Talk About Movies: Part 4

Phat,

Can you imagine Dock Ellis and Oil Can Boyd on the same team?

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Watched Sorcerer last night. Some films shouldn't be remade but this one works. It's unbelievably tense. I can't imagine what the actors and crew went through to film this one. You will almost hold your breath watching the two trucks loaded with dynamite crossing a rope bridge. Boy, can Friedkin direct action films.

Sorcerer is a remake (almost) of The Wages of Fear. See it too.

As an aside, if you want to be an actor, see Roy Schieder in Sorcerer, Jaws, and All That Jazz. You'll probably surrender. He's one of the greatest actors of his generation.

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Schieder was vastly underrated

I love Oil Can. I've always loved Oil Can, and this shouldn't be considered a put-down of Oil Can in any way, but I think Dock would have been a bad influence on Mr Boyd.

Just watched one called The Killing. Noir ... long after release it has been called a classic of the genre. Stanley Kubrick's first film.

A derby hopeful thoroughbred is snipered at the track while on the lead in the stretch as cover for the heist. Down goes Red Lightning, down goes Red Lightning. A Mr. Unger was the money man behind the scheme. I wonder which track it was in Cali ... they were calling it Lansdowne Race Track (and I grew up in a Lansdowne neighborhood).

Looked it up ... track scenes filmed at Bay Meadows Track in San Mateo. Good flick of the early style. Black and white. Sterling Hayden, Vince Edward, Timothy Carey in good roles ... molls, double cross, of course a failed caper. At first I thought the ending and what happened with the 2 mill in cash was bogus, but its early days of Hollywood and Kubrick was making a point.

A good buddy of mine, big gambler, barred from several racetracks for shenanigans, and a movie trivia expert ... I would have quizzed him about the movie on his whiteboard, as I do with movie and sports trivia, but he died this morning. He would have aced every question and loved it.

rewatched thin red line

it's far more artsy and less graphic war than i remember, i think the war parts just took over the attention

still a great movie but idk if it's still on my rushmore

Wow. What a ticket. "I pitched every game in the major leagues under the influence of drugs. I lost all track of time. I couldn't see the hitters ..."

"He was what you call flashy," panned one of his cronies.

What a recovery of himself he made, and then relayed it into others. That's what it's all about.

This documentary might be the best movie recommendation on here.

He was also great in 2010, a vastly underrated movie. Schieder’s scene with James McEachin (who died in January) in front of the White House is an all-timer. I bet Morgan Freeman watched it a few times.

I remember getting their surnames mixed up when I was younger, and thinking Rob Schneider was a great actor, because he was Roy's son.

Been watching a lot of film new and old lately while we let the winter TV backlog grow. Ides of March, The French Connection, All the Presidents Men, many others.

Weapons last night. Totally underwhelming and the payoff was so bad. Why does anyone think this (or Cregger's Barbarian) are any good? 20 minutes in I turned to wifey and said this was going to be some nonsense witchcraft thing.

Doing a rash of oldies myself: The Parallax View, Sleuth, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Days of Heaven, Point Blank, Blow Up, Scarecrow, The Terminal Man, The Last Run, The Long Goodbye, The Killing, The Passenger, Eagle Eye, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Laughing Policeman, Night Moves, Across 110th Street, Charlie Varick, Crazy Mary and Dirty Larry, 8 Million Ways to Die, Who Will Stop the Rain, Electra Glide in Blue, Coma, Chinatown, The Omen, The Marathon Man, The Sting, Straw Dogs, Duel, and more.

Great stuff.

Sorcerer was intense. The musical score brought to my attention the band Tangerine Dream. They might be one of the best electronic bands of all time.

For my generation it was Risky Business.

Agreed. Definitely the most overhyped movie of the year so far.

Interesting that Weapons has gotten divisive...told my brother how much we loved it and he HATED it lol. He really like Barbarian, but thought Weapons was boring.

Weird - and fun - how different art can elicit such different responses.

And I still think Weapons was great...especially in a theater with other people. When we saw it, there was a woman somewhere in the dark who kept yelling oh no oh no OH NO when Benedict Wong's character was chasing another character lol.

i do not catch this reference

I shan’t be paying $15 to watch Leo & Penn fulminating for Oscars as The Dude Jr.. & Col. Lockjaw (a racist—hair color unclear—who secretly lusts after black women, and presumably screams a lot) respectively, not for :42 nvm 2:42.

In a masterstroke of counterintuitive casting Benicio Del Toro plays a martial arts instructor called

and one struggles for similes, nay, metaphors! for the creative burst that inspired the character name Perfidia Beverly Hills. I thought PTA & QT gave up the allnighters years ago.

Nothing like sh*ting on a movie you haven't seen in overwrought yet uninteresting purple prose.

When it comes to movie discourse, it's always tied to the movie's budget. For a movie like Weapons, fans of the movie feel inclined to hype it up because it doesn't have the budget or built-in fanbase like a Batman movie or MCU back in the day. We recognize that this 2nd time director made something special so we want to get the word out. Sinners had a bigger budget, but Coogler was an indie darling at one point. We want to see him succeed, we want his voice in this space.

I ignore a person any time they say "overhype." We loved a movie you didn't? Want a cookie? A hug? Show me on the doll where the overhype hurt you.

Lol, what a stupid ****ing comment. I'm allowed to think a movie is overhyped, ya weirdo.

Seems like a good time to say I thought Sinners was just alright. It combined several genres (too many?) competently but nothing really impressed me beyond the big musical number. It felt like most of it had been done before, just not at the same time. Obviously my expectations were high, but my wife and I were disappointed.

On the other hand American Fiction was excellent. The main plot is interesting and funny but the supporting cast really took it to the next level.

I liked Weapons. I fell so hard for Julia Garner in Ozark though, it'll be hard for me to ever dislike anything she's in.

Moneyball is on and I has sads because PSH. Probably deserved an Oscar nom just for this pose.

Per Variety, One Battle’s budget might’ve reached $175M. Yikes, but who knows, might catch the zeitgeist the way Oasis did.

To celebrate the rapture, I rewatched Red State. I miss Kevin Smith. My brother said that his career took a nosedive when he started smoking weed. Apparently he doesn't smoke anymore so I'll be curious if he's got some mojo left. This feels like the only Smith movie that has interesting camera setups and camera movements. I checked IMDB, his Cinematographer was David Klein, also the DP for recent Star Wars stuff: The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Skeleton Crew. It kind of melted my brain watching crazy tracking shots and meaningful shots that emphasized the frantic nature of the story.

Fun seeing young talent like Nicholas Braun (Cousin Greg from Succession) and seasoned vets like John Goodman, Melissa Leo and a terrific performance from Michael Parks. I also enjoy the breezy 90 minute runtime.