© 2016-2023 Script Revolution Ltd, International House, 142 Cromwell Road, London, SW7 4EF, United Kingdom.
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© 2016-2023 Script Revolution Ltd, International House, 142 Cromwell Road, London, SW7 4EF, United Kingdom.
Registered in England and Wales (Company No.12995995) All rights reserved.
Designed, built, and run by CJ Walley
The themes in Parasite so far as I can tell are class and economic inequality. I don't know as there was any perspective that was offered that was interesting thematically other than an implicit question as to who the parasites are, the rich family or the poor one. I did like a lot of the film a lot and the plot but recall being let down by the ending, which didn't make sense to me or seemed pointless.
Heat, I recognize the skill that went into it (I am a Michael Mann fan), but the over-the-top gunfights lost me, just too far from reality for me.
Have been trying to watch The Irishman, but can't get into it. Feels like a retread to me. Been there done that. Scorsese is of course a great director but even Hitchcock came up with Family Plot and The Trouble with Harry.
Eric, I agree on the ending of Parasite. Just felt like an indulgence without an actual message. The theme feels paper-thin to me. I enjoyed it. I'm just trying to understand what made it Oscar worthy.
Last few days have consisted of;
Vice - meh
Bombshell - meh
Knives Out - meh
Cannonball/Carquake - LOL!
I also watched the first five minutes of Crazy Rich Asians.
I finally watched The Wraith last night which I've been meaning to watch for decades since its a carsploitation film. Lots of fun. High Plains Drifter meets American Graffiti. I find late eighties movies are so culturally extreme they feel like an alternative universe sometimes with this one being the more extreme when it comes to larger than life lingo and costumes.
"I also watched the first five minutes of Crazy Rich Asians."
No bueno?
Felt like one of those films I just knew wasn't made for someone like me.
CJ - Ya, I read "crazy rich" in title personally and was like "pass"... but didn't do any other/real investigation into it thus far. There are just so many hours (and there's so many movies!) in a day.
Finished season 2 of Ekaterina. Both season-finale episodes (one more to watch) have been roller-coaster rides so far. Might not change a view of a character 180 degrees, but they sure make an effort for 165.
So, I rewatched Donnie Darko. What a brilliant film. So engrossing. Makes absolutely no sense and doesn't even really have a villain. Breaks all the "rules". Works. Kudos to Drew Barrymore for making it happen.
I finally watched Requiem for a Dream. Very impressed. Hard not to compare it with Trainspotting which is arguably more entertaining but less of an experience.
Rewatched Natural Born Killers which just seems to get better and more poignant every time I watch it. I don't think I've seen anything that captures violence in the same way. I'm just blown away by the performances, particularly Jennifer Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones.
Watched most of Ekaterina season 3 but gave up on it due to some content (necromancer type-stuff) I disagreed with that popped up late in.
I checked out Analyze This last night. I thought it was a lot of fun.
I watched Peanut Butter Falcon on Christmas Eve. Described as a 'Hidden Gem'. Loved it.
Finally watched The Queen's Gambit and was hooked from beginning to end.
I rewatched Synecdoche, New York last night. I kind of enjoyed it the first time I passively watched it and wanted to give it a proper viewing this time round. I really enjoyed it and that may be down to how writers can relate to it. People often scream "you're not freaking Tarantino!" when screenwriters want to take risks but I think Charlie Kaufman is ten times braver with his approach. What he did in terms of professionalism with Adaption still blows my mind.
Hopefully my brother will be by here this weekend to watch "The Death of Stalin" (2017) as he hasn't seen it and I think he'd dig.
CJ - That's another possible "on off-chance you haven't caught that already I think it might be up your alley" recs.
Dude, The Death of Stalin is one of the best films I've watched in the last year.
CJ - "What are we last now, c'mon!" lol Yeah, that one was up there for me too. One of the perils of being ok-ish at the rec game is that many times people know what they like already and so are a step ahead of you. haha
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I recently rediscovered the local library system, and put in requests for about 10 films. Kinda forgot about that since it was closed for a while, then when it quasi-opened again they temporarily stopped collecting fines, which (along with people getting out less to return stuff) has resulted in the queue basically never moving - so any popular films still have a ton of holds (especially ones that came out the last several years... Ford V. Ferrari still has close to 700 (!) for instance... enjoy that one in 2024. But I realized I still had a decent backlog of older and newer-but-less-known stuff I want to see.
That's a shame. The library system in many countries has been gutted since the previous recession. I used to love borrowing music when I was a teenager.
Last night, I checked out The Great Smokey Roadblock which is a really interesting movie from the 70's. It was made by Mar Vista under the original title "The Last Cowboy" and stars Henry Fonda as a dying trucker who breaks out of hospital, steals his rig back, and goes on a mission to make one last perfect run, picking up a man of the cloth along the way and running into the madame of a brothel who needs to get out of the state with her sex-workers. The cast is remarkable; Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men, The Grapes of Wrath), Eileen Brennan (Clue), Austin Pendleton (Short Circuit, My Cousin Vinny), Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street), and Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise). It was originally a serious movie but bombed at Cannes. Dimension picked it up and edited it heavily to be more fun and renamed it in the hope of trading off the back of the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit. The result is, of course, something that didn't quite work for the market. It reminds me a little of how Cannonball Run movie was originally conceptualised by Brock Yates as a very serious representation of his event The Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash starring Steve McQueen but McQueen died and he decided to pair up with Hal Needham again and make another comedy.
I also watched Eat My Dust starring Ron Howard and Christopher Norris (rare to see a woman named Christopher other than Orson Wells' daughter) which is another 70's carspoitation affair with some good chases and very little plot clearly aimed to exploit the midnight movies craze. In fact, it's so out there, it even plays momentarily with time travel during a couple of chases - seriously. What's interesing about it is how Ron Howard didn't want to do it but was offered the opportunity to direct his own car chase film if this one was succesful. This led to him getting his first feature film directing credit with Grand Theft Auto. That's the guy who gave us Rush getting his first big directing break. Fascinating. Goes to show what a small job you don't want can lead to.
Just finished "Cuba and the Cameraman" (Netflix) - 40 years in the making. Reminds me how important documentaries are esp. when they let the people tell the story. You can also see the evolution of camera gear and how much it has changed in the last 40 years--waaaay lighter. It was a refreshing POV on Castro, esp. after watching soundbite/track/soundbite/track all found in "The Cuba Libre Story." If you haven't seen: "Uncut Gems" I highly recommend it.
My AlL NeW movie ratings classification-system™ (I'm a little uncomfortable giving letter/star grades to something like film and it also requires too much thought)
SKIP (lands anywhere from "I hate it(!)" to "Eh, better ways/movies to waste your time")
FREE TV (if you subscribe to Netflix and it's on Netflix, library, is on TV, etc.)
PAID RENTAL (worth your hard-earned $2.99)
PURCHASE (of course you need more than a "viewing license" for the best stuff)
I'm an episode shy of finishing the first three seasons of Better Call Saul. I always worry about believability in my writing, and shows like this remind me that I shouldn't.
Yeah, you can end up really limiting yourself creatively and writing in fear if you fall into the trap of caring too much about believability and realism. There's a huge difference between implausible and impossible and we can benefit from exploiting the former. Most films lauded for their realism tend to still be full of implausible content.
Last night I watched the following;
LA Confidential - I was surprised by how well reviewed and how many accolades it has and I say that as a big Brian Helgeland fan. I just couldn't get past Russle Crowe's character punching his girlfriend in the face and still being made out to be a hero. Helgeland had something similar in his original cut of Payback where Porter returns and beats his wife up after she double-crosses him. This was cut and reshot when the studio took the project over.
Twilight - Always wanted to check out the first film as I've seen the first half of Breaking Dawn. I thought it was surprisingly good. I'd already read some of the Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay years ago which I think is very well written. I actually used to keep it on file for formatting references. I honestly don't know why the film gets so much flack or why the Bella character gets so much hate.
It's a good thing that implausability isn't a big issue because the only two scripts I've written -- a full-length screenplay and a one-hour teleplay pilot -- have implausible elements. As a newish writer, I think it's easier to devise a good story with implausible elements than one without (at least for me it is).
As for LA Confidential, which I haven't seen, I couldn't imagine writing a scene in which a man punches a woman (unless it was in self-defense, and even then I'd be hesitant).
I sincerely hope I don't seem like I'm trolling, because I'm not. As a woman and a fan of neo-noir, I just have to defend LA Confidential. Is it the best neo-noir movie? In my opinion, no. Sin City is much better than LA Confidential ever was, in my opinion. Glad I watched t LA Confidential, but once was enough for me.
For those who haven't seen LA Confidential, fair warning, big spoiler ahead.
Being fair, it has been years since I've watched LA Confidential, so I'm going on memory here. Bud (Russell Crowe) hits Lynn (Kim Basinger) at a pivotal moment in the movie. Bud is driven mad by corruption and starts to believe everyone is out to get him, so to speak. In a jealous rage, by hitting Lynn, he becomes exactly the kind of man he hates the most - men who hit women. He then must deal with the consequences. Leads to resolution, etc, etc.
Granted, LA Confidential isn't known for its subtle subtext lol. I can see how the movie might seem unjustified if you look at it through a modern lens. Could the movie have used something else besides hitting his girlfriend to show how corruption is eating Bud alive? Sure. But this what they decided to do.
I readily admit I'm the odd one out with LA Confidential. The reviews and reception say it all. I'm comfortable with that. It just didn't sit right with me as a viewer or a writer. I say that as someone who has no more an issue with a man hitting a woman than I do with a man hitting another man. Violence is violence. I recently had a fight scene cut out of one of my scripts because it featured a man defending himself from a woman (who was originally written as a man). That really disappointed me.
I'd to watch the movie again to comment further, and I really don't want to watch it again, so I'm just going to nod and agree.
Chaplin (1992). Robert Downey Jr.'s acting was quite good in this, but the film was about 2.5 hours long and felt more like 4. Found myself checking the time and spacing out for short stretches every so often. Also (perhaps related?) I lost track of who were/how he met some of his various girlfriends/wives at a few points. Not about the movie quality at all, but (from his portrayal) Charlie Chaplin came off as rather insufferable and I assume statutory rape laws must have changed significantly here since that time period. Pretty sure authorities don't have to wait till a baby is born to charge now and you can't avoid them by getting married in Mexico... Verdict: Skip
The Blind Side (2009). Sandra Bullock was awesome in this! Glad she won an award for it. Her youngest son came off (as written) a little unrealistic (tho who knows) to me a couple times but whoever the kid actor was sold it with his enthusiasm. lol Verdict: Paid Rental
Frost/Nixon (2008). I was a little concerned when the actor who played Nixon was first introduced (Nixon had a very distinctive look/voice) but he really sold it! Film well worth watching for all intents and purposes. Not film-quality related... I'm not specifically accusing any of the journalists involved in this (since perhaps Nixon's guilt/behavior justified the result) but it did remind me of how many media figures today seem to be about "get em" re: persons they dislike and appear less interested in finding truth. Verdict: Paid Rental
Frost/Nixon is written by Peter Morgan who, as I've mentioned earlier in thread I think, could make a person boiling an egg entertaining.
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