Nice, thanks for the review. A couple weeks ago it was either Venom or First Man for me... I settled on Venom as I'm a HUGE Venom fan.
I'm not a big movie-goer anymore as I don't really like the big budget Hollywood films, but for a few I make the exception. Excited to see First Man, probably going this weekend.
DJ RANN
The critics hated Venom but every single person I know that went to see it loved it (obviously, it's not high art or some thought provoker but it did what it did well).
Go see it in IMAX if you can. The screen quality was ing insane and given the shots and sound design, I'd say it's worth it. I'm sure the normal screen are good too though.
LoveHate
I have a 50 dollar gift certificate to the cinema , and I want to watch something soon , I think I'll go for a Matinée alone , problem is nothing playing right now interest me , usually this time of year you have a diverse selection out ....like the hobbit for instance
LoveHate
quote:
Originally posted by DJ RANN
The critics hated Venom but every single person I know that went to see it loved it (obviously, it's not high art or some thought provoker but it did what it did well).
Go see it in IMAX if you can. The screen quality was ing insane and given the shots and sound design, I'd say it's worth it. I'm sure the normal screen are good too though.
You're right in the sense that it didnt need to be all artsy but the least it could have done is settle on one theme certain times it felt like I was watching a horror film other times venom was saving the world ,like I would have been excited about this movie in 2004 ...including eminem's soundtrack..it seemed dated
But all in all a solid watch
SYSTEM-J
Believe it or not, I saw Raging Bull for the very first time yesterday. Is it just me, or is it actually remarkably overrated? I've heard it called the best film of the 1980s, Scorcese's finest film, one of the handful of movies everyone should see etc. etc. I'd love to know why.
Silky Johnson
I don't know about overrated, but I can personally say if I felt that way at all it's simply because I didn't really get it the first time I watched it in my youth. I have attempted to rewatch it but always fall asleep, lol.
LoveHate
Always thought taxi driver was his finest film but I haven't seen raging bull yet ...I think most of his movies aged really well in any case ..I have high expectations for his Netflix movie coming out later in 2019
Vector A
Never seen Raging Bull. Maybe I'll give it a try.
DJ RANN
quote:
Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Believe it or not, I saw Raging Bull for the very first time yesterday. Is it just me, or is it actually remarkably overrated? I've heard it called the best film of the 1980s, Scorcese's finest film, one of the handful of movies everyone should see etc. etc. I'd love to know why.
Right there with you. I hadn't seen it in it's entirety until about 8 years ago and was pretty disappointed.
I think there's several reasons that people hold it in higher regard that it actually should.
Firstly, it was the physical transformation part of it; These days we all know Bale can starve himself to look like a crackhead or hench up for batman, or that mcconaughey can gain and lose weight for each role etc.
DeNiro doing this sort of thing in the 1980's was somewhat early in the grand scheme of things.
I think it was also when Deniro was solidifying his status as one of the greats and it happened when scorsese was doing the same. I think it was the parts being actually worth more than the sum.
Most people don't realize it was actually met with pretty mixed reviews at the time.
It was only really after the fact that people started calling it one of the greatest ever made and I honestly think some of it was just hype around scorsese.
SYSTEM-J
It's got "serious heavyweight film" written all over it. De Niro. Scorsese. Black and white. Biopic. Flawed character. I think people can be very guilty of reading too much into a film because it looks serious and important.
I personally felt it was disjointed and had little insight into any of its characters. Why is La Motta so jealous and angry? What did his wife find attractive about him? Why does he suddenly become a wise cracking comedian after retirement, having not told a joke all through the film? Why was he even a good boxer? No idea. It's established early on he's a jealous thug, and we just see that repeated until everyone gets sick of him. Then when he's broke and lonely he unsurprisingly starts regretting all his bad behaviour. What profundity! There's some garbled at the end about religious redemption, but again we know nothing about him as a spiritual character. And that's it.
I get the hype around Scorsese. Taxi Driver and Goodfellas are stone cold classics, and he's still making good films these days (I really liked Shutter Island). It's significant that Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay for both Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Scorsese made a lot of changes to the latter, and apparently Schrader thought he ed it up. Taxi Driver is one of the finest character studies in cinematic history. Raging Bull just felt opaque by comparison.
Paradox Lost
I only saw it myself for the first time a couple of years ago, and I still have no settled impressions of it.
It's true, the movie yields little by way of insight into its characters, but La Motta's character flaws- his paranoid insecurity, his destructive self loathing- are played so richly and authentically that I'm willing to overlook the lack of a discernible basis for them.
Even then, while I think a movie ought to explain why its characters do what they do, I don't think it's always necessary for it to explain why they are the way they are. We don't why Gordon Gekko is a money obsessed materialist, we just know that he is; we don't know why Patrick Bateman is a status obsessed narcissist, we just know that he is, and I think we're exposed to some characters starting at a level where there just isn't much value in going deeper. Exploring whether those causes exist by choice, experiences, their personalities, or some combination might be irrelevant to the story and could risk just bloating it up.
As for it being in black and white, my favorite sequence is the couple of minutes where it's in color, with a montage depicting the only moments of joy in La Motta's otherwise miserable life:
Paradox Lost
Oh, and spreading some of Shutter Island love around here. While the movie is probably underrated, though I can't say by how much, I don't see how anyone can take issue with those incredible dream sequences:
