for a number of Taiwanese films for over a decade now. At least we finally got A Brighter Summer Day, so I can't complain too much. Would still love to see this one and so many of Hou's in a decent edition, though.

[Raxivace]

So I watched one or two things.

112. Avengers: Endgame (2019, Dir. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo) - It was alright. The Russo's still can't do action particularly well (The last major battle scene is particularly blegh), the Captain Marvel deus ex machina, while not being quite as bad as I predicted, is still an issue etc. Really the nicest thing I can say about the movie is that the first two hours or so of this film works well enough as I'm watching it- no leaps of logic that are too hugely distracting or anything, they actually try to not undermine more dramatic elements etc. This kind of changes in the third hour though when things kind of stop making sense to me. Like how the hell did Tony Stark even steal the damn gems from Thanos? Like this is confusing as I'm watching the darn movie. Likewise his sacrificing himself makes enough emotional sense, but like why is anyone just letting him stay dead? They have the damn power to rewind time and stuff. Like obviously the real reason is that Downey wants out of these movies, but still.

It especially seems out of place when the whole movie was a convoluted scheme to revive half of all existence. It just seems like there's a way to make this feel more earned beyond it just being inherently sad to see one of the stars of this franchise for the last 11 years die.

Also Captain America's ending in the movie is kind of silly if we're meant to take it as positive. Seriously the whole conceit of the character is no matter how out of time he is, he can always face the future with a positive outlook. Having him just retreat into the past seems madly regressive to me. It's literally regressive too!

Just to be clear I don't particularly care about whether this works with the logic of time travel in the movie, who gives a shit about that. Thematically and emotionally I just don't like this as an ending to Steve Rogers' character.

Otherwise its to this film's credit that it maintains an upbeat pace for three straight hours. I had fun watching it. It just could be better.

113. Good Night, And Good Luck. (2005, Dir. George Clooney) - The story of CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow reporting against Senator Joseph McCarthy

It's a perfectly decent film. I think the most interesting thing about it is that while Murrow and his team are conventionally portrayed by actors, McCarthy is portrayed purely through archival footage. It makes the whole movie weirdly a mix between fiction and documentary, which is really not the kind of move I expect from someone like Clooney as a director.

114. Passage to Marseille (1944, Dir. Michael Curtiz) - Another Humphrey Bogart movie, though this is an unusual one. Ostensibly it's a story of a group of prisoners breaking out so they can join the French military and assist in fighting the Nazis, though it employs an odd embedded flashback structure- at one we get a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. Hell Bogart doesn't even get a real focus in the story until about 46 minutes in this 109 minute film (Thank you Bordwell for specifying the specific point here).

Anyways its a real solid war film that keeps its focus more on people's motivations for joining the World War II than anything else. Even if it still is propaganda it still works as a character story similar to Casablanca (And hell a lot of the Casablanca crew is reunited here anyways).

115. Ryusei Kacho (2001, Dir. Hideaki Anno) - A goofy live-action short Anno made about a man known as “Ryusei Kacho", who battles challenger “Automatic Maria" for a seat on a train.

It's pretty silly, and while the video quality isn't great you can watch it below.



116. Anime Tenchou (2002, Dir. Hideaki Anno) - I don't have words for this one.



From what I can tell it's a commercial for some kind of anime/manga store that Anno directed, for some reason? It doesn't even really feel much like his directorial style to me, though it seems he's credited for it across the internet. Seriously, some of these more obscure shorts of his are odd.

117. Detective (1985, Dir. Jean-Luc Godard) - I have to say this another Godard I find myself agreeing with Jimbo on.

Detective - Jean-Luc Godard - 5/10

The cost of Godard getting funding for Hail Mary was to make a mainstream film. Detective is that film, and it proves that either Godard is incapable of making a mainstream film (unlikely), has no clue what one is (more unlikely), or is a determined anarchist (most likely).

While the film's superficial plot outline is as simple and banal as its title, Godard's handling is, predictably, anything but. If there were awards for directors who most rigorously eschewed exposition, Godard would earn a lifetime achievement award; and in a film like this with its large cast (relative, at least, to Godard's recent “chamber" films) and interlocking relationships, it can be maddening just to orient one's self with the basic who's who and what's what. Arguably, this is Godard's point: the audience gets to play detective more so than anyone in the film.

At the root of it, though, are classic Godard themes: miscommunication, the impossibility and absurdity of human connection, the deception of language and images (in perhaps the best single-line summary of his whole career, a character states: “seeing is deceiving"), the ambiguity of knowledge, and how all of this can be encompassed and echoed by the ways in which films are structured, composed, and orchestrated. It's delivered with plentiful references to film and literature—two of the trio of detectives are named Prospero and Arielle after characters in Shakespeare's The Tempest; there's clips of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and Stroheim in The Lost Squadron—as well as a flippant humor that's evidence Godard didn't always take himself nearly as seriously as his critics.

Formally, Godard has tempered his stop-start music; it's still here, but acting transitionally and as punctuation to scenes where such music makes some sense. Visually, he prefers cluttered and static frames that divide the scene and image cubistically, eschewing character-dominated shot-reverse shot for frames that will hang on characters (or perspectives of them) even when they aren't talking or having much to do with whatever is happening at the moment.

The primary strength of 80s Godard has been his visual beauty and autumnal tone combined with a bittersweet humor; in Detective all of these elements are present but obscured, and the lackluster narrative can't make up for it. Though there are beautiful, evocative images sprinkled throughout the film, its fractal, fragmented, elusive, elliptical narrative works against it in this case, and Godard just can't muster anything truly memorable or provocative that isn't present in previous films in better form.

Here I just found the narrative to be really unengaging and confusing even by Godard's fractured narrative standards. At one point I was convinced two different groups of characters were different time periods altogether, though by the end that's clearly not the case.

Not much more I can add about this one, I'm afraid.





^Though I did get a chuckle out of this.

118. The Spider and The Tulip (AKA Kumo to Tulip, 1943, Dir. Kenzo Masaoka) - So I saw an interesting page on the internet that had Japanese critics ranking various anime they liked (A lot of the usual suspects on there like Evangelion, Miyazaki movies, Gundam, Yamato, Madoka Magica etc. The real surprise on this list to me though was Space Runaway Ideon- it's influential on NGE of course but the show itself…isn't great. The movies are pretty decent though, particularly Ideon: Be Invoked which is basically proto-End of Evangelion in its broadest strokes.) though there was a short on there I hadn't heard of before- Kumo to Tulip.

The basic story from what I can tell (The version I found online wasn't subtitled unfortunately) revolves around spider with an unfortunate blackface design trying to lure a ladybug into his web. That it's basically a mini-musical too seems very reminiscent of the stuff Disney was doing around the time with Silly Symphonies and such. The animation itself seems pretty solid for the 40's, though its hard for me to put this in a larger context of Japanese film, anime or otherwise. From what I can tell it was an influence of Osamu Tezuka at least, the grandfather of anime himself, which is pretty neat.

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

Xabungle (1982-1983) - Yet another forgotten mecha show from Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino. On the planet Zola, the parents of Jiron Amos have been murdered by Timp Sharon, so Jiron seeks revenge in this classic comedy series. Along the way Jiron teams up with the "Sand Rats", a gang of kids who roam the desert stealing robots to live and such, and culture-obsessed girl "Elchi Cargo", who is the captain of a massive transforming landship called the "Iron Gear".

From what I can tell this is the first anime to combine an ostensibly western setting with mecha (Perhaps similar to how Tomino would combine a fantasy setting with mecha in his Byston Well saga. A more direct comparison can be made to that Gun x Sword show I watched earlier this year), though here it's filtered through a largely comedic bent despite various moments of characters dying and such.

What's weird about Xabungle is that its basically three shows. The first show revolves around Jiron's pursuit of Timp, who's sort of a Man With No Name type figure.



^Like you can tell just by looking at him that his design just straight out of the Sergio Leone westerns. Weirdly enough though he's played as a comedic buffoon more often than not, smoking lit cigars from the wrong end and shenanigans like that. At a certain point Jiron (Wrongfully) believes he's killed Timp which leads us to the next part.

The second portion of the show is just everyone kind of aimlessly wandering for like 20 straight episodes. This part of the show is honestly really bad. Many episodes follow a stock formula of “[Character of the Week] is fed up with life on the Iron Gear and runs away, so everyone has to rope them back in" and after like seven or eight of those episodes they get really tiring (And some of them last more than a single episode!).

The last portion of the show revolves around freeing the planet Zola from the rule of “the Innocent", who seem to run the planet…somehow? I guess? They live in domed cities and are willing to trade weapons with outsiders but their supposed villainy never seem to actually amount to much beyond “Hey why the fuck does this Jiron guy keep blowing up our cities?". Despite their name I do think they're actually made to seem as villains since they like, brainwash people and try to assassinate their own leader at one point when he decides to align with the Iron Gear gang, but they seem fairly underdeveloped. The show also stops feeling like much of a western at this point and more like a Gundam series set exclusively in a desert.

The comedic bent of the show is what makes it work at all. The recurring gags are often pretty good, and the characters are likable enough etc., though it often tries to be a dramatic show too and never seems to quite work at it. Like remember how I said Jiron's parents were murdered? You never find out why Timp killed them and this entire plotline ends up forgotten after 20 or so episodes. It's the inciting incident of the damn show!

The final episodes too really introduce some rather forced drama as well- like a huge plotline in the last stretch of episodes revolves around Elchi getting brainwashed. To undo the brainwashing, our heroes have to remove the personality implanted into Elchi by...moving the implanted personality into someone else, effectively brainwashing them. Why? Why can't you just leak the personality into the aether? Of course the character they move the personality into ends up dying as a result and its supposed to be sad but it comes off more forced than anything.

The universe apparently can't forgive Elchi for being brainwashed either as in the final battle she gets an injury that blinds her for life, making her a kind of proto-Katejina from Tomino's later series Victory Gundam. Victory Gundam is a terrible show, far worse than Xabungle, but "going blind in the final battle" kind of makes sense for Katejina since she was actively a villain and that's supposed to be a grim drama (Note: "supposed to be"). For Elchi it just seems cruel and out of place, especially for a show that's primarily a comedy. Also Jiron, our main hero who holds up a baby at gunpoint in the final episodes somehow gets everything he wants in life.

Despite the negativity in this post I did enjoy Xabungle overall- some of the gags are quite good (My favorite being Arthur not being able to get any of the girls' names right), and characters like Fatman (There's a character named Fatman in this show) ended up being surprisingly affecting by the end (Whole cast was generally pleasant actually, outside of that string of "[Character of the week] is running away from the Iron Gear" episodes in that middle portion of the show I previously complained about). This was definitely an influential show too- I think Gundam X and Gurren Lagann most obviously took some inspiration from Xabungle, though I wouldn't be surprised if the fourth wall breaking humor was an influence on Nadesico as well.

I just wish Xabungle as a whole came together a bit better than it did in execution.

Fate/stay night (2006) - Studio Deen's adaptation of Fate/stay night. This is primarily based on the Fate route of the original visual novel, though as it goes on elements from the Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feel routes are added in.

I have to say from the beginning this is where my issues with this anime are. This anime isn't terrible on its own merits, its still a decent action story (Though its primarily an action story…more on this in a moment), but combining the routes seems to defeat the point a bit. The routes were interesting to begin with because of the way they played off of each other- plot information would be deliberately withheld in one which would change how you look at the other two, thematically each story comes to different conclusions, and in general the differences were kind of the point of the VN at least in terms of narrative structure. It would be sort of like if you were doing remake of Rashomon and then decided that it was weird how all four testimonies contradicted each other, you might as well combine them into a single testimony. You might end up with a decent short film or something as a result about dudes fighting, but it's also something far less ambitious as a result.

Beyond that, the characters are just gutted here. Particularly the main character Emiya Shirou. Without his narration from the VN he just comes off as a fairly generic good guy character- you completely lose the near sucicidal focus he has on his ideals to protect everyone at the cost of himself. In the VN, you're meant to understand that this isn't a necessarily a good thing (The entire game even revolves around this contradiction of trying to help people to the point its self-destructive. How can you save others when you can't save yourself?). The three routes come to three different answers about this (And all of them are undercut a bit, though perhaps Heaven's Feel isn't quite undercut enough), which again makes the anime's decision to combine the three routes all the more misguided. They go for an action story first and foremost, and while the VN had plenty of over the top action, there was a lot of pretty good character work (Far more of that than action in fact) that's just excised in the adaptation.

They also cut out many of the cooking scenes! The VN had a huge emphasis on the characters making lunch and dinner for each other (Seriously its fucking ridiculous how many scenes there are about who makes what food the best and also what are the best ways to serve that food there are in that god damned game. Not even Ozu fetishized the dinner table this much!) and while the VN could stand to lose some of these bits there probably should be more left in then there are. They do add to the characters and their relationships and such.

It's just kind of a shame that this doesn't quite work as a standalone adaptation of the Fate route. Even if UFOtable's adaptations of Unlimited Blade Works and Heaven's Feels are good (And they seem to have a good reputation), Deen's adaptation stuffs in too many reveals and plot twists from those routes to work as a Fate adaptation.

Also, the animation isn't the best. Most scenes look okay though there are some pretty noticeable stinkers



^Seriously just look at the faces here.

It's hard not to compare F/SN 2006 with the prequel series Fate/Zero. Zero only came out five years later but looks remarkably better- much smoother animation, any animation flaws are not nearly as obvious as in screenshot above, more dynamic lighting in general etc. I wish I had decent non-spoilerly clips or images for comparison's sake because despite not being that much newer Zero still looks good today, whereas F/SN 2006 often struggles to reach a lower bar.

Still, F/SN 2006 isn't a terrible show on its own merits (I did mostly enjoy watching it), however the original game is the far more ambitious and interesting work and this doesn't really work as a leadin to other adaptations of F/SN either. I do kind of hope a proper adaptation of the Fate route is done one day because its certainly not impossible. Or better yet people could just play the original VN, it's good.

[Raxivace]

That's all true but it's difficult to separate out Infinity War's flaws as a standalone movie and its flaws when put alongside the other movies. Like the fact that Thanos sucks as a villain and that many of the characters are inconsistent are flaws with both the movie by itself and how it incorporates itself in the larger canon. With movies that function only as small parts in a larger whole judging them solely by themselves is not only of limited use but also often not really even coherent. Part of Infinity War's quality has to be measured by its relationships to the other movies.

I guess for me I think the MCU movies mostly are intended to function as single films first with the "larger whole" mostly just being secondary and marketing speak, which is perhaps where our disagreement lies.

Of course I might just be too resistant to this whole turning of film into television with these "cinematic universes".

[Raxivace]

106. That Day, On the Beach (1983, Dir. Edward Yang) - ...I hope this gets a nice blu-ray in America at some point with an actual good translation because I'd love to revisit it. It's a good film.

I've been wishing for this for a number of Taiwanese films for over a decade now. At least we finally got A Brighter Summer Day, so I can't complain too much. Would still love to see this one and so many of Hou's in a decent edition, though.

If ABSD ranks really highly on the next Sight & Sound poll, we might see some of these other Yangs or Taiwanese films get good releases.

I hope so at least. Though even this most optimistic take is "Hey maybe we'll get good blu-rays in 5 or so years if the stars align?".

[Eva Yojimbo]

That's all true but it's difficult to separate out Infinity War's flaws as a standalone movie and its flaws when put alongside the other movies. Like the fact that Thanos sucks as a villain and that many of the characters are inconsistent are flaws with both the movie by itself and how it incorporates itself in the larger canon. With movies that function only as small parts in a larger whole judging them solely by themselves is not only of limited use but also often not really even coherent. Part of Infinity War's quality has to be measured by its relationships to the other movies.

I guess for me I think the MCU movies mostly are intended to function as single films first with the "larger whole" mostly just being secondary and marketing speak, which is perhaps where our disagreement lies.

Of course I might just be too resistant to this whole turning of film into television with these "cinematic universes".

I think it's most useful (and practical/realistic) to think of the MCU as an interconnected universe in which different artists (writers/directors) come in to add their own spin on it. This is not unlike how comics work, in general, in that most writers/artists will have "runs" with a series, and then different writers/artists come in and take over, and even though there's supposed to be a sense of continuity, it's clearly impossible to maintain it over years/decades with that many different people working on it. I remember reading issues of Spider-Man where one writer would write an issue that would be contradicted by another writer in the very next issue. It's just part-and-parcel of what happens in these "same universe, different artists" works.

In a way, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series had a very meta approach to this, where all the guest artists were invited to create a very different art-style for their issues that intentionally contrasted with what came before. It gave the impression that these eternal personifications (Dream, Death, Destiny, Desire, Destruction, Despair, Delirium) had no "actual/real" forms, but were subject to each individual's interpretation, and they took various forms depending on whose "story" they were involved in. This is making me really want to reread that whole series soon, lol.

Also, I might add that the whole "turning film into TV" is a pretty old concept itself. There were a lot of film serials in the silent age that, for a variety of reasons (expense, Great Depression), ceased happening during the sound era. Curious how the biggest trend in contemporary film is hearkening back to a century-old tradition.

[Eva Yojimbo]

That's all true but it's difficult to separate out Infinity War's flaws as a standalone movie and its flaws when put alongside the other movies. Like the fact that Thanos sucks as a villain and that many of the characters are inconsistent are flaws with both the movie by itself and how it incorporates itself in the larger canon. With movies that function only as small parts in a larger whole judging them solely by themselves is not only of limited use but also often not really even coherent. Part of Infinity War's quality has to be measured by its relationships to the other movies.

I guess for me I think the MCU movies mostly are intended to function as single films first with the "larger whole" mostly just being secondary and marketing speak, which is perhaps where our disagreement lies.

Of course I might just be too resistant to this whole turning of film into television with these "cinematic universes".

I think it's most useful (and practical/realistic) to think of the MCU as an interconnected universe in which different artists (writers/directors) come in to add their own spin on it. This is not unlike how comics work in that most writers/artists will have "runs" with a series, and even though there's supposed to be a sense of continuity it's clearly impossible to maintain it over years/decades with that many different people working on it. I remember reading issues of Spider-Man where one writer would write an issue that would be contradicted by another writer in the very next issue. It's just part-and-parcel of what happens in these "same universe, different artists" works.

In a way, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series had a very meta approach to this, where all the guest artists were invited to create a very different art-style for their issues that intentionally contrasted with what came before. It gave the impression that these eternal personifications (Dream, Death, Destiny, Desire, Destruction, Despair, Delirium) had no "actual/real" forms, but were subject to each individual's interpretation, and they took various forms depending on whose "story" they were involved in. This is making me really want to reread that whole series soon, lol.

Also, I might add that the whole "turning film into TV" is a pretty old concept (older than TV, actually). There were a lot of film serials in the silent age that, for a variety of reasons (expense, Great Depression), ceased happening during the sound era. Curious how the biggest trend in contemporary film is hearkening back to a century-old tradition.

[Raxivace]

If the MCU movies were showing more individual vision between films I'd be better with that, though Marvel/Disney is going out of their way to homogenize the way they look, their tones etc. Like I enjoyed Black Panther, but its very much "A Ryan Coogler film filtered through Disney" and not quite the same guy who made Fruitvale Station and Creed. Like just compare the final battle in Black Panther, which looks like shit (And was likely more "directed" by CGI animators than Coogler himself), to something like the single-take boxing match in Creed. One of those is bravura, the other is the weak point in a film I otherwise liked.

Like, there's a reason people like Whedon, Edgar Wright etc. aren't staying on board with the MCU.

Fair point about those serials and such, though even back then it wasn't like the Irma Vep people weren't the only ones making movies in town. Every movie didn't have to connect back to the Irma Vep Cinematic Universe (IVCU) in story or look or tone.

[Eva Yojimbo]

If the MCU movies were showing more individual vision between films I'd be better with that, though Marvel/Disney is going out of their way to homogenize the way they look, their tones etc. Like I enjoyed Black Panther, but its very much "A Ryan Coogler film filtered through Disney" and not quite the same guy who made Fruitvale Station and Creed. Like just compare the final battle in Black Panther, which looks like shit (And was likely more "directed" by CGI animators than Coogler himself), to something like the single-take boxing match in Creed. One of those is bravura, the other is the weak point in a film I otherwise liked.

Like, there's a reason people like Whedon, Edgar Wright etc. aren't staying on board with the MCU.

Fair point about those serials and such, though even back then it wasn't like the Irma Vep people weren't the only ones making movies in town. Every movie didn't have to connect back to the Irma Vep Cinematic Universe (IVCU) in story or look or tone.

That's generally my biggest problem with the MCU as well--the lack of much individual/auteur-like directorial style, but I guess it's also something I've come to expect from most superhero films. Like, the superhero films with interesting style are in the gross minority (I can think of Del Toro's Hellboy, and then...), so I basically approach them like I do superhero comic books; expecting generally entertaining stories with fun characters, but not much depth or artistry. But in terms of the story/interconnected inconsistencies, I think it's useful to think of them in those terms. You're never going to get internal consistency with that many cooks in the kitchen (and rarely even when there's one cook making a banquet that vast; Matt Mercer has talked about the pressure of maintaining an internal consistency to his world when you're improvising/creating so much of it week-to-week and have so many people critiquing it).

Yeah, it does kinda suck that superhero films have nearly killed the mid/small-budget filmmaking market as far as Hollywood is concerned. It used to be that Blockbusters were rare and studios relied on a wealth of mid/small-budget films for most of their profits so they could gamble on blockbusters, but today it's almost the reverse, with very few being willing to "gamble" with anything smaller at all outside indie studios.

[Raxivace]

I'd go to bat for Logan and especially Into the Spider-Verse as interesting modern superhero movies. Spider-Verse in particular I think is pretty impressive.

It just seems like with the MCU we get the worst of both worlds- the lack of meaningful connections between films, AND the lack of much personal style. I harp on the connections though because that is something you see consistently praised by fanboys and such (Sentiments like "Oh they spent 10 years building up to Avengers 5, what a huge cinematic accomplishment!" are common) even though in function they have about as much consistency as the comic books themselves did (A flaw I wish they didn't inherent to such a large degree).

[Raxivace]

Breaking Bad movie is coming to Netflix? On October 11th!!!????

[Gendo]

Woah, it's going to take place after? How exactly is that going to work? Is Walter in it?

I've said before that I would totally watch a show that was just nothing but Jesse hanging out in Alaska building furniture.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I'd go to bat for Logan and especially Into the Spider-Verse as interesting modern superhero movies. Spider-Verse in particular I think is pretty impressive.

It just seems like with the MCU we get the worst of both worlds- the lack of meaningful connections between films, AND the lack of much personal style. I harp on the connections though because that is something you see consistently praised by fanboys and such (Sentiments like "Oh they spent 10 years building up to Avengers 5, what a huge cinematic accomplishment!" are common) even though in function they have about as much consistency as the comic books themselves did (A flaw I wish they didn't inherent to such a large degree).

I haven't seen either of those, but is either official MCU "canon," though? I thought they were kinda non-canon one-shots... though, come to think of it, has any of the X-Men movies ever been tied into the official MCU? Anyway, stuff like is also similar to comics where outside authors would come in and do unofficial one shots or short runs; I think of stuff like Frank Miller's Batman or Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. These often end up being far better (more original, artistic) than anything in the main series, but they're often usually quite different too, which is why they're kept separate.

Personally, I just never watched the MCU films for either "meaningful connections between films" or directorial style. Fanboys gonna fanboy, but at the end of the day the MCU is still just superficial superhero comic book entertainment in which you're lucky if you get some well-written/acted characters and some good, solid cathartic moments between the set-piece spectacles.

[Gendo]

Neither of them are MCU films; no relationship to the MCU at all other than both being based off of Marvel Comic Books characters.

[Raxivace]

Yeah Logan and Spider-Verse are both done by Sony and not Disney. Logan is straight up part of the X-Men continuity, and from what I can tell Spider-Verse is posed as something of a sequel to the Raimi films...kind of. I think they throw references to the Garfield films in there as well.

Honestly, I'd also say the Fast and the Furious movies actually do continuity across multiple films better than the MCU does as well. They're basically superhero movies as it is, except every character's super power is "Lol I can do crazy shit with driving cars".

[Raxivace]

Woah, it's going to take place after? How exactly is that going to work? Is Walter in it?

I've said before that I would totally watch a show that was just nothing but Jesse hanging out in Alaska building furniture.

I'm guessing it will be about Jesse running from the cops after the events of the show, based on the trailer.

If Walter is in the film it will probably only be in flashbacks or something. It would be really hacky to bring him back otherwise IMO.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Speaking of Logan and Spider-Verse being Sony, I heard something about the license that Disney has to use Spider-Man in the MCU running out and they haven't reached another agreement yet, which could result in no more MCU Spider-Man. Haven't really read up on the details, and it could be little more than a temporary blip while they negotiate (if they are negotiating).

[Raxivace]

Speaking of Logan and Spider-Verse being Sony, I heard something about the license that Disney has to use Spider-Man in the MCU running out and they haven't reached another agreement yet, which could result in no more MCU Spider-Man. Haven't really read up on the details, and it could be little more than a temporary blip while they negotiate (if they are negotiating).

I've tried following this a bit and I'm kind of confused on where things have actually landed.

[Raxivace]

119. Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (2010, Dir. ken'ichi Takeshita & Yuji Yamaguchi) - The first adaptation of the "Unlimited Blade Works" route of Fate/stay night, this one also done by Studio Deen like the 2006 anime. In terms of animation its got the same lows the 2006 anime did, how ever the highs seem to be much higher. Animation is a bit more detailed, fights are just generally more epic feeling etc.

The biggest problem with the movie though is that the action scenes are basically the only thing it gets right, since it basically speeds through absolutely everything it can between action bits. It makes the story seem waaay more confusing and convoluted than it really is, which is a shame. I'm not sure anyone who hadn't played the visual novel already would really get what's going on (Someone who had at least seen the 2006 anime might fare a bit better than someone going in completely blind), though it at least works as fanservice for people who wanted to see the VN's fight scenes animated. I enjoyed it myself as that at least, though while it may not work as replacement for the VN nor a standalone film, its at least fun as a supplement to the VN in a way that something like the 2006 anime can't quite be.

The studio Ufotable did a second adaptation of UBW in 2014 as a full TV series, which I'll watch here soon. It'll be interesting to compare to this film. The general consensus online seems to be that it makes the film version pointless, though only made me more curious to watch it.

120. Terms of Endearment (1983, Dir. James L. Brooks) - The 1983 Best Picture Winner. This film follows young wife and mother Emma and her relationship with her own mother Aurora. They clash, they have various relationships with men, they reconcile. In a lot of ways its a really simple film, though all the individual main characters are well realized and believably flawed (Like particularly how Emma is kind of a hypocrite for being mad when she finds out her husband has been in an affair despite having already been in one herself) and the performances are all good across the board. Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine are quite good as the leads of course (MacLaine especially. She really sells gradually defrosting over like the 30 years or whatever this film takes place over), and its interesting to see people like Jeff Daniels and Jack Nicholson in supporting roles here. Nicholson especially since he seems to be really be playing against type- normally I think of him as an angry sunuvabitch who's particularly angry that he's out of his depth, though here he works surprisingly well as a wannabe casanova who's best days are long behind him and yet is somehow able to charm and even grow a bit himself.

Also the end of the film is a real tearjerker. Holy crap.

I haven't seen any of the other 1983 nominees, though I think this just works well as a small character drama.

121. Meeting Gorbachev (2018, Dir. Werner Herzog & Andre Singer) - Herzog's overview and interview with Mikhail Gorbachev on his life. I didn't know that much about Gorgachev going into this, but it was still kind of neat to get his perspective on America in the Cold War and the like. Not one of Herzog's best documentaries (I think the White Diamond/Grizzly Man/Encounters at the End of the World "trilogy" is still probably his peak here) but interesting enough.

122. Fate/Grand Order: First Order (2016, Dir. Hitoshi Nanba) - Fate/Grand Order is a iOS JRPG about some assholes time traveling throughout history to start chain reactions that will end with humanity going extinct, and well you got to stop them. This TV film is an adaptation for the opening missions from that game and kind of like the Unlimited Blade Works movie mentioned above in this post, its not great as a film though kind of neat as a supplement to the game (Especially since it adds in a few battles not actually in the game). I enjoyed it as that, but not much more.

123. Xabungle Grafitti (1983, Dir. Yoshiyuki Tomino) - So Xabungle was a 50 episode anime. Tomino apparently though he could edit 50 episodes down to 84 minutes. He was wrong. He was so wrong. Like even by anime compilation film standards this is super choppy. In this same era he did the Gundam 0079 trilogy and the Ideon films and those actually work as intended for the most part. Xabungle Grafitti on the other hand comes as a Garzey's Wing level incomprehensible piece of horse shit if you haven't seen the TV show before, and merely a kind of comprehensible one if you have.

Some cuts to the story are sensible (Like removing the entire mystery of why exactly Timp Sharon murdered Jiron's parents since the TV show never actually resolves that plotline), but on the other hand major events like Carrying Cargo's death are only alluded to in a single line.

The best part of the movie is probably how it undoes the rather stupid ending to Elchi and Arthur's story, but yeesh the extra two minutes devoted to that in the ending doesn't fix the rest of the film.

[Eva Yojimbo]

20. Terms of Endearment (1983, Dir. James L. Brooks) -

Yeah, this is a solid little character-driven drama. I've seen two of the other '84 BP nominees (The Right Stuff and The Big Chill) and I probably prefer Terms to them. The Right Stuff was just long and dull, and The Big Chill is a similarly pretty solid character drama, but more overtly comedic. Of course, browsing through that year's nominees, it's a tragedy that Ingmar Bergman didn't win best director for Fanny & Alexander, which is on a completely different level of greatness compared to all these other films.

[Raxivace]

I'm kind of curious about The Big Chill because from what I've heard its divisive. People from our parents' generation seem to like it but I hear young people complain about it every so often.

Likewise I need to see Fanny & Alexander still- not only because I've been lacking in Bergman lately but also because its one of those pre-Twin Peaks TV masterpieces I haven't seen yet.

In the meantime though I did pick up Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, which I'll watch after I'm done with the final VOTOMS blu-ray set.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I wouldn't say The Big Chill is great by any means, and the reason for the divisiveness is probably how dated it is (It's very much 'of its time'), but I still thought it was good for what it is. I think I gave it a 7/10 IIRC.

Fanny and Alexander is just so good. I saved it for late in my Bergman watching, and even though by that time he was part of my "trinity" with Hitch and Kurosawa and I'd had Seventh Seal in my top 10 and Persona in my top 20 for ages, I was still blown away by it. FWIW, I think the only reason to consider it a TV masterpiece is that it was too long to be a feature film. It still feels much more like a really long feature film than a typical mini-series (same goes for Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage). Dekalog felt much more of a TV-thing (due to its episodic nature).

Be interested to hear what you think of Berlin Alexanderplatz. I've yet to be blown away by Fassbinder but I know that's typically considered his masterpiece.

[Raxivace]

Interesting. Are F&A and Scenes not comprised of typical episodes then?

[Eva Yojimbo]

Here's what I'd say: because they were originally shown on TV and TV has time constraints they're still structured around that format, but if you were to remove the obvious divisions they would play like a long, continuous feature film that just happened to have these "structure points" where you'd typically have an episode break. Bergman essentially did this when he made the feature-length versions of both. Raul Ruiz did something similar with Mysteries of Lisbon, which also originally aired as a TV mini-series but was released on blu-ray as a 272-minute feature (which, btw, that's another TV masterpiece you need to add to your list; easily one of the 10 best anything I've seen from this century). Even something like Satantango, which was designed to be a 450-minute feature, has TV-like structural divisions between its sections, which is probably inevitable when you make anything that long.

I just feel a big difference between stuff like the above and something like Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or similar that play more like "serials" where, even though you have an overarching story, each episode is typically distinctive and self-contained. It might be the difference between how much each focus on advancing the overarching aspect VS how much each focus on the episodic aspect. The above feel more like whole, continuous experiences where the episode "breaks" are more just structural in nature, while the latter feel much more episodic and serial-like, very much designed for that TV format.

[Raxivace]

Thanks for the writeup. And yeah I'll make a note to check out Mysteries of Libson.

Shows/miniseries/etc. outside of the supposed "Golden Age of American Television" seem to be ignored more often than not by people big into TV, which is why I guess I'm interested in digging into these older shows helmed by film auteurs like Bergman or Fassbinder. This Libson thing might be a bit outside of that scope but the sadly brief Wikipedia page gives me the impression that it's relatively ignored too despite its accolades (Perhaps its telling those accolades it does have seem to come from non-Americans). It sounds fascinating on its own merits anyways.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I feel like the big TV series by film auteurs are mostly paid attention to by cinephiles and ignored by TV people. Probably the biggest reason for that is that most of them are foreign and I don't think the market for foreign TV is even a fraction of the market that's there for foreign films (which isn't all that huge either). Lisbon is on TSPDT's Top 250 of the 21st Century, which is how I think I heard of it. Here's what I wrote about it back then: "Its narrative is labyrinthine with its wealth of intricately related vignettes woven together over a 4.5 hour runtime. One can tell that its source is a 19th century novel with the proliferation of characters and stories-within-stories. However novel-esque its plot, it's the extraordinary visuals that make it entirely cinematic. It looks like Mizoguchi directing a Visconti film, with the opulent, operatic production design and melodrama of the latter paired with the cinematographic, graceful, long-takes and distance of the former. A truly unforgettable experience."

Another to add to your list is Von Trier's The Kingdom. Think Twin Peaks meets ER meets X-Files. Much like the original Twin Peaks it ended on a cliffhanger when it was cancelled so Von Trier never got to finish it. Of all the ones we've been discussing, it's definitely the most "TV-like."

[Raxivace]

Foreign films may not be competing with Marvel but at least there are/were critics telling people to watch those films. Hell even the Oscar people make their effort, as token as it may be, with the Best Foreign Film category and occasionally giving a Best Picture nomination to movies like Amour or Roma. It seems like TV people, whether its critics or otherwise, don't even do that much.

I'll have to check out The Kingdom whenever I hate myself enough to start watching Von Trier.

[Raxivace]

BTW is the TV version of Lisbon not available? Looking around online I can only seem to find that feature film edit you mentioned.

I'd prefer to watch the TV version if that's what it originated as.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Foreign films may not be competing with Marvel but at least there are/were critics telling people to watch those films. Hell even the Oscar people make their effort, as token as it may be, with the Best Foreign Film category and occasionally giving a Best Picture nomination to movies like Amour or Roma. It seems like TV people, whether its critics or otherwise, don't even do that much.

It may be a bit of of a chicken-and-the-egg problem; almost nobody in English-speaking countries is interested in foreign TV so none are shown/released here, but also because none are shown/released here nobody is interested in them. With film it's understandable how it was possible to get copies of foreign films and begin showing them in small theaters for enthusiasts, but there's nothing set up that would facilitate that with TV shows. Perhaps we might see something like that eventually with YouTube. I think, eg, of how foreign music has never had a market in the west either, but with YouTube suddenly several K-pop bands are breaking through and finding a fanbase.

I'll have to check out The Kingdom whenever I hate myself enough to start watching Von Trier.

Awww, you don't have to hate yourself to watch Von Trier. Yeah, he's said some dumb shit in interviews and many think his films are trollish, but underneath the controversy is one of the ballsiest, most visionary directors alive today. Nobody else could've combined 20s melodrama with golden-age musicals and dogme-style realism and made it work. Even the stuff of his I considered failed experiments (Dogville, namely) are extremely interesting. In any case, The Kingdom, for all its weirdness, is the most purely entertaining thing he's done--think David Lynch of Twin Peaks as opposed to the David Lynch of Eraserhead. It seems both tempered their most avant-garde tendencies for mainstream TV, without losing all of their edge/weirdness/artiness.

BTW is the TV version of Lisbon not available? Looking around online I can only seem to find that feature film edit you mentioned.

I'd prefer to watch the TV version if that's what it originated as.

AFAIK, the feature-film version is just the TV version with the obvious episode breaks removed. IE, no actual content was edited. It's also, afaik, the only version available.

[Raxivace]

It may be a bit of of a chicken-and-the-egg problem; almost nobody in English-speaking countries is interested in foreign TV so none are shown/released here, but also because none are shown/released here nobody is interested in them. With film it's understandable how it was possible to get copies of foreign films and begin showing them in small theaters for enthusiasts, but there's nothing set up that would facilitate that with TV shows. Perhaps we might see something like that eventually with YouTube. I think, eg, of how foreign music has never had a market in the west either, but with YouTube suddenly several K-pop bands are breaking through and finding a fanbase.

Perhaps, though even with older shows that have critical acclaim from film and are available on DVD aren't being promoted by TV people.

Like it wasn't Alan Sepinwall that got me to pick up Berlin Alexanderplatz, I think it was one of your posts at IMDb 2.0 in the few times I've visited there that got me aware of it.

Awww, you don't have to hate yourself to watch Von Trier. Yeah, he's said some dumb shit in interviews and many think his films are trollish, but underneath the controversy is one of the ballsiest, most visionary directors alive today. Nobody else could've combined 20s melodrama with golden-age musicals and dogme-style realism and made it work. Even the stuff of his I considered failed experiments (Dogville, namely) are extremely interesting. In any case, The Kingdom, for all its weirdness, is the most purely entertaining thing he's done--think David Lynch of Twin Peaks as opposed to the David Lynch of Eraserhead. It seems both tempered their most avant-garde tendencies for mainstream TV, without losing all of their edge/weirdness/artiness.

I just get the impression that Von Trier is a guy you have to be in a very specific mood to really dig into.

I do have a copy of Dogville, but no one has been able to quite explain how it ended up in my house since as far as I know nobody actually purchased it here. I'm afraid it might be haunted, like that tape in The Ring except in seven days Lars will come over and yell at me about the Nazis or something.

AFAIK, the feature-film version is just the TV version with the obvious episode breaks removed. IE, no actual content was edited. It's also, afaik, the only version available.

Are you sure? Ebert's review of the film says the six episodes are an hour long each, however the film edit is only 4 hours 32 minutes. That's, what, 88 minutes not accounted for? Some of that can be explained by credits sequences and such being removed from individual episodes but not 88 minutes worth.

Unless the original show as cut up for commercials too, that would give you something like 45 minutes of content for an hour long program in each episode.

[Raxivace]

124. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979, Dir. Robert Benton) - The 1979 Best Picture Winner. Like Terms of Endearment this is mostly just a really solid drama, with particularly excellent performances from Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Since this is a child custody drama that mostly sides with the father (He's not portrayed as flawless or anything though in my view), I've heard some people suggest that this film would be derided as sexist today since “There's bias against men in child custody cases" has become something of a talking point around MRA types. I don't really think that's a fair thing to hold against the movie itself, especially since its 40 years old.

Still, as solid as I thought this film was…I don't think its better than All That Jazz and I sure as fuck don't think its better than Apocalypse Now. I'm guessing Apocalypse Now only didn't win because The Deer Hunter (Ugh) won the year before (Though Streep was in the latter too, come to think of it. She's better in Kramer vs. Kramer).

125. Annie Hall (1977, Dir. Woody Allen) - The 1977 Best Picture Winner. This is a comedy about Woody Allen's having a romantic hangup with a girl that the film is named after. I gotta be honest this didn't do much for me personally- the fourth wall breaking is neat but otherwise I didn't find much of interest here.

Star Wars was nominated this year and I liked it better to be honest.

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

Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Phantom Arc (2010) - The final full VOTOMS OVA. This is the first one in a long while to not be a prequel, serving as a sequel to Shining Heresy (Which came out a full 16 years before this!). Since reuniting with his friends in between the previous OVA and this one, Chirico has gone missing again and its up to his comic relief buddies to find. Religious conspiracies about a “Child of God" are involved.

The first half of this OVA is a pretty nice nostalgia trip since it not only the comic relief trio from the original anime being seen for the first time since Big Battle (Which came out all the way back in 1986!), but as a part of their journey to find Chirico they revisit locations from the original series and we get to see old places and characters and how they've changed after 30 years. This eventually leads into a weird religious conspiracy which doesn't seem as developed (I'm not entirely sure who the mysterious villain in the first half of the OVA that's also trying to find Chirico is even supposed to be since they just kind of vanish after a few episodes. Likewise a certain character from Shining Heresy that absolutely should be present is nowhere to be seen), but despite obvious flaws I still enjoyed it.

Supposedly one of the final VOTOMS films is supposed to serve as a link between Shining Heresy and Phantom Arc but I'll see that here soon.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Awww, you don't have to hate yourself to watch Von Trier. Yeah, he's said some dumb shit in interviews and many think his films are trollish, but underneath the controversy is one of the ballsiest, most visionary directors alive today. Nobody else could've combined 20s melodrama with golden-age musicals and dogme-style realism and made it work. Even the stuff of his I considered failed experiments (Dogville, namely) are extremely interesting. In any case, The Kingdom, for all its weirdness, is the most purely entertaining thing he's done--think David Lynch of Twin Peaks as opposed to the David Lynch of Eraserhead. It seems both tempered their most avant-garde tendencies for mainstream TV, without losing all of their edge/weirdness/artiness.

I just get the impression that Von Trier is a guy you have to be in a very specific mood to really dig into.

I do have a copy of Dogville, but no one has been able to quite explain how it ended up in my house since as far as I know nobody actually purchased it here. I'm afraid it might be haunted, like that tape in The Ring except in seven days Lars will come over and yell at me about the Nazis or something.

I'd say it really depends on the film. He's gone through a few different stylistic periods and his "experiments" have been pretty diverse in nature, so being in the right mood for, say, Dogville might not be the right mood for Breaking the Waves or Europa or Antichrist or Melancholia. Perhaps the only thing most of his films have in common is a misanthropic pessimism. The Kingdom is really one you could watch in any mood because it's just so flat-out entertaining. Outside of its Lynchian weirdnesses and horror elements, one could even say it's mostly a comedy.

AFAIK, the feature-film version is just the TV version with the obvious episode breaks removed. IE, no actual content was edited. It's also, afaik, the only version available.

Are you sure? Ebert's review of the film says the six episodes are an hour long each, however the film edit is only 4 hours 32 minutes. That's, what, 88 minutes not accounted for? Some of that can be explained by credits sequences and such being removed from individual episodes but not 88 minutes worth.

Unless the original show as cut up for commercials too, that would give you something like 45 minutes of content for an hour long program in each episode.

I'm not 100% sure, but all I can say is that I haven't heard/read that the "film version" edited any actual content. I've read the "6 hour-long episodes" from several sources, but I always assumed that was with commercials and credits. So an actual runtime of 45-minutes would put 6 episodes at 270-minutes, which is about how long the "film" runs.

124. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979, Dir. Robert Benton) -

Yeah, again, great performances, solid film, but ultimately complete blah next to something like Apocalypse Now. Academy and their mid-brow voting.

125. Annie Hall (1977, Dir. Woody Allen) -

Awww, I really enjoyed this one. It's not as great as Manhattan, but still one of the top-tier Woody Allen films. I think I'm just one of those that gel with his personality and writing style, and I'm not sure if there's a more "pure Woody" film than Annie Hall. Still, yeah, I'd agree Star Wars was better, but no way would something like that ever get BP.

[Raxivace]

Hmm maybe I'll start with The Kingdom at some point then. If you hear something definitive about Lisbon let me know- I downloaded the film version so I could just watch that at some point in the meantime, but it has me curious.

I think I just find Woody's persona a little too grating- I had kind of a similar issue with him in New York Stories, but not any of his films I've seen that he hasn't acted in (Midnight in Paris/Blue Jasmine/Magic in the Moonlight). Like in the "waiting in line at the theater" scene, Woody was grating me far more than the dude complaining about Fellini.

To some extent of course Woody is meant to be a bit insufferable in the film but it often wasn't particularly charming to me.

[Eva Yojimbo]

The "film version" of Lisbon is what I saw and I still thought it a masterpiece. I actually did a little digging because you got me curious, and I did finally find a blog that reviewed the mini-series and it did, indeed, suggest it ran longer at 330-minutes: https://wondersinthedark.wordpress.com/ ... aoul-ruiz/ It seems to be referencing a region 2 DVD from France/Portugal, but I'm not finding it... ah, actually I did find it: https://www.amazon.com/Digipack-Box-Set ... B005IGOYU8 Interesting, according to that page it does have English subs and, according to another page I found, it includes both the film and TV versions. Unfortunately it seems OOP, though, and I'm not finding it for sale anywhere. I did find it for download on rutracker if you don't mind torrents: https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4438508

Yeah, that's the thing with Woody, people tend to either find him endearing/interesting or grating. I'm in the former camp, you might just be in the latter. You might prefer the ones he did where he's playing more of a caricature than an actual character like Love & Death, though that has a lot of references to Russian literature that's not exactly accessible.

[Raxivace]

That's awesome. It seems that rutracker torrent only has a single seed so it may be a while before it finishes downloading lol. But yeah Lisbon will probably be the next of these live action foreign dramas I watch after Berlin (Though there's one or two anime I'll watch in between them).

Allen might just be an acquired taste for me too. Like I can't call Annie Hall a bad film or anything, its quite creative with some of what it does. I can see why Godard liked Woody. I'll probably watch some of his more famous work eventually I guess- he might grow on me over time.

EDIT: And lol, that single seed is already gone. I miss the days of hosted downloads- far more reliable than these torrents that seem to die quickly unless its for something mega popular.

EDIT 2: Got some more seeding in afterwards, another solid day of downloading and I should have the whole thing.

[Eva Yojimbo]

rutracker is pretty darn reliable when it comes to not having dead torrents and seeders always seeding stuff, so even for stuff with a few seeds they almost always eventually download. They also have a ton of obscure stuff that's near impossible to find elsewhere, and I've never downloaded anything from there with a virus or malware. So, yeah, pretty great site for torrents (better than any Western-based hosters).

For Allen I'd recommend Manhattan next, because even though it's another romantic comedy with more of Woody and his personality it's also beautifully shot and ends up being more of a love letter to the place as much as anything else. I've generally enjoyed most all of Allen's I've seen, but that's the only one I thought a genuine masterpiece.

[maz89]

Hey guys! I see that there is just way too much here for me to comment on, so I'll just jump to my question: what did you guys make of Tarantino's latest "love letter" to Hollywood? I'm still processing the experience... my gut feeling is that it is one of Tarantino's best. I sure enjoyed the hell out of it, even if I need to sit down and make sense of some of it. Have either of you seen it? Any plans?

[Raxivace]

Haven't had a chance yet. It's almost entirely gone from the theaters near me, except for incredibly inconvenient times...

So instead my time has been dedicated to both Franz Biberkopf and also the continuing adventures of King Arthur: Anime Girl.