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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I agree with you.
Though A24, which backed Past Lives and gave her 20 million to do this is actually pretty happy with the results. Will end up being a very profitable film for them. Song is even writing a sequel to My Best Friend’s Wedding which shows that even majors want to work with her now.
Today I watched Tampopo (1985), yesterday I watched An Actor's Revenge (1963), and three days ago I watched Woman in Witness Protection (1997).
Tampopo is okay. It has some famous meme-y scenes which take place in the same universe but aren't related to the story in any way. Maybe they offer some comic relief or maybe some visual action to keep any babies watching glued to the tube. It's a decent film but mostly forgettable. I think the funniest part is the credits where the background is a woman nursing in the park--is it a social experiment to see if an exposed breast is enough to get people to stay in their seats while the credit rolls? Only kamisama knows...
An Actor's Revenge is a very beautiful film and I highly recommend it. It's not perfect but I really enjoyed it!!
Woman in Witness Protection. Wow! Great script. I think this is one of the best films I've seen all year. It is a bit campy and it parodies itself but it makes it feel very authentic and real.
I decided to go through the Coen Brothers' filmography in order. I've skipped Blood Simple and Barton Fink because I just watched them. I finished the new 4K transfer of Fargo tonight. Its a nice transfer.
I think the only one I haven't seen is Intolerable Cruelty --- I don't even remember it coming out, which is really strange.
edit: Tonight was The Big Lebowski and I went with a newer 4k transfer that is great. I love this movie so much. This time I focused a lot on the background and other characters who weren't speaking. PSH was such a remarkable actor and this performance is exceptional. Its over the top but restrained -- somehow...
(another edit: i can’t stop thinking about that oner at the end that ends with a strike. the pressure on that guy… )
edit edit: O Brother Where Art Thou? tonight --- that film is bona fide! Just a fun movie.
edit edit edit: The Man Who Wasn't There tonight. An exciting police chase in LA interrupted it for a bit. Anyway, great little movie that is beautifully shot/lit.Its tough to get the right B&W where it doesn't just look desaturated.
I actually just watched Intolerable Cruelty this week. Like for you, it seemed to have slipped through the cracks.
Pretty enjoyable while watching, nothing that blows the doors off.
its really strange, right? Ladykillers wasn't great but seemed to have a lot of press. If nothing else, this will satisfy my completionist tendency.
I remember putting on Intolerable Cruelty a few years ago and was shocked that it was a Coen brothers movie. I do remember enjoying it more than the reviews it got would suggest.
this movie is crazy ---- absolutely not a Coen Brothers movie. I'm barely in it (at the scene with the Baron)... wtf is this?! haha
its pretty fun, though
edit: I am viewing this as a prequel to Michael Clayton
Marty (1955): ★★☆
Hits a little too close to home...
Apparently Delbert Mann made this movie twice. The first one (1953) direct-to-TV and has very meh reviews on Letterboxd, while this one won best picture. And people say modern Hollywood has a problem with remakes! /s
The blu-ray gives the option to either watch in widescreen or academy ratio. I picked the latter because it was an old movie. Sources online mention that the movie exists in both formats, but don't explain why two versions of the same movie (well, three I guess if we count the 1953 original...) exist. Does anyone here know the story behind this?
Spoilers
While it was worth watching, I was kinda disappointed that some of the plot threads don't feel totally resolved. Marty's aunt convinces his mom to be afraid of Marty getting married and moving out. Because of where the movie ends, we don't get to see that play out. We see that the aunt moving out doesn't fix the other couple's marriage, but that also kinda never reaches a conclusion. Am I just bad at interpreting film?
Also spoilers for Good Will Hunting (1997)
Ooh, I didn't know that Tildes can nest spoilers!Marty and Good Will Hunting have similar endings. The romance is the main plot in the former and a side plot in the latter, but they both end with the guy deciding to pursue the girl, and neither tells us (but kinda implies) that it works out in the end. Am I reading too much into it to suppose that the former may have influenced the latter?
I don't really like this movie either. It really feels uncinematic in a way that's surprising for a film that won both the Palme D'or and the Best Picture Oscar. This scene definitely hits home especially when I watched it at the time.
I watched Together last night.
I saw a comment on a reddit thread that referenced it as beginner body horror, which I can agree with.
Some uncomfortable scenes, some truly funny ones, and the performances by Brie and Franco are good. Thought the script was fine and many of the shots were simply okay.
I think where it shines is in its pacing and sound design. Slow tracking shots, moments where the sound and theater of the mind play up the horror, all done pretty well. There are themes that I wish it maintained through to the end, but it ultimately made for an allegorical sweet treat that I could get behind.
I do have a gripe with some parts of the soundtrack. There's this huge tendency in horror/thrillers in Hollywood lately to either show or imply some huge cerebral or horrific plot point/book end while using the soundtrack for another famous thriller. I have no idea how composers are getting away with this but I am bit insulted to be shown a gruesome scene and have directors think "they won't even notice it's the same track from that other fucked up movie that everyone loved."
The Silo series on AppleTV did the same thing with the sound design from Dune, which is a little less obvious than Together/Hereditary:
Silo: https://youtu.be/LEoLro2TlIM?t=40
Dune: https://youtu.be/T0P6YDveLsM?t=15
It's ridiculous!
Edit:
Hereditary ending: https://youtu.be/MVnSFj6XQZY?t=107
Together ending: https://youtu.be/iUJjiWOECxk?t=28
How interesting it is to create a movie and have me invested but in the final moments break my immersion because the score decided to be a little reductive and draw the same melodic drone from a 2018 movie. I'm insane right now haha.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988): ★★★
The greatest movie I never want to see again :'(