Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
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Post by Sneelock on Sept 23, 2020 5:34:08 GMT
I finally got around to Punch Drunk LoveHe tells the mattress guy that he’s going home. When the woman asks if she can go home with him, he says he assumed she was. Is he deliberately putting her in harm’s way? Surely he knows the brothers will try to ambush him. Is he counting on her presence motivating him to stand up to the brothers?
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Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
Posts: 8,434
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Post by Sneelock on Sept 23, 2020 17:55:42 GMT
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing MissouriI love how the movie ends suddenly. what do you think? Do those two characters make it to that guys house? what if it's the guy who spooked her in the gift shop? Does she shoot him? They both need somebody in their lives and are pretty simpatico. do they turn around and go home? I know it's just a movie but I ask everybody who has seen it what they think happens and they say. "oh yeah, they knock on his door - it's him and they shoot him" It makes sense. Even if he's not THE rapist, he's A rapist. still, I think by ending it when they did that it leaves you a glimmer of hope. I hope they get hungry and change their minds.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2020 1:34:41 GMT
Can 'most ridiculous endings of otherwise good films' go here?
I'll go with North by Northwest.
She's desperately hanging on for dear life, before getting married and having sex the end.
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Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
Posts: 8,434
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Post by Sneelock on Oct 2, 2020 17:42:52 GMT
I watched "Se7en" with others yesterday. it's really the first time I've watched it from beginning to end since it was new. I think I liked it quite a bit better than I did back then.
While it came much later, I think my appreciation of "No Country For Old Men" might have made it easier for me to warm to a certain aspect of Se7en. Morgan Freeman is sort of stuck at the end. whether he stays a cop or not isn't really important. he is a detective - it's what he is. He may think he lives in a sick world but he's sort of stuck with it.
I guess my main problem with it back then was that I found it pretty nihilistic. In most ways I suppose I still do. maybe that just doesn't bother me as much now.
is the movie set during a blackout? they sure poke around with flashlights a lot. who cares? the lighting is pretty clever especially since they can show super gross stuff but just flashes of it. it fits Fincher's nervous visual style. this might account for a lot of the movies rep which I found pretty overrated at the time. I'm not sure if I still think it is. I prefer "Zodiac" but it's a different approach to a similar subject I guess. still as visual as hell but not as unpleasant. is that a good thing or a bad thing? are these sorts of movies desensitizing me? maybe my opinion has changed because the world I live in has changed? the "stand-off" was pretty effective for me. Pitt was really quite good here I thought. when it was new I found "the package" pretty exploitative. that really doesn't bother me now. maybe part of the reason is all these "American Horror Story" things people enjoy watching at my house. I find those things stylish but very exploitative. at least "Se7en" deals with these things as horrible acts. I was watching "Ratched" with my fam. I had a LOT more problems with it than they did. If you wrote that and you read an item in the paper about somebody jamming an icepick into somebody's eye socket - how would you sleep at night? I guess the right answer is that you'd sleep like a baby. after all, they didn't write if for unbalance people to watch. Me, I couldn't sleep at all. I guess that's why I don't get paid to write things. I remember when Mandy Patinkin quit the "Criminal Minds" TV Show. he said words to the effect that he thought the show was making people comfortable with things they shouldn't be comfortable with. it's easy for a guy like me to admit that art can be valid when it makes people uncomfortable but are mainstream movies art? well, yeah. I mean, if I can say I think low budget movies like "Carnival of Souls" or original "...Living Dead" are bona fide art then why not a big budget, star studded thing? I don't really think "Se7en" is art and I do think "No Country for Old Men" is. everybody's a critic.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2020 18:17:33 GMT
Like Charlie O, I really like the idea of this thread.
Most of the films, though, I haven't seen - and I haven't seen se7en since it came out. I remember liking the fictional gruesome but stylish killing according to some warped sense of morality. I saw the wife's days being numbered early on though - I prefer a little more shock.
Let's see now, killer fodder:
1 - a detective's well-loved wife. Especially if she's pregnant 2 - a detective just about to retire, especially if you have plans. You know, like opening a bar in Florida. 3 - a detective's new partner played by an actor you don't recognise 4 - you make an appointment to tell a detective/agent who the killer is 5 - you're a big star at the start of a low budget movie 6a - you're rich and tell dependant people you're going to change your will 6b - you're rich with several adult children all of whom are n'er-do-wells and you're about to marry a young bride
That's one of the reasons I like Inspector Montalbano so much. Not predictable, certainly not the earlier ones. I think Inspector Morse was unpredictable too.
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Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
Posts: 8,434
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Post by Sneelock on Feb 19, 2021 19:56:36 GMT
I really liked "Black KKKlansman" and decided I'd see my next Spike Lee joint in a movie theater. it didn't work out that way. I finally got everybody to shut up long enough to watch "Da 5 Bloods" all the way through to the end. I think it's easily among Spike Lee's best. Everything strong and everything frustrating about him is on display. I'm getting to where the two go hand in hand. He changes the aspect ratio of the screen during flashbacks. it's annoying at first but it ultimately strikes me as brilliant. not only do you instantly know you are in a flashback - towards the end Delroy Lindo talks to Dead Chadwick and you can tell it's happening - for him - in real time. also, there is no effort to make the actors look younger in the flashbacks. there is a lot of "breaking the fourth wall" stuff towards the end. Lindo's character has been the Humphrey Bogart character in Treasure of Sierra Madre up until this point. Now he is telling us HIS side of his story and looking right in our face as he does it.
"the rich guy" browbeats the others to donate their share of the treasure to "the cause". they tell him this is easy for him to say since he's rich. he startles them by telling them he's NOT rich - he's broke. He's bankrolling the mission with his credit which will soon be fucked. By telling them how he pissed through his money you get a sense that he is motivated by guilt that he didn't spend his money on things that matter to him. If I have a gripe about the movie it's a minor one. this would be Chadwick Boseman's dead officer they all admire. this unites them to bring his remains to his family and see if they can find the gold bars they stashed back in the day. CB is a fine actor and his death has imparted him an "iconic" feel that works for the movie. otherwise I would feel the grandiose opinion they express of him seems a bit much. this is war movie stuff - no big deal really. Like Black KKKlansman Spike doesn't send his messages via Western Union - you know EXACTLY how he feels about things. I'm sure a lot of this is in the source material but he's not shy about blinking the "author's message" lights like an Aldis Lamp. I think that's part of what I like about him. I find him dismissive of the works of others but there's no doubt that he's committed to his point of view and wants everybody to know what it is in no uncertain terms.
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Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
Posts: 8,434
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Post by Sneelock on Apr 13, 2021 18:18:08 GMT
I saw "Dead Don't Die" on a "Bad Movie Night". My movie companion picked it because everybody she talked to HATED it. we were pleasantly surprised that we both liked it. you know, I'm starting to have a soft spot for the Jarmusch films where the apples falls furthest from the tree. He does have a singular style and it really comes through even when you think he's going off the reservation. the movie is slapdash and even a little heavy handed but it really works for me. I think the movie is about FATALISM - straight up.
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Post by daveythefatboy on Apr 13, 2021 18:47:26 GMT
Rosebud was a sled.
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Sneelock
god
there's a difference, you know...
Posts: 8,434
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Post by Sneelock on Jul 6, 2022 16:55:32 GMT
you know how those Marvel movies have scenes after the credits? Early in the Dr. Strange sequel the Doc puts a spell on Bruce Campbell to repeatedly punch himself in the face. after sitting through a zillion credits Bruce Campbell appears I didn't particularly enjoy the Dr. Strange sequel so Bruce was speaking for me. fans of Bruce Campbell enjoy a certain unhinged thing that he does. He does it well. I think his best work as an actor though (next to the above) would be Bubba Ho Tep. I only got around to it yesterday. it was dumb campy fun like I expected but it was a little bit more. Bruce Capbell is Elvis and he's still alive. He swapped places with an impersonator because he just wasn't enjoying himself anymore. He ends up in an old folks home with cancer on his dick. Ossie Davis is the first hint that this will be better than campy dumb fun but Campbell really does more acting than I expected. I don't know that he's especially convincing as Elvis but he's extremely convincing as sad, old Elvis with cancer on his dick. Ossie Davis convinces him that a mummy is preying on the residents of the rest home. eventually Elvis does something worth doing and defeats the mummy. it works as dumb fun but Elvis and Ossie are pretty sad that things worked out the way they did. maybe they can do some good. I enjoyed it.
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