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Post by bob-coppola on Jan 10, 2018 20:33:17 GMT
Suburbicon. If they took out the racism subplot and actually made it a revenge thriller like it was advertised...maybe it wouldn't be a good movie per se, but at the very least it could have been a moderately entertaining dark comedy with its own commentary on society that doesn't already weigh the film down. I second that. What the fuck was up with the racial subplot? The main plot wasn't strong enough to carry a whole movie, but jesus christ...
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Post by bob-coppola on Jan 10, 2018 20:56:10 GMT
From the recent ones I've watched:
- The Disaster Artist is a well-crafted, well-acted, well-written movie. Yet, it is so in love with Tommy Wiseau that is becomes an inoffesive biopic with no bite. It goes out of its way everytime to make sure everyone knows the director of the worst move in history is an unsung hero and a visionary. I'm not asking the film to give a finger to Wiseau, but does it have to be condescending? It's not like in Ed Wood, that managed to balance the irony and criticism with a tender look. The way it portrays Wiseau turns TDA into the arthouse version of the dudebro movie (what else could you expect from James Franco?) - Murder on the Orient Express is probably the blandest and dullest movie of the year. Branagh was trying to turn Poirot into some kind of superhero with high morals and the perfect lead to a franchise, but he just isn't. The movie lacks any of the humor and irony of the original novel. Also, what's the point of having such production value if you're gonna film it in the most basic way? In the hands of the Coens or Wes Anderson, it would've been marvelous. Maybe Fincher could've given an upgrade with a gritty vision that wasn't in the book, but would be welcomed. - Wonderstruck is one I liked just fine, but I had some problems with its approach. The B&W segments that were supposed to be a homage to Classic Hollywood were just so tame, and the color segments are a few steps from being a classier copycat of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close . Make the old-days flashbacks more glamorous, and embrace completely the homoerotic undertones of the present-days segments and it would've been a Class A Todd Haynes.
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Post by jimmalone on Jan 12, 2018 13:28:13 GMT
There are quite many.
I agree for example with Passengers. I still liked it, but it could have been a fantastic instead of just a good movie if it didn't turn into a popcorn-movie in the end, but would have followed a more moralistic and philosophical approach.
I also agree about Che, which should have way shortened and therefore have more focus on less of his life, so it sadly never had much depth.
One quite recent movie as well is The Hateful Eight. 8 suspicious people in a house in the middle of a snow storm. Perfect setting for a thriller full of tension. But what does Tarantino do? The same thing as always (lately). He leaves every chance of a good story, blows it up with ridiculous overloaded action and destroys every bit of atmosphere.
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Post by stephen on Jan 12, 2018 13:31:09 GMT
One quite recent movie as well is The Hateful Eight. 8 suspicious people in a house in the middle of a snow storm. Perfect setting for a thriller full of tension. But what does Tarantino do? The same thing as always (lately). He leaves every chance of a good story, blows it up with ridiculous overloaded action and destroys every bit of atmosphere. Amen. There are a dozen or so points in the film where you can feel the story wanting to zig into a new, fresh, bold direction, but Tarantino keeps it on the rails, forcing it to go the way we all expect.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2018 23:27:52 GMT
Agreed so much on Gangs of New York and The Hateful Eight (although I do still really enjoy the latter).
I feel like the new Star Wars movies could've worked so much better if they got rid of the tired "Empire vs Rebels" plot.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jun 15, 2021 9:02:56 GMT
I dunno why but The Mosquito Coast ('86) came to mind. It's a hilariously strange and fascinating story, I think ripe for an out and out comedy. I haven't read the book but the apparent "tragi-comedy" didn't come thru to me, I felt it mostly had an angry, gravely tone. And I love Peter Weir but something went faulty, though I wouldn't call it a bad film at all. Strong cast (River Phoenix, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Andre Gregory) but Paul Schrader fumbles the script, ramming into Ford's character, who's just monstrous and wears you down. Nicholson was supposed to play the role and really could've devoured the material, adding a needed dose of humor and hysterical mania, and created an indelible lunatic for the ages. Ford goes growling but there's nothing underneath. And at any rate the film doesn't play into how insanely flawed and comically misguided that character is. It could've been a really great parody of the self-made man. Just watched this for the first time - I agree that the whole tone seems off and that it could have worked better if it had leaned more into its comic potential. Because the film plays it pretty straight, it's hard to really buy the set-up, especially since Helen Mirren's mother character is so passive, uncomplaining (until the end at least), and inscrutable. Why does she go along with all of this initially? You mentioned you feel like there's nothing underneath Ford's character, but I think it's even more of an issue with Mirren's character since I have trouble even buying them as a compatible couple. I wanted to know more about the woman who would tolerate a guy like this.
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Post by ireallyamsomething on Jun 22, 2021 10:42:59 GMT
It has been quite a while since I saw the film, and this is probably a very unpopular opinion, but I thought that Paris, Texas could have been more interesting if it focused on Harry Dean Stanton's brother. That conflict of having to leave the kid seemed to have a lot of potential.
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Post by finniussnrub on Oct 24, 2023 0:59:29 GMT
Thought I'd revive this one for Killers of the Flower Moon discussion. I quite liked the film, but I do think there is a version that could've been a psychological thriller told solely from Mollie's point of view, that would've been less sprawling but more introspective.
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Post by stephen on Oct 24, 2023 1:13:22 GMT
Yeah, I definitely think Killers of the Flower Moon is going to be my definitive answer for this question for a long, long time.
I've been mulling over just how the story would best have been told, and I do think that something of a fusion between The Last Duel (multiple viewpoints of the same events) and Shadow of a Doubt (a psychological thriller about the closeness of family against mounting evidence of horror) with Mollie as the central anchor would work best. I do think that DiCaprio absolutely should've eased off the Sling Blade throttle and leaned more into his charming side, to make him more of an appealing figure for Mollie, and I think there should've been more emphasis on her feeling like she was going to end up alone and sickly like her mother and wanting desperately to avoid that at all costs.
You would obviously lose a lot in this version that the actual film has, but I think the key thing is that Mollie just can't be relegated to the sidelines in her own story. It really does feel like the last indignity in Mollie's story that the film casts her aside to sweat and moan in a bed for half the movie and to be used to prop up Ernest's internal conflict.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 24, 2023 1:45:17 GMT
A vintage pacinoyes thread! Goddamn I had a period where I was an interesting fncker / thread starter - no wonder they still keep me around here for the memories..... ![:grouphug:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/H7iGS0eK7Bua5qxzMOco.gif) To me this year .......this is Barbie more than Oppy or KotFM .......I wasn't hung up on the POV being an issue with them..... Barbie however leaving her (hilarious at first) world to come to the shitty one that I live in (and my jokes die in) - was a problem to me.......no wonder she found no love (and that "it's not the point" is nonsense - you just accept that it's not the point because the movie tells you unconvincingly it's not......don't lecture to me Fascist Doll Movie ![:devil:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/O4cyHtUVHMQsY84icsLl.gif) ).......... not much joy, plenty of smiles maybe but not many laughs once the move happens, too much conceptualized intellect but not much particularly interesting anyway - that you couldn't find in a Feminism 101 Cliffs Notes ......it's a Barbie movie for sour soccer moms and half a too sensitive men...... wrong eventual setting.........wrong audience......more money than God.......ah well........that's my take and I'm sticking to it...... ![](https://media2.giphy.com/media/N8uutOwabFDcmsuPkp/giphy.gif)
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Post by taranofprydain on May 31, 2024 21:44:33 GMT
A vintage pacinoyes thread! Goddamn I had a period where I was an interesting fncker / thread starter - no wonder they still keep me around here for the memories..... ![:grouphug:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/H7iGS0eK7Bua5qxzMOco.gif) To me this year .......this is Barbie more than Oppy or KotFM .......I wasn't hung up on the POV being an issue with them..... Barbie however leaving her (hilarious at first) world to come to the shitty one that I live in (and my jokes die in) - was a problem to me.......no wonder she found no love (and that "it's not the point" is nonsense - you just accept that it's not the point because the movie tells you unconvincingly it's not......don't lecture to me Fascist Doll Movie ![:devil:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/O4cyHtUVHMQsY84icsLl.gif) ).......... not much joy, plenty of smiles maybe but not many laughs once the move happens, too much conceptualized intellect but not much particularly interesting anyway - that you couldn't find in a Feminism 101 Cliffs Notes ......it's a Barbie movie for sour soccer moms and half a too sensitive men...... wrong eventual setting.........wrong audience......more money than God.......ah well........that's my take and I'm sticking to it...... Oh, Barbie was a dreadful film. I wrote this on another website after seeing it in December....
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Post by Brother Fease on Jun 2, 2024 16:45:34 GMT
Shit, that would have been brilliant, especially in terms of character development. I mean, for fuck sake Martin Scorsese, it's your passion project and you only come up with that revenge plot? I kinda wanna blame Kenneth Lonergan for some reason. Gangs of New York is not really about revenge. It's not even really about two men fighting to protect their father's legacy -- which is the main thrust of the plot. It's about evolution of gangs in NYC and how civilization really comes together. Amsterdam and Bill are really ideological symbols.
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