No.331158[Last 50 Posts]
Just saw Scaramouche (1952). An 18th century revenge tale about a man who plays a clown in a theater troupe by day as he plots to kill a heartless aristocrat by night to avenge the death of his best friend and foster brother.
The film feels very ahead of its time both visually and in terms of writing. This is probably because it blends elements of several different genres, which seems to have confused the critics of its day. It's essentially a swashbuckler but with a lot of time dedicated to political drama and comedy. It's also very risque for its time. As incongruent as this sounds, it actually balances these aspects rather well. The biggest weakness in the story is the ending, which feels somewhat underwhelming after everything building up to it and the final plot twist is more than a little hard to swallow. That being said, I don't think it detracts from the film too much.
The characters, even the side ones, are fairly strong and memorable and the acting is quite good as well. A few of the actors even act more like French actors than American ones. The villain is especially great. The only one of the main cast who feels like a typical Hollywood actor from the 50's is Janet Leigh but she's still adequate in her role.
The visuals, like I said, are ahead of their time. Only by a about a decade or so though; it certainly doesn't look modern. The most famous thing about this movie is the 5-minute long swordfight at the end. Despite its length, that fight scene is able to maintain a high level of excitement and tension throughout which is quite a feat since you know the hero is going to win in the end. There are many other swordfights in the movie too and they're all used pretty intelligently to serve the plot. What's nice about the fight scenes is that there's very little music in them and the silence helps tremendously.
Overall, I give Scaramouche an 8/10.
No.331179
>>331177That's another one that looks ahead of its time.
No.331180
>>331177I should have known Narcissus was a reference to a Greek God and not an original gimmick in the WWF.
Film looks amazing btw.
No.331474
>>331177You made it look way cooler than it is. Its some chick romance novel thing.
No.331475
>>331466As much as I wish I could be a filmfag, and of course it's a hat I can wear from time to time, I just have to add to the discourse in a more realistic way. I haven't seen his entire filmography (Gene Hackman), but it seems like a theme in his career to star in movies involving surveillance. He might be typecast but in a different way. I think actors are chosen for works based on their ability to attract certain demographic audiences. When it comes to brainwashing people, there is always an underlying element at work in a film, and the thing in this film that they would get people to accept is that they are being monitored. This subconscious constant understanding shapes behaviors arguably for the worst. Even if someone isn't scheming maliciously, they are less likely to be their genuine self if they are being observed. The ending is sort of a trick since he plays the sax in defeat and acceptance that he's lost and will never find all the bugs.
No.331525
>>331475There's also the underlying implication that Gene Hackman's fear of having other people know anything about him causes him to push everyone away which in turn makes him miserable. The last scene of the movie, I think, is meant to symbolize how he has destroyed his life in his efforts not to be spied on.
No.331657
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>>331474My description was accurate, what did you expect from a 1940's movie about nuns. That movie is on several top 100 film lists and still mentioned to this day as an inspiration for a good reason, Jack Cardiff was probably the best person in the world available to make that movie considering his background in India.
No.332010
Midnight Run is a good movie that could have very easily been a great one. As far as buddy comedy movies go, it's one of the best and the ending is especially strong. But everything about feels just slightly off. The actors (even Deniro) don't feel quite as natural as they should, the plot isn't as tight as it should be, the action feels just a little too underwhelming, the visuals just a little too lackluster, the dialog just a bit too ham-fisted and, most of all, the energy is never quite as high it needed to be for a film like this. Midnight Run reminds me a lot of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World but it never comes close to achieving the chaos and frantic pace that film had.
Like I said, it's a good movie, just not a great one.
No.332064
>>332010Midnight Run is definitely a good watch and it's one of those films that gets better on the second. Not ashamed to admit I've watched it several times since you can never go wrong with buddy films from the era, a lot have hold up over the years. You're right about something being off and that is that the main character was miscasted. De Niro is not an energetic person which you can feel throughout the film that the character was written to be such. I think the writers had someone like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills cop in mind, De Niro could have played the other freelancer which funny enough was played by josh Ashton who was in Beverly Hills cop
No.332132
>>332010I always find it funny how old movie posters like that don't even try pretending like any of the actors are playing characters in the synopses. He's not really playing anybody, he's just "Robert De Niro" lol
No.332134
>>332038I changed my mind. The aliens were actually kino, it just only hits you the next day. I'm unironically considering giving it an 8/10, now.
No.332350
>>332349>It almost feels like a Greek mythWasn't based on a Greek myth but an ancient Greek account of mercenaries fighting their way back home from Persia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon)#Fiction No.332383
>>332350>an ancient Greek accountso a Greek myth
No.333837
>>333827I didn't think much of it until i rewatched it later, have seen it 3 times more and the pilot sub-plot stands out along with the final resolutions of the glasses man, both the actual ending and the one when he was in the tunnel.
It's obvious the chinamen in Hong Kong were heavily influenced by Melville because we can see the glaring "real" brotherhood themes with the pilot plot, and i think that market was one of the few in which the movie was shown.
>it's not like the pilot is the second most significant character in the movieKinda is, he had the complete journey along with the glasses guy unlike the other guys. For example The Mask started as a kid in terms of behavior but suddenly was a rough hitman next time we see him, The Bison was always tough and the woman had her development behind scenes.
What i note about the movie is how it exactly portrays the french resistance, as a bunch of savvy saboteurs in a functioning society rather than freedom fighting guerrillas in urban warfare like the americans imply.
No.333841
>>333454The four sequels by the same director
Hiroshima Deathmatch, Proxy Wars, Police Tactics, and The Final Episode are all absolute fucking kino. Sort of. Like I said in another thread about the Outrage trilogy, if you like this kind of brutal gangster movie, you'll love them. If you don't, there ain't a lot there for you. But. If you like the first, you'll almost undoubtably like the four that come after, they're just variations on the same theme with just enough changed to make it interesting but without trying to like, re-invent the wheel or make them into like romantic comedies or whatever.
No.333852
>Barbie
It was shit, Armond was right again. It's one of those films where everything wrong with it is very obvious. Easiest, fastest improve would be removing the last 10 minutes since they are meaningless.
No.333949
>>333827It's good but Melville's Alain Delon trilogy are better: Le samourai, Le cercle rouge, and Un flic. Also Le deuxieme souffle and Le doulos
No.333950
>>332349My nitpick with it would be that all the racially homogenous groups are the villains, whereas the heroes are the diverse group. Also the comic book frame transitions in the director's cut version are unnecessary.
>>331158He should have stayed with Eleanor Parker, but Janet Leigh is gorgeous
>>331177Jean Simmons is hot asf
No.333962
>>333950>My nitpick with it would be that all the racially homogenous groups are the villains, whereas the heroes are the diverse group.Some of the villains are mixed as well, like the guys dressed like rednecks or the lesbians.
>Also the comic book frame transitions in the director's cut version are unnecessary.I heard about these. Thankfully, I watched the original cut. It sounds like a dumb idea.
No.333966
>>333950>Also the comic book frame transitions in the director's cut version are unnecessary.They look completely retarded and clash with the rest of the movie.
>>333950>Jean Simmons is hot asfWhat do you think of Paul Stanley? :^)
No.334055
>>334053Heat real big
Sleep real big
Combo real big
Let me tell you how it is
No.334092
>>334065Con tic tacs
Of coursseeee
No.334130
>>334053>The Big Heat is kino. Better than The Big SleepAgreed.
No.334152
>>334092I don't get it. Probably because I've never eaten that "tic tacs" shit.
No.334161
>>334152If you know, you know
No.334162
>>334152Tictacs in USA are 1.5 calories each. In EU, they are 2. Eu tictacs are fluffier as they dissolve almost like a hard marshmallow. USA ones dissolve into a shitty rock, and they do so quickly.
No.334163
>>334162So it's about circumcision. I knew it had something to do with penises.
No.334165
>>334162Tictacs are goyslop. Like most "breath fresheners," they're sweetened with aspartame.
No.334166
>>334165No shit, but USA gets the shit end of the goyslop even.
No.334190
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netflix's city hunter
it was fun, mostly just feels like a long episode of the show
No.334192
>>334190You convinced me to actually watch something from Netflix, bravo.
No.334337
>>334190I got as far as them crashing a drag show with constant zoom in on homo asses, not that the scene where he's stripping wasn't bad enough already. Clearly Netflix wanted to turn this into some gay thing because a perverted straight detective is not allowed in troonworld.
No.334917
>>334447Atmospheric asf b&w noir visuals too
No.334942
>>331177looks Bavaesque, kino
No.336428
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The Thief of Bagdad is a great example of a movie that succeeds in spite of itself. The acting is generally pretty bad, the writing is mediocre at its best moments, and the special effects are cheesy even for its time. But it still comes out great nonetheless.
No.336429
>>336428Forgot to mention, the movie starts out like it wants to be a musical, but then just forgets about that as it goes on. I think there are only two, or really one and a half songs. Honestly, that's for the best..
No.336439
>>336428How does it compare to the original?
No.336454
>>336439I've never seen the original.
No.336731
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This Werner Herzog documentary is about a German guy who dreamed of becoming a pilot after living through the Allies bombing the crap out of his village in WWII. He ended up coming to America, joined and quit the Air Force after they wouldn't let him become a pilot, and managed to fly for the Navy only to get shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. He lived as a P.O.W. for months and was tortured by his captors but managed to escape through the jungle and find his way back into American hands.
It's an interesting story and well worth watching if you're into war stories.
No.337596
>>337594And like two minutes after that last scene, two of the dup's goons confront the injun for hanging out with the main character and one of them tells him that his old man said that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Then he keeps punching the injun in the gut to little effect before the magic Chinaman intervenes.
I think I'll stop watching here. It's a shame, because it could be an interesting movie outside of the propaganda. I have a really low tolerance for poz nowadays. It seems like the quintessentially American Western setting was often used to make anti-American messaging go down easier with the general public. Even The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance had a scene with some pro-negro virtue signalling from John Wayne's character that was highly out of place.
Fuck banks and fuck Indians too.
No.337886
It's commonly said by film buffs that 1939 was the greatest year of the classic Hollywood era. That was the year many of the era's most iconic films, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, etc., came out. But last night I watched a movie from that year that I think may be better than all of those.
Only Angels Have Wings is a great movie about mail pilots in South America in the 1930's. It has a very well written scripts that has a decent-sized cast of fairly complex (or at least more than 2-Dimensional) characters who each have their own well structured arcs they go through over the course of the film, and a setting that really feels like its own little world. What's especially impressive is that none of these elements feel half-baked or like they're stepping on each other's toes. There's no sense of "well, that was interesting, but I wish they would have done more with it" by the end.
The movie also has many great aerial shots of plane stunts that I'm sure were mind-blowing at the time. This appeals to me more than it would to most people because I have a soft spot for early 20th century aviation. The rest of the cinematography is well done. Serviceable, but not too flashy. The exotic setting makes the visual more interesting than they probably would be other wise. The air shots are definitely the visual highlights of the film.
All of the actors do a good job that contributes a lot to making the setting feel like a living, breathing world, though some performances are better than others (Rita Hayworth feels a little flat compared to everyone else). Cary Grant seems like he would be out of place in a movie like this, but he actually fits in quite well, as does Jean Arthur.
Overall, it's kino.
No.337987
>>337986I live in the South, I get enough of Africa IRL.
No.338004
>>337986I was still in the mood for British colonialism kino, so I decided to watch Gunga Din tonight. It's a fun little action/adventure picture. It has a very strong pulp adventure feel to it, like someone wanted to make a feature length, big budget version of those old film serials. The action scenes are very good for the time and they even give Douglas Fairbanks Jr. a brief swashbuckling scene.
The three main characters have clearly defined personalities and a good dynamic together. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is the straight man, Cary Grant is the fun-loving trickster, and Victor McLaglen is the big, strong, slightly dumber one. They're also all apparently anime protagonists who can defeat hordes of enemies with their bare fists. The titular Gunga Din (played by a Jew in poo face) is an endearing character who compliments the main trio well.
Main criticisms are 1) they showed too much too early with the evil cult. From the very beginning, you see them showing up in certain places, pretending to be peaceful, and then killing everyone in sight, and then it cuts to scenes of British soldiers wondering why they haven't heard anything from those areas. I think it would have been much better to just have the cult show up somewhere and then cut to the Brits asking why everything has gone silent. It would have made them a lot more mysterious at the beginning. And 2) the comedy scenes go on for too long.
I was surprised to learn that this film is banned in India because of how offensive modern poos find it. Aside from having a Jew and an Italian in poo face play some of the Indian characters, there's nothing even remotely offensive about their portrayal of the Indian people. The most noble character in the whole film is Indian, even if he is played by a Jew. And the bad guys are both shown and stated to be a fringe minority among the Indians. I think there's even one line at the beginning that refers to them as Persian diaspora, although I may have misheard that.
Also, Temple of Doom stole a lot from this movie. Yes, I know that the Kali cult was a real thing, but the way Spielberg portrayed them is directly lifted from Gunga Din.
>>337987It's set in Sudan. Very different from the Africa you're talking about.
No.338287
This movie is a work of art. I didn't like it for like the first third, but once he gets away from the schizophrenic woman, who I suspect was also meant to be a compulsive liar, it becomes so kino it retroactively makes the first third kino as well. It's a black comedy where you're just watching a yuppie get tortured over and over in ways that start off as little annoyances and then keep escalating until he's running for his life. And yet, it's never so over the top that it stops being believable. It's like a horror movie for grown ups.
There's something about it that almost seems like a religious parable. The guy goes to the bad side of town for casual sex (sin), gets punished by being stranded there, tries to get out in a variety of selfish ways (more sin), only to get punished for those as well. All of the bad things he did keep catching up with him. Finally, at the end, he shows kindness to a lonely, middle aged woman (not exactly for selfless reasons, admittedly) and then finds salvation. The part where he's stuck in the papier mache cast is sort of like Purgatory. The problem with this interpretation is that it would make the company where he works like Heaven, which doesn't feel quite right. But maybe it is like Heaven to him after everything else that happened to him.
No.338401
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I just got done watching Extract. It was the last of Mike Judge's movies I hadn't seen. I found it to be enjoyable enough for what it is. I wasn't going in expecting it to be on par with Office Space or anything. I'd even say it might be the worst of all the movies he's directed, although if you're just including ones he's written I'd definitely put it above Beavis and Butt-head Do the Universe.
One little touch I liked was how the kike lawyer Joe Adler played by Gene Simmons was named after the ambulance chaser of the same name from Beavis and Butt-head.
>>337986I've been interested in watching the older 1929 version in the past but could only find really crappy rips of it. Maybe I should keep this version in mind.
>>338004I saw Gunga Din a couple of times and really liked it. I do think you make a valid point about how they could have made it feel more mysterious. I remember even Beginning of the End doing a pretty good job of that at the start of the movie, and that's a total schlockfest.
Have you seen The Lives of a Bengal Lancer? That's one I downloaded but only watched part of.
No.338428
I don't think I have ever seen such a bitch as the main protagonist of a movie. Now don't get me wrong, the movie, characters and even she is aware of how much of a bitch she is, so this isn't some unintended consequence of a female self insert that lacks self-awareness. The whole point of the movie is that she is a massive bitch who will lie, steal, gaslight, use her body, manipulate men to kill other men just to get on top, and worst of all she gets away with it in the end. The movie isn't about karma, or a hero's journey, it's about watching a bitch playing 4D chess and all the strings she pulls to manipulate people into doing what she needs. Even when things don't go her away, she quickly adapts and gets the upper-hand even when a gun is pointed at her.
One scene I found funny, is that her husband sends a private detective to track her down, who happens to be black, but because she is in a remote country town he is the only black guy there, so when she goes into her office, the receptionist tells her "A black guy was asking about you. Did I mention he was black?" Once she leaves, another employee asks the receptionist if she told her about "the black guy". The very existence of a negro was noteworthy to them.
>What I liked about this movie?
Linda Fiorentino's performance as the female lead, was outstanding, should have won an Oscar for it. Really, if you want to see a smart, evil, woman doing whatever it takes to get on top then I recommend watching this movie.
>What I didn't like about this move?
The female lead. FUCK KILL THAT BITCH!
No.338432
>>338428She was so hot. Proof ugly women can be sexy.
No.338453
>>338401>Have you seen The Lives of a Bengal Lancer?Not yet, but I plan on watching it some time in the near future. I was reading one of the free-to-download books on mises.org
I'm not a lolberg, but I enjoy reading the hot takes people in the Austrian school have and there was one passage that talked about why Hollywood was making all of these films glorifying the British Empire in the late 30's and early 40's:
>In 1976, the public finally learned the story of William Stephenson, the British agent code named "Intrepid," sent by Churchill to the United States in 1940. Stephenson set up headquartersin Rockefeller Center, with orders to use any means necessary to bring the United States into the war. With the full knowledge and cooperation of Roosevelt and the collaboration of federal agencies, Stephenson and his 300 or so agents "intercepted mail, tapped wires, cracked safes, kidnapped, . . . rumor mongered" and incessantly smeared their favorite targets, the "isolationists." Through Stephenson, Churchill was virtually in control of William Donovan's organization, the embryonic U.S. intelligence service.
>Churchill even had a hand in the barrage of pro-British, anti-German propaganda that issued from Hollywood in the years before the United States entered the war. Gore Vidal, in Screening History,perceptively notes that starting around 1937, Americans were subjected to one film after another glorifying England and the warrior heroes who built the Empire. As spectators of these productions, Vidal says:
<"We served neither Lincoln nor Jefferson Davis; we served the Crown.">A key Hollywood figure in generating the movies that "were making us all weirdly English" was the Hungarian émigré and friend of Churchill, Alexander Korda. Vidal very aptly writes:<For those who find disagreeable today's Zionist propaganda, I can only say that gallant little Israel of today must have learned a great deal from the gallant little Englanders of the 1930s. The English kept up a propaganda barrage that was to permeate our entire culture. . . . Hollywood was subtly and not so subtly infiltrated by British propagandists.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.
No.338737
>>338735>The Public Enemy is basically a morality taleIn a way, that pedagogical approach sort of backfired. From what I've read, a lot of people back in the Depression were rooting for the gangster characters.
>I've heard the original Scarface is good tooI'm a pretty big Cagney fan, but I prefer Scarface to The Public Enemy.
No.338767
>>338737>From what I've read, a lot of people back in the Depression were rooting for the gangster characters.That seems to happen with gangster characters in every era. To this day, there are still people who idolize Tony Montana and even Tony Soprano.
No.338814
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.
No.338821
>>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.
No.338850
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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.
No.338909
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 sisterThe morbid little girl was definitely my favorite character.
>The songs were alright, though I did get bored during a few of themI 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.
No.339042
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.
No.339065
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?
No.339073
>>339065It 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.
No.339077
>>339065The Boy and the Heron
No.339232
>>339218I didn't get that vibe at all but it's interesting to read it.
t. formerly robertsfag
No.339245
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.
No.339259
>>339232Well, 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>formerlySure, buddy, sure.
No.339549
>>339547Was there BBC in it?
No.339551
>>339549Sort 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.
No.339576
>>339547The 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.
No.339614
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.
No.339646
>>339576Yeah, 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.
No.339788
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.
No.339941
>>339939The Departed is juvenile too. Lots of Scorsese is tryhard. I liked Silence though.
No.340207
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?
No.340209
>>340207I never saw it, but it always annoyed me how the people on Krypton wear the Superman logo on their outfits.
No.342820
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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.
No.342860
>>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.
>>340902Love 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.
No.342862
>>342820Anon this is just sad. How are you going to enjoy anything when you insist on bringing all your emotional baggage into the cinema?
No.342864
>>342820For 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.
No.342909
>>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.
>>342862Like 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.
No.342912
>>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.
No.342931
>>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.
No.344000
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.
No.344004
>The Amityville HorrorThe 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.
>ConquestAn 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. PhibesI liked the art deco stuff and the '20s setting, but overall it's just another horror comedy that I can't connect with.
>The FogLike 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 StarRead 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.
>StarmanI'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 HolocaustA 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.
>>344000A 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.
No.344020
>>344004>I think A New Hope holds up the bestJust 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.
No.344051
>>344004Carpenter 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.
No.344059
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>>344004*more cannibals than zombies
>>344020The 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 valuesYou 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.
No.344062
>>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.
No.344066
>>344062There'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.
No.344092
>>344059Watched 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.
No.344099
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>InfernoForgot 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 BabyThe 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 TroopersA 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 thereI 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:
>>344066That 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."
No.344453
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>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.
No.344548
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>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.
No.344549
>>344548just the car looks cool as hell.
No.344550
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>>344549It seems like it was built well. There were two of them in the movie, but they actually only made one.
No.344656
>>344646I had no idea that was the same guy. Why didn't they at least give him a similar haircut if that's what they were going for instead of the Tom Selleck look?
No.344762
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>Some Kind of WonderfulI had this one on my mental backlog after hearing the March Violets songs from the soundtrack years ago. To me it did a pretty good job of capturing how cringeworthy teenage boys often act when they're mindlessly infatuated with a girl. I didn't understand why Keith was so into Amanda Jones when Watts was a much better match for him, but I guess these things aren't really rational. Maybe it's because she styled herself like a dyke.
I liked the character of Keith's father. He was well played and written to be more than just a two-dimensional "stern father who just doesn't understand, man" role.
A few things I didn't like are the way Keith aiming to blow so much money on a girl he barely knows is treated so casually and thinking the ending should have felt more natural.
I'm glad it wasn't quite the usual "persona non grata gets the popular girl" movie, but it also got me thinking about how it would be a breath of fresh air for a movie like this to feature the unpopular male failing in his attempt and having to do some serious introspection.
>Night of the CometIt felt like the movie didn't know what it wanted to be. The idea of valley girls living through a The Last Man on Earth scenario sounded like it could make for an intriguing movie, but there's really not much going on. It's supposed to be a mix of post-apocalyptic horror and comedy and a story element involving surviving scientists hiding out in an underground base, but I didn't think it did anything very satisfying with those elements. It's not very funny, not very horrifying, and it felt like a lot more could have been done with the plot.
I also didn't care for the beaner love interest or the theme of teenage girls beating up grown men, which seems like something a male feminist would come up with. I did like the ending though.
>Hell of the Living DeadI was actually enjoying this one well enough until the stock footage started taking over the movie. The stock footage they used seems almost like it was intentionally comedic at times. The movie mostly takes place in New Guinea, but they used clips of African wildlife like elephants and what looked like jerboas. They also tried to pass off black Africans as New Guineans. There were apparently an awful lot of whites in New Guinea tool. I thought it started getting boring once the stuff with the ooga-booga tribesmen started before picking up a bit again. I thought the concept of the zombie plague being created in a lab as a depopulation agent was kind of neat.
>>344614Arnold Braunschweiger's character being named John Matrix always gave me a chuckle. Names like Douglas Quaid and Howard Langston might be funny because they're implausibly all-American names for a guy with an accent like his, but having "Matrix" as a last name is just implausible period. It's not even the kind of ridiculous name you'd think the hero of an action movie might have, like Dirk Fightmaster or Biff Rockwell. It's completely out of left field.
>They try to portray him as this threatening fighter who can stand toe to toe with Arnold, but he's chubby and is dressed like a gay biker.Yeah, I thought he came across like a homo.
No.344785
>>344656The main purpose of Bennett's portrayal was to contrast the exaggerated all-Americanism of John with Bennett's Eurofat Freddie Mercury aesthetic. There's also a ton of gay jokes in there, hence the way the fight went on and especially how he died.
No.344788
>>344785>Australia>Europe>Freddy Mercury>EuropeanAmericans are a big fat mistake
No.344794
>>344762I figured Matrix was supposed to be an alias of some kind. He talks to his daughter about growing up in East Germany at the beginning of the movie.
No.344796
>>344788>strayans are not european stock>freddie mercury is not a shitskin emulating the typical member of the 70s britbong faggot sceneAutism
No.344815
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I decided to watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles since it's almost Thanksgiving. Amazingly, I never seen this before.
I was a little bored for the first half hour or so, but I came to like it as the characters started to grow on me. This scene and the ending were kino.
It is kind of odd in that everything about it-from the premise, to the gags, to the overall tone-seems like a family movie, and yet it's rated R. Maybe it just seems odd to me because I grew up in an era where R rated comedy exclusively meant stoner comedy, with lots of cartoonish violence and gratuitous nudity. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, in contrast, probably could have gotten a PG rating if not for the scene at the car rental place where Steve Martin says "fuck" over and over. The idea that a studio would make a movie like this exclusively for adults seems almost quaint.
No.344816
>>344815>The idea that a studio would make a movie like this exclusively for adults seems almost quaint.R-rated films aren't exclusively for adults. It's just so young kids can't access them without parental approval.
No.344829
>>344816Sure, but it's not very common for parents to take their kids to R rated movies. The majority of the people who saw this in theaters were adults.
No.344831
>>344829>Sure, but it's not very common for parents to take their kids to R rated movies.It's more common than you think. I'm sure there were lots of kids who went to see Deadpool and Wolverine, for example. I went to plenty of R-rated movies with my family from like 12 on. Then there's the home video/streaming aspect. If mom and dad feel their son is at a stage where he's mature enough, they will disable parental controls.
No.345012
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>Sixteen CandlesIt might be cliche to say, but there's no way that a movie like this would get released by a major studio nowadays. It's not even just the Chinaman Long Duk Dong. There are also the "bohunk" comments and Molly Ringworm's friend being in disbelief after misinterpreting a remark she made about a dream boyfriend and a black car and thinking she wanted to date a negro. There's no way treating the idea of dating a groid as something humorously unthinkable would fly these days. On top of that, you have a geek driving around with a heavily inebriated Stacy and then having drunk sex with her. A woman who willingly gets drunk and has sex with a man is now considered a rape victim.
Like he would go on to do in The Breakfast Club, Anthony Michael Hell did an admirable job playing a nerd that's a lot more believable than the typical cartoon-level portrayal of a pocket protector enthusiast with taped-up Buddy Holly glasses.
Going in I wasn't expecting it to be as much of a boner comedy as it is, but I liked it.
>Nightmare CityI don't care what anyone says. This movie kicks ass. It's described as a zombie movie, but it doesn't feature zombies in the traditional sense. You won't find any brainless undead hordes shuffling around here. What Nightmare City has are superhuman poo-faced mutant maniacs who chase their victims down in a vampiric frenzy, use weapons, and are even capable of acts of sabotage. Umbero Lenzi would even get mad when people would call the monsters zombies. Regardless of what you'd call them, I thought they were actually pretty cool even if I'm basically a purist and prefer more traditional creatures if you're going to call them zombies (which I don't think they do in the movie). They're basically in between something like the vampires from The Last Man on Earth and what you'd find in Romero's Dead trilogy. I've read that The Crazies was a bigger influence on Nightmare City than either of the Dead movies that had been released at the time were, and it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
There's some of the preachy messaging that movies like this are prone to having, but overall I thought it was a fun schlockfest.
>Trancers IIICompletely forgettable. I'd definitely take Trancers II over this. Trancers III has even less plot. At least the second movie's got the soap-opera drama and some depth added to the characters. I at least enjoyed seeing the principal cast members from the original movie coming back for that, but outside of one scene with Helen Hunt, there's not much of that here. You've got Tim Thomerson and Telma Hopkins back from the first two, but I think that's it (Megan Ward was only in Trancers II). There's also much less of the leftover '80s atmosphere in Trancers III.
I wouldn't advise anyone to watch this unless they're masochists like me or feel the need to watch the entire series.
>Radioactive DreamsThere's definitely some creativity on display with this one, but despite its uniqueness I found it to be pretty dull. The idea of two young fish out of water who were raised as living time capsules of the midcentury having to navigate a post-apocalyptic world full of distinctly themed gangs could have made for something much better. I liked the early scenes, but the whole thing lost steam for me once it became once the story just became about the two dicks running through dark environments trying to escape their pursuers.
The movie contains a prominent soundtrack mostly consisting of original New Wave songs, but they came across as pretty generic to me.
Radioactive Dreams is also out of print for some reason. It had a VHS release in North America, but outside of Germany it was never even released on DVD. You'd think with all the obscure movies getting the Blu-ray or even 4K Blu-ray treatment that this would be among them, especially considering it was apparently really influential on the Fallout games. But as far as an HD home video release goes, it looks like it's been left to languish for the time being.
One tidbit I thought was interesting was that the name "Brick Bardo" was used. That name would later be reused in Dollman, among other Albert Pyun flicks I haven't seen.
>>344794That could definitely be, but you'd think he'd have chosen a more inconspicuous name. I guess it just adds to the goofiness of Commando.
>>344815I watched that and Uncle Buck a while ago. John Candy was really good at imbuing his characters with warmth and likability. I always thought of him and Chris Farley as being the two big fat-guy comedic actors who died in the '90s, but any similarities between the two are pretty superficial from what I can tell given that my familiarity with their bodies of work has always been spotty.
No.345045
>>345028Did you write Molly Ringworm on purpose?
No.345055
>>345045Yeah, that one was actually intentional.
No.345057
>>345028That's some transformation, considering those films were only what, 5 years apart?
No.345067
>>345059What if the Griswald's were actually just lost in the desert for six months before they finally made it to Wally World?
No.345080
>Mildred Pierce
I've heard that noir films were simply called melodramas in the days when they were actually being made. Mildred Pierce fits that description better than any other noir I've seen. The murder that the film begins and ends with is typical noir, but everything else is pure melodrama. I don't mean that as an insult, I mean the story something straight out of the literal melodramas from the 19th and early 20th century. Complete with the stock character types: the spoiled, materialistic daughter, the lecherous millionaire playboy, etc. That's not to say it's bad, though. As far as melodramatic movies go, it's probably one of the best. The story never goes too over the top and the acting elevates the parts that would otherwise come off as cheesy.
>The Sea Wolf
Pretty good sea adventure with lots of great black and white cinematography. I liked the story and the characters. Edward G. Robinson plays a sea captain who almost seems like a wannabe Captain Ahab at first, but turns out to be more like the average image board user. The film is obviously a novel adaption that had to condense much of the plot. It feels like it just goes from climax to climax without any room to breath. And some of the events feel like too much of a coincidence. I haven't read the novel, but I assume the screenwriter had to take multiple different events and roll them all into one for the sake of time. Still, it's worth watching if the idea of a psychological drama set in the middle of the pacific ocean sounds interesting to you.
No.345291
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>Pretty in Pink
It's kind of odd how similar Some Kind of Wonderful was to this in terms of plot considering that John Hughes was involved with both and that Some Kind of Wonderful followed only a year after. I consider Some Kind of Wonderful to be the better movie though. Duckie just comes across as an annoying twerp orbiter, which makes him harder to sympathize with. I also felt like the movie was pulling my leg in the scene where Andrew McCarthy's character is introduced like he's some dreamboat. I guess Some Kind of Wonderful is also easier for me to project onto. Putting myself in the shoes of a male lead with this kind of story feels more natural, and that one felt like less of a chick flick because of it.
Pretty in Pink isn't bad, but it's kind of standard.
>Risky Business
I wasn't really sure what to make of it while I was watching it, but I feel more positive about it now. The way Risky Business explores the theme of a straight-laced young man getting corrupted by the love of money distinguishes it from other movies of its type. The plot's not exactly believable, and I found myself thinking what an idiot Joel Goodsen is, but Risky Business is more than a vehicle for wish fulfillment for horny teenage boys.
I'm not really a Tangerine Dream fan, but their music also adds a lot to the experience. I liked how "In the Air Tonight" is used too, which brought to mind the way it was utilized in Miami Vice.
What undermines Risky Business for me is the lack of consequences for any of the shenanigans that occur. The tacked-on theatrical ending also doesn't help in that department, although it does have the better closing line.
Overall I thought it was pretty good.
>Breakfast at Tiffany's
This is the kind of movie I watch just because I feel like I should be familiar with it. It wasn't really my cup of tea. I thought the ending was touching and all, but I guess I feel like a lot of the draw of the movie is Audrey Hepburn being rich, cutesy, and an early '60s fashion icon. Personally speaking, that's not the kind of thing that pulls me in. I also couldn't put myself in Paul Varjak's shoes. Holly Golightly seems like the kind of flaky woman that would just end up breaking your heart down the line, but he's completely smitten with her. I guess I just don't like seeing that kind of relationship start.
It just ended up being another title crossed off a list for me.
No.345325
>>345059What's that anime-like movie John Candy is in?
No.345326
Pretty sure it falls under the isekai category
No.345792
Just finished The Color of Pomegranates. I know very little of Armenian history and even less of Armenian culture, so a lot of this movie went right over my head. I don't understand what the carpets, the chickens, the dances, the gestures, or even the pomegranates are supposed to symbolize. Pomegranate juice, I assume, represents blood. Does that mean the pomegranates themselves are supposed to represent the heart? Or life in general? I assume not every single thing was meant to have a deeper meaning and that some things were just meant to create a certain atmosphere or provoke a particular emotional response, but the movie is still heavily symbolic, and I have no idea what most of the symbols mean because I'm not Armenian. That's a pretty big obstacle for being able to appreciate film.
From what I could piece together, it's about the life of an Armenian poet who grows up in a 18th century (I think; the note at the beginning of the film said it's 18th century, but it also used the term Medieval) Armenia, falls in love with some noblewoman, is forced to become a monk when their affair is found out, then spends the rest of his life living in misery and woe because of all the evil and destruction in the world, and then dies. The film doesn't tell you even that much explicitly, I'm just guessing.
Overall, I think I would have liked it a lot if I understood it.
No.345793
>>345792I watched the movie on Skanderbeg and since I knew a bit more about Albanian history I appreciated it more.