version

Well-known member
I'm waiting for Craner to come in and make a convincing argument for The Last Temptation of Christ or The Age of Innocence or something being his best.
 
You ever had that thing where you chuckle or laugh through your nose at something on screen and whoever you're with laughs a beat later? You've given them permission to get a joke, unlocked the punchline.

I love/hate that shit.
 
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Leo

Well-known member
the thing I hate more are people who feel obligated to laugh the loudest, even for just moderately funny lines. yes yes, it's commendable that you get the joke, perhaps even more commendable that you get it before anyone else. well done.
 

woops

is not like other people
i am complete opposite of version can only sit and watch a film in company, cannot concentrate easily for that length of time on my own and start fidgeting / doing something else, much nicer to have someone to talk to / respond with, not that i chatter away non-stop while the film is on.

leo's hated people sound like the ones who clap at the cinema, same people who clap when a plane lands i reckon.

hmgovt do you never get it where you laugh at someone's laughing at something? like their reaction is what's funny, more than the joke, funny that they should find that funny? i definitely know this feeling not only from watching films
 

Leo

Well-known member
that "laughing at someone laughing" thing happens sometimes with TV shows filmed in front of a live studio audience. talk shows like Colbert or the daily show, Trevor noah will say something and one person seems to find it disproportionately funnier than everyone else. a few seconds later, maybe after Trevor gives a quick look in the person's direction, the rest of the audience bursts into laughter. rolling laughter.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
leo's hated people sound like the ones who clap at the cinema, same people who clap when a plane lands i reckon.
This is don't get. I will clap if someone does something better than was expected, something out of the ordinary, they go that extra distance. When I get on a plane the absolute fucking bare minimum I expect from the pilot is that he lands it. Sure if one of the wings fell off and he had to make kind of special trick landing or something and he saved my life then yeah I'd clap.
 

woops

is not like other people
agreed. i express my relief at still being alive inside a large metal object that has just not fallen thousands of feet through empty air to my instant death with dozens of others in a silent reverie.
 

mWttrs2

Active member
Yesterday I watched the movie "The Sun is also a Star". This is one of the best romantic movies I've ever seen. The film is about everything that happens in our lives is not just a coincidence, but a destiny. So if you are destined to be together then you will definitely meet (even if in a few years). For watching movies I usually use premium movies streaming sites and mostly Amazon because I love movies in high quality and without ads
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Afternoon off. How I long for this peace. Rewatched Nic Roeg’s Walkabout and D Cammell’s White of the Eye.

Blistering blue skies in the former. You get a sense that Roeg was quite taken with the young Miss Agutter. Still, a dream of a film. The communication forms that grow between the respective kids, the colours of the soil radiating warmth. Wonder what Roeg’s son thought of it all.

White of the Eye is carnage. Proper fun though. The editing style feels like a coke overdose, cuts to cuts to wonky angles. Brilliant lead actors. Sound design really comes through too. Probably not for everyone but if you’re going to portray a loon you may as well go all in. Moriarty is the highlight. Her dread is both sublime and visceral.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Just watched The Duelists which I've never seen before, Ridley Scott's first film but amazingly accomplished, albeit greatly (and I mean greatly) influenced by Barry Lyndon which came out before. It looks the same (amazingly good in fact) and it has many of the same themes (dueling duh) and a lot of humour, more even than BL. Amazingly lush and involving epic (almost comedy-epic) experience. Dunno why I never saw it before.
Should say, I never saw Harvey Keitel as a funny guy but here he made me laugh a lot just by looking so serious and obsessive all the time.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm really stretching the title of this thread now cos I'm gonna post up a film I haven't actually seen yet - well I have but not for years. But I haven't yet completed the viewing on which the recommendation I will make (if I still like it) will be based... I'm glad I've cleared that up so concisely and elegantly.
Let me begin again, the film Magnolia is on tv now and I've just started watching it - when I saw it before, which was just when it came out, I enjoyed it a lot as far as I remember, but I remember very little about it, mainly Tom Cruise's minor-yet-film-stealing role (the exact opposite of those he usually plays) as the life-coach guy who teaches men how to dominate women and trick them into sleeping with them.
I'm very keen to see if the film still stands up for me twenty yeas later - in fact did it stand up for me even then or did I just pretend to like it cos I knew it was a brainy film that the critics liked and I wanted to be brainy too? The latter we'll probably never know the real answer to but the first one I should be able to reveal.
It clearly has a great cast with Seymour Hoffman, William H Macy, Julianne Moore, John C Reilly... a huge overlap with Boogie NIghts which came out a couple of years before, but with the addition of the guy who plays Dr "There is one prick involved" Morrison in Curb Your Enthusiasm who should never be called at home.
Boogie Nights is still good (I can say with some confidence cos it's on so often, and I've seen it many times) but although in my head I like PTA and think of him as a good director, looking through his filmography it's not that good; There Will be Blood (hugely overrated), The Master (thinks it's clever but basically very boring), Inherent Vice (one of Pynchon's weakest books adapted in a workmanlike way that doesn't improve on the novel enough to make the film much cop)... and some other films which I've not even seen! So for PTA if he still wants to be considered as an important director in the IdleRIch pantheon then he had better hope that I still like this one, his reputation is really hanging in the balance and I'm sure we'd all understand if he is biting his nails right now.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Additionally - some thoughts on Cruise/Magnolia/The Game which have always linked those three in my mind.
When I first saw Magnolia I had never heard of "pick up artists" and The Game by Neil Strauss - since then I have read the book and it changed my li... I mean perspective on this kind of thing - I could never have dreamed that there was this whole weird sub-culture thing and how big it was. So you could say that the little guy did make sure that his role was culturally big after all.
When I did read The Game, a bit that stuck out was when Strauss met Cruise and he said that TC was the best player of The Game he'd ever met and that his whole life was a continual and brutally effective attempt to steamroller/charm every person he met on to the Cruise bandwagon. Quite an observation for Strauss to make from one brief meeting but one which has the ring of truth for it.
I wonder about the timing of the book and this film and whether Anderson (or someone close to him) can have read the book and deliberately pursued TC for the role or if it was all mere coincidence... in fact I've wondered that half-heartedly for years without doing anything about it, but when I finish this post I'm gonna finally check it.
The above also reminded me of an interview with Paul Giamatti in which someone said "Why do you play losers all the time?" and he said some waffle about how he didn't see the characters he played as losers, but he finished off his answer by saying "What about Tom Cruise, why does he want to play heroes all the time?" and it stuck in my head cos it is incredibly true, yeah there are lots of actors who normally play the goodies - and the nature of the hollywood action film beast is that the goody is an improbably super human hero - but Tom Cruise does seem to have this thing going on which is even more pronounced than with other actors in that he has to play the hardest nicest most superhumanest person imaginable who must battle against the most incredibly unimaginable odds, normally after being beaten down and destroyed in the middle of the film, humiliated and stripped of everything, broken and with his arms, legs and head cut off, yet by the end, sheer force of will allied with his incorruptible morality and enormous towering height means that somehow he wins through at the last moment in the most supremely triumphant and heroic way.
So what I'm saying is I find Tom Cruise quite an unusual actor, and the only roles of his I really like are this one and the one in Tropic Thunder where he gets to disguises himself in a fat and bald suit - basically he hides his identity, plays against type and can have fun without worrying about damaging Brand Tom Cruise TM. Makes me wonder what might have been in another world I guess.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
In answer to my own question, Magnolia came out in 1999 and The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-Up Artists (to give it its full title) came out in 2005 so it can't have influenced PTA's choice of Tom Cruise for the role... in fact it's possible that Strauss saw the film and made up that anecdote afterwards, I've no grounds for accusing Strauss of lying or making stuff up and it seems completely unfair... but on the other hand, this is a guy who chose for himself the nom de guerre of "Style" so clearly he IS capable of the most heinous and sickening acts.
 
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version

Well-known member
I love Inherent Vice, Boogie Nights and The Master are decent, the beginning of Hard Eight's good, I don't like Magnolia, There Will Be Blood or Punch Drunk Love and I haven't seen Phantom Thread.
 

version

Well-known member
I actually prefer PTA's film to Pynchon's novel. It's got the same thing I was on about with Kubrick last night. There's something really unsettling going on beneath the surface.
 
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