Recently Watched Films

[walto]

I love "Heartbreak Kid"--I can barely imagine how much it must have been fucked up by the remake.

[leroysghost]

Norman Jewison - In the Heat of the Night (1967)

first time seeing this and man is it bad. makes The Defiant Ones look like Odds Against Tomorrow.


William Castle - Mr. Sardonicus (1961)

Oskar Homolka and leeches...awesome.

[surfer]

Tropic Thunder (Stiller, 2008) - Not that funny. Even Downey's performance is pretty overrated.

[cheerios]

Wang Kar Wai - Days of Being Wild

Pretty cool film, with some mediocre moements in it, but otherwise I really enjoyed it. Nice little twists about the characters, a very character driven film with not that much plot. I was kind of sad at the end of the movie because I was so wrapped up in the film, the people, the scenery, the sounds etc. Makes me want to go to Asia, like, right now.

[Dan Warburton]

John Stahl, Imitation Of Life, 1934

This is included as a bonus in the Carlotta Douglas Sirk boxset, and makes for an interesting comparison with the later film (though Sirk apparently didn't know the Stahl original). Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers are both good in the principal roles, though the "black mom with white daughter" theme is played down a little in favour of the "daughter falls in love with mom's intended" theme. (And this is 1934, so de black folks live downstairs and de white folks upstairs, yessum.. even after her mother's funeral Peola gets in the front of the car next to the black chauffeur instead of riding in the back with Colbert and her daughter.) The ending is dumb: would have been better to go out after funeral, instead of returning to the boyfriend plot. And there's also an extra character, Elmer, played by the deadpan (and deadly dull) Ned Sparks, whose presence adds nothing to the plot (Sirk thankfully got rid of him in his version).

[flies]

watched oldboy last night. i have never enjoyed watching a movie less. it left me feeling totally miserable and very angry at having been recommended to see it. if you want to see some totally pointless horrible pain, watch oldboy. i had been led to believe it was ultra-violent, but it wasn't so much violent as it was gross (e.g. tooth pulling with claw end of hammer).

the entire plot revolves around an unbelievable and, worse, boring archvillain who arranges events in the main characters life. as this villain's motivations are ultimately so very, very thin, the movie ends up feeling like one deus ex machina after another.

the movie has a feeling something akin to the saw series in the sense that it is all about pain and it's constantly throwing pain at you. the pain in this movie is emotional as well as physical, which makes it slightly more interesting, but i have to say that this kind of pornography of pain is really repellent to me. i find no reason that anyone would enjoy this movie aside from this prurient content, content which to me is extremely unpleasant.

watching this movie is not just a waste of time, but a draining and miserable experience.

[jon abbey]

totally agree, all style, no substance. I've had zero inclination to check out any other Park Chan-Wook after seeing that (my first and only).

[eraritjaritjaka]

the movie has a feeling something akin to the saw series in the sense that it is all about pain and it's constantly throwing pain at you. the pain in this movie is emotional as well as physical, which makes it slightly more interesting, but i have to say that this kind of pornography of pain is really repellent to me. i find no reason that anyone would enjoy this movie aside from this prurient content, content which to me is extremely unpleasant.

watching this movie is not just a waste of time, but a draining and miserable experience.

meh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_%28cultural%29

on a side note, oldboy is far from my favorite p c-w film.

[eraritjaritjaka]

My Bloody Valentine - George Mihalka (1981)
Sleepaway Camp - Robert Hiltzik (1983)
Prom Night - Paul Lynch (1980)
The Burning - Tony Maylam (1981)
The Fog - John Carpenter (1980)
The Prowler - Joseph Zito (1981)
Slaughter High - George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten (1986)

grouped roughly in order of how much i enjoyed them.

[leroysghost]

watched oldboy last night. i have never enjoyed watching a movie less.

this is kind of impressive in and of itself.

the entire plot revolves around an unbelievable and, worse, boring archvillain who arranges events in the main characters life. as this villain's motivations are ultimately so very, very thin, the movie ends up feeling like one deus ex machina after another.

thin motivations? eternal shame and the loss of the love of your life? there have been countless plots with similar motivations, and quite a few with much less substantial ones (ex. Ripley's Game). he not only wanted the main character to feel his pain, but also to (hopefully) make the selfless decision that he was unable to make in the same situation as a child, and therefore maybe somehow atone for the mistakes of his past (maybe there is even a smidge of substance in that ).

the movie has a feeling something akin to the saw series in the sense that it is all about pain and it's constantly throwing pain at you. the pain in this movie is emotional as well as physical, which makes it slightly more interesting, but i have to say that this kind of pornography of pain is really repellent to me. i find no reason that anyone would enjoy this movie aside from this prurient content, content which to me is extremely unpleasant.

i find that the uncomfortable violence in movies like this is much more invigorating then the purely intellectual thrills of the Saw films and makes me invest much more in the characters (i won't even go into how lame the phrase "pornography of pain" is).

[leroysghost]

on a side note, oldboy is far from my favorite p c-w film.

sorry, curiosity got the better of me. which is your favorite?

[cheerios]

you going to check out Sorority row too?

[Dan Warburton]

watched oldboy last night.

Sorry to be a boring old fart and spoil your little playground chat but could you please take the time to inform us of the director and year? I know nothing about Park Chan Wook and would appreciate the background info.

Meanwhile, I don't suppose I need remind you what this is, but I saw it again last night (the fifth time) and thoroughly enjoyed it.



Quentin Tarantino, Jackie Brown, 1997

[Jesse]

Saw Inglourious Basterds last week with my 26 year old son (whom I coincidentally caught Jackie Brown with when he was 16). Too tired and generally disinclined to expend energy limning at length why I dislike a film, or, more the case with IG, find it mediocre; when we took a walk following the film, I told my son that with every year that passes, and with repeated viewing of all but Kill Bill II in the passing years, Jackie Brown is my favorite of thr QT lot. No denying the exhilaration the first viewing of Reservoir Dogs provided, nor the initial yucks of Pulp Fiction, but they really don't hold up well as substantive films. Jackie Brown may stand the test of time as his best crafted homage.
Anyway, at the risk of someone arguing I am indulging in revisionism or backlash, its starting to sink in how overrated and bloated QT's rep is.

[eraritjaritjaka]

sorry, curiosity got the better of me. which is your favorite?

difficult question. this is my 'uppermost tier' at the moment, not set in stone. this is pretty close though, most likely change i'd make is substituting 'judgement' for 'cut'.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Cut (2004)
I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK (2006)

[flies]

watched oldboy last night.

Sorry to be a boring old fart and spoil your little playground chat but could you please take the time to inform us of the director and year? I know nothing about Park Chan Wook and would appreciate the background info.

ask the oracle: http://www.google.com/search?q=oldboy

it's about a guy who is mysteriously imprisoned for many years and then equally mysteriously finds himself out of prison, then seeks revenge.

[flies]

watched oldboy last night. i have never enjoyed watching a movie less.

this is kind of impressive in and of itself.

i take your point. the film achieves its objectives, those objectives being contrary to what i want in a movie.

the entire plot revolves around an unbelievable and, worse, boring archvillain who arranges events in the main characters life. as this villain's motivations are ultimately so very, very thin, the movie ends up feeling like one deus ex machina after another.

thin motivations? eternal shame and the loss of the love of your life? there have been countless plots with similar motivations, and quite a few with much less substantial ones (ex. Ripley's Game). he not only wanted the main character to feel his pain, but also to (hopefully) make the selfless decision that he was unable to make in the same situation as a child, and therefore maybe somehow atone for the mistakes of his past (maybe there is even a smidge of substance in that ).

i guess you're right. it does seem a bit facile to have the guy go from terrific loss to inhuman sadism without any connecting tissue, but maybe it wasn't so much the motivations as the flat portrayal that ruined it for me. i think what got me more was that the villain seemed very comic book-y to me, and his character as portrayed in a totally flat manner. The main actor, Min-Sik Choi, gave a rich, nuanced performance, and the villain was just too far removed from any semblance of humanity to be compelling. his constant smug satisfaction was like an emotional vacuum, sucking away all the pathos until all that was left was pain.

Haven't seen Ripley's Game, but in general, i'm very happy with canned villains within the context of stupid movies, whereas this movie felt very heavy. this movie would have been better if it had been just a little bit silly, but that's my taste, i prefer silly.

[leroysghost]

sorry, curiosity got the better of me. which is your favorite?

difficult question. this is my 'uppermost tier' at the moment, not set in stone. this is pretty close though, most likely change i'd make is substituting 'judgement' for 'cut'.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Cut (2004)
I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK (2006)

nice choices, never seen Judgment, where did you get a hold of that one?

[leroysghost]

Haven't seen Ripley's Game, but in general, i'm very happy with canned villains within the context of stupid movies, whereas this movie felt very heavy. this movie would have been better if it had been just a little bit silly, but that's my taste, i prefer silly.

part of what i like about the film is the sudden switching between comedy and tragedy, artfulness and trashiness, sometimes all at once. i can't say i found the film very heavy at all.

Ripley's Game is a book, but Wim Wenders made a great semi-adaptation of it called Der Amerikanische Freund with Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz.

[leroysghost]

speaking of all style, no substance:


Kiyoshi Kurosawa - Cure (1997)

Kurosawa frustrates me to no end, his films are always really well made (and they always sound amazing, which is rare) but the stories are always weak and contrived. that said this is by far the best of his that i've seen.
Koji Yakusho frustrates as well. he was so great in The Eel, but now he just seems to pick one worthless movie after another.


Takashi Miike - Audition (1999)

again, by far the best Miike i've seen (next to the effective but insubstantial short film Box), but still nothing special. i might have come a lot closer to loving this one without the obvious and unnecessary psych out near the end, and especially if the dvd packaging didn't give away the entire plot!