Also, watching the entire series of Deadwood over the course of a few days about a month ago put me on a serious Western kick. So far I've watched:
The Dollars trilogy
Once Upon a Time in the West
Unforgiven
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Wild Bunch
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Proposition
and Little Big Man, if that counts as a western (apparently usually called a comedy? not sure if I would, but whatever)
I honestly didn't feel that there was a bad movie among them. Some are better than the others (Once Upon a Time and Unforgiven especially), but they were all very enjoyable. I think westerns are one of my favorite film genres now. Now to watch some of the 1950s era films that Sergio Leone was inspired by.
I'm sure you've got your own list, but I have to drop some recommendations in just for fun:
High Noon
Warlock
Rio Bravo
Stagecoach
Shane
Winchester '73
Destry Rides Again
Yellow Sky
The Ox-Bow Incident
Johnny Guitar
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I wasn't a Monty Python fan, but Gilliam wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, and apparently was the one who adapted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas into a screenplay and directed it (didn't know that), so I have to give him credit where it's due.
I agree that Tony Scott is the inferior brother and Bay is only good for explosions
My Gilliam dislike is founded on watching Fear and Loathing, Brazil, and Twelve Monkeys, all of three of which made me feel bad, literally. His production design is claustrophobic, his characters extremely hard to identify with, and his stories rather pointless and unfocused. I'll stick with a film that makes me feel terrible if there's enough of a reward in it (Downfall, for instance, or Requiem for a Dream), but the narrative shenanigans in Twelve Monkeys were bullshit (and wasted a very good Brad Pitt performance), Fear and Loathing failed to tack on more than a perfunctory examination of its themes, and Brazil never got past an inability to decide on tone or the target of its satire.
Brazil pretty completely focuses its satire on bureaucracy. I'm not sure how you can find that misguided.
Fear and Loathing only directly announces its themes once or twice but the entire film is an examination of the fallout of a certain period of time. There are only I think two scenes that say this out loud but that doesn't mean it's not apparent in other ways during the film. It's also based on a book which while I realize doesn't dismiss things in the film you might criticize, is the reason it is how it is. It's incredibly faithful and I love the film for that.
Twelve Monkeys I'm not clear what your issue is but I'm curious. If you didn't like the ending I can understand it but I disagree, I think it's fucking greeeaaat.
yeah, those are my thoughts on Fear and Loathing (& 12 Monkeys) as well. I feel Fear and Loathing is one of the most faithful book-to-film adaptations ever made, to the point where any issues with the movie are issues with the book and Hunter Thompson's writing style in general.
incidentally, I was actually going to watch Brazil tonight. I'm interested to see how I like it.
also, watching the entire series of Deadwood over the course of a few days about a month ago put me on a serious Western kick. So far I've watched:
The Dollars trilogy
Once Upon a Time in the West
Unforgiven
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Wild Bunch
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Proposition
and Little Big Man, if that counts as a western (apparently usually called a comedy? not sure if I would, but whatever)
I honestly didn't feel that there was a bad movie among them. Some are better than the others (Once Upon a Time and Unforgiven especially), but they were all very enjoyable. I think westerns are one of my favorite film genres now. Now to watch some of the 1950s era films that Sergio Leone was inspired by.
I can draw up a longer list of suggestions for you if you'd like:
Stagecoach, it's the first of the Wayne/Ford films.
The Calvary Trilogy, perhaps the definitive Wayne/Ford films.
The Searchers, Ford and Wayne turning the genre on it's head.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valiance, Ford, Wayne and Stewart showing all of their tricks.
The five Westerns Anthony Mann did with Jimmy Stewart. Winchester ’73, The Naked Spu, and The Man from Laramie are my favorite three but any of the five are great.
Shane. Shane is perhaps the definitive Western.
High Noon. Beside being one of the greatest classic Westerns, it was the first film done in real time.
Rio Bravo, which is Howard Hawks responce to High Noon. This is gonna sound odd but Dean Martin does an amazing job in that film.
Hud, is actually outside the classic western period both in film period, and time but is still one of the great Hollywood Westerns. And you can't go wrong with a good Paul Newman film.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
So, any hype or buzz on Raven?
Seems like an interesting concept, but I'm just not feeling anything about.
Just solid "meh" for me. What do you guys think?
No hype or buzz.
This was supposed to be Joaquin Phoenix's comeback movie but somewhere in the shuffle it turned over to John Cusack for the lead.
I understand Edger Allen Poe is generally credited with the creation of the detective story as we know it today but there's something remarkably...hackneyed about having the police enlist Poe in the hunt for a serial killer. Especially as modern serial killings didn't really become a thing the western world bothered to look into or specifically care about until about 40 years after Poe's death. All this doesn't even get into the idea that police at the time would make the connection that this killer is copycatting Poe's stories.
Fifty bucks says there is absolutely no chronological order to the killings with the stories- IE, having killings happen years before the stories they are based on were actually published. That sort of thing. No disrespect to industrial-age law enforcement, but I kind of highly doubt that a) the investigator in charge of these killings would all be the same person, and b) that there would be someone in the police department at the time who would be so well-read on Poe to recognize which murders were based on Poe and which were just people killing people in especially nasty ways. There wasn't a whole lot of forensics in the 1830's is all I'm saying.
...
The Raven apparently was already dumped in the UK. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 23 percent.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
In my continuing quest to apparently watch some real mediocre movies... Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. Based on a comic (which I might pick up at some point), it's a low budget horror/action/comedy/noir while not actually being all that good at any of those things (including "low budget"). It does have Brandon Routh, though, who is kind of bland as an actor but has one of the best voices ever. He should do voice acting.
Anyway the movie is one of those ones where there aren't really any major problems, it's just lacking in certain areas. Actually it reminds me of, say, Season 2 Angel or something. As Vern pointed out, it feels a lot like Constantine (the bastardized movie, not the comic) only goofier. In conclusion, I'd give this one a miss, if by some chance you happened to come across it.
Astaereth on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I rewatched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas this week. It had been awhile.
I never really had a problem with Depp's performance in that film, since he's obviously affecting an over-the-top caricature of Hunter S. Thompson (a person who was good friends with Depp, and who Depp has played twice on film), but the film, for all of its devotion to the source material, is just a narrative bust, which isn't a criticism Terry Gilliam is unfamiliar with.
It blurts out its central theme of examining the fallout of the mid-1960s counterculture at the end by having Depp recite aloud a passage from the book saying just exactly what the whole point of the exercise is, but there's very little in its 2-hour running time that coalesces around a central message.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I rewatched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas this week. It had been awhile.
I never really had a problem with Depp's performance in that film, since he's obviously affecting an over-the-top caricature of Hunter S. Thompson (a person who was good friends with Depp, and who Depp has played twice on film), but the film, for all of its devotion to the source material, is just a narrative bust, which isn't a criticism Terry Gilliam is unfamiliar with.
It blurts out its central theme of examining the fallout of the mid-1960s counterculture at the end by having Depp recite aloud a passage from the book saying just exactly what the whole point of the exercise is, but there's very little in its 2-hour running time that coalesces around a central message.
Actually...not so much. There's quite a few documentaries of Hunter from back in his prime when he was still considered a young celebrity, and Depp's work isn't as exaggerated as you'd think.
The trouble with Fear & Loathing the movie is that it simply can't pack in all the allusions, cultural artifacts, and sobriquets that the book was able to do. Different strengths for different mediums and all that. Gilliam managed to capture the book's overall tone, but not its true anatomy. More is implied than explained, and so the movie is uncomfortably overshadowed by the most actively portrayed event, the Lucy subplot. Which probably had a lot to do with why the movie wasn't nearly as successful, seeing as it portrayed two older, unattractive men with questionable hygiene and copious drug history try to get rid of a 14 year old girl that's living in their hotel room.
As such, you kind of have to have read the book already as a companion piece for reading into the movie. Which doesn't excuse the failings of the movie to do it on its own, but...
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
As such, you kind of have to have read the book already as a companion piece for reading into the movie. Which doesn't excuse the failings of the movie to do it on its own, but...
And man, am I tired of having to do that so much lately.
But yes, the movie is little more than a tone-poem to that specific place and time, which is great for a little while, but for a feature film a little more narrative cohesion is needed.
And damn, I wish I could look forward to seeing Terry Gilliam's films. I fear that we're past any point of hoping for better from him.
i saw the raven when it was out here.. there are a ton of things wrong with it, a complete fuck ton. cusack is ok in the role but goddamn the rest of it is pretty meh the "whodunit" reveal is not so much predictable as in its just boring. the end credits belong in another fucking film entirely, i think they were trying to be unique but i bet the conversation went like this "you know what would be great for our period serial killer thriller mystery about a famous macabre writer? a james bond rock and roll end credits style sequence!"
Just heard about the 269 minute cut of Once apon a Time in America screening at Cannes. That's just shy of 5 fucking hours. holy crap.
I'm really interested in seeing it, but I can't imagine actually watching it all in one theatrical screening. I can't even watch the current 229 minute version all at once.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Wait, 269 minutes? Or 229? The edition I've got is 229, and I like the film, but holy shit there is no way I would want it to go on another 40 minutes.
And thanks TychoCelchuuu and Thomamelas for the recommendations. Only a couple of those were on my list.
and Little Big Man, if that counts as a western (apparently usually called a comedy? not sure if I would, but whatever)
Yeah, it's a comedic revisionist western. And an awesome film.
"It was Little Horse; the boy who wouldn't go on the raid against the Pawnee. He had become a "heemanee" for which there ain't no English word."
Yeah, that is a good label for it. There some great comedic moments
where he becomes a scout for Custer, and when he tries to be a gunfighter come to mind
but for the most part I guess I saw it more as a revisionist western. And a surprisingly unbiased and well done one at that (especially for its time I would imagine). To me, it did a great job of not portraying Native people as either of the common stereotypes (noble or ignorant savage), but just as...people. The bit you mention, is that the kid who
I would definitely prefer it broken up into two movies at that point. It would have to be a pretty impressive movie that could hold my interest for six hours solid
speaking of epic gangster movies, I have something shameful to admit: I have never seen the Godfather films in their entirety.
I'm thinking I should get them (well, just the first two from what I've read here and elsewhere) along with a couple of the Westerns from the above lists with my tax return this weekend
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
And his original rough assembly was 10 hours long.
I know it's weird to say this about a nearly 4-hour movie but the few problems in the film come from parts that are rushed. There's a point at which the film starts jumping too fast and I hope the 40 minutes is there (and not in the kid portions, which are already pretty great).
As a side note I found out a few months ago that I'm actually related to the kid who plays De Niro's character when he's young. Cousin twice removed or something.
Wait, 269 minutes? Or 229? The edition I've got is 229, and I like the film, but holy shit there is no way I would want it to go on another 40 minutes.
And thanks TychoCelchuuu and Thomamelas for the recommendations. Only a couple of those were on my list.
and Little Big Man, if that counts as a western (apparently usually called a comedy? not sure if I would, but whatever)
Yeah, it's a comedic revisionist western. And an awesome film.
"It was Little Horse; the boy who wouldn't go on the raid against the Pawnee. He had become a "heemanee" for which there ain't no English word."
Yeah, that is a good label for it. There some great comedic moments
where he becomes a scout for Custer, and when he tries to be a gunfighter come to mind
but for the most part I guess I saw it more as a revisionist western. And a surprisingly unbiased and well done one at that (especially for its time I would imagine). To me, it did a great job of not portraying Native people as either of the common stereotypes (noble or ignorant savage), but just as...people. The bit you mention, is that the kid who
walks backward, washes with sand, etc?
It's the
"I'll be your squaw, Little Big Man,"
guy. The way Hoffman delivers the line describing him is hilarious. Also, you have the running gag of his
sister being "scared" of possibly getting raped
, the
preacher's wife? sister? who later become a prostitute
, etc.
And Chief Dan George who plays the chief is also brilliant in another revisionist western, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Just finished watching the new Thing movie. Obviously it wasn't better then John Carpenter's version, but I still enjoyed it. Though I do have a soft spot for antarctic scary movies.
I felt that guessing who were the imitated aliens were easier to figure out in the new one. When you find out that Joel Edgerton's character was an alien at the end, it kinda felt like one of those needless twists horror movies like to throw at you at the end of the film.
Also went to see The Deep Blue Sea (no not the shark movie) earlier this week at the theaters, it was a really good movie. Only thing I knew about it going into the theater was that it was a love affair movie in post-WWII setting with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston. Tom Hiddleston was honestly all I needed to know to get me to go see the movie
I like how the narrative of the movie played out. It all took place in the span of one day, but filled with lots of short flashbacks. It never focused on how the affair started, but focused on what happened afterwards.
NNID: Sabuiy
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
As far as westerns go, I would also recommend The Professionals and How the West Was Won to what has already been mentioned. I'm surprised someone brought up the Stewart westerns. I don't often hear them get the love they deserve.
EDIT: And I forgot why I originally came to this thread tonight. I just back from Cabin In The Woods and... holy hell. That was not what I was expecting.
As far as westerns go, I would also recommend The Professionals and How the West Was Won to what has already been mentioned. I'm surprised someone brought up the Stewart westerns. I don't often hear them get the love they deserve.
EDIT: And I forgot why I originally came to this thread tonight. I just back from Cabin In The Woods and... holy hell. That was not what I was expecting.
I love the Mann/Stewart Westerns. Stewart always brought a little madness to all of his roles, but Mann was able to really bring out the dark side of that. It wasn't often that you saw the vengeful side of Stewart.
So I'm rewatching Vidocq on Netflix, or "Dark Portals: The Chronicles of Vidocq" as it's listed there, after nearly 10 years since my first showing. It's still pretty good and historical if nothing else since it's the first major motion picture shot entirely on digital video. And this thing was filmed back in 2000 so it's not like Pitof had the technology we have today.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention the same guy who directed Catwoman did this movie but don't hold that against him.
I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!!!
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
As far as westerns go, I would also recommend The Professionals and How the West Was Won to what has already been mentioned. I'm surprised someone brought up the Stewart westerns. I don't often hear them get the love they deserve.
EDIT: And I forgot why I originally came to this thread tonight. I just back from Cabin In The Woods and... holy hell. That was not what I was expecting.
I love the Mann/Stewart Westerns. Stewart always brought a little madness to all of his roles, but Mann was able to really bring out the dark side of that. It wasn't often that you saw the vengeful side of Stewart.
Winchester '73 really shows that side well. If you want to see Stewart portray the Andy Griffith type sherrif in more of a comedy setting, I recommend Destry Rides Again.
As a matter of fact, I still need to watch The Naked Spur and Broken Arrow. I have The Rare Breed, Winchester '73, Destry Rides Again, Shenandoah (not so much a western as a Civil War movie to me,) The Man From Laramie, Night Passage, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Far Country and Bend of the River. I also have How the West Was Won, with Stewart in it, but that wasn't just him. That was more a gathering of big name stars. There are probably a few other westerns that had him that I'm missing also, but John Wayne had so many, I had to skip some.
I personally prefer the John Wayne version of True Grit and have a slight soft spot for the sequel Rooster Cogburn.
PSN Fleety2009
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
Me too. I understand the modern version is probably more faithful to the original work, but it lacks the charm of the Wayne version and seems really stilted. It's like, okay, they may have talked this way, but these were rural folk. They would have been less stilted in the way they talked. It just didn't seem natural to me at all.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I don't understand how anyone could spend two hours with Kim Darby and call it the superior experience.
John Wayne is great in True Grit, but True Grit is not great for it. Know, however, I don't care much for the Coens' film, either, despite their being among my favorite directors.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
As far as westerns go, I would also recommend The Professionals and How the West Was Won to what has already been mentioned. I'm surprised someone brought up the Stewart westerns. I don't often hear them get the love they deserve.
EDIT: And I forgot why I originally came to this thread tonight. I just back from Cabin In The Woods and... holy hell. That was not what I was expecting.
I love the Mann/Stewart Westerns. Stewart always brought a little madness to all of his roles, but Mann was able to really bring out the dark side of that. It wasn't often that you saw the vengeful side of Stewart.
Winchester '73 really shows that side well. If you want to see Stewart portray the Andy Griffith type sherrif in more of a comedy setting, I recommend Destry Rides Again.
As a matter of fact, I still need to watch The Naked Spur and Broken Arrow. I have The Rare Breed, Winchester '73, Destry Rides Again, Shenandoah (not so much a western as a Civil War movie to me,) The Man From Laramie, Night Passage, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Far Country and Bend of the River. I also have How the West Was Won, with Stewart in it, but that wasn't just him. That was more a gathering of big name stars. There are probably a few other westerns that had him that I'm missing also, but John Wayne had so many, I had to skip some.
Broken Arrow isn't bad. It's not his best western, but it is rather interesting in that it's a fairly fair portrayal of Native Americans. It doesn't show them as a monolithic group, but as individuals. Same with the whites in the film. But there is a huge black mark from the fact that there isn't actually Native American actor in a major role.
I suspect I'd like the book a lot better. But part of my problem with Gilliam is often the performances he gets out of his actors--I love Johnny Depp, but hiding him behind costuming and making him mutter in an impenetrable monotone is kind of a waste, isn't it?
It's worth mentioning that Depp spent several weeks (months?) living with Hunter S. Thompson to get into character. Because Raul Duke, the story's focus, is essentially a fictionalized version of Thompson himself, muttering and all. It's been said that portions of Fear and Loathing are autobiographical, to some extent. So the way Depp looked, spoke, and acted were all legit.
Now, could they have, I dunno, maybe added subtitles on the DVD/Blu-Ray versions? I think that might have been helpful.
Speaking of Depp and Thomson, I really liked Rum Diaries. It felt like a good period piece and a movie about a man on the verge of societal collapse (which makes it semi-autobiographical in terms of Thompson between something like Hells Angels and Fear and Loathing). Throughout the movie I could imagine a running monologue of Raul Duke in his brain only needing some drugs to come into being.
So I somehow got it into my head to re-watch Driven, that 2001 Sylvester Stallone racing movie. Holy fuck, what a bad movie. I don't remember it that bad. There was absolutely nothing good about this. The special effects were the worst I have seen in a long time, all the racing scenes are incredibly awful and the acting is just bad.
I think I need to watch Grand Prix again, even if it is from the 60s, it at least has absolutely fantastic racing scenes.
I rewatched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas this week. It had been awhile.
I never really had a problem with Depp's performance in that film, since he's obviously affecting an over-the-top caricature of Hunter S. Thompson (a person who was good friends with Depp, and who Depp has played twice on film), but the film, for all of its devotion to the source material, is just a narrative bust, which isn't a criticism Terry Gilliam is unfamiliar with.
It blurts out its central theme of examining the fallout of the mid-1960s counterculture at the end by having Depp recite aloud a passage from the book saying just exactly what the whole point of the exercise is, but there's very little in its 2-hour running time that coalesces around a central message.
I like it but this is all entirely true
I was really obsessed with that part of history/culture in high school and it never completely left me but like... it's not a cohesive film in any normal sense.
So I somehow got it into my head to re-watch Driven, that 2001 Sylvester Stallone racing movie. Holy fuck, what a bad movie. I don't remember it that bad. There was absolutely nothing good about this. The special effects were the worst I have seen in a long time, all the racing scenes are incredibly awful and the acting is just bad.
I think I need to watch Grand Prix again, even if it is from the 60s, it at least has absolutely fantastic racing scenes.
That's one of the movies I've never understood the hate for. It was certainly generic, but it was still entertaining.
Posts
Yeah, it's a comedic revisionist western. And an awesome film.
"It was Little Horse; the boy who wouldn't go on the raid against the Pawnee. He had become a "heemanee" for which there ain't no English word."
High Noon
Warlock
Rio Bravo
Stagecoach
Shane
Winchester '73
Destry Rides Again
Yellow Sky
The Ox-Bow Incident
Johnny Guitar
I can draw up a longer list of suggestions for you if you'd like:
Stagecoach, it's the first of the Wayne/Ford films.
The Calvary Trilogy, perhaps the definitive Wayne/Ford films.
The Searchers, Ford and Wayne turning the genre on it's head.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valiance, Ford, Wayne and Stewart showing all of their tricks.
The five Westerns Anthony Mann did with Jimmy Stewart. Winchester ’73, The Naked Spu, and The Man from Laramie are my favorite three but any of the five are great.
Shane. Shane is perhaps the definitive Western.
High Noon. Beside being one of the greatest classic Westerns, it was the first film done in real time.
Rio Bravo, which is Howard Hawks responce to High Noon. This is gonna sound odd but Dean Martin does an amazing job in that film.
Hud, is actually outside the classic western period both in film period, and time but is still one of the great Hollywood Westerns. And you can't go wrong with a good Paul Newman film.
No hype or buzz.
This was supposed to be Joaquin Phoenix's comeback movie but somewhere in the shuffle it turned over to John Cusack for the lead.
I understand Edger Allen Poe is generally credited with the creation of the detective story as we know it today but there's something remarkably...hackneyed about having the police enlist Poe in the hunt for a serial killer. Especially as modern serial killings didn't really become a thing the western world bothered to look into or specifically care about until about 40 years after Poe's death. All this doesn't even get into the idea that police at the time would make the connection that this killer is copycatting Poe's stories.
Fifty bucks says there is absolutely no chronological order to the killings with the stories- IE, having killings happen years before the stories they are based on were actually published. That sort of thing. No disrespect to industrial-age law enforcement, but I kind of highly doubt that a) the investigator in charge of these killings would all be the same person, and b) that there would be someone in the police department at the time who would be so well-read on Poe to recognize which murders were based on Poe and which were just people killing people in especially nasty ways. There wasn't a whole lot of forensics in the 1830's is all I'm saying.
...
The Raven apparently was already dumped in the UK. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 23 percent.
Anyway the movie is one of those ones where there aren't really any major problems, it's just lacking in certain areas. Actually it reminds me of, say, Season 2 Angel or something. As Vern pointed out, it feels a lot like Constantine (the bastardized movie, not the comic) only goofier. In conclusion, I'd give this one a miss, if by some chance you happened to come across it.
I never really had a problem with Depp's performance in that film, since he's obviously affecting an over-the-top caricature of Hunter S. Thompson (a person who was good friends with Depp, and who Depp has played twice on film), but the film, for all of its devotion to the source material, is just a narrative bust, which isn't a criticism Terry Gilliam is unfamiliar with.
It blurts out its central theme of examining the fallout of the mid-1960s counterculture at the end by having Depp recite aloud a passage from the book saying just exactly what the whole point of the exercise is, but there's very little in its 2-hour running time that coalesces around a central message.
Actually...not so much. There's quite a few documentaries of Hunter from back in his prime when he was still considered a young celebrity, and Depp's work isn't as exaggerated as you'd think.
The trouble with Fear & Loathing the movie is that it simply can't pack in all the allusions, cultural artifacts, and sobriquets that the book was able to do. Different strengths for different mediums and all that. Gilliam managed to capture the book's overall tone, but not its true anatomy. More is implied than explained, and so the movie is uncomfortably overshadowed by the most actively portrayed event, the Lucy subplot. Which probably had a lot to do with why the movie wasn't nearly as successful, seeing as it portrayed two older, unattractive men with questionable hygiene and copious drug history try to get rid of a 14 year old girl that's living in their hotel room.
As such, you kind of have to have read the book already as a companion piece for reading into the movie. Which doesn't excuse the failings of the movie to do it on its own, but...
And man, am I tired of having to do that so much lately.
But yes, the movie is little more than a tone-poem to that specific place and time, which is great for a little while, but for a feature film a little more narrative cohesion is needed.
And damn, I wish I could look forward to seeing Terry Gilliam's films. I fear that we're past any point of hoping for better from him.
I'm really interested in seeing it, but I can't imagine actually watching it all in one theatrical screening. I can't even watch the current 229 minute version all at once.
The new cut? I am so very excited. That movie is astonishingly great.
And thanks TychoCelchuuu and Thomamelas for the recommendations. Only a couple of those were on my list.
Yeah, that is a good label for it. There some great comedic moments
speaking of epic gangster movies, I have something shameful to admit: I have never seen the Godfather films in their entirety.
I'm thinking I should get them (well, just the first two from what I've read here and elsewhere) along with a couple of the Westerns from the above lists with my tax return this weekend
I know it's weird to say this about a nearly 4-hour movie but the few problems in the film come from parts that are rushed. There's a point at which the film starts jumping too fast and I hope the 40 minutes is there (and not in the kid portions, which are already pretty great).
As a side note I found out a few months ago that I'm actually related to the kid who plays De Niro's character when he's young. Cousin twice removed or something.
It's the
And Chief Dan George who plays the chief is also brilliant in another revisionist western, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Also went to see The Deep Blue Sea (no not the shark movie) earlier this week at the theaters, it was a really good movie. Only thing I knew about it going into the theater was that it was a love affair movie in post-WWII setting with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston. Tom Hiddleston was honestly all I needed to know to get me to go see the movie
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
EDIT: And I forgot why I originally came to this thread tonight. I just back from Cabin In The Woods and... holy hell. That was not what I was expecting.
I am ready.
I love the Mann/Stewart Westerns. Stewart always brought a little madness to all of his roles, but Mann was able to really bring out the dark side of that. It wasn't often that you saw the vengeful side of Stewart.
Oh yeah I forgot to mention the same guy who directed Catwoman did this movie but don't hold that against him.
Winchester '73 really shows that side well. If you want to see Stewart portray the Andy Griffith type sherrif in more of a comedy setting, I recommend Destry Rides Again.
As a matter of fact, I still need to watch The Naked Spur and Broken Arrow. I have The Rare Breed, Winchester '73, Destry Rides Again, Shenandoah (not so much a western as a Civil War movie to me,) The Man From Laramie, Night Passage, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Far Country and Bend of the River. I also have How the West Was Won, with Stewart in it, but that wasn't just him. That was more a gathering of big name stars. There are probably a few other westerns that had him that I'm missing also, but John Wayne had so many, I had to skip some.
John Wayne is great in True Grit, but True Grit is not great for it. Know, however, I don't care much for the Coens' film, either, despite their being among my favorite directors.
Broken Arrow isn't bad. It's not his best western, but it is rather interesting in that it's a fairly fair portrayal of Native Americans. It doesn't show them as a monolithic group, but as individuals. Same with the whites in the film. But there is a huge black mark from the fact that there isn't actually Native American actor in a major role.
It's worth mentioning that Depp spent several weeks (months?) living with Hunter S. Thompson to get into character. Because Raul Duke, the story's focus, is essentially a fictionalized version of Thompson himself, muttering and all. It's been said that portions of Fear and Loathing are autobiographical, to some extent. So the way Depp looked, spoke, and acted were all legit.
Now, could they have, I dunno, maybe added subtitles on the DVD/Blu-Ray versions? I think that might have been helpful.
Wow, that was crap. It was so much crap that I invented the word "crank", meaning "like crap, but worse".
Crank 2 was crank.
^ This so hard. I liked the movie, but I would have liked it better if I hadn't had to keep rewinding and deciphering.
I think I need to watch Grand Prix again, even if it is from the 60s, it at least has absolutely fantastic racing scenes.
Me neither. I figured it was just, you know, good acting.
twas a let down. no doubt.
I like it but this is all entirely true
I was really obsessed with that part of history/culture in high school and it never completely left me but like... it's not a cohesive film in any normal sense.
That's one of the movies I've never understood the hate for. It was certainly generic, but it was still entertaining.