Watch, Watched, Watching: What Old Is New When There Is No New

[Nictarion]

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Also been enjoying Costners series Yellowstone. It's visually pleasant (Montana high plateau ranchland) and the drama moves along well. Wes Studi is one of several good actors/actresses in this, looking forward to next episode.

 

Wes Studi isn’t in Yellowstone. The actor that plays the Native American chief is Gil Birmingham (Hell or High Water, Wind River). And yeah, along with the locations, him, Costner, and Kelly Reilly are the best part of the show. 

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I love Pi and The Fountain and was very protective of any criticism of Aronofsky and couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next. 

Heh.  I don't know many people who like The Fountain.  I think it's amazing, but most everyone I've ever talked to vehemently disagrees.  Also agree on his downward career trajectory.  Noah was quite uninspired, flat.  I didn't bother to see Mother!, from what I've read it seems he's going even more down the rabbit hole.  I thought Requiem was vastly superior to Trainspotting - which is insanely overrated.

[Ran]

Just now, DMC said:

That's not the premise of the film at all.

Just underscoring this. I understand that Roberto Benigni isn't for everyone, but to me Life is Beautiful is a tragicomedy. The "game" Benigni makes of the holocaust to protect his son works because we understand that beyond the edges of the frame the child's fantasy ends and horrors are being committed, horrors that intrude in that limnal moment in the fog when we see the pile of bodies.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh.  I don't know many people who like The Fountain.  I think it's amazing, but most everyone I've ever talked to vehemently disagrees.  Also agree on his downward career trajectory.  Noah was quite uninspired, flat.  I didn't bother to see Mother!, from what I've read it seems he's going even more down the rabbit hole.  I thought Requiem was vastly superior to Trainspotting - which is insanely overrated.

Fountain is one that is easy to hate. You can take it either way. Either it is a beautiful reflection on love, devotion, addiction and life itself.. or it is a really stupid pretentious student movie made by someone staring up their own anus.

I was deeply moved by it so I think it’s the first, but wouldn’t begrudge anyone who disagrees.

 

But no, Trainspotting is one of the best movies of all time IMO , I saw it in cinemas when it came out and it still holds up even now, despite the thousands of copycats of its stylistic choices. Having said that, Danny Boyle has many of the same weaknesses as Aronofsky

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

The "game" Benigni makes of the holocaust to protect his son

Exactly.  It's about a father doing whatever he can to protect his son from the worst horrors.  I never got people who thought it was a comedy.  The ending is hardly funny.

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Fountain is one that is easy to hate.

Yeah I understand why people don't like it, but it got to me.

[Isis]

44 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Memento is brilliant. I just love it when Guy Pearce gets something good to work it. He's an underutilized actor. Requiem sucks balls. Everyone pretends it's a master piece and that they are scarred for life from watching it, but it's all just a hype. 

I particularly hate the music, which isn't bad on its own, but has been used by fanboys to ruin parts of better movies online because "hey let's just slap Lux Aeterna over this scene of Gladiator with a much better original score because we can" Bunch of Breivik wannabes, the lot of them.

Careful now. It's not Clint Mansell's fault that his soundtrack was so good that it got massively overrused in so many trailers and even on stuff like Sky Sports EPL coverage. Hans Zimmer has done some very nice soundtracks but if I had to choose between the two of them I would choose Clint Mansell.

I get that people have a strong reaction to Requiem for a Dream. I personally don't ever want to watch it again. Much like Less Than Zero (thematically similar film, also with a good soundtrack) or Jacob's Ladder. I don't think they're terrible or overhyped films. 

37 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I love Pi and The Fountain and was very protective of any criticism of Aronofsky and couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next. 
 

Im now of the opinion he’s operating on the level of a high school philosophy student and most of his movies are quite surface level intelligent.

Requiem is like a movie made by someone who saw Transpotting but didn’t want to buy the rights to it, so made a mostly inferior product with some super obvious drugs bad sequences. 
 

I walked out of Noah.. and Mother maybe unwatchable. Pretty sad

I had another funny experience with The Fountain, where the first time I saw it I must have been doing something else at the same time or totally zoned out. Whenever people talked about it I was like, 'what? when did that happen?' So I watched it properly and had a completely different experience. Even if you just read the premise it sounds kind of silly HOWEVER it all just really works for me on screen. I love it. (Again, great soundtrack)

26 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh.  I don't know many people who like The Fountain.  I think it's amazing, but most everyone I've ever talked to vehemently disagrees.  Also agree on his downward career trajectory.  Noah was quite uninspired, flat.  I didn't bother to see Mother!, from what I've read it seems he's going even more down the rabbit hole.  I thought Requiem was vastly superior to Trainspotting - which is insanely overrated.

I recall saying in this thread (years back) that I didn't rate Noah and someone here kind of explained it to me so that I could have a better understanding of it and then I didn't think it was that bad. But it DOES feel quite long while you're watching it. I watched Mother earlier this year and OH MY GOD I thought it would never end. It's definitely painful to watch for a variety of reasons. Really glad that I didn't see it at the cinema.

[Veltigar]

4 hours ago, Isis said:

Careful now. It's not Clint Mansell's fault that his soundtrack was so good that it got massively overrused in so many trailers and even on stuff like Sky Sports EPL coverage. Hans Zimmer has done some very nice soundtracks but if I had to choose between the two of them I would choose Clint Mansell.

I get that people have a strong reaction to Requiem for a Dream. I personally don't ever want to watch it again. Much like Less Than Zero (thematically similar film, also with a good soundtrack) or Jacob's Ladder. I don't think they're terrible or overhyped films. 

Not familiar enough with their overall body of work to render judgement so I will refrain on that one. I do find Requiem for a Dream's soundtrack overrated. It's certainly not bad, but damn it, I'm sick of hearing it. Especially as they usually remove scores or dialogue of better movies to lay it on top of scenes from that movie. I remember that there was one scene of Gladiator which I quite liked that had that evil done to it and that was just sad 

As to the movie, I found it forgettable. Quite shocking I know, since everyone always keeps talking about how it scarred them for life and overblown stuff like that, but it was almost silly in the way that it handled it.

4 hours ago, Isis said:

 

I recall saying in this thread (years back) that I didn't rate Noah and someone here kind of explained it to me so that I could have a better understanding of it and then I didn't think it was that bad. But it DOES feel quite long while you're watching it. I watched Mother earlier this year and OH MY GOD I thought it would never end. It's definitely painful to watch for a variety of reasons. Really glad that I didn't see it at the cinema.

Noah is a really difficult film to watch. I like DA's ambition and there are some scenes, visuals and ideas in there which are just absolutely wonderful. To give an example of each 

Spoiler

1. Idea: The reframing of Original Sin away from Eve eating the apple to the much more understandable first act of murder was brilliant

2.  Scene: Ray Winstone as Tubal-Khaine is clearly the villain, but here he gets the heroes' speech which I just absolutely adore. 

3. Visuals: The creation sequence which is also stunning and was perhaps my favorite visual ofthat year

 

The problem is that they fail to make a coherent whole out of it. E

Spoiler

very thing after the swarming of the arc should be deleted. The movie just sags the entire time after that.

 

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I was specifically talking about Best Picture winners and in case of 2001 & 2004 also nominations. Those sucked and I stand by it. I would never have made such a sweeping claim, in particular since I adore Shawn of the Dead, Anchorman and Dodgeball.

 

I know you were but Tywin's original point was that that era was weak for filmmaking, with the oscar example he made an illustration of that. That's why everyone responded so strongly.

11 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Well, I think both suck, but in different ways.

Babe is a goddamn classic though, I'll die on that hill.

I do actually like I <3 Huckabees, but I do untertsand why people hate it.

 

I like The Fountain (and LOVE the music). I find it mildly amusing that Aaronovsky and Malik both made films about dealing with grief and loss by choosing to write baffling, time-bending narratives centered around the tree of life (albeit more literally in one case).

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Sideways been a long time.

I have to say, though I loved Sideways when it came out and would probably enjoy it now still, it hasn't aged particularly well in terms of how women are treated in the film.

Jack's behaviour isn't lauded, specifically, but it's depicted mostly as just goofing off and him deceiving his wife at the end as a worthwhile goal to achieve. And Miles having the guts to go to find Maya at the end is treated as a positive character development rather than some creepy-ass stalker behaviour and he needs to give this woman some space even if she did contact him.

 

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

It's only due to this very board (might even be you) consistently pointing out the ideological

It won't be me. While I have also come to see the political subtext and dislike it even more, I visceraly hated Forrest Gump at a gut level the first time I saw it. I didn't feel the charm at all.

 

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

 

Requiem is like a movie made by someone who saw Transpotting but didn’t want to buy the rights to it, so made a mostly inferior product with some super obvious drugs bad sequences. 

I haven't seen Requiem but that's kinda funny coz I know he did buy the rights to Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue in order to make it, and then made Black Swan which very much has the reputation that it feels like Aaronovsky saw Perfect Blue and wanted to remake it but just made an inferior copy instead (it's not a reputation that I think is really fair -there's obvious inspiration, but ultimately they're very different angles on a premise).

[DireWolfSpirit]

5 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Wes Studi isn’t in Yellowstone. The actor that plays the Native American chief is Gil Birmingham (Hell or High Water, Wind River). And yeah, along with the locations, him, Costner, and Kelly Reilly are the best part of the show. 

Eh my bad with the wrong name then, I was referring to the actor that is playing the chieftain of the rez, Costners sometimes nemesis , sometimes ally, a real dichotomous character. He's fantastic in the role, so sorry for the name botch lol.

Eta: also K.R. who your mentioning and her Bo the ranch foreman are badasses, I'm just horrible with names, its the same way in real life I'm often screwing up workmates and even bosses names

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

though I loved Sideways when it came out and would probably enjoy it now still, it hasn't aged particularly well in terms of how women are treated in the film.

Spoiler

I agree with you on Church's behavior, but the ending with Giamatti's character is pretty standard romantic comedy stuff.  Plus, they plainly suggested plenty of time did lapse before she left the voicemail.  Even if it was real life I'd tell his character if he still has such strong feelings he should go talk to her.

 

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

  Hide contents

I agree with you on Church's behavior, but the ending with Giamatti's character is pretty standard romantic comedy stuff.  Plus, they plainly suggested plenty of time did lapse before she left the voicemail.  Even if it was real life I'd tell his character if he still has such strong feelings he should go talk to her.

 

 

 

I'd posit that a great many romantic comedies also display creepy-ass behaviour that you'd never encourage in real life, to be quite honest.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

I'd posit that a great many romantic comedies also display creepy-ass behaviour that you'd never encourage in real life, to be quite honest.

Fair but I still don't find anything "problematic" with Giamatti's ending.

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Fair but I still don't find anything "problematic" with Giamatti's ending.

 

 

Fair enough. tbf I probably wouldn't have much issue with it if it didn't come on top of the other stuff.

[Cas Stark]

I've never gotten the love for Requiem for a Dream, it has some riveting scenes, but 'great'?  I don't see it. 

[DMC]

To be clear, I'd call Requiem good, not great.  I originally mentioned it just because it was what put Aronofsky on the map - and does indeed have a cult-like following.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

As to the movie, I found it forgettable. Quite shocking I know, since everyone always keeps talking about how it scarred them for life and overblown stuff like that, but it was almost silly in the way that it handled it.

I wouldn't say it scarred me it's just super bleak. The part I want to scrub from my brain is at the end:

"Ass to ass!"

I didn't help that one of my college roommates would say it all the time he thought it was the funniest thing. 

[polishgenius]

I doubt I'm ever gonna watch Requiem (or Mother!), but tbh out of all the Aronovsky films I have seen I feel like The Wrestler is probably the best. But also I'm never gonna watch it again.

[DMC]

Just checked and Fountain is on HBO Go.  I know what I'm doing tonight now that the Yankees game is canceled.

[Heartofice]

41 minutes ago, DMC said:

Just checked and Fountain is on HBO Go.  I know what I'm doing tonight now that the Yankees game is canceled.

You shall. You will.

[Isis]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I like The Fountain (and LOVE the music). I find it mildly amusing that Aaronovsky and Malik both made films about dealing with grief and loss by choosing to write baffling, time-bending narratives centered around the tree of life (albeit more literally in one case).

  Reveal hidden contents

Jack's behaviour isn't lauded, specifically, but it's depicted mostly as just goofing off and him deceiving his wife at the end as a worthwhile goal to achieve. And Miles having the guts to go to find Maya at the end is treated as a positive character development rather than some creepy-ass stalker behaviour and he needs to give this woman some space even if she did contact him.

 

I really wanted to enjoy or at least admire The Tree of Life but I just didn't. It dragged for me and I kind of wanted it to be over for most of the film.