TV/Movies Megathread

[garbon]

I don't recall liking Four Weddings and a Funeral but perhaps I was in the wrong head space at the time.

The two big takeaways from that movie for me were:

1. Rowan Atkinson's inept Anglican Priest

2. A strong desire to murder Hugh Grant's character.

I'll have to give it another try. I have a copy of it somewhere that I was given as a gift.

[Malthus]

From what I saw of Ottawa, they too have a huge racoon problem.
There's only a few of them here, and they're a real pest.

There is a family of six (mom and five little ones) living under my neighbour's deck. We see them frolicking in her back yard every evening. They look very well fed. 

The worst though is when they fight in mating season. You would not believe an animal that size could produce screams that loud. 

[Valmy]

Just starting to. I saw the first one ever in Toronto maybe five years ago. Apparently, what with global warming and all, their range has just extended this far north.

I was all "WTF is THAT!" Looked like a GIGANTIC rat. 

The best part is when a neighborhood dog attacks one and it plays dead.  The dog will then proceed to sit beside it and bark for hours.

[FunkMonk]

"Love, Actually" needed to change the name to "Wish Every Character Dies a Stupid Death Drowning In Their Own Vomit, Actually"

Fucking romantic comedies.  THATS NOT HOW THE REAL WORLD WORKS

Bill Nighy's character was perfect and saved that film. Without him it would have been just another average romantic comedy.

[CountDeMoney]

Do you also have Possums?  Those dudes are everywhere as well.

Oh hell yeah, see quite a lot of their roadkill.  Poor groundhogs, too.  Chunky fuckers just arent fast enough.

Driving 100 miles a day, I've noticed one thing about small mammal roadkill:  unless they're completely flattened in the road, they all have this weirdly peaceful fetal position thing going on.  Squirrels, chipmunks, possums, it doesn't matter.  If they're rolled up under the wheelwell at 50 mph and ejected to the side of the road, they seem to land into a graceful, curled slumber.

[Ideologue]

A Hard Day's Night and Safety Last! came today.   UPS actually just left it instead of fucking with me, for once.

[Savonarola]

Les Diaboliques was actually really great, except for when they [spoiler]telegraphed the twist so hard they might as well have just narrated it out beforehand, even if you hadn't already deduced it.[/spoiler]

B+

Should've given Wages a (high) B, but I was feeling overgenerous due to splitting the movie into two parts and watching the really neat last hour on its own.

[spoiler]Do we really need spoiler tags on 60 year old movies?[/spoiler]

I liked how the director changed the mood so quickly at the climax in Les Diaboliques.  I thought that was a clever take on catharsis; where the audience experiences release but (different from Aristotle's "Tragedy") the characters do not.

[Savonarola]

Gone with the Wind (1939)

The one thing that struck me this time was how many of the films major scenes take place on staircases.  Rhett is introduced, Melanie discusses Scarlett flirting with her brother, war is declared, and Charles proposes to Scarlett on the staircase of Twelve Oaks.  Scarlett makes yet another hail Mary declaration of love to Ashley, and smacks Butterfly McQueen on the staircase at her aunt's home in Atlanta.  The lights go down on the ravishing scene, Scarlett falls down the stairs and she confronts Rhett before he leaves at their home in Atlanta.  It's no wonder the Confederates dragged out the war as long as they did; they had all that aerobic exercise from climbing stairs.

It's interesting that the the two film roles Vivien Leigh is best remembered for are both southerners; Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Dubois.

[Valmy]

It says so much about the changing values between the 30s and the 50s.  In the 50s you couldn't even show that married couples slept in the same bed.  In the 30s they had rape scenes.

[Norgy]

The 50s had more cars in garages and chickens in pots.

[Ideologue]

It says so much about the changing values between the 30s and the 50s.  In the 50s you couldn't even show that married couples slept in the same bed.  In the 30s they had rape scenes.

It puts paid the idea that values can't regress, doesn't it?

Do we really need spoiler tags on 60 year old movies?

Sure.  When I was writing up Design For Living, I devoted some space to the idea that the very thing every single review points out that the movie is "about" is a total spoiler for the last five minutes of the film.  It's like how Planet of the Apes is about it being Earth all along--the journey is swallowed by the destination.  (Of course, PotA also had apes.  Without a threesome, DFL is just another romantic comedy.)

But like DFL, Les Diaboliques is kind of obscure.  I certainly didn't know it ended before I watched it.  I knew twenty minutes before it ended, but that's my primary problem.

I liked how the director changed the mood so quickly at the climax in Les Diaboliques.  I thought that was a clever take on catharsis; where the audience experiences release but (different from Aristotle's "Tragedy") the characters do not.

Oh, I actually love the structure.  [spoiler]The bad guys, essentially, win.  Also, Nicole (or the blonde, whatever her name was) was a bad guy all along![/spoiler]  Don't play that hand too early, and it's an even better film; tighten it up a bit more so you get out twenty minutes earlier, before the audience has had a chance to guess (as I did even before it was confirmed), and you've got a really great movie.

At least it didn't pull a Vertigo.

[garbon]

It puts paid the idea that values can't regress, doesn't it?

Has that ever been in question? Well maybe Sheilbh re: gay marriage.

[viper37]

[spoiler]Do we really need spoiler tags on 60 year old movies?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]No, you're the only ones on this forum remotely interested by pre-color&pre-speech cinema  [/spoiler]

[garbon]

I've only seen the rough Sharon Stone movie.

[Syt]

Trailer for Space Station 76: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18SJMvNrgDM

I like the retro 70s sci-fi look, but other than that it looks a bit boring.