So I just checked next week's movie, Die Hard, and it's not on Instant Watch. So maybe it's not a great choice for the Instant Watch Film Society this time around.
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
I just noticed this morning when I got to the office, and Thom and I had the same idea.
It's being replaced with their latest addition, Ghostbusters
You're welcome.
are YOU on the beer list?
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
Ghostbusters....
It's a word that is uttered and carried on the winds from every man, woman and child of that fabled time of hope we called "The 80's..."
I'm going to start off with the facts.
Ghostbusters
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis
Starring... These Guys
From left to right
Harold Ramis - Egon Spengler - The super scientist who has no social skills whatsoever and once tried to drill a hole in his head.
Ernie Hudson - Winston Zeddemore - The only non founding member of the Ghostbusters. Took the job because of the steady paycheck, regrets it often.
Bill Murray - Peter Venkman - Ladies man, pseudo-scientist, and probable sociopath.
Dan Aykroyd - Raymond Stantz - Almost as smart as Egon, good looking, and the Chief Financial Officer, with a thrice upside down house to prove it.
But let's not forget the B-Team who make the ghostbusters day to day operations work.
(note: this picture is from the still very entertaining but highly inferior sequel Ghostbusters 2)
Annie Potts - Janine Melnitz - the only true love interest of Egon, despite any canon depicting otherwise, and the best Goddamn receptionist in the WORLD
Rick Moranis - Louis Tully - Horrible accountant, even worse attorney, and the most boring man alive.
Okay, now that you know who these guys are, let's talk about the film itself.
Ghostbusters was a 1984 SMASH HIT that really set the bar high for non adaptation, non remake movies, especially during the 80's when most of the stuff we see getting rehashed today was still a new and exciting property. It was originally the brain child of two very coked up comedians, Aykroyd, who was, and still is very into the paranormal studies, and John Belushi, who died way to young and would have made a fine addition to this film.
What wouldn't have been fine was the original idea for the film, which would have been titled Ghostsmashers, about time traveling ghost fighters who used wands instead of proton packs and wore SWAT team outfits. Thankfully Ivan Reitman helped fix this in the early stages of studio development and we got the movie we have today.
Honestly I'm not going to write up some long winded synopsis of this flick. You've probably seen it a dozen times, and there's a HUGE writeup on wikipedia.
Instead I'm going to talk about things in the movie that I thought were fantastic, specific scenes that stand the test of time, and the impact a movie like this has on a young child.
First off, you'll notice I didn't mention Sigourney Weaver in my initial writeup. She plays Dana Barrett and honestly she doesn't do a lot other than act as a plot device when absolutely necessary. She's supposed to be the love interest for Peter but this is a guy that's banging his students as little as three months beforehand, and it's made abundantly clear in the sequel that things don't go so well for the young couple after the events of the first movie. Just to be clear, I LOVE me some Sigourney, but this was not her finest role, despite fantastic acting on her part and being incredibly attractive and tall. It's not even that the role was bad, it was just not needed. It was there to sell date night tickets.
Second, the real unsung hero of this movie is the devious bureaucrat for the Environmental Protection Agency Walter Peck, played by the simply perfect William Atherton whom you may remember as for playing a similar character archetype in the Val Kilmer vehicle Real Genius. He plays a perfect foil to Peter. He's fantastic in almost every scene and even his slight victories, albeit short lived, inevitably end in defeat. He alone managed to shut down the entire Ghost busting operation only to release a veritable hell on Earth moments later.
Ghostbusters wasn't just a financial success at the box office. It was a successful franchise. It spawned two animated series, an entire line of toys and clothes (of which I owned all of them), a less successful but still entertaining sequel, a lifetime of adoration from fans, a bitter feud between the original cast that's supposedly still sour, a planned end to the trilogy in the works, and a career of convention appearances, in costume, by this man who, even though went on to do better things with his career, will still take a photo with you for $20 dressed like this no less than 14 weekends out of the year all across the country.
When I was a child, I WAS a Ghostbuster. I remember wanting to join, and my mother having a fake phonebook page printed up with a listing for the Ghostbusters in it, and giving me the phone as I spoke to Janine Melnitz who told me I could be a junior member (I later found out this was my Aunt, a fact I am still bitter about to this day) as I proceeded to run around the house shooting possibly toxic and unbelievably thick foam pads from my plastic proton pack and imaginary ghosts and very realistic house pets before slinging out my containment trap and springing it on unsuspecting prey.
I hope you enjoy this movie.
Edit: I'm well aware I didn't speak to some other fantastic scenes, but I thought it would be fun for everyone to watch this tomorrow and then we could talk about giant wads of marshmallow goo "money shots" and giant wads of green ecto plasmic goo "money shots" at that point.
William Atherton really was fantastic in this, wasn't he in the first two die hards playing a similar character type? ghostbusters 2 was the first film i ever saw in the cinema too.. wish it was 1 but i did get to see the first film on the big screen this past halloween and it was just as good as ever.
Shit, im getting flashbacks of one xmas morning when i woke up to find santa had brought me all the action figures that had switches that made their eyes pop out, i also got a wearable proton pack the same xmas.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
It's astounding that to this day, after dozens of viewings, I can still find something previously unnoticed to laugh about in Ghostbusters. Most recently that was, "Shhh! You smell that?"
It remains the only movie that I value enough to completely disassemble a bargain basement DVD player that decided to eat my disc.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
Odd, I just re-watched Ghostbusters for the first time in a long time a couple days ago, mainly because the whole "Chevy Chase vs. Community's creator" flap that's been going around reminded of the Bill Murray/Chevy Chase fistfight on SNL and got me in the mood for something Bill Murray.
Like amateurhour, I fucking lived Ghostbusters as a kid. I had a VHS tape with this and Back to the Future recorded on it that I played endlessly to the point that both were tracking line messes. I watched the cartoon, had action figures, video games, a proton pack, a trap, etc., etc.
...And even as an adult, it's still fantastic. Unlike some other movies I liked as a kid, there's never been that massive disappointment of the nostalgia goggles coming off. If anything, it's better, because now I'm even more keyed in to how hilarious every line out of Bill Murray (and pretty much everyone else) is (not that he wasn't awesome as a kid - I just notice more now), and just how well put together it is.
I also re-watched Real Genius, so I've almost had "William Atherton is a prick" mini film marathon here.
Unfortunately there's almost nothing I have to say about Ghostbusters that hasn't been said somewhere in this SomethingAwful thread. But wow, what a movie. I don't think a single joke falls flat. The delivery on some of those lines kills me every time. I mean, just listen to this (jump to 0:14 if the embed doesn't do it):
"It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man." He's just... defeated, and bemused, and terrified, and disappointed, and apologetic, and matter-of-fact... all rolled into one. And the one-liners just keep coming. Add to that the tremendous feel-good moments (holy shit that theme song! And the way everyone is chanting "GHOSTBUSTERS" and even the Hasidic Jews stop praying and start cheering with everyone else) and the wonderful mix of absurdity and the grounding in reality that you get from the awesome props and... yeah. What a movie.
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
a good excuse to finally watch this!
please don't hurt me
edit - I've seen most of it just to cover myself a little bit but I've never sat and watched the whole thing and I'm not at all trying to pretend this is acceptable.
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is toward the end when Winston is talking to Ray. There's this eerie soundtrack in the background as they're driving, and Winston brings up a different theory as to why this is all happening. As someone who's just "taken the job for the paycheck" he really doesn't wrap his head behind the science of ghosts.
he gets into this meaningful dialogue with Ray about fire and brimstone and the dead rising from the grave and how this is judgement day, and it's almost like for the first time ever Ray doesn't have a scientific backing for what's going on. He's just dumbstruck by the possibility that their little endeavor may have been the catalyst to the apocalypse, and he goes quiet and turns on the stereo.
Fucking powerful scene for such a great comedy, and it says a lot about religion vs science and how they can be closely related at times.
I watched Ghostbusters so much as a child that I wore out the VHS tape. I still love that movie and it's likely the catalyst for my continuing Bill Murray obsession.
Like most comedies, this is just as funny even if you know what's going to happen, but if you prefer to avoid all spoilers, I would watch the movie before reading my post. I do quote a few lines that might not be quite as funny if you've read them before hearing them but whatever. If you want, you can scroll down to the Coke bottle to find the BONUS DRINKING GAME section before you watch the movie.
I picked One, Two, Three for three reasons. First, it's hilarious. Second, it's Billy Wilder. Third, it's a lesser-known Billy Wilder. Let's talk about them in reverse order!
Lesser-Known Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder! Good old Wilder. Are you the greatest American director? Or just one of the greatest? We may never settle the issue, but there is no question that Wilder's oeuvre comprises some of the best movies ever made. If you haven't gotten around to watching all of them (and a few of the greats, like Ace in the Hole, are streaming on Netflix right now!), then I'm sure you will before you die. You simply must. I have a soft spot for One, Two, Three that not everyone else does, though, so I figured I'd urge everyone to watch it because Wilder fans may not have seen it and Wilder neophytes will get a nice, funny introduction to the master before moving onto the heavier, darker, more cynical stuff.
Billy Wilder!
But, Billy Wilder! Wilder is most famous for his comedies, some of which are dark as dark can be (The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, and Some Like it Hot are among his most famous), and for Double Indemnity, which is one of the greatest film noirs. He had a wide range (check out Stalag 17 for a great prison camp drama and Witness for the Prosecution for a great courtroom drama) but in my heart it's always about the funny stuff. Which brings us to...
One, Two, Three
Meet James Cagney.
Cagney is this movie, and that's a hell of an achievement, because riding on his shoulders is one of the fastest comedies ever to hit the screen. The jokes come a mile a minute. "The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world," said Wilder, and they pretty much did it.
Cagney's got a lot riding on him, but so does the man he plays, C.R. MacNamara, the Coca-Cola executive in charge of West Berlin. He's not happy there, and he wants to move up, but until then he has to deal with an assistant who insists he spent the war as a subway conductor ("Adolf who?" he responds when queried) and a room full of employees who snap to attention every time he walks in.
But just when he's ready to cut a deal with the Russians to start selling Coke behind the iron curtain, along comes Scarlet, the Southern Belle daughter of MacNamara's boss back in Atlanta. She's a handful...
Because she almost immediately falls in love with a Communist.
And the madcap comedy that ensues as MacNamara attempts to right this wrong and save his skin is, I think, almost unrivalled in cinema history. It's a constant stream of one-liners, but instead of the non-sequitor puns and sight gags of a Zuckerberg film (not that those are bad), we get jabs at Communism, jabs at capitalism, jabs at Germany, jabs at royalty, jabs at the South... this movie throws punches so fast, you barely have time to register who's been hit before it swaps targets.
Ironically, the biting jokes that come a mile a minute largely sunk the movie when it came out: between the time when it was filmed and the time when it was released, the Berlin Wall had gone up and people weren't ready to laugh at East meets West hijinks for a while. In fact, near the end of filming, the production ran into trouble, as a few scenes they wanted to shoot at the Brandenburg Gate had to be moved because the Wall had started to go up overnight. This didn't stop them from getting plenty of filming done in the picturesque post-war Berlin you might recognize from movies like The Third Man, though:
The movie's loss is our gain, however, because it's much later now and we can laugh at what are still some very funny quips. Almost the entire draw of the movie is its pacing and the jokes, which of course I can't communicate to you here, so I'll leave you with some quotes and some notes:
The MP on the left is Red Buttons in a small but funny role. If you've never heard of him, then you've missed out on a great comedian, so here's a funny (unrelated) line from the movie to make up for it:
Count von Droste-Schattenburg: The von Droste-Schattenburgs date back to the Second Crusade. We have one of the oldest bloodlines in Europe, and one of the most inbred!
HAH.
This is a picture of an austere looking chap (the conductor), who is actually Friedrich Hollaender, a real life film composer. I don't know why but he always stands out to me when I watch this film, so he gets his own screencap. And you get one more quote:
Phyllis, MacNamara's Wife: After sixteen years, maybe every marriage gets a little stale, like a leftover glass of beer. MacNamara: Look Phyllis, can't we discuss this without bringing up a rival beverage?
One, Two, Three is an exercise in sustained hilarity. It doesn't go for the deep laughs: it goes for consistency. If you can make it through any given five minutes in this movie without laughing, you need to tell your doctor you've got clinical depression. It even picked up an Oscar nomination for best cinematography, and although I'm not sure I can quite see what they were going for with that, there are some wonderful shots of the Brandenburg Gate and an exciting car chase. Like all comedies, it's a ton of fun to watch with other people, so grab anyone you can convince to watch a black and white film and try to keep up with the jokes.
And Wikipedia says that in the '80s, the film was re-released and enjoyed great popularity in West Berlin. So that's pretty cool.
BONUS DRINKING GAME:
Every time someone drinks a Coke, finish your drink. I can't add any more rules, because everything else in this movie is basically a joke, and if it happens more than once, it happens a thousand times, each time funnier than the last. If you're willing to die of alcohol poisoning, though, pick any one out of the following list and take a and drink whenever:
A German does something extremely efficiently
A Communist insults capitalism
A capitalist insults Communism
The movie makes you laugh
Someone points their finger at someone else
Alternatively you can play the drinking game with Cokes and not worry about dying. Brush your teeth afterwards though.
Discussion Questions:
So, we've all seen the movie now. (Go watch it if you haven't, duh.)
What did you think?
Have you seen other Billy Wilder films? How does this one compare?
Was it just a farce, or was there any real commentary going on?
How does it hold up, many decades later?
What does it have in common with the Judd Apatow brand of comedy that's all the rage these days, and in what ways does it differ? Which kind of comedy do you prefer, and why? Or are there things that each kind does better than the other?
Pamela Tiffin's Southern accent: bad, really bad, or not too bad?
Are comedies a bad choice for the Instant Watch Film Society because unless they're game-changing classics (like Ghostbusters) there' s not much to talk about? I'm sort of worrying about this one myself.
Were there any old-timey references that nobody understood? As far as I remember there's only one gag that relies on any real specific historical knowledge and even that can be figured out in context extremely easily.
Totally random but just the other day I was vacuuming and my mom came in the room. So I pointed the vacuum hose at her and said "GHOST BE GONE!!" then said "who're you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!!"
I know they don't say "ghost be gone" but I couldn't help myself xD lol
I apologise for a) taking so damn long and b) not (yet) breaking the text up with screenshots. I will try to get to it at some point this weekend, but I'm not sure if my machine is actually up for it.
So... without any more waffling... here's The Way of the Gun:
The Way of the Gun written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Most of you will remember McQuarrie's first big splash in Hollywood with The Usual Suspects. It launched Bryan Singer's meteoric rise to mediocre film-making and relegated its writer to making precious little in the years following its release.
The Way of the Gun was the first thing McQuarrie did after years of being frustrated at none of his other, non-crime projects getting off the ground. (Save for some TV movie as IMDB tells me.) And it's this frustration that fuels a lot of the humour and fun in The Way of the Gun.
And make no mistake, this movie is a comedy at heart. It might not be a happy, family-friendly and optimistic little tale about two go-getters realising their dreams, but it is a film that invites you to laugh at the pathetic struggles and pompous concerns of some very flawed, and profoundly disturbed individuals. Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Philippe play the film's protagonists “Longbaugh” and “Parker” respectively. Two men who are highly ambitious, impressively clever and frightingly casual about violence they commit or suffer.
The opening scene builds up to one big punchline (pun intended) that perfectly sums up the irreverent, almost punk-like attitude that not only defines the two protagonists but also clues the audience in on the voice of this film. While it dresses itself up as another run-of-the-mill crime thriller, it is also a big middle-finger to the worn-out tropes, set-pieces and established storytelling wisdom of the crime thriller genre. But where most deconstructions and film criticisms are borne out of cynicism, you can tell that McQuarrie has great affection for the style and tone of crime stories. To some extent he celebrates the fantasy of those stories, where casual violence infuses the coolness of characters, where the ability and willingness to commit violence is a necessary tool to assert yourself in a hostile world and where acting according to your individual morality is a sign of strength and moral superiority. These stories of social outcasts and misfits operating on the fringes of society, unbound by social mores or laws as they make their way are perfect escapist pleasures for men and boys of all ages.
There is something arrestingly cool about these characters and their stories. Something harking back to what made certain Westerns so attractive. And aside from the Old West references in the protagonists' names, there are many parallels strewn throughout the story that ties The Way of the Gun back to classic Western films. And while this movie lacks the psychological depth of a Sam Peckinpah film or the almost operatic use of archetypes of a Sergio Leone western, their influences are visible.
But McQuarrie's film isn't about other films and how they shaped this story. The story itself is actually quite simple: two low-life criminals with great ambition try to steal a lot of money. But what makes this fairly straight-forward story so much fun, is that it is populated almost entirely by characters shaped by hubris and over-estimation of their own cleverness. And a more cynical viewer might think the same of McQuarrie himself as the film's dialogue always sacrifices naturality for quotability. But that's how you get to such glorious turns of phrases like:
“Fifteen million dollars is not money. It's a motive with a universal adaptor on it.”
“I think a plan is just a list of things that don't happen.”
“The longest distance between two points is a kidnapper and his money.”
You can almost hear the giggling going on behind the camera as these words are spoken. This is just a plain fun movie, that loves to play around with badass postures, badass one-liners and just tough guys prancing about being gritty to one another.
But what makes this movie stand head and shoulders above some of the lesser specimen of “tough guy”-crime flicks, is the fact that the movie does not take itself as seriously as its characters do. There is some subtle irony at play in Way of the Gun, most obvious in the way it continuously one-ups the clever schemes and twists of the characters. They might be clever and very proud of themselves for it, but the story continuously manages to deflate the hubris of its characters.
And despite all the death, violence and harsh language... it's this little element, that just makes me laugh every time I watch this film.
amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Best part of that movie is when Taye Diggs, who is a fantastic actor and a great character in that film, is shot in the neck, and dies staring at his killer, bleeding out.
Most movies, when a death occurs, either use a quick "here then gone" approach or a slow burn in while the dying has time to reflect or speak.
No, this was just painfully, Tarantino level hard to watch, but you couldn't pull your eyes away. Diggs wanted to speak, wanted to say something, if even just "fuck you" but he couldn't. All he could do was stare.
Jimmy Caan has a great dialogue in that movie as well about old guys in crime, how they may not look like much, but when you see an old timer who lived a life of crime you know one thing, they're a survivor.
It's almost an analogy to Darwin's Survival of the Fittest belief.
Totally agree with Joe that this movie is a bunch of great philosophy wrapped into a fantastic action movie.
Also, I want to point out how realistic a lot of the fighting is. There's reloading of guns on a regular basis, there is collateral damage and pain received from broken glass and shrapnel. There's fatigue and the stress that can break even the toughest of partnerships.
Early on, when the kidnapping happens, there's a fantastic, what I can only call "non car chase" where they would stop the car, get out, let the car roll, and then get back in and drive off.
Also during the kidnapping there's a point where they use a military specific cover routine to get out safely that's very well executed to show there's no chance they can get taken down by the bodyguards.
A+ movie.
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
Also I like to think that somewhere, somehow, the two guys in this movie are related to the cast of SLC punk somewhere in the same universe.
Love the gun fights in that movie. That's how you work together and survive with a two man team in a realistic environment.
Edit: Man, you paint this movie as pretty lighthearted. I haven't seen it in a while, but it gets pretty downer at the end. To the point where it soured the mood for alot of people I watched it with. I agree the film doesnt take itself as seriously as the characters do though.
Edit: Man, you paint this movie as pretty lighthearted.
You are right, people shouldn't get the impression that it's a light-hearted movie. It's fairly grim and violent, and the humour is dark and mean. It is played as a bit of dead-pan joke, though.
Today we will be watching and talking a little about
The Trial (1962) Hmm? Oh, they took that movie off Netflix Instant Watch in the month since I selected it to review on here? That was rude. Well, I mean, I understand licensing agreem-
You don't have to yell at me about it, I'm only saying tha-
Okay, we'll agree to disagree. Goodbye.
You hang up. No, YOU hang up. YOU hang up. No, you. You. You.
The Red and the White (1967)
This is a Russian-Hungarian film that follows the Bolshevik Red Army and the Anti-Communist White Army as they trade blows and terrorize the locals in the area surrounding a small stretch of the Volga River during the Russian Civil War in 1919. This is all well and good...except that it was commissioned as a film about the October Revolution set in 1917. So instead of receiving a commemoration of the political uprising that led to the overthrow of the Tsarist government in Petrograd and the installation of a Communist government in its wake, they got an unflattering reminder that war is an ugly affair which consumes all and hardly the romantic stuff of songs.
The Soviet Union banned this one right quick. And (surprise, surprise) the rest of the world quite liked it.
WARNINGS:
-There is a bit of nudity in this. Mostly butts, some side boob.
-Netflix fucked up the aspect ratio. The proper aspect ratio is 2.35:1. They somehow squashed it down to ~3:1. It's annoying, but the film is still watchable. I've corrected the screenshots because I'm obsessive-compulsive like that.
Miklós Jancsó is the director of The Red and the White, and knowing his historical switch-a-roo above makes what he did that more interesting because you can see how he crafted a fairly unique anti-war film when you contrast it against war films and even other anti-war films. A war film, while not without its shades of gray and displays of horror, generally follows a side to the completion of a mission/battle/war and gives the audience a side to root for; there are protagonists and a clear goal. The same is true with many anti-war films; in All Quiet on the Western Front the audience follows a German soldier as he tries to stay alive during World War I, Paths of Glory shows the audience the fallout from a disastrous suicide mission amongst a group of French soldiers in World War I, Come and See follows a Russian youth from atrocity to atrocity in World War II. As harrowing as they are the audience still has characters to follow and, well, a story.
Miklós went a different route.
This film follows no one from start to finish. If you would like to become emotionally invested in a lead character, well, too bad. The film utilizes long dolly takes, constantly moving and reframing as different people occupy its space. You think for a moment that you'll follow someone for a spell as they're sent on a mission but then they leave the frame and the camera moves onto the next person. This attitude lends itself to how the Reds and the Whites occupy the film as well. There is a push and pull between them as to who is in control at any given time.
See that happy-go-lucky fellow in the middle of the frame? He's an asshole. He's looking for escaped prisoners but has settled upon harassing the locals. We follow him for a bit as he orders everyone around, but in the span of a minute a group of opposition troops surrounds him, kills his men, and execute him. And then we follow the opposition for a little bit. This kind of thing even happens to people on the same side! In one scene a group of retreating troops regroup. Those without guns are lined up and ordered to be executed by one person who seems to have taken control of the impromptu unit, but then one of the people who is about to be shot stands up to the leader, remarks how stupid an idea doing that is, takes control of the situation, the execution gets called off, and they start marching back to fight. Control is an illusion.
There is a third group at play here; the nurses at the field hospital. They seem to be stuck in an endless struggle of trying to keep people alive while being sexually harassed and physically threatened by those very people. Who will fight for them? No one.
If there is a star to this film, it is the camerawork of Tamás Somló. Shooting with Cinemascope, Somló makes the most of the riverside, the hills, the dilapidated buildings, and the people who march through them. Jancsó and Somló use every bit of their foregrounds, middlegrounds, and backgrounds throughout and it is a beautiful thing to behold. Deep focus is the name of the game.
As I mentioned before, the subject of the camera can change almost at whim. The film plays with this notion by moving people along the z-axis. In one shot a man is dragged out of the river off in the distance, brought to the foreground to be interrogated, and then taken all the way back to the river. The camera holds the same frame the whole time. No one stays in the foreground long enough in this movie to be the leader, to be the hero.
In perhaps the movie's most famous shot, a small group of soldiers decide to march on a very large group of opposition soldiers off in the background. The camera had been following the small group for a few minutes and they were the focus of the frame and the narrative. When they decide to attack it switches to this framing:
The small group starts off close to the camera but get smaller and smaller as they head off along the z-axis. When someone is close to the camera it's easy to root for them and think that they have a chance. But as they grow smaller and smaller, no camera cuts at all, it becomes apparent how futile it all was.
Through all this, the constant shifting of subjects and the lack of control, the film blends the Reds and the Whites until you don't know who is who. Both sides abuse their power when they have it and that power is always fleeting and confused.
Posts
Jesus they're delicious
http://www.etsy.com/shop/VisualEtiquette?section_id=11192421
if there is I have some hunting to do
It's being replaced with their latest addition, Ghostbusters
You're welcome.
It's a word that is uttered and carried on the winds from every man, woman and child of that fabled time of hope we called "The 80's..."
I'm going to start off with the facts.
Ghostbusters
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis
Starring... These Guys
From left to right
Harold Ramis - Egon Spengler - The super scientist who has no social skills whatsoever and once tried to drill a hole in his head.
Ernie Hudson - Winston Zeddemore - The only non founding member of the Ghostbusters. Took the job because of the steady paycheck, regrets it often.
Bill Murray - Peter Venkman - Ladies man, pseudo-scientist, and probable sociopath.
Dan Aykroyd - Raymond Stantz - Almost as smart as Egon, good looking, and the Chief Financial Officer, with a thrice upside down house to prove it.
But let's not forget the B-Team who make the ghostbusters day to day operations work.
(note: this picture is from the still very entertaining but highly inferior sequel Ghostbusters 2)
Annie Potts - Janine Melnitz - the only true love interest of Egon, despite any canon depicting otherwise, and the best Goddamn receptionist in the WORLD
Rick Moranis - Louis Tully - Horrible accountant, even worse attorney, and the most boring man alive.
Okay, now that you know who these guys are, let's talk about the film itself.
Ghostbusters was a 1984 SMASH HIT that really set the bar high for non adaptation, non remake movies, especially during the 80's when most of the stuff we see getting rehashed today was still a new and exciting property. It was originally the brain child of two very coked up comedians, Aykroyd, who was, and still is very into the paranormal studies, and John Belushi, who died way to young and would have made a fine addition to this film.
What wouldn't have been fine was the original idea for the film, which would have been titled Ghostsmashers, about time traveling ghost fighters who used wands instead of proton packs and wore SWAT team outfits. Thankfully Ivan Reitman helped fix this in the early stages of studio development and we got the movie we have today.
Throughout the film you'll see common themes of the 80's, from the group of baby boomers with no real clue what to do with their lives, despite being highly ranked in their scientific fields, to the usual 80's level of greed and excess, to less conventional themes like demon worship and Twinkies ©.
Honestly I'm not going to write up some long winded synopsis of this flick. You've probably seen it a dozen times, and there's a HUGE writeup on wikipedia.
Instead I'm going to talk about things in the movie that I thought were fantastic, specific scenes that stand the test of time, and the impact a movie like this has on a young child.
First off, you'll notice I didn't mention Sigourney Weaver in my initial writeup. She plays Dana Barrett and honestly she doesn't do a lot other than act as a plot device when absolutely necessary. She's supposed to be the love interest for Peter but this is a guy that's banging his students as little as three months beforehand, and it's made abundantly clear in the sequel that things don't go so well for the young couple after the events of the first movie. Just to be clear, I LOVE me some Sigourney, but this was not her finest role, despite fantastic acting on her part and being incredibly attractive and tall. It's not even that the role was bad, it was just not needed. It was there to sell date night tickets.
Second, the real unsung hero of this movie is the devious bureaucrat for the Environmental Protection Agency Walter Peck, played by the simply perfect William Atherton whom you may remember as for playing a similar character archetype in the Val Kilmer vehicle Real Genius. He plays a perfect foil to Peter. He's fantastic in almost every scene and even his slight victories, albeit short lived, inevitably end in defeat. He alone managed to shut down the entire Ghost busting operation only to release a veritable hell on Earth moments later.
Ghostbusters wasn't just a financial success at the box office. It was a successful franchise. It spawned two animated series, an entire line of toys and clothes (of which I owned all of them), a less successful but still entertaining sequel, a lifetime of adoration from fans, a bitter feud between the original cast that's supposedly still sour, a planned end to the trilogy in the works, and a career of convention appearances, in costume, by this man who, even though went on to do better things with his career, will still take a photo with you for $20 dressed like this no less than 14 weekends out of the year all across the country.
When I was a child, I WAS a Ghostbuster. I remember wanting to join, and my mother having a fake phonebook page printed up with a listing for the Ghostbusters in it, and giving me the phone as I spoke to Janine Melnitz who told me I could be a junior member (I later found out this was my Aunt, a fact I am still bitter about to this day) as I proceeded to run around the house shooting possibly toxic and unbelievably thick foam pads from my plastic proton pack and imaginary ghosts and very realistic house pets before slinging out my containment trap and springing it on unsuspecting prey.
I hope you enjoy this movie.
Edit: I'm well aware I didn't speak to some other fantastic scenes, but I thought it would be fun for everyone to watch this tomorrow and then we could talk about giant wads of marshmallow goo "money shots" and giant wads of green ecto plasmic goo "money shots" at that point.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Shit, im getting flashbacks of one xmas morning when i woke up to find santa had brought me all the action figures that had switches that made their eyes pop out, i also got a wearable proton pack the same xmas.
Best fucking day ever.
Ray, when someone asks if you are a God, you say yes!
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Seconded.
It's on my list of "Perfect Films," which isn't a very long list.
And a longer essay on each characters initial appearance and what their costume design tell us about them
It remains the only movie that I value enough to completely disassemble a bargain basement DVD player that decided to eat my disc.
Like amateurhour, I fucking lived Ghostbusters as a kid. I had a VHS tape with this and Back to the Future recorded on it that I played endlessly to the point that both were tracking line messes. I watched the cartoon, had action figures, video games, a proton pack, a trap, etc., etc.
...And even as an adult, it's still fantastic. Unlike some other movies I liked as a kid, there's never been that massive disappointment of the nostalgia goggles coming off. If anything, it's better, because now I'm even more keyed in to how hilarious every line out of Bill Murray (and pretty much everyone else) is (not that he wasn't awesome as a kid - I just notice more now), and just how well put together it is.
I also re-watched Real Genius, so I've almost had "William Atherton is a prick" mini film marathon here.
"It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man." He's just... defeated, and bemused, and terrified, and disappointed, and apologetic, and matter-of-fact... all rolled into one. And the one-liners just keep coming. Add to that the tremendous feel-good moments (holy shit that theme song! And the way everyone is chanting "GHOSTBUSTERS" and even the Hasidic Jews stop praying and start cheering with everyone else) and the wonderful mix of absurdity and the grounding in reality that you get from the awesome props and... yeah. What a movie.
please don't hurt me
edit - I've seen most of it just to cover myself a little bit but I've never sat and watched the whole thing and I'm not at all trying to pretend this is acceptable.
You know, after all these years, it's still true:
Bustin' makes me feel good
he gets into this meaningful dialogue with Ray about fire and brimstone and the dead rising from the grave and how this is judgement day, and it's almost like for the first time ever Ray doesn't have a scientific backing for what's going on. He's just dumbstruck by the possibility that their little endeavor may have been the catalyst to the apocalypse, and he goes quiet and turns on the stereo.
Fucking powerful scene for such a great comedy, and it says a lot about religion vs science and how they can be closely related at times.
First time I saw Ghostbusters (I was probably 6 or 7) it scared the crap out of me. Figuratively, that is.
I also had a VHS copy of Ghostbusters 2 recorded off a free HBO preview that I watched all the time.
"Good idea; we can do more damage that way."
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Here's the link to this week's movie, One, Two, Three (1961), dir. Billy Wilder. But first...
Like most comedies, this is just as funny even if you know what's going to happen, but if you prefer to avoid all spoilers, I would watch the movie before reading my post. I do quote a few lines that might not be quite as funny if you've read them before hearing them but whatever. If you want, you can scroll down to the Coke bottle to find the BONUS DRINKING GAME section before you watch the movie.
I picked One, Two, Three for three reasons. First, it's hilarious. Second, it's Billy Wilder. Third, it's a lesser-known Billy Wilder. Let's talk about them in reverse order!
Lesser-Known Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder! Good old Wilder. Are you the greatest American director? Or just one of the greatest? We may never settle the issue, but there is no question that Wilder's oeuvre comprises some of the best movies ever made. If you haven't gotten around to watching all of them (and a few of the greats, like Ace in the Hole, are streaming on Netflix right now!), then I'm sure you will before you die. You simply must. I have a soft spot for One, Two, Three that not everyone else does, though, so I figured I'd urge everyone to watch it because Wilder fans may not have seen it and Wilder neophytes will get a nice, funny introduction to the master before moving onto the heavier, darker, more cynical stuff.
Billy Wilder!
But, Billy Wilder! Wilder is most famous for his comedies, some of which are dark as dark can be (The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, and Some Like it Hot are among his most famous), and for Double Indemnity, which is one of the greatest film noirs. He had a wide range (check out Stalag 17 for a great prison camp drama and Witness for the Prosecution for a great courtroom drama) but in my heart it's always about the funny stuff. Which brings us to...
One, Two, Three
Meet James Cagney.
Cagney is this movie, and that's a hell of an achievement, because riding on his shoulders is one of the fastest comedies ever to hit the screen. The jokes come a mile a minute. "The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world," said Wilder, and they pretty much did it.
Cagney's got a lot riding on him, but so does the man he plays, C.R. MacNamara, the Coca-Cola executive in charge of West Berlin. He's not happy there, and he wants to move up, but until then he has to deal with an assistant who insists he spent the war as a subway conductor ("Adolf who?" he responds when queried) and a room full of employees who snap to attention every time he walks in.
But just when he's ready to cut a deal with the Russians to start selling Coke behind the iron curtain, along comes Scarlet, the Southern Belle daughter of MacNamara's boss back in Atlanta. She's a handful...
Because she almost immediately falls in love with a Communist.
And the madcap comedy that ensues as MacNamara attempts to right this wrong and save his skin is, I think, almost unrivalled in cinema history. It's a constant stream of one-liners, but instead of the non-sequitor puns and sight gags of a Zuckerberg film (not that those are bad), we get jabs at Communism, jabs at capitalism, jabs at Germany, jabs at royalty, jabs at the South... this movie throws punches so fast, you barely have time to register who's been hit before it swaps targets.
Ironically, the biting jokes that come a mile a minute largely sunk the movie when it came out: between the time when it was filmed and the time when it was released, the Berlin Wall had gone up and people weren't ready to laugh at East meets West hijinks for a while. In fact, near the end of filming, the production ran into trouble, as a few scenes they wanted to shoot at the Brandenburg Gate had to be moved because the Wall had started to go up overnight. This didn't stop them from getting plenty of filming done in the picturesque post-war Berlin you might recognize from movies like The Third Man, though:
The movie's loss is our gain, however, because it's much later now and we can laugh at what are still some very funny quips. Almost the entire draw of the movie is its pacing and the jokes, which of course I can't communicate to you here, so I'll leave you with some quotes and some notes:
The MP on the left is Red Buttons in a small but funny role. If you've never heard of him, then you've missed out on a great comedian, so here's a funny (unrelated) line from the movie to make up for it: HAH.
This is a picture of an austere looking chap (the conductor), who is actually Friedrich Hollaender, a real life film composer. I don't know why but he always stands out to me when I watch this film, so he gets his own screencap. And you get one more quote: One, Two, Three is an exercise in sustained hilarity. It doesn't go for the deep laughs: it goes for consistency. If you can make it through any given five minutes in this movie without laughing, you need to tell your doctor you've got clinical depression. It even picked up an Oscar nomination for best cinematography, and although I'm not sure I can quite see what they were going for with that, there are some wonderful shots of the Brandenburg Gate and an exciting car chase. Like all comedies, it's a ton of fun to watch with other people, so grab anyone you can convince to watch a black and white film and try to keep up with the jokes.
And Wikipedia says that in the '80s, the film was re-released and enjoyed great popularity in West Berlin. So that's pretty cool.
BONUS DRINKING GAME:
Every time someone drinks a Coke, finish your drink. I can't add any more rules, because everything else in this movie is basically a joke, and if it happens more than once, it happens a thousand times, each time funnier than the last. If you're willing to die of alcohol poisoning, though, pick any one out of the following list and take a and drink whenever:
- A German does something extremely efficiently
- A Communist insults capitalism
- A capitalist insults Communism
- The movie makes you laugh
- Someone points their finger at someone else
Alternatively you can play the drinking game with Cokes and not worry about dying. Brush your teeth afterwards though.Discussion Questions:
So, we've all seen the movie now. (Go watch it if you haven't, duh.)
I know they don't say "ghost be gone" but I couldn't help myself xD lol
So... without any more waffling... here's The Way of the Gun:
The Way of the Gun
written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Most of you will remember McQuarrie's first big splash in Hollywood with The Usual Suspects. It launched Bryan Singer's meteoric rise to mediocre film-making and relegated its writer to making precious little in the years following its release.
The Way of the Gun was the first thing McQuarrie did after years of being frustrated at none of his other, non-crime projects getting off the ground. (Save for some TV movie as IMDB tells me.) And it's this frustration that fuels a lot of the humour and fun in The Way of the Gun.
And make no mistake, this movie is a comedy at heart. It might not be a happy, family-friendly and optimistic little tale about two go-getters realising their dreams, but it is a film that invites you to laugh at the pathetic struggles and pompous concerns of some very flawed, and profoundly disturbed individuals. Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Philippe play the film's protagonists “Longbaugh” and “Parker” respectively. Two men who are highly ambitious, impressively clever and frightingly casual about violence they commit or suffer.
The opening scene builds up to one big punchline (pun intended) that perfectly sums up the irreverent, almost punk-like attitude that not only defines the two protagonists but also clues the audience in on the voice of this film. While it dresses itself up as another run-of-the-mill crime thriller, it is also a big middle-finger to the worn-out tropes, set-pieces and established storytelling wisdom of the crime thriller genre. But where most deconstructions and film criticisms are borne out of cynicism, you can tell that McQuarrie has great affection for the style and tone of crime stories. To some extent he celebrates the fantasy of those stories, where casual violence infuses the coolness of characters, where the ability and willingness to commit violence is a necessary tool to assert yourself in a hostile world and where acting according to your individual morality is a sign of strength and moral superiority. These stories of social outcasts and misfits operating on the fringes of society, unbound by social mores or laws as they make their way are perfect escapist pleasures for men and boys of all ages.
There is something arrestingly cool about these characters and their stories. Something harking back to what made certain Westerns so attractive. And aside from the Old West references in the protagonists' names, there are many parallels strewn throughout the story that ties The Way of the Gun back to classic Western films. And while this movie lacks the psychological depth of a Sam Peckinpah film or the almost operatic use of archetypes of a Sergio Leone western, their influences are visible.
But McQuarrie's film isn't about other films and how they shaped this story. The story itself is actually quite simple: two low-life criminals with great ambition try to steal a lot of money. But what makes this fairly straight-forward story so much fun, is that it is populated almost entirely by characters shaped by hubris and over-estimation of their own cleverness. And a more cynical viewer might think the same of McQuarrie himself as the film's dialogue always sacrifices naturality for quotability. But that's how you get to such glorious turns of phrases like:
“Fifteen million dollars is not money. It's a motive with a universal adaptor on it.”
“I think a plan is just a list of things that don't happen.”
“The longest distance between two points is a kidnapper and his money.”
You can almost hear the giggling going on behind the camera as these words are spoken. This is just a plain fun movie, that loves to play around with badass postures, badass one-liners and just tough guys prancing about being gritty to one another.
But what makes this movie stand head and shoulders above some of the lesser specimen of “tough guy”-crime flicks, is the fact that the movie does not take itself as seriously as its characters do. There is some subtle irony at play in Way of the Gun, most obvious in the way it continuously one-ups the clever schemes and twists of the characters. They might be clever and very proud of themselves for it, but the story continuously manages to deflate the hubris of its characters.
And despite all the death, violence and harsh language... it's this little element, that just makes me laugh every time I watch this film.
Most movies, when a death occurs, either use a quick "here then gone" approach or a slow burn in while the dying has time to reflect or speak.
No, this was just painfully, Tarantino level hard to watch, but you couldn't pull your eyes away. Diggs wanted to speak, wanted to say something, if even just "fuck you" but he couldn't. All he could do was stare.
Jimmy Caan has a great dialogue in that movie as well about old guys in crime, how they may not look like much, but when you see an old timer who lived a life of crime you know one thing, they're a survivor.
It's almost an analogy to Darwin's Survival of the Fittest belief.
Totally agree with Joe that this movie is a bunch of great philosophy wrapped into a fantastic action movie.
Also, I want to point out how realistic a lot of the fighting is. There's reloading of guns on a regular basis, there is collateral damage and pain received from broken glass and shrapnel. There's fatigue and the stress that can break even the toughest of partnerships.
Early on, when the kidnapping happens, there's a fantastic, what I can only call "non car chase" where they would stop the car, get out, let the car roll, and then get back in and drive off.
Also during the kidnapping there's a point where they use a military specific cover routine to get out safely that's very well executed to show there's no chance they can get taken down by the bodyguards.
A+ movie.
"You the brains of this outfit?"
"Tell you the truth, this isn't really a "brains" kind of operation."
Edit: Man, you paint this movie as pretty lighthearted. I haven't seen it in a while, but it gets pretty downer at the end. To the point where it soured the mood for alot of people I watched it with. I agree the film doesnt take itself as seriously as the characters do though.
You are right, people shouldn't get the impression that it's a light-hearted movie. It's fairly grim and violent, and the humour is dark and mean. It is played as a bit of dead-pan joke, though.
I think I might even still have a copy of it sitting in a box somewhere
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The Trial (1962)
Hmm? Oh, they took that movie off Netflix Instant Watch in the month since I selected it to review on here? That was rude. Well, I mean, I understand licensing agreem-
You don't have to yell at me about it, I'm only saying tha-
Okay, we'll agree to disagree. Goodbye.
You hang up. No, YOU hang up. YOU hang up. No, you. You. You.
The Red and the White (1967)
This is a Russian-Hungarian film that follows the Bolshevik Red Army and the Anti-Communist White Army as they trade blows and terrorize the locals in the area surrounding a small stretch of the Volga River during the Russian Civil War in 1919. This is all well and good...except that it was commissioned as a film about the October Revolution set in 1917. So instead of receiving a commemoration of the political uprising that led to the overthrow of the Tsarist government in Petrograd and the installation of a Communist government in its wake, they got an unflattering reminder that war is an ugly affair which consumes all and hardly the romantic stuff of songs.
The Soviet Union banned this one right quick. And (surprise, surprise) the rest of the world quite liked it.
WARNINGS:
-There is a bit of nudity in this. Mostly butts, some side boob.
-Netflix fucked up the aspect ratio. The proper aspect ratio is 2.35:1. They somehow squashed it down to ~3:1. It's annoying, but the film is still watchable. I've corrected the screenshots because I'm obsessive-compulsive like that.
Miklós Jancsó is the director of The Red and the White, and knowing his historical switch-a-roo above makes what he did that more interesting because you can see how he crafted a fairly unique anti-war film when you contrast it against war films and even other anti-war films. A war film, while not without its shades of gray and displays of horror, generally follows a side to the completion of a mission/battle/war and gives the audience a side to root for; there are protagonists and a clear goal. The same is true with many anti-war films; in All Quiet on the Western Front the audience follows a German soldier as he tries to stay alive during World War I, Paths of Glory shows the audience the fallout from a disastrous suicide mission amongst a group of French soldiers in World War I, Come and See follows a Russian youth from atrocity to atrocity in World War II. As harrowing as they are the audience still has characters to follow and, well, a story.
Miklós went a different route.
This film follows no one from start to finish. If you would like to become emotionally invested in a lead character, well, too bad. The film utilizes long dolly takes, constantly moving and reframing as different people occupy its space. You think for a moment that you'll follow someone for a spell as they're sent on a mission but then they leave the frame and the camera moves onto the next person. This attitude lends itself to how the Reds and the Whites occupy the film as well. There is a push and pull between them as to who is in control at any given time.
See that happy-go-lucky fellow in the middle of the frame? He's an asshole. He's looking for escaped prisoners but has settled upon harassing the locals. We follow him for a bit as he orders everyone around, but in the span of a minute a group of opposition troops surrounds him, kills his men, and execute him. And then we follow the opposition for a little bit. This kind of thing even happens to people on the same side! In one scene a group of retreating troops regroup. Those without guns are lined up and ordered to be executed by one person who seems to have taken control of the impromptu unit, but then one of the people who is about to be shot stands up to the leader, remarks how stupid an idea doing that is, takes control of the situation, the execution gets called off, and they start marching back to fight. Control is an illusion.
There is a third group at play here; the nurses at the field hospital. They seem to be stuck in an endless struggle of trying to keep people alive while being sexually harassed and physically threatened by those very people. Who will fight for them? No one.
If there is a star to this film, it is the camerawork of Tamás Somló. Shooting with Cinemascope, Somló makes the most of the riverside, the hills, the dilapidated buildings, and the people who march through them. Jancsó and Somló use every bit of their foregrounds, middlegrounds, and backgrounds throughout and it is a beautiful thing to behold. Deep focus is the name of the game.
As I mentioned before, the subject of the camera can change almost at whim. The film plays with this notion by moving people along the z-axis. In one shot a man is dragged out of the river off in the distance, brought to the foreground to be interrogated, and then taken all the way back to the river. The camera holds the same frame the whole time. No one stays in the foreground long enough in this movie to be the leader, to be the hero.
In perhaps the movie's most famous shot, a small group of soldiers decide to march on a very large group of opposition soldiers off in the background. The camera had been following the small group for a few minutes and they were the focus of the frame and the narrative. When they decide to attack it switches to this framing:
The small group starts off close to the camera but get smaller and smaller as they head off along the z-axis. When someone is close to the camera it's easy to root for them and think that they have a chance. But as they grow smaller and smaller, no camera cuts at all, it becomes apparent how futile it all was.
Through all this, the constant shifting of subjects and the lack of control, the film blends the Reds and the Whites until you don't know who is who. Both sides abuse their power when they have it and that power is always fleeting and confused.
Gents and not-gents, The Red and the White.