The best part in Piranha (1976) is when screenwriter John Sayles plays a dumb G.I. on guard duty who gets flashed by the heroine, becomes disoriented by her prodigious rack, and then gets knocked out by the male protagonist, a loner alcoholic woodsman in flannel and denim. It's that kind of movie.
Joe Dante. Pirhana (1976), The Howling (1981), Gremlins (1984), Dick Miller in every movie of his. Speaking of him, on youtube, I came across a new, clearer-than-ever clip of Vic Morrow's death during filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). He was in John Landis' segment. (PS: I just noticed a tip to Morrow in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood where a bus goes by with a large banner advertising the show Combat!, in which Vic was the star.) Anyway, the new vid is clear enough to show what was stated in Morrow's and the children's death reports. A stunt helicopter was sent spiraling from damage sustained by a pyrotechnic device that was too close to it. The rotor cut into the group as they walked across a fake rice paddy in a Vietnam scene.
It was stated that right before the accident, Morrow dropped the girl and in the process of picking her up, the helicopter spiraled at them and the girl was crushed in the water by the skid while Morrow was decapitated and the boy was decapitated from head to shoulder. I've never seen that footage before where (what was) a head and a head and arm were flying away from the rest of their bodies. Landis told everyone "That's the end of filming, everybody please go home!" Landis was also skirting child labor rules on filmsets by having the kids out at 2AM and in a dangerous scene that wound up killing them, no less. The families were Asian with language barriers and were told everything was OK and to avoid certain people who might blow the whistle on them. Pretty sure they named Spielberg in the initial lawsuit and everyone else they could find. Jennifer Jason Leigh is Morrow's daughter, she also got undisclosed settlement(s).
In the end, with all those talented directors, the segments by George Miller (gremlin on plane scene featuring John Lithgow) and the boy who could wish anything into reality featuring Bart Simpson's voice and Rob Bottin's monster worx are universally credited as the best segments. Spielberg did a maudlin kick the can segment w/ Scatman Crothers.
Landis is one of the real bastards of 80s Hollywood and his entitled sex pest son has coasted past multiple sexual harassment allegations and a mediocre professional ouput up until only recently. But John Landis should've been in jail for manslaughter due to his criminal negligence instead of getting a pass to direct big budget comedies through the early 2000s. I'm a fan of a number of his comedies - he has actual talent unlike his handsy son - but I bet we still get a quality version of Coming to America with, say, John Hughes behind the camera instead of Landis facing zero accountability in Hollywood until the market for his mid-budget comedies started to shrink 15-20 years after the Twilight Zone tragedy. There's a mini-series on Shudder called "Cursed Films" that has four episodes so far and the last two are on the Twilight Zone tragedy and Brandon Lee's death on The Crow, and those are worth catching.
So I concur even if I don't know what Landis has to do with Joe Dante in this instance. It makes sense that George Miller directed the best section in the Twilight Zone Movie, though. I rewatched Witches of Eastwick and Babe: Pig in the City recently to follow along with the Blank Check Podcast retrospective of Miller's career, and that guy consistently kills it no matter what genre he's working in. _________________ Under New Management
Been watching 1-2 movies a day for awhile now. Here are some highlights (all first views). ! = really enjoyed it
Clue !!
His Girl Friday !!
In a Lonely Place !
Love, Rosie !
Anna Karenina
Ingrid Goes West
Beautiful Boy
A Knights Tale !!!
Road to Perdition
Match Point !
Chinatown
Tigertail !!
Call Me By Your Name
Outlaw King
Upgrade
A new A Knight's Tale fanatic is born! That Ledger was a real star, wasn't he? Fun list, looking forward to hearing more.
As an aside, In a Lonely Place and Chinatown are two of the greatest movies ever movied. _________________ Under New Management
Been watching 1-2 movies a day for awhile now. Here are some highlights (all first views). ! = really enjoyed it
Clue !!
His Girl Friday !!
In a Lonely Place !
Love, Rosie !
Anna Karenina
Ingrid Goes West
Beautiful Boy
A Knights Tale !!!
Road to Perdition
Match Point !
Chinatown
Tigertail !!
Call Me By Your Name
Outlaw King
Upgrade
A new A Knight's Tale fanatic is born! That Ledger was a real star, wasn't he? Fun list, looking forward to hearing more.
As an aside, In a Lonely Place and Chinatown are two of the greatest movies ever movied.
A Knights Tale reminded me of one of my favorite novellas - The Hedge Knight by GRRM. Not sure which came first but one definitely seems to have influenced the other.
Chinatown was really good but I think it will benefit from a second viewing. The first was just so hyped up from everything I’ve heard so it didn’t live up to expectations. I will rewatch soon though and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more.
In A Lonely Place was a real treat. I hadn’t heard of it until recently.
Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 67718 Location: In a world where admitting to not knowing something is considered a great way to learn.
Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 9:57 pm Post subject:
Bulletproof 2 was a good movie. Action front to back. I didn't like the casting.
Faizon Love for Damon Wayans and Kirk Fox for Adam Sandler just didn't fit. Fat guy for a slim guy, tall guy for a short one. Casting was way off. _________________ Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Watched "Sea of Trees" last night. Gus Van Sant flick. I knew nothing about it going in and came away pleased I invested the time. Reminded me a little of What Dreams May Become. Good performance by Naomi Watts.
When did Clint Eastwood become a more interesting filmmaker than Steven Spielberg? Was it all the way back in the 90s? Or is it just the past two decades?
I'm now caught up with Spielberg's output from the 2010s having finally watched Bridge of Spies last night, and I think BFG and maybe Tintin are the only noteworthy films he's made over the past decade. He's a pulp action movie director in desperate need of an intervention because to put all of that natural talent behind the camera toward making bland, mawkish period piece pantomimes of Capra and Hawks is a disservice to American audiences at a time when blockbusters have never been so visually inert.
Like, imagine what the guy would do with a Fast & Furious movie. Someone in Hollywood, please give Spielberg an action movie franchise he can tool around with for the next decade.
Since Spielberg is trending on social media for some stupid reason today, I was reminded that Spielberg's Orthodox Jewish upbringing really dovetails with American Puritanism in how sexless Spielberg's movies are and how when given an R-rating he elevates the cartoonish gore of his genre fare to the excessive bloodletting of Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. Even a PG-13 film like War of the Worlds is horrifically gory for its MPAA rating.
Does Spielberg have a fetish? Does he have "a thing?" I mean, outside of his daddy issues? Is it violence and gore? He doesn't need one to be a great filmmaker, and he's long been obsessed in following in the footsteps of Hayes Code constrained studio greats like Ford, Capra, Hawks, and Wyler, but it is interesting to see a superstar filmmaker with almost free reign in Hollywood become less and less horny in his movies as he gains more power and money over the decades. My favorite Spielberg film is 1941, and I don't think he ever gets racier than that movie made in 1979, while he eschews most eroticism altogether throughout his career. Maybe the scene between Ilsa and Indy in the final Indiana Jones picture is erotic, but that relationship is perversely fascinating in that Indy and his father, portrayed by Sean Connery, are revealed to have both slept with Ilsa, which is played for big laughs.
Anyway, in my brief google search research, I came across this fun exchange between George Lucas (G), Lawrence Kasdan (L), and Spielberg (S) discussing the relationship between Marion (Karen Allen) and Indiana Jones when developing the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Quote:
G — We have to get them cemented into a very strong relationship. A bond.
L — I like it if they already had a relationship at one point. Because then you don't have to build it.
G — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.
L — And he was forty-two.
G — He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now she's twenty-two. It's a real strange relationship.
S — She had better be older than twenty-two.
G — He's thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve.
G — It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time.
S — And promiscuous. She came onto him.
G — Fifteen is right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen it's not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he...
Lucas absolutely is a sex weirdo, so his suggestions make sense even as they promote child rape with glee. Spielberg didn't keep that bit in Raiders - rightfully so - but I to do this day find that exchange fascinating from a gifted director who seems to have both no depth and unplumbed depths that creep out in his movies. Where's the horny Spielberg interested in "pictures" of Indiana Jones who "had a relationship with" (raped) Marion when she was 15? What does "she has pictures of him" even mean? Where's that inner sex pest weirdo in Spielberg's filmography? _________________ Under New Management
Been watching 1-2 movies a day for awhile now. Here are some highlights (all first views). ! = really enjoyed it
Clue !!
His Girl Friday !!
In a Lonely Place !
Love, Rosie !
Anna Karenina
Ingrid Goes West
Beautiful Boy
A Knights Tale !!!
Road to Perdition
Match Point !
Chinatown
Tigertail !!
Call Me By Your Name
Outlaw King
Upgrade
A new A Knight's Tale fanatic is born! That Ledger was a real star, wasn't he? Fun list, looking forward to hearing more.
As an aside, In a Lonely Place and Chinatown are two of the greatest movies ever movied.
A Knights Tale reminded me of one of my favorite novellas - The Hedge Knight by GRRM. Not sure which came first but one definitely seems to have influenced the other.
Chinatown was really good but I think it will benefit from a second viewing. The first was just so hyped up from everything I’ve heard so it didn’t live up to expectations. I will rewatch soon though and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it more.
In A Lonely Place was a real treat. I hadn’t heard of it until recently.
“I was born when he kissed me, I died when he left me, I lived a few weeks while he loved me”
That line shouldn't work as well as it did, but oh, did it ever. I love In A Lonely Place, which took a second viewing, but it's so perfectly structured as a noir whodunnit that the tragic romance sneaks up on you. I really treasured Dixon and Laurel's relationship on a second viewing knowing what was to come.
Director Nicholas Ray went on an elite tear from about 1948 through 1956 with Rebel Without A Cause (1955) as his most famous picture being James Dean's big screen debut. But I also really dig They Live by Night (1948), On Dangerous Ground (1951), and the surreal, super gay Western Johnny Guitar (1954) with one of Joan Crawford's best performances. _________________ Under New Management
The Educator (1922) - a lost comedy short directed by Lloyd Bacon from a story by a young Archie Mayo, the cast also had a side of little known character actor Otto Fries to go with it. _________________ Under New Management
Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 67718 Location: In a world where admitting to not knowing something is considered a great way to learn.
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:06 pm Post subject:
A Fall From Grace, Tyler Perry. A women confesses to murder. The DA, Tyler Perry wants to plea. The ADA, Crystal Fox, convinces the accused to go to trial. The ending of the movie was unbelievable. Seldom am I glued. It starts slow, hang in, it gets good. It's a mystery in disguise. It's on Netflix. I recommend a watch! _________________ Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
So I concur even if I don't know what Landis has to do with Joe Dante in this instance. It makes sense that George Miller directed the best section in the Twilight Zone Movie, though. I rewatched Witches of Eastwick and Babe: Pig in the City recently to follow along with the Blank Check Podcast retrospective of Miller's career, and that guy consistently kills it no matter what genre he's working in.
I'll see if I can find those Shudder docs. Dante, Spielberg, Landis and Miller did the 4 vignettes in TZM, Miller's being the best without a doubt (the scared airplane guy played by Lithgow w/ the gremlin on the wing). I was kinda 6 degrees from Bacon reminded of TZM and a YT vid I had just seen and your mention of Joe Dante's Piranha 78. TZM was on Cinemax or somethin other day after I wrote that as well, but who has Cinemax?
Look at that effer! Eww.
I thought Landis was pretty much done beyond Coming To America. He peaked early. I've seen Kentucky Fried Movie and remember laughing at one part, but the rest was kinda low buget and meh, but it was obvious the motive behind the picture. It was supposed to look low budget and be irreverant and norm breaking. Animal House, Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf In London, Trading Places, Thriller video, TZ tragedy -- then (Spies Like Us - a fan, and the test scene was funnier than sh, but not a big hit), Three Amigos! and Coming To America. Then he fizzled. I remember a Playboy interview of Eddie Murphy where he claimed to have choked "Landis' (bleep) ass" out on set in CTA or Beverly Hills Cop 3 (atrociously bad, even for a sequel, btw). Everyone says Landis was a screaming and sarcastic ahole and the behind the scenes in Animal House show clips of him yelling at people. He was on his high horse before that tragedy, I guess. _________________ GOAT MAGIC REEL SEDALE TRIBUTE EDDIE DONX!
Finally watched La La Land and it’s one of my favorite movies. I loved everything about it.
Liked it more than I thought I would. It didn't tread too far into blatant romcom territory. Gosling makes for a good average Joe with a cool demeanor whatever the role, be it Armstrong in First Man or robber in Place Beyond The Pines. Still the only other Emma Stone movie I've seen beyond the Zombieland flicks. I know she's got an Oscar, but her filmography doesn't scream to me. _________________ GOAT MAGIC REEL SEDALE TRIBUTE EDDIE DONX!
What movies shown in school do you most remember (before college)? A cool world history teacher showed us Chaplin's Modern Times and parts of The Dictator, which made me ecstatic but bored everyone else.
But the high school freshman year English teacher who showed our class Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) unedited was the greatest gift a 15-year-old boy (and some girls) could imagine receiving during a section on Shakespeare's plays. I got an A on that Romeo and Juliet paper. _________________ Under New Management
What movies shown in school do you most remember (before college)? A cool world history teacher showed us Chaplin's Modern Times and parts of The Dictator, which made me ecstatic but bored everyone else.
But the high school freshman year English teacher who showed our class Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) unedited was the greatest gift a 15-year-old boy (and some girls) could imagine receiving during a section on Shakespeare's plays. I got an A on that Romeo and Juliet paper.
Juliet wasn't the only one rising from that scene, was she?
What movies shown in school do you most remember (before college)? A cool world history teacher showed us Chaplin's Modern Times and parts of The Dictator, which made me ecstatic but bored everyone else.
But the high school freshman year English teacher who showed our class Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) unedited was the greatest gift a 15-year-old boy (and some girls) could imagine receiving during a section on Shakespeare's plays. I got an A on that Romeo and Juliet paper.
Juliet wasn't the only one rising from that scene, was she?
Olivia Hussey could make anyone stand at attention. _________________ Under New Management
Other movie nudity that had an impression on my prepubescent self: Porky's, Hot Dog: The Movie, The Toxic Avenger and my all time favorite, Fast Times...
“[Farber's acolytes] scour the landscape looking for examples of termite art when his most important lesson is to find oppositions that speak to the year 2000 as directly as White Elephant/ Termite Art did to 1962. For instance, the distinction between aesthetics that are handmade (Rushmore) and those that are rented for the occasion (Three Kings).”
Ari Aster's aesthetics are rented for the occasion. A nicecore Damien Hirst/Tom Tykwer mashup of an artist. _________________ Under New Management
There were four movies I wanted to watch today before they left the Criterion Channel tonight and after 25 minutes watching Day for Night, my brain has shut down. World's smallest violin for me, but watching so many movies against a deadline is exhausting.
Anyway, looking forward to what's leaving the Criterion Channel on May 31st! _________________ Under New Management
Hellzapoppin (1941) - everything is thrown against the wall in a zany musical comedy that mimics a live action Looney Tunes cartoon, this is a fun, if at times irritating movie with one of the best dance numbers in Hollywood studio history and a fun turn from Martha Raye.
Southland Tales (2006) - Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) throws everything against the wall in a broad Bush-era satire against American militarism, vacuous celebrity culture, and ideological posturing that isn't as fun as it should be despite having a pre-stardom Dwayne Johnson, John Lovett as a murderous cop, Amy Poehler, a bunch of late-90s SNL alums, Justin Timberlake as a PTSD-addled Iraq War vet drug dealer, etc. all dealing with terrorist plots, conspiracy theories, and time travel. It's not all bad or boring, but it's often inscrutable in uninteresting ways and there are too many moments that feel like an at best passable David Lynch imitator making a direct-to-SyFy movie. _________________ Under New Management
So I concur even if I don't know what Landis has to do with Joe Dante in this instance. It makes sense that George Miller directed the best section in the Twilight Zone Movie, though. I rewatched Witches of Eastwick and Babe: Pig in the City recently to follow along with the Blank Check Podcast retrospective of Miller's career, and that guy consistently kills it no matter what genre he's working in.
I'll see if I can find those Shudder docs. Dante, Spielberg, Landis and Miller did the 4 vignettes in TZM, Miller's being the best without a doubt (the scared airplane guy played by Lithgow w/ the gremlin on the wing). I was kinda 6 degrees from Bacon reminded of TZM and a YT vid I had just seen and your mention of Joe Dante's Piranha 78. TZM was on Cinemax or somethin other day after I wrote that as well, but who has Cinemax?
Look at that effer! Eww.
I thought Landis was pretty much done beyond Coming To America. He peaked early. I've seen Kentucky Fried Movie and remember laughing at one part, but the rest was kinda low buget and meh, but it was obvious the motive behind the picture. It was supposed to look low budget and be irreverant and norm breaking. Animal House, Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf In London, Trading Places, Thriller video, TZ tragedy -- then (Spies Like Us - a fan, and the test scene was funnier than sh, but not a big hit), Three Amigos! and Coming To America. Then he fizzled. I remember a Playboy interview of Eddie Murphy where he claimed to have choked "Landis' (bleep) ass" out on set in CTA or Beverly Hills Cop 3 (atrociously bad, even for a sequel, btw). Everyone says Landis was a screaming and sarcastic ahole and the behind the scenes in Animal House show clips of him yelling at people. He was on his high horse before that tragedy, I guess.
Good for Eddie for nearly choking Landis out. I like Three Amigos and Coming to America is a classic, but Landis mostly comes across as a director elevated by the talents in front of the camera.
Thank you for linking the Lithgow scene. Lord, I'm back on a Miller kick again after rewatching Witches of Eastwick, Babe Pig in the City, and watching Lorenzo's Oil for the first time. What amazing pictures! Flawed, idiosyncratic, but all three are beautiful and fascinating movies, imo. He's such a gonzo, pulp director, but he finds a way to plumb emotional depths at the right moments while also keeping things from flying apart despite everything in his movies being turned up to 11. I really recommend trying to track down some of Miller's non-Mad Max flicks for a first or second look. _________________ Under New Management
So Tom Cruise and Elon Musk are teaming up to shoot a movie in space, which I hope means we'll get the low gravity reboot of the timeless classic Cocktail. A working title is Space Cocktail, but I'm sure the screenwriters can punch it up a bit. _________________ Under New Management
Joined: 14 Apr 2001 Posts: 144474 Location: The Gold Coast
Posted: Wed May 06, 2020 9:08 am Post subject:
vanexelent wrote:
Other movie nudity that had an impression on my prepubescent self: Porky's, Hot Dog: The Movie, The Toxic Avenger and my all time favorite, Fast Times...
If You Don’t Stop It You’ll Go Blind, Can I Do It Until I Need Glasses. And the all time classic Kentucky Fried Movie. _________________ RIP mom. 11-21-1933 to 6-14-2023.
A less uplifting quarantine watch, Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011), which predicted social distancing:
A very uplifting quarantine watch:
Quote:
La Cinémathèque
@cinemathequefr
An empty Paris.
A world on the verge of stopping completely.
No it's not today, it is 1925's sublime PARIS QUI DORT (THE CRAZY RAY) by René Clair. With English intertitles (and French sub). It's for free, it's avalailable worldwide & it's only on Henri
This 59-minute version is fully restored and only available in France right now. There's a truncated, 34-minute version on Criterion Channel, which doesn't make a lick of sense, so definitely check the linked version out as soon as possible. It's a gorgeous movie about a group of strangers who find themselves in Paris frozen in time. _________________ Under New Management
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