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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Zarban
I heard the reviews for Snow White and the Huntsman were pretty bad, but the trailer makes it look like a lot of fun. I'm sure I'll catch it on video.
I just watched Howl's Moving Castle, the first anime I've watched in quite a while. I didn't care for Princess Mononoke, but I loved this. It was a lot of fun, altho there was a lack of setting up of the rules of the world that I wish was handled better. It would make a terrific big-budget, live-action film, I think.
"No worries" was originally a down under thing?
It's practically the motto of Australia. "Good on you" occasionally appears in the US, as well.
Meanwhile, UK "chat up" is making inroads, as well as "wank", thanks to the Internets.
I can pretty definitively confirm that none of those terms has made it to the US. But, on the other hand, Antipodeans might be surprised to hear that "no worries" has taken hold.
Also, some people are now starting to drive on the left side of the road.
I'm not dead! I'm just busy making a spreadsheet of all these recommendations and actually watching some of these!... Okay, well, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is absolutely amazing, but I don't know how essential it is to understanding film.
Okay. Okay. *deep breath* I've got some bad news.
Films that are essential viewing for understanding film are not... necessarily... particularly... entertaining.
You got yer home-grown Americana in Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane. Then you got yer weirdo-foreign films in Un Chien Andalou, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Triumph of the Will. Then you got yer artsy-foreign films in Seventh Seal, yer Breathless, and yer Dolce Vita. Then you got yer standalone British epic Lawrence of Arabia followed by yer American young Turks with Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver. And then on to the social commentary of Network and Badlands.
While all of these are Great Films and very important to understanding the language of world cinema—and some of them are films that I love, none of them are what you would call "knee-slappers" or even "a good time" or, in many cases, even "rewatchable".
So... there's having a solid foundation in the vernacular of film and then there's delving into the dark corners of the subconscious of cinema. I mean, audiences love and reference Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. But Spielberg and his pals himself love and reference Lawrence of Arabia and Triumph of the Will.
We've been suggesting phrasebook movies, but if you want the linguistics course....
Well, if we're talking World War 2, then let me recommend Burt Lancaster in The Train and Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan's Express. And, god help me, the Eastwood-led ensemble of Kelly's Heroes.
And Midway. Midway was a kind of magical experience for me, but I haven't seen it in decades, so it might not live up to my memory of it.
And The Best Years of Our Lives. I honestly didn't finish it, but it's almost universally hailed.
I watched Charlie Chaplin's The Kid (1921) the other day. It was funny and touching, but not what I thought it was going to be. I thought the Little Tramp would meet an orphan kid and have a comical conflict with him and at last befriend him and take him in, and instead it was a straight-up father-son story of sorts.
And there's a fucking weird dream sequence near the end that is just inexplicable.
Oh, and the kid is the cutest kid in the history of the universe. And here he is grown up.
...which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater...
I'm totally on-board with the idea that Tarantino has been sandbagging us for decades and will eventually release a masterpiece of insanity that ties his whole universe together.
I really need to see My Best Friend, most of the stuff I've heard about Herzog/Kinski is hilarious.
That's My Best Fiend.
Since I'm a documentary guy, I'll give you my essential Doc list as well:
...
Jesus. Looks like I've got some "essential viewing" to do....
BTW, add Don't Look Back to that list.
(talk to any famous Canadian from Ontario over 40, and they'll mention the show most likely).
Famous famous or Canada famous?
/still want to do Christine from YCDTOT
EDIT: That won't go anywhere, right? I mean, this is the "stuff that won't go anywhere else" thread, right?
I don't hate George Lucas, but I do like the rise of the proletariat against him, if only because it will serve as a lesson to other film makers in the future to tread very lightly on their works when reissuing them.
As a non-Star Wars fan...
*Ticks box on clipboard form. Adjusts pince-nez.*
And then Zarban simul-posts about The Gold Rush and The General. Awesome. We should hang out.
I watched some Keaton/Arbuckle shorts a few months ago. They're fucking amazing. They're like Loony Tunes cartoons with real human beings. The General would be tempting for a commentary.
And...
The Gold Rush, The General
Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein
Monkey Business, Some Like It Hot
The Maltese Falcon
Swing Time, Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Guy and Dolls
Psycho, North by Northwest, Notorious
Young Frankenstein, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory
Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Rocky, Rocky II
The Muppet Movie, Blues Brothers
And God Created Woman, because Brigitte Bardot—holy shit—Brigitte Bardot
Cinema Paradiso, so that you understand what cinema is
Yes, I just thought I'd shake things up a little.
But what is your question?
I think ideally I'd choose to be born to a wealthy English-American family and be raised in England with dual citizenship. I'd hate to lose my ability to vote against Republican candidates but I'd love the history and posh accent.
In fact, make it a duke's family, and then I could challenge Avatar to a duel and stab him while he was readying his imaginary video game gun. 
Imagine an elephant cut lengthwise from the trunk, over the brow, down the back, and splitting the tail. What looks almost exactly like one half of an elephant?
Anyone in all of history? No contest. Shatner.
You are challenged to a duel by a European duke (or duchess, as the case may be) for a rather shocking offense which, to be frank, you are brazenly guilty of. What weapon and location do you choose?
it became cool to trash-talk it again as sign of snobbery.
Most popular movies never suffer a backlash. Titanic just sucks.
Now we can witness a whole new generation of young people pretend they didn't like the movie while secretly going to see it a half dozen times in the theater.
What? People RAVED about that movie when it came out. I saw it with friends only because the effects were supposed to be revolutionary and despised it. It took years before other people started admitting that it's the story of a genuine historical tragedy with the absolute worst sort of fanciful, cloying romance stuck on top of it.
Yo! Lay down a click track!
You know Teague and Dave be jammin' the edit
They're gettin' it done, so give 'em credit
In Final Cut Pro, they're the old school master
Wreakin' all havoc like a natural disaster
They only stay quiet 'cause you know they're humble
They got a pile o' pieces like a jigsaw jumble
But when it comes to that, ain't no one betta
Puttin' it together like your Grandma Etta
Break it down
[breakdown]
Those files are wack but the boys won't crack
They're layin' 'em down like a heart attack
They're stone cold cutters of space and time
And when they're done, they'll blow your mind
Fade up like Lucas with a Star Wars crawl
Then slam jump cuts like a John Woo brawl
Even Hitchcock'll look like a total hack
When they go psycho and then fade to black
[spoken]
And you know there's gonna be a montage
Aw yeah, boyyy
Even Rocky had a montage
Hawkeye is a highly trained super spy and silent assassin with a million ways to stop or kill you or steal your secrets before you even know it! Plus he's totally boning Black Widow!
STOP ACTING LIKE HAWKEYE IS AQUAMAN! HE DOENS'T HAVE SEX WITH CARP!
Hawkeye's cocktail is a poison arrow served in a tumbler with an arrow swizzle stick. It's got a little vodka, so it goes well with a black widow....
I don't see an Iron Man cocktail. OH YEAH DRINK STRAIGHT SCOTCH FROM A TIN CAN UNTIL YOU PASS OUT AND PEE YOUR PANTS.
edit: STOP PICKING ON HAWKEYE HE"S THE SENSITIVE ONE!
You can have one vehicle from real life for free. But you have to pay all maintenance cost of that vehicle out of your own pocket. What vehicle do you choose?
Ooh, I've always wanted an enclosed autogyro, but the storage and maintenance would probably drain me, and it probably wouldn't be as fun as I'd hope. Exotic cars are out both for maintenance costs and the fact that I live in a small town.
How about this: a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder REPLICA in red with an aluminum body.
Question: If you could invent one thing from science fiction, what would it be?
You have the ability to relive one movie from the perspective of its protagonist. You have control over their action for the duration of the film. What movie do you choose, and what choices do you make?
Brewster's Millions. I spend the $30 million dollars financing Down in Front: The Movie, a film doomed to obscurity, mainly for its lack of marketing campaign and the fact that I'll spend $28 million acquiring the rights from all the forum members and panelists.
I can give up to $1.5 million (5%) to charity and lose up to $1.5 million gambling, so that should take care of any meager profits and the value of the rights to the film itself. On the off chance that the film makes more than $3 million profit, I spend it on a making-of documentary on Down in Front: the Movie and give THOSE profits to charity.
And I bang the hell out of Angela Drake.
Question: The people in charge of such things ask you to make up a new swear word. What do you come up with and what does it mean?
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Zarban
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