FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:44 pm

:thumbsup so a general purpose "here's a good movie" thread doesn't seem to exist... until now.

so I'll start out with some pleasant examples, both are highly recommended ...

this one I just found out about:
The Big Empty
The Big Empty is a 2003 science-fiction film directed and written by Steve Anderson. It stars Jon Favreau as a struggling actor with a bizarre request from his neighbor to deliver a suitcase that he cannot open. While there, he meets an unusual cast of characters, and starts to think this delivery might be more than it seems.


and

Wristcutters: A Love Story
After Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide by cutting his wrists, he finds himself in an afterlife limbo that is much the same as his former reality, just slightly worse. Here the color is dim, there are no flowers or stars, and no one can smile. This strange realm is populated by people who have committed suicide, such as Eugene (Shea Whigham), a Russian rocker who lives with his mother, father, and brother (all suicide victims). Eugene is partly based on Eugene Hütz of the band Gogol Bordello, whose music features in the film as that recorded by character Eugene's old band. He kills himself on stage by pouring a beer he is drinking ("Dead Guy Ale," brewed by Rogue Ales) onto his electric guitar. Together they waste most of their afterlives in bars, until Zia learns from a friend that his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide. He and Eugene take to the road to find her in Eugene's car, which has seen better days. Early on it is revealed that Eugene's car has two idiosyncrasies: a sort of black hole underneath the passenger seat where items that are dropped disappear forever and broken headlights that cannot be fixed by the most adept of mechanics. On their trip, they pick up hitchhiker Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who insists there's been a mistake, and she is seeking the "people in charge" (a.k.a. the PIC) in order to be sent back.

After a few interesting adventures across the country, the trio are traveling on a desolate highway, when Mikal pushes a button, miraculously activating the broken lights on Eugene's car. Shortly thereafter, they come upon a man lying in the middle of the dark road, and must veer off the road, wrecking the car, to avoid hitting him. They discover the man, Kneller (Tom Waits!!!)...


Last edited by justdrew on Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:54 pm

Oh, Wristcutters! Nice choice... I watched that again recently. Not as good as the first time through, but still a good flick.
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:00 am

Montag wrote:Oh, Wristcutters! Nice choice... I watched that again recently. Not as good as the first time through, but still a good flick.


I've just seen it once a couple years ago, I usually have to wait 5 or more years before I can re-watch a movie, unless I'm showing it to someone I guess.

another thing to watch for, Alex Cox is doing a remaster high quality new digital transfer for Straight to Hell which if anyone hasn't seen... do.
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:04 am

justdrew wrote:
I've just seen it once a couple years ago, I usually have to wait 5 or more years before I can re-watch a movie, unless I'm showing it to someone I guess.

another thing to watch for, Alex Cox is doing a remaster high quality new digital transfer for Straight to Hell which if anyone hasn't seen... do.


Probably good advice. I watched Smiley Face again recently too. A few very funny scenes, but overall not great IMO. I loved both those movies the first time (Smiley Face and Wristcutters). I still like Wristcutters quite a bit, but a little worse than my memory of it.
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:22 am

Montag wrote:
justdrew wrote:
I've just seen it once a couple years ago, I usually have to wait 5 or more years before I can re-watch a movie, unless I'm showing it to someone I guess.

another thing to watch for, Alex Cox is doing a remaster high quality new digital transfer for Straight to Hell which if anyone hasn't seen... do.


Probably good advice. I watched Smiley Face again recently too. A few very funny scenes, but overall not great IMO. I loved both those movies the first time (Smiley Face and Wristcutters). I still like Wristcutters quite a bit, but a little worse than my memory of it.


yeah, Smiley Face sounds kinda... not my bag. good moral though... never try to cook with weed unless you already know exactly what you are doing.
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:30 am

justdrew wrote:
yeah, Smiley Face sounds kinda... not my bag. good moral though... never try to cook with weed unless you already know exactly what you are doing.


It's not a typical stoner movie IMO. I didn't like Pineapple Express, or the first Harold and Kumar at all. Never seen Dude Where's My Car? haha...
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:36 am

Rocket Science
Dedication
Adventureland
Snow Angels
Stranger Than Fiction
Eagle vs. Shark
Splinterheads
Punch Drunk Love
Owning Mahowny
Love Liza
Before the Devil Knows Your Dead
Existenz

Those are some under-appreciated and/or lesser known movies I think. Unless they have cult followings that I'm not aware of. That's the the impression I got what the thread is about (from the OP).
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Re: for your consideration: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:42 am

Montag wrote:
justdrew wrote:
yeah, Smiley Face sounds kinda... not my bag. good moral though... never try to cook with weed unless you already know exactly what you are doing.


It's not a typical stoner movie IMO. I didn't like Pineapple Express, or the first Harold and Kumar at all. Never seen Dude Where's My Car? haha...


I'm not usually a fan of the genre but the first 10 minutes or so of Super Troopers blue m'eye mined
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSrxuccrf8Y
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Montag » Fri Oct 15, 2010 12:45 am

I like Noam Baumbach a lot too, but he hasn't put together his greatest movie yet IMO. The Squid and the Whale was overrated, I think. But there are great parts in all his movies.

p.s. I think b/c of the movies in the OP I got a certain idea of the thread (I guess this is supposed to be thread for any and all good movies). I'll let some other people chime in now, maybe I'll have other stuff, somewhere down the line.

Not a biggie, of course, I like all the movies I posted... I guess I was trying to post "diamonds in the rough".
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby 82_28 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:58 am

No movie thread would be complete without a mention of Star Wars.

Just kiddin' but actually not. I watched Leno last night and Harrison Ford was on (reason why I watched). I'm still trying to figure out the Lucas juggernaut. Droid phones are licensed thru Lucas and a lot of shows on NPR are brought to you by the "George Lucas Foundation" these days. Watching a clip of Star Wars last night made me say "WTF"?

I don't get it. Why so big? How can one man, with a team of other men affect everything that there is on planet Earth over and over and over by one film? His prior film to it also being one that depicts exactly what he himself created via his movie in the near dystopian future. The one in which we live now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138
THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas, from a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch. It depicts a dystopian future in which a high level of control is exerted upon the populace through omnipresent, faceless, android police officers and mandatory, regulated use of special drugs to suppress emotion, including sexual desire.

THX 1138 was the first feature-length film directed by Lucas, developed from his student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which he made in 1967 while attending the University of Southern California. This short film was itself based on a one and a quarter page treatment of an idea by Matthew Robbins.[citation needed] The feature film was produced in a joint venture between Warner Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola's then-new production company, American Zoetrope. A novelization by Ben Bova was published in 1971.


Where did young Lucas get these ideas?

Fuck, I might as well start a Lucas thread. This probably isn't the place.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby jingofever » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:03 am

82_28 wrote:Where did young Lucas get these ideas?

For Star Wars he got the basic ideas from Dune. The CIA and Big Tobacco filled in the rest of the details.
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby 82_28 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:28 am

jingofever wrote:
82_28 wrote:Where did young Lucas get these ideas?

For Star Wars he got the basic ideas from Dune. The CIA and Big Tobacco filled in the rest of the details.


lol, but with a point
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby justdrew » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:42 am



fie on star wars I will speak of it no more forever

well, more or less. 35 years of that now for gawds sake WTF

the shame is there's a decent story buried in there, but it's been nearly obliterated from the get go. I secretly think I can do a massive fan edit one day that re-cuts the first movie with some extra footage from the other two that saves alderaan, and fixes the sith problem early.

here's what I want to see some day... I think the doctor could have the emperor sorted out in the first (and only) movie...
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby Twyla LaSarc » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:54 am

Wristcutters! Great movie, reccomended to me by one of the few people I bonded with at a particular bakery from hell a few years back (a fellow Dickhead who also turned me on to the Watchmen comic and other cool shit, however,come to think of it, I never got my copy of Paul DiFilippo's 'Ribofunk' back from him...).

I love wicked off beat films.

O Lucky Man
The Devils
Videodrome
Little Otik

I like road movies:
Highway 61
Motorama
Roadside Prophets (with John Doe of X)

There's so many. And thanks to all who suggest more, I'm always wanting more (and it dosen't hurt that my son is a 'strange film' aficianado...)
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Re: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: films of a certain quality

Postby 82_28 » Fri Oct 15, 2010 3:03 am

fixes the sith problem early


Ah, but the Sith problem comes later in our lack of being in a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago. Lucas not only invented the "prequel", but the sequel for the most part. Yeah, it was all fixable. Thing I don't understand, that if we're gonna run with a Manatean view of this shit, is why you would tell the story back asswards in 6 interchangeable parts. IF, what you were going for was entertainment alone.

However he changes them time and again, via CGI. I think Star Wars expresses a greater purpose and something that was lined up well in advance. Star Wars makes us think that none of this shit existed before and has HELPED to mete out this "future" we live in. But I will err on the side that Star Wars only gave us interchangeable parts insofar as global storyline. They did it with the patience of a (something -- I dunno), but it was done with such patience, that who could not call it a bubble? A bubble that will never pop! Impervious insofar as licensing. Brilliant. Truly the fictional Empire. Rebellion championed. But all of the latest media concerning all things Star Wars deal with being on the side of the Dark Side. "How to experience it from that angle".

Now, I have overtaken this thread about movies with Star Wars talk. Sorry.
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