Return of the RECENT VIEWING

..and why not?
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driftin
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby driftin » 21 May 2018, 16:09

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I didn't want to feel happy anyway.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby pcqgod » 21 May 2018, 21:11

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Fahrenheit 451 (HBO, 2018)

Lackluster new adaptation of the classic Bradbury novel. Michael B. Jordan as Montag is fine but his character arc seems too rushed. Michael Shannon, playing Montag's superior, should display a certain amount of conflict about his job based on the things he does in the movie, but Shannon never adequately conveys this in his acting. The new ideas don't add much to the story. The director wanted to make the internet a target but largely misses the mark; there was a recent episode of "The Orville" that was actually a better satire of internet culture. And two movie adaptation of 'Fahrenheit 451' down, and we still don't have a robot dog like in the book!

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A Sound of Thunder (2005)

I hate to pan a movie largely because of terrible special effects, but f/x here are piss-poor, like something you would have seen on "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys." It's hard to believe that over a decade after 'Jurassic Park' and two years after the last 'Lord of the Rings' movie that a studio would have bothered to release something so amateurish looking into theaters, especially when special effects are integral to pretty much every single scene in the movie. The main thing that seems to have been added to the original story is having the main characters run from mutant baboon-lizard things and giant bat things, so this is another case of the writers failing to add anything new ideas of interest to Bradbury's source material.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby harvey k-tel » 22 May 2018, 14:46

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Ridiculous. Spielberg should've known better. So the aliens suddenly start dying at the end for no apparent reason (if you've read the book you know why, but there's absolutely no explanation for it here) and then we're left with a voiceover saying "it was the microbes wut dun it". Tom Cruise was horrible.

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Aside from Britt Walford being a reluctant interviewee, this was great to see, and to finally have all the pieces of this band and album put together was pretty satisfying.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby clive gash » 22 May 2018, 18:11

Worth it for the rehearsal footage alone.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby harvey k-tel » 22 May 2018, 18:27

Oh, for sure. Walford's such a great drummer, and he just makes it look effortless.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Geezee » 23 May 2018, 13:51

pcqgod wrote:
A Sound of Thunder (2005)

I hate to pan a movie largely because of terrible special effects, but f/x here are piss-poor, like something you would have seen on "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys." It's hard to believe that over a decade after 'Jurassic Park' and two years after the last 'Lord of the Rings' movie that a studio would have bothered to release something so amateurish looking into theaters, especially when special effects are integral to pretty much every single scene in the movie. The main thing that seems to have been added to the original story is having the main characters run from mutant baboon-lizard things and giant bat things, so this is another case of the writers failing to add anything new ideas of interest to Bradbury's source material.


Ben Kingsley really has been in some awful stuff.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby northernsky » 23 May 2018, 14:59

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Splendid.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Matt Wilson » 25 May 2018, 02:44

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Gun Crazy

One of the great films noir and an awesome example of man-and-woman-on-the-lam movies which would include They Live at Night, Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde, Badlands, and Natural Born Killers. Matt movies all. Not to mention Peggy Cummins is sexy as hell.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Darkness_Fish » 29 May 2018, 21:43

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Another from the cheaply-made horror flick department. A slow moving, fairly gentle film, which is based around the relationship between a teenage girl and her mother, following the recent death of her father. The mother can't cope surrounded by the memories the family home brings, and moves house to an isolated location, taking the girl away from her friends. The girl, raging against the injustice of it all, performs an occult ritual wishing her mother dead. And as mother and daughter become closer again, there's a growing indication that something sinister may be about to happen. Not quite in the same class as the likes of The Babadook, but trying to come at things from the same angle, if with much less overtly disturbing scenes. Worth seeing, certainly.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Goat Boy » 30 May 2018, 15:50

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Cries and Whispers

There’s a scene at the end of Cries and Whispers where the dying sister Agnes describes a moment all of us are familiar with even if we don’t always recognise the beauty and gentle perfection of it at the time. That’s natural I guess because we often don’t pause for reflection to acknowledge such moments when they occur but we really, really should. Instead we tend to recognise them in hindsight, maybe during a period of introspection, nostalgia or pain. After watching Cries and Whispers again I thought to myself, “I really need to do more of that sorta thing” and I try, you know, but you can never do it too much. In an earlier scene this kind of intimacy is referred to as grace. Even for an atheist like myself this rung true somehow and I knew exactly what Bergman was communicating here. For a movie that centers around about the agonising death of a young woman there are moments of genuine beauty and occasionally transcendence that elevate the movie into something miraculous. Christ, there is even a resurrection, of sorts. I’m not sure I’ve seen any movie that deals with the unimaginable horror of death and the void in such a moving way either. In one absolutely horrific scene Agnes struggles for breath like a dying fish gasping for air on the riverbank, her back arched, her muscles strained to breaking point as if clinging to the very life that is slowly leaving her and it’s like witnessing your worst nightmare. Imagine seeing a loved one struggle like this? Instantly I thought about my Mother and I started crying.

Despite the unfolding horror Agnes’s sisters, Maria and Karin and their servant can only watch on in impotence and confusion. Her sisters minds are also elsewhere, too busy dealing with their own guilt and trauma and in a series of confessional flashbacks introduced by typical Bergman close ups we learn about Maria’s affair with a local doctor which led to the suicide of her husband and in one jaw-dropping sequence the repressed, suicidal Karin mutilates her vagina with a piece of broken glass (did Lars Von Trier reference this in Antichrist?), licking her lips as if experiencing ecstasy for the first time. The source of her pain is hinted at but never fully revealed. Is her sexual and emotional repression partly rooted in her loveless marriage? Is her antipathy towards the sensual Maria borne out of sexual jealousy? Is her obvious revulsion towards Agnes a reaction to her unshakable faith in the face of impending death?

Only the servant, Anna, is genuinely close to Agnes, dutifully tending to her with sublime tenderness and when Agnes asks her to stay with her she touchingly lies naked beside her, her face pressed against her chest and for a moment you think she might give Agnes her breast, like a Mother comforting her child and the pain in Agne’s face recedes. In another moment Agnes asks he if she smells and Anna kisses her on the lips and caresses her face to reassure her she does not. In a remarkable sequence, presumably a dream, Anna sees tears fall from the eyes of Agnes’s corpse and for a brief moment she appears to rise from the dead, as if willed back to life by Anna’s love but when Maria sees her she recoils in absolute horror for the first time in the whole movie, as if finally overcome by guilt and grief. For a brief moment after her death Maria and Karin are forced to confront their estrangement and seem blissfully reunited but it doesn’t appear to last and they part with lessons presumably never learnt. Karin’s fate in particular seems pathetically set. All that is left is Anna, who reads an extract from Agnes’s diary in the scene I mentioned at the very beginning:

"Wednesday, the third of September. A chill in the air tells of autumn's approach, but the days are still lovely and mild. My sisters, Karin and Maria, have come to see me. It's wonderful to be together again like in the old days. I'm feeling much better. We were even able to take a stroll together. It was a wonderful experience, especially for me, since I haven't been outdoors for so long. We suddenly began to laugh and run toward the old swing that we hadn't used since we were children. We sat in it like three good little sisters and Anna pushed us, slowly and gently. All my aches and pains were gone. The people I'm most fond of in all the world were with me. I could hear them chatting around me. I could feel the presence of their bodies, the warmth of their hands. I wanted to cling to that moment, and I thought, "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection and I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

Next time I experience a moment like this hopefully I'll feel as profoundly grateful too.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Matt Wilson » 30 May 2018, 16:02

Fantastic write up, as usual, Dougie. I should pull that one out again. It's such a monumental downer though (even for Bergman) that I tend to avoid it for years at a time. I haven't seen it since the '90s in fact.

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On Dangerous Ground

The cult of noir is omnipresent in film criticism today, with more books seemingly on the subject than any other genre (or is it a style?) I can think of. I've even seen a a book on noir posters! This is a pretty good one by Nicholas Ray, he of In a Lonely Place, They Live by Night, Rebel without a Cause, and Johnny Guitar. It stars Robert Ryan (I really should do a thread on him. Not everyone even knows who he is, but he made tons of great noirs and westerns - Act of Violence, The Set Up, The Naked Spur, Bad Day at Black Rock, House of Bamboo, The Tall Men, Odds Against Tomorrow, Billy Budd, The Professionals, The Dirty Dozen, Hour of the Gun, The Wild Bunch, Lawman, etc.), and Ida Lupino, with a Bernard Herrmann score.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Matt Wilson » 02 Jun 2018, 04:17

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Aloha, Bobby & Rose

I'll bet not too many of you fucks remember this one. A decent hit in 1975, though you can tell it was filmed in '73 because there's plenty of billboards of 1973 rock albums. Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti) in a man/woman-on-the-lam film (like I wrote about with Gun Crazy) with a period rock soundtrack. Fairly good, as far as these things go. I'd never seen it before.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Matt Wilson » 03 Jun 2018, 06:32

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Road House

Here's another Ida Lupino noir with one of Richard Widmark's psycho performances which he does so well. I like this one more than On Dangerous Ground.

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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 03 Jun 2018, 09:10

I’ve never seen Road House, but it would have to be something to be better than On Dangerous Ground. I think that one is one of the great noir masterpieces (if it even truly is a noir film - as opposed to a spiritual allegory that uses noir as its springboard).

You are 100% correct that Ryan is an actor who deserves at least his own thread. He was as great an actor as there ever was (and was reputed to be a pretty incredible human being as well).

And yeah..I remember Aloha, Bobby & Rose.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 03 Jun 2018, 09:19

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Can’t seem to make the image work - but the film is Stay Hungry.

I’ve been on a Rafelson kick (as King of Marvin Gardens has just been haunting me lately). But this one is just an unholy mess. Strangely fun...but a mess nonetheless.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Sneelock » 03 Jun 2018, 16:27

Oh, I love it. I think it’s underrated. R.G.Armstrong’s freakout scene is a career highlight.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 03 Jun 2018, 18:21

sneelock wrote:Oh, I love it. I think it’s underrated. R.G.Armstrong’s freakout scene is a career highlight.


It’s got a lot of great scenes. But it doesn’t seem to add up to anything.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Snarfyguy » 03 Jun 2018, 21:33

Matt Wilson wrote:Image
Aloha, Bobby & Rose

I'll bet not too many of you fucks remember this one. A decent hit in 1975, though you can tell it was filmed in '73 because there's plenty of billboards of 1973 rock albums. Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti) in a man/woman-on-the-lam film (like I wrote about with Gun Crazy) with a period rock soundtrack. Fairly good, as far as these things go. I'd never seen it before.

+1 for gratuitous swearing. :)

My interest is piqued. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have this on offer.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Darkness_Fish » 04 Jun 2018, 09:10

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It's been years since I've seen this, I thought it might've been oddball enough for Tom to enjoy, but I forgot how flat it all was. It's very, very laboured, and might well have the two worst performances ever filmed by Jack Nicholson.
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Re: Return of the RECENT VIEWING

Postby Geezee » 04 Jun 2018, 13:43

The Venerable B. Eef wrote:
hippopotamus wrote:
The Venerable B. Eef wrote:
Agreed.

Like I said (I think) it was well made, very well acted (Sam Rockwell especially - he deserved the Oscar), but it was no fun at all. I don't like being force-fed someone else's agenda. And I got tired of Frances' simmering.


I figured a film around someone seeking justice for a rape crime would ADDRESS the issue... rather than make a big mention of feminist issues in the beginnning (Dress Aul Frances Macdonald as Rosie the Riveter for the WHOLE film) without touching on the subject, and then undermining any point it almost made with her final scene with the ex husband. (I'm trying not to spoil it, I'm sorry if it's too late.)
The same with bigotry and racism. When they almost make a point they undermine the whole thing.
The thing rambles and rambles on.


Agreed.

Like I said (I think) it was well made, very well acted (Sam Rockwell especially - he deserved the Oscar), but it was no fun at all. I don't like being force-fed someone else's agenda. And I got tired of Frances' simmering.




I saw this last night and definitely have mixed feelings about. I think the acting is indeed great, and a lot of the dialogue is very good - and I love the prominence of a Townes van Zandt's song (similar to In Bruges and 7 Psychopaths). But I have a couple of issues

- some pretty important parts don't seem to make any sense at all. I don't believe for a second that Dixon would still be a free man after his assault. The new chief in town sees the whole thing, and decides to fire him? Makes no sense - there are loads of witness, including obviously the victim himself...why doesn't he press charges? But obviously for the purposes of the movie, Dixon's salvation is key so they have to keep him out. If they are making a comment that the police is so corrupt and so feared that they get away with this kind of stuff with impunity, I don't buy it at all. Similarly, Mildred's firebombing of the station - she conveniently gets an alibi (in the most unbelievable of coincidences)...but even with an alibi, surely the police would just tear her to shreds...especially if the police are as corrupt as they have just said that they are!

- secondly, I find the language, humour and the abuse of fat people or people with dwarfism to be really difficult to take. This is the same with In Bruges. Maybe I'm just too PC, but these people are shouting all sorts of abuse, and we are meant, as an audience, to laugh - and they never get any sort of comeuppance over it. Quite the opposite, they are meant to be loveable people, often full of redemption. The most problematic of these is of coursethe redemption of Dixon himself, which could be symbolic of almost any generic Trump racist - "ok, he's a bit angry, violent and racist, but at heart he's a good person". Dixon's conversion is so improbable, radical and complete. All they need is to be shown a bit of kindness? Give the man an orange juice and all's ok?
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