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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 3, 2023 15:43:23 GMT -5
ps Adolf Hitler's favorite film ^^^ That explains it! I thought I could see the touch of Leni Riefenstahl in King Kong escapes!
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 3, 2023 16:23:59 GMT -5
ps Adolf Hitler's favorite film ^^^ That explains it! I thought I could see the touch of Leni Riefenstahl in King Kong escapes! The arrow points further up; King Kong was Adolf's favorite. King Kong Escapes might have been Borman or Mengele's favorite, if it made it to South America. King Kong does kind of explain Hitler's actions in Europe, as he pretty much scoops things up, chews on them, then tosses them into walls, in fits of rage. Kong had a lower body count, though. Better looking girlfriend, too.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 4, 2023 3:24:27 GMT -5
So, before the snow fully kicked in, I went to pick up a few items and saw Clerks III sitting on the shelf and bought it. I sat down and watched it and cried at the ending, though not exactly because of the story, on screen, as the parallel to recent events in my life. The film, in so many ways, is a celebration of the film that started it all, the original Clerks. Randal has a heart attack, survives, and decides to make a film about his life, running a convenience store. They got the gang back and everything and used footage from the original, as the film they shot. It ends up making me feel old that I am essentially watching a 30 year anniversary (nearly) of something that was talked about, when I was at the end of my 20s. Of course, it gets you reflecting on your own 30 year journey.
Back in the Dawn of Time, or the Dawn of the 90s, I was a naval officer, doing my job that I definitely didn't want to do as my career. When my commitment was done, so was I . I left the military and got a job and went back to school, with an eye towards teaching. The job wasn't paying the bills and school was going to take a long time to get credentials to be underpaid and have me hating the bureaucratic stupidity that holds back teaching. So, I got a better job and moved on. During this period, I am watching movie after movie, in theaters and on home video, because movies were a precious thing, when I was a kid, because we rarely got to go. Like maybe a couple of times a year; at least, until I was old enough to drive and have a job to earn the money to buy a ticket. So, in a short span of time, I go from watching sci-fi and action movies, some comedies and dramas, to watching stuff in foreign languages, with subtitles and reading film magazines and tossing around names like Luc Besson, or Billy Wilder or whoever. Then, I keep hearing about this little black & white film, about a couple of convenience store clerks, called Clerks. I watch the film and laugh, even as I think the acting is pretty stilted. the writing is good, it is shot in an interesting manner, and the characters are real and relatable. It isn't quite my life, but I know those people, in different forms. I hit a comic shop every week and see some of them. i work in a bookstore and deal with some of those customers, in a different setting. Instead of someone asking if we rotate tires, they are asking if we have a Crown of Thorns. When I ask the author, they respond, "No, a crown of thorns, like Jesus wore." "Um, no, no we don't."
Back then, the media buzzword for Generation X was "slacker," which, ironically, is the film that inspired Kevin Smith to try to make his own movie. Well, the slacker label was BS, as I was Generation X, had served my country for the last 4 years (8 if you count ROTC training and schooling) and had a responsible position in a large business and worked my butt off, for far less pay, proportionally, than my father had as a teacher in a rural school district. Generation X weren't slackers, we just got @#$%^& when the tax burden got pushed off the rich and onto the shrinking middle class, and became the first generation to make less than our parents. Here it was on screen, complete with pop culture references, jokes about genitals and foul language. To say my crowd embraced it would be an understatement.
I continued to watch Kevin Smith's films, when they were personal things; but not so much when he was a hired gun. Over time, I kept running into these parallels, in his movies. Mallrats, not so much, aside from comic book references. Chasing Amy was another story. At the time, to get out of my parents' house, again, I was rooming with a friend. A gay friend. A gay friend who turned out to be "in love" with me. Or so he believed. The fact that I was straight didn't seem to change this, in his mind. It was awkward, at times, but no more so than when a co-worker and I hooked up one night, after a gathering of work mates, because we were both kind of lonely. I came home to find said roommate in tears, because all of his illusions were completely shattered by reality. he even came out to his mother, because he desperately needed to talk to her about his heartache. I cleared out of their way and talked to my own parents, as my future living situation was likely changing. Later, I went back to our apartment, after he was calmed down and we decided to go check out a movie, to take our minds off of the situation. So, being that we both loved Clerks and Mallrats, we decided to see Kevin Smith's new film, Chasing Amy. About two friends, who live together. And one hooks up with a woman. And the other resents it intruding on their friendship. And maybe he is attracted to the other. I sank lower and lower in my seat, as the film progressed and proceeded to display, for dramatic purposes, a plot that was eerily like what we were going through. My roommate was heavily doped up on anti-anxiety meds, so he didn't remember the film, afterward. By the end of the film, I was ready to punch Kevin Smith, if I ever met him. I went for escapism and got hit with more reality than I could handle. It was quite a while before I watched that movie again, even as I moved on to see Dogma and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, and Jersey Girl.
By the time Clerks II came around, I am in a relationship, with a woman who liked Smith's films and found him funny, even if she didn't quite share the same cultural references. It features Dante and Randal, working at a fast food place, after the Quick Stop burns down and Dante about to get married, to the wrong woman. It features a mature story about two guys, of similar ages, who realize what they really want out of their lives. By that point, I had it, too, apart from the vast wealth education and talent was supposed to bring me; but never quite happened, as such.
Now, Clerks III is out on DVD and it features guys my age, looking back and the director is celebrating what started his career, with the people who were there at the start, as well as his family of youth and the family he built along the way. And it has parallels to my life, including dealing with death, close to home. And that's why I cried, because Kevin Smith keeps turning out these films with real life in them, and it always seems to be my life. Including saving a descendent of Jesus from a rubber poop monster....but, that's another story.
Clerks III starts out a bit forced and I thought maybe Smith went to the well too often (I definitely thought he did for Jay & Silent Bob Reboot, though the stuff with Jay becoming a real "dad," was pretty good, even if a lot of the rest felt forced); but, damned if he didn't make me smile and double damned if he didn't make me cry, for the right reasons. Mostly, he got me thinking about a little film, shot in black & white, with a bunch of amateurs, financed by credit card debt and selling a comic book collection, that led to a series of movies, a pretty darn funny cartoon that only aired a third of its episodes (2!), some pretty cool comic books, and a lot of half-stoned talks about films and comics and pop culture by a film school dropout, who worked a crappy job in a convenience store.
In many ways, Clerks is the film documentary of Generation X. We were promised things, as kids, then handed a world of crap, if we weren't born in the right socio-economic class, but we found our own way to happiness, if not wealth or status. Though Kev made a lot of money, for a guy who dresses like a bum. Or a slacker. Still, that slacker shot down Bill Maher, in 1997, on Politically Incorrect, when he was running down Gen X and told Kevin to defend his generation.
Who'd have thought that a film with dialogue about Death Star contractors, roof hockey, a few packs of smoke, some weed and jokes about the number 36 would still resonate, 30 years later?
ps How funny is it to here the trailer voice guy say "The Jesus Lizard?"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2023 5:09:15 GMT -5
Released 80 years ago today, directed by Roy William Neill: Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), cursed with being a werewolf, seeks the help of Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles), who has access to the equipment of the late Dr. Frankenstein, but Talbot’s desire to cure himself leads to conflict with the Frankenstein Monster (Bela Lugosi). This is a decent film, which certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome at 72 minutes long. For me, Boris Karloff is the definitive Frankenstein Monster, but Lugosi does a reasonable job here. That said, as fun as the scrap is (the two creatures only battle in the closing moments of the movie), it did feel a little one-sided, with the Monster pretty much getting his clock cleaned by Wolf Man. I had this on VHS, and I’m proud to own it on DVD.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 5, 2023 17:22:29 GMT -5
My car is in the shop. So I’m sitting in a coffee shop waiting to hear that it’s done.
I decided to watch something from my “Japanese Classics” list on my phone. So I’m going to watch Akitsu Springs (1962).
I don’t know anything about it except that Mariko Okada is in it.
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Post by berkley on Mar 5, 2023 18:10:51 GMT -5
Released 80 years ago today, directed by Roy William Neill: Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), cursed with being a werewolf, seeks the help of Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles), who has access to the equipment of the late Dr. Frankenstein, but Talbot’s desire to cure himself leads to conflict with the Frankenstein Monster (Bela Lugosi). This is a decent film, which certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome at 72 minutes long. For me, Boris Karloff is the definitive Frankenstein Monster, but Lugosi does a reasonable job here. That said, as fun as the scrap is (the two creatures only battle in the closing moments of the movie), it did feel a little one-sided, with the Monster pretty much getting his clock cleaned by Wolf Man. I had this on VHS, and I’m proud to own it on DVD.
I watched this last October along with a bunch of other Universal horror movies. I thought it was good fun and especially enjoyed seeing Ilona Massey as a sympathetic Baroness Frankenstein.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 5, 2023 23:47:14 GMT -5
Released 80 years ago today, directed by Roy William Neill: Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), cursed with being a werewolf, seeks the help of Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles), who has access to the equipment of the late Dr. Frankenstein, but Talbot’s desire to cure himself leads to conflict with the Frankenstein Monster (Bela Lugosi). This is a decent film, which certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome at 72 minutes long. For me, Boris Karloff is the definitive Frankenstein Monster, but Lugosi does a reasonable job here. That said, as fun as the scrap is (the two creatures only battle in the closing moments of the movie), it did feel a little one-sided, with the Monster pretty much getting his clock cleaned by Wolf Man. I had this on VHS, and I’m proud to own it on DVD. I’ve seen it a bunch of times going back to the early 1970s when I was staying up late on Friday nights and watching monster movies. I’ve learned to appreciate it a lot more since I found out the back story, how Lugosi was playing a monster who is blind and sick and weak, and that’s why he’s fumbling around with his arms held out in front of him. And then his dialogue was all cut out and they greatly truncated his screen time. It’s a very entertaining film, but it could have been a lot better.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 5, 2023 23:50:11 GMT -5
As for Akitsu Springs, it’s another Japanese classic of the 1960s! But it’s so depressing! It’s about a doomed love affair.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2023 9:02:29 GMT -5
Released 80 years ago today, directed by Roy William Neill: Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), cursed with being a werewolf, seeks the help of Dr. Mannering (Patric Knowles), who has access to the equipment of the late Dr. Frankenstein, but Talbot’s desire to cure himself leads to conflict with the Frankenstein Monster (Bela Lugosi). This is a decent film, which certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome at 72 minutes long. For me, Boris Karloff is the definitive Frankenstein Monster, but Lugosi does a reasonable job here. That said, as fun as the scrap is (the two creatures only battle in the closing moments of the movie), it did feel a little one-sided, with the Monster pretty much getting his clock cleaned by Wolf Man. I had this on VHS, and I’m proud to own it on DVD. I’ve seen it a bunch of times going back to the early 1970s when I was staying up late on Friday nights and watching monster movies. I’ve learned to appreciate it a lot more since I found out the back story, how Lugosi was playing a monster who is blind and sick and weak, and that’s why he’s fumbling around with his arms held out in front of him. And then his dialogue was all cut out and they greatly truncated his screen time. It’s a very entertaining film, but it could have been a lot better. It could have been better. I didn’t quite like the scowl that Lugosi’s Monster did, but I understand why, with the whole blind/sick/weak thing. The battle between the Monster and Wolf Man must last 3 minutes or less. It did feel a tad anti-climatic; at the same time, I know we couldn’t have had 72 minutes of two entities fighting.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 6, 2023 14:42:40 GMT -5
Inherit the Wind was a pretty good movie! I just watched it this week-end thanks to the Tubi catalog that's way more interesting than Netflix's.
There's a lot of charm in that era's films... they were more theatrical, so to speak, even when they weren't adapted from stage plays. There was no attempt to make then sound more "real" by using tons of profanity, for example, and if people were really as eloquent as that in real life, then the '60s were a better time than today!
This fictional account of the Scopes trial (with even all the names changed, apart from that of Charles Darwin, I guess) is satisfying on several levels, but I felt lacked just a little bit of believability toward the end (when the prosecution seems to lose steam). That felt like a plot-mandated twist, as in front of the judge the prosecutor was just killing it; the defense's arguments were pretty weak (for all that I was rooting for their side). I did love the way these people could argue till they were blue in the face (albeit in black and white) and still remain cordial... friends, even.
It's a little depressing that this 1960 film evoking events that happened in 1925 is stil so actual today.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 6, 2023 15:10:37 GMT -5
Inherit the Wind was a pretty good movie! I just watched it this week-end thanks to the Tubi catalog that's way more interesting than Netflix's. There's a lot of charm in that era's films... they were more theatrical, so to speak, even when they weren't adapted from stage plays. There was no attempt to make then sound more "real" by using tons of profanity, for example, and if people were really as eloquent as that in real life, then the '60s were a better time than today! This fictional account of the Scopes trial (with even all the names changed, apart from that of Charles Darwin, I guess) is satisfying on several levels, but I felt lacked just a little bit of believability toward the end (when the prosecution seems to lose steam). That felt like a plot-mandated twist, as in front of the judge the prosecutor was just killing it; the defense's arguments were pretty weak (for all that I was rooting for their side). I did love the way these people could argue till they were blue in the face (albeit in black and white) and still remain cordial... friends, even. It's a little depressing that this 1960 film evoking events that happened in 1925 is stil so actual today. I love that movie. It probably helps that Clarence Darrow is super high on my list of personal heroes.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 7, 2023 5:02:50 GMT -5
Tonight I watched Les tontons flingueurs, a 1963 French gangster comedy that has apparently become a cult film for French cinephiles.
I liked it a lot! The comedy is very subtle at first. You could start watching it and not guess that it’s a comedy for a very long time.
The title roughly translates to The Gangster Uncles.
Horst Frank is in it. There is one German guy in the gang. I was thinking he looked familiar but I couldn’t place him for half the movie. Then it hit me. It’s Dr. Ood from The Head, a 1959 German horror movie. I double-checked and, yes, it’s him! Horst Frank! I’ll probably remember his name from now on.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 7, 2023 23:58:22 GMT -5
Well, if it is 60s French movies, it has to have Jean Marais........
or Alain Delon.....
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 8, 2023 0:50:02 GMT -5
Neither of them were in it. Most surprisingly of all, Yves Montand was also not in it.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 8, 2023 0:54:52 GMT -5
Tonight I watched Zatoichi and the Fugitives (1968).
Suggested alternate titles:
Zatoichi Kills Everybody
Zatoichi and the Pile of Corpses
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