TV/Movies Megathread

[The Brain]

So did the gambler disappear or not?

[Ideologue]

Totally disappeared.  Sorry.

[The Brain]

 

[Ideologue]

John Malkovich probably ate him.

[Savonarola]

Curse of the Cat People (1944)

While this has some of the same cast as Cat People, and makes reference to the initial film, it is only tangentially related.  Instead it's about the inner life of an imaginative young girl and her conflict with her practical father.  Despite the title it's not at all a horror film, and there aren't even any cat people in it.  The studio had an unrelated story and tried to cash in on the popularity of Cat People.

It's not a bad movie in spite of that, but it must have been a colossal disappointment to people who were expecting a horror movie and got a charming family drama instead.

(I've got the David Bowie song stuck in my head now.  I've been putting out fire with GAS-O-LEEEEEN!)

[Savonarola]

Man, I dunno, changed my mind about High and Low.  I keep trying to average out the A+ first 65 minutes and the highish B, extremely lowish B+ of the last 80.

Really more of a B+ overall.  It's like two separate movies.

It reminded me of Full Metal Jacket; the director creates an intense, gripping piece in the first part and completely different sort of film in the second.  Not that the second part of either film is bad, but they just don't live up to the first part and don't work together as a single piece.

[Josephus]

First part of FMJ was really good. Second part was somewhat disjointed. Was kind of cool to see Vietnam fought in an urban environment, as opposed to the usual jungle scenes, but yeah, doesn't hold up to the first half.

[Ed Anger]

I don't even bother after private Pyle airs out his brains with a M-14.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I felt the same way about Sleepers.  After the first part the second was almost irrelevant.

[fhdz]

4 episodes in on The Bridge; I'm hooked now. Good show with the potential to become very good.

[CountDeMoney]

4 episodes in on The Bridge; I'm hooked now. Good show with the potential to become very good.

Oh yeah.  And you can definitely tell which writer from Homeland left to write for Bridge.

[Queequeg]

Sav, that's Malevich right? Or Kandinsky?

[Ideologue]

Man, I dunno, changed my mind about High and Low.  I keep trying to average out the A+ first 65 minutes and the highish B, extremely lowish B+ of the last 80.

Really more of a B+ overall.  It's like two separate movies.

It reminded me of Full Metal Jacket; the director creates an intense, gripping piece in the first part and completely different sort of film in the second.  Not that the second part of either film is bad, but they just don't live up to the first part and don't work together as a single piece.

Man, that's a good comparison.  Jacket sorta shapes back up with the sniper sequence, though; kinda how High and Low does, maybe to a lesser extent, when we (finally) come back to Gondo with all his shit getting repossessed.  Both do have extremely memorable closing shots.

[Ideologue]

Watched Forbidden Planet again.  Out of curiosity, does anyone know how Anne Francis' wardrobe in Forbidden Planet was received back in the 50s?  It's explicitly a little scandalous (there's a whole shouldn't-have-worn-that-skirt part where Leslie Nielsen yells at her for making his crew horny), but it is indeed a little salacious.  For example, there's a scene where, despite her Evelike innocence, she was clearly blocked not to bend over too far because her dress is so short we'd have gotten a great view of her ass if she'd bent normally.  I wonder how it was viewed at the time.

Interestingly, the worst effects shot in the film is her swimming "nude" in the pool in what can be clearly viewed to be a very concealing cream-colored dress.

I was also having fun trying to pretend the ending is ambiguous at all, and whether it could really have been Altaira controlling the Krell machines.  It's obviously meant to be her dad, of course, but there's a weird bit where she's the one having the dream about the id monster trashing the saucer crew.

[CountDeMoney]

She had some serious leggage back in the day.