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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, [Movie]

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Posts

  • DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Seriously, what a great solution. Nowadays they'll just assume they will green screen the transition or do a fake cut of some kind. But the real solution is a guy dressed up like a chair.

    There still is CG in it, but its to put the door on the car and disguise the chair-cameraman better.

  • CarpyCarpy Registered User regular
    That first camera operator has a harness that's just being held by some guys hand....

  • WiseManTobesWiseManTobes Registered User regular
    Carpy wrote: »
    That first camera operator has a harness that's just being held by some guys hand....

    Ya it looks super fun, and if we've learned anything from my brains reaction in the gif threads. My definition of fun is stupid and dangerous , so I hope they got paid

    Steam! Battlenet:Wisemantobes#1508
  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    Carpy wrote: »
    That first camera operator has a harness that's just being held by some guys hand....

    Yeah that was my first take. I uh feel like if you're going to use a safety harness maybe have a better anchor point than that.

  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    Criterion spine #953: A Dry White Season

    A 1989 drama about the tyrannical South African government under apartheid. Set in the late 70's, it's mainly focused on a liberal white teacher played by Donald Sutherland who becomes aware of injustice and politically active after his black neighbour and their family are targeted by the South African police. Euzhan Palcy, a Martiniquais director helmed the film, and it was produced by MGM, making it the first studio film directed by a black woman.

    Hey, cool. A little depressing it took that long. The film itself is, in my eyes, not very good. I'm sure general audiences found it informative and a little thrilling when it came out, and I'm sure it changed the viewpoint of several white liberals for a few days who just didn't know it was so bad over there in South Africa. This is a very earnest, well-meaning film about racism that knows what it wants you to think, tells you how to feel, lacks a unique aesthetic approach, and is bereft of a personal or otherwise authentic viewpoint in telling its story. It's brutal at times, it's righteously angry, but it's safe, and completely unprovocative.

    But it's probably better than I'm giving it credit. People seem to like these sort of movies. Even I always like Donald Sutherland (even if his accent is unconvincing), and I liked it when Marlon Brando showed up and stole the film for a couple scenes. But it's still exactly what you think it is from hearing the synopsis. I was hoping for a little more, not necessarily because it's a Criterion release, but because Palcy's first film, Sugarcane Alley, was told from such a personal perspective and I was looking forward to seeing some sort of development. Instead it's a clearly vetted work of Hollywood prestige storytelling. Kind of a shame.

  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    While it seems to be something of a critics' darling, I was a bit underwhelmed by The Vast of Night. To my mind, it suffers from an overlong and somewhat obnoxious first ten minutes (the middle of the film had to struggle to make me want to spend time with the main characters, especially the male lead) and a half-baked last ten to fifteen minutes. The bits in between worked well for me and this is definitely a film which makes up for what must have been a very low budget with inventiveness and enthusiasm, but for me at least it ended up not adding up to anything much. There are themes that are hinted at throughout the film, but the plot ends up muddled in some key ways so that the thematic bits fall flat, added to which the film's tone just doesn't sit well with what happens (or seems to happen) at the end. As it is, I'd say that The Vast of Night shows enough promise for me to keep my eyes open for the director and writers' next film, but IMO they're not quite there yet, and the very positive reviews made me expect a better film than what I actually got.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEiwpCJqMM0

    Thirith on
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    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Cars don't have chairs, they have seats, you guys sound silly.

  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    I think he was mostly shitting himself. But he's method so it lends authenticity. :biggrin:

    Big interview with the stunt driver here:
    https://youtu.be/vL0Hhq0VFIY

    I stand corrected about the speeding up, lol. Not sure where I heard that.

    This shot always blows my mind, the car narrowly skirting through the spinning car on its roof:
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  • DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Wilford Brimley passed, no reason stated that I could find.

    Got to meet him a couple of times, and he had good stories about the projects he worked on each time.

    The corporation I worked at also produced music albums for him. It was mostly poems/scripture readings stuff, but a couple of songs were on there. We all got copies internally and laughed about the weird corporate contractual negotiations that had to have been had to sign him as a spokeperson including producing multiple albums. He signed ours though happily and I have it signed and framed on a wall to remind me of my time at that place:
    QmNKIbo.jpg?1

    It's just so ridiculous.

    DiannaoChong on
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  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Joe Dante on Gus Van Sant's Psycho "remake"

    Schadenfreude on
    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Today is Martin Sheen's 80th birthday. Good on him!

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    Preacher wrote: »
    Today is Martin Sheen's 80th birthday. Good on him!

    Something cerberus something something indoctrinated

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Ringo wrote: »
    Preacher wrote: »
    Today is Martin Sheen's 80th birthday. Good on him!

    Something cerberus something something indoctrinated

    I thought he was 80 like 15 years ago. Are we sure he's still yooman?

  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    IT part 1 struck a good balance but watching chapter two now about an hour and 30 minutes in, I...think they went a lil too over the top with it?

    To the point where I feel like this is becoming a movie you laugh at instead of being genuinely unnerved by. Its a shame, I was in love with the first one.

    This just feels really silly.

    Dr. Chaos on
    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    IT Part 1 had no better understanding of subtlety or the slow boil. It was like 0 to HERE'S THE MONSTER RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, DIRECTLY IN YOUR FACE within about 6 seconds of the weird shit happening.

  • Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    shryke wrote: »
    IT Part 1 had no better understanding of subtlety or the slow boil. It was like 0 to HERE'S THE MONSTER RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, DIRECTLY IN YOUR FACE within about 6 seconds of the weird shit happening.
    Here, I would say none of it works compared to the first.

    I thought the leper in the first was goofy but I loved the rest of Pennywise's transformations and lines, literally everything here feels kind of like its missing the landing tho.

    I want to applaud the creativity, Chinese restaurant scene was actually pretty fun but ehhh...I don't know.

    Dr. Chaos on
    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    shryke wrote: »
    IT Part 1 had no better understanding of subtlety or the slow boil. It was like 0 to HERE'S THE MONSTER RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, DIRECTLY IN YOUR FACE within about 6 seconds of the weird shit happening.

    I never bothered with Part 2 because Part 1 was so lame, but I guess it was nice of Part 1 to at least tell me it was lame in something like the first five minutes. Jumping immediately to a gore scare made it pretty clear they were going for the crappiest variety of "horror", i.e., just roll out blood and whatnot for almost every "scare". I think the only semi-creepy moment after that was them coming across Pennywise with a kid's whole face in his jaws, then him running off into the dark sewers all stretched out and weird.

    It's bizarre to me that the TV version had far scarier moments, largely by not just showering viewers with blood and gore. The scene that has probably stuck with me the most is when the bullies are going to stab one of the kids to death, which then flips around on the bullies as one of them slowly gets folded in half and pulled into a sewer pipe to be eaten by Pennywise. There's zero blood to the scene and the special effects are mostly just some lights, but it's handily scarier than any moment in the entirety of the new Part I IT and I'm betting the second part as well. Just one horrible person being horrible to somebody weak and helpless, then everybody being weak and helpless as they watch somebody get killed by a crazy-ass space monster right in front of all of them.

    Part 1 instead has stuff like opening a door and BOO, there's a horrible mangled half body, so terrifying! Pennywise can mimic your dead brother! He eats human flesh, here's a really graphic shot of it! Why aren't you scared yet?!?!

    And then Part 2 was advertising things like "more fake blood in it than any other movie ever" and I knew that was a hard pass.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    I got the early-adoption discount on HBO Max so I finally watched IT: Chapter 2 as well

    I wasn’t crazy about the first film; I strongly dislike King’s work even if I do kinda like him as a person, but I felt that even though it didn’t try as hard as it should have, the first film at least mostly pulled off the Stand By Me/Stranger Things vibe it was shooting for, which is a decent feat for a film that has so many characters and stories it’s trying to juggle.

    The second film’s problems are myriad, but most are rooted in the compressed story that for some reason thinks it’s a good idea to dissolve all the relationships from the first and start over again. The lead up to dealing with Pennywise is virtually nonexistent, so instead of horror and dread, the atmosphere is more . . . thriller? They could have gone with something more languid and tonal, creating a story that folds the lore of the town and the evil within into the reappearance of the clown, but nothing nearly so interesting happens.

    What breaks the film, however, is the way it pinballs through a dozen different tones not just from scene to scene, but even within scenes; jump scares and slapstick and maudlin melodrama all get globbed together like pop rocks and peanut butter. Bill Hader is having fun and I think he’s the only one who realizes he’s in a bad movie.

    The best horror taps into primal and existential fears, or serves as a parable; IT:2 never asks a question more curious than, “What if an evil space clown happened?”

  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    Criterion spine #212: Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie

    This one is a supplementary documentary to the trilogy box set of Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence. It follows the production of Winter Light from the script, to its shooting, to its post-production, to its release. It was directed by Vilgot Sjöman, who would become known internationally for his I Am Curious films, and it runs a good deal longer than any of the Bergman films it's packaged with (it's almost two and a half hours, the Bergman films themselves are all less than 100 minutes).

    The length is a bit much, and I found myself less engaged with certain parts of the process than others. Its structured into chunks, apparently because it was played on Swedish TV in installments; I imagine it works better that way than as a feature. Sjöman asserts himself a little too much as a kind of hands-on interviewer, but he gets good speeches out of Bergman and presents film production in a pretty easy to understand way. I really liked the interviews with the crew heads and actors, which were a nice break from the interesting but very deterministic and focused views of Bergman himself.

    It's a pretty thorough, multi-stage making-of one of Bergman's best films, so I think it's worth seeing for fans. At times it's a little broad, it's a little long overall, and it's definitely supplemental, but it's solid. I dunno if I'm happy that I saw it, I dunno if I really learned that much from it, but those feelings come more from a personal outlook or experience rather than a direct reaction to the film itself.

  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    wVEsyIc.png
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    edited August 2020
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    That's basically always part of the point in a Stephen King story. His stories always have plenty of people who are venal and downright evil in completely banal, mundane ways. Bullying sheriffs and prison guards, corrupt mayors, cokehead wife abusers, overbearing religious parents, muggers, sleazy auto mechanics with nudie calendars licking their lips at the heroine, petty crooks, etc etc. It's part of his whole kind of folksy appeal, I think, that he casts his books as earnestly as a 30s Warner Bros. social justice movie, complete with a sadistic red-faced Irish cop twirling his baton and going "whell whell whell, what have we hirr."

    Jacobkosh on
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  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    Haven't watched any of it in a while, but isn't the deal that Pennywise influences everybody in the town? Which is why it's so horrible there and people get beaten and murdered, but nobody really notices or leaves because Pennywise is kinda forcing them to stay? So I think Pennywise has some influence on the likes of the bullies, which sort of pushes them from being simply mean over to being outright murderous.

    But I agree, the people being horrible was also scarier to me than any amount of gruesomeness. The part with the two bullies holding the one kid down while the third bully talks about basically gutting him alive? Yeah, that's stuck with me over the years.

  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    One issue with IT adaptations that I think are almost insurmountable is that everyone loves Pennywise - but he cannot be the endgame. At some point, the story must veer towards "You thought the killer clown was scary? He's peanuts, actually. He's just a costume for something infinitely scarier, something that your brain can barely comprehend." You can pull that kind of thing off in writing more easily than on film. How do you depict that which cannot be comprehended? You'd practically have to do the horror film equivalent of those last twenty minutes of 2001. The film would have to turn into something entirely different at that point, and I don't see how this can be done without losing 95% of the audience, and while you might scare the shit out of the remaining 5%, the others will be pissed off.

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    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • SchadenfreudeSchadenfreude Mean Mister Mustard Registered User regular
    The problem with the IT adaptations is that they both make the completely obvious, and somewhat reasonable, choice to put all the kid stuff in the first part. In the case of the movie that's all they could do - who knows if it would be a hit and they'd get a sequel? A huge part of the problem with this is that the adult led follow-ups seem like a complete retread of the first due to the difference in structure between the book and the movie. In the book the two narratives are told concurrently - the adults are called back to Derry after Pennywise chows down on Adrian Mellon (Actually a really good scene in IT2). They arrive in Derry, meet up and start recalling all the shit that went down in the '50s whilst having a few minor scrapes themselves before going underground to face the clown for a second time. It's while this second attempt plays out that we see how the first attempt went and the parallels between the two - both climaxes happen at the end of the story and splitting the tale up they way they did, particularly in the movie, just tears the legs out from the second part.

    Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    The problem with the IT adaptations is that they both make the completely obvious, and somewhat reasonable, choice to put all the kid stuff in the first part. In the case of the movie that's all they could do - who knows if it would be a hit and they'd get a sequel? A huge part of the problem with this is that the adult led follow-ups seem like a complete retread of the first due to the difference in structure between the book and the movie. In the book the two narratives are told concurrently - the adults are called back to Derry after Pennywise chows down on Adrian Mellon (Actually a really good scene in IT2). They arrive in Derry, meet up and start recalling all the shit that went down in the '50s whilst having a few minor scrapes themselves before going underground to face the clown for a second time. It's while this second attempt plays out that we see how the first attempt went and the parallels between the two - both climaxes happen at the end of the story and splitting the tale up they way they did, particularly in the movie, just tears the legs out from the second part.

    maybe someone should edit those together

  • Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    I don't think Chastain saw Chapter 1. She watched the mini series and just played Annette O'Toole's version of Bev. Eddie and Richie were the only hits from the adult cast. The gags undercut the tension. Too many unforced errors before they even got to the unfilmable ending.

  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    The problem with both IT adaptations is they adapt the adult part. The kid part is about overcoming childhood fears and traumas by coming together, and yet the adult part is how they've been completely consumed by those fears and traumas and separated. The kid version of IT is fantastic, the adult part is any other generic film, with bizarre poor decisions made throughout.

  • NosfNosf Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    I watched To Live and Die in LA

    It's very much the blueprint for every 80s/90s action cop movie, but it kind of was a wet fart for me?

    Am I missing something?

    I have a favorable memory of it, it has a great director, solid cast, a very well regarded car chase. I also saw it... ages ago. Wang Chung did the title song and it was alright, they exploded a year later with their big hit.

  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    I agree the car chase was pretty great, also the ending might be some of the best what...WHAT?! I've seen in a while.

    Whippy wrote: »
    nope nope nope nope abort abort talk about anime
    Sometimes I sell my stuff on Ebay
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    Haven't watched any of it in a while, but isn't the deal that Pennywise influences everybody in the town? Which is why it's so horrible there and people get beaten and murdered, but nobody really notices or leaves because Pennywise is kinda forcing them to stay? So I think Pennywise has some influence on the likes of the bullies, which sort of pushes them from being simply mean over to being outright murderous.

    But I agree, the people being horrible was also scarier to me than any amount of gruesomeness. The part with the two bullies holding the one kid down while the third bully talks about basically gutting him alive? Yeah, that's stuck with me over the years.

    No. In a literary sense Pennywise is a metaphor for the town. Pennywise is a clown because kids put a nice face on their trauma. They come back to the town later to unpack their childhood and find that Pennywise was really an unspeakable horror because what they went through was an indescribable horror and not actually a scary clown.

    The thesis of the book is basically “small towns are actually terrible and we just don’t talk about it because we just don’t talk about it”

    In a diagetic sense the town created pennywise. Its the part of the town that is just under the surface. And the heroes don’t really defeat pennywise. A modern example is the town in Hot Fuzz. Lots of accidents. No Murders.

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  • NosfNosf Registered User regular
    Naturally, studio wanted a different ending.

  • NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Atomika wrote: »
    The best horror taps into primal and existential fears, or serves as a parable; IT:2 never asks a question more curious than, “What if an evil space clown happened?”

    Is coulrophobia not a primal fear?

    https://youtu.be/LT0Ux4FtnUQ


    I've watched it. It is 100% exactly what the trailer indicates and nothing more. I liked it because it has a couple of good sight gags and the practical effects are decent for what I expect was a small budget.

    Nobeard on
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    They always find something in Needful Things, and the price is just such a small thing, right....?

  • TehSpectreTehSpectre Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Atomika wrote: »
    The best horror taps into primal and existential fears, or serves as a parable; IT:2 never asks a question more curious than, “What if an evil space clown happened?”

    Is coulrophobia not a primal fear?

    https://youtu.be/LT0Ux4FtnUQ


    I've watched it. It is 100% exactly what the trailer indicates and nothing more. I liked it because it has a couple of good sight gags and the practical effects are decent for what I expect was a small budget.
    Fun fact: The ice cream truck guys are the directors.

    TehSpectre on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    My brother loved Killer Klowns when he was a youth. He thought it was hilarious. Especially when the guy gets his head punched off.

  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    cj iwakura wrote: »
    I always thought the scariest parts of It weren't Pennywise, it was what normal people did without any outside influence, like the bullies and the abusive husband. Maybe that's part of the point?

    Haven't watched any of it in a while, but isn't the deal that Pennywise influences everybody in the town? Which is why it's so horrible there and people get beaten and murdered, but nobody really notices or leaves because Pennywise is kinda forcing them to stay? So I think Pennywise has some influence on the likes of the bullies, which sort of pushes them from being simply mean over to being outright murderous.

    Except Bev was somewhere completely different with her psycho husband.

    wVEsyIc.png
  • ThirithThirith Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    I don't think Stephen King stories will generally lend themselves to entirely coherent, cohesive literary interpretations (like the one mentioned one or two pages ago, which read Pennywise as a metaphor for the toxicity of small towns), because that's not the kind of writer he is or what he's good at. If he thinks that a scene will be scarier or a character will be more effective if he writes it like this or that, he will do so. Can Pennywise be read metaphorically? Sure, but I don't think that's where the book's strengths lie. And the novel's text quite explicitly says that IT was there before Derry was, so I think that reading him as a clearcut embodiment of the shittiness of little towns is an overinterpretation that requires the reader to ignore some key elements in the text.

    Thirith on
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    "Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Atomika wrote: »
    The best horror taps into primal and existential fears, or serves as a parable; IT:2 never asks a question more curious than, “What if an evil space clown happened?”

    Is coulrophobia not a primal fear?

    https://youtu.be/LT0Ux4FtnUQ


    I've watched it. It is 100% exactly what the trailer indicates and nothing more. I liked it because it has a couple of good sight gags and the practical effects are decent for what I expect was a small budget.

    A friend from high school and I both hold the opinion that Killer Klowns from Outer Space is one of the scariest movies of all time, for reasons we can't articulate. It just hits weird.

    For reference, my list of shit that scared me so bad my fear of the supernatural flared up any time I was alone for days also includes Banshee Chapter, Marble Hornets (Slenderman web series), Poltergeist, and Paranormal Activity.

    But a lot of horror movies that people find terrifying and intense don't hit at all. Religious horror misses me completely, The Conjuring felt like a parody movie.

    Hmm.

    As I understand it my particular manifestation of supernatural phobia is related to a faulty 'sense of presence' so I guess that makes sense for most horror that hits me like that, with things beyond reason that exist parallel to reality or out of sight. The Klowns are an outlier, actually.

    Kamar on
  • AbsoluteZeroAbsoluteZero The new film by Quentin Koopantino Registered User regular
    I didn't care for IT part 1 because the kids were insufferable. Not going to bother with part 2.

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This discussion has been closed.