TV/Movies Megathread

[mongers]

I viewed it, wasn't so bad for light entertainment. Probably made watchable by the setting, Life magazine and photography.

Ben Stillers at his least annoying to date ?

[CountDeMoney]

I like Punch Drunk Love a lot, but I love most Paul Thomas Anderson films. I think Sandler's great in it, nonetheless.

The problem, I guess, is that every time Sandler's departed from his signature moronic comedies it hasn't worked too well, so ultimately he has stuck with the proven formula.

I don't think too many actors could've pulled off that character in Punch Drunk Love like Sandler did, though.

[Habbaku]

Punch Drunk Love is a work of genius.

[11B4V]

Punch Drunk Love is a work of genius.

+1

[celedhring]

Good to see so much love for Punch Drunk Love on here, I thought that film slipped by mostly unnoticed.

[Ideologue]

I was complaining earlier today about how it hasn't been given a blu-ray release yet.

[Queequeg]

My theory on Ben Stiller is that he was one of the attempts, engineered by the Jewish studio execs, to engineer a Jewish leading man.  Other notable failures are Leiv Schriber and that dude from Police Academy and the Stonecutters song.  Gutenberg, that's it.

Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis? 

[Admiral Yi]

Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis?

If you're trying to create a Jewish leading man you don't change his name from Bernard Schwartz to Goy McShiksa.

[celedhring]

Paul Newman didn't change his name.

That's hardly a thing, anyway. Hosts of leading men have adopted stage names if their original names sounded too weird/exotic. North by Northwest starring Archibald Alexander Leach anyone?

[Malthus]

"Ben Stiller" isn't all that Jewish-sounding. 

[Ideologue]

Malthus Ben-Gurion is a name you can trust for pharmaceutical regulatory advice.

Anyway:

Touch of Evil (1958).  Been trying to watch this for about the last fucking year, but it was always on a "very long wait" on Netflix, and the DVD is shit anyway.  That said, the movie's kind of great.

It's really weird to see a black and white movie from the 50s shot like this, though--it's camera movement and dutch angles, the motion picture.  Some of it is a little rough; mostly it's really neat.

They should show it at our illegal immigrant internment camps as a demotivator for ever coming back.  America is the worst in this movie.  Even the Evil Mexicans are, technically, Americans; and the only good guys who are not also stupid are the Jew and the foreigner in brownface.

A

P.S.: Vargas is way too fucking blase about the Grandes following his wife around.  It's a real problem.

[Viking]

"Ben Stiller" isn't all that Jewish-sounding. 

Usually when I google "jewish" public personalities their "anglo" sounding names sort of disappear e.g. Stan Lee = Stanley Lieber, Jon Stewart = Jonathan Liebowitz

[Ideologue]

Been awhile since I've been to the theater thanks to work, so I reviewed some older movies:

Victim (1961).   A groundbreaking mid-century treatment of oppressed homosexuality that would be all the more impressive in 2014 if it had used it as the thriller maguffin it so very much wants to be, rather than as the subject of far too many Star Trek: The Next Generation speeches, and without a Patrick Stewart anywhere in sight.

I don't care to join any sexual orientation that would have me as a member

B+

And, as previously informally reviewed, Design For Living (1933).   Daring, unconventional, and full of light and life, it might just be my favorite romantic comedy.

Chinese finger cuffs

A+  (it was already close, and was upgraded after watching the play and understanding better why certain third act problems exist, and what the alternative was)

***

I'm gonna try to see Lucy, DotPotA, Hercules, and maybe The Purge 2 over the long weekend.  Should be fun.

[Ideologue]

Oh, yeah!  I finally watched Russian Ark (2002) too.  THHBBT.

I bet I could make a single-take movie too, if I SPENT AN HOUR PHOTOGRAPHING AN OLD GUY LOOKING AT FUCKING PAINTINGS.

It's not that it's not still impressive, it is.  The amount of planning and choreography at work boggles the mind.  But it's so anti-cinematic it makes the entire thing seem like a waste--it's also barely about anything, as the deepest insight it communicates as to what it means to be Russian was that they spend entirely too much time thinking about what it means to be Russian.  (We're unsettlingly similar peoples sometimes.)

It's not until the very end, with the ball, that the long take is actually as thrilling as a long take should be, and you get the hint of the awesome period piece romantic comedy that would have made this pointless endeavor actually worth the insane craft and dedication it required to make it a reality.  THHBBBBBT.  It sucks.

C+

P.S. I LOLed at the guy who accidentally looks directly at the camera about five minutes before the end.  What a dick.

[crazy canuck]

Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis?

If you're trying to create a Jewish leading man you don't change his name from Bernard Schwartz to Goy McShiksa.

If the object of Jewish execs was to make money Stiller has been a very good choice