Movies Thread

[superrific]

When it comes to my case for the value of this hypothetical blue canvas, the point of self-referentiality isn't to revel in it or to police the boundaries of art and non-art.

Take a real painting or two: Jasper Johns's Flag or Three Flags. To use the distinction conveyed above, those paintings are paintings, not pictures. Three Flags fucks with perspective through its arrangement of smaller flags on top of bigger ones. Johns made the paint gloopy and textural--we don't forget it's paint and that Three Flags is a painting itself, not just a window for thinking about some verisimilar flag. So, yeah, it is an artwork that presumes to discipline--successfully or not--the type of attention that we give to paintings.

So my point is about attention. I guess that could be shifted into an argument about art/non-art, but it feels sufficiently distinct to me.

And, to return to the conversation about film, Hollywood films--for all the variety of one genre versus another--discipline attention in very particular and, ultimately, narrow ways.

The supposed distinction between painting and picture is very much the issue here. Are you saying that pictures are a subset of paintings? That some art is representational and some art isn't? I love non-representational art (well, if it's good). Is picture merely a pejorative word? This are the answers I never get from the art community. My sense is that they like their diktat much more than they like explaining what they are talking about.

I for one never forget that I'm looking at paint. And fucking with perspective was really stale when Jasper Johns was painting. I don't get why the flag paintings are famous. Again, they are . . . so boring.

Is your film worldview limited to Hollywood versus post-war European films? I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Hollywood" films, especially those predating the 60s. I find them trite, phony and oversimplistic. I'm also not a big fan of the French New Wave. Here are some other films that I like very much, that are not Hollywood but aren't the things you're discussing here:

City of God
At least four Zhang Yimou films (most notably Hero, Shadow and To Live)
Aguirre, Wrath Of God
Underground (Kusterica) and other films out of the Balkans following the conflict
Heavy
Badlands/Days of Heaven (don't know if those count as Hollywood)

That's not to mention more surreal productions like Greenaway or Fellini

 

[breepf]

The supposed distinction between painting and picture is very much the issue here. Are you saying that pictures are a subset of paintings? That some art is representational and some art isn't? I love non-representational art (well, if it's good). Is picture merely a pejorative word? This are the answers I never get from the art community. My sense is that they like their diktat much more than they like explaining what they are talking about.

I for one never forget that I'm looking at paint. And fucking with perspective was really stale when Jasper Johns was painting. I don't get why the flag paintings are famous. Again, they are . . . so boring.

Is your film worldview limited to Hollywood versus post-war European films? I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Hollywood" films, especially those predating the 60s. I find them trite, phony and oversimplistic. I'm also not a big fan of the French New Wave. Here are some other films that I like very much, that are not Hollywood but aren't the things you're discussing here:

City of God
At least four Zhang Yimou films (most notably Hero, Shadow and To Live)
Aguirre, Wrath Of God
Underground (Kusterica) and other films out of the Balkans following the conflict
Heavy
Badlands/Days of Heaven (don't know if those count as Hollywood)

That's not to mention more surreal productions like Greenaway or Fellini

No, my perspective is not limited to Hollywood and post-war European art cinema (Fellini included), though I would say that understanding the relationship between those two "styles" can make sense of about 95% of the films discussed in this thread or anywhere else.

I am more familiar with Herzog's documentaries than with his fiction films--it has been 20 years or more since I've seen any of the latter. I likewise haven't watched City of God in a very long time.

Badlands and Days of Heaven are most certainly Hollywood films, if only because Warner Bros. put them out (I think).

Depending on how one counts early French shut, my knowledge of experimental film sticks more closely to the US and Canada. I’ve had a copy of The Draughtsman’s Contract staring me in the face for years, but I’ve yet to watch it.

As for paintings and pictures, the significance of the distinction isn’t necessarily to prize one over the other, or subordinate one to the other, but to regard them as two different ways for plopping paint on a canvas.

I love Hollywood cinema—pictures, let us say. But I don’t for a second mistake that product for the entire spectrum of filmmaking or as the sole standard for film achievement.

 

[superrific]

No, my perspective is not limited to Hollywood and post-war European art cinema (Fellini included), though I would say that understanding the relationship between those two "styles" can make sense of about 95% of the films discussed in this thread or anywhere else.

I am more familiar with Herzog's documentaries than with his fiction films--it has been 20 years or more since I've seen any of the latter. I likewise haven't watched City of God in a very long time.

Badlands and Days of Heaven are most certainly Hollywood films, if only because Warner Bros. put them out (I think).

Depending on how one counts early French shut, my knowledge of experimental film sticks more closely to the US and Canada. I’ve had a copy of The Draughtsman’s Contract staring me in the face for years, but I’ve yet to watch it.

As for paintings and pictures, the significance of the distinction isn’t necessarily to prize one over the other, or subordinate one to the other, but to regard them as two different ways for plopping paint on a canvas.

I love Hollywood cinema—pictures, let us say. But I don’t for a second mistake that product for the entire spectrum of filmmaking or as the sole standard for film achievement.

WB distributed Badlands, but it was produced, written and directed by Malick. 300K budget. Days of Heaven was produced by Paramount, though Malick had complete control I think.

 

[duluoz]

The supposed distinction between painting and picture is very much the issue here. Are you saying that pictures are a subset of paintings? That some art is representational and some art isn't? I love non-representational art (well, if it's good). Is picture merely a pejorative word? This are the answers I never get from the art community. My sense is that they like their diktat much more than they like explaining what they are talking about.

I for one never forget that I'm looking at paint. And fucking with perspective was really stale when Jasper Johns was painting. I don't get why the flag paintings are famous. Again, they are . . . so boring.

Is your film worldview limited to Hollywood versus post-war European films? I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Hollywood" films, especially those predating the 60s. I find them trite, phony and oversimplistic. I'm also not a big fan of the French New Wave. Here are some other films that I like very much, that are not Hollywood but aren't the things you're discussing here:

City of God
At least four Zhang Yimou films (most notably Hero, Shadow and To Live)
Aguirre, Wrath Of God
Underground (Kusterica) and other films out of the Balkans following the conflict
Heavy
Badlands/Days of Heaven (don't know if those count as Hollywood)

That's not to mention more surreal productions like Greenaway or Fellini

Oh man I was mostly with you on your list but I couldn’t stand Underground. The longest 3 hours I ever spent in a theater.

 

[duluoz]

b. Duchamp made the point over a century ago. One hundred years of dada and post-dada art and what insight have we achieved? That blue painting is a toilet on the wall. It's the same idea. The blue canvas is a toilet on the wall. It's all so fucking BORING -- and not just because the artworks themselves are uninteresting. The entire discourse is uninteresting. Even the stock response to "I could have done that" (which I don't consider to be a useful consideration) or "well, you didn't" is boring.

Much more than 100 years of questioning “is there a god?” and “what’s the meaning of life?” — what insight have we achieved after millennia of this? Are these also boring questions and discourse? If nothing else, the thought exercise per se is useful and worthy of energy. Even returning to questions like these at various stages of life can reveal new perspectives.

Just because you think you’ve exhausted the exercise and have all the answers doesn’t make it boring — it more so makes you boring, IMO.

 

[OldWHEEL]

I should have read this thread before I watched Gladiator II. Worst movie with the most hype!

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Add "Conclave" to the list. As of last night, three down and seven to go.

I liked it a lot and gave it an "A". The acting was stellar. From what I've seen so far, Ralph Fiennes should win the Oscar. The sets and costumes were spectacular and the "mystery" story moved at a nice pace. At no time in the two hours was I aware of my butt in the seat.

Did I derive some joy from knowing that MAGA Catholics' heads would explode at the end of this movie? Perhaps. But the twist ending, while somewhat contrived, worked all right for me.

No Best Director nomination may handicap this movie from winning the big prize. And what of Isabella Rossellini's Supporting Actress nod? Was that actually a "Lifetime Achievement" nomination? I certainly didn't see anything Oscar-worthy in her performance.

Oscar Best Picture Nominee #4 - "The Substance"

My grade: B-

For the first two acts of this movie, it felt like a decent "Black Mirror" episode. Demi Moore was fine as the fading star, who is concerned about losing both her celebrity and her beauty. In some quarters, Moore is considered a lock for the Best Actress Oscar. I'm not so sure. If she does win, it won't be for this film. It will be a lifetime achievement consolation nod. Kind of ironic given the not-so-subtle themes of this nominated film.

The third act of "The Substance" slips and slides into an over-the-top gorefest. I know what the director was going for but it got to the point where it was more ridiculous than one of those blood-spurting skits on Saturday Night Live. The last scene, which was a bookend of the first, was a winner. But, my God, the literal blood and guts you had to endure to get to it.

I enjoyed the film, and like "Barbie", it was directed by a woman. It's refreshing to see a woman's perspective at the helm of a film about women's issues. I'd say the make-up award may be a lock and I wouldn't be surprised if Writer/Director Fargeat took home the Original Screenplay Oscar.