TV/Movies Megathread

[Neil]

The last 30 minutes struck me as the worst. We all knew where it was heading and it took its sweet time getting there.

Yeah, for a minute I thought that they might go with the bad end, but then I remembered that it was Tarantino and he doesn't do that sort of thing.

[Martinus]

Marie Antoinette

Going into it with a different mindset (having seen it back in theaters), it was actually kind of fun.

Is this the sugar-coated video-clip with the hot officer?

[Admiral Yi]

Last night I watched Goon, about a young hockey enforcer.  If it was a Canadian production, it's one of the best I've seen.  In other words, a mediocre movie by real world standards.  It couldn't quite decide if it wanted to take hockey goons seriously or not.

[Josephus]

Kauwboy. A sort of Dutch version of the late 60s dark English movie Kes, about a young boy and a bird.

Pretty good.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1776222/

[CountDeMoney]

I still like Family Guy. 

[jimmy olsen]

I still like Family Guy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gAkUh5pyfI

[Ed Anger]

Sigh.

[CountDeMoney]

Man, this season's "The Biggest Loser" is going to be brutal;  and it was only the first night.

[jimmy olsen]

Just watched the Trailers for Star Trek Into the Darkness and for the Lone Ranger.

Got to say that I'm not feeling the Star Trek trailer.

The Lone Ranger looks like it could be fun.

[CountDeMoney]

Got to say that I'm not feeling the Star Trek trailer.

That's only because it shows nothing.  Gary Mitchell FTW.

The Lone Ranger looks like it could be fun.

I hope so;  always liked the Lone Ranger, I remember watching the old black and white show in syndication as a kid, and it deserves a better treatment than that incredible pile of bad potato salad liquid shit from the early '80s.

Hell, Johnny Depp even sounds like Jay Silverheels.

[Ideologue]

The last 30 minutes struck me as the worst. We all knew where it was heading and it took its sweet time getting there.

Yeah, for a minute I thought that they might go with the bad end, but then I remembered that it was Tarantino and he doesn't do that sort of thing.

Reservoir Dogs.  Pulp Fiction, for Vincent Vega and in all likelihood Mia Wallace.  Inglorious Basterds, for 1/2 the cast.  And presumably the ladies in Death Proof are spending twenty to life in a TN state pen.

***

Speaking of Inglorious Basterds:

In Inglorious Basterds, Aldo Raines carves swastikas into the 10% or so (this is, of course, a rough estimate) of the Nazis he captures but for one reason or another does not kill.  Does he realize that doing this to ordinary German soldiers is pointless, given that all it means in that case is that one was between the ages of 16-45 and male during the years 1938-1945; and further that it devalues the branding when it comes to applying it to for-real RHSA bad guys like Landau?  Now I'm not saying that any German who lived within the borders of the Third Reich was not a target, just that while Landau isn't chilling out in America like Orson Welles in The Stranger with a completely hidden past, no one is going to know he was an evil Jew Hunter, as the Basterds' activities will inevitably be made public and dozens of Willy Wehrmachts back in Deutschland are sporting the same swastika on their heads too.

***

Vanishing Point (1971).  "The ultimate car chase movie" it sez on the package, but this is probably not true, as there are many movies with better car chases and more of them.  The whole movie is a car chase, that's true--our hero, "the last American hero," who calls himself Kowalski has set himself to drive from Denver to San Francisco in fifteen hours, for reasons of his own, or perhaps no reason at all.  In so doing, he flaunts every rule of the road and brings down upon him, almost deliberately, the wrath of every state highway patrol between Colorado and California.  He evades them; he tasks them; he clowns them.  Thanks to blind, police-frequency-monitoring DJ Super Soul, he becomes an instant folk hero.  Naturally, this contest of one man against the state involves a degree of really cool automotive action, but almost all of the stunt-driving set-pieces are in the first half hour of the movie.  The thrills one might expect fade early (with one, vastly important, exception).  Instead, Vanishing Point is a (mostly) quiet character study of a man whose past is always in the present, a picaresque mystery tour through the (mostly) innocuous but increasingly marginalized counterculture of the early 70s American West, and a (mostly) serene meditation upon the closing of the frontier and alienation with society, with oblique references to the pain that may be driving Kowalski to drive himself into the increasingly tight corner we find him in.

And it's still really good.  The ending is probably not what you'd expect, but it could not have ended differently.

The mismatch between my expectations for the film and what the film was actually trying to accomplish could have hurt my appreciation--and I admit that even though I enjoyed the contemplative tone I'd still have liked a bit more action to liven up the latter half--I still highly recommend it.  B+

P.S. that Challenger is pretty rad.

P.P.S.: The nude woman biker scene apparently got talked about a lot at the time, or rather after Vanishing Point's European release and American re-rerelease, as its initial NY premeire was a huge failure and Vanishing Point didn't become a phenomenon until it hit Britain.  Anyway, the scene got spoken of, I'm sure, on account of some really excellent nudity.  But the shots are more artful than lewd, and the acting is top notch.  That scene tells you all about Kowalski--a man trying to outrun himself.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005).  French blacksmith Balian turns out to be an important crusader's bastard, so when Qui-Gon Jinn Ra's al-Ghul Godfrey de Ibelin comes to claim him, he goes to the Holy Land in pursuit of a life less suck.

Shot in RIDLEYSCOPE, so that means frantic frame-dropped action, and pointless, almost random, and always distracting slow motion shots that combined probably add 20 minutes to a three hour and fifteen minute film.  Maybe that's what you should have cut in the theatrical release, Mr. Scott, instead of, as apparently occurred, every scene that made the story understandable--and rather good.

As a Ridley Scott historical epic, I expected no faithfulness to history, and it is, of course, not meticulously faithful.  Fortunately, it's no Gladiator--the Kingdom of Jerusalem does not survive and prosper with Christians, Muslims, and Jews holding hands while they irrigate their shitty paradise.  Many changes are clearly for drama's sake and do in fact enhance the story--for instance, Balian de Ibelin, while someone who actually existed, was also apparently an ultra-zealot who made poor life choices and possessed not all of the high ideals of the film's character, such as the penchant for tolerance that defines the film's Balian; also he was not fucking Sibylla Comnena; and King Guy wasn't a total prick, or at least not much more so than Balian.  But the whitewashing of Salah ad-Din Yusuf Ayyub is sort of baffling.  Saladin was, by modern standards, a war criminal as much as the Crusaders--he killed civilians, he required ransom not to sell the civilians of Jerusalem into slavery--and many of them were, in fact, sold into slavery, a fact negated by the film as Balian secures safe passage for everybody--and he was a usurper.  As far as I can tell, his good name comes from living in a time where everyone was an asshole, and he just wasn't the biggest.  Then again, it is suggested (though it could stand to be outright stated) that the only reason Balian doesn't surrender immediately is because Saladin is being pushed by his subordinate emirs to murder everyone in Jerusalem, and intends to do so.

But anyway, it's not rampantly historically preposterous, and this to its credit.

Also to its credit is that it is always interesting, despite being over three hours.  The characters are generally well-drawn, and even the more cartoonish ones like Guy and Raynald, who are mustache-twirling villains, are interesting and fun to watch.  A word on Orlando Bloom--I don't know what people have been talking about these years, he's great.  And there is Alexander Siddig, who is always a pleasure and should really just be in everything, or at least in a few movies where the script doesn't just say [ARAB GUY].  But really stealing the show is Ed Norton in an invisible but wonderful performance as Mason Verger Baldwin IV.  The action is, despite my Ridleyscope comment, almost always fantastic and compelling.

Two favorite scenes: the first, for whatever reason, has little to do with the plot but is just hauntingly beautiful--the storm that devastates Balian's convoy to the Holy Land and leaves only him alone to tell the tale, involves a shot of a submerged ship that could be hung in a museum; and second, Saladin's last words to Balian are funny and true.

I also appreciated the sub rosa defense of the state of Israel in Balian's speech to his newly-minted corps of knights--the offense for which the Muslims seek to destroy the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that is its founding, no one alive at the time was around to be offended by.  (Of course, this sort of glosses over the more recent offense, which is the SLAUGHTER OF EVERY MUSLIM WITHIN THE CITY WALLS.  But I imagine if I were a high-minded, tolerant crusader, it'd have been pretty inspirational.)

So of course it's about something, and what it's about is how religious fervor is stupid.  It also does a pretty good job of explaining the motivations that pitted men and women to murder, steal, exploit and make so many wars--A)intolerance and B)in the before times, the only way to live what we'd barely consider a tolerable lifestyle is to put yourself at the top of a hierarchy that steals other people's labor, because otherwise you're a filthy blacksmith in Ile de Merde, France, with your wife dying of sepsis the first time you drop a load in her.  B+  (But it'd probably be an A if you got rid of that damned slo-mo, and the actors SPOKE THE FUCK UP.  I think I had to stop, up the volume, and rewind about a dozen times.)

P.S.  OK, no slavery for the Jerusalemites, that's fine, but where the fuck did that box full of ice come from?  Salah ad-Din's fridge?  Did it come from Circassia with Lawrence?  This has got to be bullshit, right?
P.P.S. [spoiler]Wasn't it awesome when it turned out Godfrey was Saladin the whole time?[/spoiler]

Contact (1997).  Jodie Foster goes to space to meet her space dad.

For a long time after it's release, Contact was everyone's favorite movie to rag on.  I loved it; and this is still, in my opinion, one of cinema's all-time greats.  First, it's Goddamned stylish.  I direct your attention to the tracking shot that becomes a fucking mirror shot (it's showy, but awesome) when young Ellie tries to get her dad's heart pills.  And, more subtly but no less exciting, is Zemeckis' use of ubiquitous television screens to depict action, and story, from two or more perspectives; there are dozens of shots where meaning is enhanced by depicting the reaction simultaneously with the stimulus.  Almost like splitscreen but not half as distracting, this is how you make an informationally and emotionally dense film.  (Slow motion is also used on occasion.  Ridley Scott should watch Contact!)

But most importantly, it's telling a really beautiful story by Carl Sagan about science and passion and the beauty of the universe, and that ain't nothing, folks.  Nor is a movie where 90% of the time you're looking at Jodie Foster being all hot and flinty.

It's a shame Robert Zemeckis hasn't equalled his achievement here in the intervening years, and so far as I know come close only once, but if the capstone to Zemeckis' career is Contact, it's a triumph few other creators will ever surpass.A+

[Martinus]

But the whitewashing of Salah ad-Din Yusuf Ayyub is sort of baffling.  Saladin was, by modern standards, a war criminal as much as the Crusaders--he killed civilians, he required ransom not to sell the civilians of Jerusalem into slavery--and many of them were, in fact, sold into slavery, a fact negated by the film as Balian secures safe passage for everybody--and he was a usurper.  As far as I can tell, his good name comes from living in a time where everyone was an asshole, and he just wasn't the biggest.  Then again, it is suggested (though it could stand to be outright stated) that the only reason Balian doesn't surrender immediately is because Saladin is being pushed by his subordinate emirs to murder everyone in Jerusalem, and intends to do so.

Really?

I mean, by modern day standards, pretty much everyone who lived in this era and was involved in at least one siege was a war criminal, but Saladin's portrayal as a noble warrior is not a modern invention and was actually quite common during this era, even among Christians (Richard, who was also considered the paragon of chivalry by his contemporaries, had a very high opinion of him, for example).

Compared to the crusader army taking Jerusalem in 1099, his treatment of the civilians places him squarely in the "bleeding heart pinko" camp.

As for him being an usurper, that's pretty much how succession in the Mameluk Sultanate worked.

[Martinus]

Here's the account of his capture of Jerusalem. While he was not a saint (especially by modern standards), this beats wholesome slaughter:

Saladin had captured almost every Crusader city. Jerusalem capitulated to his forces on October 2, 1187, after a siege. When the siege had started, Saladin was unwilling to promise terms of quarter to the Frankish inhabitants of Jerusalem until Balian of Ibelin threatened to kill every Muslim hostage, estimated at 5000, and to destroy Islam's holy shrines of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque if quarter was not given. Saladin consulted his council and these terms were accepted. An unusually low ransom for the times (around $50 in modern money) was to be paid for each Frank in the city whether man, woman or child but Saladin, against the wishes of his treasurers, allowed many families who could not afford the ransom to leave.[87][88] Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem organised, and contributed to a collection which paid the ransoms for about 18,000 of the poorer citizens, leaving another 15,000 to be enslaved, Saladins brother al-Adil, "asked Saladin for a thousand of them for his own use and then released them on the spot." Most of the foot soldiers were sold into slavery.[89] Upon the capture of Jerusalem, Saladin summoned the Jews and permitted them to resettle in the city.[90] In particular, the residents of Ashkelon, a large Jewish settlement, responded to his request.[91]

[Ideologue]

I mean, by modern day standards, pretty much everyone who lived in this era and was involved in at least one siege was a war criminal, but Saladin's portrayal as a noble warrior is not a modern invention and was actually quite common during this era, even among Christians (Richard, who was also considered the paragon of chivalry by his contemporaries, had a very high opinion of him, for example).

Indeed.

What I mean is that he was better than average (arguably), but no saint.  Because contemporary opinion of Saladin was that he was pretty great (compared to the more obvious monsters of his time), the script adopts the idea that he was pretty great; unfortunately, because current mores won't accept someone to be pretty great if they buy and sell slaves, the whole enslavement outcome of Second Jerusalem is dropped.

They also add in for flavor that he was great buddies with Baldwin IV (two progressive rulers who only want everyone to be happy!), when, as I understand it, Saladin's only use for the KoJ was to keep his Syrian enemies from encroaching upon Egypt while he consolidated there and to provide him with excuses to acquire dominion over the quasi-independent minor Muslim cities from which he would later enter Syria; that, indeed, Saladin's overriding goal (as a devout Muslim, that is, and other than personal power) was to expunge the Crusader states from the Levant.  Incorrect?  The Crusades aren't my field of expertise.

I guess I did like how they made Saladin (in the movie) out to be this weird, mysterious guy with mutant freeze powers and some alien moral code.  Orientalizing, I suppose, but entertaining on a superficial level.

[Syt]

Ide, did you watch the theatrical release or the (supposedly far superior) director's cut?