Board 8 > Movie Club Topic 4 - We Need to Talk About the Genius Saint Who Killed The Muppe

(+) Yeah! (+)

@Seginustemple your turn to recommend

I gotta catch up on the last few weeks soon

Swiss Army Man
The Phantom
The Deer Hunter
Barry Lyndon
What Dreams May Come
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what year is the Phantom from?

I am talkin' the 90's cheesefest with Billy Zane
https://www.dvd-forum.at/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/das-phantom-news.jpg
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Swiss Army Man

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What Dreams May Come (I was just talking about this this week with someone!)

Thats my vote.


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Vote for all movies you would be interested in seeing for the next week (~Aug. 6th, 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 Aug. 6th, 3:00 A.M EST./12 A.M. PST (midnight)

Swiss Army Man (2016)
The Phantom (1996)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
What Dreams May Come (1998)

@Camden
@jcgamer107
@Johnbobb
@lucifiere
@Raka_Putra
@Xeybozn

The Deer Hunter
Barry Lyndon

Deer Hunter would knock another off my watchlist if I could manage to get fully caught up again.

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Swiss Army Man
What Dreams May Come
Barry Lyndon
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The Deer Hunter (1978)
Swiss Army Man (2016)


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Barry Lyndon
The Phantom
What Dreams May Come
Swiss Army Man

Barry Lyndon

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Barry Lyndon
Swiss Army Man
What Dreams May Come
The Phantom
Deer Hunter

Barry Lyndon is a true test of my attention span, but I feel like I should watch the whole thing because it looks like a damn renaissance painting

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next movie is Barry Lyndon (1975) directed by Stanley Kubrick.

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

Big Fish - 9/10

I think the best part of this movie is the pacing. It never lingers anywhere too long, always moves on to the next story within the story before it has time to overstay its welcome. Everything feels like it has its place within the story and nothing feels unnecessary.

I think the only real complaint I have about it is while the son comes around to how his father likes to tells stories while they're in the hospital, taking him along on one final journey because he knows it's what his father would love, I feel like his father could've also had a similar moment where he tells his son something, even if it's short and boring, that's straight and to the point.

And I thought the perfect situation was right there in the hospital when the doctor tells him the story of his birth in all its banality. His father begrudgingly telling him that same story, with a "There, happy now" attitude about it where he wasn't enjoying the telling of the story but was doing it because he recognizes how much it means to his son.

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M

I love this movie, but it just feels weird in a lot of ways compared to newer films. The lack of a real main character really stands out as something unusual for a procedural (as opposed to focusing on one guy solving everything). It's also a very quiet movie, with almost no score and several crowd scenes with almost no sound at all; somehow this feels more like a silent movie than most silent movies I've seen. The story is fairly interesting, and I love the twist that the criminal underworld ends up teaming up to catch the killer because he's bad for their business. There is one thing that bugs me, though: Are we supposed to feel bad for the killer or not? When he's "on trial" at the end of the movie he makes a very persuasive claim that he's driven to do these things by his mental illness, and it seems like we're supposed to oppose the idea of him being killed by the gangs. But the idea of him feeling bad about his actions doesn't really square with his actions earlier in the movie. It makes it really hard to figure out what the movie actually means, especially combined with the abrupt non-ending afterwards.

8/10
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@Xeybozn your turn to recommend

I've got six movies sitting in front of me waiting to be watched and I'm going to be adding another two in a couple of days, and yet I've been spending all of my free time watching episodes of Pointless on Youtube.

Also, Oregon is currently cosplaying as Hell once again so that isn't helping things.

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Melancholia

Unless you're a real masochist, Lars von Trier movies are not meant to be viewed twice. Melancholia is horribly depressing, but somehow less depressing than LvT's Dancer in the Dark (and, unfortunately, also less depressing than the behind-the-scenes of Dancer in the Dark. The highlight is absolutely Kirsten Dunst, who gives what is pretty close to a career-high performance in one of the most brilliant portrayals of depression I've seen in film. That said, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the way the film works in Justine's sudden complete instantaenous recovery from her depression and sudden clairvoyance, but overall it's an excellent film that has perhaps one of my all-time favorite endings.

9/10

need to catch up on:
Pi
Big Fish
Barry Lyndon

and I think that's it unless I'm forgetting something

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Camden posted...

Also, Oregon is currently cosplaying as Hell once again so that isn't helping things.

summer heat is a factor for me as well as far as being in the right mood to start movie watching although it seems way worse for you guys up there. honestly it hasn't been as bad as past years here yet.

but yeah i kind of hate summer but it's going to be a fucking sick marathon once i get started.

whoa i actually started a movie

but for some reason i thought it was a lot shorter so i won't be able to finish

the camera work in this is really fucking distracting

kateee posted...

@Xeybozn your turn to recommend

5 Centimeters per Second (2007)
Ernest & Celestine (2012)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Promare (2019)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
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Promare (2019)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
Ernest & Celestine (2012)
5 Centimeters per Second (2007)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)


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Ernest & Celestine
It's Such a Beautiful Day
5 Centimeters per Second
Promare

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Vote for all movies you would be interested in seeing for the next week (~Aug 13th, 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 Aug 13th, 11:00 A.M EST./8:00 A.M. PST

5 Centimeters per Second (2007)
Ernest & Celestine (2012)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Promare (2019)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)

@Camden
@jcgamer107
@Johnbobb
@lucifiere
@Seginustemple
@SwiftyDC

No vote

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I can't see a movie with Ernest in the title without assuming it's Jim Varney

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Ernest & Celestine (2012)
Promare (2019)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Seen all of the Makoto Shinkai films.

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Ernest & Celestine (2012)
5 Centimeters per Second (2007)

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It's Such a Beautiful Day
Promare
Ernest and Celestine
5 Centimeters per Second
Winnie the Pooh

Promare's style looks appealing but a stick figure movie is too unique to pass on
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For the record, I've seen the other 3 I didn't vote for.

Promare is solid, Winnie the Pooh is one of my favorite Disney movies, and It's Such a Beautiful Day is an all-time great 10/10

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It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
Ernest & Celestine (2012)
Promare (2019)

tie between Ernest & Celestine and It's Such a Beautiful Day so please choose between the two

@Xeybozn

Johnbobb posted...

need to catch up on:
Pi
Big Fish
Barry Lyndon

and I think that's it unless I'm forgetting something

forgot about M, whoops

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kateee posted...

tie between Ernest & Celestine and It's Such a Beautiful Day so please choose between the two

@Xeybozn

Flipped a coin for it, coin says we're watching It's Such a Beautiful Day.
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next movie is It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) directed by Don Hertzfeldt

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

62 min runtime btw

Any ideas where I can watch this in the US? I checked Amazon and Google and they wouldn't let me rent it.

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Vimeo has it, but I think they're the only digital rental/purchase site that does.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/itssuchabeautifulday

Alternatively, it's streaming on Criterion Channel if you have that.
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damn, used to be on Netflix

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All right cool, I'll probably check if Criterion offers a free trial and if not then I'll rent it off of Vimeo.

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I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Wasn't sure how I felt about this one at first. After letting it sit for a few weeks I gave it a second watch to clarify what was going on. I think I 'got it' the first time - it's the janitor's psychodrama and the couple is like his last two brain cells bouncing around his memories while he freezes to death. Head-space exploration is central to Kaufman's work so that much was expected, this one is just less obvious about who's head we've been exploring since it frames Lucy (or whatever her name is) as the subject for most of the runtime.

One thing I appreciated more on re-watch was the commentary on how much the media we consume can dominate our memories and thoughts. Lucy drops the the Oscar Wilde quote about "most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their live a mimicry, their passions a quotation". The old guy's mind is stuck on 'trivial pursuits' and almost everything running around his head is a media reference. Even when he has his own opinion about some movie it gets overtaken by Pauline Kael's opinion from a book he read. Daydreams are directed by Robert Zemeckis. With the cold grips of death near there's still some shitty commercial jingle stuck in his head. And then his dying fantasy is just scenes from Oklahoma and A Beautiful Mind (which I completely missed the first time, it's pretty funny). I think there may be some nods to Citizen Kane too, both in that theater scene and in the general snowglobe inner world. Or maybe that's me inserting my own media reference points, which Kaufman has surely expected the viewer to do.

Interestingly the film appears to preempt a line of criticism, as Jake's dad can't understand art where the subject isn't in frame. He doesn't know how to feel about it, and instead of putting himself into the painting he'd rather it simply tell him how to feel. Again hammering this theme of mimicry prevailing over original thought while making an argument for it's own lack of hand-holding and virtually absent subject character.

Ultimately though it's very dour and lacks the charm of an Eternal Sunshine. It's really not bad but good gravy I hope it's not the kind of media that will be stuck in my brain when I'm dying in a cold truck somewhere. 6/10
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Seginustemple posted...

One thing I appreciated more on re-watch was the commentary on how much the media we consume can dominate our memories and thoughts. Lucy drops the the Oscar Wilde quote about "most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their live a mimicry, their passions a quotation". The old guy's mind is stuck on 'trivial pursuits' and almost everything running around his head is a media reference.

i think another aspect of this is that for the janitor, it's also the only thing he has to fall back on i.e. he has no life memories of his own. it's just a lifetime of regrets over the inaction in his own life so he has to live vicariously through the media.

It's Such a Beautiful Day - 5/10

Criterion had a free trial I was able to watch on. I liked the uniqueness of the movie & the voice of the narrator but beyond that it was just okay. Just not my kind of movie. I preferred the beginning to the end. So I'm assuming Bill

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Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie 3/10

It's probably a bit of an unfair score since I couldn't look past the special effects. Overall it did kind of feel like an elongated episode, I guess.l

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kateee posted...

i think another aspect of this is that for the janitor, it's also the only thing he has to fall back on i.e. he has no life memories of his own. it's just a lifetime of regrets over the inaction in his own life so he has to live vicariously through the media.

Exactly, it's not like it's bad that he ended up well-read and cultured but the 'life wasted' regrets in other areas make it a bitter consolation. Kind of a cautionary tale about balancing your inner/outer life.

I forgot to mention that the art discussion happens at the dinner scene, hinting at the theme of media consumption - as well as the scene of the janitor eating lunch while watching the diner drama, and the connection between commercial jingles and sugar addiction
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ViolentAbacus posted...

It's probably a bit of an unfair score since I couldn't look past the special effects.

kateee posted...

I reactively let out an audible hoooly shit when the CGI ooze robots showed up because it was so jarring.

Seginustemple posted...

I forgot to mention that the art discussion happens at the dinner scene, hinting at the theme of media consumption - as well as the scene of the janitor eating lunch while watching the diner drama, and the connection between commercial jingles and sugar addiction

ooh. man there's just so much going on

Melancholia

Im kind of ready to write off von Trier entirely. I guess I should watch Antichrist before making it official but other than Dancer in the Dark, the last two films Ive seen from him have not been my thing and one of them was just outright stupid.

Theres some things I like about the film like some of the shots, performances, certain scenes, etc. but after I finish most of what sticks in my mind is the distractingly nonstop shaking camera, poorly written dialogue and indifference towards the characters. The douchebag boss character in particular just felt so manufactured and contrived that by the time the plate breaking scene happened, I was kind of tuning out.

I did like the first part more than the second; seeing Justines lethargy and the complete lack of emotional connection to anyone despite the physical proximity was pretty good.

I randomly got to thinking about Gaspar Noe and how he also does some weird fucked up shit but how I was pretty much intrigued throughout his films unlike von Triers where I can mostly just feel my impatience growing. 5/10

Melancholia

What an opening sequence! Lars isn't afraid to quote the masters - Wagner, Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Bruegel, Millais. I feel like I have to walk back my criticism about Portrait of a Lady on Fire's use of Vivaldi at the end, because this movie milks Wagner's most famous thirty seconds the entire time. It works at first but eventually overplays the same familiar clip.

The wedding half plays up so much stress about pageantry and social graces and anxiety about being trapped forever, but I felt like the story begged some questions about how we even got here. Like if Justine is so perceptive and intelligent why is she marrying captain bonehead? Is she just now realizing she doesn't want this? I'm sure I missed some exposition but I found the situation very vague. It's fitting that in real life Kirsten Dunst is married to Jesse Plemons, the guy from the previous depressing/vague movie we watched.

By the time we're in the second half I dislike all the adult characters, which I don't doubt is Lars' intent as the dialogue dips into some nihilistic "all life is evil" shit. Maybe Melancholia is actually just Lars von Trier headbutting Earth with his galaxy brain. But I find it hard to enjoy or appreciate in the end, despite all the artistic flare and style. Not my cup of tea 4/10
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