FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Nordic » Fri Sep 02, 2016 4:28 pm

guruilla » Fri Sep 02, 2016 10:35 am wrote:All this Mr. Robot plugging makes me wonder if I gave up on it too soon; first episode, terrific; next two, pretty sub-standard & way too many cliches, so I gave up. Did it pick up and/or is season 2 better than season 1?


I just started watching it and am into it 6 episodes or so. It's ok. It's heavy handed, the music is overbearing and way too on-the-nose, and the writing and direction aren't that great. Some of the casting, too, could have been better. But there's still something compelling about it, mainly the subject matter and some of the ideas. For instance if you had the power to learn everyone's deepest darkest secrets, what would you do with that? It started out with a lot of that but now is wrapped up a bit too tightly in its own plot.

I don't think theres anything else like it tho.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby stefano » Sat Sep 03, 2016 2:38 pm

Just to refute in a small way the 'Hollywood has always been rubbish' theme upthread - I rewatched The Talented Mr Ripley and The Aviator this past week, and they're both brilliant. I try to watch most of the Oscar-nominated movies for best picture and best screenplay every year and rarely feel it's been a waste of time.

We're not at the point where Ass - or even a comic-book movie - gets onto those lists. Yet.
User avatar
stefano
 
Posts: 2672
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:50 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby guruilla » Sat Sep 03, 2016 5:09 pm

stefano » Sat Sep 03, 2016 2:38 pm wrote:Just to refute in a small way the 'Hollywood has always been rubbish' theme upthread - I rewatched The Talented Mr Ripley and The Aviator this past week, and they're both brilliant. I try to watch most of the Oscar-nominated movies for best picture and best screenplay every year and rarely feel it's been a waste of time.

Holy crap.
It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
User avatar
guruilla
 
Posts: 1460
Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:13 am
Location: Canada
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Cordelia » Sat Sep 03, 2016 7:43 pm

stefano wrote:Just to refute in a small way the 'Hollywood has always been rubbish' theme upthread - I rewatched The Talented Mr Ripley and The Aviator this past week, and they're both brilliant. I try to watch most of the Oscar-nominated movies for best picture and best screenplay every year and rarely feel it's been a waste of time.

We're not at the point where Ass - or even a comic-book movie - gets onto those lists. Yet.


I haven't seen The Aviator but recently re-watched 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and agree it was very good. I just have to look at the dvds & videos I've collected over decades to confirm your opinion, but for me, limited to a Hollywood from the past, because every year I stop watching more films midway.

And it's perplexing to me why what Hollywood churns out is increasingly unwatchable when the industry certainly has the budget, talent and narratives from which to create quality films. For instance,


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

could have been masterful. A first-rate cast (including Rhys Ifans and Toby Jones), Danish director Susanne Bier at the helm, and epic themes of greed, lust, poverty, corruption, murder, revenge, man-against-nature........probably too much to be condensed into 2 hours, it should have been filmed as a three-part HBO series. The novel of the same name, from which it was adapted, is brilliant but the film smashed its source material to bits. More disappointing, because the Southern-Gothic novel Serena was written by a poet (Ron Rash) and two other Hollywood films based on the novels of southern poets, (James Dickey's 'Deliverance' and Robert Penn Warren's 'All the King's Men') were, imho, fine adaptations. (The 2006 version of 'All the King's Men' was panned by critics and Sean Penn's performance is over the top, but so was the novel's character Willie Stark/Huey Long. The 1949 Oscar winning adaptation I found to be unwatchable.)

Netflix dvd stock is diminishing and I won't be surprised if they phase out of their mail service. :shrug:
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Harvey » Sat Sep 03, 2016 8:03 pm

And it's perplexing to me why what Hollywood churns out is increasingly unwatchable


Over fishing.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
User avatar
Harvey
 
Posts: 4165
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 4:49 am
Blog: View Blog (20)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Nordic » Sat Sep 03, 2016 11:42 pm

Hollywood is now 100% corporate.

The best work is being done in serial internet dramas for new companies such as Amazon and Netflix. And of course HBO.

Movies are now almost completely dominated by Disney who owns Marvel and Pixar and Lucasfilm. Nothing but 3D CG comic book movies.

I rarely find myself watching movies anymore. My 13 year old son isn't very interested in them either. Nor is my stepdaughter.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby guruilla » Sun Sep 04, 2016 2:03 am

Example of what Hollywood can't do:

It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
User avatar
guruilla
 
Posts: 1460
Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:13 am
Location: Canada
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Sep 04, 2016 8:55 am

So I watched The American Side and it was well-intentioned and may appeal to some here. The problem for me is I just could not follow it. Who was doing what and why was often unclear to me and homage to noir fell into a formula where some faction is predictably going to beat up the detective in the next scene and he's confused about it and so am I, and it did not feel planned that way (like, say Godard's Detective). It was atmospheric and Buffaloish, I liked the sense that it could be happening in the 70s or today.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Nordic » Tue Sep 06, 2016 3:34 am

Ok I watched the whole first season of Mr Robot. It gets better. Anxiously attempting To start Season 2, well, I was gravely disappointed to realize Amazon won't let you watch it yet. No!!

Pretty crazy show.

We're not talking about films any more. Films are almost dead.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Harvey » Tue Sep 06, 2016 4:56 am

Nordic » Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:34 am wrote:Films are almost dead.


There's a world of cinema from La Grande Bellezza...



...to Leviathan. With much else in between.

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
User avatar
Harvey
 
Posts: 4165
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 4:49 am
Blog: View Blog (20)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Cordelia » Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:37 am

Nordic » Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:34 am wrote:
We're not talking about films any more. Films are almost dead.


Agree and why I'll probably just buy older $1.00 dvds.

'The American Side' finally came back to Redbox and watched it last night. Agree w/JR about the plot, which I gave up trying to follow, but enjoyed the film as a blue/brown/gold atmospheric carnival fun-house ride, watching the characters pop up with great one-liners & references to different 'conspiracies'. Especially liked Roberts Forster and Vaughn. No violence or even profanity that I recall; kind of like a PG rated 'The Hardy Boy(s) meet True Detective in Bohemian Grove' :wink . The film seemed a Tesla primer but was evidently sprinkled with a lot of references http://www.killermoviereviews.com/inter ... ican-side/ that Tesla aficionados (which I'm not and I've never been to Buffalo) will recognize, i.e. the vintage Pierce Arrow that Forster drives (but disputed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Te ... c_car_hoax).
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung

We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:57 am

Nordic » Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:34 am wrote:We're not talking about films any more. Films are almost dead.


Crazy talk, I see dozens of great movies every year and I'm looking forward to dozens more forthcoming.

Even "of a certain quality" cinema is in rude health right now.
User avatar
Wombaticus Rex
 
Posts: 10896
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:33 pm
Location: Vermontistan
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby chump » Tue Sep 06, 2016 12:38 pm



High Rise

High Rise was a wild white woman's visually arresting, dark Dickian, deeply disturbing, sexy and violent social parody: Indeed, a grandiose depiction of dystopian decadence!
Last edited by chump on Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:54 pm, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
chump
 
Posts: 2261
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Cordelia » Tue Sep 06, 2016 1:34 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:57 pm wrote:
Nordic » Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:34 am wrote:We're not talking about films any more. Films are almost dead.


Crazy talk, I see dozens of great movies every year and I'm looking forward to dozens more forthcoming.

Even "of a certain quality" cinema is in rude health right now.


I wish more were available at Redboxes in my area, or on Netflix dvd, where my 'Saved List' of quality films grows longer & longer with the notation:"These titles are unavailable or not yet released." All: 'Availability Unknown". :grumpy

Edited to add :grumpy because quality film availability is really a first-world problem in my black hole technology-wise 'third-world'.
User avatar
Cordelia
 
Posts: 3697
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:07 pm
Location: USA
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Harvey » Fri Sep 09, 2016 8:18 pm

A portrait of the artist, the life and work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado by Wim Wenders. Beautiful and terrifying, quite the most astonishing documentary I've seen. Life, death, rebirth and a sense of the infinite. What more can you ask without risking anything?

And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


Eden Ahbez
User avatar
Harvey
 
Posts: 4165
Joined: Mon May 09, 2011 4:49 am
Blog: View Blog (20)

PreviousNext

Return to L'Encyclopedie

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests