Saturday, January 2, 2016

Weekend Open Thread

What are your movie-related goals this year?

We're two days into 2016 and I feel like we're in a rut. I mean, the year started out so strong but now it just feels like more of the same. Where did our sense of wonder go? The optimism we had at the start of 2016? We need to mix it up.

Let's talk about whatever you all want to talk about, but if you're so inclined to make some movie-themed resolutions, this is the place to do it.

42 comments:

  1. So on January 1st I had a double feature of The Big Short and The Hateful Eight, both of which were super fantastic. The Hateful Eight is the shot in the arm I needed to end 2015 right. Amazing movie, I'd argue it's one of Tarantino's best, if not THE best.

    My movie related resolution is to go a bit deeper into foreign cinema. There are many foreign films I love (Bicycle Thieves, The Wages of Fear, everything Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Bong, and Anno) but I feel like I've only scratched the surface. I'd love to really get into Ozu and Truffaut in particular :)

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    1. As I already told "F this Movie" on Facebook, I would recommend "Das finstere Tal" aka "The Dark Valley". It's a western movie from Austria and Germany with Sam Riley in a leading role. Quite fitting in this western-hyped times and totally ok as a movie.

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  2. I spent New Year's Day watching Daddy's Home (which was funny, very surprised considering its reviews) and The Force Awakens AGAIN but this time with my parents. It was a fun day :-)

    My movie-related resolutions are to a) watch more classic movies; b) finish seeing all of the Bond movies for the first time (I've seen only about half of them), c) watch all of the Universal monster movies (I've seen probably 3/4 of them) and d) be able to keep up with Junesploitation this year which I haven't been able to for a whole month in the past.

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  3. On my site, I would like to visit the cinema at least once every week. I also want to proceed in my "1000 movies" list. Starting 1915 with Birth of a Nation, ending somewhere 2015. 100 years, 1000 movies - hell yeah.

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  4. Did anyone like Hateful Eight but think there was something missing? I can't put my finger on it. I thought the characters were good but there were some I was iffy on. I love Kurt Russell but I thought he was much better in Bone Tomahawk. He seemed like he was doing his John Wayne impression from Big Trouble in Little China. Jennifer Jason Leigh was fantastic and she has one of the best performances of the year. I just saw it last night so I think I need to sit on it for awhile.

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    1. An explanation as to why they didn't just shoot Russell the minute he walked through the door?

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  5. Just finished watched the post apocalyptic film SHE (1982). To give away it's many "what the fuck?!" moments would be a sin but if anyone is already looking for films to watch for Junesploitation, I would definitely recommend it. How SHE slipped through my childhood unwatched is beyond me but it's really a shame cause as a kid I would have been watching this over and over, it's that ridiculous.

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  6. I think my top priority is to get through as many of the unwatched movies in my DVD collection as possible, which is easily a couple hundred, not even counting all those stupid Mill Creek 50 movie boxsets I've got.

    Goals: I spent the last couple months of 2015 getting caught up with everything I hadn't seen in the imdb Top 250, and I'll finally be polishing that one off this weekend with The Bourne Ultimatium and Sholay. I've got a few other ongoing watch projects which I'll hopefully finally wrap up within the next couple of months of 2016: finishing the Russ Meyer and Dario Argento filmographies (those later Argentos are pretty trying,) and seeing all the Godzilla-ancillary Toho daikaiju pictures: stuff like Frankenstein Conquers the World and Atragon (BTW, if you're a fan of the genre, check out Daigoro vs. Goliath; it's about a giant monster learning how to use the toilet.) Also looking to finish off the Drafthouse Films catalog, to keep pushing through Criterion's... essentially, it will be mathematically impossible to ever see all the movies I've promised myself I will.

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  7. Ever since middle school, for almost two decades now, I've wanted a digital projector all my own. But though I've been able to afford one for years now, I've never gotten one, mainly because my living situations haven't been appropriate for the same.

    Well, not this year! This year, I'm getting a projector and bringing the magic of the movies (being light bouncing off a reflective screen, not light beamed directly from a display into one's eyeballs) home. Me Hearties, this be the year. Arrr!

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    1. Dude, that's awesome! You gonna get a matte screen to project onto, or just use a clean wall or bedsheet? Either option has it's own neat aesthetic.

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    2. Oh, definitely a screen, maybe a pull-down one... I can't really offer any concrete details at the moment, as I'm moving home in a few weeks and don't have a permanent residence lined up, so I don't know if there'll be room for a surround sound setup, or what. I haven't decided on whether to get a 3D projector either; I'm leaning against it, but it remains to be seen. :)

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    3. That's awesome dude! That's a goal of mine for my future home theater. Projected movies just seem to look better and it has a great feeling to it.

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    4. That's awesome dude! That's a goal of mine for my future home theater. Projected movies just seem to look better and it has a great feeling to it.

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  8. My wife tried to make me watch Someone Like You. Now she's buried in the backyard. I'm kidding. She's totally alive...Steve Avery did it.

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    1. I like how Steve keeps popping up Brent, made me laugh

      Spoilers for Making a Murderer BELOW!

      But did he actually do it? Why didn't he crush the jeep? Why would he store it on his own land? He isn't that stupid? And the Key that appeared days later after the 4th search by police who weren't supposed to be there? And the volunteer that found the car within 20 mins in that massive compound, she walked right to it, it could of taken hours? "The lord guided me!" And most importantly where was all her blood in the bedroom? He isn't that clever to clean blood permanantly from a mattress and walls without a trace. Unless he used plastic sheeting everywhere like Dexter? This guy ain't stupid but he isn't clever enough to do that! Clever enough to hide any blood or Dna but not to hide the car
      I wanted answers but I just ended up with more questions....

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  9. My resolution last year was to watch more movies, and I ended up with 181, which is possibly more than I've seen my entire life (and I ain't all that young). I think I'm going to try to beat that number this year.

    On another note, I was having trouble falling asleep last night and was going to stream some brainless movie (OK, it was The Wedding Date), but couldn't start my 2016 list with a movie like that. Last year started with The Big Lebowski and ended with Anomalisa, so I think I should at least keep up with the trend of bookending my year with great movies. I'm leaning towards the non-70mm version of The Hateful Eight if only to see what's been altered.

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  10. Easy for me, buy more 80s horrors on Bluray, still a few I want and more still coming out, I keep dreaming of Xtro but it aint gonna happen..

    Maybe keep dreaming of House 1234 instead....

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  11. Bone Tomahawk is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Suck it, Netflix. :-P Actually, my first movie of 2016 (didn't watch anything on Jan. 1 or 2, too tired from work) turned out to be one of the first released in '15 in limited distribution: Wild Card (also new to Amazon Prime), a Jason Statham revenge picture set in Vegas directed by "Expendables 2" director Simon West. A remake of a 1986 Burt Reynolds movie based on a William Goldman novel (Goldman penned the screenplay for both movies, which has to be a first), the film threatens to become a cliche and seen-it-a-million-times story of a Vegas loser trying in vain to leave the town that exerts an undue influence on his life. It's weird hearing clearly-written-by-Goldman dialogue coming out of a Brit's mouth, and Statham is too big of a badass to come across as the loser the story and his character claim to be. There are action scenes that live up to Statham's reputation, but nothing you haven't seen before. A curio more than anything (ton of recognizable actors in small roles: Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Sofia Vergara, Milo Ventimiglia, etc.), which I chose to watch over "Bone Tomahawk" because I'm old (and I'll be a year older in a couple of days... sob, sob :'( ), and a 90 min. movie is easier to stay awake for than a 150 min. one.

    BTW, if you haven't seen it, go out of your way to watch Howard Hawks' BALL OF FIRE (1941). Caught a 35mm screening of this one on New Year's Eve at a packed house, who obviously came for the love of movies... and the free bubbly dispensed at the movie counter all night long in plastic cups. Billy Wilder dialogue, a loose remake of Disney's "The Seven Dwarfs" as a screwball crime caper, Barbara Stanwyck being sexy and funny, a baby-faced Dana Andrews playing gangster and more supporting characters giving memorable performances than you can shake an incomplete encyclopedia at. Even better, Gary Cooper plays the stiff and awkward but handsome professor who doesn't know how to express his feelings for the stripper nightclub singer who is best friends with a mobster. 2015 couldn't have ended on a higher cinematic note for me. :-)

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  12. Just spent an hour watching Lights Camera Jackson reviews......god damnit.

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    1. I love it. I don't blame you man, it's so hard to turn away from it!

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    2. He's my favorite Jackson after Samuel L.

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    3. Whoa, whoa, even more than Carl Weathers?!

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    4. BTW...I just found the female version of LCJ

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZlIoDydPc&feature=iv&src_vid=xSgqD0bWW54&annotation_id=annotation_3810873353

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    5. OH MY F-ING GOD! HAHA! This just made me laugh so hard I was in tears. Riske, brilliant!

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    6. Haha that Beyond the Trailer woman is the worst. Every time I come across her videos, I just picture her standing in front of a mirror practicing her non-regional diction. When will people learn that they just need to speak like humans?

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    7. I never thought I would see someone THIS disingenuous. Wow.

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    8. Oh my god. I can't stop watching her. I just watched the first 12 seconds of the main page video like 20 times. It's unreal. "Animated Movie". https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAXR2zenCwvRIyQd9ydtfaA

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    9. I tweeted Adam about this, but it's hard to see how someone with such an awful screen presence has 400k+ followers for a movie review channel. The irony is palpable!

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    10. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. And I saw The Road Chip. All I can think of is this:
      http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/fretts-film-forum/n36925

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    11. Wow, that's something else. On another note, I'd just like to take this opportunity to mention that Adam doing LCJ is one of my favourite things.

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    12. Thanks Sol. Like an unwanted Christmas gift, my impression of LCJ....WILL RETURN!

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    13. She sounds like the worst newscaster ever, and what a list. THE SCORE!

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    14. She talks so similar to LCJ he could probably sue!

      I did kinda like her though, I can't work out her angle, its an LCJ act, Right?

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    15. She's pretty...and terrible. She's pretty terrible.

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  13. I want to provide some balance to my movie knowledge, since at 22, I've seen far more 90s-10s movies than movies from the many decades prior to my birth. I'm going to make it a point to watch at least one film from each of the past 100 years. I think it should be fun.

    This past week I saw The Big Short, Sweet Smell of Success, A Clockwork Orange, Laura, John Wick, Charade and Carrie all for the first time, several of which I probably wouldn't have sought out without reviews from FThisMovie and all of which I liked to varying degrees. I also saw Casablanca, my favorite movie, on the big screen at The Charles, which is the oldest theater in Baltimore. It's sappy, but I tear up every time Laszlo strikes up the band to play La Marseillaise.

    Happy New Year everyone!

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    1. You have great taste, Joe. Casablanca is one of the BEST MOVIES EVER.

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    2. Thanks, JB! I thought I remembered you naming it #1 on your favorite movies list, so I relistened to that podcast yesterday while I took a walk through this large wooded park near my house. I've seen Casablanca probably 5 times but it really struck me this time that part of why I love it so much is how it comments on the emotional importance of music, which is admittedly my first artistic love. Whether it's Sam playing parlor tunes to entertain the patrons at Rick's, or Rick and Ilsa both begging to hear As Time Goes By with very different motivations, or the symbolism of Laszlo's La Marseillaise drowning out Die Wacht am Rhein, the music in the film is truly powerful.

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    3. I resolve to watch Casablanca again this year - I liked but didn't LOVE it the first time, but I find twice is the magic number with a lot of classics - it's like I put too much pressure on myself the first time.

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  14. One of my New Years resolutions is to watch more movies. There was a week in December where I watched a whole bunch of movies and I'm hoping to continue the streak. I saw Bridge of Spies, The Peanuts Movie, and Spectre in my local second-run theater, and I watched Star Wars VII (twice) and The Hateful Eight with friends. Additionally I saw Midnight In Paris and Snowpiercer on my own at home. (I also tried to watch Burn After Reading and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I couldn't make it past the first twenty minutes of either of them.)

    I discovered the F This Movie! podcast a while back and it's really inspired me to go out and make an effort to watch more movies. Keep doing what you all are doing!

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    1. Burn After Reading is one of those movies I don't feel like I should kinda love, but I do. I'd urge you to try to stick with it and just go with the weird tone - the reveal of Clooney's invention and Brad Pitt in the closet are probably worth it alone.

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    2. Plus, as Patrick has mentioned before, the ending is incredible!

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