[Thorzdad]

I don’t think that was at thing way back in the early 70s. Maybe the show had a “mature audiences” note at the beginning, but I really dunno.

[subego]

I got it a lot once I started watching Python and Dave Allen.

[Thorzdad]

The Indy station showed Python late enough to not need a warning. I totally forgot about Dave Allen.

[subego]

This was just WTTW’s own thing then. Python was in safe-harbor but they put the warning there anyways. We used to use “sensitive viewer” as one of our milder playground insults.

As for Allen, I was unfortunately too young, and too unaware of life in the UK to appreciate how subversive he was.

Sunday night was “British night” on WTTW. Python, Allen, and Doctor Who. Started at 10p so 12;30a on Monday morning was when I’d go to bed. Kind of a shitty thing for PBS to do to a kid.

[subego]

Oh, I forgot! It started at 9 with Masterpiece Theatre.

[Thorzdad]

The Indy PBS was kinda schizophrenic about Dr.Who. They’d show a couple of episodes, then none for weeks, then another one, etc. etc. And not necessarily on the same day or time.

[subego]

Shadow of a Doubt

One of my dad’s faves, but honestly left me a little cold. A little slow, mostly predictable, weak ending. Cotten as a villain is fun.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by subego 

The Magnificent Seven

Never saw the original, but have of course seen Seven Samurai. I enjoyed it a lot, but it sorta didn’t feel like a western. I can’t put my finger on why.

Compared to the original, the 2016 version is far less “westernish”. I honestly liked the new version a lot, and in many ways because it wasn’t as “westernish” in that it broke a bunch of stereotypes and pushed several formulaic tropes to the curb. It was grittier, but also more personal.

And they didn’t forget to include that wonderful thematic music, but they didn’t depend on it to sell anything. I liked that. James Horner knocked it out of the park, but there was far more than just a nod to Elmer Bernstein.

[Brien]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes… The consistency of this franchise is impressive.

[subego]

Passengers

Fantastically dark premise. I guess it’s good as it can be within the confines of PG-13 and making back the fuckton of money they spent on it.

Jennifer Lawrence should have gotten pregnant.

[Thorzdad]

I liked Passengers, conceptually, but I struggled with the extremely creepy/immoral premise all through it. The swimming pool scene was terrifying.

[subego]

That was in a sense my issue. I’m fine with the premise, but they copped-out.

It kinda should have been a novel, with exploration of what on Earth (literally) caused them to be so fucked up.

[Thorzdad]

I would have been ok with the premise had the accident revived both of them at the same time. But, him reviving her so he could have a companion was really gross. Stalker-ish.

[subego]

Oh, it was outright evil.

I’m fine with the premise of exploring someone being that evil, but they need to pay for it.

[reader50]

I'm in much the same boat. He shouldn't have revived her. They later established everyone would have died if he didn't have a 2nd person (2 places at once problem) and that he could put her back in storage. But I found it unsatisfying that a shipwide emergency wouldn't waken an engineering crew member automatically. Or that crew storage was locked down so hard in a ship where everyone was supposed to be asleep.

Loved the visuals and ship design. Money well spent on CGI and sets.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

So guys congrats on setting the record for how much anyone’s ever talked about that movie

[subego]

I actually had no idea the movie even existed.

[subego]

The Union

Okay. Kinda runs out of steam. Marky Mark is the other weak link.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I can’t remember if Asteroid City has already been mentioned, but we started it on Saturday night….and after struggling for 30 minutes, decided to stay commited to Wes Anderson but switch over to Grand Budapest Hotel for the first time since we’d seen it in theatre.

What an absolute masterpiece. Better and funnier and zanier than I’d remembered. Ralph Fiennes is mesmerizing.

The Grand Budapest Hotel


Asteroid City
TBD

[subego]

I gave Asteroid City 5 stars. It’s an allegory, which can be anywhere from easy to impossible to figure out depending upon your background.

 

It’s about the experience of being an actor in a play, where you repeat the same performance over and over, but for any number of reasons they’re never the same. Some of these reasons can be intensely personal and completely unrelated, such as outside of work drama.

The alien is the audience, who to the actors is a central yet incomprehensibly fickle force in their lives.

Never seen GBH.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Will give it another try at some point. Just could not get into it though. Sometimes all of Wes Anderson’s world is a stage, and to be frank I want to enjoy a movie.

You’re in for a real treat on Grand Budapest if this is your first time.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Sometimes all of Wes Anderson’s world is a stage

Heh. More than you might realize.

I’ve seen fewer of his movies than I should have. One of my favorite movies is The Life Aquatic.

[subego]

Wildcat

Ethan Hawke classing it up with his daughter as Flannery O’Connor. Brilliantly uses the device of having the same cast play real-life characters as well as the characters in her stories. I wasn’t familiar with her life or her work. Both are unpleasant, the latter to me absurdly so. This made the extremely dark subject matter much easier to swallow.

[MacNNFamous]

Speaking of Ethan Hawke, I thought this one was interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMVBi_e8o-Y

[subego]

All the dead Teslas is funny.


Edit: the reviews I read say the first half is excellent, but it goes downhill from there and has an unsatisfying ending.

[MacNNFamous]

Yeah it just sort of ends. Honestly, endings aren't important to me if the vibe of the movie is memorable, unique, and interesting. It's like Silent Hill. Vibe was 11/10. Story was 5/10. Worth it.

[subego]

Sneakers

Very late to the party on this one. One heck of a cast. Extremely wholesome. Extremely 80s. Could lose a half-hour or so and the ending is hokey.

[subego]

Wise Blood

Sticking with Flannery O’Connor. This was directed by John Huston in 1980, but for all intents and purposes is a batshit insane David Lynch movie. Having watched Wildcat helped a lot with the context. Dated arrangement with the score is my only criticism.

[Thorzdad]

Dave Made a Maze

My son told me to watch this one. It’s tough to explain. Basically, a guy (the titular Dave) builds a cardboard maze/labyrinth in the front room of his apartment while his girl friend is away. She comes home and discovers he’s trapped in the maze and can’t find his way out. Wackiness ensues.

It has all the feel of a high-ish budget student film, but in a good way. The story is pretty simple. The actors all look familiar, but I didn’t recognize any names, and the acting itself can be a bit flat. Here’s the thing...The set design and sfx are truly fucking inspired. Seriously, watch this just for the set design.

Currently on Prime.

The movie...


The set design...

[ghporter]

Your reference to a high-ish budget student film made me think of Dark Star, made at USC in 1974 by John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon for an estimated $60k. Interestingly, O’Bannon is credited as co-creator of the Alien franchise, and it’s thought that the Alien universe is actually also the Dark Star universe. It’s worth a look.

[andi*pandi]

Deadpool vs Wolverine was a ton of fun. It does help to have seen Logan, Loki, and some 80s cartoons.

Bonus: our friend Tom from Succession is in it.

[subego]

3:10 to Yuma

The remake. Another where I’m late to the party. One brilliant setup after another.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Your reference to a high-ish budget student film made me think of Dark Star, made at USC in 1974 by John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon for an estimated $60k. Interestingly, O’Bannon is credited as co-creator of the Alien franchise, and it’s thought that the Alien universe is actually also the Dark Star universe. It’s worth a look.

This is a movie where watching it is a bit of a slog, but you come away from it only remembering the good parts.

“I know… teach the bomb phenomenology!”

[subego]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Fixed the egregious omission of never having seen a John Ford movie. This is excellent, but in hindsight it wasn’t the one to start with. Wayne is a caricature at this point. Everyone eats the scenery, but Carradine outeats them all.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by subego 

Fixed the egregious omission of never having seen a John Ford movie.

One word. Stagecoach.

[subego]

The Searchers is what they showed us in film history 101, but I played hooky that day.

[subego]

R.E.D.

Aggressively mid. Only worth it because the cast is so good. The score is embarrassing.

[Thorzdad]

Finally got to see Poor Things tonight. It’s streaming on Disney+.

Just. Wow.

I loved every frame of this movie. Emma Stone is remarkable. Apparently, she won a metric ton of best actress awards for this, and I can see why. An utterly unafraid performance. This is easily the best film I’ve seen in years and years.

It’s definitely not for everyone, and I think the first 15-20 minutes or so will either hook you or turn you away. For me, it sealed the deal for me. I was grinning like a madman, it was just so visually captivating. But, then, I love Ivan Albright paintings, so...

[subego]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

Disney+

Hot take:

 

This wasn’t merely influenced by Frankenstein. Godwin literally is Frankenstein’s monster.

[Thorzdad]

That’s actually a good take. There’s definitely Frankenstein in its DNA. The flashback section depicting Bella’s creation even looks much like the same scene in the Wales movie.

[subego]

My hotter take is pointing out the real life four-foot-tall woman who believed in the holiness of suffering was a nun.

[subego]

Black Mass

Wicked.

[subego]

American Gangster

Thought this would make a good bookend to Black Mass, which it sort of did. Quite obviously should have been an Antoine Fuqua movie, so it’s jarring to get a Ridley Scott movie instead. I’d rate it higher if I felt it more accurately portrayed real events.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I wasn’t a huge American Gangster fan — on paper it looked incredible but I remember it being underwhelming — but I missed Black Mass entirely. I’ll try to give it a shot tonight.

I re-watched Heat last night for the first time on my pandemic-era home theatre. Such a great movie. The louds and softs are almost overwhelming — that gun battle in downtown (LA?) is like getting smacked in the face a hundred times in an echo chamber, it’s truly wild.

If you’re looking for a cheap and easy Netflix watch, has anyone else seen Rebel Ridge? It’s a pretty basic revenge movie version of season 1 of Reacher. It’s super enjoyable. Surprisingly not gratuitous. Also has some minor political commentary on the batshit insane practice of civil asset forfeiture, but don’t let that drag you down. A very enjoyable and propulsive movie overall.

[subego]

First Blood was the comparison I saw.

[ghporter]

Michael Mann went to extremes to get the sound (and a lot of other stuff) right in Heat. No stock gunshot sounds; his sound people recorded actual live (as in not blanks) ammunition in a setting like where the battle was set. They got the depth of the immediate reports, as well as the quality of gunshot echos in a real urban environment. Mann wanted the audience to feel the action as realistically as possible.

By comparison, Spielberg used exaggerated sounds in Raiders of the Lost Ark. For one example, Indy’s revolver in the saloon gunfight (a S&W MK II Hand Ejector probably chambered in .45 ACP*) made an awesome sound. Except that round doesn’t make anything like the sound in the movie in any gun. Reality was clearly not the point in this film, but the sound design consistently painted the story Spielberg wanted to tell.

*Per the Internet Movie Firearms Database. This is a really well researched resource, by the way. Check out their entry for Casablanca…

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by subego 

First Blood was the comparison I saw.

Yup, that’s a good one — kind what Reacher is based on too, right? Built stranger with mysterious military past comes to small town, unfair thing happens, stranger uses unique talents to take on the world in the name of justice/revenge….

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Michael Mann went to extremes to get the sound (and a lot of other stuff) right in Heat. No stock gunshot sounds; his sound people recorded actual live (as in not blanks) ammunition in a setting like where the battle was set. They got the depth of the immediate reports, as well as the quality of gunshot echos in a real urban environment. Mann wanted the audience to feel the action as realistically as possible.

Movies and guns/armor is a huge topic. I recently watched a video on the Forgotten Weapons Youtube channel on how every weapon in Dr. No was wrong. To my surprise, there wasn't a single Walter PPK in the movie. The guest conjectured that was because Sean Connery has big hands and the PP looked better and/or that was what few weapons they had available when they shot the movie.

Another recurrent complaint by HEMA aficionados is that people involved in sword fights do not wear helmets. (If everyone wore helmets, it'd be pretty hard to know who is who.)

I'm not bothered if filmmakers use their artistic liberty to e. g. make the movie better and more entertaining. The exception are movies that claim to be historical (e. g. Das Boot or Dunkirk).

[subego]

People often forget how ridiculously tiny a PPK is.

My favorite “availability” story is rather than test firearms in Japan it was easier and cheaper for the Metal Gear people to fly to Hawaii.

My “helmet” complaint is Starship Troopers.

I have a 80% rule with storytelling. If it’s claimed to be true it needs to be at least 80% true, but you can fudge up to 20% in the pursuit of perfection.

[subego]

Deadpool and Wolverine

I understood that reference more than expected. Silly instead of crazy. Prefer crazy. Wambsgans was a letdown.

What’s the Gambit joke?