Board 8 > Movie Club Topic 3 - Murder by Marnie: Hunt for the Blue Hand Stalker Lobster

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was going to make a documentaries only round, but I want to keep using the maximum five choices so there's the highest chance that something most people would be interested in watching gets chosen and there's exactly four docs on my to watch list.

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Vast of Night
First Cow
Alpaahaville

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First Cow
The Vast of Night
High Plains Drifter
Ping Pong
Alphaville

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First Cow (2019)
Alphaville (1965)

Ping Pong (2012)
The Vast of Night (2019)

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First Cow
Alphaville
Ping Pong
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No Vote

Have no idea of any of these.

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next movie is The Vast of Night (2019) directed by Andrew Patterson.

@Camden
@jcgamer107
@Johnbobb
@lucifiere
@Raka_Putra
@Seginustemple
@Snake5555555555
@Suprak_the_Stud
@SwiftyDC
@tyder21

@ViolentAbacus
@Xeybozn

sorry for the late tally. i meant to say in the morning that i'd be late but it slipped my mind.

my schedule has changed so that the earliest i'd be able to update is 8 Pacific/11 Eastern. i thought about just pleading everyone to vote before then but i don't think that would really work. so i would like to just change the deadline for voting to midnight on Friday PST (aka 11:59 Thursday). is there anyone who would be opposed to this change? honestly people mostly get their votes in before then and i actually can't remember the last time (if ever) where a late vote came in and changed things but ya know, i still have to keep the voting open until the deadline.

Nope all good. Although In all honesty I can't really keep up this that much anymore, I get super busy in the summer months. You can take me off the "@" list please.

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right before your week

feel free to join back at any time

The Vast of Night (2019)

This movie felt like a pilot episode. A great pilot episode. Loved the aesthetic and old-school Twilight Zone vibe. I noticed this movie has a lot of long takes, kudos to the actors/actresses, those have to be pretty tough to do. I just wanted more to the story. Like a series of these events. It was too short, IMO, therefore...

7/10



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I need a movie to watch lol.

Think I might go see A Quiet Place 2 soonish.

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if there was a past nom that caught your interest but didn't win the vote, you could check one of those out i guess

SwiftyDC posted...

I need a movie to watch lol.

Think I might go see A Quiet Place 2 soonish.

Watch The Human Condition and tell me if it's worth investing 9.5 hours into.

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Saint Maud

some really great moments and an ending that sticks with you but i'm not really a horror person. that being said, this kind of more "soft" (idk if that's the right word) horror is something i'm definitely more appreciative of. tbh it took me a bit to expand the horror definition beyond the typical in-your-face slasher in my mind. like i fucking loved Under the Skin when i first saw it and didn't even consider it a horror thing until way later. the only big "issue" for me personally is the subject matter because the religious/insanity angle feels like such familiar territory and i'm just not into it. but that's just a personal thing. 6/10

Snake5555555555 posted...

Saint Maud

I also enjoy the film's incredible restraint, only briefly lingering on moments of pain and torment while instead focusing on the more anxiety-inducing side of the horror genre.

yes this!

We Need To Talk About Kevin - 8/10

This is like the final boss of fucked up mother-son relationships, yikes. I was honestly so appalled that I had to pause and come back a few times haha. I agree that it's a little weird to have John C. Reilly play the father, especially alongside Tilda Swinton, who's never been better. Ezra Miller and the child actors were also very good. I think I could score it even higher if they had fleshed out the school stuff more before the ending, like it is in the book, but what's there is effective. I really like stories that put you in the shoes of someone in an unimaginable situation, and this is about as unthinkable as it gets.

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The Vast of Night

I was really into the vibe, felt very Twin Peaks Season 3 adjacent with the whole 50's New Mexico radio station setting and ensuing strange signals and aliens toying with our brains to make us do things. The long takes are so immersive whether the camera is fixed on the switchboard operator for ten minutes or flying through the town like a mad spirit (this shot was a technical marvel, I couldn't believe they maneuvered through the basketball game without cutting). Leads were good, the guy seemed to be doing his best Matthew McConaughey impression and put out a sufficiently creepy/pushy edge that added to the general unease.

The first act had an interesting technology angle I had fun reading into. Early on I sensed some connection between attitudes on personal recording then and now, how self-appointed content creators farm gossip and hearsay and trivia for material. The dude is a natural douche vlogger. Then there's of course the winking irony that even in the 50's they're talking about self-driving cars and bullet trains and the craziest of all, cell phones. The second act took a cue from Pontypool in subverting the 'show don't tell' school of film-making, the palpable tension-building with the radio callers proves sometimes all you need is a good reaction shot over good storytelling and the audience's imagination will run wild. The classic War of the Worlds radio play needs a shoutout here too, notice the radio station is named WOTW.

Only minor weakness is it doesn't have the strongest ending, it reverts from great back to average in the third act when they visit spooky exposition lady and then reveals straight-up saucer aliens. Not that I was expecting a twist (I mean it is riffing on classic pulp sci-fi) but maybe something a little more open-ended or restrained? I felt like they had done so well telling-and-not-showing up to that point they didn't really need to blow any of the budget confirming that there is in fact a saucer. Let it be ambiguous I say!

Excellent style for a directorial debut, I'll have to keep an eye on this Andrew Patterson guy 8/10

*not opposed to the deadline change at all, whatever works best for you
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Camden posted...

Watch The Human Condition and tell me if it's worth investing 9.5 hours into.

Jesus, 9.5 wth

Edit: just looked it up, not what I expected

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I'll watch it some day(s).

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Not that I've ever watched it, but I don't get why The Human Condition is so infamous for its length. It's only about 20 min longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy (non-extended version), and nobody acts like watching LotR is some kind of insanely impossible timesink.
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I think it's mostly the content of the film. I assume it's like watching nine hours of Lord of the Rings vs watching nine hours of Schindler's List.

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Now Logistics, there's an epic.

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Yes I would watch a single Swedish movie for 5 weeks

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The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

I love Terry Gilliam, and at his best he's one of my favorite filmmakers. The trick with him is that most of his projects involve big creative risks, which is what makes some of them so good, and other not quite as successful. For the most part, this movie is excellent, succeeding most when it blurs that line between reality and fantasy. Driver and Pryce are a blast to watch, and while the plot kinda gets muddled a little along the way, it's still a fun time. 8/10

We Need to Talk About Kevin

I saw this movie years ago and thought it was mostly good, though I also had issue with how the first third of the film really tended to drag on. Think I gave it about an 8 or 9 then. Years later, I've thought about this movie way more than I thought I would, and upon rewatching I feel like I have a much stronger appreciation for that slow buildup. Nothing in this film feels unearned. We always have that dark knowledge of how Kevin will end up, with a more and more apparent understanding of what exactly he did, with all the warnings being there and a helpless feeling of knowing we can't stop it. I think it's definitely a movie worth watching twice, as it definitely improved in my mind over time 10/10

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@Seginustemple

Your turn for recommendations

Despite last round's misfire I'm gonna roll the dice on five movies I haven't yet seen but are on my watchlist

Harakiri (1962)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Onibaba (1964)
House (1977)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
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Vote for all movies you would be interested in seeing for the next week (~June 4th, NA). Rank your choices. If you do not intend to vote for whatever reason, please reply with "No Vote" so there is as little of a waiting period as possible. Please vote by Friday, June 4th, 3:00 A.M EST./12 A.M. PST (midnight)

Harakiri (1962)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Onibaba (1964)
House (1977)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

@Camden
@jcgamer107
@Johnbobb
@lucifiere
@Raka_Putra
@SwiftyDC
@tyder21
@ViolentAbacus
@Xeybozn

I should probably get around to my own movie. Last few days have been pretty warm here and I've had no desire to watch much of anything.

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House
Onibaba
Mishima
Harakiri
Woman in the Dunes

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Woman in the Dunes (1964)
Harakiri (1962)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
Onibaba (1964)

Seginustemple posted...

Despite last round's misfire I'm gonna roll the dice on five movies I haven't yet seen but are on my watchlist

I'm not sure what exactly you're into, but Harakiri is one of my top 5 or so favorite films so I definitely wouldn't mind watching it again.

House is... a weird one.

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Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
House (1977)
Onibaba (1964)
Harakiri (1962)

interesting batch here. Mishima is a fascinating figure and I didn't even know this film existed so i'd be down. ..i kind of want to read Woman in the Dunes first since i have a copy

Onibaba
Harakiri
House
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Woman in the Dune


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Woman in the Dunes
Harakiri
House
Onibaba

Great theme. I love House but I've seen it a few times. Onibaba's also really good, and I recommend Kwaidan for some more great classic Japanese horror.

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House (1977 film)

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Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
House (1977)
Onibaba (1964)
Harakiri (1962)
Woman in the Dunes (1964)


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No Vote

Harakiri rules

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Man I have no idea where this poll is gonna land

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Onibaba (1964)
House (1977)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

No Vote

Only because I don't have a way to watch any of these movies. That looks like a really good list with no bad choices.
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I was definitely considering Kwaidan but I figured 3 hours was a bit risky for a blind rec (speaking of which, someone mentioned The Human Condition last page), and I didn't wanna double up on one director since I was already eyeing Harakiri. But as I understand it Paul Schrader took a lot of inspiration from Kwaidan when he made Mishima, so there's a bit of a residual connection there.

I also had Tetsuo: The Iron Man on there at one point but I had a sneaking suspicion that one might be too weird...
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Maybe Ill do a Takashi Miike theme for my next nom.

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they're all on criterion channel so you could get a free trial i guess

although iirc there's a lot of compatibility issues you may run into with a standard setup

my prediction is that there would be one clear winner if we did Miike

I want to eventually watch The Human Condition, but I wouldn't nominate it here. I've no problem nominating a movie that was 3.5 hours long, but from what little I've read about it it's an all-or-nothing situation and I wouldn't want to ask others to watch a 3.5 hour movie if I felt it came with an additional 6 hour commitment attached to it to 'fully' watch it. If I was going to put forward a 3.5 hour movie I'd go for World on a Wire instead, which is something else I want to watch but once it's over, it's over. Would also like to watch Dances with Wolves and Hard to be a God which are ~3 hours long as well.

Tetsuo is also on my watchlist, so I definitely would've voted for that if you nominated it. Probably at the extreme other end to The Human Condition, as I imagine it's the shortest movie on my watchlist.

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SwiftyDC posted...

Maybe Ill do a Takashi Miike theme for my next nom.

Just don't nominate exactly Audition, Ichi, 13 Assassins, Hara-kiri and Blade of the Immortal, as I've seen exactly those five Miike movies.

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next movie is House (1977) directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

@Camden
@jcgamer107
@Johnbobb
@lucifiere
@Raka_Putra
@Seginustemple
@SwiftyDC
@tyder21
@ViolentAbacus
@Xeybozn

The Vast of Night - 8/10

The final scene was a bit weak, I had no problem with them disappearing right in the last scene but I feel like it would've worked better if they hadn't just shown the ufo right before it. Have them examining the burnt landscape, cut to everyone in town leaving the basketball game and then eventually cut back to the empty field. Everything else in the movie had done a good job setting up that the 'something in the sky' was a real thing and not just a couple of nutjobs listening to static on a radio, so the actual spaceship reveal felt unnecessasry as it didn't really confirm anything the entire rest of the movie hadn't already done in its own way.

Outside of that and the fact that it was a bit short, not only in runtime but in a 'that went by fast' kind of situation, it has everything else I want in scifi.

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House - 8/10

A bizarre spectacle but great reminder that when it comes to movies, nothing's against the rules. Some truly hilarious death scenes and "hauntings".

Vast of Night - 5/10

Good premise but so flat. You could pretty much just read the dialogue off the page and get the same effect.

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