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General Movie (Film for snobs) News Thread


CaptainCharisma

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It's a very Criterion way of saying "The Razzies are fucking shit" but it's a good idea.

Ishtar and The Blair Witch Project are awful though so I'm only halfway with them on this.

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As we all know, the Oscars are bollocks*, but I found this an interesting read.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/16/its-a-vintage-year-for-the-oscars-but-what-was-the-strongest-year-in-cinema-history

Nice to see some different years and films mentioned as well, and 91 definitely has a strong case.

*And as if this needed clarifying, I was looking something up and saw The Godfather Part III was nominated for Best Picture. Says it all.

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22 hours ago, Merzbow said:

While I'm not completely aboard the "Showgirls is a masterpiece" train there was almost definitely a coordinated hit against it and the NC-17 rating becoming mainstream.

I thought it was done a huge disservice at the time, and championed it, but rewatching it last year it hasn't aged well.  Still a misunderstood film, still hugely subversive as with all Verhoeven, but the terrible acting is hard to overlook even if you're in on the joke.

By contrast, Starship Troopers and Hollow Man are still brilliant.  As well as everything else, Verhoeven is one of the best directors at directing CGI and effects, knowing when to use them and how to blend them in with action.

Blair Witch is responsible for a very shit genre of horror, but the original is still clever.

Barb Wire I personally love, the idea of a gender-swap sci-fi Casablanca with Pamela Anderson starring is amazing to see and everyone is working really hard in the film.

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11 minutes ago, Loki said:

Blair Witch is responsible for a very shit genre of horror, but the original is still clever.

It's also the first time I was really aware of just how big of a deal marketing could be, and the impact it could have on a film.

I watched the Blair Witch on a pirate video copy with the title scrawled on the label in pen. I mean, you cannot get more of an experience of it than that.

It completely added to the mystery of it, and reading some features around the time, you really couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't (at least to my 14yo mark brain)

I thought it was a decent film, but have really no desire to rewatch it ever. 

Agreed on Starship Troopers. I love that film. 

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Starship Troopers is so good. It manages to be a fucking kickass war film while also brilliantly parodying kickass war films at the same time. Genius.

There's lots of great fascism stuff throughout the film such as Neil Patrick Harris turning up in an SS uniform or that the aliens initial attack on Earth is actually in self defence, but my favourite small touch is that the small town perfect white American teenagers all live in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Brilliant world building. 

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1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

the aliens initial attack on Earth is actually in self defence

On my last rewatch, it occurs to me that there's really no evidence that the aliens attacked Earth at all outside the propaganda videos.  It's quite possible it's a staged attack to get public opinion behind annexing all the aliens' territory.  The only aggression we ever see from the bugs is defensive.

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1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Starship Troopers is so good. It manages to be a fucking kickass war film while also brilliantly parodying kickass war films at the same time. Genius.

There's lots of great fascism stuff throughout the film such as Neil Patrick Harris turning up in an SS uniform or that the aliens initial attack on Earth is actually in self defence, but my favourite small touch is that the small town perfect white American teenagers all live in Buenos Aries, Argentina. Brilliant world building. 

I remember in Empire (I was a subscriber wanker) they interviewed one of the female leads, can’t remember which one, and asked if they all knew how the were sending up US Foreign Policy and if Verhoeven had anyone in mind. They answered they didn’t think it was an attack on foreign policy and was a coming of age thing. “So that was a no then”

Amazingly I hadn’t picked up on the Buenos Aries nod. That’s brilliant!

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On 2/15/2024 at 12:57 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

It's a very Criterion way of saying "The Razzies are fucking shit" but it's a good idea.

The Razzies really are appalling. I watched Mommy Dearest a few years ago (which I loved, incidentally) and clocked that they'd nominated one of the child actors for the worst supporting actress awards. I understand the idea of pricking the pomposity of Hollywood or whatever they pretend they're doing, but that struck me as particularly cruel to nominate a child. AND SHE WAS BLOODY GOOD ANYWAY. Cunts. 

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5 minutes ago, gmoney said:

The Razzies really are appalling. I watched Mommy Dearest a few years ago (which I loved, incidentally) and clocked that they'd nominated one of the child actors for the worst supporting actress awards. I understand the idea of pricking the pomposity of Hollywood or whatever they pretend they're doing, but that struck me as particularly cruel to nominate a child. AND SHE WAS BLOODY GOOD ANYWAY. Cunts. 

They've done this a bunch of times. They nominated Ryan Kiera Armstrong for Firestarter a couple of years ago and everyone called them out on it so they don't nominate under 18 actors anymore. Which is good, but they should go one better and just not exist at all.

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7 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I thought the point of the Razzies was less "this is/you are shit" and more "c'mon, you're better than this"?

I don't know how you square that with nominating child actors and up and coming actors getting their break, which they do pretty frequently.

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8 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I thought the point of the Razzies was less "this is/you are shit" and more "c'mon, you're better than this"?

Considering how often Uwe Boll has been nominated, that's obviously not true.

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