Saturday, September 10, 2022

Weekend Open Thread

25 comments:

  1. Barbarian is entertaining and pretty fun/decent. I think Elric hit the nail on the head in the recent Colors of the Dark when he said it's probably not the "best" horror movie of the year, but certainly a great theatre watch and one that might not play as well at home alone. The Justin Long of it all is indeed something. To me, honestly, it felt like a Kevin Smith horror movie and take that for what you will. That comparison, by me, is not meant as a pejorative towards either.

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  2. Can this Scary Movie Month be the one where we finally get a Hellraiser series episode? I swear it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

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    1. Am I dreaming, or did Patrick drop a little hint during a recent podcast? It would be fitting seeing the remake is coming out this October.

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    2. I would hope that Patrick isn't watching Hellraiser Judgement for nothing.

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    3. I would hope not as well. I'm in the camp of "they're not as bad as people think", however, Hellraiser Judgement was abysmal. I guess I will give it some credit for trying to be a Hellraiser movie and working with the "lore", rather than just being a cash grab filmed-over-a-weekend-in-someones-kitchen that was Revelations. All the previous DTV ones were mediocre to Ok movies; the biggest criticism being that the Hellraiser aspect was sometimes tacked on at the end.

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  3. GALAXY QUEST (1999). What a delightful, joyous movie experience. This one belongs on Movie Mount Rushmore.

    20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954). I wish I had a Nautilus.

    Gave THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (2022) another rewatch. Yes, I'm a total Marvel junkie, so I had fun with it. I'll agree these movies have their flaws, but they're my comfort food.

    PINOCCHIO (2022). There's a lot of neat visual razzle-dazzle here, but retelling this in live action/CGI just showcases how weird the Pinocchio story is. The whole time, I kept wondering "Where are we?" and "What's happening now?"

    ORPHAN: FIRST KILL (2022). This is a sloppily made movie with a nonsense script. And yet, I had a hell of a lot of fun. It's pure camp from beginning to end -- #Junesploitation in September!

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    1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a classic that I watched many times as a kid. It just dawned on me now that this certainly was the movie that began my life-long love of submarine movies. I enjoy how it patiently was showing off during the underwater photography sections. I read that the first feature length underwater documentary was released the same year. Aquatic videography was in its baby stages and it was likely completely new to the general public when going to see 20,000 Leagues.

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  4. Tomorrow, my last week at home starts, before I go on a road trip through the United States. I'm nervous and exited at the same time. One thing I'm looking forward to is the opportunity to see every movie I want in the original version, and not the dubbed version, which is sadly the "normal" way people watch movies in Germany (yes, we have OV screenings, but not for every movie).
    One movie I've seen in the original version has been "Three Thousand Years of Longing", which I am unsure about. I liked it overall, but I am confused about how I feel about the turns that the story takes, if they are all deserved or not. I need to watch it again to find a "final" (I think taste statements are never final) statement.

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    1. Enjoy your travels, Derk. I, sadly, have not had an opportunity for foreign travel in a long time.

      I remember reading an article about the dubbing of movies and television shows in Europe. In certain countries, one voice actor can be associated with a particular star. I have watched many dubbed films over the years. Sometimes the only versions of horror films made outside of the United States (Italian, Mexican, etc.) I have found are the dubbed ones.

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    2. I can understand how that is frustrating. I lived in Quebec for about 15 years, and can count the number of times I went to the movies on 2 hands (mostly when visiting home for Christmas, or watching Francophone movies in French). The larger urban areas (Montreal) would have OV screening, but I was living in quite a remote area where everything was dubbed into French. Most of my movie watching ended up being DVD's watched on my laptop (we didn't have a TV), and frankly I just wasn't watching movies/TV very often. The 2000's is a big black spot for me. It's quite nice now living in an bigger urban area where there are plenty of OV screenings alongside the dubbed ones.

      Bon Voyage! Enjoy your travels.

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    3. Coming from the country that produces a large portion of the world's entertainment, this is an issue I rarely have to deal with. It is mainly through my travels and studies (a French major) that I appreciated the language issues faced by other cultures.

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    4. I live in Ottawa now, so I don't have to deal with it. We sometimes go to the theatre in Gatineau, and it seems to be 50/50 dubbed vs original language, so it's not hard to find a showing in the language of your choice. I imagine it's the same in Montreal (depending on the quartier of the city you're in, perhaps).

      I'm actually curious how much things have changed. Before I was living in Abitibi, a very francophone area, and it was all dubbed. However, that was 15-20 years ago, and perhaps a younger generation has changed things. I wonder if there is more demand for original language versions than before.

      You're right that dubs can be fun. I remember quite enjoying the dubbed version of The Simpsons in French. That's a little different, because it's the same people dubbing each character every episode. And they had a dub that was using Quebecois francais rather than Parisian. I'm quite comfortable in the Quebec dialect, but have trouble understanding the European French. When watching movies from France, I need to use French subtitles, but can comfortably watch Quebecois movies without subtitles (but would still put them on if possible).

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    5. That's interesting that you're working in the business of "dubbing". Are you a sound person/mixer/etc. or are you doing voice work?

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    6. Outside of montreal, it's very hard to find an original version movie. At best it will be subtitled. Maybe is quebec city you can find one or two blockbuster that's in original version

      i found the Simpsons in Parisian French was hilarious, but it was a big scandal around here ('how dare they', 'no respect', and all that jazz. Thank god we didn't have twitter back then)

      The French Dub for Ghostbusters and Weird Science are almost better than the original version (not joking, they are very good). But that was then, now french quebecois dubs suck balls

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    7. @Paul Calvert, i'm none of that, i do other technical stuff within the company, but i deal with that department regularly

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    8. European French is what I studied in school and heard when I lived in France two decades ago. Since then, I have listened to Radio Canada more than anything from Europe. (At night I can pick up the Radio Canada broadcast from Toronto at 860 kHz.) It takes a little time to adjust to any European accents now.

      My last trip outside of the U.S. was to Québec in the mid-2000s. Having only visited La Ville de Québec and Montréal, there is a lot more that I would like to see of the province.

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    9. Oh, your reports are very interesting. While I knew that parts of Canada were francophone, I didn't know that it would play out this much into every day (entertainment) live. Until now, I believed that there is some media in French, but most in English, especially movies.

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    10. Ah, one more thing: There are dubs, that are better than the original - for example all the Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies from Italy, because they tend to be funnier than the originals. There are also a ton of great Dub-work from the 80s on Hong-Kong-Action or US-classics, but those times are over a long time ago (imo).

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  5. I had access to HBO Max last weekend. I tried watching a couple of recent films – Last Night In Soho and Shiva Baby- but could not get my mind into them. I did get to a couple of other films that have been on my watch list for a long time, though.

    THE PIANO TEACHER (2001, dir. Michael Haneke) – Having read part of the novel years ago, I knew what I was getting into with The Piano Teacher. This is not entertainment. I cannot think of a better actress than Isabelle Huppert to interpret Erika, the title character. Though Huppert is not afraid to delve into the darker side of Erika, at the heart of the performance is a sense of being smothered by her life. The voyeurism and the masochism do shock, but the harm she does to herself is even more disturbing.

    WORKING GIRLS (1986, dir. Lizzie Borden) – A day in the routine of a brothel in 1980s Manhattan. Although the film necessarily shows the sexual activity involved with the work, the focus is on the relationships between the “working girls” and the never-ending parade of men who come for their services. The titillation factor is minimal. Though uncomfortable at certain moments, there is an honesty to the story that is more reminiscent of a European film than an American film.

    SHANKS (1974, dir. William Castle) – Mime horror? French mime Marcel Marceau teamed up with Castle to create this oddity. Marceau portrays Malcolm Shanks, a mute marionette maker who stumbles upon the technology to physically manipulate the dead like a marionette puppet. Things get weird quickly and become stranger as the film goes on. Somehow a motorcycle gang gets thrown into the plot. The weirdness does not quite overcome the incoherence of the film for me to enjoy it.

    I also watched the double feature on TCM Underground this week, films from 1961 that share a theme of suburban discontent. The first one was DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC, which has the apt alternative title Five Minutes To Live. It stars singer Johnny Cash as a ruthless criminal who takes the wife of a bank manager hostage. Cash’s energetic and quirky performance makes the film worth a watch. LOOK IN ANY WINDOW is a sultry and entertaining melodrama about the façade of family life in a suburban neighborhood. No one is really happy in the film, especially a teenage peeping tom.

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  6. Good day to everyone. Some things I've watched lately:

    Took my son to see Jaws (1975, dir. some kid called Spielberg). It's a perfect movie and it was great to see it in IMAX.

    I also saw Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022, dir. George Miller) before it disappeared from theatres. I quite liked it, especially the visual creativity in certain parts. There were sections near the end that felt tonaly off, but I quite liked the resolution at the end.

    Sidenote: There were sections where the 2 characters were talking quietly, and unfortunately The Minions Movie in the next room was really loud ruining the vibe of our screening. Luckily, this was only an issue during the first ~45 minutes.

    I remember being underwhelmed by the ~2010 version of Clash of the Titans, but I watched Clash of the Titans (1981, dir. Desmond David) and it was great. I have a feeling I've seen it before, or perhaps had a novelization of the film? It was amazing how much stop motion effects were in this; they were abundant and very well done. I think the owl was my favourite character, although I'm still not sure if he was supposed to be a magical owl or a robotic one.

    I rewatched Short Circuit (1986, John Badham) and it's as hilarious as I remembered. The kids loved it too. The only drawback is an unfortunate bit of "brown face".

    Finally, I had a double header of movies set in Tasmania. The Hunter (2011, dir. Daniel Nettheim) starring Willem Dafoe as a contract killer who is sent there to hunt a rare animal. The scenery is breathtaking, and it's quite a slight movie, with Dafoe doing a lot of heavily lifting with his face acting alone. It's very sad in parts, but quite joyful in others. I think this is one of the best movies I've seen this year.

    The other Tasmania movie was the period movie The Nightingale (2018, dir. Jennifer Kent) which was about an escaped convict making her way through the wilderness to seek revenge for her murdered family. Set in 1825, she befriends an aboriginal man who has also suffered loss at the hands of the British. It was a very moving story, but hard to watch. The time period wasn't a good one for women or POC, and while I'm glad it didn't shy away from their horrible treatment, it did make this movie very hard to watch at times, particularly the sexual violence.

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  7. I know we all love physical media, but most of us have a fair bit of digital media by this point as well. One of the downsides is that they often don't contain any extras, making-of shorts, or commentary tracks. However, I discovered a podcast that is just a huge library of commentary tracks. It's called "Audio Commentary Library" and the RSS feed is http://busygamernation.com/podcast/ACL/ACL.xml. I hope this is of use to someone. I also hope that including the commentary tracks with digital releases becomes standard practice at some point.

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    1. I would love to be able to put those in my podcast app, but it doesn't appear to be in it

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    2. If I remember correctly, it wasn't listed in the regular podcast search. I had to add it using the RSS feed. The address for that is: http://busygamernation.com/podcast/ACL/ACL.xml

      Also, I currently see 3423 episodes (commentaries) in my podcasting app, Podcast Addict. But I was testing whether the RSS feed worked, so I downloaded Pocket Casts app just to try it on another app. I added it easily enough, but it's only showing 232 episodes. I've never used Pocket Casts app, so I'm not sure why.

      Whatever app you use, just google how to add an RSS feed if you're not sure how.

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  8. I too caught Look in Any Window on TCM. Crazy film, like the love child of Douglas Sirk and John Waters.

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    1. A very apt description, JB. Look In Any Window is definitely trashier than the standards of the period. My favorite sequence is Ruth Roman choosing to join her neighbor for a night in Las Vegas.

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