TV/Movies Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Oh also the new Trip. Brydon and Coogan in Italy. It's still very good.

And W1A.

[Savonarola]

L'Atalante (1934)

The film has the reputation as Vigo's masterpiece and as a huge influence on the nouvelle vague.  Both of these are fair, but it's also a product of its time; there's even song and dance in it.

I saw the Criterion collection of the film and, after watching the film, listened to the pretentious film critic's commentary.  He had two interesting points; the first was that the "Poetic" final third of the film was brought about because Vigo was seriously ill at the end of shooting and couldn't film more.  So they had to work with what they had.  The second was that the film works because Jean Dasté really isn't a convincingly macho; had, say, Jean Gabin had the role the violent outbursts would have been genuinely terrifying.

Even with the films flaws it's still a masterpiece.  Boris Kaufman's cinematography is extraordinary, Michel Simon's performance is amazing and Vigo had the ability to make lemonade out of a melodramatic lemon of a story.

[Ideologue]

World on a Wire (1973).  Like the Matrix, except more cerebral, less stupid, shot on 16mm for German TV, and vastly more 1970s in every way.  But--most importantly--it is way, way, way longer, to the extent that the paranoid plot that's entrapped our man who isn't real is more recursive than the ubiquitous mirror shots Fassbinder's constructed whole swathes of his movie out of and circles and circles and fucking circles more than his camera.  (That said, the mirror shots and elegantly mobile camera are cool.)

B

[Ideologue]

L'Atalante (1934)

I saw the Criterion collection of the film and, after watching the film, listened to the pretentious film critic's commentary.

I like their pretentious film critic commentaries.  Beats the director's commentaries that are the standard fare on regular discs--rarely are they that terribly enlightening except for technical issues (how such and such was shot) and occasionally for assigning credit (e.g., David Fincher admitting that the excellent use of "Orinoco Flow" Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was Daniel Craig's idea).  Blame, of course, is almost never assigned because mistakes are not acknowledged.  Film critics have no such bias.  My favorite is definitely the film historian David Kalat's commentary on Things To Come, which is so overtly critical, despite the obvious love he has for it, that he has to stop halfway through to remind himself and the audience that (to paraphrase) "Of course, if you're listening to this, it probably means you like the movie."

[Viking]

I watched the second episode of Hannibal. Yes....that was quite good.

Is Agents of Shield any good? Any shows (comedies?) I may have missed lately? I'm going travelling from tomorrow and will be spending a large amount of time on trains, need stuff to watch on my kindle fire.

Shield isn't very good. Though, it has gone from "disappointing" to "average" quality wise. Arrow is the superior Super-Hero Show.

[Josquius]

Arrow?
I've not even heard of that one.

[garbon]

 

[jimmy olsen]

World on a Wire (1973).  Like the Matrix, except more cerebral, less stupid, shot on 16mm for German TV, and vastly more 1970s in every way.  But--most importantly--it is way, way, way longer, to the extent that the paranoid plot that's entrapped our man who isn't real is more recursive than the ubiquitous mirror shots Fassbinder's constructed whole swathes of his movie out of and circles and circles and fucking circles more than his camera.  (That said, the mirror shots and elegantly mobile camera are cool.)

B

Are you implying the Matrix gets less than a B?

[Queequeg]

vastly more 1970s in every way.

My heaven would look a lot like that movie. 

[Eddie Teach]

World on a Wire (1973).  Like the Matrix, except more cerebral, less stupid, shot on 16mm for German TV, and vastly more 1970s in every way.  But--most importantly--it is way, way, way longer, to the extent that the paranoid plot that's entrapped our man who isn't real is more recursive than the ubiquitous mirror shots Fassbinder's constructed whole swathes of his movie out of and circles and circles and fucking circles more than his camera.  (That said, the mirror shots and elegantly mobile camera are cool.)

B

Are you implying the Matrix gets less than a B?

He gets them right sometimes.

[Ideologue]

World on a Wire (1973).  Like the Matrix, except more cerebral, less stupid, shot on 16mm for German TV, and vastly more 1970s in every way.  But--most importantly--it is way, way, way longer, to the extent that the paranoid plot that's entrapped our man who isn't real is more recursive than the ubiquitous mirror shots Fassbinder's constructed whole swathes of his movie out of and circles and circles and fucking circles more than his camera.  (That said, the mirror shots and elegantly mobile camera are cool.)

B

Are you implying the Matrix gets less than a B?

No.  Only that The Matrix is dumb.  Although in fairness to the Wachowskis, iirc their original concept was that humans weren't going to be batteries, but rather a distributed computing system for the machines, which does make sense.

Interestingly, the entire premise of Welt am Draht is the same as the apparent but not actual twist of The Matrix Reloaded.

If it were an hour shorter (it's three and a half), or had material for all 3.5 hours, it could've been anywhere from a B+ to an A+.  More's the pity.

The Matrix itself (the first one) is obviously an important and excellent motion picture.  I'd go so far as to say that if you disaggregate Revolutions from Reloaded, Reloaded is a great film--because it's technically Revolutions that really ruins everything.  If I were writing a review right after Reloaded came out, it'd have definitely earned an A to an A+.  Even that goofy scene with the Architect is kind of fun for its sheer obtuseness.

Unfortunately, in retrospect, it turns out it's kind of action trash... but at least it was legitimately entertaining action trash.  Revolutions, with its endless scenes of an endlessly boring battle for Zion, would get like a C+ at best--and only on the visual strength of its set-pieces within the Matrix itself.

My heaven would look a lot like that movie. 

Oh, it had sweet production design to be sure.

[Syt]

World on a Wire (1973).  Like the Matrix, except more cerebral, less stupid, shot on 16mm for German TV, and vastly more 1970s in every way.  But--most importantly--it is way, way, way longer, to the extent that the paranoid plot that's entrapped our man who isn't real is more recursive than the ubiquitous mirror shots Fassbinder's constructed whole swathes of his movie out of and circles and circles and fucking circles more than his camera.  (That said, the mirror shots and elegantly mobile camera are cool.)

B

It's a semi-forgotten classic. Haven't seen it in ages (they had a re-run on TV in the 90s, I think).

You might also be interested in Das Millionenspiel, a pre-cursor to Running Man (the Stephen King novel, not the Arnie movie which is only very loosely based on the book).

[Ideologue]

Sounds pretty sweet.  (And 40% as long! )

[Eddie Teach]

There's a Sin City sequel on the way. 

[Ideologue]

There's a Sin City sequel on the way. 

Yeah, it was supposed to come out like last year.  They've been dragging their heels.