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Watch, Watched, Watching: Strange Times


Ramsay B.

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6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I've been binging Taskmaster myself recently, good of them to upload entire seasons to youtube. It's hilarious.

 

4 hours ago, Isis said:

I read recently that this was pulled in the US after a single episode aired. It was replaced with re-runs of some other show. 

 

I read that it was coming to US tv.  That's what sparked me to start watching it online.  I didn't realize it was there and gone so quickly.  Maybe if The CW had paired it with Whose Line Is It Anyway?, they would have had more success with Taskmaster.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:
6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

Heh...alright, let's do this.  @Veltigar has inspired me.  I find it hilarious that Jaws, Jurassic Park, ET are being referred to as "great" films.  It's generous to call them good films.  Great blockbusters?  Undoubtedly. 

 

See not liking blockbusters and therefore not putting Spielberg as a top director on that basis would be totally fair, can't argue, you do you.


But then you name Nolan as your alternative. The guy all about making blockbusters, but with added brainteasers pretending to be philosophy that he massively overeggs and then fails to understand himself. The guy who watched a lot of Satoshi Kon and Stanley Kubrick but didn't understand much of it. TDK, Batman Begins, Memento and Dunkirk are admittedly very good films and he's made more good films than bad ones, but they're not all-time classics. It'd be like labelling Alex Proyas as an all-time director coz he made Dark City and the Crow, albeit admittedly Nolan is never likely to make a Gods of Egypt.  TDKR and Inception are bad movies though despite both having good bits in, and Interstellar is also pretty bad, just enjoyable with it.

Nolan could never film a dialogue/monologue scene like the Indianapolis scene in Jaws. He could never escelate tension and spectacle like the T-Rex scene in Jaws.

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16 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I didn't know you to be heretical.

SPR is an expertly executed war film.  But it still needs to..earn it.  Dunkirk is one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life.  It ensconces you - with barely any dialogue it's able to emotionally invest the viewer.  I'd almost argue it's the war movie equivalent to 2001.  Thin Red Line tried to do that, but Malick got too caught up in his own bullshit and he muddled it up.

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The guy all about making blockbusters, but with added brainteasers pretending to be philosophy that he massively overeggs and then fails to understand himself.

That was kinda my point.  Yes, of course Nolan mostly makes blockbusters (although I'd argue Prestige is not, and of course Memento isn't), but his blockbusters aren't as brainless as Spielberg's.  I guess that's why I prefer Nolan.

3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Nolan could never film a dialogue/monologue scene like the Indianapolis scene in Jaws. He could never escelate tension and spectacle like the T-Rex scene in Jaws.

Oh c'mon.  Nolan knows how to escalate tension and spectacle just as well as Spielberg.  And he also has actually written very touching scenes in many of his films - albeit he does rely on the concept of time and the father saving his children as tropes.

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45 minutes ago, DMC said:

but his blockbusters aren't as brainless as Spielberg's.

 

My argument is that they are just as 'brainless' (I don't think any film made with skill and storytelling ability is really brainless but I know what you're aiming for I guess) as Spielbergs they just think they're not. And in thinking they're not they can make it worse coz Inception is a much dumber film than anything Spielberg has done. Zack Snyder's films have ideas and ambition but I think most people would agree it would be pretty crazy to put him over Spielberg. Nolan's better than Snyder for sure but he's just as prone to his big ideas falling apart on him.

Nolan is good at doing tension and spectacle but he ain't in the ballpark of Spielberg or a Michael Mann.

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58 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Inception are bad movies

This isn't a take I've heard before. I think it can get more love than it deserves, but bad?
 

Quote

like the T-Rex scene in Jaws.

I need to know if this was intentional or a magical accident. 

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2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

And in thinking they're not they can make it worse coz Inception is a much dumber film than anything Spielberg has done.

Yeah, this is just a matter of taste.  I find this opinion absurd.  Have you seen the 4th Indiana Jones movie?  Or 1941?  Or War of the Worlds - which actually was great source material but Spielberg spectacularly flubbed it.  Even Lincoln, he had the opportunity to make a movie about a guy whose life is ripe with very compelling content from his youth as an amateur wrestler to establishing his party as one of the two dominant ones in an inherently two-party system to the Lincoln-Douglas debates to the goddamn Civil War to getting dead while attending a play.  And what does he do?  Two and a half hours where DDL mostly just rambles anecdotes to unwitting observers.

12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Nolan is good at doing tension and spectacle but he ain't in the ballpark of Spielberg or a Michael Mann.

The opening scene of TDK is a greater tribute to Mann than Spielberg has ever done.

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

we need to stop and recognize that John McTiernan made two of the best films ever

Heh, no.  But there are others to mention in terms of comparing their catalogues.  Hitchcock, as has been mentioned, obviously, but most of his work is not my cup of tea.  I don't think anyone can match 70s Coppola with the two Godfathers, Conversation, and Apocalypse Now.  But after that it's pretty sparse for him.  Welles, too, was volatile but also genius, just couldn't stop drinking and eating.  If we're going old school there's Ford, Bergman, Kurosawa, Huston, Wilder, Kazan to consider.  Recently, I think Ridley Scott merits acknowledgement.

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12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Did you seriously just besmirch Die Hard and Predator?

Also, why is Jaws boring, but The Godfather films aren't?

Yes, I besmirched Die Hard and Predator as being labeled "two of the best films ever."  I mean, they're classics in their own way, but you gotta be an invested dudebro to think those are even remotely in the vicinity of the best films ever.

I don't even want to entertain comparing Jaws to the first two Godfathers.  I hope this wasn't a serious statement.

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53 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh, no.  But there are others to mention in terms of comparing their catalogues.  Hitchcock, as has been mentioned, obviously, but most of his work is not my cup of tea.  I don't think anyone can match 70s Coppola with the two Godfathers, Conversation, and Apocalypse Now.  But after that it's pretty sparse for him.  Welles, too, was volatile but also genius, just couldn't stop drinking and eating.  If we're going old school there's Ford, Bergman, Kurosawa, Huston, Wilder, Kazan to consider.  Recently, I think Ridley Scott merits acknowledgement.

Rear Window.  Vertigo. Rebecca.  Notorious.  Strangers on a Train.  Psycho.  What's not to like there?  But then I love his films and I would definitely choose the Hitchcock catalog to take to the desert island. But I kind of feel that way about Ford, I can recognize the talent there, but the particular atheistic with a couple of exceptions isn't my thing. 

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1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

but the particular atheistic with a couple of exceptions isn't my thing. 

You meant aesthetic here right?  Anyway, yeah, I think we're agreed.  I respect Hitchcock very much, but the first four movies you mentioned never got to me.  I do really like Strangers on the Train.  Just like I understand Ford's catalogue isn't going to appeal to a lot of people either.

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7 minutes ago, DMC said:

You meant aesthetic here right?  Anyway, yeah, I think we're agreed.  I respect Hitchcock very much, but the first four movies you mentioned never got to me.  I do really like Strangers on the Train.  Just like I understand Ford's catalogue isn't going to appeal to a lot of people either.

Yes, ha, stupid spell check.  Oh well.  

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21 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yes, I besmirched Die Hard and Predator as being labeled "two of the best films ever."  I mean, they're classics in their own way, but you gotta be an invested dudebro to think those are even remotely in the vicinity of the best films ever.

I don't even want to entertain comparing Jaws to the first two Godfathers.  I hope this wasn't a serious statement.

If films are classics, and considered to be some of the best films in their respective genres, then yeah, you can call them some of the best films ever.

Jaws and the Godfather films are all great. They're also slow burns. They take a long time to develop, and Godfather 2 is probably the slowest and most boring of the three if you want to judge a film like that.

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

If films are classics, and considered to be some of the best films in their respective genres, then yeah, you can call them some of the best films ever.

Jaws and the Godfather films are all great. They're also slow burns. They take a long time to develop, and Godfather 2 is probably the slowest and most boring of the three if you want to judge a film like that.

If the sub genre is 'campy badish but fun action film' does it really belong in the same conversation as Jaws and the Godfather?

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