Martially mixed?

O, the elaborate conceits of spaceship thefts. Works out when that ineptitude (and intensely antiquated camera) is a story point.

Liked it a whole lot, and even more once I knew what the hell was going on. Sound design rocks hard.

It's easy to say that, but it's a naive statement. It's show business. Film is a profligate art form. What are the reported budgets/grosses for your top 10 favorite films?

When you start introducing more money, the stakes change dramatically and there's a huge influx of things that can cloud and dilute the intended artistic vision. There are a lot more people, jobs, and investments that count on a movie to make bank.

For example, imagine your film is acquired, and what you considered to be some of the most intense and visceral moments in your whole movie need to be yanked and cut around since the studio needs to get a rating down to PG-13 to offset the tremendous advertising campaign they're throwing behind your work.

Something like Monsters manages to short this out by keeping the operating costs so low, that no matter what, the profit is guaranteed with a wide enough release. It's uncompromising, operating out of its financial weight class, and fucking awesome.

Curious to hear how vitriolic a commentary Synecdoche would get, since it fingerbangs structure and dramatic narrative as hard as it does.

(But well, and for the right reasons. Biased. A favorite film.)

When talking to people in real life that like a movie a lot more than you did, you get a lot of chances to refine exactly what it was that I wished there was more of. So in one sentence.

The dreams didn't need to be more wack exactly, but as a heist film, I feel like the movie failed to capitalize on the collide between the exacting logistics required of the heist, and the volatility of the subconscious.

The guys get to the point early on, and get to how the movie supports the point, that it's okay. The ep didn't go so far as to invoke Sartre and Camus so I will, if for no other reason than to earn my douche points for the day:

TLDR: Jeff you say that like its a bad thing, lul.

The commentaries on the Venture Bros DVDs are amazing. They tend to have almost nothing to do with the episodes, but you get a sense of what it's like when the two driving creative personalities behind the show are locked together for months at a time producing one of the best things on television. They only did a couple for the first season, but the response was so overwhelmingly positive that they've done a commentary for every episode on every season since. I get the episodes on iTunes, but buy the discs afterwards particularly for their tracks.

The Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut DVD has one that flips between the executive producer, vfx supervisor, and the 1st AD. Never heard a first AD on a commentary before, but that should happen more often. Had a bunch of great stories from production, and didn't have to worry about offending anybody since he wasn't up near the line. Also didn't mind talking shit about his own work, like in scenes where all the extras are walking at the same speed or something.

One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite...

Started watching The Neverending Story months ago (it was conspicuously absent from my childhood). Would catch pieces of it here and there, with reactions ranging from "Whoa that's quite a matte painting" to "Giant puppet!"

Just finished off the movie and the final fifteen minutes last night. Whoa damn, the Empress' performance when she pulls that wacko third and fourth wall thing made the movie. Kind of glad I hadn't seen it until now, wouldn't have appreciated that as much, and probably wouldn't have ever revisited the film.

It's too rooted too deeply in marketing and too far from theme to be any sort of homage, so it feels more like a rip off.

In contrast, the Sucker Punch trailer has a couple of allusions to Brazil with Baby Doll fighting giant samurai with miniguns, naginata and shit. Both dreamy sequences, so it works.

The end is Nolan's little, "Reality is always subjective, motherfuckers! Thank you and good night!" thematic coda, but some are mistaking it for something deeply relevant to the story since it is the last shot of the film.

Can't wait to read this movie's ASC article. Wouldn't be surprised if they used a mix of hip harnesses with those uncomfortable chest harnesses you can't breathe in just to keep it even less obvious.

At one point I thought they might have dressed the inside of a vomit comet to look like the hallway and just started doing nose dives for some of the fighting shots. The proportions could have worked.

And yeah, the Buffalo guy is being a bit of a dick for dick's sake. I tend to agree with the critic from the Boston Globe, and I dig his closing remarks about the film:

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