movies

[CardsofSTL]

[Michael]

Over the weekend I watched Renfield on Peacock. Despite the middling reviews I had high hopes for this one. Nic Cage in a vampire black comedy sounds amazing. Unfortunately it wasn't very good. The movie has lots of sloppy tone shifts and unnecessary action scenes. I didn't even think Nic Cage was all that great. What a waste.

[Famous Mortimer]

"The Blackening"

Perhaps a tiny bit too slight to maintain an idea over feature length, and the "twist" is instantly obvious, but it was really funny and seeing it in a packed theater is definitely the way to go.

[ghostrunner]

TCM being gutted now. This is what I’ve been fearing since the Warner/Discovery merger and they started pulling shows and firing people.

One of the few cable channels to still do exactly what they set out to do, instead of devolving into reality programming or something else completely unrelated.

[ghostrunner]

This is just such a bummer. So much is being ruined lately.

[vinsanity]

I think the camera angles are just an acquired taste probably, and I'm certain he intends them to be wrong because he definitely knows what's "right." How well that works for people probably varies. I will say I'm not a big Goodfellas fan. He films that and some other things (Cape Fear, I think maybe The Departed) almost the way other people shoot very broad comedies. Lots of wide angles and whip-pans and closeups and it's not really my thing.

I've not ever gotten all the way through Gangs of New York but I would push back a little on him doing things atypically because he knows the standard. (Sorry avoided this place since well....this is a Cardinals forum).

A movie like Cape Fear feels like a movie where the basics should work. Like, if shot/reverse shot in conversation between De Niro and Nolte only makes you disoriented - I'll allow for the idea it's intentionally disorienting but it's something that happens too often in his movies for me. That makes me think maybe it's not intentional. Now, style is always an acquired taste - no one would say Bob Dylan is a heavenly crooner or that Lagavulin tastes like honey and you don't have to like it. It just kind of seems like a lot of the times, Marty's artistic choices baffle me at times but the results still tend to be good to great.

He's just a strange director to me and I often wonder if he's almost like Mike Matheny; the material and actors are too good to not get a quality product vs how much is his vision that could be better if he wanted to improve? Like the old story on the PGA about Tiger going to the range and Daly asking him to drink beers in the clubhouse, and Tiger said if he had Daly's talent he would but he's gotta go work. It kind of feels like Marty has a B+ eye behind the camera that gets better results than a lot of others.

[ghostrunner]

It’s just that those are rules you get taught in filmmaking class, so him breaking them is a choice. He’s seen everything and has always worked with accomplished cinematographers, so there’s no way he’s just ignorant. Michael Ballhaus worked on most of his stuff up through Departed. Freddie Francis shot Cape Fear. Both of those guys were old hands by the time they worked with him the first time so not likely they’d just get steamrolled by Scorsese or anything. He definitely strongly prefers a kinetic camera though. It’s a choice, just a question of whether it works for you. For me it’s uneven, but I always enjoy something about his work even when it’s not top tier.

[Famous Mortimer]

They Cloned Tyrone

I think the trailer does it a slight disservice - makes it out to be mostly a comedy, but it's much smarter and gives you much more to think about than the label "comedy" implies. The three main cast members are all fantastic, it rips along, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[JoeMcKim]

Saw Oppenheimer a few days ago and I thought the movie was outstanding, I don't see how Cillian Murphy won't be winning an Oscar for it.

[ghostrunner]

Inflation isn't mentioned here, but still pretty crazy that it's been long enough to matter.

The movies on the second line would qualify with inflation. The others wouldn't.