Movies Thread

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LOL, maybe it hadn't had time to queue up in the search function yet. Anyway, I suspect I'll be concurring with a robust recommendation...

ETA: I see now that a pic of the movie poster was posted but the name was never mentioned in any of the subsequent posts, thus its eluding the search function. That'll larn me to read the dang thread before making assumptions...
 
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hedge said:
I'm guilty of scorning Avatar, even though I've never seen it (them?). Nothing against Cameron, I rever T2 and also thought Titanic was aight. I was talking to a cinematically like-minded friend about Pan's Labyrinth, I said it had always given me an Avatar vibe (that's the scorn), he said oh no, not at all, and of course he was right. But he knew what I meant when I said I'd stayed away b/c I thought it had Avatar vibes. Now I feel like a racist against digitized blue oingo boingo Star Wars muppet puppets that I'm supposed to be agog over but never was...
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I have very fond memories of on the old board pulling Lurid's tail (was it Lurid?, I think he was the movie buff, right?), by explaining to him that I didn't need to see Avatar becuse I saw it the first time when it was called Dances with Wolves. That didn't go down well with him. He went on to say how the great thing about Avatar was it was an epic SciFi battle pitting primatives against superior technological forces. "Oh, you mean like Flash Gordon? Dive my brave Hawkmen, Dive!"
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Ah, good times.
 
I'm hoping you guys can help me out - I saw a trailer for a movie a few weeks back at the Alamo and it looked weird and quirky and I think maybe it's from Australia but I have no idea what the movie is called - for some reason I thought the director was Australian singer Julia Jacklin but I have confirmed that is not the case but maybe a similar name
 
I just watched Warfare. Bare bones, real time(ish) movie of a Navy Seal team under siege in Iraq. Pretty intense, kind of reminded me of watching The Hurt Locker (much, much noisier though).
 
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hedge said:
Since nobody responded, I'll just say this movie quietly blew my mind. Based on a novella by Denis Johnson, who also wrote the novella Jesus' Son, upon which a film was based that also quietly blew my mind in the 90's. I actually read that novella (JS) based on seeing the movie back then and will certainly be getting this one soon. If you ever saw Jesus' Son, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say quietly blew my mind, although thematically they are not really the same (I guess??), but the DNA is there.

There's just something about this sorta-known but quietly revered by those who do know kind of writers that captures the imagination. People who were doing these quiet works of unique genius but were either unknown or underknown (to various degrees) in their time. It's a long list: Melville (had fame early for his travel adventure novels, but was met with not much acclaim and sometimes outright scorn for his later works), Poe (ditto somewhat: he was a known writer in his day, but nothing like the later appreciation and fame he achieved), Nietzsche (so self-aware of the paucity of his readership in comparison with the magnitude of what he was producing that he quipped "some men are born posthumously"), Cormac McCarthy (certainly attained great acclaim later in life, but toiled for decades in relative obscurity, up to and including Blood Meridian).

Anyway, to make matters more interesting, my sister-in-law sent me a NYTimes article about Johnson a couple of weeks ago, it didn't register with me who he was when I read the title of the article, but I was intrigued enough to keep the tab open (which I rarely do, I'm weirdly fastidious about keeping as few tabs open as possible, on my phone, at least). Then I randomly (ha!) saw Train Dreams in the Netflix "you might like" queue, I glanced at the blurb and though, meh, why not? Such are the tenuous strands that lead us (and contribute) to our aesthetic bliss. Did I mention "highly recommended?"
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Yeah people have talked about Train Dreams. It’s on my short list to see.

I really liked Jesus’ Son. Crudup was fantastic, and a hilarious early Jack Black role. Grim movie but very funny at times.

I had a nutty little coincidence kinda like yours last week. There’s a new movie that’s been on my radar for no good reason called Peter Hujar’s Day. I know almost nothing about it, it just happened to catch my eye. Separately, I went to a gallery showing last week of a really cool collection of ‘80s NYC works including the big names like Baquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, a bunch others. There was a striking photograph by a guy named David Wojnarowicz (whom I’d never heard of) that I instantly recognized as having been used for the Eddington movie poster. Three bison are plunging off a cliff to their death. I made a note to look it up later, and I found out that the photographer had just been diagnosed with HIV, not long after losing his partner to AIDS in the late ‘80s. His partner who died? A guy named Peter Hujar.

news.artnet.com

New Film 'Eddington' Leads With Poster Boasting a David Wojnarowicz

Ari Aster's new forthcoming film, Eddington, has teased a poster featuring an iconic—and resonant—work by David Wojnarowicz.
news.artnet.com news.artnet.com
 
Train Dreams. Woof. Very heavy. There’s a compelling message there I haven’t fully disentangled but it’s heavy either way.

But really nicely shot and well done overall. Worthwhile for sure. I give it a solid B.
 
Has the new Knives Out movie been discussed?

Very smart very tightly packaged mystery. Maybe too smart and too tightly packaged for me as far as having a chance at solving the mystery. Felt like it was really aimed as a homage for everyone who has read every single Agatha Christie novel ever. But with that being said, every single clue made perfect sense, and was perfectly obvious, but to me only in retrospect. That to me is kind of the hallmark of a good mystery, I only prefer them where I have a bit more of a sporting chance of figuring the whole thing out. I never really had a chance in this one.

I think what I liked about it was it completely avoided "red-herring" clues which I find really distasteful in mysteries (it takes zero effort or talent to sprinkle in 6 clues of which 5 are red herrings and only one is real, with no way to tell which is which until the denouement).

Instead this mystery is complex because of the sheer number of clues continuously dropped, all of them perfectly valid. So many that you lose track of them all and forget about important ones when it comes time to figure out the mystery. I really admire that, even if my short attention span meant I had zero chance of solving the mystery.
 
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Ddseddse said:
I have very fond memories of on the old board pulling Lurid's tail (was it Lurid?, I think he was the movie buff, right?), by explaining to him that I didn't need to see Avatar becuse I saw it the first time when it was called Dances with Wolves. That didn't go down well with him. He went on to say how the great thing about Avatar was it was an epic SciFi battle pitting primatives against superior technological forces. "Oh, you mean like Flash Gordon? Dive my brave Hawkmen, Dive!"
1765921925233.png
Ah, good times.
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Wasn’t that Sandi?
 
Ddseddse said:
Has the new Knives Out movie been discussed?

Very smart very tightly packaged mystery. Maybe too smart and too tightly packaged for me as far as having a chance at solving the mystery. Felt like it was really aimed as a homage for everyone who has read every single Agatha Christie novel ever. But with that being said, every single clue made perfect sense, and was perfectly obvious, but to me only in retrospect. That to me is kind of the hallmark of a good mystery, I only prefer them where I have a bit more of a sporting chance of figuring the whole thing out. I never really had a chance in this one.

I think what I liked about it was it completely availed "red-herring" clues which I find really distasteful in mysteries (it takes zero effort or talent to sprinkle in 6 clues of which 5 are red herrings and only one is real, with no way to tell which is which until the denouement).

Instead this mystery is complex because of the sheer number of clues continuously dropped, all of them perfectly valid. So many that you lose track of them all and forget about important ones when it comes time to figure out the mystery. I really admire that, even if my short attention span meant I had zero chance of solving the mystery.
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really looking forward to seeing this, i love the other knives out.
 
Watched One Battle After Another. Really didn't know anything about it other than my wife said I ought to watch it. Was kind of rocked by it...there was a time in my life where I skirted around some of that world...skirted from a distance to be sure but I did know some folks that had revolutionary ideals that they felt strong enough about to go to jail over...There was a 'feel' about it and a language that seemed rather timely.

That said, I keep going back to Robert Rodriguez's original El Mariachi (not the remake with Banderas but the Spanish language one from 1993). There was something that reckless about the storyline yet familiar.
 
donbosco said:
Watched One Battle After Another... there was a time in my life where I skirted around some of that world...
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That surprises me not at all!

Been decades since I saw El Mariachi (or Desperado) but I was just talking with a buddy a few weeks ago about where Robert Rodriguez has disappeared to.
 
Earlier in this thread, I mentioned how Train Dreams reminded me of films like Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven. A good friend with similar cinema interests to mine has written an excellent essay about how Malick's great work has influenced auteur filmmaking, and how it is -- if not thriving -- doing quite well beneath the surface of the all the big money Hollywood studio "product."

yalereview.org

Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director”

Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.
yalereview.org yalereview.org
 
Ddseddse said:
Has the new Knives Out movie been discussed?

Very smart very tightly packaged mystery. Maybe too smart and too tightly packaged for me as far as having a chance at solving the mystery. Felt like it was really aimed as a homage for everyone who has read every single Agatha Christie novel ever. But with that being said, every single clue made perfect sense, and was perfectly obvious, but to me only in retrospect. That to me is kind of the hallmark of a good mystery, I only prefer them where I have a bit more of a sporting chance of figuring the whole thing out. I never really had a chance in this one.

I think what I liked about it was it completely avoided "red-herring" clues which I find really distasteful in mysteries (it takes zero effort or talent to sprinkle in 6 clues of which 5 are red herrings and only one is real, with no way to tell which is which until the denouement).

Instead this mystery is complex because of the sheer number of clues continuously dropped, all of them perfectly valid. So many that you lose track of them all and forget about important ones when it comes time to figure out the mystery. I really admire that, even if my short attention span meant I had zero chance of solving the mystery.
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I felt it was too long.

Also, it seems to me to be an unsolvable mystery. That's why they basically have to explain it at the end.
 
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Whoa mama, this thing was intense. Darkly funny but really it’s a horror movie where the monster is motherhood.

David Fear from Rolling Stone nailed it:
“Some might qualify If I Had Legs I’d Kick You as a comedy, albeit one brimming with barely contained rage, while others might describe as a horror movie. Either way, it’s the kind of film that makes you want to call your own mother and apologize.”

Rose Byrne is outstanding. Conan is damn funny. I give it an A-.
 
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