TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Down to the Sea in Ships (1922)

Produced by the Whaling Film Corporation and shot in New Bedford this is the epic story of the sea, American enterprise and Quakers.  Captain William Morgan owns a line of Whaling vessels, but his son has drown and has only his daughter Patience and granddaughter Clara Bow (who was 16 when the film was made, but looks much younger, so young that Charlie Chaplin to hit on her); without a son or grandson Captain Morgan  cannot properly serve his country. 

Patience is stuck on the boy next door, a college grad who runs the mill; but as he is neither a Quaker nor a whaler Captain Morgan  refuses to allow them to wed.  Meanwhile cad Jake Finner makes plans to steal one of Captain Morgan's ships and take it to the gold fields; but without an accountant such a plan would be suicide.  So he has white looking Chinese accountant pretend to be a Quaker and a whaler in order to get an accounting job at the whaling firm.  The accountant leaps at the chance when he finds out that Captain Morgan has a daughter, in 1920s films no chinaman could resist a white woman.

Sure, but this was before the discovery of Chinawomen.  Then Anna Mae Wong arrived and the Western world realized what a mistake they had made.  She's still almongst if not the hottest Asian-American actresses. 

The film is high on verisimilitude in the whaling scenes; in fact the crew actually did hunt down and slaughter whales.

[Beenherebefore]

Zodiac (2007).  A really, really good episode of Law & Order at only three times the length.  Sure, my tumor wants to give it an A, but I think the "masterpiece" appellations that accrued to Fincher's work here are, if only by a little, still misplaced.

An extremely high B+

Zodiac gets a B+? Mein Gott. You need to start eating meat again.

Zodiac was okay-ish.

[Caliga]

Last night I watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for the first time.  Great film.  I didn't think Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne would make a good on-screen pair, but they really do.

[Ideologue]

Zodiac (2007).  A really, really good episode of Law & Order at only three times the length.  Sure, my tumor wants to give it an A, but I think the "masterpiece" appellations that accrued to Fincher's work here are, if only by a little, still misplaced.

An extremely high B+

Zodiac gets a B+? Mein Gott. You need to start eating meat again.

Zodiac was okay-ish.

It has a pretty serious reputation.  For example, Roger Ebert gave it four stars.  I don't think it was nearly that good.  I enjoyed the procedural elements and the slow creep of Graysmith's obsession with the case, and the murders were staged as unnervingly as you'd expect from Fincher.  It's better than merely good, somewhat less than great.

[Ideologue]

Oh yeah, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009) (theatrical cut).  Not as bad as I remembered, but then I also didn't attempt to watch the extended version this time.  I appreciated, one one hand, that the Swedish original at least attempts a red herring (the solution to the American version's mystery is patently obvious [spoiler]as soon as international superstar Stellan Skarsgard's picture gets pinned to a wall).[/spoiler]; on the other, there's Noomi Rapace, in her career best performance--take that as you will--that pales beside Rooney Mara's far superior interpretation.

It still looks like bad television; the digital video is evident in many, many shots and rakes its diarrhea-smooth unreality across your eyes.  Both the cinematography and the locations in Sweden are boringly unspecific, looking no different than South Carolina or California or anywhere, just with more people eating meatballs and going "bork."

I'd say one shot--at most two--equal or exceed the remake.  The one that clearly does is the early reveal of the forty framed flower pressings, which isn't bad in the remake, but not executed with the same heady "oh wow that's weird" creepiness as the original.  The counter-rape scene has one shot that, in its blocking, is arguably better than the remake--when Lisbeth uses rope to leverage her guardian out of his fetal position--but the scene overall is tremendously less well acted and rather less well composed, and even less well thought-through.  There is no intense closeup of Lisbeth reveling in the moment here; and no effort on her part to protect herself from bodily fluids.  (They also spoil the reveal that she's recorded the initial rape.)

Things get reversed in climactic scene (itself not a patch on the remake, with its unintentional Silence of the Lambs homage): here, 2009 Lisbeth remembers her bike safety lessons while [spoiler]chasing down a dangerous sex murderer who came within a hair's breadth of killing her lover[/spoiler]).  Good for her.  Gotta wear a helmet.

Then, of course, the caper sub-ending is almost entirely missing; as is the emotional climax of the feature, which ended Fincher's version on such a bleak and depressing and great note.

Yet I didn't dislike it.  Thing is, I have the sneaking, almost irresistible suspicion that I like it better now because of Fincher's version...

B

[garbon]

Last night's episode of The Good Wife was pretty shocking. Though they spoiled it today on a facebook update so I wasn't as shocked as I could have been. [spoiler]I think I'm rather a fan of this way of getting rid of a long-term character.[/spoiler]

[CountDeMoney]

Last night I watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for the first time.  Great film.  I didn't think Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne would make a good on-screen pair, but they really do.

Now see, here's a proper review of a proper movie.  AND DONT FORGET GENE PITNEY

[Ed Anger]

I watched the Great Escape today. 

[Ideologue]

AND DONT FORGET GENE PITNEY

I love that song.

[katmai]

I watched the Great Escape today. 

[Ed Anger]

I watched the Great Escape today. 

I have fantastic taste in movies.

[katmai]

Well yes, but then everybody does in comparison to Ide.

[Ideologue]

Not katmai.  I forget what it was you hated, but it definitely made you suck.  It was 2001 or something else of similar stature.

Also Psellus, who disparaged Last of the Mohicans.

[katmai]

Not katmai.  I forget what it was you hated, but it definitely made you suck.  It was 2001 or something else of similar stature.

Also Psellus, who disparaged Last of the Mohicans.

?? 2001, nope wasn't that.

[Ed Anger]

Also Psellus, who disparaged Last of the Mohicans.