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The Instant Watch Film Society: With a Vengeance.
Thomamelas
Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
Yes, it's the Return of the Instant Watch Film Society. At some point every person with a Netflix subscription has sat there with the realization that there is a vast selection of movies out there but they have no clue what to watch. We're here to help. Each week a different forumer will bring you a movie. It may be an amazing documentary. It may be a screwball comedy. It may be a bit of artistic expression set to film. But it will be a film the presenter cares about in some way. A film they feel some passion for. A film they want you to watch.
Are there rules? Yes.
1. Have your post ready to go by the Tuesday of your week. I have no special reason to pick Tuesday, it just seems like a good day. But seriously if you don't present your film, I will hunt you down. And I will be super annoying. If you can't do it, let me know in advance and I will figure something out.
2. No fucking terrible films. I don't mean films that are so bad they are good. Or bad films that perhaps have cinematic importance. I mean no fucking repeats of The Love Guru, a film with no good qualities at all. I reserve the right to shoot down films. I watch every film posted in the thread. Each and every film. Which means I watched The Love Guru. I'm not repeating that experience.
3. If you want to get in line to present a film, send me a PM with the film.
Current schedule:
Week 1: Jacobkosh Fresh
Week 2: B:L Four Lions
Week 3: Thomamelas Exiled
Week 4: Atomika Young Adult
Week 5: Deaderinred Following
Week 6: Farangu 13 Assassins
Week 7: Bogart Miller's Crossing
Week 8: Robos A Go Go Upstream Colour
Week 9: Wandering Billy Elliot
Week 10: Astaereth The Conversation
Week 11: LoveIsUnity Lost in Translation
Week 12: ihaveachair Time Bandits
Week 13: TehSpectre Krull
Some sample write ups from the past:
Midnight Run:
Spartan:
Brick:
Shane:
Are there rules? Yes.
1. Have your post ready to go by the Tuesday of your week. I have no special reason to pick Tuesday, it just seems like a good day. But seriously if you don't present your film, I will hunt you down. And I will be super annoying. If you can't do it, let me know in advance and I will figure something out.
2. No fucking terrible films. I don't mean films that are so bad they are good. Or bad films that perhaps have cinematic importance. I mean no fucking repeats of The Love Guru, a film with no good qualities at all. I reserve the right to shoot down films. I watch every film posted in the thread. Each and every film. Which means I watched The Love Guru. I'm not repeating that experience.
3. If you want to get in line to present a film, send me a PM with the film.
Current schedule:
Week 1: Jacobkosh Fresh
Week 2: B:L Four Lions
Week 3: Thomamelas Exiled
Week 4: Atomika Young Adult
Week 5: Deaderinred Following
Week 6: Farangu 13 Assassins
Week 7: Bogart Miller's Crossing
Week 8: Robos A Go Go Upstream Colour
Week 9: Wandering Billy Elliot
Week 10: Astaereth The Conversation
Week 11: LoveIsUnity Lost in Translation
Week 12: ihaveachair Time Bandits
Week 13: TehSpectre Krull
Some sample write ups from the past:
Midnight Run:
The buddy movie will never die. It has hit heady highs with Butch and Sundance, and deep, deep lows with Jay Leno and Mr Miyagi. Take two guys, or two gals, or a guy and a monkey, and put them together in circumstances that mean they have to stay together. Make sure they loathe each other, or at the very least make sure they're very different characters. Now watch them bounce off each other. That's it. Oh sure, you need a plot, and you need supporting characters, and maybe a love interest or whatever. But that's usually just window dressing. The buddy movie lives or dies on the lead pairing. If they don't strike sparks off one another, you're fucked and the movie will be a terrible stain on humanity.
Midnight Run is my favorite buddy movie and a masterclass in screen chemistry.
This is the trailer.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1_N28DA3gY&feature=related
Very little of that dialogue is actually in the final cut, and that minute and a half itself is pretty unrepresentative of the film. To be honest, you'd be hard pressed to find a minute and a half of the movie where someone isn't shouting "FUCK" at the top of their lungs, so you can kind of understand that. Anyway, Midnight Run isn't the kind of film you can sell on the basis of the plot, or a few clips.
Robert De Niro plays Jack Walsh, an ex-cop kicked off the force by corrupt colleagues, and who now scrapes a living as a bounty hunter dragging in scumbags he used to arrest for the wonderfully low-rent bail bondsman Moscone, played by the incomparably sleazy Joe Pantaliano. Charles Grodin plays Jonathan Mardukis, an accountant who embezzled millions of dollars from mobster Jimmy Serrano and then gave it all to charity before sensibly going on the run. Walsh is sent after Mardukis, and has to get to him from New York to an LA jail before the mob, the FBI, or a rival bounty hunter gets to him first. You will be unsurprised to learn that Mardukis and Walsh are not thrilled with each other's company. And that's the plot. They have chases, gun fights, fist-fights, helicopters attacking them and so on on the way, but all that's besides the point. The reason to watch this film is the pairing of Grodin and De Niro.
It is not, at first sight, an appetizing prospect. "From the director who bought you Gigli, and the writer of The Whole Ten Yards, comes a comedy starring that well-known comic genius Robert De Niro, alongside the guy from those movies about a St. Bernard". And since both Robin Wiliams and Cher were once mooted for the role of Mardukis, the film could have been even less enticing. It's certainly true that the film isn't perfect. This isn't a masterpiece of cinema verite, nor is it emblematic of sea-change in the art form; it has almost no ambitions beyond being a buddy movie, some scenes don't work, the direction is often merely workmanlike, and I have difficulty believing that De Niro can kill a helicopter with a handgun.
And yet.
It's been one of my favorite movies for almost twenty years, ever since I first hired it from the tiny VHS video rental place on the way home from school. The chemistry between De Niro and Grodin is one of the best I've ever seen, and is all the more remarkable because it's a chemistry that exists not only between two actors obviously enjoying themselves, but also between the characters they play. Too many buddy movies have their lead pair dynamic revolve around artificial one-liners, knowing winks to the audience and a partnership made up of one cool guy and one comedy doofus. If Midnight Run were made today I'm sure they'd get someone like Steve Carrell to play Mardukis, and he'd be egged on by an eager director to present a neurotic hive of mannerisms and self-conscious schtick, while Walsh would be played by, I dunno, The Rock or Nic Cage, gurning frustration to the camera at every opportunity. Lessons about friendship would no doubt be learned. Instead, we get Grodin and De Niro, and every single exchange they have in the movie seems to spring naturally from the characters they portray: neither has been designated by a scriptwriter as 'the funny one', and neither is guilty of ever trying to force a laugh out of their odd couple dynamic.
url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLyz_JWJCJI
Improvising many of his scenes with Grodin (at one point looking right at the camera and opining "what a pain in the ass this guy is"), the two leads bounce brilliantly off each other (De Niro cites it as one of the movies he most enjoyed making), Grodin constantly nagging De Niro into ulcerating anger. Grodin picks at De Niro every single second they're together, berating his measly tipping, his smoking, his lack of sensitivity and his furious silences. And De Niro responds with some of his best work on the screen, managing to make Walsh both hilarious and poignant, furious and bedraggled, a man clinging to his dignity and his incorruptibility in a business even he admits is "fucking miserable". Brest said later that he would leave the camera running when a scene was done just in case De Niro added a little touch, like the watch, a tic that pays off near the end in an entirely improvised scene in a boxcar.
I said earlier that the movies action scenes are kind of besides the point, but they're still pretty good action scenes.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slmtDntOA-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwiqA35sD9o&feature=related
The supporting cast is also fantastic. Dennis Farina, a real life ex-cop and tough guy, is both chillingly cruel and hilariously pissed off as Jimmy Seranno, the mobster Mardukis ripped off; Yaphet Kotto as Agent Alonso Mosley; Pantaliano as Eddie Moscone, a two faced shyster who would sell his own mother if he could turn a profit on the deal; John Ashton, a thick, unshaven slob who dogs Walsh's tail throughout the movie. The two asshole mobsters Serrano put on Walsh deserve a mention as well, affectionately known by their boss as moron number 1 and moron number 2. They even got Jack Kehoe in to play a role, a sure sign that someone wants quality in every part, no matter how tiny.
There are so many little moments of delight it's tough to pick a favorite. De Niro turning to camera and flashing an FBI badge after filching it from Kotto's pocket; the furrowed brow of Kotto as he surveys the wreckage left by a car chase through the desert that leaves a count of trashed Police cruisers that would not shame a Burt Reynolds movie; "fistophobia". And then there is the swearing. If you've ever seen the film on TV the chances are some fuckwit has dubbed over and cut out most of the incredibly brilliant swearing that goes on in this movie, an act I consider to be artistic vandalism akin to spraying DWAYNE 4 SHARONDA in neon yellow paint on a Carravaggio. This is fifth dan, black belt swearing, of the kind rarely seen outside of The Sopranos or a Martin Scorcese movie. Profanity spews forth from every character as freely and naturally as carbon dioxide is exhaled from the mouths of ordinary mortals. It's wonderful.
As I said earlier, this isn't a masterpiece of cinematic style or a visionary film from an auteur at the top of his game. It's just a buddy movie. But in their exchanges and the hard-earned moments of connection and understanding between the two, De Niro and Grodin manage to engage your senses of empathy and humour at the same time. The film is not an Ibsenesque tragedy, and ends as you probably suspected it would, but the happy ending has been earned by the sterling character work from the its two leads, and rings true. I've seen the film many times, and every time it's been like a reunion with an old friend, clinking a beer together and then settling back into an easy chair to bask in the comforting glow of company you know will neither disappoint nor bore you. It will never start a cult of cinema showings where the audience dress as their favourite characters, and it will not inspire a wave of young film-making Turks to follow in its footsteps.
It is just a buddy movie, after all. Sometimes, that's all you want.
Spartan:
Spartan
There are many David Mamet movies out there, the excellent GlennGary Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner, Heist, Ronin, even a misfire like Red Belt has great moments in it. But for me above all else the definitive Mamet movie is Spartan.
Set your Mother Fucker To Receive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJVPBVnki4&feature=related
This is the world of Spartan, you’re introduced to this movie abruptly, Mamet does not take the time to hold your hand, explanations/motives/what’s going on, these are rewards the audience gets for paying attention. I’m not going to link a trailer because this movie is best watched without an idea of what is going on, and the trailer gives away too much. Go in blind and you’ll get more out of it. The basic delivery here is that Val Kilmer is a government agent sent to aquire a very important persons missing child, and the movie spirals from there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtkhYD14nw&feature=related
The one thing you’ll notice from the clips I have provided is how abrupt the dialogue is, these aren’t characters going to explain their every motive. A trademark of Mamet is that smart rapid fire dialogue, its like catching a glimpse of real people going about their lives (although stylized of course I’ve dealt with real estate agents, aside from the language none of the agents I’ve dealt with our half as intelligent as Glenngary makes them out). Spartan takes this to the ex military, current military, behind the scenes government world of half truths, and implied obedience. One thing you’ll notice about Mamet films in general and Spartan in particular is that his characters don’t have much of a backstory, there is implication, maybe a sentence outside of the current conversation, but Mamet as a writer and director believes in acting what’s on the page. This creates a more realistic sense of characters for me, they don’t go into long monologues about who they are or what they are doing, they just do it.
Direction by Mamet is tight, shots linger, music is sparsely used and not looney tunes, most of the movie takes place at night, or low light, but its not difficult to follow what’s on camera. Action is well directed, the shooting parts are brief, this is not a John Woo action movie. One thing I appreciate from Mamet here is there is not a lot of/any shakey cam. It would only detract in a movie like this where they expect you to pay attention.
Acting wise you have a fantastic main in Val Kilmer, good supporting cast from William H. Macy, Ed O’neil, David Paymer, Clark Gregg, and Kristin Bell. I liked how for this movie they went with more that guys then a star infused cast like Glenngary.
Overall Spartan is part spy thriller, part who done it, and part snappy dialogue, shooken up with a cynical world view and delivered like a karate kick to the balls. Enjoy!
Brick:
Brick
Brick is Rian Johnson's first film. He filmed a good chunk of it at his old highschool. That information's not important when you're watching the movie, but it says something about the man who made it.
The movie opens with Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) crouched over the dead body of a girl with a blue bracelet. Soon we find out her name is Emily, and she is his ex-girlfriend and the person he loves. We don't know who killed her. Brendan needs to find out.
The plot isn't original, it's your classic whodunit murder mystery, glued together with all the best noir tropes. You've got your stoic, morally questionable "detective" Brendan, his man behind the scenes and nerdy sidekick, affectionately called Brain (Matt O'Leary), the femme fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner), the dame who set the whole thing into motion, Emily, (Emilie de Ravin), and a mysterious crime boss, the Pin (Lukas Haas). Brendan needs to know who killed Emily, and he's willing to dive deep into the shady criminal element at his highschool to find out.
You'd be surprised at what a detective story can become in a different setting.
It's a little amazing how well old noir tropes lend themselves to a highschool setting. Highschool has always been a test-run for the real world, a tiny cloistered society within a society. You've still got your social elite, your intellectuals, and your criminals. They're all still there, just a lot younger, and a lot out of their depth.
So yeah, it's an old formula. Still, you can't claim this film ain't fresh.
The score, composed by Rian Johnson's brother, is gentle, sad and sweet. The characters, too, are fragile. One thing that sets this aside from other detective stories and neo-noir flicks is that most protagonists are, well, older. Jaded middle-aged detectives who drink too much and have already seen it all are common-place; it's different when you're dealing with people who are, comparatively, innocent. This is a detective story but it's also a story about a kid looking for whoever's responsible for the death of his love. When your jaded old detective takes a beating, or provokes murderers and scoundrels, you expect he has some experience with this, he's been around.
Brendan, our protagonist, is in highschool, and when you watch him slowly, over the course of the film, breakdown physically and emotionally on his quest for justice while dealing with things way above his maturity level, it's heartbreaking. Levitt does a great job.
It's meaningful in a way that Rian Johnson filmed his first movie at his old highschool. He chose a place symbolic of his childhood for his ascension from aspiring filmmaker to filmmaker proper. Brick was his graduation. I think that's pretty cool.
Shane:
Thomamelas wrote: »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdd07SDHv5Q
If you asked me to pick the definitive classic western, it would be Shane. It's the film where all of the trappings of the genre come together in a single place. Our hero wears a whitish hat. Our villain wears a black one. We have the beautiful vista of the West and the sound of spurs on wood. We have the reluctant gunfighter knight and the homesteaders. We have the conflict of the culture of civilization, and the culture of the frontier. The man so steeped in violence that he can never really escape it. All of these things come together in a single film that Stevens handles masterfully.
Shane opens with a beautiful shot of our title character riding into a valley where the Starretts, among others, are making their homestead. We see him through the eyes of young Joey, who spots him while pretending to draw a bead on a dear. In a single long scene, we see both the external conflict of the ranchers verses the homesteaders and the inner conflict within Shane. As he approaches Shane is greeted warmly by the Starrets, but the trauma within Shane becomes clear as he reacts to the sound of Joey working the action of his rifle as he plays. The practiced, rapid draw makes it clear he is no stranger to violence, and the look of shame on his face as he realizes what he has done shows us he isn't so far gone as to be a monster. Riker and his men want to drive the homesteaders off the land so he can use it to expand his cattle range. Starrett and the homesteaders want to build up their small farms for their family.
As the film progresses we see Shane settle into life with the Starretts as a hired hand. We watch him through the eyes of Joey, seeing him become part of a family that he can never truly have. The joy in the physical labor of building a farm, the comradeship he develops Joe Starrett and the suppressed love he feels for Marion. Mean while the conflict between the homesteaders and Riker continues to build up. Jack Wilson is hired to provoke and kill the homesteaders, and we see him in contrast to Shane. Whereas Shane is a reluctant warrior, Wilson is a killer, a man who enjoys ending a life. When he confronts Torey we watch Wilson bait the man, provoke him in to drawing his pistol. Then making it clear that Torey is in over his head. And as Torey backs down Wilson shoots him dead.
All of this builds up to the climax, as Shane confronts Riker and Wilson, killing Riker, Wilson and his men. But he's wounded. And it's clear to him that there is no escape from the violence he's soaked himself in. So he tells Joey, "There's no living with a killing. There's no goin' back from one. Right or wrong, it's a brand... a brand sticks. There's no goin' back. Now you run on home to your mother and tell her... tell her everything's alright. And there aren't any more guns in the valley." and rides off into the distance to die.
This theme of a man caught in a cycle of violence is one that exploded in the post-war westerns, and Shane perhaps embodies it the most starkly. It was a metaphor for those men who had come back from the war and had trouble readjusting to peacetime. Those men with emotional trauma and PTSD that found they simply couldn't end the war for themselves. Nor could they talk about what they were going through at home. And in that context Shane's ending is even more bittersweet, with it's message that the cycle doesn't end until death, but that the suffering has meaning. That it was for a greater good, and that some hope and happiness should be taken from that. Stevens spent the war doing film work for the military. This includes filming D-Day, the Duben labor camp and Dachau. His film would be used as evidence in the Nuremberg trials. After the war, his films became more serious.
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A more complete list of movies done in the past:
Round one:
Week 1: Bogart, Midnight Run
Week 2: Preacher, Spartan
Week 3: Jacobkosh, Blue Velvet
Week 4: Thomamelas, The Searchers
Week 5: Gim, Play Time
Week 6: Ryadic, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
Week 7: Xenogears of Bore, The Love Guru
Week 8: Elki, Sans Soleil
Week 9: JamesKeenan, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Week 10: Drez, Show Me Love
Week 11: Fluffy, Our Beloved Flopsy Bunny Friend, Brick
Week 12: Quid, Red Cliff
Week 13: Thanatos, Falling Down
Round two:
Week 1: Jacobkosh, Chinatown
Week 2: Thomamelas, Shane
Week 3: Bogart, Sonatine
Week 4: Atomic Ross, The Big Lebowski
Week 5: Amateurhour, Ghostbusters
Week 6: Elki
Week 7: Wash
Week 8: TychoCelchuuu One, Two, Three
Week 9: JoeDizzy Way of the Gun
Week 10: CapFalcon
Week 11: Gim The Red and the White
So you want some stuff on Instant Watch to tide you over:
How to Marry a Millionaire Three models have to choose between love or money. With Marylin Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall
Fatal Attraction An affair turns to horror as a man and his family are stalked by his increasingly disturbed former lover.
The Untouchables Elliot Ness takes on a mob in a story that has nothing to do with history.
Reservior_Dogs QT's directorial debut about a botched robbery.
48 Hours Eddy Murphy when he was one of the funniest men on the planet.
Cosmopolis A man watches his empire fall while he is stuck in traffic.
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip One of the greatest stand up comedians working the mike.
Edit: Tools for searching instant watch
http://instantwatcher.com/
http://www.instantwatchdb.com/
edit: I also apologize for all the image links in my previous film society entry being broken (I deleted them from my image host) but to be fair I'm pretty sure nobody watched the movie.
PSN:Furlion
As long as you can articulate it enough to convince people to watch it, that's all we ask. Just PM me with the film you'd like and I'll assign you a week.
Your writeup can only enhance this.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
1994, directed by Boaz Yakin
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Fresh/524745?trkid=8133737
The early 90s saw the ascent of two parallel and interdependent movements in American film. Independent movies, which had been an occasional flickering flame on the edges of the American film landscape, were becoming “indies” - a fully-viable alternate model of moviemaking, spearheaded by a few visionary producers and distributors taking advantage of new avenues to produce, market and distribute film. And some of the earliest beneficiaries of that were black filmmakers, who found new opportunities to get their voices heard in the fall of American inner cities and the rise of hip-hop as a cultural force.
Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, New Jack City, Juice - by 1994 the field of gritty inner-city crime dramas was becoming downright crowded. So it’s not entirely a surprise that Fresh, the debut film by a white Israeli action-movie screenwriter named Boaz Yakin, was lost in the shuffle. There were no cameo appearances by famous rappers and no tie-in songs by Snoop Dogg or Public Enemy; the soundtrack, by Police drummer Stewart Copeland, featured no hip-hop, no lyrics, and was as aggressively minimalist as Philip Glass.
Audiences ignored Fresh, but critics noticed it. That’s how I heard about it - effusive praise from Kansas City Star critic Robert Butler, and Roger Ebert on Siskel & Ebert - but I wouldn't get to see the film until years later on VHS.
It was worth the wait.
Michael (Sean Nelson) is a 12-year-old boy in the ghettos of Brooklyn. He comes from a broken home, but he's a smart kid, a, quiet, hardworking student. Everyone tells him he has a bright future. He saves his money and he takes care of his family. But Michael is also a drug runner, moving huge amounts of crack cocaine and heroin across the city, and in this world, he goes by "Fresh."
Everything that happens in Fresh depends on you, the viewer, understanding Michael and the world he moves through, so the first forty minutes very carefully and patiently show you everything you need to know. Fresh lives and bunks with 11 other children in a shelter run by his aunt. His older sister is beautiful and he loves her, but she is a heroin addict, living with whatever dealer can keep her supplied. His father (Samuel L. Jackson) is an alcoholic living in a tiny camper, but at one point was a national chess contender, and now makes his booze money hustling games in the park. Fresh isn't supposed to see his father, but he visits him anyway, once a week, and learns to play. Fresh goes to school, and his friends there talk about comic books and making money, about breeding fight dogs, about imaginary millionaire relatives - but Fresh doesn't join in very much. He keeps his own counsel, speaking only when he has to, and Nelson's quiet, impassive face invites us to try and get inside his head.
There are two drugs in the ghetto, heroin and crack cocaine, or "base," and two kingpins responsible for them. Corky, the crack dealer, isn't a world away from Avon Barksdale in The Wire; he's a hot-tempered street fighter, and runs a shabby-looking organization from the corners. Esteban, the heroin dealer, runs a largely Hispanic organization; many of his employees are members of his extended family. As played with an unwholesome sort of class by Giancarlo Esposito, Esteban prides himself on the smooth efficiency of his work:
“Smack is the way to go. This is a gentleman’s operation. The clientele is stable and peace-loving, the competition is unconfrontational, and the heat mostly let it slide.”
Both men employ Fresh as a courier, paying him to move weight across the city - as a young boy, he's almost invisible. Both men respect his scrupulous honesty and his discretion, and both promise that he will be an important wheel in their organizations when he's older, while warning him against the promises of the other.
For his part, Fresh is interested in saving his money, getting to school on time, and finding excuses to talk to a pretty girl in his class. But when a schoolyard pickup game escalates into a shooting, and his crush is caught in the crossfire, Fresh finds a new purpose - escape. Seeing how he goes about this supplies the tension of the second half of the movie, as the gears of the plot begin to turn and we realize that these characters are pieces and this world is a chessboard.
If you've seen The Wire, or Boyz in the Hood, or (particularly) Spike Lee's Clockers, the world Fresh lives and moves in will be familiar to you. What sets it apart is its twisty plot and the style with which it is told. Yakin's direction isn't flashy, it doesn't call attention to itself, but he unerringly finds telling details that help us understand a character in a single visual snap, and creates a world that feels one hundred percent tangible. The drone-y, almost avant-garde soundtrack is odd and a bit distancing at first, but after 20 years it's helped to make the movie feel timeless; a few hightop fades and giant cell phones aside, this could be one of a thousand ghettoes somewhere in 2013.
And then there's the acting. Sean Nelson has an incredibly difficult challenge as a child actor and pulls it off wonderfully, creating a character we both sympathize with but also don't fully understand until the very last shot of the movie, and he is supported in this by Samuel L. Jackson - memorable despite being in only a handful of scenes, and without relying on the habits developed over the last 15 years of B-movies - and Giancarlo Esposito's snakey charm.
Take your seat. Set up your pieces. It's time to play Fresh's game - and you'll be glad you did.
My wife, on the other hand, is in the bedroom in tears, completely destroyed by the uncomfortable idea of children involved in a world that harsh and traumatic. Like, irrationally angry. At me.
So, yeah. Next film, I guess I'll preview first so I don't end up in the doghouse again. :P
I, on the other hand, have lived through the worst of the internet. Nothing phases me anymore. Just, you know, if you or someone you plan on watching this film with may be disturbed by fairly graphic and serious violence involving children and/or animals, note that you'll find it here, presented very raw and unfiltered. Which was necessary for the narrative and the world being built, and in no way glorified or excused, but it's present. So, you know. Caution.
this is the best thing
I agree with all of this.
I do like how when you revisit the earlier chess scenes Jackson is basically explaining the second half of the film.
The Red Harvest comparison never occurred to me and it really should have!
Unrelatedly, watching it this time was where I noticed how he implements his dad's advice about playing your opponent. Against the thuggish crack dealers, he goes on the offensive, using their own aggression to keep them off balance. Against the more careful Esteban, he finds a way to draw him out from his safe position.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
damn
testicular elephantiasis.
One thought about the soundtrack: Perhaps it was meant to help attach us more to Michael's situation? I really only noticed it when he was by himself, and that soundtrack in this movie is what Michael was in the ghetto - out of place.
Couple odd things I'm wondering about:
The muggers that jumped him and Chucky(and I let out a silent thank you when he got shot), was that part of the plan too? Or was that just something he improvised?
Also, I don't quite realize why he shot the dog.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
As for the dog, I think it was him pushing himself past the point of no return. It's a test of if he commit himself.
That's how Corky has the big bags of crack in the subsequent scene, and why he is on the verge of killing Fresh.
I think killing the dog is partly because Fresh had just been kicked out of his home and couldn't care for it and because it won Chucky the gun that got him killed.
The dog is understandable too, but it also serves to make Fresh a lot scarier. Also one more thing piled onto the end scene, where he lets himself feel everything.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
I was sort of under the impression... you know, like, things actually sort of had changed a bit in the getto. Like, there has pretty much been a decrease in violent crime most everywhere, and the crack epidemic is... currently a fair bit less horrific. Specifically NYC has improved a lot, due to a bunch of factors including better governance and some, uh what's the polite word for gentrification efforts?
Not that I live in a getto.
Fantastic movie though. I just disagree about the timeless point.
Some films are very dependant on their time and place. I think you could take Fresh, change it to the prohibition and make it booze vs weed and not lose very much. Crack isn't a requirement for this story to work. You can change the city too. Compare this to Boyz n the Hood which is very much about South Central L.A. in the 90's.
Fischer being dead sort of forces the line about other players in the park waiting on him to be more blatantly metaphorical. It forces a sort of hopelessness into the situation which, perhaps, was not intended to be so overt.
It is a gem. Great performances and good direction. This is a film I would have never heard about if it wasn't for this thread, and it is awesome that I did hear about it and thus watched it.
It is very much not timeless because it is so clearly in everything a film made in the early nineties. But ignoring the specifics and actually looking at the themes it presents and humanity it portrays I can't help but agree with the label of timeless. Superficial things like phones and Bobby Fischer besides.
It was interesting to me is how restrained it was in its portrayal of Fresh's community, at least compared to grittier dramas dealing with similar locales. We see a shooting and a few examples of drug addiction, but as Jacob said the violence is more often implied than exhibited. Fresh himself similarly avoids a lot of the miseries you'd expect to see heaped upon protagonists of his kind. He isn't a victim of abuse or neglect, and he even has a positive role model in his aunt who loves unconditionally and rejects him only when it becomes a necessity. Fresh's world is a bleak one, but not one so devoid of love and hope that Fresh's only choice is to become a criminal.
The fact that Fresh has a choice, rather than merely being painted as a victim of circumstance, is what makes him compelling. Whereas the strutting and psychopathic Jake seems born for the streets, Fresh seems destined for something better, and yet to fulfill that potential he immerses himself in the same criminal world as a dumb thug like Jake. Can you blame him, though, when every other path seems to be a dead end? His father's vaunted intelligence and skill with chess took him far away, but in the end he still ended up back in the ghetto hustling for dollars and drinking cheap beer. His aunt seems to have her act together too, but she's a saint spreading her love thin across so many people that she tries to help everyone and, as a result, may not truly save anyone. Fresh is remarkable, but so are his father and aunt, and they've proven that being remarkable can still only take you so far in their world.
That's not to excuse Fresh's actions, though. Even he wouldn't excuse them, as his reactions to Chuckie's posturing show that he's both smart and compassionate enough to see killing is wrong. Yet while he's horrified that his friend would endanger their dog for just a hundred dollars, soon enough the dog is dead by Fresh's hand and that friend has become collateral damage. We see Fresh watch as Jake is beaten to death too, clearly disturbed by what he is seeing but refusing to look away. The best part of Fresh's nature seems to be rejecting actions, but rather than responding to it he continues to look on.
However, even as Fresh sacrifices those around him to further his ends, it still seems to be compassion that drives him. With $5,000 to his name and the support of his aunt, Fresh could simply cut himself off from the dealers, keep his head down for a few years, and then make his escape as soon as he's big enough. The reason that apparently spurs him to action now, and justify all the bloodshed he instigates, is a sister who may be lost to the streets at any moment. It's her exchange with Fresh about their aunt that, in my opinion, really shows what Fresh is about:
Fresh and his aunt both love people with all of their hearts, but while the aunt's love is diffused across nearly a dozen kids we see Fresh focus the entirety on his affection on one single person, ignoring everyone and everything else. For Fresh, loving someone means letting nothing stand in the way of helping her, including the goodness inside of himself that makes that love possible. As a result we see him enact his schemes and put friend and foe alike in harm's way, not just because he lives in a community where that says everyone is expendable, but also because his heart is telling him the same thing even as it aches to see others die. To me that's what Fresh is about, not just how a community can corrupt the brightest among us but also how the best part of such a person, the intelligence and love that gives him his brightness, can corrupt itself.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Of course, once she's saved the schemer's sense of purpose evaporates. After he and his sister are put in witness protection in some obscure, secure suburb, there won't be any reason for someone like Fresh to exist anymore. All that remains then is Michael, the boy, who may not be strong enough to carry the burden of what he's done.
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2010, directed by Chris Morris
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Four-Lions/70129391
Four lions dancing in the moonlight
Osama Bin Laden. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. What drives men to carry out acts of terror? What goes through their minds as they plot their destructive plans? Four Lions explores these topics through the story of Omar and his Muslim friends, Waj the gentle but dim-witted best friend, Barry the rash Caucasian born-again convert, and Faisal the naive bomb tester.
Omar and his loving wife, Sofia
Omar is a straightforward man with a loving relationship with his wife. Their household is fairly progressive, which is juxtaposed with his more conservative but less radical brother who locks his women in a closet. Unfortunately, Omar becomes disillusioned by how society treats Muslims as terrorists, and this embedded hatred of Western culture and imperialism leads him to embark on a trip to Afghanistan which changes him forever.
New recruit Hassan fights the power
The film manages to portray the motivations of Omar and his friends in a manner which exemplifies how these differing Muslim ideologies clash. Omar's best friend Waj knows this is wrong but the self-righting mechanisms of extremist religion warps his mind and forces him to ignore his heart. Barry tries to lead them on a separate false flag mission to radicalize the base, thinking that other Muslims would behave like them when provoked. Faisal doesn't believe in human suicide bombing, rather attempting to smuggle bombs onto animals. Hassan just tags along because he thinks it's cool.
Target: Marathon
I would have to preface watching this with a trigger warning. The film was awfully prescient, as the scene of the terrorist plot was a marathon. The director pulls no punches with this story, going into detail the terrorist training in Afghanistan, techniques to avoid facial capturing devices, how to avoid phone tracking, and the alien terror of American drones. You may be moved to tears at the ineptness and incompetence of the police force and the intelligence community. This work humanizes these terrorists and portrays them in a different light, compared to action movies where they are just faceless goons who are gunned down by the dozen, but it does not attempt to excuse their actions. Rather, it is social commentary on how a series of tragic mistake after mistake can lead them to the choices they make, and to the consequences that unravel.
This is the tale of Omar and his terrorist friends.
This is a tale of Four Lions.
This is a brilliant movie. The scene where Faisal runs through the disguises he's planning to employ when he buys the ingredients for his homemade bombs is amazing.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
10% Rotten
But then again I'm always a sucker for movies where the weak but intelligent underdog triumps over the strength of heirt oppressors through their wits alone. I had my doubts about a kid in the lead role, as an overly intelligent kid for their age can get Mary Sue'd easily, but Sean Nelson NAILS it. He is crafty as a stone faced liar, but he is still vulnerable as a kid prone to making mistakes.
The setting reminded me of a book I read titled "Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence." That was set in Harlem and not New York, but the ghetto atmosphere is similar in how violence is accepted as a way of life, and how there is no way to avoid it. In that book, the kid had to learn to fight to survive. Luckily for Fresh, his father's chess mastery taught him how to fight with strategy, and I liked how his chess lessons were reflected in Fresh's plans.
My only qualms were certain plot elements that were necessary for the sake of telling the story. A tight-knit community like that would have everyone knowing each other, and the basketball kid would certainly know not to piss off the quick-tempered drug enforcer with a gun, although it was a necessary tragedy for the piece for Fresh to see what would happen to him and the people he cares about if he didn't change his fate. His friend Chuckie was a little TOO stupid, a kid like that wouldn't have survived that long with the crowd he's dealing with.
I would say this is a great work about the loss of innocence, but it's clear that he lost it long ago. Rather, the journey was his loss of naivete, in realizing that his drug running life was a dead end. He betrayed the people who trusted him in a Shakespearean manner in order to save himself and his sister, and the heartbreaking part is that he had to risk everything to achieve that.
In the end when he broke down crying, he shows that he's still a kid. But he's The Man.
So, I'm starting to gather that the goal of this thread is to ensure I never get laid on instant watch film night.
All I know for sure is it won't happen with my movie.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!