Board 8 > B8 Movie Club Topic 2 - Into the Little Shop of Fargo Willy's Machete Wonderland

(+) Yeah! (+)

Vote for any and all movies you would be interested in seeing for the next week (~Mar. 5th, NA). The movie with the most overall votes wins. You may rank your votes from most preferred to least (do not rank movies you would not vote for) so I don't have to @ you back in case of a tie. If you do not intend to vote and are fine with whatever wins, please reply with "No Vote" so there is as little of a waiting period as possible. If you list multiple movies in your vote but you are not ranking them, please include "Not Ranked" along with your vote (I will assume they are ranked otherwise). Please vote by Friday, Mar. 5th, 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

Stalker (1979)
Badlands (1973)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
El Topo (1970)
North by Northwest (1959)

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absolutely voting for Stalker here since it's been on my watchlist for a while

Badlands
El Topo
North by Northwest

A full slate of movies I have not seen, cool.

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Stalker (1979)
Badlands (1973)

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I think I can easily steam Badlands and North by Northwest from my super quick search so those are yeses. If I missed any easy steaming feel free to switch those to yeses as well! No order for me.

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another thing about Marnie was that it was based on a British novel which I'm assuming played into the decision to make Anna not full Japanese (blue eyes, foreign references, etc.).

i read the plot summary on wikipedia and it seems mostly similar if that was accurate. Except that in the book, Marnie marries her literal cousin(?) and Anna only has the interest in sketching in the movie.

From the pages I was using I got this.

Stalker (1979) - Criterion and Kanopy
Badlands (1973) - Criterion
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) - Cinemax
El Topo (1970) - Mubi?
North by Northwest (1959) - HBO

Never heard of Mubi before, but when I went to the page it said a movie called Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands was currently playing. So there's that.

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The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
North by Northwest (1959)
Stalker (1979)

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45 Years - 8/10

Another slow drama kinda deal, but I like it a lot. It's refreshing seeing an older couple for once and the acting is superb. The lead actress' expressions towards the end are heartwrenching...
Also, bonus points for British accents.

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North by Northwest
Stalker

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Stalker (1979)
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45 YEARS SPOILERS

Not surprisingly this one came to me by way of Ari Aster lol. The way he talks about it, especially the ending, it really seems like a bit of a companion piece to Midsommar, at least from the relationship aspect.

It's a ghost story in a way, because right from the get go you have this sense that something is "haunting" this couple, and as it's slowly revealed why, I really think you can start to feel horrified for Kate. Minor plot contrivances aside, the fact that you can live with someone that long and still not really have an idea about that aspect of your partner's life is really something that has stuck with me. Should Kate have probed further on the subject early on? Would Geoff have even provided answers then?

It's a very "quiet" film as Ari puts it, but that's why the ending hits so hard. She's realized she was just settled for, and the "dream" life she had is gone forever. Any film that can really put you in someone's shoes like that is to me top-shelf art.

9/10

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Badlands (1973)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Stalker (1979)
El Topo (1970)

ranked

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Stalker (1979)
Badlands (1973)

When Marnie Was There

I caught on pretty quick that Marnie was some type of non-worldly person, and then with the blue eyes I quickly figured she was family. That said, I found Anna to be a somewhat hard-to-like protagonist at times, the "fat pig" comment was pretty rude, her constant self deprecation was a lot at times, and she "Jennifer-Lawrence'd" her way through the movie, falling at every second she reasonably could. This movie has a lot of heart, though, and I love the undeniably queer love Anna felt (even if it ended up not being uh, the wholesome thing), and Marnie captured me from the beginning. All in all, a pretty movie, very good story telling, characters were mostly believable; it's got a lot of heart.

8/10

(re)Watched Marnie tonight, for the second time after initially watching it as part of the Gauntlet ranking

One thing that threw me off the first time through was that the implied romance between Marnie and Anna seemed like a weird mislead given the end reveal, and while it didn't really take away from my experience, it definitely confused me.

I think on a rewatch, I can appreciate the situation more. I ended up reading a review after that delved into how Anna's experience is remarkably similar to that of a queer child, and the more I think about it, from the gender nonconforming outfits to the obvious attraction/romantic interest Anna holds toward Marnie, the more I feel like the queer aspects are something the creators truly wanted to come across despite potentially being limited by cultural and societal restrictions for films in mid 2010s Japan.

This film works best in exploring Anna's (and Marnie's) self-discovery of her identity, in every aspect. She spends the whole film figuring out who she is, where she stands with her family and in her community, and she does so by sharing her experiences with Marnie, who had gone through a similar experience of self-discovery much earlier.

Overall it's a very pleasant film. Not one that sits with me deep, though it probably would've been had I not spent such a significant chunk of early 2020 watching coming-of-age anime.

8/10

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Damn Camden ninja'd my idea of choosing only 20th century movies. Excellent picks too!

El Topo
Stalker
North By Northwest
Badlands
The Poseidon Adventure

Been pretty busy lately but I should be able to catch up with the last two by next week
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It was going to be pre-60s at first. NxNW was joined by On The Waterfront, Bicycle Thieves and Metropolis, but I couldn't think of a fifth movie to put with them that wasn't there more for fitting the theme than actually wanting to watch it. So I ditched them and threw some new, or at least newer, movies in there instead.

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you don't have to have 5 movies. it's always been 3-5

oh fuck i just realized i let the first topic purge

ah well if anybody wants to look over it because you were catching up or whatever, 79213483 on lfaqs

jcgamer107 posted...

Should Kate have probed further on the subject early on? Would Geoff have even provided answers then?

i think the timing was always going to be screwy. like if they met only a few years or less after Geoff's experience, he could have mentioned it in passing but she doesn't feel comfortable pressing further because it's his trauma and the thought that he would open up when he's ready. but years after, why do you want to bring that subject up, if you haven't forgotten about it? and i don't think it would have even crossed her mind years into their relationship because she's convinced (even if he hasn't outright stated it) that he's moved on because their relationship is going so great.

Camden posted...

Stalker (1979) - Criterion and Kanopy

Stalker is not on kanopy any more btw

next movie is Stalker (1979) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

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Alright, looks like I have to get Criterion for this one.

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free trial? you can rent on amazon for $4 if you're not going to go sailing.

kateee posted...

free trial? you can rent on amazon for $4 if you're not going to go sailing.

Ah, right. Forgot about renting.


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kateee posted...

Stalker is not on kanopy any more btw

My library doesn't work with kanopy so I've never used the site, but when I go to the page for Stalker there's a big, red Watch Now button.

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it doesn't even come up when i search on the site for me. i have to search through google to get to the page where i get a "This video is not available"

i guess it's possible that there could be regional differences

When Marnie Was There - 8/10

A very touching movie and surprisingly one of the most enjoyable Ghibli movies for me, maybe because of its air of mystery that keeps the slow-ish pacing intriguing. The sudden friendship blossoming was a bit weird at first but I got used to it. I love the conclusion/twist though perhaps it was too exposition-heavy.
Also, I was surprised by an English song being played over the credits.

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most enjoyable really? what's your Ghibli ranking?

Something like this

Spirited Away
When Marnie Was There
Princess Mononoke
Ponyo
Grave of the Fireflies
My Neighbour Totoro
Kiki's Delivery Service
Howl's Moving Castle
The Wind Rises


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intradestinggg

STALKER

honestly would not be surprised if very few people end up watching/finishing this since it's basically a 3 hour film where "nothing happens" and guys just walk and talk. it's been on my watchlist for a while because of its reputation but when i looked at the runtime back then, i knew it was very unlikely i would watch it without any prodding from something like this topic.

this is a film i feel like i have to watch twice but don't know if i'll ever watch a second time. there's some pretty neat stuff technically (sooo many looooong shots) but as for the content itself, i kind of feel like i would have rather read this as a book because of my attention span. it's very allegorical/symbolic. i typically write down quotes that jump out at me when watching but it became quickly obvious that because of the style of the dialogue where everything seems so intentional that it wouldn't be feasible for this film. it's also something that you kind of have to be in the right mood/frame of mind for and i wasn't for a decent part of it.

it's interesting to think about but also easy to just say fuck it and give up thinking about it. based on my first watch of it, i'd give it a 5/10 because i can't say i really "enjoyed" it but i'm glad i finally got to watch it.

kateee posted...

it's basically a 3 hour film where "nothing happens" and guys just walk and talk.

Exactly why I wanted to watch it. Also exactly why I've yet to do so.

Pretty sure I'm doing absolutely nothing tomorrow, though.

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Stalker (1979)

What the hell did I just watch? That was my first thought when it was finally over. At first I thought it felt like the movie Annihilation and just kept watching it because I wanted to see what was going to happen next. The cinematography is phenomenal even with using some pretty shitty looking locations. For a late 70s movie this had some awesome detail in it's shots. This movie was slooooow. I honestly fell asleep a few times. I will say that this was not what I expected after seeing the title, I really thought it was going to be a horror flick.

The characters being named Writer, Professor, and Stalker also gave me heavy Wizard of Oz vibes, especially when they enter the Zone and the movie goes into color which I thought was neat. That's probably intentional but I can't understand why. The final scene was "an ohhh there it is" moment but still left me with more questions. The way these characters interacted with all the grimy environments was entertaining though, again, I don't know why. I would never sleep face first in the mud with insects crawling all over me.

5/10

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i intentionally rented this on amazon for $4 instead of going sailing so i would feel more pressured to finish it since amazon rentals run out in 72 hours after you start it. i've had times before when i've had a file on my desktop for literal months before finishing it and i could easily see that being the case here.

SwiftyDC posted...

just kept watching it because I wanted to see what was going to happen next.

early on when they're trying to get in for the first time and they're being shot at, it's like 'oh shit' but then once it settles down after a while you realize 'oh wait the remaining TWO HOURS is going to be like this'

SwiftyDC posted...

pretty shitty looking locations

the sound designer (Vladimir Sharun) believes that shooting in some of those locations literally contributed to the death of the director and others (radiation poisoning)

""We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Piliteh with a half-functioning hydroelectric station," says Vladimir Sharun. "Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larissa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris..."

https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20091008074413/http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Stalker/sharun.html

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/8-famous-directors-who-died-or-almost-died-making-their-films/

Hunt For The Wilderpeople

This one was hot and cold for me, I was into it for most of the runtime but the last third sputtered out. It developed a lot of effective emotional tension early with the wife dying and the the kid having to forge a bond with her estranged husband, but by the end it felt like the only tension was coming from the cartoon villains chasing them around. It ended up relying a lot on charm, which it did have in spades. The kid was very likable, NZ accents are very likeable, even the cheeky references to other films got me. The other Waititi films I've seen are Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do In The Shadows, clearly he's got a knack for comedy. But I do think there was room for a bit more emotional depth in this one. One scene that stuck out to me was the funeral service - the self-insert character was funny but I couldn't help but think "damn dude, let it breath a little". Like I get the sense that Waititi's instinct here was too quick to lighten the mood when he could have been more confident in the emotional impact of the scene.

It generally hits the mark as a buddy adventure though. I am a sucker for any setting involving jungle/forest/woods. The kid is totally a natural and it's cool to see Sam Neill in something recently. I mean I'm sure he's been working but I don't remember seeing him in anything since Event Horizon which is like 25 years old now.

6/10
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Stalker
Already seen it before this topic and love it to bits! Just that concept of "The Zone" is one of the best thematic locations ever put to film. is so incredible to me, an industrial rustic hellscape twisted and torn to ruin as a result of pure human hubris, with once beautiful visions of nature now depreciated and rotted away, a reflection of the hopelessness now oppressively dominating the world. It's such a prescient film, as a self-proclaimed Chernobyl buff myself, it is absolutely frightening to witness just how accurate this film was, and how it's paranoiac tension and surrealistic notes of fear encapsulate just how right people were to be scared of a nuclear apocalypse, and perhaps, weren't scared enough. Yet, the Zone can still be a place of wonder, where tragedy has wrought a sense of beauty which do not conform to our typical constraints of the word, much like we may be attracted to a once bustling household now overtaken by rotted floorboards and thick foliage. It's a location where good & evil don't really apply, but instead take on the traits of what you yourself bring into it. That's why, beyond the physical, Stalker is also one of the best examples of psychological horror I can think of; it's a film where the horror is always in plain view, yet it's the fractured minds of the human subjects it stars that inflict the most pain on to themselves, exemplified by the most simple but effective scenes of hearing noises throughout the Zone, or coming so far onto the journey only to return empty-handed, afraid to take that last step into the unknown. Stalker is a truly a film that's malleable and perfect for bringing your own life journey in to. You could watch it a million separate times and feel something unique to you every viewing, as the film's constantly gorgeous shots take on new meaning each time.

10/10

This film's themes and concepts are highly influential, including being adapted into one of my favorite series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, the Metro series, and more recently Annihilation. Check them out if Stalker didn't quite capture your attention so well because they're amazing re-toolings of pretty much the same ideas.

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When Marnie Was There SPOILERS

Both times I've seen this I think it really caught me at the right time. First viewing was ~5 years ago, with the English dub - this time I watched it in its original Japanese, with English subtitles.

It really struck me upon first viewing how real the movie was in dealing with social anxiety and other complex, painful emotions in a child/young adolescent. I am very familiar with feeling alone despite being surrounded by people, and the movie captures that perfectly. It also does a great job fusing Anna's real-life family and grief into the 'fairy tale' arc - it's a pretty emotional moment when you realize who Marnie actually is.

An important movie for anyone Anna's age and up, I think most people harbor some negativity towards parents/grandparents, but it's important to understand their lives too.

9/10

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When Marnie Was There

This was my first Ghibli but I took that with a grain of salt. I gather this is adapted from a 19th century European tale and not even directed by the main Miyazaki guy, I imagine it's not considered "core" Ghibli. So I don't think it reflects much on the studio that I wasn't as into this as I hoped I would be.

Honestly I found it frequently confusing. A lot of my reactions amounted to "huh?" and "what?". It wasn't so much the ghost mechanics but more like not following their relationship dynamic or either character's headspace. It made more sense in hindsight but before the whole grandma reveal (ahh, that's why she has a grandma name!) it was just unclear why these two characters were so automatically close, and then afterwards it was like, weren't they kind of flirting the whole time? I mean Marnie did the whole DiCaprio Titanic thing and then sensually taught Anna how to row. Patrick Swayze at the pottery wheel vibes. Was it supposed to be a ghost grandma romance?

I did like a lot of it though. The opening statement about being outside the invisible circle was great. The water motif was really effective - the rain and tide externalizing emotional states, ferrying across the lake between living/dead has a cool mythological vibe. The animation is excellent, one shot in particular of Anna running in profile stood out as looking really fluid and alive. The way the lighting is rendered on the backgrounds has a rich, romantic quality to it. I can see why people crush on the aesthetic of the Ghibli.

Ultimately I think the characters just didn't track for me. Maybe some of that is from watching two movies about foster kids bonding with elders back-to-back, that NZ kid stole some of Anna's thunder. Some of it is from nonsensical ghost grandma flirting. Or it was a projected memory, or something? I don't know.

5/10
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I seem to have snuck into the topic title...
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no that's an adjective not a noun

Seginustemple posted...

Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Seginustemple posted...

When Marnie Was There

damn did you watch these back to back?

I had a free day, it was raining, it was a mood! Got through Stalker too, but I've seen it before. You're right that it wouldn't be surprising if most people don't watch/finish that one, it's definitely something you have to be in the right frame of mind for. Writing it up now...
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I was going to watch Stalker, but
kateee posted...

Stalker is not on kanopy any more btw

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Seginustemple posted...

cartoon villains chasing them around

yeah i think this describes it very well for me as well, the lowest point for me being the whole car chase

so about the novel that Marnie was based off of, i looked into it briefly like a week ago and one person's take on it was that the "romantic' stuff was even more overt in the novel!

i think i'm actually going to read it to see for myself. it's not very long i think.