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Messages - moorman
1
« on: January 17, 2023, 05:31:38 PM »
I found this slow burn to be overrated. A narrative with a slow build isn't the problem. The problem is the slow build IS the movie and it wasn't interesting. 3 out of 10.
2
« on: January 17, 2023, 03:46:28 PM »
Lmao. It not a poll anymore.
3
« on: December 19, 2022, 11:55:27 AM »
Tarantino was dropping some knowledge in this film. Most people are unaware that most of the Bonnevilles (plantations) down south were actually owned by "African Americans". In this fillm, the character of "Stephen" played by Samuel L. Jackson, is pretending to be a "house" servant of "Calvin Candie", played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Towards the end of the film, the dynamics change to where if you pay attention, you can see the roles reverse and determine who really owned the plantation. It was a game the rich Southern "African Americans" would play to hide the dynamics of who was running the Bonnevilles (Plantations). This is the reason that Tarantino chose "African American" characters to play some of the lead parts. Erudite scholars know exactly what he was conveying in the film.
4
« on: December 19, 2022, 11:43:58 AM »
This looks good. Bass Reeves, AKA The Lone Ranger.
5
« on: September 14, 2022, 06:03:51 PM »
This film had been on my radar for a while. My attraction to the film are Peckinpah the director and Warren Oates, the main protagonist. This proejct started slow for me. The 1970's grimy look and feel of the project didn't help. This continued for the first half of the film. The second half is where this comes together. The director manages to take a tight plot and wring tension and surprises out of it. Warren Oates as usual brings a superb, nuanced and naturalistic character to the project. The film is nasty, grimy and has a very ugly look. If you can get past that it pays off to watch this to its conclusion. 7.5 out of 10.
6
« on: August 08, 2022, 04:28:53 PM »
I watched this film years ago when I was very young and didn't appreciate the humor and nuance back then. Now years later after having seen just about every good American and Sphagetti western made, I can appreciate how Brooks made sort of his version of "How the West Was Won" and combined it with very overt and nuanced humor. Its a very good film. 7.5 out of 10.
7
« on: July 03, 2022, 05:55:28 PM »
I first saw this about 5 years ago or so. At the time I had it ranked as one of my favorite Westerns. After viewing it again I find the plot very wanting. I was initially ranking the film very high because of the performance of Walter Brennan. On rewatch I could see the massive flaws in the film. It takes a while to build up and the bromance between Cole and Bean is very contrived. The photography and on location filming are very good. I initially gave the film a 7.5 out of 10. I now rank it around 5 out of 10.
8
« on: May 07, 2022, 06:25:27 PM »
Walter Brennan looking wild, Kirk Douglas wanting the woman. The standouts for me were the filming locations. Gorgeous. The plot was kind of contrived in spots, but its a very decent Western. 6 out of 10.
9
« on: March 06, 2022, 09:02:15 AM »
This was better than expected. The scare factor of the "indians" was better than most Westerns. I visited the shooting location of this film back in 2018. Sedona Arizona.
10
« on: March 06, 2022, 08:58:25 AM »
See The Searchers when you can moviesceleton! It's arguably the greatest American Western ever. One of the greatest films ever made, in my opinion.
The most overrated Western ever.
11
« on: October 11, 2021, 05:10:24 PM »
Directors Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (uncredited), written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand James Gandolfini, Tony Shaloub, Katherine Borowitz, Jon Polito, Scarlett Johansson, and Michael Badalucco.
A tongue-in-cheek low key Neo Noir shot in Black and White that nicely captures some of the spirit of the classic noir period. However during the Classic Noir period the Noir styled cinematography seamlessly blended into the background but here in this film it feels a bit too obvious in calling attention to itself in spots. Its pallet is overall shades of gray and where it does dip into the high contrast noir, it shows. Its almost as if the directors consciously remembered they were making a noir and insert darker shots here and there. Its a minor quibble.
Most of the film is this (Thornton & Polito)
and this in pallet (Thornton & McDormond)
occasionally going stylistically darker like the two shots below
Classic composition
obvious composition
Scarlet Johannson
Storyline from IMDb:
1949, Santa Rosa, California. A laconic, chain-smoking barber with fallen arches tells a story of a man trying to escape a humdrum life. It's a tale of suspected adultery, blackmail, foul play, death, Sacramento city slickers, racial slurs, invented war heroics, shaved legs, a gamine piano player, aliens, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Ed Crane cuts hair in his in-law's shop; his wife drinks and may be having an affair with her boss, Big Dave, who has $10,000 to invest in a second department store. Ed gets wind of a chance to make money in dry cleaning. Blackmail and investment are his opportunity to be more than a man no one notices. Settle in the chair and listen.
Originally titled at one time "The Barber" then jokingly "Pansies Don't Float" the film replicates early 1950's suburbia in a bleak noir tale with twists and turns feeling very much like a studio back lot film. Its a lot of fun an doesn't shy away from fedoras or cigarette smoking.
I'll repeat a post from IMDb about the cigarette smoking culture.
hobartz (Sun Jan 29 2012 04:53:04)
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Ah, the social psychology of smoking. Fascinating subject.
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In the 1940's the vast majority of adult Americans smoked. My mother was in her teens and twenties during that decade and was a stubborn exception. She was something of a curiosity and was constantly asked why she didn't smoke. She gave all the (now familiar) reasons that to her seemed obvious: health, expense, smell, fire hazard, etc.. A typical response from other women was, "but what do you do with your hands?" The typical response from men was something along the lines of "what a tedious killjoy you are".
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Smoking was seen as healthful, an affirmation of maturity, and above all "stylish", the '40's notion of anything today termed "cool". Many social expressions were involved in the intricacies of the physical act of smoking. A whole culture of expression existed around the acts of retrieving a cigarette, preparing it for lighting, lighting it, inhaling the first puff, exhaling the smoke, holding the cigarette, tapping ash, repeated puffs, and finally stubbing, crushing, dropping, stamping out the butt. By the 1940's cigarette smoking was not only a personal act but also a social and cultural act.
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Cigarettes of the 1940's were nearly all unfiltered so the smoker "dry-lipped" the end of the cigarette while smoking it. Slightly exaggerating the dry lipping made the person look tough, sort of like Humphrey Bogart's contentious and slightly contemptuous demeanor. Often a flake of tobacco would stick to the lip that would have to be plucked off and flicked away. This, too, was considered stylish among males, but not so much among females.
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Along these lines, one of the reasons for developing filtered cigarettes was so that women could purse out their lips instead of tucking them in as the cigarette was held between the lips. Women preferred to look pouty with full lips rather than thin-lipped tough. Another reason women adopted filtered cigarettes was due to their "sensitive throats". With smoking, women's voices became gravelly and deepened from soprano to alto, from alto to tenor and even to baritone. So partly for these reasons filtered cigarettes were considered effeminate until the 1950's issue of the first US Surgeon General's report about the ill-effects of tobacco smoking. Only then did tobacco companies begin generalized marketing of filters as a health feature of their products.
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It's not hard to imagine a time in the future when social anthropologists will be explaining in historical documentaries the phenomenon of smoking during the 20th century. Won't it be a hoot when people turn to one another after seeing such a documentary and say, "wow... I wonder how crazy a society has to be to have something as weird as THAT get so fully implanted in it!?" Based simply on the fact that the thread op posted the question about so much smoking, I'd say that day may be closer than we think. And that's a good thing.
If fits in nicely with the domestic melodrama variant noirs 8/10
This is a FANTASTIC noir. The plot, acting, cinematography, direction and musical scoring are fantastic. 8 out of 10.
12
« on: August 01, 2021, 07:35:38 PM »
The plot in this wasn't appealing to me. The standouts are the location filming, musical scoring, and the acting of Scott and Marvin. 6.5 out of 10.
13
« on: July 03, 2021, 07:08:45 AM »
Thanks. Sounds kinda complicated, so it's probably not going to happen, but I appreciate the info.
Found a trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GRDLX3a-IE
Also there's a 20-minute EPK done with Zoom interviews, but it contains spoilers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFOCJw_xMc
Thanks for the links. Its not really complicated. You can even bypass the Hulu portion and just sign up for HBO Max. They have a ad supported tier and a ad free tier at a higher cost. I don't like purchasing services, so I constantly look for free trails. I'm gonna check out the zoom link you posted. I wasn't aware of this film. It popped up in a google feed I have on my phone. I checked out some reviews and saw it was very promising.
14
« on: July 03, 2021, 06:37:00 AM »
Looks good. I don't have HBOMAX, though, so I guess I won't be seeing it for a while.
I play with the free trials. I was able to see it for $5.99 through a Hulu trail. You sign up for Hulu and add the 7 day free trail for HBO Max. You can cancel before the 7 days are up. Its a very good way of testing HBO Max. https://www.hulu.com/hbomax IF you go do it: 1. Sign up on your computer at the link above. Make sure the HBO Max offer is included. The fee should be $5.99 total. 2. download the Hulu app on the service you intend to view it. ( roku, fire stick, etc.) 3. sign into the Hulu app to make sure its working using the login credentials you used to sign up. 4. go to HBO MAX at this link. https://play.hbomax.com/page/urn:hbo:page:home click sign in. Then click sign in with a provider. Click on Hulu. Enter the Hulu login credentials you used with Hulu. 5. download the HBO MAX app on service you want to view it. (roku, firestick, etc.) you should be automatically logged into the app. If not, login with your Hulu credentials. 6. The film is located under " recent additions" or just search for it by title.
15
« on: July 03, 2021, 04:53:24 AM »
No Sudden Move (2021) This is a modern Film Noir gem. The director, Steven Soderbergh, put together with his writer Ed Solomon, what I consider is gonna become a modern day Noir Classic. The film features every classic noir element. Based in 1950's Detroit, you have the cars, gangsters, a MacGuffin, SUPERB layered plot, female fatale, on location filming, I mean everything. This is NOT a Neo Noir. The FANTASTIC casting includes Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro as the two main protaganists, but thats just for starters. The cinematography, sets, and musical scoring are very well done also. Going back to the plot. Its so layered that the film becomes VERY rewatchable. You will NOT get everything on first viewing. I resigned myself a quarter of the way in to just sit back and enjoy the film on the surface. Lastly, the film is loosely based on real events. One of the fallouts of the recent movie industry has become a good thing. Films that normally go straight to theatre, are now becoming available through streaming services. This has resulted in films like this one that can get past you if you are not paying attention. Its a must watch for Film Noir fans. 9 out of 10.     
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