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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 7, 2024 21:16:14 GMT
I didn't get to see the shorts this year, and they're not playing near me anymore. Why don't they make these programs available to rent or stream at home? It's so odd. People would definitely watch them if they'd make them available. I'm gonna try to watch as many of these as I can and piece them together, but they aren't all available or are only available on services that I can't or don't get. Also you miss out on the 'highly commended' entries (why they don't just call them honorable mentions?), and those are often better than the ones that actually were nominated. There were two "highly commended" animated shorts, one of which I really liked – Wild Summon, about the life cycle of salmon. The salmon are depicted as small humans, which I initially found off-putting, but when they are fished and have their heads swiftly chopped off, the effect was all the more powerful for it. Good to know about the highly commended one (although I feel personally attacked for having an occasional bagel with lox now... this short feels a bit like an anti-semitic hate crime). Do you remember the name of the other one?
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Mar 7, 2024 21:41:17 GMT
There were two "highly commended" animated shorts, one of which I really liked – Wild Summon, about the life cycle of salmon. The salmon are depicted as small humans, which I initially found off-putting, but when they are fished and have their heads swiftly chopped off, the effect was all the more powerful for it. Good to know about the highly commended one (although I feel personally attacked for having an occasional bagel with lox now... this short feels a bit like an anti-semitic hate crime). Do you remember the name of the other one? When I saw that scene I thought to myself "gee, thanks, how am I ever going to be able to eat salmon again"...
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 8, 2024 16:04:26 GMT
So Dune 2 just came out, and so what did I do? Did I go see it? No. Did I re-watch the previous installment. Nope. Did I re-watch David Lynch's wacko 1984 version? I did not. Instead I finally watched a documentary I'd been meaning to see for years called Jodorowsky's Dune. I'm sure a lot of people have seen this as it's a bit of a cult hit, but I never had and always had meant to.
The idea is pretty basic but still fascinating. Alejandro Jodorowsky made weird, cult films like El Topo and The Holy Mountain recounts his experiences developing a big budget sci-fi spectacle film of the popular novel that ultimately was cancelled. He's a very enigmatic character so it's very entertaining hearing about his plans for this crazy project is very entertaining (he started developing the script despite never having read the book), and you get talking heads from filmmakers like Richard Stanley Nicolas Wing-Dings Refn. But outside of Jodorowksy himself the film's best asset is the book that Jodorowsky kept that contained all of this great concept art. In the end it's sad to see the way it fell apart, but also a mild triumph to see how this movie became a huge influence on the course of film history despite the fact that it was never made. So many of the artists on his team ended up working on the big films even though they'd mostly never worked in film before. This was before Star Wars and Alien and so many of the story points of Star Wars resemble Dune, and the look of Jodorowsky's Dune was being designed by HR Giger who obviously has his fingerprints all over Alien.
There's no way of knowing if this would have been any good had it gone further. He'd hired Orson Welles and Salvador Dali, who were both basically lunatics at this point, and the ambition for the design and special effects were so lofty that it's almost impossible to imagine them fulfilling that ambition. 2001 had already been made, but space movies by and large were not sophisticated enough on a technical level to get these kinds of grand scale imagery on screen without looking silly. If it was made the way they intended it would have been massively expensive, and if it went further than it did, it likely would have had to make major compromises and cut back on production values. But this movie, and that big book of images, is a great document of a specific moment of artistic ambition.
It's one of a number of good troubled production documentaries, and like some of these other ones it's not especially well made. It uses fairly cheap animations and other techniques to illuminate the imagery of the proposed film, but the spirit of the excitement of what it could have been is fully felt. Other documentaries like Lost in La Mancha which chronicles Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote adjacent film following apart while very much IN production are equally fascinating. There's also The Death of Superman Lives which shows us the development process of a doomed Tim Burton Superman movie in the late 90s that never really made it beyond a phase where you could fully understand what the film was going to be, but highlights the finding of a big budget effects film through the process of collecting a bunch of artists and throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks when it's not sabotaged by a psychotic producer with way to much power. And then there's also Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau which is the only one of these that's about a movie that actually DID ultimately reach movie theaters, but in a completely different form than was intended by the filmmaker who actually started to make the thing in the first place. All of these movies offer insight into the frustrating way studios can operate, but this last one contains the craziest stories, including the odd character of writer/director Richard Stanley being fired off of his own movie in a far off land and instead of going home basically disappearing into the local Australian wild only to secretly re-emerge as an extra in monster makeup in the very movie he had lost control of. The only real issue with that doc is that you know there are just so many more crazy stories. It doesn't even mention David Thewlis, who was the lead of the movie, and Ron Perlman has said he didn't contribute to the documentary because he didn't feel comfortable sharing all of the wild stories he had because it would make people look bad. I'd recommend all of these if you have an interest in films production stories, but that one's the wildest of the bunch.
There are all sorts of other crazy filmmaker behind the scenes docs that are worth a mention (American Movie, Overnight, Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, Hearts of Darkness, Unspooled, Tools of Ignorance: The Making of The Battery (but fuck those guys....dont ask...), but these few that are about the big budget films that were never completed are kind of in their own sub-category and are very cool if the idea of the 'what could have been' movies appeals to you at all.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 8, 2024 17:45:05 GMT
So Dune 2 just came out, and so what did I do? Did I go see it? No. Did I re-watch the previous installment. Nope. Did I re-watch David Lynch's wacko 1984 version? I did not. Instead I finally watched a documentary I'd been meaning to see for years called Jodorowsky's Dune. I'm sure a lot of people have seen this as it's a bit of a cult hit, but I never had and always had meant to. The idea is pretty basic but still fascinating. Alejandro Jodorowsky made weird, cult films like El Topo and The Holy Mountain recounts his experiences developing a big budget sci-fi spectacle film of the popular novel that ultimately was cancelled. He's a very enigmatic character so it's very entertaining hearing about his plans for this crazy project is very entertaining (he started developing the script despite never having read the book), and you get talking heads from filmmakers like Richard Stanley Nicolas Wing-Dings Refn. But outside of Jodorowksy himself the film's best asset is the book that Jodorowsky kept that contained all of this great concept art. In the end it's sad to see the way it fell apart, but also a mild triumph to see how this movie became a huge influence on the course of film history despite the fact that it was never made. So many of the artists on his team ended up working on the big films even though they'd mostly never worked in film before. This was before Star Wars and Alien and so many of the story points of Star Wars resemble Dune, and the look of Jodorowsky's Dune was being designed by HR Giger who obviously has his fingerprints all over Alien.
There's no way of knowing if this would have been any good had it gone further. He'd hired Orson Welles and Salvador Dali, who were both basically lunatics at this point, and the ambition for the design and special effects were so lofty that it's almost impossible to imagine them fulfilling that ambition. 2001 had already been made, but space movies by and large were not sophisticated enough on a technical level to get these kinds of grand scale imagery on screen without looking silly. If it was made the way they intended it would have been massively expensive, and if it went further than it did, it likely would have had to make major compromises and cut back on production values. But this movie, and that big book of images, is a great document of a specific moment of artistic ambition. It's one of a number of good troubled production documentaries, and like some of these other ones it's not especially well made. It uses fairly cheap animations and other techniques to illuminate the imagery of the proposed film, but the spirit of the excitement of what it could have been is fully felt. Other documentaries like Lost in La Mancha which chronicles Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote adjacent film following apart while very much IN production are equally fascinating. There's also The Death of Superman Lives which shows us the development process of a doomed Tim Burton Superman movie in the late 90s that never really made it beyond a phase where you could fully understand what the film was going to be, but highlights the finding of a big budget effects film through the process of collecting a bunch of artists and throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks when it's not sabotaged by a psychotic producer with way to much power. And then there's also Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau which is the only one of these that's about a movie that actually DID ultimately reach movie theaters, but in a completely different form than was intended by the filmmaker who actually started to make the thing in the first place. All of these movies offer insight into the frustrating way studios can operate, but this last one contains the craziest stories, including the odd character of writer/director Richard Stanley being fired off of his own movie in a far off land and instead of going home basically disappearing into the local Australian wild only to secretly re-emerge as an extra in monster makeup in the very movie he had lost control of. The only real issue with that doc is that you know there are just so many more crazy stories. It doesn't even mention David Thewlis, who was the lead of the movie, and Ron Perlman has said he didn't contribute to the documentary because he didn't feel comfortable sharing all of the wild stories he had because it would make people look bad. I'd recommend all of these if you have an interest in films production stories, but that one's the wildest of the bunch. There are all sorts of other crazy filmmaker behind the scenes docs that are worth a mention (American Movie, Overnight, Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, Hearts of Darkness, Unspooled, Tools of Ignorance: The Making of The Battery (but fuck those guys....dont ask...), but these few that are about the big budget films that were never completed are kind of in their own sub-category and are very cool if the idea of the 'what could have been' movies appeals to you at all. This is definitely part of why the new Dune films feel underwhelming for me. So many of the concepts have been mined by other filmmakers that the original source ironically feels derivative now that it's arrived on the big screen. It's the same reason John Carter flopped a decade or so ago. Those stories are filled with fantastic ideas and visual concepts which have been by now done to death by Hollywood. But you're right, the stories behind making (or not making) these movies are always as (if not more) entertaining than the movies themselves. I read a couple books about 'Tales of Development Hell' (I believe that was the title) years ago that covered various failed attempts to get movies off the ground. I think my favorite story was one where the filmmaker of this sci-fi flick kept having the film rights bought by different companies, go into pre-production and eventually go into turnaround for years. He finally has a meeting with an exec, I think it was MGM because they were also making a Bond movie. So MGM now has the rights, and they have a meeting with this guy and tell him they definitely want to make this movie, but at the time they were in financial distress so they could only make two movies that year, Bond and his movie. They met on a Thursday and told him to come back Monday and they'd iron out the details. The next day, Cheaper by the Dozen became a sleeper hit for the studio. They told him at the meeting on Monday they had decided to greenlight Cheaper By The Dozen II instead of his film. Imagine pouring your essence into getting this incredible film made for years, only to be undone at the last minute by a shitty late-era Steve Martin film. Just devastating.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 8, 2024 19:54:58 GMT
So Dune 2 just came out, and so what did I do? Did I go see it? No. Did I re-watch the previous installment. Nope. Did I re-watch David Lynch's wacko 1984 version? I did not. Instead I finally watched a documentary I'd been meaning to see for years called Jodorowsky's Dune. I'm sure a lot of people have seen this as it's a bit of a cult hit, but I never had and always had meant to. The idea is pretty basic but still fascinating. Alejandro Jodorowsky made weird, cult films like El Topo and The Holy Mountain recounts his experiences developing a big budget sci-fi spectacle film of the popular novel that ultimately was cancelled. He's a very enigmatic character so it's very entertaining hearing about his plans for this crazy project is very entertaining (he started developing the script despite never having read the book), and you get talking heads from filmmakers like Richard Stanley Nicolas Wing-Dings Refn. But outside of Jodorowksy himself the film's best asset is the book that Jodorowsky kept that contained all of this great concept art. In the end it's sad to see the way it fell apart, but also a mild triumph to see how this movie became a huge influence on the course of film history despite the fact that it was never made. So many of the artists on his team ended up working on the big films even though they'd mostly never worked in film before. This was before Star Wars and Alien and so many of the story points of Star Wars resemble Dune, and the look of Jodorowsky's Dune was being designed by HR Giger who obviously has his fingerprints all over Alien.
There's no way of knowing if this would have been any good had it gone further. He'd hired Orson Welles and Salvador Dali, who were both basically lunatics at this point, and the ambition for the design and special effects were so lofty that it's almost impossible to imagine them fulfilling that ambition. 2001 had already been made, but space movies by and large were not sophisticated enough on a technical level to get these kinds of grand scale imagery on screen without looking silly. If it was made the way they intended it would have been massively expensive, and if it went further than it did, it likely would have had to make major compromises and cut back on production values. But this movie, and that big book of images, is a great document of a specific moment of artistic ambition. It's one of a number of good troubled production documentaries, and like some of these other ones it's not especially well made. It uses fairly cheap animations and other techniques to illuminate the imagery of the proposed film, but the spirit of the excitement of what it could have been is fully felt. Other documentaries like Lost in La Mancha which chronicles Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote adjacent film following apart while very much IN production are equally fascinating. There's also The Death of Superman Lives which shows us the development process of a doomed Tim Burton Superman movie in the late 90s that never really made it beyond a phase where you could fully understand what the film was going to be, but highlights the finding of a big budget effects film through the process of collecting a bunch of artists and throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks when it's not sabotaged by a psychotic producer with way to much power. And then there's also Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau which is the only one of these that's about a movie that actually DID ultimately reach movie theaters, but in a completely different form than was intended by the filmmaker who actually started to make the thing in the first place. All of these movies offer insight into the frustrating way studios can operate, but this last one contains the craziest stories, including the odd character of writer/director Richard Stanley being fired off of his own movie in a far off land and instead of going home basically disappearing into the local Australian wild only to secretly re-emerge as an extra in monster makeup in the very movie he had lost control of. The only real issue with that doc is that you know there are just so many more crazy stories. It doesn't even mention David Thewlis, who was the lead of the movie, and Ron Perlman has said he didn't contribute to the documentary because he didn't feel comfortable sharing all of the wild stories he had because it would make people look bad. I'd recommend all of these if you have an interest in films production stories, but that one's the wildest of the bunch. There are all sorts of other crazy filmmaker behind the scenes docs that are worth a mention (American Movie, Overnight, Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, Hearts of Darkness, Unspooled, Tools of Ignorance: The Making of The Battery (but fuck those guys....dont ask...), but these few that are about the big budget films that were never completed are kind of in their own sub-category and are very cool if the idea of the 'what could have been' movies appeals to you at all. This is definitely part of why the new Dune films feel underwhelming for me. So many of the concepts have been mined by other filmmakers that the original source ironically feels derivative now that it's arrived on the big screen. It's the same reason John Carter flopped a decade or so ago. Those stories are filled with fantastic ideas and visual concepts which have been by now done to death by Hollywood. But you're right, the stories behind making (or not making) these movies are always as (if not more) entertaining than the movies themselves. I read a couple books about 'Tales of Development Hell' (I believe that was the title) years ago that covered various failed attempts to get movies off the ground. I think my favorite story was one where the filmmaker of this sci-fi flick kept having the film rights bought by different companies, go into pre-production and eventually go into turnaround for years. He finally has a meeting with an exec, I think it was MGM because they were also making a Bond movie. So MGM now has the rights, and they have a meeting with this guy and tell him they definitely want to make this movie, but at the time they were in financial distress so they could only make two movies that year, Bond and his movie. They met on a Thursday and told him to come back Monday and they'd iron out the details. The next day, Cheaper by the Dozen became a sleeper hit for the studio. They told him at the meeting on Monday they had decided to greenlight Cheaper By The Dozen II instead of his film. Imagine pouring your essence into getting this incredible film made for years, only to be undone at the last minute by a shitty late-era Steve Martin film. Just devastating. I've heard about that book but never read. Thanks for the reminder. Might check it out soon. That terrible story about Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is so common. At the end of the Superman Lives documentary they talk about what ultimately killed that project being a series of bombs from Warner Bros that meant they weren't going to spend big money on another big movie. One seemingly unrelated thing affects another, and they start cutting the budget more and more until they just cancel it. The craziest thing is that they just keep spending money in the meantime. One of the concept artists who worked on that project explained that 'Development hell doesn't happen to no name directors, it happens with A list names who they're afraid of ruining a relationship with, and at great cost.' It sure seems to be true, even though it's completely counterintuitive. You wanna keep a good relationship with Tim Burton? And you're strategy is to string him along for months and years, preventing him from working on something else only to break his heart at the end of the road when you pull the rug out from under him? Doesn't make a lot of sense. And then Jon Peters, the chaotic maniac who terrorized the entire process still gets his giant spider in the next movie. Crazy stuff. But definitely true about Dune and John Carter. Those stories influenced so much that became more popular in the main stream that it seemed to audiences like their adaptations were derivative of the older movies when they were really the source. It's an odd problem to have. But that's also what was interesting about Jodorowsky's Dune; it was based on the thing that came first and then influenced the stuff that was made later even though general audiences would never have known that. A lot of that work that went into the look and tone of that never-made movie ended up directly and indirectly in other popular movies but felt wholly fresh and original. I mean... maybe not when it was used in Prometheus, but it felt new in the earlier movies. Oddly enough there's some stuff that was developed for the Burton Superman that looks very influenced by Jodorowsky's Dune as well.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 9, 2024 5:31:15 GMT
We rewatched Dune: Part One earlier in the week on Netflix (we have our tickets booked for Part Two tomorrow). It still didn't really leave me feeling anything, but I at least enjoyed it a little more than when we saw it at the cinema in 2021. Ehh... it (Part Two) was good and all. Just not great. Do you ever get the feeling that you've already seen the best movie you'll ever see? And everything else just kind of pales in comparison? This was a perfectly fine sequel, better than the first Dune. Visually spectacular. More operatic and bombastic. Lots of stuff happened. So why, again, didn't it make me feel anything? And yet I'm seeing user reviews everywhere making claims like "this is the sci-fi fantasy epic of our generation," "this is the Dark Knight/Empire Strikes Back of our generation" etc. Clearly I'm not in the generation being referenced here... but do the young folk really like this that much? Since we were on the same wavelength regarding Dune, I wanted to follow up with you after seeing it again. I have to say, I loved it this time around. It still has problems (I'll get to that in a minute), but I had a greater appreciation for the politics and the personal choices the characters made. Paul's uneasy acceptance of his destiny and his shift from brash hero to ruthless warlord are much more understandable once you have time to weigh and measure everything happening around him. I finally get the Empire Strikes Back comparisons, though it's closer to Luke becoming Darth Vader at the end.
In that sense it truly is space opera for adults, the way it was intended. The character moments are swallowed up by the spectacle, but they're there; you just have to block out the noise, almost figuratively and literally. And I also enjoyed the small moments of humor more the second time around. These characters do feel more lived in now.
That takes me to my next point. I've been watching Masters of the Air on Apple TV, (and I cannot recommend this highly enough. I love this show, though your knowledge of the topic and/or appreciation of aviation and WWII may inform your decision), and I read this dumb article filled with negative reviews after the second episode came out. People were complaining there wasn't enough context or characterization as the legendary dramas of the genre such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific. How could it, after two episodes?! We fans have rewatched those series in their entirety for over ten, or in the case of BoB over 20 years now! Of course we feel like we know those guys and their story inside and out. And you're seriously wondering why, after two episodes, you don't feel the same way about Masters of the Air?
Luckily the reviews have shifted as the series has gone on (go figure), but it occurred to me on my second viewing of Dune II that this is exactly what you and I were doing with Dune by comparing it to Star Wars, LOTR, TDK, GOT, etc. We know those stories inside and out, we've explored every crevice and performed every thought experiment imaginable at this point, and we're wondering why we don't feel the same about a movie we're just seeing? A lot of that hype was probably coming from the readers who have lived with this book series for decades, but upon further review, they aren't wrong. It's like it never occurred to us to take it for what it is instead of trying to decide whether it 'lived up to the hype' in our own heads.
I still stand by some of our criticism, though. The actions scenes aren't incredible and oddly anticlimactic. Why, in the first raid on the Harkonnen mining vehicle, don't they just shoot it with their giant laser guns first, and then walk away? They stage this daring raid where the soldiers come charging out of the sand to fight h2h, they use rocket launchers against the gunships, etc. Then at the end they just blow the whole damn thing up with giant laser blasters. Just do that first and call it a day, why the hell are you risking your lives fighting hand to hand?
And again the final fight was a blowout victory that provided no tension or drama whatsoever. I loved the setup after Paul drinks the water of life and brings clarity to his visions. "Our enemies are all around us, and in so many futures, they prevail. But I do see a narrow way through." And then they roll the Harkonnens like it's nothing. Gurney kills Rabban basically without a fight, Paul literally just walks in and kills Vladimir without resistance. Then he has to fight a guy whose previous exploits were whooping up on drugged opponents. The most gratifying revenge moment (and this absolutely counts) is Paul using the voice to tell that old crone to STFU. She had that coming through two movies and I legit laughed this time.
The Harkonnens aren't any more compelling the second time around, though. It's like ASOIAF if there were POV chapters of the Others. "We're evil. We want to kill everyone. That's our character." Over and over.
Still though, I really did love everything else about this movie this time. Paul repeatedly tells everyone what will happen if he does what they think he should do, but they all encourage him to see it through anyway. Then Chani gets pissed at him when he turns his back on her and ignites a holy war in the end. Honey, he warned you. I highly recommend seeing it again, I'm curious to see if it improves for you the way it did for me.
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Post by sdm3 on Mar 11, 2024 4:12:03 GMT
Ehh... it (Part Two) was good and all. Just not great. Do you ever get the feeling that you've already seen the best movie you'll ever see? And everything else just kind of pales in comparison? This was a perfectly fine sequel, better than the first Dune. Visually spectacular. More operatic and bombastic. Lots of stuff happened. So why, again, didn't it make me feel anything? And yet I'm seeing user reviews everywhere making claims like "this is the sci-fi fantasy epic of our generation," "this is the Dark Knight/Empire Strikes Back of our generation" etc. Clearly I'm not in the generation being referenced here... but do the young folk really like this that much? Spoilers I have no real interest in seeing it again any time soon because I still think there's nothing iconic about it outside of the visuals. We'll see if it stands the test of time, I guess. But another viewing of Oppenheimer to mark its Oscar win is in the cards, for sure.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 13, 2024 15:43:35 GMT
I have no real interest in seeing it again any time soon because I still think there's nothing iconic about it outside of the visuals. We'll see if it stands the test of time, I guess. But another viewing of Oppenheimer to mark its Oscar win is in the cards, for sure. Well 'iconic' remains to be seen. We can't really can't tell if anything about it, including its aesthetics will serve as iconography towards any idea in the future. However... The Dune 2 popcorn bucket sure has become an icon. One assumes it wasn't intended to be the icon it has become, but it's representative of something.. that's for sure. I don't know that I'll ever watch Oppenheimer again. I'm not as taken with it as everyone else seems to be.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 13, 2024 18:58:56 GMT
I have no real interest in seeing it again any time soon because I still think there's nothing iconic about it outside of the visuals. We'll see if it stands the test of time, I guess. But another viewing of Oppenheimer to mark its Oscar win is in the cards, for sure. Well 'iconic' remains to be seen. We can't really can't tell if anything about it, including its aesthetics will serve as iconography towards any idea in the future. However... The Dune 2 popcorn bucket sure has become an icon. One assumes it wasn't intended to be the icon it has become, but it's representative of something.. that's for sure.I don't know that I'll ever watch Oppenheimer again. I'm not as taken with it as everyone else seems to be. They need to make a documentary about it. I want to hear from the guy who came up with the idea, the manufacturer, the marketing department at the studio, everyone.
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Post by Horselover Fat on Mar 14, 2024 1:14:00 GMT
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Mar 14, 2024 3:51:49 GMT
Weird, a movie with Robert DeNiro, Uma Thurman and Bill Murray that I had never heard about.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 18, 2024 12:28:46 GMT
So I've been watching the Patriots Dynasty show on Apple, and I have to say, it's kind of a mess. It's as if it were made by someone who doesn't like the Patriots. I understand wanting to include the bad with the good, but it seems to revel in the bad while glossing over the good. It took two episodes to get to the first Super Bowl win, with most of the focus being on the Brady or Bledsoe dilemma. Then it inexplicably mentions in passing how they won two more Super Bowls a couple of years later, with one highlight from each Super Bowl as they set up the Spygate Episode. So back-to-back 14-2 Championship seasons (including an overall 21 game win streak) aren't worth exploring? What's important is another controversy that proved to be nothing in the end? They start that episode with some New York cop telling the story of how he found the cameras and blew the lid off this whole thing. He has this shit-eating grin on his face, and I can't decide if he thinks he's the hero or the villain, or relevant in some way, or if he just thinks the documentarians are idiots for bothering to interview him for this. Either way, it was Mangini who told them the Patriots were taping signals and where to find them, because he knew, having formerly been a part of the Pats staff. So to begin the episode with a backstory on this cop, as if it's a true crime story, was just bizarre. The episode focuses on Spygate (understandably), but again glosses over their domination of the league that season, and then with at least half an hour left in the episode, the coverage of the Super Bowl began. I turned the episode off at that point, for obvious reasons. :45 seconds were spent in one episode mentioning back to back titles, but we spend half an hour talking about one game they lost? Then the episode about Brady's injury treats the 2008 season like an amazing accomplishment (they failed to make the playoffs, despite having an absolutely loaded team), and treats the following season (an admittedly up and down season that ended in a playoff blowout loss) where Brady returned from catastrophic injury, and featured one of the all time great performances (which isn't mentioned in the episode) as an unmitigated disaster. I don't know who the target audience is for this show, but it doesn't seem to be Patriots fans. On his podcast, Bill Simmons says it's a hit piece on Belichick and it tries to elevate Kraft. I disagree. As a known Belichick hater, I thought it made BB look very good; the clips of him at games, practices, the locker room and in the film room reminded me why I used to love this guy. You're also reminded of how insane it seemed to keep going with Brady when Bledsoe was healthy in 2001. You could see why people bought into the hype, Belichick seemed like he had all the answeres in those days. In the first episode, I wondered why they didn't explain the brilliance of how Kraft basically seized ownership of the team by buying the real estate around the stadium and cutting the franchise off at the knees unless they sold; but they eventually got into that in episode 3. Everyone has mostly kind things to say about BB, except for Kraft calling BB a 'schmuck' regarding Spygate. But everything shifted in the Aaron Hernandez episode. I thought this was going to be stale, but it may have been the best episode yet. Creepy footage of Aaron Hernandez that takes on a whole new context in hindsight. Several interviews with teammates, coaches and players detail a troubling portrait of a deranged individual; yet nobody realized how dark the story truly was until the end. For his part, teammate Deion Branch says he should've known it was worse than everyone thought, because the signs were there. An investigative reporter reveals that Hernandez begged to be traded to the west coast to get as far away as possible from the bad influences of his hometown (in nearby Bristol, CT). Jonathan Kraft says when Hernandez was charged with murder, he made the call to cut him immediately, while Belichick wanted to see how the whole thing played out in court. The episode ends with Bob Kraft apologizing to the victims for everything, because he knows they dropped the ball in so many ways with this. When asked, Belichick goes full Belichick and refuses to comment on it at all. It's a bad look all around for a guy who at least in this doc series, looked like someone worthy of your respect. The behind the scenes footage is easily the best part of this series. In particular, Mike Martz bitching about Super Bowl XXXVI-- he complains about the Patriots holding and mucking up the game, fully aware that people are going to call him a crybaby, and he's not wrong. I appreciate his candor and criticism of the way that game played out without ever once insinuating that the Patriots won because they were stealing signals or whatever. It's a fun series at times, I just wish they'd give equal time to the positive aspects of the story, instead of dwelling on the negative. Now that the series is over, I can say it reveals Belichick for who he truly is. I would say he's lucky they didn't release this while he was job hunting, but since he wasn't hired anyway, I guess it doesn't matter. As I mentioned earlier, the series focuses on the negatives, which is a lot easier to do down the stretch of this dynasty. Toward the end it starts showing how the players were just tired of being yelled at all the time, even after big wins. Sick of the constant criticism, no matter the effort or result. (Let's not forget, Gronk retired rather than deal with this shit anymore. He only came out of retirement to be traded to Tampa to reunite with Brady.) How they felt betrayed when he wrote a letter congratulating Trump, and Trump criticizing players for kneeling during the anthem in the 2016 season. The whole thing where BB barred Brady's trainer from team facilities because he felt Brady and Guererro had too much power in the locker room makes BB looks like the petulant, insecure baby he is. Oddly, it tries to give credit to Belichick for Super Bowl 53. It's pretty easy to shut down the Rams when they run their entire offense through Todd Gurley and he only had ten carries while dealing with a nagging injury. It really does treat that game like his masterpiece, despite the fact that the defense gave up 31 points in the second half of the previous game. And couldn't stop a backup QB from shredding his defense in the previous Super Bowl. But sure, he's a genius. This game proves it. Nobody else had been able to stop Jared Goff. He's so good the Rams traded him and immediately won a Super Bowl, but I digress. It goes on to show Brady waltzing to another title elsewhere while Belichick is smashing phones on the sidelines, stumbling through losing season after losing season once Brady left town. For his part, at the end of the doc, Brady gets emotional while recounting his days in New England, and thanks all of his teammates and Belichick for making him a better player. Commenting on Brady, Belichick, stone faced as always, says Brady did his job to help the team win, just like a lot of players did. I wasn't that enthusiastic about this series when it was announced, and it pretty much lived up to my low expectations. It spent twice as much time (at least) on the controversies and big losses as it did on the positive things that drove the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century to date. As a Patriots fan it was worth watching once, but don't expect to revisit this anytime in the future.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Mar 18, 2024 23:47:18 GMT
Watching Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War. Really good Documentary on the Cold War from the dropping of the Bomb to the Ukraine War. On Netflix. Netflix docs are usually kind of shallow but this one is excellent. Only as far as the fall of the Berlin Wall www.imdb.com/title/tt26227818/
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Post by NJtoTX on Mar 19, 2024 15:30:32 GMT
I watched a move called L’Eclisse a few weeks ago. Nothing to do with eclipses though! Pretty good film by Antonioni. was it a total one where you were? 77% eclipse for us. But many Indian cities had a full one. I'm in Texas and will get totality April 8 at 1:30 pm. I get totality for about 2 min 40 sec (we can remove our eclipse glasses only then). I can increase that to 4 min 30 sec by driving 40 miles, but the roads will be insane. May bike a few miles, though. Watch, it'll rain.
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Post by masterofallgoons on Mar 19, 2024 15:42:51 GMT
Weird, a movie with Robert DeNiro, Uma Thurman and Bill Murray that I had never heard about. Coincidentally I mentioned this on (I think) the last page with regards to John McNaughton's weird career when you brought up Wild Things
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Post by Horselover Fat on Mar 24, 2024 10:11:04 GMT
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Post by klawrencio79 on Mar 25, 2024 17:20:00 GMT
I watched the Road House remake yesterday. It captures the spirit of the original well enough, and Gyllenhaal (and basically everyone) is having a great time. It's a fun, dumb, loud movie that is the manifestation of "turn your brain off and enjoy" and there's a place for that in our hearts. The one big glaring issue with the movie is Conor McGregor. I think the movie over-estimates how much we think of him and he's brutally annoying.
Don't have a ton to say about it, as I'm woefully sleep deprived but this is a fun action movie that's probably worth checking out.
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Post by Rey Kahuka on Mar 26, 2024 12:02:21 GMT
I watched the Road House remake yesterday. It captures the spirit of the original well enough, and Gyllenhaal (and basically everyone) is having a great time. It's a fun, dumb, loud movie that is the manifestation of "turn your brain off and enjoy" and there's a place for that in our hearts. The one big glaring issue with the movie is Conor McGregor. I think the movie over-estimates how much we think of him and he's brutally annoying. Don't have a ton to say about it, as I'm woefully sleep deprived but this is a fun action movie that's probably worth checking out. A friend of mine recommended this as well. I'm all in for a remake of some good ol' action trash, but in a classic Kahuka zag, I just don't like Gyllenhaal the way everyone else does. Something about him annoys me, it always feels like he's trying too hard. It's interesting how quippy and comedic the film seems, judging by the tv spot I saw. What made the original great was that it had no idea how bad it was, which ironically made it great. This one seems like it's trying to be bad. I'll probably get around to it, now that I know two trusted action aficionados gave it high marks (for what it is).
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SportsFan19
Junior Member
@sportsfan19
Posts: 2,848
Likes: 2,249
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Post by SportsFan19 on Mar 27, 2024 21:10:03 GMT
I watched the Road House remake yesterday. It captures the spirit of the original well enough, and Gyllenhaal (and basically everyone) is having a great time. It's a fun, dumb, loud movie that is the manifestation of "turn your brain off and enjoy" and there's a place for that in our hearts. The one big glaring issue with the movie is Conor McGregor. I think the movie over-estimates how much we think of him and he's brutally annoying. Don't have a ton to say about it, as I'm woefully sleep deprived but this is a fun action movie that's probably worth checking out. I was going to watch it, but I refuse to unlock the ad free part of Prime. I think I'm done with Prime, the shipping advantages are minor and I don't order from it nearly as much as I used to. A lot of the shipping is free, just shipped slower, as I understand from a recent podcast discussion.
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SportsFan19
Junior Member
@sportsfan19
Posts: 2,848
Likes: 2,249
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Post by SportsFan19 on Mar 27, 2024 22:12:40 GMT
I watched the Road House remake yesterday. It captures the spirit of the original well enough, and Gyllenhaal (and basically everyone) is having a great time. It's a fun, dumb, loud movie that is the manifestation of "turn your brain off and enjoy" and there's a place for that in our hearts. The one big glaring issue with the movie is Conor McGregor. I think the movie over-estimates how much we think of him and he's brutally annoying. Don't have a ton to say about it, as I'm woefully sleep deprived but this is a fun action movie that's probably worth checking out. I was going to watch it, but I refuse to unlock the ad free part of Prime. I think I'm done with Prime, the shipping advantages are minor and I don't order from it nearly as much as I used to. A lot of the shipping is free, just shipped slower, as I understand from a recent podcast discussion.
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