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pioneer98
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Re: movies

Post by pioneer98 »

mikechamp wrote:
September 10 21, 2:38 pm
The Matrix 4 trailer dropped yesterday. As a fan of the trilogy... I hope this movie is better than the vibe that the trailer gives me. (Though I am interested in seeing Harris' character.)


When I heard they were doing another Matrix I was hoping it would be a prequel about how Morpheus (and other earlier characters) escaped the Matrix before Neo. This one though I'm not sure about. A film about what is real and what is fake seems really relevant today but it's also ground that has been explored a million times before. Gotta bring something pretty unique to stand out.

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Re: movies

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ghostrunner wrote:
December 4 19, 7:55 pm
This isn’t related to Pacino even though he’s in it briefly, but it occurred to me I think about “Once upon a time in Hollywood” almost every day since I’ve seen it. Mostly just wanting to see it again. Blu-ray comes out next week. Think that might be my favorite movie since Moonlight or Fury Road. Possibly more than either of those.


I finally watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a few weeks ago. The scene where Brad Pitt's character goes to the ranch where all the hippies were living is the best scene, and possibly one of the best things Tarantino has ever done. That scene floored me and was the high point of the whole movie. After that, the ending is pretty predictable and almost a foregone conclusion.

Spoilers because I don't want to ruin the best scene for people who haven't seen it. I also talk a little bit about the ending. This got a lot longer than I intended.
[SHOW]
As a refresher: Pitt picks up a hitchhiking hippie and takes her back to her commune, which is an old ranch where they used to film westerns. Pitt knows the guy who owns the ranch, is is wondering what the hell happened to the guy. Pitt asks if the guy is still living in the house that is right there. The hippies say that, yes, he does live there, but "he's sleeping", and he's "hard of hearing". So you 100% expect Pitt's character to find a dead, decaying body inside the house. You also expect violence to occur at any point, because this movie is extremely devoid of violence up to this point. The only violence in this film besides the gruesome ending is 1) the hilarious fight between Pitt's character and Bruce Lee and 2) Footage of western TV shows and movies that DiCaprio's character previously appeared in (so, not even real violence, just screen violence). So you are 100% expecting violence to erupt at any time now.

It's a long and drawn out scene and has a ton of tension. What will the hippies do when he discovers they killed his old friend? But of course it turns out the guy is in fact taking a nap, and is hard of hearing, exactly like the hippies said. The fact that the hippies did not lie at all, and are in fact taking advantage of this sick old man is almost worse in a way than if the guy had been dead. I don't know if I can think of a better way to portray just how ugly and sad grifting can be.

Re: the ending. The fact that Tarantino refrained from having any violence at all until the end is what makes the ending predictable. You just knew he was going to unleash hell at some point. This might have been a better movie if he had found a way to refrain from any violence at all, and instead left you seeing how plainly nasty and ugly things can be even without violence like he did in the ranch scene. The only other character that was not involved in any violence was Sharon Tate, portrayed by Margot Robbie. You definitely expect her to be involved at some point, but her scenes were pretty much totally unrelated to the rest of the plot. The fact that a young, sexy blonde survives the ending totally unscathed also probably means something.

The hippies at the end explain their motivation to go and try to kill some Hollywood actors, and it's something like "We're going to kill the people who taught us how to kill" via all the on-screen violence in movies and TV shows. Well, the violent Hollywood people won and the hippies were massacred. The ending is Tarantino dunking on everyone.

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Re: movies

Post by ghostrunner »

It’s very much in the mold of Basterds that way.

The way I saw the stuff with Tate was:
[SHOW]
Her name is practically synonymous with Manson and horrific violence. It’s what people of a certain age think when they hear her name, more than any role she played. So I think it’s a really sweet ending on that side of the plot. I was seriously touched by it. There were some criticisms that he didn’t give her any real characterization and I think that’s fair. But it’s also nice to think about how she could have just been a mother and an actress people vaguely remember had she not been murdered. Let’s leave aside she’d have been married to a guy we now know as a child rapist

The other bit of criticism outside the Bruce Lee scene is the brutality carried out against the Manson women. I have mixed feelings on that. In this universe they haven’t done anything yet that we know of. But we do know what really happened and given that it’s a movie I’m ultimately fine with it. The whole thing is meant as a catharsis and a shedding of this awful thing that happened, so he just cuts loose.

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Re: movies

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someone posted the conan doc "conan can't stop" but with the commentary track with conan, andy, sona, the director

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Re: movies

Post by Jocephus »

pioneer98 wrote:
September 21 21, 8:25 pm
ghostrunner wrote:
December 4 19, 7:55 pm
This isn’t related to Pacino even though he’s in it briefly, but it occurred to me I think about “Once upon a time in Hollywood” almost every day since I’ve seen it. Mostly just wanting to see it again. Blu-ray comes out next week. Think that might be my favorite movie since Moonlight or Fury Road. Possibly more than either of those.


I finally watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a few weeks ago. The scene where Brad Pitt's character goes to the ranch where all the hippies were living is the best scene, and possibly one of the best things Tarantino has ever done. That scene floored me and was the high point of the whole movie. After that, the ending is pretty predictable and almost a foregone conclusion.

Spoilers because I don't want to ruin the best scene for people who haven't seen it. I also talk a little bit about the ending. This got a lot longer than I intended.
[SHOW]
As a refresher: Pitt picks up a hitchhiking hippie and takes her back to her commune, which is an old ranch where they used to film westerns. Pitt knows the guy who owns the ranch, is is wondering what the hell happened to the guy. Pitt asks if the guy is still living in the house that is right there. The hippies say that, yes, he does live there, but "he's sleeping", and he's "hard of hearing". So you 100% expect Pitt's character to find a dead, decaying body inside the house. You also expect violence to occur at any point, because this movie is extremely devoid of violence up to this point. The only violence in this film besides the gruesome ending is 1) the hilarious fight between Pitt's character and Bruce Lee and 2) Footage of western TV shows and movies that DiCaprio's character previously appeared in (so, not even real violence, just screen violence). So you are 100% expecting violence to erupt at any time now.

It's a long and drawn out scene and has a ton of tension. What will the hippies do when he discovers they killed his old friend? But of course it turns out the guy is in fact taking a nap, and is hard of hearing, exactly like the hippies said. The fact that the hippies did not lie at all, and are in fact taking advantage of this sick old man is almost worse in a way than if the guy had been dead. I don't know if I can think of a better way to portray just how ugly and sad grifting can be.

Re: the ending. The fact that Tarantino refrained from having any violence at all until the end is what makes the ending predictable. You just knew he was going to unleash hell at some point. This might have been a better movie if he had found a way to refrain from any violence at all, and instead left you seeing how plainly nasty and ugly things can be even without violence like he did in the ranch scene. The only other character that was not involved in any violence was Sharon Tate, portrayed by Margot Robbie. You definitely expect her to be involved at some point, but her scenes were pretty much totally unrelated to the rest of the plot. The fact that a young, sexy blonde survives the ending totally unscathed also probably means something.

The hippies at the end explain their motivation to go and try to kill some Hollywood actors, and it's something like "We're going to kill the people who taught us how to kill" via all the on-screen violence in movies and TV shows. Well, the violent Hollywood people won and the hippies were massacred. The ending is Tarantino dunking on everyone.
ghostrunner wrote:
September 21 21, 8:57 pm
It’s very much in the mold of Basterds that way.

The way I saw the stuff with Tate was:
[SHOW]
Her name is practically synonymous with Manson and horrific violence. It’s what people of a certain age think when they hear her name, more than any role she played. So I think it’s a really sweet ending on that side of the plot. I was seriously touched by it. There were some criticisms that he didn’t give her any real characterization and I think that’s fair. But it’s also nice to think about how she could have just been a mother and an actress people vaguely remember had she not been murdered. Let’s leave aside she’d have been married to a guy we now know as a child rapist

The other bit of criticism outside the Bruce Lee scene is the brutality carried out against the Manson women. I have mixed feelings on that. In this universe they haven’t done anything yet that we know of. But we do know what really happened and given that it’s a movie I’m ultimately fine with it. The whole thing is meant as a catharsis and a shedding of this awful thing that happened, so he just cuts loose.

dont have a lot to add other than i'll be watching OUATIH again this weekend. my dad likes QT movies but not really mom's thing but she was struck by the visuals of 60s hollywood and stuff and i learned, from here, that the only gruesome scene is the last bit so i could tell her that and she was prepared, etc. for whatever reason, dad couldn't make it but mom and i went and saw it in theaters and we both really liked it, which again with her lack of QT experience, was cool. dad never bothered going out of his way to see it. yada yada yada, they're coming out this weekend to visit (left today in fact) and mom suggested i look for it. luckily the freaking public library has a copy so will be picking that up shortly to watch again this weekend. i'm looking forward to it, i know dad will like it, i think mom genuinely wants to see it again (and she admitted the final scene wasn't as bad as she was expecting) so i appreciate reading y'alls perspective, refreshing some things for me and giving me things to watch for on a 2nd viewing.

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Re: movies

Post by mikechamp »

Here's another installment in my viewing of low-fanfare movies on late night TV:

"Adventureland"

This stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Small role for Wendie Malick, too. It's set in Pittsburgh at a rundown amusement park. All the aforementioned people (except Malick) are employed there. It's basically a movie about college kids having a summer job, summer love, living in the now, etc.

This isn't anywhere close to an award-winning movie, but overall, I thought it was good because it felt very relatable to anyone who's ever had a dead-end summer job that they didn't want/didn't really care much about, but had to have to make some scratch. Very predictable and certainly no big shocking twists. At the very least, it's a decent way to spend 100 minutes.

"LX 2048"

Even though this is clearly a movie meant to make you think about a possible future ethical dilemma, this was very poorly done. Set in 2048 in a world where the sun is now toxic and people have to go out at night and seek shelter during the day. (Side note: instead of claiming the ozone layer is completely gone, the sun has apparently gone toxic whereby you can get sunburned in a matter of seconds. In order to go outside, one must wear a hazmat suit.) We've figured out how to clone people in a matter of days, so your insurance policy can now include a replacement you. Yet, in this futuristic world with laser-powered shavers and VR eyewear for communication, why would people still be driving 30-year old, gas-powered vehicles? Oh, and our main character drives... wait for it... a convertible! How does the interior of his car not resemble burnt toast? Those inconsistencies really detracted from the film for me.

The acting is way overdone, which is really unfortunate because it has a cast of about 8 people. Makes it hard to escape the bad acting. The only name actor in this is Delroy Lindo, and predictably, he's the only one who does a good job. He plays a cool cat/genius, but he's not on screen more than 1 long scene. The sets are pretty spartan. I think they just rented a couple warehouses and tried their best to make them look like an apartment, an office building and a doctor's office.

Anyway, the point of the movie is to ponder a world with clones and regular humans and reproduction and natural selection and a bunch of what ifs. If you can get past all the distractions, it might be a good movie. I'm not asking for that 90 minutes of my life back, but I do give it a thumbs down.

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Jocephus
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Re: movies

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Re: movies

Post by mikechamp »

The new Bond will finally be released in 1.5 weeks. Here's an insightful interview about the theme song:

P.S. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions based on the teaser below, Daniel Craig is not just the lead actor in the film, but he's also a co-producer, so...

Writer's block, betrayal and tremolo guitars: The making of Billie Eilish's Bond theme

"If Daniel Craig doesn't like it, you don't get the job."

It's February 2020, and Finneas O'Connell is recounting how he and his sister, Billie Eilish, ended up writing the latest James Bond theme song - No Time To Die. "He has a big say in it," Eilish confirms. "I learned that. He's really involved."

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58680995

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Re: movies

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as wikipedia is wont to do i found myself on the page of the 1999 classic horror remake the house on haunted hill. in the section about music, this made me chuckle.
Piano Quartet in G Minor Opus 25 by Johannes Brahms was definitely not composed for the movie but is the 5th track on the soundtrack album.

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