What Movie Did You Just Watch

[talonmalon333]

A few nights ago I finally got around to seeing The Maltese Falcon.

What can I say? Humphrey Bogart is such a natural. I feel like there are many actors who you hear good things about, and then when I see them I don't think they quite live up the the hype. Humphrey Bogart lives up to and even surpasses the hype whenever I see him.

Tonight I took the time to watch Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings.

I think my life has officially jumped the shark.

I fell asleep watching it. The second time I tried, I fell asleep yet again. Thing is, I really wanted to give this an honest watch and couldn't do it. Bakshi's stuff tends to be paced a little on the slow side. And..... probably my bad for trying to watch it on late evenings.

I try to be easy on this movie because I know there was a lot of trouble making it. But it really didn't work. I can't think of any individual elements of the movie that works, except maybe Gandalf and some of the animation. The experimental animation can be interesting, but at other times it came off as rather jarring. As for the characters besides Gandalf... Frodo was just okay, Sam was a disaster, Aragorn had no presence and had nothing interesting to say, Legolas and Gimly were forgettable, Merry and Pippin were so bland that I never even figured out which was which, Boromir made no impression until the last five minutes of his life, Saruman apparently didn't even have a concrete name pronunciation (How unprofessional can a movie get?), and everyone else was just... there. Especially Eowyne, who literally did nothing.

Overall, the fact that they had to contain two huge novels in one movie (which is substantially shorter than any of the individual Jackson films, I might add), makes the whole movie collapse on itself. That's really why the characters fail. And there is really no pacing, too. It just feels like it's here, and then they suddenly jump somewhere else, and then the next scene pops up before you know it, throughout the whole thing. I remember them talking about going to Lothlorien (where Galadriel lives), and then they are immediately there a split second later. I also thought, because of this pacing, there was no time to establish the power and danger of the Ring, and anything that had to do with Sauron was really forgettable.

[talonmalon333]

So I have finally gotten around to seeing The Graduate. It's really one of those movies that lives up to its reputation, at least for me. Also, the ending was perfect...

Spoiler

Seeing Elaine finally slap her mother was one of the most satisfying things ever. And I think it's especially interesting how the ending really isn't a "happily ever after" type. You have that moment of victory when Benjamin and Elaine escape the chapel. But then when they are sitting on the bus together, there is just that moment of silence where the excitement ends and they just look solemnly, like the thing they just did is sinking in, and there's a feeling of "what now?".

[close]

[talonmalon333]

So I have a friend who is essentially making it a goal to see as many movies from AFI's top 100 movies (which is why I've watched The Maltese Falcon and The Graduate in such a short time apart), and I'm trying to see as many movies as I can with him, as there are a lot I still need to see. Tonight we watched The General, a silent comedy film. And it's a really fun silent movie, one of the best I've seen.

[Avaitor]

I'm more of a Chaplin fan, but I have nothing but love for The General and Steamboat Bill Jr.

[No-Personality]

Right now, I'm working on catching up with some missed horror films. Things I probably should have seen in prep for my Top 100, although nothing yet has cracked the bar. What I've watched so far:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - last 30 minutes slowly sunk it. Otherwise, it was a near-masterpiece. Of course, it didn't scare me. But, visually... way ahead of its time. Or, going by European standards, firmly of its time. The music, pacing, editing, camerawork, cinematography... it didn't take me 20 to understand why so many people rave about it. But, unfortunately, it got really predictable really fast and I don't think thematically it made me feel anything foreboding. Which is always crippling: if you can't scare or creep me out, you have to at least make me feel something bad will happen. Anyway, still good: 7/10

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) - some beautiful locations, excellent camerawork, and heady hallucinatory moments. But, ultimately, I thought it was a bit dull. It never intrigued me. Then... it started getting a bit preachy. I think we all hate that. But, seriously, this didn't even make sense: Lucy just lays down for Dracula to bite her (even though this turns her husband into "The New Dracula"), she dies, and practically calls Van Helsing a coward for not believing in demonic evil in a vampire movie. It quickly devolves into "science = dumb / wrong, religion = smart / right." (Um... writers, if you write a vampire movie, you're the ones making the rules- don't criticize other people for not buying your mythology when you're the one who wrote them to be cynical!) I'm never down with that: 5/10

Raw Meat (1973) - the opening credits are frickin' amazing. The rest, however... ugh. It's 65% dialogue with not-great-actors and almost uniformly lousy, boring characters and 35% unbelievably long camera pans over gored-up disem-bodies dripping with fake blood like that's revolutionary (well, it's not anymore) only to stop on a pair of mutant cannibals who can't speak but mumble in caveman-speak. Also for unbelievably long periods of time. As though this is either character development or social / class commentary. Visually, it's not interesting. Music's not great either. Lighting almost makes a couple scenes into something but, not really. The rest is Donald Pleasance having fun being an asshole- and he's the only semi-redeeming thing in the movie. Oh, and Christopher Lee is there for 2 minutes basically so Don can have someone to say "fuck you" to. Which he does. 4/10

Sssssss (1973) - more watchable than Raw Meat but suffers from a brand new problem: pretentiousness. Not every last mad scientist story on Earth has to turn their proto-Doc Brown into an "I'm God"-crazy nutjob. You wouldn't know that from this silly thing. But what's worse is that this doesn't even make any damn sense. What he's doing is trying to create a successful human-snake hybrid because he's just a worshipper of snakes. For biblical reasons (oh, brother!). Most writers would think they had their hands full with the phallic implications of doing "a snake movie" alone. He does this by performing tests on his male assistants. He procures 2. The first one turns into a Swamp Thing-esque abomination. Literally half-man/half-snake. Okay, so this is not what he's going for. Cut to: almost an hour later, #2 is starting to look like the same thing. So, we're actually about to figure out what the fuck went wrong with #1- right? Nope. According to the Doc, everything's going according to schedule. What good does this do for anyone? We never find out. UGH! He does however complete the experiment, and he turns assistant #2 into... a snake. His great super goddamn plan was to turn people into snakes. Even though he's been blithering on and on about creating something new and wondrous... he turns people into snakes. Why? The second he does it, his pet mongoose literally attacks and starts killing Snake "with human brain." He's got a whole fucking laboratory full of snakes! Dozens! (Well, less than 3 dozen.) So, he achieves his life's goal, goes into his back yard and is killed by a real snake. Thanks a lot, movie. 4/10

The Doctor and the Devils (1985) - visually dull, writing sucks. Basically, Twiggy saves it. Only in the scenes she's in. Another great opening credits sequence gets your expectations too high. I'm pretty sure this will bore 99% of viewers into a coma but I thought it was pretty watchable. Hollow as it gets, but generally watchable. If you riff on it the whole time. 5/10


So, no winners here. But I have several more I'm checking out later. Including... FINALLY, The Wicker Man. After long last, I blind-bought it. (Can't rely on goddamn Netflix or YouTube.)

[Avaitor]

Oh yeah, I've seen some of these on your letterboxd, which is a treat to check out.

But here's a question for you all- what do you think will take home the Oscar this year? Pre-Oscar award shows point to 12 Years a Slave being the most likely candidate, with Gravity the runner-up and American Hustle an "underdog" choice. I know that Slave won the Golden Globe, but I think the curse is mostly bs at this point, since the past 2 Best Picture winners also won their respective Globe with no problem taking home the big one.

[LumRanmaYasha]

It's tough to say. Both 12 Years A Slave and Gravity have near-universal critical acclaim and both seem like the kind of choices the committee would go for. It's a tough guess, but I might side with Slave since, like you said, pre-Oscar award shows are pointing to it having the edge.

[gunswordfist]

I want to watch every Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I saw the original and the Sutherland version (that one's ending is hilarious, imo). I LOVE movies like that. John Carpenter's The Thing is perhaps my favorite movie of all time. I'd love some recommendation of all the versions of IotBS and "body horror", as I believe you called them.

[Avaitor]

Ew.

[talonmalon333]

So today I rewatched Schindler's List. It had been years since I first saw it back when I was in high school. Still, today, words aren't needed.

[Inkwolf]

We showed Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters at the library Friday.  It was decent.  It must have been lots better than the first one, because I can barely remember anything about The Lightning Thief.

[talonmalon333]

Today, it was Sunset Boulevard.

Maybe I need to look at the list of movies from its year, and take into account movies I still have yet to see. But for now, I'm left with the question... How did Norma Desmond not win the award for Best Actress?

Phenomenal movie, but I expected nothing less.

[Avaitor]

How did Norma Desmond not win the award for Best Actress?

Simple, voters cancelled out Gloria Swanson and Bette Davis for both being so great that year that the award went to Judy Holliday instead.

I haven't seen Born Yesterday, so I can't say if she deserved it or not.

[talonmalon333]

I didn't even take Bette Davis with All About Eve into account. But yeah, I can see how she'd create competition.

[Avaitor]

Anne Baxter was also nominated for Best Actress that year, also for All About Eve. Nowadays, she would have had to settle for Supporting Actress.