TV/Movies Megathread

[Queequeg]

I thought his performance in Dawn was really interesting.  He could have gone in a Fifth Element arch-camp direction, but he's really just a sad, terrified man who is hanging on by a thread. 

[The Larch]

Love "Bram Stoker's Dracula". Amazing soundtrack as well.

[CountDeMoney]

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).  Enormous wacky fun.  B+, really, really close to an A, but it's perhaps a touch too long and Christ on His cross does one pity poor miscast Keanu, barely done with his bogus journey and in no state to play anything straight and seem to ever mean it.  Oldman and Hopkins are fantastic, though.

Fright Night (1985).  When I first heard about Fright Night, the expectation from the premise was that it would be a horror-comedy.  Instead, it's a pretty great horror-horror movie, often legitimately scary.  (Not many vampire movies you can say that about, in my experience.)  A bit of a tongue-in-cheek tone rises up from time to time, but Sarandon is unchained.  Also 10,000% sexier than every Twilight movie put together, if you're into DS stuff, anyway.  A

I approve of these ratings, although for sentimental reasons I give Bram Stoker's Dracula an even A, despite the presence of Bill and Ted's Excellent Point Break, which while truly awful was at the time was still being overshadowed by the long pall cast by Kevin Costner in Robin Hood the year before, but you weren't around then to personally witness that affront to humanity in real time.

Fright Night is just great fun.  The disco scene, one of the few times large black bouncers would ever be outmuscled.  LEON

And who knew Marcy D'Arcy was even more fuckable earlier in her career than she was in MwC?

[Admiral Yi]

I've caught some more bits and pieces of American Hustle and I think the B- was a good grade.

[Queequeg]

I think a full grade of that is JLaw's cleavage. 

[Syt]

Apparently Cruise and the M:I5 crew are still in Vienna. It seems a terrorist attack on the annual ball at the Opera is major plot point. For which they detonated a car on Ringstraße at 3 am this morning according to the news. If Vienna features prominently in the movie I might actually watch it. Though I haven't watched parts 2 - 4 (I thought the first part was ok, and it was the last Tom Cruise movie I watched before Edge of Tomorrow, not counting Tropic Thunder).

The Austrian film studios are pissed, though, that the state supports the movie with half a million Euros, saying that instead of investing in Hollywood blockbusters, the money should go to struggling local arthouse productions, regardless of the possible positive effect on tourism.

[celedhring]

Apparently Cruise and the M:I5 crew are still in Vienna. It seems a terrorist attack on the annual ball at the Opera is major plot point. For which they detonated a car on Ringstraße at 3 am this morning according to the news. If Vienna features prominently in the movie I might actually watch it. Though I haven't watched parts 2 - 4 (I thought the first part was ok, and it was the last Tom Cruise movie I watched before Edge of Tomorrow, not counting Tropic Thunder).

The Austrian film studios are pissed, though, that the state supports the movie with half a million Euros, saying that instead of investing in Hollywood blockbusters, the money should go to struggling local arthouse productions, regardless of the possible positive effect on tourism.

It's more than just the effect on tourism. Foreign productions hire a lot of local film people. Actually a lot of local Spanish companies' "regular" business is servicing foreign productions, rather than doing their own.

[Eddie Teach]

Season Finale of Tyrant.

[spoiler]Kind of a let-down. Seems very unlikely at this point that Barry can find a way to become the titular tyrant(barring a flagrant deus ex machina, which isn't something to hope for). Watching a ruler get corrupted would be more interesting than one who took power already corrupt.[/spoiler]

[Syt]

It's more than just the effect on tourism. Foreign productions hire a lot of local film people. Actually a lot of local Spanish companies' "regular" business is servicing foreign productions, rather than doing their own.

Oh yeah, definitely. The estimate is that the film team leaves $4,000,000 in the city in fees, rents etc. And some Austrian film peeps get a nice item for their resume. I'm guessing it's mostly folks moaning about not getting any slice of the cake. It's the Austrian thing to do.

[Viking]

Apparently Cruise and the M:I5 crew are still in Vienna. It seems a terrorist attack on the annual ball at the Opera is major plot point. For which they detonated a car on Ringstraße at 3 am this morning according to the news. If Vienna features prominently in the movie I might actually watch it. Though I haven't watched parts 2 - 4 (I thought the first part was ok, and it was the last Tom Cruise movie I watched before Edge of Tomorrow, not counting Tropic Thunder).

The Austrian film studios are pissed, though, that the state supports the movie with half a million Euros, saying that instead of investing in Hollywood blockbusters, the money should go to struggling local arthouse productions, regardless of the possible positive effect on tourism.

The plurality of the Icelandic film industry today works on International projects. Batman Begins, Letters from Iwo Jima, Prometheus, Thor; The Dark World, Stillers Walter Mitty, KhAAAAAn: Into Darkness, Oblivion, Noah, Interstellar (Nolan two-peet) and apparently Star War Episode VII (I'm guessing scene in stark volcanic terrain on stark volcanic planet). In addition to Game of Thrones. It keeps a whole bunch of people working.

The benefit to Iceland's meager own film production is that there now exists a large, competent and skilled film infrastructure on all levels.

The whole thing started in the 1980's when the Ron Perlman epic  Quest for Fire was in production. It was supposed to be the first major foreign film to shoot in iceland. The government saw this as a quick cash grab and that eventually caused the film to go to Canada for it's location shooting. The Film Industry (three guys in a shed) was livid. So filming in iceland became virtually tax free for foreign productions.

From about 2000 it started with car commercials (where else can you find routinely winding abandoned roads in scenic locations?) and music videos. Björk actually did a lot of good here, shooting some of her videos at home bringing crew from abroad with her making the industry aware of many of the locations. The DP in the Brendan Frasier epic Journey to the Center of the Earth (which is actually set in iceland) was the director for many of the AGOT episodes and his experience filming in iceland, he insisted on going to iceland for the scenes beyond the wall. They loved filming there (24 hrs sunlight so the actors can be worked for 16 hrs a day? sweet) so much that Iceland is also the famously fertile Vale of Arryn.

Alice DJ - Back in my Life actually shows off many of the good locations in south iceland.

The Beach in Letters from Iwo Jima is actualy a beach in iceland. In fact any time you see a black beach or a large wild treeless landscape outside of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings that isn't specifically somewhere real it is almost certainly shot in iceland. 

Basically the tax rebate was vital to get the film industry to become aware of the locations. Once they were and started using them an infrastructure to support these projects was established and maintained. I don't want to hazard a guess for how big a proportion of the Icelandic film industry is involved in it, but I merely observe that there are one or two large hollywood film projects per year every year in addition to AGOT.

Vienna is a location, a place. Iceland, however seems to be fantasy land and volcano land.

[Syt]

Yeah - I think the few Oscars recently made Austrians think their movie industry is internationally relevant (when the prizes, like by Haneke or Waltz were won for international productions). Big productions coming here is the exception, not the norm.

But yeah, Vienna is not as "free form" a backdrop as Iceland or New Zealand would be. And I think the days when it could stand in for Moscow (re-watching Eastwood's Firefox is a bit bizarre for me these days) are over.

[celedhring]

The benefit to Iceland's meager own film production is that there now exists a large, competent and skilled film infrastructure on all levels.

Yeah, that's critical for a film industry. The same's happened in Spain. All the influx of foreign productions benefiting from tax rebates, etc... enables the existence of a highly skilled workforce that can trust in finding continual employment. Then we can go and use this people and infrastructure in our own productions.

[Norgy]

I approve of these ratings, although for sentimental reasons I give Bram Stoker's Dracula an even A, despite the presence of Bill and Ted's Excellent Point Break, which while truly awful was at the time was still being overshadowed by the long pall cast by Kevin Costner in Robin Hood the year before, but you weren't around then to personally witness that affront to humanity in real time.

It feels like a thousand years since I saw Dracula in the cinema. One of things I remember most vividly was the start with Tom Waits in prison, and the more sensual scenes when Bill Ted has been bitten. At the time, I thought Bram Stoker's Dracula was a masterpiece. Impressionable young mind and all. I've watched it again a couple of times, and it is still a good movie.

I really want to see Linklater's "Boyhood", so I am trying to find tickets for it.

[Syt]

Guns of Navarone is on TV.

[Liep]

BoJack Horseman on Netflix. It's funnier than I expected from the initial reviews and Will Arnett is perfect as a drunken horse.