Last Movie You Watched? 7.0

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)

*SPOILERS*

A highly enjoyable foray into Cold War espionage. Admittedly I was expecting more of a "twist" at the end. Of the men labelled Tinker, Tailor, and Soldier the Colin Firth character was the most obvious candidate to be the Soviet mole... which is why I anticipated it'd be someone totally unexpected. Oh well. Nevertheless, a solidly executed spy film. Oldman was great in this.

Howabout the FRIDAY trilogy?

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Howabout the FRIDAY trilogy?

The first Friday is a classic. The second two are shit though.

I ain't seen a one of them.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012, dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Pretty good.

I saw two pretty long movies today.

DJANGO UNCHAINED

As the content suggests, DJANGO was the quicker, wittier, and more brutal of the two. Despite advertising itself as a Leone-style western, it doesn't look or act like it. Instead, it is very much a Tarantino film, even without leaning on the majority of the trademarks present in his contemporary works. Might as well call it KILL CANDIE instead. I did enjoy it immensely, with great chemistry from the entire cast.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

While I enjoyed it, I'm not 100% sold on the "Hobbit-Trilogy" idea working out in the end. The strength of the LOTR films lay in the second and third installments, with FELLOWSHIP setting the stage and the stakes. While the "padding" taken from other parts of Tolkien's canon works well within the film's realm, it will be the 2nd and 3rd films that will dictate how we view the first in the future.

That being said, AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY could use a trimming to remove some excessive plot elements, but that's really all. There is an lot of exposition in the first third of the film, particularly with it's use of flashbacks layered on flashbacks, that could have been spread out a bit more or eliminated entirely. Even with the extra content, AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY should only push past the 2 hour mark instead of being nearly 3.

I would not be surprised of Jackson has oodles of cut footage to be re-intergrated with the film in an Extended Edition release. Coming from someone who once marathoned all the Extended LOTR releases in one day, that might be excessive in this case.

Bloated upon bloated. LOTR was a source material that demanded long movies but someone evidently told Jackson that the reason people liked them wasnt that they were long. THE HOBBIT isnt long like LOTR was long, its long like KING KONG was long -- a short, simple story dragged out unceasingly for no rational cause.

The Theatrical Hobbit already feels like the Extended LOTR -- longer in a fashion that kills pacing and tries patiemce but adds interesting stuff that really only hardcore fans care about. Which is why it works well as an optional DVD and not at all in a theatre.

I get splitting it into three movies. Cash cow. I even get padding the story with the Gandalf/Necromancer stuff -- as a fan of the books I like seeing what Gandalf was up to when he buggered off dramatized, and it makes sense because it gives some LOTR style weight to an otherwise fluffy kids book. But do them as three 100 minute movies, not three installments of three hours. Its excessive, it bores an audience, its narrative and dramatically ineffective, and most important of all -- you will make less money, which is transparently the reason for everything else so why not this??

Harmsway wrote:

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012, dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Pretty good.

Define: "pretty good."

Nothing directed by Tarantino has ever been less than pretty good. Even DEATH PROOF is pretty good.

But I picked up PULP FICTION and JACKIE BROWN on Blu-ray a few days ago. Is DJANGO UNCHAINED remotely in the same league?

DJANGO UNCHAINED could reasonably be called Tarantino's best film, and it also could be reasonably called his worst. Tarantino's take on slavery is disreputable, exploitative, and offensive.

I dug it more than any new film I've seen in the past year.

Harmsway wrote:

DJANGO UNCHAINED could reasonably be called Tarantino's best film, and it also could be reasonably called his worst.

Precisely my view of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.

Harmsway wrote:

Tarantino's take on slavery is disreputable, exploitative, and offensive.

His take on everything is disreputable, exploitative and offensive.

Which is, of course, the whole point of Tarantino (arguably), but that's not to say that his work doesn't occasionally have a serious purpose. As he says: "We all intellectually 'know' the brutality and inhumanity of slavery, but after you do the research it's no longer intellectual any more, no longer just historical record – you feel it in your bones. It makes you angry, and want to do something … I'm here to tell you, that however bad things get in the movie, a lot worse shit actually happened."

"When slave narratives are done on film, they tend to be historical with a capital H, with an arms-length quality to them. I wanted to break that history-under-glass aspect, I wanted to throw a rock through that glass and shatter it for all times, and take you into it." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/dec/07/quentin-tarantino-slavery-django-unchained That was definitely the feeling I had when I read the script of DJANGO UNCHAINED (a couple of years ago, I think it was).

I gather DJANGO UNCHAINED opens in Britain on 18 January. I'll have to see it. I've always been a Tarantino fanboy. The man is a genius and a giant.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

This film is a mess. A pretty cool, often good-looking mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Nothing directed by Tarantino has ever been more than offensive, souless, adolescent sh**e. As destructive a force on cinema as Ayn Rand has been on politics.

The sooner that man dies, the better off the world will be.

I watched an interview with Tarantino and Foxx about their work on DJANGO UNCHAINED. Their views on slavery in US were so simple and bone-headed.

Typical for Tarantino to write and direct something that he doesn't remotely understand. Take an important period of history, boil it down to bad guy vs. good guy, slap a half-assed revenge story onto it, and profit.

Control wrote:

I watched an interview with Tarantino and Foxx about their work on DJANGO UNCHAINED. Their views on slavery in US were so simple and bone-headed.

Typical for Tarantino to write and direct something that he doesn't remotely understand. Take an important period of history, boil it down to bad guy vs. good guy, slap a half-assed revenge story onto it, and profit.

The good vs evil angle disappoints when you describe it this way ... I'd've figured he would look at figures who could be contradictory and textured.

Guess I was hoping for JOHN BROWN instead of JACKIE BROWN.

To be fair, I'm not sure how it unfolds in the film.

But if INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is any indication, then DJANGO UNCHAINED will most likely be similar. Good guy must brutally torture and kill bad guy, because it's fun and cool, in Tarantino's book.

The film is very Tarantino in every respect, but there is something new in DJANGO, and that is anger. DJANGO is powered by searing, ferocious anger. There is a key moment in the latter half of the film where a character, who is, really, the film's conscience, takes a principled stand at the cost of victory. The moral quandaries throughout the film reach a head in that moment, which unleashes righteous fury on the "genteel American south."

That moment is, by far, my favorite cinematic moment in the whole of Tarantino's body of work.

Inglorious Basterds is one of the worst movies I`ve seen in the last few years and it taught me to be very wary of Tarantino. That said I`m really looking forward to Django and will see it the first change I get.

If you didn't like BASTERDS at all, stay far away from DJANGO.

Harmsway wrote:

If you didn't like BASTERDS at all, stay far away from DJANGO.

I can`t help it. Tarantino is one of those filmmakers who has impressed me enough in the past that I`ll probably always be willing to check out something he puts out. My problem with Basterds was that he couldn`t keep his impulses toward irrelevant juvenile stupidity from detracting from what was otherwise a very solid story. Also, the violence often felt over the top, even smutty. Would you say this as well about Django?

Drax wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

If you didn't like BASTERDS at all, stay far away from DJANGO.

I can`t help it. Tarantino is one of those filmmakers who has impressed me enough in the past that I`ll probably always be willing to check out something he puts out. My problem with Basterds was that he couldn`t keep his impulses toward irrelevant juvenile stupidity from detracting from what was otherwise a very solid story. Also, the violence often felt over the top, even smutty. Would you say this as well about Django?

DJANGO is Tarantino's most consistent film to date. The story is told chronologically, without significant detours. It is subsequently more focused than BASTERDS. But like BASTERDS it has some big tonal shifts. Some parts are graver than anything Tarantino has done to date, others could be excerpts from BLAZING SADDLES.

The violence in DJANGO is either brutal and real (any time violence is inflicted on slaves) or wildly over-the-top (any time apocalyptic vengeance is wreaked on the perpetrators of slavery).

Took trip to Fry's to pick up TDK trilogy on blu, then rewatched TDKR.

I remove some of my reservations and criticisms from the one theatrical viewing (largely because I could turn on subtitles and understand what Bane was saying when he pulverized Bats in mid-film), so I'm going to say I really really like it. Still too long, but I felt that way about TDK as well. I think I still rank them as they were released, BB best, TDK 2nd and this 3rd, mainly because I think the first two really reinforce one another, whereas this one ... I dunno, there's some dot the i/cross the t stuff that I didn't need.

Oddly, there's nothing on or in the box indicating what the special features are on any of the supplemental disks. There is a sample of the ART&MAKING book with the discs, which makes me think the book must have tanked.

Also rewatched FUNNY FARM, which I very much enjoy, as it seems to use Chase properly.

trevanian wrote:

Also rewatched FUNNY FARM, which I very much enjoy, as it seems to use Chase properly.

Love that movie.

Rope (1948, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

I used to think it was great, but it didn't convince me this time. The ending is strangely solemn in tone and doesn't fit the superficial stuff about "geniuses that think of themselves as being morally irresponisble because of their perceived intellectual superiority" that went on before it. It isn't convincing in characterisation, in plotting (Steward's getting clues about the murder works only partially), and the fact that the whole film seemingly consists of one shot only (after the first cut) does not help the quality of the movie at all. What would have helped are some cuts. I love cuts. Hitchcock was master of montage.
And a better script. It's not a bad film, but half-hearted. I'd rank it with MARNIE and TORN CURTAIN lowest on my Hitchcock list as sub-standard, but still decent Hitchcock. Then FRENZY. (Not great but mostly well made).


Bringing Up Baby (1938, dir. Howard Hawks)

Quite funny film, much more intelligent than comedies of the recent 30 years. Has really funny characters and dialogue lines and events next to the slapstick stuff. How anybody can hate this. Humorless???


Mort d'un pourri (1977, dir. Georges Lautner)

This film has some lovely cinematography and one of the best uses of a (mostly) jazz score I've seen. The mystery is well written and presented, there are some good suspense scenes and even some resonably down-to-earth action. Delon is fine, the other actors good as well. Kinski is in it, for pleasures (the father, not the daughter). The atmosphere is superb throughout. The mystery, conspiracy angles, the philosophical bits (particularly at the end) are well handled, nothing is stupid (á la P&W and their ilk), nothing on the nose.
I am pretty sure that, to my surprise, I must have seen this already as a kid. What seemed familiar were the scene in which the murderer is being trapped, and the commissaire with the cool mustache, particularly the bit I captured below.
Right at the beginning, Xavier's (Delon) friend tells him about how he murdered someone "accidentally", but a greatly filmed flash back reveals that he is lying. This already sets the tone and sets up the themes for the movie. There is also a nicely made POV murder scene. I truly love this film.
French cinema has often been great.
































Ed Wood (1994, dir. Tim Burton)

Watched it for the second time, and enjoyed it much more this time (had already quite liked it on first inspection). Smartly funny and warmhearted. Landau is great. Probably really Burton's best.

I think EASILY Burton's best. A script that probably attracted actors like honey for bees, coupled with what was probably a great deal of affinity on his part for the material.

I haven't been able to even enjoy his movies made in this century (maybe he lost his talent along with his mind when he downgraded from Lisa Marie to that crazy Helena chick?)