Watch, Watched, Watching: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Not always.  Really.

I meant samurai films and spaghetti westerns - which were themselves a response to and criticism of traditional westerns.  In terms of the traditional western, no, I'm not aware of John Ford being influenced by any Japanese cinema when he made Stagecoach in 1939.

[Zorral]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

meant samurai films and spaghetti westerns

That was not at all made clear by your words.

I have spent multiple of multiple hours here, further ruining my already very bad vision:

http://www.movingimage.us/

 You do not see the back-and-forth swirl between Japanese film and US film until after World War II, when large numbers of Japanese and USians had rather prolonged contact with each other for the first time.

Anyway, Fistful of Dollars doesn't show up until 1964 -- and it was Italian, as far as it went, since the classic post WWII lone man with a gun is Clint Eastwood.  This is a very different take on the western than anything that was really popular in the US before.  What is most interesting about it perhaps, is just how Italian it is -- the Catholic Church is treated with almost childish do I dare attitude that is very edgy still even (see Roma) in Italy.

This is when the Western as the most reliable and popular box office genre was dying.  Even Ford knew it, and tried to reset with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  But Ford could not shake that ultimate Hollywood mindset of having his cake and eating it too.  It was still a single man with a gun who established justice. Ultimately then the solution for about ten years was to up the violence quotient, which Fistful of Dollars seemed to teach was what worked.  I still think it was the score. Without that score, that movie wouldn't have gone anywhere.)

But soon after the Western per se was dead, replaced by the mafia movie, thanks in no small part by Coppola, the Vietnam war and the narco traffic crises here.

 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Anyway, Fistful of Dollars doesn't show up until 1964 -- and it was Italian, as far as it went, since the classic post WWII lone man with a gun is Clint Eastwood.  This is a very different take on the western than anything that was really popular in the US before.

Yeah, that was my point.  I don't know why you're trying to make an argument out of it.

[polishgenius]

 

9 minutes ago, Zorral said:

That was not at all made clear by your words.

 

You really really need to stop starting fights because you haven't understood something that was perfectly clear to everyone else who read it.

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Bit late to the party, but I’m watching Raised By Wolves. Was there a thread about it? On the one hand, I kinda like sci-fi that’s comfortable being sci-fi and just goes all out with the robots and wars and spaceships and what not. But it’s also not truly great in any particular area, and the general world building of the factions is coming across as a bit corny. I feel like it hasn’t yet made some ham fisted commentary on religion, but it’s heading there, the way the ‘atheists’ and the sun worshipers are so neatly divided. I can’t decide how much I enjoy it at the moment.

I wanted to like this, and for the first few episodes, I really did. But it lost the plot towards the end with some fairly nonsensical bollocks.

[Iskaral Pust]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Moreover, A Fistful of Dollars - which popularized spaghetti westerns in the US - was an unauthorized near-shot-for-shot remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo.  The two genres have always been inextricably intertwined.

Yes, this was the one I was thinking of.  Seven Samurai influencing the Magnificent Seven is well known, but the influence on the spaghetti westerns was a new chapter because it brought a stronger sense of disorder.  Most early Hollywood westerns had a sense of bringing order to the wild frontier, and that the gun slinger is slightly tragic because after he saves the town he is no longer needed and has to push further west ahead of the encroaching civilized order (so many examples of this, and the Searchers does this too in a slightly different way).  But the samurai genre seemed to have a sense that there would be no order and the lone wolf samurai would be needed as the protector of the town/village amid a disordered, corrupt world.  You can see that in the Sergio Leone westerns and their descendants where there is no justice or order — there is only what the gunslinger can achieve with his own feral wits and ferocity.  The High Plains Drifter (directed by Eastwood himself?) is an even more extreme version of this where the gunslinger is dangerous and amoral himself (seems to be on a personal vendetta).

The Mandalorian looks like a Disneyfied combination of original Hollywood westerns and spaghetti westerns, tilting toward the latter.  Mando has a very light affiliation with the Republic, but really he dispenses his own justice according to his own code in the disordered backwaters, and resists any authority system.  All is corrupt, including his own guild, and only isolated towns and ranchers are individually noble/moral — institutions are to be mistrusted.  Then cinematography and music and characterization also lean more toward the spaghetti western.

[Veltigar]

Just finished watching two excellent films. Good to have avoided crap this week. The first movie I saw today was 2019's Swallow, about a young woman trapped in a horrible gilded cage of a marriage who starts to suffer from a mental disorder called Pica (where you swallow random objects, hence the title of the film). 

I must admit, I had zero expectations. I was prepared to watch this more as a freak show than as a movie, but the film was actually impressively well done. It is a small scale, low stakes kind of movie and very intimate with its characters. I thought it actually gave a really convincing and sympathetic portrayal of people suffering from this type of disorder. The entire cast was great and I loved the way our protagonist took baby steps from insufferably passive to a somewhat more active person. It was well-directed, with occasional flashes of brilliance in the cinematography. Favorite part of the film was the writing for the "antagonists" of the film. I don't think entitled asshole has ever been elevated into an art form quite like this. 

I find it strange that there wasn't more buzz about this back in 2019. Perhaps the ending was somewhat controversial

Spoiler

I'd be curios to see what everyone thought of the pills she ingested. Was that an abortion or did she just purge herself completely of the remaining objects she had swallowed after reclaiming her agency?

I would hope the latter, but I have to admit that I'm not up to speed enough with abortion procedures to know whether those two little pills are enough to do the trick after she had been pregnant for a couple of months?

The other film I saw was even better, the beautifully titled Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019) which is translated into English as Portrait of the Lady on Fire. It sucks I didn't turn out to see this in theatre when I could, because it really is a wonderful film. 

It's gorgeous to look at for starters, with exquisite direction. The film is just filled with scenes you could take beautiful stills from. Some of the images it rendered up will stay with me for many years, I'm sure. All the actors are brilliant from start to finish and I have to admit that it is refreshing to see a film for once with almost no men in it. It's strange how we're often okay with heavily gender-skewed casting when it is a male dominated film, but here it was so very noticeable just how deep into the female perspective we could get.

There are few films I can recall that are as intimate as this and I appreciate the fact that it wasn't afraid to linger. Especially during that remarkable ending scene. When the topic is as consuming as true love, you have to give the narrative (and the lover's gaze) the time to breath!

I think there is a very strong possibility that I will revisit this film in the years to come. I'm a sucker for Vivaldi and they use his music so brilliantly in this film.

EDIT: It also had the most innovative drug scene I have seen in years  

5 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Have you seen the original film?

Didn't even know there was one I'm afraid  

[DMC]

56 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The Mandalorian looks like a Disneyfied combination of original Hollywood westerns and spaghetti westerns, tilting toward the latter.  Mando has a very light affiliation with the Republic, but really he dispenses his own justice according to his own code in the disordered backwaters, and resists any authority system.  All is corrupt, including his own guild, and only isolated towns and ranchers are individually noble/moral — institutions are to be mistrusted.  Then cinematography and music and characterization also lean more toward the spaghetti western.

Plus simply Din's chosen vocation - bounty hunter - conforms to Leone's preferred antihero.  I haven't read anything on Favreau/the creators' inspiration for the show, but it's plainly there - which is probably what attracted Robert Rodriquez to contribute and now takeover the Boba Fett spinoff.  And, really, it's a natural outgrowth.  Star Wars always clearly borrowed aspects from westerns, including the "lawlessness" of Tatooine and the entire the "outer rim."  

Spoiler

Timothy Olyphant almost literally playing Raylan Givens, including holding the title of "marshal," is when it got a little too on-the-nose.

 

[Spockydog]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Plus simply Din's chosen vocation - bounty hunter - conforms to Leone's preferred antihero. 

...without all the rape.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

You really really need to stop starting fights because you haven't understood something that was perfectly clear to everyone else who read it.

Who is fighting?  

 

[Mexal]

2 hours ago, Veltigar said:

The other film I saw was even better, the beautifully titled Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019) which is translated into English as Portrait of the Lady on Fire. It sucks I didn't turn out to see this in theatre when I could, because it really is a wonderful film. 

It's gorgeous to look at for starters, with exquisite direction. The film is just filled with scenes you could take beautiful stills from. Some of the images it rendered up will stay with me for many years, I'm sure. All the actors are brilliant from start to finish and I have to admit that it is refreshing to see a film for once with almost no men in it. It's strange how we're often okay with heavily gender-skewed casting when it is a male dominated film, but here it was so very noticeable just how deep into the female perspective we could get.

There are few films I can recall that are as intimate as this and I appreciate the fact that it wasn't afraid to linger. Especially during that remarkable ending scene. When the topic is as consuming as true love, you have to give the narrative (and the lover's gaze) the time to breath!

I think there is a very strong possibility that I will revisit this film in the years to come. I'm a sucker for Vivaldi and they use his music so brilliantly in this film.

EDIT: It also had the most innovative drug scene I have seen in years  

Didn't even know there was one I'm afraid  

Favorite movie of the past few years and one of my all time favorites. Just a stunning film. I thank Ran regularly for introducing me to it before it seemed to blow up.

[l2 0 5 5]

Finished watching A Teacher on Hulu. Overall it kept my attention and that's most likely because the eps were like 20-25 minutes long which seems like a trend for Hulu dramas. Not hating on the length, cause this is probably like a 6 episode miniseries on Netflix or HBO, just an interesting trend for them. I know Normal People was similar. I think Devs was 45-50  mins though, so maybe my point here just sucks.

Either or, thought Kate Mara was pretty good, and Nick Robinson playing a high school heart throb is like a yoyo master walking the dog. 

Rooney is still my favorite Mara.

[Nictarion]

Love and Monsters. Fun movie. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

5 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Didn't even know there was one I'm afraid  

Just finished binge watching Catch-22. It was great. Very funny in parts, Very dark in others. Much more cynical and nihilistic than I was expecting. I need to read the book.

Also,

 

[Annara Snow]

12 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I wanted to like this, and for the first few episodes, I really did. But it lost the plot towards the end with some fairly nonsensical bollocks.

Raised by Wolves was s mess. If reminded me oc Prometeus because it was bad in similar ways: seemed like ambitious SciFi, great production values, great cast - and in this case, some great performances (Amanda Collin in particular), but the story was so, so bad.

A couple of other shows I binged recently - Lovecraft Country, a few days before NYE, which is also messy overall but had some really great moments, episodes and storylines and was genuinely intriguing - but also had bad episodes and a very disappointing ending, and doesn't come together well overall.

Right after NYE, binged The Undoing. Excellent performances (Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant) and was compelling throughout - until the resolution, which was so disappointing that it makes the entire miniseries really meh.

Spoiler

In the past I've often criticized shows and movies for trying too hard to have surprising twists... But this has the opposite problem. Is this going to be a new thing now - where there is no twist at all and a "mystery" show turns out to not have had a mystery at all? The most obvious thing was true all along and that's it? Really?

 

[HexMachina]

20 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

More gill fingering?

 

*don’t actually tell me what you mean*

 

Watched episode 2, correction to the above

Fingering Patton Oswalt

[Veltigar]

7 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Just finished binge watching Catch-22. It was great. Very funny in parts, Very dark in others. Much more cynical and nihilistic than I was expecting. I need to read the book.

Also,

 

Oh shit, Orson Welles is in the film? I'd have to check that out

10 hours ago, Mexal said:

Favorite movie of the past few years and one of my all time favorites. Just a stunning film. I thank Ran regularly for introducing me to it before it seemed to blow up.

If it wasn't for CoVID, I would have gone to the theatre for this. Shame really, it deserved all the sypport. 

[Isis]

I was really rubbish at watching films and series in 2020. I lost enthusiasm and concentration for them. Towards the end of the holidays I finally managed to settle in one place for the day to watch The Wilds in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. Definitely feeling like a variant of Lost - the flashbacks, the mystery, the struggle for survival. I think I enjoyed this more than anything else I watched since Devs - wait, was that 2020 or 2019? I am honestly so confused with time/longterm memory at the moment.

When 'Juliet' was chosing her name and initially said Evangeline - I only belated realised, this was meant to be a reference to Evangeline Lily? Then choosing to be called Juliet is a nod to Juliet from Lost - because she was one of the Others right?

The day after this I suddenly remembered that we were able to watch The Alienist S2 in the UK now so we ploughed through that in one sitting as well. I thought it was really good. The characterisation of the main cast was very well done and I especially enjoyed the bits with Dr Kreizler making a new friend.

The part where they visit the fetish club is brilliant because watching the wheels turning in his head is so adorable.

If it ends there after two series that would be ok with me as things have been concluded satisfactorily for now.

Ooh, there is a new crime drama set in Wales starring Luke Evans which begins at the end of January.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Love and Monsters. Fun movie. 

Looks fun indeed. I might watch this later if your kitties rollover today.

[Annara Snow]

9 hours ago, Isis said:

I was really rubbish at watching films and series in 2020. I lost enthusiasm and concentration for them. Towards the end of the holidays I finally managed to settle in one place for the day to watch The Wilds in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. Definitely feeling like a variant of Lost - the flashbacks, the mystery, the struggle for survival. I think I enjoyed this more than anything else I watched since Devs - wait, was that 2020 or 2019? I am honestly so confused with time/longterm memory at the moment.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

When 'Juliet' was chosing her name and initially said Evangeline - I only belated realised, this was meant to be a reference to Evangeline Lily? Then choosing to be called Juliet is a nod to Juliet from Lost - because she was one of the Others right?

 

The day after this I suddenly remembered that we were able to watch The Alienist S2 in the UK now so we ploughed through that in one sitting as well. I thought it was really good. The characterisation of the main cast was very well done and I especially enjoyed the bits with Dr Kreizler making a new friend.

  Reveal hidden contents

The part where they visit the fetish club is brilliant because watching the wheels turning in his head is so adorable.

If it ends there after two series that would be ok with me as things have been concluded satisfactorily for now.

Ooh, there is a new crime drama set in Wales starring Luke Evans which begins at the end of January.

Devs was in 2020. 
I started watching it towards the end of the year and got halfway, I still have 4 episodes to go but haven't had the time to watch almost anything this week because of work. No rest for NYE for me.