I would agree with the term heavy-handed, but I don’t see it as a bad thing. Some of Aronofsky’s films are sometimes called pretentious or melodramatic as well and while I think those terms might rightly apply I like them in part because of those very qualities.
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Whoa I did not remember that Moby of all people gets to bring the house down at the end of Heat. It works though.
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one of my most closely guarded bad takes is that I still think stardust memories is underrated
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guard it closer imo lol
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god moving over the face of the waters is the only moby song i like. its really good in SCREAM as well
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Zhou Yu’s Train
I had never heard of this movie or this director until two weeks ago. I had just rewatched Drug War and I wanted to see Sun Honglei in another film. Searching through his filmography, this film caught my eye because of its unusually strong pedigree. In addition to Sun Honglei, it stars Gong Li and Tony Leung Ka-Fai. Wang Yu of Suzhou River was DP. Shigeru Umebayashi composed the score and frequent Wong Kar-wai collaborater William Chang did the editing. The director, Sun Zhou, is a Beijing Film Academy alum. That’s a lot of incredibly talented people! To top it all off, parts of the film were shot in Chongqing, a city I have lived in for 2 years. So, I bought the dvd, which was conveniently shipped from a Seattle Goodwill.
What we get from this formula is a naturalist film with stunning landscapes and sensual editing. The editing follows a poetic logic rather than a narrative logic. It’s more important to follow the emotional pace than to try and piece together the images in time. I feel compelled to watch it a second time because it had not occurred to me that Gong Li plays two separate characters. You might think something like that would invalidate my experience but it didn’t. It’s a testament to the editing, acting, and cinematography that this overwhelming sense of yearning is communicated.
I’m not sure I’m doing a good job talking about this movie, but it’s good! I feel compelled to share it.
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One Dark Night is a movie about a couple of girls trying to scare Meg Tilly in a mausoleum. Nothing really happens and then at the end a whole bunch of stuff happens. I love the mausoleum as a setting – the white marble rooms all give it a very distinct and kind of spooky look. Would have loved to have seen Meg Tilly in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie or something, though.
eta:
Love these white-against-white shots.
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Watching The Matrix, again. It fuckin OWNS. Excellent scifi.
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Abel Ferrara’s Siberia is the most indulgent symbolism I think I’ve seen in years, it’s like if death stranding’s storytelling was good
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i need to rewatch this. it’s definitely a singular work, but also my least favourite film from him in years.
the wrestler 2
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Watched Albert Brooks’ Real Life last night and yeah, it’s pretty forward-thinking re: Reality TV. Thing is, they ultimately make it so that Brooks (who is filming the family) is the one who ultimately goes insane in pursuit of fame but if it were made these days, I think it’d be written so that it’s the family that burns down their house for the “views” instead of him in the end. Some real good laughs though (the people with the ridiculous head-cams weaving in and out of scenes) and it’s pretty sharp, though it unfolds in a kind of jumbled way that left me thinking it could have been sharper/hit harder. Definitely some Spinal Tap DNA in there, which makes sense as Harry Shearer was a writer (the earliest instance I know of hearing his Simpsons “announcer voice” over a car radio).
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I’m sorry I haven’t looked at this thread and am quoting a nearly month old post but
it go
uh, movies, I’ve seen since the world ended:
Becky - Kevin James is a neo-Nazi getting home alone’d by a teenage girl. dumb but good
Charlie’s Angels (2019) - I rented this from a redbox and when I returned it the machine malfunctioned and I explained this to them but they didn’t do anything and I ended up getting charged 34 bucks for this movie and that experience was still better than watching the movie itself
Quest for Camelot - this is maybe the most revolting, dire misfire of an animated studio picture that I have ever had the misfortune of half-drunkenly thinking of watching for no good reason other than it’s there
meanwhile Cats Don’t Dance is in a fucking vault somewhere, rotting
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omg i haven’t thought about this in 20 years. idk if i ever even saw the movie, but i did have the gbc game
I watched The Sixth Sense again for the first time in 20 years. I hated this movie when it came out. I hated the kid lead actor and I hated the barrage of commercials that played constantly saying it was the scariest movie ever made. This was on the heels of the Blair Witch Project also being hyped as the scariest movie ever made. I was also an avid watcher of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and recognized what was going on.
Twenty years has softened my dislike of this movie. It’s not particularly creepy, or tense, or anything. Nothing really even happens for at least 50 minutes. Mr. Night wisely chose not to explain the why or how and instead just left it as something that just is. Although, you are left with questions like, why is it people who can see ghosts can be physically harmed by them, but not people who can’t? Are we to just assume that because Bruce Willis told Cole to just chillax with the ghosts that even the angry violent ones will no longer harm him? (Bruce Willis circles something about self-harm in a book he’s reading, but I assume this is just meant to imply Bruce Willis still doesn’t understand what’s actually happening to his patient and that the ghosts actually are hurting his patient) The Mischa Barton subplot is nice, but what about the angry closet ghosts?
Also, Mr. Night doesn’t know how to end a scene and pretty much every single scene ends with the actors standing in silence for a fade to black.
I’m surprised it never got a Dr. Sleep-esque sequel or a remake.
That would be perfect, actually. If we ever get movies again, I could see a stealth sequel coming out sort of how Split was a sequel for Unbreakable.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who felt like the Sixth Sense could’ve been a Disney movie:
David Vogel, then-president of production of Walt Disney Studios, read Shyamalan’s spec script and instantly loved it. Without obtaining corporate approval, Vogel bought the rights to the script, despite the high price of $3 million and the stipulation that Shyamalan could direct the film.
Though, I guess being distributed by Buena Vista means it’s technically a Disney movie.
Wait, you mean… the town of Filbert? In the state of… Pennsylvania, right?
This altercation makes no sense! You asked him where you were and he told you. What more did you expect, asshole?! Has Mr Night ever had an actual real life argument with somebody? I feel like he’s probably the most passive-aggressive person in the world, like, right up there with george lucas.
no, the happening, mr. hotdog.
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“You know, I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!”
“What?”
“Yeah, it’s my day off! I’m not even supposed to be here today!”
“…Randall said he’d cover my shift, but of course, the guy never showed up! Typical!”
“…and then she tells me she sucked like, forty dicks! FORTY! possibly even in a row! who does that?”
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