Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Jul 10, 2024 18:04:01 GMT -5
Grave of the Fireflies
Jesus Christ
I figured since I waited until the end of the last round to watch my anime pick, I should probably launch into my anime pick for this round post haste before I lost interest. Frankly, when it comes to the anime selections Drac gave me one was as good as another since I knew very little about any of them with one exception, Grave of the Fireflies. I actually had that on my Letterboxd watchlist for some time as I knew it was one of the most revered animated films across the board. I knew that one day I was going to have to swallow my pride and watch it. I had heard it was powerful but depressing, engaging but emotional but I still wasn't quite prepared for what the movie had to offer.
If you knew nothing of the film, just the title Grave of the Fireflies is a curious name. The movie features two children, older boy Seita and his young sister Setsuko living in Japan during the waning days of World War II. After their mother is severely burned in an air raid and slowly succumbs to her wounds (the maggots were a nice touch), they find themselves alone in a war torn country scrounging what they can to survive. They depend on relatives who quickly tire of them, they trade with neighbors until there is nothing left to trade, and they soon find themselves alone in a small cave where they enjoy simple pleasures of life as the brutality of the war creeps closer to them. It's a movie that is told through the lens of youth, both a youth that's innocent but a youth that quickly learns of responsibility and suffering. And yes, there is an actual grave of fireflies which is sad in and of itself, I love those guys.
I know I'm probably stating the obvious when I say this is one of the most emotional movies I've seen in as long as I can remember. It's a pretty incredible feat as the movie begins with the death of Seita and his spirit reuniting with Setsuko so we know immediately where the story is going to end. It would have been a different experience entirely if the movie started with Seita and Setsuko at home with their mother before the first fire bombing. There would have been this false sense of hope and optimism which may not have been as moving. Instead you watch these siblings endure and survive together knowing that it will ultimately end in tragedy. What makes it such a heartfelt story is that we're watching a brother give and sacrifice selflessly and an innocent sister with unconditional love for her brother who both exist in a punishing world. On a personal note, I also have to say that as a dad to two girls, one of whom is almost exactly Setsuko's age, it gets to you when you watch a girl that young suffering but still filled with the zeal for life that a child that age has. The movie just hits you on every level. Needless to say, in my last film club review that's hardly 24 hours old I mentioned how I hadn't seen an anime that has really blown me away. Grave of the Fireflies changed that and has given me a movie that I'll be thinking about for a long time.
A+ so says Doomsday
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Post by Neverending on Jul 10, 2024 19:28:47 GMT -5
Grave of the FirefliesJesus Christ In retrospect… I think I can blame PG Cooper for Covid. I had completely forgotten this dude made me start 2020 by watching this movie. He jinxed the year (the decade). Here’s a virtual middle finger to PG Cooper. GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988) PG Cooper wanted me to start the year/decade/roaring 20's by watching a super depressing movie. What an asshole! Grave of the Fireflies is about a teenager and his kid sister at the tailend of WWII Japan. The war has sucked up the countries resources and turned all the adults into jackasses. No sense of community. Every man, woman, child fending for themselves. No hope for our main characters. They straight up die at the start of the movie. Whole story is told through flashback. It's a great movie on a purely technical level , but it's so damn depressing it makes Schindler's List look like an Adam Sandler Netflix comedy. |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 10, 2024 19:32:44 GMT -5
I also recommended it to Doomsday back in 2016 and 2019 but nooo, he had to wait for Dracula to recommend it.
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Post by Neverending on Jul 10, 2024 19:35:39 GMT -5
I also recommended it to Doomsday back in 2016 and 2019 but nooo, he had to wait for Dracula to recommend it. What was the movie with the egg you made me watch? Next time, make him watch that. |
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 10, 2024 19:58:28 GMT -5
I also recommended it to Doomsday back in 2016 and 2019 but nooo, he had to wait for Dracula to recommend it. What was the movie with the egg you made me watch? Next time, make him watch that. Angel's Egg. Finally supposed to be getting a North American Blu-Ray release next year. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 10, 2024 20:27:31 GMT -5
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 10, 2024 20:38:06 GMT -5
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Post by Neverending on Jul 10, 2024 20:41:13 GMT -5
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 10, 2024 20:52:57 GMT -5
Some intriguing options. I've been curious about All of Us Strangers, The Iron Claw has also been on my radar and The Last of Sheila is also tickling my fancy. Decisions, decisions... |
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Post by IanTheCool on Jul 10, 2024 21:05:36 GMT -5
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 11, 2024 8:55:21 GMT -5
Some intriguing options. I've been curious about All of Us Strangers, The Iron Claw has also been on my radar and The Last of Sheila is also tickling my fancy. Decisions, decisions... Of those I'd say All of Us Strangers and The Iron Claw are the most surefire bets. |
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Post by Dracula on Jul 14, 2024 21:54:43 GMT -5
The Road to El Dorado (2000)The Road to El Dorado was the third film from Dreamworks Animation and was made during the brief period when they were making 2D animated movies and were trying to out Disney Renaissance the Disney Renaissance and mostly weren’t being rewarded for it because people were already kind of sick of the real Disney Renaissance at this point and were even less interested in the off-brand knockoff. This is also in line with the early Dreamworks Animation tradition of being suspiciously similar to a Disney Animated film from around the same time, almost as if the studio was being run by a former Disney employee who tried to steal all their ideas. In this case both studios released a movie in the year 2000 which focused around Mesoamerican/South American civilizations. Disney had the Incan themed The Emperor’s New Groove while Dreamworks had The Road to El Dorado, both of which underperformed at the box office, but The Road to El Dorado was almost certainly the bigger flop. Watching the movie now I can’t say that it deserved much better. The film’s title implies that the movie would be something of a homage to the “Road to” movies that Bing Crosby and Bob Hope made in the 1940s, and given that it’s a sort of buddy movie travelogue that probably was the intention at some point but it never really leans into that. Our central pairing are a couple of Spaniards who find their way to the New World and stumble upon the hidden city of El Dorado, which is plainly modeled after the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, where they are mistaken for gods by the locals and proceed to try to find ways to steal gold from the locals (but will of course be humbled over the course of their adventure). I must say this whole concept is in pretty bad taste if you stop to think about it. In reality the myth of El Dorado was highly destructive, inspiring all sorts of European colonial “adventures” which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and ultimate conquest, slavery, and exploitation. The film actively draws from these stories including this whole bit about white people being mistaken for gods (a mistake that resulted in a lot of deaths when Cortes exploited it) but all that European conquest is mostly sugarcoated and or retconed away by the film’s ending in which Cortes is fooled out of finding the hidden city, meanwhile the film does much less sugarcoating with the Aztecs rather unpleasant practice of human sacrifice, which is refaced more than a few times. Disney’s Pocahontas also sugarcoated and retconed the genocidal story it was telling, and that movie suffered a lot as a result, but at least that movie engaged a little with the fact that there was real danger and racial strife involved in the encounter between Indigenous populations and Europeans and didn’t just turn the whole idea into a jokey romp like this does. Then again, this can at least say it lacks Pocahontas’ somewhat self-serious attempts to be an “epic romance” and is a little more upfront about the fact that what it’s selling is a bunch of unrealistic bullshit, so in some ways it still comes off a little less offensive than it does on paper.
But set all that aside there’s still plenty to not like about this. The character designs, for a starter, are some really dated 90s shit complete with weird goatees, and I’d also say that Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh feel rather miscast as voice actors here and never really get that buddy movie rapport which is needed for what they’re trying to do. The movie’s sporatic musical elements are also mostly botched. They somehow got Elton John to write the songs here but he’s clearly not bringing his A-game and his musical stylings don’t really fit either the Mesoamerican setting nor the “Road to” homage elements. It’s just an immensely forgettable movie all around and there are good reasons why this whole period of Dreamworks Animation never took off. ** out of Five
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Post by Neverending on Jul 15, 2024 5:58:02 GMT -5
This is also in line with the early Dreamworks Animation tradition of being suspiciously similar to a Disney Animated film from around the same time, almost as if the studio was being run by a former Disney employee who tried to steal all their ideas. In this case both studios released a movie in the year 2000 which focused around Mesoamerican/South American civilizations. Disney had the Incan themed The Emperor’s New Groove while Dreamworks had The Road to El Dorado, both of which underperformed at the box office, but The Road to El Dorado was almost certainly the bigger flop. Emperors New Groove spawned a successful franchise for Disney in the 2000’s. Lilo & Stitch and Emperor were arguably the two biggest animated properties for Disney at the time. Disney-Disney not Pixar. Although Disney tried to milk Toy Story with that Buzz Lightyear show that Pixar now likes to pretend it doesn’t exist. Emperor. Stitch. Buzz. Kim Possible. Jake Long: American Dragon. That was PG Cooper’s after school lineup. |
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 18, 2024 20:10:13 GMT -5
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Sweet Smell of Success is firmly one of those movies that falls under the category of "Pleasant Surprises." Because I read the plot summary of this -- a powerful news columnist and an up-and-coming press agent team up to put an end to the columnist's sister's heated romance with a man not up to the columnist's standards -- almost reads like the setup to a comedy. But, oh, no, Sweet Smell of Success is definitely not that. Instead, it's a dramatically intense noir-ish thriller of sorts that's fully interested in the seedy underbelly of the lifestyle it's portraying. As such, the character of JJ Hunsecker (portrayed brilliantly by Burt Lancaster) comes off more like a feared/respected crime boss than a newspaper columnist, and both the character and the film are all the better for it. Because hot damn, Lancaster brings such an air of authority and menace to JJ Hunsecker that he honestly makes for one of the most compelling and memorable screen villains I've seen in quite some time. Even in just the ways in which James Wong Howe's black and white cinematography captures/lights him a lot of the time, with his calculating eyes hidden beneath the shadows of glasses for almost the whole movie, giving him this chilling quality...it's great, and his performance sells the hell out of it. Tony Curtis is also great, too, and his character serves as an effective representation of the film's sort of twisted moral compass. He's a compelling character, and it's just as interesting to see the lengths he'll go to for getting what he wants. Which ties back into the film's tone: it's a film noir to its bones, even without the presence of detectives and the like. And it's rather effortlessly successful at it, too. From its mean streak, cutthroat characters and striking cinematography, Sweet Smell of Success is a movie whose particular brand of, well, success I didn't see coming...but I'm very glad I saw it all the same.
****/****
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 18, 2024 22:09:29 GMT -5
Sweet! Real glad I could steer you to it.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 18, 2024 22:54:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I decided to do a last-minute swerve. And am very glad I did.
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PG Cooper
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 20, 2024 13:10:42 GMT -5
Might do Open Range. You made a good case for it on the podcast. Found a DVD of Open Range for $2.50 at a thrift store. Assuming it works I have my next film club watch ready. |
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Post by Neverending on Jul 20, 2024 21:36:47 GMT -5
Might do Open Range. You made a good case for it on the podcast. Found a DVD of Open Range for $2.50 at a thrift store. Assuming it works I have my next film club watch ready. lol |
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Post by Neverending on Jul 29, 2024 5:53:54 GMT -5
Michael Keaton and Al Pacino? Now you’re speaking Doomsday’s language. We’re gonna bully Doomsday into watching this movie. Just watched it a few weeks ago actually, I dug it! I think I might go with Scott Pilgrim after 14 years. Been a minute since I’ve been on Max. Apparently, this is the #1 movie. Knox Goes Away having a moment. |
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 29, 2024 14:36:57 GMT -5
Knox Is Back
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Post by Neverending on Jul 29, 2024 23:08:17 GMT -5
I wasn't going to do Knox Goes Away, but I guess fate chose it for me. Good things come to those who wait. Michael Keaton stars as Joe Biden John Walker Knox, a geriatric hit man suffering from dementia. The movie takes place over the course of seven weeks as Knox's memory fades away, he's under investigation for a trio of murders and his race against time to cover up the death of his granddaughter's rapist. This could have been a Nolan-style mindbender in which we don't know what's real and what isn't, and it ends with a twist. But Keaton, who also directs, plays it straight. I sort-of admire it for that. I was waiting for a gimmick, and it never came. And why should there be? A hit man with dementia isn't compelling enough? Nonsense. It's a well-made and engaging character study. It has Keaton and also Al Pacino. Neither goes over-the-top. It's a solid adult drama. Isn't this what we've been asking for? Or we want more Skinamarink? Dracula and PG Cooper, I better see Knox Goes Away in your Top 10 or I'm gonna Skinamarink your face. |
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Jul 30, 2024 0:30:48 GMT -5
Wow, we have almost everyone. No rush at all Coop, take your time but I can start taking names for next round. Who's all in? Any newcomers or people who want to return?
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Post by Neverending on Jul 30, 2024 1:35:11 GMT -5
Wow, we have almost everyone. No rush at all Coop, take your time but I can start taking names for next round. Who's all in? Any newcomers or people who want to return? One more round and then Caligula, sir. I know you said Round 250, but don’t forget, we’re also gonna bully IanTheCool into watching the new Joker movie. Can we make 250 by October? |
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Post by PG Cooper on Jul 31, 2024 9:02:24 GMT -5
I watched Open Range. I'm behind on my reviews and will be away this weekend but I don't wanna hold things up if everyone else's ready. I'll post a full review eventually, but for now I'll just say Open Range is very good. Solid, old-school Western that builds to a really strong final act.
In for next round.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Jul 31, 2024 9:17:43 GMT -5
I'm in.
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