Grinning Fellow

Sideways: Excellent, I loved it. Definitely a low-key film, but with some incredible performances, beautiful scenery (though they could've cut down on some of the montages), and some truly excellent character moments made it for me. I thought it would be a mildly-diverting comedy, and it turned out to be a completely engrossing character piece. Definitely recommended.

 

And looking a bit like David Tennant methinks.

 

That is, without a doubt, the most flattering thing anyone has ever said to me.

 

I very much want to go as the Tenth Doctor for Halloween. If only I could get my hands on a suit like that.

Decided to class up the house with a couple back-to-back Oscar movies:

 

The Lost Weekend: Easily my favourite Wilder movie. It contains elements of his signature style (some overt noir angles and lighting), but with an incredibly compelling, tragic story. Ray Milland is incredible, playing the character with extreme wit and pathos. It's one of the most convincing downward spirals I've seen, and overall one of the best films I've watched in a long while.

 

The Bridge on the River Kwai: I'm conflicted with this one. On the one hand, it's gorgeous to look at, and has amazing performances (obviously Alec Guinness, but I also really enjoyed Sessue Hayakawa and James Donald), but on the other, the ending just feels so...wrong. Maybe I missed the point of the film entirely, and it's more along the lines of

, but Nicholson's sudden about-face in the last two minutes threw me for a huge loop and felt like it came out of nowhere. I may be way off-base, though.

Attempting to demonstrate to the people in the room why I cannot physically raise an eyebrow:

 

 

Why yes, I was a bit drunk.

 

Actually Trace, I have seen The Elephant Man, but that seemed like atypical Lynch to me, so I didn't count it as a "true" Lynchian experience. Otherwise, yeah, I have all of those to see. I've got Wild at Heart and Lost Highway recorded at my parents house, so I'll watch those next time I'm down.

Detour: Wasn't crazy on this one, either. I got it just fine, and it is neat that a pretty solid production was done with so little money, but the actors weren't very good and overall it was just boring. Not really impressed.

 

Blue Velvet: This, on the other hand, was awesome. I've seen the first season of Twin Peaks, so I was at least somewhat familiar with Lynch, and this really distilled some of the great points from that show. I loved the colour emphasis, Dennis Hopper, and the overall seediness of it. Lynch is quite good at stripping away a pleasant veneer and make its underbelly quite uncomfortable (yet fascinating) to watch.

All good calls, Trace (though I haven't seen Scanners). Also, I found Crash very strange and hard to get into the first time I watched it, although it was oddly mesmerizing. Something I'll need to watch again. Eastern Promises was incredible, though, and easily one of my favourites by him.

 

I've decided to pretty much devote this week to movie-watching, and so I also caught Orson Welles's The Stranger. which I found to be an underrated gem. A perfect meshing of the spy and noir genres, wherein the villain of the piece ends up the archetypal noir hero. Setting aside a bit of unconvincing stuff (like why Welles's German character speaks with an impeccable American accent), I thought it was an incredibly well-done film. Definitely something I was looking for in both a noir and a spy film. Highly recommended.

I'm not really sure I can defend my stance on The Godfather, Part II in any really eloquent terms. I agree with Abhi's position that a film should be as long as it needs, and I definitely don't think that this movie was overlong at all. Part of it may have just been that I was very tired when I watched it, whereas I was very alert watching the first part. Otherwise, I just felt that the first part was more entertaining, while the second part was more introspective and developing. Not bashing the second part at all, just saying that I was in the mood for more of a Part I-style story at the time.

 

As for recent movies I watched:

 

eXistenZ: Not as good as The Godfather, Part II.

 

But actually, that movie was not very good at all. I was surprised, becuase I've liked almost all of what I've seen by Cronenberg (not crazy on A History of Violence, but I've liked everything else a lot). While it definitely covered a lot of similar themes and so forth, I didn't feel like anything new or original was added, and the movie itself was dull and overwrought. By far the least favourite film of his I've seen.

The Godfather, Part II: Jesus Christ, that was a long film. Excellent, but incredibly long. It really does feel like this is the second (and third) acts of the first movie, rather than being a sequel. It fleshed out many of the themes of the first film, taking them to their logical conclusion, while introducing some great new tangents (I loved the Frankie Pantangeli storyline). However, I preferred the first film over this one. While the flashbacks to the early days were interesting (and some moments were pretty iconic), I liked Vito Corleone as a perennially-elderly figure who's past is shrouded in mystery. Also, one could feel the time a lot more than in the first film, although this is probably because the plot in Part II is entirely secondary to the character developments. Overall, a pretty fantastic film (everything in the last half-hour is crushing and brilliant), but the first film I enjoyed more.

Hold on, why is everyone (hyperbole I suppose) agreeing, Trace just eloquently tore it a new one.

It almost barely matches your reviews.

 

Ostensibly the only two positives were.

 

Morgan is solid as The Comedian.

Rorschach is the redeeming factor in this mess

The rest was quite rightfully slaughtered by Trace.

 

Pretty much it was just myself and Abhi agreeing, and my positives of the film were basically Trace's, plus an enjoyment of the intro montage and the ending (which Trace also sort-of supported). All of these are relatively minor points that are definitely outweighed by the negatives in my review. Plus, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the longer my mind lingers on the film, the more I dislike it in my mind. I think Trace adequately summed up almost all of what I thought went wrong.

Hard to compare the three as they each have their own stylistic take on the noir thriller. I prefer Kiss Me Deadly, but I've also viewed it and written on it numerous times.

However, it's tough to argue against Graham Greene, who is one of the most influential writers of the past century and lends his unique flavor (beautifully realized by Reed and Krasker) to the bleak post-WWII, pre-Cold War era.

Then again, Kiss Me Deadly employs a MacGuffin, so it gets the nod. :wink:

 

Word on the Graham Greene bit. He's without a doubt one of my favourite authors, and his stuff works extremely well in both prose and film. Our Man in Havana is one of my favourite novels, and was translated into an extremely fun pastiche of spy/noir films itself.

GF, have you seen Kiss Me Deadly or High Sierra? I think you would dig those, especially the Nuclear take on Mike Hammer in the former.

 

Not yet, Trace, but they are both on my list. Been wanting to see Kiss Me Deadly for years now.

 

Looking back a couple weeks ago on my positive but rather lukewarm review on The Third Man, I take it back. Compared to some of the other films noir I've watched, it was more kinetic, more engaging, and more stylish. The camera angles were certainly overused, but overall, I found it to be one of the better examples of the noir genre. How would the two movies you mentioned hold up in comparison, Trace?

Out of the Past: Another good noir. I'll pretty much watch anything with Robert Mitchum in it, and he was great as usual, along with the oily, perpetually-smirking Kirk Douglas. The dialogue was among the snappiest I've heard outside of a Raymond Chandler novel, and the fight scene in the middle of the movie was actually very brutal and well done (in a direct contrast to the flailing limbs of The Godfather mentioned earlier). I felt the plot was a bit dense and hard to decipher, but the atmosphere and performances made up for it.

 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: I really enjoy German Expressionist films (from what little I've seen) since it gives you so much room for interpretation. This one was definitely a lot of fun, with incredible set design and lighting. I could definitely see the impact it had on films like Out of the Past and other films noir. The ending was a bit of a cop-out though, and I'm glad to have read it wasn't the writers initial intention, and was shoehorned in by the executives.

*claps*

 

Excellent review, Trace. I agree with everything.

 

'Rohne, since you clearly felt exactly the same way that I do - ie., that no film was ever going to do Watchmen justice, let alone one directed by Zack Snyder - why did you bother seeing it in the first place? Did you think there was any chance that your pessimism would turn out to be unwarranted, or was it a "well, I might as well pick at the scab" sense of obligation?

 

That's probably going to sound fairly passive-aggressive, but I'm genuinely curious. Same goes for anyone else in the "I was fully expecting to hate it, but had to see it anyway" camp - I don't know how many of those guys we've got here, but I've seen plenty of them elsewhere. Why?

 

Also, perhaps more importantly - did anyone who was expecting to hate it find themselves pleasantly surprised? Or, of course, the opposite - anyone who was expecting to love it but ended up being hugely-disappointed? I just wonder, because almost all of the reviews I'm seeing, both positive and negative, seem to be "well, that was more-or-less exactly what I was expecting". While this does rather reinforce my decision not to see it, I'd be very curious to hear from anyone who bucks that trend.

 

Without speaking for Rohne or anyone else, I think I went to see it because while the book as a whole follows Moore's description of something anti-cinematic, I think there are some very cinematic scenes in it, and I wanted to see how they'd translate from book to film (for instance, the brief glimpse I saw in the first trailer of the clockwork on Mars got me very excited). I was hoping somewhere that, even if a poor adaptation of the book's themes and points, it would be a very visually pleasing experience. Ironically, for a film that so slavishly mimics the source material's panels, the visual aspect fell completely flat. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since this is a Zack "Green Screen" Snyder film, but I was hoping the visual style of the book would bleed through.

 

To add tangentially, the more I think about the film the less I like it, and its more aggravating quirks are really coming to the forefront of my mind. You definitely made a good call not seeing this one, Mark.

About time you came to your senses :P

 

I agree with you in theory about Sonny's beatdown of Carlo but I just wish it had been better choreographed. Some of those punches missed by about three feet.

 

Haha, yeah, it was really obvious that Caan was swinging at the air (and I'm usually pretty bad with noticing that kind of stuff), but the overall effect still had me cheering (I like to imagine Sonny threw in that last boot to the ribs for that horrible orange jumpsuit Carlo was wearing).

The Iron Giant: First time I've seen it, and I loved it. Gorgeous artwork, great story, and I totally teared up at the "You don't have to be a gun" bit. Brad Bird does it again.

 

The Godfather: Not the first time I'd seen this, but the first in a long while. Now I get while Abhi berates me about watching it again. Definitely one of the best films I've ever seen, it terms of structure, theme, and importance. A mediation on the rise of the American empire, vengeance/retribution, the qualities of masculinity, and the family vs. "the family", all with some of the strongest performances and most memorable scenes ever in a movie (I contend that Sonny's beatdown of Carlo remains one of the most cathartic moments in cinema). Definitely glad I watched it again, and will be following up with the second part shortly.

 

But I still prefer Apocalypse Now.

Just got back, and pretty much echo what Abhi said. In the vein of Sethos, here's my good and bad:

 

 

The Good:

 

 

 

The Bad:

 

 

Overall, the best Alan Moore adaptation to date (for however little that's worth) and a deeply flawed film with some good moments to it.

Saw a bunch in the last couple days:

 

Catch Me if You Can: I enjoyed this one. Fun performances from DiCaprio, Hanks and Walken. As usual, it is filled with Spielberg's sentimentality, and sometimes the dramatic bits misfired badly, but as a light fare I thought it was an enjoyable way to spend two hours.

 

Frenzy: Wasn't really impressed with this one at all. There were a couple magnificent compositions in it, and I got what the film was trying to say, but overall, I found it to be one of the weaker Hitchcock's films I'd seen.

 

Chasing Amy: I am no fan of Kevin Smith, but I enjoyed this movie. I'm not entirely sure why, as one of my major criticisms of his films is that they're overwritten and underacted, and there wasn't really any exception here. Neither Ben Affleck nor Lauren Roy Adams had the ability to hold the emotional weight of the film, and many of their tear-induced arguments were rather cringeworthy to see. Beyond that, though, I thought Smith's writing was really exceptional here, striking a good balance between comedy and drama. The soliloquizing didn't seem as forced (or, it did but it worked in context), and Affleck, while not Olivier, actually did a pretty decent job when he wasn't having a shouting match with someone. And Jason Lee is always a joy to watch, even if his character was a prick.

 

Double Indemnity: definitely a fun film. Wilder's noir cinematography was a lot more toned down that Reed's excesses, and Edward G. Robinson was great as the main character's obsessive boss. The film was predictable (not its fault, I'm used to noir conventions by now), and I enjoyed the ride.

 

Should be going to see Watchmen Friday afternoon.

I'm definitely with Malin on Season Five of Angel. Hated it.

 

As for films, here's the revised list (in no particular order):

 

- Once Upon A Time in the West

- The Manchurian Candidate

- The Thin Man

- Vertigo

- No Country for Old Men

- Apocalypse Now

- Spirited Away

- The French Connection

- Chinatown

- Videodrome

- The Night of the Hunter

- Adaptation

 

I'm with you guys that Blindness sucked, but it was no way the worst film in a year when Wanted was made.

 

As for me, I watched two classics for the first time last night:

 

Chinatown: Amazing. Everything is on top-form here. Nicholson is great (and I'm really not all that big on him), and John Huston shows how well he is in front of the camera as behind it. I love how bright and sunny everything is in contrast to the horrible corruption going around in L.A. The constant twists and turns leave you thinking after the film is done, and the subtlety of the film really sealed up how much I loved it. Also, Polanski's cameo as the shaky, bowtie-clad gangster was all kinds of great.

 

The Third Man: certainly very fun and incredibly stylistic, but far from my favourite noir. Cotten's good as always, and you can't help but love Welles, but the story felt a bit flat to me. Also, I get the effect of the style it had on the noir genre, but the amount of camera-tilting Carol Reed through in there got a bit much at times. Overall, it was good, but not incredible.

Lately, I've been relistening to some bands I had written off when I was younger. Upon this review, I'm unsure what kind of Kool-Aid I was drinking, but it must've been some powerful stuff.

 

First up is The Velvet Underground, which I remember mentioning being deeply unimpressed with a few years ago on this forum. After listening to The Velvet Underground & Nico and Loaded, I've decided that I was a dumb, dumb child. It's really great stuff, addictive music and clever lyrics, and entrancing in its overall production.

 

Speaking of entrancing, I've also been listening to Miles Davis, who I tried some years ago and had written off as "not my thing". Upon a closer listen to Kind of Blue, my dumb-child hypothesis holds up. I know very little of musical theory and approach, and couldn't discuss Davis's impact in any sort of intellectual way, but I just really enjoy what I here. It's beautiful, cool music.

Wanted. Well...mediocre?

God awful really, tamed down and worse still mostly unecessary.

 

Besides the awful ending, they really didn't need to stray from the comic book at all.

Loom of fate?...Seriously?

 

I'm definitely with Rohne on this one. Hell, I'd go as far as saying Wanted was my most disliked film of 2008. I don't mind bad action films, but this one was just so in-your-face with its shittiness that it wasn't even fun to laugh at. Loud, obnoxious, abrasive and completely stupid, without any sort of redeeming factor towards it.

 

On a brighter note, I just watched Repo Man for the first time. It was intense.

American Gangster: Pretty good fare, with a ton of cameos (John Hawkes! Jon Polito! Idris Elba!) that made me smile. I enjoyed how little violence was in the story, and how it was driven by the characters, which were interesting. Far from Scott's best, and quite long, but a decent film.

I thought it was a Great film, with a capital G. (Pun intended.) What would you recommend that's similar but better, then?

 

Well, obviously, there are some major thematic echoes with The Wire (right down to Idris Elba), as for films similar but better, you really can't go wrong with The French Connection. The rise of the international drug trade, the endemic corruption, the obsessive police detective all strike similar tones. I think there's a notable thematic bridge between the two (one's about American individualism in the backdrop of entropic corruption, the other's about the nihilistic nature of the line of work for everyone involved), but overall, I definitely see Friedkin as having influenced Scott here.

I haven't seen the trailer, but the movie is pretty funny (I cracked up at the piano stuff) and definitely lively and enjoyable. You should check it out, it's a very good movie.