Movie/TV recommendations

[Scrobbs]

I've been watching 'The Sweeney' for the last year or so. Despite being so old, it's still great. Well worth a watch. Some great sarcasm in there too.

[syntheticgerbil]

I saw The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus last weekend, and it was a real treat on some parts. I'd say it's the first movie of his since him actually cutting and pasting in Monty Python to nearly get the imagery of his drawing and animation in a live action film. It could be a case of his storyboards really shining through this time around, whereas (I could be wrong) the last few films for a while haven't been storyboarded fully by him.

Other than that, the story was not really as confusing as I heard other people complaining about, but I had a hard time understanding the motivations of characters near the end. Colin Farrell didn't really do a good job of portraying Heath's character, but the other two replacement dudes seemed spot on. The movie also seemed to be missing a satisfying climax for whatever reason. I'd have to rewatch it.

The movie was fun in many places and worth seeing though, Tom Waits was great as well. It was much more playful and less sinister than the Gilliam films since 12 Monkeys, which I was excited to see revisited.

[Ben X]

  syntheticgerbil said:

I saw The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus last weekend, and it was a real treat on some parts. I'd say it's the first movie of his since him actually cutting and pasting in Monty Python to nearly get the imagery of his drawing and animation in a live action film.

For me, Time Bandits came close in places, and Baron Munchausen even more so.

[Garple]

If you haven't seen Ong Bak, fucking watch it. Tony Jaa is your god, no matter who you are.

[elmuerte]

Tony Jaa is indeed awesome. He's the new Jackie Chan.

[Lu]

Ong Bak 2 is super drastically different from the first, but I enjoyed that as well. It has more nicely choreographed Tony Jaa kickassery in it, is that not enough?

[Murdoc]

Alright, I'm all caught up on my 2009 movies now and honestly, what a weird god damn year. My top picks are ones that broke pacing convetions and were pretty ambigiously subtle tones. Not only that, but my favorite animated movies were lower budget claymation things that didn't actually have awesome animation in them; they just beat the shit out of pixar (the only real contender for making an actual movie in 3d) in terms of pacing/editing, story, creativity, and overall experience.

What a weird year that was. Oh yeah, and if it hasn't been said, Fantasitc Mr.Fox was pretty damn fun.

[elmuerte]

I wonder when we'll see a Space Odyssey reboot from Hollywood.

[MrHoatzin]

  elmuerte said:

I wonder when we'll see a Space Odyssey reboot from Hollywood.

I don't think that is possible. There is nothing to be gained in remaking any of the Kubrick movies. They made new movies after books that Kubrick adapted (Lolita and The Shining come to mind), but they sucked.

Contd: the 2001: A Space Odyssey book and movie screenplay were written concurrently by Kubrick and Arthur Clarke, and while they handle the same basic story, I think the way Kubrick handled his end of it is a lot more interesting than the way Clarke did. The latter had to explain things that the former intentionally left vague.

[JonCole]

Just watched A History of Violence and Appaloosa... just gotta say, Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen have such great range. Mortensen can breathe a lot of life into characters who might be completely deadpan and boring if played by another actor, it's really amazing.

[elmuerte]

  Kingzjester said:

I don't think that is possible.

In a world where they can make a new movie about the A-team everything is possible.

[strangelingo]

  brkl said:

I believe Tarkovsky's version is generally just called Solaris, like the others and the book. It just depends on how you want to represent the Russian name. My dvd says Solaris in any case.

Yep, it's Solaris and Solyaris is just bad translation back from Russian title.

[Nevsky]

  strangelingo said:

Yep, it's Solaris and Solyaris is just bad translation back from Russian title.

Well it's not 'bad translation', it's just a Romanised transliteration of the Russian word, in the same way that Tarkovsky's other films can be called Zerkalo (Mirror) or Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood).

It's just a way for those writers or institutions that want to present titles in the original language to do so without discriminating against their primarily non-Cyrillic literate readers (happens with many films from cultures that don't use the Latin alphabet).

[elmuerte]

hmm... then I should really watch the new Solaris some time, I was avoiding it (I think).

[strangelingo]

  elmuerte said:

hmm... then I should really watch the new Solaris some time, I was avoiding it (I think).

Don't get your hopes too high (especially if you've read the book).

[toblix]

Just saw Delicatessen. For some reason I haven't gotten around to it before now, having seen and loved many of Jeunet's later films. Just the intro credits sequence in this film has more care put into it than Surrogates, Transformers (both of them) and Avatar (all three dimensions) put together.

[MrHoatzin]

  vimes said:

I saw Moon on the plane, and even though it was good, I was surprised that it was so literal in its discourse and direct in its construction. What surprised me even more is that even though it was good, it didn't turn to be special. I don't mind it, but I don't think it makes sens to compare it Solaris and 2001, like some people did.

I see what you're saying, but I don't think Moon had to be as abstract as the other two to be as important. I like it all the more because I expected

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it to do something more abstract and grandiose and insane, but at every turn it readjusted my expectations and tied me down: The He3 harvesting is not happening on some weird faraway planet Gazäblombior-16 in the Whiskey Tango Sierra sector or whatever, it is happening on the Moon. There isn't a weird space intelligence messing with Sam and making duplicates of him, it is a weird and corrupt corporation. The robot wasn't cold and detached and all I'm-sorry-Sam-I-can't-let-you-fuck-up-this-mining-operation, he was programmed to care for Sam, so there it is. It is all so low key in all the ways that Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey were grand.

The Cold War was a time where beefy ideologies duked it out and offered solutions. Even if Kubrick and Tarkovsky were not manichean (which they weren't) and if they didn't pick sides in sloppily propagandist ways (which they didn't) the modernist culture in which they worked colored their attitudes towards their work.

Nowadays we live in a much sloppier time. There are no healthy government-backed sciency exploration institutions. The governments are not fighting large scale ideological and propaganda battles for hearts and minds of peoples around the world. Russia is ruled by an oligarchy of capitalist criminals and US is an obliging servant to huge multinationals. There are no lofty ideas that drive the East or the West.

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It makes sense that the space exploration movies of this generation would be smaller and deal with corruption and sloppiness and weak, little people etc. Sunshine and Moon come to mind as admirably fitting our current malaise of aimlessness.

()

[DanJW]

That's kinda what I was going to say. But your post is longer. And better.

Also I really like character studies. People hate the plot in certain books and films, for instance Watchmen - I don't care because it is actually a series of character studies. The plot is just a wire frame to hang them on.

Same with Moon. Here we have the same man, before and after spending 3 years in solitude.

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Interacting with himself as a second person! I find the portrayal of that to be fascinating. The 'big idea' in Moon is not "mining operation is run by exploited clones"; it is rather the much more timeless "what advice would you give to your own self from three years ago?"

[Korax]

I just finished watching the excellent TV adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic. If you enjoyed the books, you'll probably like them. And for those in the US, NetFlix has both available for instant streaming.

[brkl]

I really liked Where The Wild Things Are. I've had zero contact with the original work. I thought the movie was lovely.

[Thyroid]

I just saw the movie Amelie. It's not for everyone, but I really liked it. I'll spare you the whys and suggest that, if you want to see a postcard French movie with lots of charm, then watch Amelie.

[toblix]

  Kroms said:

I just saw the movie Amelie. It's not for everyone

false

That film is for everyone with a god damn heart pumping in their chest.

[Roderick]

I just saw this new movie called 'Casablanca'. I think it's ironically rendered in black and white, which comes off kinda as a Tarantino ripoff, but what are you gonna do.

What I mean to say is, I'm shaken to the core. What's the goddamn use of making new movies when Casablanca is already made?

[vimes]

Because the Third Man and none of the Mankiewicz's movies would exist ?

[brkl]

I rewatched it recently in HD. Nice to see all the details people could see back in the day in theatres. It's a magnificently crafted movie, with nice rounded characters and a love story that's not naive for once. Also, this time I totally identified with the "We'll always have Paris" stuff, which is new for me.

EDIT:

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is delightful. It uses elements of the old Adam West Batman and adds in a bunch of crazy fun. The first episode has a wormhole and aliens, the second has dinosaurs and the fifth has Merlin. It's well written, well animated and just a lot of fun.