Joined: 25 Apr 2015 Posts: 31932 Location: Anaheim, CA
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 12:45 am Post subject:
Omar Little wrote:
I grew up on Moore (Connery was my parents bond). Yes there was camp but he just oozed that bond thing. Craig is like watching someone who’s never seen a bond movie play the role. It’s just mission impossible or diehard with spies.
Since I was born in late 1976, I was probably too young to really get into the two Dalton films, which were in '87 and '89. (I first saw those films years after they came out, probably in the early-to-mid 1990's.) So I guess you can say I "grew up" with the Brosnan films, though I was almost 19 when GoldenEye was released in the U.S. in 1995. Maybe that is one of the reasons that I liked his Bond so much, because that was the version I came to know as I became a young adult.
Not quite 'cinema' but I've been rewatching all of the Daniel Craig Bond films in anticipation for the new one and Casino Royale is really good. It's wild how much happens, how many characters are established, and how many different tones are juggled in this film. And I didn't even mention the action which this movie probably has a few of the top 10 action scenes for the whole franchise.
Only Marvel movies aren't cinema
Have you seen all the older Bond movies? I grew up on Timothy Hutton and Pierce Brosnan although A View to a Kill (Roger Moore) has been my favorite because of Walken hamming it up.
I need to see more Connery era Bond flicks besides Dr. No and Goldfinger. Any all recs welcome.
A few years ago I tried to watch all of them in order. I made it through all of the Connery ones. Goldfinger was probably my favorite of those but they were all solid (check out the ones of his you haven't seen). I've also seen all of the Brosnan ones, pretty much when they came out or within a few years of release via blockbuster lol. Still need to catch up on the others.
If you guys want to go deep into the Bong-verse, please watch Memories of Murder.
I've been wanting to watch it (it's on youtube for free) but I was hoping that NEON would release an updated blu-ray copy soon.
It's going to be released by Criterion later this year.
Hell yeah. Do you know when? And I'm assuming I'll have access via the Criterion Channel, right?
No release date set yet, but late fall would be my guess. All of their new physical releases get streaming windows on CC, though sometimes the window can be only 2-3 months due to weird copyright issues for streaming versus DVDs. _________________ Under New Management
Joined: 10 Jul 2009 Posts: 12186 Location: Bay Area
Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 2:36 pm Post subject:
Well, that should be enough time to get a couple viewings in
I wonder who they'll bring in to talk about the film. Marty has his whole international film series, but not sure if Bong needs the extra coverage. I'd love to see QT but I don't think Criterion feels the same way.
Rena Owen as Beth Heke is punched flush in the face by her husband (Temuera Morrison) out of the blue and early on in Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors (1994). I saw the movie when I was young - maybe too young - and that sudden transition from ebullient house party to a husband punching his wife over a minor disagreement in the kitchen made me sit up ramrod straight shivering at the visceral horror.
It's obviously a scene and movie that has stuck with me and is very different in its explorations of colonialism, tradition, and harms passed down by generation than Leigh Whannell's latest horror flick The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss as a woman haunted by the invisible spectre of her supposedly dead abusive husband. But there's a pivotal scene of such raw, primordial brutality in the latter that I had the same reaction as when watching Once Were Warriors for the first time 25 years later and I started to tear up in the theater tonight.
There are other effective and powerful scenes about gaslighting and manipulation, the invasiveness of men in women's spaces, the agony of older women being unable to stop cycles of abuse from being passed down to younger women, and ultimately the terror of heterosexual marriage. It has a great central action setpiece that echoes a bit of John Wick along with some Verhoeven-esque psychosexual twists and turns. It's also messy with mostly flat, cookie cutter characters besides Moss' harrowing performance as Cecilia, and the climax hits with a bit of a dull disappointing thud after a wonderful action setpiece 2/3rds of the way through.
Nonetheless! Definitely try to check out the latest iteration of The Invisible Man that instead focuses on the terror of one of his victims. It's a tensely directed success that uses silences and familiar yet alien spaces to eerie effect, and I recommend it for Moss' performance and the films' handful of spectacular, chilling high points. _________________ Under New Management
The Look of Silence Le Circle Rouge Wake in Fright Drug War The Petrified Forest Gold Diggers of 1933
Honorable Mention
Viy The Friends of Eddie Coyle Revenge Stagefright: Aquarius Suzaki Paradise: Red Light The Seduction of Mimi Le Doulos Two Men in Manhattan He Ran All the Way The Breaking Point You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet The Woman in the Window To the Ends of the World The Best Years of Our Lives The Invisible Man (2020)
Top February Rewatches
The Killing Leon Morin, Priest Bob le Flambeur _________________ Under New Management
It's February 2020 and I just saw probably my favorite film of 2019: Portrait of a Lady on Fire. What a beautiful and moving film - subtle, nuanced performances; masterfully directed; precisely scripted; emotional but not sentimental; sensual without distraction. I'm pretty blown away. What a great year for cinema. Neon just killing it lately.
It was almost too precisely scripted, but that would be my only real critique. The screenplay is sonewhat Hollywood-y, but Sciamma visually takes her script in even more interesting directions. Haenel's twitchy mouth took a little getting used to, but that's just petty.
I'm reminded of Lelio's perfectly adequate illicit lesbian romance Disobedience and the porn-y spitting scene versus here when Marianne dribbles water into Heloïse's mouth after they come down from their drug trip and how much more erotic, intimate, and "real" the scene was in Sciamma's smarter, more attractive, more erotic, more emotionally resonant film. It's a big, bold, skilled, political, and luxuriously romantic swoon of a film.
Also, have you seen Birth (2004)? If not, I highly recommend it. If you have, you know why I'm comparing the two. _________________ Under New Management
It's February 2020 and I just saw probably my favorite film of 2019: Portrait of a Lady on Fire. What a beautiful and moving film - subtle, nuanced performances; masterfully directed; precisely scripted; emotional but not sentimental; sensual without distraction. I'm pretty blown away. What a great year for cinema. Neon just killing it lately.
It was almost too precisely scripted, but that would be my only real critique. The screenplay is sonewhat Hollywood-y, but Sciamma visually takes her script in even more interesting directions. Haenel's twitchy mouth took a little getting used to, but that's just petty.
I'm reminded of Lelio's perfectly adequate illicit lesbian romance Disobedience and the porn-y spitting scene versus here when Marianne dribbles water into Heloïse's mouth after they come down from their drug trip and how much more erotic, intimate, and "real" the scene was in Sciamma's smarter, more attractive, more erotic, more emotionally resonant film. It's a big, bold, skilled, political, and luxuriously romantic swoon of a film.
Also, have you seen Birth (2004)? If not, I highly recommend it. If you have, you know why I'm comparing the two.
I'm glad you liked Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Every one who has any interest in film as art must see it. Yes, Birth was very good. I also think the director's later film Under the Skin was one of the best movies of the 2010s. It consists of Scarlett Johansson luring real unsuspecting Scotsmen to a bizarre doom. It's as strange as described and also has one of the best scores I can think of.
It's February 2020 and I just saw probably my favorite film of 2019: Portrait of a Lady on Fire. What a beautiful and moving film - subtle, nuanced performances; masterfully directed; precisely scripted; emotional but not sentimental; sensual without distraction. I'm pretty blown away. What a great year for cinema. Neon just killing it lately.
It was almost too precisely scripted, but that would be my only real critique. The screenplay is sonewhat Hollywood-y, but Sciamma visually takes her script in even more interesting directions. Haenel's twitchy mouth took a little getting used to, but that's just petty.
I'm reminded of Lelio's perfectly adequate illicit lesbian romance Disobedience and the porn-y spitting scene versus here when Marianne dribbles water into Heloïse's mouth after they come down from their drug trip and how much more erotic, intimate, and "real" the scene was in Sciamma's smarter, more attractive, more erotic, more emotionally resonant film. It's a big, bold, skilled, political, and luxuriously romantic swoon of a film.
Also, have you seen Birth (2004)? If not, I highly recommend it. If you have, you know why I'm comparing the two.
I'm glad you liked Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Every one who has any interest in film as art must see it. Yes, Birth was very good. I also think the director's later film Under the Skin was one of the best movies of the 2010s. It consists of Scarlett Johansson luring real unsuspecting Scotsmen to a bizarre doom. It's as strange as described and also has one of the best scores I can think of.
Haenel's crying at a classical performance performance is up in the pantheon, but Nicole Kidman's performance at the opera in Birth is the apex of that subgenre of acting for me.
As I'm going through my unranked top-50 Best of 2010s List, Under the Skin kept rising in my estimation when pitted against other excellent films of the decade to the point I think it would be in my top five. That a film with such a cold and alien premise could become so humane and affecting by its conclusion is the mark of a great movie, imo, and Glazer is at his best in UtS at deploying distinctive nightmarish primordial imagery in ways that make it feel as if Murnau sonehow had access to CGI. I recently rewatched Frankenstein and watched Bride of Frankenstein for the first time, and Johanson beautifully evokes the "misunderstood monster" archetype, but through the lens of her sexuality, gender role, and human vulnerability as she transitions into becoming a real life woman. That the avenging "woodsman" who exposes and destroys the alien other in the movie's climax is her rapist makes one of the most haunting final sequences in any 2010s film more chilling and ultimately so, so sad.
Let me take a stab at a ranked Top 15 of the 2010s List since you've got me thinking about it:
Tree of Life Phantom Thread Happy Hour Under the Skin Inside Llewyn Davis Mad Max: Fury Road Carol The Tale of the Princess Kaguya The Turin Horse Poetry Stray Dogs No Home Movie The Irishman On the Beach at Night Alone Hanagatami _________________ Under New Management
Last edited by Baron Von Humongous on Sat Mar 07, 2020 11:16 am; edited 1 time in total
Folks, it's no surprise since it's considered one of the best American studio comedies of all time, but let me confirm that Preston Sturgess' frothy romantic comedy Lady Eve (1941) still slays. I love me some Barbara Stanwyck and she owns this movie in one of the great comedic performances of all time. And young Henry Fonda as the pratfalling straight man does damn impressive work just keeping up with her. As a bonus, it's one of the horniest studio pictures I can think of with Stanwyck smoldering and all the lampshading train entering tunnels and snake gags you could ever want. _________________ Under New Management
So the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a loose metaphor for the splitting of the atom and creation of nuclear weapons, right? _________________ Under New Management
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