Talk About Movies: Part 4
Somehow threads merged, so here's part 4 of our ongoing movie discussion.
Is Terrence Fletcher really a villain? Partially? If the writer's intentions were to portray him as a bad man, I disagree with the writer's idea of bad. Fletcher has an upside. Even if he goes over the edge, there are some good qualities in there.
I don't think he is about good or bad, I think he is about being driven. He is also an archetype of a person who understands accomplishment.
This is all subjective. When I try to guess an artist's intentions, I am invariably wrong.
In support of Nosferatu... A24 and IMAX Present: The Lighthouse, tonight only.
Just watched Odd Man Out, a 1947 film by Carol Reed. I'd never heard of this before, but it seems to be held in very high regard by film people, and I can see why. It's excellent in every way. I'll be thinking it through, turning it over and around up and down in my head for the next few days. I tend to do with really good movies.
I especially liked the use of selected verses from 1 Corinthians 13!
This new 4k uhd Carol Reed restoration was just released this week in Europe... my copy should be here any day.
The Lighthouse in iMax was ****ing amazing...
Hell yeah.
If I'm thirsty, I don't want you to bring me a glass of water. I want you to sympathize. I want you to say, "Gloria, I, too, know what it feels like to be thirsty. I, too, have had a dry mouth." I want you to connect with me through sharing and understanding the concept of dry-mouthedness.
i've lived that so many times - this is why we'll never have a female president
only unrealistic part of that scene is a woman wearing such a top while in bed
women AMIRITE
Damn ye!
Let Neptune strike ye dead Winslow!
HAAARK!
Hark Triton, hark!
Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the depths full foul in his fury!
Black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs til’ ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more...
only when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin’ tentacle tail and steaming beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting ye...
A bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread Emperor himself...
forgotten to any man...
to any time...
forgotten to any god or devil...
forgotten even to the sea...
for any stuff for part of Winslow...
even any scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
Saturday Night, the SNL flick, is probably my feel-good film of the year. The whole thing just worked great for me. Even at its cheesiest. Chekhov’s Kaufman was such a great moment!
Also watched My Old Ass, which was really good as well. Don’t know much about it aside from Aubrey Plaza, but she’s barely in it. It’s very funny and very sweet.
Also saw a movie that flew under the radar called Dinner In America and it was awesome! Sort of a SLC Punk meets Napoleon Dynamite, but more of its own thing. Came out in 2020, I believe. Heard about from watching a video about Strange Darling as it shares the same male lead. It’s starting to gain a pretty loyal fan base. Not something I would usually enjoy as much as I did, but it’s “dark” and vulgar often enough to offset some of its cheesiness.
Speaking of Repo Man, I drove past the local theater two day ago. Guess what's playing? Yup.
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As with The Florida Project, I think I'd find it hard to explain why Anora is such a good film. A description of the plot doesn't sound too interesting. The genius is how Sean Baker finds the common humanity in his characters, making them relatable even though I personally don't know anyone like them. The performances are uniformly excellent, funny and oddly heartwarming.
Another genius stroke was how the large amounts of nudity and sex in the early stages of the film set the stage for a moment of intimacy. The blatant eroticism is emotionless and unarousing, while the relatively decorous final scene is full of feeling.
Anora - 10/10
Heretic, Scott Beck/Bryan Woods, 2024
I'm not sure why, but the movies that have most impressed me the last few years mostly seem to be in the horror genre. Heretic is another one.
Writers Beck and Woods, who also co-wrote A Quiet Place, have fashioned a truly original horror movie that also nicely follows the genre's tropes and expectations.
Two young women, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, are Mormon missionaries who knock on the wrong door - that of Hugh Grant. He lets them in from the storm outside with the promise of blueberry pie, his willingness to be preached to, and that his wife will come out of the back rooms at any moment. See, the girls can't be in the house of a strange man without another woman present.
What follows is a cat and mouse game of terror and an existential and philosophical discussion on the nature of faith and religion. And the two are melded so well together that one is drawn in completely. I barely breathed through the whole of the movie, and had no idea where it was going from moment to the next.
It all plays out in Grant's house, which is part old-fashioned, homey knick knacks and horrible, dark places with even more horrible secrets.
Grant pulls the girls into a twisted game of survival and tautological bullshit that has their heads swimming as they try to get out of the fortress of a house.
To say anymore would ruin some nice surprises...so let me just say that the three performances are fantastic, with Grant especially memorable. Hope he gets recognized with some year-end awards somehow. He's so damn good at playing the baddie. his effortless charm makes you understand why someone would fall for his games.
the cinematography and set design are both topnotch with some bravura instances.
Might be my favorite film of the year so far, though I haven't seen a bunch yet.
Go see this is the theater! Great movie.
someone needs to be the villain that pumps the breaks on ANORA being Oscar-worthy...so here I am!
It was a mildly entertaining romp in a 3 out of 5 star rating imho. The best performance, again inho, was the Russian (or Armenian?) priest leading the recapture efforts of Ivan. The literal last minute of this movie was an awkwardly weird ending...which means I assume u movie hipster review guys will tell me how great the ending was and I'm an idiot for not appreciating it (?)
However good Gladiator 2 is, I don't think I can enjoy it after learning what it could have been...
During this time, Nick Cave was commissioned to write a new draft of the script. It was later revealed to be written under the working title of "Christ Killer". Cave described the plot as a "deities vs. deity vs. humanity" story. The story involved Maximus in purgatory, who is resurrected as an immortal warrior for the Roman gods. Maximus is sent back to Earth and tasked with ending Christianity by killing Jesus and his disciples, as Christianity was draining the power of the ancient Pagan gods. During his mission, Maximus is tricked into murdering his own son. Cursed to live forever, Maximus fights in the Crusades, World War II, and the Vietnam War; with the ending revealing that in the present-day, the character now works at the Pentagon. The script was rejected and scrapped.
That sounds terrible.
Sounds typically Caveian pretentiousness.
I thought I was in Purgatory while reading that
Heretic, Scott Beck/Bryan Woods, 2024
I'm not sure why, but the movies that have most impressed me the last few years mostly seem to be in the horror genre. Heretic is another one.
A. They're cheap to make, so they can sneak some creativity in them.
B. They don't have ****ing super heroes.
However good Gladiator 2 is, I don't think I can enjoy it after learning what it could have been...
I think I'd have preferred this to what I just saw. Gladiator 2 is worse than the original in every single way. The battle scenes are rubbish, ruined by excessive, bad CGI. The fight against the fake monkeys was particularly awful.
Paul Mescal has none of Russell Crowe's presence. People talk about the rage that flows from him "like milk" (lol, what a dreadful line), but I wasn't seeing of any it in his smiling, laughing performance. Denzel is too American and takes big mouthfuls out of the scenery.
There are no good original lines. The recycled ones from Gladiator ("Strength and Honour!" "In this life or the next") have no impact. Nothing about this film is memorable. It might be time for Ridley Scott to call it a day.
To bad Scott didn't have a part in Glad2 where Denzel Washington shares a a full mouth kiss with another man...
