What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2019 Edition)

[St_Eddie]

I hate it when they do that. I bought the Criterion version of "Rushmore" for the commentary from Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman and they're doing separate commentaries spliced together. Annoying. I wanted badinage between Wilson and Schwartzman.

I hate it because I can't stop thinking about what I'm missing out on when one of the people is talking.  Just put them on the disc in full, as two separate commentary tracks, if you can't get the people into the recording booth at the same time.  I don't want someone else choosing which thoughts are more interesting than which other thoughts.

[bgmnts]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Another excellent Coen Brothers film. Has any director got such a good hit rate over such a long career?

Tarantino.

[phantom_power]

Tarantino.

Chortle

[Small Man Big Horse]

Tarantino.

😅

[zomgmouse]

Dancer in the Dark. Exhausting doesn't begin to cover it. There's definite shades of someone like de Sica in the way it just presents a grim reality with no reprieve. The music wasn't really my cup of tea, although I liked the first factory number a lot. The radical divide between the nature of musicals and the on-screen happenings was pretty powerful.

[Shit Good Nose]

I hate it because I can't stop thinking about what I'm missing out on when one of the people is talking.  Just put them on the disc in full, as two separate commentary tracks, if you can't get the people into the recording booth at the same time.  I don't want someone else choosing which thoughts are more interesting than which other thoughts.

Sometimes they're just scene-specific comments stitched together to make a whole, though - in other words they never recorded a complete commentary by themselves.  I'm pretty sure this is the case with Rushmore.  Either French Connection or French Connection 2 - I can't remember which - is another example.

Chortle

😅

I'm pretty sure old bgmnts is completely sincere with that suggestion...

[Custard]

Dunno why the Tarantino suggestion is funny. In my book, the only not great film he's made is Death Proof, which I still like a lot

[St_Eddie]

Sometimes they're just scene-specific comments stitched together to make a whole, though - in other words they never recorded a complete commentary by themselves.  I'm pretty sure this is the case with Rushmore.  Either French Connection or French Connection 2 - I can't remember which - is another example.

Ah, interesting.  In those cases, that's fair enough.

Dunno why the Tarantino suggestion is funny. In my book, the only not great film he's made is Death Proof, which I still like a lot

I'll back you up on that.  I don't think that Tarantino has ever made an outright bad film.  Self-indulgent? Absolutely.  Derivative? Unquestionably.  Bad? Not even close.

[chveik]

The Hateful Eight is pretty bad.

[zomgmouse]

The Hateful Eight is pretty bad.

The Hateful Eight is his best film apart from Pulp Fiction I think

[DukeDeMondo]

Witchfinder General. Price is exceptionally evil and sinister in this and at odds to anything I've seen him in, besides maybe Shock? Just truly chilling, and not hammed up or played for theatrics. It's quite a shocking film otherwise as well, reminds me of a nastier and more elegant Mark of the Devil or a more grounded Blood on Satan's Claw. Definitely zero supernatural in this, just 100% man's evil.

BBC Radio 4 put together a pretty fantastic drama on the making of this a few years back. It may have been called The Conqueror Worm. Something tells me it was. As you probably know, the film was released in the US under that title to fool folk into thinking it had something to do with Edgar Allan Poe. Anyway I used to have a copy of the radio drama on an old hard drive but the hard drive has long since withered away to nothing. It might be on YouTube or something, mind.

(A quick google reveals that no, it wasn't called The Conqueror Worm or anything like it, it was called Vincent Price And The Horror Of The English Blood Beast and it is on YouTube. Here It Is.)

On Price's performance. A famous story from the shoot - a story that is often repeated, it's certainly in that radio drama, and may well be apocryphal, I don't know - has it that Michael Reeves - who really didn't want Price in the role at all, he had been pushing pretty hard for Donald Pleasence - had confronted him on set one day to tell him to tone it down a yard or two. His performance was far too much. This wasn't any silly old trashy old horror film they were making.

As the story has it, Price sniffed and stretched out his sleeves and replied "My boy, I have made 34 films. What have you made?"

"Two good ones," said Reeves.

Apparently Price thought this was just the most fantastic bit of back-chat that he'd ever heard and the pair of them got on like a pair of old goats for the whole of the rest of the shoot.

[greenman]

You've convinced me to stick the DVD on order.

The Hateful Eight is his best film apart from Pulp Fiction I think

Yep I'd agree, a return to something mostly based on smaller scale character work whilst using his ability to build up tension from stuff like Basterds effectively.

I think his "hit rate" is clearly better than the Coens, they've had quite a few merely okish films where as Death Proof was the only Tarantino I didn't think was at least good. There far more prolific of course though and would have an argument for more great films than him.

It does seem a little churlish to mention "derivative"  as a negative against him when also talking about the Coens, both tend to borrow a lot of archetypes but I think both clearly using them for rather different purposes than they typically are, the name of Tarantino's production company I think shows you were his true influences are beyond the genre settings he uses.

[zomgmouse]

On Price's performance. A famous story from the shoot - a story that is often repeated, it's certainly in that radio drama, and may well be apocryphal, I don't know - has it that Michael Reeves - who really didn't want Price in the role at all, he had been pushing pretty hard for Donald Pleasence - had confronted him on set one day to tell him to tone it down a yard or two. His performance was far too much. This wasn't any silly old trashy old horror film they were making.

As the story has it, Price sniffed and stretched out his sleeves and replied "My boy, I have made 34 films. What have you made?"

"Two good ones," said Reeves.

Apparently Price thought this was just the most fantastic bit of back-chat that he'd ever heard and the pair of them got on like a pair of old goats for the whole of the rest of the shoot.

This is fantastic. Absolutely lovely. Although looking more closely I don't think his retort is really factually correct at all.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Hateful Eight isn't shit, but there's no way it's better than Jackie Brown.

[zomgmouse]

Hateful Eight isn't shit, but there's no way it's better than Jackie Brown.

It is. Sorry!!!!!!

[Enrico Palazzo]

I thought Kill Bill 2 was atrocious. Death Proof is pretty shite too.

[Shit Good Nose]

It does seem a little churlish to mention "derivative"  as a negative against him when also talking about the Coens, both tend to borrow a lot of archetypes but I think both clearly using them for rather different purposes than they typically are, the name of Tarantino's production company I think shows you were his true influences are beyond the genre settings he uses.

"Derivative" and "influences" are the wrong words to use - outright plagiarism is a better fit.

He's lifted entire scenes and dialogue from other films to the point where he's basically just made a patchwork of stuff with very very little originality.  He could get away with it with Reservoir Dogs and the next few cos the internet didn't exist and there wasn't the enormous amount of films everyone has access to now, but to KEEP doing it and keep getting away with it now is absolutely bewildering to me.

The Coens' films are homages with their own stamp on it, which they take in surprising directions.  Tarantino just shoves in long scenes of unnecessary retro pop culture dialogue and, where he's been screenwriter/polisher only, has completely ruined an otherwise decent script - Crimson Tide being the prime example.

And I don't even know where to begin with Django Unchained... I mean, the number of people who think the soundtrack is original is incredibly worrying.


All that being said, I still think Pulp Fiction is a brilliant film, and Jackie Brown isn't bad.  And I love the anime section of Kill Bill (the rest of it can fuck right off, though).  But the rest of his films are absolute toilet (except for The Hateful Eight, which I haven't seen yet, but when I saw the trailers it seemed to me like a rip-off of Cut Throats Nine).

Also I've said many times the best thing about Death Proof (aside from Kurt) is that bowl of nachos.  Tarantino should change careers and become a food photographer.

[greenman]

Jackie Brown is probably my least favourite of his films besides Death Proof, its not bad but I don't think a "serious gangster epic" and building atmosphere in that fashion is really where his strengths lay. I'm glad he didn't stick to doing that kind of film with likely diminishing returns as many expected of him.

The Kill Bills perhaps don't hold together amazingly well as films but in terms of individual scenes I think there's much more good than bad, Django whilst generally well made is perhaps a little too straight forward in the end and perhaps a good argument for sticking to smaller budgets. After his opening salvo Inglorious Basterds and The Hateful Eight are the two I really love.

[ToneLa]

Jackie Brown was a good film, as opposed to just good Tarantino

Found it really enjoyable, revisited it last month and it was really engaging. Think it's the characters. The plot not so much (think it helps a ton it was an adaptation) I just liked the cast and the characters and the overall vibe. It is at its best when not a whole lot is happening!

Hateful Eight I think is good but.. Jackie Brown, man.

Apparently DeNiro and Tarantino didn't get along. DeNiro in that plays such an odd role! Quiet prison-stupified ex con. Doesn't do much, not a load of meat on that role though it was probably fun. Just ties into my usual bafflement of his role choices from the 90s onward.

[Shit Good Nose]

Jackie Brown is probably my least favourite of his films besides Death Proof, its not bad but I don't think a "serious gangster epic" and building atmosphere in that fashion is really where his strengths lay. I'm glad he didn't stick to doing that kind of film with likely diminishing returns as many expected of him.

Serious gangster epic!?!?!?  It's his 70s/80s exploitation (I hesitate to call it blaxploitation, given that an awful lot of it comes from elsewhere in the exploitation world from the time - lots of Larry Cohen and Bill Lustig nods in it, and a little bit of Cirio Santiago too [addendum - I've also reminded myself that there's also some 70s Italian comedy crime caper in it as well] crime flick.  Hardly his homage to The Godfather or Goodfellas.  But I will grant you its main problem is it's overlong for what it is, so "epic" in that sense of the word yes.  But serious, no.

But I'm glad we're all agreed that Death Proof is a five alarm pile of wank.  Even Kurt can't save the whole.  Nor the nachos.  I'll tell you this, though - I NEVER wanted a bowl of nachos so much in my life as I did whilst watching that scene.

[greenman]

Serious gangster epic!?!?!?  It's his 70s/80s exploitation (I hesitate to call it blaxploitation, given that an awful lot of it comes from elsewhere in the exploitation world from the time - lots of Larry Cohen and Bill Lustig nods in it, and a little bit of Cirio Santiago too [addendum - I've also reminded myself that there's also some 70s Italian comedy crime caper in it as well] crime flick.  Hardly his homage to The Godfather or Goodfellas.  But I will grant you its main problem is it's overlong for what it is, so "epic" in that sense of the word yes.  But serious, no.

But I'm glad we're all agreed that Death Proof is a five alarm pile of wank.  Even Kurt can't save the whole.  Nor the nachos.  I'll tell you this, though - I NEVER wanted a bowl of nachos so much in my life as I did whilst watching that scene.

Its Blaxplotation in terms of its setting but relative to his first couple of films I do think its definitely a shift towards(without obviously being entirely) a Goodfellas style "serious gangster epic", slower pace, longer runtime, more focus on building atmosphere, etc. Its the kind of film  it seems like some people wish he'd spent the rest of his career making but again to me it doesn't really feel like its playing to his strengths. Its enjoyable enough but feels a lot less individual to me than the much of the rest of his work.

[Shit Good Nose]

We obviously view the film in completely different ways...

[ToneLa]

Here's Ebert prattling on aboot Jackie Brown

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jackie-brown-1997

I recommend reading it as it is right

[jobotic]

Jackie Brown is the only Tarantino film I've seen that i'd like to see again. it's great, but agree a lot of that is the performances.

I'd like to see Christoph Waltz's bits in Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained again. Has he been in much else?*



* I am no film buff, is that obvious?

[Shit Good Nose]

Has he been in much else?*



* I am no film buff, is that obvious?

Yes and yes.

[jobotic]

Yeah, but what has he been in that is good? Anything?

[Shit Good Nose]

Kopfstand is the best film I've seen him in my opinion.  His "problem" is that he's always very good in films which are otherwise mediocre or shit.  And he's done a LOT of those.

Most people will know him from Spectre (as Blofeld), Big Eyes, The Zero Theorem and Muppets Most Wanted, but there are a lot of decent films general filmgoers won't be as aware of - Love Scenes From Planet Earth, Tristan and Isolde (not the Kevin Reynolds one), Berlin Blues, and Life For Life are all pretty good films, but German.  I also quite like Carnage, but if you can't detach Roman Polanski's art from his transgressions don't bother.

[jobotic]

Thanks

[ToneLa]

Er Ist Wieder Da (2015) (Look Who's Back)

Not an Eminem biography but a highly entertaining romp of Hitler being BACK in contemporary Germany. Wandering aboot, going on a road trip. Impeccable acting from the lead.

Fucking loved this. Was hooting and hollering like a lunatic, it's so charming and funny. Only speak pidgin Deutsch but, subtitles needed.

Gets a bit deep though. Makes you think. It has Borat-like unscripted parts blended into the narrative which absolutely made it for me. Hitler out in the open is fucking magnetic. The performances are brilliant. This is the film's depth. Subtlety but. Implications. Easy jokes and hard jokes. The. Fucking. Lot.

As satire it gets brutally dark and the real-people element adds a genuinely disturbing element.

What more do I want from a fillum? Not a lot. Tits?

[St_Eddie]

Jackie Brown is possibly my favourite Tarantino film.  I didn't care for it at all when I first watched it but it's a film which gets better and better with each subsequent viewing.

...I'm glad we're all agreed that Death Proof is a five alarm pile of wank.

Um, no.  I'm not in agreement with that.  The first half is a bit rubbish but the last half, with the car chase is fantastic; real white-knuckle stunt work that's incredibly exhilarating to watch.