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-- The movie recommendations thread, son
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Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-05-2012 22:36:

So last night I watched Tarkovsky's Stalker. I had no idea what it was about going into it -- saw it referenced in an article in the NY Times Fashion magazine so decided to give it a shot. I've seen Solaris before so I thought I would be at least somewhat prepared for what the Russian auteur was dishing out but whoah. I found it to be totally gripping, on par with some of Bergman's stuff even.

For some brief background - I guess you could say I've been getting more and more into these older movies over the past 2 years or so, but I find that I have trouble finishing them in one sitting. That problem didn't materialize last night. Earlier in the day I watched Godard's Masculin Feminin and found it to be appallingly dull. I took maybe 4 hours to trudge through it, watching between reading news articles. I guess I'm not really much of a fan of his, anyway.

In Stalker I found such well done science fiction, well before CGI dominated the genre. I loved the use of color, or lack thereof, in the film. A dark, muted brown palette for the urban settings in stark contrast with the ebullient green palette of the 'Zone'. I found myself drawing parallels with other films and works of literature, but the one that really stuck with me was perhaps the most outlandish: I couldn't shake the feeling that Mark Z Danielewski's House of Leaves was heavily informed by a something similar. The journey into the Zone by Stalker, Writer, and Scientist aroused in me the same sentiments that the trek into the unknown by Danielewski's characters did so many years ago.

I thought it was really well shot too - I don't know much about film techniques but I thought Tarkovsky accomplished something wonderful with his long shots and simple camera work.


Posted by srussell0018 on Mar-05-2012 22:37:

Last night I watched this movie that was really really good but you've probably never heard of it.


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-05-2012 22:41:

quote:
Originally posted by srussell0018
Last night I watched this movie that was really really good but you've probably never heard of it.



i watched Safe House not too long ago either. Maybe you've heard abou thtat one. It blew donkey dick


Posted by Dj Nacht on Mar-05-2012 23:07:

Watched The Descendants last night. I'm still trying to come to grips with George Clooney winning an oscar because of it. Yes, the movie is sad and beautiful, but Clooney doesn't even do anything. Hes like a freaking robot the entire movie ffs. Whats with him and narrating? First that airplane movie and now this shit.


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-06-2012 00:17:

Exactly. The narration felt like a cheap trick to me--its sole purpose was to up his monologue time to make his role more widely appealing and credible.


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-07-2012 03:28:

A quick comment: Take Shelter was the best movie of last year. More than any other, it's really stuck with me. Fuckin' nightmares focused on that movie from time to time...

Watching The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Told myself I wouldn't bother since I've seen the original, but oh well. I have one serious gripe with the film (and I guess this is true of very many hollywood films): why 'adapt' a film based on a swedish novel, for which a swedish movie with global-acclaim already exists, and still try to hang on to the swedish-ness of it? Does that really do it for some people? Hearing Daniel Craig, and everybody else for that matter, speak English while they have Swedish names, eat Swedish stuff, and buy groceries with Swedish packaging in Swedish stores?? It just doesn't make sense to me. Is the suggestion here that American people love foreign stuff but think everybody should speak English? I would've liked the movie more if it were adapted to take place in the United States. Would've felt more 'real' to me.


Posted by GoSpeedGo! on Mar-07-2012 10:06:

quote:
Originally posted by LAdazeNYnights
I have one serious gripe with the film (and I guess this is true of very many hollywood films): why 'adapt' a film based on a swedish novel, for which a swedish movie with global-acclaim already exists, and still try to hang on to the swedish-ness of it?



The book is primarily about Sweden and its dark fascist past. Mikhael and Lisbeth not only investigate the mysterious murder that happened to this rich important family, in the process they also uncover traumatic moments of the country's history that are still hiding under the Ikea table. It even ties in with the feminist subtext where Larsson suggests that men's abusive behaviour toward women is a contemporary manifestation of this supressed trauma.

Since the story is so tightly connected to its country of origin, I don't see how could you set it in the US and still manage to maintain this level of thematic complexity. The story wouldn't even make sense, unless you do a proper rewrite and connect this to some actual problems America deals with.


Posted by Dj Nacht on Mar-07-2012 18:07:

quote:
Originally posted by LAdazeNYnights
A quick comment: Take Shelter was the best movie of last year. More than any other, it's really stuck with me. Fuckin' nightmares focused on that movie from time to time...


+1

That scene when he finally loses it at the work party.

It was a tough choice between this movie and Drive, but in the end, Take Shelter took first place.


Posted by kamil on Mar-07-2012 22:02:

Some underrated movies most of you probably haven't seen that you'll really want to:

- The Legend of 1900
- 25th Hour
- Matchstick Men
- Primal Fear


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-07-2012 22:46:

quote:
Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
The book is primarily about Sweden and its dark fascist past. Mikhael and Lisbeth not only investigate the mysterious murder that happened to this rich important family, in the process they also uncover traumatic moments of the country's history that are still hiding under the Ikea table. It even ties in with the feminist subtext where Larsson suggests that men's abusive behaviour toward women is a contemporary manifestation of this supressed trauma.

Since the story is so tightly connected to its country of origin, I don't see how could you set it in the US and still manage to maintain this level of thematic complexity. The story wouldn't even make sense, unless you do a proper rewrite and connect this to some actual problems America deals with.


I understand what you're getting at, and of course you're right. Perhaps I was wrong to suggest that it should have been adapted to take place in America. A lot of the issues brought up, though, are quite universal. My point was just that it feels so wrong to speak english with so much foreign context. The movie could've been adapted into an English speaking one without referencing any exact place - I thought Feinnes did an exemplary job with this in Coriolanus. I don't think that the film would've suffered as a result of such things. I suppose the whole 'suspension of disbelief' thing doesn't work for me as well when it comes to language.


Posted by Julz on Mar-07-2012 23:28:

Highly recommend Take Shelter!!
Amazing movie


Posted by GoSpeedGo! on Mar-08-2012 23:17:

quote:
Originally posted by LAdazeNYnights
I understand what you're getting at, and of course you're right. Perhaps I was wrong to suggest that it should have been adapted to take place in America. A lot of the issues brought up, though, are quite universal. My point was just that it feels so wrong to speak english with so much foreign context. The movie could've been adapted into an English speaking one without referencing any exact place - I thought Feinnes did an exemplary job with this in Coriolanus. I don't think that the film would've suffered as a result of such things. I suppose the whole 'suspension of disbelief' thing doesn't work for me as well when it comes to language.



Yeah, I think you're kind of rationalizing your own personal preference here.

I haven't seen Fiennes' Coriolanus, nor am I familiar with the original play, but knowing other Shakespeare's works and the fact this one is set in ancient Rome, I must assume that it was originally written as a timeless story - or, in other words, as a story about past that reveals a lot about present. That's not even considering the amount of time Shakespeare's plays exist in cultural discourse and how many times they were adapted and modernized. Hell, Emmerich's Anonymous even thematized this mythical nature of Shakespeare by presenting the writer himself as a (sort of) ghost we don't really know - validity of this specific conspiracy theory notwithstanding, here the true identity of the author is problematized. Shakespeare and his plays are now no less mythical than ancient legends; they share, for the purpose of this argument, the same metaphorical space.

Larsson, however, is a contemporary author writing about contemporary Sweden. Some of the themes there are definitely universal, but that's true of almost every story. The book is too recent for it to become a part of a mythical canon, and it's closely tied to a current social climate in a specific country. It would make no sense to rewrite it for a different location as well as shoot it in Swedish, since those films already exist. I think Fincher made right decisions and thematically (also formally/stylistically, of course) went further than the original movies, even though it may not be immediately apparent. The two ways of investigating (Mikhael vs Lisbeth) are fleshed out (and compared) a lot better, the role of new media is handled with typical Fincherian ease and the story is told much more confidently. It doesn't need to move from the swedishness of the original because it makes changes (and improvements) on so many different levels.


Posted by BTG on Mar-09-2012 06:42:

the "God bless America" gave me a boner.

oh man, i feel ashamed that this is one of my fantasies.


Posted by stren on Mar-09-2012 07:10:

quote:
Originally posted by BTG
the "God bless America" gave me a boner.

oh man, i feel ashamed that this is one of my fantasies.


hahha a Bobcat Goldthwait film


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-09-2012 07:34:

quote:
Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Yeah, I think you're kind of rationalizing your own personal preference here.


Yeah...you got me here.

I still stand by my point (though perhaps not as adamantly as before). We tie language to place, just as we tie a social climate to place. I suppose the two of us disagree on which of those are more fundamental in this particular instance. Personally, I am not totally abreast of Swedish culture currently, so much of what I think you're driving at might have been lost on me during the film.

As for the Nazi issue (if that is the main point here)--a filmmaker could substitute in any such creation there, or even keep 'Nazi', and achieve the same thing. At least, I'd posit that a vast majority of the target audience would find no problem with it. That leads back to my initial hypothesis, however crudely formed, that the decision to film an otherwise Swedish movie in the English language was based on the perception of the American audience as Europhiles and little more than that. Many would rather see some strange, foreign word on a package in a store than see english words because it gives them some sort of unconscious pleasure.

And now, regarding Coriolanus: you are right (as usual) that Shakespeare's plays are typically timeless and this one isn't any different, but what drew me into the film most, from the onset, was how effortlessly setting was established. In adaptations it typically takes more time to get acclimated, and especially considering how Fiennes opted to stick with the traditional Shakespearean language it was an amazing feat to see guns and modern attire then hear them speak so eloquently without it seeming out of place. It was done thusly: "In a place called Rome". I suppose it sounds...trite, but in the context of the film I thought it was excellent.

For me, Fincher failed to properly connect what I was hearing and what I was seeing. The only reason this wasn't more of an issue (as I said before, it was really just a minor gripe of mine) was because of the edge-of-your-seat feel to it all. I couldn't imagine the disconnect between place and language working in anything but a thriller or action movie. Consider A Separation for instance: a movie which is much more heavily tied to a certain social climate. Would you care for a hollywood remake, shot to take place in Iran but totally spoken in English? I would find it appalling. [Just as I found Fincher's need to remake such a fresh movie to be appalling, and just as I found the very existence of Let Me In to be appalling, and so on and so forth -------- maybe this is the key point and the rest is just me rationalizing my own personal preference, as you noted, but I have a point, no??]


Posted by GoSpeedGo! on Mar-09-2012 21:40:

quote:
Originally posted by LAdazeNYnights
As for the Nazi issue (if that is the main point here)--a filmmaker could substitute in any such creation there, or even keep 'Nazi', and achieve the same thing.


See, I don't think this would work at all. The US has a completely different relationship to Nazism and to potray it as a cause of all evil in that country would seem ridiculous. I honestly don't know how you can think it would work in such a completely different setting, but you can elaborate on that and try to prove me otherwise. It's not like the Wanger family are some random people who were in Hitlerjugend or whatever; in this case, the Wangers are Sweden.


quote:
At least, I'd posit that a vast majority of the target audience would find no problem with it. That leads back to my initial hypothesis, however crudely formed, that the decision to film an otherwise Swedish movie in the English language was based on the perception of the American audience as Europhiles and little more than that. Many would rather see some strange, foreign word on a package in a store than see english words because it gives them some sort of unconscious pleasure.


I don't understand this part - it was filmed in English because Americans are europhiles?

quote:
And now, regarding Coriolanus: you are right (as usual) that Shakespeare's plays are typically timeless and this one isn't any different, but what drew me into the film most, from the onset, was how effortlessly setting was established. In adaptations it typically takes more time to get acclimated, and especially considering how Fiennes opted to stick with the traditional Shakespearean language it was an amazing feat to see guns and modern attire then hear them speak so eloquently without it seeming out of place. It was done thusly: "In a place called Rome". I suppose it sounds...trite, but in the context of the film I thought it was excellent.


Yeah, I was just trying to point out the difference between the two movies and why I think they aren't comparable in this case. Adapting Shakespeare inherently means there's going to be a lot of creative freedom - partly because it's been already established by previous modern adaptations and partly because of the nature of the text itself.


quote:
For me, Fincher failed to properly connect what I was hearing and what I was seeing.


As you said before, I think this is a problem of suspension of disbelief. I get that it might turn someone off, but this has become such a common practice that I can't imagine someone would still see it as an issue. Actors in TGWTDT even try to speak with a European accent and they greet themselves in Swedish. At least there's the effort to make it seem a bit plausible and I think it's done tastefully. It's not like there are Americans running around, talking like cowboys.

quote:
Consider A Separation for instance: a movie which is much more heavily tied to a certain social climate. Would you care for a hollywood remake, shot to take place in Iran but totally spoken in English?


That would definitely sound awful. But again, just like Shakespeare is not Larsson, Iran is not Sweden - English in Europe is much more common and even culturally the two continents more or less belong to the same paradigm. Middle East is just so much different that it would seem out of place. This has to be considered on a case by case basis - one may be a lot more acceptable than the other.

quote:
[Just as I found Fincher's need to remake such a fresh movie to be appalling


Fincher's film was not a remake of the original Swedish movie, it was a new adaptation of the book. This distinction is important.


Posted by Guest on Mar-10-2012 03:08:

quote:
Originally posted by Julz
Highly recommend Take Shelter!!
Amazing movie


I just watched it!

What a freaking incredible movie!!!!


Posted by LeopoldStotch on Mar-11-2012 09:05:

for the horror movie lovers out there ...

Rec 3 is coming out in a theater near you in a couple of weeks.



I saw it the other day. If you liked the first 2, you'll like part 3. It has a nice twist compared to the 1st 2.


Posted by LeopoldStotch on Mar-11-2012 14:18:

not a recommendation, but i like the trailer itself




Posted by GoSpeedGo! on Mar-12-2012 17:46:

Last week was kind of slow again.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) / ****
Georgica (1998) / ***
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) / ***** (masterpiece)
The Limey (1999) / ****
Hadewijch (2009) / ***½


Posted by zGoogleman on Mar-12-2012 21:23:

quote:
Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Last week was kind of slow again.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) / ****
Georgica (1998) / ***
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) / ***** (masterpiece)
The Limey (1999) / ****
Hadewijch (2009) / ***½


You watch a lot of films. Are you unemployed like me?


Posted by zGoogleman on Mar-12-2012 23:48:

Terri(2011)***1/2
Apollo 18(2011)*
Quarantine 2(2011)***
An Invisible Sign(2010)**
Fair Game(2010)**
OSS 117(2006)***


Posted by LAdazeNYnights on Mar-13-2012 00:32:

quote:
Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
...


I seriously respect your opinion on film so I've naturally come around to seeing it more your way. The one point to clarify - when I said it was a Swedish movie filmed in English I meant that everything about the movie was Swedish except for the language and some of the actors.

Moving on to stuff I've seen recently:

I regret having seen John Carter in theaters this weekend. The movie played so fast and loose with the audience's emotions that almost nothing worked on me: none of the punchy one-line jokes elicited a single laugh from me (or even from anyone else in the theater at times), none of the sad scenes made me feel anything, etc. I really didn't like how the people of mars were at times portrayed as being so very different from humans, and yet they observed our same traditions as well.

Also, last night I caught this flick from New Zealand: Boy. It's been well received thus far but it didn't do much of anything for me either. It reminded me of Son of Rambow in quite a few ways, but I liked that one more. After the film was shown, the director/lead actor and some of the producers got up to field questions about it. I thought to myself "oh this will be insightful" but the guy, Taiki Waititi, was a complete imbecile with nothing meaningful to say. Many people in the audience seemed to be film buffs or even involved in the industry so they were asking some questions of a technical nature--how he directed the children for instance. All he could muster up was some joke about keeping them in cages. Eventually the audience tired of him and the session ended abruptly. I had a few questions in mind but didn't bother asking after I heard him speak.


Posted by srussell0018 on Mar-13-2012 00:33:

When the motorcyclist Johnny Blaze finds that his father Barton Blaze has a terminal cancer, he accepts a pact with the Mephistopheles, giving his soul for the health of his beloved father. But the devil deceives him, and Barton dies in a motorcycle accident during an exhibition. Johnny leaves the carnival, his town, his friends and his girlfriend Roxanne. Years later Johnny Blaze becomes a famous motorcyclist, who risks his life in his shows, and he meets Roxanne again, now a TV reporter. However, Mephistopheles proposes Johnny to release his contract if he become the "Ghost Rider" and defeat his evil son Blackheart, who wants to possess one thousand evil souls and transform hell on earth.


Posted by LeopoldStotch on Mar-13-2012 09:01:

The Raid

I'm not going to post a trailer, but a clip from the movie.



Saw this the other day. This instantly gets my vote for "Badass Movie of 2012". I don't care about any badass action movies that come out later this year.


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