Movies Talk

arubbishprussian

Cool beans. I’ll give this a view today on Twitch and keep an eye out for the next stream. You know when you’ll be hosting the next one?

exodus

well, I missed it, but I’ll try for next time. Definitely had no idea what movie this was at all! And I still don’t after watching the trailer!

James-

This is a depressing reminder that I should check here every day instead of every other day. Hopefully there will be another one I can catch next month.

fortninety

Ah geez, I can’t believe I neglected to properly follow up on this thread…

For starters, am glad some of you were able to tun into For The Plasma two months ago!

I’m also kicking myself for neglecting to tell everyone about one month ago’s screening of Fonotune…

To answer your question @arubbishprussian, these Twitch streams is once a month, the last Monday of each month. And it just so happens that tomorrow, as of this writing, is the last Monday of June 2020!

So the film for this month is The Lost Arcade…

There’s a fair chance that some of you have seen it already. If so, I think a second viewing is more than justified; I honestly believe this to be one of the absolute best documentaries on the subject of video games, and video game culture, ever produced for the big screen.

I mean, it scores MAJOR points in my book for being the lone documentary on the subject of video games that covers arcades yet DOES NOT include Billy fucking Mitchell, who manages to worm himself into every one of these types of productions. I wrote a review upon the film’s release that further explains my strong opinion for it.

At any rate, it’ll be livestreamed via Wonderville’s Twitch channel once again, tomorrow June 29, 9:00PM EST. With a repeat viewing immediately after, so I guess 10:20-ish? Oh, and last I heard, the director will be in attendance!

gyozaleaf

As far as not-super-well-known Japanese movies go, my latest discovery was Confessions (aka Kokuhaku) which I picked up on Blu-ray recently. You can get a region-free (legit) Blu-ray from Amazon US with EN subtitles (I think it was from Hong Kong.) This is by Tetsuya Nakashima, the direct of Kamikaze Girls/Shimotsuma Monogatari, which is one of my favorite movies (and also well worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.) That had a US/R1 DVD release, and the UK Blu-ray is region-free (despite saying Region B on the packaging).

Confessions is over the top in the way that Japanese dramas can be, but all to the good, in my opinion. Twisty and turny and suspenseful and fun. Kamikaze Girls, on the other hand, is tough to sum up quickly, but it’s about the unlikely friendship that develops between a Goth Loli and a Yankii and it’s just a hoot.

arubbishprussian

Ah sorry, I missed this @fortninety . I’ve followed on Twitch so I’ll get notified when the next stream happens!

exodus

I just watched The Serpent’s Egg last night, a bergman noir-like set in berlin as the nazis rise to power. Let me tell you: it is not an uplifting movie to watch in the current climate.

2501

The most “obscure” movie I’be watched lately is probably True History of the Kelly Gang, which might not be quite so obscure if Covid hadn’t scuttled its international release! (It has Russell Crowe singing a filthy anarchist limerick!)

It was very good, grimy and eerie Australian post-Western. I’ve been a big fan of Justin Kurzel ever since Snowtown made me feel so emotionally drained after seeing it that I needed to take a very long walk to recuperate. This movie has the same screenwriter, and works in similar themes of (in Kurzel’s own words) deconstructing Australian masculinity. It is brutal and completely punk. I am super jealous that I did not personally get to interview him or Shaun Grant.

2501

RIP Ennio Morricone :(

I remember when I was in high school I read an article by Brandon in Gamasutra comparing the way Yasunori Mitsuda collaborates with Masato Kato on JRPGs to Morricone’s collaboration process with Sergio Leone, and as a JRPG nerd and burgeoning film nerd I thought that was the coolest thing ever and it made me watch A Fistful of Dollars.

Also of video game-note, ofc, is Morricone’s Here’s to You, yoinked by Hideo Kojima as a motif for the later, more overstuffed Metal Gears.

Anyway, here is my favorite Morricone theme

exodus

Morricone is going to leave a lasting legacy, that is for sure.

My favorite theme from him is not obscure at all, but the first half of it resonates with me so much, I still get goosebumps with that forlorn harmonic, and orchestral buildup to the dirty as hell guitar.

the 2nd half of the song I can take or leave, but the first 1:53 is just super wild to me. After that it winds up sounding like Grandia or something, which is also cool, but the first half, yeah…

gyozaleaf

My thought for today was to start a thread detailing Morricone’s influence on game music but I don’t think I have time to do that, so I am leaving that idea RIGHT HERE ON THE TABLE for y’all

2501

gyozaleaf
I’m sure there’s a more interesting narrative to share than Wild Arms and Red Dead Redemption, but I would feel unqualified attempting to piece it together

gyozaleaf

Wild Arms is a good place to start though!

2501

Is Morricone the sole reason we associate dramatic whistling vocals with Westerns?

gyozaleaf

Yup!

2501

So I finally watched the legendary, controversial Showgirls, and… um… well, I can see why some people love it and I can see why some people find it unwatchable. On one hand, the film’s blistering excoriation of “showbiz” as an elaborate structure of sexual exploitation feels more damning than ever in the wake of Harvey Weinstein, et al. On the other hand, I’m convinced Verhoeven’s sense of ultra-droll European irony expressed via grotesque turbo-camp deadpan does not quite survive translation to the English language (and the language of Anerican pop culture) fully intact, and that explains a lot about his films. Way more than Starship Troopers, everyone can agree Showgirls triggers irony-fueled laughter, but even with the presence of irony nobody can quite seem to fully agree whether we’re all laughing with or at it.

exodus

Hmm, that’s on my list to watch in the next couple weeks, after having watched Cabaret, which is like… Showgirls 2, but milder, and optimistic, or something!? It’s just as bad, just as camp, and almost as unaware, but it’s lighthearted in the meantime. If you watched that one, might as well watch this one.

2501

Yeah uhhh Showgirls is maybe like if John Waters was straight and extremely misanthropic

For anyone who dares to find out for themselves: it’s on HBO!

TracyDMcGrath

Just seeing this now, but holy shit! Can’t wait to hear how Fabio Frizzi does video game music.

TracyDMcGrath

Got to watch Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill at the Metrograph back in January and had the strange experience of an extremely drunk woman yelling about how much she hated the movie and yet refusing to leave. Since it was the movie that got Suzuki kicked out of the film industry for “making no sense and no money” it was actually kind of great, like they had found one of his critics straight from 1967 to add to the ambiance.

fortninety

TracyDMcGrath Metrograph is legit the worst theater in all of NYC; it attracts the bougie-est of bougie film folk, who think they’re “roughing” it by believing the bullshit marketing, how it’s a “return” of movies to Chinatown (yeah, none of the things they show would ever appear in the Music Palace, but more importantly, none of the rich, white patrons would have ever dared step foot inside it either).

The last couple times I went, there was al least one asshole saying racist (as well as homophobic) shit, like the three NYU princesses who for some reason found the footage of the MOVE bombing hilarious. I even got free passes from the management, who openly acknowledged that their primary client are garbage.

But anyway… said scene was from RECORDER, an amazing documentary about a woman who basically recorded every single thing, on every single channel, via several VCRs that were in constant operation, for decades. Cannot recommend it enough…

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