Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Yeah, here I am thinking I really enjoyed his style and his films. But in reality, I am just a mindless lemming. Thanks man! Flattery abounds! You're not only educational but a rational and reasoned film scholar. I just want to sit for an evening and pick your brain about filmmaking, and in what other ways we have all gone wrong.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
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just shining a little light
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Tarantino is a brilliant director. Ridiculous critique.
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What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
violence sells
if he ever did a movie without any violence then we would find out in no uncertain terms
but he wont cause he cant... he's a hack selling the lowest common denominator of garbage... violence
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
My sister had her first husband die from a heroin overdose. She showed me the movie and I was freaked out more than her. Go figure that, right?
It's still a great movie. The real "villain" is the only guy who doesn't do heroin. The others who do are pathetic but he's an absolute dick. He revels in being a dick, and that is a scary thought that a drunken bastard is the one you have to worry about not the heroin addict.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
When Saul realizes Pinchot has betrayed him is great. I figured out the plot that all three groups were going to have the confrontation before they told us(read too many books and watched too many movies) but I didn't see the wimpy Pinchot doing that. A LOL moment.
Great writing from Tarantino on that one and having thrown in that Sicilian thing from his youth, which, BTW, is one brilliant way to go out when you know you are going to die, well yeah the movie get's high marks for that. Walken and Hopper are excellent in that scene.
Not having Tarantino direct it was probably better for the film even though he ain't a bad director.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
Jackie Brown wasn't that violent, great movie.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
Yeah, there's no doubt the Walken/Hopper scene goes down as one of the all time greatest. Walken's laugh as he is trying to process that Hopper is actually saying this stuff to him is so menacing. He doesn't find it funny, he's absolutely seething with rage that not only is this guy not going to give him the information that he's so used to scaring out of people, but he's going to be horribly insulted in the process. I've heard that film students are often shown and study that scene, but I don't know how much truth there is to that.
The Drexl/Clarence scene is another tense nail biter too. I thought Tony Scott did a great job of capturing the mood of those scenes.
And a rarely mentioned scene, but one of my favourites, is Dick Ritchie's audition for The New T.J. Hooker.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
So many great moments in True Romance. The previously mentioned Oldman/Slater and Walken/Hopper confrontations are the obvious standouts, but what about the Gandolfini/Arquette showdown in the Hollywood hotel? Brad Pitt's spot on stoner? Michael Rappaport's TJ Hooker audition? Pinchot's drug bust on the PCH? Slater/Pinchot confrontation in the elevator with Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore eavesdropping through Pinchot's wire? I could go on and on. It's a thoroughly enjoyable wild ride for sure, and beautifully shot to boot.
"That gum you like is going to come back in style."
That's such a cliched criticism of Tarantino. And a largely false one as the amount of blood and gore in his movies is actually minimal when you look closely. The media stoke this perception about his movies being overly violent and that's usually what people remember.
But look at Reservoir Dogs. 95% dialogue in one location, 5% shooting and violence. And you never even see the actual robbery.
Same with Pulp Fiction, the same ratio of dialogue to violence.
I have always believed he writes great dialogue. Even in Jackie Brown. A very different movie but very entertaining.
Even in True Romance...pretty much the scene everyone remembers is the exchange between Walken and Hopper.
He is far from perfect and I am not a fanboy. Death Proof left me cold, and Hateful Eight was a struggle.
But the violence thing is an overhyped media construct that far too many people seem ready to repeat ad nauseum.
Dick Ritchie! . "Where the fuck did he come from?!" "I don't know. He just appeared like magic." "Well don't just sit there! Shoot him...get him!"
"That gum you like is going to come back in style."
It's almost like they are mindless lemmings.
The best thing about it is - he got the part!
Oh, and I agree about the elevator scene when Clarence shuts it down and Elliot loses it. Yet another in a long line of tense moments in that film...
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
They do that with a lot of pictures. If you went by the media hype, you'd think Texas Chainsaw Massacre was this massively gory, graphic picture, and it really isn't. Even people who've seen the movie think there's stuff there that isn't. Like the scene where Leatherface hangs the one girl on the hook in the kitchen, they think there's shot showing blood dripping into the pan sitting on the floor under her, but there isn't.
Then you've got something like Halloween, which is usually described as "the first slasher film". Once again, though, there's not a whole lot of graphic violence. I mean, there's the bit where Michael impales the guy against the wall, and the scene where he strangles PJ Soles (while she's on the phone talking to Jamie Lee Curtis) goes on for a lot longer than such scenes usually do, but there's not really any gore (that doesn't start until Halloween II).
As for Tarrantino, most of his pictures I've never seen. Things like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction don't interest me. I'm sorry, I'm not into movies about gangsters. (shrug)
I did see Death Proof, which I liked. I love the bit where Kurt Russell is talking about being Robert Urich's stunt double, specifically mentions the very short lived early 80's TV show Gavilan, which only ran for something like 8 episodes. I only know it exists because TNT very briefly re-ran in the mid 90's (there's only so many times you can re-run eight episodes, I imagine). And the ending, I think is one of the best I've ever seen in what is essentially an exploitation picture.
On the other hand, Tarrantino loses points with me because he destroyed a vintage 1870's Martin guitar during one of his movies. Well, not Tarrantino himself, but Kurt Russell. Apparently, nobody told Russell that they were going to swap the real guitar for a "stunt guitar" for the scene, so he went ahead and smashed it. Another reason, along with the Prince incident, that I would never let anyone so much as even touch my guitars, let alone borrow them for whatever purpose.
(Yeah, I know you're all snickering, "Yeah, like anyone want to use one of your guitars", but my point is still valid)
But yeah, I imagine he makes good movies, besides Death Proof, even if they're of a sort I'm not interested in.
Caught the back half of Sixteen Candles tonight, from the scene where Ted shows off the underpants in the boys' room. Still funny as ever.
"What was he wearing? Well...a red argyle sweater, tan trousers and red shoes....Hmm? No, he's not retarded!"
Grandpa Howard: Hate that rock n roll rubbish!
Grandpa Fred: Well I'm afraid it's here to say, Howie.
The directors commentary tells a little interesting tidbit about that scene. Walken asked Scott to shoot Hopper the first day as it seemed he was still trying to figure out his character. The next day was when he really nailed it with the laugh and Hopper went along with him. Not scripted at all.
I agree with the Drexl/Clarence scene as Oldman does crazy very well.
Just the thought of a "New T.J. Hooker" cracks me up.
Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000
That whole bit with him swinging the lamp back and forth, disorienting Clarence, is just dazzling IMO. I don't know what the f**k kind of place that was, but it was scary as hell. And Oldman just demands all eyes on him. Fantastic.
"My piece of mind is worth that much, not one. penny. more."
"It's empty."
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
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I haven't seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in ages. Wouldn't mind seeing it again someday.
About 15 or so years ago, I got into an argument with someone on the AOL Yes board about...I dunno exactly how we got started on it, but somehow we got into the idea of how a great movie is a great movie, regardless of fx and whatever. Not just visuals but sound effects, too. This might have something to do with the "remixed" Star Wars movie, or my usual preference of the work of Harryhausen, Tsuburaya, Trumbull, et al. over CGI. Anyway, somehow I made the point that you couldn't actually improve a movie by updating the sound effects, visuals, etc. I think the two examples I used was Repo Man and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (yes, very different pictures, for very different audiences, but both the kind of films that aren't about "effects"...well, except for when anyone opened the trunk of the Malibu in Repo Man).
So this guy I'm arguing with insists that One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest could have been made "better" with more modern sound effects, citing, for instance, when Chief pulls the drinking fountain out of the floor and throws it through the window. I'm thinking, "What Twilight Zone episode did this guy step out of? Or was it an Outer Limits?!". Seirously, I couldn't believe this guy thought that making the entire theater rumble or whatever was gonna actually improve One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
I mean, I could see maybe doing something like digitally "erasing" the wires holding up the performers in the Carousel scene in Logan's Run (In fact, I think that has been done) and the new efx shots on one of the late 70's Doctor Who DVD's I have (Destiny Of The Daleks, if anyone cares to look) work pretty well. And then there's things like re-inserting extra songs into something like Woodstock, The Grateful Dead Movie, or The Last Waltz. That would make sense! But sound effects in a movie like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest are besides the point.
Well, ordered a DVD for my partner who never saw the movie, One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest that we watched tonight. She thought it was a great movie but found it sad. She thought R.P. McMurphy had a violent streak and was irresponsible although sympathetic. It's cool experiencing the movie with her - vicarious enjoyment. I thought the movie still stands up as offering important social commentary of 1960s America. I think it's Nicholson's best or near best role. Louis Fletcher's role was as close as tour de force as Jack's. Will Sampson's role as Chief was touching, his relationship with McMurphy was captivating. The ending of the movie was poetic. It's another movie I've seen dozens of times but it's still a favourite of mine. There is a treasure trove of movies to pick from for our next viewing. Not sure what movie I'll buy.
I edited my post to fix a grammer error.
There are quite a few movies from the '70s as great as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest but few as iconic. There was quite the shift in filmmakers' attitudes in the late '60s. I doubt movies like The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, and Rosemary's Baby could have been made a year ealier. But it was Midnight Cowboy ('69) that really ushered in (or reflected, depending on your POV) a modern sensibility and on its heels came Kelly's Heroes, MASH, Klute, The French Connection, and A Clockwork Orange. That era from '29 to '60 may have been the Golden Age of Hollywood but to me the greatest period of filmmaking started in '67 and lasted until '80. And I only say '80 because that's the year The Shining and Raging Bull were released; otherwise I'd say '79.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
I agree about TCM, which incidentally I always found highly overrated anyway.
I think an equally good example is Taxi Driver, another film that was always feted by the media as incredibly violent, same on all the publicity for it at the time.
And people who have not seen it hear about it and it's 'violent' reputation , and are often surprised and disappointed to find its 95% dialogue and 5% violence condensed into the last 5 minutes. I kind of had that reaction when I saw it as it as a young man , but over the years have learned to appreciate it for what it was.
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