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Very jealous, @Dwayne !!! It's a great film and one I'd love to see on the big screen. What a night for you!
I missed this on the big screen, coming only late to the Wes Anderson fandom, having seen 'Moonrise Kingdom', 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', and the sublime 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' You know what to expect by now, multiple quirky characters, fast dialogue, and sumptuous production design, this particular tale tells three stories from 'The French Dispatch' magazine under the unique editorship of Mr. Howitzer, ( Bill Murray)
The first and last stories are wonderful, containing moments of genius, the middle one not so much! Anderson is very much marmite, you either go along with his one of a kind films, or you hate him. Happily I am in the former camp! I must try and catch his most recent 'Asteroid City', and I believe he's already into his latest venture!
I see my opportunity here in northern Virginia at the end of July, I'll be taking it!
I *LOVED* The French Dispatch! Saw it in the theatre & own it on Blu ray. Be prepared to be let down by Asteroid City, though... IMHO it was one of his very rare misfires. Interesting to be sure, but it doesn't really go anywhere....
Yes, I read the reviews which are not favourable
But I will still give it a go!
Meant to mention in my review above, with his usual all star casts, it's fun to count how many Bond people appear, Lea Seydoux ( looking gorgeous both in, and out!! of her prison warden uniform!) Jeffrey Wright, Benicio Del Toro, Mathieu Almaric and Christoph Waltz!
While there have been other Godzilla films (i.e., 1984’s RETURN OF GODZILLA) which ask; “If Japan really did face an unprecedented external challenge, what would be the constitutional, political and international consequences?”, SHIN GODZILLA (IMO) is the most successful of these.
One reading of the film – which works as a satire of the Japanese government’s actual response to the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant disasters – is that while the nation’s leaders may want to do the right thing, they are either boxed in by red tape or by their own traditions. While they are not incompetent or bad people, they do lack the skills and imagination required to respond to unprecedented events. And, as always in the best Godzilla films, the titular monster(s) acts as a symbolic catalyst for exploring these themes.
In the end, a small group of governmental “outsiders” take charge in the fight to defeat Godzilla by thinking outside the box. (Of course, once Godzilla’s rampage kills off the Japanese Prime Minister and many other senior officials, the country is left with little choice). Another, but lesser discussed, aspect to the narrative of SHIN GODZILLA, is that Japan should not be automatically beholden to the dictates of the United States. Instead, it should act in its own national interest on the world stage.
Regardless of whether one agrees with the film’s stance on these matters, it did seem to resonate with Japanese movie goers, as it became the highest grossing live-action film in that country during 2016, and it eventually won the Japanese equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar at their 40th Japan Academy Film Prize - a feat since matched by GODZILLA: MINUS ONE, which won the prize earlier this year.
Note: recently, Toho released Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic – a black and white version of the film. Here in New York, The Japan Society will be screening the film later this month as part of their annual festival of contemporary Japanese films. Naturally the only screening that I could attend is already sold out. =((
That is spooky @FoxRox
Aa for the movie, it's one of my favourites of The Coens.... apart from the ending which I still feel cheated over. Though it's pure Coen style, I still feel the character of Llewellyn Moss, after building him up so well, ( love his relationship with his wife. Kelly McDonald( deserved a better finale than he got! Despite this, still a cracking thriller! I read recently an interview with Woody Harrelson, who said he wanted to rewrite his characters final scene with Chigurrh, but the Coen. Brothers casually said No, we'll do it as written!
I recently read the book of it. It was basically like reading the movie. There are some more details about people, but the basic story is the same.
Yeah, it was pretty bad. The core idea wasn't too bad, setting an action film in a theme park and around the rides... but it doesn't really fit with BHC that well. The main villain plan was under cooked and some of the special effects were very poor, I mean what was the ferris wheel bit with jumping between the booths all about, plus the score for that sequence was awful).
Not to say there want anything to enjoy (I did enjoy Serge at the arms stall describing this ludicrously big weapon, and Billy being in charge of LAPD cops across the city lines etc) but the film is much less than the sum of it's meagre parts. I can see why people, including those who made it, don't speak kindly of it.
On to Axel F this weekend.
John Landis can only do so much with different vehicles, for obvious reasons. Also, I love the George Lucas cameo.
If you know Alejandro Jodorowsky, it's probably because of his spectacularly crazy plans for a Dune adaptation, several years before Lynch went to Arrakis. Perhaps you've read one of the man's sci-fi comic books. But Jodorowsky's films are something of an acquired taste, "cult movies" as they say. And El Topo may be one of the more interesting ones.
"Acid western" is a term I hadn't come across until I dove into Jodorowsky's second feature film El Topo, released in 1970. This Mexican film is surreal and clearly intended to offer the LSD crowds of those days either a substitute for their intoxication or a hallucinogenic enhancer. I prefer to keep things sober, so when watching the film, I'm constantly fighting the urge to look for a conventional plot, but there is none! Jodorowsky didn't make a Sergio Leone type of Western, but a hybrid of the Western genre, messianism, and trippy philosophy. The result is a bizarre collection of scenes that are both shockingly violent and almost repulsively otherworldly. A brilliant experiment or daft artistic douchebaggery; who is to say? Films like El Topo, for better or worse, defy categorization.
The first hour (of two!) had my attention. Like a fever dream, El Topo disconnected me from the world I understand and took me on a wild journey of disturbing chaos as I was watching a strange figure and his completely naked, 7-year-old son eliminate scumbags left and right. Though the film never provides much background information or context, something compelled me to keep watching, descending ever further into madness. But that second hour was tough, oh boy! The film goes completely off the rails as little people and disfigured people are subjected to demeaning acts of cruelty, seemingly with no point to it. Then again, this entire film feels like it does not exactly have a point.
Jodorowsky plays the lead role. The acting is adequate but nothing special. Visuals and sound are fine. At times, I admire the camera work for some reason; though far from great, it lends a dreamy perspective to me as a viewer. I've also suffered through a headache, and while I'm not sure the film is to blame for that, some of its noisier scenes and rampant disorder certainly didn't help. Was I even fully awake? I can't tell. I don't do drugs, but even my fresh memories of seeing the film -- I'm typing this mere minutes after finishing -- are fuzzy.
Overall, I'm more fascinated by El Topo than I am entertained by it. I bet that one viewing won't be enough to decipher Jodorowsky's intentions. I may consider revisiting the film at some point. I'm also intrigued by its weirdly unsettling tone, though I still haven't decided whether I like or dislike it. But I'm not going to recommend that you see this film unless you enjoy movies such as Eraserhead, Savage Planet, and Antichrist. I understand why El Topo continues to divide critics. I understand why some call it brilliant while others call it obnoxiously bad. This film isn't for everyone, and I'm not even sure where I land. But it's got me interested, and I'm more than ever willing to explore the rest of Jodorowsky's filmography. Also, if this man had actually made a Dune adaption, we could have gotten something insane (even more insane than Lynch's film), but also something unforgettably surreal.
I am impressed. You actually have a copy of that draft. Good on you. I once had a Variety poster insert of Revenge of the Jedi. Someone stole it before I realized what I had.
It's not an original. Just a digital copy. If you want to give it a read , DM me and I'll email it to you. It's pure 80s action tough guy script.
And this is the final draft, co-written by Stallone.
Nothing thrills me more than resuming my EVIL DEAD retrospective (which I started on page 966 of this thread) after my no-doubt controversial position on ARMY OF DARKNESS. Quick recap: I don't like that movie particularly much. I prefer my EVIL DEAD raw, scary and shocking; Raimi’s 1992 film hadn’t ticked any of those boxes.
Leave it to Fede Alvarez, director of DON’T BREATHE, to put the “evil” back into the series with a dark and gory 2013 film that recreated the tone of the first EVIL DEAD but puts a different spin on its cabin-in-the-woods story. Jane Levy plays Mia, a drug addict who insists on kicking the habit as far away from society as possible, and in the company of her friends and brother. But reading the Book Of The Dead awakens something old and menacing, turning Mia’s tragic recovery attempts into a hellish bloodbath as Deadites enter our world once more.
Alvarez’ film caught me by surprise. I hadn’t been too excited about another EVIL DEAD in 2013. It had been over 20 years since the last one, and some other remakes/reboots of older horror series had recently let me down, especially in the “raw and shocking” department. So when even the tree-rape scene from the first film made it into this new one, I began to realize that things were looking much better than anticipated. Indeed, EVIL DEAD instantly became my second favorite film of the series.
Alvarez doesn’t play much for laughs; rather, the film is tense, at times very brutal and violent, and often scary. Roque Baños’ score is exciting and full of action cues. The acting is perfectly satisfying and the characters are better fleshed-out than in the original even. The story is replete with neat twists that make this one not a direct remake of THE EVIL DEAD but a standalone film that had me hoping for sequels. I’m not kidding, the 2013 film sums up nicely what I want out of an EVIL DEAD film, and since both Raimi and Campbell were directly involved with the making of Alvarez’ film, I’m not ashamed to admit this. Under the blood-red sky of its third act, EVIL DEAD 2013 cemented my love for the series much more than the previous two had managed.
Plans for direct continuations of this film’s story surfaced even before good BO results started coming in, but these plans were ultimately dropped in favor of a new standalone film. And no matter what my thoughts on that most recent one, I wish that Alvarez could at some point return to the EVIL DEAD series. This is my kind of horror steak: bloody, raw, salty and spicey.
5/5
The Mike Tyson role was strange, but I went with it….
My other half loves shark movies. Fair to say I've seen a lot of them and they are almost always terrible. This one though is something else. Masterpiece. Love it.
Death on the Nile (2022)
The 1978 version is my favourite whodunit ever. This one looks good and has quite the cast, but it's also nothing more than just decent.
A Haunting in Venice (2024)
Spooky atmosphere, lovely location and a story that has no superior 70's version to go up against. References to giallo and expressionism as well. So yeah, loved it. Best Poirot of the Brannagh trilogy.
Got it in 4k recently ( though it doesn't add a lot to the bluray) Brian DaPalmas gangster thriller still holds up well, though I'm not as enthuased about it as I was then ( with a gleefully buzzing crowd who were loving every minute!)
Still much to enjoy, Connerys Oirish beat cop, DeNiro chewing the scenery ( and going to great lengths to portray Capone, even purchasing the type of underwear he wore!!) some neat action ( the stairwell shootout is still a hoot, they even cast a Bogart lookalike in that!) and best of all Ennio Morricones fabulous score!
A big stepdown from the first, but that's not a shame at all. With my expectations admittedly rather low, I did had a good time with it.
It repeats a lot, too much really, from the original's story and that bugged me a bit, but the atmosphere and some fairly well-done shark scenes made it a fun evening after all.
I intend to watch the other two sequels as well now, although I'm not sure if keeping my expectations low will save those ones.
Director Sam Peckinpah is most known for his westerns, which I love, The Wild Bunch, Ride the High Country, Major Dundee and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid. But this still remains my favourite film of his. Scripted by the great Walter Hill, based on a Jim Thompson novel. It has the supercool Steve McQueen as criminal Doc McCoy and his wife, played by Ali MacGraw, who go on the run after a botched bank robbery, pursued by double crossed nasty Al Lettieri. Very well made with a neat score by Quincy Jones, and well executed action sequences ( Roger Spottiswoode is credited as editing consultant!) McQueen and McGraw have great chemistry and it has a rare upbeat ending than most of Peckinpahs work! The remake was pointless, though I do recall enjoying it, having only seen it once. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger played the leads.
The last movie of Peckinpah I watched (and the only other film of his I've seen), was The Killer Elite, which I rewatched some weeks ago. It's a decent enough film, although a mixed bag, with several flaws. The movie podcast SpyHards covered the film in their most recent episode, in which they highlighted a lot of the lesser aspects – as well as the highlights of the film. Worth a listen for those interested.
'The Killer Elite' is a bit of a mess! I remember liking it first time I viewed it, but it has not aged at all well! Think I've seen all of Peckinpahs work. I have in my collection, 'The Wild Bunch', 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid', ( both need upgrading to bluray!) 'Cross of Iron' and 'Straw Dogs', and just reviewed my new bluray of 'The Getaway'. My brother bought me 'The Osterman Weekend' as a birthday gift last year, Peckinpahs last movie before he died. It's awful in every way, ( Rumour has it, he was so ill, he directed little of it!) and it has gone straight to local charity shop! I did watch on telly recently 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' an odd comedy western!
Indeed it hasn't! On SpyHards they mentioned, among other things, that Peckinpah, Caan and Duvall would do rewrites, which might have an impact on how it all turned out. It's very much a 70's movie though, which makes it a bit interesting. You wouldn't imagine a film like this, with this gallery of characters in any other decade.
I'm not much of a western or war film guy, which might play a big part in me not having watched a lot of Peckinpah's work, but Straw Dogs is definitely on my list. I might stay clear of The Osterman Weekend, going by your opinion of it, @Mathis1!
The Masterpieces:
1. No Country for Old Men
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Fargo
4. Miller’s Crossing
5. Barton Fink
The Great Ones:
6. True Grit
7. Blood Simple
8. The Man Who Wasn’t There
The Good Ones:
9. Raising Arizona
10. The Hudsucker Proxy
11. A Serious Man
The Mixed Ones:
12. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
13. Burn After Reading
14. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Lackluster Ones:
15. Inside Llewyn Davis
16. Hail, Caesar!
17. Intolerable Cruelty
The Bad One:
18. The Ladykillers
It was a very fun marathon overall, but I will say they definitely peaked in the 90s and for me at least only had a few standout titles after that. The top 3 especially are big favorites - #1 is their perfect serious movie, #2 is their perfect funny movie, and #3 is their most well-balanced movie. Very glad I got to explore all their works.
#12 was a masterpiece.
It had its moments, but it just didn’t collectively come together for me. This is a common thing for all the movies after “the good ones” on my list; they’ve all got plenty of interesting stuff in them, but they just don’t work as a whole super well for my tastes anyway. Inside Llewyn Davis, for instance, I know is one of their most acclaimed films, but I found it to be a drag outside of a few sequences like the scenes with John Goodman. I’m glad you loved it, though :)