Saturday, September 26, 2015

Weekend Open Thread

Faced! Scratch-moded.

We're just a few days away from #ScaryMovieMonth, which I'm so excited about that I suspect my head will explode before October 1st gets here. Let's get our non-SMM conversation out of the way now.

But first, a question from a listener that I'd like to put to all of you for help. Jonathan M. writes:
"I wanted to inquire if there was anyway to download older podcasts (beyond the most recent 99).  I know on the website you can stream all podcasts, but I didn't know how to download them to a podcast player (smartphone, etc.) to avoid data drain."

Who can help him out? How do you all listen?

58 comments:

  1. I hook my MP3 player (i.e. smartphone) to my laptop with a micro-USB to USB cable. I have a micro-SD card in the phone/player exclusively for podcasts, which I open when the laptop and player are linked. I right-click 'Download' on the F This Movie website's link for the podcast, download it to the laptop folder I have assigned to FTM, open the folder's window and then drag the file I just downloaded to the MP3 player window. Voila! FTM podcasts (and Down in Front, and Junk Food Dinner, and Projection Booth, etc.) on my MP3 player.

    And now... DING! DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

    Before we spend a whole month wallowing in non-stop horror and cinematic depravity, how about a little Junesploitation-in-September palette cleanser? I present to you 1980's "Night of the Juggler" (YouTube link), which I saw in 35mm recently at a Brooklyn theater packed with cynical New Yorkers that went wild for it. A grindhouse flick that breathes and exudes late 70's New York City atmosphere, it stars James Brolin (Josh's dad) as a former NYPD cop whose daughter is kidnapped by a psycho who mistakes her for somebody else. The less you know going in the better. Basically the entire economical and social decay of NYC in the late 70's conspires to throw every obstacle imaginable in Brolin's way: corrupt cops, indifferent prostitutes, rich folks who don't give a fuck, gangs straight out of Enzo G. Castellari movies (except these are mean blood-thirsty animals), a blue blood ex-wife from Connecticut, etc. You want a car chase through Central Park (with Mandy Patinkin playing a Puerto Rican cabbie) that makes the one in "Die Hard with a Vengeance" look restrained? How about a "God Told Me To"-like shootout in Midtown Manhattan with a crazed Dan Hedaya? What about Clemenza from "The Godfather" as a comic relief NYPD cop? Check on all these, plus enough Times Square nudie scenes and stereotypical minorities to choke "Death Wish III" on the real Wild West frontier that was the South Bronx in the late 70's/early 80's (instead of the pretend London set it's pretend gang members pranced around).

    Since "Night of the Juggler" isn't available on DVD (why??!!) the YouTube link above is the closest most of you will come to seeing it. The beat-to-shit 35mm print I saw in Brooklyn didn't look that much better, but it was widescreen and had better blacks than the compressed-artifacts in the YouTube transfer. But damn, boy (or girl), if you want a 100% grindhouse flick that's better-made and more exciting than most movies that have come out in theaters over the past few months check out "Night of the Juggler." It's one hell of a pre-Scary Movie Month appetizer, and comes very highly recommended.

    Now excuse me while I get some rest. There's a noon 35mm screening for Martha Coolidge's new-to-me "Real Genius" at the same theater I saw "Juggler" at with a seat reserved for 'moi.' Ain't New York grand? :-).

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  2. So today I'm mostly recuperating from five days of movie festival goodness. I was at the Helsinki International Film Festival (or Love & Anarchy as it's affectionately called here) and watched 17 festival movies in five days (plus three non-festival movies).

    Grandma was a joy and Lily Tomlin's lead performance exceptional. A nice change to see a movie where all the lead characters are women and the men are relegated to the sidelines. Great performances all round from Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer and Sam Elliott.

    The Swedes are so much better at making movies than we Finns are. From the Depths of My Heart and Flocking both were terrific and really affecting. From the Depths of My Heart is a story about a canoe trip, but mostly it's about dealing with trauma and how fragile the human mind (and body) is. An incredibly beautiful, thoughtful, even poetic movie with a horror tinge. Flocking has a lot of the same themes as The Hunt (the Oscar nom from 2012 with Mads Mikkelsen) - a small community turns against one individual, this time a girl who accuses a popular boy of rape - and I think it tells the story better than The Hunt did. I felt empty after seeing it.

    The Ice and the Sky was an incredible documentary about Claude Lorius, the French scientist who discovered you could see into the planet's past climates by examining the layers of ice in Antarctica. The story of his struggles is amazing and the movie reminds us that we have to do something before we ruin the planet forever.

    The two movies I anticipated the most didn't disappoint. Turbo Kid was hella fun and really entertaining. I'm not in love with the movie like some here are, but it'll still probably fit into my top 10 at year's end. Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy is a really simple story about the balance of power in a relationship, but it takes place in a weird alternate universe where there are no men and everyone is fascinated by lepidoptery. It's slow to unravel and I can see why some people have called it all style and no substance, but I loved every minute of it.

    My absolute favorite movie of the festival was Liza the Fox-Fairy, a Hungarian fantasy-comedy-romance about a woman who starts to think she's a fox-fairy, a Japanese legend of a woman who is destined to kill every man who loves her. It has Amélie levels of quirk but with more dark and morbid humor and fantasy elements. The setting, 70's Budapest where Western influence is starting to creep in, is great and the cinematography is beautiful. I love it!

    Those were the highlights I guess. Sorry for rambling on for so long.

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    1. Mikko, I love hearing about movies like these from other countries -- movie-goers in the US don't get enough chance to learn about cool movies from other countries! Thank you for sharing here. The only problem is now I want to see ALL of these movies. :) (Actually, I've already seen Turbo Kid, which I loved -- and Grandma, which I didn't love as much as you did but I heartily agree about the great performances and about how refreshing it was to see genuine and complex female characters.) I'd love to attend the Helsinki Film Fest someday! I've visited Finland a couple times and it's so beautiful.

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  3. I'm lacking in my Van Damme movie viewing. I just watched the first Universal Soldier and I've seen Bloodsport and Sudden Death. What are some of your favorites that you guys can recommend for me?

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    1. Yes to Hard Target. Also Nowhere to Run, Enemies Closer, Timecop and Cyborg

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    2. Cyborg is so underrated and its amazing. Double Impact is fun and I actually like Death Warrant quite a bit.

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    3. And then Hard Target again.

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    4. I know it's ridiculously bad, but I'm quite fond of Double Team.

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    5. Awesome thanks guys. I was ready to watch Cyborg today but they took it off netflix which sucks. I watched Universal Soldier Regeneration which kicked ass and now I'm on to Day of Reckoning. Hard Target is next on my list.

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    6. That is an amazing triple feature, sir!

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  4. For all the De Palma fans out there, I've stumbled across a blog known as I Talk You Bored (italkyoubored.wordpress.com). It's run by a guy named F. Fred Palakon. The blog has a terrific extended analysis of Dressed to Kill, replete with many screencaps and a few video clips. I think it's pretty interesting, and it's the only analysis of the film I know of that addresses Kate's curious double-take just before she goes into Warren Lockman's building.

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    1. That's interesting, Thank you, I recently bought the lovely ArrowVideo Bluray, very nice it is too

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    2. I have the Arrow release of Obsession, and have to say they make really nice editions.

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    3. Obsession is a slept on DePalma film. Maybe his biggest rip-off/Homage (whichever place you stand on that) but I think it's great!

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    4. I love Arrow
      The Demons 1 and 2 steelbook bluray is my favourite thing I own, its a piece of art

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  5. In regards to Jonathan's question: On your smartphone, if you hold down on the direct download link on the podcasts page, you should get a list of options that would be similar to a "right click" on a laptop or desktop. Then you can just "save link as" into your music library. Might work differently on different phones, but it works for me (I downloaded the Top Gun podcast just the other day.)

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    1. That's what I do, same as Brian and download over Wifi at home or where ever so as not to use my own mobile data useage

      Interestingly If I never mentioned it before I have a Yamaha surround sound amp, Adventage range for any sound geeks out there like myself, but on the livestream radio connection over the internet on the Yamaha receivers you can go to options, then to podcasts, then to entertainment, then to Movies, then pops up a big list of streaming Movie related podcasts and FthisMovie is right there ;)

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    2. Oh... my... gosh. You just revolutionized my life.

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    3. Yeah I don't use iTunes so anything I listen to I just download at home on my wi-fi, unless it's How Did This Get Made and it comes out in the middle of my work day on Friday. Then I use some of that sweet, sweet data. Doesn't work for everything, some podcasts have custom players that you can only stream with, but it's good for FTM.

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    4. Thats when you know your a big fan, when your in work with no Wifi and you gotta download from your mobile data and probably get charged extra for it, but you do it anyway, I've done it myself

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  6. Man, I really liked The Green Inferno. Fun, thrilling, great lead actress, score. Nothing bad to say about it, really.

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  7. I saw Goodnight Mommy last night. Anyone else see it yet? I thought it was good but I had some issues with it.

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    1. I saw it a few weeks back and posted about on here a couple of times:

      I really liked it minus a couple of aesthetic scenes that were pointless and cliche and somewhat cheapened the film for me. The atmosphere and the way it's shot is fantastic. I will say this - the trailer does not represent the film well at all. If you go in expecting what the trailer is showing, you will most likely be disappointed. The vibe of the film reminded me of Michael Haneke if that helps. I recommend it.

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  8. I brought this up last week but would like more opinions on it. I watched Turbo Kid and loved every minute of it, but I was loving The Kid and especially Apple so much that when we get to the end it left me a little disappointed. Without trying to spoil anything, we have a bunch of "close calls" with a character and at the end when there was no "close call" it really was a bummer to me cause I was so happy up til the last 5 minutes. Does anyone else feel the way I do about the ending?

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    1. I had the same bummer feeling for the same reason, because of what happened three times earlier and everything was still fine I just left hoping it was just another false negative and everything will still be ok, but I agree it put a sour note on a otherwise perfect movie, I was so happy watching the movie it would of been nice to finish on a high, I don't understand the choice they made?

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  9. Just finished Ned Rifle, the last Hal Hartley film of the Henry Fool Trilogy. I liked it but I would advise watching them back to back to back. There are years in-between films and I was having a hard time remembering things.

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    1. Any Hartley fans here? He was a big deal for me when I was younger.

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    2. I'm seen No Such Thing and I've seen Amateur. I've seen maybe the first fifteen minutes of Fay Grim, and never got around to seeing the rest. I saw Amateur mainly due to Elina Lowensohn, who I loved in Michael Almereyda's Nadja, and was also in Schindler's List. I want to see more of Hartley's work; I just haven't gotten around to it.

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    3. Both No Such Thing and Amateur are excellent films! The Unbelievable Truth and Trust really affected me when I first saw them but not sure how they would hold up now. If anything, Hartley gave us Adrienne Shelley (RIP) and I am forever grateful for that.

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  10. Ps
    Face Scratch Moded, Eli Roth, Very nice

    Joke

    A man called Brian has no hands

    Knock Knock

    Whos there?

    Well it aint Brian!


    Come on everyone gimme some funny movie related Jokes....

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    1. "Yeah he's a professor... OF BEING A DOG!"

      That moment and that movie made me an Eli Roth fan for life.

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    2. My favourite Eli scene is in Cabin fever, the second time we meet Pancakes kid the is a sign up next to him

      "DON'T SIT NEXT TO DENNIS"

      I used that scene grab to death texting it to everyone

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  11. Just rewatched A Fish Called Wanda on a whim. One of the best comedies ever made, such a well crafter script full of actual characters.

    Then I popped in the "sequel" Fierce Creatures (totally unconnected to AFCW but made by the same team) 'cause I hadn't seen it in ages. Big mistake. The plot is all over the place, none of the characters are interesting or likable (except for maybe Palin's character, he's always likable) and fart jokes and stupid sexual innuendo stand in for humor. What a difference a decade makes. I'm now two-thirds in and I don't know if I have the will to finish it.

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    1. when hes eating the fish and dipping the chips in Tomato sauce and sticking them up his nose, Epic

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  12. Looking forward to a fun week of screenings and new releases: Sleeping With Other People, The Walk, The Martian, and Sicario.

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  13. So this weekend, I decided to watch double features of movies where the sequel picks right of when the first leads off. This all kinda just sprung out of my desire to watch the Raid and the Raid 2 back-to-back. And I'm currently in the middle of BTTF and BTTF Part 2. But I'm having trouble thinking of more. ANY SUGGESTIONS? (Please no horror btw, I don't want to burn out before SMM).

    ALSO! There's a channel on YouTube called "Every Frame a Painting." I'm not sure if anyone else has watched these, but I couldn't recommend it more. There's pretty short video essays about filmmaking and filmmakers, and they're extremely insightful and well-researched.

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    1. A few that come to mind: Star Trek 3 & 4, Rocky 2, Quantum of Solace, The Karate Kid 2, Iron Man 2 and Mortal Kombat Annihilation.

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    2. "Waxwork 2" picks right after the end of the original "Waxwork" (both are streaming on Amazon Prime until Sep. 30). The Richard Donner cut of "Superman II" also picks up immediately after "Superman: The Movie" ends. "Friday the 13th 3D" picks up right after "Friday the 13th Part 2," and "The Final Chapter" picks right after "3D" ends. And 'round and 'round it goes. :-)

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    3. No horror! Save those for next month! I can only really work within the confinements of my own collection and Netflix. All the other ones I can really go with from here are horror. Halloween/Halloween 2. Friday the 13th 2, 3, 4. Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness. Alien/Aliens/Alien 3. Interesting you bring up Quantum though Mikko, I got the idea earlier this week listening to a podcast about the Bond series, and the host said the only way he can watch Quantum is immediately after Casino.

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    4. Do you mean James Bonding? That's my second favorite podcast, the hosts are funny as hell.

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    5. No it was The Weekly Planet. I don't listen to them every week, because they usually talk about comic book movies (which I only have a passing interest in), but it's hosted by 2 australian guys who have the best chemistry.

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    6. I may have to check that one out.

      Funny, I was sure you meant James Bonding. It's a podcast dedicated to all things Bond and one of the hosts said pretty much the same thing about Quantum.

      (Is it a faux pas to mention other podcasts here? Sorry. F This Movie! is the best.)

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    7. Lol I think it's okay, as long as it's a good podcast at least. Yeah I heard the James Bonding guys on a HDTGM episode for A View To A Kill, they're great. There's just not enough time to listen to every podcast. I have like 5 I listen to every week, then maybe another 5 I pick and choose with.

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  14. Why I started on a James Bond tear so close to October is beyond me. I was never a huge James Bond fan - then I saw Skyfall and things have kind of snowballed, and I am watching every single on in order (I suppose when you are holding the blue-ray boxset what is a girl to do?). I have just finished 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (which might be my favourite so far, but it is the most recent I have watched) and I think I might be in love, though I have not made up my mind on 'You Only Live Twice'. October maybe the month that finally does me in.

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  15. Just watched Rubble Kings - I liked it. It's nothing I didn't know but I would highly recommend it to those who are curious. I would love L.A. Tarantino to watch this and learn something.

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  16. Any opinions on The Intern? Found it to be pleasantly entertaining. I appreciate its sincerity and that the humor isn't snarky, mean, or derived from the lead actors' personae. Had some issues with the script, and the movie might not age well (it is very of-the-moment from a cultural perspective). Low risk date movie.

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  17. Anyone see Sicario yet? I'm going later today. It's about cars right? That are sick, yo!??

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    1. Don't know much about sick cars. I do know that those are some sick puns yo!

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    2. Without spoiling "Sicario" too much, if the Hugh Jackman character from "Prisoners" joined the military/government to exorcise the demons from his previous experience, he'd be the Benicio Del Toro character in "Sicario." It's one hell of a good movie, but the trailer and the ads are selling it short by passing it as an action movie. It's a slow-burn character study that gradually morphs into a revenge story, but never feels less than totally plausible while also being extremely absurd. Denis Villeneuve is three for three with this, "Prisoners" and "Enemy," and he did it without Jake G. in the cast. Good work!

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  18. Going Wednesday. Been looking forward to it for a few months. I'm not sure what that says about me.

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  19. Like many other F-heads I jumped the gun on #SMM and watched Arrow's new Blu-Ray of Eaten Alive. It's an excellent release of an excellent movie. Tobe Hooper has an intro where he says to "enjoy the colors." I certainly did. Also enjoyed Robert Englund's excellent performance as Buck. The sound design jumped out at me the most, the entire soundtrack has diegetic twangy pedal steel guitar as a base layer, underneath Hooper's insane score, with the screaming/groaning over top. Really creates an intense, in-your-face feel. Great movie.

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  20. I pre-gamed #SMM and watched Goodnight Mommy. There were a couple of moments/scenes that seemed out of place but overall it was effectively unsettling. The second half of the film goes to some places that I didn't anticipate whatsoever - I even did a spit take on my date during a particular scene. THANKS ALOT, CREEPY TWINS!

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  21. I had a kind of australian weekend watching the uncut "Wolf Creek 2", which was more of the same but ok.
    Next was "Texas Killing Fields", where Sam Worthington was the australian part. That´s directed by Michael Mann´s daughter. It´s a little bit rough and not entirely satisfying, but it was fine. The setting and the kind of case they have to solve in this movie reminded me a little bit of the far superior first season of "True detective".
    The most interesting was "Wasted on the young", an unsettling high school thriller with highly accomplished visuals, good performances and an interesting take on bullying and high school shootings.

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