and gangs of new york is his hobbit trilogy
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:15 (eleven months ago) link
Its funny how DDL basically played the same character in Gangs and There Will Be Blood
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:20 (eleven months ago) link
and my left foot
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:22 (eleven months ago) link
and in the name of the father
one of the things I really admire about The Irishman is the genuinely bleak emptiness at the end of it, no deadpan flippancy with faux gallows humour - just: I've lived an empty, amoral, servile life and now I'm going to purchase my own coffin ... lol classic!
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:26 (eleven months ago) link
fucks sake calz no spoilers
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:45 (eleven months ago) link
The Colour of Money is a seriously underrated one. The camera twirling around the pool table and Tom Cruise with perfect hair showing off to the sound of Werewolves of London. PURE CINEMA.
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 21:56 (eleven months ago) link
The pure cinema of an Eric Clapton theme!
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:01 (eleven months ago) link
phew, I'm glad you were joking there d-mac. Because the whole concept of "spoilers" in movies is ABSOLUTE bollox anyway. Especially when said movie is based on stuff that might have happened more than 5 decades ago and the whole screenplay has been built around a lurid best-selling US mafia non-fiction book.
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:34 (eleven months ago) link
mods pls pre emptively ban this man from the titanic (1997) thread
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:47 (eleven months ago) link
spoiler: he pushes her off
― ꙮ (map), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:49 (eleven months ago) link
wringing out the dead
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:55 (eleven months ago) link
Titanic Driver.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:56 (eleven months ago) link
the departed
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 22:59 (eleven months ago) link
I remember reading a Badshaw review of The Departed where he was hailing the dialogue in this movie as being so fucking razor-sharp - it's absolutely abysmal
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 23:11 (eleven months ago) link
You don't wanna dip into ILX's The Departed thread then.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 23:22 (eleven months ago) link
Gangs of New York his worst, if only for having a theme song by U2.
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 25 May 2023 04:47 (eleven months ago) link
Rewatched GoNY recently and the entire thing feels like cosplay. I like it less each time.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 25 May 2023 05:27 (eleven months ago) link
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink
When I'm at home I often start reading the plot section of the Wikipedia page halfway through. Doesn't everyone do this?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 25 May 2023 05:37 (eleven months ago) link
Yes, I also used to read the last few pages of a book first (not so much since I went 100% e-reader).
― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, 25 May 2023 06:02 (eleven months ago) link
ppl really rating new york, new york itt. I had the same reaction to it that I did to Raging Bull - "christ it's boring to hear these terrible people shouting at each other" - but I was an impatient teen, perhaps there were Formal Aspects I was missing.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 25 May 2023 09:05 (eleven months ago) link
"Silence" is on Kanopy, btw
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 June 2023 00:11 (eleven months ago) link
Kanopy
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 8 June 2023 00:25 (eleven months ago) link
yes
― Dan S, Thursday, 8 June 2023 01:09 (eleven months ago) link
You both still have access to that?
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 8 June 2023 01:27 (eleven months ago) link
After I typed this I tried to watch something on Kanopy and ran into some sort of block - “your library is limiting access.” Are you getting that too?
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 June 2023 02:31 (eleven months ago) link
I got that several years ago
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 8 June 2023 02:45 (eleven months ago) link
Was just reading the NY-er piece on Marvel, earlier. The Marvel Scorsese says it's "not cinema". There is a continuity: the dominant form of Hollywood filmmaking for its time, like the epic might have been in the 50s, as detailed in the Scorsese doc.
Except that Hollywood doesn't make the huge profits back then (when TV came along), it has been one of a number of entertainment options for a long time. Still, you can see why MS said "it wasn't cinema". No directors, stars don't really count (except Robert Downey Jr.), acting seems more of a degraded form. Even so I think MS could talk about the role of visual effects in the way the NY-er piece does. Both the tech and the brutal working conditions have bought the costs down.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 8 June 2023 09:43 (eleven months ago) link
*said what he did
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 8 June 2023 09:44 (eleven months ago) link
someone should ask MS abt animation-as-cinema, as that seems pertinent (all of MCU is basically in the tradition of bedknobs and broomsticks)
― mark s, Thursday, 8 June 2023 09:56 (eleven months ago) link
Yes I've seen the parallel between MCU and 50's biblical epics mentioned before and it makes sense to me (partic in how both are so fucking tedious).
I don't know that "not cinema!" is ever a useful lens of critique, same as "not music!" or "not art!".
I'd say there's some more stars that kinda "count" beyond Downey Jr: Chris Pratt (for better or worse), Chadwick Boseman, ScarJo to some extent. The parade of blonde hunks called Chris hasn't got much star power but then it's not like classic Hollywood was above blank whitebread white man protagonists.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 8 June 2023 10:05 (eleven months ago) link
I'd be amazed if MS didn't love Miyazaki.
xp - yes the NY-er piece went through all of those actors though Downey Jr. He is the one that kept coming up through the phases of Marvel -- and the description of what Downey Jr. bought to those films sounded like he was having fun (which is often like acting, to me). The others don't register as much.
Having said that they weren't like "stars" of old. The piece had a quote from someone talking about how all their non-Marvel films bombed.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 8 June 2023 10:14 (eleven months ago) link
lol i do actually have a theory abt why e.g. chrises hemsworth and evans can both be effective and funny actors within the MCU ensembles, doing good close-up facework against greenscreen backdrops they can't see as they act, and then can't transfer this to films without greenscreen or their usual foils (it's not even a very elaborate or contrarian theory)
― mark s, Thursday, 8 June 2023 10:55 (eleven months ago) link
Can you please share your theory with the rest of the class?
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 8 June 2023 11:00 (eleven months ago) link
not right now
― mark s, Thursday, 8 June 2023 11:30 (eleven months ago) link
Fair enough?
― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 8 June 2023 11:35 (eleven months ago) link
You'll have to suscribe to the patreon
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 8 June 2023 11:35 (eleven months ago) link
i feel like "not cinema" was a gut reaction to a dull question and probably doesn't bear more analysis than that
― two grills one tap (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 8 June 2023 11:50 (eleven months ago) link
probably yes, and also in a weird way an attempt at diplomacy - "this doesn't really have anything to do with what I do, don't ask me about it" as opposed to "this is a bad and inferior example of the medium I work in". obviously tho if his intention was to avoid outrage that didn't work out.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 8 June 2023 12:02 (eleven months ago) link
It was very brief and general a comment so we can say it wasn't thought through.
From this doc though we can say MS' take on cinema is very auteurist, it's maverick directors who go against the studio bosses. Or studio bosses that are mavericks. Marvel only appears to have the latter. All of it appears to be quite calculated to cut out the role of a director.
In the NY-er it talks about several comic book films which had a life before and after the MCU. So it talks about Branagh's Thor and then the later ones. I hate Branagh, but he would've stamped some Shakespearian bollocks to it (I haven't watched it so). It seems like a one-off.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 8 June 2023 13:40 (eleven months ago) link
heh!
"get the Shakespearian bollocks guy"
― calzino, Thursday, 8 June 2023 14:01 (eleven months ago) link
Eh the first Thor is less a Branagh film than the third and fourth are Waititi films. Gotg also pretty clearly James Gunn films. For better and (mostly) worse.
Edgar Wright did get kicked off Ant Man and I'd guess that's partially to do with having a distinct visual style and sensibility - not someone you'd be keen to champion as an auteur either I realise.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 8 June 2023 15:40 (eleven months ago) link
Lucretia Martel was in talks to do Black Widow but refused because they refused to let her have input into the fight scenes iirc.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 8 June 2023 15:41 (eleven months ago) link
in the context of watching them with the kid, i like the marvel movies well enough when they're hitting the right notes, but it's just a lot of mediocre content you've gotta get through. the third acts are almost always exhausting, FX-heavy ripoffs of earlier marvel films.
to compare blockbusters, i watched MI: Rogue Nation with the kid a couple weeks back and the filmmaking craft and storytelling were so much more accomplished, he was kinda wowed after all those superhero flicks and the non-Gilroy brothers Star Wars content we've been trudging through.
― omar little, Thursday, 8 June 2023 15:48 (eleven months ago) link
i would have thought Scorsese's tossed-off or otherwise not-cinema was a lot to do with what ended up on the screen as much as how it was made but perhaps the question that provoked it (cant recall it myself at this stage) had a very specific bent that would say otherwise
omar otm re marvel movies they are all fine at some stuff and truly awful at other stuff and as a whole its a waste of time and attn to have watched them at all by the time the credits are rolling
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Thursday, 8 June 2023 17:33 (eleven months ago) link
This piece by John Lahr is a version of MS' doc
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n12/john-lahr/toots-they-owned-you
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 8 July 2023 15:16 (ten months ago) link
I and my ‘basic material’, as scripts were called at the studio, were passed to his friend, the director Mark Rydell, who was so smooth Gucci wore his shoes. (‘I love what you do’ were his first words.)
lol this is the character Rydell plays in The Long Goodbye too.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 8 July 2023 15:23 (ten months ago) link
Right
― Live and Left Eye (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 16 July 2023 01:12 (nine months ago) link
"A work of non-friction" is a clever turn of phrase.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 16 July 2023 03:58 (nine months ago) link
Untouchables
― calstars, Sunday, 16 July 2023 04:02 (nine months ago) link