Watch, Watched, Watching: Three Monkeys Edition

[SpaceChampion]

Big Trouble In Little China is one of the most fun movie ever.  I can't remember anything about Escape from New York.  Is it truly great or is that nostalgia speaking?

[Heartofice]

25 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Big Trouble In Little China is one of the most fun movie ever.  I can't remember anything about Escape from New York.  Is it truly great or is that nostalgia speaking?

I'm going to say it, but Escape from New York isn't really very good. I used to watch it on VHS all the time, but I can't say I ever enjoyed it. Looking back, I think it might even be bad, I don't think it really stacks up, even against dystopian sci fi stuff from the time. I know if I had to watch Mad Max or this, I would go Mad Max.. even Thunderdome!

[Ran]

Escape from New York is a classic for a lot of reasons, but it's firmly a B-movie and largely depends on the charm of Russell's Snake Plissken and John Carpenter's iconic score. The story itself is ... well, it certainly has become cliche, but I think it had enough elements of past films in it that it wasn't really that cutting edge.

That said, it was definitely influential in its way, with a number of creators in various fields referencing it a lot (Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame, for example, and William Gibson). 

I think it's worth watching the same way something like The Warriors is worth watching, as a piece of cinema history. (In fact, I see when I posted about The Warriors last year, I mentioned it as something to watch if you like Escape.)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

It's all in the reflexes.

Man in the Iron Mask has some charm thanks to its stellar cast, and a great score, but it's less than the sum of its parts. I'd probably choose it over Mars Attacks! but I think the latter is more interesting, cinematically-speaking.

MitIM can drag at times, but I agree the performance from the cast is great and the story overall is pretty good. Mars Attacks! is stupid fun. I haven't seen it in ages and it just popped up on Prime. That said, I'll probably go for EfNY first, since I haven't seen it. Might throw it on here in a bit once I finish reading The Handmaid's Tale.

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, after you watch The Sopranos and Breaking Bad.

I'm almost done with Season 1 of Rome and half way through the first season of The Knick. Give it time. 

[DMC]

I've always really liked Man in the Iron Mask.  It does kinda drag, and isn't anything special, but for whatever reason it got me.  As for Escape from NY, its problem is it will always pale in comparison to this:

 

[Ghostlydragon]

I just watched the wolf of wall street earlier. Despite it being nearly three hours, I was still hooked but it could have been a bit shorter. Great film and great choice of actors too.

[SpaceChampion]

Apparently people in Hollywood are excited by this video using a drone that swoops through a bowling alley.

 

[WarGalley]

3 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Apparently people in Hollywood are excited by this video using a drone that swoops through a bowling alley.

 

That's a cool video. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Apparently people in Hollywood are excited by this video using a drone that swoops through a bowling alley.

 

I lived right off of Bryant for a bit. 

 

[Spockydog]

The drone piloting in that video, in conjunction with the camerawork, is phenomenal.

Also, that bowling alley looks like a nice place to hang out. *sighs wistfully*

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Okay, I can already tell I'm going to like Escape from New York, but introduction to plot: problematic, lol. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Also, that bowling alley looks like a nice place to hang out. *sighs wistfully*

The whole area is amazing. Uptown is between downtown and the mostly wealthier western suburbs. Best of both worlds, plus you're right by an amazing chain of lakes.

[Argonath Diver]

5 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The drone piloting in that video, in conjunction with the camerawork, is phenomenal.

Also, that bowling alley looks like a nice place to hang out. *sighs wistfully*

I don't know much about drones, surely it's a pre-programmed flight path, and not a person with exceptional piloting skills? Even with that, it's exceptional coordination, the highlight to me being zooming between the bowler's legs as he took his turn.

[Veltigar]

After the pleasant experience with Rob Roy, I decided to watch some more old period films from the nineties which I barely recollect. Unfortunately, I picked The Messenger: The Story of Joanne of Arc (1999) as my first foray back into nineties period films. 

I could recall flashes of this. There is something weird going on with the imagery in the film. I don't know whether it's just the excessive number of close-ups or whether they actually did something clever with the type of lenses or perspective but it has this ethereal quality to it. Those weird scenes I recalled from years ago still jumped out of the film, but all in all it is a jumbled mess.

It is hard to say why it falls apart though. It's like every single element in this film is slightly off. There is some stupid chicanery in the battle scenes (arrows in Besson world are like armor piercing rounds, but not of the lethal kind. They also fall for the hot oil myth and I haven't even begun talking about weird explosive rocks and scimitar carousels the English use to defend the walls of their fortress), but overall they are exciting enough.

There is also a  wonderful cast of character actors in this film. Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovitch, Vincent Cassel, Vincent Regan, Faye Dunaway and the list goes on and on. The only one who seems slightly miscast is ironically Joanne itself. Apparently Kathryn Bigelow was set to direct this, but she bowed out because she didn't want to work with Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc. 

I have never minded her too much in Resident Evil, but as Joan she's woefully inadequate. Her Joanne looks like she's on Ketamine for the duration of the film. She's all eyes, which are darting around everywhere the entire time. It's one of the least subtle portrayals of mental illness/religious fervor I have ever seen. I don't exactly hate it, but it's not as good as a movie about a figure like Joanne demands.

The movie also lacks drama, which is weird since it is excessively long at 02.30 h or thereabouts. There isn't a real villain, despite the fact that the English are slaughtered in droves during much of the runtime, Charles VII sells her out based on Faye Dunway's advice and the film ends with her burning at the stake. 

It's as if Besson looked at the early great films about Joanne, I always hear that those are master pieces more concerned with Joanne's psyche than with her actions and that Besson then decided that he wanted to ape them but make them cool and edgy by adding a lot of bullshit battles to it.

Safe to say he made the wrong choice, this is a film that will be forgotten in due time.

 

 

[Ran]

5 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I don't know much about drones, surely it's a pre-programmed flight path, and not a person with exceptional piloting skills? Even with that, it's exceptional coordination, the highlight to me being zooming between the bowler's legs as he took his turn.

It was piloted. There's no autonomous flight control for drones that is precise enough, not yet anyways. It took ten tries to get this shot, per the article.

Drone racing and stunt pilots are ridiculously skilled at the top levels.

[polishgenius]

I watched Raya and the Last Dragon. It was cool. Very pretty, nice action, some moments that kicked the feels. The baby was the real hero though.

[john]

Wow, impressive skills from that drone operator. The whole production is very well done, except for one bit where the girls says “my foot wasn’t over the line” and the guy replies “this is bowling, there’s rules” which sounded a bit lame.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, john said:

Wow, impressive skills from that drone operator. The whole production is very well done, except for one bit where the girls says “my foot wasn’t over the line” and the guy replies “this is bowling, there’s rules” which sounded a bit lame.

It's a Big Lebowski reference, but yes, could have been voiced a bit better:

Also, binged the second season of Warrior. It definitely ends in a way suggesting they had no reason to think the show wasn't getting a third season order, but presently it sounds like it's dead as Cinemax has stopped producing original content and some of the leads have signed up for other shows. Maybe they'll do something to give it a proper close out.

The action sequences were spectacular, but the writing... at the dialogue level, it's just mediocre at best, bad at worst. The general shape of the plot, the archetypes of characters and the conflicts between ethnic and class groups, that was intriguing enough and reminded me of what Deadwood did (but much, much, much worse). 

I did like the introduction of Chen Tang as Hong, the crazy, cocky young "onion" with a cool fighting style. He was amusing, even if he  felt like a stock "funny" character at times. 

[john]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

It's a Big Lebowski reference, but yes, could have been voiced a bit better

Ah, well, that’s a problem with me then. Tragically I’ve never seen it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Escape from New York is simply amazing. It's campy as hell, but if you buy into the premise, you'll love it. Russell is in his element, the pacing is really good and the level of detail the sets have is impressive. Might have to watch The Thing tonight to enjoy another entry in this actor-director pairing. Also, I had never heard of Adrienne Barbeau before, but damn. 

The Man in the Iron Mask really holds up in my opinion. Strong cast, good sets and costumes and the plot does actually make a lot of sense. I'm curious why it's largely forgotten by so many. Perhaps it was because of Leo's performances, but I think they were solid and showed the range he had that would led him to such a great career.