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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 14, 2021 18:08:57 GMT -8
On the block this weekend: the directorial debuts of two guys named David! I watched the original Alien trilogy for the first time recently (I had seen part of the first film a long time ago, but never all the way through). Like many people, I really enjoyed the first two films (#1 slightly more than #2, due to its great atmosphere and claustrophobic horror), and I didn't care much for the third. Honestly, I kind of hated the second half of Alien3. The mishmash of the horror elements from the first film and action elements from the second - plus excessive amounts of graphic gore - did not work at all. It did not help that the characters had such little personality, and most of them looked pretty similar (bunch of bald men; heck, even Ripley doesn't look too different). And the CG alien has aged pretty badly; the early '90s were a rough time for the CGI-vs-animatronics tug o' war. I know there's a longer cut of the film (supervised by Fincher) that has a better reputation, but I'm not too enthusiastic about sitting through another version of this (especially not one that's even more violent). Not too keen about continuing with the franchise either. Oh well. Another disturbing and graphic (but much better) film I watched this weekend was Eraserhead. This is actually the first David Lynch product I've seen outside of the Twin Peaks 'verse. While it wasn't totally my speed, I did enjoy the film's twisted take on fatherhood and its deliberately paced shocks and scares. The film is demented, but apparently not quite as excessively gross as some of Lynch's other films. I was bored in spots, but effectively riveted in others, so overall this leans positive. Yeah, the difference in quality between Alien and Aliens is pretty minor. They're both classic. It reminds me of the difference between the first Terminator and Judgement Day. |
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 14, 2021 18:43:13 GMT -8
Agreed, although I prefer Judgment Day slightly over the original Terminator, whereas I found the first Alien a notch better than the second. In any case James Cameron certainly knows how to direct a sequel that builds on a low-budget original and stands well as its own film. ... scenes are pretty cringe. Oh no, not you, too, Jeremy. I cringe every time I see people use the teenage-slang version of "cringe-worthy". It's completely broken-English, and I'd expect better from you, sir.  Lol wut. Sorry, meant to say it's #cringe. Hashtags are lit AF. Name a better comment, I'll wait. |
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 19, 2021 8:16:01 GMT -8
So between Eyes Without a Face and Face/Off, I think I've had my fill of movies this month where a character has their punim removed and grafted onto someone else's head.
Just throwing that out there. It's a gross and disturbing procedure, and I'm putting a pause on movies that center on it (of which I hope there aren't too many others).
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 19, 2021 9:19:59 GMT -8
I think the most recent time I saw something like that was in that Gotham TV series, where these worshippers of the Jerome (proto-Joker) character tried to resurrect him with some procedure, and when that seemed to fail, the leader of the group cut Jerome's face off and tried to give a speech to his followers while wearing the face (they were just weirded out). Of course, Jerome eventually woke up, found the guy, and SEWED HIS OWN FACE BACK ON. Heh. It was pretty macabre.
I suppose the most grotesque character in the Arkham video games is Professor Pyg, in some of the DLC content of Arkham Knight.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 19, 2021 9:30:09 GMT -8
Sounds like that Gotham plot (like many others) was inspired by the Batman comics. Around 2012, there was a storyline where Joker cut off his face and sewed it back on. Eventually he lost his "face" mask (and grew his facial skin back, somehow), and the mask was found by some crazy girl who decided to wear it, calling herself Joker's Daughter. And yes, this is all exactly as sick as it sounds.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 19, 2021 9:58:55 GMT -8
Delightful.
BTW, re: movies and DC content, I started watching Aquaman over a month ago, but couldn't get into it, and gave up after about 30 minutes. Anyways, I decided to go back and finish it last night. I have a hard time investing in films that have almost entirely CGI environments, but that action sequence on the rooftops of a seaside town (mostly live cinematography) was reasonably enjoyable. And at least the film has the benefit of not taking itself particularly seriously, as Mamoa is very comfortable making himself look silly. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it was OK.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 19, 2021 10:34:06 GMT -8
Yeah, I had a similar reaction when I saw it in theaters. It's a fairly enjoyable, mindless action flick with a compelling lead. I give it credit to committing to its silliness more than the average action blockbuster, and the special effects - while highly uneven in quality - add to its cheerful lunacy. The real downside is that it doesn't know when to stop, and the constant and ludicrous action wore me out by the climax.
To bring this full circle, I had a very similar reaction to Face/Off. A dumb but entertaining flick with strong lead performances, but it simply ran me down during its two-hour-plus runtime. John Woo (like James Wan) knows how to stage his action scenes, but there's a little too much of everything. It's undoubtedly better than Mission Impossible II, though.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 19, 2021 17:49:22 GMT -8
Face/Off certainly had its shortcomings, but it was undeniably the better of the two Nicolas Cage action blockbusters released that summer, the other being Michael Bay's Con Air.
Cage went straight to big-budget, high-paying blockbusters after winning the Best Actor Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. Shame he didn't manage his money better over the years.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 21, 2021 20:19:46 GMT -8
Fun fact, my mom loves Con Air. She seems to enjoy shlocky Nicholas Cage action-adventure films more than the average human.
(I mentioned to her that Cage has a new movie in which he plays a silent janitor who battles evil singing robot animals, but that one did not seem to interest her.)
Total coincidence this weekend: I watched two Golden Age films which both happened to star infrequent film actor John Dall - Gun Crazy (pretty good) and Rope (excellent). I honestly did not realize that Dall was the same actor in both films until I'd checked the credits; maybe because he's B&W in one film and in color in the other. Pretty random occurrence, in any event.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 21, 2021 21:14:20 GMT -8
A lot of folks consider Rope to be one of Hitchcock's lesser early films. Sort of an interesting failed experiment. I thought it was pretty good, but evidently you thought it was considerably better than that.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 21, 2021 21:33:36 GMT -8
I guess it's partly because I'm a sucker for both single-take storytelling and bottle episodes, and Rope represents an early example of both. It's also got some great running dialogue (a Hitchcock hallmark) and a palpable sense of tension sustained across a tight eighty minutes.
I still have a lot of Hitchcock classics left to watch, but Rope is one of my favorites thus far, up there with Psycho and The Lady Vanishes. Incredible how well his stuff holds up.
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 23, 2021 13:16:54 GMT -8
I absolutely love Rope too. Back in ye olde IMDb forum days I remember a lengthy discussion about the nature of directorial manipulation and Rope figured into the conversation as a prime example of an audience being specifically geared towards paying attention to exactly what the filmmaker intended you to, figuring the case into every moment of the picture without the characters doing so. Like you say about bottle episodes, I also really like the fact that Hitch could happily switch gears from grandiose spy adventures into a really tight and contained space (much like how Fincher would later follow up Fight Club with Panic Room).
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 26, 2021 9:25:37 GMT -8
Kind of a bumpy week for me and widely-praised cinema. I watched Dr. Strangelove and Last of the Mohicans, and while both are technically impressive and well-crafted, both unfortunately left me pretty cold. (Also, while I enjoyed American Movie, it didn't strike me as the masterpiece that many view it as.)
Cases like this are frustrating because I can't quite articulate what it is about the film that doesn't work, since it boils down to an issue of emotional connectivity. (A problem I have always had more with movies than TV shows.) I'm just worried that people will start to accuse me of having a bias against Daniel Day-Lewis.
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Post by ThirdMan on Feb 26, 2021 12:07:09 GMT -8
I think in many cases, it's about settling in with the characters in a movie or TV show. For instance, I often find that I don't really get engrossed in a dramatic TV series until I've spent five-to-ten (or sometimes more) episodes with the characters. Often, all I see are the archetypes that are in place, and distinct individual personalities may not assert themselves for a while (if at all). But you can develop a base attachment based almost purely on familiarity and time-spent.
Given that movies don't, in most cases, allow you to spend a similar amount of time to settle in with characters, for me, they're generally more carried by atmosphere and craft, as it relates to how they present the characters and situations. You're more liable to be drawn in by distinctiveness or subversions of expectations than necessarily deeply caring about a group of characters. Some movies can hook you right away with their approach to a singular character, but it's not a particularly common occurrence, IMO. The best they can generally hope for is some level of intrigue as to a character's motivation.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 26, 2021 12:30:14 GMT -8
Yes, well said. It usually takes me a few episodes to connect with a TV series beyond the surface level; movies by their nature don't have the luxury of time to do the same. There are of course a lot of films that are engrossing and engaging on their own, but if one doesn't click with me, there isn't much I can do to alter that.
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