demagogue on 28/7/2019 at 11:16
Next in the "plot twist" series is Frailty (2001) .
Bill Paxton is of course perfect for this kind of psycho-religious character that's sympathetic but completely out of his gourd at the same time. And Matthew McConaughey is functionable as the skeptical-but-religious-at-the-same-time kind of chameleon disarming southerner getting big issues off his chest.
Actually, come to think of it, I bet the parts were written specifically for these two actors, since it's almost uncanny how the script hews to those typecastings. A little too fitting. They were perfect for the characters, but the script only had so much depth to give them to swim in it. The culmination of these types are really True Detective for McConaughey and for Paxton, probably Hatfields & McCoys best featured that side of him (but Simple Plan & Big Love are in the running). Frailty you could say is like the proto-version for those character-defining offerings.
It's a kind of police procedural at heart, the mind-fuck brand of them, and other movies have done it better (se7en and Kiss the Girls; it was definitely coattailing on that trend, and later on True Detective), but it worked. On the "plot twist" scale, I'll give it credit it's not the twist I assumed from early on. Actually this movie will probably now stand as the main representative of this kind of twist for me. But it's not the kind I liked. Long story short: "the myth is what's actually real" kind of twist is just a step in arbitrariness above "it was all a dream", since once you're trading in "real mythology", anything can pretty much go. That also kind of undermined the whole police procedural part as well, since now the crimes didn't really matter after all, at least not in the way we thought. But it sort of partially saved itself with the twist about who actually did it anyway, as if throwing a bone to what we thought this whole movie was about for the first 3/4 of it ... even if it turns into basically a different genre of movie we're watching at the end.
But all of that said, I mean: Bill Paxton and Matthew McConaughey. Even in kind of "just ok" movies, they're still fun to watch in action. Powers Booth as elder cop too for that matter. And just the true crime / procedural part was enough to float the plot most of the way through. So I enjoyed it more or less, just acknowledging that it took other movies to really clinch what it was aiming for. At best this shed some light on the way to them.
scumble on 29/7/2019 at 11:17
Apparently I'm unable to stop watching Monk. I think it's mainly held together by Tony Shaloub because it's not much different in feel to old episodes of Colombo. OCD Colombo maybe?
demagogue on 3/8/2019 at 10:29
Continuing my "plot twist" series, next in alphabetical order (skipping one for now) is Identity (2003). After only 3 of these, already they're falling into a definite pattern. They've been movies that were made just for the twist it seems, and the plot doesn't actually carry it outside of the twist and scrapes by. But the twist is interesting enough that one bothers to see it through and it's just okay, a little huh moment, all 6~7/10s. But they've also had two known actors that manage to shine in their roles and put their charisma to good use. For Identity that was John Cusack, the everyman protagonist, and Ray Liotta, the cop, both of which were quite fun to watch in action ... Just taking it scene by scene with them in it, it pays for the price of admission.
So the movie is basically a poor man's Shutter Island. The hook itself once again is something that sounds like a great idea when you're sitting on the can at Applebees listening to early 2000s pop music (what if the multiple identities of a multiple identity disordered person met each other and had to root out the "bad" one?) but once you start putting it to script you start figuring out the pieces don't really fit together like you hoped, but now you've got sunk costs so here we go ... as opposed to that other movie Shutter Island, which worked because it actually got into the details of the therapy and nuts and bolts of the delusions, as well as "connecting" the real and delusion worlds in a weird and interesting hybrid, which this movie either handwaved away or just didn't bother.
Aside from "the big twist", it was a kind of low key murder mystery with its own twist about who did it, which Frailty did too (making them more like "double plot twist" movies, which I guess is the genre now; one plot twist isn't enough), except in this case I caught on very early on just paying attention to the visual cues. At its best it works just because of the character sketches of random and interesting people stuck together and interacting in a tense situation, like Clue without the jokes.
Gray on 8/8/2019 at 15:54
Quote Posted by icemann
Veronica Mars
There's a what now? I used to watch that show, but I didn't even know there was a movie. I assumed Kristen Bell would be busy with The Good Place now, which I occasionally watch bits of.
rachel on 8/8/2019 at 16:33
Sounds better than I expected, I'll check it out!
Gray on 9/8/2019 at 19:49
Quote Posted by scumble
OCD Colombo maybe?
That's why I watch it. Very formulaic, like Death in Paradise, basically just an Agatha Christie rip-off. But I love Agatha Christie. Hence, I will love any shows based on the very same format, such as Monk or Death in Paradise, if it's done well, and they both are. And Colombo.
Nicker on 16/8/2019 at 18:36
John Oliver at his John Oliveriest!
Stay for the end. It's worth every minute.
[video=youtube;-9QYu8LtH2E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E[/video]
rachel on 16/8/2019 at 22:52
I watched Le Chant du Loup ("The Wolf's Call") last week. It follows a young officer on French submarines who's trained in sound detection and recognition. It's an excellent thriller that maintains tension until the end, served by an excellent cast. A great movie in the line of The Hunt for Red October, but that keeps very French and for once not in a bad way at all. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Here's the trailer, BUT I think it gives away too much. My recommendation would be to just watch the movie directly and see everything unfold. It's on Netflix (Here anyway).
[video=youtube;a9Gz7Bg07u8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Gz7Bg07u8[/video]
CoffeeMaker on 16/8/2019 at 22:55
Quote Posted by Nicker
John Oliver at his John Oliveriest!
Stay for the end. It's worth every minute.
Oliver is so over the top he's funny even when waaaay over the top. That one was definitely worth some of the eye rolls getting to the finish line which I did not expect and really enjoyed.
What I'm watching today is a DVD that just popped into my mailbox yesterday and I knew its plot well enough to know I sure wasn't going to watch it at night. It's a recording of a newish production (2015) of the German expressionist opera Wozzeck performed then in Zurich and on the calendar for revival there this fall.
Let's just say there's no happy ending, no happy anything really, the whole point was to portray desperation, exploitation, dehumanization... I have grown to appreciate the thing and collect recordings of it but I still won't watch a DVD of a live performance at night. It's operatic tragedy from outset to finale. Below is a trailer (yeah it's atonal music, if that makes you crazy then mute the thing, but the receding picture frames effect of the set construction is wonderful).
[video=youtube;uWeSg9RVsIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWeSg9RVsIM[/video]
That setting is very unusual, the Canadian designer made it seem like a puppet theatre... to me that seems perfect for portrayal of a society which the playwright (Georg Buchner, 1813-1837 ) meant to show as experiencing a soul-destroying absence of personal liberty. The play was in fragments at Buchner's premature death, and the early 20th century composer Alban Berg arranged them into a three act opera.
And yes I'm going to recover from that by watching a few episodes of M*A*S*H later. I know this opera well enough to know I can't just let it be how my day ends in terms of "entertainment".
henke on 17/8/2019 at 20:44
I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last night, and a Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 double feature tonight, and my main takeaway is that when Rick Dalton makes margaritas in Once and Budd makes margaritas in Vol. 2 they use the same kinda ice tray. Someone get IMDb on the horn, I got a director trademark to add for Tarantino. Put it right under WOMEN'S FEET. Also, the movies were both good. Good night.