TV/Movies Megathread

[celedhring]

It's really bumming me out how little respect Jack Arnold's filmography's gotten, that only something like 70% of his 1950s output is available in any fashion, and only about half available in any easily obtainable format.  Sure, Criterion will make sure every last little piece of crap by any Euroloser with a camera gets a pristine blu-ray release, but an American contract director who made good movies that people would probably actually enjoy?  Fuck that.  It's not pretentious enough.

He has... one? two? Movies that are actually good. Thrown in Creature of Black Lagoon for its cult status, and that's it.

But Incredible Shrinking Man deserves Criterion treatment, yeah.

[Liep]

Godzilla was horrible, Chef was food porn extraordinaire with elements of an above average romcom.

[Syt]

Pacific Rim. While the story is still mediocre and clichéed, the effects and fight scenes are still all kinds of amazing. No shaky cam or crazy zooms, so that you can follow the action at all times, and even though it's CGI porn it has a lot of heft and weight to it.

[Ideologue]

Godzilla whipped Pacific Rim's ass, and Godzilla was a significantly flawed motion picture.

[Ideologue]

It's really bumming me out how little respect Jack Arnold's filmography's gotten, that only something like 70% of his 1950s output is available in any fashion, and only about half available in any easily obtainable format.  Sure, Criterion will make sure every last little piece of crap by any Euroloser with a camera gets a pristine blu-ray release, but an American contract director who made good movies that people would probably actually enjoy?  Fuck that.  It's not pretentious enough.

He has... one? two? Movies that are actually good. Thrown in Creature of Black Lagoon for its cult status, and that's it.

But Incredible Shrinking Man deserves Criterion treatment, yeah.

Well, personally, I think It Came From Another World, The Glass Web, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are all As.  (I know good and well Revenge of the Creature is not.   I'll have to see about Tarantula, and it's been many, many moons since I saw The Incredible Shrinking Man, so I hardly remember it, though it enjoys the highest latterday reputation of his works.)

I'm also getting No Name on the Bullet from Amazon tomorrow, which sounds like a pretty bitchin' Western.  I wanted to watch his other two, Red Sundown and Man in the Shadow (it has Orson Welles!) but no dice.

[Savonarola]

Hands Off the Loot (1954).  Not really a heist movie, though the hostage plot informs Rififi a year later; though a heist is involved, it happens before the story begins, and is never shown.  Somewhat falsely advertised in the literature, then.  It's just a very cold French film noir, not great, not bad.  B

Bob le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) is another 50s French heist movie worth seeing.  It's even slyly referenced in Godard's "Breathless" (À bout de souffle).

[Ideologue]

Indeed, Melville.  It arrived a few days ago.   Hopefully this disc won't be broken like Le Samourai.

I thought I was supposed to be getting Night of the Hunter though.  I was really looking forward to seeing it this weekend.

[Malthus]

Indeed, Melville.  It arrived a few days ago.   Hopefully this disc won't be broken like Le Samourai.

I thought I was supposed to be getting Night of the Hunter though.  I was really looking forward to seeing it this weekend.

Heh, I was thinking of watching Night of the Hunter the other day, until my wife remined me that the kid was still up and might see part of it, should he wander by.

Having a nearly 9 year old kid is a trifle awkward on movie watching. They are old enough to be interested in mystery and horror movies you might like, yet young enough to be traumatized by watching them: "Oh, can't play Night of the Hunter - too scary - certainly not The Changeling - and here's a copy of Come and See - no, can't play that ... " 

[mongers]

There's a new documentary about recent research on Stone Henge that looks pretty interesting

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-lies-beneath-Stonehenge-180952437/?all&no-ist

Interesting, a lot of good tech.archeology going on at the moment, but I can't help but think the guy is looking in the wrong direct, turn around 180 degrees and look at the river.

For what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that the river itself is the important thing/the focus in the Stonehenge landscape. Because of the characteristics of the catchment area, it's essential a large sponge made of chalk, year in year out, it gives a nice evened out flow of good water.*  I'm no expert in these matters, but because of all the gravel beds in the river, to some extent it's self-cleaning.

Incidentally, the one big miss in the Durrington wall excavation they mention, is when they dug and surveyed the river banks and old beds, they were expecting to find bones, given as offerings or 'buried'/consigned to the river. Not sure of their reasoning, perhaps the noted tendency later to make votive offerings to bodies of water. But they found not at all, my hunch is if you had an important, almost mystical good source of water, like the river provides, would neolithic people really be willing to 'pollute' it, even if they didn't know anything about disease?

What also comes about because of the nature of the river, is very rich fish and wild fowl populations, if the river is left to its own devices ie not managed.
There's no reason to assume there wasn't an abundance of protein rich fish and birds to catch way back then. 

And the survey of old hand axes dredged from the river, the harbour and ancient rivers bed out in the Solent, both for the Avon and the nearby Test, show that perhaps from around 1.5million years ago, when Southern England has been habitable, after the glaciers have retreated, people have tended to return to this area in greater numbers than elsewhere in Britain. To my mind that suggests a river Nile type effect, where the natural abundance/utility of a river over long years, allows early and significant 'progress' to more organized living, which can tend to produce these notable monuments.


* I'd estimate because of the all the extra water we've had last winter/spring, there's around an extra .2-.3 of a cubic kilometer of water to come down it over recent months and the next few into winter.

[celedhring]

It's really bumming me out how little respect Jack Arnold's filmography's gotten, that only something like 70% of his 1950s output is available in any fashion, and only about half available in any easily obtainable format.  Sure, Criterion will make sure every last little piece of crap by any Euroloser with a camera gets a pristine blu-ray release, but an American contract director who made good movies that people would probably actually enjoy?  Fuck that.  It's not pretentious enough.

He has... one? two? Movies that are actually good. Thrown in Creature of Black Lagoon for its cult status, and that's it.

But Incredible Shrinking Man deserves Criterion treatment, yeah.

Well, personally, I think It Came From Another World, The Glass Web, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are all As.  (I know good and well Revenge of the Creature is not.   I'll have to see about Tarantula, and it's been many, many moons since I saw The Incredible Shrinking Man, so I hardly remember it, though it enjoys the highest latterday reputation of his works.)

I'm also getting No Name on the Bullet from Amazon tomorrow, which sounds like a pretty bitchin' Western.  I wanted to watch his other two, Red Sundown and Man in the Shadow (it has Orson Welles!) but no dice.

Let's just say we disagree in his appraisal. It Came From Outer Space is the only other film of his (that I have seen) besides Shrinking Man that I strongly rate. Man in the Shadow is a decent film, yeah, but nothing extraordinary. Tarantula and Glass Web are just 50s pulp trash and I haven't seen No Name in the Bullet.

Now, his two best films are adaptations from great sci-fi novelists, which means to me that he was able to rise to the material - but most of the time he worked with disposable scripts.

[Duque de Bragança]

Indeed, Melville.  It arrived a few days ago.   Hopefully this disc won't be broken like Le Samourai.

The first French blu-ray edition of Le Samouraï was also infamously broken as the image looked like an aquarelle. That's not how Melville's noir et blanc en couleur is supposed to look. 

[CountDeMoney]

I had started watching Pacific Rim but my bowels liquified due to the Ebola it induced, and I had to stop watching it.

[Ideologue]

Indeed, Melville.  It arrived a few days ago.   Hopefully this disc won't be broken like Le Samourai.

The first French blu-ray edition of Le Samouraï was also infamously broken as the image looked like an aquarelle. That's not how Melville's noir et blanc en couleur is supposed to look. 

It's also not supposed to freeze up and skip five minutes ahead every so often.  Well, it is French, maybe it is.

[Ideologue]

It's really bumming me out how little respect Jack Arnold's filmography's gotten, that only something like 70% of his 1950s output is available in any fashion, and only about half available in any easily obtainable format.  Sure, Criterion will make sure every last little piece of crap by any Euroloser with a camera gets a pristine blu-ray release, but an American contract director who made good movies that people would probably actually enjoy?  Fuck that.  It's not pretentious enough.

He has... one? two? Movies that are actually good. Thrown in Creature of Black Lagoon for its cult status, and that's it.

But Incredible Shrinking Man deserves Criterion treatment, yeah.

Well, personally, I think It Came From Another World, The Glass Web, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are all As.  (I know good and well Revenge of the Creature is not.   I'll have to see about Tarantula, and it's been many, many moons since I saw The Incredible Shrinking Man, so I hardly remember it, though it enjoys the highest latterday reputation of his works.)

I'm also getting No Name on the Bullet from Amazon tomorrow, which sounds like a pretty bitchin' Western.  I wanted to watch his other two, Red Sundown and Man in the Shadow (it has Orson Welles!) but no dice.

Let's just say we disagree in his appraisal. It Came From Outer Space is the only other film of his (that I have seen) besides Shrinking Man that I strongly rate. Man in the Shadow is a decent film, yeah, but nothing extraordinary. Tarantula and Glass Web are just 50s pulp trash and I haven't seen No Name in the Bullet.

Hell, I'm surprised you've seen those.  Though The Glass Web is most excellent--and I hope it does get a Criterion release, if only because that's the likeliest method it'll ever get any release.   Maybe an Eclipse set for Arnold's non-science fiction.

And fwiw, The Mouse That Roared is evidently pretty well-regarded.

Now, his two best films are adaptations from great sci-fi novelists, which means to me that he was able to rise to the material - but most of the time he worked with disposable scripts.

Perhaps, but the best part of It, anyway, is the realization.  Now, granted, Arnold was just as against showing the aliens as Bradbury was (clearly he just wanted to please the famous person, insofar as this is obviously a mistake).  But he did do a good job depicting them once Universal forced him to.

[Habbaku]

Godzilla whipped Pacific Rim's ass, and Godzilla was a significantly flawed motion picture.

Not even close.  At least Pacific Rim delivered on its main premise to the audience. Godzilla seemed to revel in laughing as it cut away from the fights.