Film and Episodic Content Discussion Thread

Really High Quality Content and coincidentally three of my favorite movies. Keep at it, you have something going on. Weird that I identify with these films as I perceive my dark side as dominant and spend my time mediating it to pass as another sheep.

 

Been on a Spielberg tip lately. In my latest, I lay out his use of landmarks as visual metaphors in his underrated gem ALWAYS.

 

I've read the book a couple of times and it finally develops after the first 200-300 pages. The movies were on the level of a made for TV Hallmark Channel kinda thing. I'd like to see someone do them over and give the book the care it deserves but that's probably not an easy feat. I feel the same about 1984. It's time for a do-over.

 

Once again, a most interesting explication of muliple layers of meaning (and direction/shot selection) in a scene. I never saw this film--wasn't interested in the story. I'm more interested in your video than the film itself.

Had an odd film perception the other day. One of my favorite directors is Alfred Hitchcock. For ~30th time I started watching THE BIRDS, which in pop cultural terms has become an icon of auteurist horror. I haven't seen the opening 10" in a long time, so there I am, viewing the bird scene in the pet shop w/Rod Taylor & Tippie Hendren.

The undertow I was feeling = knowing how creepy & disturbing this film would soon become. But in this early scene, which almost (but not quite) passes for "playful" in Hitchcock terms, the focus is on flirtatious jousting between the leads, while birds (not for the last time in this film) fill the soundtrack & corners of each shot.

Even factoring in the chiched sex roles of the late '50s/early '60s, this scene is leaden, labored, insincere. I felt the perversion of Hitchcock's intentions here: verisimilitude hardly mattered, since very soon he would use birds to kill characters & scare the shit out of us. So this scene shovels skewed "normalcy" at us, luring us in to the extreme abnormality to come.

 

When someone linked the David Hasselhoff title track on one of the music threads, I learned of the existence of this short movie. Watching @ColtMrFire camera work explications had me noticing the story telling and emotional power of some of the face zoom-ins (not the correct terminology). Also, the director apes video game side scrolling in the fight scene with the nazi's, in a way that had me genuinely fascinated. Of course this movie is all camp comparively but I enjoyed it.

 

@crenca 1984 the movie with John Hurt looks great. The production design is perfect. 1900s working class industrial Britain by way of Communist Romania.

 

I have not thought about this movie in years, and after watching a few clips just now I am reminded of its power and craft. The older I get, the more cognizant of just how frail and impotent our late liberal modern order is, and how easily we could slip into a society too much like Romania. It will be (and already is) with a Huxleyan more than an Orwellian twist, but it be just as oppressive and incoherent...

 

As our nation burns, I was reminded of Spike Lee's masterpiece Do The Right Thing... and was inspired to create this video:

 

Thanks for this thought-provoking (and painfully timely) video.

During the early '70s I lived for a time in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, not far from the Bed Stuy of DO THE RIGHT THING. It was a ghetto, not quite on par with Bed Stuy or the South Bronx. but tough enough. I'll never forget the tension & outsider-ness I felt there. I was a kid, there by choice and not forever. Many others appeared imprisoned by the neighborhood...a place you survive, not flourish in.

I saw DO THE RIGHT THING when it came out & surely recognized the balkanized Brooklyn scene. I thought then (and still do), that conflicts portrayed in the film are not resolvable in any conventional way. They seem to be resolved by gentrification or brute-force civic development a la Robert Moses (but are merely relocated).

As a frequent visitor to NYC in the years that followed, I encountered Spike Lee several times, walking past or crossing the street. I admire his films but didn't approach him: he had a "keep your distance, asshole" expression on his face...an authentic NYC vibe.

 

Seeing The Blair Witch Project in the summer of 1999 was one of the most terrifying theatrical experiences I've ever had. And I wasn't entirely sure it was fake. Let's revisit that time period and examine the blurred line between reality and fiction.

 

"...Seeing The Blair Witch Project in the summer of 1999 was one of the most terrifying theatrical experiences I've ever had. And I wasn't entirely sure it was fake..."

I had a very different reaction. I lasted 10 minutes wondering how someone could have gotten the equivalent of a summer camp "snipe hunt" confused with art. I think it was the first time I ever walked out of a movie, though I have a couple of times since.

I will have to watch your explication to see what I missed!

 

I never saw BLAIR WITCH PROJECT--primarily because I knew handheld cameras were used extensively. I had learned the hard way that handheld camera shots give me a terrible headache.

No matter--I'll have to see CMF's video on this film. As long as he didn't use a handheld camera, I should be OK.

 

You have to agree to the conceit of the movie to enjoy it. Otherwise there's no point. BWP isn't trying to be a "normal" movie. So it shouldn't be judged on those terms.

 

Too true. You did not convince me that I should have stayed in that theatre, but you helped explained the appeal. I am reminded of a theory a friend of mine had when at the time we were trying to grasp the appeal of BWP. He noticed that the less time and understanding one had of the woods, nature and "country living", the more likely you had the ability to be scared by the woods. It was a "city" vs. "rural/country" division. I recall thinking that made as much sense as anything. The conceit, the "suspension of belief" was just too difficult for us.

You also reminded me of y2k. I was a network engineer at the time, and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to explain to family and friends that computers did not in fact run the world.

I look forward to your next presentation!

 

Leaving Las Vegas 1995
Great Flic
Not one scrap of fat in it
purity

Sidebar comment.
Elisabeth Shue is a Goddess.

 

She really did have that older "sultriness" to her. She did not have to get naked to get her sexiness across. Hers was a "dignified" sexy. Maybe she would make a good dignified-yet-sexy president...that's all anyone really wants

 

Reminds me, I should make a video of it.

 

It's a rare film where Nick Cage's "I'm crazy as ALL-f**k" acting outbursts totally work. LLV was that film. It had much to say about the rage & dissatisfaction that fuel alcoholism.

 

Aside: one of the bigger mistakes of my life was taking a first date to see LLV thinking it sounded like a "love story" like Pretty Woman.

I'm an ass, LOL...

 

omigod that's funny. I hope you had drinks beforehand...

(suddenly I'm picturing CARNIVAL OF SOULS or EYES WITHOUT A FACE as 1st-date-friendly RomComs)

I did something similar with the woman who (foolishly) later became my wife. I took her (she who truly detests horror) to see AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, thinking it was a comedy. I'm still living that one down.