ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I think it's a legacy from the British miniseries it's based on, maybe? I watched that last year and, while well written and shot, it was basically six hours spent watching a smug British man manipulate everyone with no scruples or setbacks.

 

The murder happened in the last moments of the last episode, kinda an event horizon for the character's moral-free pragmatism. I liked it, I think.

 

Overall, the plot and characters almost had a "Sense of History" feel to them, I'm beginning to wonder if that's in the Netflix remake.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9G2y7KEVSk

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https://twitter.com/TimeGentleman/status/310742095327539200

 

("New Oz movie is a mean-spirited, politicised, by-the-numbers mish-mash of Burton's Alice, Howard's Grinch and Revenge Of The Sith. Shame.")

 

And Arbitrage was pretty dull too.

 

I enjoyed Rare Exports, mostly the pathos of the community and the creepiness of the

elf

but it was far too long and didn't have an ending. Troll Hunter is much better.

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I am obliged to like Rare Exports due to Finnishness, but if I wasn't obliged, I wouldn't like it.

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I enjoyed it, but Ben is right about it not having an ending. I like the two shorts it was based on better.

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I think I preferred Rare Exports to Troll Hunter -- but maybe I should watch them again. Troll Hunter bored me in ways that I don't remember Rare Exports doing.

 

Arbitrage was pretty run-of-the-mill, but it was also definitely "quite good". I quite liked the ending.

 

Also, I'll say it again, but everyone should just go out and watch Searching for Sugarman -- and try to know as little about it as possible before going in. It's a great feel-good documentary.

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That's exciting, I hope this one's good. While I love his visual flair and own a shitload of Gondry related DVDs, I find his actual movies as a whole tend to be very hit and miss. Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine were very strong starts, but I know a lot of people attribute those solely to Kaufman's writing (I don't agree, I despise the story for Being John Malkovich but love the visuals and Synecdoche is one of the worst things I've ever sat through). I liked Be Kind Rewind, but it seems a lot of people felt it was too base. I just found it slow in some parts. Science of Sleep was even slower and felt like it was missing a soul, which his latest documentary The Thorn in the Heart was a snoozefest and didn't seem to have any clear reason that it was even made in the first place.

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Yeah, I tend to think Gondry is at his best directing music videos. None of his features have exploded my brain the way something like Around the World or

do. But I do think Science of Sleep is criminally underrated. I kind of hated it at first, but upon rewatching it last year I began to realize how heartfelt it is. Eternal Sunshine is a great film, but every time I see it I find Kate Winslet's character a little more underwritten and unsuccessful at subverting the manic pixie dream girl trope. To say nothing of Jim Carey's miscasting.

 

Science of Sleep, on the other hand feels incredibly personal to me. Michel Gondry is probably one of the most quirky and whimsical artists in any medium, and that film is actually about what a nightmare that can be. In making the manic pixie dream girl (or, in this case, the manic pixie dream guy) the main character of the film, he's able to better explore the problems someone who is so weird and manic could face. But because he's played by Gael Garcia Bernal, the most beautiful man on the planet, it's able to come across as equally charming, creepy, fun and childish. I think it's a pretty remarkable film.

 

And Adaptation was directed by Spike Jonze. Easy mistake.

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Woah, I actually don't know Veronica Mars, but seeing The Number rise like this is very very impressive. And I'm surprised that this seems to kick all those game kickstarters right in the butt. Movies, he, I thought they are, like, yesterday's media, you know.

 

(*cough*Firefly-kickstarter*cough*)

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I don't really like TV but Veronica Mars is a fantastic show. It's like Brick + Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you know that movie and that other show. So I'm thrilled to see the movie succeed like this (I even pitched in money!). Kristenn Bell is a pretty great actress who mostly gets stuck in shitty roles. Plus:

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That's exciting, I hope this one's good. While I love his visual flair and own a shitload of Gondry related DVDs, I find his actual movies as a whole tend to be very hit and miss. Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine were very strong starts, but I know a lot of people attribute those solely to Kaufman's writing (I don't agree, I despise the story for Being John Malkovich but love the visuals and Synecdoche is one of the worst things I've ever sat through).

Adaptation is a Spike Jonze joint, so it had nothing to do with Gondry. Also, The Science of Sleep is a really great movie in its own way. Just so surreal, fun an inventive.

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And Adaptation was directed by Spike Jonze. Easy mistake.

Sorry I meant Human Nature, which was also a Kaufman script, oops. Fixed. Their DVD covers have really similar white and green colors, so I always get them mixed up.

 

Oh yeah, I also forgot that recent short film he made with this bad comic book artist, Julie Doucet (who seems to have an obsession with drawing nipples poking through shirts). That was a pretty useless and boring short film.

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I feel fortunate in having seen The Master in the cinema last week, since I thought it was already way out. I can't find any discussion on the forums though, apart from the mention of the early teaser trailer. What gives?

Amazing characters. Both PSH and Joaquin Phoenix deliver such powerful roles. The film itself seems a little at a loss for what to do with them, though, and when at the end the characters end up pretty much where they started, virtually unchanged by anything that happened, I can't help but feel a little confused. Was there a point in there, somewhere, that I missed? Along the way the film touches upon a lot of interesting things (the characters, the philosophy, the slight look into Scientology), and does so in cool ways, but not towards any end, storywise.

The Master seems a continuation of the tone of film There Will Be Blood set, though I liked the latter one a lot more. It had not only all the interesting characters The Master offers, but also something to say, it would seem. Or at the very least, a character arc.

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I loved it and mostly agree with your assessment. I think the point, if indeed there was one (and outside of being a potent character study, I'm not sure there was one), was how someone could be easily sucked into a cult like Scientology. It was almost a side-point, though. It was definitely just about the characters -- and wow, what a portrayal. Both Hoffman's and Phoenix's characters stuck with me for days.

 

I think TWBB was better for the same reasons you do, though.

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Joaquin Phoenix seemed almost too much at any time. I mean, wow. So gritty. The smirks, the smiles, the mumbling, the way he holds himself like there's another body trapped inside him that's just a little larger than the outer one.

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Joaquin has kind of a unique history with the subject matter, as his family were all members of the Children of God cult.

 

And that's a good way to put it, Rodi. He's so uncomfortable in his own skin. I think in general Paul Thomas Anderson is an incredible filmmaker, so much so that his films often evoke some kind of deeper meaning that is rarely backed up by the screenplays. I've never seen two people agree on what There Will Be Blood is really "about", or seen something that explains how the stories in Magnolia are connected thematically (except in the vaguest of ways). I think his strength with TWBB and The Master has been to create these incredible evocative experiences, that could really be metaphors for anything and everything. You make weird impressionistic films about diametrically opposing forces, there's a lot of blanks for people to fill in themselves.

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Hmm. I LOVE PTA, but I wouldn't agree that confusing the audience is one of his strong points. TWBB had a very specific meaning to me, and while I think PTA is always a slave to his characters (as he should be), that film had a pretty clear message in my opinion -- it just told it in a very non-judgemental way. But then again, I don't want someone to come along and tell me my interpretation is wrong! :)

 

I think Magnolia was a beautiful and evocative mess. The film seemingly wanted you do see something deeper in it, but (imo) it failed miserably. A bold experiment, with some fantastic moments, but ultimately it was all over the place. Not so with Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood (or even The Master), imo.

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I saw Cujo in a theatre the other night. I think I watched a family drama where a killer dog was tacked on near the end. What the shit?

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Hmm. I LOVE PTA, but I wouldn't agree that confusing the audience is one of his strong points. TWBB had a very specific meaning to me, and while I think PTA is always a slave to his characters (as he should be), that film had a pretty clear message in my opinion -- it just told it in a very non-judgemental way. But then again, I don't want someone to come along and tell me my interpretation is wrong! :)

 

I think Magnolia was a beautiful and evocative mess. The film seemingly wanted you do see something deeper in it, but (imo) it failed miserably. A bold experiment, with some fantastic moments, but ultimately it was all over the place. Not so with Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood (or even The Master), imo.

I obviously can't judge your interpretation of TWBB without knowing the details, but in my experience that film has been fascinating to talk about with others because it's such a strong example of (in my opinion) really great use of ambiguity and a not so great use of it as well.

 

My favorite ambiguity in the film is about how everyone seems to have a different idea of what Daniel Plainview's arc is. At what point does he lose his soul? Did he already lose it before it even started? Did he ever love his child, or was his child just a tool? I love how any given moment of Day-Lewis' performance could read in multiple ways (the pinnacle of this of course being the "I've abandoned my boy!" scene, where he fades in and out of sincerity so fluidly it almost feels like a magic trick).

 

Then again, there's the larger meaning of the film. Is it just a character piece? That apocalyptic, very Kubrickian ending seems to suggest to me a larger metaphor being drawn. Is it about the relationship between Eli and Daniel? Not really, because so much of the film (the whole section with Daniel's brother) isn't about Eli at all. So is it an allegory? For what? It's easy to draw Daniel and Eli as symbols of capitalism and religion, but what is it actually saying about that? That they're the same and/or equals? Because the characters are not. That capitalism killed/replaced religion? It hasn't. The problem with most interpretations I've heard is that the film is that the plot is actually more lackadaisical and roundabout than it feels, and to claim that it has a single defining thesis, people often have willfully ignore big chunks of the film. 

 

Maybe you have the perfect interpretation that sees TWBB as a thematically tight and cohesive film (not that TWBB not being thematically tight and cohesive is a bad thing, necessarily) but in my opinion PTA the director far outshines PTA the screenwriter.

 

I am interested in what exactly you mean by him being a "slave to his characters". It's not necessarily a thought that's ever occurred to me.

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I mean that his characters drive the story, and not the other way around. The Master is only a character study, without much plot, and it works as that, for me.

 

As for TWBB...

 

I don't think there's much ambiguity in the film. I think David Lynch's movies are the epitome of "ambiguous", and PTA's are much more straightforward by comparison.

 

It sounds like everyone agrees on the main point: Plainview is a soulless man. I would argue that the film shows him as always being this way (at least as we see him -- who knows what his childhood was like). I think a lot of people miss the point that, when he falls and breaks him leg(?) prospecting, the movie goes out of its way to show that he's more concerned with the value of his find, than his own health. His health is just an inconvenience in the way of his drive -- and his drive is to make money. (It's no coincidence that he's shown as a solitary figure, either, IMO -- he has no friends, because he sees no value in relationships.)

 

Everything he does in the film, with one exception, can be seen as taking steps towards his goal.

 

The ending fitted perfectly with his character, and his final line says it all: "I'm done." He has no more reason to live, he's accomplished everything he wanted to in life -- the only thing he had left was to prove himself the "winner" to his weak rival. (Not that he's about to commit suicide now, just that his drive is now completely sated. If he gets away with murder -- and I imagine that he might just -- I think he'll spend the rest of his life living in the empty cavernous mansion alone.)

 

The only ambiguity, IMO, is how he felt towards his adopted son. I guess that's left up to the viewer to decide where the lines were drawn. I have no idea.

 

So as a whole, we see the consequences of the actions of a man driven solely by a psychotic desire for wealth and status. The movie seems to ask the audience: Is this something really worth looking up to? But it also stays true to the characters, and never makes them do anything contrived to make this point. In that way, to me it's just about a perfect film.

 

That's my take on it, anyway.

 

Now, Mulholland Dr...! :)

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Another perfect film from the same year: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The best summarisation I read of it was this: 

 

As his career draws to an end, Jesse James becomes aware of the impossibility of facing an increasingly vast army of sheriffs, federal agents and Pinkerton men. He senses that, inevitably, one of his gang will in any case sell him out for a fat reward. Unwilling to give the lawmen that satisfaction, James embraces his own death and subtly cultivates the mercurial attentions of the most obviously cringing and cowardly of his associates: 20-year-old Robert Ford. With the taunts and whims of a lover, he encourages Ford's envious, murderous fascination, and grooms him as his own killer, so that his own legend will be pristine after his death. He engineers a character-assassination of Ford, and the title, knowingly, gets it precisely the wrong way around.

 

The film just blows me away.

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