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Post by haysoos on Mar 7, 2024 21:54:19 GMT -5
Wayne's WorldI don't know what to tell you, we were hanging out at my parents house, this movie got referenced and we decided to turn it on because my nephews (15 and 12) had never seen it. I've seen this thing dozens of times. It's still great. Nothing is too problematic except maybe Mike Meyers's thick Canadian accent supposedly coming from a Chicagoan. Reviews from teen boys in 2024: - 12 year old was on his phone the whole time and didn't care.
- 15 year old was only on his phone some, but seemed to like it and laughed a lot at the more random bits (like the Ed O'Neal monologues).
Although ostensibly set in Chicago and its suburb of Aurora, almost everything in the movie points to it actually being Toronto and the suburb of Scarborough. In particular, Stan Mikita's donut shop, named for NHL legend Stan Mikita of the Chicago Blackhawks is a pretty obvious stand-in for the iconic Canadian Tim Horton's donuts, named for NHL legend Tim Horton of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then there's the Gasworks nightclub, where Wayne meets Cassandra, which is pretty obviously based on Toronto's similar nightclub... the Gasworks. And there's the way that in Wayne's earliest television appearances, on Canada's MuchMusic, he was explicitly from Scarborough.
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moimoi
AV Clubber
Posts: 5,055
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Post by moimoi on Mar 8, 2024 19:38:46 GMT -5
I finally saw the Barbie movie and...I'm sorry, folks, I didn't like it. I thought it wasn't funny enough--very strained and ham-fisted, like a drawn-out SNL sketch. The only funny bits were some of Kate McKinnon's lines, Ryan Gosling's note-perfect rendition of Matchbox 20's "Push", and Michael Cera's fight scene.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Mar 8, 2024 23:59:52 GMT -5
Man. I watched this a week ago and I'm still thinking about it. This movie is a mood, in that when you think about your experience watching it, you mostly think about the feeling of it, and the scenes in relation to how they made you feel, not some specific thing. OK, that's a lie. There is a specific incredible thing. The whole final sequence - is it a half-hour? I lost count of time - when the two main characters talk through a one-way mirror, so that one can't see the other, so that it's kind of impersonal while being intensely, deeply personal. Man, that sticks with you. But so does everything else. The bearded face of silent Harry Dean Stanton as he walks through the desert. The really-real cinematography in rural and urban bits of Texas. (Maybe as a Texas resident I felt special admiration for these. There's no way another movie will ever romanticize Houston's highways like this!) The neurotic and wonderful supporting performance by Dean Stockwell. This is one of those movies I put on with moderate skepticism, and then, by the end, I wasn't even sure I cared how it ended, because it had been so memorable already that, plot, whatever. This is not a remake, but it feels like one. The original is Asphalt Jungle, a John Huston picture from 1950 starring Sterling Hayden with a tiny part for Marilyn Monroe. The plot of both of them is basically: down-on-their-luck guys plan a perfect heist, it goes perfectly in complete silence, and then as they all make their escapes, they get betrayed and caught one by one until all of them have faced the consequences. But Rififi has more flair in some ways (especially the heist and the non-Monroe performances). Plus, song-and-dance numbers because most of the women characters are nightclub performers. Still, while I enjoyed this movie, I wasn't nearly as moved as with 'Paris'. Totally unfair to make a cross-genre comparison but...eh whatever. This was good but having fairly recently seen Asphalt Jungle brings its score down. On the other hand, it helps set the stage for literally every heist movie ever since, and it also explains some of the amazing comedy in 'Big Deal on Madonna Street,' an Italian parody that was a great inspiration for Mel Brooks. Anything that indirectly leads to a Mel Brooks movie is good.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 9, 2024 8:52:52 GMT -5
Man. I watched this a week ago and I'm still thinking about it. This movie is a mood, in that when you think about your experience watching it, you mostly think about the feeling of it, and the scenes in relation to how they made you feel, not some specific thing. OK, that's a lie. There is a specific incredible thing. The whole final sequence - is it a half-hour? I lost count of time - when the two main characters talk through a one-way mirror, so that one can't see the other, so that it's kind of impersonal while being intensely, deeply personal. Man, that sticks with you. But so does everything else. The bearded face of silent Harry Dean Stanton as he walks through the desert. The really-real cinematography in rural and urban bits of Texas. (Maybe as a Texas resident I felt special admiration for these. There's no way another movie will ever romanticize Houston's highways like this!) The neurotic and wonderful supporting performance by Dean Stockwell. This is one of those movies I put on with moderate skepticism, and then, by the end, I wasn't even sure I cared how it ended, because it had been so memorable already that, plot, whatever. I have a cousin who was the son of a high-school mother and a local drunk. He spent most of his childhood shuffled among relatives all over the American West. This is his favorite movie for reasons you can probably guess, the resonance of the boy character trying to make it in the midst of selfish, short-sighted adults.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 11, 2024 0:52:40 GMT -5
In which I watch some movies in the period of time between the last time I posted here and this very moment.
The Muppet Movie (1979) - I decided, half as a joke, half because I need stuff to watch during lunch at work that I can be relatively sure isnât going to have tits or gnarly gore, that March is going to be Muppets March. I kicked things off with The Muppet Movie, one of the three Muppet films I saw as a child. This was always my least favorite of the three and watching it now itâs pretty easy to why this wouldnât appeal as much as Great Muppet Caper or even Muppets Take Manhattan to a small child since so much of it was jokes about Hare Krishna and cameos from 1970s celebrities few of whom I would have been aware of as a five year old in 1985. I mean sure I popped huge for Big Bird having a cameo as a kid but all the rest of the cameos went over my head as a child. I still donât think this is the best movie featuring Muppets but it was a decent road trip movie I guess. A couple of the songs in it were nice (if you like banjo) and there was an actual l karate fight in it plus seeing Orson Welles interacting with a gaggle of Muppets was wild. That said I probably wonât bother showing this to my kid because the humor is probably even less likely to hit with a small child in 2024 than it was with a small child in 1984. Like do you think a single child in 2024 knows who Telly Savalas is?
Secret of the Shaolin Poles (1977) - The plot here is your standard issue rebels vs. evil government officials kung fu movie fare with a side of folks out for revenge and a love rhombus thrown in for good measure but it honestly kind of rules. First off the main hero dude uses a fan as his primary weapon. I donât know why but Iâve always loved it when a fan showed up in a kung fu movie. Itâs probably my favorite cinematic kung fu weapon after maybe only the flying guillotine but thatâs neither here nor there as the primary source of ownage in this movie comes from the titular Shaolin poles. "What are Shaolin poles?â you ask, âPerhaps some manner of fighting staff?â Thatâs a fair assumption. It was honestly what I assumed going into the movie but no, they are a bunch of logs sunk into the ground above a field of sharpened bamboo spikes that dudes fight on. The fights on these poles are utterly insane in the best possible way. Motherfuckers are doing cartwheels and shit and there are random traps. I watch a lot of kung fu movies and honestly the fights on the Shaolin poles are some of the most nerve wracking Iâve ever seen. Yes I know that these cats probably had harness and scaffolding that they were actually standing on but these scenes still had be shouting, âThat is SOOOO dangerous!â at my TV and thatâs when a kung fu movie is at its absolute best.
The Great Muppet Caper (1981) - This movie, for whatever reason, worked so much better than The Muppet Movie for me. The plot was better and the cameos were better integrated into it, the fourth wall breaking was funnier and less of a plot crutch than in the Muppet movie and the song and dance numbers were more elaborate, borrowing from âOld Hollywoodâ with big Busby Berkeley numbers (including a goddamn Muppet water ballet). The jokes too were a lot better. Thereâs an ongoing bit about Kermit and Fonzie being âidentical twinsâ that people only can tell apart because Fonzie wears a hat. Itâs a good bit that becomes a great bit when in one scene a depressed Kermit sits on a bench in a park and some random child passing by says âLook dad a bear!â to which the father replies, âNo, thatâs a frog. Bears wear hats.â Itâs a great bit that becomes a perfect bit when Peter Falk then shows up immediately afterwards looking even more rumpled than usually and gets yelled at by a Muppet. Perfect movie.
Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - Marilyn Monroe has a breakdown while babysitting a kid in a hotel causing all hell to break loose in this weird-ass thriller. Iâd only ever seen Marilyn Monroe in sexpot and/or comedic roles before so to see her play such a disturbing character here was kind of wild. I mean she hogties a child and brains a dude with an ashtray standâŠkind of a far cry from âDiamonds are a Girlâs Best Friend,â if you ask me. Kind of a slow burn overall with a lot of the early runtime focused on a pilot named Jed (Richard Widmark) trying to convince a bar lounge Cowgirl singer (Anne Bancroft) not to break up with him but shit careens wildly out of control pretty quickly leading to a climax that is genuinely stressful to watch. Worth checking out if youâre into psychological thrillers or just want to see Marilyn Monroe go against type.
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Post by Celebith on Mar 11, 2024 2:40:39 GMT -5
For whatever reason, Amazon Prime Video is not blocked on our work network, but even with a VPN, it's almost impossible to watch via Korean internet. I love how many outright shlocky films they have, but I wanted something slightly safer for work, and have also been reading a bunch of Chandler lately, so I went with The Long Goodbye. To be fair, there's a lot of casual background nudity, which is often commented on but rarely emphasized. I've seen this a dozen or more times, but I always love it. - Leigh Bracket and Chandler are a good match. I love how differently the story plays out in the book vs. the movie, but they both work and are both my favorite Marlowe 'chapters'. - Marlowe doesn't stumble through this, but here he's one of the most hapless, wise-guy detectives in the genre. I couldn't see Bogart playing this version of him. - The cat sequence that kick things off is such a throwaway bit, but it really pulls things together. - Finding a photo where Gould is holding a cigarette instead of a gun was a challenge, because he smokes in literally every single scene he's in, but only holds a gun once. Almost all the violence is physical battery, and Marlowe gets a good deal of it. - Unsurprisingly, considering he also did MASH, the camera work gives a real 'fly-on-the-wall' feel. Altman frequently focuses on the environment between characters, instead of looking at any one person. Dialog is a bit 'mushy', and everything has that sort of ' wait... what?' vibe. - The soundtrack, with almost nothing but variations on the main theme, works without being obnoxious. When I think of 'the '70s', it's something between this and The Warriors. A washed, post-hippy, pre-disco, slightly confused and randomly violent mess.
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Post by Celebith on Mar 11, 2024 2:48:24 GMT -5
In which I watch some movies in the period of time between the last time I posted here and this very moment. The Muppet Movie (1979) - That said I probably wonât bother showing this to my kid because the humor is probably even less likely to hit with a small child in 2024 than it was with a small child in 1984. Like do you think a single child in 2024 knows who Telly Savalas is? It holds up, even without the references. If she's onboard for Rainbow Connection, the rest of it is a breeze. Who doesn't want to hang out with Fozzie and Kermit for 90 minutes, anyway?
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Post by Lurky McLurk on Mar 11, 2024 4:37:42 GMT -5
Blazing Saddles (1974)Well, it's Blazing Saddles. You've all seen it, and fifty years after its release I'm hardly going to have anything new or interesting to say about it now. Two observations only: - Madeline Kahn, as ever, slays.
- How the fuck did they film that bit where Mongo knocks out a horse?
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Mar 11, 2024 8:15:53 GMT -5
My review of Poor Things (2023):
Oh, a fish-eye lens shot of a highly stylized outdoor scene. Look, another fish-eye lens shot, this time indoors! Here's Emma Stone's tits. Here's another fish-eye lens shot, this time of Emma Stone's tits. And here's Mark Ruffalo, whose "if Vincent Price was actually a creep" accent comes and goes depending on which scene it is. And look, we're back to Emma Stone's tits again! Have a fish-eye lens shot of some half-assed Island of Dr. Moreau-type creations! Let's watch Emma Stone walk around as though she's got severe lower back pain in between token scenes of her learning about the world beyond banging gross dudes over and over in what we are meant to ascertain is a bid for agency over herself. What fun! How subversive!
This movie made me deeply tired. I never thought I'd get sick of seeing a naked beautiful woman, but it turns out 2 hours and 15 minutes is far too long for this sort of self-satisfied, too-clever-by-half tedium.
The Favourite, it was not.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 11, 2024 9:12:02 GMT -5
The Satan Bug (1965)
A mostly forgotten '60s caper that I'm sure played a lot on late night TV in subsequent decades but I'll bet most came away satisfied. Plotted and paced just well enough to keep the insomniacs invested while the 2 hours ensured the network could run plenty of mattress store ads. At a secret germ warfare lab in the Mojave, the recently invented Satan Bug--with the virulence to wipe out all life on Earth--is stolen by a billionaire with a messiah complex. Only handsome government agent Lee Barrett (George Maharis, who appears to have done nothing else of note) can stop it. Definitely not a peak effort by the great John Sturges (The Great Escape, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven).
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Post by haysoos on Mar 11, 2024 11:08:56 GMT -5
In which I watch some movies in the period of time between the last time I posted here and this very moment. The Muppet Movie (1979) - That said I probably wonât bother showing this to my kid because the humor is probably even less likely to hit with a small child in 2024 than it was with a small child in 1984. Like do you think a single child in 2024 knows who Telly Savalas is? It holds up, even without the references. If she's onboard for Rainbow Connection, the rest of it is a breeze. Who doesn't want to hang out with Fozzie and Kermit for 90 minutes, anyway? One of my biggest regrets in life is not having painted my VW van like the rainbow Studebaker back when I had it.
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Mar 11, 2024 12:31:07 GMT -5
Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - Marilyn Monroe has a breakdown while babysitting a kid in a hotel causing all hell to break loose in this weird-ass thriller. Iâd only ever seen Marilyn Monroe in sexpot and/or comedic roles before so to see her play such a disturbing character here was kind of wild. I mean she hogties a child and brains a dude with an ashtray standâŠkind of a far cry from âDiamonds are a Girlâs Best Friend,â if you ask me. Kind of a slow burn overall with a lot of the early runtime focused on a pilot named Jed (Richard Widmark) trying to convince a bar lounge Cowgirl singer (Anne Bancroft) not to break up with him but shit careens wildly out of control pretty quickly leading to a climax that is genuinely stressful to watch. Worth checking out if youâre into psychological thrillers or just want to see Marilyn Monroe go against type. I finally found another person who has seen this movie! I love how subtly she begins and then how quickly it escalates. I wish Marilyn's life had been different for so many reasons, but one of them is that we were robbed of getting to see her do more and more serious acting throughout the 1960s. She did an incredible job with her character unraveling mentally.
Shit. Imagine a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with her in Louise Fletcher's place. Not that Louise Fletcher wasn't amazing, but Marilyn Monroe as Nurse Ratched would have been something to behold. All that malice lurking under such a gorgeous facade.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 11, 2024 19:04:42 GMT -5
Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - Marilyn Monroe has a breakdown while babysitting a kid in a hotel causing all hell to break loose in this weird-ass thriller. Iâd only ever seen Marilyn Monroe in sexpot and/or comedic roles before so to see her play such a disturbing character here was kind of wild. I mean she hogties a child and brains a dude with an ashtray standâŠkind of a far cry from âDiamonds are a Girlâs Best Friend,â if you ask me. Kind of a slow burn overall with a lot of the early runtime focused on a pilot named Jed (Richard Widmark) trying to convince a bar lounge Cowgirl singer (Anne Bancroft) not to break up with him but shit careens wildly out of control pretty quickly leading to a climax that is genuinely stressful to watch. Worth checking out if youâre into psychological thrillers or just want to see Marilyn Monroe go against type. I finally found another person who has seen this movie! I love how subtly she begins and then how quickly it escalates. I wish Marilyn's life had been different for so many reasons, but one of them is that we were robbed of getting to see her do more and more serious acting throughout the 1960s. She did an incredible job with her character unraveling mentally.
Shit. Imagine a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with her in Louise Fletcher's place. Not that Louise Fletcher wasn't amazing, but Marilyn Monroe as Nurse Ratched would have been something to behold. All that malice lurking under such a gorgeous facade.
It's weird that she didn't get more roles like this during her career because she was so good in this movie. The balance she manages to strike so that the audience is both disgusted with her character and also feels pity for her is kind of incredible. It's not something most later psychological thrillers manage to do or even bother attempting in many cases. A monster's just a monster but Marilyn's performance is so affecting that you kind of overlook the fact that she tries to shove a kid out a window. And yeah I'm super bummed that we didn't really get "New Hollywood" Marilyn Monroe because I think she would been great in grittier, more realistic movies where she got to really act as opposed to just look terrific on film.
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Post by chalkdevil's night đ on Mar 15, 2024 16:30:53 GMT -5
Damsel (2024) Look, I know it was a stupid idea to expect this to be good, but sometimes you just have to take a break from whatever series you're binging and watch something fun and dumb. This movie was only one of those things. I know we, as a society, are trying to make Mildred Robert Brown a big big star because we liked it when she was a kid and she was bald and ate eggos, but I dunno. I guess at least she wasn't in the cast for Euphoria like every other up and coming actor under 30. Anyway, I guess spoilers because who could care. So, MBB is a princess in a poor country somewhere that gets snow. You know she's kind and capable because she is introduced cutting wood with absolutely terrible form while telling her little sister she'll need to give up her curtains to help keep "their people" warm because everyone is cold and starving. Then they walk miles back to their little castle because they were cutting the wood on the top of a cold, barren hill nowhere near a forest or homes. Establishing drone shots looked good though. At any rate, she's a princess in a piece of modern YA fantasy media so she is sold off as a bride to a rich prince no one has ever heard off, which is good because we just established that "the people" are starving. So, the whole family sails off to this hereto unknown kingdom in what I can assume is a months long trip while "their people" starve to death. So, they get to a big huge castle, Queen Buttercup is there and she's evil, obviously. Her son, the prince, isn't evil, but is complicit in the evil, but is still handsome and nice to MBB. Suspicion is aroused, MBB marries the dude anyway, and then she's tossed down a pit. She survives the 100ft drop I guess because their are tree roots to break her fall. And, oh shit, wouldn't you know it, she's a sacrifice for a dragon. So, now we have about 45 minutes of running around a small cave system with lots of light and multiple types of ecosystems. There's some flashbacks that also kind of feel like maybe she has some sort of ESP because she sees all sorts of previous princesses, but anyway, apparently it's pretty easy to survive this dragon as dozens of them sign their name on the wall of a section of the cave that we just spent 20 minutes of running and screaming to get to. She never has to show any real ingenuity as the previous princesses have left an escape map on the wall and she just walks 100 yards to a potential way out. She almost escapes, but then doesn't. Turns out the dragon can leave the cave. MBB's dad shows up to rescue her. He dies but leaves Chekov's sword behind. MBB learns that the evil kingdom killed the dragon's babies hundreds of years ago and now has a pact to sacrifice 3 of their daughters every generation. The evil kingdom gets around this by rubbing the prince's blood on the princesses before the sacrifice so they smell like the evil royal family. Anyway, through a series of convenient stupidity MBB escapes and hides under a big rock. Evil Queen Buttercup kidnaps MBB's little sister, smears blood on her and tosses her in the pit. MBB goes back to save her, sets up one minor trap (a candle burns a rope that lets a pile of armor tip over to distract the dragon). This trap distracts the dragon for 5 seconds and then it's time to use that sword that was dropped and we got the nice slow-mo insert shot of. MBB stabs the dragon a bunch and gets it to blow fire on itself and defeats it. She spares it's life and explains the blood thing and that she's not part of the evil royal family. So, cut to MBB wandering untouched by guards into the middle of another wedding at the evil castle and explains to them that they suck and then the dragon shows up and we get a rehash of Daenarys from Game of Thrones. Neat. Now we end with MBB sailing back to her home with the dragon flying over head and she has a look that says, "I am going to use this dragon to destroy the neighboring kingdoms and steal their resources.
Sigh, in conclusion. Don't watch this movie. It almost reminded me of that Hulu movie from a year ago called "The Princess" that also kind of sucked but had a princess going all The Raid down a castle tower, but this never has MBB do anything awesome.
The Crow (1994) I hadn't seen this in 25 years. I remember seeing it as a angsty kid and thinking I should like it but knowing I really didn't. The same holds true now. The movie is a mess. Maybe that has to do with Brandon Lee's death. But I don't know. It's just, something. And, not to speak ill of the dead, but I'm not sure Brandon Lee was a very good actor. This is the only thing of his I've ever seen. Still, the vibes are there. This movie is all vibes. And a couple of good villains. Honestly, the soundtrack is far more meaningful for me than this movie is. And that soundtrack is poorly integrated into the movie.
Additional note to say that the trailer for the new Crow movie dropped and it looks pretty forgettable. I guess the grungy goth esthetic of the 90s is now dirtbag Florida rapper. Which is too bad since the original movie was all vibes, a better constructed movie that has those types of dark vibes could be a real winner. This just looks like every other movie where they let the stunt coordinator directed a bunch of one take action scenes that go 5 minutes too long.
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Post by ganews on Mar 15, 2024 20:07:23 GMT -5
And, not to speak ill of the dead, but I'm not sure Brandon Lee was a very good actor. This is the only thing of his I've ever seen. Showdown in Little Tokyo is definitely not some brilliant movie - no more elevated than Nudeviking's preferences - but it's worth a watch.
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ABz Bđčanaz
Grandfathered In
This country is (now less of) a shitshow.
Posts: 1,945
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Post by ABz Bđčanaz on Mar 16, 2024 0:29:14 GMT -5
Dune (2021)It really is worth seeing in IMAX if possible. This is a much more straightforward version than Lynch's, which I guess it would have to be given that it is only the first half whereas Lynch had to cram everything into 137 minutes. This one runs a healthy 156 minutes just to cover the first half of the book. I have to say, I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite like it. I was worried that they would dumb down the politics and odder aspects, but it stays pretty true to the story. Almost Shakespearean at times. There is a fair amount of voice over and exposition but they are not too obtrusive. It is not Star Wars, Avatar or a Marvel movie, which is what I was worried it might become given the budget and star power. It feels very much like a single vision instead of movie by committee. The sound and visuals are striking to say the least, I may have to go back with some edibles. I just got out of Part 2, and GODDAMN that was amazing. I blame my sheltered half-religious childhood for not realizing Paul is NOT a good guy before , but this movie makes it very clear. The visuals, as in every other Villenueve film, are fucking spectacular. The Harkonnen planet is just so bizarre and off-putting in the best way. "Fireworks" that look like giant splashes of ink! After this and Wonka, I am 100% convinced that Timothee Chalamet is a fantastic actor. I might even stop making fun of his name...probably not.
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,650
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Post by repulsionist on Mar 16, 2024 2:00:12 GMT -5
Utu (1983, restored and re-cut 2013)
MÄori Spaghetti Western film using events from Te Kooti's War in the late 19th century as reference that really goes for If You Live, Shoot! grades of cinema violence. Excellent location shoots. Sometimes the evening, night battle scenes don't show up as crisply even with the restoration. Well told story of revenge.
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Post by nowimnothing on Mar 16, 2024 8:46:43 GMT -5
Dune (2021)It really is worth seeing in IMAX if possible. This is a much more straightforward version than Lynch's, which I guess it would have to be given that it is only the first half whereas Lynch had to cram everything into 137 minutes. This one runs a healthy 156 minutes just to cover the first half of the book. I have to say, I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite like it. I was worried that they would dumb down the politics and odder aspects, but it stays pretty true to the story. Almost Shakespearean at times. There is a fair amount of voice over and exposition but they are not too obtrusive. It is not Star Wars, Avatar or a Marvel movie, which is what I was worried it might become given the budget and star power. It feels very much like a single vision instead of movie by committee. The sound and visuals are striking to say the least, I may have to go back with some edibles. I just got out of Part 2, and GODDAMN that was amazing. I blame my sheltered half-religious childhood for not realizing Paul is NOT a good guy before , but this movie makes it very clear. The visuals, as in every other Villenueve film, are fucking spectacular. The Harkonnen planet is just so bizarre and off-putting in the best way. "Fireworks" that look like giant splashes of ink! After this and Wonka, I am 100% convinced that Timothee Chalamet is a fantastic actor. I might even stop making fun of his name...probably not. I watched the second with some edibles in Imax and yeah, Giedi Prime was amazing. It continues to lean into the weirdness in a good way.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 16, 2024 19:57:51 GMT -5
Terre Thaemlitz: Give Up on Hopes and Dreams (2021) Other than, um, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, electronic artist Thaemlitz is probably the most famous musician to hail from my hometown, Springfield MO. Sheâs transgender (though deliberately uses alternating pronouns) and queer theory informs much of her work, including this surrealistic documentary produced by Resident Advisor magazine that opens with a hilarious reading of Whatâs Opera, Doc? Basically, the film plays like if you smashed together Von Trierâs The Five Obstructions and The Celluloid Closet. Very heady stuff but, again, often quite funny. Available free on Youtube. Sisters with Transistors (2020) Laurie Anderson-narrated documentary about the female pioneers of electronic music, including Bebe Barron, Wendy Carlos, Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, Pauline Oliveros, etc. I wish the scope had included more women of color (for instance, Buffy Sainte-Marie should be regarded as an early adopter since, on 1969âs Illuminations, she ran her vocals through a Buchla synth and it was the first album of any sort to employ quadraphonic recording). Still, it makes the case effectively that electronic allowed unprecedented freedom for adventurous musicians in the era in the nascent Womenâs Lib era. In most examples, the musiciansâ joy at being solo composers in the archival footage is palpable. Our story begins in 1934 with Clara Rockmore popularizing the theremin as a classical instrument. We then go to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the â50s and â60s where Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire, previously an Oxford-educated mathematician, wrote pieces including the Dr. Who theme (which took 40 days to create). The film also makes an interesting observation that Derbyshire credits growing up in Coventry under the Blitz as a main influence on her music, similar to the Detroit guys responding to urban blight decades later. In France, Eliane Radigue builds on the musique concrete experiments of Pierres Schaffer and Henry and basically singlehandedly invents drone music. Yes, very niche but if this stuff floats your boat itâs a quality doc.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 17, 2024 19:17:13 GMT -5
Here be some movies I watched this past week.
Method Man (1979) - Most of this movie kind of sucks. The plotâs cliche nonsense, the lead actor has zero charisma, the dub is terrible, and far too much of the movieâs runtime is painfully unfunny comedy bullshit involving some annoying asshole named Stumpy. I was all ready to declare that between this and The Mystery of Chess Boxing the dudes in Wu Tang Clan had shockingly mediocre taste when it came to the movies they got their names from but then I got to the last 30 minutes and holy shit did it go hard! Just an endless barrage of kung fu violence and honest to god Gymkata! For real the final fight involved gymnastic rings and shit. Itâs kind of a shame the first hour or so was such a dud because the last half hour is more or less perfect.
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) - When I was a kid this was my favorite of the three Muppet movies that existed but now I don't really understand why. Sure there a few decent bits (Pete's "Peoples is peoples..." spiels chief among them) but overall this is some mawkish, overly sentimental nonsense. I also learned something watching it for the first time in 4K UHD wide screen instead of the taped off TV 4:3 version I used to watch on a 20" TV version I watched as a child and that was the roller skating scene has a real human being dressed as Miss Piggy for the long shots and it is WRONG! They did this in Great Muppet Caper too when Miss Piggy rides a motorcycle but there she had on a motorcycle helmet with a visor so it was less offensive than the uncanny "What if Miss Piggy was a living thing?" vibe present here. And speaking of does Animal continue to be a sex pest in modern Muppets? Like in the first ten minutes of this he chases like 3 different women bellowing "WOMAN! WOMAN!" as they scream and flee in terror and it's played for laughs. Anyway that's about all I have to say about Muppets Take Manhattan except for the fact that I probably shouldn't think too much about the fact that like half the women I dated in my life looked exactly like Jenny from this here movie film.
The Painted Hills (1951) - I saw this back in the 90s via MST3K but outside of a few of the riffs didnât remember much about this movie beyond the fact that itâs a Lassie movie where Lassie (played by Pal) is named Shep and is owned by an old timey prospector. When that old timey prospector gets murdered by an evil businessman Shep becomes a one-dog wrecking crew out for vengeance. I kid you not, this Lassie movie is a revenge flick that culminates with her pushing a frostbitten evil businessman with a gun frozen into his hand off a cliff to his death. Shit was way more hardcore than the Lassie TV show I used to watch reruns of as a child in the 80s.
Daughter of the Dragon (1931) - Anytime I watch an Anna May Wong movie it bums me out that she didnât have a better career. Here sheâs playing Fu Manchuâs daughter out for revenge against some British fucks that killed off her family. The movie is pretty boilerplate pulpy crime fare but not awful. That ânot awful,â it should be noted, comes with a massive caveat. Between the yellowface performance of Warner Olandâs Fu Manchu (as well as several other âChineseâ characters), the Orientalism, and the yellow peril themes of the storyline this movie is kind of racist by most standards but if youâre willing to look past that nonsense thereâs still some decent stuff. Anna May Wongâs performance is pretty good and her costumes are amazing and the dude playing the manservant to the family Anna May Wong is out to kill (Harold Minjir) has some genuinely funny bits. Itâs relatively short and the action moves at a good clip too so it never gets boring.
King of Chinatown (1939) - Anna May Wong is a Mary Ling, a Chinese-American surgeon who saves the life of the âKing of Chinatownâ after assuming her father was the person that shot him. While thereâs still some very of its time racism (Mary Lingâs father is a white dude in yellowface) a lot of this came across as kind of progressive. Besides Lingâs father every other Chinese character is played by an Asian person and none of them use stereotypical broken English and all of them are depicted as honest and hardworking members of the community which is very different from Daughter of the Dragon. Also I have to give the whoever wrote this credit for having a scene where Mary Ling brings some coworkers home for dinner on Chinese New Year and one white dude declares that he canât wait to get at that chop suey only for Maryâs dad to reply âWhy would we eat American food on Chinese New Year?â Itâs honestly a good bit as is the bit a moment later where that same dude ends up drinking maotai (or some other Chinese liquor) and nearly dies. The cast is pretty excellent and the film moves along at a pretty good clip and covers like a half dozen different genres in rapid succession. One second itâs a gangster flick and then the next itâs a hospital drama and then itâs a romantic melodrama. Itâs honestly kind of impressive for a movie that clocks in at a hair under an hour.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Mar 17, 2024 19:31:49 GMT -5
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) - When I was a kid this was my favorite of the three Muppet movies that existed but now I don't really understand why. Sure there a few decent bits (Pete's "Peoples is peoples..." spiels chief among them) but overall this is some mawkish, overly sentimental nonsense. I also learned something watching it for the first time in 4K UHD wide screen instead of the taped off TV 4:3 version I used to watch on a 20" TV version I watched as a child and that was the roller skating scene has a real human being dressed as Miss Piggy for the long shots and it is WRONG! They did this in Great Muppet Caper too when Miss Piggy rides a motorcycle but there she had on a motorcycle helmet with a visor so it was less offensive than the uncanny "What if Miss Piggy was a living thing?" vibe present here. And speaking of does Animal continue to be a sex pest in modern Muppets? Like in the first ten minutes of this he chases like 3 different women bellowing "WOMAN! WOMAN!" as they scream and flee in terror and it's played for laughs. Anyway that's about all I have to say about Muppets Take Manhattan except for the fact that I probably shouldn't think too much about the fact that like half the women I dated in my life looked exactly like Jenny from this here movie film. It's easily my least favorite of the first three films, and I think it was a bizarre choice to do what was functionally a second origin movie as the third picture. The character balance also feels off, with too many humans and one-off Muppets and too little with the classic cast.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Mar 17, 2024 22:20:04 GMT -5
I watched a double feature of movies where women are paid money to follow other women around staring at them invasively. May December is tonally really interesting. It's about a tawdry gossip-page scandal, but it's emotionally aloof and distancing. It's about personal strife of the deepest kind but has some really funny bits. It features really well-drawn, well-acted main characters but the actual writing doesn't let you get to know them too closely. The only thing that's consistent is the cinematography (a bit blurry and fuzzy and obscurantist) matching the writing style. Julianne Moore is a naive former schoolteacher who fell for and got pregnant by her student. It's Mary Kay LeTourneau, a pedo story, but this takes place 25ish years later, when their own kids are getting ready to go to college, and when Natalie Portman shows up to study to play her in a movie. It's not about the original case, really; it's about how it affected the boy now that he's a man, and how it reads to Portman. And it's also about how Moore's character is perpetually locked in a weird state of (im)maturity. She's both a mom to her husband and a child. She behaves like a little girl, expecting the world to go perfectly and treat her like a princess, throwing obnoxious temper tantrums when it doesn't. But she also reminds her hubz to take out the trash like he's still 13. It's a fascinatingly ugly, brave performance. And Portman is just as bold, mimicking Moore, peeling back layers from "vapid Hollywood celeb meeting her fans" to something deeper and more interesting. Ultimately it's more of a Makes You Think movie more than a Makes You Feel movie. In large part because the script keeps its characters from really baring their souls too often. Aside from Moore's tantrums, the most emotional anyone gets are her husband - while he's high - and Portman's big speech - which is acting, reading a letter someone else wrote. That feels symbolic. But man, I especially loved the local color provided by the Georgia-based actors who fill out smaller roles, like Moore's ex-husband and the pet shop owner. Engrossing to watch, and thoughtful both about the pathology of the Moore character and the vampire-like quality of what actors do when they play real-life people. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, of course, starts with that same vampiric premise - this lady has to follow that lady around watching her and learning her tics - and goes the exact opposite direction. These two ladies are in the late 1700s, and one's supposed to paint the other's portrait so that she can be sold off in marriage to an Italian nobleman. Then they fall in love. I think I can be brief. This shit is magic. Cinema, baby! I was a huge sucker for love story movies when I was single, and now after being in a long term relationship for a while...I'm only 10% less of a sucker. The opening credits are so stylish. The flashback structure is textbook - one of those cliches where I go "hell yeah! I love this cliche! Bring it!" The storytelling is superb, the silences and pauses are so engrossing that I thought "ooh, nobody's talking, I need to look more closely." The musical interlude is jarringly ahistorical/out of style. But the cut from that scene to the next scene is so enthralling, so perfect, that I was right back in again. There are a dozen stills of the movie I'll keep in my head for years. And the way that she plays the Vivaldi on the harpsichord... Also, shoutout to the actress who plays the maid/cook, who took a role that was clearly the Last Place part in the script and absolutely killed it. Everyone did. A rewatch every five years kind of movie.
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Dr. Rumak
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Post by Dr. Rumak on Mar 20, 2024 12:37:47 GMT -5
Fast Charlie
If you have ever watched Knives Out and wondered "What would it be like to hear a different James Bond actor try to do a Cajun accent?", then this is the movie for you. Otherwise, fairly standard crime movie where Pierce Brosnan plays an old hit man who has to deal with attempts to kill him and his other business associates. From what I can tell, it was James Caan's last movie.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Mar 22, 2024 21:41:54 GMT -5
Just saw and loved Late Night with the Devil and wow, according to Letterboxd I just murdered cinema. I hate AI a lot but the discourse around its use in this movie is overblown.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 23, 2024 14:29:02 GMT -5
Last night a friend asked me to go with him to see the new film Problemista (2024, dir. Julio Torres). I knew nothing about this film going into it.
It's definitely messy. It is a comedy film that is about a young man who is a toy designer from El Salvador dealing with the ridiculous USA immigration system, trying to get a visa to stay and work in the USA. It is a bit silly, sometimes for good and sometimes not. It's over-the-top, fantasy/fairytale-esque, and I'm not sure the director entirely pulls this off. Some of it works and feels very fun, some of it is a bit heavy handed. It's just a LOT.
Tilda Swinton is in it playing the guy's crazy boss, and she gives this demon-possessed performance that is wild to watch.
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Mar 23, 2024 23:02:36 GMT -5
Iâm not nostalgic at all about Ghostbusters- the original wasnât formative for me, and Iâm not a huge Bill Murray fan, so take that into account, but Frozen Empire was a perfectly acceptable way to pass a couple hours. You do have to be willing to accept that random grownups would take up ghostbusting just like that, but itâs not a huge stretch I guess? Winston gets a lot of story time, the set design is absolutely fantastic, and McKenna Grace continues to be a great weird little girl. Much like Ray continues to be a delightful weird old man.
Dragging in both of the schoolmates from Afterlife was a little shoehorny, honestly I find Kumail Nanjiani extremely one-note (and a bland note at that)and Finn Wolfhard sorta disappears halfway through like they forgot his character existed, but otherwise I enjoyed it for what it was.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 24, 2024 18:22:28 GMT -5
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Very interesting actor's choices from Sandra Huller here, who I've been following since Toni Erdmann (loved it). She plays Mrs. Hoss as childlike, a former farmgirl who married above her station, up until things go awry and she becomes coarse to the point of thuggish. It's apparent in the walk she employs for the character, ungainly though I think that's partially a comment on that her supposedly palatial home is also a prison.
Anyway, I think the readings on this movie are mostly correct, that it's a formalist exercise with next-level sound design but an excellent one in that.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 25, 2024 3:05:53 GMT -5
Movies (in the loosest sense of the term)!
The Ape Man (1943) - A scientist (Bela Lugosi) turned into an ape man for reasons that are never really made clear and then, unhappy with this transformation, uses an ape ape (as opposed to an ape man) to murder people in order to get âspinal fluidâ in order to turn himself back in a man man in this Poverty Row cheapie. The plot is nonsense but the gorilla costume for the ape ape is kind of funny and the ending is weird enough to make this slightly worth checking out. I mean itâs just an hour long so itâs not a heavy time investment or anything. Apes! đŠ
Deadly Shaolin Longfist (1982) - This was a lot of nonsense. The editing was complete shit and the dub I watched was terrible so for like 60% the movie's runtime I had no fucking clue what was going on. I guess there was some gold that guys were trying to steal or something but I'm not really sure. There was an old weird who taught a dude chess which also made him good at kung fu, a random guy with a flag, and a lady that I think was supposed to be undercover as a dude. I say I think she was supposed to be pretending to be a guy because there was a scene where she gets kicked into the ocean and comes up in a wet shirt revealing that she has breasts and everyone who sees her is shocked but everyone in the dub had referred to her as a woman from the get-go so maybe that one guy was just surprised by the size of her tits and not that she had tits to begin with. Between the crummy dub, the mess of a plot and the fact that there were way too many "comic relief" scenes involving some dork running a restaurant that didn't really have any bearing on anything else happening in the movie this would have been a massive thumbs down had it been any other genre of film, but this is a martial arts film and when it came time to fight this movie fucking ruled. This was made in South Korea so everyone in it are cats that learned taekwondo rather than kung fu so the fight scenes are way more kick heavy than the average kung fu flick out of Hong Kong or Taiwan generally is. Picture an entire cast of Hwang Jang-Lees and you have an idea of the sort of ownage present here during the fight scenes. The last twenty minutes or so ruled so much ass with dudes doing backflips off trees, kicking dudes and then using their kicking leg to choke a dude out. Shit owns and very nearly makes up for the crap that preceded it.
Tarzeena: Jiggle In The Jungle (2008) - Half Tarzan parody. Half mad scientist sci-fi flick. Half softcore sex romp. Tarzeena: Jiggle In The Jungle crams a lot of movie into its short runtime. Boobs, butts, forced perspective to make a toy helicopter look like a full-size helicopter, a guy in a gorilla suit, Evan Stone being goofy. This movie has it all. Though not the greatest movie Iâve ever seen it is maybe the best movie with a guy in a gorilla suit Iâve seen this week.
The Punisher (1989) - I wish they still made Marvel movies where guys yelled âFuck you!â and mowed down goons with machine guns because this movie ruled all the ass. Sadly I think those things are things of the past and the world is a worse place for it.
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Post by chalkdevil's night đ on Mar 25, 2024 14:45:56 GMT -5
Wonka (2023) This was pretty charming. I dunno what else to say. It's directed by the Paddington dude and it stays in that same lane*. It was quite nice. Timmée did a good job, which I was doubtful of when that first trailer came out. He's sings, not super well, but not poorly, and it was nice he didn't sound autotuned to hell and back. Generally worth your time.
Also, my wife and daughter saw this in the theater in December and listen to the soundtrack all the time so I already knew all the songs and they are pretty constantly stuck in my head. They are pretty decent songs.
Balls of Fury (2007) I haven't been able to get to Dune 2 and it looks unlikely that I'll get to it in theaters (Where do people find baby sisters these days? Why don't I know anyone nearby with responsible teenagers I can load my kid off on for a few hours?), so I did the next best thing to seeing Christopher Walken as the emperor of the known universe and instead watched him dressed up as a Chinese emperor and say "ping pong" a bunch. I still find this movie terribly funny because I am an immature child. Also, I turned this on for my wife. I remember her crying laughing at this thing when we saw it in theaters.
* I know there are certain younger film nerds that I've seen around cyberspace who think Paddington 2 deserved the Best Picture Oscar in whatever year it was released. I'm not one of those, but I saw both Paddington movies and they were low stakes and quite nice. Really I think I appreciated the lack of cynicism in those movies.
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Mar 25, 2024 19:05:51 GMT -5
Feel like my last few movies can fit into a couple of themes: Drive-away dolls: On the one hand I think this one was judged unfairlyâitâs a fun movie on its own terms and deserved to be judged on them. On the other hand you can still hear and see the Coen side of the film, and itâs clearly half-Coen, definitely missing something. A comparison with The Tragedy of Macbeth is, if anything, even more unfair, but Joel definitely made the better choice replacing his brother with Shakespeare. Love lies bleeding: This worked really well for me until the (literal) big (allegorical?) movement in the end. A film like this shouldnât have an unambiguous happy ending . Blood simple: I saw Love lies bleeding compared to Blood Simple and thatâs a really unfair comparison. The Coen Brothers have everything to prove and this film really has a precision and beauty (that lighting!) thatâs obvious here in a way that isnât in their later films. Maybe thatâs a shortcomingâa bit too showy, focused on setpiecesâbut this filmâs terseâevery line is delivered with precision and earned that backdrop. I got the Criterion of this on a saleâI thought this would be a gift but I might keep it. The interview with the Coens is great. I watched this a few days before M. Emmet Walshâs death and their anecdotes of working with him are great: were surprised when he, not his agent, answered the phone, and admitted that he didnât seem like the kind of guy whoâd get along with agents; didnât know how to address him; were worried how theyâd tell him how the accent he was trying out wasnât working; had to pay him in cash at the end of each weekâone-of-a-kind off-screen as well as on. The Wedding Banquet: Here we come full circle to mixed-orientation marriage. I enjoyed this having had something of a close outside view to Taiwaneseâand even mainland (was the white guy boyfriend to a classical musician, even)âfamily dynamics (even one generation down I recognized a lot), and itâs always good to see that sort of specificity done well; a lot was taken from the lives of Ang Lee and his friends and it brings the semi-contrived romantic comedy aspects to life (although the closet-preserving marriage-citizenship scheme came from a friend, he never went through with it). Itâs aged surprisingly well, not just because of the persistence of the Taiwanese and immigrant mentalities but also because itâs still rare to see real affection and closeness in a gay couple in mainstream filmâthatâs less true of TV, and maybe a consequence of the near-death of the mainstream film comedy than anything else. Itâs also the rare romantic comedy about a relationship being tested rather than startedâmaybe that falls a bit into the âcomedy of remarriageâ from the 30s (one of Leeâs inspirations) but while thereâs conflict Wai-Tung and Simon never fall out of love, just experience a stress test (Iâm kind of surprised that Mitchell Lichtensteinâs not done much on screen because heâs very good here, but on the other hand I canât blame him for sitting out a couple decades full of gay stereotypes).
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