Gobear

I keep forgetting that Scott directed True Romance and Tarantino only wrote the script. I guess because to me True Romance feels closer in tone to Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs than Top Gun or Crimson Tide. Still, given that many of the similarities between the films are in the script, I'm not wholly mistaken.


I'm drama'd out. I think I'm putting on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World next.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'm having more fun watching Zatoichi than I planned on. I can tell because I don't mind watching subs at night, which can put me to sleep if the film isn't keeping me interested the entire time. I have a handful of other Criterions I bought that I need to watch but I've seen all of them, and there's only 1 in English and also a normal running time. I think one of the others has a normal running time and then they the rest turn into 2.5 and 3 hour long run times.

shadokitty

I got my first two Criterion eligible films from Netflix today. The Rock, and A Hard Day's Night. Got The Seventh Seal in my next delivery.

ntnon

I know there's widespread borrowing and homaging going on, but I do automatically hate it when people point out broadstrokes plot similarities... EVERY plot is similar if you boil it down far enough..!

Dimension X

IMDb shows a story credit for Tarantino on Natural Born Killers, which might explain the similarities there. This might even explain it more:

Gobear

Fine, message received. I'm keeping my thoughts to myself.

mrcellophane

As a humanities student and a writer, I'm not sure I see your point. Sure, we have broad narrative tropes (ex. boy-meets-girl ; stranger-comes-to-town), but that is, frankly, a very shortsighted way to parse and understand narrative. If we weren't interested in comparing the narrative forms of films, we would need a handful of them - not the thousands upon thousands we have. To dismiss comparative reading of film is to miss the point of the Criterion collection. The company often strives to highlight the ways filmmakers pay homage and play off each other. Film movements come about out of love or hate for mainstream films or other movements. To be a student of film, you have to look at the similarities and differences.

Gobear was pointing out both stylistic and narrative similarities that interested him, that he found significant. I do the same thing. (Earlier in the thread, I did the same thing with Seven Samurai and video game narratives.) Kurosawa draws on American westerns to make his film; later John Sturges adapts it into The Magnificent Seven and Roger Corman makes Battle Beyond the Stars and Pixar makes A Bug's Life. Filmmakers like John Ford and George Lucas borrow plot elements and stylistic elements from Kurosawa, and some of those are part of the reason we have the most beloved cinematic franchises of all time. Samuel Fuller sees the influx of Asian films and decides to make The Scarlet Kimono and House of Bamboo. These connections matter. Contemplating and knowing about these connections provide context and bring up questions that help us understand narratives, films, storytelling, and - ultimately - ourselves more fully.

Please don't.

ntnon

Certainly not my intention - I very much appreciated, enjoyed and agreed with almost all yout points. If it wasn't clear - and, apparently it wasn't (sorry) - I was attempting to voice two thoughts, not merge them.

Point one (directly relevant): there are homages and references and influences traceable and noticeable in many films.
Point two (NOT directly relevant, but necessarily linked): it irritates me when some people try to take this too far and see everything as a reference or allusion when it is perfectly possible to be "merely" similar ideas or stories or logical extrapolations.

My apologies if you took the second point personally; hopefully this slightly clarifies my thinking.

ntnon

Quite. Which was (meant to be) the entirety of my thought - NOT directly against Gobear's comment in this instance, but merely inspired by the wording. Discussing specific influence and references is far, far different from merely noting plot similarities and suggesting (say) a lack of independent thought and innovation.

Which was not present here, just that a comment gave me a starting point to pre-emptively complain about laxer standards of critique.


Agreed. Though they are also (mostly? Entirely?) good films on their own merits. Which entirely separate new thought is - again - NOT to "dismiss comparative readings," in any sense, but to allow for a lack of comparison/deconstruction still making for an enjoyable experience. While fascinating and insightful (when well done and accurate - as the clarifications above certainly seem), some comparative criticism can also miss the point of the story being pulled apart. My stated annoyance was aimed there (not here), and specifically at the scapels wielded cavalierly and sometimes without obvious merit.

Agreed. Context and placement and inspirations and trends and reactions underpin the out-of-film understanding, and are interesting, useful and important.

Ash Ketchum

In relevant news, William Becker, aged 88, has died. He was one of the owners of Janus Films, the pioneering arthouse film distributor whose collection formed the initial nucleus of the Criterion Collection. Janus Films was, in the heyday of film schools in the late '60s and '70s, the most important distributor of 16mm prints of foreign films to film schools.

Read his obit here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/th...dayspaper&_r=0

ntnon

Sad news, fascinating story.

Trevor

Iirc, you've done this before, taking things said as personal attacks when they're not even close to such. I want to buy you a beer.

popcorn

Sometimes it fun and interesting to revisit a film you haven't seen in awhile. In the case of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I'd forgotten that I saw the film. It was probably during my juvenile obsession with anything that read like it might be soft porn or Skinamax material. For an almost three hour film, it runs pretty quickly re-watching it as an "adult." I focused more on the story of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia than what was below Sabina's hat. Still a good film.

mrcellophane

I apologize for my rant. It was late; I had just had a spirited discussion about Byzantium (2012) with several friends; there was bourbon. I read your comment as blasé and dismissive. Thanks for the more controlled response and the thoughtful remarks.

Very sad news. I saw this on Criterion's Facebook page and wasn't familiar with Becker. He lead such a fascinating life, and it sounds like we owe him a lot for the feast of riches Janus and Criterion give us. Also, he helped Jacques Tati get his films back and distributed which is beyond awesome!

ntnon

No need, no worries and.. it probably was overly dismissive as written. I can't cite bourbon or film discussion, but I'd been kneedeep in comics scandals and probably should have been more measured the first time round!


Those 'little' details make obituaries worth reading, despite the inherent sadness in their necessity.

shadokitty

A pleasant surprise when I opened A Hard Day's Night, was that it actually turned out to be disc one of the Criterion Collection Edition. Good movie, great music, that I'll enjoy going through the supplemental material on.

Dimension X

I just watched Taxi Driver. Borrowed my brother's Blu-ray. Didn't realize the old Criterion LD commentary was on the disc until I took a quick look at the extras. Had to tell my brother that I was going to keep his disc for a few extra days so I could listen to the commentary track (since it counts).

popcorn

One of my favorite Marty commentaries

mrcellophane

Yesterday evening, I finished watching Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart. I've had the old Louis Malle boxset on my shelf for years and never quite convinced myself to open it. Thankfully, I rectified that oversight and watched this brilliant coming-of-age story. I'm a fan of the genre, and this one ranks up there with The 400 Blows and Mon Oncle Antoine. The big difference is that this kid's dysfunctional family are pretty wealthy - enough to have a Corot painting in their parlor.

Afterward, I wanted to get one more film in but needed something light so settled for Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the 1956 U.S. reworking of Gojira. If I ever got to teach a film class, I would want to build a unit about editing and cultural sensibilities around the two films. The first time I watched Terry O. Morse's reworked film, I dismissed it. However, the film is something of a marvel. A new protagonist is created and edited into the film, and Raymond Burr does an adequate job with his passivity and pipe. The film also uses elements of documentary voice over and untranslated dialogue to great effect. This doesn't feel like a slapdash job; it seems like a lot of thought went into making the film more palpable for a mainstream American audience.

ntnon

Nuts. The Malle box was perpetually low on my list for a while, and now seems to be OOP. Guess I do need to keep looking...

Ash Ketchum

Glad you recognized all that. I used scenes from both films when I taught a class on Japanese pop culture. It's quite a revelation when you view the films back-to-back.

I watched GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO for the Sci-Fi Challenge. It was directed by Ishiro Honda and starred American actor Nick Adams, who went to Japan to make the film. Adams also starred that same year in YOUNG DILLINGER, directed by Terry O. Morse. This makes Nick Adams the only actor ever to work for both directors responsible for GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS.

Dr. Mantle

Anyone watch A Master Builder? Anyone else quit half way through like I did? Holy fuck, this movie is boredom incarnate. When people complain how pretentious and annoying Art movies can be, I actually understand what they mean with Builder. In my entire life, there have been a dozen or fewer times where I intentionally stopped watching a movie. Here's the latest one.

I was actually considering buying the Gregory/Shawn set (I've only seen My Dinner with Andre, but loved it). Bullet dodged. Now to watch Chungking Express for the third time.

Ash Ketchum

I couldn't have picked three films that were more different from each other than the ones I watched yesterday:

ZATOICHI MEETS YOJIMBO (1970/Japan, 116 min., color, samurai adventure/Toho) Dir.: Kihachi Okamoto. Cast: Shintaro Katsu, Toshiro Mifune, Ayako Wakao, Osamu Takizawa.

SPEEDY (1928/U.S., 85 min., b&w, silent comedy/Paramount) Dir.: Ted Wilde. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Bert Woodruff.

…AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956/France, 91 min., color, drama) Dir.: Roger Vadim. Cast: Brigitte Bardot, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Curt Jurgens, Christian Marquand.

The Zatoichi film was long and dark (i.e. visually dark, set at night or in dark, closed spaces) and easily the longest Zatoichi film I've seen (116 min.). It could have been easily cut by 26 min. It came after I watched another Toshiro Mifune film which is long and bleak, THE BAD SLEEP WELL, which may turn out to be my least favorite Kurosawa film, just as this Zatoichi film may be my least favorite Zatoichi film. I just felt it needed another director, one with a lighter touch. Okamoto, as great a director as he was, just doesn't have a light touch. SWORD OF DOOM this ain't.

So I needed something light and funny--and short! So I went to SPEEDY, a silent comedy with Harold Lloyd with a lot of car and horse-drawn trolley speeding on location in New York City in 1928! Including scenes shot at and outside Yankee Stadium. Babe Ruth has a very funny scene as himself being driven to the stadium by a starstruck Lloyd. There's a long insane sequence where Lloyd takes his girl to Coney Island and all manner of unlucky things happen to him and his new suit. It has no bearing on the plot, it's just a funny, crazy sequence. And, my, people looked like they had fun in the pre-TV, pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-smart phone era.

Then I went to my first non-Japanese, non-American film for the challenge, ...AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, the French film that catapulted Brigitte Bardot to international sexpot stardom, directed by her husband at the time, Roger Vadim (who served his wives very well on screen). This must have been hot stuff to U.S. audiences at the time. I believe it was released in an English dub here in 1957. It may seem tame to audiences today, but I still found it pretty hot, simply because of the way Bardot's gorgeous "wild child" exudes an aura of sensuality, availability and desire, and her effect on the men around her. Lesser stars have shown more onscreen, but had far less effect. What I liked most about it is that there are no villains in it, no bad guys. No one needs to apologize for who they are and what they do. And it seems to have, in my eyes at least, a happy ending. Plus, the three leading men would all soon ascend to international stardom: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Christian Marquand, Curt Jurgens.

Ash Ketchum

On TCM tonight: THE RED SHOES (8PM EST)

On Encore Western twice tomorrow, John Ford's STAGECOACH.

LJG765

It's funny you mention this as I made an effort to rent all three of these. I hadn't heard of them before and when I was looking for movies to watch for this challenge, I happened to see the box set on the Criterion site. Since I enjoy Wallace Shawn, I decided to see if I could get these. Easily found the first two (My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street) but the third is still up in the air if I'll get or not.

I'm almost done watching My Dinner with Andre. Ugh. I saw your comment about really liking this one so I had hopes that I would. I do not. It's everything that I thought Criterion movies were when I first heard about the company-pretentious art films that are all about trying to be high brown and intellectual but coming off as being elitist. I won't say that there aren't a couple points that rang true for me, but overall, it's like the teacher from Peanuts. "Wah Wah Wah Wanh."

My view of Criterion has certainly changed but I doubt I'll ever like this film!

I'm not sure I'll actually watch the 2nd or the 3rd at this point. I do have Vanya so I might give it a shot in the hopes it is much better than this one but I will be much more likely to turn it off if I don't.

I also watched Tootsie the other day. That one was not a favorite either. Some laughs but overall not something I enjoyed.