I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
Lawrence of Arabia is an obvious vote for me, but that's a long movie.
I think North By Northwest is a great choice. It's incredible in Blu-Ray right from the opening credits, which are just a series of vertical and horizontal lines - but they are crystal clear. On a DVD there'd be so much artifacting.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I think I'll go with Pcific Rim and Raiders for start and expand on it next month (as budgeting allows . My sound system is crappy for now, but I'm planning on using a part of our Christmas bonus to fix that.
Master of the close reading Rob Iger analyzed The Thing to answer the question y'all are asking. (Obviously this has massive SPOILERS for The Thing, don't watch if you haven't seen the Carpenter movie.)
After watching this I realized you probably can figure out most of what's going on in The Thing if you watch really really closely. One of the things I'd like to do this month is sit down with a friend who's seen it and go through the movie together detective-style, pausing and reviewing and figuring out who is what when.
I actually missed this post and was about to post the videos myself.
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
You got some good suggestions already. Here are some more.
The Fifth Element
Skyfall
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien & Aliens in particular look better than any movie that old has a right to)
The Dark Knight Trilogy
Baraka
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
You got some good suggestions already. Here are some more.
The Fifth Element
Skyfall
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien & Aliens in particular look better than any movie that old has a right to) The Dark Knight Trilogy
Baraka
The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray is a horrible, zero effort piece of shit. The aspect ratio and image quality constantly jumps back and forth between full screen and tiny little Imax footage with black bars that take up nearly half the screen real estate.
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
You got some good suggestions already. Here are some more.
The Fifth Element
Skyfall
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien & Aliens in particular look better than any movie that old has a right to) The Dark Knight Trilogy
Baraka
The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray is a horrible, zero effort piece of shit. The aspect ratio and image quality constantly jumps back and forth between full screen and tiny little Imax footage with black bars that take up nearly half the screen real estate.
That's a shame. I was actually thinking of getting it since my wife hasn't seen Rises yet, but now I'll wait and hope for a re-release.
If you do end up getting the Alien films, get the UK Release of the Alien Anthology (6 disc version). It's got all the stuff the US release has but it comes in a smaller and better package, and if you grab it at the right time it's cheaper, even with shipping, than the US version. It's also region-free - I wouldn't recommend buying a disc you can't play. :P
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Papadopoulos and Sons, an interesting story with a completely likable cast but it never gets anywhere because it has to carry standard conventions for the genre. Stannis Baratheon is a successful businessowner who turned his fish and chips restaurant into a successful greek food company and attempts to branch into real estate, but the bank he was part of falls apart and he has to start from the bottom again, reopening the old restaurant with his children and estranged brother, who is the Balki to Stannis' Larry.
It does a good job of having the lead feel a bit too proud to go back to being a small business owner, that he put in his time and actually did everything right, it was just a product of circumstance. But it falls when it harps on money not buying happiness (sure it does!), and makes the immigrant shops that line the local street seem like the good life. They're all happy and content, and the film also tries to show how the assimilated brother (Stannis), who doesn't even remember how to speak greek, isn't living his life as much as his world traveling brother or doesn't have the happiness he did in his youth. There's even a scene where Stannis, still rich, berates the noble black peddler selling cleaning supplies door-to-door because he wants to open a cupcake shop (when it's much more common to have those peddlers be along the lines you see in Peep Show). It really has this sense that normal brits and scandanavians are squares and not cool, but everyone south of France are just totally cool dudes, yo. And then you have a forced romance plot with a lady who has an iffy American accent who works for the money-hungry boss, all the weak emotion based cliches are here.
Despite all that the cast is still really good, which is why it's hard to say it's a bad film. You do get a strong sense the dad loves his kids and even has love for his brother, and that really goes a long way for this type of film.
Master of the close reading Rob Iger analyzed The Thing to answer the question y'all are asking. (Obviously this has massive SPOILERS for The Thing, don't watch if you haven't seen the Carpenter movie.)
After watching this I realized you probably can figure out most of what's going on in The Thing if you watch really really closely. One of the things I'd like to do this month is sit down with a friend who's seen it and go through the movie together detective-style, pausing and reviewing and figuring out who is what when.
Oh my god, I tried watching this guys other videos. The Starship Troopers one is so painful to watch as this guy is a fucking crazyperson.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
The Fourth Kind is kind of a weird movie. I liked it well enough despite almost not watching it because of the hilariously retarded "hi I'm Movie Actress Milla Jovovich and this movie is totally based on real events" intro. The whole basic construct of the movie, where they show "real footage" (hint: it's not actually real footage) and Movie Footage Starring Actress Milla Jovovich Playing A Real Person(totallyrealyouguys) is so utterly stupid and unnecessary I can't help but wonder if the movie was directed by twelve tired kangaroos. While eating a sausage cake. In a hot tub.
The totally real and not fake at all "real footage" is by far the best part of the movie: the actors starring in the "real footage" clips act fucking circles around Real Movie Actress Milla Jovovich and her fellow Hollywood thespians; and the creepy scenes are much creepier in fuzzy blurry "real footage" Vision(tm) than they are in Real Movie Footage Film Vision(r). The movie would be much better if it was 100% "real footage" "found" "footage" "reality Vision" (tm) as opposed to doing this artsy fartsy thing they're doing.
Still, I liked the movie well enough. Milla Jovovich is decent, the person playing her "really real" "real" "person real" counterpart is amazing. I'd say The Fourth Kind is definitely worth a looksee, just know going in that they're DOING A THING (TM) with their stupid bullshit.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
@shryke I disagree with his conclusions sometimes, but I like his methodology.
@shryke I disagree with his conclusions sometimes, but I like his methodology.
Some of his other videos might not be as bad, but that Starship Troopers one just makes a beeline for crazytown.
Which is sad cause I agree, I do like some of his analysis, but he spends most of his time in those 3 videos slowly building to rants about various political subjects and not talking about the movie and how it structures it's hidden narrative which is the actual interesting not-crazy part.
Although it was fascinating hearing old reviews of the movie and noting how many critics apparently just didn't get it. Which is just ... wow.
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
You got some good suggestions already. Here are some more.
The Fifth Element
Skyfall
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien & Aliens in particular look better than any movie that old has a right to) The Dark Knight Trilogy
Baraka
The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray is a horrible, zero effort piece of shit. The aspect ratio and image quality constantly jumps back and forth between full screen and tiny little Imax footage with black bars that take up nearly half the screen real estate.
I have a special edition set with an artbook and all three movies in a box, it looks amazing there. Can't speak for the standalone release.
Planet Earth, as someone else said, is amazing. Blue Planet too, and they should be available in a set somewhere.
@shryke I disagree with his conclusions sometimes, but I like his methodology.
Some of his other videos might not be as bad, but that Starship Troopers one just makes a beeline for crazytown.
Which is sad cause I agree, I do like some of his analysis, but he spends most of his time in those 3 videos slowly building to rants about various political subjects and not talking about the movie and how it structures it's hidden narrative which is the actual interesting not-crazy part.
Although it was fascinating hearing old reviews of the movie and noting how many critics apparently just didn't get it. Which is just ... wow.
I'm not sure if this is the best thread for it but next week I'm getting my first Blu-ray player so I was wondering which movie to get that will show the format's awesomeness most.
Planet Earth......Amazing
EDIT: Oh...already mentioned...well fuck it it needs a second anyway.
Master of the close reading Rob Iger analyzed The Thing to answer the question y'all are asking. (Obviously this has massive SPOILERS for The Thing, don't watch if you haven't seen the Carpenter movie.)
After watching this I realized you probably can figure out most of what's going on in The Thing if you watch really really closely. One of the things I'd like to do this month is sit down with a friend who's seen it and go through the movie together detective-style, pausing and reviewing and figuring out who is what when.
The coat has me nearly convinced, the rest is all......meh. The keys are a good catch tho.
@shryke I disagree with his conclusions sometimes, but I like his methodology.
Some of his other videos might not be as bad, but that Starship Troopers one just makes a beeline for crazytown.
Which is sad cause I agree, I do like some of his analysis, but he spends most of his time in those 3 videos slowly building to rants about various political subjects and not talking about the movie and how it structures it's hidden narrative which is the actual interesting not-crazy part.
Although it was fascinating hearing old reviews of the movie and noting how many critics apparently just didn't get it. Which is just ... wow.
I thought this was common with Veerhoven movies though. They are the kind of satire that is missable if you really want to miss it.
Anybody else seen the documentary Room 237? It's about all perceived meanings/subliminal messaging in The Shining. This thing is nuts. It's on instant watch too, for anyone who is interested.
It had some pretty interesting points, I especially liked the "impossible window" theory. But some of the theories were just bullshit, like the "picture in the cloud" theory. The film started strong but at one point, when you can hear the person doing the voice over for his segment get up, put his child to bed, come back, and continue recording made it seem so... cheap? I don't know, but it could have been much more than it was. Still a fun watch.
Were there any other horror movies from the 80s set underwater besides Leviathan and Deep Star Six? The Abyss was kind of suspenseful, too.
That's weird - they all came out in 1989.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
edited October 2013
I just watched The Shining today followed immediately by Room 237. Thoughts:
Shining as coded genocide/Holocaust - maybe. I am really intrigued by this whole idea personally, though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt
Shining as labyrinth/Minotaur thing - sort of. I think the labyrinth thing is really, really good and Kubrick built those sets in weird ways intentionally but the stuff about Jack is ridiculous
Shining as "I faked the Moon landing" coded confession/sexual demon-people preying on humans/flipping the bird at King - HAHAHAHAAHAHA
Some of the stuff from that superimposed forwards/backwards version was SUPER creepy.
Yeah I found Room 237 to be interesting not because all of the theories about it's hidden meanings are spot on (although most of the impossible window/dreamlike architecture/labyrinth stuff seems legit) but because of the crazy the stuff people are projecting onto it. Most of it is just totally out there weird shit.
If you do end up getting the Alien films, get the UK Release of the Alien Anthology (6 disc version). It's got all the stuff the US release has but it comes in a smaller and better package, and if you grab it at the right time it's cheaper, even with shipping, than the US version. It's also region-free - I wouldn't recommend buying a disc you can't play. :P
I've got to disagree there. I bought the UK set because it was cheaper at the time, but I hated the packaging so much that I bought the US set when it got down to a decent price and gave the UK one to a friend. Either way, it's a great box set. I just prefer the US packaging to the UK's big ass Amaray case.
Saw The Fifth Estate (the WikiLeaks movie if you don't know what that is). Basically it's The Social Network but without the snappy dialogue (probably a plus for some of you) and also less interesting... despite being about much more interesting and important events. Cumberbatch does a good job with a thinly sketched character and the main guy (whatever his name is) really reminds me of a combo of Ewan MacGregor from Ghost Writer and Daniel Craig from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It is engaging, but not thrilling and attempts a kind of balance on the subject without ever getting too deep or really having any interesting views on the subject beyond what you would have seen on the news shows where they debated the topic. Overall, not really recommended, but if you have an interest, go for it.
My Netflix this week was World War Z which was really pretty bad. The good points are that it keeps moving and never bogs down in any one place or scenario. The bad points are that it's stupid, cowardly, and vapid. This is a zombie movie with no blood and not even a SECOND of examination as to why zombies are frightening or demoralizing or anything. They could be a pack of large dogs or huge ants or something and the movie would be identical. If they made a sequel, it would also be a bad movie unless it was nothing at all like this one. See it if you get off on punishing yourself, otherwise, do not.
Saw Iron Man 3 and it was pretty good. Tony Stark doesnt spend a whole lot of time in the suit, but that wasnt a problem for me. He did come off as a gigantic asshole at times (mostly when he was dealing with that kid), and everybody having snappy little one liners was kind of pushing it, but overall it was pretty good. Definitely better than Iron Man 2, close to on par with Iron Man (admittedly its been a while since Ive seen the first Iron Man), and certainly one of the better Marvel movies.
I dont read comics so its treatment of The Mandarin didnt bother me (hes a wizard in the comics? I literally know nothing about him), but I enjoyed Ben Kingsley immensely. Its always nice seeing Rebecca Hall in stuff (who in this movie basically looks like a less busty Jessica Biel), and while Paltrow was fine whoever wrote her part made her a little shouty.
Did Stark's house get blown up in Iron Man 2?
Also, what was that meteor looking thing near the stairs in his lab/factory/robot rack?
Well that was a fucking great film. Fantastic performances, good story, disgusting and tense and horrifying all at the right times. Good show.
That ending was one of the tensest, most riveting things I've seen in awhile. And all of it with nothing but Jodie Foster wandering around nervous as all fuck.
Hopkins performance is truly awesome and it's totally obvious why it became so famous and such a cultural touchstone. At the same time though, it's amazing how little of the film he's in and how unimportant he is to the overall story in many ways.
I mean, he does his part in solving the case, but he's ultimately not THAT important and he does nothing for the last act at all. His escape, while entertaining as hell, just seems so ... pointless. I kept expecting it to lead somewhere, to have him show up at the end and have some effect on the climax, but nope, nothing.
It's really kinda strange honestly.
Other random point is I noticed an interesting directorial choice throughout the film in that this movie LOVES the tight, claustrophobic close-up on the actor's face. It's all over the place in the film. Not quite sure why.
Anyway, see it if you haven't. Great movie.
PS - young Jodie Foster is pretty damn cute. Especially at the start with the ponytail.
His escape is important in later books (and later, lesser, films).
The adaptation of the book was very direct. Whether that's because they were planning to make more movies initially or because they just didn't want to screw with the books I don't know.
I imagine if someone were adapting the screenplay now knowing that a sequel film wouldn't be made for many years (and by different people, and that it would be really inferior) they might let the Lecter escape play out differently or try to give it some closure so that it didn't just hang like a loose thread.
Fun fact: Hopkins won best actor with what I believe was the least on-screen time ever for a winner. Something like 15-20 minutes total. But my god, what he does with the time he has...
The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray is a horrible, zero effort piece of shit. The aspect ratio and image quality constantly jumps back and forth between full screen and tiny little Imax footage with black bars that take up nearly half the screen real estate.
What else should they have done? Either they were going to use the IMAX footage, which meant changes in aspect ratio, or they were going to reframe and lose some of what would've been onscreen during those scenes.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
If you do end up getting the Alien films, get the UK Release of the Alien Anthology (6 disc version). It's got all the stuff the US release has but it comes in a smaller and better package, and if you grab it at the right time it's cheaper, even with shipping, than the US version. It's also region-free - I wouldn't recommend buying a disc you can't play. :P
I've got to disagree there. I bought the UK set because it was cheaper at the time, but I hated the packaging so much that I bought the US set when it got down to a decent price and gave the UK one to a friend. Either way, it's a great box set. I just prefer the US packaging to the UK's big ass Amaray case.
The US release holds the discs in cardboard sleeves. Think of the backs of the discs! (And the case isn't very big at all.)
Fun fact: Hopkins won best actor with what I believe was the least on-screen time ever for a winner. Something like 15-20 minutes total. But my god, what he does with the time he has...
When you're more way intimidated by the bad guy who gets twenty minutes of screen time (and is behind bars for the majority of it) than the guy who's supposed to be the main villain I'd say that's worth an award*.
*: If both villains are well-written and well-acted.
Fun fact: Hopkins won best actor with what I believe was the least on-screen time ever for a winner. Something like 15-20 minutes total. But my god, what he does with the time he has...
Didn't Alec Baldwin basically do the same thing with Glengarry Glenross? Basically comes in, has one monologue, and leaves.
Also, you can take Baldwin's character out of GGR (he wasn't in the original play), but take Lecter out of Silence of the Lambs and you end up with a very different film. He's essential to Starling's character arc.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
Fun fact: Hopkins won best actor with what I believe was the least on-screen time ever for a winner. Something like 15-20 minutes total. But my god, what he does with the time he has...
I always thought the answer to this was Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love (eight minutes). Turns out it's Beatrice Straight in Network (six minutes).
Well that was a fucking great film. Fantastic performances, good story, disgusting and tense and horrifying all at the right times. Good show.
That ending was one of the tensest, most riveting things I've seen in awhile. And all of it with nothing but Jodie Foster wandering around nervous as all fuck.
Hopkins performance is truly awesome and it's totally obvious why it became so famous and such a cultural touchstone. At the same time though, it's amazing how little of the film he's in and how unimportant he is to the overall story in many ways.
I mean, he does his part in solving the case, but he's ultimately not THAT important and he does nothing for the last act at all. His escape, while entertaining as hell, just seems so ... pointless. I kept expecting it to lead somewhere, to have him show up at the end and have some effect on the climax, but nope, nothing.
It's really kinda strange honestly.
Other random point is I noticed an interesting directorial choice throughout the film in that this movie LOVES the tight, claustrophobic close-up on the actor's face. It's all over the place in the film. Not quite sure why.
Anyway, see it if you haven't. Great movie.
PS - young Jodie Foster is pretty damn cute. Especially at the start with the ponytail.
Those close-ups are actually the key to the whole movie. Note that they're almost always used as the back and forth during a two person conversation. Conventionally these conversations are shot OTS/reverse OTS ("over the shoulder"), like so:
and reverse:
As the use of Bogart implies (that's Casablanca), the shot/reverse shot style is very very traditional, it is sort of the default way to shoot a conversation. You do it that way for at least three reasons:
1) Having both characters in the same shot is how you depict their relationship (not qualitatively, but the fact that they have one during this conversation)--this is as opposed to a pair of, say, medium close-up singles of each person.
2) Having them both in the same shot establishes spatial relationships. This is something people complain about when it's missing in action scenes, but it's equally important in dialogue scenes. Moreover, it began as a convention in case the dialogue scene turned into an action scene--which is to say that the OTS formulation shows you that the actors are close enough to throw a punch.
3) The formation also facilitates editing, as compared to, say, a two-shot:
A shot like this gives you significantly fewer cutting options. Let's say you want to use most of a particular take, but Bogie stammers on the third of five lines during the shot. If you cut from one take to the next with the same angle and composition, you get a highly noticeable jump cut (Bogie will appear to "jump," or change position instantly, within the frame). Editing convention says you shouldn't notice the edits, so that's out. You could cut to a close-up for the right line (Take 3 in the two-shot, cut to close-up Take 1 for the line, back to Take 3 or maybe Take 4 for the two-shot), which is an "invisible" cut, but it's possible that may ruin the emotional flow of the scene. Close-ups should be reserved for important moments of emotional intensity, and often you only want to cut to them at the very height of the scene, the way an author will use a number of long sentences in a paragraph but conclude with a strong, simple sentence. So that's out.
There are a couple of other alternatives (you can cut in a little closer to Bogie, if you have that footage, or you can cut to the other guy or out of the scene entirely so you're only hearing Bogart, not seeing him, for the better take of the originally flubbed line, but that gets silly when his line is something banal, "so then I had a cheese sandwich") but they're not very good.
In contrast, the OTS/ROTS formulation allows you to seamlessly cut back and forth between one face and the other (while still giving you benefits 1 and 2 above), and you can do all sorts of neat tricks. For example, this is how they shoot interviews on the Daily Show for their canned pieces, so that they can match the subject's reactions with interviewer questions/jokes that may have been said much earlier or later or even after the subject left. (One of the side-benefits of OTS is that you can often have somebody else's shoulder stand-in for the actor if you need to pick up a couple of lines from the other guy. The shoulder's out of focus anyway, you probably have the wardrobe they were using, and the audience is looking at the face, not the shoulder.) Or you can add in dialogue you didn't shoot on set by laying person A's newly recorded line over a shot of A's shoulder/B's face; now it looks like B is properly reacting to the line.
Anyway! One of the striking things about Silence of the Lambs is that Demme says "fuck all that" and shoots most of his conversation scenes with alternating full-on close ups, like so:
Shot A
Shot B
Looking at the list of traditional OTS editing benefits, we see that this keeps #3 (just as easy to edit between takes of those two shots, if not easier), forgoes #2 (spatial relationships), and (here's the point) alters how we perceive #1, the relationship between the two characters.
In fact, arguably Demme is sacrificing our spatial awareness during these shots in order to achieve his effect.*
So what is that effect? If in an OTS shot the character relationship is in the space between them--pretend it is an arbitrary point where the two characters' eye contact meets in the air--then that is visible on camera, it is essentially the subject of the shot. The shoulder is not the subject of the shot (it's often out of focus), and the visible face is not the focus of the shot, because whose face is visible changes rapidly as you cut back and forth. The only constant between the OTS and the Reverse OTS is that invisible dot, that space, and even the visual information of the visual space is interpreted in light of that dot. Face A is not just smiling, it's smiling AT person B; or reacting to, or talking to, or listening to, etc.
In this formulation, as I said, that invisible dot, the space indicating a character relationship, is visible on-screen, it is the main subject of the OTS shot. In Silence, Demme removes this element. By cutting between directly opposing tight close-ups, he essentially puts his camera in the place of that invisible dot. That "dot," our concept of the relationship between the two characters, is no longer on-camera, it's contained mentally within the edit. Ie., we understand that when we cut from Clarice looking at the camera to Lector looking at the camera that they are both looking at each other. But with the focus of the series of shots now out of frame entirely (in the "gutter" between two frames), the new focus of the shot is on the two halves that create that character relationship. In other words, Demme forgoes the traditional framing and points his camera at the gaze itself. The gaze is the subject of his shots because it is the subject of his film.
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Lawrence of Arabia is an obvious vote for me, but that's a long movie.
I think North By Northwest is a great choice. It's incredible in Blu-Ray right from the opening credits, which are just a series of vertical and horizontal lines - but they are crystal clear. On a DVD there'd be so much artifacting.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I actually missed this post and was about to post the videos myself.
You got some good suggestions already. Here are some more.
The Fifth Element
Skyfall
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien & Aliens in particular look better than any movie that old has a right to)
The Dark Knight Trilogy
Baraka
The Dark Knight Rises blu-ray is a horrible, zero effort piece of shit. The aspect ratio and image quality constantly jumps back and forth between full screen and tiny little Imax footage with black bars that take up nearly half the screen real estate.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
There's just so much haze and grain on Aliens to really compare the quality.
The Bluray version of Alien is the best remastering of any movie I have seen. Period.
It does a good job of having the lead feel a bit too proud to go back to being a small business owner, that he put in his time and actually did everything right, it was just a product of circumstance. But it falls when it harps on money not buying happiness (sure it does!), and makes the immigrant shops that line the local street seem like the good life. They're all happy and content, and the film also tries to show how the assimilated brother (Stannis), who doesn't even remember how to speak greek, isn't living his life as much as his world traveling brother or doesn't have the happiness he did in his youth. There's even a scene where Stannis, still rich, berates the noble black peddler selling cleaning supplies door-to-door because he wants to open a cupcake shop (when it's much more common to have those peddlers be along the lines you see in Peep Show). It really has this sense that normal brits and scandanavians are squares and not cool, but everyone south of France are just totally cool dudes, yo. And then you have a forced romance plot with a lady who has an iffy American accent who works for the money-hungry boss, all the weak emotion based cliches are here.
Despite all that the cast is still really good, which is why it's hard to say it's a bad film. You do get a strong sense the dad loves his kids and even has love for his brother, and that really goes a long way for this type of film.
Oh my god, I tried watching this guys other videos. The Starship Troopers one is so painful to watch as this guy is a fucking crazyperson.
The totally real and not fake at all "real footage" is by far the best part of the movie: the actors starring in the "real footage" clips act fucking circles around Real Movie Actress Milla Jovovich and her fellow Hollywood thespians; and the creepy scenes are much creepier in fuzzy blurry "real footage" Vision(tm) than they are in Real Movie Footage Film Vision(r). The movie would be much better if it was 100% "real footage" "found" "footage" "reality Vision" (tm) as opposed to doing this artsy fartsy thing they're doing.
Still, I liked the movie well enough. Milla Jovovich is decent, the person playing her "really real" "real" "person real" counterpart is amazing. I'd say The Fourth Kind is definitely worth a looksee, just know going in that they're DOING A THING (TM) with their stupid bullshit.
Some of his other videos might not be as bad, but that Starship Troopers one just makes a beeline for crazytown.
Which is sad cause I agree, I do like some of his analysis, but he spends most of his time in those 3 videos slowly building to rants about various political subjects and not talking about the movie and how it structures it's hidden narrative which is the actual interesting not-crazy part.
Although it was fascinating hearing old reviews of the movie and noting how many critics apparently just didn't get it. Which is just ... wow.
I have a special edition set with an artbook and all three movies in a box, it looks amazing there. Can't speak for the standalone release.
Planet Earth, as someone else said, is amazing. Blue Planet too, and they should be available in a set somewhere.
I need to see this.
Planet Earth......Amazing
EDIT: Oh...already mentioned...well fuck it it needs a second anyway.
EDIT EDIT: or a thirded
The coat has me nearly convinced, the rest is all......meh. The keys are a good catch tho.
I thought this was common with Veerhoven movies though. They are the kind of satire that is missable if you really want to miss it.
It had some pretty interesting points, I especially liked the "impossible window" theory. But some of the theories were just bullshit, like the "picture in the cloud" theory. The film started strong but at one point, when you can hear the person doing the voice over for his segment get up, put his child to bed, come back, and continue recording made it seem so... cheap? I don't know, but it could have been much more than it was. Still a fun watch.
That's weird - they all came out in 1989.
Shining as labyrinth/Minotaur thing - sort of. I think the labyrinth thing is really, really good and Kubrick built those sets in weird ways intentionally but the stuff about Jack is ridiculous
Shining as "I faked the Moon landing" coded confession/sexual demon-people preying on humans/flipping the bird at King - HAHAHAHAAHAHA
Some of the stuff from that superimposed forwards/backwards version was SUPER creepy.
I've got to disagree there. I bought the UK set because it was cheaper at the time, but I hated the packaging so much that I bought the US set when it got down to a decent price and gave the UK one to a friend. Either way, it's a great box set. I just prefer the US packaging to the UK's big ass Amaray case.
My Netflix this week was World War Z which was really pretty bad. The good points are that it keeps moving and never bogs down in any one place or scenario. The bad points are that it's stupid, cowardly, and vapid. This is a zombie movie with no blood and not even a SECOND of examination as to why zombies are frightening or demoralizing or anything. They could be a pack of large dogs or huge ants or something and the movie would be identical. If they made a sequel, it would also be a bad movie unless it was nothing at all like this one. See it if you get off on punishing yourself, otherwise, do not.
I dont read comics so its treatment of The Mandarin didnt bother me (hes a wizard in the comics? I literally know nothing about him), but I enjoyed Ben Kingsley immensely. Its always nice seeing Rebecca Hall in stuff (who in this movie basically looks like a less busty Jessica Biel), and while Paltrow was fine whoever wrote her part made her a little shouty.
Did Stark's house get blown up in Iron Man 2?
Also, what was that meteor looking thing near the stairs in his lab/factory/robot rack?
The Silence of the Lambs
Well that was a fucking great film. Fantastic performances, good story, disgusting and tense and horrifying all at the right times. Good show.
That ending was one of the tensest, most riveting things I've seen in awhile. And all of it with nothing but Jodie Foster wandering around nervous as all fuck.
Hopkins performance is truly awesome and it's totally obvious why it became so famous and such a cultural touchstone. At the same time though, it's amazing how little of the film he's in and how unimportant he is to the overall story in many ways.
Other random point is I noticed an interesting directorial choice throughout the film in that this movie LOVES the tight, claustrophobic close-up on the actor's face. It's all over the place in the film. Not quite sure why.
Anyway, see it if you haven't. Great movie.
PS - young Jodie Foster is pretty damn cute. Especially at the start with the ponytail.
The adaptation of the book was very direct. Whether that's because they were planning to make more movies initially or because they just didn't want to screw with the books I don't know.
I imagine if someone were adapting the screenplay now knowing that a sequel film wouldn't be made for many years (and by different people, and that it would be really inferior) they might let the Lecter escape play out differently or try to give it some closure so that it didn't just hang like a loose thread.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The US release holds the discs in cardboard sleeves. Think of the backs of the discs! (And the case isn't very big at all.)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
*: If both villains are well-written and well-acted.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
Then passes Go, and Collects Award.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I always thought the answer to this was Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love (eight minutes). Turns out it's Beatrice Straight in Network (six minutes).
WARNING: long post is long.
Those close-ups are actually the key to the whole movie. Note that they're almost always used as the back and forth during a two person conversation. Conventionally these conversations are shot OTS/reverse OTS ("over the shoulder"), like so:
and reverse:
As the use of Bogart implies (that's Casablanca), the shot/reverse shot style is very very traditional, it is sort of the default way to shoot a conversation. You do it that way for at least three reasons:
1) Having both characters in the same shot is how you depict their relationship (not qualitatively, but the fact that they have one during this conversation)--this is as opposed to a pair of, say, medium close-up singles of each person.
2) Having them both in the same shot establishes spatial relationships. This is something people complain about when it's missing in action scenes, but it's equally important in dialogue scenes. Moreover, it began as a convention in case the dialogue scene turned into an action scene--which is to say that the OTS formulation shows you that the actors are close enough to throw a punch.
3) The formation also facilitates editing, as compared to, say, a two-shot:
A shot like this gives you significantly fewer cutting options. Let's say you want to use most of a particular take, but Bogie stammers on the third of five lines during the shot. If you cut from one take to the next with the same angle and composition, you get a highly noticeable jump cut (Bogie will appear to "jump," or change position instantly, within the frame). Editing convention says you shouldn't notice the edits, so that's out. You could cut to a close-up for the right line (Take 3 in the two-shot, cut to close-up Take 1 for the line, back to Take 3 or maybe Take 4 for the two-shot), which is an "invisible" cut, but it's possible that may ruin the emotional flow of the scene. Close-ups should be reserved for important moments of emotional intensity, and often you only want to cut to them at the very height of the scene, the way an author will use a number of long sentences in a paragraph but conclude with a strong, simple sentence. So that's out.
There are a couple of other alternatives (you can cut in a little closer to Bogie, if you have that footage, or you can cut to the other guy or out of the scene entirely so you're only hearing Bogart, not seeing him, for the better take of the originally flubbed line, but that gets silly when his line is something banal, "so then I had a cheese sandwich") but they're not very good.
In contrast, the OTS/ROTS formulation allows you to seamlessly cut back and forth between one face and the other (while still giving you benefits 1 and 2 above), and you can do all sorts of neat tricks. For example, this is how they shoot interviews on the Daily Show for their canned pieces, so that they can match the subject's reactions with interviewer questions/jokes that may have been said much earlier or later or even after the subject left. (One of the side-benefits of OTS is that you can often have somebody else's shoulder stand-in for the actor if you need to pick up a couple of lines from the other guy. The shoulder's out of focus anyway, you probably have the wardrobe they were using, and the audience is looking at the face, not the shoulder.) Or you can add in dialogue you didn't shoot on set by laying person A's newly recorded line over a shot of A's shoulder/B's face; now it looks like B is properly reacting to the line.
Anyway! One of the striking things about Silence of the Lambs is that Demme says "fuck all that" and shoots most of his conversation scenes with alternating full-on close ups, like so:
Shot A
Shot B
Looking at the list of traditional OTS editing benefits, we see that this keeps #3 (just as easy to edit between takes of those two shots, if not easier), forgoes #2 (spatial relationships), and (here's the point) alters how we perceive #1, the relationship between the two characters.
In fact, arguably Demme is sacrificing our spatial awareness during these shots in order to achieve his effect.*
So what is that effect? If in an OTS shot the character relationship is in the space between them--pretend it is an arbitrary point where the two characters' eye contact meets in the air--then that is visible on camera, it is essentially the subject of the shot. The shoulder is not the subject of the shot (it's often out of focus), and the visible face is not the focus of the shot, because whose face is visible changes rapidly as you cut back and forth. The only constant between the OTS and the Reverse OTS is that invisible dot, that space, and even the visual information of the visual space is interpreted in light of that dot. Face A is not just smiling, it's smiling AT person B; or reacting to, or talking to, or listening to, etc.
In this formulation, as I said, that invisible dot, the space indicating a character relationship, is visible on-screen, it is the main subject of the OTS shot. In Silence, Demme removes this element. By cutting between directly opposing tight close-ups, he essentially puts his camera in the place of that invisible dot. That "dot," our concept of the relationship between the two characters, is no longer on-camera, it's contained mentally within the edit. Ie., we understand that when we cut from Clarice looking at the camera to Lector looking at the camera that they are both looking at each other. But with the focus of the series of shots now out of frame entirely (in the "gutter" between two frames), the new focus of the shot is on the two halves that create that character relationship. In other words, Demme forgoes the traditional framing and points his camera at the gaze itself. The gaze is the subject of his shots because it is the subject of his film.
[continued in the next post]
*see below/next page