I've never read the book and I think the movie is brilliant.
I guess it just comes down to personal tastes.
I guess it just comes down to personal tastes.
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Always fun to see different takes - someone above only likes "The African Queen" among Bogart films - I generally like his stuff but can't stand to watch that one, lol. That's what is great about books and movies.
I'm old enough I saw "The Man Who Would Be King" when it was released in the theater and loved it, still a favorite and now also of one of my daughters. I grew up with Connery and Caine in movies and it just seems like one of those turn 'em loose and let them have some fun films - and yep, he dies for absolutely nothing noble - you could see it coming a mile away and "Peachy" foreshadows it at the beginning, but a good "rise and fall" tale. For me, finding out it was a short story, was a revelation and it's not bad.
If you think he was "completely" wooden there are a lot more of his films you need to watch (like them, don't like them, but you haven't scratched the surface is my guess) - "ego" - a lot less than you seem to claim. Fun discussion, but a lot of over-generalizing.
I saw Blair Witch in here. While I didn't care for the movie itself or the actors, I loved the found footage film student shtick. Also, 3/4 of the movie was filmed in the woods I hung out at as a kid. The house at the end, I recognized some of my graffiti on the walls.
I was deployed to Kosovo when it first came out. Someone got their hands on a bootleg version and we all sat around watching it. I made the mistake of saying I know exactly where they are. The guy sitting next to me turned, face pale as a sheet, and asked if it was true. Um, yeah. Totally true. I remember when this happened. Did I know them? I knew their people, his cousins, her brother. It was a great month or so I had him going.
I was deployed to Kosovo when it first came out. Someone got their hands on a bootleg version and we all sat around watching it. I made the mistake of saying I know exactly where they are. The guy sitting next to me turned, face pale as a sheet, and asked if it was true. Um, yeah. Totally true. I remember when this happened. Did I know them? I knew their people, his cousins, her brother. It was a great month or so I had him going.
I have not seen it. I was content with the book, and it’s my understanding that they changed the timeline in the series: that is, the main character didn’t go back to 1958 but much later.
I enjoyed The Quiet Man, and Wayne seemed to get outside the cowboy “wooden” persona in his performance. The fist fight that goes all the way across town is pretty entertaining.
My personal take on the John Wayne complaint that everybody has always rehashed throughout my life, every time his films come up:
(a) We've grown so dependent on the consumption of entertainment that we've forgotten what "actors" are: professional pretenders. The degree to which an actor is "good" is the degree to which he can convincingly deceive. The more disassociated he can become from his true self, the more we applaud him.
This is weird to me. Would you want to be married to a persuasive pretender? If somebody like John Wayne just is who he is, I like him better as a man for it. You can say he's not as good an actor, fine, but he may well be a better man.
Which leads me to my scond thought:
(b) If an actor is always playing the same kind of character, then whether or not you like that may have a lot to do with whether or not you like that kind of character.
I like John Wayne. He usually played a natural leader who knew what needed done and did it. He's a corrective to the limp-wristededness of males today. I enjoy his character.
So if there are a lot of similarities in many of his roles, that works for me.
(a) We've grown so dependent on the consumption of entertainment that we've forgotten what "actors" are: professional pretenders. The degree to which an actor is "good" is the degree to which he can convincingly deceive. The more disassociated he can become from his true self, the more we applaud him.
This is weird to me. Would you want to be married to a persuasive pretender? If somebody like John Wayne just is who he is, I like him better as a man for it. You can say he's not as good an actor, fine, but he may well be a better man.
Which leads me to my scond thought:
(b) If an actor is always playing the same kind of character, then whether or not you like that may have a lot to do with whether or not you like that kind of character.
I like John Wayne. He usually played a natural leader who knew what needed done and did it. He's a corrective to the limp-wristededness of males today. I enjoy his character.
So if there are a lot of similarities in many of his roles, that works for me.
I don’t like Bogart in The African Queen either. He does prove that there’s more to him than the stoic, stone-faced tough guy, though. It also seems like TAQ was filmed in color, and that spoils a classic movie for me personally. YMMV.
Not a favorite take maybe, but although there are some films I enjoy she is in (but a couple I can plug in other actresses that I think would have generated more chemistry to the roles), I've never been a big Katherine Hepburn fan.
I love “The Man who Would Be King”! Although I think it is a movie with iconic actors and a bit of a cult following rather than a truly iconic film. I’m 51 so it came out a year or two after I was born but I’ve seen it several times on cable. You said, “it just seems like one of those turn 'em loose and let them have some fun films” and I could not agree more. Full disclosure- I’m a fan of both Connery and Caine.
To appreciate Casablanca you must know the movie was based on a 1940 story written before Pearl Harbor and released and won it’s cult status after Pearl Harbor.
The original story was set in Lisbon in neutral Portugal.
Warner Brothers recast the location to the North African town of Casablanca, a wise decision.
Rick is an unwilling and reluctant Christ like John Wayne figure.
He sticks his neck out for nobody.
But he knows that pretty girl belongs to the hero of the French resistance and so he starts the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
It’s better than Citizen Kane.
After Gone with the Wind, Casablanca is the second best movie of all time, for mature adults.
I’d have kept the girl, you know?
No point to the movie if that happened because he'd have stayed in Paris. He never had her to keep after Paris.
G
Gimlet
Guest
I tell people it's a documentary about camping and anyone planning a night or two under canvas should watch it for useful tips. I believe I've put a few people off camping for life.
A very important aspect of this film is sound. Or lack of it. If you are frightened and you listen intently, you become hyper-sensitised. This film really understood how to play on that and induce that state in the viewer. The characters are most frightened by the sounds they hear outside the tent. Or think they hear. They cower, owl-eyed, listening - to nothing. And then there's the snap of a twig, rustling footsteps, and that soft, muttering laughter just outside the tent. Mute the sound and the film would be nothing and you'd fall asleep. With it on you're straining your senses, just as the characters are, and you enter a different sensory universe.
In fact, if you blacked out the screen and just listened, this film would still be deeply unnerving. The makers of this film knew exactly how to sustain tension through the use of sound and they were careful never to break the spell. It's clever and few film makers manage to pull it off. Most over-egg the pudding with a gratuitous soundtrack that snaps you out of your fear like a hypnotist clicking his fingers. This film just pushes you in deeper.
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Give me Orson Welles in “The Stranger” and with Jeff Chandler in “Man In The Shadow” and his narration of “The War Of The Worlds” and that’s enough for me!
It’s a great film and as I like to say “a lot going on” with great actors in every part, large or small. About perfect for what it was meant to be.
Can’t agree with the Christ analogy but relieved you didn’t try to have him born in Missouri before he ended up elsewhere.
The Third Man is a good diversion on a dank day. Great sound track also.
Oh, I really enjoy watching the African Queen. Maybe because Bogart reminds me of my grandfather. Always a sad face, and always a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
Just to switch it up a bit from the classics, I just watched "Killers of the Flower Moon". I'm a big fan of Scorsese.
"Goodfellas", "The Departed" "Taxi Driver" among others. But I gotta say, his latest disappointed me. I was looking forward to it and I really wanted to like it. But I just couldn't click with it. It reminded me of asking someone the time of day and they build you a clock. It was waaaay toooo long at 3+ hours, repetitive and could've been told in 2 hours. It's a really interesting story that was, IMHO, ruined by slow pace and disjointed dialogue. Anyway, interested to hear what you guys thought.
"Goodfellas", "The Departed" "Taxi Driver" among others. But I gotta say, his latest disappointed me. I was looking forward to it and I really wanted to like it. But I just couldn't click with it. It reminded me of asking someone the time of day and they build you a clock. It was waaaay toooo long at 3+ hours, repetitive and could've been told in 2 hours. It's a really interesting story that was, IMHO, ruined by slow pace and disjointed dialogue. Anyway, interested to hear what you guys thought.
Found footage is by far better than special effects. Rely more on acting and emotion.
Broadly speaking, most "iconic" films have not disappointed me entirely. There are many I do not personally enjoy, but I can find merit in them and respect them as a works of art and entertainment. The Shining is a perfect example of this. I find the film to be an exercise in style over substance that is too quick to undermine or outright sacrifice the subtleties and thematic force of its source material for sake of aesthetics. But even then, I must say, I can see why this film is beloved and respected. It just doesn't resonate with me, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.
Art is meant to be discussed, debated, criticized, and interpreted. Good art provokes and challenges us. Great does all that and keeps its cultural and artistic relevance long after its conception. I try to give a chance to a lot of pieces of "canon" art in film, literature, etc., and not solely because I want to cultivate some smug sense of "high" taste, but because there is something special about such art that has managed to stay in the cultural firmament of our collective consciousness, and therefore demands a critical and serious look.
If I were to choose an iconic film that is an exception to what I stated above, one where I had difficulty finding merit or worth and genuinely regretted giving it a minute of my time, then that film would have to be Dances with Wolves. Cloying, ham-fisted acting by its lead protagonist, and just a constant stream of ham-fisted clichés. It's almost insultingly simplistic and patronizing. I do appreciate its earnestness to a degree, and there are some moments of beautiful cinematography. But goddamn, this movie made me roll the eyes out of my head.
Art is meant to be discussed, debated, criticized, and interpreted. Good art provokes and challenges us. Great does all that and keeps its cultural and artistic relevance long after its conception. I try to give a chance to a lot of pieces of "canon" art in film, literature, etc., and not solely because I want to cultivate some smug sense of "high" taste, but because there is something special about such art that has managed to stay in the cultural firmament of our collective consciousness, and therefore demands a critical and serious look.
If I were to choose an iconic film that is an exception to what I stated above, one where I had difficulty finding merit or worth and genuinely regretted giving it a minute of my time, then that film would have to be Dances with Wolves. Cloying, ham-fisted acting by its lead protagonist, and just a constant stream of ham-fisted clichés. It's almost insultingly simplistic and patronizing. I do appreciate its earnestness to a degree, and there are some moments of beautiful cinematography. But goddamn, this movie made me roll the eyes out of my head.