What are we watching now?

[cragginshred]

Been playing this in the background today. Probably watch it again when I have time to watch all of it.

Guess where my band (former band) got it's name? Local historic hotel is the Gunn house, so I added the 2nd N





We have been watching this on Hulu, wifey approved! It's a chore to find shows she will like and I can stomach

 

[laxu]

Went to see Furiosa in theaters. I had low expectations as the trailer seemed just alright...but it was actually really badass!

When I first learned about the movie I felt "we don't need a Furiosa prequel backstory", but I'm totally cool with getting one after seeing the film. It's totally the kind of film that is worth seeing in a good theater where you can really feel those car engines roaring etc.

At 2h 28m it's a long movie, but it's so well paced that there's very few dull moments. It keeps moving along at just the right pace for most of the film to tell the story they wanted to tell.

George Miller really knows what he's doing because it looks gorgeous, action scenes are incredibly well done, and the wasteland aesthetic is spot on. While that's kind of expected considering the other Mad Max movies he's directed, I was on the edge of my seat for all the action. It's so refreshing after so many movies going for jump cuts where the action becomes incomprehensive or is so by-the-numbers that you know exactly what will happen next.

Chris Hemsworth as a villain is pretty good, but I wasn't always sure if he's on the right line of crazy/manipulative, or if he could have gone even bigger. In terms of styling, I was living for all the different villains and their outfits and vehicles. Hemsworth riding a chariot pulled by 3 motorcycles was dope as hell, and perfectly fitting for the character.

Anya Taylor-Joy was good as usual, and I think actually a good fit for the role, even if I prefer Charlize Theron. But you can't exactly make a prequel with an actor who is almost a decade older since the last movie came out.

I'd love to see a making of video. Nowadays it's hard to tell what are real stunts and what are not. After seeing the making of reel at the end of The Fall Guy, there were so many stunts that were done for real when I thought "surely that must be CG", just with wires and pads removed digitally and maybe sparks and debris added.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Just tried, again, to actually watch 2001 A Space Odyssey, and even though this time I tried to pay attention, it bored me to tears, so to speak. This sums up my thoughts: In a 2001 review, the BBC said that its slow pacing often alienates modern audiences more than it did upon its initial release.

Reviews were polarizing, and I'm firmly on the side that thinks it's a turd! Like, how long, and how many times, do you need to show the spaceship slowly moving across the screen? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was new at the time, but it just seemed to be Kubrick's way of saying, Look at what we did!

 

[TSJMajesty]

OTOH, Alice Cooper seemed to be a really cool and nice guy taking care of his hired guns even though he knows they may not stick around.

Alice Cooper was good friends with Glen Campbell, often playing golf together! Kind of an odd couple...

 

[TSJMajesty]

Very Cool and Interesting Take on the Brown Sound, seems to make sense
it was not just a Plexi !!, some sort of amp slaving along with a loadbox, which unfortunately dont think can be don in the Fractalverse

 

[State of Epicicity]

My wife agrees with you on 2001. I'm on the other side. To me, when a director is slow, they can be building toward making something later in the film have greater impact. I think 2001 and The Deer Hunter fall into this category. I think Terrence Malick did this the right way for a couple of films then lost it and got self-indulgent and terrible. I also loved the way Kubrick decided to interpret the novel, which I also loved in its own right. To me he was using the long shots as a way to imbue grandeur and a sense of true awe and wonder, in addition to underlining a presupposed future dominance of technology that would not have a human feeling to it. The humans in 2001 are ants against a backdrop of giants, and to me it's all his commentary on humanity's future.

I think hating 2001 might mean a preference for plot movement as the main driver of a film. There's a whole style built on rejecting that, so I'd definitely stay away from Andrei Tarkovsky too. If you think 2001 was too much, the original Solaris will bring you to your knees!

I can go either way. Mid to late Malick is just masturbatory, but I think The Deer Hunter is a masterpiece. For the opposite of this kind of thing, watch 30s Warner Bros gangster movies: nothing but badasses moving the plot with badass lines delivered like a badass. Bullets for Ballots and G-Men are two great ones!

 

[TSJMajesty]

My wife agrees with you on 2001. I'm on the other side. To me, when a director is slow, they can be building toward making something later in the film have greater impact. I think 2001 and The Deer Hunter fall into this category. I think Terrence Malick did this the right way for a couple of films then lost it and got self-indulgent and terrible. I also loved the way Kubrick decided to interpret the novel, which I also loved in its own right. To me he was using the long shots as a way to imbue grandeur and a sense of true awe and wonder, in addition to underlining a presupposed future dominance of technology that would not have a human feeling to it. The humans in 2001 are ants against a backdrop of giants, and to me it's all his commentary on humanity's future.

You 'get' all of that, and I get it.

But I'll say it like this, an analogy I like to use...

If I think the food tastes bad, tell the chef, (I don't do that, but for the sake of argument...) and then he proceeds to tell me all about how he used this and that spices, and why he chose these flavors and yada yada, it doesn't make me suddenly go, "Oh! Now I get it. It tastes great!"

No. It still tastes like shit. To me, of course.

To me, that's like a joke that has to be explained.

a preference for plot movement as the main driver of a film.

Yeah, I like that. Maybe not always the main driver, but it's up there. Sometimes the opening music and/or scenery takes me right in. Heat is a great example.

 

[State of Epicicity]

You 'get' all of that, and I get it.

But I'll say it like this, an analogy I like to use...

If I think the food tastes bad, tell the chef, (I don't do that, but for the sake of argument...) and then he proceeds to tell me all about how he used this and that spices, and why he chose these flavors and yada yada, it doesn't make me suddenly go, "Oh! Now I get it. It tastes great!"

No. It still tastes like shit. To me, of course.

To me, that's like a joke that has to be explained.

Yeah, I like that. Maybe not always the main driver, but it's up there. Sometimes the opening music and/or scenery takes me right in. Heat is a great example.

I completely understand.

Heat is another masterpiece to me.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Transformers The Movie, from 1986. Epic and Brutal. I loved it totally. This sums it up beautifully:

 

[laxu]

I think hating 2001 might mean a preference for plot movement as the main driver of a film. There's a whole style built on rejecting that, so I'd definitely stay away from Andrei Tarkovsky too. If you think 2001 was too much, the original Solaris will bring you to your knees!

I don't mind 2001, but Tarkovsky is definitely where I draw the line. I've watched some Solaris remake that I didn't mind watching on TV, but the original would be too much. There's nothing wrong with slow pacing if it's for a good reason.

I felt for example Mandy was stretching the wrong scenes to the point that I wanted the plot to move along. It was not building a mood, or revealing more about the characters. It was just padding.

I do think you need to be in the right mood for movies like 2001 and I still understand why people don't like it.

 

[State of Epicicity]

I tried several Tarkovsky films, and I came away thinking he was just out to burn up as much film stock as possible. Maybe he had his soul crushed like so many others in the Soviet block, but it was Nostalghia that made me just lose it. The dude crossing the empty pool for a million minutes was not a cool and clever commentary to me; it was an artist trying to fill space when he had nothing else to say and to make the audience suffer in some way that soothed him.

I saw The Sacrifice in high school, and I remember thinking it was great that two characters were discussing Dostoyevsky and that the director has his own vision of what a film could be, but I rewatched it with my wife years later and thought it was just mediocre, which shocked me.

I tried Andrei Rublev by him too, and I couldn't make it fifteen minutes because the subtitles were impossible to read.

The thing that can easily hook me is that Tarkovsky worked with Erland Josephson, and I really like that guy. To me he's very effective and commanding, and definitely one of my favorite of Bergman's regulars. I don't know how far it really goes with the dudes who worship Bergman, but it seems like Tarkovsky and Woody Allen getting Sven Nykvist to shoot films for them was just pure idolatry. Hell, even The Ox, directed by Nykvist, felt very Bergman to me.

And back to 2001 and Tarkovsky, this goes into that: https://www.openculture.com/2015/07...hony-film-with-only-pretensions-to-truth.html

 

[State of Epicicity]

Transformers The Movie, from 1986. Epic and Brutal. I loved it totally. This sums it up beautifully:

"Return to a film so 80's, two different robots turn into boomboxes and their cassette tapes fight each other."

I can't get that line out of my head, and each time it fills me with deep joy.

 

[mbenigni]

Went to see Furiosa in theaters. I had low expectations as the trailer seemed just alright...but it was actually really badass!

When I first learned about the movie I felt "we don't need a Furiosa prequel backstory", but I'm totally cool with getting one after seeing the film. It's totally the kind of film that is worth seeing in a good theater where you can really feel those car engines roaring etc.

At 2h 28m it's a long movie, but it's so well paced that there's very few dull moments. It keeps moving along at just the right pace for most of the film to tell the story they wanted to tell.

George Miller really knows what he's doing because it looks gorgeous, action scenes are incredibly well done, and the wasteland aesthetic is spot on. While that's kind of expected considering the other Mad Max movies he's directed, I was on the edge of my seat for all the action. It's so refreshing after so many movies going for jump cuts where the action becomes incomprehensive or is so by-the-numbers that you know exactly what will happen next.

Chris Hemsworth as a villain is pretty good, but I wasn't always sure if he's on the right line of crazy/manipulative, or if he could have gone even bigger. In terms of styling, I was living for all the different villains and their outfits and vehicles. Hemsworth riding a chariot pulled by 3 motorcycles was dope as hell, and perfectly fitting for the character.

Anya Taylor-Joy was good as usual, and I think actually a good fit for the role, even if I prefer Charlize Theron. But you can't exactly make a prequel with an actor who is almost a decade older since the last movie came out.

I'd love to see a making of video. Nowadays it's hard to tell what are real stunts and what are not. After seeing the making of reel at the end of The Fall Guy, there were so many stunts that were done for real when I thought "surely that must be CG", just with wires and pads removed digitally and maybe sparks and debris added.

I heard an interview with the director the other day, and apparently it’s almost all physical stunts, often with the starring actors as opposed to stuntmen/women. CGI is employed exactly as you describe it: to erase safety equipment, alter backgrounds, etc.

 

[State of Epicicity]

We watched American Fiction last night. Jeffrey Wright was just great; I didn't know he could be funny. The whole thing was funny and great, really well directed and especially edited. The editing was cool, because it lingered where it needed to and told what you needed while staying subtle and out of the way. The acting was intimate and just very well done. You didn't question for a minute what anyone's function was in the satire.

I've always felt Jeffrey Wright should be in more leading roles of all types. In the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, he's by far the most magnetic character on the screen, but he has so little screen time.

Anyway, American Fiction was truly smart and really well done. My wife told me the story was very similar to the real life story of Laura Albert and her pseudonym JT Leroy. Crazy story in real life. I didn't see any info online about American Fiction being based on that, but I thought there were some striking similarities. American Fiction though was really using the pseudonym story line very differently, in many important ways, also for a bigger purpose, and it did it really well.

 

[Stone]

Bring on the Bass !! BTW love this guy :)

 

[State of Epicicity]

We watched On The Line with Mel Gibson, and it was pure crap in every way; it was the first time I thought his acting was bad, but the rest of the cast was irredeemable, except William Moseley, who was actually good, but could not begin to save this shallow and stupid shitfest. The writing and directing were total bullshit.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Watched The First Omen. I wasn't expecting much but it was surprisingly solid. Good creepy vibe and tie-in to the overall story.

Watched Tarot last night. Bad gateway horror that was one of those "welp; we're already this far" kind of experiences

 

[State of Epicicity]

We watched Night On Earth. This is the first Jim Jarmusch film I've seen, and I was surprised that I loved it. It was warm, full of character, well acted, and well directed. It was a really interesting concept to have five short stories, each anchored by a different cabbie driving in the small hours. What made it more interesting than that was the fact that it was international with subtitles for the non-English sections, and through the dialog and acting you got a feel for a tiny slice of each city as Jarmusch sees it. The cities were LA, NYC, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. And each section really did feel very different, in a cool and interesting way. I just loved it.

 

[TSJMajesty]

We watched Night On Earth.

I had seen that, but couldn't get past the 2nd part, due to the overacting, especially the guy going to Brooklyn. Even the girl from Beetlejuice overacted her part a bit too much.

That's the first thing that'll turn me off to a movie. Good plot notwithstanding. Which it was.

 

[State of Epicicity]

I had seen that, but couldn't get past the 2nd part, due to the overacting, especially the guy going to Brooklyn. Even the girl from Beetlejuice overacted her part a bit too much.

That's the first thing that'll turn me off to a movie. Good plot notwithstanding. Which it was.

That's an interesting assessment! I totally didn't take any of the acting that way. I thought Giancarlo Esposito was actualy pretty cool; he wasn't too far off from my experience with people, and the way I am sometimes! As for Winona Ryder, I just loved her completely. I just thought she was funny and quirky and charismatic as hell haha! But I guess life is like that, someone's personality hits people in different ways, and that's what makes the world go 'round. I'm now curious to see other films by Jarmusch.