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billyweeds
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 5:30 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
bartist wrote:


Vince D'Onofrio, who I'm starting to view as a menace to civilization on a par with melting polar caps...

Please, stop killing Corey Stoll in opening seasons.


Agreed, and agreed. D'Onofrio is an ego run rampant. He's sabotaging his own very real talent. And Stoll is amazing.
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bartist
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:54 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
billyweeds wrote:


bartist--I was exaggerating. Saw a lot more than ten minutes, but 60 minutes more didn't change the opinion I formed in the first ten. As for classic books, I've never been able to crack "War and Peace" or "Crime and Punishment" or "Inherent Vice" or "Gravity's Rainbow." Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Snarko, snarkas, skarkat.


Never known you to exaggerate, BW. Very Happy

Seriously, I've bailed on my share of monster classics. A hundred pages of Gravity's and I just gave up. Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49," however, was no trouble at all, and a third the length. "Inherent Vice" seems like something people read who have different objectives reading fiction than I do. (or perhaps having any objective is the problem) Whiskeypriest somehow induced me to read Nabokov's "Pale Fire, " for which I am grateful.

Anyway, I understand how a lot of what the Wachowskis do can be taken as beautiful and pretentious garbage, like some of Aronofsky's fantasies. TBH, I'm twenty years out from The Matrix, so I'd have to re-watch to see if it holds up (now that that theme has been used in roughly seven pazillion other films, series, graphic novels, cartoons, etc). Their most recent I've seen, Jupiter Rising, I had to bail on. Pretty awful. Cloud Atlas, OTOH, I re-watched and actually found more accessible and entertaining on a second viewing.

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gromit
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:13 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
From pop culture references and whatnot, you pick up some of the key parts of blockbuster films. And you see snippets of clips on shows and wherever.
So for Ghostbusters, I was familiar with the He slimed me line/notion, but never heard anyone say don't cross the beams (the Aykroyd science explanations were gobbledygook not intended to be either realistic or humorous, just there).

Just like I knew the much imitated/parodied Red & Blue pill choice, though I assumed it would be a grander/longer scene.
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I'm of the type who plows on through, whether I like a film or book.
Especially films, which are short enough. If I don't finish a film, it's likely that I fell asleep before it ended and then don't go back and watch the rest. And even that's rare.

I seem to recall some Dom DeLillo novel that hugely grated on my sensibilities and I packed in within say 40 pages. Probably others, but not many. I have a sort of determined curiosity that likes completion.

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gromit
Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Of course the world as computer simulation was explored prior to The Matrix, which just mainstreamed the concept. And really the overall idea is just a modern hi-tech extension of the world as a dream.

Fassbinder's 1973 film World on a Wire runs the same idea through. It's a two part TV film, and the second part kind of lags, but the first half figuring out the secret is fun and interesting, while the set design is pretty cool and basic, and probably influenced Kubrick's 2001.

World on a Wire was based the novel Simulacrum-3 (1964).
The Thirteenth Floor (1999) is based on the same source and released the same year as The matrix (I've never seen 13th Floor).

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billyweeds
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 10:11 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
bartist wrote:

Whiskeypriest somehow induced me to read Nabokov's "Pale Fire, " for which I am grateful.


Are you sure that it wasn't me (I?) who pushed "Pale Fire" on you? It's only one of my four favorite novels ever.

For the record, the others are "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis, "Great Expectations" by Dickens, and "Rosemary's Baby" by Ira Levin (IMO way way better than the fine but rather overrated movie).

"Pale Fire" is in a class by itself, a truly one-of-a-kind rara avis and brilliant beyond description.
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bartist
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:46 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
gromit wrote:


[...]

I seem to recall some Dom DeLillo novel that hugely grated on my sensibilities and I packed in within say 40 pages. Probably others, but not many. I have a sort of determined curiosity that likes completion.


Probably "Underworld. " A Pynchonesque behemoth. Man tries to obtain famous baseball. I guess people who stick with David Foster Wallace or Pynchon novels would stick it out.

With theater movies, I don't know if I have determined curiosity or if I'm just overly thrifty. "I paid for the full two hours, so I'm staying!"

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bartist
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:53 am Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
billyweeds wrote:
bartist wrote:

Whiskeypriest somehow induced me to read Nabokov's "Pale Fire, " for which I am grateful.


Are you sure that it wasn't me (I?) who pushed "Pale Fire" on you? It's only one of my four favorite novels ever....


WP kept referring to it, over at Elba forum, conjuring the glory of some long ago thread at the NYT books forum. But I recall you've mentioned it here, too.

It is unique. To even discuss it, you have to be in the process of rereading it.

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gromit
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:01 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I think the DeLillo was White Noise.
Length wasn't the issue, I just hated the sentences.
I think I also tried to read Mao II and just had no interest and dropped it.

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As for favorite books, I'd have to stop and think a bit.
I was a big big reader from 16-26.
But slowed down a lot the last 26 years.

I'd probably have one Italo Calvino on my list.
1) Either If on a Winter's Night a Traveler or Cosmicomics (a series of related themed sci-fi stories).
2) Probably one of The Little Prince or Winnie-the-Pooh
3) maybe Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
4) Reruns - Jonathon Baumbach (also a short story collection loosely tied together by film and vampires)
5) The Great Gatsby could round out the Top 5

That's just what came to mind. Sure I must be missing some key books.
I'd probably need to have my book collection in front of me to do better.
6) A Nabokov: Lolita, Pale Fire, The Defense could do Top 10 duty.

EDit:
7) Catch-22 is impressive. Might qualify as the best encapsulation of the 20th C.
8 ) A Confederacy of Dunces
9) Trout Fishing in America (another loosely related short story collection)
10) Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut


Last edited by gromit on Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

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gromit
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:19 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Here's a more readable version of my provisional list:

1) Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino
2) The Little Prince - de Saint Exupery
3) Reruns - Jonathon Baumbach
4) Trout Fishing in America - Richard
5) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
6) Lolita - Nabokov
7) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
8 ) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
9) Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
10) Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

Not much emphasis on the order really.

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bartist
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 1:11 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
I've read and liked most of those. And it does seem reading, for many of us, drops off in the late 20s as other work and other obligations/distractions take over more of our lives.

Calvino I haven't read, possibly because I found Borges first and he covers some similar territory. Vonnegut was much loved in my social circles in high school and college, and I remember fondly such books as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions.

Science fiction I blew hot and cold on at various times in youth, but I always liked the soaring imagination of the grand masters of the genre, like Clarke, Pohl, Sturgeon, Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, et al. I'm always impressed at sci-fi classics that hold up, because it's so difficult to write sci-fi that doesn't end up seeming very dated and quaint in a few decades. Authors who looked at the distant future, or an alternate universe, or attempted a completely non-human perspective, had an advantage in that respect.

"Invisible Man," when I plucked it off a bookstore shelf at age 12, was not at all the HG Wells reinterpretation I had expected. (this is sort of a Simpson's joke, along the lines of Bart and a friend departing a theater showing Naked Lunch profoundly disappointed).

It's probably an excellent time to read it again.

One reason we need an admin who can find all the buttons is to move the last half dozen posts over to Books thread. Smile

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gromit
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 1:26 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
I almost talked myself out of re-watching Dog Day Afternoon, figuring I knew it well enough. But then it opens with a music video of NYC street scenes to a Elton John tune, and I was wondering if maybe an extra started instead of the feature. Then there's the 3rd bank robber who bails early, which I totally forgot. After that it mostly settled in to the film I recalled.

But it's such a good film. Of course the story itself is incredible and indelible.
The gay angle gave it the notoriety and so the use of an Elton John song fits well. The casting is great. Pacino looks and acts a good deal like John Woytowicz, the real life bank robber. Pacino's wired energy really works. I love when he rips open the long flower box to pull out the hidden long gun.
Charles Durning is great as a tough ethnic cop trying to handle the growing spectacle and hostage negotiations. One thing odd is how much James Broderick looks like George W Bush.

It's also stunningly odd how Leon, Sonny's husband, is brought to the bank robbery scene in his bathrobe. Imagine being pulled out of the mental hospital, where you've been for a few days after a suicide attempt, and being brought straight to a bank robbery in progress being conducted by your gay lover ... in 1972. The crazy thing is that's what transpired, and Leon in the film looks and acts a good deal like the real life counterpart, arriving in bathrobe with hair disheveled and clutching the robe shut at the collar.

It's also pretty surprising that the real robber had a large gay wedding circa 1970. The real "Sal" was just 18 years old. Had been involved in petty thefts and reform school. One impressive crime was he hid in a department store. Used the register to ring up some merchandise and the next day walked out of the store with two Tv's he had the receipts for. Not sure how he got caught, but that shows some imagination and daring.

Even the real bank robber thought Pacino and Chris Sarandon (Leon) did a great job. He also liked the Lumet direction.

I was thinking these days that a Gofundme campaign would be set up immediately for "Leon" to get a sex change operation.
Also, there's no way today that the real bank robber would have been let out after just 6 years of a 20 year sentence.

John Wojtowicz, the real robber, was a character and good at self-publicity.
In jail, he was able to get a private screening of the film (with a guard present) after he threatened to start a huge prison riot. Two days later, the showed it to the other prisoners. After he was released, Wojtowicz went back to the bank he robbed and signed autographs wearing an I Robbed This Bank t-shirt. Then he tried to apply for a job as security guard there.

Look at this photo:



Pacino? or Wojtowicz?

There was also a documentry made called The Dog (2014) which sounds interesting, which was made over 10 years (Woj died in 2006 of cancer).
https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/dog-day-afternoon-article-1.1886041

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gromit
Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 1:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9005 Location: Shanghai
Yeah, i thought I should switch over to the Book forum.
I suppose everyone could copy and paste their own posts there.
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Whatever happened with Marc?
He'll help us out if he can.

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You really should try Calvino.
Terrific writer.

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billyweeds
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:56 am Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City
"Lolita" is very good. "Pale Fire" is great great great. That's my considered opinion on Nabokov.
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Befade
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 3784 Location: AZ
Bart......A while back I posted about Ratched. I was really impressed with the use of color. Especially after seeing a western in early technicolor. The fact that filmmakers can orchestrate such combinations now......And Corey Stoll is a must see for me in anything. After a while I thought the plot got out of hand it kept changing direction. I thought it was funny that the 2 lesbian actors would end up in a lesbian relationship. Still, visually outstanding!

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bartist
Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:49 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6941 Location: Black Hills
Befade, Paulson has said she's bisexual and doesn't identify herself with any fixed sexuality. But I knew what you meant. It looks like she currently is partnered with Holland Taylor which would make her decidedly not ageist in her romantic life.

I like Stoll, too. He gets these plum roles and makes the most of them, from Ernest Hemingway to Buzz Aldrin.

And now finally, am going to watch World on a Wire, which the dog has been recommending for a couple decades here.

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