Sight and Sound 2022: The Final Showdown

These movies are not for everyone but irredeemable people can still be entertaining and even capable of insight. This is just an uncomfortable truth and can be the subject of great art.

Cowboys represent the exploration of a new space, the building of a new society, I can get that, as problematic as it obviously is. Vampires are all about sex, youth and conquering death, I can get that too. But what are gangsters about?

Should say here, I don't hate Goodfellas, the "funny like a clown" scene is a highlight, sure, but great art?

I would say cowboys and vampires can also be about more than that and gangsters are no different. Crime movies and shows quite famously mirror power structures in more so-called legitimate industries or aspects of society. The best ones are honest about vice and the temptation of taking a shortcut to get ahead when it feels like you have few options. And Italian-Americans are not the only cinematic subjects of this treatment.

I would say to deny Goodfellas is art is pure elitism and, in a few people, resentment that some Catholic who’s not an intellectual per se could come up with something so good. It’s been so widely imitated (with diminishing results) because it’s such a deliriously effective work by craftspeople who know cinema inside and out.

It is pretty funny that the anti-Goodfellas feeling here has lead to it being the only movie anyone talks about for the second time in a row.

How do we feel about Double Indemnity? Prettt irredeemable protagonists iirc.

Harry Lime also pretty charming.

couldn't accuse holly of it tho

in order to ensure the moral safety of the audience double indemnity carefully inoculates its protagonist against seeming glamorous or attractive by casting fred macmurray

it's no crime, it's just boring

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 11 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Leave crime to toxic bros

be gay do crimes iirc

You got me

what fools we are, talking this way. as if i'd do anything to you: or you to me!

The discussion is basically "there is no anti-war film" again - I'd agree that Goodfellas is short for the Copa far more than Paulie in a bathrobe (though bathrobes are of course great)

in order to ensure the moral safety of the audience double indemnity carefully inoculates its protagonist against seeming glamorous or attractive by casting fred macmurray

― difficult listening hour, Monday, 11 September 2023 08:53 (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

agree with this, i found it a major problem. he has a head like a fridge.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uBI_C4PMrtw/U_kAdyVzQ5I/AAAAAAAAuJ0/Vs38Q9sCITE/s1600/Comb17082014071057.jpg

ILX polls have their five-year plan, and so have I!

It is pretty funny that the anti-Goodfellas feeling here has lead to it being the only movie anyone talks about for the second time in a row

I'm fully aware of my role in sealing Goodfellas' inevitable win here

Tell us if it's hurting, we'll replace with a YouTube AI generator. Pack you off to a quiet life.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 10 September 2023 16:28 (yesterday) link

But what are gangsters about?

power, money, institutions, the state and its shadow, civilization iirc

good clothes and bad nightclub acts

Yeah, no more bathrobe slander

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/studio-ghibli/images/f/f0/Ushioni.png

https://i.imgur.com/8rROrY0.gif

It only requires chipcore-level computing strength to predict your BS, to model your "intelligence."
― The Thin, Wild Mercury Rising (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 11 September 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Stop trying to form thoughts, that will give you migraine. Where are the YTs? Flood this thread up so we can stop this Goodfellas discourse.

How's about we all make a pledge to always allow xyzzzz to have the last word in any exchange? If he's awake, he's going to insist on having it anyway and it's quicker just to concede it ahead of time.

fellas

Aimless otm

At least NRK had the decency to leave us and write some proper articles and publish a book or two, this parasite just sticks around like a tapeworm.

'Aimless otm' lol. Brain rot is set deep already. Too late.

Yours in permanently pickled, so now you’re some kind of evil genius brain is a vat. The Philosopher’s Song to thread!

(YouTube link provided upon request)

I requested many YTs many times already. Are you slow?

Anyway, I am in awe of your formidable stamina. Your'e like that one old sot who survived The Andromeda Strain.

Chat GPT, save us!

YouTube!

ChatGPT!

Rinse and repeat!

Fancy a pint?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQaLmme-eg

voting playtime with a side of killfiles

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61XmhEpIHpL.jpg

the Joe Pesci version of the character in Goodfellas is a heavily sanitised (and shortened version). The real one was a 6"2 musclebound psycho who once shot a random stranger just to test his new gun out. Joe Pesci irl would get bullied by children on the average UK council estate.

Vector Erice

The most likeable characters and best real-life role-models in any of the films listed above are the little girls in Beehive, Stalker and Spirited Away.

I rewatched Goodbye, Dragon Inn, and it was as mesmerizing, perverse, content-free and inscrutable as I had remembered it being

At the beginning of the film we're peeking from behind the curtain and there are a large number of people in the seats. Maybe it is an earlier showing? But shortly after that, without any break, it appears mostly empty. That is not explained at all

The dialogue in the movie that is showing in the theater, Dragon Inn, is oblique, but often seems to be speaking to the audience who are experiencing it as a farewell.

There are people eating a variety of concessions with loud smacking of lips, and a person putting his bare feet up over the seat next to one of the patrons.

The scene where the main protagonist, the ticket woman with the limp (Shiang-chyi Chen, who was also in Stray Dogs) slices the peach bun and then looks at it motionless for an eternity before taking it up to the projectionist (who is ignoring her) is so subtle and great, as is the scene where she looks from behind the curtain and is enchanted by the larger-than-life warrior princess on the screen.

The young man going from seat to seat who is trying to make connections with other men in the theater feels like the other protagonist. He is alternately repulsed by the other men and completely thwarted by them

The constant rain, ceiling leaks with buckets placed out, endless dingy hallways and unused rooms, and large lavatory all add to the ghostliness

There seems to be a repeated thing in the movie where men congregate together, either sitting next to each other in a mostly empty theater and ignoring or scrutinizing each other, or lined up together side-by-side at urinals in an absurdly large men's room. Towards the end, a young woman shows up who changes the atmosphere a bit

The sad pop song that was played at the very end while the ticket woman was walking home in the rain, after all of the silence, was kind of surprising but felt right

Yes, yes, yes, and yes to all of that. Plus its gay bona fides

The ticket woman looking at the bun, that's one of the images I remember most from it.

https://www.highonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GDI-cover.jpg

"The sad pop song that was played at the very end while the ticket woman was walking home in the rain, after all of the silence, was kind of surprising but felt right"

One of the best endings

So what did the Tsai fans herein think of What Time Is It There?

I liked it, but it's been a while so I don't have firm thoughts about it.