/tv/ - Movies and Television

I just got done with The Quiet Man. The Technicolor scenery looks lush, but I can't say I liked it much. Maureen O'Hara's character just felt like a crazy bitch, and I feel like the premise could have made for a much better movie it toned down the romance and comedy and focused on the idea of a man having to choose between his ideals and his relationship with his wife. It's not like the comedic elements in John Ford's movies made for gut-busting humor anyway. I didn't find much to appreciate in the relationship between the two leads. They didn't seem to have much chemistry at all, and I didn't feel invested in their relationship together. I had problems even respecting Mary Kate Danaher at all. She doesn't seem happy unless she's getting smacked around. I really don't get why this movie is considered such a classic (or was in the past, at least). Is it because of the older plastic paddies out there?

I also watched The Horse Soldiers recently. I found that a bit better, more for the Civil War setting than anything, but it's really just alright. It could have been a lot better. It feels really short on plot. The ending was also really abrupt. I read that John Ford basically lost interest in the movie before it was finished due to the death of a stunt men. If you're a big John Ford fan, then it might be worth a watch. I thought it was just okay though.

Some fun facts: The script ended up getting altered due to the blacktress who played Lukey, the slave character, getting butthurt over its use of negro dialect. John Ford ended up caving in and changing it for the film. The real-life inspiration for John Wayne's character, Benjamin Henry Grierson, ended up leading Buffalo Soldiers out West when the Civil War was over. His negro and injun sympathizing led to him drawing criticism from other officers. It's pretty unfortunate that such a brave soldier could be such a fag.
>>338453
>It makes some of those movies seem a little sinister in light of that (assuming Vidal is telling the truth), but I still really like them.
I agree with that.

>>338814
>I really don't get why this movie is considered such a classic (or was in the past, at least). Is it because of the older plastic paddies out there?
That's probably a big part of it. The huge waves of Irish immigrants were still around or in living memory when the movie came out, so audiences related to the jokes about old-fashioned Irish culture. The movie is also very charming. The problem is it goes on for way too long. Making it 90 minutes would be pushing it for a film like that. Over 2 hours is just too much.
Also, I've never seen any evidence of this, but I'm positive that the long, comically drawn out fight scene at the end was the inspiration for the Family Guy chicken fights.

I don't usually like musicals, but I decided to watch Meet Me in St. Louis after hearing about it for years. It's one of the better ones I've seen. The film looks very nice and it idealizes turn of the century suburban life almost to the point of parody, yet it never quite crosses that line. By the end of the movie, it feels like a dream. My favorite part was the Halloween sequence where the dark streets are full of children dressed as ghouls, starting fires in the middle of the road. It does a good job of capturing how nightmarish that all can seem to a little kid.
Most of the actors are good. I was particularly impressed by the actress who played the youngest sister, since child actors are usually terrible, especially ones from back then when it was a challenge even to get a recording of them speaking clearly. The only actor who seems out of place is the guy who plays Judy Garland's love interest. He's not bad, but he's clearly a man in that late 20's/early 30's range trying to play a teenage boy.
The songs were alright, though I did get bored during a few of them. I didn't know Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas originally came from this movie and I wish I hadn't heard it so many times over the years because it dulled the emotional impact that I'm sure it had to its original audience.

Drums Along the Mohawk initially interested me in that it's a movie about Indian warfare in New York in the 18th century. It's set in the Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution, to be precise. The colonial period and early America make for a more interesting backdrop to me than yet another movie about guys in cowboy hats. I was disappointed when I noticed that the scenery was the usual Western fare and that they didn't even bother filming out East. I'm not big on Western landscapes, and to me that would have helped differentiate it from a proper Western. With regard to the casting of the two main characters, it seems a little off to me. Claudette Colbert had a couple years on Henry Fonda, and she looks a little too old to make for a convincing newlywed. For Henry Fonda's role, I think they should have gone for an actor who could pull off a frontiersman better. It doesn't help that I'm not big on Henry Fonda in the first place. The supporting cast I found better. Edna May Oliver was memorable as the feisty old widow the couple ends up working for. I liked the fiery clergyman played by Arthur Shields too. Chief John Big Tree made for a good Injun actor considering he was actually a member of the Seneca tribe, but the character was completely unnecessary. He's basically there as a token "good Indian" character, and the first scene he's in involves him scaring Claudette Colbert's character to the point of hysteria, and Henry Fonda has to lecture her on what a great Christian he is (I think he might have even said he was a greater Christian than them. It's pretty ridiculous, especially considering how unassimilated he seems) There's also a mammy character who doesn't say much of anything but is shown participating in the revolutionary cause. It seems like both the characters are just there to virtue signal. At the end of the movie the Betsy Ross flag is raised, and the camera cuts to closeups of the tokens looking on approvingly. Shitlibs like Quentin Totino go on about what a big bad bigot John Ford was, but in reality he paved the way for today's disastrous "negroes in MAGA hats" philosophy of Americanism. They bitch about how Indians are portrayed in his movies, yet they usually completely downplay how vicious the Indians actually were. Drums Along the Mohawk has a scene of them trying to burn a captive drunk to death (who also doesn't seem to know what's going on), but there's also one of a pair of marauding braves breaking into the old spinster's room and actually obeying her request to move her bed.

I went in expecting more of a war movie and fewer scenes of the pioneer couple trying to get by. I didn't find the plot all that interesting, although that might just be because it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. At least it's under 2 hours.

One thing that annoys me about old movies set in that period is how bad they were at portraying longer men's hairstyles. They seemed to think that just giving a guy a ponytail is enough to pass for long hair. Instead it just looks like a guy with a bit of a mullet. Drums Along the Mohawk is no exception to that.

I also just watch Black Robe. I liked it a lot better. The story concerns Jesuit Nick Mullen going on a journey to convert the Hurons to Christianity while accompanied by Algonquins in 17th-century New France. It does a good job in portraying the brutality of the Indians (although according to a comment I've seen, the novel the movie is based on goes even further) and the harsh life that awaited the settlers in early North America. It also depicts the discipline, dedication, and arguably the foolishness of the missionaries. I'll say that I liked the lead Algonquin actor, but it bothered me that they chose a guy with blue eyes at a time and place where you weren't likely to see a middle-aged half-breed. Also, the attractive young squaw that Bargain-Bin Brendan Fraser bangs was played by a hapa.

Anyway, it's worth a watch.
>>338821
>The movie is also very charming.
Yeah, I think that's part of the reason it's catnip for plastic paddies. It makes rural Ireland look idyllic.
>>338850
>I was particularly impressed by the actress who played the youngest sister
The morbid little girl was definitely my favorite character.
>The songs were alright, though I did get bored during a few of them
I remember liking "The Trolley Song," but other than that I only liked the old ones. That's something I also noticed with Singin' in the Rain. As someone who's into pre-WWII music I liked the old songs they chose, but I never cared for "Moses Supposes" at all. It sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

Shake Hand with the Devil is one I'd been meaning to watch for a while due to James Cagney's character. It deals with an American WW! veteran of Irish ancestry who gets caught up in the Irish War of Independence while studying at a medical school in Dublin. The lead actor himself is pretty unremarkable, but it's interesting seeing the way the character gets drawn in further and further into the conflict after being so hesitant to shed blood. It's James Cagney's character, Sean Lenihan, who's the real star of the show. He's a professor at the medical school who's also involved in the IRA and has a much darker side to his character. I wouldn't call it a top-shelf James Cagney movie, but it's definitely better than average.

Andersonville is a TV movie about a group of Union soldiers stuck in the notorious POW camp during the Civil War. I thought the presentation was actually a bit impressive for an old TV movie. While it was maybe a bit sanitized compared to a theatrical production, it still did a much better job capturing the suffering of Civil War soldiers than the usual romanticized productions. There were hundreds of extras, many of whom were reenactors, and you can tell a lot of effort went into making things look authentic. The movie was funded by Ted Turner after the success of Gettysburg, but having seen Gettysburg a long time ago I actually found this one more engaging. I remember Gettysburg feeling more like porn for Civil War buffs, but in Andersonville I found myself invested in seeing the prisoners trying to improve their situation. As far as the cast goes, I liked Frederic Forrest and Peter Murnik's characters the most. Jan Triska is memorable as Henry Wirz. There really aren't any big-name actors in the movie, but there are some recognizable faces like William Sanderson, William H. Macy, and Thomas F. Wilson. Andersonville is nearly three hours long, but I didn't mind the running time. I don't know if I'll be as impressed with this movie if I ever revisit it, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Ride with the Devil is a 1999 Ang Lee movie starring Tobey Maguire as a young Missouri man who gets drawn into bushwhacking with his friend during the Civil War. They end up in a unit alongside a slave and his master/BFF, among others. One of the others members of the unit is a bloodthirsty psychopath who dislikes Tobey Maguire's character for being a Kraut. It covers the Lawrence Massacre too. There's no simplistic Saturday-morning-cartoon moralism or cheerleading one side of the conflict or another. Maybe it helps that Ang Lee was looking at the situation from a foreigner's eyes. For reasons I don't understand, the movie was a big flop at the box office. I saw a trailer for the movie after I watched it, and maybe that had something to do with it. It makes Ride with the Devil come across as a pretty run-of-the-mill production when it's far from it. My biggest problem with it is how much emphasis is put on Jeffrey Wright's character. It's an interesting touch in that it shows the complexities of race relations among the Confederates, I'm suffering from Neeg Fatigue and would have preferred much less emphasis on black African-American negroes of color. It's also a long movie, but I found it to be well worth my time.

If anyone has some recommendations for good Civil War movies to watch, I'm all ears.

I can't quite explain why, but for almost four months now I've completely lost the will to watch any movie, show or anime.
I'd rather spend my time fishing or reading. I'm not even listening to much music, with the exception of when I'm reading. Would anyone have a recommendation for something that's good enough for me to watch with my wife or friends, since I can no longer force myself to watch a movie alone?

>>339065
It comes and goes for me. I'm watching a lot of movies right now due to health problems, but it should just be a passing thing.

>>339065
The Boy and the Heron

This movie was okay. I liked the action scenes and the gritty look of the city. It felt a little like a student film. The storytelling felt very clunky at points and the only character that felt like a real person was the French drug lord. Everyone else felt half-formed; like an idea of a character rather than an actual character. As a result, the attempts to give the main guy a personality don't really stick.
I don't know. I was very tired when I watched this so maybe that affected my interpretation of it.

>>339065
I've had a crippling total war addiction for a month, its terrible for me, I wish I lacked the desire to play vidya or watch tv.

>>339218
I didn't get that vibe at all but it's interesting to read it.
t. formerly robertsfag

I saw these two schlockfests not that long ago.

I found Two Thousand Maniacs! to be the better of the two. The plot concerns a town in the Deep South that ritually murders Northerners every hundred years as revenge for the Civil War. There's a twist to the story that I appreciated that any summary of the plot will mention, but I'm not going to spoil it just in case someone out there doesn't know it and might actually want to watch the movie. Even though these types of flicks are all about the gore and killing, I didn't find those parts very compelling. I was more into the parts with the survivors learning about what was going on and getting the hell out of Dodge. It's not a well-made movie or anything, but what fascinated me was the whole idea behind it. I thought it was pretty original, even if the twist I alluded to was taken from elsewhere. I can't tell if it's supposed to be making fun of the misgivings Northerners have about Southerners or a statement about "Southern hospitality" being insincere. Speaking of Southern hospitality, the seemingly affable mayor of the town is a stereotypical good-ol'-boy appropriately named "Buckman." Is this retrocausal meme magic at work? I actually kind of like this one. The premise of bloodthirsty hicks killing outsiders and tongue-in-cheek humor make it seem like a predecessor to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, although I have no idea if Tobe Hooper was influenced by it at all.

I'd known about Blood Feast since I was a teenager, but it didn't live up to the picture I had in my head. Mal Arnold's portrayal of Fuad Ramses didn't live up to the nightmarish picture of the wild-haired maniac on the low-resolution image of the poster I'd first seen on the Internet. I always pictured him hacking victims to bits in jerky, frenzied movements. I did see the Brad Jones review of the movie later on (or at least part of it), but I couldn't remember what Mal Arnold actually looked like. Overall, the movie is as cheesy as you'd expect but I didn't find it all that fun to watch. I can recommend it if you're like me and you're the kind of person who likes to watch movies because they're historically important, but I don't know if I would otherwise.

One thing I'll say in favor of both movies is that I genuinely liked the amateurish organ music. It reminds me of the creepy organ playing on "D.O.A." by Bloodrock, but both movies predate that song.

>>339232
Well, like I said, I was very tired when I watched it. Maybe that drug-fueled 70's atmosphere just put me in a trance.
>formerly robertsfag
>formerly
Sure, buddy, sure.

I watched 48 hrs. and have mixed feelings about it. I really disliked Nick Nolte's character and Eddie Murphey's jokes felt like they were tacked on after everything else was already made. However, I did have some fun with it in spite of the above. I'm a sucker for these 70s, 80s, and 90s urban adventure films.

>>339547
Was there BBC in it?

>>339549
Sort of. A running gag is that Eddie Murphey is really horney because he's been in prison for 2 and a half years, so he hits on every Black woman he sees. Finally, at the end, he's shown to have had sex (off screen) with this random Black woman he met at a club earlier in the movie.

>>339547
The country bar scene, an homage reply to the scene in The French Connection where Gene Hackman's cop fucks with a bunch of black drug dealers in a bar, was obnoxious. And overly stereotypical considering it was a country bar, which I don't think have ever really existed in San Francisco.

I wanted to watch Make Way for Tomorrow because I heard it was a big influence on Ozu's Tokyo story, which is one of my favorite movies. While I didn't like it quite as much as Tokyo Story, I was still blown away by it. Without a doubt, it's one of the best films ever made. It doesn't at all feel like something Hollywood would make, especially not in the 1930's; it almost seems more akin to Italian neo-realism.
I really appreciated how it didn't try to drown every scene in schmaltzy orchestral music. That's the biggest weakness of older movies in my opinion. But this one avoids that. It only uses music when it can add something to the overall story. And there wasn't really any overacting either, which would have been very easy to do with a story like this.
The one problem I have with the movie is there are two shots, like this one, where it's obviously just the actors walking in place in front of rear projection screen. At first, I thought it was because the actors couldn't physically handle going through a walk in the park, but it turns out that they weren't actually that old. They used makeup to make the couple look older. The old woman was only 48 when this was filmed. I guess they just couldn't afford to shoot on location. Still, those are only two shots in what is an otherwise perfect movie.

>>339576
Yeah, the part where they had one of the guys at the bar scream "YEE HAW" out of nowhere was really weird. It's like having an Asian randomly scream "BANZAI" for no reason.

Eyewitness is boring. The first half makes it seem like it's going to be one of those character dramas masquerading as a mystery/thriller, like an Antonioni film or something, but then the second half turns into an actual mystery/thriller. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that the execution of those aspects are quite poor.
The film tries to give every character a some depth, but they all end up feeling fake, like the kind of characters that would be invented just to illustrate a particular lesson in a creative writing class, and for no other reason. This is most true of the main character. Instead of just having him be this weird, pathetic autist, like he was obviously intended to be, they also try to make him likable in ways that clash with the creepy autist vibe, and make him feel phony as a result. And they're all like this. James Woods' character was the only one who felt somewhat real.
The mystery/thriller part is too phoned in to even say anything about. It's like they were forced to include it and went into it with an attitude of "let's get this over with." Really, the whole movie feels like it was completely mangled by the studio.

>>331158
Watched The Departed and Wolf Street and I say The Departed is more fitting to be a comedy while Wolf Street tried way too hard, almost like those Judd Apatow movies in which you're supposed to be amused by the protagonist who has the charm of a brick.

>>339939
The Departed is juvenile too. Lots of Scorsese is tryhard. I liked Silence though.

I saw this when I was kid, but remembered nothing about it. This movie looks amazing. Even if everything else about it were rubbish, it would still go down as a great masterpiece of cinematography. Thankfully, though, most of the rest movie is good as well. The tone finds a nice balance between cartoonish and dreamlike and the acting has just the right level of cheesiness to make you believe this universe is crazy enough for all the things that happen in it. Yet, it never goes to over the top, into the realm of straight parody. I know a lot of people say Margot Kidder wasn't pretty enough for the role, but she plays it very convincingly.
I didn't like the flying sequence with Superman and Lois Lane, mostly because it went on too long, but also because of the part where Lois spontaneously recites a poem in her mind. And some of the the comedy routines with Lex Luthor and his henchmen were a bit much. They made it hard to find them threatening to anyone, let alone Superman. Only Gene Hackman's great performance is able to save the character in the end.
Is the theatrical cut or Donner cut of the sequel the better version?

>>340207
I never saw it, but it always annoyed me how the people on Krypton wear the Superman logo on their outfits.

Very good follow up to the first movie that keeps the tone of the original while actually building on the concept instead of simply giving the audience more of the same.
The ending kind of bothered me though. Superman suddenly having the ability to wipe people's memories is weird enough, but undoing all of the development in Lois and Clark/Superman's relationship just didn't sit right with me.

I rewatched Dawn of the Dead last night. I looked for the longest version that was easily available, as last time I saw it I think it was when I watched the Argento cut for the first time.

Last time I saw the movie, I was starting to lose enthusiasm for it. This viewing further cemented my impression that it's overhyped. I feel like it's all over the place tonally. It mixes horror, action, and comedy, but I don't feel like it really succeeds in combining them into a balanced whole. In particular I think it should have focused more on horror. The campiness and humor just feel tacked on, and I don't find them particularly funny. The ways the movie pokes fun at the zombies is at odds with how it also tries to treat them as a threat. I think treating the whole thing as a joke detracted from illustrating the hubris of the protagonists' cavalier attitudes toward them. I don't know why the tone couldn't have been closer to Night of the Living Dead, which for me is one of the greatest horror movies ever made and by far the best of the trilogy. I have some problems with the special effects too. The ghoul makeup is understandably inconsistent in quality, but the gray makeup ended up looking blue upon filming, and most of the zombies you see just look like their makeup was haphazardly applied. A lot of people might criticize the over-the-top look of the bright red blood, but I don't know that it bothers me that much.

Another thing that was more evident to me this time was the leftist propaganda in the movie. The most clear example is the heckin' evil bigot cop Wooley who goes on a murderous rampage because of how much he hates spics and nigs, but that was something that's so obvious that I noticed it before. What jumped out at me is just how much the negro Peter is shown to be the most patient, competent, level-headed main character. The two times that I noticed race coming up explicitly in the movie, they involve a villainous white man engaging in Skinhate™ toward innocent non-whites. If I were making the movie and had to fit in Peter Foree, I would have had him play the more impulsive Roger instead. The whole thing would be more believable without invoking the implausible numinous negro trope. Insecure midwits love to tout the movie's trite "anti-consumerism" message like it's something profound, but George Romero's leftist views on racial matters definitely bled into the movie too.

All this criticism makes it sound like I have nothing good to say about it. That's not true. I especially like the scenes prior to the characters arriving at the mall. My favorite is probably the opening scene of disorder at the TV station that really gets across the feeling of a society falling into chaos. When I first saw the movie, I liked the sense of progress at the mall being cleaned up and turned into a home as the story develops. That aspect of the plot didn't do much for me now though.

What made me want to see the movie again was downloading the album of the stock music that supplemented the parts of Goblin's score that were used in the U.S. theatrical release. It's been a few years since I last watched Dawn of the Dead, but when I heard this track I instantly pictured the scene where the party stops for fuel as they have their first group encounter with the zombies who are prowling around the area. It made me appreciate how much the music helped build up the movie's atmosphere, even aside from the Goblin pieces. Unfortunately, there's also a lot I don't like about the movie. I've liked Dawn of the Dead since I was a teenager, so I don't feel as if I'm just making excuses to find flaws. At this point I feel like it's the worst of the Night of the Living Dead trilogy.

>>342820
>Insecure midwits love to tout the movie's trite "anti-consumerism" message like it's something profound, but George Romero's leftist views on racial matters definitely bled into the movie too.

Sadly the whole film is filled with leftist crap, still some enjoyable scenes like the ebil hwite biker army, again another leftist fear. Screwdriver kill will always be iconic and my me feel uncomfortable.
>>340902
Love this film, sadly doug walker's zodd impression from to boldly flee is the only thing I think of when I watched this film last. Ever since to boldly flee came out 12 years ago its all I can think of in general and I don't know why.

>>342820
Anon this is just sad. How are you going to enjoy anything when you insist on bringing all your emotional baggage into the cinema?

>>342820
For me even at a young age the way Peter was built up as being so impressive as a man only to later offer to perform an abortion left a strong impression. That the mother wasn't the one it was offered to as a service and her reaction to overhearing the conversation tells me he would have done it against her will and with no compunction. That's the kind of person Peter is, the embodiment of why the dead returned to haunt the living and turn their realm into hell.

To those of us that don't see humans as being made up of simple atoms and various biochemical reactions or pregnancy as a disease to be prevented or treated Peter was the main villain of the movie.

>>342860
>Sadly the whole film is filled with leftist crap, still some enjoyable scenes like the ebil hwite biker army, again another leftist fear.
Agreed.
>Screwdriver kill will always be iconic and my me feel uncomfortable.
My favorite kill is the one that involves Flyboy at the end of the movie. I can't recall any that make me very uncomfortable, unlike the eyeball scene from Zombi 2.
>>342862
Like I said, the movie definitely has redeeming features and a lot of my issues have to do with things other than the left-wing messaging. I don't even hate the movie or anything. I just don't like it as much as I used to anymore, and the political baggage it brings in is part of that. And despite thinking the movie is overrated by a lot of people, I still wouldn't recommend against seeing it for anyone interested.
>>342864
>That the mother wasn't the one it was offered to as a service and her reaction to overhearing the conversation tells me he would have done it against her will and with no compunction.
I don't see him as a villain at all. The movie makes him come across as such a swell guy that I think Romero's intent was that he would have only done it with Fran's permission.

Speaking of Fran, I only just learned yesterday that Gaylen Ross is Jewish. Her birth name is Gail Rosenblum according to IMDB. Her features look Jewier to me in later pictures, but I didn't suspect her from how she appeared in Dawn of the Dead.

>>342909
>Speaking of Fran, I only just learned yesterday that Gaylen Ross is Jewish. Her birth name is Gail Rosenblum according to IMDB. Her features look Jewier to me in later pictures, but I didn't suspect her from how she appeared in Dawn of the Dead.

Based as hell you have a jewdar that good anon.

>>342912
I can't take credit since I only found out by accident. I read that she had Israeli citizenship and started looking into it figuring it must be through marriage. She has gotten a bit of that reptilian look as she's gotten older but never struck me as Jewish in Dawn of the Dead. I did see her in Creepshow too but can't remember much about that movie.

>>342909
>I don't see him as a villain at all. The movie makes him come across as such a swell guy that I think Romero's intent was that he would have only done it with Fran's permission.
In the longer cuts of the movie when he's asks 'do you want to get rid of it' there's a short discussion prior which makes it clear that if the pregnancy was to risk their survival or mobility it would be ended for their convenience. She even asks if the decision to abort it was made and doesn't expect to be asked what she wants having no answer.

>>342927
>In the longer cuts of the movie when he's asks 'do you want to get rid of it' there's a short discussion prior which makes it clear that if the pregnancy was to risk their survival or mobility it would be ended for their convenience.
I missed how the talk about chopping off her head if it came down to it segued into the abortion conversation.

I don't have much to say about this one other than that I thought it was a decent little low-budget movie. I wouldn't call it an overlooked classic or anything, but I found it to be worth my time. It was interesting seeing Richard France in a bigger role, since to me he's basically Millard Rausch. This might actually be the biggest acting role he's had in a movie as far as screen time goes if his IMDB credits are any indication. The central concept of the military quarantining a small town due to a bio weapon accident spreading a plague that turns people into insane killers and townspeople resisting their occupiers makes for a bit of distinction from the usual type of zombie movie Romero is known for.

Kino. I thought neo-noir was a meme, but I can see it now. The setting felt small scale but it was still dynamic when things lulled steadily.

I decided to go back and watch the original Star Wars trilogy for the first time in over a decade (theatrical versions of course). Started with A New Hope last night. It really is a good movie that I feel has been unjustly caricatured as mindless spectacle, not only by its critics but by its fans as well. The discourse surrounding this film seems to center around a handful of aspects and ignore everything else, and now people think those aspects are all there is to it. I think that's a big part of why the Disney Star Wars movies failed. They thought those elements were the only things anyone cared about, so they focused only on those and nothing else, except their political agenda.
>visuals
This is the film's biggest strength. Yes, the special effects are famous, but the actual directing, cinematography, and lighting are even more impressive. Almost every shot is composed brilliantly. Even quick shots of fairly mundane things look incredible. I don't know if Lucas deserves the praise for that, or his cinematographer.
The visual storytelling is also quite good. The first 10-20 minutes is mostly watching two robots wandering around a desert, and the one we spend the most time with has no face and no intelligible speech, and yet there's just as much emotion as if it were two humans.
>writing
The story is simple without being flat. It's exactly what it needs to be. I remembered Star Wars as being little more than a Saturday morning cartoon story, but there is actually a fair bit of subtlety and nuance to the world and its characters; even if they're not exactly on the level of Dostoevsky.
Lots of people have talked about how Star Wars' plot was inspired by Flash Gordon and The Hidden Fortress, but there's so much more to it than that. The whole thing is like one big homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood. You've got bits of westerns, spy movies, samurai movies, war movies, swashbucklers, fantasy and, or course, science fiction all rolled into one. Star Wars is like to live action 30's-50's movies what Roger Rabbit was to cartoons of the same era.
The plot does feel a bit rushed towards the end, after they escape from the Death Star. I think a few more scenes to flesh out the characters at the rebel base, before the final battle, would have been a good addition to the story.
>acting
This is the film's weakest aspect. Some of the performances are great, like Alec Guinness as Obi=Wan, but others aren't so good. Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia is noticeably weaker than the other actors. I remember hearing once that Jodie Foster (or maybe it was Cybele Shepherd; one of the actresses from Taxi Driver, I don't remember which) was also considered for the role, and I can't help but wonder if either of those wouldn't have been a better choice.
>sound
The music and sound effects contribute a lot to the movie's atmosphere, and I'm sure the score sounded amazing to the original audience back in the 70's, but I've heard all too many times in lesser movies, video games, and fast food commercials for it to have much of an effect on my anymore.
>final thoughts/autism
Overall, a very good movie. It's easy to see why it was and still is so popular. In retrospect, Star Wars is quite a reactionary movie. Not only it a homage to the films of the 30's-50's, but homage might by too weak of a word. It's more like a revival of that style of filmmaking, a rebellion against the New Hollywood approach that, by the late 70's, was starting to become a caricature of itself. Not only that, but the way the story glorifies the old fashioned republic, the religion of the Jedi, and their fight against a vast centralizing, atheistic empire that seeks to destroy the traditional culture of the galaxy was also very much at odds with the spirit of other films of the time. I'm surprised there wasn't more of a backlash against it by the infamous activist-film critics of the era. Remember, these were the same people who said Dirty Harry was fascist propaganda and that Blue Velvet was misogynistic filth.
I don't mean to imply that Lucas was some kind of based traditionalist reading Guenon and Evola. I think he, and most people in America at the time, simply had a subconscious yearning for the time all hell broke loose in the 60's and early 70's, and that Star Wars was the ultimate expression of that yearning, even more so than American Graffiti.

>The Amityville Horror
The real horror is how much this movie sucks. It feels like someone spent millions on a B movie to prevent as little low-budget charm as possible from coming through.
>Conquest
An interesting little Conan the Barbarian knockoff from Lucio Fulci. I have to admit that the hazy visuals really turned me off at first, but as the movie started going along I really started to enjoy it and its weird touches. The villainess is a topless masked sorceress with an army of wolf men who spends her spare time writhing around moaning with a fat snake on top of her, there are swamp zombies, and also a bow that shoots magical heat-seeking energy spread shots. I can definitely see myself coming back to this one.
>The Abominable Dr. Phibes
I liked the art deco stuff and the '20s setting, but overall it's just another horror comedy that I can't connect with.
>The Fog
Like a lot of John Carpenter movies, I enjoyed the premise of this one but not the film itself. The way the plot progressed didn't make sense to me (how exactly does Adrienne Barbeau's character know so much about what's going on?), and it didn't feel schlocky enough to get away with dream logic. I also didn't like the theme of ancestral guilt either. Out of the three Carpenter movies I watched recently, this is still probably the one I liked the best.
>Dark Star
Read some positive opinions about this one, but I didn't care for it at all. While it's impressive for a student film, I didn't find it funny at all. I guess I kind of liked the "Benson, Arizona" country song and the ending though.
>Starman
I've seen this described as E.T. for adults, and that sounds pretty accurate to me. I'd rather just watch E.T. I have zero interest in hunting, but the holier-than-thou anti-hunter propaganda really killed any affection I might have felt for the movie, and I was considering just turning it off at that point. E.T. to me was a much more appealing character than the alien played by Jeff Bridges, and I think the movie's treacly tone is unjustified. I didn't feel very invested in him getting away from the military either. That aspect of the plot actually made the movie feel like a predecessor of the first Short Circuit to me.

At this point, the only movie from the '70s and '80s John Carpenter directed that I haven't seen outside of his TV work is Christine. And out of all those, Halloween is the only one I truly liked. His movies get so much praise from horror and science fiction fans that I really feel like I'm missing something. I was actually hoping I'd be impressed by one of these ones, but unfortunately I was let down again.
>Zombie Holocaust
A slapdash combination of a cannibal movie and a zombie movie. It was filmed at the same time as Zombi 2 and uses some of the same sets and actors (Ian McCulloch and Dakar). It's no surprise it feels like a ripoff of it. It was even released with the title Zombie 3 in some places. There are way more zombies than cannibals, so if you're looking mainly for a followup to Zombi 2 or a typical zombie movie at all you're probably going to be pretty disappointed.

It's not very good or anything, but I also got what I expected. I wouldn't mind revisiting it at some point down the line if I can find the original Italian version. I saw the Dr. Butcher M.D. release that has a different soundtrack from the original and a tacked-on intro scene. I wouldn't recommend it at all if you aren't into cheesy Italian splatter flicks.
>>344000
A New Hope is by far my favorite of the theatrical Star Wars movies. I don't know what its detractors expect out of it. It's a great space adventure movie that works perfectly fine outside of the context of the whole Star Wars franchise. It's absolutely true that the Star Wars movies have been put on a pedestal, but I think A New Hope holds up the best.

>>344004
>I think A New Hope holds up the best
Just finished The Empire Strikes Back, and I'm inclined to agree. The writing and acting is better than A New Hope, but the directing is a clear step down. It's still very good, but not on the level of Lucas in his prime. I seriously think he could have been one of the great American directors if hadn't given up on it to just be a producer after A New Hope.
One thing I noticed is that some of the things in Return of the Jedi that people say were changed at the last minute are already present here. I'm mostly thinking of the rumor that Leia being Luke's sister was something George came up with to resolve the Han-Leia-Luke love triangle, rather than killing Han off like he originally planned. Maybe that was true at some point very early on in Lucas' conception of the trilogy, but I think it's clear that, by the time Empire was being written, the changes to the story had already been made.
First, there isn't really much of a love triangle to begin with. There's Luke saying Leia is beautiful when he first sees a hologram of her at the beginning of A New Hope, and there's the scene where she kisses him solely to spite Han at the beginning of Empire. Aside from that, there's no hint that their relationship was anything other than Platonic unless I have some kind of autism and aren't picking up on it. There were only ever sparks between Leia and Han.
Secondly, it's already hinted at that Leia is, if not Luke's sister, is somehow connected to him in the Force. There's the line where Obi-Wan tells Yoda that Luke is their last hope, to which Yoda responds with "No, there is another." Then, at the end of the movie, Leia senses that Luke is in trouble after he loses his hand, and tells Lando to go back and rescue him. Since Luke's Force sensitivity is implied, at least in part, to be something he inherited from his father, it follows that Leia is somehow related as well.
Like I said, maybe this aspect of the story was very different early on in the conceptual stage, but so were a hundred others. Remember, Luke was originally supposed to be an old man named Starkiller. I don't get why so many people get hung up on this one point.

>>344004
Carpenter is revered because he mastered a very specific niche: silly b movies with relatively high production values. Those don't appeal to most people, but the people who like them think they're best thing ever and will never shut about them. Zach was right again.

>>344004
*more cannibals than zombies
>>344020
The Empire Strikes Back has always been my least favorite of the Star Wars movies that I care about. There are definitely parts that I like (like the battle on Hoth, the Millennium Falcon weaving through the asteroid field, the Imperial March scene, and Darth Vader's motley assembly of bounty hunters), but overall I don't find it anywhere near as exciting as the other two movies in the trilogy. I imagine the Darth Vader revelation was an interesting twist (although it really does mean Obi-Wan lied), but it's not really something beneficial for repeat viewings. People rave about the way it put more emphasis on the characters, but I've never found the characters to be much to write home about in the first place. I'm not saying that a movie should aim to be filled with a cast of cardboard cutouts, but I think that focusing so much on the characters in a movie of this type is barking up the wrong tree. We're talking about a series that started off taking on the mantle of Flash Gordon, after all. I've always thought the "it's darker and therefore more betterer!" claim from its devotees to be silly too. A dark tone doesn't make something inherently good or bad. It strikes me as the kind of thing you'd hear from someone who feels insecure about loving a movie series made for kids. On balance The Empire Strikes Back feels spotty to me in comparison to its two sibling movies. I think it also suffers from being made with the "saga" concept in mind, and I don't think the ending helps anything in that regard. It just doesn't feel like much is resolved. Would the movie really work on its own merits for someone who'd never seen another Star Wars movie? I'm not really sure.

Not to sound even more contrarian, but I'd seriously take Ewoks: The Battle for Endor over The Empire Strikes Back.
>>344051
>Carpenter is revered because he mastered a very specific niche: silly b movies with relatively high production values
You hit the nail right on the head, and that's probably part of the reason they don't appeal to me. They don't quite have the same cheesy draw of B movie filmmakers who either had lower budgets to work with or were less skilled at stretching out the money they had. But they also didn't have tons of money to throw around on expensive set pieces or lavish eye candy. Nothing in Escape from New York looks as cool to me as the poster with the Statue of Liberty's gargantuan severed head lying in the New York streets, for example. The faked wire-frame computer animation was an impressive bit of budget filmmaking, but I've never found the movie to be all that interesting to look at otherwise. While I typically find the concepts behind his movies interesting, they usually just feel empty to me in terms of actual content. It's not like you have to spend much money to come up with interesting material if you're creative enough. George Romero was spending a fraction of what John Carpenter did on his most respected movies, and yet I still find his body of work during his heyday to be more compelling than what Carpenter came up with. Carpenter's works falls in such an unsatisfying no-man's-land for me. I guess his middle-ground position between more polished Hollywood productions and the usual B-movie flicks might be why he's basically become such a major entry point for Redditors looking to dip their toes into the pool of cheesy B movies from the '70s and '80s.

I think another factor is his musical contributions to a lot of his movies. And while he's done some good work (I like the Escape from New York soundtrack the most), I get the impression that a lot of the people who praise him so much aren't familiar with similar composers of low-budget movies like Fabio Frizzi or Riz Ortolani. And even then it's not like he didn't have Alan Howarth lending him a hand on a decent amount of his work, although I'm not sure who did what.
>Those don't appeal to most people, but the people who like them think they're best thing ever and will never shut about them. Zach was right again.
Say what you want about the president of HAPA, but I've always respected the way he'd gainsay the Carpenter cult.

>>344059
>A dark tone doesn't make something inherently good or bad. It strikes me as the kind of thing you'd hear from someone who feels insecure about loving a movie series made for kids.
Star Wars isn't really for kids. I mean, it's marketed to them, but it's not really appropriate for under 13s, hence the rating change. People get killed left and right.

>>344062
There's definitely violence, but it's the kind of violence that's considered fine for general audiences. Like what you'd see in an old serial or adventure movie.

>>344020
I never liked the B-plot about the millenoum falcon's unfixable warp speed thing, after a while the fact that it took all the way to the end to fix it got kinda annoying. Also Han and Leia's romance wasn't interesting. It was carried by Harrison Ford's charisma but besides that, it wasn't very well done in my opinion. All of Luke's scenes, especially at Dagobah and Hoth were the best and made the film great. The ending scene, the shot is beautiful though, possibly my favourite shot in the series. The fact that the heroes lost but Luke and Leia still look smile at each other and look hopefully as they see Lando fly off, it really was a great way to end the dark tone of the film with hope for the next one.

>>344059
Watched Return of the Jedi last night. It is the weakest of the original three in my opinion, but it's a very good end to the trilogy. The final act is as good anything else in the franchise.
It's not as strong as Empire visually, though not so much because of inferior direction or cinematography, but because the environments aren't quite as interesting. Having most of the film taking place in a North American-looking forest makes it feel less exotic, less fantastical. There are still some beautiful shots here and there
The whole story has a feeling of "This is it, this is the end" that runs throughout film that I think is what makes it both weaker as a standalone film and a very satisfying conclusion. It flows at a slower pace than the first two, almost like it's reflecting on everything that happened in them. A lot of people say Lucas rehashed ideas from A New Hope because he got lazy, but I think he deliberately wanted to evoke the memory of the original as sort of book end.
Also, having the Ewoks defeat the man-made horror of the empire with primitive technology is based and Tedpilled.
>>344059
>I imagine the Darth Vader revelation was an interesting twist (although it really does mean Obi-Wan lied), but it's not really something beneficial for repeat viewings.
Knowing it beforehand did add another dimension to the scene where Vader talks the Emperor via hologram. The Emperor tells him to kill Luke, but Vader persuades him to try to win Luke over to the dark side instead. I assume he did that to save Luke's life.
>I've always thought the "it's darker and therefore more betterer!" claim from its devotees to be silly too.
I wouldn't even agree that it's darker than A New Hope. That movie had a planet blowing up and a close up shot of the charred corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle. Empire ends with the good guys losing, but that's it. No one is dead, nothing is lost forever, and you know they're going to win in the end.

>Inferno
Forgot about this one. I thought it was interesting but I'm not sure I thought it measured up to Suspiria. The rat scene definitely got a laugh out of me.
>Manhattan Baby
The first Fulci movie I've seen that I haven't liked. There were some interesting elements, but it feels pretty carelessly thrown together. I even thought The House by the Cemetery was pretty decent, but I didn't find much to like with this one. Even the music is just reused bits from other Fulci-Frizzi collaborations.
>Zone Troopers
A good-natured tribute to both WWII movies and old-school sci-fi flicks. It involves a squad of American soldiers getting involved with interstellar visitors while btfoing nazidups. It doesn't take itself seriously, but it also avoids the pitfall of intentionally trying (and therefore failing) to make a so-bad-it's-good movie. This trailer is pretty cool, but it's also tonally misleading. There's really little horror to be found. And if you're expecting blood and guts, you're not going to find any. It's on par with an old WWII movies like To Hell and Back.

The two guys who wrote this movie later ended up working on The Rocketeer, which was an appropriate fit for them considering their work on Zone Troopers.
>>344092
>but because the environments aren't quite as interesting. Having most of the film taking place in a North American-looking forest makes it feel less exotic, less fantastical. There are still some beautiful shots here and there
I always found the scenery to be more interesting. As a kid, I was always under the impression that they packed a lot into the movie. I don't think they did at all, but I found what they did have to be more exciting than The Empire Strikes Back. I guess that might be because I've never been that into the early Hoth scenes before the battle or found the Cloud City stuff all that interesting to look at. The Return of the Jedi had the Tatooine scenes with Jabba the Hutt, the Ewoks and the big land battle on Endor, the destruction of the second Death Star, and still had some Yoda (I liked Yoda more when I was a kid). Return of the Jedi was my favorite of the three back then.
>Also, having the Ewoks defeat the man-made horror of the empire with primitive technology is based and Tedpilled.
I'm not one of those people who have a problem with the Ewoks, but the way the situation was portrayed doesn't feel believable to me. You've got a primitive tribe with weapons made of wood and stone taking on armored soldiers with laser weapons and even vehicles.
>That movie had a planet blowing up and a close up shot of the charred corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle.
There's also the shot of Pondo Baba's bloody arm lying on the floor. I forgot about that when I made this post: >>344066

That also reminded me of how they use the word "damn" in A New Hope. I guess those might be examples of what the TV Tropes spergs would call "Early Installment Weirdness."

>Trancers
I really liked this one for what it is. It might be pulling from movies like Blade Runner and The Terminator, but it took things in its own direction. Like its fellow Empire Pictures release Zone Troopers (with whom it shares a decent chunk of its cast and crew), it has a sense of humor without coming across like it's insecure about its own existence. That seems to be something lost with movies that attempt something similar to this nowadays. It made me think of the contrast with that Space Cop movie Red Letter Media did, which from what I remember had a similar premise and even a similar title (Trancers also went by the name "Future Cop"). Since I haven't seen that I could be wrong, but it apparently was a complete failure that hid behind smugness and irony instead of sincerely trying to get the best results out of a low budget and limited resources.

I have some objections to the way time travel works, but that seems to be par for the course when it comes to these types of movies. The Trancers version of time travel uses Back to the Future logic (although it was released the year before Back to the Future), where the past being changed has the potential to kill off characters in the future. I feel like they kind of applied their logic inconsistently with the end of the movie though. Or at least ignored the butterfly effect like most time travel stories do.

It's a movie I should have watched sooner.
>Trancers 2
While it was nice to see so much of the cast from the first movie returning (as well as appearances from actors like Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton) and had some interesting ideas, it's not exactly a worthy successor. It was a direct-to-video movie, and it feels like one. While the characters do feel fleshed out a bit more, the movie's pretty light on both plot and on good action scenes. The shootout at the end was really bad.

The whole Trancer farm concept feels pretty inconsistent with the first movie too.

Even though it's not very good, I might still end up watching some of the sequels. I've come to like Tim Thomerson's presence. I saw Cherry 2000 years ago, but I wasn't familiar with him until I viewing Zone Troopers recently.
>The Dungeonmaster
It's definitely cheesy and retarded, but I can't say I wasn't reasonably entertained. It's supposedly an anthology film, but it's only one in the loosest sense. There are sections of the movie written and directed by different people, but it follows one continuous plot line.

Of the sections, I felt there were too many scenes involving caves. I didn't think the concert scene was a good idea either. It didn't feel all that threatening and just came across like a way to shoehorn W.A.S.P. into the movie. My favorite parts were the serial killer sequence and the Mad Max bit at the end. The one with the giant stone statue has some nice stop-motion effects from David W. Allen.

I think The Dungeonmaster could have made for a fun MST3K episode. They already had Laserblast. That was another cheeseball Charles Band production with David W. Allen animation, so it would have fit right in.

>Damnation Alley
I should have mentioned this one earlier. It's way too skimpy on the plot. It's basically a bunch of things happening during a post-apocalyptic road trip to Albany, New York (California). I'm really forgiving when it comes to this type of special effects, but the ones in Damnation Alley tend to be pretty awful. I did think the red sky effects were pretty memorable. As cool as the Landmaster idea was, I didn't like the way it articulated in the middle on an aesthetic level. I guess that helped make it more functional though.

I didn't hate it or anything, but I think most people would just find it boring. If you're like me and would be interested in the prospect of seeing George Peppard sporting a moustache, speaking with a bad Southern drawl, and driving an armored vehicle around, you might not mind it.

Apparently Damnation Alley premiered in Japan before it did in the U.S., which is kind of interesting.
>Dollman
I thought the movies had a lot of promise before the setting shifts to Earth. It had a neat, Robocop-like feeling to it. Unfortunately, I started losing interest after that. I really disliked the "urban" turn the movie took in terms of feel, both in terms of setting and soundtrack choices. It has a real "How do you do, fellow Bronx Chicano youths?" flavor to it.

Other than that, the movie's pretty generic. It's unfortunate, because the concept of the movie is an interesting one. It's like someone took the plot of a Twilight Zone episode and turned it into an action movie.
>Adventures in Babysitting
This one was something I only had on my radar from the Thor clip someone posted on here a long time ago. I didn't really know much else going in. It ended up reminding me of a John Hughes movie. It's set in the Chicago area, and the idea of the young main characters going on an unauthorized trip into the city is similar to Ferris Bueller's Day off. Fittingly, Chris Columbus would later work with John Hughes on Home Alone. Some of the scenes with Sarah toward the end of Adventures in Babysitting felt sort of like a proto-Home Alone to me at times.

Elisabeth Shue also looked better to me in this than she did in the Back to the Future sequels. I always thought she was kind of ugly in those, but maybe that's got something to do with me hating the way they suddenly had another actress playing Jennifer instead of Claudia Wells.

I don't really have anything very meaningful to say, but I thought it was pretty good.

>>344548
just the car looks cool as hell.

>>344549
It seems like it was built well. There were two of them in the movie, but they actually only made one.