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Watch Watched Watching: The Rambunctious Cinema of Terrence Malick


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4 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Just finished the Jackie Chan classic The Drunken Master (1978). Never seen it before and I totally regret it. I had to watch it dubbed and it's absolutely horrendous to listen to. The humor in it was juvenile, the sound effects seemed to come straight out of a scary movie spoof and there was no real story line to speak off. I also didn't like the fights. Perhaps this was cutting edge in the Seventies, but they just looked fake to me. I know realism isn't exactly Chan's strong suit, but in his films from the nineties there is enough inventiveness in it to make it work. Here it was just endless. Thank God for the smartphone, that was the only thing that made this mess enjoyable.

The first one is trash. 

The second one is amazeballs.

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5 hours ago, Kaligator said:

The first one is trash. 

The second one is amazeballs.

Hmmm, I hope you are right, but I'm not sure whether I want to put this to the test. The first entry is really bad :crying:

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3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Hmmm, I hope you are right, but I'm not sure whether I want to put this to the test. The first entry is really bad :crying:

I second Kal's recommendation. The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) is arguably Chan's best movie. Throughout the 80's he definitely honed his craft, as well as that of all his stunt collaborators and production team, and cultivated a style of action-comedy Buster Keaton and Charlie Chapman (whose works Chan admired) would've been proud of. Legend of Drunken Master showcases all that skill.

Don't know how you got roped into watching a 70s Kung-Fu flick, those were great in the day but that day was 40yrs ago. Still if you want a watchable example of where Chan was heading towards from that era, then The Young Master (1980) is worth checking out. Not as good as TLoDM but has a decent story you can follow with much better production values than Drunken Master, which was only two years prior, and it shows.   

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Watched Black Widow at the theatre over the weekend, decent turn out, most I've seen post Covid. The movie itself was lacking something, just not sure what. For an action movie it felt slow and I found myself bored. Had a few things that stood out as errors can only remember two right now

Spoiler

On the helicopter the girls couldn't hear Capt Russia speak because they had head sets on, then a min later he and BW are talking and without head sets and the other lead still has hers on and she can hear them.

A more glaring error was the swap of Scarlett and her "mom", how they used masks to become each other. Problem is how did Scarlett all of a sudden know where to fly to in  order to find the red room? I mean are we to assume her mom gave her coordinates to it (btw it's always moving)? Did I miss something because that is entirely possible?

 

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44 minutes ago, ithanos said:

I second Kal's recommendation. The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) is arguably Chan's best movie. Throughout the 80's he definitely honed his craft, as well as that of all his stunt collaborators and production team, and cultivated a style of action-comedy Buster Keaton and Charlie Chapman (whose works Chan admired) would've been proud of. Legend of Drunken Master showcases all that skill.

Don't know how you got roped into watching a 70s Kung-Fu flick, those were great in the day but that day was 40yrs ago. Still if you want a watchable example of where Chan was heading towards from that era, then The Young Master (1980) is worth checking out. Not as good as TLoDM but has a decent story you can follow with much better production values than Drunken Master, which was only two years prior, and it shows.   

I found a list with a summary of the 10 most iconic Jackie Chan films and I decided to watch a few I hadn't seen yet. The Drunken Master was the first on that list and hasn't inspired me with a lot of confidence XD

His best film is quite high praise though, so the two of you have made me curious :o

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9 hours ago, Veltigar said:

I found a list with a summary of the 10 most iconic Jackie Chan films and I decided to watch a few I hadn't seen yet. The Drunken Master was the first on that list and hasn't inspired me with a lot of confidence XD

His best film is quite high praise though, so the two of you have made me curious :o

I don't like his early stuff either. It's before he really got to have a voice in things and the choreography and stunt work is very, very basic. 

But then he got to start really choosing what he wanted to do and how, and soon it became Jackie Chan films. And those are largely awesome. Starting with the Young Master, you start getting into his crossover with some of his other pals (Sammo Hung for instance) and get things like Police Story and Armour of God, and then you get into things like Drunken Master 2. 

Now, keep in mind that the plots aren't anything special and the dialogue is often stupid, but the choreography, fight sequences and stunts are fucking FANTASTIC. 

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On 7/11/2021 at 12:29 PM, Veltigar said:

I got stalled in season 2 of Friday Night Lights (which really is a huge drop in charm and quality in comparison to season one), so I'm sort of stuck in my old classic series discovery journey.

I'm wrapping up my Deadwood re-watch and there's really just nothing else like it. I can't stress enough how great it is, or how much better than Justified it is.

But give me a week and I'll check out the show about angsty teens playing football and report back!

 

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Yesterday I watched Shirley. Another story about a man being a scumbag in academia (seems like my theme of 2021 and I hate it!). I mean, that's not what the film is about per se, but it's a pretty key element of the film for two of the women in it. Elizabeth Moss is very convincing as the OTT depressed shut-in author. The film is so dim and dingy in terms of lighting, it's not always easy to see what is going on - that's a metaphor I guess. In summary, it was ok, but I was expecting more from it.

We watched The American Barbecue Showdown this weekend on Netflix. Really enjoyed it. Unlike lots of US shows about cooking, this one didn't involve any of that fake conflict nonsense where contestants are encouraged to slag each other off. In fact, it was the opposite of that, which was very refreshing. I think that the two 'presenters' were surplus to requirements though. Didn't feel like they needed to be there or that they added anything (other than nausea at the woman's disgusting long claws). The judges themselves went round and spoke to the contestants frequently so it felt like that would have been adequate without the two presenters. Contrast it with either Bake Off (amateur) or Bake Off The Professionals which both have effective presenters, in addition to the judges, who are an integral part of the show and actually have roles to perform.

One really odd thing was the way 'game meat' was discussed. They all (judges, contestants) talked about getting the gamey taste out of the meat... that feels weird compared to how game is treated in Europe. Priviliged people hunt and eat game because it is a luxury meat - stuff like venison - people enjoy eating it BECAUSE it has intense flavour. Trying to imagine British chefs being like 'got to get that gamey flavour out of that really expenise venison'. Or,  oh no, hare/rabbit please, that's got too much flavour for me'. :rofl:

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9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just hit the midway point of season two of The Man in the High Castle. I'm not sure how good this show actually is, but it's getting pretty entertaining.

 

Funny, I think I quit watching in S2

Spoiler

When they really started the parallel universe cross over shit it just lost my attention 

 

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Just saw the new Honest trailer for Ted Lasso and it makes me so ready to watch season 2 soon :D

 

14 hours ago, RumHam said:

I'm wrapping up my Deadwood re-watch and there's really just nothing else like it. I can't stress enough how great it is, or how much better than Justified it is.

But give me a week and I'll check out the show about angsty teens playing football and report back!

 

I mean that's an accurate description of season two, but season one was a wholly different animal :) 

I'm a sucker for the ending of Justified though, so I'm curious how I'd look at things.

21 hours ago, Kaligator said:

I don't like his early stuff either. It's before he really got to have a voice in things and the choreography and stunt work is very, very basic. 

But then he got to start really choosing what he wanted to do and how, and soon it became Jackie Chan films. And those are largely awesome. Starting with the Young Master, you start getting into his crossover with some of his other pals (Sammo Hung for instance) and get things like Police Story and Armour of God, and then you get into things like Drunken Master 2. 

Now, keep in mind that the plots aren't anything special and the dialogue is often stupid, but the choreography, fight sequences and stunts are fucking FANTASTIC

I actually watched Drunken Master 2 and I largely agree. I did find the perfect way to drown out the stupidity of the dialogue and that's by just watching the subbed version. For some reason, the dubs seem to make these kung fu films like a 1000 times worse. 


I got to thank you and @ithanos for talking up the film. I was in the mood for some nostalgic Chan films, but after the first one I probably would have skipped this and that would have been a crying shame. The action in this, particularly at the end was insanely good and that alone made it well worth it.

It does make me wonder how this type of action insanity would play in a film that also had a more sophisticated plot and characters. That would be one for the ages.

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5 hours ago, dbunting said:

Funny, I think I quit watching in S2

  Reveal hidden contents

When they really started the parallel universe cross over shit it just lost my attention 

 

 

Spoiler

I'm just getting to that part, so we'll see how it goes. But to be fair it was there from the start, the viewer just can't know how they were going to approach it. I hear it really goes off the rails in the 3rd and 4th seasons.

 

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1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

I got to thank you and @ithanos for talking up the film. I was in the mood for some nostalgic Chan films, but after the first one I probably would have skipped this and that would have been a crying shame. The action in this, particularly at the end was insanely good and that alone made it well worth it.

It does make me wonder how this type of action insanity would play in a film that also had a more sophisticated plot and characters. That would be one for the ages.

Like, I know intellectually that parts of it aren't awesome, but if you don't want to run through a wall after watching the last 15 minute fight scene in the foundry I wonder if you have a pulse. Chan's eyes alone when he's drinking the industrial fuel and how well he physically acts, the great nice long, wide shots that show all the action...the only action director I've seen that comes close to this sort of thing is George Miller. It's beautiful. 

When it came out I ended up seeing it on three  consecutive nights in the theater with three different groups of friends because it was that amazing and all of those groups thought it was that good. Also, watching a movie like this in the theater is pretty brilliant too. 

For a bit more silliness that's also awesome I'd recommend Kung Fu Hustle. It's not as amazing in stunts, but it's got great physical humor and gags and is Stephen Chow's absolute best, IMO. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373074/

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If you decide, correctly, to watch the delightful Kung Fu Hustle, I recommend the subtitled version. Some of the humor will bounce off Western audiences regardless, but I think the dub is woefully unfunny. Then again, I am super biased against dubbed anything regardless.

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Watched the latest episode of Rick and Morty. It was a bid of a dud, but a step up from last week, so that's a win.

1 hour ago, Kaligator said:

Like, I know intellectually that parts of it aren't awesome, but if you don't want to run through a wall after watching the last 15 minute fight scene in the foundry I wonder if you have a pulse. Chan's eyes alone when he's drinking the industrial fuel and how well he physically acts, the great nice long, wide shots that show all the action...the only action director I've seen that comes close to this sort of thing is George Miller. It's beautiful. 

When it came out I ended up seeing it on three  consecutive nights in the theater with three different groups of friends because it was that amazing and all of those groups thought it was that good. Also, watching a movie like this in the theater is pretty brilliant too. 

 

I hope I can find the fight scene on YouTube, because I do think that's one I'll rewatch occasionally. Chan's physical acting is indeed amazing. Roger Ebert puts him right up there with Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and other great stars of physical comedy and that's a fair addition in my eyes.

 

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

If you decide, correctly, to watch the delightful Kung Fu Hustle, I recommend the subtitled version. Some of the humor will bounce off Western audiences regardless, but I think the dub is woefully unfunny. Then again, I am super biased against dubbed anything regardless.

Already seen it a couple of years back. I enjoyed it :) 

Spoiler

At least I think, they all turn out to be retired kung fu masters right? (e.g. the woman with the curlers in her hair and her husband at the ver least and I think there were others)

 

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Get Carter.  I don't know how this movie escaped me until now.

Peak Michael Caine, gritty, ugly 70s England, 70s violence, 70s grim plot.   With that as his debut, I would have thought Hodges would have had a more high profile career.

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