Movies Thread

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duluoz said:
For me it was a somewhat lesser version of loving Fear and Loathing as a book and movie, pretty much equally. Capturing the hazy zany drugginess of it all probably has a lot to do with it
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I love Thompson and all his fear and loathing. Bummed a cigarette from him once at the opera house in Aspen after a talk he had given. I eventually smoked it, but wish I had kept it. Anyway, I felt like the drug aspect of Inherent Vice was more subdued than in Fear and Loathing. I mean, it's all relative, and of course there's a druggy undertone permeating IV from start to finish, but it felt like F&L was more about doing drugs (and the concomitant snenanaigans) while in IV it was more of a substrate within which a more... compelling?... (I don't know the right word) story was told. Definitely there was an overall druggy mise en scene to IV (as there is in much of Pynchon's writing, from what I've gleaned) and the movie captured the feel and milieu of all that quite well but I felt like the movie delivered more than just that level. Not saying Fear and Loathing (book and movie) didn't, just that it felt a little different..
 
hedge said:
I love Thompson and all his fear and loathing. Bummed a cigarette from him once at the opera house in Aspen after a talk he had given. I eventually smoked it, but wish I had kept it. Anyway, I felt like the drug aspect of Inherent Vice was more subdued than in Fear and Loathing. I mean, it's all relative, and of course there's a druggy undertone permeating IV from start to finish, but it felt like F&L was more about doing drugs (and the concomitant snenanaigans) while in IV it was more of a substrate within which a more... compelling?... (I don't know the right word) story was told. Definitely there was an overall druggy mise en scene to IV (as there is in much of Pynchon's writing, from what I've gleaned) and the movie captured the feel and milieu of all that quite well but I felt like the movie delivered more than just that level. Not saying Fear and Loathing (book and movie) didn't, just that it felt a little different..
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Yeah they’re not apples to apples… just similar hijinks and you wouldn’t be shocked if the characters all showed up at the same parties. In fact, you’d expect it. But IV is a lot more like Leonard’s world-building than HST’s.

More so, I was comparing them because they’re rare instances of enjoying a movie of a book I’d previously enjoyed. And I think the hippie burnout scene, or drug noir, etc. as a setting begs for visual, filmic translations more than a lot of genres. It’s such rich fertile ground for a director, especially when there’s built-in humor.
 
an0maly said:
No, there's enough in my post for now, and I think UNCatTech should not read anything on the film before seeing it. Just sit down in the theater seat and buckle your mental seatbelt for quite a ride. The metaphor I mention is not prominent, and gets lost until you ponder it later on.
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My kids and I enjoyed the movie. After I did read about the director's life experience with loss. It really connected, for me, to many things in real life. Loss, addiction, how fear manipulates our decisions, etc.

I liked it and will probably watch it again.
 
duluoz said:
you wouldn’t be shocked if the characters all showed up at the same parties. In fact, you’d expect it.
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Indeed, Benicio Del Toro was the attorney for the erstwhile protagonists in both IV and F&L...
 
Watched Highest 2 Lowest the other night. I wasn’t at all looking for a carbon copy of the original Kurosawa “High and Low,” but this wasn’t all that close in quality. It’s not bad, but that’s mostly because of the visuals and some signature style.

I’ll always be a Spike Lee fan, but he hasn’t made a good movie in about 20 years. Or at least not one that I saw or was interested in seeing. And that includes some god-awful ones like Da 5 Bloods. At least this new one was mostly decent, not terrible.
 
duluoz said:
Watched Highest 2 Lowest the other night. I wasn’t at all looking for a carbon copy of the original Kurosawa “High and Low,” but this wasn’t all that close in quality. It’s not bad, but that’s mostly because of the visuals and some signature style.

I’ll always be a Spike Lee fan, but he hasn’t made a good movie in about 20 years. Or at least not one that I saw or was interested in seeing. And that includes some god-awful ones like Da 5 Bloods. At least this new one was mostly decent, not terrible.
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BlacKkKlansman was really good.
 
WaynetheDrain said:
BlacKkKlansman was really good.
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Yeah I thought it was mostly crap. Good heart, mediocre execution from top to bottom. And pounding us over the head with the messages.

Inside Man was the last thing he’s done that I liked, and I loved 25th Hour.
 
Just curious here . . . as I don't read through every thread posted here, and I've looked around to see if anything may have been posted about the turn around of the West Point alumni group that was going to give Tom Hanks an award for his portrayal of military officials in his screenplay.

www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Tom Hanks won’t receive award from West Point group as Trump seeks more military control

It appears there’s no act too petty for the Trump administration in its disturbing push to politicize the U.S. military.
www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org
 
BillyL said:
Just curious here . . . as I don't read through every thread posted here, and I've looked around to see if anything may have been posted about the turn around of the West Point alumni group that was going to give Tom Hanks an award for his portrayal of military officials in his screenplay.

www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Tom Hanks won’t receive award from West Point group as Trump seeks more military control

It appears there’s no act too petty for the Trump administration in its disturbing push to politicize the U.S. military.
www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org www-msnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org
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It was raised and briefly discussed in the Current Event thread but that thing is so varied and has so many posts it often swallows up stuff pretty quickly.
 


For fans of documentaries, can’t recommend that highly enough. I’m a big fan of the highly prolific and proficient master documentarian, Frederick Wiseman. His camera lingers in all the right ways and combined with the editing, it tells incredibly profound stories. And all with no voiceover or talking heads interviews. The camera does all the talking.
 
nycfan said:
Watched Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” last night and really liked it. Small budget, art house, slow burn psychological thriller / ghost story that I appreciated for the setup and not cheating in its storytelling.

Not a horror movie if you think of horror movies as pulse pounding and jump scares, but disquieting portrait of a family in the brink and how hard raising teenagers can be.

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I was just discussing Licorice Pizza (definitely recommend) with a buddy of mine, he's a big Soderberg fan and the convo drifted to him and he specifically recommended Presence, I already had this bookmarked based on your recommendation and now I'm looking even more forward to watching it...
 
duluoz said:


For fans of documentaries, can’t recommend that highly enough. I’m a big fan of the highly prolific and proficient master documentarian, Frederick Wiseman. His camera lingers in all the right ways and combined with the editing, it tells incredibly profound stories. And all with no voiceover or talking heads interviews. The camera does all the talking.
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Gotta love the subject, too...
 
I just watched The Half of It with my 12yo daughter last night.

Given the premise (teen-coming-of-age-cyrano-de-bergerac-gender-queer-love triangle), my instinct this was going to be one of the worst movies ever made. Just so, so many ways it could have all gone horribly wrong.

I'll admit, I was wrong. It was intelligent and sensitive and avoided the cliche landmines fairly adroitly. On the whole, I think it was an impressive job by the director and producer to get that movie made, instead of the train-wreck movie that , given the premise, it was almost bound to be.

Stuck the landing too.

Very Minor Spoiler: There are two types of ambiguous endings, unsatisfying ones (99.8% of ambiguous endings) and satisfying ones (like this one). That's quite the coup.
 
Saw The Long Walk tonight, it was good, but so depressing. Don't watch it if you're looking for a fun movie.

There are million acclaimed movies that I've avoided or put off as long as I could because they just sounded too heavy (moonlight, 10,000 yrs a slave, some war/genocide movies, many other dramas). I went in a bit blindly knowing only it was a "dystopian thriller" based around some annual walk where teens must maintain a speed or get shot. I think of dystopian, this premise, and King and my mind drifts to "the running man" or "the Mist" or "dark tower" or "the stand", even stuff like Hunger Games or Squid Games, but this was none of those. Despite thought-provoking ideas and great characters it was just a bit too much dread & doom, despair and sadness.

If I'd known better this would be at the back of the list near atonement, dear Zachary, life is beautiful, etc which I'll probably never watch.
 
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I see that the new Superman is now available on Max. Might watch it again this week.
 
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