Film and Episodic Content Discussion Thread

Spielberg's first "serious movie" was something no one expected. A black story that seemed to have little to do with his previous output. But all of Spielberg's previous protagonists were people struggling in a world that didn't understand them. The Color Purple is no different. And at its core, it's a feminist empowerment movie. Let's take a look.

 

This was an awesome one.

 

Well thank you sir!

 

Thanks for another excellent cinematic essay!

I never much cared for this movie & thus took my time viewing this. But that was a mistake--you go well beyond film criticism to explore a number of worthwhile topics...it's a very thoughtful analysis.

 

I want to commend 2 documentaries that do things differently:

SCREWBALL: This documentary about baseball doping uses a narrative tactic I've never seen before--the use of child actors to represent key baseball characters & dramatize their interactions. It took awhile for this mechanism to really resonate with me, but before long it became borderline hysterical. The tone is light, ironic, subversive. The mendacity & maladjustment of the participants are served up with gusto. IMO the success of this engaging documentary is primarily due to its irreverent, novel style.

DON'T F**K WITH CATS: HUNtING AN INTERNET KILLER: There's nothing light-hearted about this documentary. It examines a grim topic (though thankfully we're spared full view of the footage in question), and the central character is perhaps the strangest real-life murderers I've ever encountered. This unpredictable & inventive narrative is exhilarating: I never had a clue what was coming next. One of the subtexts here is something we're even more aware of now than in 2019: the power of online communities for both good and evil.

 

Her was my second favorite movie of 2013, but with time it may now be #1. Its themes of loneliness and isolation in the digital age of "connectivity" were extremely fascinating, so I had to do a video about it.

 

Contact is one of those movies I never get tired of watching. Besides being part of the first wave of DVDs in the format's infancy (and one of the first I bought), it's a fascinating look into the "what if" scenario of contact with an alien species. And Zemeckis does an amazing job mixing a kind of docu-realism with the needs of dramatic fiction. Let's take a look at one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.

 

I agree the alien encounter scene was decidedly unspectacular but thought the point was that it was the best way for them to connect with her in the limited amount of time they had as she would have more trust in what was being said and wouldn’t waste time trying to process what could be a very alien situation. Like what if they were giant spiders, no way that encounter goes well.

Interstellar worked some of the same ideas where it felt more personal rather than sci-fi and with how McConaughey was presented with something familiar (ish) that he could understand when he went into the black hole.

 

Well lots of movies portray aliens unbothered with showing their true form. It's just a matter of choice by the filmmaker. In this instance I don't think the ending served the film as a whole in a satisfying enough way. Zemeckis could've had his cake and eaten it to by doing the grand ending, and still leave Arroway with the same conclusion and emotional feelings she displayed during her hearing.

And the original drafts had a bigger ending but Zemeckis didn't want to do it. Which reinforces the idea that the ending we got feels like it belongs in a different movie.

 

Turns out disaster movies are more than just mindless spectacle and eye candy. They are a window into our psyche as a species. Let's dive into what makes disaster movies so compelling.

 

Just saw The Happiness Season. Kinda weird seeing a Christmas movie when it’s not Christmas.

I can’t remember seeing a movie carried so heavily by the actors. That script did not deserve any of those actors but they made it a pretty good movie. Doesn’t hurt that I have a crush on both Kristen Stewart’s acting persona (minus Twilight) and McKenzie Davis’s persona in the first season of Halt and Catch Fire (not so much the rest) Not an amazing movie because there’s only so much actors can do but definitely worth seeing if only for Daniel Levy’s performance. He’s officially on my list of favorite actors. I really hope someone gives him a good leading role.

I hate to say this but just being LGBTQ shouldn’t be enough to bring out so many big guns.

this scene was unbelievably well acted. Chilling.

 

I haven't been in a movie theater for at least 15 months. Today, emboldened by having had my 2nd vaccine shot weeks ago (and my ever-present mask), I went to a local theater and saw NOBODY, starring Bob Odenkirk & directed by Ilya Naishuller (whose 2015 film, HARDCORE HENRY, was daring & very different).

DAMN, that film was good!! I was a little afraid all the top-quality streaming content (Netflix & Prime Video) I've seen on a 77" OLED for 1-2 yrs would make me enjoy a big-screen film less. Nope--not even close. The only problem was figuring out how to shut off the "vibrating seat" (a horrifying feeling).

I loved Bob Odenkirk's work in BETTER CALL SAUL and know the slightly subversive, skewed sensibility he brings to any scene. I wasn't sure going into NOBODY that he could pull off the Liam Neeson/Denzel rebirth-as-asskicker trick, but I needn't have worried. NOBODY worked on so many levels at once, not just action, but everything else. Underneath all the flash bang, it's a subtle film with terrific character acting by Odenkirk, Christopher Lloyd as his father, and Connie Nielsen as his wife. Real feeling is suggested by careful plot exposition, camera work, and spare dialogue. While NOBODY was occasionally very exuberant and in-your-face, the best scenes were quiet and well observed.

We've all seen films where at the very end, suddenly the big hint is dangled: sequel coming. Often I wince and think, "Not me, sucker." But this time I cheered. I want to see these people again.

Sorry if I'm overpraising this film, but NOBODY is the real deal--an excellent action/revenge film.

 

Very proud to have hit 1K subscribers on my youtube channel. Many thanks to all who continue to support. Today it's all about the movie that had alot to do with inventing the mullet. The Lost Boys.

 

Spotting plot holes seemed to emerge from the "gotcha" culture of the internet in the new millennium, and The Dark Knight was one its biggest targets. In this video I go over the phenomenon of the plot hole and whether or not it matters in cinema.

 

Another highly enjoyable video, thank you. Your latest episode reminds me of an anecdote about The Big Sleep. As noted in an LA Times piece: "Probably the best-known remark about the famously scrambled plot of “The Big Sleep” belongs to Raymond Chandler, author of the novel on which the 1946 movie was based. Asked who killed the Sternwoods’ chauffeur, a key murder left unsolved at the movie’s end, Chandler replied: “I don’t know.”

That article also has a great line by James Agee about the movie putting "you, along with the cast, into a state of semi-amnesia.”

 

As a lifetime fan of vampire cinema, I of course saw LOST BOYS repeatedly over the years. It's not quite to my tastes: I favor darker, existentially bleaker treatments of the myth of undeath (there are many of those). Still, this film was & is irresistable for its youth, fashion & exuberance. Kiefer was superb, as you say; so was Corey Haim, who had pleased me so much a couple years earlier in the smaller/lesser film, SILVER BULLET.

In the dystopian present, it's hard to imagine anyone making a film that so organically balances death, undeath, and teenage rowdiness (in the latter day version all the principal actors would have their faces glued to their cellphones, with all lines deadpanned soto voce out of the sides of their mouths).

 

I love THE BIG SLEEP without reservation & am familiar with these quotes. One of the joys of watching this film is trying & failing to make sense of all its plot-points & characters. Really, the viewer is just along for the ride--one helluva ride at that.

 

This video popped up a related memory: by the time LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD came out in 2007, we'd all seen monuments & landmarks "blowed up real good" in any number of blockbusters like the ones you mention. This awareness set up a meta-moment in the film, when Bruce Willis & Justin Long look at the flatscreen in a bar; it shows the Capitol Building being blown up. Realizing the video might be a gimmick, they run into the streets of D.C. and see the Capitol Building, standing and unharmed.

That little visual frisson wouldn't have been effective 20 years earlier.

 

Apparently I need to see this again.

 

Saw KING KONG vs GODZILLA today. Glad to be in a theater, but I knew going in this would be a huge waste of time & (Hollywood's) $$$, all of which went into epic CGI (yawn). There are were some talented people in this thing, not that it really needed their talents:

• Millie Bobby Brown, now a pretty 17 year old, is just as good on the big screen as on the small one--though her role was incomprehensible, like so many here
• Rebecca Hall, one of the better actresses around, lit up the screen, though again, the role made little sense
• And a charming child actor, Kaylee Hottle, did excellent work here

One of my favorite actors, Lance Reddick, literally had 1 scene w/just a sentence of dialogue that was unintelligible due to the ubiquitious explosions and giant creature noises. IMO that's a sure sign of a big, empty special effects flick--that an actor as good as he is utterly wasted.

But I'm not complaining. I knew what I was getting into...and it was in a theater with a bag of theater popcorn in my lap.