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jeremy

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:01 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

I was trying to formulate my thoughts on Her, but was finding it hard. A lot of the concepts the film played with are worthy of consideration; however. it didn't induce many strong emotions and, partially as a result, I'm finding my memory of it has faded somewhat. Instead, I offer the following as a filler.

Team America, Hot Fuzz...White House Down?

I watched White House Down on Sunday night while catching up on the weekend’s chores, including ironing my shirt for work the next day, which was probably about the level of attention the film warranted. Surprisingly, it manages to have its cake and eat it, being, all at the same tine, a restrained, but comprehensive spoof, politically liberal and a serviceable actioner.

Drawing on the singlet-wearing Die Hard series in particular, White House Down employs just about every cliché in the action lexicon from plucky tween daughter to foreign accented terrorists, but critically, it doesn’t oversell them or play them for laughs. Calling the film formulaic would be to misunderstand that that was its intent or at least that the filmmakers couldn’t care one way or the other. As satire goes, it’s all very PG-Rated, of course; the film had a big budget to recoup and, directed by Hollywood mainstayer, Roland Emmerich (whose films always have an element of self-were always knowingly excessive anyway) it is an inside job. Regardless, I thought it was fun…Fuck, yeah!

Last edited by jeremy on Tue Apr 08, 2014 1:13 pm; edited 1 time in total
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knox

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:20 am

Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 1246 Location: St. Louis

I wasn't sure about WHD. Thanks, might see it now.

Wait a minute....you still iron your shirts??

marantzo

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 11:46 am

Guest

I iron mine. Maybe it's a UK kind of thing. Laughing

bartist

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:14 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6963 Location: Black Hills

LOL - I asked Gary a very similar "waaaaaiiiiit a minute" q. a while back, regarding same.

trying to find something of merit in a Redbox - anyone see the thing with John Cusack and Bob DeNiro, "The Bag Man" I think it's called. Has Cusack waiting around at a seedy motel, which makes me think "Identity."

Hadn't realized WHD was a spoof. Might look for it, then.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

gromit

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:59 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

I generally really enjoy Guy Maddin films.
Just watched Archangel, his 2nd feature, and it's full of catatonic Russians going off to battle (without knowing in their remote outpost that The Great War already ended a few months earlier). Most of the main characters either are or become amnesiac, so they follow their dreams/beliefs in happy single-minded pursuit. A good deal of the film is done up like a silent film, including title cards -- even though about half the film also has dialogue, which is intentionally dubbed in awkwardly. There's also color tinting, wooden legs, Bolsheviks!, exclamation points!!, oddball outfits, doppelgangers, stilted dialogue and odd musings. It's a full-on Guy Maddin faux-silent film quirkfest, and very enjoyable.

I started watching Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, but it wasn't working that well for me, and it seems that color is wrong for Guy Maddin's wacky neo-retro-films.

Otherwise I love: The Saddest Music in the World, Brand Upon the Brain, Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary. And My Winnipeg is pretty terrific as well. He has such a unique sensibility and style. Genius.

Last edited by gromit on Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
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marantzo

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 7:30 pm

Guest

I started watching Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, but it wasn't working that well for me, and it seems that color is wrong for Guy Maddin's wacky neo-retro-films.

It is a stinker. Even Maddin thought it stunk.

He was asked to make a movie about Winnipeg. He asked if he could do it the way he wanted and the Winnipeggers who were putting up the money said that he was free to do it the way he wanted. It was half actual and half fantasy. I saw it with Marta and she really liked it. I didn't think she would. We went to the Hudson Bay Paddle Wheel restaurant that was in the film. We asked a few of the people who worked there, if they saw My Winnipeg. None did and none even knew about it. Smile

gromit

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:21 pm

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9016 Location: Shanghai

Good to know -- wasn't aware Ice Nymphs had a weak reputation.
Ice Nymphs is on one disc with Archangel and Heart of the World so I can't complain. Very glad I started with Archangel, even though Ice Nymphs was the first film on the disc. Hopefully I can get through it. Or I'll move on to Heart ...

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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

carrobin

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:28 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 7795 Location: NYC

With Time Warner Cable offering free movies on Showtime and Epix at the moment, I've been catching up on a few, and just watched "Skyfall"--the first Bond I've seen since the Roger Moore days. I started watching because of the London setting--the cinematography was impressive--and then it just got better and better. The scenes in the Underground were terrific, and when Bond and M headed for that old mansion in Scotland, I practically applauded. The blending of high-tech skills with a basic thriller structure was very well done.

Funny that a few nights ago I saw a remarkable 1942 British movie on TCM, "Went the Day Well?", which also climaxed with a battle in a rural manor house. Has anyone seen that? I'd be interested in hearing reactions.

yambu

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 2:03 pm

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

12 Years a Slave reminded me of Roots, served up on ABC in '76. Maybe the latter was not as graphically violent as the former, but situationally it was. I still remember everyone talking about them chopping off Kunta Kinte's foot, to keep him from running away.

Those were the days of broadcast TV blockbusters. I remember the local bar being filled for Winds of War, as well as Roots.

Last edited by yambu on Sat Apr 12, 2014 5:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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bartist

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 4:14 pm

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6963 Location: Black Hills

Wow, just realized I never actually watched that famous miniseries, but was aware that started Levar Burton's career, he who later replaced Mr. Scott on ST:NG. I knew the basic story, from snatches overheard at the watercooler. Am renting 12YaS soon. Might be interesting to borrow Roots from the local PL and compare.

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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days.

marantzo

Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:44 pm

Guest

"Those were the days of broadcast TV blockbusters. I remember the local bar being filled for Winds of War, as well as Roots."

Saw them both, but not in a bar. Very good.

marantzo

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 11:00 am

Guest

Is anyone on here going to watch Captains Courageous right now? (TCM)

Syd

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 11:13 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12933 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

We had our Yuri's Night celebration last night at the Stafford Air & Space Museum. We call it Celebration of Spaceflight so as not to upset Commiephobes.

The featured attraction was a showing of Apollo 13, which I still like, although it's now third on my list of space movies after The Right Stuff and Gravity; maybe fourth if you consider 2001 a space movie. (As opposed to movies like Star Wars, which largely takes place in space but is not about space travel per se.)

Anyway, the director of the Stafford Museum, Max Ary, was former director of the Kansas Cosmosphere, which he left under unfortunate circumstances.*
The Cosmosphere has a facility called SpaceWorks which specializes in the restoration and replication of space artifacts. Two of the most notable of the restored articles are the Liberty Bell 7, Gus Grissom's capsule which was retrieved from the bottom of the ocean, and the capsule from Apollo 13. Supposedly when Jim Lovell was speaking at the Cosmosphere for the 30th anniversary reunion of the Apollo 13 flight team, they showed him the capsule and he broke down. He hadn't seen it since he was on the carrier after the flight. Gene Krantz had almost the same reaction.

Anyway, SpaceWorks is famous nationwide among those interested in space history, and does a lot of restoration and reproduction work, one of which is a full reproduced Apollo command module, which was right beside the screen where we watched the movie. During the movie, interesting facts were displayed on the side of the module.

How this connects with the movie is that all the space hardware shown in Apollo 13 was made or restored by SpaceWorks, which was under Max Ary at the time, and, since Ron Howard was insistent on making the movie as authentic as possible, is as close to accurate as you're likely to get, even to the point that the spacesuits are made of the same fire-retardant cloth as the NASA spacesuits. This cloth costs over $3000 a yard, and to most of us looks like nylon. They had to reproduce the locking mechanism for the hatch door. You see this for about three seconds in the movie but took weeks to reproduce.

One minor bit of artistic license is that Gene Krantz was actually one of several flight directors, though the most important one. Some of the decisions shown may have been made by whoever worked the night shift.

The most important omission was Tom Stafford himself, who is one of the most accomplished astronauts, and at the time was head of the Astronauts and responsible, among other things, for crew assignments. Among these was the replacement of Ken Mattingly with Jack Swigert when Mattingly was exposed to measles. This turned out to be a bit of luck; the crew might never have made it back if Mattingly hadn't been available to use his vast expertise in the simulator.

Stafford is also, of course, the person for whom the Museum is named.

*He'd put numerous articles from his personal collection on display, and sold some of them. There was an ownership dispute which resulted in lawsuits and a brief jail sentence.

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marantzo

Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 11:53 am

Guest

Very interesting stuff, Syd.

bartist

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014 8:32 am

Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6963 Location: Black Hills

Quote:

... if you consider 2001 a space movie...

Surely you jest, Syd. I mean, how much more of a space movie could it be?

Really cool - want to stop at the Cosmospere, and the Stafford, on my next trip south. Though I would have voted for TRS, G, or 2001 to be shown, rather than A13.

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