TV/Movies Megathread

[Habbaku]

The Fargo TV series is wonderful. 

[Ideologue]

Wages of Fear (1953).  Unlikeable guys drive delicate explosives up the side of a Goddamned mountain to blow out a well fire at a South American oil derrick.  The first hour features no nitro burning funny car action at all, and insofar as it builds up the characters, actually incurs a debit upon the film's account; the second forty minutes are good but suffer from the first hour.  However, the climactic fifty minutes are really great.  Then the last ten minutes kind of fuck it up, but I appreciated the contempt for his characters that Clouzot gussies up in tragedy.

B+

[Ideologue]

Transformers: Age of Extinction. Aggressively stupid and a Chicom co-production. Not even the Dinobots can save it.

Watched it tonight.  A movie I would've liked a lot more if they had split it into two parts.  Way, way too long.

[garbon]

Transformers: Age of Extinction. Aggressively stupid and a Chicom co-production. Not even the Dinobots can save it.

Watched it tonight.  A movie I would've liked a lot more if they had split it into two parts.  Way, way too long.

So if there was anyone still on the fence about your taste/lack thereof.

[Ideologue]

It has a certain fun factor, despite lacking the rudiments of a structured story and being, seriously, way too long.

[Savonarola]

Wages of Fear (1953).  Unlikeable guys drive delicate explosives up the side of a Goddamned mountain to blow out a well fire at a South American oil derrick.  The first hour features no nitro burning funny car action at all, and insofar as it builds up the characters, actually incurs a debit upon the film's account; the second forty minutes are good but suffer from the first hour.  However, the climactic fifty minutes are really great.  Then the last ten minutes kind of fuck it up, but I appreciated the contempt for his characters that Clouzot gussies up in tragedy.

B+

You might like Diabolique also by the same director.  It's more in the vein of Hitchcock than "Wages of Fear."

Howard Hawks's "Only Angels Have Wings" has a similar premise to "Wages of Fear" with explosives going over the mountain in South American; only by plane in this film rather than by truck.  If you like Hawks's films it's a must see.

[Savonarola]

Lazybones (1925)

Buck Jones (mostly known for his westerns) plays the laziest man in his small town in this Frank Borzage film adapted from a play by the same name.  One day as he's fishing he runs across Zasu Pitts (who was the model for Olive Oyle) trying to drown herself in the river.  He saves her.  She has a young daughter and a dead husband her domineering mother doesn't know about.  Buck offers to keep her daughter for a few days until she straightens things out with her mother.  Her mother, when she finds out, threatens to send the child to an institution if Zasu tells anyone.  So Zasu marries a banker, and Buck raises the girl on his own.

Several years later Zasu wastes away and reveals at her death to her daughter that she's her mother.

Seventeen years later America enters the First World War and Buck is sent to the trenches.  He falls asleep, the Germans overrun his trench and he managed to capture twenty Germans by himself.  Buck returns home a hero and discovers his adopted daughter is now a nubile adolescent.  He plans to court her, but, fortunately, the movie doesn't turn into "Grover Cleveland After Dark" () as the girl prefers a boy her own age.

The film has a lot of narrative threads that don't seem to go anywhere.  The rivalry between the banker and Buck is obvious but never goes anywhere.  Buck's first love (Zasu's sister) learns of Buck's self sacrifice for her sister's sake, but that's never developed either.  It is, however, gorgeously shot with a lot of natural lighting and beautiful shots of nature.

[Sheilbh]

Finally started watching True Detective. I'm enjoying it a lot. Is there any better gothic than the Southern Gothic?

[Liep]

Fargo series. Delightful. Best I've ever seen of Billy Bob.

[Malthus]

Finally started watching True Detective. I'm enjoying it a lot. Is there any better gothic than the Southern Gothic?

If you look closely in the last episode, you can see an invitation to Lettow's wedding pinned to the fridge in the perp's kitchen ... 

[crazy canuck]

Finally started watching True Detective. I'm enjoying it a lot. Is there any better gothic than the Southern Gothic?

If you look closely in the last episode, you can see an invitation to Lettow's wedding pinned to the fridge in the perp's kitchen ... 

Spoiler 

[Malthus]

Finally started watching True Detective. I'm enjoying it a lot. Is there any better gothic than the Southern Gothic?

If you look closely in the last episode, you can see an invitation to Lettow's wedding pinned to the fridge in the perp's kitchen ... 

Spoiler 

Everyone knows about Lettow getting married already. 

[Ideologue]

Finally started watching True Detective. I'm enjoying it a lot. Is there any better gothic than the Southern Gothic?

Is that a fancy word for hicksploitation?

[Ideologue]

Wages of Fear (1953).  Unlikeable guys drive delicate explosives up the side of a Goddamned mountain to blow out a well fire at a South American oil derrick.  The first hour features no nitro burning funny car action at all, and insofar as it builds up the characters, actually incurs a debit upon the film's account; the second forty minutes are good but suffer from the first hour.  However, the climactic fifty minutes are really great.  Then the last ten minutes kind of fuck it up, but I appreciated the contempt for his characters that Clouzot gussies up in tragedy.

B+

You might like Diabolique also by the same director.  It's more in the vein of Hitchcock than "Wages of Fear."

Howard Hawks's "Only Angels Have Wings" has a similar premise to "Wages of Fear" with explosives going over the mountain in South American; only by plane in this film rather than by truck.  If you like Hawks's films it's a must see.

I do like Howard Hawks.

Also, if I didn't have to clear four hours from my schedule for Michael Bay, I would've gone directly into Diabolique.   I'm hoping to get to it tonight or in the next week.

[Sheilbh]

Is that a fancy word for hicksploitation?

Nah. The faded aristocracy or grotesque politicians/hypocritical preachers are just as good.

Woman in Black. Decent, but no better.