Yeah, what's the alternate ending for Dark City? I saw it on IFC some time ago, not sure which version it was. The ending I saw was slightly predictable and a little too cheery for the rest of the movie, if I remember correctly.
If I remember correctly they make it to the beach after keifer gives the main dude his powers back, and they have a big ass psychic battle. That's the version I've seen. Good movie though. Jennifer Connelly is a personal unknown favorite of mine. I don't really follow her work but when she shows up, I'm glad to see her.
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head. From what I got right now, Rammstein is awesome, Manson is awesome, and Little Nicky's girlfriend has a great pair of tits (and a nice behind if I might add....).
...that's just some major points of what I got. I think I should download this soundtrack. So many good songs, and it just oozes Reznor. I could tell from the start he produced the music. But I think this one is far more confusing than Mulholland, that one only took me one view to get. I feel like I have to watch this one or two more times to pick up everything completely.
Touching on some other things people have said, Princess Bride = Awesome, Butterfly Effect = Awesome, The Thing = Awesome, The man from earth - gonna have to check out.
edit - Also tomorrow when I get some free time, I'm gonna edit the OP with every movie that's been mentioned so far to try and keep track of all the talent.
I'm not sure which I watched. Can someone spoiler the difference for me?I meant Dark city I guess.
The big difference between the director's cut and the theatrical is that the theatrical cut explains everything when the movie starts with a voiceover. The director's cut doesn't, which lets things unfold more naturally.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
I meant the director's cut and alternate ending for Butterfly Effect:
A deleted scene around the middle of the movie has his mother telling him that when he was born, he was born being strangled by his umbilical. He barely survived. As he continues trying to go further and further back in time to fix all the damage he'd done he finally ends up back in the womb and intentionally wraps the umbilical around his throat, preventing him from making any of the changes. It may sound cheezy, but it works a lot better in the context of the film than the theatrical ending.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I meant the director's cut and alternate ending for Butterfly Effect:
A deleted scene around the middle of the movie has his mother telling him that when he was born, he was born being strangled by his umbilical. He barely survived. As he continues trying to go further and further back in time to fix all the damage he'd done he finally ends up back in the womb and intentionally wraps the umbilical around his throat, preventing him from making any of the changes. It may sound cheezy, but it works a lot better in the context of the film than the theatrical ending.
I'd hate to say it but I like the theatrical ending more. The director's made more sense but I felt it was over the top and just didn't translate to the screen well IMO. I think either version does it justice, it really is a great movie.
Yeah, what's the alternate ending for Dark City? I saw it on IFC some time ago, not sure which version it was. The ending I saw was slightly predictable and a little too cheery for the rest of the movie, if I remember correctly.
If I remember correctly they make it to the beach after keifer gives the main dude his powers back, and they have a big ass psychic battle. That's the version I've seen. Good movie though. Jennifer Connelly is a personal unknown favorite of mine. I don't really follow her work but when she shows up, I'm glad to see her.
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head. From what I got right now, Rammstein is awesome, Manson is awesome, and Little Nicky's girlfriend has a great pair of tits (and a nice behind if I might add....).
If I'm remembering that movie correctly there may be some kind of meaning that can be derived from it, but frankly I kind of just assumed that it was Theater of the Absurd and just left it at that. Trying to come up with some kind of coherant plot or explantion for what happened in that film made my brain hemorrage.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
I've grown cool to Dark City over the years. Proyas has an eye for the abstract and knows how to shoot some high-concept stuff, but he never seems to be able to actually make a cohesive movie.
Also, judging by his continued filmography, Dark City was the best he could do. His work has gotten considerably worse, and it wasn't even that strong to start with.
A unique sort of universally recognizable high school environment PACKED TO THE GILLS with reincarnated Noir people. A unique sort of jargon emerges throughout the movie, keeping you guessing, and a lovely mix of the absurd and believable keeps it all moving.
And Machette deserves to be seen in theatres, by the by.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
And Machette deserves to be seen in theatres, by the by.
Really? The reviews I've read have run the gamut from, "ridiculous and fun, but shallow and bloated," to "yet another Rodriguez flick where he forgets to put a movie between the tits and explosions," to "childishly racist."
No part of that interests me.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
ridiculously fun but shallow and bloated fits best. and I don't mind the shallow part, I expected it.
ridiculously fun but shallow and bloated fits best. and I don't mind the shallow part, I expected it.
I don't generally mind "shallow," except I think at some point Rodriguez realized that if he pretends that he's being intentionally shallow people won't figure out that he can't actually do anything else.
You can only be ironically bad so many times before you're just bad. Rodriguez' childrens films have shown me that without the pretense of irony, he's actually just kinda bad. Even Planet Terror, which was supposed to be bad, was bad in the wrong kind of way.
Its... Its pure mexploitation. Aware of itself. Over the top. Played straight. And utterly up to the nines.
It involves the ultimate mexican and an army of bouncing cars. A truck rears up like a horse and crushes a texas vigilante / border patrol militiaman. It has Ave Maria EXACTLY where you'd expect it. Its grindhouse shlock at its best doing faux social commentary. Steven Segal as an accentless mexican cartel drug lord. The hero getting utterly inexplicable, and hilarious amounts of tail. VIOLENCE VIOLENCE VIOLENCE. This stuff just... Sells itself, people.
Theres also no 'actual' racism involved in the whole thing, and infact treats Mexicans pretty respectfully as a whole. I'd actually really be curious to see a review of it from an immigrant's perspective.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Theres also no 'actual' racism involved in the whole thing, and infact treats Mexicans pretty respectfully as a whole.
Why would you think that with a film by a Mexican-American director, starring a Mexican lead actor, about illegal immigration, I would think this film is racist AGAINST Mexicans?
Mostly because anyone that aware of the cinematic effort behind it, and therefor that plugged in, cant POSSIBLY disaprove of that level of self-aware mock/grindhouse exploitation or ludicrous for the fun of it violence that actually manages to pull both of those succesfully.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Mostly because anyone that aware of the cinematic effort behind it, and therefor that plugged in, cant POSSIBLY disaprove of that level of self-aware mock/grindhouse exploitation or ludicrous for the fun of it violence that actually manages to pull both of those succesfully.
Again, you can only make a bad film so many times on purpose until it becomes just plain bad.
We've already got the El Mariachi movies, Sin City, and Planet Terror. I'm confident in Rodriguez' ability to make a heartless pastiche of violence and schlock with modestly-talented actors. I don't need to see more.
Mn, I'm more of the opinion these things are consumable. You dont just 'keep' them, y'know? I'll probably see the next ten incarnations of this stuff, because it makes me laugh my ass off to see some of the ludicrously over the top stuff you get out of this, and how they can keep remixing and refreshing it.
Machete dosent 'feel' like any of those mentioned, except Planet Terror for the obviously intentional reasons. It feels like a legitimate, new-ish retro-love-letter-remix that seems to be all the rage these days. (See Scott Pilgrim, The Expendables, and more for that vein recently.)
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
And I doubt Machete is half as good at what it does as say, Black Dynamite.
Exactly. Black Dynamite was gold.
The thing is, grindhouse and exploitation films aren't self-aware. You can either spoof them or earnestly make them, but you can't spoof them and claim that its earnest, which is what Planet Terror was and what Machete seems to be.
See now, Death Proof was an honest-to-goodness grindhouse movie. I hated it, but not because it wasn't true to itself. Rodriguez, however, seems to both miss the joke and misunderstand the genre. Kind of like when Hot Topic kids say Nightmare Before Christmas is a great film; the IS great, but they're wrong about why it's actually great. Rodriguez hasn't actually ever shown he knows what grindhouse is really about; instead, he makes "ironic" movies for sub-literate teenage boys.
Like I said, its the retro-remix-love-letter thing going on. (Do we have a word for that? Attempted Reconstruction? Affectionate Parody But Played Straight?) Given those statements about various levels of "it-getting", I gotta ask, what is it that should be going on for the ideal use of that title?
This is one of the most unique films I've ever seen. I always want to compare it to Pan's Labyrinth (another film I highly recommend), though they're not really very alike - but there's a certain manner in which the filmmakers utilise gorgeous cinematography to set the mood that brings it to mind. (Also, it has a fantastic performance by a young female actor.)
The story is both easy and difficult to explain; or rather, one story is easy to explain, and the other is difficult. Basically, a young girl who broke her arm picking oranges with her family is in a hospital in 1920s LA, and has the run of the place. She encounters a Hollywood stuntman who has been at least temporarily paralyzed from the wais down performing a stunt in a film... where the leading man for whom he was the stuntman stole his girl, the leading lady. He wants to kill himself, so he needs the girl to get him pills with which to do the deed, and to manipulate her into doing so he begins to weave this fantastical story about an epic journey, with people around the hospital being interjected as various 'characters' (including Darwin up there).
The film shifts between this fantastical world/story and his bed at the hospital, and.. I don't really know what else to say, it's just really good in a slightly surrealistic (though not really) way.
Also, Clue is one of the best comedies of all time.
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....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head.
The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Like every Lynch film except Inland Empire, there's a fairly simple explanation that fits the facts. In this case: Man discovers wife is unfaithful to him, possiibly due to his own impotence. Man kills wife. Man then retreats into a fantasy land inside his own head where he is young, attractive, and successful with women, but bits of what he really did keep creeping in. Mulholland Drive's pretty similar- it just has a much clearer dream/reality divide.
Anyway:
Hallucinogenic 70s Italian piece, regarded by some as one of the finest horror films ever made. The dialogue and acting are all over the place, but the atmosphere and visuals are second to none.
A Tale of Two Sisters. Haunting, thought-provoking Korean ghost story, and by far the best film to come out of the post-Ringu Asian new wave.
Insightful, horrifying film about voyeurism that was decades ahead of its time.
Whereas this is one of the very few films actually on record as making the audience faint. Pretty startling now, but it was absolutely unthinkable when first relased 50 years ago.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head.
The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Like every Lynch film except Inland Empire, there's a fairly simple explanation that fits the facts. In this case: Man discovers wife is unfaithful to him, possiibly due to his own impotence. Man kills wife. Man then retreats into a fantasy land inside his own head where he is young, attractive, and successful with women, but bits of what he really did keep creeping in. Mulholland Drive's pretty similar- it just has a much clearer dream/reality divide.
See this is all I picked up, but I felt that there was something more there that I wasn't getting.
Is the pastey looking guy supposed to be a personification of death? What was that backflash about between Pete and his old girlfriend before Alice? Why did the cabin keep rewinding the explosion? Was the film playing at Andy's house a porno with Alice in it? Who the hell is Dick, I thought that dude's name was Mr. Eddy? There's just a bunch of questions that don't appear to contribute to that plot at all.
Moving the thread along, I'll update the OP with all the suggestions, their genres and directors so far as the day goes on . . .but first:
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head.
The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Like every Lynch film except Inland Empire, there's a fairly simple explanation that fits the facts. In this case: Man discovers wife is unfaithful to him, possiibly due to his own impotence. Man kills wife. Man then retreats into a fantasy land inside his own head where he is young, attractive, and successful with women, but bits of what he really did keep creeping in. Mulholland Drive's pretty similar- it just has a much clearer dream/reality divide.
See this is all I picked up, but I felt that there was something more there that I wasn't getting.
Is the pastey looking guy supposed to be a personification of death? What was that backflash about between Pete and his old girlfriend before Alice? Why did the cabin keep rewinding the explosion? Was the film playing at Andy's house a porno with Alice in it? Who the hell is Dick, I thought that dude's name was Mr. Eddy? There's just a bunch of questions that don't appear to contribute to that plot at all.
I personally read the Mystery Man (as I believe the credits call him) as a personification of the protagonist's murderous impulses/dark side, but there are other takes out there. He certainly has a lot of strong parallels to Bob in Twin Peaks, who was a murderous supernatural force that brought out the evil in people he possessed. Evil having an external supernatural presence that's hinted out but never pinpointed is a recurring Lynch theme in most of his work.
As for the others- there's a pretty messed-up timeline going on, but I'm not sure about the cabin and the backflash beyond that. Yes, the film at Andy's was that (and is a pretty obvious bit of imagery for how the man's real view of his wife -a cheat, etc- keeps sneaking into his fantasy of her), and Dick Laurent was only Mr Eddy in the fugue/fantasy portion of the film. In the real portion he's fairly obviously the guy Bill Pullman's wife is cheating on him with.
In the end, though, most Lynch films are about personal interpretation rather than there being a "right answer".
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
Hate to play the downer again, but I really don't get the Miyazaki love.
I've tried to sit through his stuff on several occasions, and I've never seen what others (including people like John Lasseter) revere so much in his work. I mean, it's not bad or anything, but I don't see the magic and the quality that puts him in a separate class of his own.
I'm a humongous animation fan, but eastern animation, and specifically Miyazaki, is still a mystery to me in its appeal. There's nothing in his art that Miyazaki now is doing that Walt Disney wasn't doing better sixty years ago, and there's nothing about his character work that Pixar didn't surpass 15 years ago.
I hate being on the outside on this. I love animation, and I love film, and here's a guy that has a huge following in both casual animation fans and professional animators that I'm completely lost on.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head.
The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Like every Lynch film except Inland Empire, there's a fairly simple explanation that fits the facts. In this case: Man discovers wife is unfaithful to him, possiibly due to his own impotence. Man kills wife. Man then retreats into a fantasy land inside his own head where he is young, attractive, and successful with women, but bits of what he really did keep creeping in. Mulholland Drive's pretty similar- it just has a much clearer dream/reality divide.
See this is all I picked up, but I felt that there was something more there that I wasn't getting.
Is the pastey looking guy supposed to be a personification of death? What was that backflash about between Pete and his old girlfriend before Alice? Why did the cabin keep rewinding the explosion? Was the film playing at Andy's house a porno with Alice in it? Who the hell is Dick, I thought that dude's name was Mr. Eddy? There's just a bunch of questions that don't appear to contribute to that plot at all.
I personally read the Mystery Man (as I believe the credits call him) as a personification of the protagonist's murderous impulses/dark side, but there are other takes out there. He certainly has a lot of strong parallels to Bob in Twin Peaks, who was a murderous supernatural force that brought out the evil in people he possessed. Evil having an external supernatural presence that's hinted out but never pinpointed is a recurring Lynch theme in most of his work.
As for the others- there's a pretty messed-up timeline going on, but I'm not sure about the cabin and the backflash beyond that. Yes, the film at Andy's was that (and is a pretty obvious bit of imagery for how the man's real view of his wife -a cheat, etc- keeps sneaking into his fantasy of her), and Dick Laurent was only Mr Eddy in the fugue/fantasy portion of the film. In the real portion he's fairly obviously the guy Bill Pullman's wife is cheating on him with.
In the end, though, most Lynch films are about personal interpretation rather than there being a "right answer".
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, see I thought that she was cheating on Bill with Andy, the mexican friend who throws the fancy parties. I didn't think that Mr. Eddy(Dick Laurent) was the other guy. Well that makes a little bit more sense. Maybe the wife just gets around and is doing all three of them. Wouldn't surprise me with a body like hers. :winky:
Hate to play the downer again, but I really don't get the Miyazaki love.
I've tried to sit through his stuff on several occasions, and I've never seen what others (including people like John Lasseter) revere so much in his work. I mean, it's not bad or anything, but I don't see the magic and the quality that puts him in a separate class of his own.
I'm a humongous animation fan, but eastern animation, and specifically Miyazaki, is still a mystery to me in its appeal. There's nothing in his art that Miyazaki now is doing that Walt Disney wasn't doing better sixty years ago, and there's nothing about his character work that Pixar didn't surpass 15 years ago.
I hate being on the outside on this. I love animation, and I love film, and here's a guy that has a huge following in both casual animation fans and professional animators that I'm completely lost on.
Shrug. To each their own I guess. I think his work is brilliant, some obviously better than others. But the art style, the magical storylines, and the memorable characters all stick out when I think Miyazaki.
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
I'm with you, Ross. I've seen most of the Miyazaki bigs, and beyond the beautiful art they don't really grab me. No real reason for it, the movies obviously aren't bad movies. They're just not for me, I guess.
Hate to play the downer again, but I really don't get the Miyazaki love.
I've tried to sit through his stuff on several occasions, and I've never seen what others (including people like John Lasseter) revere so much in his work. I mean, it's not bad or anything, but I don't see the magic and the quality that puts him in a separate class of his own.
I'm a humongous animation fan, but eastern animation, and specifically Miyazaki, is still a mystery to me in its appeal. There's nothing in his art that Miyazaki now is doing that Walt Disney wasn't doing better sixty years ago, and there's nothing about his character work that Pixar didn't surpass 15 years ago.
I hate being on the outside on this. I love animation, and I love film, and here's a guy that has a huge following in both casual animation fans and professional animators that I'm completely lost on.
I think for one thing, Ghibli is currently the only mainstream Animation Studio that has been consistently working with traditional animation techniques, rather than jumping on the CGI bandwagon Toy Story and Shrek got rolling. Disney seem to be going back to their roots, but Miyazaki has filled that gap in the meantime.
If you're an animation fan, I recommend Brendan and the Secret of Kells. The story itself is a tad flat in places, but it's ending is refreshingly different. It's also highly stylized with beautiful animation and scenery.
And if you'd like a movie that hammers its message into your head with as much subtlety as a Vuvuzela orchestra, while making yourself feel rather sad, I also recommend When the Wind Blows, based on the graphic novel by Raymond "Snowman Walking in the Air" Briggs.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I'm with you, Ross. I've seen most of the Miyazaki bigs, and beyond the beautiful art they don't really grab me. No real reason for it, the movies obviously aren't bad movies. They're just not for me, I guess.
Not to get off topic but did they ever find that techno song they were looking for?
Shrug. To each their own I guess. I think his work is brilliant, some obviously better than others. But the art style, the magical storylines, and the memorable characters all stick out when I think Miyazaki.
Without meaning to sound rude, what is it about Miyazaki's art that really stick out? Help me out here, I'd really like to at least objectively acknowledge its merit. To me, however, Miyazaki in both modeling and composition looks very much like so many other Asian animated films and television, and I have to say, in comparison to Western entries, it looks kinda of cheapish. I know in anime they stack frames and do static pans to save on costs, but it still looks a little shoddy.
Again, it's not "bad," I just don't see the majesty.
I'm with you, Ross. I've seen most of the Miyazaki bigs, and beyond the beautiful art they don't really grab me. No real reason for it, the movies obviously aren't bad movies. They're just not for me, I guess.
This is frustratingly where I end up. But it's not the only genre that I can't get into, so at least I don't feel singularly broken on the issue. I can't really stand hardcore horror either.
I think for one thing, Ghibli is currently the only mainstream Animation Studio that has been consistently working with traditional animation techniques, rather than jumping on the CGI bandwagon Toy Story and Shrek got rolling. Disney seem to be going back to their roots, but Miyazaki has filled that gap in the meantime.
If you're an animation fan, I recommend Brendan and the Secret of Kells. The story itself is a tad flat in places, but it's ending is refreshingly different. It's also highly stylized with beautiful animation and scenery.
Eh, just working in a medium isn't justification or qualification of its greatness. If everyone suddenly stopped using oil on canvas except Thomas Kinkade, it doesn't make that sack of shit suddenly a great painter.
But Secret of Kells is a fantastically-drawn film, you're right about that. Nice little film.
....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head.
The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Like every Lynch film except Inland Empire, there's a fairly simple explanation that fits the facts. In this case: Man discovers wife is unfaithful to him, possiibly due to his own impotence. Man kills wife. Man then retreats into a fantasy land inside his own head where he is young, attractive, and successful with women, but bits of what he really did keep creeping in. Mulholland Drive's pretty similar- it just has a much clearer dream/reality divide.
See this is all I picked up, but I felt that there was something more there that I wasn't getting.
Is the pastey looking guy supposed to be a personification of death? What was that backflash about between Pete and his old girlfriend before Alice? Why did the cabin keep rewinding the explosion? Was the film playing at Andy's house a porno with Alice in it? Who the hell is Dick, I thought that dude's name was Mr. Eddy? There's just a bunch of questions that don't appear to contribute to that plot at all.
I personally read the Mystery Man (as I believe the credits call him) as a personification of the protagonist's murderous impulses/dark side, but there are other takes out there. He certainly has a lot of strong parallels to Bob in Twin Peaks, who was a murderous supernatural force that brought out the evil in people he possessed. Evil having an external supernatural presence that's hinted out but never pinpointed is a recurring Lynch theme in most of his work.
As for the others- there's a pretty messed-up timeline going on, but I'm not sure about the cabin and the backflash beyond that. Yes, the film at Andy's was that (and is a pretty obvious bit of imagery for how the man's real view of his wife -a cheat, etc- keeps sneaking into his fantasy of her), and Dick Laurent was only Mr Eddy in the fugue/fantasy portion of the film. In the real portion he's fairly obviously the guy Bill Pullman's wife is cheating on him with.
In the end, though, most Lynch films are about personal interpretation rather than there being a "right answer".
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, see I thought that she was cheating on Bill with Andy, the mexican friend who throws the fancy parties. I didn't think that Mr. Eddy(Dick Laurent) was the other guy. Well that makes a little bit more sense. Maybe the wife just gets around and is doing all three of them. Wouldn't surprise me with a body like hers. :winky:
Well, we can't ever know how much of the whole thing was just his paranoia talking, given that the whole film is through the eyes of a deeply delusional man :P
Anyway, I personally would take Miyazaki over Disney in a heartbeat (much more restrained, atmospheric storytelling, for one), but to each their own.
I'd say Ghilbi's art is a lot subtler than most eastern animation, too, and they have a real knack for portraying a character through body language rather than over-the-top emotion in a way few Western studios have ever managed.
Haven't read through entirely so please excuse any repetition.
Awesome films are:
Zerkalo
Brazil
Inland Empire
Russian Ark
Soy Cuba
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
edited September 2010
Edited OP, I decided to not include every movie from lists like above. No offense to the posters but if I did that I would be here all day everyday just updating the list. Also some of the films aren't even on IMDB. Like uh "That's the one, Bigs!", couldn't find anything on that.
But again, gonna add some more to the list here...
I love this movie. One of my favorite action movies growing up. It's really sappy, really romantic, probably every guy has dressed up like Eric Draven on Halloween at least once in their lives because he's a bad ass. It's really sad that Brandon died on the set of this movie because it would have given him loads of opportunities afterwards.
Long before all the vampire garbage, and fad shit, Anne Rice was a novel queen. All of her books are great, but this movie adaptation is really well done, and I still watch it now and then. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, probably Kirsten Dunst's only good role, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater.
Has anyone mentioned Children of Men yet? This movie was fantastic.
I was going to embed the trailer, but it seemed a bit NSFW...
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Everything is Illuminated has the best change of pace I've ever experienced. Completely minor spoiler:
It goes from a hilarious travelogue to a really emotional story about halfway through
It was only screened at an arthouse theatre locally, and I took a date to see it. We were the only people under 50 in the theatre. However, it's a fantastic movie.
María Llena Eres de Gracia (Maria Full of Grace).. is great and tragic
Awesome surfing documentary- watch it in HD
Michael Clayton is really beautifully shot and produced, and is a powerful movie to boot.
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....Now, I just watched Lost Highway . . . . what the fuck did I just watch? Can anyone spoiler me some details explaining? I got a general idea, but I can't seem to complete it entirely in my head. From what I got right now, Rammstein is awesome, Manson is awesome, and Little Nicky's girlfriend has a great pair of tits (and a nice behind if I might add....).
...that's just some major points of what I got. I think I should download this soundtrack. So many good songs, and it just oozes Reznor. I could tell from the start he produced the music. But I think this one is far more confusing than Mulholland, that one only took me one view to get. I feel like I have to watch this one or two more times to pick up everything completely.
Touching on some other things people have said, Princess Bride = Awesome, Butterfly Effect = Awesome, The Thing = Awesome, The man from earth - gonna have to check out.
edit - Also tomorrow when I get some free time, I'm gonna edit the OP with every movie that's been mentioned so far to try and keep track of all the talent.
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The big difference between the director's cut and the theatrical is that the theatrical cut explains everything when the movie starts with a voiceover. The director's cut doesn't, which lets things unfold more naturally.
I'd hate to say it but I like the theatrical ending more. The director's made more sense but I felt it was over the top and just didn't translate to the screen well IMO. I think either version does it justice, it really is a great movie.
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More beautifully composed scenes than any movie has a right to. I could enjoy this movie with the sound off.
If I'm remembering that movie correctly there may be some kind of meaning that can be derived from it, but frankly I kind of just assumed that it was Theater of the Absurd and just left it at that. Trying to come up with some kind of coherant plot or explantion for what happened in that film made my brain hemorrage.
Also, judging by his continued filmography, Dark City was the best he could do. His work has gotten considerably worse, and it wasn't even that strong to start with.
A unique sort of universally recognizable high school environment PACKED TO THE GILLS with reincarnated Noir people. A unique sort of jargon emerges throughout the movie, keeping you guessing, and a lovely mix of the absurd and believable keeps it all moving.
And Machette deserves to be seen in theatres, by the by.
Really? The reviews I've read have run the gamut from, "ridiculous and fun, but shallow and bloated," to "yet another Rodriguez flick where he forgets to put a movie between the tits and explosions," to "childishly racist."
No part of that interests me.
I don't generally mind "shallow," except I think at some point Rodriguez realized that if he pretends that he's being intentionally shallow people won't figure out that he can't actually do anything else.
You can only be ironically bad so many times before you're just bad. Rodriguez' childrens films have shown me that without the pretense of irony, he's actually just kinda bad. Even Planet Terror, which was supposed to be bad, was bad in the wrong kind of way.
It involves the ultimate mexican and an army of bouncing cars. A truck rears up like a horse and crushes a texas vigilante / border patrol militiaman. It has Ave Maria EXACTLY where you'd expect it. Its grindhouse shlock at its best doing faux social commentary. Steven Segal as an accentless mexican cartel drug lord. The hero getting utterly inexplicable, and hilarious amounts of tail. VIOLENCE VIOLENCE VIOLENCE. This stuff just... Sells itself, people.
Theres also no 'actual' racism involved in the whole thing, and infact treats Mexicans pretty respectfully as a whole. I'd actually really be curious to see a review of it from an immigrant's perspective.
Why would you think that with a film by a Mexican-American director, starring a Mexican lead actor, about illegal immigration, I would think this film is racist AGAINST Mexicans?
Again, you can only make a bad film so many times on purpose until it becomes just plain bad.
We've already got the El Mariachi movies, Sin City, and Planet Terror. I'm confident in Rodriguez' ability to make a heartless pastiche of violence and schlock with modestly-talented actors. I don't need to see more.
And I doubt Machete is half as good at what it does as say, Black Dynamite.
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Machete dosent 'feel' like any of those mentioned, except Planet Terror for the obviously intentional reasons. It feels like a legitimate, new-ish retro-love-letter-remix that seems to be all the rage these days. (See Scott Pilgrim, The Expendables, and more for that vein recently.)
Exactly. Black Dynamite was gold.
The thing is, grindhouse and exploitation films aren't self-aware. You can either spoof them or earnestly make them, but you can't spoof them and claim that its earnest, which is what Planet Terror was and what Machete seems to be.
See now, Death Proof was an honest-to-goodness grindhouse movie. I hated it, but not because it wasn't true to itself. Rodriguez, however, seems to both miss the joke and misunderstand the genre. Kind of like when Hot Topic kids say Nightmare Before Christmas is a great film; the IS great, but they're wrong about why it's actually great. Rodriguez hasn't actually ever shown he knows what grindhouse is really about; instead, he makes "ironic" movies for sub-literate teenage boys.
See again: Black Dynamite. It gets it and is also a very well made -- lovingly so -- movie.
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Right. Black Dynamite obvious loves the films its aping, but joshes them with warmth and respect.
Rodriguez' films are neither fish nor foul. They're winking, and that's never appreciated. Instead, it's just douchey.
(That's Charles Darwin. ...sort of.)
This is one of the most unique films I've ever seen. I always want to compare it to Pan's Labyrinth (another film I highly recommend), though they're not really very alike - but there's a certain manner in which the filmmakers utilise gorgeous cinematography to set the mood that brings it to mind. (Also, it has a fantastic performance by a young female actor.)
The story is both easy and difficult to explain; or rather, one story is easy to explain, and the other is difficult. Basically, a young girl who broke her arm picking oranges with her family is in a hospital in 1920s LA, and has the run of the place. She encounters a Hollywood stuntman who has been at least temporarily paralyzed from the wais down performing a stunt in a film... where the leading man for whom he was the stuntman stole his girl, the leading lady. He wants to kill himself, so he needs the girl to get him pills with which to do the deed, and to manipulate her into doing so he begins to weave this fantastical story about an epic journey, with people around the hospital being interjected as various 'characters' (including Darwin up there).
The film shifts between this fantastical world/story and his bed at the hospital, and.. I don't really know what else to say, it's just really good in a slightly surrealistic (though not really) way.
Also, Clue is one of the best comedies of all time.
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The fact that the director calls it a Psychogenic Fugue should point you in the right direction, if you look that up.
Anyway:
Hallucinogenic 70s Italian piece, regarded by some as one of the finest horror films ever made. The dialogue and acting are all over the place, but the atmosphere and visuals are second to none.
A Tale of Two Sisters. Haunting, thought-provoking Korean ghost story, and by far the best film to come out of the post-Ringu Asian new wave.
Insightful, horrifying film about voyeurism that was decades ahead of its time.
Whereas this is one of the very few films actually on record as making the audience faint. Pretty startling now, but it was absolutely unthinkable when first relased 50 years ago.
See this is all I picked up, but I felt that there was something more there that I wasn't getting.
Moving the thread along, I'll update the OP with all the suggestions, their genres and directors so far as the day goes on . . .but first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWWWKKA8jY
Definitely in my top three Hayao Miyazaki films. This movie is just pure art.
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As for the others- there's a pretty messed-up timeline going on, but I'm not sure about the cabin and the backflash beyond that. Yes, the film at Andy's was that (and is a pretty obvious bit of imagery for how the man's real view of his wife -a cheat, etc- keeps sneaking into his fantasy of her), and Dick Laurent was only Mr Eddy in the fugue/fantasy portion of the film. In the real portion he's fairly obviously the guy Bill Pullman's wife is cheating on him with.
In the end, though, most Lynch films are about personal interpretation rather than there being a "right answer".
I've tried to sit through his stuff on several occasions, and I've never seen what others (including people like John Lasseter) revere so much in his work. I mean, it's not bad or anything, but I don't see the magic and the quality that puts him in a separate class of his own.
I'm a humongous animation fan, but eastern animation, and specifically Miyazaki, is still a mystery to me in its appeal. There's nothing in his art that Miyazaki now is doing that Walt Disney wasn't doing better sixty years ago, and there's nothing about his character work that Pixar didn't surpass 15 years ago.
I hate being on the outside on this. I love animation, and I love film, and here's a guy that has a huge following in both casual animation fans and professional animators that I'm completely lost on.
Shrug. To each their own I guess. I think his work is brilliant, some obviously better than others. But the art style, the magical storylines, and the memorable characters all stick out when I think Miyazaki.
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I think for one thing, Ghibli is currently the only mainstream Animation Studio that has been consistently working with traditional animation techniques, rather than jumping on the CGI bandwagon Toy Story and Shrek got rolling. Disney seem to be going back to their roots, but Miyazaki has filled that gap in the meantime.
If you're an animation fan, I recommend Brendan and the Secret of Kells. The story itself is a tad flat in places, but it's ending is refreshingly different. It's also highly stylized with beautiful animation and scenery.
And if you'd like a movie that hammers its message into your head with as much subtlety as a Vuvuzela orchestra, while making yourself feel rather sad, I also recommend When the Wind Blows, based on the graphic novel by Raymond "Snowman Walking in the Air" Briggs.
Not to get off topic but did they ever find that techno song they were looking for?
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Without meaning to sound rude, what is it about Miyazaki's art that really stick out? Help me out here, I'd really like to at least objectively acknowledge its merit. To me, however, Miyazaki in both modeling and composition looks very much like so many other Asian animated films and television, and I have to say, in comparison to Western entries, it looks kinda of cheapish. I know in anime they stack frames and do static pans to save on costs, but it still looks a little shoddy.
Again, it's not "bad," I just don't see the majesty.
This is frustratingly where I end up. But it's not the only genre that I can't get into, so at least I don't feel singularly broken on the issue. I can't really stand hardcore horror either.
Eh, just working in a medium isn't justification or qualification of its greatness. If everyone suddenly stopped using oil on canvas except Thomas Kinkade, it doesn't make that sack of shit suddenly a great painter.
But Secret of Kells is a fantastically-drawn film, you're right about that. Nice little film.
Anyway, I personally would take Miyazaki over Disney in a heartbeat (much more restrained, atmospheric storytelling, for one), but to each their own.
I'd say Ghilbi's art is a lot subtler than most eastern animation, too, and they have a real knack for portraying a character through body language rather than over-the-top emotion in a way few Western studios have ever managed.
Awesome films are:
Zerkalo
Brazil
Inland Empire
Russian Ark
Soy Cuba
But again, gonna add some more to the list here...
The Crow:
Interview with the Vampire:
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Lol, I tried to progress the thread further, but hide your wife, hide your kids, Rodriguez is cuttin everybody out here.
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Sin Nombre is on Netflix streaming, and I really, really loved it
Cidade de Deus is the best thing ever. I have Cidade dos Homens in my queue.
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I was going to embed the trailer, but it seemed a bit NSFW...
María Llena Eres de Gracia (Maria Full of Grace).. is great and tragic
Awesome surfing documentary- watch it in HD
Michael Clayton is really beautifully shot and produced, and is a powerful movie to boot.