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[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, mormont said:

Has its points, but probably the second weakest Indy film after Temple of Doom

Can only imagine you missed Crystal Skull somewhere in this list. 

[mormont]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Can only imagine you missed Crystal Skull somewhere in this list. 

It's right above Dial of Destiny, vying with Last Crusade.

The dirty secret though is that honestly, none of the Indy films are as good as we want them to be.

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

The dirty secret though is that honestly, none of the Indy films are as good as we want them to be.

A secret so hidden by the fact it’s just not true. 

 

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's right above Dial of Destiny, vying with Last Crusade

Trying to understand what this list looks like, right now it feels like a medieval riddle. 

[mormont]

It's a topic I'm happy to expand on, but the basic issue is this: the Indy films were from the start nostalgia. But the things they were nostalgic for, the old Republic adventure serials, were based on some frankly racist tropes about exotic primitive cultures which existed as a playground for the white male protagonist to explore and show off in. The Indy films reflect this to a greater or lesser degree, with Temple of Doom being by far the worst offender. (This is why you actually can't make this kind of film any more. That concept is simply out of date in an interconnected world where you can easily find out about and are expected to understand actual foreign cultures, instead of exoticising them.)

The later films, Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny, try to steer away from this somewhat, and Dial is probably the more successful there, but Dial  has the problem instead that where Skull was trying to do something different with the franchise, Dial has nothing to offer but nostalgia - not for the Republic serials, but for the original Indy films, Raiders in particular. It's nostalgia for something that was already nostalgia. And the layering means that the original nostalgia has been erased. It's just callback after callback, but the original magic has gone. Everything in it feels derivative, because it is.

Maybe it could have worked despite that, but in the event, as I say, the actual film is just pretty badly made, into the bargain. Some of the CGI is poor, the script (as noted) is a mess, the film is overlong, and Ford doesn't seem interested.

There are some nice stunts and Phoebe Waller Bridge isn't bad. And I did get to see my friend on the big screen.

[Heartofice]

I guess if your barometer of quality is whether it aligns to your particular pogressive woke prejudices then it’s easy to see what Crystal Skull suddenly stops being an utter turd of a movie, or why The Marvels is somehow good. 
 

 

[Ran]

Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for 9 Oscars, winning 5. It was a nominee in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score. It's a phenomenal film, and is so good that it's on Sight and Sound's 250 greatest films at #211, it's #66 in the AFI's list of the 100 greatest American movies. 

If someone doesn't lthink it's all that great for whatever reason, that's their view, but it's in the 21st century's canon of great films, so far. Maybe the 22nd century will think different.

Speaking of great films, watched Bull Durham thanks to the Screen Drafts podcast having an 80s sports movie draft that gave me a yen to see it. I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never sat down to watch it starts to finish, and it really holds up -- the authenticity of minor league ball, the performances from Tim Robbins's comedic awkwardness to Susan Sarandon's sweltering passion (for baseball, and baseball players), Kevin Costner does what Costner does best -- very well. Great film.

This does make me wonder something, though. The draft from the podcast was 100% American films, but in the "discards" someone did bring up Chariots of Fire, the only Oscar winner among the films they could have picked but didn't. But, of course, it's also a British film. And that led me to wonder: do you Brits or Aussies actually bother watching American sports films? Like, Field of Dreams or The Natural, or Bull Durham for that matter? Hoosiers? Obviously, the experience of sports is universal, but I wonder if sports that aren't really played in your country are of much interest when dramatized or fictionalized.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Ran

[mormont]

Nobody's saying Raiders isn't great. If anything, the problem might be that it's too good, because it became more than the nostalgia piece it was meant to be. That's the root of the issues the series later encounters.

It does have some problems, though. Plot holes, the aforementioned exoticisation of other cultures and so on. And it can be great, while still not being as good as we want it to be in our minds and memories, while showing its flaws in a way it maybe didn't forty years ago.

You can usefully compare it, I think, to Star Wars, another film that is great, but has inherent problems that dog the franchise moving forward. The differemce is that Star Wars is a much more adaptable and resilient franchise. And also that Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are much better sequels than Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, though the respective third instalments are closer than the second.

[Heartofice]

Maybe you can’t make movies like the Indiana Jones trilogy any more ( yes it’s a trilogy), and maybe that is for the reasons Mormont stated above, but that has more to do with the hyper sensitive, offense seeking media landscape than anything material to do with those movies. Again, if you watch those movies and you cannot appreciate their qualities because it doesn’t fit in with your own prejudices then, well I just feel sorry for you honestly.

If we can’t make movies that good any more , and it seems to be REALLY hard to make good blockbuster action adventures now, maybe one of the reasons is because movie makers don’t actually understand what made those movies good in the first place, and are using all the wrong metrics to judge quality. 

[Darryk]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for 9 Oscars, winning 5. It was a nominee in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score. It's a phenomenal film, and is so good that it's on Sight and Sound's 250 greatest films at #211, it's #66 in the AFI's list of the 100 greatest American movies. 

Hard to believe it didn't win Best Picture.

26 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Maybe you can’t make movies like the Indiana Jones trilogy any more ( yes it’s a trilogy), and maybe that is for the reasons Mormont stated above, but that has more to do with the hyper sensitive, offense seeking media landscape than anything material to do with those movies. Again, if you watch those movies and you cannot appreciate their qualities because it doesn’t fit in with your own prejudices then, well I just feel sorry for you honestly.

If we can’t make movies that good any more , and it seems to be REALLY hard to make good blockbuster action adventures now, maybe one of the reasons is because movie makers don’t actually understand what made those movies good in the first place, and are using all the wrong metrics to judge quality. 

They can make Indiana Jones films just cast Pedro Pascal.

[Veltigar]

Given the mentions of Hannibal Lecter in this thread, I was triggered to give The Silence of The Lambs another watch. I barely remembered it (I think I read the book and might have never seen the film in full) and have a much better recollection of its sequels, which used to be on television constantly. It's safe to say that I found out that the sequels are really inferior compared to the genuine article.

I thought the film was really strong, with convincing performances by Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. I also thought the story was developed rather nicely (with perhaps the one exception of the first victim of Bill, which deviated from the book and is a bit puzzling) and that the focus on the roadblocks and advantages Clarice Starling had in law enforcement were executed exceedingly well. Sadly enough, despite the positive progress we have made since 1991, I think this is still far to identifiable for a lot of women.

My favourite adaptation of the story will always remain NBC's Hannibal and Mads Mikkelsen remains my Hannibal, but I appreciate how strong this film was and how it basically paved the way for all what came after.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

The dirty secret though is that honestly, none of the Indy films are as good as we want them to be.

 

52 minutes ago, mormont said:

Nobody's saying Raiders isn't great.

Idk how you square these two statements. 

Anyways, Leave The World Behind is a really hard movie to grade. It feels like they got most of it right, but the things they didn't are difficult to ignore. Especially:

Spoiler

The ending fucking sucks. 

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Ran]

23 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Hard to believe it didn't win Best Picture.

It was the aforementioned Chariots of Fire that took the prize that year.

I dare say Reds would have won otherwise that year.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

It was the aforementioned Chariots of Fire that took the prize that year.

I dare say Reds would have won otherwise that year.

Still isn’t as bad as fucking Annie Hall winning against Star Wars….

[Darryk]

Academy Awards are willing to nominate adventure films but always opt for more arty films when determining the winner.

Glad they were willing to make an exception with The Lord of the Rings.

 

[Ran]

Just now, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Still isn’t as bad as fucking Annie Hall winning against Star Wars….

Annie Hall is a fantastic film, and took best actress and best director on top of best picture. Not a surprise, not a travesty.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

and it seems to be REALLY hard to make good blockbuster action adventures now,

 

It always was really hard. It's not as if there was a stream of yearly classics back in the day. The reason there's less really quality ones is almost entirely because Steven Spielberg isn't as good anymore. 

 

The percentage is massively lower, admittedly, since a lot more are being attempted.

[Heartofice]

Yeah Annie Hall is a classic. Deserves an Oscar more than Star Wars. 
 

However, we are long past the point of Oscar’s ever being a measure of how good a movie is. There is a reason certain movies are labelled ‘Oscar bait’, usually because it’s so predictable what type of movie is likely to win. 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It always was really hard. It's not as if there was a stream of yearly classics back in the day. The reason there's less really quality ones is almost entirely because Steven Spielberg isn't as good anymore. 

Dont disagree. It does seem to be even harder these days, though mainly it’s due to economic pressures to create something that isn’t just a movie but a franchise. There are other influences that don’t help, but the corporate one I’d guess is the big one wrecking creative work. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

19 minutes ago, Ran said:

Annie Hall is a fantastic film, and took best actress and best director on top of best picture. Not a surprise, not a travesty.

How is it any different then When Harry Met Sally ? Ya I know the latter came out later but it’s the same formula. It’s not a bad film, quite a solid rom com and a typical Woody Allen flick, but it didn’t change the world like SW did. SW is a timeless classic like Gone with the Wind, whereas most people have forgotten Annie Hall ever existed.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

"Most people" is a recipe for everything being lowest-common-denominator franchises. More people know about Fast X than know about Annie Hall, maybe -- means nothing. 

 Annie Hall is on all the same best ever lists that Star Wars is on. It was absolutely an appropriate winner, and certainly not a travesty in any way.