Saturday, November 14, 2015

Weekend Open Thread

Take care of each other.

Thinking of everyone this weekend. Let's talk about movies.

45 comments:

  1. So, there's another festival I'm going to tonight. I'm seeing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with live music), Commando (30th anniversary special screening) and possibly Joe D'Amato's The Devil's Wedding Night (see trailer here) at Cinemadrome in my home town of Tampere. Really looking forward to especially Caligari, which I've never seen before. Anyone here seen The Devil's Wedding Night? I'm still on the fence on whether I should stay for that one.

    In other news, I watched all three previous Bonds in anticipation for Spectre (haven't had time to go see that one yet), and I'm pretty sure Skyfall's the least good of the three in my book. The villain's plot makes no sense (and yet he wins!), the final showdown is boring and stupidly long and the whole thing about Bond getting old does nothing for me. I mean he's no Roger Moore. But, you know, that's just me.

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    1. I saw "Dr. Caligari" recently on Amazon and didn't like it, but that's just me. I think you're going to dig it, and after it you'll realize just how many movies and TV shows have ripped it off. We're talking "Rashomon"-size levels of shameless creative ripping off. And man, "Commando" with a crowd of film fans sounds like a ton of fun. :-)

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    2. Last year I went to a theater showing "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" with live music and LOVED it. Excellent visuals and atmosphere, and the live score added a lot in my opinion. I've only been a horror fan since January (prompted by Junesploitation), but this is one of only a handful of movies that has genuinely scared me. Not a Commando fan though...

      Enjoy!

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    3. I really enjoyed Dr. Caligari. Maybe I wouldn't have if I'd watched it on a TV screen but the live music and the atmosphere at the theater really elevated it.

      Also, Commando with a packed theater was a blast! Applause and cheering for Arnold, booing and jeering for the bad guys. And The Devil's Wedding Night was... an experience. It's a movie where everything happens very slowly, but I felt it did reward in the end. A few surreal scenes and a lot of laughable acting.

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  2. I tweeted about it but, in case you missed it, I attended Shia LaBeouf's #AllMyMovies art/vanity project thing last Thursday night at New York's Angelika Film Center and chronicled the 12-hour odyssey into a small article (including an unexpected brief face-to-face meet between Shia and yours truly, something 96% of the people that got in to see movies with him didn't get). As luck would have it the Shia LaBeouf movie I ended up watching when I got in was directed by Paul Hoen, who directed more "Secret World of Alex Mack" episodes than any other person working on that show. Dumb luck, serendipity, whatever. :-)

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    1. That was a really fun read. Probably more fun than the experience was. Now I just fear you've made an enemy for life in Shia. That's not good.

      I only heard about his latest stunt while it was already halfway through and as a curiosity watched the stream of a tired Shia for a couple of minutes. The site didn't have a schedule of the movies that were shown, which I thought was a shame. It could have been mildly fun to watch a movie at home in sync with the stream. Oh well, I'll learn to live with the disappointment.

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    2. Damn it JM. That was bad timing in the toilets, a good column to read though

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    3. Haha - nice article, JM - do you think "The Beef" was taking a dump or does he suffer from shy(a) bladder?

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    4. what I don't get is why you want to be famous but not want to say hello to fans? please don't talk to him? Don't take his photo? what a grump? im kinda glad it happened,

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    5. Talking to other people in line while waiting, the no talking to fans didn't bother anybody (though they all said they hoped they could exchange a few words with Shia). They thought it was part of the art project and just a common courtesy of not talking during a movie. A couple behind me was just livid and furious that people were allowed to stay for more than one movie, and that neither Shia's people or the Angelika staff were doing anything about it. I pointed out to them it was at Shia's request that nobody was being asked to leave and that it was probably part of the art exhibit (how some patrons would be courteous and leave after one movie while others would be seat-hogging a-holes). Plus, since we were fully aware of this while waiting, we had no right to complain because we could leave the line at any time (as about 35-40% of the people I started in line at 4:30AM did).

      For what it's worth, the highlight of the whole thing (besides meeting people I've already exchanged tweets and e-mails with that may become longtime friends) was when "The Even Stevens Movie" started in the theater below (per the Shia feed). Somebody near me brought along a laptop with a MPEG-4 copy of the same movie, and had it synced to start when Shia sat down to watch it. Everybody whipped out their cellphones to watch the feed, and as Shia laughed, cried and showed more emotion during this one movie than any other one shown (or so I'm told), both the crowd in the theater with him and about 50-60 people in the Angelika lobby were laughing/clapping alongside him either watching it on this tiny laptop or watching their cellphones while listening to the laptop audio. As someone who's never seen the "Even Stevens" TV show (but understand the appeal given my lifelong fandom to "Alex Mack") it was the least-annoying and more enjoyable two-hour waiting stretch of the 12 I sat waiting to get in. :-)

      BTW, how lucky was LaBeouf that his pet project was a year in the making and ended just before the tragic news from Paris happened? If it had gone a day longer or been planned for next week (when extra security measures would have been a great concern, especially in New York) it would have been seen as either classless, more selfish than it already is or an unnecessary risking of lives at an unguarded public place. Like his career, Shia's art projects have a knack for lucky timing.

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  3. Following the mild disappointment that was Spectre, I've been watching a few of the Bonds to perk myself back up. I kinda do this every November anyway, maybe it's because they're always released in November or because of all those TNN thanksgiving marathons, but November always feels like Bond month.

    Anyway, I watched Die Another Day for the first time in over a decade the other night. I always remembered kinda liking it, and considering it my "guilty pleasure" Bond. Woof, how wrong I was. Its just wretched in almost every way. With the exception of like 3 lines that I like ("time to face gravity" is still an awesome line, and I won't hear arguments against), the dialogue could be the worst for any movie I've ever seen. The plot is stupid. And the action is shot like an Audi commercial. It constantly inserts these sped up helicopter shots that make the whole movie look so cheap. I'm sorry it took me so long to come around.

    By the way, the invisible car is fine. Its no less goofy than most of Connery's gadgets. The only problem with it is you don't need to be a super spy to use it, I could do some awesome spying on an invisible car 🚗.

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  4. Catching up on Sicario today, which I am sad to have missed out on so far. Hopefully it will be as as worth the wait as I am suspecting it will be.

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  5. Did you stop updating the "Movies A-Z" tab? Sorry if you already addressed this, but I can't find a link in there to any of your recent reviews (I was looking for Room and Steve Jobs). I'll be able to find the reviews, I was just wondering about that.

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  6. On Wednesday I saw both Spectre and Peanuts. I won't go into as mich detail on Spectre as I did with my friends, but I personally thought that it was flawed in every aspect, especially in editing and sound mixing (this is the only movie I can think of where snapping someone's neck was silent). It was really disappointing because I think Skyfall's pretty amazing, but ah well. I hope Craig comes back for one more, because I'd really hate for this to be his sendoff.

    Peanuts was as good as I was hoping it to be and I'll probably watch it again sometime soon. I'm a reasonably big Peanuts fan and it was nice seeing a movie showing off a little bit of everything that the strips and specials had to offer.

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  7. I'm going to see Love the Coopers today because I love bad Christmas movies. I can't wait!

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    1. Let us know where it ranks in the pantheon of terrible Christmas movies.

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    2. It's awful but not in a so-bad-it's-good way.

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    3. That's disappointing. Do you like Christmas horror? I've decided to attack that sub genre this December. The only one I've seen is Silent Night, Deadly Night. I think this year's A Christmas Horror Story and Krampus look pretty decent.

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    4. I do like Christmas horror. Black Christmas (the one from the 70s not the remake) is phenomenal if you haven't seen it.

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    5. I have not but it's sitting in its Blu-ray case ready for December. I'm going to attempt to watch about 20 of them. Death to Christmas!

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  8. Watfched House of Voices a.k.a Saint Ange (2004). This movie is really impressive. Not because it's a classic or even great Horror film, but it is a really good Horror film, but because it's the first movie from Martyrs' Director Pascal Laugier and, man, it is an unbelievably professional debut. The film is really atmospheric and filled with class. It looks fantastic. I mean, it looks like something that most directors with three or four films under their belt would've loved to have finally accomplished. Laugier has done three features - Saint Ange 2004, Martyrs 2008 and The Tall Man 2012. I really like all three and love one of them and now that I have seen Saint Ange, there are two very distinct themes running through all three films. I won't touch on these cause they are possibly spoilers but it was interesting to have seen the connection.

    I also revisited Asmodexia (2014)- get past what is possibly the worst US cover art for a film* and the first 2 minutes or so, give it time and you will be in for a Horror film that is effective, beautifully shot, and well paced.

    This was in my top ten of last year (maybe runner up). There are some scenes that show it's practical effect budget limitations and a couple typical "ugh" scenes for modern Horror, but I don't think that these take away from the film as a whole and I believe the story will hold your interest.

    *some other countries got the cover right: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2165829376/tt3175438?ref_=tt_ov_i

    just google it and compare - it is insanely inept for IFC US to try and market this film with their cover.

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  9. I was a couple months late for the 20th anniversary, but I watched Showgirls last night. It's really as great as trash cinema can get. Everything is terrible, but never boring. The way the camera moves is pretty great so you're always getting tons of background action and sets. It really needs to be seen. Oh man, it says open thread right?

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  10. I saw the new Sally Field movie trailer. I don't really know what to think from it but Sally Field's been my favorite comedy actress since Soapdish...which is one of my favorite movies of all time, which I watch over and over and over and over again...so, it looks different and I can tell it's probably a big risk for her, but I'm excited and so far kind of proud of her for doing it.

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  11. The other day I watched Spartacus with my brother at the Film Forum (which is a wonderful theater in NYC for those who don't know). It was weird because it had long stretches that I didn't really enjoy, but it was so long that the long stretches that I did enjoy sort of made up for it. It felt a bit more like a book, in that I didn't feel like I could make a definite good or bad judgement on it because of it's length.

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    1. I also watched "Spartacus" at Film Forum Wednesday night at 8:10PM, the night before I went to the Shia thing at Angelika, which is a few short blocks East of FF. When did you and your brother see it? Click my name to read my Google+ review of "Spartacus," which isn't that much different from yours: great flick at moments, but felt too much like history homework.

      Other than the screens being so tiny you have to sit in the first four rows or there's no point in going I like Film Forum. It strikes a perfect balance between arthouse fare, revivals and repertoire. I also love that, within ten blocks from each other and Film Forum, you also have the aforementioned Angelika, IFC Center, Anthology Films Archive and Landmark Sunshine Cinema. It's the best 10-block radius (basically NYU's backyard) to watch alternative, non-mainstream cinema in the world outside of Paris cinemas... except for this weekend, obviously. :'(

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    2. Pretty sure we saw it on Tuesday. I felt like the movie probably needed a slightly bigger screen than it got at the Film Forum. But I don't want to avoid the fact that I was bored for most of the first hour.

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    3. It's a very laborious hour introducing all the main characters, I'll admit. I dug Gladiator School, though, and the duel-to-the-death between Woody Strode and Kirk Douglas? Badass across the board. :-)

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    4. I don't think I was really swayed to think of this movie positively until after the intermission. I what really won me over was the battle sequence (the big full-blown climactic one). It did a good job of employing suspense during the battle preparation, which is something that could've been boring if done poorly.

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    5. What else have you and your bro seen at Film Forum besides "Spartacus"? Did you attend the '3D Classics' retrospectives they had a couple of weeks ago?

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    6. We didn't, unfortunately, though we were considering watching House Of Wax. What I'm most exited for right now is the Coen Brothers festival coming their in January. I know that's way ahead of time but I can't help it.

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  12. The effect of seeing 2001 in 70mm must have fried my immune system. My illness prevented me from seeing anything new until I ventured out to see Spectre last night. Sadly I was pretty disappointing with this one. My friend and I both shrugged when It was over. There were things I liked, but the things I didn't like were more memorable. Still hoping Idris Elba gets cast as the next Bond.

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  13. Any way the 'F' in 'F This Movie' at the top of the page could be turned blue? That's all that'd be needed for this site to join the thousands (millions?) of internet sites putting the colors of the French flag to show solidarity with the victims in Paris. Just a thought. :-)

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  14. Junesploitation came a little early for me this (next) year in the form of the bizarro Blood Games (1990). Briefly, it involves a travelling baseball team of sexy ladies in slightly less modest Hooters uniforms. Developments after a game with the local hillbillies sets the hicksploitation train-a-rollin. I don't want to spoil too much, but if exploitation cinema bingo was a thing, this would be a winner. There's crossbow action, shower hi-jinks, abuse of slo-mo cinematography, random fog, non-specific military backgrounds, George 'Buck' Flower and nudity-related booby traps (pun totally intended). The main protagonist's name is actually Babe, there's also a character named Midnight and some of the kookiest hillbilly background performer monkey shines that I have ever seen. Although the performances seem earnest, they are almost uniformly poor which really cranks up the charm factor. It also has surprisingly high production values for this type of thing. A word of spoilery warning though, about 2/3 of the way through, there is a moderately uncomfortable rape scene. It's not quite Savage Streets, but it destroys any date-movie potential this thing might have had. Also after the film's climax, stay tuned for a next-level bonkers flashback/in memoriam sequence.

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    1. Sorry to reply to myself but a seven word review just came to me (hard habit to break).

      Busty, baseball bimbo busload become backwoods bait.

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  15. I watched Rob Roy this weekend. I enjoyed it although it dragged in parts. Is Tim Roth good or terrible in this? I can't figure it out.

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    1. I don't just think he's good, he's the only thing I really enjoy watching in that film. He just takes so much pleasure in playing such a vile character, it reminds me of the Emperor in the Star Wars prequels.

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    2. Good comparison. I'm still thinking about his character, that must mean something.

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  16. Out of respect for the tragedy in France - here are some of my favorite French films of all time:

    1. Last Year At Marienbad (1961) Dir. Alain Resnais Written by Robbe-Grillet

    This is one of my favorite films of all time. Lush, beautifully photographed and surreal, it's very talky and you may not be sure what's going on all the time, but I don't care - I love this.

    2. Elevator To The Gallows (1958) Dir. Louis Malle

    French Film Noir at it's best. Malle, Miles' amazing score and the always great Jeanne Moreau. Can't go wrong.

    3. Day for Night 1973 Dir. Francois Truffaut.

    Truffaut's brilliant meta-piece about directing a film.

    4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, Pierrot le Fou, Weekend, Band of Outsiders Dir. Jean-Luc Godard

    What can I say about these? Godard is the best and these five are untouchable. I could watch a Godard Marathon of these and never get bored. Breathless changed the wold of cinema in it's narrative editing, Pierrot le Fou is bonkers, Weekend, although too political for me now, still has one of th greatest 20 minutes openings ever and Band of Outsiders is pure youth loving B-movies fun! Woman is a Woman is slept on - there is an amazing scene with no dialogue where the two main characters communicate via lines from books. It's super endearing.

    9. Martyrs (2008) Dir. Pascal Laugier

    Untouchable brilliance of horror with stages that no one ever saw coming. This is a masterpiece.

    10. High Tension (2003) Dir. Alexandre Aja

    Get rid of the awful "twist" ending and this is an absolute classic which came at a time when Horror was stale and needed life back into the genre. Aja provided us with a throwback before that was the "hip" thing to do and created suspense and tension unlike anything else that out at the time.

    Those are just ten off the top of my head. There are many more. Just showing respect thinking about the people who have been effected by this tragedy.

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    1. Other than No. 10 (can't separate "the twist," it's too ingrained in the narrative) I approve of that list. I too could watch a Godard marathon of all his 60's movies one after the other. When he went sanctimonious and political with 1972's "Tout va bien" (which I just reviewed; click my name) we really lost a fun-loving director who became an even bigger self-centered a-hole than he already was. My list would have more Chabrol, Truffaut, Pialat and Melville films in it than yours, but at least we're in the same international zip code. :-)

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    2. The others you mention are certainly in the mix as well. These were just the ones off the top of my head that mean something to me more than others.

      Again, to all the French F-heads, this list was made simply to let you know we're thinking about you.

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    3. only one I would add to the list is ils aka Them,

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  17. Great list. La Haine (1995) is one I would def recommend if you haven't seen it.

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    1. Thanks, David! Although I appreciated and even liked La Haine for what it was at the time, and it introduced us to Cassel, I find myself never wanting to revisit it and maybe even think it's a bit overrated. I could be wrong though as I haven't seen it since it debuted on video in the US. Mostly, I remember the soundtrack and how the film played a big part in the independent movement of the 90's.

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  18. I was laying on my couch for nearly the whole weekend watching the complete first season of "Daredevil", which I really liked. It takes it´s time to develop the characters, has some fine set pieces, especially the one take fight in episode 2. The acting was also good all around with a special mention to a great Vincent D`Onofrio. I`m looking forward to season 2.

    Next was the only movie this weekend, which happened to be the bittersweet "This is where I leave you"....which was totally ok to watch while ironing some laundry. It had a ton of stars or at least familiar faces and the usual story these kind of movies about family gatherings always have. So nothing really surprising except the fact, that even mediocre family films like this have scenes in it that make me tear up here and there.
    Kind of douchy but hey, what can I do... ;-)

    Sunday ended in a real delight finally watching Frances McDormand and a long list of great and interesting actors doing very fine work in the HBO miniseries "Olive Kitteridge", which was funny, sad and sometimes hilarious. Great piece of storytelling with an excellent central performance.

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