TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Right on about Inception too.  I think his criticism, regarding its structure and tone feeling more like running around in a video game than a dream, is exactly on the mark, and echoes what I said back in 2010.

On the other hand, I'm a little suspicious of any list that purports to be THE TOP TEN ______ of ALL TIME!!1 that includes five movies from the past decade.  (And two from this decade.)

[Queequeg]

I'd completely disagree on that.  The "scanning a computer" scene in Scanners is incredibly weak, and the central performance is almost a non-entity.

I actually like Shivers and The Brood the most of his pre-The Fly work though. 

[Sheilbh]

On the other hand, I'm a little suspicious of any list that purports to be THE TOP TEN ______ of ALL TIME!!1 that includes five movies from the past decade.  (And two from this decade.)

I think it works for overrated though. Overrated films generally get found out over time and drop from popularity. In their first five years they're an instant classic and twenty-five years later they're a footnote.

You can argue for an underrated classic from the 40s. Who of us can really name a film from the 40s that's still overrated?

[Queequeg]

Gone With the Wind was 1939.

[Sheilbh]

It's a great, very racist film

Someone made me read that book. It was awful. And racist.

[Valmy]

It's a great, very racist film

The oddest part was how Prissy did not age a bit between 1861 and 1870 or whenever the story ends.  I give them points for getting actual black actors to play the parts of the happy slaves.

[Queequeg]

I don't think it would break a list of top movies of the 30s or 40s. 

[Eddie Teach]

You can argue for an underrated classic from the 40s. Who of us can really name a film from the 40s that's still overrated?

Citizen Kane. It's a Wonderful Life. The Philadelphia Story. The Third Man(ok, this one based more on Languish than the general public  ).

[Queequeg]

I'm not sure Kane is overrated, and Wonderful Life is, well, wonderful.  Philadelphia Story maybe. 

I don't think Audrey Hepburn was in a great film in her entire life, and never came close to giving a great performance.  Sabrina is really good, but she's actually a weak link in it. 

[Sheilbh]

You can argue for an underrated classic from the 40s. Who of us can really name a film from the 40s that's still overrated?

Citizen Kane. It's a Wonderful Life. The Philadelphia Story. The Third Man(ok, this one based more on Languish than the general public  ).

I don't always agree with burning heretics. But in this case I do

[Valmy]

I don't think Audrey Hepburn was in a great film in her entire life, and never came close to giving a great performance.  Sabrina is really good, but she's actually a weak link in it. 

What?  War and Peace is not a great film?

[Queequeg]

Sarcasm?  Not even close. 

[Valmy]

Come to think of it that movie also had a child character who stayed the same age even as several years went by in the story.  Maybe that was a thing in the middle of the 20th century.

[Eddie Teach]

Who cares if Audrey Hepburn wasn't a great actress, she was a delightful character that brightened every movie she was in. 

[Ideologue]

I'd completely disagree on that.  The "scanning a computer" scene in Scanners is incredibly weak, and the central performance is almost a non-entity.

Would you say it... Lacks?

I loved it though.  It's not conventionally good acting by any stretch, but it conveys the spiritually-dead trauma involved in scanning pretty well.  For some reason I think of Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon, where a sort-of anti-performance is actually perfect.  But even then, it's clearly in the same category as Woods' performance in Videodrome, or any professional acting turn, when compared to the literal amateur hour that was Shivers.

I probably like Scanners more due to the conventionally bad-ass ending; and I appreciate its purity--Scanners is about what it's about, evil psychics, without suggesting a dissertation on the media or human integration with technology or whatever the fuck Videodrome is supposed to be about.  Those things are fine, but Videodrome often seems a bit muddled and full of itself, with the discourse occurring at the level of vague sound bytes that sound really cool and serve as a faint social commentary, but not too much more than that.

Plus I loved it when he scanned the computer!  It was neat.  It's very surface level stuff--but that's Scanners' strength.

It's part and parcel of why I think Scanners is significantly more entertaining.  It's also more cognizable: ultimately, as a clear-cut fable about power and corruption, it's much less intellectually desultory than Videodrome.  Plus, its climax is in an office that looks like an office, and not at a Lenscrafter's trade show.

Now, I do love Videodrome, partly because it's so muddled and full of itself.  I own it, and think it's a significant work and a near-classic.  In the end, it's an A+ vs. a B+.

I actually like Shivers and The Brood the most of his pre-The Fly work though.

I still need to see The Brood.  Also Rabid, The Dead Zone (I guess), and Naked Lunch; then my Exploding Heads education will be complete.  Also I may one day check out Fast Company, because cars are pretty cool (maybe someone gets mangled?).

Wherefore the cutoff at The Fly?  You still have weird body horror shit afterwards, up through Existenz (which I think we can all agree is terrible).  Are we just counting The Fly as the high water mark?