Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[cigar joe]

Niagara 9/10

[dave jenkins]

Niagara 9/10

Blu-ray?

[PowerRR]

To the Wonder - 7/10
Second viewing and I liked it about the same. Malick's weakest aside from The New World. Still good obviously. Those are his only two I don't consider masterpiece.

Shoah
As a historical document, it's utterly perfect. As a film though, even with taking breaks, it's undoubtedly overlong and redundant. After about 4 hours I honestly feel it loses its power. Either I'm cold-hearted or everyone else is too afraid to admit it. I'm not saying Lanzmann should have shortened it, I just don't think this should be judged/rated/compared to other documentaries (it plays out more like a visualized historical text than a movie - no music, seemingly unedited interviews, slowly paced - though with amazing visuals). However, I believe Lanzmann made the right choice presenting it this way. He didn't turn the Holocaust into a melodrama (see: Oprah Winfrey/Elie Wiesel TV special: one of the many reasons I find Oprah to be the biggest, most disrespectful, fake cunt in the universe). Shoah is in its own class of documentary where I don't really consider it a movie. All educated people should at least watch some of Shoah, though I can understand how the whole thing may be a bit much for most.

But since fellows such as D&D find ways to call me out for not providing ratings.... 10 for a historical document, 8+ish for a film.

[drinkanddestroy]

Shoah
As a historical document, it's utterly perfect. As a film though, even with taking breaks, it's undoubtedly overlong and redundant. After about 4 hours I honestly feel it loses its power. Either I'm cold-hearted or everyone else is too afraid to admit it. I'm not saying Lanzmann should have shortened it, I just don't think this should be judged/rated/compared to other documentaries (it plays out more like a visualized historical text than a movie - no music, seemingly unedited interviews, slowly paced - though with amazing visuals). However, I believe Lanzmann made the right choice presenting it this way. He didn't turn the Holocaust into a melodrama (see: Oprah Winfrey/Elie Wiesel TV special: one of the many reasons I find Oprah to be the biggest, most disrespectful, fake cunt in the universe). Shoah is in its own class of documentary where I don't really consider it a movie. All educated people should at least watch some of Shoah, though I can understand how the whole thing may be a bit much for most.

But since fellows such as D&D find ways to call me out for not providing ratings.... 10 for a historical document, 8+ish for a film.

I actually am not much into ratings; I only called YOU out on it since you are the one that titled this thread  

As for Shoah, I mentioned recently - in that film's thread - that I saw the first 5 1/2 hours or so of it.
I don't know whether you watched it straight or over a few days, but I don't know if it's supposed to necessarily be watched straight. As for length of time, there's really no right or wrong. On the one hand, there's a limit to how much of one movie people wanna watch; on the other hand, the extent of the horrors of the Holocaust can never be accurately presented even with a film that went on for a thousand hours. Or six million hours. So, why 9 1/2 hours, rather than 8 1/2 or 10 1/2? who knows. we know Lanzmann cut out the second half of his interview with Jan Karski, but Karski criticized him for it, and then Lanzmann released it as The Karski Report. Should the film have been even longer? Again, there is no right or wrong answer.

IMO, Lanzmann was correct to include lots of footage, and it is up to each viewer how long he/she wants to watch.

One problem I have with the film is how frequently, we hear an interviewee talking for a few minutes before his name and identity flashes on the screen. Now, I knew that the interviews consisted of survivors (the good guys) the Nazis (the evil guys) and local Poles (who for the most part were pretty bad), but you sometimes don't know who is who for a few minutes, so while you are watching someone talk, you don't know "do I hate him or do I pity him?" until his name flashes on the screen after a few minutes. I wish they put the name/identity of each interviewee up there right away. Also, the poster, which has this decrepit old man next to a sign that says "Treblinka," is really misleading; when you first see that poster, you pity the guy, figuring he must have been a survivor of Treblinka, till you watch the movie, and see that that is a fucking bastard who actually drove the trainloads of Jews to their death (and poor, poor him, he had to drink vodka to get through the day's "work," the piece of shit) and then you feel stupid for actually having pitied him when you saw the poster before you saw the movie.

Othwerwise, Lanzmann is to be commended for this work.

[Groggy]

Watched most of Ken Burns' Prohibition today. Liked it better than The Civil War.

[drinkanddestroy]

Tokyo Joe (1949) 6.5/10


5 Against the House (1955) 8/10

[PowerRR]

I actually am not much into ratings; I only called YOU out on it since you are the one that titled this thread  

As for Shoah, I mentioned recently - in that film's thread - that I saw the first 5 1/2 hours or so of it.
I don't know whether you watched it straight or over a few days, but I don't know if it's supposed to necessarily be watched straight. As for length of time, there's really no right or wrong. On the one hand, there's a limit to how much of one movie people wanna watch; on the other hand, the extent of the horrors of the Holocaust can never be accurately presented even with a film that went on for a thousand hours. Or six million hours. So, why 9 1/2 hours, rather than 8 1/2 or 10 1/2? who knows. we know Lanzmann cut out the second half of his interview with Jan Karski, but Karski criticized him for it, and then Lanzmann released it as The Karski Report. Should the film have been even longer? Again, there is no right or wrong answer.

IMO, Lanzmann was correct to include lots of footage, and it is up to each viewer how long he/she wants to watch.

One problem I have with the film is how frequently, we hear an interviewee talking for a few minutes before his name and identity flashes on the screen. Now, I knew that the interviews consisted of survivors (the good guys) the Nazis (the evil guys) and local Poles (who for the most part were pretty bad), but you sometimes don't know who is who for a few minutes, so while you are watching someone talk, you don't know "do I hate him or do I pity him?" until his name flashes on the screen after a few minutes. I wish they put the name/identity of each interviewee up there right away. Also, the poster, which has this decrepit old man next to a sign that says "Treblinka," is really misleading; when you first see that poster, you pity the guy, figuring he must have been a survivor of Treblinka, till you watch the movie, and see that that is a fucking bastard who actually drove the trainloads of Jews to their death (and poor, poor him, he had to drink vodka to get through the day's "work," the piece of shit) and then you feel stupid for actually having pitied him when you saw the poster before you saw the movie.

Othwerwise, Lanzmann is to be commended for this work.

Yeah yeah I know I'm just messing around about the ratings thing.

I watched it in 1 to 2 hour segments and still tired of it in the later hours.

I agree I didn't like some of the choices with subtitling. One is what you mentioned. Another is how you don't get to see the subtitles for some speakers until the translator begins talking. I'd much prefer to see what people were saying before the translator says it, despite whether or not that's how Lanzmann initially understood them.

[moviesceleton]

Limelight (1952) - 8.5/10

[drinkanddestroy]

Le Trou (1960) 10/10

[cigar joe]

The Naked Street (1955) a re watch, good film, starts off strong with a couple of goons setting fire to a body under the Brooklyn Bridge then switches gears to Noir Lite. Anthony Quinn, Farley Granger, Anne Bancroft, Peter Graves, and a small walk on by Lee Van Cleef. It's got a bit of a Scarface vibe. Streaming on Netflix 7/10

Lee Van Cleef in this, compared to his Westerns, plays the closest I've seen to Col. Mortimer in FAFDM.

[drinkanddestroy]

Watched most of Ken Burns' Prohibition today. Liked it better than The Civil War.

blah blah blah. What about his BASEBALL?

[cigar joe]

Raging Bull great film, a tad too long upon third or fourth viewing in light of earlier boxing films 8/10

[dave jenkins]

One problem I have with the film is how frequently, we hear an interviewee talking for a few minutes before his name and identity flashes on the screen. Now, I knew that the interviews consisted of survivors (the good guys) the Nazis (the evil guys) and local Poles (who for the most part were pretty bad), but you sometimes don't know who is who for a few minutes, so while you are watching someone talk, you don't know "do I hate him or do I pity him?" until his name flashes on the screen after a few minutes. I wish they put the name/identity of each interviewee up there right away. Also, the poster, which has this decrepit old man next to a sign that says "Treblinka," is really misleading; when you first see that poster, you pity the guy, figuring he must have been a survivor of Treblinka, till you watch the movie, and see that that is a fucking bastard who actually drove the trainloads of Jews to their death (and poor, poor him, he had to drink vodka to get through the day's "work," the piece of shit) and then you feel stupid for actually having pitied him when you saw the poster before you saw the movie.

Could be part of the filmmaker's strategy, nicht wahr? Obviously, Lanzmann wants people to respond deeply to the material, and one way to educe that is to temporarily withhold info. When he is tardy contextualizing the comments, Lanzmann can produce the kind of response you've just described above, which seems more interesting than just having audience members respond to labels. Any idiot can respond to labels.

[drinkanddestroy]

Could be part of the filmmaker's strategy, nicht wahr? Obviously, Lanzmann wants people to respond deeply to the material, and one way to educe that is to temporarily withhold info. When he is tardy contextualizing the comments, Lanzmann can produce the kind of response you've just described above, which seems more interesting than just having audience members respond to labels. Any idiot can respond to labels.

it's not about responding to "labels."

When you hear someone talking about the cattle-car train to a death camp, if he is a survivor then you pity him; if he is the engineer on the train, or some local fucking Pollak who is laughing as he tells how used to make a throat-slitting motion, then you despise him. I'm not looking for what you call an "interesting" response, as I try to guess the identity of a particular speaker. It's feels really weird when you try to guess and then guess wrong. And yes, the identity of the speaker makes a big difference - because almost every one of the speakers tries to have you pity them. Even the fucking engineer who drove the train the Treblinka tries to have you pity him  – poor me, I had to drink vodka just to get through my workday driving cattle cars of people to the gas chambers. Yes, part of watching Shoah is the reaction to the specific speaker, rather than merely taking the words objectively as historical information. There's no way you can feel the same when eg. hearing a camp survivor describe the gas chambers, as when eg. hearing that fucking Nazi describe the gas chambers.
So yes, if Lanzmann is intentionally trying to keep us in suspense about the speakers, I disagree with him very much on that. And I definitely disagree with putting that engineer on the poster of the movie. That's not to say Lanzmann didn't do a great job with the movie.

[drinkanddestroy]

Watched most of Ken Burns' Prohibition today. Liked it better than The Civil War.

speaking of the Civil War http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-jeopardy---host-alex-trebek-faces-backlash-for-humiliating-kid-contestant-on-tv-185738286.html

Nevermind the stuff about it being a 12-year-old kid: I thought Jeopordy's gives credit even for a misspelled word - is that extra "t" that bad that it's too badly misspelled to give credit? Sounds dumb to me. And as for all the people whining about Trebek being a "snob," I really didn't think so. Trebek just told the kid that because he misspelled the word badly, the judges ruled that he doesn't get credit for the answer. I don't think there was anything nasty on Trebek's part.