Movie/TV recommendations

[tegan]

In the case of Plague Dogs and Brave Little Toaster, you could probably post the whole movie.

 

 

I saw Samson and Sally as a kid, which is one long string of surprisingly dark imagery. As a kid I was terrified by the shot of blood clouding up in the water when Samson's mother is killed by whalers, and as an adult I'm terrified by the bit where the comic relief walruses get radiation poisoning from eating tainted fish (plus all the stuff that implies it takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland). This version's been brightened up a bit, but

. I tried to find this movie for years and was eventually convinced that I must have imagined it before someone posted it on 4chan a year or two ago.

 

 

 

Also, I don't think I actually saw this until I was an adult, but

(linked here in English, but also available on Youtube in the original Japanese with subtitles if you prefer that) was like a carefully calculated attempt to scare children. It was made by Sanrio, the same company that makes Hello Kitty and got Osamu Tezuka to make Unico. It's about an adorable lamb who, after seeing his mother killed by a wolf, decides to become a wolf himself, devoting his life to cold cruelty.

 

 

 

Also, I'm gonna' throw in The Horned King from The Black Cauldron just for good measure even though I actually really liked that movie and watched it fairly often.

[SecretAsianMan]

Sorry to go back to Star Trek but I was at PAX.

 

I just want to point out that in addition to seeing Alice Eve in her underwear for no good reason, a scene where Benedict Cumberbatch takes a shower was cut.

 

[tegan]

Oh hey, I found just the walrus song. I believe the lyrics are nonsense in both the English and Danish versions, so you're not missing much.

 

[Max Ernst]

http://youtu.be/xBxfOvx7QmU?t=1h34m14s

 

Embed to a specific moment doesn't seem to work with the media tags?

I have never seen this before and I am glad that I saw it as an adult and not as a child because holy fuck.

[osmosisch]

The same guys made the Watership Downs film which was also pretty mindblowing for a kid.

[tegan]

So I just watched the Ace Attorney film.

 

 

True to form, it's a totally self-serious film that just happens to have absurd cartoonish elements. It's ridiculously faithful to the source material, and probably the best video game to movie adaptation.

[Frenetic Pony]

Goodfellas: So I've seen much of the IMDB top 250, yet have missed this until now. Well no more!

 

Ok, it was good. A rambling tale of a mans rise in the mafia from a kid in the mafia heyday of the 50's to the decline of the 80's, apparently based on a true story. And by rambling I mean it's a more "story of this guys life" rather than the traditional movie arc of "intro to characters, intro to objective, intro of obstacles, overcoming obstacles, movie ends". Well of course it was since it's based on a true story! And it does indeed do a good of job of showing a connected series of snapshots of this guys life, making them feel more naturalistic than you'd otherwise get out of Hollywood.

 

That being said naturalistic has been done better before and since. Sometimes it felt like it was going on for the sake of going on, and yes I realize that's what life is like. But as I've said other movies have also portrayed a naturalistic look at life while maintaining more momentum and interest. It's not that Goodfellas ever really gets sidetracked, it's that it often feels like it's flirting with doing so. One example is of (very minor spoiler)

The mafia gang in question getting involved with a restaurant, using its legitimacy to burn the owner and make a profit, then burning it down for the insurance money.

Sure it was an example, assumedly a real world example, of how the mafia operated its "business" and made money, but the entire sequence didn't really add or reveal anything at all to any character of consequence or any later event. The entire sequence probably could have been cut and I'm not sure anyone would notice. Still, it's a good movie well worth seeing.

[Roderick]

Tegan, I watched the Ace Attorney film two weeks ago and came to pretty much the opposite conclusion. It's a faithful - extremely faithful - translation of the game, yes, but exactly because of that it falls flat on its face as a movie. I wasn't excited by anything in there, where Phoenix Wright games usually have me jumping on my seat with energy and enthusiasm. This plot and structure doesn't work in a film, and it took me somewhat by surprise. I went into this with a very sympathetic heart.

 

It felt... strangely heartless and by the numbers, for such a distinct world and such colorful characters. It feels like Takashi Miike did this one on auto-pilot, and the actors don't carry their weight either. No, if you want a good adaptation, watch the recent Rurouni Kenshin film. Amazing, that one.

 

[Patrick R]

Funny you define it as naturalistic. I never thought of Goodfellas that way. Goodfellas is all about the momentum and editing. To me, the violence is heightened, the emotions are heightened, the filmmaking is heightened. But perhaps it's because I'm a fan of a lot of 70's crime movies (including Scorsese's own Mean Streets) that tend to be waaaaay more low-key and naturalistic than Goodfellas. 

 

For me, the restaurant sequence is more about the emotions behind how Henry Hill describes the process than the process itself. It's a great example of how the mafia are these locusts who consume the lives of innocent people, and the utter glee with which they do it. "Fuck you, pay me" is such a childish refrain.

 

If you want to start cutting scenes from Goodfellas because they aren't "vital" to the story, you're gonna find a lot that can go. But that movie lives for the details. It takes such joy in it's individual sequences. My favorite part of 

 

the death of Billy Batts

 

is all the digressions they take. JOE PESCI'S MOM PAINTED THAT AMAZING PICTURE WITH THE DOGS. So good.

 

EDIT: Also, I'd love to hear movies that have more momentum than Goodfellas. That's gotta be a really short list.

[Frenetic Pony]

I sort of meant, not the emotions, it's a very in your face film there. The pacing and dialogue, people aren't constantly talking about the big objective, or doing much beyond just being people. There's no singular "goal" throughout any section of the movie, there's no "point' any scene is getting towards. No one has to save the world, catch the crook, and even scene by scene they're going through their lives. Often in a movie we'll be introduced to a scene and know why the character is there and what they're doing and what they're looking for. In Goodfellas they're often just, living. We often don't know why we saw a scene until it's mostly over with.

 

For example

EG Joe Pesci dying, I'd though it weird that he was becoming a "made man" after all the shit he pulls. But I didn't see the assassination coming, it just "happened". On the other hand the ending sequence breaks this "naturalism". Because the timing of the film changes, we KNOW something is going to happen because the way the movie is paced changes a LOT. We KNOW the helicopter means something, etc. It gets to be more movie like at the end.

 

As for the restaurant burning, I actually think most other scenes work towards other parts of the movie. Obviously the opening, the bar scene, plays out later. But others do as well.

Big heist, and DeNiro's character doing what he does, plays out later with why Henry rats.

I'm not even complaining about the painting, that was a great scene, but it also revealed something about the mother and Pesci's character as well. My problem with the restaurant sequence is, it goes over already established characterizations and the general sense of what it is the mafia is about, introducing us to nothing new to speak of.

[Argobot]

Goodfellas is nearly a perfect movie. I'm not a big fan of its ending, but everything that comes before it is so wonderful. It may not be Scorsese's best film, but it's certainly the one I have the most fun watching, largely because it is all over the place with its characters and the plot.

 

The movie is ridiculous and over the top and violent, but I can't help smiling the whole way through.

[osmosisch]

Man, that reminds me of how much I hated The Departed. A nihilistic drawn-out film about assholes being assholes to each other that could have been at least an hour shorter. Ugh.

[DaveC]

Takashi Miike

 

What did you make of 13 Assassins? 

 

I loved it myself. It does that thing where having the villain be so preposterously evil makes you really care about him getting his comeuppance. It's an atmospheric slow burn followed by a fucking insane climactic battle. 

 

[BigJKO]

New RoboCop trailer. It looks alright, I guess.

 

 

There is of course an obligatory "let's give him a new look!" wink, nudge. I think I prefer the old look..

[DaveC]

Looks worse than Hitler

[Roderick]

Sam Jackson and the line "does he come in black?" say all we need to know: this film is actually like the fake commercials in the original Robocop. Violence porn without even the postmodern hardcore edge, as opposed to the gross, oblique mirror the original was.

Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins is probably my favorite movie of him. It's fantastic and like you say, a slow burn. You don't notice it during the film, but once it ends you realize you've just seen something amazing. Great performances and build-up, and fun dialogues. It's schlocky and sincere at the same time.

[clyde]

I watched Now You See Me last night. It was a decent comic-book movie. Made me feel like I had planned to brush my teeth and go to bed at the specific time and in the specific way that I did, 5 years ago. I like it when movies have that kind of residual effect.


 

[Argobot]

Man, that reminds me of how much I hated The Departed. A nihilistic drawn-out film about assholes being assholes to each other that could have been at least an hour shorter. Ugh.

 

I was also not a big fan of The Departed. It was entertaining at least, until that scene where they play that godawful Dropkick Murphys song. It was so dumb and grating, instantly colored my opinion of the whole movie.

[Patrick R]

The Departed's editing is a marvel. They cut back and forth between Leo and Matt Damon IN THE MIDDLE OF LEO'S FLASHBACK. Plus there's a million continuity errors. It's the most deliciously sloppy film I've ever seen. Purposeful, of course. Very punk. Again, the form is more important than the story. But I will say that if you find the assholes funny, like I do (I think that whole movie is hysterically funny), it helps pull a lot of the weight as far as not hating them. 

[Codicier]

I just Re-Watched X-Men First Class as a refresher since the hype machine seems to be going into full gear for the new movie now even though its still a good 6 months off. Perhaps more enjoyable second time viewing than it was originally.

 

More importantly I forgot how good a actor Michael Fassbender is (has he ever put in a bad performance), & how god damn amazing end credits sequence is.

[Ben X]

Plus Larry Sanders almost 20 years ago really kicked it off (Ricky Gervais is a massive Shandling fan and carried this trope over to Extras)

 

Re. celebs playing unflattering versions of themselves, I was re-watching Filthy, Rich And Catflap recently and realised that series did this too. Midge Ure plays a publicity-hungry version of himself who has sex parties round Bono's house, and the Nolan Sisters are money-grasping, cynical blackmailers. I wonder how early an example of this can be found. In Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid, Dean Martin plays the boozy lech who is obviously an exaggerated version of his public persona, but that doesn't count...

[elmuerte]

Fast 6... what a horribly wrong movie. Especially when you know Diesel and Johnson can do so much better than this.

I am however excited about Fast 7 .. because Statham.

[Frenetic Pony]

I just Re-Watched X-Men First Class as a refresher since the hype machine seems to be going into full gear for the new movie now even though its still a good 6 months off. Perhaps more enjoyable second time viewing than it was originally.

 

More importantly I forgot how good a actor Michael Fassbender is (has he ever put in a bad performance), & how god damn amazing end credits sequence is.

 

Honestly almost as bad as X-Men 3 for me, I just couldn't re-watch it. Fassbender is good at being angry, but he and McAvoy just pale in comparison to McKellan and Stewart. The two could put more subtlety and the sense of a once friendship broken into a single scene as the entirety of First Class

 

 

All of First Class was just so, comic booky, all the schlocky melodramatic things wrong with comic books were overly present. Kevin Bacon showing up at the CIA compound, murdering everyone, including one of the mutants own, and saying "Hey you should join me because I plan to cause a nuclear holocaust" is just. Ugh. "Oh sure, I'll go enthusiastically murder people for you. On the one hand you're a murderous insane madman that wants to end civilization. On the other hand some people made fun of me so now I hate everyone." It feels like it should be a comedy "Wait, I don't want to blow up half the planet, I live there! I mean, where else will I put all my stuff?"

 

I'm glad Singer is back for Day's of Future Past, maybe we can get a good X-Men movie for the first time since he left.

[Codicier]

All of First Class was just so, comic booky, all the schlocky melodramatic things wrong with comic books were overly present. Kevin Bacon showing up at the CIA compound, murdering everyone, including one of the mutants own, and saying "Hey you should join me because I plan to cause a nuclear holocaust" is just. Ugh. "Oh sure, I'll go enthusiastically murder people for you. On the one hand you're a murderous insane madman that wants to end civilization. On the other hand some people made fun of me so now I hate everyone." It feels like it should be a comedy "Wait, I don't want to blow up half the planet, I live there! I mean, where else will I put all my stuff?"

 

I'm glad Singer is back for Day's of Future Past, maybe we can get a good X-Men movie for the first time since he left.

 

I agree 100% that it is schlocky as hell but i think i enjoyed it this time round because i went in without any expectation that it would be anything else. A lot of the old Jack Kirby x-men stuff is really good/bad in the same way.

 

Your also right too that the relationship between Magneto and Xavier is far less convincing than with McKellan and Stewart.

 

However on one point you are wrong

 

Honestly almost as bad as X-Men 3 for me

 

It is just not in the same class (forgive the pun). Just think back carefully to the moment where wolvy kills phoenix and i assure you too will be thinking "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

[tegan]

I'm watching The Mist and I hate the religious lady so much that I had to pause the movie and hop online just to make sure that she dies at some point.