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Darthemed posted:My biggest issue with Climax is how much physical energy all of the characters have on an acid trip, particularly after they've already gone through physical exertion earlier in the evening. That's part of the magic of cinema, people get tired when the script calls for it, it's dramatic license. You can also say that dancers undergo tremendous stamina training, so there's some explanation for it in-universe.
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Apr 20, 2021 18:02
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I think the most relevant thing to note about Gaspar Noe, one that explains a great deal about him in fact, is that he isn't even French.
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Apr 20, 2021 19:48
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im about to watch climax but i highly doubt its going to as enjoyable as terra formars
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Apr 21, 2021 17:13
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I think I'm gonna actually vote for Terra Formars. Yes it's incredibly dumb, yes most of the effects are terrible, no I couldn't really understand what was happening in any given scene. But Noe is just not my thing at all, and Climax is no exception. Sure, on a technical level it's better in almost every way but I just never enjoy my time with Noe's films. They always feel like a chore.
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Apr 21, 2021 17:16
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Nothing wrong with voting with your heart
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Apr 21, 2021 17:28
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Tarnop posted:Nothing wrong with voting with your heart my dna was spliced with a lovebug
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Apr 21, 2021 17:34
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Can someone post a picture of the bug booty? Just for fun haha I want to see the bug booty edit: 
married but discreet fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Apr 21, 2021 |
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Apr 21, 2021 17:36
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MacheteZombie posted:my dna was spliced with a lovebug I'm going to need to see a sizzle-reel of your abilities
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Apr 21, 2021 17:40
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married but discreet posted:Can someone post a picture of the bug booty? Just for fun haha I want to see the bug booty  
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Apr 21, 2021 17:43
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Its Wednesday, kids. Competition is... hot? Racist bug movie vs sexy misery dance. Guy with a big name who made a movie you never heard of vs movie you probably seen but you might not know the name of the guy who made it. Its a hot one pair this week. And if you still haven't had a chance to see these marvels of film I believe Deb will be restreaming Terra Formars and The Guardian tonight. That's a treat. You can still vote or change your vote until 3 AM EST Apr 23rd (or when I wake up). That's like 37+ hours? Something like that. Time to watch Terra Formars like 18 times to try and make sense of it. But you shouldn't do that. That's a bad idea. But you could if you wanted to. edit: Posted as Deb infects the thread with her Discord depravity! Run and hide! I have no power!
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Apr 21, 2021 17:44
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The better films this week are Climax and The Descent, for pretty much the reasons listed elsewhere. If I were to vote with my heart, I'd actually throw a vote toward The Guardian. While The Descent is the better and the more watchable film, I do have a great soft spot for trash, gore, and '90s erotic thrillers. The Guardian has all of those elements, and I might one day get the desire to watch it again one listless night, where all I want to do is roll around in filth, cigarette butts, and discarded unerotic pornography. Whereas with The Descent I've seen that several times now and I feel like I've taken everything I can from it, it works, it does what it does admirably, but it doesn't make me feel unpleasant in a way that's enjoyable to me. It is a balanced meal, with all the food groups represented, when what I really want is yesterday's greasy take-out served on the lap of a stranger.
Debbie Does Dagon fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Apr 21, 2021 |
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Apr 21, 2021 18:00
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I do think there's a natural tendency to respond more strongly to something you see for the first time, versus something you definitely like but you've seen several times already. I know I've noticed that in myself and tried to at least be aware of it. I think The Descent is one where that could easily play a factor because it's a movie that really depends on tension and building dread of what's coming and so if you've seen it three or four times all that is sort of drained out of it.
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Apr 21, 2021 21:14
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I agree with that to an extent but in this case I was bored out of my mind during The Guardian and laughing at people dunking on Terra Formars in discord. Whereas I remember being transfixed by both The Descent and Climax when I first saw them and they still hold my attention now (no easy feat) I suppose it's just another way of comparing films. I don't have too much difficulty recalling how I felt the first time I saw both of the films I'll be voting for this week because they're very memorable
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Apr 21, 2021 23:38
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William Friedkin’s The Guardian vs. 9. (Tarnop’s The Brutal Brits) Neil Marshall’s The Descent The Guardian The Guardian was actually kind of boring until the last ten minutes. Those last ten minutes were still not enough to make up for the rest of the movie. The Descent It's me. I'm the one who hasn't seen the Descent before. I thought this was legitimately scary, especially before the baddies show up. Shadows, noises, and the fear of the unknown can be especially effective. The monster in your imagination being worse than the monster you can actually see and all that. Once the baddies do appear, it becomes more of an action movie in a lot of ways. This is not really a complaint. It's just a shift in tone that's worth noting. Otherwise I really appreciated how much depth Sarah and Juno had. The movie was really about the two of them, more than it was about being trapped in a cave being pursued by subterranean horrors. For what it's worth, I saw the version with the US ending.
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Apr 22, 2021 00:58
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twernt posted:For what it's worth, I saw the version with the US ending. And for that, you get no birthday cake 
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Apr 22, 2021 01:00
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But I'm an emotionally stunted American and don't like things that are bleak. Okay I watched the UK ending and it's definitely better. I think it really completes Sarah's character arc in a satisfying way. Maybe satisfying is the wrong word. It just feels right though. I wouldn't say that the US ending is necessarily a happy ending though. twernt fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 01:11
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The US ending also opens the door for an ill-advised sequel. Some franchises deserve to die alone in a cave.
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Apr 22, 2021 01:29
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I was thinking about it the other night and I'm not sure the UK ending makes any drat sense. Like... where is she? She and Juno see the light of the exit, she axes Juno and leaves her to die and get swarmed, she escapes, then she wakes up in the cave. Where? Did she just get lost and wander into another cave? Is she kneeling next to Juno? It kinda doesn't make sense all in the name of cheap mean ending. Which is why I prefer the US ending because its the deeper, more thematically true, and ultimately meaner one if that's what you like. And I mean, a sequel? That's REALLY mean. twernt posted:I wouldn't say that the US ending is necessarily a happy ending though.
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Apr 22, 2021 01:37
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STAC Goat posted:I was thinking about it the other night and I'm not sure the UK ending makes any drat sense. Like... where is she? She and Juno see the light of the exit, she axes Juno and leaves her to die and get swarmed, she escapes, then she wakes up in the cave. Where? Did she just get lost and wander into another cave? Is she kneeling next to Juno? For me, the cave is a metaphor for her grief, so of course she can try to leave, and may actually manage that occasionally, but she'll always return there eventually. For me it's like an early Babadook.
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Apr 22, 2021 01:56
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I agree, Deb. Really there's nothing in the UK ending that says she's physically back in the cave. We're even prepped for the idea that what we're seeing is at least in part Sarah's imagination, since when Juno pops up in the car I don't ask myself "why is Juno alive". I know I'm being shown a manifestation of Sarah's guilt. I think it's a valid read to say we're entirely in Sarah's mind at that point and are being shown images that are representative of her emotional state.
Tarnop fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 02:07
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I wasn't sure if the cave at the end was to be taken literally or not, since she is full-on hallucinating by that point.
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Apr 22, 2021 02:09
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The Descent Going entirely off my memory of having seen the movie a decade ago or so. 1) Initial car crash -> This movie does not gently caress around. 2) Lady gets stuck in cave -> this is intense. 3) Night vision jump scare -> holy lord. 4) emerging from the bone+blood pool -> aw yeah. 5) lots of running around, jump scares, diminishing returns on everything 6) ending -> ehh, I guess? Overall, yeah that’s a really good horror movie, gets a bit worse as it goes on but still fantastic. I just don’t want to rewatch cause jump scares are stressful. The Guardian I watched this yesterday and can probably already remember fewer things about it than the Descent. There’s two fun scenes involving trees and you don’t even need to see the rest of the movie to get enjoyment out of this. Easy choice. Poor Friedkin, he doesn’t deserve to go like this.
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Apr 22, 2021 19:24
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Friedkin has had a fascinating career. He does The Exorcist, The French Connection and mother-fuckin' Sorcerer, but he's also done Jade and The Guardian, and more then a whole handful of movies no one has seen. Then he started watching Tracy Letts plays and made two great movies from them all of a sudden, one of which is Bug, one of Michael Shannon's best performances. I don't know why he made a bunch of movies that suck after making a bunch of masterpieces. He has a memoir called The Friedkin Connection that's supposed to be amazing, which he reads himself, but the audiobook's been pulled from every service. 
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Apr 22, 2021 20:32
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1. Some directors are just inconsistent: See also, John Huston 2. Studios, man. The ones that get hosed usually have some producer to blame for it or otherwise. This is just speculation and I don't know the production histories of those misfires, but could be worth considering that he got good again when he started doing independent productions.
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Apr 22, 2021 22:05
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There's also writers, producers, cinematographers, editors, actors. So many people go into what makes a film great. The Exorcist, The French Connection, and Bug are all adaptions of pretty successful works with Blatty writing his own screenplay adaption and Bug presumably holding to Letts' play staging quite a bit and Shannon reprising his performance. None of that is to take away from Freidkin but it speaks to like the "auteur" theory. Auteurs tend to be either very hands on with a wide array of their films or work with the same key crew a lot. Other directors just go from job to job and project to project. We started with "directors" in this thing and its a good starting place and way to frame our entries and collect films. But really, filmmaking is so much broader and more complicated that. And I've been brainstorming ways to adapt the tournament to that if we go again next year.
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Apr 22, 2021 22:30
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I just finished watching The Guardian; and my conclusion is that the biggest flaw is in the editing.
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Apr 22, 2021 22:42
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As an editor, I disagree. The editing is bad, no doubt, but Seth Flaum has an unspectacular but workman like resume. An editor can only put together what they're given. The bigger issue seems to be that the film started as a campy Raimi project about a regular nanny who steals babies and gradually got rewritten and tweaked in a supernatural thriller by Friedkin trying to capitalize off of the Exorcist. You can clearly see those traces of Raimi in the film with scenes that feel like they belong to another film entirely and the whole thing feels like a movie that was being rewritten while filming. And there's only so much an editor can do to put two films together in post.
STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 22:58
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Note that Fran said the editing was at fault, not the editor. If Friedkin gets final cut as a condition for stepping in to salvage the production then maybe he insists on holding on to all the weird family scenes he filmed that establish nothing about fundamentally uninteresting characters. Or maybe Friedkin didn't get final cut but the production had been such a mess to that point that the editor was cutting the thing together with someone from the studio breathing down his neck. Either way, the sum of forces that came together to produce the final edit meant that some serious dead weight got left in for whatever reason. Also, on the topic of Friedkins other, better films, there's no actor even approaching the talent of a Von Sydow, Shannon, Hackman or the incredible ensemble in Sorcerer. I don't think better actors rescue the film but they wouldn't hurt.
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Apr 22, 2021 23:22
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Terra Formars This is bottom of the barrel anime garbage with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Or is it? I’ve looked a lot at the bugs this week. Their stupid faces. Their tiny butts. Their dumb clubs. I like them. I like Miike. He made this idiotic movie but he made many others. Maybe I want more of this? No. The movie is terrible. But maybe that’s the point? No. Miike wanted a paycheck. Too bad. Climax I loved every minute of this completely alien experience. I’d never ever be at a party like that, interact with people like that. I’d feel tremendously out of place and anxious there even under non-drugged conditions. I get to see this world through the documentarian lens of Gaspar Noe. I feel safe behind the camera. That is not a feeling I’m used to from horror movies. It fascinates me. A nature documentary? I have never seen anything like this before. This is what I want from movies. I want to see it again. I’m voting for Climax. edit counterpoint: bug movie married but discreet fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 23, 2021 03:17
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Wakeup, Piss, Spreadsheet.  Its two upsets, although that probably doesn’t come as any real surprise. Still, we had two upsets the whole tourney so far so doubling it up is a big deal. So is the fall of Takeshi Miike. We’ve seen big names fall in the first round, we’ve seen #1 seeds fall, but this is a director who reached the finals of last year’s tournament and now he’s gone first round. The “no cherry picking” large pool for director rule change can probably be blamed for it and will probably come up in the debriefing when this is all over. But he’s also the first director to fall due to this and there’s a certain appropriateness to Miike falling to making trash of his 100+ films, no? Well, and argument for next year’s rules. For now Miike is gone and Gasper Noe gets his second victory and leads Fran’s Team Vulgær to become the first play in team to advance to the second round. On the other side another big name in Friedkin falls with his disjointed draw and Tarnop’s Brutal Brits advance on the strength of Neil Marshall’s modern cult classic (maybe?). That sets up a 9 vs 16 matchup for the second round, Fran vs Tarnop, Vulgaerity vs Brutality. Should be a blood bath. And stats wise while both winners actually fall middle of the pack of the winners pool for votes, Noe picks up his second win giving him 22 total votes and #1 of all directors in this tourney. That’s a mood for the ole’ Goat, but it could be short lived for Noe since in a couple of weeks most of the field will get their second shots in the tourney and start to be able to rack up the points. But for now, and maybe the next few of weeks if no other play in teams can repeat the cinderella magic, Gasper Noe is the tournament king. And I hate it. Ok, new week, new movies, and a chance for someone to dethrone Noe. Lets see what we got. 1. (Tarnop’s Agents Provocateur) Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls vs 16. (Tarnop’s Predation) Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom  Ok, lets briefly move past the question of what Showgirls is doing in a horror tournament or the tragedy of the random draw setting Tarnop vs Tarnop and focus on the incredibly randomness of this matchup. I swear this stuff is done by random number draw but if I was gonna make a matchup between these two it couldn’t be more thematic than this one. Its nuts. Ok, back to Showgirls. Look, I kept it loose. If you don’t think it belongs vote against it. Its Verhoeven’s first questionable go in this tournament, and his partner Brain DePalma picked up a win last year over Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs! before falling to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. The 1 seed this year should get him a better draw but the opponent is one of the betters’ favorite teams in Predation who already wracked up a victory in the play in round over Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen Kills 7 Times and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. But even if a lot of people think Predation has the chops to go the distance they gotta get past a #1 seed. Still, if you’re gonna you wanna draw a much maligned “borderline” film like Showgirls and a much lauded cult classic like Peeping Tom. So is this a major upset or will Jessie Spano surprise us all? I’m so excited. I’m so ex… oh, you know the joke. Even I’m not corny enough to finish it. Showgirls is streaming on DirectTV and MaxGo in the US. Peeping Tom is streaming on Amazon Prime and free on Tubi, Plex, Popcornflix, and Roku in the US. 8. William Castle’s Mr. Sardonicus vs. 9. (Franchescanado’s Team Rule Breaker) Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey Boy  Castle never actually got a win last year but he did draw a tie with Bob Clark’s Black Christmas before falling to Miike’s Imprint. As far as non-wins that’s not a bad pair but he’s hoping to get his first real W here with another one of his “interactive” gimmicky cult classics in Mr. Sardonicus. His opponent is something else entirely, another deep pull in Fran’s efforts to both expand our definition of “horror” and exploration of what can be done with film, it seems. And it seems like another film that’s going to personally tax my limits. But those films have generally been hits in this tournament with the “Not Goat” demographic so can Fran make it two weeks in a row for limits pushing entries? Can I survive it if he does? This feels like a pretty direct clash of the traditional horror and the borders expanding art that seems to keep happening here. Maybe I should add a stat for it. Mr. Sardonicus is streaming on Flixfling in the US. Julien Donkey-Boy We’re nearing the end now. Just 2 more weeks in the first round after this. Truth be told this feels like another rough week that is likely to end in me apologizing for calling something trash. But what would the tournament be without that? Vote or change your vote until 3 AM EST Apr 30th (or when I wake up) Bracket & Noms Spreadsheet Letterboxd List Next Week! - 1. John Carpenter vs. 16. STAC Goat’s Block Party (Joe Cornish, Oz Rodriguez, Ernest R. Dickerson, & Austin Vesely) - 8. Ishiro Honda vs. 9. STAC Goat’s As Seen On V/H/S (Ti West & Adam Wingard) STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 23, 2021 12:47
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Ok, Showgirls is a good movie and all, but it is really, really, really, really not a horror film. Things can be appalling and shocking without being horror and Showgirls never does anything to move it into that genre. Like, it's a sexploitation film sure, but would you put an Emanuelle film in this tournament just cause it belongs to a different type of seedy subgenre? On that thought, Julien Donkey-Boy is also not a horror film, that's an experimental drama. Whatever, this line of questioning never gets far here and both are good movies. Just, I'm gonna put that on the record. Also, helps that I've already seen all four movies this week and can say their competitors, respectively, are the superior films. Showgirls is Showgirls and brilliantly subversive, but like, Peeping Tom is a whole other league of filmmaking. Mr. Sardonicus is just a dope movie and Julien Donkey-Boy is kinda boring at times. TrixRabbi fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 23, 2021 13:24
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What happened was that we decided to allow thrillers, just to avoid having the horror/thriller argument every week. But then of course you have films that are barely thrillers, teetering on the edge of just being regular dramas but if they step one toe over the line thriller territory, as you could argue Showgirls does, it technically qualifies. Anyway I can already see the future that Carpenter's gonna draw like, Village of the Damned or something and get taken down by Ernest Dickerson.
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Apr 23, 2021 13:28
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Agents Provocateur definitely had a self destruct button built in with Showgirls.
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Apr 23, 2021 13:32
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Is Showgirls even a thriller though? It's a coming of age/sexploitation/industry drama. Like for me it's at the point where by this logic Casino is a horror movie.
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Apr 23, 2021 13:32
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I think even calling Showgirls a thriller is a bit of a stretch, although you can argue that it grew out of the erotic thriller movement via Basic Instinct.TrixRabbi posted:Is Showgirls even a thriller though? It's a coming of age/sexploitation/industry drama. Like for me it's at the point where by this logic Casino is a horror movie. it's basically an All About Eve remake
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Apr 23, 2021 13:33
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married but discreet posted:Agents Provocateur definitely had a self destruct button built in with Showgirls. Genre specifications aside, Showgirls is an excellent film but it is too long. Also, it's going up against a bonafide masterpiece in Peeping Tom. Oddly, I will say, they're actually a very apt pairing for the way they tackle the same themes of misogyny, predatory men and sex work from different genre lenses.
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Apr 23, 2021 13:34
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TrixRabbi posted:Is Showgirls even a thriller though? It's a coming of age/sexploitation/industry drama. Like for me it's at the point where by this logic Casino is a horror movie. I'm not saying it is, just that it does sort of dip it's toe in those waters a little bit with a few scenes. Overall though I'd say no. Anyway it hardly matters, Peeping Tom should stomp it pretty easily.
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Apr 23, 2021 13:39
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It reminds me how in Men, Women and Chainsaws, Carol Clover includes The Accused in her discussion of rape-revenge movies alongside the likes of I Spit On Your Grave and Ms .45. It's decidedly not a horror film -- it's a courtroom drama -- but yet it does manage to be a rape-revenge movie fitting all the core plot ideas that require a violent crime followed by the victim's vengeance. So it's very curious to see the movie contextualized alongside these exploitation features. But if we put The Accused in this tournament, I'd equally call bullshit, because it is decidedly dealing with many of the same themes horror and thrillers deal with but in a wholly different genre and style. I feel the same way about Showgirls. Just cause it tackles a lot of those provocative themes and ideas that many of the other films we've included in this tournament have dealt with, just cause it makes you feel icky, does not place it within the genre framework we're in part judging these movies on. In short: This isn't 'Nam, Smokey -- There are rules!
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Apr 23, 2021 13:40
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Showgirls being in is weird and was a "let's see if anyone makes a case against it" inclusion. I agree with everything people have already said. But you have to admit, that's one hell of a serendipitous pairing.
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Apr 23, 2021 14:01
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I'm excited because it's the first matchup (since I started participating) where I've already seen both movies. That being said, I'm planing to be a meta provocateur and say I'm voting for Showgirls, while I secretly vote for Peeping Tom.
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Apr 23, 2021 14:04
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