Watch, Watched, Watching: I missed the last thread?

[Nictarion]

An equal amount of blueberries in each muffin!

[polishgenius]

4 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Goodfellas is full of iconic camera work (Copa steadicam shot ), has a fantastic cast with an amazing performance by Pesci, is probably the most realistic depiction of the mafia in film history,

 

 

All this but I just found it mostly boring and empty.

Heat is the fucking bomb though let's not play.

[DireWolfSpirit]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Good fellas >>> Casino >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Irishman. 

Loved all 3, the controversial CGI/anti-aging melodrama was absolutely unbothering to me for Irishman.

[Nictarion]

Just now, DireWolfSpirit said:

Loved all 3, the controversial CGI/anti-aging melodrama was absolutely unbothering to me for Irishman.

Same. There was literally only one scene that took me out of the movie (the infamous kicks). Thought the rest was great. 

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Heat is the fucking bomb though let's not play.

Apart from Val Kilmers fucked up elbow. That shit is gross. 

[Durckad]

Goodfellas is a movie that I can say is very, very good, maybe even great, but one that I will probably never watch again. I just do not care about mob movies at all.

Same goes for Casino. Good movie, no desire to ever watch it again.

And while The Irishman is not a mob movie per se, it really feels like one. It has a similar structure, similar characters, and similar story beats. Good movie, but I feel like I've seen it before and, yeah, once is enough.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

4 hours ago, RumHam said:

It's been a while but isn't it because James Woods' character manipulated her, got her hooked on drugs and pimped her out at a really young age?

Be a man, don't be a fuckin pimp.

[Ramsay B.]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Apart from Val Kilmers fucked up elbow. That shit is gross. 

I watched The Salton Sea last night and noticed it in a few scenes. Shit is huge. That movie is batshit insane at some parts but I’ve always liked it.

[Veltigar]

Saw the first episode of Lovecraft Country, just like everybody else, I'd say that it was a very promising start. Let's hope they get to stick the landing.

6 hours ago, Isis said:

The play was VERY popular here (as was the film). Bit of a shame about James Cordon being in it but I suppose that then he was a little way off his current level of awfulness. I saw Jamie Parker play Prince Hal/Henry at the Globe a few times (Henry IV I & II and Henry V) and he was brilliant in that - although massively upstaged by Roger Allam (but then who isn't?).

What has James Cordon done? I don't  really follow that kind of stuff, I thought he was popular among the hoi polloi for doing karaoke in cars?

 

Must be great to have been able to see it on Broadway or the National Theater.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Apart from Val Kilmers fucked up elbow. That shit is gross. 

Speaking of Val Kilmer, I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang yesterday. It's been a few years since I saw it before so I'd forgotten most of the details of the convoluted murder mystery in it, although it's not really the main attraction of the movie anyway. It's still an entertaining film, out of Shane Black's recent work I think The Nice Guys is funnier but it still has plenty of good scenes in it. Downey Jr and Kilmer do seem to be having a lot of fun with the roles.

[RumHam]

35 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

Be a man, don't be a fuckin pimp.

Or James Woods.

[hauberk]

16 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

I haven't seen Casino yet but this is good to hear coz Goodfellas is rubbish.

I am aware that this is not the most widely held opinion.

I'll support this.  Realizing that I'm in the minority opinion, I'll go a step farther and just come out and say that I find Scorsese to be a mark against seeing a movie.  Mostly the same with Coppola (yes, I'm talking about the Godfather.  Both have a few exceptions, but mostly, I find their work to be pretty ponderous.  The organized crime aspect is part of it, I suspect - I wasn't able to get more than a couple of episodes into Sopranos either.

Heat, on the other hand, is a masterpiece.

[Nictarion]

1 minute ago, hauberk said:

I'll support this.  Realizing that I'm in the minority opinion, I'll go a step farther and just come out and say that I find Scorsese to be a mark against seeing a movie.  Mostly the same with Coppola (yes, I'm talking about the Godfather.  Both have a few exceptions, but mostly, I find their work to be pretty ponderous.  The organized crime aspect is part of it, I suspect - I wasn't able to get more than a couple of episodes into Sopranos either.

Heat, on the other hand, is a masterpiece.

Scorsese has made a ton of great films not about the mob. 

Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, Gangs of New York, Bringing Out the Dead, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Aviator...

Coppola has far less, but Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation are both fantastic. 

Anyway not being into gangsters is one thing, but to say some of the best movies of all time are no good is quite another. 

[Heartofice]

I’m going the other way on this, I was never a fan of Heat and I think Goodfellas is a 5 Star classic.

But I do wonder when people who disliked it, saw Goodfellas? I can imagine if it was recently ( as in the last decade) then it would probably seem kinda tired, and done... which is exactly how I felt about the Irishman. I even was quite bored by Casino, it feeling like it was repeating beats of Goodfellas too closely.

I mean, Goodfellas has been copied to death, parodied to death. It’s hard to watch it now with a fresh perspective.

Bit like Citizen Kane, I’m sure that was an incredible movie back in the day, but everything groundbreaking about it has been taken and copied so many times, I have to admit to never really finding it that impressive.

[polishgenius]

20 minutes ago, hauberk said:

I'll support this.  Realizing that I'm in the minority opinion, I'll go a step farther and just come out and say that I find Scorsese to be a mark against seeing a movie.  Mostly the same with Coppola (yes, I'm talking about the Godfather.  Both have a few exceptions, but mostly, I find their work to be pretty ponderous.  The organized crime aspect is part of it, I suspect - I wasn't able to get more than a couple of episodes into Sopranos either.

 

 

I wouldn't go so far as you because I like many of Scorsese's movies and Raging Bull in particular is one of the best I've ever seen (though I've not seen enough of them- Taxi Driver!) but I feel like sometimes he thinks something being real crime is enough to replace genuine depth- I felt the same about Wolf of Wall Street and therefore found it really hypocritical that he got so high and mighty about superhero films just being empty emotional rollercoasters when for me both those films were pretty much the same principle, except without the rollercoaster bit. Better cinematically crafted than a Marvel film naturally, but just as empty of the theme and meaning he got so snotty about. And more boring.

[DMC]

38 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

though I've not seen enough of them- Taxi Driver!

I think Taxi Driver is Scorsese's best film, and one of the greatest films ever.  Probably in my top 5.  I agree on Wolf of Wall Street - was not a fan of that one.  Don't think I've ever seen it all the way through.

[Cas Stark]

7 hours ago, RumHam said:

It's been a while but isn't it because James Woods' character manipulated her, got her hooked on drugs and pimped her out at a really young age?

I always saw it more as that once she was out of her element of grifting that she wasn't able to transition to just be the trophy wife, and the pressure got to her, she couldn't feel secure in her new life so she self destructed.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

Or James Woods.

When discussing all time great gangster movies, some how Once Upon a Time in America is always left out of the conversation. 

[Nictarion]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

When discussing all time great gangster movies, some how Once Upon a Time in America is always left out of the conversation. 

Because the studio completely butchered the theatrical release (the director’s cut is brilliant). Leone was completely heartbroken over what they did to it. I’m guessing there’s a lot of people that have only seen that version. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Because the studio completely butchered the theatrical release (the director’s cut is brilliant). Leone was completely heartbroken over what they did to it. I’m guessing there’s a lot of people that have only seen that version. 

Yeah, turning a 4 hour movie into a 2 hour movie while also completely destroying it's non-linear story telling certainly fucked it up. You can get the 255 minute version pretty easily now. 

I have to chuckle after looking at some lists of best gangster movies ever. It's top five on some, but regardless of where it ranks, all the articles say more or less the same thing: This movie pushes it pretty far even for a gangster movie.