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2014-05-03 11:57:16

6.5/10

7/10

6.5/10

6/10

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7.5/10

2014-04-19 20:37:35

8/10

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2014-04-12 16:46:28

7.5/10

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7.5/10

("Renegade Version" Director's Cut) 4/10

6/10

2014-04-03 15:52:11

TechNoir wrote:

From that perspective I can see what you mean. Not having read either book I don't know what I am missing or what is emphesized differently.
Same with Hunger Games I guess. Haven't read them, and the first movie on its own does not excite me terribly. 2nd one was better filmmaking overall to me and expanded on some aspects nicely.

I pretty much held the same opinion based on having seen both movies first. If nothing else, aquainting myself with the source material further clarified why I had serious problems with Mr. Ripley and TWBB from a filmmaking perspective. And vice versa with Catching Fire.

fireproof78 wrote:

PorridgeGun wrote:
6.5/10
I would like an explanation of this rating because I seem to recall it being pretty bad. Bearing in mind that I know nothing of the books or anything of the franchise (can it be called that?) but it just felt rote to be my the end. I usually do not use the term "hate" for a film but this one almost nets an "I hate this film!" from me.

Meh, I've seen worse Jim Carrey family movies (The Mask, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, The Grinch). It was worth sitting through just for 3 mins of Captain Sham.

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6/10

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"It's like a fucking Sergio Leone movie with cars" ― Quentin Tarantino

Also has the greatest wheelchair race ever captured on film.

6/10

2014-03-23 19:04:23

Nic Pizzolatto reflects on Season 1:

The structure of the series means you could have done anything with the ending, up to and including killing the two leads, because you get a clean slate with the next season. Why did you choose this particular way to end the story?
Nic Pizzolatto: This is a story that began with its ending in mind, that Cohle would be articulating, without sentimentality or illusion, an actual kind of optimism. That line, you ask me, the light's winning, that was one of the key pieces of dialogue that existed at the very beginning of the series' conception. For me as a storyteller, I want to follow the characters and the story through what they organically demand. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kill one or both of these guys. I even had an idea where something more mysterious happened to them, where they vanished into the unknown and Gilbough and Papania had to clean up the mess and nobody knows what happens to them. Or it could have gone full blown supernatural. But I think both of those things would have been easy, and they would have denied the sort of realist questions the show had been asking all along. To retreat to the supernatural, or to take the easy dramatic route of killing a character in order to achieve an emotional response from the audience, I thought would have been a disservice to the story. What was more interesting to me is that both these men are left in a place of deliverance, a place where even Cohle might be able to acknowledge the possibility of grace in the world. Because one way both men were alike in their failures was that neither man could admit the possibility of grace. I don't mean that in a religious sense. Where we leave Cohle, this man hasn't made a 180 change or anything like that. He's moved maybe 5 degrees on the meter, but the optimistic metaphor he makes at the end, it's not sentimental; it's purely based on physics. Considering what these characters had been through, it seemed hard to me to work out a way where they both live and they both exit the show to live better lives beyond the boundaries of these eight episodes. Now they are going to go on and live forever beyond the margins of the show, and our sense, at least, is they haven't changed in any black to white way, but there is a sense that they have been delivered from the heart of darkness. They did not avert their eyes, whatever their failings as men. And that when they exit, they are in a different place.

All of the things that, in the previous episode, Cohle was telling Marty that he had uncovered, and what we saw on the videotape, pointed to a larger group of men working on these things. But we get to the end, and it's just Errol left, along with his father in the shed. How many other people were involved in the specific things that Cohle and Hart were investigating?
Nic Pizzolatto: There's the men in the video, and there's about 10 of them. Then you can begin to look at that as if that cult began to disintegrate shortly afterwards, and then there were always revenants existing on a local level. If you track the name Childress, you realize Sheriff Childress was the sheriff when Marie Fontenot disappeared, an Officer Childress was attending to Guy Francis in 2002 when he committed suicide. The conspiracies that I've researched and encountered, they seem to happen very ad hoc: they become conspiracies when it's necessary to have a conspiracy. I think it would have rang false to have Hart and Cohle suddenly clean up 50 years of the culture history that led to Errol Childress, or to get all the men in that video. It's important to me, I think, that Cohle says, "We didn't get em all, Marty," and Marty says, "We ain't going to. This isn't that kind of world." This isn't the kind of world where you mop up everything. We discharged our duty, but of course there are levels and wheels and historical contexts to what happened that we'll never be able to touch.

I'm still pleasantly surprised at how optimistic the ending was. It's sort of refreshing to be rewarded by a storyteller who is true to his intentions and not trying to mind rape the audience. I think it's fair to say some people over-analyzed the shit out of this show to the point that they set themselves up to be disappointed. But yeah, not the most satisfying of conclusions after all that build up of intrigue, suspense and Tuttles.

On the other hand, we know that the last really active killer among them, Errol Childress, is dead, and that's who they set out to find. We also know Reggie Ledoux, Dewall Ledoux, Billy Childress, Ted Childress, Billy Lee Tuttle and probably Sam Tuttle (due to age) are all dead. I suspect these are 7 out of the 10 people in the video. The only one who either knew or possibly took part was Edwin Tuttle and so far, he has gotten away with it.

If the show went off the rails slightly for me, it was with that video tape. Both Hart and Steve Geraci reactions to said tape could've been done better. Also the reveal and, thankfully, brief time spent with Errol was less than convincing. Those were by far the weakest moments for me and the only time I was pulled out of the story. Everything prior to that had me grinning with anticipation and totally immersed in what was unfolding.

I might be having a brain fart here, but I think if Pizzolatto and Fukunaga held off revealing the killer until the very moment Cohle and Hart apprehended him at the compound, it would've made for a more kickass climax. Especially seeing as the killer wasn't all that fascinating to begin with (as is the case with most serial killers, it must be said). A few tweaks here and there and this takes its place alongside seasons 3-4 of The Wire and seasons 2-3 of Breaking Bad (another amazing show that ended on a less than inspired note) in the pantheon of great television. As it stands, season one easily cracks my top 10.

The somewhat predictable, but no less gripping, last 1.5 episodes also doesn't alter my opinion that True Detective deserves to clean up at the Emmys and Golden Globes (acting, writing, directing, cinematography, editing, music, should all be LOCKS). With the exception of the second and third season of the aforementioned Breaking Bad, parts of Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and even Walking Dead, nothing on televison or at the multiplex in recent years has come close to what Pizzolatto and Fukunaga served up. The dialogue, staging and set-pieces were fantastic! Pizzolatto mentioned in a interview that the last 15 minutes of "Who Goes There" (in which Rust Cohle, in his undercover Crash guise, infiltrates the Iron Crusaders and raids a stash house in the projects) is a Michael Mann tribute album. The key thing for me, though, is each episode (and the show overall) stands up on repeat viewing. I can't wait to pick up the Bluray and download T-Bone Burnett's score.

As pointless as the over-analyzing ultimately proved to be, poring over every detail of True Detective was almost as fun as the online sleuthing Cosecha transmisiones kicked off almost a year ago.

#TrueDetectiveSeason2

2014-03-23 12:55:26

TechNoir wrote:

Hey Porridgegun, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "There Will Be Blood". Mind sharing your thoughts on them?

Both are weak adaptations of far superior books. The film version of Mr. Ripley is a lousy thriller, it's nowhere near as tightly paced and concise enough. Minghella is no Hitchcock or Polanski, who would've been perfect! (Knife in the Water) Matt Damon also isn't all that interesting in the lead, but more importantly, his Ripley isn't all that talented. The biggest WTF moment, which destroys the entire character and movie for me, is Ripley's bafflingly piss-poor impression of Dickie's father (Jude Law plays the scene utterly false but emphatically: "MY GOD TOM, THAT'S AMAZING!!!"). When even I can do a better James Rebhorn than the "Talented" Mr. Ripley, that's a major plot hole as far as I'm concerned.

Minghella at least makes an attempt at doing Patricia Highsmith's novel. That's more than can be said about Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel. Anderson said he only used 200 pages of Sinclair's more expansive story [PTA: “It’s only the first couple hundred pages that we ended up using.... We were really unfaithful to the book.”], and it shows. The first half is more or less coherent. The second half goes seriously off the rails. Anderson throws out all the political content from the book, abandoning its storyline entirely just prior to the first of two bitter oil-field strikes, and avoids delving too deeply into capitalism and religion [PTA: “I was thinking that we’d better be very careful not to do too much of that.”]. In its place are more scenes of the increasingly nutty Plainview, who was pretty well established as a lunatic to begin with. It's just lazy storytelling.

That being said, the only reason I rewatched it is for D-Day's cartoonishly unhinged performance. I'd rate Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, even The Master, higher than TWBB. The less said about Magnolia, the better.

Doctor Submarine wrote:

And yeah, PorridgeGun, you gotta start explaining these ratings. Hunger Games is an 8 and There Will Be Blood is a 6.5? At least give us a sentence.

Catching Fire is one of only a handful of sequels that is better than the original, it exceeded my expectations (I enjoyed Hunger Games until the last 20 mins), and apparently it's also a huge improvement on Suzanne Collins' book (so I'm told). That alone merits a higher rating than TWBB, in my opinion.

6/10

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2014-03-01 10:22:55

8/10

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2014-02-24 22:31:51

Outside the New York City firehouse that provided the exterior shots for the headquarters in Ghostbusters...

2014-02-17 19:31:40

6.5/10

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2014-02-10 22:09:48

This show. big_smile

And this was even before...

That scene!

/McConaughey 2.0

2014-01-22 01:59:33

7/10

7.5/10

6.5/10

Alright, alright, alright! 8/10

7.5/10

7/10

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8/10

2014-01-21 01:40:50

paulou wrote:

Dorkman wrote:
The Oscars are masturbation.
And masturbation is fun.

If she rubs that thing any harder...

2014-01-17 14:54:59

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave

Actor: Matthew McConaughey

Actress: Cate Blanchett

Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi

Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence

Animated: Frozen

Cinematography: Gravity, Emmanuel Lubezki

Costume Design: The Great Gatsby, Catherine Martin

Directing: Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón

Documentary: The Act of Killing

Film Editing: 12 Years a Slave, Joe Walker

Foreign Language Film: The Hunt

Makeup and Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club, Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews

Original Score: Her, William Butler and Owen Pallett

Original Song: "Ordinary Love" from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Production Design: 12 Years a Slave, Adam Stockhausen and Alice Baker

Sound Editing: Gravity, Glenn Freemantle

Sound Mixing: Gravity, Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead and Chris Munro

Visual Effects: Gravity, Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk and Neil Corbould

Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave, Screenplay by John Ridley

Original Screenplay: Her, Written by Spike Jonze

2014-01-12 21:59:55

Doctor Submarine wrote:

PorridgeGun wrote:
6.5/10
You really need to elaborate on this one.

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Heterosexual french chick eats spaghetti with parents, fantasises about being eaten out by lesbian chick (Léa Seydoux butches up quite nicely), eats lunch and has sex with heterosexual french dude, eats lunch with lesbian chick and they eat each other's boxes, then take turns introducing each other to mum and dad over clams (subtle!) and spaghetti, then indulge in some roughtie under said parent's roof. Bisexual french chick makes spaghetti for hip lesbian chick's arty pals and colleagues.

That's almost two hours in.

As far as 3 hour movies about pretentious, spaghetti-eating lesbians go, it was ok. Adèle Exarchopoulos was good though, and deserves a best actress nod.

7/10

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7.5/10

2014-01-02 16:23:08

7/10

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6.5/10

2013-12-25 10:20:36

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2013-12-24 18:29:17

7.5/10

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7/10

2013-12-22 15:03:28

PorridgeGun wrote:

And both are on the telly in the next couple of days smile

XMAS TELLY

Other than switching the channel when the Queen's Christmas Day message comes on (A fine tradition in my family), Top 100 countdowns on Channel 4 (no doubt 100 Greatest Toys will be aired again this year) and FIVE are always great. Top of the Pops specials on the Beeb, Only Fools and Horses marathons on UK Gold, and proper Crimbo fare by Leigh Francis:

Back when Tim Lovejoy was co-presenting, the annual Soccer AM Dance-Off featuring the old production crew was my most anticipated telly event of Christmas, if not the entire year.

2013-12-20 23:33:26

What else, Scrooged!

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Only Bill Murray could have pulled that off without it being cheap and sentimental.

The Santa Clause is now a certified Christmas classic.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Trading Places (watched it almost every Christmas eve growing up), Hostile Hostages (Denis Leary dropping F-bombs and beating up Santa is somehow the most Christmassy ever), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Great Escape, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Jingle All the Way (yep!), Gremlins, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, although I don't recall ever watching the latter three during Xmas.