Serious Movie Discussion XXXVIII

[Bullitt68]

Reboot.

The original OP from Mr. HuntersCreed:

For real movie fans.
This thread isn't for:
-people that think Transformers was one of the top 20 greatest movies of all time.
-people that think Shia LaBeouf is a GREAT actor, or find his halfstache appealing.
-people who's only real opinions are that The Goonies, The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Boondock Saints, Pan's Labyrinth, The Dark Knight, etc. are the greatest films of all time and that's all they can talk about. Though the aforementioned films are great, and discussing them is welcome.
-people that Christian Bale, Christian Bale, Christian Bale, blah, blah, blah, Christian Bale.

This thread is for:
-people who value the artistry that takes place behind the camera, as well as in front of it.
-people who realize that explosions, and special effects aren't the only thing that make a good movie.
-people who have seen a few movies beyond what Hollywood puts out.
-people who know some directors and their styles.
-people who know who one or more of the following are.
--Aaron Eckhardt
--Bruce Campbell
--Vincent DiOnofrio
--Terrence Malick
--Werner Herzog
--Ellen Paige

The list of the original thread regulars' 25 favorite films, a nice gauge for any newcomers to see where/how their taste falls in line with that of the posters who make up this thread.

On November 9th, 2009, the Serious Movie Discussion regulars were asked to submit their 25 favorite movies. Thread regular flemmy tallied up the scores and made a list of this thread's 25 favorite movies. For users thinking about becoming regulars in here wondering about our taste, here is what the list looks like.

1. Pulp Fiction
   
   
   
2. Fight Club
   
   
   
3. Heat
   
   
   
4. Terminator 2
   
   
   
5. Aliens
   
   
   
6. Goodfellas
   
   
   
7. Predator
   
   
   
8. Taxi Driver
   
   
   
9. Die Hard
   
   
   
10. Snatch
    
    
    
11. The Thing
    
    
    
12. The Dark Knight
    
    
    
13. Jaws
    
    
    
14. The Big Lebowski
    
    
    
15. Raging Bull
    
    
    
16. There Will Be Blood
    
    
    
17. The Shining
    
    
    
18. Casino
    
    
    
19. Leon: The Professional
    
    
    
20. The Godfather
    
    
    
21. A Clockwork Orange
    
    
    
22. Children of Men
    
    
    
23. City of God
    
    
    
24. Once Upon a Time in the West
    
    
    
25. Oldboy

So, if a lot of these films are favorites of yours, as well as ours, it's safe to assume you'll fit in very nicely here.

Finally, I would like to reserve this space, on behalf of everyone in this thread, to remember the passing of one of the earliest and most frequent contributors to serious movie discussion: regarding the poster Kansas (aka StillInKansas).

Kansas was one of the best friends of this thread and this forum, and he will be fondly remembered by all of us.

 

[Bullitt68]

Saw Next of Kin on HBO a few weeks ago. I remember watching it with my dad when I was a kid, but man, this one doesn't hold up. Funny though seeing Liam Neeson that far back. And even if the movie is underwhelming, Patrick Swayze always rules.

I was also flipping through the channels recently and happened to catch Patton as it was starting and I had to watch that opening scene. Haven't seen the movie in a number of years, but the opening scene is easily one of the GOAT.

And I'm currently watching Mad About You for the first time and it's fucking incredible. Paul Reiser's Jewy New York sensibility gives the relationship sitcom a Seinfeld feel, which is amazing to watch as I've never seen a show that could conceivably be compared to Seinfeld tonally, much less one that is so conventional and familiar.

I'd like to see someone more articulate compare Hannibal to Dexter. The former is obviously much more polished but I often feel like I did watching the first season of Dex.

What are the connections you're making besides them being shows about killers? I've only watched Dexter through once (and I thought the first season sucked so I remember very little), but in terms of his motives and behavior (to say nothing of all of the other characters and the overall style and narrative in the series) Dexter/Dexter is nothing like Hannibal/Hannibal.

Finally watched The Wolf of Wall Street on EPIX

I only watched The Wolf of Wall Street once in theaters and I haven't seen American Hustle, but as far as the former is concerned, I felt the complete opposite.

The Wolf of Wall Street will probably be my favorite movie of the year. I spent three hours marveling at Scorsese's genius. That man hasn't hit on that many cylinders since Casino, and when I left the theater, I was so impressed that I was actually considering ranking it above Casino and Goodfellas. I'm going to have to go on a Scorsese marathon like the Tarantino one I just finished in order to offer accurate rankings, but holy fucking shit was that an astonishingly amazing movie.

Leo doesn't seem to get much award love, and considering he got snubbed at the Oscars for Django (for which he should've won) I'm not holding my breath for him here, but he knocked that role out of the park. In the last five years, he has matured into an extremely skilled actor, and he has a ton of shit to do in this role from drug-fueled happiness to bitter anger even to physical comedy, and he does it all superbly. This is a truly manic performance, and he's able to go from 0 to 100 and back down and back up like you won't believe.

As for Jonah Hill, he needs to get an Oscar for his work here, I laughed at almost everything he did/said. People thought Moneyball was a surprise, but even the people (like me) who were surprised by him in Moneyball will still be surprised by him here because he's that good.

As for the film overall, it didn't hit a false note all three hours. The time absolutely flew by (the three hours felt like two at most) and I swear I have never laughed that hard or that often in the theater except for Anchorman, and at one point (you'll know it when you see it), I was laughing uncontrollably, coughing and crying and clutching my stomach like a fucking spaz, and I'm one of those people who rarely laughs out loud in theaters in the first place. The script is fucking flawless, so riotously funny that it made the film feel like it was out-Tarantinoing Tarantino (a nice bit of revenge for Scorsese who it was said had been out-Scorsesed by Tarantino when he first showed up), and when I looked up the writer afterwards and saw he wrote for The Sopranos, I knew immediately that he had to have been the guy who wrote the GOAT episode, Pine Barrens, and sure enough, he was. Terence Winter is responsible for one of the best scripts in contemporary cinema, IMO. Better than Goodfellas and on par with Pulp Fiction when it comes to the hilarity the script is able to find in such serious circumstances and how sublimely it is able to tease out the comedy of triviality.

I cannot recommend The Wolf of Wall Street strongly enough. Anybody reading this who still hasn't seen it should stop reading right now and get to the nearest theater as quickly as humanly possible.

IMO, The Wolf of Wall Street is the funniest film Scorsese's ever made; the time flew by to the point where I was angry when it ended; I think it FAR surpasses anything Scorsese has made post-Casino save for Gangs of New York, though I think it even eclipses that masterful film; the style was superb, as is always the case with Scorsese; and Scorsese's handling of the subject matter was perfectly suited to what he wanted to accomplish, which was to not be preachy and act all high-and-mighty, preferring to document rather than condemn.

mccabe and mrs miller is a masterpiece.
altman had a talent for deconstructing genres like he did here with western or with film noir in the long goodbye.

You guys have been talking about Altman a lot, so I watched The Long Goodbye first and loved it. It took everything about Chandleresque tropes and waved a big fat dick in its face, but I was engaged right from the cat scene at the start (how hard must that have been to shoot?). To characterise Marlowe as this bumbling, good-natured wise-ass as opposed to suave, hard-edged wise-ass was such a good idea. I cared about him. The ending was an absolute piss-take but fit in well within all the subversion. Cool movie.

Lastly, and a favourite from these last couple weeks of movie watching - McCabe and Mrs. Miller. I adored this. It was really hard to start and I paused twice to do something else to be in a better frame of mind. The poorly lit, dank atmosphere of the film and the almost incoherent dialogue were frustrating. I had to rewind a few times, turn subtitles on for some things for the first twenty minutes. Then I started the movie over and I was able to sit back and sink into the story. Boy does it build. It spends so long with the characters that I felt like a citizen of Presbyterian Church. I loved those women like I knew them for years. Such beautiful, empathetic writing. The eponymous McCabe/Miller relationship was so intricate and rooted in character that the scene where he breaks down in front of her totally got me in teh feelz. And the climax is so detailed, so frantic. It reminded me a lot of High Noon. The panic on Beatty's face was similar to Cooper's anxiety. This is a great film. Worth getting through the first half hour or so.

You two have been making me want to rewatch Altman lately. I haven't rewatched McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which I honestly don't remember except for not liking it, but I did rewatch The Long Goodbye and I still hate it. Ricky, your characterization of the film ("It took everything about Chandleresque tropes and waved a big fat dick in its face") is perfect, but that's exactly why I hate it. To me, Marlowe is Humphrey Bogart and James Garner. I don't want to watch a Jewfro'd doofus bumbling around while Altman points and laughs at film noir. That's not how I like to take my genre deconstructions, especially when it's a genre I'm so fond of as I am of film noir.

I did get a kick out of seeing Arnold again, though.

Because of how much I loved Hannibal I decided to finish the last few seasons of True Blood because of Bullitt78's constant raving about it. Season 5 picked up toward the end and Season 6 was alright, but Season 7 was 10 episodes that were series-closers in a row. Every episode of that season could have been the last episode - or at least that's what it felt like. It was too reflective, it felt like the show just sat on itself, IDK.

Season 5 is, IMO, the strongest season, and the Eric/Russell/Bill/Authority angle that started in Season 3 and ended in Season 5 is my favorite part of the entire series. Add Meloni to the mix, and it's some of the best TV out there.

In case you weren't aware, the creator and showrunner, Alan Ball, left after Season 5, which is why it tanked so hard. The guy who originally replaced Ball for the first few episodes of Season 6 was doing a great job IMO, but then he got replaced, the writers started making shit up as they went as everyone tried to settle into a groove, and the writing suffered as a result.

For Season 7, though, there are no excuses. It just sucked. A few strong episodes here and there, and I loved the way they wrapped up Eric's arc, but by and large, the final season was a travesty and the finale almost hit Dexter-level embarrassment.

Still, even with its disappointing ending, I have cherished these last couple of years since I've become a fan of the show. One of my all-time favorites and hands down my favorite live TV watching experience other than Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Watching Full Metal Jacket after ten years, maybe more, was like watching a different film. Blown the fuck away.

Full Metal Jacket is, along with 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut, one of the Kubrick films where I still feel like I haven't yet gotten everything out of it---not aesthetically, not emotionally, not philosophically. It's just such a masterful film and IMO Kubrick's most viscerally powerful.

 

[Bullitt68]

Watched Batman and Batman Returns again after, like, fifteen years. God I love them. I love the forgoing of reality, the economy of story of the first, the action-and-consequence awesomeness of the second. Just perfect stories in magic immersive worlds. I do like the first better because it just felt less dense in its final acts. Nolan's The Dark Knight is a great film, but I'll always believe the grounding of the series in reality is what holds it back. He's not much of a world-builder though, so I can see why he went that way.

Much like us being inverted regarding The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, we're inverted on Batman and Batman Returns.

I soured a lot on Batman, it's too dorky and cheesy. Batman Returns is legit, though. Absolutely stunning visually and the characterizations are phenomenal. Everything works perfectly and it all fits perfectly, as ufcfan nicely elaborated in his response.

It's also a lot of fun seeing just how much Nolan was tipping his hat to Burton throughout his trilogy. It's almost like people have been programmed to not see Burton in Nolan's films, but there's a pretty sizable portion of Burton in those three films, from small nods like the dance scenes between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in Batman Returns and The Dark Knight Rises or Batman riding his motorcycle at the Joker in The Dark Knight the same way Batman flies his Bat-Plane down the street at the Joker in Batman to whole characterizations like the Penguin/Bane stuff.

There was so much brilliance in Burton's films that even the almighty Nolan had to do some sampling.

How is...Or why was Marv still alive for the second film?

Spoiler

Seems like Nancy killing Rouke was the last event in the movie's timeline , unless Rouke was already killed by Nancy before Hartigan's suicide? So confused

Right?

That dude got seriously fucked up in that movie.

I'm rewatching Django Unchained right now. This is my third time, but the 2nd i just kind of had it on as background noise.

This movie is so much better than I originally gave it credit for, so much so that I had to stop watching to post this. I'm at the part where they first get to Candieland after sicking the dogs on the one slave. To this point, it's Tarantino at his best, but my biggest problem was the double climax, so we'll see how i feel about the overall film when i finish up.

I still have no desire to watch this a second time.

Yankee Doodle Dandy was awful. I wasted my money renting this. It's filled with shitty songs, and the excessive patriotism was grating.

GOAT musical, Cagney is a fucking boss, and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor like three days after they started production on the film, leading to four years where 99% of films coming out of Hollywood acknowledged in some way, shape, or form the American war effort.

Also, one of the coolest P4P movie moments:

Cagney improvised that shit, which he first did in another great and supremely underrated musical of his from a few years earlier, Something to Sing About, and you can even see him look off to the side at what were no doubt stunned cast and crew members.

Hating on Yankee Doodle Dandy is a new low, even for a master contrarian like yourself.

Props to skza for going silver.

Also where the hell is Bullitt? He didn't even come out for the Nolan vs. Tarantino thread.

Haven't seen that thread, but I check in here a couple of times a day even if my posts are spread out farther and farther apart nowadays. And I always make time eventually for a mega-post or two (or seven :wink.

 

[Kingz]

I only watched The Wolf of Wall Street once in theaters and I haven't seen American Hustle, but as far as the former is concerned, I felt the complete opposite.



IMO, The Wolf of Wall Street is the funniest film Scorsese's ever made; the time flew by to the point where I was angry when it ended; I think it FAR surpasses anything Scorsese has made post-Casino save for Gangs of New York, though I think it even eclipses that masterful film; the style was superb, as is always the case with Scorsese; and Scorsese's handling of the subject matter was perfectly suited to what he wanted to accomplish, which was to not be preachy and act all high-and-mighty, preferring to document rather than condemn.

Thanks for the response. Didn't expect to see one in the new thread. Maybe i touched too much on what i didn't like about it but i did think and say it was a good film. I do plan on watching it again. My feelings have changed about a lot of films with repeated viewings, and that includes films that i hated on first viewing. I liked this one, i just might've came in with different expectations.

I definitely agree that it was absolutely hilarious and the performances were great(also agree on Leo in Django, felt he stole the show). I prefer Casino and Goodfellas simply because the subject matter interests me more than junkie Wall Street scumbags and i just felt they overindulged certain aspects and as i said, tacky in some spots. Like some of the yacht scenes. I guess white collar crime doesn't provide as many great scenes as blue collar crime so maybe the focus had to be on what it mainly was.

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

Bullitt68, I am so addicted to Hannibal. Do you know any other shows that have as smart a script as this show does? Is there anything else out there that is even comparable? Anything as intellectual/psychological/philosophical? I really didn't understand how great this show was the first time I watched it. I knew it was good, but I didn't see how good it was. It's approaching Black Swan levels of greatness.

 

[Bullitt68]

Thanks for the response.

I prefer Casino and Goodfellas simply because the subject matter interests me more than junkie Wall Street scumbags and i just felt they overindulged certain aspects and as i said, tacky in some spots. Like some of the yacht scenes. I guess white collar crime doesn't provide as many great scenes as blue collar crime so maybe the focus had to be on what it mainly was.

I've always found Goodfellas to be extremely overrated, and at this point, I usually don't even bother watching it all the way through anymore, while couldn't imagine wanting to stop The Wolf of Wall Street. Casino is a completely different kind of film, and unquestionably weightier in terms of its scope and its overall narrative trajectory, but even that great film doesn't totally outclass The Wolf of Wall Street in my estimation.

As for the charge of being "tacky," I think that's a dangerous word to use as it can imply a lack of awareness on Scorsese's part which I think misses the extent of his gambit with this film and how far he wanted to push the outlandishness.

Bullitt68, I am so addicted to Hannibal. Do you know any other shows that have as smart a script as this show does? Is there anything else out there that is even comparable? Anything as intellectual/psychological/philosophical?

Nothing that I've seen can match it and I have a hard time imagining that even something I haven't seen is on the same level.

I really didn't understand how great this show was the first time I watched it. I knew it was good, but I didn't see how good it was. It's approaching Black Swan levels of greatness.

Are you being facetious because you know I hate Black Swan or are you being sincere because you love it?

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

lol! I'm being sincere because I absolutely love Black Swan - I didn't know you hated it

The reason I compared the two is because I got really hooked on Black Swan when I first saw it and I've seen it so many times and I felt like I learned something about myself every time I watched it... and I feel that way watching Hannibal. I'm a very introspective person and just having the show playing in the background, it helps me focus and think about personal issues... and make progress in that thinking. It's so stimulating.

 

[Bullitt68]

If you get that out of Black Swan, more power to you, but man, that was a rough one for me.

That piece of shit was laughably awful. Wasn't even two hours long but it felt like six. Portman did an okay job, I guess, but that's the extent of my praise. I've always said Aronofsky sucked big elephant dicks, but he took sucking to a whole new level with this one. One part wannabe Persona, one part wannabe Mulholland Dr., with a dash of wannabe Limelight, and what do you get? A wannabe provocative interrogation of female sexuality, the doppelganger trope vis-a-vis the narcissistic thirst for sucess, and the conflation of performance and identity in an artistic setting. . .only Aronofsky doesn't have the chops to pull off that type of intellectual cinema and his limitations were embarrassingly conspicuous. He needs to stop pretending he has any kinship with the art-house, and even more importantly, people watching his shit need to stop pretending he has anything resembling artistic talent.

If you enjoyed it, though, I highly recommend checking out Persona if you haven't already seen it. Ingmar Bergman's crowning achievement IMO and one of the most astounding films I've had the pleasure of viewing.

 

[El Chimpo]

Hey bullitt..did you happen to read my second to last post in the last thread?

 

[in the]

Two free movies I recommend.

Conspiracy was an HBO movie made in 2001. Excellent film and excellent acting. It details the meeting of a handful of senior Nazis who met to decide what would become known as "The Final Solution."


Path to Paradise is another HBO movie about a real life event, this one about the first attack on the World Trade Center buildings in 1993.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

Conspiracy was good.

 

[Ricky13]

Three Days of the Condor was pretty damn good. Well paced, more than anything, in that the romance bit didn't seem to slow it down. Also, did 70s films simply understand awesome endings better than anyone else? The note that this finished on was just ballsy.

I only watched The Wolf of Wall Street once in theaters and I haven't seen American Hustle, but as far as the former is concerned, I felt the complete opposite.

American Hustle is pretty bad. I think you'll hate it for how hard it tries to be Scorcese-esque with its editing. But other than that, I think you'll realise what's wrong with the writing.

The Wolf of Wall Street is pretty much the perfect satire. Brilliant societal mirror.

To me, Marlowe is Humphrey Bogart and James Garner. I don't want to watch a Jewfro'd doofus bumbling around while Altman points and laughs at film noir. That's not how I like to take my genre deconstructions, especially when it's a genre I'm so fond of as I am of film noir.

I feel you, but it works really well as a story by itself. If I hadn't watched as much classic film noir as I have since posting here, I wouldn't have recognised the subversions but still would've enjoyed it.

Full Metal Jacket is, along with 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut, one of the Kubrick films where I still feel like I haven't yet gotten everything out of it---not aesthetically, not emotionally, not philosophically. It's just such a masterful film and IMO Kubrick's most viscerally powerful.

The second half, for me this time, was so well done that I had to stop and pause several times to notice how tightly crafted the sniper scene is. The geography of it is unmatched by any war movie, leave alone emotional impact. There's the point where the sniper sees the hole in the wall before shooting the team leader (Kubrick wisely zooms in through the hole from the sniper's POV to ram the point home), but the geography is so good that I noticed the hole as soon as the squad hid behind it. The squad doesn't know it but we know it. The tension is unbearable. The clarity of the way he shoots, the basic things Kubrick does so well is never talked about. You usually hear about all the semiotic crap. This is what elevates him to GOAT status for me. He does it all. I do sometimes wish he wasn't as analytical as he is, but it's made up for with craft alone. I can't turn off a film of his. Nope. Impossible.

 

[KOQ24]

how awesome is repo man btw?
lol,the movie was outrageous.
it seemed like every character was interesting
the soundtrack was on point
great homage to kiss me deadly too

 

[theskza]

Thanks, guys!

 

[Bullitt68]

So Interstellar is only a few weeks away. I'm thinking about doing Interstellar on opening weekend and then following up that heavy experience with Dumb and Dumber To the following weekend :icon_chee

Hey bullitt..did you happen to read my second to last post in the last thread?

About that hitman/chef movie? I saw your post but I have no idea what that movie is.

American Hustle is pretty bad. I think you'll hate it for how hard it tries to be Scorcese-esque with its editing. But other than that, I think you'll realise what's wrong with the writing.

Nothing about the film appealed to me when I first heard about it and started seeing trailers for it, and honestly, that hasn't changed.

The second half, for me this time, was so well done that I had to stop and pause several times to notice how tightly crafted the sniper scene is.

Everyone prefers the boot camp stuff to the war stuff, but I've long praised the war stuff. That's not denying that R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio own the shit out of their roles, but the monumental filmmaking talent on display during the combat sequence is just astonishing.

And it's insanely difficult to make a list of Kubrick's best individual scenes, but if I were to try to do it, Joker deciding what to do with the wounded sniper is the newest contender to emerge for me. I've always loved the soap beating and D'Onofrio's suicide, I've always loved the sniper picking them off, but that last portion where they're surrounded by flames (tons of points for Kubrick with the way he managed to pull off the oldest war cliche, "war is hell," in the subtlest and most elegant fashion) and they're all standing there while Joker, trying to hold on to his humanity, argues with Animal Mother, who is as emotionally vacant as a dissociated serial killer, about what to do with the sniper is quintessential Kubrick: Poetic, beautiful, disturbing, and tragic.

 

[HUNTERMANIA]

Bullitt68, can you give a timeline for Hannibal's actions? Like, when does he give Will encephalitis? Does he want to be friends with him immediately or does he not have that realization until the Franklyn scene around episode 7? Is he just fucking with Will out of curiosity until that moment? How does that all work, what is his whole plan from the beginning and how does this change throughout the series?


(complicated questions, I know).

Isn't he more interested in Abigail at first? It's so complicated, I'm really trying to understand what he's thinking throughout the show.

 

[Ricky13]

Shit, forgot, CONGRATS THESKZA!

Paper Moon was funny, but man did they get some of the morality stuff wrong. Hard to empathise with the characters when they don't really grow, apart from their relationship developing. They do some nasty stuff. The Kahn subplot sort of storms upon the story and leaves, unresolved in terms of the main characters' development. The two are closer in the end, but it's hard to be happy for them when you know they're going to con more people in difficult times. I mean, she leaves her aunt, who seemed loving and doting, for a life of crime on the road in one of the worst periods of America's history. How do you root for that? Something is wrong with that picture. Would have worked better if they showed how hard it was for them because of The Great Depression as well.

 

[Ricky13]

Also saw Sixteen Candles. Was funny and charming in parts, but man the majority of that shit was disturbing. Hardly any of that film would make it past today's political correctness standards. Possible date rape, pure unadulterated racism (I mean Long Duck Dong? I was dying) and the worst kind of misogyny ("I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted."). There's a literal trading of women in the end. Hilarious.

 

[KOQ24]

Also saw Sixteen Candles. Was funny and charming in parts, but man the majority of that shit was disturbing. Hardly any of that film would make it past today's political correctness standards. Possible date rape, pure unadulterated racism (I mean Long Duck Dong? I was dying) and the worst kind of misogyny ("I could violate her ten different ways if I wanted."). There's a literal trading of women in the end. Hilarious.

Heathers had a similar vibe

 

[kerozene74]

Seen A Dangerous Method today, rate it 6.5/10 A little bit different than the others last Cronenberg movies. You don't have this cold an unexpected violence than you can see in Eatsern Promises or History Of Violence. Even a little bit boring especcialy in the long speaking sequences with a lot of technical words (Difficult for a non english as a first language people like me).
Fassbender, Cassel and Morttensen are really good in the acting.
Keira Knightley is really beautiful but IMO overacting the crazyness a little.

Did you guys seen the last Cronenberg work (a map to the stars and Cosmopolis ? I will probably watch them soon but im affraid to be dissapointed.