rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Kong vs Godzilla. The last two zilla in hollywood films have been so-so, though the last one at least had lots of other monsters, but the best thing about them is that the new hollywood CGI godzilla looks really quite excellent. having seen the old godzilla movies from the 60s and 70s recently, while enjoyable, that old one looked a bit dopey, and was often prone to weird bouts of playing catch and other silly things with other monsters. this new godzilla however, looks bloody amazing. more scary, but also more detailed, and more fluid in his movements. kong looks like a gorilla pensioner, his face is all haggard, he looks like hes been dragged out of retirement, but seeing him do sign language was strangely touching, seeing him break out of his chains to defend himself made me emotional. the relationship with the little girl started to feel a bit like old sugary spielberg, and a lot of stuff happens in this film without much anticipation, and there was some cool stuff about getting two extremely large monsters deep into the earths core (i think), then you get to see a new version of mechgodzilla, and then they all had a massive face off, one of the evil corporate bezos/musk-ish baddies meets a delicious end, and actually i cant remember if kong and godzilla united together or what, but it was pretty great. made me think i need to started watching MMA. id def watch this again. much better than the first cow film.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Con Air was great if youre in the mood for something stupid and completely removed from the times. Great cast in a kind of slap dash non sensical way (nic cage, dave chappelle, john malkovich, steve buscemi, ving rhames, john cusack, danny trejo)
 

version

Well-known member
Con Air was great if youre in the mood for something stupid and completely removed from the times. Great cast in a kind of slap dash non sensical way (nic cage, dave chappelle, john malkovich, steve buscemi, ving rhames, john cusack, danny trejo)"
"Cyrus the Virus,"
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
I've almost watched exclusively dumb movies for nearly a year now. In my head Im maintaining some dialogue that its a journalistic endeavor on my end to observe how presentation of the Real has warped over time but I could be and likely am lying to myself.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Con Air has a lot to answer for, it's basically the Hollywood Action Movie equivalent of Robbie Williams' 'Let Me Entertain You' or Boris Johnson as PM.
 
It is the centenary of Berlanga, for me, the greatest spanish director ever. How was he able to shoot "The excecutioner" bending the censhorship rules of the dictatorship in Spain? nobody knows for sure, maybe the other great deceiver for the censhorship was Buñuel with Viridiana, but Berlanga was able to do it again and again, with a strong social message as subtext of his absurd "slice of life" comedy. Half Fellini, half Ken Loach, he was a satire master, with a portrait of corruption, hypocrisy, greed, and mediocrity of the Franco years, and the change to a democratic era that recycled all those flaws of the society. His signature was long sequence shots that needed a complex rehearsal and almost a choreography.

Must-see:

-The Executioner
-The National Shotgun
-Placido
 
I don't like Almodovar, but he knows his stuff: here he explains why he thinks Berlanga is not as famous as Buñuel outside Spain, while probably for spanish audience, is the other way around:

 

catalog

Well-known member
Sounds like Altman. That is quite a good technique, having lots of people talking at the same time. Will try track down a copy of The Executioner.

Think Bunuel also became famous cos he was so international? Like a lot of his most well known films are French or Mexican? And he's still to me quite a unique filmmaker.

But interesting point nonetheless from Almodovar. He's definitely got a point.
 
Buñuel was more visual, and linked with surrealism. also he was abroad, developed an international career, and he did a lot of films in Mexico, even some in the US. His comeback to Spain for Viridiana was short due to the scandal (with the vatican asking to burn all copies) and he ended in the french industry, that has more prestige and better marketing. Berlanga was able to trick the system within, he used to put sexual things in the script, and the censors just keep an eye on that, overlooking the political subtext. He only did one film abroad (although his connections with the italian neorrealism, and his partnership with Marco Ferreri) it was in Argentina, and it was probably his weakest.
 
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I think Berlanga did one film trying to enter the french market and the international prestige, but it was so weird that nobody knew what to think about it: It is about a middle age man that falls in love with his sexual doll. It was 1974. Similar premises like "Lars and the real girl" didn't make it until 2007.

It was weird even for a buñuel-style fantasy.
 
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I admit it, I can't be objective. I did not metion it because it is not going to be released with english subtitles, but Berlanga's "La Vaquilla" (the little bull? I don't even know how to translate it) is for me the best movie ever made about the spanish civil war.

It is about a petty rivalry in the war trenches. One side steals a little bull to the other, that is traditional to the local festivities to do some kind of bullfight (not really, it is not a full grown up bull, so the young people just used to play with it). They wanted to steal it to spoil the festivities and the moral on the fascist side, but also because they ran out of food.

And it is beatiful how a petty rivalry reflects all the little everyday envy that fuels hate to another level.

The end of the movie became iconic: The little animal ended in the nowhere land between the trenches, and was a symbol of the country dying consequence of the hate and the envy of each side:

 
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catalog

Well-known member
great stuff spamanic - top posts. looking forward to getting into this guy, sounds really good.

there's a thing with spain isn't there, about the civil war / franco, how that's all been dealt with / processed.

i love bolano and he talks, maybe in an interview, about how it all just bubbled over in the 80s once franco had gone, the sex and drugs and parties. there's one of his stories where he describes a two day bender in barcelona that's really good.

and i suppose almodovar was coming out of that same scene. but bunuel and this guy are obviously working within the constraints of the system, so having to do things much slyer.
 
Fun Fact about Almodovar: He was a civil servant on the State Phone Company (nowadays private company Telefonica) in Madrid around the time my dad was doing that job too in Madrid (my family is not from there) and it was a very well paid job back then. So I respect Almodovar very much even if I don't like his cinema because he had the balls to quit a "sure job" to do short films and indie films (in the vein of John Waters. The early Almodovar was crazy camp). It took time for him going from the underground to the mainstream.

PS. I think my dad missed the sex, the drugs, and the parties of the late 70s
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the father.
that new one with anthony hopkins.
100 times better than i ever expected it to be.
and better than hanekes amour too as far as films about older people losing their minds go.
 
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