At 2/27/14 04:22 PM, Jester wrote: Trying to find a chance to watch 12 Years A Slave and really hoping it's not just another "white people are evil" movie.

it isn't

mcqueen has always been a lot smarter than that

the fact that brad pitt got his name in the top billing even though he only has two scenes as an abolitionist should be enough evidence for that at face value

At 2/26/14 10:06 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Have you seen Takashi Miike's film, Gozu? It's basically Lynch worship. Creepy and bizarre as hell.

Nope, should I see it?

I mean, I love Lynch, but Eraserhead didn't do it very much for me. Though I find Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart brilliant.

At 2/27/14 02:32 PM, Piggler wrote: Did any of you guys see The Wolf of Wall Street? Everyone apparently loved it but me. I think it's just the idea that a lot of people have that anything with Leonardo DiCaprio is automatically great.

Really liked it here. DiCaprio is massively overrated. He did give one hell of a performance.

I found the humor tastelessly vulgar and the whole concept of a regular jack-off becoming rich, turning into an asshole, doing drugs, and fucking bitches doesn't really appeal to me artistically.

I think that was kind of the point. The humour and the assholishness was so in your face it was like Scorcese was screaming at you what was happening. That's a way of telling a story, and I for one found it good.
I read someone on /tv/ explaining it really good, I'm just not putting this to words right.

I thought that the movie kinda dragged ass too. It definitely didn't need to be three hours long.

I can understand this, it could get tiresome. Not for me, though, I found every scene to have me glued to the screen, there was no "filler".

To each his own I guess. What do you think of other Scorcese films?

I couldn't find the time to watch last week's MOTW Killer Joe. I'll see if I can spare some time this weekend to catch up.

At 2/27/14 02:32 PM, Piggler wrote: Did any of you guys see The Wolf of Wall Street? Everyone apparently loved it but me. I think it's just the idea that a lot of people have that anything with Leonardo DiCaprio is automatically great.

I found the humor tastelessly vulgar and the whole concept of a regular jack-off becoming rich, turning into an asshole, doing drugs, and fucking bitches doesn't really appeal to me artistically. I thought that the movie kinda dragged ass too. It definitely didn't need to be three hours long.

I wasn't too positive about it either.

I totally agree with you that the film didn't need to be three hours long.

At 2/27/14 04:28 PM, Makeshift wrote:

Gotta also get around to American Hustle and Frozen, since everybody and their dog is telling me to see the latter.

FUCK Frozen. The most overrated movie of 2013 by far. I am so sick of hearing about it being the greatest gift from Disney (aka the Jesus Christ of film studios).

People say that?

Frozen is pretty enjoyable in my opinion, but definitely not their best.

At 2/27/14 06:09 PM, Auz wrote:

FUCK Frozen. The most overrated movie of 2013 by far. I am so sick of hearing about it being the greatest gift from Disney (aka the Jesus Christ of film studios).

People say that?

I spend too much time on reddit... it's been like the biggest Frozen circlejerk since it came out.

At 2/27/14 04:49 PM, Jester wrote:

At 2/27/14 04:28 PM, Makeshift wrote:

FUCK Frozen. The most overrated movie of 2013 by far. I am so sick of hearing about it being the greatest gift from Disney (aka the Jesus Christ of film studios).

I really dig Disney-Pixar, but i'm very eh about these recent Disney movies, despite everyone I know worshiping Tangled and Wreck-it-Ralph. Didn't realize until now that Frozen wasn't Disney-Pixar, and it will be moved lower on the priorities list accordingly.

I thought Frozen was okay. It had some pretty funny moments. I didn't know it would have so much singing in it, though. And Tangled was so-so.

I think I might be in the minority for really liking Wreck-It Ralph. A lot of people on here seem to think it was crap or just passable. I didn't think it was amazing or anything, and it definitely wasn't as good as most Pixar movies (though I probably liked it at least as much Ratatouille and more than Brave, and I haven't seen Cars or Monsters University) but I liked it quite a bit. IMO, it's probably the best non-Pixar animated movie Disney has done since like 2002.

At 2/27/14 05:55 PM, Slint wrote:

At 2/26/14 10:06 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Have you seen Takashi Miike's film, Gozu? It's basically Lynch worship. Creepy and bizarre as hell.

Nope, should I see it?

Honestly, I dunno. All I can say is it's freakin' weird. I don't even know what to think of it. It's been a long time since I saw it and I think I might have recieved some movies differently then than I would now. But I know Miike was heavily influenced by Lynch when he made that movie. He talked about Lynch a lot in his interviews about it.

I mean, I love Lynch, but Eraserhead didn't do it very much for me. Though I find Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart brilliant.

I must have been like 16 or 17 when I saw Mulholland Drive, probably close to when I saw Gozu. I remember hating it (besides the lesbian stuff), but I haven't seen it since then. I remember kinda liking Eraserhead as a weird trip of a movie, which I saw when I was a little older. Blue Velvet I liked, too. Haven't seen the other two.

At 2/27/14 05:27 PM, Natick wrote:

At 2/27/14 04:22 PM, Jester wrote: Trying to find a chance to watch 12 Years A Slave and really hoping it's not just another "white people are evil" movie.

the fact that brad pitt got his name in the top billing even though he only has two scenes as an abolitionist should be enough evidence for that at face value

*that it isn't a "white people are all evil" kind of film

that wasn't worded correctly

On Hollywood Babble On, they showed a poster from another country (I forget which) for 12 Years a Slave that just had Brad Pitt's face on it. lol

At 2/27/14 08:57 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: On Hollywood Babble On, they showed a poster from another country (I forget which) for 12 Years a Slave that just had Brad Pitt's face on it. lol

No fucking way, HAHAHA, is this the one?

In other news The Grand Budapest Hotel is not playing in a theater near me... balls.

At 2/28/14 01:15 AM, Makeshift wrote:

At 2/27/14 08:57 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: On Hollywood Babble On, they showed a poster from another country (I forget which) for 12 Years a Slave that just had Brad Pitt's face on it. lol

No fucking way, HAHAHA, is this the one?

I think that's it.

I watched De Marathon (The Marathon) yesterday.

It's a Dutch film about a garage holder who's in danger of losing his business after not paying the garage's taxes for years. He also learns he has cancer and has only a few months left to live. To save his garage, he decides to take on a bet with a sponsor in which he and his garage buddies will run the marathon (of Rotterdam) in exchange for their overdue tax money.

I have to say, it is one of the better Dutch films I've seen in recent years. I like how on one end it's a satirical buddy film about a bunch of typical anti-heroes, but on the other end it's actually a touching drama about a dying man's efforts to do one thing in his life he can be proud of. And the ending is quite powerful in my opinion.

I'm not sure if I would recommend it to foreign viewers though because some of the cultural references and satire might not be so easy to recognize if you're not Dutch.

At 2/27/14 08:57 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: On Hollywood Babble On, they showed a poster from another country (I forget which) for 12 Years a Slave that just had Brad Pitt's face on it. lol

I believe that was the Italian poster. From what I heard, there was controversy about the suggested racism.

I've not watched The Insect Woman yet, which is relatively poor form given that I chose it. I'll get on it tonight or tomorrow morning. Hopefully.

At 3/1/14 05:25 PM, TheMaster wrote: I've not watched The Insect Woman yet, which is relatively poor form given that I chose it. I'll get on it tonight or tomorrow morning. Hopefully.

I was going to watch it today, but I'm too tired and I'm just gonna go to bed. I'll watch it tomorrow night and post about it then so I can actually participate on time for once.

I watched the original Japanese cut of Godzilla/Gojira from 1954 again, and it still remains one of my favorite movies.

It's surprisingly depressing and meaningful for a movie about a giant monster that attacks a city. Godzilla in this movie is a thinly veiled allegory for the destruction the bomb did to Japan, and the movie doesn't shy away from showing the genuine human toll of Godzilla's rampages. And while Godzilla is terrifying, you get the sense that he is as much of a victim of nuclear testing as anybody else.

It also has a magnificent musical score. The Prayer For Peace always manages to get a tear from me.

You should check this movie out if you've never seen it. It may surprise you.

So I did watch The Insect Woman.

It was good, but probably the weakest Imamura film I've seen. Very bleak, unlike Pigs and Battleships has some humour in there to break it up a bit, and without the stunning visuals of The Ballad of Narayama. It's a tough watch simply because watching Tome's life go from bad to worse and kick all the hope and likeability out of her until she's an entirely detestable character isn't very pleasant.

The contrast with Nobuko works well, though. Her life mirrors Tome's almost exactly, but she doesn't give in and let the hardships shape and define her like Tome does. In the end Nobuko is realising her dreams, while Tome is literally wading through shit.

Will definitely look into more Imamura. I hear Vengeance is Mine is great.

At 3/2/14 12:12 PM, Darthdenim wrote: I watched the original Japanese cut of Godzilla/Gojira from 1954 again, and it still remains one of my favorite movies.

I've been in a bit of a Godzilla mood as well lately, been rewatching the Heisei series the past few weeks. I'm really excited about the upcoming film and don't care one bit if it ends up sucking. We've had plenty of bad Godzilla films before, what's one more?

Dropping by the thread by phone just to ask, what did you guys think of the Oscars?

So, The Insect Woman:

This was a pretty relentless and unsparing social drama with a couple profoundly strange formal (those freeze frames) and narrative (what the fuck is going on with Tome and her father?) elements thrown in. I think the film does a good job of empathizing with Tome without condoning her behavior. She's locked into a seemingly endless cycle of poverty and abuse that force her to prioritize survival and taking whatever she can get over doing the right thing, illustrated in certain repeating lines of dialogue as well as Tome's daughter's own attempts to get out from the same cycle.

I think that lack of options and single-minded drive for survival (very insect-like) are also underlined very well through the film's claustrophobic visual style and shot composition. Many of the film's wider shots consist of either several people packed into a cramped room or Tome getting lost in the middle of a huge crowd, while the close-ups tend to be uncomfortably extreme. It's an interesting way to visually express the film's themes and it leads to a lot of the film's most striking images.

On the other hand I found the film's insistence on contextualizing pretty much every stage in Tome's life within some aspect or event in 20th century Japanese history to be kind of odd and clunkily deployed. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a middling biopic, not a social realist drama, and those moments felt pretty out of place.

But if nothing else this made me really interested in checking out some of Imamura's later, better-known films like Vengeance Is Mine and Ballad of Narayama.

At 3/2/14 12:13 PM, TheMaster wrote: It was good, but probably the weakest Imamura film I've seen. Very bleak, unlike Pigs and Battleships has some humour in there to break it up a bit

Yeah, though I think there are some moments in the film that play as pitch-black comedy and lend a certain morbid levity to all the bleakness. In particular I'm thinking of the scene where the prostitutes chase down the cat to take its blood.

It's a tough watch simply because watching Tome's life go from bad to worse and kick all the hope and likeability out of her until she's an entirely detestable character isn't very pleasant.

True, but to the film's credit it also never lets us forget where she came from and never loses sight of the vulnerability underneath that detestable behavior. I think that might be the purpose of those weird sing-songy voiceovers throughout the film.

At 3/3/14 12:09 AM, Atlas wrote: Dropping by the thread by phone just to ask, what did you guys think of the Oscars?

They were pretty predictable and kinda dull but whatever. The themed montages were stupid wastes of time as always, they left Dennis Farina and Alain Resnais out of the In Memoriam (the latter I can understand since he just died last night, but the former...c'mon Academy), and DeGeneres's hosting had an odd lack of actual jokes, just lots of rambling half-assed light shtick and product placement. There's definitely a problem with the show when the funniest moments of the night by far are a clearly stoned Harrison Ford lunging for a slice of pizza and John Travolta coming down with a mean case of sudden-onset dyslexia.

Though I was happy to see Her win for Best Original Screenplay, even if it did cost me the win in my betting pool. And Bill Murray's little shout-out to Harold Ramis was sweet.

Also I loved how Matthew McConaughey's acceptance speech was pretty much the exact polar opposite of a Rust Cohle speech on True Detective.

At 3/3/14 05:10 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: There's definitely a problem with the show when the funniest moments of the night by far are a clearly stoned Harrison Ford lunging for a slice of pizza and John Travolta coming down with a mean case of sudden-onset dyslexia.

i have never liked ellen degeneres but when she actually went through with the pizza order, i was kind of surprised considering how uptight these events were several years ago. the costume gag fell flat though and i completely agree that the montages were a waste of time. it's not a bad idea when there's one for a genre but to put together what are essentially movie trailers for movie "heroes" (god, captain america is shit) is redundant and something they should have just kept on the website.

thank god 12 years a slave won best picture along with lupita nyong'o. every scene she had in that film made me want to start crying and hug her and i haven't felt that way about a performance in a long time. i do feel sorry for leonardo dicaprio.

i was about to quit watching when the act of killing lost to a posthumous win.

So the Randomizer has selected me to pick this week's film! I think this week could be a popular one, and I think the first part of the selection is especially very, uh, for lack of a better term...Newgroundsy. It's also going be a very short one (I think just over 80 minutes total) and a very easily available one, so y'all have no excuse! Anyway, this week's film will be:

Three Films by Don Hertzfeldt! (USA):
Rejected (2000)
The Meaning of Life (2005)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

Our very first animated Movie of the Week pick comes from Don Hertzfeldt, one of the most inventive and exciting younger filmmakers in the medium. He makes his movies almost entirely by himself through hand-drawn animation and in-camera special effects, all shot on an antique 35mm animation camera from the 1940s that's one of the last functioning cameras of its kind. Basically, almost nothing that you see in a Don Hertzfeldt film was made on a computer; you'll see when you watch the films why that's such a big deal.

Anyway, It's Such a Beautiful Day is the culmination of Hertzfeldt's work so far, an incredibly funny, strange, sad, beautiful feature-length collection of a trilogy of shorts (2006's "Everything Will Be OK," 2008's "I Am So Proud of You", and 2011's "It's Such a Beautiful Day") about a stick figure named Bill and his struggles with physical and mental illness. I can promise you've probably never seen anything quite like it.

I've linked to its Vimeo page, where it's available to rent for $3. That's dirt-cheap for a high-quality version of a fantastic independently produced movie and most of it will go to the guy who made it, but if for whatever reason you absolutely need to find it through other means (or if that version is region-locked or whatever, about which I'm not sure), you'll probably have to look for the three parts individually, so make sure you have the full version or at least that you're watching them in the right order! And if you're really having trouble I guess shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do...

So since ISaBD is only about an hour long total, I've also included YouTube links to two of Hertzfeldt's earlier short films (around 10 minutes each) that you can watch to supplement the feature if you'd like. "Rejected" is a hilarious, irreverent, and grotesque (like I said, Newgroundsy) series of increasingly unhinged and disturbing fake "rejected" commercials, while "The Meaning of Life" leans closer to Hertzfeldt's more poetic and contemplative side. I think you can clearly see aspects of both of these shorts in ISaBD.

Taken as a whole I think the three films provide a really interesting look at the evolution of a filmmaker's style and themes over time, plus they're all just wildly creative and a blast to watch (well, maybe the achingly sad and poignant parts of ISaBD aren't quite "a blast," but you know what I mean). I hope you like them!

@Auz
@Sense-Offender
@Natick
@TheMaster
@Slint
@Sekhem
@Jolly
@Atlas
@NuScarab
@EclecticEnnui
@Makeshift
@HeavenDuff
@ZJ
@Darthdenim
@Oolaph
@Jackho
@darkjam
@Nebula
@Jester
@SapphireLight
@SG3
@Dean
@Piggler

At 3/3/14 12:20 PM, Natick wrote: it's not a bad idea when there's one for a genre but to put together what are essentially movie trailers for movie "heroes" (god, captain america is shit)

Nevermind Captain America, what about showing dozens of clips from Man of fucking Steel but not a single shot of Christopher Reeve as Superman? If that doesn't reveal the blatant commercial motives behind those montages, I don't know what does.

thank god 12 years a slave won best picture along with lupita nyong'o. every scene she had in that film made me want to start crying and hug her and i haven't felt that way about a performance in a long time. i do feel sorry for leonardo dicaprio.

Yeah, Her was probably my favorite of the BP nominees (btw, fuck the Academy for snubbing Inside Llewyn Davis) but I'm glad 12 Years a Slave won, it certainly deserved it. And Lupita Nyong'o was brilliant in the film.

i was about to quit watching when the act of killing lost to a posthumous win.

Ugh, yeah, that was frustrating but predictable. Challenging, complicated movies don't win Oscars.

Shit, I forgot to include a picture. Here ya go.

At 3/3/14 01:45 AM, EclecticEnnui wrote: It was alright. There were some funny moments, like when the host was dressed as Glinda from The Wizard of Oz. I was guessing that the song "Let It Go" would win and, sure enough, it did.

I haven't seen Frozen but that song is pretty damn catchy. I can get why it's so popular.

I haven't seen Hertzfeldt's other movies yet, but Rejected was great.

At 3/3/14 12:20 PM, Natick wrote: it's not a bad idea when there's one for a genre but to put together what are essentially movie trailers for movie "heroes" (god, captain america is shit) is redundant and something they should have just kept on the website.

I liked Captain America. I was actually just watching it for the second time last night. It's not one of the best Disney Marvel movies (those would be Iron Man 1 and 2 and the Avengers), but I enjoyed it. It's just that they didn't do quite a good job making Red Skull a big baddie. Hugo Weaving himself was good, though. I just think the character could bave been better utilized.

At 3/3/14 05:59 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Three Films by Don Hertzfeldt! (USA):
Rejected (2000)
The Meaning of Life (2005)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

Definitely interested in seeing these, I'm familiar with his name but I've never actually looked into any of his work before. This'll be a lot of fun.

At 3/3/14 06:56 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: I liked Captain America. I was actually just watching it for the second time last night. It's not one of the best Disney Marvel movies (those would be Iron Man 1 and 2 and the Avengers), but I enjoyed it. It's just that they didn't do quite a good job making Red Skull a big baddie. Hugo Weaving himself was good, though. I just think the character could bave been better utilized.

i couldn't stand it. i've never been a captain america fan to begin with because i could never buy into the premise of a superhero who's only two powers are a star-spangled shield and patriotism and i didn't know that he also had the usual super-strength, super-running, super-memory, super charisma, etc. until seeing the movie with a cousin and his friends. the stock music also got on my nerves the whole way through and everything about the 1940's americana setting felt so generic. the small chris evans getting beat up for telling a bigger guy to keep quiet during a newsreel, stanley tucci as an eccentric swiss scientist, the super-serum or whatever it was not only granting the patient super-abilities but tipping them further wherever they were leanign on the lawful good or chaotic evil scale, THE ARMY USING CAPTAIN AMERICA AS NOTHING MORE THAN A SALES MASCOT WHEN THEY KNOW WHAT HE IS CAPABLE OF, and also the sexual politics with the female british character whose name escapes me got under my skin and i don't usually have that kind of a reaction to these sorts of movies. tommy lee jones was the only thing keeping me from walking out of the theater and playing the tetris demo on my phone to find something more entertaining.

hugo weaving is kind of a raccoon among character actors in that he can make any role work, no matter how over-the-top it could get. i guess another reason i got bored so quickly was because i had already gone through a long WWII history class in high-school prior to it coming out in the summer and i would have been happy not ever having to see nazis for a few years but had to sit through these characters trying to figure out the secret of the third reich most coveted weapon; laser beams. i was just overrun at that point.

all this being said, i haven't seen the avengers or man of steel and got no plans to. btw, sorry for missing the last motw.

Some of the things you mentioned, I don't see why they're a problem, but alright. But you're missing out on the Avengers. It was awesome. Man of Steel, meh.

At first I was disappointed that Red Skull had no depth of character, and was just a mustache twirling bad guy, but I later decided that It fit well with the 1940's style.

Red Skull could be the villain from a 1940's serial.

Sorry I passed up on The Insect Woman too.

I did watch Her earlier this week.

It drags a little bit, but overall it is an interesting film in my opinion. I imagine this might actually be a fairly accurate portrayal of the near future.

At 3/3/14 12:09 AM, Atlas wrote: Dropping by the thread by phone just to ask, what did you guys think of the Oscars?

I haven't the awards show itself since it's broadcasted in the middle of the night here, but I've seen a few snippets of Ellen DeGeneres' presentation and thought they were pretty amusing. I thought it was hilarious when she ordered pizza.

As for the awards, I haven't watched 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club yet so I can't say anything about the big winners.

I am happy to see Gravity winning 7 oscars. They're all deserved in my opinion.

I agree with Cate Blanchett winning best actress. She was really good in Blue Jasmine, although the film itself was mediocre.

Unsure why The Act of Killing didn't win best documentary. I can hardly imagine 20 Feet from Stardom tops it.

At 3/3/14 05:59 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Three Films by Don Hertzfeldt! (USA):
Rejected (2000)

I just watched this one.

It seemed a little random to me at first, but I liked the ending. Some effects that I've never seen in hand drawn animation before.

I'm definitely interested in the other two.

Are you fucking telling me the guy behind my anus is bleeding made a feature length film and I never knew about it? This week's gon b goood.

At 3/4/14 07:55 AM, Auz wrote: I am happy to see Gravity winning 7 oscars. They're all deserved in my opinion.

Seven is a bit ridiculous. It was just okay in my opinion. I get that it's just meant to be a visual experience but even then it's highest point is at the very beginning. Just a bit odd to me how it's getting such unanimous acclaim.

At 3/4/14 10:15 AM, Jackho wrote:

At 3/4/14 07:55 AM, Auz wrote: I am happy to see Gravity winning 7 oscars. They're all deserved in my opinion.

Seven is a bit ridiculous. It was just okay in my opinion. I get that it's just meant to be a visual experience but even then it's highest point is at the very beginning. Just a bit odd to me how it's getting such unanimous acclaim.

Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Film Editing, Score, Cinematography, and Directing. When you look at the number, seven does seem like a bit much, but I have to say it fully deserved what it got. The only things I disagree with this year are The Act of Killing not winning best documentary, and Matthew McConaughey winning over Chiwetel Ejiofor... although that one's debatable.

At 3/3/14 05:59 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: So the Randomizer has selected me to pick this week's film! I think this week could be a popular one, and I think the first part of the selection is especially very, uh, for lack of a better term...Newgroundsy. It's also going be a very short one (I think just over 80 minutes total) and a very easily available one, so y'all have no excuse! Anyway, this week's film will be:

Three Films by Don Hertzfeldt! (USA):
Rejected (2000)
The Meaning of Life (2005)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

Watched them a couple weeks ago; brilliant goddamn movies. Really interesting depiction of the mind under the specific circumstances.