24 frames per second: new movie thread

[guanajuato]

now you're really 'flirting with disaster'

don't tempt me. i used to watch babar on hbo you know, with the elephant. i know your tricks.

[difficult]

Just finished watching Affliction. Some scenes were inadvertently funny -- or rather, I could see that to somebody else, they would seem inadvertently funny.

It would be unhelpful to drink now, wouldn't it.

Some of it is funny! And harsh too, mind...
I think a drink afterwards would be quite appropriate. And maybe a trip to the dentist.

[Greg Nog]

I just watched this anime called Paprika.  It made no sense to me. 

I watched this mainly because I was hoping for something excitingly trippy, and got suckered in by the "Girl In Byakkoya" song they played in the preview.  But the whole thing was a kind of a disappointment.

Speaking of disappointments, me and the roomie just prepared ourselves for the new Hulk movie by watching the shitty Ang Lee version from a couple years back!  SMASH!

[auto-da-fey]

Earlier this week Gaby and I went to a free preview screening of Troma's Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, with Lloyd Kaufman in the house for a Q&A. We showed up quite early, on the grounds that it was likely to be packed and we wanted to get in. Turns out my insular little world of trash-cinema obsessiveness lost sight of the real world in which no one over 14 cares about Troma anymore, because there could not have been more than 25 people altogether in attendance. The film itself was fun--bogged down by some lame musical numbers, but full of the feces and carnage one would expect. I actually learned something in the Q&A, too: the morbidly obese guy who always shows up in Troma movies is not actually co-founder Michael herz, as he's billed; that's a 20-year long running joke, apparently, the subtle nature of which put it over my head.

[bethany_m]

Godzilla: Final Wars

I love Godzilla movies.  This one is especially funny, 'cause the American Godzilla monster (just called Zilla) shows up and gets it's ass kicked in like 2.6 seconds.  Awesome.

[G.C.R]

Went to see Adam's Apples last night. I think that Mads Mikelsson is pretty good! The comedy is pretty black, and they bring up some really dark stuff, which can sometimes leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I think because the really dark stuff wasnt the specific butt of the jokes, it didnt. It was good. Then went home and watched Haneke's Hidden. Some very good things about it, but I was overall frustrated by so much stuff along the way that seemed clunky or unnecessary that I dont think I can say I liked it. 

I also saw "Gerry" the other night, and the last 3 Van Sant films I've seen have been 3 for 3 with me, in a way that makes the phrase "favourite american director at the moment" hang on the edge of my lip. I fuckin loved it.

[Babar]

I saw Adam's Apples in danish class. It was good, at least a lot more fun than danish grammar.

[diesel_powered]

Watching the latest version of Blade Runner. Realizing that I probably shouldn't have slept on it when it was in the theaters.

[jebreject]

grace, really? i really don't understand what's special about van sant. i think by and large his films are boring and he has nothing interesting to say

[Andrew_TSKS]

yeah, i find him inconsistent. i liked "drugstore cowboy" but not much else that he's done comes anywhere near it in my estimation.

[Bernard]

Van Sant is good in a lot of the same ways and for the same reasons that Dennis Cooper is good, and his later films are more gooder.

[elpollodiablo]

Earlier this week Gaby and I went to a free preview screening of Troma's Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, with Lloyd Kaufman in the house for a Q&A. We showed up quite early, on the grounds that it was likely to be packed and we wanted to get in. Turns out my insular little world of trash-cinema obsessiveness lost sight of the real world in which no one over 14 cares about Troma anymore, because there could not have been more than 25 people altogether in attendance. The film itself was fun--bogged down by some lame musical numbers, but full of the feces and carnage one would expect. I actually learned something in the Q&A, too: the morbidly obese guy who always shows up in Troma movies is not actually co-founder Michael herz, as he's billed; that's a 20-year long running joke, apparently, the subtle nature of which put it over my head.

Hey Whit, I wanna take a class this summer and I think it's gonna be a film course on slasher films. Hope I can tap you for insights!

[G.C.R]

Van Sant consistently makes me think about what I like in films and why. He reminds me of a lot of the asian directors I like in that way. He gets me excited about the possibilities of making films. But Jeb I think the main thing there is that I dont find his films boring at all. I can see why people might, but.

[elpollodiablo]

Van Sant makes me think about what I like in films because I spend much of the time while watching Van Sant films thinking about how there's a distinct lack of those things in most of his body of work.

[edison]

I like Van Sant.

It is a bit embarrassing to find myself disagreeing with Greg AND Wally AND Andrew, but I was quite underwhelmed by I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, even though I really wanted to like it. It seemed to aim for a Curb Your Enthusiasm minus the meanness and the general people-hating that makes CYE so entertaining, and I don't know, it felt kind of slight, and it kind of dragged on with no sense of pacing. Shame (hey, at least I have hannah on my side!)

Also I paid my first visit to a movie theater in nearly a month yesterday to see This is England, which started out promisingly but had me frustrated and a bit annoyed towards the end (mainly because of the horrible last scene). Still, nice enough.

[difficult]

The new Gus Van Sant style is great... takes a little more work than traditional American cinema, and is very at odds with it. He's not my favourite US filmmaker, but probably my favourite who gets funding so easily.

[Wally]

I'm kinda with Andrew on this, I've nothing against Van sants last few films, but nothing really for them either. On the other hand Drugstore Cowboy and especially My own private idaho would probably make it on to my top one hundered films in the unlikely event I should make such a list.

[hannah]

Jean-Yves, I'm pretty sure our tastes in motion pictures match up 99% of the time. I take no pleasure in you being disappointed by a movie, even if I, you know, thought it sucked, but I am not particularly surprised!

And I, too, like Van Sant. And sometimes I don't. I do go back and forth on this one. But at least he is willing to fail, yeah, and often in an interesting way. It's sort of like how Myke says:

a well-timed falling down is always funny.

[Andrew_TSKS]

I'm kinda with Andrew on this, I've nothing against Van sants last few films, but nothing really for them either. On the other hand Drugstore Cowboy and especially My own private idaho would probably make it on to my top one hundered films in the unlikely event I should make such a list.

yeah, "my own private idaho" is really great too. i meant to mention it and then forgot to in the excitement of typing up my post (i actually do stuff like that a lot).

also, jean-yves, the things you mention that "make curb your enthusiasm so entertaining" are the very things about that show that make me hate it. so i guess it's no surprise that we disagree on this one.

[Greg Nog]

Yeah, I've only seen a couple of episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I wasn't super-jazzed about it; perhaps there's some kind of Larry David litmus test that can be applied to these things.

[elpollodiablo]

THAT'S HOW I DOOZ IT LARRY

[edison]

Way to make me look up "litmus", Greg!

Anyway Curb Your Enthusiasm
a) is pretty hit-and-miss, especially towards the beginning
b) takes some time to get used to
c) depends exclusively on whether you can stand Larry David's persona (then again I could pretty much bomb you with Youtube examples on why I often think the show is objectively funny and anyone who hates it cannot possibly be human, but let's not go down that road)

Also I checked after I said I liked Gus Van Sant and subsequently realized that I wasn't much of an authority on the subject: I saw only three of his movies, one I liked (Mala Noche), one I really liked (Elephant) and one I thought was so-so (Paranoid Park). I do like his willingness to experiment, too - I remember the narrative structure in Paranoid Park was pretty fascinating.

[edison]

Man, I just implied that there are people on this planet who do not think Larry David is funny. Scary stuff.

[Andrew_TSKS]

sometimes the show is funny, but sometimes i just want to punch him. for me, it entirely depends on whether the episode is about larry having stupid asshole shit happen to him or whether he's doing stupid asshole shit to someone else. if its the latter, i don't have any sympathy for him, and since he's the only even occasionally sympathetic character on the show, i end up being like "why am i watching this show about douchebags doing embarrassingly stupid and mean things? it's just making me miserable and angry." and i turn the fucking thing off.

and really, the ratio of episodes in which i can stand larry to episodes in which i can't is about 1/5.

[elpollodiablo]

Curb is funny in inverse proportion to the poor quality of Gus Van Sant films