TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Slow West

Took another trip to Jewish Center to see this Fassbender flick. I enjoyed it though I've also not ever been a big western person (shock!) so I don't know much on whether or not it was a subpar step into the genre.

I've been hearing good things, I'll be checking it out soon.

[Razgovory]

Paint your wagon (1969). A three-hour comedic western musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Possibly one of the biggest mismatches between movie tone and starring talent of all time. Marvin at least hams it up to 11, but Eastwood is positively lost. And there's nothing going on that matters.

Eastwood said this film inspired him to become a director; I suppose in order to avoid starring in something so awful again.

Most movies are bad because they are boring.  If it's bad and you laugh at it, it's not really that bad.  Some movies are bad for the things they stand for.  You way watch them and admit they are entertaining but stands for evil things like The Eternal Jew, or Forrest Gump.  Paint Your Wagon, is bad because it's inexplicable and genuinely painful to watch.  While film reviewing wits often carp about movies being painful, that is actually quite rare.  Paint your Wagon is like having someone dump a truck of dying clowns on your lawn.  It's bizarre and explicable and you will be haunted by the soft honking of wounded jesters.

[The Brain]

But don't you hate Terminator 2?  Have you ever considered how you came to be a bad person?

I was probably born with a heart full of badness.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Technically 1990, but I watched Total Recall for the first time in a ton of years the other night.  8/10, good stuff.

Funny, so did I.   (Got a little miffed at the science, though. )

Here is what I don't understand, though (spoilered in case someone here has actually not seen the original yet ):

[spoiler]Shortly after Quaid visits Rekall and has his true personality unlocked, there is the chase through the city with Richter and his goons.  During it, Richter's lieutenant says something about Cohaagen wanting Quaid alive, which Richter says he doesn't care about.  Richter then throws out that "we should have killed Quaid on Mars".

Near the end, after Quaid and Melina are captured by Cohaagen, the latter says this was all part of his plan to smoke out Kuato, and even shows Quaid a video from Houser explaining this.  He then sends Quaid and Melina back to have their minds rewritten.

So, if Quaid was actually Houser working undercover, why would Richter have wanted to kill him on Mars?  If Quaid was not Houser working undercover, how did Cohaagen have that video?

Furthermore, Kuato says that Cohaagen knows the machine in the Pyramid Mine will generate an atmosphere for Mars.  However, in the final scenes he seems to genuinely believe the machine will destroy the planet, as he keeps shouting that even after injured to the point where he wouldn't survive to profit from an airless Mars anymore.[/spoiler]

[Admiral Yi]

1-10 would be the first decade, so...

This.

[Eddie Teach]

Any period of 10 consecutive years can be a decade.

[Ideologue]

Technically 1990, but I watched Total Recall for the first time in a ton of years the other night.  8/10, good stuff.

Funny, so did I.   (Got a little miffed at the science, though. )

Here is what I don't understand, though (spoilered in case someone here has actually not seen the original yet ):

[spoiler]Shortly after Quaid visits Rekall and has his true personality unlocked, there is the chase through the city with Richter and his goons.  During it, Richter's lieutenant says something about Cohaagen wanting Quaid alive, which Richter says he doesn't care about.  Richter then throws out that "we should have killed Quaid on Mars".

Near the end, after Quaid and Melina are captured by Cohaagen, the latter says this was all part of his plan to smoke out Kuato, and even shows Quaid a video from Houser explaining this.  He then sends Quaid and Melina back to have their minds rewritten.

So, if Quaid was actually Houser working undercover, why would Richter have wanted to kill him on Mars?  If Quaid was not Houser working undercover, how did Cohaagen have that video?

Furthermore, Kuato says that Cohaagen knows the machine in the Pyramid Mine will generate an atmosphere for Mars.  However, in the final scenes he seems to genuinely believe the machine will destroy the planet, as he keeps shouting that even after injured to the point where he wouldn't survive to profit from an airless Mars anymore.[/spoiler]

Well, for a memory implant, it doesn't have that many inconsistencies.

Since I saw it, I was thinking what a wreck the remake was, but there was some room for improvement.  If somehow they'd kept Arnold's face off the screen until the metafictional aspect kicked in--possibly by starting it in a POV shot, already at Rekall, and pushing back the hyperviolence till (a little) later--the sudden reveal that the protagonist--i.e., the memory implantee's stand-in--was Arnold Schwarzenegger would've been too brilliant to bear.  Hell, Verhoeven probably thought of this, but got overruled.

[Josephus]

I consider the 80s to be around 84-93....or the best years of my life 

[Valmy]

The 80s ended on 9 November 1989

[The Minsky Moment]

Blow Out (1981).  If a man can have only one masterpiece, then I don't think Blow Out is De Palma's masterpiece.  But it's still as essentially perfect as anything he ever did.  (My girlfriend dislikes it, and between this and Dressed to Kill thinks BDP is sick. )  10/10

Remake Blow Up with John Travolta but sans Herbie Hancock.

Poor tradeoff.

[Queequeg]

Blow Out (1981).  If a man can have only one masterpiece, then I don't think Blow Out is De Palma's masterpiece.  But it's still as essentially perfect as anything he ever did.  (My girlfriend dislikes it, and between this and Dressed to Kill thinks BDP is sick. )  10/10

Remake Blow Up with John Travolta but sans Herbie Hancock.

Poor tradeoff.

I don't really think that's fair.  They aren't really about the same thing at all.  Beyond the initial inspiration, Blow Out is its own weird, weird animal.

[Queequeg]

Also when used properly Travolta is wonderful.

[Eddie Teach]

Other than Pulp Fiction, can't think of anything I've liked him in.

[Queequeg]

Other than Pulp Fiction, can't think of anything I've liked him in.

Saturday Night Fever is one of my favorite movies. 

[Tonitrus]

Technically 1990, but I watched Total Recall for the first time in a ton of years the other night.  8/10, good stuff.

Funny, so did I.   (Got a little miffed at the science, though. )

Here is what I don't understand, though (spoilered in case someone here has actually not seen the original yet ):

[spoiler]Shortly after Quaid visits Rekall and has his true personality unlocked, there is the chase through the city with Richter and his goons.  During it, Richter's lieutenant says something about Cohaagen wanting Quaid alive, which Richter says he doesn't care about.  Richter then throws out that "we should have killed Quaid on Mars".

Near the end, after Quaid and Melina are captured by Cohaagen, the latter says this was all part of his plan to smoke out Kuato, and even shows Quaid a video from Houser explaining this.  He then sends Quaid and Melina back to have their minds rewritten.

So, if Quaid was actually Houser working undercover, why would Richter have wanted to kill him on Mars?  If Quaid was not Houser working undercover, how did Cohaagen have that video?

Furthermore, Kuato says that Cohaagen knows the machine in the Pyramid Mine will generate an atmosphere for Mars.  However, in the final scenes he seems to genuinely believe the machine will destroy the planet, as he keeps shouting that even after injured to the point where he wouldn't survive to profit from an airless Mars anymore.[/spoiler]

Richter pretty much just wanted him dead for being shacked up with his girlfriend (and could there possibly a HOTTer Sharon Stone than there is in her spandex workout clothes from this film?). 

I thought they did a pretty good job in the whole film of keeping you guessing who was real, Quaid or Houser, and which one had the legitimate motivations.  And even the very end makes you wonder if the whole thing was a memory implant.