Watch, Watching, Watch -- Why do movies have to end so soon?

[TheLastWolf]

Why do fireflies have to die so soon? Why do movies have to be so sad? Still reeling from the after effects of watching Grave of the Fireflies, so numb that not even getting dumped has registered (though to be fair I was waiting for it). 

Anyway, as to the title, here are some long films for cinephiles to relish. Till Covid ducks off

[briantw]

Started Yellowstone.  It’s basically redneck Succession.  

[DireWolfSpirit]

S4 Ozarks on deck.

Let the binge begin.

[Nictarion]

The latest episode of Righteous Gemstones was hilarious. Everything with BJ’s baptism was just the best. Plus the return of Uncle Baby Billy!

[Isis]

Finished School of Chocolate, which I loved for the creativity and seeing what the incredible professional running the school was capable of - still slightly baffled by the attitude of some of the contestants who seemed to be almost solely focused on beating other contestants rather than on actually learning from a unique opportunity. If you like baking shows, you should watch it.

Halfway through my comfort blanket Lost re-watch. Found out today that there is a NINE hour playlist with the soundtrack. It's nothing amazing but it always was a pretty subtle, backgroundy type of score. I'm hoping it'll turn out to be another good playlist for having on while I am studying/working. I had forgotten how many cameos there are in this (Nathan Fillion, Kim Dickens, Samantha Mathis), also, the other way around too - people who were in the show that you maybe didn't know at the time (2006) and now you're like OH THAT'S THE GUY FROM WESTWORLD. 

After waiting for the Squid Game subtitles problem to get resolved we have accepted that isn't happening and decided to just watch it as it is, as it's clearly this or nothing.

[Fury Resurrected]

9 hours ago, Nictarion said:

The latest episode of Righteous Gemstones was hilarious. Everything with BJ’s baptism was just the best. Plus the return of Uncle Baby Billy!

John Goodman is just so great. I find literally every character on the show but him irritating and still love it

[john]

Re The Green Knight

@TheLastWolf 

Quote

The throne room sequences alone were dark IMO

Oh yeah? were you watching at home? Maybe I have to fiddle with my settings. The first act was certainly the worst but there were scenes throughout where it seemed far too dark. Still very much enjoyed the film so not a major problem.

[Zorral]

Seems odd that 100 long film list didn't include the works in Jerzy Hoffman's Polish trilogy -- still just about the best period warfare scenes on screen ever, and which affected Jackson a great deal in the LOtR screen trilogy, when it came to his depiction of orcs.  These are among my all time always favorite films.

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Isis said:

I had forgotten how many cameos there are in this (Nathan Fillion, Kim Dickens, Samantha Mathis), also, the other way around too - people who were in the show that you maybe didn't know at the time (2006) and now you're like OH THAT'S THE GUY FROM WESTWORLD. 

You omitted the best cameo - Rob McElhenney!

[TheLastWolf]

8 hours ago, john said:

Oh yeah? were you watching at home

Absolutely, OLED too. Haven't gone to the theaters since November 2019 (sob) covid wreaking havoc here. Plus got infected twice so paranoid family.

8 hours ago, john said:

Maybe I have to fiddle with my settings.

Yeah I had to too, the automatic modes on my Sony include stuff like Vivid, Picture, Music and more fancy shit. 

8 hours ago, john said:

Still very much enjoyed the film so not a major problem.

[TheLastWolf]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

Seems odd that 100 long film list didn't include the works in Jerzy Hoffman's Polish trilogy -- still just about the best period warfare scenes on screen ever, and which affected Jackson a great deal in the LOtR screen trilogy, when it came to his depiction of orcs.  These are among my all time always favorite films.

Thanks for bringing it to my notice, heard of it but could never keep it in my mind, time to update the watchlist...

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Whiplash: Y'know, I had never seen this film from start to finish for some reason. Amazing film. I deserves all the praise.

Fletcher is a fascinating character. He's clearly a manipulative psychopath, but I can't decide how much his nastiness and mood swings are sincere and how much is manipulation. And to what extent either is dedication to the craft or just plain screwing with people.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Whiplash: Y'know, I had never seen this film from start to finish for some reason. Amazing film. I deserves all the praise.

Fletcher is a fascinating character. He's clearly a manipulative psychopath, but I can't decide how much his nastiness and mood swings are sincere and how much is manipulation. And to what extent either is dedication to the craft or just plain screwing with people.  

The only way to developing those kind of acting chops is to season yourself by doing tutu-grams.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I bet the other Tu-Tu-Grammers went home every night and cried in their pillow. They were ashamed. They were desolated. To see that kind of dedication and intensity, and to find it lacking in themselves, cleaved their very souls. 

[TheLastWolf]

Focus, Will Smith and Margot Robbie really pulled it off, but I can't quite place my finger on what made it so endearing to me. Maybe that's the point of this heist of a film. Caper Cool

[Ramsay B.]

4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Whiplash: Y'know, I had never seen this film from start to finish for some reason. Amazing film. I deserves all the praise.

Fletcher is a fascinating character. He's clearly a manipulative psychopath, but I can't decide how much his nastiness and mood swings are sincere and how much is manipulation. And to what extent either is dedication to the craft or just plain screwing with people.  

I told a coworker about Whiplash went it first came out. He saw it and said it was just ok, and that he didn’t like how it ended. Needless to say we never talked about movies again.

[Crixus]

Dear White People on Netflix. I loved the first 3 seasons but not feeling this one, it's got a weird musical angle to it that I just can't seem to get into despite several attempts. 

Succession season 3 - brilliant, and tempted to do a rewatch!

LOTR extended triolgy - nth rewatch lol. Never gets old. 

@Isis you mentioned LOST being your comfort rewatch; mine too! How many times have you watched it? I think about 4 for me!

Spartacus (Starz) - another show I absolutely love and have binged several times. John Hannah and Lucy Lawless are just incredible in it (and loads of other cast members + epic OTT fights and battles, great music, surprisingly nuanced portrayal of slavery and all-round kick arse ending) 

[Zorral]

8 hours ago, Crixus said:

Dear White People on Netflix. I loved the first 3 seasons but not feeling this one, it's got a weird musical angle to it that I just can't seem to get into despite several attempts. 

Another victim of the long, uncertain Pandemic Pause; the momentum on all fronts from writers to actors to the viewers too, was lost.  Lucifer was another of those.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Gilded Age (2022) season one, HBO.

Ep. 1 –Eff the snootpantsy snobbish ignorant media lemmings. I liked it and was all in.  So there.

So many novels of the era have been adapted for the large and smaller screens, particularly those of Henry James, adapted by British film makers and the BBC too, as well as USians.  Yet, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novels set in this NYC milieu never got adapted though, any more than have those by Louisa May Alcott. There have been so many screen versions of Alcott’s Little Women, but the very strong post Civil War Gilded Age motifs weren’t included, until the very last one, just prior to Pandemic. Several of her most popular novels had strong social commentary on the era, such as Rose in Bloom and An Old-Fashioned Girl.

Among historical figures we've named checked a great great grandson of John Quincy Adams, some Roosevelts, but most of all, Sanford White, the great Gilded Age architect of the age.

Over night, thinking more about The Gilded Age, I was able to get to what it was about the show I liked -- and I have my class outrages like any other thinking person about this era, as we have about this one. I know in detail the horror show this country was in those ages for the poor (which are included in Alcott’s novels) while the-on-the-go rich and the corrupt political class worked hand-in-hand to trample their bodies and souls just as they liked while extracting ever more plundered wealth upwards, into their own pockets.

That all said, there is a sizzle to Fellowes' Gilded Age, at least in this first episode, that Downtown Abbey didn’t have, could not have had, due to being set in a Great Country House and estate, insulated from the outer world.

The Gilded Age is located New York City, well on its way to world dominance as a financial, mercantile and shipping hub, and, being the USA at this time, the Robber Barons even as individual financial powers are seeing their capital coming to world-wide dominion. This is age of the House of Morgan, fer pete's sake! The USA is about to start its imperial conquest outside North America in 1898. Whereas Downton Abbey is much about the slide the UK is beginning, with even the greatest families needing to marry into US financial princedoms in order to survive, which will become all the acute after WWI, when the US then sits on top of the dungheap instead.

Beyond that, though, most significantly, we have Black people in the show, who are also exploding with pent-up creativity with the end of slavery, despite all the horrors directed at them still. The American Black population was already at this time paving the highways that would have them on the way to world domination of pop culture with ragtime, jazz, various dances performed even in the nightclubs of Shanghai. It wasn't the Harlem Renaissance yet, but we're getting there.  Then, this morning I read this --  https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/01/25/gilded-age-black-women/

Black women in the writing room, who knew this could make such a difference Ha! Go Dunbar, director and executive producer Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and writer and co-executive producer Warfield!

Also many bold face theater names in a variety of roles, from shows such as Hamilton, which highly delights those who love the theater.

One does wonder if all the sorts who were sneering before any of us little people could see the first episode, and the lemmings rushing to agree with them before the first episode even debuted -- would they have been so snobbish if this was another Henry James adaptation of his ouvre which examines in fractal detail the toxic opulence of the age? Let them watch then The Alienist and Copper!

I did tire of DA long before it was finished, so may I of this one too, but for now I look forward to next Monday night at HBO.

 

[Maithanet]

15 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Whiplash: Y'know, I had never seen this film from start to finish for some reason. Amazing film. I deserves all the praise.

Fletcher is a fascinating character. He's clearly a manipulative psychopath, but I can't decide how much his nastiness and mood swings are sincere and how much is manipulation. And to what extent either is dedication to the craft or just plain screwing with people.  

 

11 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I told a coworker about Whiplash went it first came out. He saw it and said it was just ok, and that he didn’t like how it ended. Needless to say we never talked about movies again.

I liked Whiplash as a film, but I also found the ending unsatisfactory.  At the end, Fletcher invites Andrew to this big concert without giving Andrew the proper music, as revenge for getting him fired.  Andrew goes out and gives a virtuoso performance and this is portrayed as a moment of triumph for both Andrew and Fletcher.  But this wasn't a moment where Fletcher was hoping Andrew would rise to the occasion - Fletcher clearly intended for Andrew to fail and this to end his musical career.  Fletcher's happy ending is totally undeserved. 

And speaking on a thematic level, the ending is basically endorsing the idea that abuse is helpful in getting the most out of your talents.  I don't agree with that, and I don't like it.  Fletcher's horrendous behavior is not acceptable and the idea that it is OK because it makes people better is both dubious and dangerous.  If they wanted to make that argument, they would have been better served to dial it back a fair bit.  Tough love works well for some people, but abuse doesn't help anybody. 

[Ramsay B.]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

And speaking on a thematic level, the ending is basically endorsing the idea that abuse is helpful in getting the most out of your talents.  I don't agree with that, and I don't like it.  Fletcher's horrendous behavior is not acceptable and the idea that it is OK because it makes people better is both dubious and dangerous.  If they wanted to make that argument, they would have been better served to dial it back a fair bit.  Tough love works well for some people, but abuse doesn't help anybody. 

I get what you’re saying, but I just see it as a work of fiction so I can accept the darker theme, I guess, without it taking away from how much I like the movie. We should probably add spoilers also.

Spoiler

I just saw the ending as incredibly riveting. Fletcher was trying to totally fuck the guy who fucked him over(in his head he was innocent of course). It works for a second but Andrew fights through it and comes back to win his “rival” over in dramatic fashion, not realizing he lost the war in the end. The smile Andrew gives Fletcher at the end is triumphant and incredibly sad at the same time.

So I guess the bad guy does win, but I’m ok with that.