ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I don't remember that line about the dog. I like the arc with the girlfriend because the set-up made me think her flakiness would end up the chief conflict but then her brownies make money and she does actually learn how to play the guitar instead of giving up when it's hard, so I think the film is specifically not judging her for being the opposite of Paterson and a jack of all trades while he is a (I presume because actually I don't know jackshit about poetry and it all sounds equally good/bad to me) master of one.

 

I think the movie that literally just follows a normal guy on a normal week as he goes through his normal life would be excruciatingly dull, so I am glad Jarmusch was able to work in so many little encounters and moments that stuck out while never feeling too much like narrative incident. It felt less like random chance throwing a lot of interesting people Paterson's way than Paterson just being open to the world around him. I am a head-down, iPod on, shut the world out kind of person and I would have had none of those experiences if I went through those same days.

 

EDIT: Also, I saw Baby Driver tonight. I wrote a thing about it, but mostly I was just baffled that it wasn't a comedy. It should have been. Good action, thin characters. For about the first hour I thought it'd be my least favorite Wright film (the central romance is awful) but once it gets into it's home stretch it's appropriately fun and exciting. I'd rank Edgar Wright's work so:

1. Hot Fuzz (with a bullet, funniest fucking movie of the century)
2. The World's End
3. Shaun of the Dead
4. Baby Driver
5. Scott Pilgrim
6. Fistful of Fingers
7. Dead Right

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A miniseries based on the John le Carré book The Night Manager, the series has the same name, showed up in my amazon prime video feed. So far so good, Haven't read the book yet as I only just finished The Secret Pilgrim, but I want to branch out into the non-Smiley books. In any case I figured fans of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy would be interested. Still need to watch The Spy Who Came in From the Cold as well.

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Okja, Bong Joon-ho's new film streaming on Netflix, is a complete mess but a often fascinating one with some very high highs. Jake Gyllenhaal gives a performance that consistently skates the line between hilarious and horrible. You might think it's a gentle live-action Ghibli movie from the first 10 minutes but there are so many tonal shifts and it's willing to go super dark.

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@Patrick R  Ran across an article you might find interesting about a lost classic of Blaxploitation called Tough.  Just struck me as something you might enjoy reading about.

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Can't be bothered with a new thread for this, but saw Deadpool and really enjoyed it. The tone, structure and action were all surprisingly well-considered, and although the comedy wasn't particularly sharp, it was charming.

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Life Is Sweet is a Mike Leigh movie that is utterly wonderful, sweet, hilarious, sad and touching. It starts off with the broad set-up of a quirky indie comedy and then, instead of furthering that plot, just contentedly fills in the details on all it's characters until it has created a rich and moving portrait of a family. Jim Broadbent and Alison Steadman are brilliant together as maybe my favorite movie parents of all time.

 

I've seen a few other Leigh films but none of them balance pathos and humor like this. Strongest possible recommendation.

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Went to a film festival in Lodz, Poland and got to catch 3 films over the weekend:

 

Son of Sofia - Story about a Russian Boy moving to Greece to live with his mother. There is a lot I liked about it - the sense of shots being setup as triptych paintings, the smart feeling of out of time, where people were wearing period dress but using digital cameras, but also listening to Cassettes and watching video tapes. The film gets dark as well, with casual conversations about paedophilia and then there are bits where the boy fantasises about being a stuffed teddy bear. It lost me a bit in places.

 

El Bar - Went to see it because of a picture on the film brochure, expecting it to be  chilled out, slice of life story. And it is for about 5 minutes and then it becomes something else entirely. I don't want to spoil it but it is about rising tension between a bunch of occupants in a bar and it is mostly good until it runs out of steam in the last 20 minutes.

 

Avanti Popolo - Dark comedy about two Egyptian soldiers trying to get back across the Suez Canal during a cease fire. The film relies on gallows humour and some of the acting is a little over the top, but as an Israeli film it is surprisingly balanced in its views about the two sides, especially for when it was made.

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I watched Dressed to Kill (1980) over the weekend.

 

I find something strangely magnetic in Brian De Palma's movies. Here, as so often with his stuff, the plot is some truly wild pulp nonsense; but the directing here is outrageously good. On the other hand…

 

Spoiler

the core of the plot is extremely transphobic, it perpetuates the worst possible stereotypes about split personality disorder, and it's pretty bad with the whole 'murdering women' thing.

 

I don't know that a more generous reading is possible. I think a lot of it is probably indefensible. But taken as one long bad (very, very bad) dream of late 70s/early 80s public anxieties about gender, reworked through a hybrid of Vertigo and Psycho, it's fascinating. 

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I just watched the documentary De Palma, and it did really make me want to do a watch-through of all his stuff as I haven't seen most of it, even though tons of it will likely be problematic/nonsense.

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A lot of people swear by Brian De Palma's stuff but I found that documentary was the ideal way to consume his work. All the tasty baroque cinematography without all the rock-dumb plots and characters. If you can look past the problematic nonsense (which runs rampant), movies like Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Body Double, Phantom of the Paradise and Sisters are all worth watching. But I think Carrie is the only film of his where the material actually connects perfectly with his overblown style. Well, Phantom of the Paradise too, but I just feel nothing for any of the characters in that movie, it's just a dazzling rock opera. With Carrie I think the mythic structure and high school emotions dovetail perfectly with his approach in a way none of the other films do.

 

But that doc was really good, with a calm and clean approach to it's subject without a lot of the bad stock footage and trashy dumb animated segments that litter a lot of talking head documentaries.

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10 hours ago, Patrick R said:

trashy dumb animated segments that litter a lot of talking head documentaries.

 

Oh god, yes.

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I also recommend Snake Eyes as a completely terrible, brilliant film. It has tons of great camera work and Nic Cage is an awful genius.

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I recommend the Netflix Castlevania animated mini-series. It has great visuals and voice acting, and even manages to be funny amongst the bleak gothic horror by way of Warren Ellis' entertaining writing style. It's only four 25 minute episodes, so the opportunity cost on trying it is pretty limited, but be aware that that means that if you like it you'll be left feeling like it was just a teaser for a broader story (which thankfully does appear to be coming).

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I see broad recommendations for this show, which puzzles me after having seen the first episode. It was mediocre, poorly blocked and animated, and rather heavy-handed in its themes. Maybe it picks up after the inclusion of Belmont? I dunno, Dracula's story, though mildly fun for its cheesy romance, didn't grab me in the least.

 

On the other hand, I went to see Baywatch yesterday, so my judgement is clearly shit.

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I saw Stop Making Sense on the big screen again. It's my 3rd or 4th time and it is my favorite movie of all time because of the big screen experience, which involves (in Chicago at least) everyone getting out of their seats during Life During Wartime (about the midway point) and dancing in front of the screen and the aisles. It's the best concert film ever and feels like a concert experience and it's so much fun. I hurt myself dancing so much but it was way worth it.

 

If Stop Making Sense ever comes to a rep theater near you (and with the recent death of it's director Jonathon Demme that's more likely now than ever) you should run, not walk, to go see it.

 

 

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I watched Starship Troopers for the first time in ages, I liked it way more than I was expecting. At times it feels like maybe it's being too in your face about mocking propaganda, but then some people didn't get it so I guess not. Some people seem to think it's bad, others that it's so bad that it's good and others still dislike it for being so different from the book (I think it mocks the book), but I think it works both as a fun action movie and as an anti-fascist piece. That was also part of the point I think, to make people watch the movie without a critical eye, not realising they're being subverted. I'm not sure if would have been better with a 'good' cast or not, I think the soap opera cast fits well with the cheesy tone. It's an insanely quotable movie. Anyway, I think it's brilliant.

 

edit: oh also, I think some of the VFX hold up extremely well. There are a few CGI scenes that look dated, but for the most part it's good and the miniatures are amazing.

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I just saw Night of the Living Dead for the first time. It wasn't bad, but I was expecting more. But definitely worth seeing just for being the first movie to show modern zombies, I guess.

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3 hours ago, eot said:

it's so bad that it's good

 

I think this but, y'know, bad-on-purpose and incredibly well-made (including the VFX like you say). Honestly though, it's really only Dien and Richards who are soap opera-level actors; the rest of the cast do a brilliant job of giving heightened, pulpy performances without just 'acting badly' or overcooking it. It's not like you've got ten Zorgs in there.

 

Erkki, have you seen any of the other Romero zombie films? Night/Dawn are the shining towers (and the reputation of the latter may be why you were expecting more from the former), but the others still have some great scenery-chewing and flesh-munching.

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On 23/7/2017 at 9:07 PM, Ben X said:

Erkki, have you seen any of the other Romero zombie films? Night/Dawn are the shining towers (and the reputation of the latter may be why you were expecting more from the former), but the others still have some great scenery-chewing and flesh-munching.

Somewhy I hadn't seen any of them so far. Strange, Romero's name is definitely in my brain as if I should know his work, but this was the first time I saw a movie he has directed. Maybe I'll watch a few more if they happen to be on Mubi.

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If it's available in your region (it's not really in the states) I'd say Martin would be the one to check out. It's a low-budget regional art-house horror film about a young man who thinks he's (and may or may not be) a vampire but also it's very Cassavetes inspired movie about generation gaps and youthful bewilderment. 

 

Dawn of the Dead is of course a classic slice of comic book horror, not actually scary in any way but packed with great gore effects and satire on commercialism and greed. And Creepshow is an absolutely stylish and loving tribute to 50's horror comics, with great effects and wild garish pop-art design. The Crazies is like a low-budget warm-up for Dawn of the Dead (and proof that Romero didn't just master slow zombies but running ones as well) that's rougher around the edges but also a little nastier and a great commentary on the structural nightmare of Vietnam.

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