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The D&D [Instant Watch] Film Society
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If there is one universal truth about people and movies it is that everyone, no matter how cultured, likes at least one bad movie. One movie with cringe worthy special effects, tastleless or unfunny jokes, terribly bad acting, horrendous special effects or just a absymal premise. Low budget, no budget, over budget, poorly edited, not edited, over edited, killed by a focus group, you don't care about the excuses, you see something good in the movie. Some love was put into it, someone acted their heart out, a serious script with some great moments of levity. A great premise marred by one or more of these ideas, or a once in a lifetime acting job in a movie that didn't deserve it.
The Love Guru isn't one of those movies.
Some people even enjoy watching terrible movies under the so bad it is good premise. Manos Hands of Fate, Q, Driven, Gigli, anything done by Rifftrax or MS3TK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkRb5DF_ox0
So trailers for comedies usually include all the funny parts of the movies these days... Looks like they forgot something here. They thought Mike Myers giant noggin on a kids body would be funny. It's really creepy.
Sadly, The Love Guru isn't even one of those movies. It is instead the singularly least funny comedy ever made. It is a mixture of the basest dick and fart jokes mixed with offensively bad Indian accent based humor, grade school word play jokes, a tragically unfunny script. Why would you make a reoccuring joke based on the real name of the cop from Law and Order:SVU? Yes, Indian words can sound silly in English, we get it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BVsrcbDBYI&feature=related
Mike Myers is no stranger to bad accents and language jokes. They are a part of just about every movie he did from Wayne's World to So I Married an Axe Murderer to Austin Powers to Shrek, and some one convinced him to branch out to a movie centered on him doing an Indian accent for eighty minutes. It does not work. At all.
The premise of the movie does it no favors. Guru Maurice Pitka (Mike Myers) is a goofy Indian jesus who is the second most famous self help man from India, hired by the Toronto Maple Leaf's beautiful owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) to help out "The Tiger Woods of Hockey" Darren Roanoke (The usually funny Romany Malco playing a straight man) get over his wife leaving him for the giant wanged goalie from Qubec Jacques "Le Coq" Grandé (Justin Timberlake) and get his game back in gear. Yes, his name is a penis joke. Everything he owns has a giant red cock on it.
Speaking about names let's look at some of the other ones here.
Coach Punch Cherkov
Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley will do ANYTHING for money)
Dick Pants
Guru Satchabigknoba
The entire movie is a endless waltz of bad word play or Indian accents are funny jokes, dick and fart jokes, and naughty grade school jokes. Over and over again.
Back to the plot of the movie Jessica Alba hired the guru because she has been a fan since childhood and secretly had a crush on him, oh, and of course Jessica Alba is a lonely and hated millionaire owner of a beloved hockey franchise and doesn't have a boyfriend or husband. But Pitka has a love problem of his own, to become a real Guru he needs to wear a chastity belt. You can see where this is going only it does so in the worst way possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYtDKysEnjA&feature=related
(Youtube lies, there are no funny scenes in this movie.)
I guess this all could have worked if not for the purile level the humor stays at. Every possible bad gradeschool joke you can think of is in this movie, seperated by ridiculous Hollywood cameos and sometimes interrupted by the aforementioned innane comedic plot of this movie. The movie was written and produced by Mike Myers, and years and years of doing children's movies must have schewed his timing towards younger audiences. Every single joke falls flat. It's a gigantic chain of failure. Oh and I guess he wasn't sick of all the midget jokes from Austin Powers, as Verne Troyer plays the Leaf's diminutive coach and even then it's still not as funny as those movies. Yes, he is small. Yes, he is vicious and creepy.
Not even the impressive comedic supporting cast of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jim Gaffigan can drag a laugh out of this movie, no matter how hard they try. Colbert does have some pretty decent bits that were cut though, as seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDnhnAwj5MI&feature=related
Why oh why do I want you to watch this terrible movie, besides watching Daniel Tosh get punched in the face? It's simple my friends, you need to know what a truely terrible movie is. The acting is fine. The budget was big. I doubt the editing really hurt it as no scene really drags nor does the plot have any gaping holes. It's just a movie that should have never, ever been made. I don't think the greatest comedic writers or directors could have salvaged this complete mess. That this movie made it past the script approval process, past the elevator pitch even, and then was made and promoted as a potential summer blockbuster.
You need to watch this movie though. It is gracefully short. I watched it twice in the last week trying my hardest to find any redeeming qualities to this film. There are none, besides maybe how fine Jessica Alba is. Speaking of that fine lady she seems to be the only one in the movie who has an inkling that she is watching the potential career suicide of Mike Myers in process, just something in her performance seems to me that she is doing what a professional does when they want to phone it in but not actually perform like they were in a Star Wars prequel.
I'd need to watch with a friend. someone to keep sharp things away.
You have brought us a fine challenge.
I knew this movie would be horrible from the first time I saw the trailer on TV.
He's one of those stars who's ego combined with laziness ruined a great career.
like Eddie Murphy
This is one of them.
Exactly. People cry at stupid movies like The Notebook and shit. But this movie actually hits a spot in everyone's heart.
We just going to cycle back to Bogart and go through again? I'm up for this. I don't want this thread to die out.
The Love Guru.
It would be rude, indeed, to leave adjectives next to such images. And how to remember a film of memory? It's already a fog. The mind has condensed it to flashes. Girl. Cats. Giraffe. Death. Color. What else was there... Film?
Seeing it is a function of time and mood. How will you experience Japan and Guinea? As I did? I've wished it before for other things, but there is the ever present impossibility of subjecting others to the oppression of the prejudices of my memories.
Anonymously immortalized in celluloid; it is immaterial if was our own happiness or a given one. A biography seconds long.
Marker is forever in on what Adrian Martin called the Minimal Threshold of Fiction. Finding inspiration in travel. In the other, and with little parasitism.
And I realize the cruelty of my key strokes. I erase him, and make it mine. Words deprived of their neighbors take new meaning and the associations of images are changed.
He is a collector of images. His and others. Allowing them by power of mass to find their own links and relationships.
He wrote me that only one film had been capable of portraying impossible memory—insane memory: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. In the spiral of the titles he saw time covering a field ever wider as it moved away, a cyclone whose present moment contains motionless the eye.
In San Francisco he had made his pilgrimage to all the film's locations: the florist Podesta Baldocchi, where James Stewart spies on Kim Novak—he the hunter, she the prey. Or was it the other way around?
The unhappiness he discovers is as inaccessible to him as the poverty of a poor country is unimaginable to the children of a rich one. He has chosen to give up his privileges, but he can do nothing about the privilege that has allowed him to choose. His only recourse is precisely that which threw him into this absurd quest: a song cycle by Mussorgsky. They are still sung in the fortieth century. Their meaning has been lost. But it was then that for the first time he perceived the presence of that thing he didn't understand which had something to do with unhappiness and memory, and towards which slowly, heavily, he began to walk.
And yet is almost fully-formed in my memory. And almost a neat 30 years later, the politics of the man from 2000 years to come have not gone out of date.
Of course you do.Oldboy was one of "those" movies that everyone was supposed to see. Like Bladerunner or Resevoir Dogs or Fight Club or, now, Inception. It's 104 on the IMDB top 250 currently. What struck me as odd And maybe this was my own experience only was how few people I knew who didn't know Oldboy was part two of a trilogy. And if you didn't know that? Well, don't feel bad. Now you do.
Enter Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was actually part 1 of "The Vengeance Trilogy." Oldboy was part 2, but Oldboy was the popular one. Also, for any concerned or confused, the movies are completely independent and separate. No continuity except the emotional themes. Part 3, also, is Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.
But we're not concerned with those other two movies, we just want ours. So onto the movie.
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance is... certainly something. One of the most significant parts of it is the cinematography. While watching the film, try to keep in mind constantly that this is a movie which exists in part simply to demonstrate the marvel of cinema itself. The very fact of putting images to screen, of moving pictures, and the possibilities when you take images from the world itself. Like those wide angle Western shots of open plains which existed because now they could exist. Cinematography is the art of using angles, lights, shadows and motion to show the world. Just to show it as it is, or isn't. And this is a movie which acknowledges and appreciates that fact.
To put it simpler, this is one of those fantastic movies that is not just a story on screen, it's a goddamn movie. You're not just seeing what Park Chan-wook (the director) wants you to see, he exploits his medium fantastically to specifically show it to you how he wants you to see it.
Secondly, this movie is brutal. Do not watch this movie with younger audiences if violence is not something you want them to see. It has 'bad' language, but it's in Korean, so maybe that's not a big deal. The violence might be. And in fact, if your squeamish, it might not be pleasant for adults, either
But I think that'd be a shame. Because in my opinion, one of the main reasons I like this movie so much, is because of the point of the violence. I'm sure you've heard this line a lot, but it is officially JamesKeenan's opinion that this movie is the real deal, a legitimate movie where the violence serves a purpose. This isn't some silly snuff film where we're pushing limits because it's fun to make people a little sick. And the film isn't that bad. It's not hardcore exhibitionist with it's violence. The violence is there because the themes of this movie art "revenge, violence and salvation." I do not think the scenes would have the same emotional impact without showing that yes, this guy just got stabbed in the neck, and he's bleeding, and now he's dead. And this once nice man did the stabbing.
I would rather avoid a plot synopsis, I think the movie will be a lot more meaningful if you don't have a conception of where the story is going before you watch it.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. - I enjoy lighter, more fun movies often, like The Big Lebowski. But cinema has a darker side, and this movie will remind you of it.
"At first nothing good happens. Then it gets worse. Then it doesn't get better. Then it gets worse"
The movie, like Oldboy(Sympathy for Ms Vengeance is not as good imo) is simply horrifying. Not horrifying like horror films are, but horrifying in only the way that something that is true can be. What "The Chaser" did to hope (Oh, you had some? Let me beat that out of you with a clawhammer), Sympathy for Mr Vengeance does for the belief that everything will just turn out OK.
Spaceship needs to be added to this list.
The name of the movie may have changed but i think few people have seen it because of this and it deserves to be watched today, if for nothing else then 'Cooking with John.
The name of the movie was Spaceship when it first came out but i think they had to change it due to some earlier copyright on the name. It starred leslie Nielson.
And i forgot it was cooking with john not bob. It was a little scene inside the movie. its a campy old show kinda like 'naked gun in space'.
Is "Spaceship" the name of the movie? Or is it "Cooking with Bob"? Is "Cooking with Bob" a segment within the movie?
Are you posting in the correct thread?
Actual Play: Mage: the Awakening - At the Edge of All Things
I think I will agree that Oldboy was more entertaining. More kung fu. Better story. And a clearer enemy throughout. Etc. Certainly better production values.
But I'm positive far more people have seen Oldboy. And I think the visuals of Mr Vengeance are just cool at times.
So...
It's obvious who they are, why they're there and what they're going to do. It's at that point I think the director showed someone being stabbed just to show them being stabbed. It wasn't necessary, because nothing worthwhile happened after it or because of it.
But that's just me.
Oldboy is a movie about revenge - Lady Vengeance, even more so - but the first is almost equal measure a mystery, the second more about redemption in the end. Mr. Vengeance is just pure, horrifying pain, the worse for the fact that, unlike the other two films, Mr. Vengeance has a lot more love. Love is what motivates each character, whereas rage and injustice power the other 2/3's of the trilogy.
Scenes like
In a lot of ways, yes, Mr. Vengeance is the weakest of the trilogy, it's certainly not as visually memorable as Lady Vengeance and it's not as thrilling or action-packed as Oldboy, but of the three it can hardly be argued it has the most heart. Which is exactly why it's the hardest to watch.
That was a typo. I wrote "Sympathy for Ms Vengeance" and I meant "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". This is probably confusing because the U.S./UK Screening was just called "Lady Vengeance".
My mistake. I think Oldboy is the easiest to get into for most people. But Mr Vengeance is imo, easily the best film of the three. Lady Vengeance just didn't do it for me. It felt weak and showy and pointless.
I am back and forth on Oldboy. There are things I love and things I hate. Oldboy does some things in film that few movies care to even consider and that's the way it displays images on the screen, such as JamesKeenan mentioned about Mr. Vengeance. The part where they're fighting and it is like a sidescrolling video game? That was intentional and one of my favorite parts of the movie. It's just so... I can't describe it in words.
Oldboy does a lot of this, but when it comes down to it, the ending ruined the whole experience for me. I hated the big reveal. So, the main character fell in love and slept with his daughter and it was all just a big revenge plot of a guy who got caught doing his sister? His sister committed suicide and he blames the main character for it all? It really left a bad taste in my mouth. I did not care for it at all. Then the part where the main character cuts his tongue out? It really didn't seem to fit. Did not seem natural at all. That may be a cultural thing, though. Maybe there's some significance there for Koreans that a Western audience just wouldn't get, but I didn't like it.
I did know that it was a 3-part trilogy. I think I will end up watching this, though. I'll just have to find the time.
But someone tell me that this movie doesn't contain the same thing I hate about Oldboy, that way I will be more willing to watch it.
The first two films in the Vengeance trilogy aren't out to make revenge a heroic or just course of action, they make an exhibition out of how self-destructive and twisted revenge is. That the antagonist was delusional, and his reason for punishing the protagonist wasn't exactly the main character's fault, shows just how stupid revenge is. Because at the end of the day no answer will satisfy you, no amount of punishment your oppressor undergoes will be suitable enough.
As far as the tongue thing goes, it's cultural, mutilation as a means of making up for dishonour.
I need to see both again. It's been too long.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Drez chose to review a movie about underage lesbians? I'm shocked." Well, folks, put your melodramatically-italicized, sarcastic, internal monologues away, because this movie is unlike any other movie about lesbians you've ever seen.
But let me be honest. If I had a choice, this is not the movie I would have reviewed. That is not to say this isn't an excellent film worthy of praise; it is. This is the feature-length directorial debut of Swedish director Lukas Moodysson. His third film - Lilja 4-Ever - is a better film. In fact, it is perhaps my favorite film. However, it is not available via Netflix Instant Watch, and is altogether difficult to find in North America.
As such, I have a dual purpose here. My primary goal is to present what I consider a wonderful film in its own right. My secondary purpose is to introduce a wonderful director and hopefully inspire people to track down his aforementioned third film.
So, with no more disclaimers, I present to you Show Me Love (originally titled Fucking Åmål, but changed when it started percolating as a possible Academy Award pick). I will refer to it henceforth as Show Me Love, as that is the most popular name for the film, and was chosen by Moodysson himself when pressed for the alternate, euphemized title.
Show Me Love movie centers primarily around two teenage girls - Agnes and Elin - living and going to school in the small Swedish town of Åmål. The original title is lifted directly from dialogue in the film, when one of the girls expresses her angst at how small Åmål is and little there is to do there.
Oh, and Agnes - a girl and an outcast - has a crush on Elin, who is a very popular girl in their school. Also, Agnes is not the only one that has a crush on Elin. And she has a sister she only vaguely gets along with. And so on and so forth.
We've all been through high school in some form. I'm sure many of us have had crushes, and I'm sure many of us were lonely and unpopular, or at least felt that way at the time. I'm sure some of us may have even lived in a small town that we wanted to break free from. That is nothing new to any of us. That's nothing new to film either.
But the performances offered in this film make the texture of the film so much more vivid than any other teen or relationship drama. This is not a Molly Ringwald film. I cannot overstate how excellent the acting is, in this and every Moodysson film I've seen (including the second film, though I found it ultimately boring despite appreciating it for its artistic quality). Nothing feels forced. Everything feels natural. At some point, you nearly forget you are watching a film. This is Lukas Moodysson's gift. He can turn film into life. Or life into film. I'm not sure which direction he works in.
I could sit here and wax eloquent for hours citing specifics as to why I love this film. The film is equally heartwrenching and uplifting at different times simply because that's how teenage life can be. I've never seen the concept of unrequited teen "love" handled so realistically by not only the director but the actors as well. Agnes in particular is excellent. It's hard to put it into words. You may ask: "Well why should I even give a shit about a realistic depiction of the emotional pitfalls of teen romance?" and I don't really know how to answer that question. All I can say is: watch this film. If you don't like it, c'est la vie. But I think you will.
If you don't like this, you probably won't like his other films, which are darker and somewhat more adult (for instance Lilja 4-ever is a very realistic and upsetting exploration of the sex trafficking trade that goes on in Europe and Russia). But I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on it, especially if you liked Show Me Love. Totally different film, but the same texture with the same excellent acting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhWEI6-_w9E
Brick is Rian Johnson's first film. He filmed a good chunk of it at his old highschool. That information's not important when you're watching the movie, but it says something about the man who made it.
The movie opens with Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) crouched over the dead body of a girl with a blue bracelet. Soon we find out her name is Emily, and she is his ex-girlfriend and the person he loves. We don't know who killed her. Brendan needs to find out.
The plot isn't original, it's your classic whodunit murder mystery, glued together with all the best noir tropes. You've got your stoic, morally questionable "detective" Brendan, his man behind the scenes and nerdy sidekick, affectionately called Brain (Matt O'Leary), the femme fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner), the dame who set the whole thing into motion, Emily, (Emilie de Ravin), and a mysterious crime boss, the Pin (Lukas Haas). Brendan needs to know who killed Emily, and he's willing to dive deep into the shady criminal element at his highschool to find out.
You'd be surprised at what a detective story can become in a different setting.
It's a little amazing how well old noir tropes lend themselves to a highschool setting. Highschool has always been a test-run for the real world, a tiny cloistered society within a society. You've still got your social elite, your intellectuals, and your criminals. They're all still there, just a lot younger, and a lot out of their depth.
So yeah, it's an old formula. Still, you can't claim this film ain't fresh.
The score, composed by Rian Johnson's brother, is gentle, sad and sweet. The characters, too, are fragile. One thing that sets this aside from other detective stories and neo-noir flicks is that most protagonists are, well, older. Jaded middle-aged detectives who drink too much and have already seen it all are common-place; it's different when you're dealing with people who are, comparatively, innocent. This is a detective story but it's also a story about a kid looking for whoever's responsible for the death of his love. When your jaded old detective takes a beating, or provokes murderers and scoundrels, you expect he has some experience with this, he's been around.
Brendan, our protagonist, is in highschool, and when you watch him slowly, over the course of the film, breakdown physically and emotionally on his quest for justice while dealing with things way above his maturity level, it's heartbreaking. Levitt does a great job.
It's meaningful in a way that Rian Johnson filmed his first movie at his old highschool. He chose a place symbolic of his childhood for his ascension from aspiring filmmaker to filmmaker proper. Brick was his graduation. I think that's pretty cool.
great excuse to watch this one again. so good.
Chainsawing trees since 99
PSN-Aphorik
WOOHOO