Chatterbox- Film

Saw Piranha 3D. Had fun, but wasn't in love with it.

Was more in love with the Dario Argento film Tenebre and Cronenberg's The Fly, both of which blew my mind, the latter more so.

Who knew a movie with so silly a concept could almost move you to tears?

edited 31st Aug '10 6:00:23 PM by BrendanSteere

I hate Brendan Steere

Watched Citizen Kane. Was less annoyed by the ending as I was last time.

The Philosopher-King Paradox

I find myself liking Soderbergh's Solaris more and more, though I still colour myself a Tarkovsky fanboy.

edited 2nd Sep '10 7:09:40 AM by BrendanSteere

I hate Brendan Steere

You know how there was that whole Cageflix thing? I used it and actually aim to eventually watch every Nicolas Cage movie currently on dvd and put up blog reviews. Thus far I've watched:

• Raising Arizona
• Con Air
• Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
• Rumble Fish
• The Wicker Man (for the memes of course)
• Valley Girl
• Wild At Heart
• Peggy Sue Got Married

I know I've got to get to Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas (I've seen the former once a long time ago), but what else is a must-see, either in terms of being good or So Bad, It's Good?

edited 4th Sep '10 8:48:46 PM by MikeK

The Rock is awesome, especially if you liked Con Air. Kick Ass has him in a supporting role and that's really good.

...I am one of the few that think Nicholas Cage can be an action star.

I've got two guns pointed west and a broken compass.

I found Con Air ridiculous but fun, so suspect I'd probably feel the same way about The Rock. Is Kick Ass still in theaters? I haven't actually gone out to a movie in a long while and that was something I was kind of interested in to begin with.

Kick-Ass is on DVD now.

I've got two guns pointed west and a broken compass.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which is more boring than laughable, alas. Well, I guess it has Cage performing a terrible Italian accent, but...

edited 5th Sep '10 12:23:27 AM by EnglishIvy

Let Me In's trailer looks horribly spoileriffic.

What's the frequency Kenneth?|In case of war.

So, Let Me In. Remake, I'm trying to be optimistic, but it looks like it's aiming for a bit of a different style. This isn't in itself a bad thing, but I did like the original a lot. Then again, the trailer could be lying, which in itself not uncommon. Oh, and, provided they keep true to the original, the biggest twist isn't even hinted at in the trailer I saw, so hey, it could be worse.

edited 6th Sep '10 2:20:11 PM by slowzombie

Liveblog | Deadblog

I watched Undead or Alive yesterday and, frankly, it was pretty terrible... though I honestly didn't expect much from a Zombie Comedy-Western starring Chris Kataan. I did get a few chuckles out of it, but I mostly just shook my head.

I went ahead and added a page for it, since that was the reason I watched it in the first place. Oh, the things I do for you, TV Tropes...

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I'm in agreement with ya on Let Me In.

I've got the same opinion on this one as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: there's no reason for an American remake, but if you're going to remake it, at least do a good job and put your own spin on it.

I dunno. I adored Cloverfield, honestly, so I've got faith in Matt Reeves, and Girl is being helmed by David Fincher, which pretty much says everything.

I think the remakes will be pretty good... even though the originals never needed to be remade. It kills me that America Hates Subtitles.

edited 10th Sep '10 8:19:44 PM by BrendanSteere

I hate Brendan Steere

^And that's barely even true: Pan's Labyrinth made over $37,000,000, despite being subtitled Spanish.

Anyway: could anyone recommend any books on film-making, preferably focusing on camera work or directing?

edited 10th Sep '10 9:51:32 PM by Wicked223

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

For the heck of it, here are the last few movies I've seen and laconic versions of my blog posts about them.

Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story. Pretty interesting and funny documentary about song poems and the kinds of people who submit lyrics, perform, or collect them.

Top Secret! No Airplane, but still really funny. I have to give it to a movie that actually uses the joke about a pony being "a little hoarse" and manages to make me laugh at it.

Repo The Genetic Opera. It looks pretty and Anthony Stewart Head had a good singing/acting performance, but that's the best I can say for it.

The Emperors New Groove. This was pretty fun, aside from being very unlike the usual Disney formula, I like that while there was a moral and a character arc, neither ever supersede Rule of Funny.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco. If you like the band and their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it's got enough interesting moments and performances to be worth your while, but if you don't really know about either it's not necessarily gonna convince you to be a fan.

edited 14th Sep '10 6:23:27 PM by MikeK

Yeah, but seems like Pan's was kind of an anomaly.

I was exaggerating of course, but subtitled films rarely go wide, and don't get as much exposure to the general public is what I was trying to say, which is a shame.

I'm watching Fear[s] of the Dark right now. French collection of animated short films. It's disturbing as hell, actually.

Well, we're studying this one book in Directing (appropriately) called "The Director's Idea", by Ken Dancyger which I'm actually finding very helpful and interesting. Cinematography, however, is my weak point, so I'm not so sure what to recommend there. I could ask one of my cinematographer friends for their suggestions, if you'd like.

edited 14th Sep '10 8:22:40 PM by BrendanSteere

I hate Brendan Steere

I added a work page for Lakeview Terrace. I found this to be a really enjoyable film, not only because of the increasingly intense plot but also because it explores the issue of racism from an angle you don't commonly see in a hollywood film.

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The girlfriend and I have been on a Tony Jaa (ahem) kick lately, and watched (in this order) Ong Bak 2, Chocolate, Ong Bak, and The Protector, the last of which being watched last night. What I take from this: the Thai movie industry is fucking nuts. Looking at the outtakes and the "making of" documentaries on the DV Ds, the safety standards for filming in Thailand must be nonexistant, because the actors and stuntmen get the stuffing beaten out of them and they just keep rolling.

The Protector had a 4 minute single-take scene that they filmed five times over the course of a month to get perfect, but required replacing of an actor who got injured and the rebuilding of large portions of the set each time due to martial-arts damage. They also had serious problems with getting a steadicam operator that could keep up with Jaa... the equipment was for westerners, and thus too tall for most thai cameramen, but the western cameramen they tried weren't in good enough shape to run with heavy equipment for the four minutes necessary. As near as I could figure, they had to bring in a taller thai specialist and jury-rig the camera to be at the correct height.

Kinda reminds me of old Jackie Chan movies, and the craziness with the outtakes.

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary Gygax

I liked Samuel L. Jackson's character more than any other character in that movie. Not a good thing.

I've wanted to see a good Tony Jaa film, actually. Never seen anything with him in it.

I was eying The Protector. Would you recommend it to begin with?

I hate Brendan Steere

^^ I can see where that comes from, because I found Wilson's character to be a bit of a dick as well.

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Brendan Steere: Honestly I would kinda recommend Ong Bak 2 for the first one to watch. It's a prequel to Ong Bak and is a little more polished. It gives a historical perspective to muay thai that I think helps watching the other movies. The Protector is a bit more stylized and schticky, but if that's what you go for, I couldn't fault it.

I also heavily endorse Chocolate. It's got the best story, and watching 90 lb autistic girl beat the crap out of dozens of mooks is frikkin' sweet. No Tony Jaa, but Jeeja is almost better for being so unexpected.

edited 16th Sep '10 7:55:34 AM by Dracomicron

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary Gygax

Watched the 1967 version of Bonnie And Clyde. Clyde was a total Marty Stu. Gene Wilder's character was funny, though.

edited 25th Sep '10 9:50:09 PM by Taelor

The Philosopher-King Paradox

Saw Catfish and just loved it, same goes for Warrendale on the newly released Eclipse Boxed set of Allan King movies. Both were just freaking amazing, which is good because I haven't really had enough of a surplus of time to sit down and watch movies lately.

So I'm glad they were both transformative.

I'm eying Mario Bava's Black Sabbath for today, but Boris Karloff speaking Italian is gonna be weird...

I hate Brendan Steere

^^Gene Wilder is always good value for money. No-one does 'manic' like he. No-one.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

I added a work page for Be Cool. I found the movie to be extremely entertaining, and I was pleasantly surprised that I had no trouble following the plot despite having never seen Get Shorty.

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