When I saw Seven Samurai in high school it instantly became my favorite film. Anyone who I’ve gotten to watch it has loved it. The trouble is trying to sell an over 3 hour black and white Japanese film.
Not 100% animation, but I would absolutely love to see Criterion releases of Karel Zeman’s films which mix cut-out animation and live action together quite beautifully. Currently completely unavailable in english except for a dubbed version of The Fabulous world of Jules Verne. Quite a lot of fan-subs for his films out there on the internet though.
What do people think about the fact that Shosanna doesn’t actually get her revenge? I mean she gets it in the grand scheme of things, but the actual man who killed her family gets to be a hero. Or is the swastika carved into his head at the end enough of a revenge in that it will remind him of the deeds he’s done and label him?
As touched upon before there’s a strong theme of identity, nicknames, and labeling, how do other people think of you, how will history remember you? You’re just a Nazi or a Jew, not a person. Frederick Zoller is in love with Shosanna, and seems to legitimately regret what he’s done. Does it matter? No he’s a Nazi and he must die.
I don’t think it’s as mindless as you all think. It’s about historical biases and how violence can be funny or evil depending on who it’s happening to and in what context. The audience cheers and laughs at the nazi’s being slaughtered, the nazi’s in the theater laugh at the American’s being slaughtered.
People say the Basterd’s could’ve been taken out, and from a plot standpoint that makes sense, but that would’ve also taken away from the themes. Shosanna is the human side of the story, the Basterds are just labels, not real people. Our caring for a character is much dependent on how much Tarantino chooses to show us about them.
Quentin Tarantino spent 10 years writing this, while that does not prove anything, it definitely suggests to me that it’s more well thought out than simply mindless violence.
My earlier interpretation may have been premature, but I’ve been thinking about it more, and have a similar but different theory that to me seems to make perfect sense, and makes more sense the more I think about it rather than feeling like I’m stretching for something.
To me, as with all Quentin Tarantino films, this is about revenge, killing, and cinema. It’s supposed to be fun an entertaining, not some political message, but it seems he’s exploring the idea in more ways than readily obvious to the average audience viewer. As mentioned by others and myself before, it’s filled with references about labels and identities. It is about our personal biases, and historical biases, but most importantly it’s about biases in film. Throughout the whole movie he interjects little scenes of background information in between the action. He’s playing with how we perceive characters and how we feel about them the whole time. Everyone in this film is a mass murderer, the hero and villain is purely determined by what we know and what we think of the characters from what the film feeds us about them.
He’s always toyed around with the complexities of revenge, and many of these ideas he takes directly from the movies he references. In my opinion, this film is the natural progression in his career, and is the fullest realization of the common themes of his films. As Brad Pitt states at the end, it’s his masterpiece.
I don’t really think finding the message requires THAT much mental gymnastics to make it work. Granted my own interpretation could be completely misguided, but it’s extremely clear to me that there’s something there. The comparison between the Nazis watching National Pride and his own audience is too strikingly similar to be unintentional. There are clear, easy to find concepts, repeated throughout the film showing some type of thought process, too many to be coincidental. The Jew Hunter gives a long speech on nicknames, as well as a long speech on being a rat is good or bad. His opinion of his nickname changes at the end of the film, and he wants to rewrite history. The characters in the bar wear labels on their head, for the identity guessing game, and Brad Pitt’s character carves swastika’s into people’s foreheads to label them as Nazis. So many characters are in disguise trying to put forward another identity as other characters try to figure them out.
To me it seems absolutely silly to look at all these similar concepts and think that it’s all coincidental. I’m not one to interpret a film if I think the filmmaker had no intention of it being interpreted, but for me I see a clear pattern, and once I see that pattern I can’t help but read more deeply into it.
I’m a huge fan to turning off the brain every once in a while and enjoying a good over the top action movie. GI Joe was horrible uneventful. Yes it was packed full of action scenes, but not a single one of them was memorable. The fight choreography was actually rather terrible (or rather was filmed terribly, so you couldn’t tell if it had any merit or not), and the SFX were nothing really new. About the only thing I can say about this movie, is that you probably won’t fall asleep during it. But really not anything that I need to have seen, just a time killer really (and an annoying one at that). Also some of the most ridiculous over-use of CGI I’ve ever seen. CGI Dessert? CGI Water? Has the film industry really reached this level of laziness? Starship Troopers had more realistic, and more entertaining special effects and that was 12 years ago.
Everyone needs some friends who take them to watch bad movies IMO. I would never watch that stuff on my own, but everyone needs to see a bad movie every now and then to help retain their objectivity. Also, you can’t be an elitist if you’re not up to date. Can’t say you don’t like hollywood if you haven’t seen a hollywood film in several years. It’s not always enjoyable, but it is quite useful to make the trip. Best option is to go a big theater with friends and go movie hopping. Pay for the most decent or if you’re lucky good movie playing, then see the latest trash for free.
This isn’t the widest selection of DVDs to compare, but they’ve got some really ultra-obscure stuff that you won’t find anywhere else. A big part of it is Eastern European films, and Czech films in particular I think, though the overall selection is fairly random. Might not be useful to everybody but this has helped me out a ton, especially with my exploration into Karel Zeman.
Ladislas Starewicz – His name gets spelled a lot of different ways. He’s the master though, first one to make a stop-motion film with characters and a narrative. And by the 30s he’d perfected smooth animation style with motion blur, and really expressive faces from leather shrunk around wooden dolls that he animated with dentist tongs. Cameraman’s Revenge is a great early short of his, The Mascot is his short masterpiece in my opinion, and A Tale of the Fox is his feature film, and is also fantastic.
Jiri Trnka – An early Czech master, really smooth animation, interesting concepts, and helped get stop-motion fully going in Czechoslovakia.
Karel Zeman – Another early Czech film maker, he started out doing shorts, with his masterpiece being Inspiration, a short film that used glass figures that he animated by bending with heat. Later he moved into SFX for movies, and made some of the most stunning visual effects I’ve ever seen, all of them are amazing, but Deadly Invention is my favorite.
Aleksandr Ptushko – Russian stop-motion animator who merged live action and stop-motion together around the same time as Willis O’brien. Though he was the second to do it, his film The New Gulliver had 3000 stop-motion puppets in it and was released the same year as King Kong. Sadly I haven’t seen any of his stop-motion work because none of it is available on DVD currently. He later moved into non-stop motion SFX work.
Jan Svankmajer – My favorite stop-motion animator of all time. I can’t pick a favorite of his because all his work his brilliant, every single short and feature film is amazing. He’s also done lots of great SFX work, particularly with director Oldrich Lipsky.
Jiri Barta – A more modern Czech animator, also very creative. Though his feature Krysar is great, I think his masterpiece has yet to come. I think Golem is going to blow us a way when he finally finishes it, czech out this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJFhiQMB8I
The Brothers Quay – Eastern European style from 2 Americans who moved to Britain. Definitely 2 of the most talented animators around, love their use of textures. Street of Crocodiles rocks.
Willis O’ Brien – The first director to merge live action and characters together.
George Pal – I’m not always a fan of the content of his films, but the animation is brilliant undeniably. Awesome stuff.
Ray Harryhausen – I don’t think I even need to explain myself here, he made the best fantasy and sci-fi stop-motion monsters ever.
Will Vinton – Did amazing stop-motion rocks in Return to Oz, his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain is also awesome.
Phil Tippets – A great modern stop motion effects animator for films. Did work on Star Wars V and VI, Dragonslayer, Robocop, Howard the Duck, and Coneheads. He has since moved into CGI work.
The Bolex Brothers – Their film The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a brilliant feature that uses Pixilation or stop-motion of live actors, to achieve a really creepy atmosphere, and blend them seamlessly with the stop-motion characters.
Ladislas Starewicz – His name gets spelled a lot of different ways. He’s the master though, first one to make a stop-motion film with characters and a narrative. And by the 30s he’d perfected smooth animation style with motion blur, and really expressive faces from leather shrunk around wooden dolls that he animated with dentist tongs. Cameraman’s Revenge is a great early short of his, The Mascot is his short masterpiece in my opinion, and A Tale of the Fox is his feature film, and is also fantastic.
Jiri Trnka – An early Czech master, really smooth animation, interesting concepts, and helped get stop-motion fully going in Czechoslovakia.
Karel Zeman – Another early Czech film maker, he started out doing shorts, with his masterpiece being Inspiration, a short film that used glass figures that he animated by bending with heat. Later he moved into SFX for movies, and made some of the most stunning visual effects I’ve ever seen, all of them are amazing, but Deadly Invention is my favorite.
Aleksandr Ptushko – Russian stop-motion animator who merged live action and stop-motion together around the same time as Willis O’brien. Though he was the second to do it, his film The New Gulliver had 3000 stop-motion puppets in it and was released the same year as King Kong. Sadly I haven’t seen any of his stop-motion work because none of it is available on DVD currently. He later moved into non-stop motion SFX work.
Jan Svankmajer – My favorite stop-motion animator of all time. I can’t pick a favorite of his because all his work his brilliant, every single short and feature film is amazing. He’s also done lots of great SFX work, particularly with director Oldrich Lipsky.
Jiri Barta – A more modern Czech animator, also very creative. Though his feature Krysar is great, I think his masterpiece has yet to come. I think Golem is going to blow us a way when he finally finishes it, czech out this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJFhiQMB8I
The Brothers Quay – Eastern European style from 2 Americans who moved to Britain. Definitely 2 of the most talented animators around, love their use of textures. Street of Crocodiles rocks.
Willis O’ Brien – The first director to merge live action and characters together.
George Pal – I’m not always a fan of the content of his films, but the animation is brilliant undeniably. Awesome stuff.
Ray Harryhausen – I don’t think I even need to explain myself here, he made the best fantasy and sci-fi stop-motion monsters ever.
Will Vinton – Did amazing stop-motion rocks in Return to Oz, his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain is also awesome.
Phil Tippets – A great modern stop motion effects animator for films. Did work on Star Wars V and VI, Dragonslayer, Robocop, Howard the Duck, and Coneheads. He has since moved into CGI work.
The Bolex Brothers – Their film The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a brilliant feature that uses Pixilation or stop-motion of live actors, to achieve a really creepy atmosphere, and blend them seamlessly with the stop-motion characters.
There’s lots of great SFX out there it’s hard to choose. I have a big soft-spot for Karel Zeman though, even though he didn’t have realistic special effects, he merged many different mediums together in a way that formed a cohesive whole. My favorite of his being Deadly Invention, where at times he actually makes the water look more artificial to blend in better with the rest of the film. http://doarcodavelha.blogspot.com/2009/05/karel-zeman-vynalez-zkazy-aka-deadly.html
On the topic of CGI: I think CGI is a really useful tool when done tastefully, but I think it’s overused and that film makers still need to build something physical for the close-ups. Any CGI that is far away or moving quickly works fine for me though. I disagree with the idea that CGI is improving every year. For me one of the best uses of CGI is in the movie Starship Troopers, back from 1998. The bug models are probably a lot simpler than the kinds of things we see today, but they blend in really well with the live action IMO. Sometimes you can tell it’s CGI, but when I watched the special features, there was a lot more CGI than I thought when watching the movie. It does suffer from a few really cheesy CGI explosion effects though. An interesting note is that Phil Tippets was in charge of the SFX, he’s had a very successful career in stop-motion SFX and has successfully made the jump to CGI I think.
Where are you getting your prices for the box set? On amazon, it’s $80, and not long ago it was on sale for only $30. In fact if you go to the amazon market place a lot of their sellers are selling it brand new for $30, that’s a steal.
Irreversible is not perfectly backwards, the scenes run in reverse order but within each scene time moves forwards. It moves forward in time and then jumps back after each scene. A film that moves (almost) perfectly backwards is a Czech film called Happy End, though the characters spoke their lines backwards during filming so that it would be understandable when reversed.
I’m not in the anti-Irreversible camp, but I haven’t really analyzed it in-depth either. I’d like to play devils advocate and challenge people who like this film immensely to explain why it goes beyond gimmick. Sure having a strong emotional response is a good reason to say why you liked a film, but countless people have strong emotional responses to supposedly “bad” films. So lets set down some objective reasons behind these subjective opinions. What does Irreversible do that makes it go beyond gimmick and lead to enhancement of the film experience? How does it differentiate itself from other backwards, “1 take”, elongated rape scene, shaky cam, low frequency sound films?
@josh ryan
“I completely disagree as it pertains to this film. If you agree that the chronology of the film is important to its meaning then dismissing it a gimmick seems like arguing for the sake of arguing, which I’m not interested in.”
I think the question being asked is. Because reversing any film will ultimately change it’s meaning. What traits does Irreversible posses that make reversing it solidify it’s themes even further, than if you reversed any other film.
Gimmick = reversing film just to see what the effect of reversing a film is. There is a change obviously, but it doesn’t relate to the story.
Not Gimmick = How does reversing enhance the story? Not change it, but strengthen it or tell it better. Or if the story is not important, how does it strengthen the themes of the story?
I think 3D has potential, but it’s not just that a filmmaker needs to use it well, but the technology needs to come up to speed. Right now 3D has always been more distracting than helpful to the film. But if done right it could allow a whole new level of immersion into a film.
Also, while I don’t agree with him entirely Roger Ebert brings up some good points on some of the drawbacks 3D technology has in it’s current state, in this article.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts-and-culture/all/5402013/does-anyone-like-3d.thtml
Question: Do you guys think Blu-Ray is the new DVD, or the new Laserdisc? In otherwords, is it here to replace DVD, or is it simply a higher quality more expensive alternative as Laserdisc was to VHS?
Right now I’m content with me DVDs, and waiting. Either Blu-Ray will crash and burn, or it’s price will go down, either way is win for me. I don’t see getting DVDs as a waste, because Blu-Ray’s quality upgrade doesn’t seem to be enough to make DVDs look obsolete. Also I frequently watch DVDs that are simply taken from VHS or other low quality source materials, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I prefer high quality when available, but I can live with low quality when it’s the only option. When Blu-Ray is affordable I’ll make the switch, if it never is, I’ll just wait for the real new format to come along.
I’ve recently come across the films of Sergei Parajanov, and absolutely love them, simply for their visual appeal. But I’d like to get a deeper understanding of them and what they represent. Right now I feel like if I were trying to get someone to watch his films, or have a discussion about them, I’d have nothing interesting to say except “they’re beautiful”. Should I just take them for what they are, and keep watching them and see what comes to me? Or would I need to do some research into the culture and stories of his films to try and get more out of them? Anyone here a big fan of him, and got some pointers on where to go next?
If you’re serious about wanting to be able to appreciate older movies (not force yourself to, but genuinely enjoy them), I have 2 big suggestions.
1) Watch the films to the very end. To turn a film off half way, is just about the same as having not watched it at all. A lot of times in well made films, the beginning of the film isn’t designed to grab your attention, but to set up the story. A lot of times things that happen in the beginning won’t seem important, but will pay off in the end. You haven’t really watched the beginning of the film, until you know how it relates to the story as a whole. A little patience is required sometimes, but when you’re done with the film it will have been a fun experience, and the next time you watch it, you’ll have a better appreciation for the beginning.
2) Change your expectations going in. False expectations are the #1 killer of a good movie. You seem to be getting caught up on all the little details, cinematography, music, writing, acting, etc. To me it seems like you’re judging the film by it’s elements, and not by the whole. You call some cinematography boring, but sometimes the best cinematography is meant to serve the story, and part of serving the story is not drawing attention to itself. The same applies to music and editing and many other elements of the film. Writing and acting I’d say you can’t truly judge until you’ve seen the film the whole way through, going back to #1. Stop getting caught up on nitpicking details, if that’s all you’re focusing on, then you’re not allowing yourself to enjoy what the movie is presenting to you. And again, once you’ve seen the film a whole, you can better gauge how good each of the elements are.
As to your comment, about art getting better over time. Just because something is done in a “different” and “new” way does not make it better. Back in silent films, there was very little shot variety and most stuff was long take, static camera, very simple set-ups. But you also have to remember context. The long take static shot serves Buster Keaton’s films perfectly, and more modern editing would have hurt them severely. No the films of Keaton didn’t revolutionize cinematography, and yes just about every other film of the era had the exact same style, but they serve Keaton’s films brilliantly, and thus the cinematography is brilliant.
You’ve gotta stop equating things like music is getting “better” or cinematography is getting “better”. There’s no such thing as “good cinematography” out of the context of the rest of the film. The oldest most simplistic styles are sometimes ideal. You are correct that modern filmmakers have more options, but more options is meaningless if you don’t make the correct choice. More options can sometimes make it even more difficult to figure out which choice is right. There are tons of old films where the choice in cinematography is perfect, thus equally as good as the best films made today.
I ordered these from least to most disturbing, and then also further separated them into categories…
Deep Red
Zombi 2
These two should be easy, and should give you no issues what so ever.
El Topo
Eraserhead
Audition
These may push your limits a bit, but I don’t think you’ll have any real issues completing them. Audition will be pretty rough at the end, but I think it’s do-able.
Braindead
Ichi the Killer
These might be too much, but I still think they’re worth seeing. Braindead is really gross, and being a former squeamish person the first time I saw it I felt quite sick afterwords. But it’s sooo silly and just tons of fun, that helps mitigate the experience I think. Watching it a second time was no problem, and getting over this movie, I can watch just about anything.
Ichi the Killer has a lot of digitally inserted gore which basically has 0 effect on me whatsoever. But there’s also some pretty brutal torture like people hanging from hooks (and the actors are actually hanging from hooks) that makes this a pretty difficult watch. When I saw this I was pretty well jaded, but I know a lot of people who’ve had extreme negative responses to this. I’d say avoid it until you’re tolerance level is a bit higher. Once you can handle braindead, check this one out.
Has anyone mentioned the Terry Gilliam version of Watchmen yet? He was set to make it, but decided he couldn’t do the comic justice unless it was a mini-series.
Going to rush through this, so I’m probably leaving out tons, sorting by country for ease.
Hong Kong
Come Drink with Me
Dragon Inn
The Fate of Lee Khan
One-Armed Swordsman
Five Elements Ninja
Vengeance
36th Chamber of Shaolin
Return to the 36th Chamber
8 Diagram Pole Fighter
Dirty Ho
Drunken Master
Iron Monkey
Tai Chi Master
Pedicab Driver
Millionaire’s Express
Police Story
City Hunter
One Armed Boxer
Master of the Flying Guillotine
The Crippled Masters
We’re Going to Eat You
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
Ninja in the Dragon’s Den
New Legend of Shaolin
Last Hurrah for Chivalry
Hard Boiled
Burning Paradise
Full Contact
The Heroic Trio
Running on Karma
Fulltime Killer
Ashes of Time
New Dragon Inn
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Kung Fu Hustle
Japan
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sword of Doom
Youth of the Beast
Fighting Elegy
Tattooed Life
Tokyo Drifter
Branded to Kill
The Street Fighter
Ninja Wars
Lone Wolf and Cub Series
Lady Snowblood
Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice
Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion
Machine Girl
Tokyo Gore Police
Black Belt
Most Godzilla Films
America (too lazy to include westerns)
Almost everything by Ray Harryhausen
The Steel Helmet
Faster Pussycat Kill Kill
Forbidden Planet
Deathrace 2000
Star Wars 4-6
Aliens
Predator
Rambo
Big Trouble in Little China
They Live
The Princess Bride
Robocop
Starship Troopers
Kill Bill
The Matrix
On an exploitation message board I go on, we tried to define pornography in a way as to separate it from sexploitation films, which seems rather tricky to do. The definition we agreed upon was that in a porn film, the only reason to watch was for the sex, whereas in a sexploitation film sex was only one of many aspects. I realize this isn’t exactly the official definition, and it’s highly subjective, but it’s extremely useful in trying to differentiate the 2 genre. Granted this definition also pushes a lot of what is normally considered porn, especially cheesy soft-core stuff, into the sexploitation genre. By this definition, porn cannot be art, but sex can be.
That might be overall useless to this discussion, but I thought I’d throw my 2 cents in. And I think for this discussion to happen properly, you must first define what exactly porn is, because it’s not at all a simple question.
I’m sure most of the people here are generally opposed to the idea of fan edits of films, and most fan edits I’ve seen are fairly dumb, just “extended versions” of the film that add in deleted scenes, or combine 2 versions or what have you.
But in some cases there are films that don’t really have a definitive Director’s Cut version available, and fan edits will attempt to re-create the director’s original vision. The example I’m most recently faced with is David Lynch’s Dune. The Theatrical-Cut, although approved by Lynch, is severely cut-down, and definitely not the cut he would have made had he been given full creative control. The Extended Edition, is censored as it was made for TV, and also contains lots of new material not originally intended to be in the film by Lynch. Because neither version is perfect some people have undertaken the task of trying to re-create David Lynch’s original vision, by looking at various stages of the script, and trying to re-create the full film using elements from The Theatrical Cut, The Extended Cut, Deleted Scenes, and The Soundtrack. The goal being to add, any Lynch-filmed scenes from the Extended Cut into the Theatrical Cut, but removing any new materials, changes in sound-track, etc. It would be silly to call this fan edit Lynch’s true vision, but it’s possibly the best version available when faced with the flaws of the current 2 versions on the market.
So what are your thoughts about Fan Edits? Do you know of any films that have Fan Edits, that are significant improvements over the versions available on DVD? How will this new digital age of film editing affect the evolution of cinema? There are already lots of independent film makers putting their raw materials on the internet, for people to download and make their own trailers for and such. Only a matter of time before someone releases all their dailies to allow fans to edit the film any way they choose. Is this the death of the Auteur, or can the Director’s Cut and Fan Edits co-exist in harmony? Is there a potential for new Film Edit Auteurs, who never actually film anything themselves, but have a persistent vision in how they edit other people’s materials?
This discussion can go a lot of ways, just curious what all your opinions of it are.
I think most of us would agree that any attempt to “improve” on a work of art, is undesirable. But there are instances where a director’s vision is not properly portrayed on screen. And there are some fan editors who do not make changes simply because they don’t like this or that, but base it off of concrete things like scripts, or interviews with the director, and try to make changes to bring out the Director’s original intent, rather than put their own spin on it. I think this is perhaps more desirable than the other sorts of fan edits.
The other type of fan edit, I could see as being intersting is edits where the person tries to put their own spin on it. Certainly some artists have modified the Mona Lisa in order to create a new work of art. But I don’t think the intent, is to “improve it” or “replace it”, but to make their own artistic statement using the Mona Lisa as source material.
My collection is sorted by country the film was made in, and then within the country it is grouped into directors, and director’s are sorted roughly chronologically based on their first film, and then the films within each director’s section are also sorted chronologically.
To me it seemed like Schizopolis was trying to sort of parody and demean experimental films, and to purposefully try not to have any meaning in itself as part of the parody. To me it seemed rather hypocritical, because it criticizes films for trying to open peoples minds to spout some sort of philosophy, but that itself is taking a stance and a philosophy. It asks not to be interpreted yet at the same time demands it. Though I’m not entirely sure if Soderbergh was just ignorant to his hypocrisy or deliberately trying to be hypocritical. And if he was trying to be hypocritical then what was he actually trying to say with the film?
Transitional Films almost 3 years ago
When I saw Seven Samurai in high school it instantly became my favorite film. Anyone who I’ve gotten to watch it has loved it. The trouble is trying to sell an over 3 hour black and white Japanese film.
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Animated Films on Criterion almost 3 years ago
Not 100% animation, but I would absolutely love to see Criterion releases of Karel Zeman’s films which mix cut-out animation and live action together quite beautifully. Currently completely unavailable in english except for a dubbed version of The Fabulous world of Jules Verne. Quite a lot of fan-subs for his films out there on the internet though.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 3 years ago
What do people think about the fact that Shosanna doesn’t actually get her revenge? I mean she gets it in the grand scheme of things, but the actual man who killed her family gets to be a hero. Or is the swastika carved into his head at the end enough of a revenge in that it will remind him of the deeds he’s done and label him?
As touched upon before there’s a strong theme of identity, nicknames, and labeling, how do other people think of you, how will history remember you? You’re just a Nazi or a Jew, not a person. Frederick Zoller is in love with Shosanna, and seems to legitimately regret what he’s done. Does it matter? No he’s a Nazi and he must die.
I don’t think it’s as mindless as you all think. It’s about historical biases and how violence can be funny or evil depending on who it’s happening to and in what context. The audience cheers and laughs at the nazi’s being slaughtered, the nazi’s in the theater laugh at the American’s being slaughtered.
People say the Basterd’s could’ve been taken out, and from a plot standpoint that makes sense, but that would’ve also taken away from the themes. Shosanna is the human side of the story, the Basterds are just labels, not real people. Our caring for a character is much dependent on how much Tarantino chooses to show us about them.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 3 years ago
Quentin Tarantino spent 10 years writing this, while that does not prove anything, it definitely suggests to me that it’s more well thought out than simply mindless violence.
My earlier interpretation may have been premature, but I’ve been thinking about it more, and have a similar but different theory that to me seems to make perfect sense, and makes more sense the more I think about it rather than feeling like I’m stretching for something.
To me, as with all Quentin Tarantino films, this is about revenge, killing, and cinema. It’s supposed to be fun an entertaining, not some political message, but it seems he’s exploring the idea in more ways than readily obvious to the average audience viewer. As mentioned by others and myself before, it’s filled with references about labels and identities. It is about our personal biases, and historical biases, but most importantly it’s about biases in film. Throughout the whole movie he interjects little scenes of background information in between the action. He’s playing with how we perceive characters and how we feel about them the whole time. Everyone in this film is a mass murderer, the hero and villain is purely determined by what we know and what we think of the characters from what the film feeds us about them.
He’s always toyed around with the complexities of revenge, and many of these ideas he takes directly from the movies he references. In my opinion, this film is the natural progression in his career, and is the fullest realization of the common themes of his films. As Brad Pitt states at the end, it’s his masterpiece.
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Reactions to Inglourious basterds almost 3 years ago
I don’t really think finding the message requires THAT much mental gymnastics to make it work. Granted my own interpretation could be completely misguided, but it’s extremely clear to me that there’s something there. The comparison between the Nazis watching National Pride and his own audience is too strikingly similar to be unintentional. There are clear, easy to find concepts, repeated throughout the film showing some type of thought process, too many to be coincidental. The Jew Hunter gives a long speech on nicknames, as well as a long speech on being a rat is good or bad. His opinion of his nickname changes at the end of the film, and he wants to rewrite history. The characters in the bar wear labels on their head, for the identity guessing game, and Brad Pitt’s character carves swastika’s into people’s foreheads to label them as Nazis. So many characters are in disguise trying to put forward another identity as other characters try to figure them out.
To me it seems absolutely silly to look at all these similar concepts and think that it’s all coincidental. I’m not one to interpret a film if I think the filmmaker had no intention of it being interpreted, but for me I see a clear pattern, and once I see that pattern I can’t help but read more deeply into it.
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Is GI JOE the guilty pleasure of 2009? almost 3 years ago
I’m a huge fan to turning off the brain every once in a while and enjoying a good over the top action movie. GI Joe was horrible uneventful. Yes it was packed full of action scenes, but not a single one of them was memorable. The fight choreography was actually rather terrible (or rather was filmed terribly, so you couldn’t tell if it had any merit or not), and the SFX were nothing really new. About the only thing I can say about this movie, is that you probably won’t fall asleep during it. But really not anything that I need to have seen, just a time killer really (and an annoying one at that). Also some of the most ridiculous over-use of CGI I’ve ever seen. CGI Dessert? CGI Water? Has the film industry really reached this level of laziness? Starship Troopers had more realistic, and more entertaining special effects and that was 12 years ago.
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When you're with people who don't know that much about film.... almost 3 years ago
Everyone needs some friends who take them to watch bad movies IMO. I would never watch that stuff on my own, but everyone needs to see a bad movie every now and then to help retain their objectivity. Also, you can’t be an elitist if you’re not up to date. Can’t say you don’t like hollywood if you haven’t seen a hollywood film in several years. It’s not always enjoyable, but it is quite useful to make the trip. Best option is to go a big theater with friends and go movie hopping. Pay for the most decent or if you’re lucky good movie playing, then see the latest trash for free.
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how many of you think that watchmen is the best superhero flick ever made ? over 2 years ago
Batman: The Movie (1966) is the best, hands down.
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Guilty pleasures, your favourite B-movies over 2 years ago
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
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DVD review sites over 2 years ago
http://dvdfreak.bloudil.cz/
This isn’t the widest selection of DVDs to compare, but they’ve got some really ultra-obscure stuff that you won’t find anywhere else. A big part of it is Eastern European films, and Czech films in particular I think, though the overall selection is fairly random. Might not be useful to everybody but this has helped me out a ton, especially with my exploration into Karel Zeman.
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Stop Motion over 2 years ago
I love stop-motion
Ladislas Starewicz – His name gets spelled a lot of different ways. He’s the master though, first one to make a stop-motion film with characters and a narrative. And by the 30s he’d perfected smooth animation style with motion blur, and really expressive faces from leather shrunk around wooden dolls that he animated with dentist tongs. Cameraman’s Revenge is a great early short of his, The Mascot is his short masterpiece in my opinion, and A Tale of the Fox is his feature film, and is also fantastic.
Jiri Trnka – An early Czech master, really smooth animation, interesting concepts, and helped get stop-motion fully going in Czechoslovakia.
Karel Zeman – Another early Czech film maker, he started out doing shorts, with his masterpiece being Inspiration, a short film that used glass figures that he animated by bending with heat. Later he moved into SFX for movies, and made some of the most stunning visual effects I’ve ever seen, all of them are amazing, but Deadly Invention is my favorite.
Aleksandr Ptushko – Russian stop-motion animator who merged live action and stop-motion together around the same time as Willis O’brien. Though he was the second to do it, his film The New Gulliver had 3000 stop-motion puppets in it and was released the same year as King Kong. Sadly I haven’t seen any of his stop-motion work because none of it is available on DVD currently. He later moved into non-stop motion SFX work.
Jan Svankmajer – My favorite stop-motion animator of all time. I can’t pick a favorite of his because all his work his brilliant, every single short and feature film is amazing. He’s also done lots of great SFX work, particularly with director Oldrich Lipsky.
Jiri Barta – A more modern Czech animator, also very creative. Though his feature Krysar is great, I think his masterpiece has yet to come. I think Golem is going to blow us a way when he finally finishes it, czech out this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJFhiQMB8I
The Brothers Quay – Eastern European style from 2 Americans who moved to Britain. Definitely 2 of the most talented animators around, love their use of textures. Street of Crocodiles rocks.
Willis O’ Brien – The first director to merge live action and characters together.
George Pal – I’m not always a fan of the content of his films, but the animation is brilliant undeniably. Awesome stuff.
Ray Harryhausen – I don’t think I even need to explain myself here, he made the best fantasy and sci-fi stop-motion monsters ever.
Will Vinton – Did amazing stop-motion rocks in Return to Oz, his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain is also awesome.
Phil Tippets – A great modern stop motion effects animator for films. Did work on Star Wars V and VI, Dragonslayer, Robocop, Howard the Duck, and Coneheads. He has since moved into CGI work.
The Bolex Brothers – Their film The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a brilliant feature that uses Pixilation or stop-motion of live actors, to achieve a really creepy atmosphere, and blend them seamlessly with the stop-motion characters.
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Stop Motion over 2 years ago
I love stop-motion
Ladislas Starewicz – His name gets spelled a lot of different ways. He’s the master though, first one to make a stop-motion film with characters and a narrative. And by the 30s he’d perfected smooth animation style with motion blur, and really expressive faces from leather shrunk around wooden dolls that he animated with dentist tongs. Cameraman’s Revenge is a great early short of his, The Mascot is his short masterpiece in my opinion, and A Tale of the Fox is his feature film, and is also fantastic.
Jiri Trnka – An early Czech master, really smooth animation, interesting concepts, and helped get stop-motion fully going in Czechoslovakia.
Karel Zeman – Another early Czech film maker, he started out doing shorts, with his masterpiece being Inspiration, a short film that used glass figures that he animated by bending with heat. Later he moved into SFX for movies, and made some of the most stunning visual effects I’ve ever seen, all of them are amazing, but Deadly Invention is my favorite.
Aleksandr Ptushko – Russian stop-motion animator who merged live action and stop-motion together around the same time as Willis O’brien. Though he was the second to do it, his film The New Gulliver had 3000 stop-motion puppets in it and was released the same year as King Kong. Sadly I haven’t seen any of his stop-motion work because none of it is available on DVD currently. He later moved into non-stop motion SFX work.
Jan Svankmajer – My favorite stop-motion animator of all time. I can’t pick a favorite of his because all his work his brilliant, every single short and feature film is amazing. He’s also done lots of great SFX work, particularly with director Oldrich Lipsky.
Jiri Barta – A more modern Czech animator, also very creative. Though his feature Krysar is great, I think his masterpiece has yet to come. I think Golem is going to blow us a way when he finally finishes it, czech out this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJFhiQMB8I
The Brothers Quay – Eastern European style from 2 Americans who moved to Britain. Definitely 2 of the most talented animators around, love their use of textures. Street of Crocodiles rocks.
Willis O’ Brien – The first director to merge live action and characters together.
George Pal – I’m not always a fan of the content of his films, but the animation is brilliant undeniably. Awesome stuff.
Ray Harryhausen – I don’t think I even need to explain myself here, he made the best fantasy and sci-fi stop-motion monsters ever.
Will Vinton – Did amazing stop-motion rocks in Return to Oz, his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain is also awesome.
Phil Tippets – A great modern stop motion effects animator for films. Did work on Star Wars V and VI, Dragonslayer, Robocop, Howard the Duck, and Coneheads. He has since moved into CGI work.
The Bolex Brothers – Their film The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a brilliant feature that uses Pixilation or stop-motion of live actors, to achieve a really creepy atmosphere, and blend them seamlessly with the stop-motion characters.
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Stop Motion over 2 years ago
sorry I meant to edit my post, and for some reason it made a new one, can’t figure out how to delete either.
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what's your favorite special effects movie over 2 years ago
There’s lots of great SFX out there it’s hard to choose. I have a big soft-spot for Karel Zeman though, even though he didn’t have realistic special effects, he merged many different mediums together in a way that formed a cohesive whole. My favorite of his being Deadly Invention, where at times he actually makes the water look more artificial to blend in better with the rest of the film. http://doarcodavelha.blogspot.com/2009/05/karel-zeman-vynalez-zkazy-aka-deadly.html
On the topic of CGI: I think CGI is a really useful tool when done tastefully, but I think it’s overused and that film makers still need to build something physical for the close-ups. Any CGI that is far away or moving quickly works fine for me though. I disagree with the idea that CGI is improving every year. For me one of the best uses of CGI is in the movie Starship Troopers, back from 1998. The bug models are probably a lot simpler than the kinds of things we see today, but they blend in really well with the live action IMO. Sometimes you can tell it’s CGI, but when I watched the special features, there was a lot more CGI than I thought when watching the movie. It does suffer from a few really cheesy CGI explosion effects though. An interesting note is that Phil Tippets was in charge of the SFX, he’s had a very successful career in stop-motion SFX and has successfully made the jump to CGI I think.
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Werner Must get CRITERIONED!!! over 2 years ago
Where are you getting your prices for the box set? On amazon, it’s $80, and not long ago it was on sale for only $30. In fact if you go to the amazon market place a lot of their sellers are selling it brand new for $30, that’s a steal.
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Heads up!!!! 50% off Criterions over 2 years ago
I missed the last one, so for me this is super exciting!
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IRREVERSIBLE (Gaspar Noe, 2002) over 2 years ago
Irreversible is not perfectly backwards, the scenes run in reverse order but within each scene time moves forwards. It moves forward in time and then jumps back after each scene. A film that moves (almost) perfectly backwards is a Czech film called Happy End, though the characters spoke their lines backwards during filming so that it would be understandable when reversed.
I’m not in the anti-Irreversible camp, but I haven’t really analyzed it in-depth either. I’d like to play devils advocate and challenge people who like this film immensely to explain why it goes beyond gimmick. Sure having a strong emotional response is a good reason to say why you liked a film, but countless people have strong emotional responses to supposedly “bad” films. So lets set down some objective reasons behind these subjective opinions. What does Irreversible do that makes it go beyond gimmick and lead to enhancement of the film experience? How does it differentiate itself from other backwards, “1 take”, elongated rape scene, shaky cam, low frequency sound films?
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IRREVERSIBLE (Gaspar Noe, 2002) over 2 years ago
@josh ryan
“I completely disagree as it pertains to this film. If you agree that the chronology of the film is important to its meaning then dismissing it a gimmick seems like arguing for the sake of arguing, which I’m not interested in.”
I think the question being asked is. Because reversing any film will ultimately change it’s meaning. What traits does Irreversible posses that make reversing it solidify it’s themes even further, than if you reversed any other film.
Gimmick = reversing film just to see what the effect of reversing a film is. There is a change obviously, but it doesn’t relate to the story.
Not Gimmick = How does reversing enhance the story? Not change it, but strengthen it or tell it better. Or if the story is not important, how does it strengthen the themes of the story?
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The Future Is In 3D over 2 years ago
I think 3D has potential, but it’s not just that a filmmaker needs to use it well, but the technology needs to come up to speed. Right now 3D has always been more distracting than helpful to the film. But if done right it could allow a whole new level of immersion into a film.
Also, while I don’t agree with him entirely Roger Ebert brings up some good points on some of the drawbacks 3D technology has in it’s current state, in this article.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts-and-culture/all/5402013/does-anyone-like-3d.thtml
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ANYONE ELSE STARTING TO ABANDON DVD FOR BLU-RAY? over 2 years ago
Question: Do you guys think Blu-Ray is the new DVD, or the new Laserdisc? In otherwords, is it here to replace DVD, or is it simply a higher quality more expensive alternative as Laserdisc was to VHS?
Right now I’m content with me DVDs, and waiting. Either Blu-Ray will crash and burn, or it’s price will go down, either way is win for me. I don’t see getting DVDs as a waste, because Blu-Ray’s quality upgrade doesn’t seem to be enough to make DVDs look obsolete. Also I frequently watch DVDs that are simply taken from VHS or other low quality source materials, and it doesn’t bother me at all. I prefer high quality when available, but I can live with low quality when it’s the only option. When Blu-Ray is affordable I’ll make the switch, if it never is, I’ll just wait for the real new format to come along.
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Getting Deeper into Sergei Parajanov's Films over 2 years ago
I’ve recently come across the films of Sergei Parajanov, and absolutely love them, simply for their visual appeal. But I’d like to get a deeper understanding of them and what they represent. Right now I feel like if I were trying to get someone to watch his films, or have a discussion about them, I’d have nothing interesting to say except “they’re beautiful”. Should I just take them for what they are, and keep watching them and see what comes to me? Or would I need to do some research into the culture and stories of his films to try and get more out of them? Anyone here a big fan of him, and got some pointers on where to go next?
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What's wrong with me? over 2 years ago
If you’re serious about wanting to be able to appreciate older movies (not force yourself to, but genuinely enjoy them), I have 2 big suggestions.
1) Watch the films to the very end. To turn a film off half way, is just about the same as having not watched it at all. A lot of times in well made films, the beginning of the film isn’t designed to grab your attention, but to set up the story. A lot of times things that happen in the beginning won’t seem important, but will pay off in the end. You haven’t really watched the beginning of the film, until you know how it relates to the story as a whole. A little patience is required sometimes, but when you’re done with the film it will have been a fun experience, and the next time you watch it, you’ll have a better appreciation for the beginning.
2) Change your expectations going in. False expectations are the #1 killer of a good movie. You seem to be getting caught up on all the little details, cinematography, music, writing, acting, etc. To me it seems like you’re judging the film by it’s elements, and not by the whole. You call some cinematography boring, but sometimes the best cinematography is meant to serve the story, and part of serving the story is not drawing attention to itself. The same applies to music and editing and many other elements of the film. Writing and acting I’d say you can’t truly judge until you’ve seen the film the whole way through, going back to #1. Stop getting caught up on nitpicking details, if that’s all you’re focusing on, then you’re not allowing yourself to enjoy what the movie is presenting to you. And again, once you’ve seen the film a whole, you can better gauge how good each of the elements are.
As to your comment, about art getting better over time. Just because something is done in a “different” and “new” way does not make it better. Back in silent films, there was very little shot variety and most stuff was long take, static camera, very simple set-ups. But you also have to remember context. The long take static shot serves Buster Keaton’s films perfectly, and more modern editing would have hurt them severely. No the films of Keaton didn’t revolutionize cinematography, and yes just about every other film of the era had the exact same style, but they serve Keaton’s films brilliantly, and thus the cinematography is brilliant.
You’ve gotta stop equating things like music is getting “better” or cinematography is getting “better”. There’s no such thing as “good cinematography” out of the context of the rest of the film. The oldest most simplistic styles are sometimes ideal. You are correct that modern filmmakers have more options, but more options is meaningless if you don’t make the correct choice. More options can sometimes make it even more difficult to figure out which choice is right. There are tons of old films where the choice in cinematography is perfect, thus equally as good as the best films made today.
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How disgusting is it? over 2 years ago
I ordered these from least to most disturbing, and then also further separated them into categories…
Deep Red
Zombi 2
These two should be easy, and should give you no issues what so ever.
El Topo
Eraserhead
Audition
These may push your limits a bit, but I don’t think you’ll have any real issues completing them. Audition will be pretty rough at the end, but I think it’s do-able.
Braindead
Ichi the Killer
These might be too much, but I still think they’re worth seeing. Braindead is really gross, and being a former squeamish person the first time I saw it I felt quite sick afterwords. But it’s sooo silly and just tons of fun, that helps mitigate the experience I think. Watching it a second time was no problem, and getting over this movie, I can watch just about anything.
Ichi the Killer has a lot of digitally inserted gore which basically has 0 effect on me whatsoever. But there’s also some pretty brutal torture like people hanging from hooks (and the actors are actually hanging from hooks) that makes this a pretty difficult watch. When I saw this I was pretty well jaded, but I know a lot of people who’ve had extreme negative responses to this. I’d say avoid it until you’re tolerance level is a bit higher. Once you can handle braindead, check this one out.
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The Greatest Movies Never Made... over 2 years ago
Has anyone mentioned the Terry Gilliam version of Watchmen yet? He was set to make it, but decided he couldn’t do the comic justice unless it was a mini-series.
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The Action/Adventure Thread over 2 years ago
Going to rush through this, so I’m probably leaving out tons, sorting by country for ease.
Hong Kong
Come Drink with Me
Dragon Inn
The Fate of Lee Khan
One-Armed Swordsman
Five Elements Ninja
Vengeance
36th Chamber of Shaolin
Return to the 36th Chamber
8 Diagram Pole Fighter
Dirty Ho
Drunken Master
Iron Monkey
Tai Chi Master
Pedicab Driver
Millionaire’s Express
Police Story
City Hunter
One Armed Boxer
Master of the Flying Guillotine
The Crippled Masters
We’re Going to Eat You
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
Ninja in the Dragon’s Den
New Legend of Shaolin
Last Hurrah for Chivalry
Hard Boiled
Burning Paradise
Full Contact
The Heroic Trio
Running on Karma
Fulltime Killer
Ashes of Time
New Dragon Inn
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky
Kung Fu Hustle
Japan
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sword of Doom
Youth of the Beast
Fighting Elegy
Tattooed Life
Tokyo Drifter
Branded to Kill
The Street Fighter
Ninja Wars
Lone Wolf and Cub Series
Lady Snowblood
Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice
Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion
Machine Girl
Tokyo Gore Police
Black Belt
Most Godzilla Films
America (too lazy to include westerns)
Almost everything by Ray Harryhausen
The Steel Helmet
Faster Pussycat Kill Kill
Forbidden Planet
Deathrace 2000
Star Wars 4-6
Aliens
Predator
Rambo
Big Trouble in Little China
They Live
The Princess Bride
Robocop
Starship Troopers
Kill Bill
The Matrix
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Can Pornography Also Be Film Art? over 2 years ago
On an exploitation message board I go on, we tried to define pornography in a way as to separate it from sexploitation films, which seems rather tricky to do. The definition we agreed upon was that in a porn film, the only reason to watch was for the sex, whereas in a sexploitation film sex was only one of many aspects. I realize this isn’t exactly the official definition, and it’s highly subjective, but it’s extremely useful in trying to differentiate the 2 genre. Granted this definition also pushes a lot of what is normally considered porn, especially cheesy soft-core stuff, into the sexploitation genre. By this definition, porn cannot be art, but sex can be.
That might be overall useless to this discussion, but I thought I’d throw my 2 cents in. And I think for this discussion to happen properly, you must first define what exactly porn is, because it’s not at all a simple question.
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How do you feel about Fan Edits? over 2 years ago
I’m sure most of the people here are generally opposed to the idea of fan edits of films, and most fan edits I’ve seen are fairly dumb, just “extended versions” of the film that add in deleted scenes, or combine 2 versions or what have you.
But in some cases there are films that don’t really have a definitive Director’s Cut version available, and fan edits will attempt to re-create the director’s original vision. The example I’m most recently faced with is David Lynch’s Dune. The Theatrical-Cut, although approved by Lynch, is severely cut-down, and definitely not the cut he would have made had he been given full creative control. The Extended Edition, is censored as it was made for TV, and also contains lots of new material not originally intended to be in the film by Lynch. Because neither version is perfect some people have undertaken the task of trying to re-create David Lynch’s original vision, by looking at various stages of the script, and trying to re-create the full film using elements from The Theatrical Cut, The Extended Cut, Deleted Scenes, and The Soundtrack. The goal being to add, any Lynch-filmed scenes from the Extended Cut into the Theatrical Cut, but removing any new materials, changes in sound-track, etc. It would be silly to call this fan edit Lynch’s true vision, but it’s possibly the best version available when faced with the flaws of the current 2 versions on the market.
So what are your thoughts about Fan Edits? Do you know of any films that have Fan Edits, that are significant improvements over the versions available on DVD? How will this new digital age of film editing affect the evolution of cinema? There are already lots of independent film makers putting their raw materials on the internet, for people to download and make their own trailers for and such. Only a matter of time before someone releases all their dailies to allow fans to edit the film any way they choose. Is this the death of the Auteur, or can the Director’s Cut and Fan Edits co-exist in harmony? Is there a potential for new Film Edit Auteurs, who never actually film anything themselves, but have a persistent vision in how they edit other people’s materials?
This discussion can go a lot of ways, just curious what all your opinions of it are.
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How do you feel about Fan Edits? over 2 years ago
@Zachary
I think most of us would agree that any attempt to “improve” on a work of art, is undesirable. But there are instances where a director’s vision is not properly portrayed on screen. And there are some fan editors who do not make changes simply because they don’t like this or that, but base it off of concrete things like scripts, or interviews with the director, and try to make changes to bring out the Director’s original intent, rather than put their own spin on it. I think this is perhaps more desirable than the other sorts of fan edits.
The other type of fan edit, I could see as being intersting is edits where the person tries to put their own spin on it. Certainly some artists have modified the Mona Lisa in order to create a new work of art. But I don’t think the intent, is to “improve it” or “replace it”, but to make their own artistic statement using the Mona Lisa as source material.
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How Do You Organize Your DVDs? over 2 years ago
My collection is sorted by country the film was made in, and then within the country it is grouped into directors, and director’s are sorted roughly chronologically based on their first film, and then the films within each director’s section are also sorted chronologically.
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Anyone know what this one's about? over 2 years ago
To me it seemed like Schizopolis was trying to sort of parody and demean experimental films, and to purposefully try not to have any meaning in itself as part of the parody. To me it seemed rather hypocritical, because it criticizes films for trying to open peoples minds to spout some sort of philosophy, but that itself is taking a stance and a philosophy. It asks not to be interpreted yet at the same time demands it. Though I’m not entirely sure if Soderbergh was just ignorant to his hypocrisy or deliberately trying to be hypocritical. And if he was trying to be hypocritical then what was he actually trying to say with the film?
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