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StarTopic Film Chat |ST| What's Your Favorite Acting Turn?

Dizzle said:
Fun fact, I think Spielberg is responsible for the mother son stuff or at least it's what drew him to the movie and if you see the Fabelmans you'll understand why! Uh oh!
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I have Fabelmans in sight but saving it for like, when I'm close to finishing his filmography! Apparently it recontextualize a bit Spielberg's past filmography so it should be interesting.
 
I love how we've all acknowledged that Spielberg is actually a little freak, and just because you make popular entertainment doesn't mean you can't also bury all your psychosexual baggage right beneath the surface.

He's like a reverse Tim Burton. Burton buries his sentimentality under a veneer of outsider freakiness, while (in his best films) if you scratch Spielberg's schmaltzy exterior you find something much weirder underneath it. But I don't fault anybody for not buying into that. It can be a thick layer of schmaltz, which I have a high tolerance for but some people just can't stand.

But I can't understand how someone could watch AI and be like "Pah! Maudlin pablum that is beneath me." There's a reason film bros love to claim that Kubrick was responsible for that movie. It's just so cynical that it doesn't fit with the image of Spielberg.

Couldn't stand The Post though. Sorry.
 
entut1 said:
Hey I'm open to listening why
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I don't know. Maybe I should give it another shot. I saw it in theaters and it's been a few years. What I remember thinking was despite being beautifully shot and well acted, it was dramatically inert. The big moment with Meryl Streep made me think "Oh good job Meryl Streep" and not "Oh shit, they're gonna publish! Woah!" I was kind of at a distance the whole time. That was just my experience. Hard to explain why.
 
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Dizzle said:
Fun fact, I think Spielberg is responsible for the mother son stuff or at least it's what drew him to the movie and if you see the Fabelmans you'll understand why! Uh oh!
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The Fabelmans was one interesting movie… I liked the movie making parts, the main story just didn’t work for me. It might have worked as a straight auto-biopic, but as fiction it didn’t imo. David Lynch’s scene was fun.
 
THOSE WHO SPIELBERG FURTHER.

War of the Worlds (2005)

So, eh, the sense of spectacle and dread in this is unmatched. Lots of varied setpieces for a movie under 2 hours and one of my favorite Tom Cruise performances (him being a rude guy essentially, and still he has his tender moments as the movie progresses). Still, I don't think the ending sticks the landing fully. The son is also kind of an annoying guy, why would you put so much trouble upon your parents by trying to get away and play hero while an invasion with enemies you don't know the weaknesses of is going on. Also poor little girl, what's with this and Empire of the Sun upon putting children through the psychological wringer.

I suppose Ray killed the old man too? In vain at that. The girl put a bandana on her eyes but how certain is it she actually knew that's what he was going to do and just caved into denial
 
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entut1 said:
THOSE WHO SPIELBERG FURTHER.

War of the Worlds (2005)

So, eh, the sense of spectacle and dread in this is unmatched. Lots of varied setpieces for a movie under 2 hours and one of my favorite Tom Cruise performances (him being a rude guy essentially, and still he has his tender moments as the movie progresses). Still, I don't think the ending sticks the landing fully. The son is also kind of an annoying guy, why would you put so much trouble upon your parents by trying to get away and play hero while an invasion with enemies you don't know the weaknesses of is going on. Also poor little girl, what's with this and Empire of the Sun upon putting children through the psychological wringer.

I suppose Ray killed the old man too? In vain at that. The girl put a bandana on her eyes but how certain is it she actually knew that's what he was going to do and just caved into denial
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War of the World fucked me up as a kid lmao.
 
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entut1 said:
THOSE WHO SPIELBERG FURTHER.

War of the Worlds (2005)

So, eh, the sense of spectacle and dread in this is unmatched. Lots of varied setpieces for a movie under 2 hours and one of my favorite Tom Cruise performances (him being a rude guy essentially, and still he has his tender moments as the movie progresses). Still, I don't think the ending sticks the landing fully. The son is also kind of an annoying guy, why would you put so much trouble upon your parents by trying to get away and play hero while an invasion with enemies you don't know the weaknesses of is going on. Also poor little girl, what's with this and Empire of the Sun upon putting children through the psychological wringer.

I suppose Ray killed the old man too? In vain at that. The girl put a bandana on her eyes but how certain is it she actually knew that's what he was going to do and just caved into denial
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the son sucks ass but the set pieces are phenomenal. I remember seeing this in theaters and white-knuckling my chair multiple times.
 
kvetcha said:
the son sucks ass but the set pieces are phenomenal. I remember seeing this in theaters and white-knuckling my chair multiple times.
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Well for me I just was mind-blown multiple times to a point I screamed WOA at night in my little room (at 11 PM no less).
 
entut1 said:
Well for me I just was mind-blown multiple times to a point I screamed WOA at night in my little room (at 11 PM no less).
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The creative decision to expressly evoke 9/11 during the first tripod emergence scene was a bit controversial at the time. It’s obviously effective, cuz as someone who was a high school junior when the towers fell, it elicited a deep sense of horror that I wasn’t anticipating.
 
Michael Bay: BOOM FIRE EVERYWHERE
Steven Spielberg: hello sir, check this out
 
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My favourite Obayashi I've seen so far is His Motorbike, Her Island. One of my favourite romance movies, actually! He just has such a vivid, unique way of seeing and showing everything.
 
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Tonight I am watching the new Haunted Mansion and I am really excited for it! The cast seems really fun. I would see anything LaKeith Stanfield was in. And he’s acting alongside…Danny DeVito?! @Yamanoi , you seen this yet? On Disney+ as of today
 
Rewatched Jurassic Park the other evening. It's still one of the best sci-fi films ever, purely because it's unafraid to make the main characters unapologetic scientists who actually tackle the narrative events with a scientific mindset.

Other sci-fi films: "What have we done??? Some things were meddled with that should have remained unmeddled!!! Has science gone too far?!?"

Jurassic Park: "Your genetic engineers copied the work of others without understanding it first. You recreated poisonous prehistoric plants and filled the dinosaur DNA with frog DNA because you were focused on selling a product to consumers. You assumed full control of an inherently unpredictable system, and then couldn't understand why stuff was going wrong."

It's absolutely criminal that this is still the high bar for having intelligent, reasonable main characters in a blockbuster film, thirty years on. (I could maybe make an exception for The Matrix, everyone apart from Neo is pretty smart and switched on).

Probably my favourite Spielberg film, or at the very least my favourite blockbuster of his.
 
BotenAnna said:
The October movie marathon theme this year is foreign (non-English) horror and I am open to suggestions.
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Sorry, giant list incoming. I'm sure there's something in this list you'd enjoy.

House (1977) (Japan)
Cure (Japan)
Jigoku (Japan)
Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (Japan)
The Nude Vampire (France)
Fascination (France)
Mr. Vampire (Hong Kong)
The Cat (Hong Kong)
Goke Body Snatcher from Hell (Japan)
Viy (Russia)
Human Lanterns (Hong Kong)
Eyes Without a Face (France)
Hour of the Wolf (Sweden)
At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (Brazil)
Seventh Curese (Hong Kong)
Boxer's Omen (Hong Kong)
Even the Wind is Afraid (Mexico)
Santo and the Blue Demon vs the Monsters (Mexico)
Mystics in Bali (Indonesia)
Horror Raises From the Tomb (Spain)
 
Watched The Exorcist last night. Wife had been hyping it up as the scariest movie of all time, though I think we both came away underwhelmed. She's usually scared shitless of anything remotely creepy, to the point where she'll start clutching me during something like A Haunting In Venice, but that didn't really happen during this one. I don't get scared during horror movies, which is why she loves watching them with me, although I feel like that's something of a skill issue on my end. Decent movie otherwise, I guess? It came across to me as kind of cheesy, though I guess that's because it gets parodied so much that I had trouble taking it seriously.
 
BotenAnna said:
Cure is one we've watched already actually, love it. Thanks for the list @Phosphorescent Skeleton, looks good! We'll go through it later and I'll let you know what gets added to the list.

I'm unsure if Godzilla will fall into this list but I'm open to the elevator pitch on that one.
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The original Godzilla really focuses on the horror and human costs of godzilla's attacks, but Godzilla vs Hedorah is the one I'd unreservedly call horror.
 
Been keeping it pretty light and breezy so far for October, though I've got some stuff that throws a bit more dark still to come:

Aliens
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Haunted Mansion (2023)
Frankenweenie (1984)

I have to say that I really enjoyed Haunted Mansion, more than I thought I would. Fantastic cast. I love LaKeith and he gets a surprisingly tender throughline in this film. Owen Wilson gets a fun "basically every line is a joke" role and plays it with a bright, confident dumb guy energy that's hard not to roll with. DeVito's character takes a little while to appear, and at first I was worried he would be underused, but that was thankfully not the case! Shoutout to the script for toeing the line between being suitable for most ages but not afraid to get a little grim and spooky when the action calls for it. Some cool effects! And I thought the ending was very satisfying. I'd recommend it.
 
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BotenAnna said:
Cure is one we've watched already actually, love it. Thanks for the list @Phosphorescent Skeleton, looks good! We'll go through it later and I'll let you know what gets added to the list.

I'm unsure if Godzilla will fall into this list but I'm open to the elevator pitch on that one.
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throw Pulse (Kairo) and Let the Right One In on the pile
 
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Apopheniac said:
Watched The Exorcist last night. Wife had been hyping it up as the scariest movie of all time, though I think we both came away underwhelmed. She's usually scared shitless of anything remotely creepy, to the point where she'll start clutching me during something like A Haunting In Venice, but that didn't really happen during this one. I don't get scared during horror movies, which is why she loves watching them with me, although I feel like that's something of a skill issue on my end. Decent movie otherwise, I guess? It came across to me as kind of cheesy, though I guess that's because it gets parodied so much that I had trouble taking it seriously.
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After further consultation amongst the panel of experts, we have concluded that The Exorcist is essentially "land Jaws"
 
Five minutes into Asteroid City and all I can think about is how much I'd love to be Wes Anderson's friend
 
Apopheniac said:
Watched The Exorcist last night. Wife had been hyping it up as the scariest movie of all time, though I think we both came away underwhelmed. She's usually scared shitless of anything remotely creepy, to the point where she'll start clutching me during something like A Haunting In Venice, but that didn't really happen during this one. I don't get scared during horror movies, which is why she loves watching them with me, although I feel like that's something of a skill issue on my end. Decent movie otherwise, I guess? It came across to me as kind of cheesy, though I guess that's because it gets parodied so much that I had trouble taking it seriously.
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The Exorcist is a victim of it's own ridiculous success.

It gets hyped up as the scariest film of all time, but the problem is it's not a typical "horror" film, and if you go into it expecting that you'll only end up disappointed.

The thing that makes The Exorcist such a standalone film in the genre is that it's a 70s psychological drama directed by a crazy documentary filmmaker, written by a lapsed Catholic author going through a crisis of faith, and with a theme song taken from the biggest progressive instrumental breakout album of the decade. It's about a family going through a medical crisis and the psychological toll that takes on the mother. It's about a priest losing his faith, and being asked to minister a situation he knows nothing about. It's a film where the possession and exorcism isn't the important bit: the actual scary stuff is a parent watching as their child succumbs to an illness that no doctor or medical professional is able to identify or explain, and being unable to do anything about it as they get worse and worse.

If you go into the film today expecting scares and jumps, it's not very good. If you go into it for the drama and themes, however, it's still absolutely fucking terrifying.

Obligatory shout out to Exorcist III as well: somehow the second sequel to The Exorcist somehow had a more original and terrifying spin on the possession concept than any of the dozens of imitators that the original spawned.
 
Decided to watch Friday The 13th for the first time last Friday (for obvious reasons). Hadn't seen it before but I had no idea it was so.... boring? There are very long periods where nothing happens, and I didn't feel it did well at all in trying to build up any tension. Even for the genre, the characters might well have been 2D cardboard cutouts. Obviously revered for doing what it did first but not a lot about it I can recommend.

kvetcha said:
Got my tickets for Killers of the Flower Moon Sunday. Might throw a House rep screening in there on Saturday night just for fun.
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Nice, also got a screening lined up for this on Sunday. Might be the first film I've seen in the cinema with a scheduled interval so that should be interesting.

I also have a screening of The Thing planned next week - one of my favourite ever films, can't wait to see it on the big screen.
 
doodlewhizz said:
Decided to watch Friday The 13th for the first time last Friday (for obvious reasons). Hadn't seen it before but I had no idea it was so.... boring? There are very long periods where nothing happens, and I didn't feel it did well at all in trying to build up any tension. Even for the genre, the characters might well have been 2D cardboard cutouts. Obviously revered for doing what it did first but not a lot about it I can recommend.


Nice, also got a screening lined up for this on Sunday. Might be the first film I've seen in the cinema with a scheduled interval so that should be interesting.

I also have a screening of The Thing planned next week - one of my favourite ever films, can't wait to see it on the big screen.
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I saw The Thing's 4K restoration on the big screen a few months back - you're in for a treat. It looks phenomenal.

I didn't realize Killers of the Flower Moon had an intermission! Is this an across-the-board thing?
 
kvetcha said:
I saw The Thing's 4K restoration on the big screen a few months back - you're in for a treat. It looks phenomenal.

I didn't realize Killers of the Flower Moon had an intermission! Is this an across-the-board thing?
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I'm not sure - I'm in the UK so potentially could just be a thing here but when I booked it in my local Vue it mentions there'll be a 15 minute interval
 
doodlewhizz said:
I'm not sure - I'm in the UK so potentially could just be a thing here but when I booked it in my local Vue it mentions there'll be a 15 minute interval
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Lucky you. I don't think that's going to be the case here in the States. I'm going to have to regulate my fluid intake the morning of.
 
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It makes me feel like a child, but my two favorite movies of the year thus far are Across the Spider-Verse and Suzume.

Save me, Scorsese!
 
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