Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:34 pm Post subject: The Film Thread
Welcome! Take a load off.
Most big, contemporary movies deserve and receive their own threads in the OT forum, but I thought there should be a catch-all thread for discussion of smaller or international releases, old great movies, influential genre flicks, styles, themes, techniques, directors, studios, and so on. Feel free to drop in to hype a new or old movie great or trashy or forgotten, source recommendations from fellow LG cinephiles, discuss framing techniques and character arcs, show off your top films lists, post your treatises on Italian neorealism or 80s teen horror, and more.
The Film Thread appreciates big "C" cinema, but shouldn't be condescending nor dogmatic. And though it will hopefully be a space where big studio releases don't continue to overshadow indie and international gems, unique takes on the homosocial triangle inherent to the new Jumanji remake would be awesome.
"No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough."
Really looking forward to PT Anderson's (one is of my all time film heroes) new film Phantom Thread (no pun intended ). Very much hoping this one will put him back on track as I was pretty sour on both The Master and Inherennt Vice. Now if we're talking Boogie Nights or Magnolia, I could talk about those all day .
I 80% stream, 95% legally. I have my Netflix and Amazon accounts, share on Hulu and HBOGo, and subscribe to FilmStruck and Mubi for my older, weirder, and indie movie fix. YouTube is a surprising source of random, free interesting movies of often low reproduction quality, and I shouldn't mention where I get the other 5%.
I get out to see smaller movies in the theater when I can, but often time constraints, laziness, and lack of a cinephile friends in my current location mean that I'll too often wait around for indie darlings like Moonlight or Lady Bird to hit streaming services before I see them (FYI, the much lauded A Ghost Story is now available on Amazon Prime).
Anyway, I recommend a free trial of FilmStruck and Mubi. The former is a merger between Criterion and TCM that has a good chunk of the Criterion Collection permanently available along with a large rotating selection of curated films by director, country, theme, time period, etc. The UI can suck, and movies can often disappear without warning, but the Criterion Collection alone is worth the subscription for a year if you are dedicated to waching a ton of film classics.
Mubi is very different: it's basically a very ecclectic new movie a day service that brings in well-known international classics (there's overlap with FilmStruck), lesser known indie flicks and docs, and new international releases Mubi picks up at film festivals. The catch is that movies leave the service within a month as each day a new movie is added, one movie is dropped - if you suffer from Netflix queue anxiety disorder, it might be a bit much. But it's certainly a motivator if you're like me and add everything to your favorites and postpone watching 3/4s of what's in your queue because "it'll be there tomorrow."
Really looking forward to PT Anderson's (one is of my all time film heroes) new film Phantom Thread (no pun intended ). Very much hoping this one will put him back on track as I was pretty sour on both The Master and Inherennt Vice. Now if we're talking Boogie Nights or Magnolia, I could talk about those all day .
Yes! I believe Phanton Thread is out on wide release next week, and I'm going to try to see it, though I wish I could catch it in 70mm up in New York. It'll be awesome to have PTA and DDL working together again. If you see it, please post relatively spoiler free thoughts!
I'm a junkie for all PTA flicks, though Inherent and Magnolia both leave me a bit cold despite having some brilliant individual scenes in each. What turned you off about The Master?
A few films leaving FilmStruck (11/29) that may be hard to find elsewhere:
Cluny Brown
Magnet of Doom
The Passionate Friends
An Inn in Tokyo
Frownland (and every Safdie bros short film)
Street Smart
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Yearning
Set Me Free
Shozo, a Cat, and Two Women
Bullshot
Barrios Altos
The 47 Ronin
FilmStruck leaves the earth on 11/29. Plan your movie watching accordingly. _________________ Under New Management
Widows is nearly genre perfection, though I was flummoxed by the final scene, which didn't have much plot coherence, let alone thematic coherence.
Any Widows watchers who get the diner scene care to enlighten?
I'm a big McQueen fan and I didn't care for Widows. The big twist was awful and I didn't think it worked as a heist movie. The handling of Veronica's son was pretty cheap too. The oner of Colin Farrell's car was really great though. Same goes for Daniel Kaluuya and Brian Tyree Henry. _________________ 14-5-3-12
Joined: 24 Jun 2005 Posts: 2504 Location: Inland Empire
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2018 10:46 am Post subject:
Blood in, Blood out: Bound by honor?
You mean from the East La cholo/gang movies trilogy of Boulevard Nights, BIBO, and American Me.
Bye. _________________ "This trophy removes the most odious sentence in the English Language. It can never be said again that 'the Lakers have never beaten the Celtics.'" -Dr. Jerry Buss (1985) R.I.P., 33 x M.V.O.
Just saw To Live And Die In L.A. For the first time. Loved it. It now ranks alongside Angel Heart, Thief, Manhunter, Black Rain and A Better Tomorriw on my 80s crime pantheon. The Wang Chung score was balling.
Really looking forward to PT Anderson's (one is of my all time film heroes) new film Phantom Thread (no pun intended ). Very much hoping this one will put him back on track as I was pretty sour on both The Master and Inherennt Vice. Now if we're talking Boogie Nights or Magnolia, I could talk about those all day .
Yes! I believe Phanton Thread is out on wide release next week, and I'm going to try to see it, though I wish I could catch it in 70mm up in New York. It'll be awesome to have PTA and DDL working together again. If you see it, please post relatively spoiler free thoughts!
I'm a junkie for all PTA flicks, though Inherent and Magnolia both leave me a bit cold despite having some brilliant individual scenes in each. What turned you off about The Master?
Apologies for the late reply BVH. While I respect PTAs latter films as great technical achievements, I don’t enjoy the deliberately slow pacing coupled with minimal, at times inaudible dialogue and vapid characters (this includes Phantom Thread as well). The themes that they touch upon, though sincere, are not deftly executed imho. I also miss the Scorsese/Altman influences of his earlier works. That said, I fully respect the man’s need to evolve artistically and I hope he continues making the films he wants to make. I’ve just found his latter filmography to not be quite my cup of tea. Also, I find Jonny Greenwood’s scoring style to be very irritating. Extremely talented musician, but his scores seem to exist as separate components to the films as opposed to integrating seamlessly with them. It usually takes me out of the scene I’m watching.
Just saw To Live And Die In L.A. For the first time. Loved it. It now ranks alongside Angel Heart, Thief, Manhunter, Black Rain and A Better Tomorriw on my 80s crime pantheon. The Wang Chung score was balling.
Love that one. A rare one that shows the grimey side of LA. Car chase was excellent for those days or even these days. I don't even think they could pull off some of those sets without CGI today. It looked dangerous for the stunt crew at certain points, reminiscent of a John Landis car assault. There are a couple of obvious continuity busters like the traffic going on the wrong side of the freeway and a visible wrap around one of the rear tires of the tractor trailer to make it jack knife, but even those gaffes are brief. The Chung got a lot of complaints on imdb and YT for being dated, but due to video games, many younger viewers who catch it for the first time are used to precisely that kind of music as the backdrop of noir/car/vice style content. I like it because it IS dated. I miss cars like the Chevy Caprice.
Other benefits are young performances by Dafoe and Turturro in particular. John Turturro used to act! Imagine only knowing him from "You Don't Mess With The Zohan". Peterson and John Pankow were excellent, both. Dean Stockwell and Robert Downey SR are always force multipliers. I think that movie unfortunately faded fast because the leads weren't household stars.
Tidbit: Shane Black stole the "Gettin too old fer this S" line and created a main character who happened to be a semi-crazy rulebreaker that also lived in a beach house only 2 years later in Lethal Weapon. "To Live And Die" must've sunk from consciousness like a stone to be able to pick its carcass so soon and so freely.
Speaking of Turturro, if you haven't seen Miller's Crossing, I'd heartily recommend it. Coen Brothers. I recall resident film dude Ocho saying he was a fan. It's heavily stylized. You have to see it for what it is before you enjoy it the first time. I was like that, first saw it as a teen and thought wtf, but I love it now. I "get" the Coens now. _________________ GOAT MAGIC REEL SEDALE TRIBUTE EDDIE DONX!
Widows is nearly genre perfection, though I was flummoxed by the final scene, which didn't have much plot coherence, let alone thematic coherence.
Any Widows watchers who get the diner scene care to enlighten?
I'm a big McQueen fan and I didn't care for Widows. The big twist was awful and I didn't think it worked as a heist movie. The handling of Veronica's son was pretty cheap too. The oner of Colin Farrell's car was really great though. Same goes for Daniel Kaluuya and Brian Tyree Henry.
McQueen isn't anti-narrative as some auteurs have been, but he's still more lyrical than plot constructive, which I think hurts him with the third act of Widows since heist movies are inherently about the mechanics of plot execution since Rififfi. I agree with you on the parts that worked and also wanted to highlight Elizabeth Debicki's work as Alice - she had the most robust character to work with and worked it well, and I hope she gets an Oscar nomination for the depth she brought to her character. _________________ Under New Management
My incomplete best of 2018 list (perpetually updating):
Best I dun saw so far (no order):
The Rider
Support the Girls
Roma
The Favorite
First Reformed
Zama
The Kindergarten Teacher
Mandy
Leave No Trace
Minding the Gap
Annihilation
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Sorry to Bother You
First Man
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Lean on Pete
You Were Never Really Here
Oh Lucy!
Madeline's Madeline
Eighth Grade
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Burning
Cold War
If Beale Street Could Talk
Private Life
Still not scene:
Shoplifters
Green Book (protest vote)
Suspiria
Shirkers
The Mule
Blindspotting
Paddington 2
Can You Ever Really Forgive Me?
Border
Unsane
Lowlife
Hearts Beat Loud
Double Lover
Revenge
Did You Ever Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Vox Lux
Blaze
Honorable Mention:
Hereditary
A Quiet Place
BlaKkKlansman
Hold the Dark
Black Panther
Widows
Mission Impossible
Vice
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Isle of Dogs
Bad Times at the El Royale
Death of Stalin
Let the Corpses Tan
The House That Jack Built _________________ Under New Management
Last edited by Baron Von Humongous on Tue Feb 19, 2019 3:50 pm; edited 23 times in total
My incomplete best of 2018 list (perpetually updating):
Best I dun saw so far (no order):
The Rider
Support the Girls
Roma
First Reformed
Zama
The Kindergarten Teacher
Mandy
Leave No Trace
Minding the Gap
Annihilation
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Sorry to Bother You
First Man
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Lean on Pete
You Were Never Really Here
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Oh Lucy!
Still not scene:
Burning
La Favourite
Eighth Grade
Shoplifters
Madeline's Madeline
If Beale Street Could Talk
Vice
Green Book (protest vote)
Suspiria
Shirkers
The Mule
Blindspotting
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Honorable Mention:
Hereditary
A Quiet Place
BlaKkKlansman
Hold the Dark
Black Panther
Nice list. My favorites were:
1. Mandy
2. The Favourite
3. Eighth Grade
4. Annihilation
5. You Were Never Really Here
6. First Man
7. Private Life
8. Into the Spiderverse
9. First Reformed
10. Sorry To Bother You _________________ 14-5-3-12
I thought Searching was very good. Did a great job holding suspense and interest while the entire movie being played through computer and phone screen captures.
My incomplete best of 2018 list (perpetually updating):
Best I dun saw so far (no order):
The Rider
Support the Girls
Roma
First Reformed
Zama
The Kindergarten Teacher
Mandy
Leave No Trace
Minding the Gap
Annihilation
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Sorry to Bother You
First Man
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Lean on Pete
You Were Never Really Here
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Oh Lucy!
Still not scene:
Burning
La Favourite
Eighth Grade
Shoplifters
Madeline's Madeline
If Beale Street Could Talk
Vice
Green Book (protest vote)
Suspiria
Shirkers
The Mule
Blindspotting
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Honorable Mention:
Hereditary
A Quiet Place
BlaKkKlansman
Hold the Dark
Black Panther
Nice list. My favorites were:
1. Mandy
2. The Favourite
3. Eighth Grade
4. Annihilation
5. You Were Never Really Here
6. First Man
7. Private Life
8. Into the Spiderverse
9. First Reformed
10. Sorry To Bother You
I just saw the Favorite, which may be my favorite flick this year. I would love to see it get a push for Best Picture since Roma will likely be relegated to the Foreign Film category, which might produce the de facto best film this year between Roma, Burning, Cold War, and Zama (if eligible). _________________ Under New Management
^Still need to see Burning and Cold War. For me the Oscars are a laughingstock. If you're racking up Oscars you've probably made a mediocre, milquetoast film. _________________ 14-5-3-12
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). Very much hoping this one will put him back on track as I was pretty sour on both The Master and Inherennt Vice. Now if we're talking Boogie Nights or Magnolia, I could talk about those all day 
.
