At 6/23/15 01:50 PM, Mechabloliver wrote: Moments like that make me smile and laugh a little - it's a little immature, sure, but it reminds me of my time in school when people shared the most redundant of insults with peers and that insult would be followed by a not particularly well thought out retort.

The movie definitely gave me some flashbacks to school and summer camp. The post-lights-out conversation is spot-on and hilarious ("Stephans, whatever you're doing now...don't"). It really nails a lot of other details too, from the casual petty cruelty to the absurd internal slang to the way all the boys refer to each other exclusively by last name.

Also this movie really captures the exaggerated awe and excitement of "going into Town" in a way I haven't seen since Wet Hot American Summer.

(If… actually feels a little like preparation for his performance as Alex DeLarge a few years later).

In a way I feel like this movie and that one almost have a Mad Max / The Road Warrior relationship. If.... shows us a civilization wobbling on its last legs, A Clockwork Orange imagines one that's already fallen and gotten deeply weird in the process.

And really at their core Travis and his "crusaders" are just proto-Droogs aren't they. Travis's quote about violence as a creative act is pretty much Alex's whole shtick.

- a scene where two students are teaching the new "scum" the lingo around the school was probably the best example of how the younger actors in the film were implemented and how genuine their performances felt.

Yeah, I like how the movie doesn't exclusively focus on Travis and instead takes its time to give us scenes like that and build a more fully realized, fleshed out world. Plus starting out by focusing on the younger kids is a handy way to naturally introduce us to the culture and hierarchies and major figures of the school without clunky exposition.

At 6/23/15 07:02 PM, fearthepiff wrote: The link for the list on IMDb is here: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls073387940/

Nice list! There's some stuff there I still need to see (and one movie there I wish I could unsee lol; but seriously I would love to hear your thoughts about Birdman because I thought it may have been the single worst movie I've seen this decade so far).

Cool to see Song of the Sea on there, great movie and super underrated. Have you checked out Tomm Moore's previous feature The Secret of Kells? I think it might be even better. It's great to see new 2-D animation being done at that level in a totally unique visual style (I mean, I love Disney and Ghibli and all but not everything needs to ape them).

At 6/24/15 12:04 AM, Natick wrote: way out on the other hand, i finally saw hard to be a god last night and goddamn, was it ever worth it. by the time it ended, coming back to modern civilization felt like a bucket of ice water to face in the morning.

Yeah that movie is quite the experience, a relentless, pitiless slog through a literal world of shit that makes Game of Thrones look like The Princess Bride. Compositions so messy and chaotic-looking they can only be the results of masterfully tight control. Production design so intricately gross you can almost smell it. Sound design that actually made me gag. No film has made me appreciate the wonders of indoor plumbing more.

I saw it in the middle of winter in a theater with a broken heater, but that turned out to be kind of perfect.

At 6/24/15 02:04 PM, TheMaster wrote: There's my weekend sorted.

I've been meaning to see Slow West but the reviews it's been getting and the 1hr 25min runtime didn't seem worth the $7 rent. I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

At 6/24/15 07:04 PM, Dr-Worm wrote:

At 6/23/15 07:02 PM, fearthepiff wrote: The link for the list on IMDb is here: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls073387940/

Nice list! There's some stuff there I still need to see (and one movie there I wish I could unsee lol; but seriously I would love to hear your thoughts about Birdman because I thought it may have been the single worst movie I've seen this decade so far).

Honestly, I put Birdman on there only because I gave it a good enough rating to warrant it being on my "Best Movies" list. If it was my favorite movies, it'd be nowhere in sight. I thought it was good, but I think people like it too much and hail it as this godsend.

I think I've brought up Birdman before on this thread and how I thought it was overrated. It's a good flick, but I hate it because of the hype.

Cool to see Song of the Sea on there, great movie and super underrated. Have you checked out Tomm Moore's previous feature The Secret of Kells? I think it might be even better. It's great to see new 2-D animation being done at that level in a totally unique visual style (I mean, I love Disney and Ghibli and all but not everything needs to ape them).

Yeah, I specifically sought out Song of the Sea and Princess Kaguya after they both lost to fucking Big Hero 6 at the Oscars, which is just making me think more and more of how bullshit of an enterprise that is. I still have to check out The Secret of Kells, though, and this year I am definitely gonna be on the look out for smaller, 2D animation, because 3D is not wowing me right now.

Speaking of animation, anyone see Inside Out? I skipped it because honestly it's just another Disney/Pixar flick that everyone is going to praise like no other even though it's not their best stuff by far. I'm still bewildered by the high-scores this film is getting for just putting pretty colors on the re-hashed "voices in your head" trope. I'm kinda interested in seeing it to see if it can still wow me even if I come in with such a negative attitude, but we'll see. Maybe some of you guys can convince me.

Watched Inside Out, the latest Pixar film.

It's overall pretty good I think. The animation is top-notch as always and they had some nice ideas with how they represent thoughts and emotions. The highlight was probably the abstract thinking part. I got a few good laughs out of some of the characters, especially the 'anger' emotion. Richard Kind is also great as Bing Bong, the imaginary friend.

I think the plot wasn't as interesting as it could have been though and what happens in the real world with Riley was strongly overdramatized. With all the suspense that was building up, I thought there was going to be a real mental breakdown at some point. Perhaps that would have been a bit too dark for a children's film, but the ending felt kind of anti-climactic to me.

Another thing is that apart from Riley, other peoples thoughts and emotions are laughably stereotypical. Admittedly, it gave some nice comic relief here and there, but it's a bit silly when apparently only the main character has complex emotions and everybody else is cardboard.

Watched The Room, cause we all have to at some point, right?

Honestly, I actually enjoyed it. It's a totally bizarre film and even though it's incredibly bad it's really not irritating to watch at all. I believe the acting is often mocked, but I think it's only Tommy Wiseau that gives a worse-than-amateuristic performance. Most other actors were at least on soap opera level I'd say and for the lines that were given to them I think they couldn't have done that much better.

At 6/26/15 11:14 PM, EclecticEnnui wrote:

At 6/26/15 06:55 PM, Auz wrote: Watched The Room, cause we all have to at some point, right?

Honestly, I actually enjoyed it. It's a totally bizarre film and even though it's incredibly bad it's really not irritating to watch at all. I believe the acting is often mocked, but I think it's only Tommy Wiseau that gives a worse-than-amateuristic performance. Most other actors were at least on soap opera level I'd say and for the lines that were given to them I think they couldn't have done that much better.

I recommend watching that film with an audience in a theatre, although I don't know if there are theatres in your country that show it. I've been to several screenings and they were a lot of fun.

Yeah I heard about all the rituals like throwing plastic spoons at the screen every time one shows up. It sounds like a very funny experience to watch this in a packed theatre. I don't know if there ever were screenings in the Netherlands but I heard Wiseau still tours with the film sometimes so maybe I'll get the chance someday.

I've been watching some commentary on how the film was made and it's quite amazing. Like there was that one scene where Mark tells his story about a woman who got beaten up and Johnny replies "Ha ha, what a story Mark!". The script supervisor had to explain multiple times to Tommy that the story really wasn't funny at all and he should act concerned but after an hour of retakes he still couldn't get it right so they moved on. How is it possible that someone is so incompetent and clueless about acting? They could've taken any random guy off the street and they would have had a better lead actor for this film for sure.

I have seen all of the films.

Going Clear was a interesting if extremely conventional documentary. Content was shocking, filmmaking was relatively ordinary. Functional is probably the best way to describe it. I'd liken it to something like Blackfish rather than something like The Look of Silence. Engaging enough if you're hearing about these things for the first time (and there was certainly a lot of stuff I'd never heard previously, especially surrounding David Miscavige himself), but talking heads and archive footage hardly make for a cinematic experience.

I suppose it's perhaps a "purer" documentary than the stuff I tend to enjoy. It's a factual look at a fascinating phenomena, rather than a film which uses an event or individual as a jumping off point to explore something more essential or profound, like you'd see from Herzog or Oppenheimer, or something more personal like you'd see from Sagan or Lord Clark. Still, the material that tries to understand the mind of Hubbard is fascinating, and the content which looks at the abuses, particularly at the church's top level, is horrifying and often infuriating. I'm just unsure how it will play to someone already familiar with this stuff.

Slow West is one of the prettiest films I've seen in a long time. As immaculately framed as it is and as gorgeous as the locations are, it's the colour that really struck me. It has this bright, vibrant palette that almost looks wrong at first. This isn't how westerns are supposed to look. It's a bold choice and one that pays off big time, because the film isn't just beautiful, it's also unique.

It's a leisurely paced film, more concerned with characters and the weird little encounters that crop up as the protagonists explore this slightly surreal vision of the west. I've heard it described as a road movie, and that's an apt way of putting it. It's far more concerned with the journey than the destination. There's a constant sense of everything being a bit unreal, and it doesn't shy away from humour, but this never detracts from this sense of doom and inevitability that hangs over the film, or lessen the impact of the many sudden and random acts of violence. It reminded me a lot of Dead Man, which is never a bad thing.

Kodi Smit-McPhee is fantastic in the lead, perhaps at his absolute best in the funnier scenes. There's one particular moment in the final, climactic gunfight that is laugh out loud funny down almost entirely to a face he makes. All the more impressive is that the film can have a gag in its finale without detracting from what is on the whole a very grim sequence.

I really liked it. It isn't Dead Man, but really, what is? For a debut feature it's an extremely impressive piece of work, and I'd encourage anyone to give it a watch.

Mr. Holmes was enjoyable enough, if a bit on the sentimental side for my tastes. It tugs at the heart strings in very predictable ways, but does it well, and McKellen has an interesting take on a character which you'd have thought would have been played in every way possible by now (Jeremy Brett is still the only Holmes for me, though).

Not too much to say about it really. It's a solid if unremarkable drama, the sort of thing probably best watched on a Sunday afternoon when you can't face anything more mentally taxing. Hits all the beats you'd expect and doesn't do a whole lot you wouldn't.

The Wicker Man is The Wicker Man, and has always been a favourite of mine. Hadn't seen it for quite some time so it was nice to get a chance to see it in the cinema, even if the print wasn't in the best shape. Perhaps worth noting that, having seen Going Clear earlier in the day, Lord Summerisle and his pals didn't seem all that bad in comparison.

The randomizer has selected ME to pick this week's film. New pick incoming shortly.

At 6/25/15 10:06 AM, fearthepiff wrote: Yeah, I specifically sought out Song of the Sea and Princess Kaguya after they both lost to fucking Big Hero 6 at the Oscars, which is just making me think more and more of how bullshit of an enterprise that is.

The Oscars have been bullshit since Wings beat Sunrise.

I still have to check out The Secret of Kells, though, and this year I am definitely gonna be on the look out for smaller, 2D animation, because 3D is not wowing me right now.

Then in that case I can't recommend Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day or Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat highly enough. Two phenomenal recent smaller 2D movies. The former might be my favorite movie of any kind of the decade so far.

Speaking of animation, anyone see Inside Out? I skipped it because honestly it's just another Disney/Pixar flick that everyone is going to praise like no other even though it's not their best stuff by far. I'm still bewildered by the high-scores this film is getting for just putting pretty colors on the re-hashed "voices in your head" trope. I'm kinda interested in seeing it to see if it can still wow me even if I come in with such a negative attitude, but we'll see. Maybe some of you guys can convince me.

I thought it was very good, and more or less a return to form for Pixar. I'm not quite as high on it as some folks are, but let me put it this way: the sheer volume of audible adult weeping in the theater was unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

At 6/26/15 06:55 PM, Auz wrote: Honestly, I actually enjoyed it. It's a totally bizarre film and even though it's incredibly bad it's really not irritating to watch at all.

Yeah. I think the main thing that separates filmmakers like Wiseau and Ed Wood from people like, say, Michael Bay or Uwe Boll, is that Wiseau and Wood's movies are actually personal and idiosyncratic and painfully earnest, made with blood, sweat and tears. They're not charlatans or hacks, they're honest-to-god bad movie auteurs.

Which goes some way towards explaining why Wiseau's new thing sucks so much. He's become too self-aware (sort of) and is self-consciously trying to make something commercial.

At 6/27/15 07:49 PM, TheMaster wrote: Going Clear was a interesting if extremely conventional documentary. Content was shocking, filmmaking was relatively ordinary. Functional is probably the best way to describe it. I'd liken it to something like Blackfish rather than something like The Look of Silence. Engaging enough if you're hearing about these things for the first time (and there was certainly a lot of stuff I'd never heard previously, especially surrounding David Miscavige himself), but talking heads and archive footage hardly make for a cinematic experience.

Yeah, I basically felt the same way about it. Having read Lawrence Wright's book (which is excellent, by the way) before seeing the movie there wasn't a lot of new information here nor was it presented in an especially fresh way, but it was nice to be able to put faces to the names and see some of that batshit Scientology promotional footage. Plus I'd imagine a lot more people are going to see this movie than read the book, so that sort of justifies its existence in itself as this is a much bigger PR blow to the church and it's hopefully inspired at least some people to leave Scientology or avoid it.

Still, the material that tries to understand the mind of Hubbard is fascinating

You should really check out the book, which goes into much further and fascinatingly strange detail on this subject,.

Alright gang, this week's movie is going to be Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1985, USA/Japan).

Co-written and directed by Taxi Driver and Raging Bull screenwriter Paul Schrader, Mishima is a biopic about the Japanese author Yukio Mishima, who infamously committed suicide by ritual seppuku in 1970 after unsuccessfully attempting to overthrow the Japanese government. That said, this movie eschews every cliche and pitfall of the usually staid biopic genre and studiously avoids sensationalizing the more potentially lurid aspects of Mishima's life and death. Rather than go the typical route of stuffing an entire life into a dull, rote chronological narrative, Schrader instead opts to interweave a stark account of Mishima's last day with black-and-white flashbacks and dreamlike, impressionistic takes on three of Mishima's novels, each with their own unique visual style and color scheme and each providing their own insight into an aspect of their author's psyche.

In doing so Schrader creates a gorgeous, vivid portrait of a fascinating and complicated person. Throw in a hypnotic, all-time great score by Philip Glass and you've got a legitimate unsung modern masterpiece on your hands. I hope you guys like it!

@Atlas
@Auz
@darkjam
@Darthdenim
@Dr-Worm
@EclecticEnnui
@fearthepiff
@HeavenDuff
@Jackho
@Jester
@Jolly
@Makeshift
@TheMaster
@Mechabloliver
@Natick
@Nebula
@NuScarab
@Oolaph
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@SapphireLight
@Sekhem
@SG3
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@Slint
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@ZJ

lol, i have mishima at my house since i needed to rewatch it again because 1) phillip glass's score is fucking incredible and 2) i saw it at 9:30 am during a particularly busy week and i dozed off for a few minutes in the middle so it's only fair that i go back and get the whole picture. it did leave me with an interest in the real life figure though because nearly everything about him was a contradiction, be it philosophical, artistic, or in his personal life.

Something being shot outside my office today. Zombie film, apparently.

At 6/29/15 07:18 AM, TheMaster wrote: Something being shot outside my office today. Zombie film, apparently.

Attack of the Killer Potted Plants?

At 6/28/15 05:50 PM, Dr-Worm wrote:

At 6/25/15 10:06 AM, fearthepiff wrote: I still have to check out The Secret of Kells, though, and this year I am definitely gonna be on the look out for smaller, 2D animation, because 3D is not wowing me right now.

Then in that case I can't recommend Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day or Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat highly enough. Two phenomenal recent smaller 2D movies. The former might be my favorite movie of any kind of the decade so far.

I've seen both already, funny enough. I saw It's Such a Beautiful Day just out of nowhere on Netflix, funny enough it started to become crazy popular after it. Still have to check out his new short film that came out earlier this year. The Rabbi's Cat I saw because I saw it on somebody's Top 10 list on YouTube and it seemed really interesting. Not only was the animation really cool, but the dialogue is really entertaining and zany.

Speaking of animation, anyone see Inside Out? I skipped it because honestly it's just another Disney/Pixar flick that everyone is going to praise like no other even though it's not their best stuff by far. I'm still bewildered by the high-scores this film is getting for just putting pretty colors on the re-hashed "voices in your head" trope. I'm kinda interested in seeing it to see if it can still wow me even if I come in with such a negative attitude, but we'll see. Maybe some of you guys can convince me.

I thought it was very good, and more or less a return to form for Pixar. I'm not quite as high on it as some folks are, but let me put it this way: the sheer volume of audible adult weeping in the theater was unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

I guess I have to check it out, now. Might as well form my own opinion before I let what I first hear about a movie to get to me.

And I'll be making sure to check out Mishima, too. About to rent it on Amazon just about right now.

At 6/29/15 12:51 PM, Dean wrote:

At 6/29/15 07:18 AM, TheMaster wrote: Something being shot outside my office today. Zombie film, apparently.

Attack of the Killer Potted Plants?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4547056/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_1

This, as it turns out.

Also I'll not be doing movie of the week this week. Can't see a blu-ray on Amazon and the only DVDs are American imports, and I can't be fucked messing about with a download to get my TV to be able to read the subs properly. Shame, sounds like something I'd enjoy.

At 6/28/15 07:37 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: Alright gang, this week's movie is going to be Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1985, USA/Japan).

Paul Schrader and Philip Glass has me very curious - I don't believe I've heard of this film before so I look forward to seeing it. I'll have to watch it online somewhere as it doesn't seem available in the UK - I'll eventually get the criterion release imported if I enjoy it but already it has me anticipating something phenomenal.

Better lake than river ey

I have only seen 8 new films this year.

This is quite terrible.

What's worth catching up on? Will probably see Amy next weekend. No interest in Amy Winehouse, but I had no interest in Ayrton Senna either, but Kapadia still managed to knock that one out of the park.

Watched Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters earlier today.

This was a great film. If you saw this pick in the thread and decided to pass on it, I demand you repent of your NG BBS sins and watch this film ASAP (it's on Youtube for HECK's sake), there's still two days left in the week to pencil it in and talk about it with us.

While technically a biopic, it greatly excels where most biopics fail and ends up telling a very captivating story through a creative and surreal structure. The way it weaves Mishima's youth, writings, and final day is done wonderfully. The different aspects of the film feel very unique, but the transitions never feel disjointed at all. Funny that we watched this back to back with If....; first we get a film that changes distractingly changes from monochrome to color for no good reason, then we get a film that masterfully uses the contrast between multiple color palettes, including monochrome, to differentiate between the three "sides" of the film (flashbacks of his younger life in B/W, scenes from his writings in eye-popping color, and his last day in subdued realistic color).

Other than the use of color, the aspect of the film that stood out to me the most was the set design. The sets in the scenes from his writings are really great, they make no attempt at convincing you they're "real" and instead take on the feeling of a stage play. Everything is close and confined, props slide away on visible rails, backgrounds are often flat walls or simply non-existent, but it's all done in a way that feels perfectly natural and doesn't take away from what's going on in the scene. I think that's really neat. And of course there's Philip Glass' score. It's lush, sublime, and fits the film perfectly. Great stuff.

The film left me with the desire to look more into Mishima Yukio himself. I'm not sure if the film making the viewer want to search the web and read Wikipedia pages is a triumph or failure for a biopic, but it certainly did leave me wanting to know more. Regardless, it's a creative and masterfully directed film, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks for the pick, @Dr-Worm!

Here be spoilers.

I just came back home after seeing Jurassic World - it's a fun blockbuster and that's about it. I'm usually quite cynical about blockbusters but this one had charmed me early on with my childhood nostalgia for the first Jurassic Park movie (the theme music; the Jurassic Park t-shirts and the scenes that are set in the original, now derelict Jurassic Park). There were a few issues I had with it, such as the less-than-subtle product placement (it almost felt like they were gags). I was also a little concerned with how awful the management of the park was: if the hybrid dinosaur could camouflage itself, how come the biological engineers didn't inform the management of that? If the management knew that it could camouflage (and clearly they didn't or else the scene with the park owner and the leading scientist would have been irrelevant), then they should have taken into consideration that the dinosaur could hide itself from the cameras and whatever. I just wasn't buying it: these people managing a potentially life-threatening theme park should have been more thorough in their health and safety measures.

I'm obviously looking into it a bit too much - it's a simple Saturday night out popcorn flick, but I genuinely felt a little bothered by this throughout the film. I suppose I'm being too pedantic. Visually it was rather exciting though: I don't know how well that CGI will age, but at the moment it looks fantastic - I was surprised about how brief the moments were with the animatronics though. I also have a soft spot for this Chris Pratt - he's a likeable Hollywood leading man. I kinda wish that the film had more of his cheeky sensibility that we saw in The Lego Movie or Guardians of the Galaxy, but that's not to say I disliked him in this.

Overall: yeah, it was fun. Nothing major for me to really complain about but it's not going to be something I'd rush out to buy either - I may have enjoyed it less if I didn't have my Jurassic Park nostalgia-goggles on, but they did a fair job of igniting memories of my love for the first film.

Now I need to really catch up on some of this film backlog I have.

At 7/4/15 06:01 PM, Mechabloliver wrote: Overall: yeah, it was fun. Nothing major for me to really complain about but it's not going to be something I'd rush out to buy either - I may have enjoyed it less if I didn't have my Jurassic Park nostalgia-goggles on, but they did a fair job of igniting memories of my love for the first film.

I could recreate the entire screenplay for Jurassic Park from memory, and I think it just made me dislike the film all the more.

Thought it was very dull. Not offensively bad, just empty and boring.

At 7/4/15 07:47 PM, TheMaster wrote: I could recreate the entire screenplay for Jurassic Park from memory, and I think it just made me dislike the film all the more.

Thought it was very dull. Not offensively bad, just empty and boring.

That's fair enough, I've noticed quite a few people have shared a similar sentiment. I might have been a little soft on it really, but at the moment I don't have any significant complaints towards it. I guess there could be more substance to it and a little less focus on the movie's visual trickery (there's certainly some very predictable moments in Jurassic World - the hybrid dinosaur being part raptor; the antagonist getting his comeuppance; the two brothers entering the restricted area shortly followed by the shit hitting the fan; etc), but for me, it seemed to suit a lazy Saturday afternoon out. I don't think I could recommend it unless if it was within the same context that I saw it in (and even then there's probably some other movies I'd have personally chosen over this for a lazy afternoon's viewing).

I guess there's certainly things that could be improved, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it for what it was.

been a long week

i followed in your footsteps and saw going clear too, and for the most part i was pleased by it and appreciate that it was made. watching it was sort of like how i imagined a lot of ex-evangelicals reacted to jesus camp being as i am an ex-scientologist who had to put up with their bullshit for the first 14 years of my life until i had the chance to leave for good. so i can attest that the majority of information as to the "auditing" practices and terminology that they used is completely true. the overcharged course material, the cartoonishly idealistic promises, the frustrating wall of secrecy, the amount of control that the supervising officers exhibit over your psychology, all of those are presented in such a simple yet enraging manner that i had been waiting for someone to do for years. the hardest moment to watch was when paul haggis explained reaching ot 8 and how that was when the xenu backstory was finally presented to him because i never heard of such a thing until project chanology and trapped in the closet and couldn't believe it myself. i thought it was a a facile rumor or that i had been brainwashed to forget about ever hearing it and taking it seriously or some bullshit but it's nice to finally know that i've been spared that slap in the face and waste of time since i never made it past dianetic auditing. i am sorry to say that i cannot speak for the abuse, harrasment, and threats since i never received such treatment.

just yesterday i got around to finally watching heaven's gate in celebration of independence day. while it may not be one of the worst films ever made as it's reputation for it's production and reception will always precede the film itself, it's certainly is one of the most frustrating films i have ever seen. the cinematography is of course beautiful but that's sort of damning with fine praise when the effort to make nearly every shot a painting caves in on itself when you slowly realize that there's hardly any variety in the shot composition. the colors are bright and vibrant, the foreground, background, and subject are usually centered and the camera pans exactly when it has to. it makes me wonder why cimino didn't follow through on his major in painting instead of getting into films to begin with. the visual spectacle also would have been justified if the script would have played to same heights and while the scenario sets itself up for a darker undertone, the list of flaws quickly over-weighs that one big plus it had going for it. the characters are flat, their motivations keep changing without being properly established, and the politics are heavy-handed and questionable. if we're supposed to sympathize with the eastern-european immigrants, why are we given so few reasons to care about them since all they appear to do is cockfight, steal cattle, get drunk, go whoring, scream at each other over petty property concerns, but then all go roller-skating forgetting about all of their animosities. and any evidence for the president's approval of the death list beyond the word of sam waterston would have been nice.

overall, it feels like a film where the compelling story that was deserving was sacrificed for authenticity. there's no doubt that cimino was more devoted to this production than most directors are to anything throughout their entire careers. in the criterion interviews, he makes it clear that even if he had the money and opportunity to the film again today, he wouldn't be able to since most of the vehicles (trains and buggies) were barely replicable back then and near impossible to find today. while i'd like to just congratulate it for it's dedication to authenticity and having the money to back it up since films like that simply don't get released in the american studio system any more, i have to stop myself and remember that it might still be worth hating since it killed the new hollywood movement for good and things have just grown more and more creatively bankrupt ever since.

to clean the taste of that out of my mouth, i finally got the chance to rewatch mishima tonight and now it's easily one of my all-time favorites. after heaven's gait, it's nice to see a film that not only understands when a shot should end and how much shot variety you need employ and how to keep your audience always grounded through clean editing but that makes it look so easy. to anyone who was left interested in the real-life figure, i recommend the bbc documentary, the strange case of yukio mishima, since he was a such a brilliant artists but had a conflicted soul. he protested not for progress in society, but for cultural regression. he was one of the most prolific writers of his time who kept saying how much he felt words would never be enough in his manifesto. even though he had a family that we only briefly hear about in the film's opening, we're still treated to much more of his repressed homosexuality (fetishistic uniforms, admiration of the male form). midway through, i did wonder if sudden transition to his anti-western sentiments in the 3rd chapter was a bit jarring, but the film again brilliantly subverts the tendencies of biopics by instead making the politics a backdrop for what it's real concern, his art. it's not looking into what drove him to commit seppuku as much as it's looking at how his writings carried forth the idea of the transcendence of language or how the 4th chapter puts it, "harmony of the pen and sword". it all became clear in the final 4 shots (which is funny because i only remember his reaction cutting to isao's seppukku) when we see the destruction of beauty in golden pavillion, the sadomasochistic ending in kyoko's house and the suicide mentioned above carrying forth the desire to die with honor for anything under the guise of politics in runaway horses. final shot of the sun. start end credits.

at least that's the best analysis i can do for now. i may be full of shit.

it might be my favorite phillip glass score too which is hard to pick out of all the scores he's done. the funny thing is there's about 4 compositions and one of theme he keeps using over and over again to invoke an unparalleled sense of beauty but all he's doing is adding or subtracting a couple of strings and changing the tempo. fucking minimalist genius.

Just watched The Overnight by Patrick Brice, produced by the Duplass Brothers. It's a zany and crazy comedy starring Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling as a new couple who moves to LA with their 7 year old. They meet a couple who is played by Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche. The jist of it is that they have one crazy ass fucking night.

There's no real plot, per say, it's just these two couples having a good time. I honestly can't say very much about it except that it will definitely make you uncomfortable. I won't spoil anything, just know that by the end, I was bewildered with what I saw. I don't really know what kind of rating to give it, honestly. I judge movies majorly by how they have me feeling by the end. A movie like Whiplash and Prisoners that blows me away with it's ending and has me feeling major emotions would be at the top of some of my all time favorite movie lists. This movie didn't blow me away but definitely had me feeling crazy emotions. I might have to see it one more time before the year ends.

All in all, I strongly recommend it. Go see this one.

Just watched a few movies for the first time recently, Saving Mr. Banks, Jurassic World, and The World's End. I have to admit that I enjoyed them all, each had their own different aspects which had good quality, although there were some parts in the latter two which I think could have been better. Note- SPOILERS in this post

I really thought Jurassic World came through and did a better job than the two before it, but it still can't beat the classic Jurassic Park. I loved the action scenes (the Indominus versus T. Rex/Velociraptor tag-team with the Mosasaurus finisher almost made me cry) and some of the plot was alright, but I feel like the characters (Owen Grady aside, because its Chris Pratt, and it'd be hard for him to do badly). I really didn't care much about the kids in the movie as much as I did about the kids in the original movie. They seemed kind of whiny at the start and although they improved by the end of the movie, I still didn't really care about them.

The World's End was actually the first full movie of Edgar Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, and I really loved it, from the action scenes against the robots, to the hilarious lines when telling the Network to fuck off, to the magnificent acting of Simon Pegg as Gary King, the man who was so intensely stuck in the past, it was all great. The biggest issue I had with it however was that the ending (after the town's explosion) didn't really give me either the satisfying or comedic feeling I had hoped for, it seemed a little odd in all honesty. I think the rest of the movie more than makes up for the ending, though, and I can't wait to go and watch Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz!

At 7/9/15 02:23 PM, Nebula wrote: Neveldine and Taylor's movies continue to prove to me they don't know women and should stop writing females in their stuff.
I watched Crank and it was absolutely insulting. How do you turn a rape scene into a consensual sex scene anyway? Between Gamer and this i'm never watching a single movie from these two again.

well i'm sure theres lots of women who wouldn't mind being taken forcefully by jason statham.

I saw Amy, Asif Kapadia's first film since the spectacular Senna.

It was okay. I would say it might not have been for me since I had never really followed her career and had forgotten she was dead until seeing the trailer, but that's not really justification when Senna was so completely enthralling when I'd never even heard of the man beforehand.

One of the problems with it is it's a story that's been told, both in fiction and also sadly in real life, too many times already. Someone catapulted to fame and unable to handle it ultimately destroying themselves. I struggled to make an emotional connection with it coming in as an outsider, outside of some genuinely infuriating moments with paparazzi vultures hounding her when she's clearly in need of professional help.

Maybe it'll work better for you if you're a fan of the music, but it was a bit of a let down for me. Not bad, but not Senna.

RIP movie of the week you lasted 22 days it was a good run

Watched several films this week:

Tokyo Godfathers
I very much enjoyed it. It felt a lot more light-hearted and comical than his other films, but I think the humour was balanced out just perfectly by the drama and dark themes in some scenes. The ending is great too.

Out of Satoshi Kon's films, I would probably rank this third place above Millennium Actress and below Perfect Blue. But every one of his films is great and well worth seeing in my opinion.

I Know What You Did Last Summer
It seems to me like the most run-of-the-mill horror film ever made, but I guess it isn't bad for a slasher flick.

Elle s'appelait Sarah (A.K.A. Sarah's Key)
Pretty good, but I think there was actually a better film in this. I found most of the present day events in the film a bit uncompelling compared to the tragic life story of Sarah. It's such a shame that you only get to see two little fragments of her in the second half. Had it covered more of Sarah's post-WWII life I think it would've been much more interesting.

At 7/11/15 06:21 PM, Oolaph wrote: RIP movie of the week you lasted 22 days it was a good run

Alright jeez better get my thumb out of my ass and post.

I actually did watch Mishima a few days ago and thought it was pretty great. As far as biopic material goes Yukio Mishima would be more than interesting enough but they really knock it out of the park by blending it with adaptations of his work, each of which would have made decent films on their own. It was also nice seeing a film juggle several themes and styles and switch between black & white and colour, and actually having that make the film more concise and easier to watch. The colour switching and confusing juxtaposition in If... is utter wank in comparison.

Although if I'm going to be totally honest I would have constantly lost track of who Mishima was if not for that helpful wart-thing between the actor's eyes. There were multiple flashbacks where I momentarily mistook him for a new character when he wasn't in uniform.

Reports of MotW's death have been greatly exaggerated. This week's picker will be @Jackho. Yay Jackho!

Don't have much to say about Mishima that hasn't already been said, at least in part because on rewatching the movie I naturally found myself way too entranced to effectively think about it critically. But I will single out two major creative contributions to the film that sometimes get left out amid all the well-deserved gushing over Schrader and Glass. First, there's the work of production designer Eiko Ishioka, who designed all of the film's gorgeous impressionistic sets. Not only is her work here jaw-droppingly beautiful (though it is certainly that), it's also absolutely vital to how the film expresses its ideas. Far from simply being static, pretty backgrounds, with all their moving parts and color-coding and self-conscious, theatrical artifice Ishioka's sets perform just as much narrative and thematic heavy lifting as the characters who inhabit them.

And second, there's Ken Ogata's performance as the title character, the glue that holds the whole film together. The film's five disparate and often conflicting narrative strands are connected only by the person in whom they all manifest, and Ogata manages to play all those contradictions at once without ever losing the consistency of his character. His Mishima is somehow simultaneously a man of stone-faced military discipline, quivering vulnerability and easily wounded pride, and affable, self-deprecating charm. It's an extremely subtle, tricky role to tackle, but Ogata handles it wonderfully.

Also one of the essays in the movie's Criterion booklet makes an interesting point that expands a little on what we've all been saying about how Mishima rejects typical modes of biopic storytelling. The author points out that the use of the novel excerpts doesn't just avoid biopic tropes, it actually reverses them, since in most biopics about artists we're shown conveniently manufactured key moments in the subject's life and then we watch those moments get translated into their art, but in this movie it's the other way around, with the content of the novel segments anticipating and informing the upcoming events in Mishima's life. Or as Mishima himself puts it in the film's narration, unlike most people his words preceded his body.

That whole concept of one-to-one translation between concrete life events and art that we get in most biopics is obvious bullshit anyway, and I think this movie's much looser, more abstract take on how life informs art and vice versa is much more interesting, thoughtful and even realistic.

Anyway, it's really a fantastic movie and I'm glad everyone who watched it seemed to like it.

At 7/2/15 11:58 AM, Mechabloliver wrote: I'll eventually get the criterion release imported if I enjoy it but already it has me anticipating something phenomenal.

If nothing else Mishima boasts possibly the most gorgeous packaging Criterion's ever done, which for them is really saying something. I might hold off for a bit on buying it, though, since currently it's only been released on DVD and I've heard a couple rumblings here and there of a Blu-Ray update. The movie certainly deserves it.

At 6/29/15 03:12 PM, fearthepiff wrote: Still have to check out his new short film that came out earlier this year.

It's one of the best short films I've ever seen and it's less than 20 minutes long. What are you waiting for, go watch it!

It also marks the beginning of a new direction in Hertzfeldt's career, since this and his Simpsons couch gag are his first entirely digital works. He makes the transition brilliantly though, playing to the new medium's strengths to develop a new style instead of just trying to replicate his old tricks on a computer (the short's eye-popping colors being the most immediately apparent example of this). And without spoiling anything I'll also say that this is the first time I've really taken notice of Hertzfeldt's skills as a storyteller; he's refined his control of tone and pacing to a masterful level here.

Hertzfeldt is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today if you ask me, in part because his evolution from film to film is so clear in a way you rarely see from other directors (I guess I've kind of been getting a similar vibe from Wes Anderson lately, but it's not really the same). His next project is called Antarctica and it's an actual feature-length film with a crew and a budget and everything. I can't wait.

The Rabbi's Cat I saw because I saw it on somebody's Top 10 list on YouTube and it seemed really interesting. Not only was the animation really cool, but the dialogue is really entertaining and zany.

Man, I love that movie so much. I pretty much have to appreciate any work that so thoughtfully explores areas of Jewish history and culture that are pretty much never depicted in pop culture.

At 7/3/15 02:29 PM, TheMaster wrote: What's worth catching up on?

MAD FUCKING MAX.

Also as mentioned above Don Hertzfeldt's new short "World of Tomorrow" is outstanding. Other than that the only real highlights for me so far this year have been Hard to Be a God and Inside Out. I haven't had the chance to see much either.

At 7/3/15 08:11 PM, Oolaph wrote: This was a great film. If you saw this pick in the thread and decided to pass on it, I demand you repent of your NG BBS sins and watch this film ASAP (it's on Youtube for HECK's sake), there's still two days left in the week to pencil it in and talk about it with us.

Word. Even though we're done talking about it officially there's no reason not to check it out when you get the chance.

Everything is close and confined, props slide away on visible rails, backgrounds are often flat walls or simply non-existent, but it's all done in a way that feels perfectly natural and doesn't take away from what's going on in the scene.

Hell, if anything they add substantially to the scene. The title structure in "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" is able to give off the necessary vibe of eerie, oppressive beauty precisely because it looks so unreal and iconic. And that shot of the walls collapsing and the cops streaming into the room in "Runaway Horses" is just breathtaking.

I'm not sure if the film making the viewer want to search the web and read Wikipedia pages is a triumph or failure for a biopic

I'd say that that makes it a triumph. Most biopics fail because they're basically adaptations of the subject's Wikipedia page.

At 7/6/15 12:37 AM, Natick wrote: being as i am an ex-scientologist who had to put up with their bullshit for the first 14 years of my life until i had the chance to leave for good.

Holy shit dude. Glad you were able to make it out.

it's nice to see a film that not only understands when a shot should end and how much shot variety you need employ and how to keep your audience always grounded through clean editing but that makes it look so easy.

Yeah, nobody else touched on this but now that you mention it the editing in this movie really is incredible. Schrader finds all sorts of neat ways to transition between the different segments through editing. And then like you mentioned later on in your post there's the absolutely brilliant touch of cutting off each of the novel segments just short of their natural endpoints and instead stacking each ending on top of each other to form one big crescendo in that final series of shots at the very end of the film.

to anyone who was left interested in the real-life figure, i recommend the bbc documentary, the strange case of yukio mishima, since he was a such a brilliant artists but had a conflicted soul.

It's included as an extra on the Criterion DVD, so I'll definitely check it out sometime.

i did wonder if sudden transition to his anti-western sentiments in the 3rd chapter was a bit jarring, but the film again brilliantly subverts the tendencies of biopics by instead making the politics a backdrop for what it's real concern, his art. it's not looking into what drove him to commit seppuku as much as it's looking at how his writings carried forth the idea of the transcendence of language or how the 4th chapter puts it, "harmony of the pen and sword".

Exactly. The film knows what it's trying to say and it does a fantastic job of giving us exactly the amount of concrete biographical info we need and nothing more, no sensationalist gawking or irrelevant tangents.

it might be my favorite phillip glass score too which is hard to pick out of all the scores he's done.

Oh it's his best one for sure. I find myself listening to that closing song on a regular basis, and I pretty much never casually listen to film scores. It's too goddamn good. If I were a stuttering monk I would have to destroy it.

At 7/11/15 07:19 PM, Auz wrote: Tokyo Godfathers
Out of Satoshi Kon's films, I would probably rank this third place above Millennium Actress and below Perfect Blue. But every one of his films is great and well worth seeing in my opinion.

Cool. This is the only Kon I haven't seen yet so I should probably get on it.

At 7/11/15 07:37 PM, Jackho wrote: It was also nice seeing a film juggle several themes and styles and switch between black & white and colour, and actually having that make the film more concise and easier to watch. The colour switching and confusing juxtaposition in If... is utter wank in comparison.

*nods vigorously*

Though to be fair generally speaking the chaotic messiness of that film's style fits its subject, just as the impeccable control of this film's style fits this subject.