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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 7, 2022 8:01:55 GMT
Saint Maud and MementoIn the recent Oct horror thread I linked 3 horror films - Tesis, Censor and Nightmare on Elm Street in a (too) long post - and while Censor is very similar to Saint Maud - they make a great double feature - and both are among my favorite movies of recent years ( Saint Maud #1, 2020 and Censor #2 of 2021 - overall not just horror)......this time I'm going to look at it in a different way......I've written a lot about the greatness of each of these movies before but now I'll try to show how one illuminates the other in many ways and they work better together - even though not in the same genre: Memento is an all-time fave of mine and it has - like Saint Maud - an unreliable narrator, a protagonist we think may be sympathetic but slowly realize is really not as information witheld slowly leaks out to us......also these movies have a visual motif "trick" that's somewhat linked: In Saint Maud as she "ascends" - walking upward on hills, on outside steps, indoor flights of stairs - she is shown getting closer to God in a way - her actions at least while possibly (more than possibly) mad - have purpose ......and a "positive" effect on her (when she "descends" - down flights of stairs - it's noticeably less so). In Memento this same idea is seen by us in the color palette - and how getting closer to "the truth" reveals the lie....until the color palettes intersect.....getting closer to the lie is a theme of both ...... Both movies are about a kind of mental illness and yet both are also about a willful twisting of that illness where both characters are aware of what they are doing too.......both have memorable scenes set in a bar ( Saint Maud's bar scene is unforgettably heartbreaking - I've written a lot on that specifically as being one of the great scenes in recent film), both involve some kind of physical scarring (Leonard's tattoos and Maud's self-inflicted wounds)........both have a character who reeals "the truth" to them - the truth they deny (Teddy & Amanda - both are killed by our protagonists here) Each have a different character than those 2 ^ you think could "save" them - Maud's old friend and Natalie in Memento......both do not - both are left unresolved.....both start with events before the current plot - ie we see flashbacks to both in the timeline but only the events overall not in full detail...... The endings have a moment of revelation (no pun) for the audience - one rational (seemingly, but not) and one spiriritual (though really not, note the last shot in Saint Maud).......both involve a kind of iconography - the photos in Memento posted on a wall, the constructed wall altar in Saint Maud.... "We all lie to ourselves to be happy" is said in Memento but could just as easily apply to Saint Maud too.....
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 7, 2022 12:27:47 GMT
Dick (1999) and Snatch (2000)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2023 14:26:01 GMT
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009) Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford, 2022)
Particularly for Rahim’s and Plaza’s performances. So great.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 18, 2023 9:19:22 GMT
Banshees of Inisherin - The Killing of a Sacred DeerI've already talked about how Banshees is a religious allegory - more specifically a Catholic one - including parallels to the Book of Job, the "meaning" of the donkey, the severed hand (or fingers) and on and on.......and I argue that the movie doesn't "make sense" to me if you remove it from the Biblical references (it was my #5 of 2022) Well Sacred Deer while less in religious allegory - is in many was MORE allegorical overall.......about things that are "like in the Bible" but not as overt - vengeance, wrath, honoring the father and mother........but also to things like Greek mythology - the privilege of wealth and the exploitaion of others in a justice way - all framed against odd detachments from "reality" in any way (the acting styles in the movie heighten its removal from "realism" or "naturalism" even) Deer is the lesser of the movies, and the lesser of the Farrell / Keoghan movies but the better of tthe Nicole Kidman sloppy handjob movies (along with the pretty awful Destroyer).......but it is Kidman who gives the film its most explicitly drawn regious parallel - when she kisses the feet of Jesus.......er or was that the Devil? Lots of stuff to unpack in both movies.......
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Mar 18, 2023 12:22:33 GMT
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Post by Martin Stett on Mar 25, 2023 1:53:37 GMT
Sion Sono double bill! Why Don't You Play in Hell? (2013) Red Post on Escher Street (2020) Two variations on the same idea - people make a movie - that just so happen to be the two best movies with that premise. I have never been somebody into "the magic of the movies," but Sono makes me believe. There are visual references and callbacks in Red Post as well (although I think it is actually making callbacks to a ton of Sono movies), and some evolution of themes.
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Post by pacinoyes on May 31, 2023 10:06:56 GMT
Point Blank (1967) & The Bride Wore Black (1968)I've said this before but Point Blank is the best movie Lee Marvin was ever in ......but you may need to see it several times before thinking that..... Point Blank is one of the few great - and it is very great - American movies where men live or die by a masculine code - and this is the "hero" ffs - to such an extent that it becomes "mythic"......there are other (lesser) movies to it that it gets compared to (High Plains Drifter) and I compare it to Heat and The Wild Bunch as an all-timer great guy movies that are obviously "watch it every fncking time you come across it on TV ffs" The trick to the movie - what actually "happens" does he die in the first scene? may not be clear to you if you see it 50 times........or the fact that you do not see the hero in the last shot(s)........may not dawn on you either as being odd The Bride Wore Black is about the "same thing" - revenge, in the same era........the central character seems a myth or a ghost herself and is impossible to stop......the vengeance in Point Blank is masculine - brutal, overwhelming, dipassionate.......in the Bride Wore Black it's "feminine" ........patient, complicated, emotional ........not only is the lead character great ..........so are the supporting, uh, victims........ Point Blank is in English but seems like a foreign film in style and artiness .........Bride Wore Black is French but seems like an American pulp movie .....
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on May 31, 2023 10:46:58 GMT
Dick (1999) and Snatch (2000) I don't see how they "relate".
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Post by Martin Stett on May 31, 2023 12:12:19 GMT
Dick (1999) and Snatch (2000) I don't see how they "relate". They don't really, but put them together and they create something that is related to both
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dazed
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Post by dazed on May 31, 2023 17:01:24 GMT
zodiac & prisoners
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Post by Allenism on Jun 10, 2023 17:43:41 GMT
Persona/3 Women Vertigo/Basic Instinct Carrie/Matilda Y Tu Mama Tambien/Burning
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Post by urbanpatrician on Jun 11, 2023 1:17:38 GMT
Definitely, Maybe & He's Just Not That Into You
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 1, 2023 0:44:06 GMT
Harakiri (1962) & Confessions (2010)Two movies with the same basic premise: a character sits down and tells a story to an audience... and slowly reveals that this tale is about the audience, and that the storyteller is very, VERY pissed off. Both of these are, in a way, vengeance thrillers... although they both offer twists on the genre, as their vengeance is simply confronting evildoers with their actions and demanding accountability. And if their enemies should fail to do so... well, they have ways of exacting some sort of payback.
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Post by JangoB on Jul 2, 2023 21:41:31 GMT
We all know that Spielberg has had a bunch of years where he released two movies but it's only in 2005 that the double-bill is thematically linked and serves as a perfect double feature: War of the Worlds and Munich couldn't be any different in terms of genres (as those Spielberg two-in-one-year films always are) but they work amazingly well in tandem as a two-part Spielberg cinematic essay on 9/11, its impact and its implications. My man was definitely in a dark place that year after pouring all of his optimism in The Terminal.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Jul 3, 2023 21:50:26 GMT
Both visually resplendent, and generally speaking, much more interested in their famous subjects when they first arrive at their husband's foreign courts. The handover scenes in particular I think are the most memorable from each film. (Most would argue the most interesting parts of these women's lives came afterward, but focusing on the young princesses in this way gives both films such an intimate, personal feeling.) The Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, 1934) Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
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Post by pacinoyes on Nov 16, 2023 7:44:49 GMT
Mikey & Nicky (1976) and The Irishman (2019)
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Post by stabcaesar on Dec 4, 2023 5:10:29 GMT
The Wind Rises Oppenheimer
I can't be the only one who notices that right?
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 12, 2023 8:08:42 GMT
Stoker (2013) / Eileen (2023)I don't think Eileen is THAT good......but unlike a lot of this years Oscar circle jerk it is really interesting and it's even more interesting if you place it in the noir pantheon of desperate women doing desperate things. The problem is - that sub-genre makes Eileen look worse - it's not The Grifters ffs - but if you see it as about Thomasin McKenzie (underrated performance) specifically it works as a baby sister to some bigger heavy hitters. Stoker took several years of people rewatching it to "get" it and Eileen will look about as good 20 years from now because it's, like the better noirs - built for the long haul...... It will matter - and go better wih a stiff drink tbh - long after many of the shiny Oscar nominees of 2023 fade.....
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 14, 2024 15:26:30 GMT
Past Lives (2023) & Decision To Leave (2022)My favorite film of 2023 and one of my favorite movies made in 2022......movies that are insanely romantic........love stories with no kissing much less sex.......movies that will continue for their characters that live long after conclusions that don't resolve anything despite seeming to........you know like Life and what not .......movies that people - who are dead fncking wrong - think are about "nothing" or where "nothing happens" ........
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 20, 2024 20:25:22 GMT
The Godfather (Part 1) (1972) and Fiorile (1993)They go great together and Fiorile is an underrated af Taviani Brothers film ...... TylerDeneuve have you seen Fiorile, I reccomended it to you once and now I'm worried you didn't like it or you already told me and I can't remember which also worries me with my memory fading, um "Behind every great fortune, is a crime"
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Jan 21, 2024 5:12:57 GMT
pacinoyes - Yes, I actually bought the DVD after you recommended it! It's a beautiful film - I remember really loving it. It's probably due for a rewatch.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 27, 2024 17:04:32 GMT
The two most arousing movies of all time... Charade (1963) & Hopscotch (1980) - Men and women flirting and goofing off and showing off for each other. Both of these films are so charming, and the dialogue is so, so, soooooo sexy when they get together and make love with their words.
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