Moviethread II: The Watchening

Renfrew · Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:46 am

I watched the Good, The Bad, The Weird. It still manages to be a fun movie despite not even trying to use any of the elements that made the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly a great movie. I really liked this special effect they would use where whenever a physical stunt would be performed, the camera would start in close to the stunt but then would rapidly pull back a good 10 or 20 feet while the stunt was going on. It lent a cool sense of frantic movie much better than modern Hollywood jump cuts.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 6:39 am

I just watched The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, and I'm interested in watching more Beat Takeshi and/or Takashi Miike films. What are some of their must sees?
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:32 am

Thanks! The only Miike I've seen before was Happiness of the Katakuris, and I watched that several years ago.

I thought the Netflix description of Graveyard of Honor sounded really cool, and I thought about watching it on Instant Watch tonight, but Kar Wai Wong's Fallen Angels has been in my Instant Watch que longer and it's a bit shorter (I don't want to stay up too late tonight), so I started on it instead. Several of the Miike films you mentioned are on Instant Watch, but I don't think any of Beat's films are on there. It's a shame, since Zatoichi was such a cool movie.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:46 am

Hana-bi, Violent Cop and Boiling Point are not available from Netflix at this time. This is nonsense garbage.

I guess I've been really getting into crime dramas recently. I had Driver come in from Netflix, not really knowing why. (I have a pretty large queue). I popped it in and immediately knew it was a Walter Hill movie. His style was slathered all over it and I loved every minute. Bruce Dern was psycho, Ryan O'neal was the another fine example of the manly ideal of stoicism that can be found in all the Walter Hill movies I've seen so far, and Isabelle Adjani was gorgeous. There's something about the cars in his movies too. Their engines make the most beautiful noises that you don't hear nowadays. It also didn't hurt that it had some of the coolest car chases I've ever seen. I think Hill is becoming my favorite director.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:03 am

I just watched Bakshi's American Pop. It was ambitious and messy but I still enjoyed it the whole way through. If you're down on Bakshi to begin with, I doubt it will change your mind. Apparently the culmination of 100 years of American pop music is Bob Seger. Who knew?
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Renfrew · Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 1:17 am

Renfrew · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:37 am

She's also a perfect human being!
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:13 am

I just watched Fisher King. It kind of hit all the right notes for me.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 3:58 pm

http://theflickcast.com/2011/04/19/thomas-jane-sly-stallone-to-star-in-walter-hills-headshot/

I guess I have a reason to go on living now.
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Renfrew · Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 6:49 am

Renfrew · Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 7:16 am

Renfrew · Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:05 am

I just got back from a theatrical screening of the Fellowship of the Ring Extended edition. It really struck me for the first time how, despite the production being so drab and dreary, the directing is very cartoony. Also, I was secretly hoping against hope that Sean Bean wouldn't have to die this time. Guess some things are just too much to hope for.
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Renfrew · Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:56 am

Yeah, even more so than it being a ten year old movie based on a 60 year old book, the fact that it is Sean Bean is what makes it futile.
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Renfrew · Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:44 am

He does in the books. In the movies, he dies in Fellowship.
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Renfrew · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:59 am

Renfrew · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:20 am

I just watched Robocop. That was sort of a perfect movie. I don't know how I've gone 23 years without seeing it. I especially loved the stop motion effects.

Probably one of my earliest memories actually involves Robocop. I remember some kids on the pre-school playground playing Robocop.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:56 am

Renfrew · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:06 pm

I watched Robocop again a couple nights ago and noticed a nice little speculative technology bit. When Boddicker comes in to kill the executive, he puts a cd into one of the guy's machines and it starts playing a video message. Is this the first time we really see a "DVD," or just a video stored on a CD? I know laserdisc had been around for a while, but I think CD's were kind of a new deal and I'm not sure what they were being used for in '87.
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Renfrew · Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:55 am

Captain America was probably pretty much everything it should have been.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:20 am

Walter Hill's Headshot: too white!

http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=21830&count=0

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=31217

Kind of an old story, but I just saw it.
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:34 pm

I have been a firm Donnie Yen admirer ever since Iron Monkey, but I have never really watched much of his other stuff. I think I have a few of his films in the Netflix queue.
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