Brian De Palma’s Body Double ruled so much. I kept joking during it that the white German shepherd in the film was the rehabilitated racist dog from Sam Fuller’s White Dog. And when he sacrificed himself to kill the bad guy in the end, we cheered like it was some redemptive act. And it turns out I was right. That is the same white German shepherd from the movie White Dog!
11 Likes
@iguferon you mentioned nu metal cinema? You listen to the podcast Horror Vanguard at all? The hosts repeatedly use that term to describe the Saw franchise, of which they have done an extensive retrospective on.
1 Like
i don’t listen to any podcasts, but it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of people are throwing that term around, it makes a lot of sense for easily describing that era. saw is a premier example, but also stuff like blair witch 2
3 Likes
i watched house of wax recently and was pleased to see that it was shot on film and has in-camera gore and kills and actually interesting direction but also came out in like the mid 2000s so it has deftones - minerva and paris hilton
8 Likes
i watched the michael bay movie ambulance ln it was kind of amazing, michael bay is the only guy in hollywood who is still allowed to crash cars into each other and blow stuff up in front of a camera (like 95% of the Action is practical effects and stuntwork) it might be his best movie by merit of being his most focused it’s like michael bay fury road. basically the whole movie was a delight to look at i love the way his movies look and are shot. also one for fans of the tony scott film unstoppable
8 Likes
I finally watched the new Indiana Jones movie and, I gotta say, it’s not great. I really enjoyed the production design of the New York scenes, I actually think it would be a weird and fun thing to compare with Spielberg’s West Side story just from an aesthetic perspective. I also loved how crowded everything felt in the first third of the movie. Just lots of people filling every frame… Felt different for the series. But it’s also part of why it fails as an action movie… Every action sequence is basically the same mid speed car chase stuff, and none of them have any of the sense of weight and momentum that the original films do to make those things interesting. Never more clear than the opening sequence, which has better de aging effects than most stuff I’ve seen but can’t solve the old man shoulders problem. That on top of the fact that it is just a redo of the Last Crusade flashback opening on a train, except not as fun, not as dangerous feeling, and even more inconsequential to the rest of the film.
The movie gets more interesting in the second half, and I didn’t hate the big swing supernatural endgame of this one, but my biggest complaint is that they steal so much from Crystal Skull of all things, while at the same time really disrespecting the character arcs of the movie. It does so many of the same things, worse: older supporting character who has gone mad from obsession with the MacGuffin, vaguely implicating the US government as a way of toning down the ultranationalism /colonialism of the original trilogy, pairing Indy with a younger, sassier counterpart, vaguely “sciency” macguffin instead of purely spiritual one, etc. And then then they have the audacity to make Indy’s entire emotional arc a consequence of the off screen killing of a character everyone hated. Sweeping Mutt under the rug while at the same time making him the most consequential person in Indy’s life… Weird move. And it all seems to be to set up another heartfelt reunion with Marion, which they never should have done in the first place but was also more effective in Crystal Skull because she was an actual character not just a surprise cameo. Very disappointing conclusion to the series overall, our only hope is a Short round spinoff film which is probably more likely now than ever
3 Likes
God I kinda hope not, Ke Huy Quan deserves so much better even if it does objectively make sense as a legacy thing on every level, to much greater degree than most ‘legacy’ Sequel concepts.
What I’m getting out of this is “an Indy movie that’s even worse than Crystal Skull,” which, man, that’s a hell of a thing
2 Likes
it is definitely not worse than crystal skull, crystal skull felt like prequel trilogy levels of contrived and tonally off. this thing, by comparison, is like, force awakens-level
1 Like
The thing is, I don’t disagree with the analogy but I also famously think the prequels are more interesting than TFA and Crystal Skull is more competently made than either TFA or Dial of Destiny. TFA at least introduces some interesting characters and feels pretty well written, Dial has… Really nothing going for it. It doesn’t do anything funny or interesting with Indiana Jones movie tropes, and honestly just feels kind of embarrassed about the goofier aspects of the series and especially the faux pulp stuff. I will concede that there is nothing in Dial as bad as the worst parts of Crystal Skull, but it was just notable to me how it attempted to do so many of the same things as that movie just in a less interesting way
3 Likes
what made it mildly more interesting for me was realizing that this was ostensibly a project that PWB actually cared about and had as much fun with as she possibly could, and it still felt less cynical than becoming a marvel superhero when you want a big star turn, and unfortunately the franchise just could not be made relevant at this point, nobody cared that fleabag wanted to be girl indiana jones
1 Like
Really bizarre to hear this considering how underdeveloped her character is. It does have a similar problem to crystal skull in that a ton of really vital exposition and character development appears to have just been cut out. It’s worse here because the characters are just constantly yelling at each other, it’s so hard to put together why anything is happening because they try to layer the exposition during the action scenes, it’s probably supposed to make it feel tightly paced but it just ends up incoherent
Further evidence of major editing issues is Antonio Banderas showing up to basically just grunt his way through two scenes and then die, really bizarre stuff
I imagine there were quite a few arguments about whether to just cut his parts entirely, they are like a totally irrelevant pacing detour and you’re left believing that he just really wanted to be in the movie
1 Like
I dunno, he has an academy award and a marvel paycheck, I feel like giving him a chance to revisit the franchise that made him famous but also kind of exposed him to a lot of racist bullying might be something like justice
PWB is just another posho infecting the British arts 
5 Likes
sorry I can’t help but want to look at women who seem like they would at least be classist in a way that has nothing to do with my background
2 Likes
i saw the boy and the heron movie it was pretty good very beautifully animated kind of reminded me of some other recent movies / projects that feel like these remixes of the directors filmography like blackhat, crimes of the future, twin peaks the return (maybe even michael bay’s ambuLAnce) bc a lot of it feels like it mirrors something in one of his other studio ghibli movies it’s very self-referential (maybe in a few ways idk) i think these movies are treats for the fans to some extents but also older guy takes on their own themes and whatver
the parakeet guys were some of the best cartooning ive seen in a while i felt like they were great for like broad slapstick comedy
there are adorable spirit creatures, there are magical companions to the normal boy, there is a family spirited away to another world, there are fantasy combat scenes (obvs worth mentioning i think how much this one persons filmography has inspired generations of game designers), there’s a strong butch woman, some european architecture and vibes, i didnt really know and maybe its a “spoiler” to say this much that it was so completely a return to the like classic fantasy-adventure cartoon so much of his filmography consists of before i saw it
5 Likes
haven’t laughed in a theater as much as I did at poor things in years and years
4 Likes
Cannot wait for that to come to my local
yeah i had a grand time just reclining and wading in the waters of this film, sipping on an oversized cup of Pepsi MAX and losing my mind
2 Likes