TV/Movies Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Claude Rains.

Yes

[Ideologue]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).  Delightful as always.  Way better than, say, The French Connection, or The Conversation.

A

Le Mans (1971).  Originally titled Man With a Movie Camera Goes to Le Mans, this was considered too wordy by distributors and theater chains.

It's hard to believe, with the benefit of hindsight, that Steve McQueen's personality was such that he could not get along with a producer for as long as an hour, and thus wasted his opportunity to be in a bona fide American classic in 1966, but was readily available only a few years later to "star" in--or, with fewer minced words, be photographed in--a role amounting to actor ego death, as the lead humanoid object in a strange experiment in film editing.  That's life, I guess, and he's totally in this movie for at least fifteen minutes, even though his character in Le Mans, like every character in Le Mans, could have basically been performed by anybody, including you or I.  That it turned out to be a successful experiment is sort of beside the point in regards McQueen.

But successful it really was.  Artistically, obviously; Le Mans is a well-known flop.

Halfway through, Le Mans features two amazing crash sequences, one after the other, that no doubt rank amongst the flashiest pieces of editing of all time--playing with space and especially time as they do in incredibly bizarre ways--but if they're flashy, they're also spectacular.

Indeed, even at its most conventional, Le Mans' editing and cinematography present the most complete, most coherent, and best racing montages I've ever seen, superior to John Frankenheimer's crisis on infinite screens, Tony Scott's reel of NASCAR bloopers, Ron Howard's sophisticated if occasionally prosaic CGI constructions, or Renny Harlin's ludicrous but entertainingly bonkers ones.  But unwed to a story with greater emotional depth and character breadth, as even the least of those directors saw fit to marry their racing films to, Le Mans suffers--not so much because it avoids story, but because it still feels compelled to try to tell one even though it's clear everyone involved is entirely disinterested in the idea.

If there had to be a story, you might as well not sweat the details: it revolves around the standard race movie trope of guilt about a fallen racer and friend.  This story involves fewer than a hundred words, and about a dozen regretful glances, that really don't advance character or action, insofar as there is any to advance.  The result is a film that is either seriously truncated (Grand Prix is three hours long and all the better for it, as a direct point of comparison) or severely overlong (comparing it to an entirely different sort of film, Hitchcock's Notorious has approximately twenty to thirty times the plot but is five minutes shorter).

The verdict: Le Mans is a film very much worth watching--especially on its technical merits--but only has the strength to demand that you watch it from about, oh, the forty-five minute mark.

B

[The Larch]

I recently got into Parks & Recreation. Once you're done with the draggy first season you start finding gold nuggets everywhere.

Ron Swanson is an American treasure.

[Sheilbh]

It's a great show and I definitely agree that Ron Swanson is a hero for us all.

[Josephus]

I hope it's the last year of Revenge.  I want to see how it ends, but I can't stand it anymore.

ratings are pretty poor. May not even make it to the end

[Eddie Teach]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).  Delightful as always.  Way better than, say, The French Connection, or The Conversation.

Those movies could have definitely used some extra-terrestrials.

[Savonarola]

Third or fourth best movie made before I was born.

What are the first two or three movies made before you were born?

[Savonarola]

Caught The Goddess on TCM Silent Movie Sundays.  1934 Silent Chinese flick about a woman who goes into prostitution to make money to keep her son alive and aiming for a better life.  I found it quite a good watch.  Have you seen it yet, Sav?  I'd definitely recommend it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goddess_%281934_film%29

No, I haven't.  It looks interesting; I'll see if I can download it.   

[MadImmortalMan]

Mrs MIM just watched Nosferatu. I can't comment on the experience, as I was in the other room watching something else, but she seemed intrigued by the 1920s silent movie experience. This would be a thing I would subject a date to if my circumstances were different.

[frunk]

[spoiler]So Carol is out of the band. [/spoiler]

What's the point of a spoiler if you don't indicate what the spoiler is for?

[garbon]

I hope it's the last year of Revenge.  I want to see how it ends, but I can't stand it anymore.

ratings are pretty poor. May not even make it to the end

They deserve it. It fell apart early in Season 2 and I gave it up midway through when it was clear there was no hope of recovery.

[Ideologue]

Third or fourth best movie made before I was born.

What are the first two or three movies made before you were born?

Flash Gordon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, third place with The Invisible Man had been a two-way contest with The General, but it's now a three-way with Rope.

[Ed Anger]

Wait...Flash Gordon.

[The Brain]

Young people suck.

[Ideologue]

It's pure cinema.