What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching? ARCHIVE

Jur wrote:

Point is of course that the real audience has been laughing and cheering for the same kind of scenes all night. Is Tarantino committing the worst cliche in movie history: holding up a mirror to the audience, or am I taking this (and Tarantino) to seriously?

I'd say that this was definitely his intention. He would be pretty stupid if he hadn't noticed that. The mass killing in "Stolz der Nation", Nazi hero vs. Americans, isn't much different from the fighting scene vs. the crazy 88 in Kill Bill.

It really startled me a little what scenes the audience, I watched the movie with, found funny. I really only laughed about the Basterds pretending to be Italian, and I was only one of few who did so.

I would even say that Basterds, who as they are depicted killing Nazis on sight, aren't much different from a SS killing squad hunting Jews. But I wouldn't accuse Tarantino of intending this, that's just how it came across to me and I'm no Nazi apologist.

I watched 'Brazil' again last night. I think watching this repeatedly in my teens is what gave me my love of Giant Humming Pipes (GHPs). We are looking to build a house in the next couple of years and I am seriously trying to find a way to have a GHP across the roof of the lounge room.

Few people understand this fetish, but I am glad that my brother does. A few years ago we had a family meal at a restaurant and I went to the toilet and in one of the two cubicles in the men's toilets was a GHP from floor to ceiling about 3 feet in diameter and bright silver and emitting a deep low rumbling noise. The whole cubicle was perfectly structured so you could sit on the throne and just admire this great work of art. I came rushing out of toilets and said to my brother "You have got to go to the men's toilets. It's just amazing!". And he said "The pipe. Yeah, its good isn't it". He actually pointed out the crowning touch which I had missed because I was so awestruck. The owners of the restaurant were aware that not everyone appreciates a good GHP and so had placed a small half dead plant next to it in an attempt to draw the eye away from the giant monstrosity.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote:

I watched 'Brazil' again last night. I think watching this repeatedly in my teens is what gave me my love of Giant Humming Pipes (GHPs).

we're all in this together!

Schweig! wrote:

Jur wrote:

Point is of course that the real audience has been laughing and cheering for the same kind of scenes all night. Is Tarantino committing the worst cliche in movie history: holding up a mirror to the audience, or am I taking this (and Tarantino) to seriously?

I'd say that this was definitely his intention. He would be pretty stupid if he hadn't noticed that. The mass killing in "Stolz der Nation", Nazi hero vs. Americans, isn't much different from the fighting scene vs. the crazy 88 in Kill Bill.

It really startled me a little what scenes the audience, I watched the movie with, found funny. I really only laughed about the Basterds pretending to be Italian, and I was only one of few who did so.

I would even say that Basterds, who as they are depicted killing Nazis on sight, aren't much different from a SS killing squad hunting Jews. But I wouldn't accuse Tarantino of intending this, that's just how it came across to me and I'm no Nazi apologist.

I think I now got the answer to this one: Inglorious Basterds is not about WWII, it is about WWII movies

Although I spend a large chunk of time this weekend on final revisions for Game Z, I did rent a couple of good movies to watch during breaks: The Warriors and The Land of the Dead.

I haven't seen The Warriors in a long time. I didn't get to see it in the theater, because it yanked after a fairly short run in Indy due to some gang-related incidents at a couple of theaters. So when I finally saw an edited version on network tv a few years later, it didn't quite meet my huge expectations.

And yet, The Warriors did make a definite mark on pop culture. The Offspring's one huge hit, Come Out and Play, was based on a notorious line from the movie. And there was the popular console game from a few years ago. Chaosium even published a great Stormbringer scenario that was loosely based on this movie.

So I finally got around to watching the director's cut from a few years ago, and The Warriors really held up well. The acting was better than I remembered, especially for a young group of nobodies. And the fight choreography was excellent. Of course the gangs weren't particularly realistic-looking, but since the movie was set in a near-future timeframe, the outrageous costumes can be handwaved away.

The Land of the Dead wasn't my favorite Romero zombie movie, not even close. That honor goes to Dawn of the Dead. But Land of the Dead is still very good, and certainly had the best cast of the Dead movies. And yet it was the unfamiliar actors who really stood out, the understated hero and his retarded sidekick. And that Big Daddy zombie was a very sympathetic character. His incoherent wrath had an almost biblical quality, kind of a Let My People Go level of indignant outrage.

Most other zombie movies take place at the start of a zombie apocalypse. The Land of the Dead veers slightly into science-fiction territory, by exploring what kind of human society might endure after the zombie apocalypse has ravaged the planet. The results are interesting and plausible, and allow for some interesting commentary on our own society.

The only problem that I had with The Land of the Dead was the sheer epic scale of it. Horror works best on a personal level. Taking it to a larger scale involving thousands of people turns it into more of a disaster movie, and also to a safer and more impersonal distance. The horror falters, because it's happening to a lot of people we don't know. The better horror movies tend to get us to care about some characters before we see them get killed.

SusanR wrote:

I watched Pan's Labyrinth last night. For some reason, I had the impression that this was just a scary, fantasy, action flick with an extra dose of weirdness. I hadn't ever gotten around to watching it. OMG, was I ever wrong. Excellent movie, but soooo disturbing. I can't decide if it had a happy ending or not. I certainly didn't leave me with any warm, fuzzy feelings, that's for sure.

I left with warm fuzzy feelings, that's for sure.

In terms of happy endings, it depends if you think the fantasy is real or not. If you think it's real, then for sure it's a happy ending.

If you don't think it's real, then it depends. It's probably a sad ending but if you think that at least she didn't really experience the horrors of war because she was in the land of make-believe for most of it, then at least that's a warm thought.

THE WARRIORS...if ever there were a movie ahead of its time, that's it.

I love THE WARRIORS, don't get me wrong. But I think it's really a pretty bad picture that just can't possibly live up to what you _think_ it's going to be...and what it really should be. When I was a kid and heard about it, it sounded like the greatest movie ever made...all these theme gangs fighting through NYC to Coney Island? WOW! Walter Hill has always talked up how it's this comic book/hero narrative thing but it just falls short because at that time ('79) comic book grammar hadn't really been translated successfully to the screen. So a lot of it looks awkward and cheap, and the really over-the-top comic book elements are extremely subdued when they should be more vibrant.

Of course, there's some really brilliant and indeliable images and concepts that have impacted pop culture. Everybody knows the Baseball Furies, "war-ee-ors", "Can you dig it", and that Carmen Sandiego is the DJ. It's a great movie in those respects, I just don't think it lives up to its own legend.

Last time I was in NYC, I really wanted to do the WARRIORS tour...go all the way up to Gun Hill in the Bronx and all the way to Coney Island...it would have taken quite a while though, so we didn't.

Saw a pretty good one on Sundance saturday night, THIS IS ENGLAND...it's about a little boy in the early 80s who's dad dies in the Falklands war and he falls in with some skinheads (the friendly, ska-loving kind). The former "leader" of the gang turns up out of jail and starts trying to recruit everybody into the National Front and the little boy winds up going with him and turns into a little racist twat. Things go bad, of course. It was kind of a sweet little picture despite a pretty nasty outcome, there were some really charming scenes in it like when the good skinheads give the kid his first Ben Sherman, and when he goes shopping for oxblood Docs with his mom. Not a great movie, but a decent one and I liked how it made it clear that not all skinheads were NF, and it also showed how the NF was actively recruiting in those circles and influencing youth culture.

Watched Jarhead. Kind of felt that war movies are becoming as cliched as sports movies.

This is England was a good film. I like it when they are talking about the original skinheads. There was a documentary about Rough Trade showing how Rough Trade started as a shop selling DIY punk records that where impossible to get in other record shops. They were poor so bought the shop in Notting Hill where it was cheap. They wanted the shop to be part of the community so they started selling Caribbean music. So punks heard reggae playing in the store and got into it.

gonna go see The Informant! today most likely. Looks like it'll be good

This is England was a good film. I like it when they are talking about the original skinheads.

YES, I liked that a lot that the film went to great lengths- and was actually about- the difference in skinhead cultures. My wife didn't really know that not all skinheads were Nazis...at first she was like "they must not be skinheads, they've got a black guy with him". Then I explained the whole spirit of '69 thing, the working class deal, ska/rocksteady/reggae/Northern Soul, SHARPs, and so on. And then they showed all of that right there in the film. The difference Woody's crowd of fun-loving teenagers and Combo's group of creepy, thugish louts involved with the NF was stark, and I really liked that it rationalized how a kid without a dad and confused about the war could turn to those beliefs blindly and without consideration. And of course, I liked how the film turned that around when Combo freaked out and brought home the insanity of racism and extreme right-wing politics.

I just watched The Thin Mantwo nights ago. I've read the book a couple of times, once recently, but always held off on watching the movie because I have a really hard time watching movies based on books I like.

But the movie was great. Really good script, consistently funny, and the relationship between Nick and Nora is captivating. They have such a great reparte it's really infective. Both of them are so incredibly charming and funny. It's amazing that Hammet managed to create a husband and wife team that works. When pulp fiction fan hears about a book that has a husband and wife doing the investigation it sounds to most people like a bad idea but the execution is so marvelously entertaining that it's hard to not be overcome... the movie gets this across very well. My wife enjoyed it too, though I suspect it was mostly because of the fashion of the time period. Still, great flick.

Watched Road House with the g/f last weekend in honor of Patrick Swayze's death.

Pain don't hurt.

Michael Barnes wrote:

This is England was a good film. I like it when they are talking about the original skinheads.

The difference Woody's crowd of fun-loving teenagers and Combo's group of creepy, thugish louts involved with the NF was stark, and I really liked that it rationalized how a kid without a dad and confused about the war could turn to those beliefs blindly and without consideration. And of course, I liked how the film turned that around when Combo freaked out and brought home the insanity of racism and extreme right-wing politics.

Don't forget that at that time racism was not as politically incorrect as it is now. Only a year before where the movie is set (april 1968) former Conservative Minister Enoch Powell had given a speech predicting 'rivers of blood' if immigration continued. Although the man was sacked from his position in the party, there was widespread popular support for him. So the turn is not as big as we might think now.

England was of course not exceptional in this respect.

Gary Sax wrote:

Watched Road House with the g/f last weekend in honor of Patrick Swayze's death.

Pain don't hurt.

Right Boot!

Jur wrote:

Don't forget that at that time racism was not as politically incorrect as it is now. Only a year before where the movie is set (april 1968) former Conservative Minister Enoch Powell had given a speech predicting 'rivers of blood' if immigration continued. Although the man was sacked from his position in the party, there was widespread popular support for him. So the turn is not as big as we might think now.

England was of course not exceptional in this respect.

Very true. It is hard to understand how bad those times where. In 1964, the Conservatives took a safe seat in Birmingham from Labour with an unknown candidate running a campaign with the slogan, "If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour."