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Ongoing Italian Hercules Film Watch Along Film 8 - Hercules Against the Moon Men Boy what a difference a decent transfer of a film can make. In the version most folks know from Mystery Science Theater 3000 this is a washed out, ugly film with cheap props. In reality, its a film that does some really clever stuff with lighting and has some really, really cheap props. I know some people will complain that technically this is a Machiste film, but all true Herc-heads will know that Machiste is Hercules. Sure Italian audiences didn't know that he was supposed to be when the first film came out and invented an alternate backstory because the name was too erudite, but still he was originally supposed to be. Thats right, Italy invented accidentally ripping off the public domain. Anyway, this times Hercules actor is the extremely unfortunate Alan Steel. Positives for Alan are that he speaks Italian so he doesn't look completely lost in every scene he's in like Reg Park and that he looks a lot like Steve Reeve. The downside is that uh, despite being Steve Reeve's body double and them making him look more like Steve in this film, he is not Steve Reeve much less Steeve Reeve as I keep wanting to type. His acting is best described as a commitment to safety and his facial acting makes Hercules come off as kind of psychopathic and a member of confirmed bachelor club which gives this film a weird, weird undertone. I have a lot to say about this film because this is almost the best Hercules film by far. For the first ~45 minutes of this 90 minute film its really, really good. We have a new take on Hercules as a hired gun, extremely competent and into their job villains, some sassy back room dialog, and a commitment to thematic lighting that looks good. And this might sound like the silliest smallest thing but the evil Queen character of this film has multiple hair and costume changes which is so staggeringly impressive for these films I have to comment about it. Tragically though the film continues after minute 51 and oof. The second half of this film is just an agony march to death mountain which is quite literally also what happens in this film. Starting at 51 minutes we get the villainess becoming too stupid to take seriously, some embarassingly bad fight scenes, a death machine filmed so wrongly that even I know everything they flubbed up, and the sandstorm. Starting at 74 minutes into the film and continuing until 86 minutes these might be the worst 12 minutes of cinema excess put to film in the 1960s. So, so much money wasted and interspersed with stock footage and the death of the good villain to absolute boredom. The remaining 4 minutes to close out the film are so rushed the excellent finale to the use of colored lighting is drowned in the fact the end is a hard cut so fast I thought characters died who seconds later I would be told lived. Notable things about this film: [I T A L I A N B I G F O O T] returns. Hercules is so uninterested in woman he arguably gets sexually harassed/assaulted by both the villain and the heroine which might be a first for a movie. They speed up a fight scene in here and it still looks slow and bad. Hecules is defeated by a goddamn mother loving net. They kill a horse and possibly a stuntman in a film where later they're so concerned about actor safety Hercules kind of dances [I T A L I A N B I G F O O T] to death. HERC-O-METER 1) Hercules is shirtless - You better believe it. Herc in this film has a skin condition he's so shirtless. Does get some neat costumes later, really the costumes are to be applauded here 2) Hercules has annoying sidekick - Surprisingly not really. Dairix is perfectly fine and nobody else is in the film long enough for you to care 3) Poor Reference Name - Not really, the worst we get is Timur 4) Hercules Gets Sleepy - There is a shot of Hercules lying down to sleep, then he stares directly at the camera, adjust his pillows for even more comfort, smugly smiles, then goes to sleep which is all part of his plan. His plan involves sleeping on the job. 5) Hercules is drugged - He fakes being drugged because the evil queen has drugging powers. Don't know if this counts 6) Hercules is sexually assaulted - Evil queen wants to brainwash him for the kinkiest things you can imagine cause this lady is so wild safewords aren't safe with her. He is also repeatedly smooched, had love professed to, and eventually a marriage proposal not offered accepted by the other female lead much to his seeming dissapointment that she doesn't get the hit 7) There is a Villainous Woman who traps men - OH YEAH 8) Hercules' Nipple Wound - It teases you multiple times and never delivers, with one fakeout being so vile that I was mad 9) Pointless Oath to the Gods with No Bearing on Narrative - Nope! Due to being a machiste film no real gods involved in this thing 10) Hercules doesn't kill the final villain - He uh, pushes the final villain and makes a jiffy pop machine explode? This causes the other final villain to die? The other other villain gets killed by an army of pro-crusties from Hercules and the Haunted World Final Verdict - Like the film itself it almost escapes the curse of being a Hercules film with some clever twists and subversions but there is just enough Herc in it to sink it
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Nov 30, 2022 08:43
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I finally have had occasion to see both 90s Addams Family movies; they were much better than I expected especially the sequel. I'm left feeling nostalgic for older styles of filmmaking and wondering if it's just me or are older "dumb" comedies of decades past smarter than new "dumb" comedies? I also can't recall the last time I saw a movie that was just having fun for fun's sake.
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Nov 30, 2022 15:53
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Wyatt Earp and Tombstone - Watched both, I've seen Tombstone before but that was years ago. Wyatt Earp doesn't compare favorably - it's not a terrible film it just meanders way too much. I get that it's supposed to be exclusively about Earp himself but it's just way too long with too much pointless backstory. Kurt Russel is way more interesting to watch as Earp compared to Costner, although I liked both Kilmer's and Dennis Quaid's portrayal of Doc Holliday. Both films look great, although Tombstone's score is more memorable. If you haven't seen either just watch Tombstone.
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Nov 30, 2022 18:19
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Turbinosamente posted:I'm left feeling nostalgic for older styles of filmmaking and wondering if it's just me or are older "dumb" comedies of decades past smarter than new "dumb" comedies? I also can't recall the last time I saw a movie that was just having fun for fun's sake. Current movies are bad. Even something like The Stupids has more honor than the average Ryan Reynolds vehicle. Mantis42 fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Nov 30, 2022 |
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Nov 30, 2022 20:49
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Summer With Monika - Two layabout teens quit their jobs and abandon their families to boat around and have sex, while stealing from hard working people. Sure young love seems fun, but eventually summer ends, you have to get a job, sheepishly return to your parents and oh yeah raise your goddamn baby. Better to let your youth fade, your heart go cold, and to amass a big box of Swedish blu rays. 7.5/10 Mantis42 fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Nov 30, 2022 |
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Nov 30, 2022 23:32
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New York Stories I just watched the Scorsese feature with the artist. It was alright, very Scorsesecore. I really can't say much more, it does everything TAR did worse, but earlier. Watched five minutes of the Coppola feature and turned it off, gently caress flutes and anyone playing them. The Long Goodbye Man, I watched MASH in school and liked it well enough. This movie though, Jesus, it's abysmal. I see Chandler I expect Hardboilded and Noir. Altman gave me some mumblecore bullshit, where a man sleepwalks around a plot that almost totally fails to involve him. Shoutout to Gould for making drat near every word he says incomprehensible, Hayden for managing to disabuse me of any notion I had of him being a good actor after my recent viewing of The Killing, and to the gangster who managed to feel less threatening than the Polanski cameo in Chinatown. Arnie taking off his shirt was the tiny fleck of gold in an ocean of excrement that Mr.Altman delivered straight into my eyeholes. He seems like the kind of smug dipshit who would take pleasure in subverting my expectations for what the film would be, good job sir, shame you couldn't also make a film that isn't a rancid waste of time. Also the movie looks like rear end, colors are washed out to gently caress. How you shoot on film and make it look like something shot on tape? Perhaps only the cinematic genius of Altman knows. Red Desert I don't even know where to start. Antonioni's first color film...and it looks better than every single color film I've ever seen. No qualifiers, better than everything else period. I could rant about the pure aesthetic beauty of it for longer than the runtime of the Film, but it's also got a hell of a plot. Or maybe a better way to say it is that it has a hell of a lot of Emotion. Cause not a lot happens, but my god is there so much going on emotionally, psychologically, and sociologically. Antonioni has managed to leapfrog the entire concept of narrative, and create films that manage to Evoke emotion in the same way a Rothko does. I'd take the Film as a Coda, or maybe a continuation of the same themes he's had in his previous three Vitti features. In the two of those I've seen, La Notte and L'eclisse, there's a palpable sense of malaise and ennui that disturbs the psychic energies of it's principle participants and the people at large. In this Film that undercurrent is released in Vitti's character, someone who isn't disturbed by these forces but is instead utterly broken by them. Utterly crushed under two indisputable facts of the modern age. One is the horrendous state of the world, there's just too much. Too much sound, too much industry, too much poverty, too much illness, too many lies. From every angle we look out onto the blasted hellscape of smoking ruins, polluted rivers, towers belching poisonous fumes, and dead vegetation that we call progress. Two is the horrifying fact that for most people this is not only not a problem, but that it's beautiful. The Swimmer It's like they distilled the first three seasons of Mad Men into a movie just shy of two hours. You can feel Lancaster ageing as he swims through the movie, and aside from a few odd choices cinematographically the whole thing works really well. Aside from the biggest problem which is how indulgent the ending is, if you'd given it half the time it would work twice as well. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2022 04:13
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Gaius Marius posted:The Long Goodbye Man, I watched MASH in school and liked it well enough. This movie though, Jesus, it's abysmal. I see Chandler I expect Hardboilded and Noir. Altman gave me some mumblecore bullshit, where a man sleepwalks around a plot that almost totally fails to involve him. Shoutout to Gould for making drat near every word he says incomprehensible, Hayden for managing to disabuse me of any notion I had of him being a good actor after my recent viewing of The Killing, and to the gangster who managed to feel less threatening than the Polanski cameo in Chinatown. Arnie taking off his shirt was the tiny fleck of gold in an ocean of excrement that Mr.Altman delivered straight into my eyeholes. He seems like the kind of smug dipshit who would take pleasure in subverting my expectations for what the film would be, good job sir, shame you couldn't also make a film that isn't a rancid waste of time. Also the movie looks like rear end, colors are washed out to gently caress. How you shoot on film and make it look like something shot on tape? Perhaps only the cinematic genius of Altman knows. Oh man, I love the Long Goodbye, it even comes up sometimes when I have to give a list of my favorite films. Not trying to argue you out of your position or anything, but to me I find a lot of classic noir/hardboiled films have the plot going on around the detective and them only thinking they're involved. To a certain degree I think The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, Farewell, My Lovely even something like The Blue Dahlia, all have plots that around going on around the primary character that they only sometimes intersect with. It doesn't seem to me then all that out of place, and helps construct the narrative around how someone who starts by saying "it's ok by me" ends up shooting his old friend in Mexico in cold blood.
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Dec 1, 2022 07:52
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Carillon posted:Oh man, I love the Long Goodbye, it even comes up sometimes when I have to give a list of my favorite films. Not trying to argue you out of your position or anything, but to me I find a lot of classic noir/hardboiled films have the plot going on around the detective and them only thinking they're involved. To a certain degree I think The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, Farewell, My Lovely even something like The Blue Dahlia, all have plots that around going on around the primary character that they only sometimes intersect with. It doesn't seem to me then all that out of place, and helps construct the narrative around how someone who starts by saying "it's ok by me" ends up shooting his old friend in Mexico in cold blood. I was thinking about this in relation to Chinatown given how close a contemporary it is to Long Goodbye, and despite it also having the same sort of man on the outside trying to look in, what it does differently is use that to commentate on the nature of our society. Gittes always thinks he's a step ahead, is always two steps behind, and by the time he realizes that he's also forced to realize that it wouldn't matter if he had been ahead. Long Goodbye if it has a commentary at all is about how we should distrust our friends? or that society has degraded so much since the Marlownian times of yore that nobody is to be trusted? I don't even understand what the movie is trying to impress upon me. That said it is quite the unfair criticism given how most Noir plots go. The Blue Dahlia I'm really striking out on these Chandler plots. That's not to say the movie is awful, Lake, Ladd, and his wife are all putting on good performances. And I got to give a shoutout to the Clubowner who manages to give earn himself quite the bit of sympathy before he goes out just on his charisma and surprising ability to be reasonable. Much as I hate to say it given how much I like films trying to deal with the trauma's soldiers had coming back, especially as the war was still on, they should have Cut or reduced Buzz's role. Every time he brings on his PTSD it grounds the action to a halt, it feels incongruous with the rest of the film, and it just doesn't work as a red herring because it's too obvious. It would also really help the final scene in the club which was a complete mess. It's like Chandler couldn't figure out how to tie things up, and ended up and thening the story to it's conclusion like a child would. Can't hate a movie with Lake in it though.
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Dec 2, 2022 06:27
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Jenny Agutter posted:The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) definitely thought there was going to be more intrigue than there ended up being, the husband was suspiciously easygoing. Otherwise a cool bit of noir. Soundtrack was heavyhanded but that’s pretty of the era The husband in Postman clearly just wants to watch this guy gently caress his wife. He practically begs them and they’re too dumb to get it and kill him instead.
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Dec 2, 2022 18:49
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DeimosRising posted:The husband in Postman clearly just wants to watch this guy gently caress his wife. He practically begs them and they’re too dumb to get it and kill him instead. fr fr
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Dec 2, 2022 23:39
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Gaius Marius posted:I was thinking about this in relation to Chinatown given how close a contemporary it is to Long Goodbye, and despite it also having the same sort of man on the outside trying to look in, what it does differently is use that to commentate on the nature of our society. Gittes always thinks he's a step ahead, is always two steps behind, and by the time he realizes that he's also forced to realize that it wouldn't matter if he had been ahead. Long Goodbye if it has a commentary at all is about how we should distrust our friends? or that society has degraded so much since the Marlownian times of yore that nobody is to be trusted? I don't even understand what the movie is trying to impress upon me. That said it is quite the unfair criticism given how most Noir plots go. I think it's in part about the alienation of values from more traditional film noir. In a lot of ways the plot if very similar to the Chandler novel, and Marlowe's taking a beating and a stint in jail for a friend is part of that ethos. Think Spade sleeping with his partner's wife and not liking the guy, but making statements about how that bond meant something, and he owes it to Archer to avenge him in The Maltese Falcon for instance. At it's core there's a commentary on Marlowe as the sucker, and these vaunted values of Hollywood end up protecting and supporting a shitbag of a human being who abused and then murdered his wife. Essentially here's what that outdated attitude gets you in the modern world. It's not to me a commentary on distrust our friends, but pick better friends in the first place. Gittes is about corruption in society and the rich winning, here I think The Long Goodbye is more personal and internalized, that a man so apart from society is naive.
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Dec 3, 2022 02:27
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That tracks Daisies First on the list of movies to see that I've not watched on the new Sight and Sound list. In form it reminds me of Godard, but more exuberant and unhinged. Godard's work always have a current of cool intellectualism behind them, they've always got to hold something back, keep you from seeing their hand. This movie just throws it all out there, every crazy visual metaphor, and editing technique, color filter, or crazy actor direction. Mix in some old Marx brother style humor and some anti establishment and anti patriarchal attitude and you get a rather bonkers film that feel more like a cartoon on adult swim than a film. In terms of the subject matter, It actually reminds me a lot of The Master and Margarita, specifically after Margarita becomes a witch and smashes up the apartments of the MASSOLIT officials. Le Mans The most pure sports movie I've ever seen, and probably ever will see. Most sports movies set out to make a movie about the sports, this movie is the sport. It has the same respect and reverence for it's subject matter that a good documentarian has about their subjects. Even with the actual plot consisting of maybe 15 minutes of the run time, the respect and admiration for the sport shown by the cast and crew makes every minute of engines revving and tires squealing exciting. It might just be for the time, but the pit crews really need to take some notes from a NASCAR pit crew.
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Dec 4, 2022 03:34
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I just watched Bullet Train, as it made its way to Netflix today. I have nothing intelligent or insightful to say about the movie as I'm not the kind of person to say intelligent or insightful things about movies. But Aaron Taylor-Johnson is my new favorite actor I think. drat what a guy and what a show. His performance really struck a good nerve with me for some reason. BigHead fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 08:03
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Smile a clever mashup of three better movies (It Follows, The Ring, Fallen) that literally ends with "trauma is the monster oowooo" . A decent enough thriller/horror flick but not "teh scurriest movie evar!!1" like people were saying when it came out. Points off for having the main character kill her own cat.
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Dec 4, 2022 15:01
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Gunda. Beautiful cinematography and a fantastic sound design. Piglets have never looked so good. Heartbreaking ending though.
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Dec 4, 2022 23:06
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Gaius Marius posted:The Long Goodbye Man, I watched MASH in school and liked it well enough. This movie though, Jesus, it's abysmal. I see Chandler I expect Hardboilded and Noir. Altman gave me some mumblecore bullshit, where a man sleepwalks around a plot that almost totally fails to involve him. Shoutout to Gould for making drat near every word he says incomprehensible, Hayden for managing to disabuse me of any notion I had of him being a good actor after my recent viewing of The Killing, and to the gangster who managed to feel less threatening than the Polanski cameo in Chinatown. Arnie taking off his shirt was the tiny fleck of gold in an ocean of excrement that Mr.Altman delivered straight into my eyeholes. He seems like the kind of smug dipshit who would take pleasure in subverting my expectations for what the film would be, good job sir, shame you couldn't also make a film that isn't a rancid waste of time. Also the movie looks like rear end, colors are washed out to gently caress. How you shoot on film and make it look like something shot on tape? Perhaps only the cinematic genius of Altman knows. Just found John Carpenter's goon account.
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Dec 5, 2022 00:52
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Gaius Marius posted:Le Mans The most pure sports movie I've ever seen, and probably ever will see. Most sports movies set out to make a movie about the sports, this movie is the sport. It has the same respect and reverence for it's subject matter that a good documentarian has about their subjects. Even with the actual plot consisting of maybe 15 minutes of the run time, the respect and admiration for the sport shown by the cast and crew makes every minute of engines revving and tires squealing exciting. It might just be for the time, but the pit crews really need to take some notes from a NASCAR pit crew. If you've haven't seen it yet, John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix is also fantastic. The opening and closing half hours are unmatched cars going fast kino.
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Dec 5, 2022 02:28
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Call Northside 777: Pretty good, interesting use of the style as a movie that apes a documentary in a lot of way. Is this the first use of Enhance! CSI style in a movie? Also Stewart's character starts out waaaayy too gullible about the police being awesome. Helen Walker who plays his wife in the movie is pretty great though, she doesn't have a ton to do but really shines and brings through when she's on screen.
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Dec 5, 2022 07:11
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I saw a few minutes of Predator 2 on TV about 25 years ago and didn’t know what was going on so never went back to it…until tonight! Danny Glover and the director really put their backs into it. My impression that it was in Robocop 3 territory was way off the mark. And lol @ the Predator being pro-life.
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Dec 7, 2022 00:20
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High Warlord Zog posted:If you've haven't seen it yet, John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix is also fantastic. The opening and closing half hours are unmatched cars going fast kino. It's going on the list Meshes of the Afternoon An exploration of the interior thoughts and feelings of a woman who seems to have been leaning towards, and then committed suicide. It's interesting to see, and well constructed for a homegrown project. The part where she's walking up the stairs and the camera keeps changing it's position is great. It's greatest strength is that it's so short so you don't get fatigued at what it is doing, however it also means the short doesn't feel like a complete artistic statement. It's like seeing a really good paragraph in a novel, and then excising it. When you lose the context surrounding it drags the work down. That is to say, the Sight and Sound list is a fraud and Three Colors Red or Chinatown should be in it's place. If they need an experimental surrealist short though, this blows Un Chien Andalou out of the loving water. Man on Fire Good to see some directors still kept up the Coke habit into the Millennium. Between not having subs for the Spanish, and Tony's total inability to keep the camera steady and all the montages, there were large portions of the movie where I had zero idea what was happening. However, I still got to see Denzel in his best Kid Cudi cosplay killing a bunch of dudes and that's sick.
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Dec 7, 2022 04:14
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my maya deren ranking: 1) ritual in transfigured time 2) meshes 3) meditation on violence 4) at land 5) private life of a cat
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Dec 7, 2022 04:25
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The Menu is a fun little psuedo-horror. Headlined by two very strong performances by Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy though i think all the cast is pretty solid. The characters kinda threaten to just turn into metaphorical representations of the evils of society at times, but only sometimes, I think on balance it stays unpredictable enough. Also, hey, Judith Light, good work! One minor nitpick, CGI fire still has a long way to go doesn't it?
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Dec 7, 2022 04:42
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Gaius Marius posted:this blows Un Chien Andalou out of the loving water. lol my letterboxd review is pretty much the exact opposite statement. I didn't get much out of Meshes.
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Dec 7, 2022 05:22
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Bullet Train Man, what a movie that just wouldn’t get out of its way. A bunch of assassins meet in a Bullet Train and try to kill each other. Great premise. Did not need to be 2 hours, did not need such a convoluted plot, did not need 4 A-listers vying for attention against 8 B and C listers. Point is, I want the tight, 90 minute version of this movie that spent less money on actors and more money on cool fights.
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Dec 7, 2022 07:55
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dpkg chopra posted:Bullet Train I just watched it tonight and big same. Also would have appreciated more than two and a half Asian characters (snack girl and conductor count as 1/4 a character each) on a movie set in Japan with a yakuza boss featuring prominently.
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Dec 7, 2022 08:13
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The Handmaiden - girls are so cool, dude. Brilliantly told story, definitely one of the best of the past decade. Glad I finally watched it. 9/10 E: Just realized the guy's plan would have worked if he had picked the other girl at the beginning. Folks, listen to to women. Mantis42 fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 22:25
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Ongoing Italian Hercules Film Watchthrough Film 8 - Hercules (1983) So after struggling to find some good quality versions of some of the other 1960s Hercules films I thought, hey, why not watch the 1983 film with Lou Ferrigno? This was a tremendous mistake. This film has so exhausted me I need to take a break from these films. The film struggles to exist. Stylistically, this is somebody trying to make Superman (1978) but only having ever read Thor comics and having just come off a marathon binge of Conan the Barbarian. It spends the first 15 minutes of the 95 minute film quite literally constructing the universe. The score actually misses its cue at one point. There is so much slow motion in this film showing absolutely nothing it's possible the movie could shave 5+ minutes off by just removing it. The plot is a series of deeply nested fetch quests that overwhelm the senses until you forget that the main character never actually solves the quest he declares at the opening nor does he ever find out what's going on. The script itself is so obviously completely and utterly re-written from its intended plot and then filmed over like, a weekend, that its astonishing a finished film exists at all. There is no benefit to this film from this frantic hurtle towards completion. What is extruded onto the screen is a mixture of lazy stunting, confusing and undulating power, amateur at best cinematography, near spite levels of disinterest in special effects execution, and some baffling writing with occasionally completely absent connective tissue. Scenes have little to do with each other, characters directly contradict things they say a sentence earlier, no tension for any fight scene is ever established, and there is a lingering feeling they overdubbed problem scenes to further cover production problems. Notable things about this film: They hired Adriana Spadaro who at this point had a 20 year career in making sexy outfits for sexy italian movies. This film is not sexy and intended to be a kids movie. The outfits they had Spadaro produce are also suspiciously similar to early Thor villainess outfits and have difficulty manifesting in the physical world especially on this films budget. This leads to what is pure conjecture on my part, but I think the outfits were approved in sketch design then entered production/finished before casting was finalized independent of Spadaro because the women in this film do not have the proportions to either be accentuated by the costumes or even properly fit them. It is a cast wearing what appears to be their older sisters embarrassing back of the closet fashion disasters. Deeply Unpleasant Notable things about this film: The film was re-written to be a kids film to meet Lou Ferrigno's demands. The final act involves a female villain chaining Hercules up and declaring her plan to drug him with heroin and then rape him repeatedly for eternity to breed a race of Ubermensch. HERC-O-METER 1) Hercules is shirtless - I actually don't think he ever has a shirt, nor even a pretense like a singlet. Its pec city baby 2) Hercules has annoying sidekick - Circe devours close to 40% of the films runtime with her existence. She is very, very obviously excised parts of the original villainesses plot but tried to repackage as an ally and holy poo poo does that not work 3) Poor Reference Name - The love interest name is Cassiopeia. At least its not Jocasta! 4) Hercules Gets Sleepy - He passes out on a beach, but this is exhaustion not normal sleep and he does not declare his sleepyness. No points in this category 5) Hercules is drugged - He does not get drugged, but the drugging heroin water cup is put to his lips 6) Hercules is sexually assaulted - The evil queen, in this kids movie, states her goal of raping Hercules forever to birth an endless army of new men to rule the world 7) There is a Villainous Woman who traps men - I mean goddamn did you read point number 6? 8) Hercules' Pectoral Wound - With the clock ticking down and less than 3 minutes to go into the film our boy Herc pulls it out and gets wounded right on the pecs 9) Pointless Oath to the Gods with No Bearing on Narrative - He vows to find an answer and then does not find an answer and does not search for it 10) Hercules doesn't kill the final villain - He actually kills them both! Having Hercules kill the female villain in cold blood though doesn't feel like progress, it feels like using bisexuality as a way to demonstrate villain hood leaks into treating the villain as a man for the purpose of killing them. Progress through bigotry? I dunno. Final Verdict - Much like World War I was thought to be the War to End All Wars, I thought surely this would be the Hercules Film to End all Hercules Films but it got a sequel a few years later Barudak fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 8, 2022 18:51
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Play Time It's like a Where's Waldo brought to the big screen. Very little plot, but a hell of a lot of amusing sight gags all filmed in such a way as to make you feel as if you're viewing just another day in this absolutely bizarre future Paris. Easily the best new film I've seen from the Sight and Sound list.
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Dec 9, 2022 09:58
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I finally watched Crimes of the Future and I think it was all about David Cronenberg making fun of the Oscars and also learning to like Marvel movies. it's funny that it's billed as a horror movie 'cause it's basically a really gross comedy imo I really enjoyed it
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Dec 9, 2022 16:15
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The Fabelmans We've got two movies here, one is an interesting look at a dysfunctional family and a child/teen trying to navigate his home life and his artistic life. And then we have the patina of poo poo Spielberg just cannot help himself from spraying all over a perfectly well acted and directed film. I've never seen, in my life, a director who has so little faith in the viewer to understand the images he is putting on screen. Take for example the train scene in the beginning, they go to the theatre, see the train crash, Sammy gets scared and then he regains control by filming his own trainset. Perfectly understandable to any viewer, but Spielberg trusts not in his audience. He's gotta make sure we get that capital T theme in there, so Michelle Williams is forced to utterly disastrous line of, paraphrasing, "I know why he crashed the train, he needs to control it". It would be as if reading a novel, and then the reverse of each page had the sparknotes analysis printed. It's unfortunate, if we could have some magnificent editor come along and sandblast the Spielberg Magic™ off his films then there's probably one or two that are salvageable.
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Dec 9, 2022 23:06
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It's funny, I follow a lot of film folks and they love Spielberg, but I find a lot of his stuff so obvious. I've been weighing whether the Fablemans will be worth checking out before the end of the year, but yeah that's sorta what I was worried about.
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Dec 11, 2022 05:57
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Fabelmans is worth it for the final scene alone. Quicky reviews: Fabelmans - See above. Decision To Leave - Non-conventional use of flashbacks require concentration, but one of the better films of the year. Bones And All - Mid. Might even be a step below mid tbh. Triangle Of Sadness - Interesting idea squandered. For commies who think Spielberg films aren't on the nose enough. Normally not squeamish but vomit is my one weakness. The Menu - Enjoyed it! It is just Ready Or Not and Midsommar smashed together with food but whatever I had fun. Nightmare Cinema fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Dec 11, 2022 |
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Dec 11, 2022 22:12
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Carillon posted:It's funny, I follow a lot of film folks and they love Spielberg, but I find a lot of his stuff so obvious. I've been weighing whether the Fablemans will be worth checking out before the end of the year, but yeah that's sorta what I was worried about. I'd hoped making it a personal story would make it more serious and less winking, it was not. All his films feel like YA fiction, he can't help winking at the audience. It deflates the emotions of the films and leads them to feel hollow to the core. Nightmare Cinema posted:Fabelmans is worth it for the final scene alone. Of all the things I can say about The Fabelmans, I cannot say that there is not a great director featured in it. The Conformist First off, this movie looks great. Maybe it's the wood paneling but I can feel Coppola watching this with a notebook while planning the Godfather. Trintignant plays Weak Willed but Hard Headed so well, his complete lack of conviction over any act he's committing works fantastically as an allegory for Fascism's rise. As does the ending, a guy like that is going to have a perfectly fine life post war. He's a cockroach, he won't be happy, he won't be fulfilled, but he will be "normal". That said, I'd kill me a political exile or two myself if it landed me, Stefania Sandrelli as a wife. She is smoking in this movie.
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Dec 12, 2022 02:39
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Warriors of Future on Netflix. There's a lot of really good design in the movie: creatures, armor, ships, robuts, post-apocalyptic city, all great. The writing is just not good. As a story, this is presented terribly. I'm guessing there was a lot of world-building behind the scenes, and would have liked to see more of that. Sadly, that all gets condensed into a very rushed exposition dump that leaves out some important bits. The stakes are not very clear, the characters are barely characters, and for a movie titled Warriors of Future, we don't get a good sense of what future war is like. It is entirely possible that some things just didn't translate well, I'm only going by the English dub. I think with some better writers this could have been really good.
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Dec 12, 2022 04:33
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After Yang: Man I really love Kogonada. There's a little more movement in the camera in this than say Columbus, but not a ton, and when it does occur it's not showy. The scenes are just so beautifully framed. The acting is quite good too, people have been praising Colin Farrell, and rightly so, but I was really struck by Jodie Turner-Smith and Justin Kim. Just great all around.
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Dec 13, 2022 05:58
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On The Count Of Three - Great premise with undercooked execution. The short runtime ends up being a handicap.
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Dec 13, 2022 19:57
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All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) - Overly maudlin in a way that undermines the simple anti war statement of the original. The battle scene with the tank is pretty badass tho. 6/10 Spider-Man: No Way Home - The Tom Holland Spider-Man movies are so inconsequential they needed copious amounts of fan service from better films to make something kind of fun. 5/10 Adult Swim Yule Log - kind of self explanatory 7/10 Dreams - This is another early Bergman. About two women at different stages in their lives and their mirroring dalliances with pathetic men. I really loved the stuff with Harriet Andersson and the older man who tries to seduce her, the way that plot beats inverts itself by the end is fun to watch unfold. Unfortunately this one doesn't build to much of a conclusion. I spotted the director cameo this time. 6.5/10
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Dec 13, 2022 21:23
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Monkeybone - A very interesting movie that could’ve been amazing if it had a bigger budget and more room to breathe. I went in thinking it would have a harder plot to follow, but it’s very straightforward start to finish. Brendan Frasier is amazing in it. Bridget Fonda brings a shocking amount of depth to what could be a very shallow character. And when Chris Kattan (being chased by Bob Odenkirk as a very persistent doctor) shows up, he brings one of the greatest bits of physical comedy I’ve ever seen in a film. Not sure what the point of John Turturro as the titular character was, as they just pitched up his normal voice and called it a day. Too bad they front-loaded most of the interest stop motion and puppetry, as the movie really can’t decide if it wants to be a trippy work of art of a typical 90s farce. Poor Henry Sellick deserved better.
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Dec 15, 2022 04:50
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) Probably the most gorgeous, visually sumptuous and strikingly well-shot film that I've ever strongly disliked. Went into this one with slight trepidation as the (trailer-revealed) plot hook of Geppetto having and then losing a child prior to Pinocchio's creation smacked of unnecessarily injecting maudlin tones into the story. Then about 10 minutes in to the film there was an amazing sequence with Geppetto crafting Pinocchio in a decidedly Frankensteinian manner, the blue fairy straight-up being biblically-accurate-angel-inspired, and Pinocchio revealing himself in an incredibly unsettling manner, moving inhumanly and leading off with "You wanted me to live. You asked for me to live!", and I was on board for what looked like it would shape up as a dark fantasy Pinocchio-as-cryptid movie... until the first of several intensely forgettable and twee musical numbers started and the film ground to a halt. (Seriously though, if you have a Netflix account watch from 13:20 - 20:50, and then pretend that the film maintained that tone and energy for the remainder and don't bother with the rest.) Broadly, the trouble with this film is that it's bloated and crammed with a number of hooks that by themselves could have acted as the central fulcrum of a movie by itself, and which when combined together serves to make the whole less than the sum of its parts. Setting it in fascist Italy was a bad move and the plot line that came from that was unsatisfying and essentially led nowhere with nothing to say other than "hey, remember when I did Pan's Labyrinth?" (also I did NOT loving need to see Geppetto give a roman salute, thank you very much), Ewan McGregor's performance as the cricket was grating, and seeing Pinocchio literally being crucified was so on the nose it drew a hearty audible "oh for gently caress's sake" from me. The film also had a bunch of points that seem like nitpicks but really should have been within del Toro's capacity to catch and fix: Geppetto looking unchanged between the death of his son in WWI, when he carved Pinocchio around what had to have been about 10 years later at least (given the growth of the tree) and his own death after WWII for example - he looked ridiculously old to have a 9-year-old boy in the outset, why not at the very least change the colour of his hair and beard for that section? Also the puppeteer finding Pinocchio at the end out of nowhere at precisely the climactic moment was just clumsy. Ultimately the biggest issue is that the film got the character of Pinocchio completely rear end-backwards. In the original story he's a rotten little turd with zero impulse control who constantly gets himself mired into bad situations because of his temperament and who has to very slowly and painfully get it through his thick wooden head that he needs to be a good boy before his character arc is over and he earns redemption. In this film he at worst acts out of ignorance for the first few minutes he's on screen, and every thing that he does for that point onwards is motivated by a desire to be a good son - it's Geppetto in this version who is the weak link in their father-son dynamic. The movie still acts as if he's earned his redemption to become a 'real boy' by the end, but seeing as he's done nothing but be a 'good boy' from practically the beginning this arc lands like a wet fart. There's been such a glut of Pinocchio movies lately, but none of them have seemed to have tackled the original text very well. (I heartily recommend KC Green's webcomic adaptation of the original story as it's frankly delightful and extremely close to the original story.) Frankly the most transgressive thing that a studio could do would be to film a version that was exactly reflective of the original story - right down to Pinocchio straight-up murdering the cricket with a hammer on their first meeting. Sadly I think that the specter of Disney's original Pinocchio looms a little too large in the general public consciousness though.
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Dec 16, 2022 03:01
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Just saw White Noise in a near-empty theater (one couple left halfway through and then returned for the credits???). Good, although frustrating. The credits are a real spectacle, would hate to be bombarded with Wednesday ads 5 seconds in
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Dec 16, 2022 04:34
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