Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Yeah, the best part of Prometheus were the first 5 minutes, that sequence was just beautifull... then Lindelof's bowels manage to loosen up and sqeeze out the rest of the script.
The Ultimate Movie Thread of Ultimate Destiny
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This ghoul has seen it all
Yeah, the best part of Prometheus were the first 5 minutes, that sequence was just beautifull... then Lindelof's bowels manage to loosen up and sqeeze out the rest of the script.
UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
I definitely enjoyed the part where the space ship climbs up through the clouds. That was cool.
To be fair, Akratus did specify he was talking about Scott as a visual director. I think all of Scott's movies look really good.
Oh, and you can't call yourself a Ridley Scott fan unless you've seen Legend:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/
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Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Well, that's why I mentioned Lindelof as the culprit behind the shittiness of the movie, Ridley did a great job visually with the shit he was handed.
I am curious how much say Ridley had to the script of Prometheus seeing as how the Script and Story for Alien was not made by him either, people tend to give Ridley a lot of credit for Alien, but they forget the other great minds behind it, Giger is usually another obvious candidate everyone remembers as far as the creature and set design goes, but the Story and many of its ideas came from David Giler, Walter Hill, Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Schusett, and sadly I dont remember this Italian guy anymore, but he was responsible for a lot of the mechanical aspects of the Alien suit, like how to make the movement of the inner jaw working correctly.
Many of the dialogues and scenes as we saw them on the screen have been the work of the writters and a lot of the set design like the Nostromo and human-made technology was based on the concept art of people like Jean Gerard and Ron Cobb. With saying this, the visuals in Prometheus are excelent. Very well done. Even if they feel a bit outlandish when you compare it directly to the technology we saw in Alien and Aliens (Alien 3 really hasn't shown much technology). A lot of the stuff you see in Alien was inspired by the idea what the future might look like from the 1970s and 80s. So the technology in Alien has a very distinctive style and I think Prometheus is not completely blending in here. But I can forgive the movie that, I mean it is really nitpicking.
Ridley is a good director, a great one, who knows how to tell a story, and he has made a lot of great movies in the past. But I think we tend way to often to focus our eyes on the director, regardless if the movie is good or bad. But I guess, there is only so much you can do if the script you get is shit - and I think Prometheus is really shit in that part and if the studio wants to see that script done, then yeah, not a fun job if you work on a project as director where you dont really like the script. I mean hey, Alien 3 was almost canceled because the script was so bad ... someone had this idea to create a wooden planet with monks on it. Some kind of artificial planet. Made of wood. And they had like 20 scripts flying around when they changed the director in mid production, I think they simply fired him or something cant remember anymore, that was the point where Fincher came to the movie, and he tried his best to make a great movie. Alien 3 was a real horror, not only on in the cinema, but behind the camera as well. Anyway, I still like the movie for the great acting and it tried to tell a different story compared to the previous movies and you have to simply accept the incredible work that Fincher did with all the problems infront of him, the studio constantly giving him head aches and directing a movie with an unfinished script while joining the whole thing in mid production. Half of the sets for the wooden-planet idea have been already done when they decided to give Fincher the project or something.
Many of the dialogues and scenes as we saw them on the screen have been the work of the writters and a lot of the set design like the Nostromo and human-made technology was based on the concept art of people like Jean Gerard and Ron Cobb. With saying this, the visuals in Prometheus are excelent. Very well done. Even if they feel a bit outlandish when you compare it directly to the technology we saw in Alien and Aliens (Alien 3 really hasn't shown much technology). A lot of the stuff you see in Alien was inspired by the idea what the future might look like from the 1970s and 80s. So the technology in Alien has a very distinctive style and I think Prometheus is not completely blending in here. But I can forgive the movie that, I mean it is really nitpicking.
Ridley is a good director, a great one, who knows how to tell a story, and he has made a lot of great movies in the past. But I think we tend way to often to focus our eyes on the director, regardless if the movie is good or bad. But I guess, there is only so much you can do if the script you get is shit - and I think Prometheus is really shit in that part and if the studio wants to see that script done, then yeah, not a fun job if you work on a project as director where you dont really like the script. I mean hey, Alien 3 was almost canceled because the script was so bad ... someone had this idea to create a wooden planet with monks on it. Some kind of artificial planet. Made of wood. And they had like 20 scripts flying around when they changed the director in mid production, I think they simply fired him or something cant remember anymore, that was the point where Fincher came to the movie, and he tried his best to make a great movie. Alien 3 was a real horror, not only on in the cinema, but behind the camera as well. Anyway, I still like the movie for the great acting and it tried to tell a different story compared to the previous movies and you have to simply accept the incredible work that Fincher did with all the problems infront of him, the studio constantly giving him head aches and directing a movie with an unfinished script while joining the whole thing in mid production. Half of the sets for the wooden-planet idea have been already done when they decided to give Fincher the project or something.
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Akratus
Bleep bloop.
I'm watching the Director's Cut (3 hours!) of Das Boot right now. Any other movies you guys would recommend, that are (at least partially) from the german pespective? I'm planning on ending this string of german war movies on Der Untergang (aka downfall)
I am also planning on watching 'The Big Red One' with mark hamill. Quite an interesting war movie I'd never heard about.
I am also planning on watching 'The Big Red One' with mark hamill. Quite an interesting war movie I'd never heard about.
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UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
It's been a few years since I saw that one, but as I recall it's a mixed bag. Some good and some bad.
I think my favorite war movie is Kelly's Heroes with Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, and Don Rickles, among others.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065938/
Hmmm. Those are the ones that I know.
Stalingrad
Swing kids
The Bridge (Ger: Die Brücke) the old and new film, both are good
As far as my feet will carry me (Ger: So weit die Füße tragen)
Cross of Iron (Ger: Steiner, Das eiserne Kreuz)
Before the Fall (Ger: Napola für den Führer)
Europa Europa (Ger: Hitlerjunge Salomon)
The tin drum (Ger: Die Blechtrommel)
All quiet on the western front (Ger: Im Westen nichts neues) - This is actually about WW1
some of them might be hard to get though, I am not even sure if you can get all of them in english.
I remember watching "All Quiet On The Western Front" in high school, after we read the novel. Good stuff, that. One of the first books the Third Reich ever burned.
They also made us watch Swing Kids about a thousand times. Can't say I remember it very fondly, but it's sincere in its schmaltz if nothing else, and you can't really argue with a message like "Nazis are bad."
They also made us watch Swing Kids about a thousand times. Can't say I remember it very fondly, but it's sincere in its schmaltz if nothing else, and you can't really argue with a message like "Nazis are bad."
sure you can, because this reminds me to another great movie from a German perspective:
City of War The Story of John Rabe, or the so called "good Nazi" and "German Buddha". I mean people forget very often that beeing a Nazi back then hadn't to mean that you believed in it.
It focuses upon the experiences of John Rabe, a German businessman who used his Nazi Party membership to create a protective International Safety Zone in Nanking, China, helping to save over 200,000 Chinese from the Nanking Massacre in late 1937 and early 1938.
City of War The Story of John Rabe, or the so called "good Nazi" and "German Buddha". I mean people forget very often that beeing a Nazi back then hadn't to mean that you believed in it.
It focuses upon the experiences of John Rabe, a German businessman who used his Nazi Party membership to create a protective International Safety Zone in Nanking, China, helping to save over 200,000 Chinese from the Nanking Massacre in late 1937 and early 1938.
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Byzantine
Sink me in the ocean.
It doesn't profit certain agendas to have the likes of John Rabe running about. Portraying them all as psychopathic monstrosities from beyond the grave sells better (and before someone throws a tantrum, no, I'm not condoning the Holocaust by saying that).
True as it may be, it does baffle me that someone's always gotta throw that qual in there. "Nazis were bad" equates to "all Nazis were bad" in the same way that "cigarettes cause cancer" equates to "every cigarette will give you cancer," which is to say not at all.
Not only that, it is also a historical thing, think about it, it is 1945, right after WW2, millions of dead people, the concentration camps and who knows what else. People tried to find a reason for it and blaming the Nazis was the best they could do, I mean it had its reasons, the Nazis have been pigs, there is no question about that, but in this situation no one really bothered to actually look at it from a historical point of view, a few did, some scientists, historians, psychologists etc which lead to a lot of research like the milgram experiment. A few really wanted to find out how all of this could happen. But the popular view was, the Nazis have been the pure and absolute evil with Hitler as their master. It was a lot easier to deal with it all when you have a clear image, and even if the Germans love to complain about it, they also had some benefit from it, I mean hey, sure, it was all wrong and that, but Hitler did it, he was Evil, he mislead the German nation. This explains everything and it can be very convenient, it definitely was for Austria because they saw themself rather in the role of the victim, despite the fact that austria was pretty active in WW2. Of course the reality is that Germany was neither something Special nor that Hitler was some kind of demon possed by the idea to corrupt humanity, he was a human afterall. The reality is considering the hstorical context, that a lot of nations had some hate against jews, France, Austria, Britain, Russia even the US, and WW2 is sometimes described as a continuation from WW1. The jews have been the moslems of the 1920s for most of the world, they would always blame them for everything, regardless if it made sense or not. People often forget that Ford one of the american "heroes" of that time was not very fond of jews. Just google "the International Jew" if you want to read more about it. Antisemitism was sadly very common during the 1920s and 30s. Could the hollocaust also happen in France as well? Or even the US? I have no clue. But one thing is clear, many nations had to deal with their own dirty laundry after WW2, those that supported the Germans, not because of their love for them, but because they hated jews.
But WW2 was a very extreme and dramatic event, so people found a lot of bliss in blaming the Nazis, even though this was all only the tip of the ice-berg. But in such a situation the idea of people like Schindler or Rabbe simply didnt fitt, or a view where the German soldier was a human beeing suffering on the frontline like the Americans, Brits or Russians. Today WW2 is history, so it is much easier for historians to view on it from an unbiased perspective, it isnt anymore about winners and loosers and not even so much about nationality. Soon enough it will be as distant like WW1.
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UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
I was thinking about Tarantino's movies again yesterday, and I didn't remember anyone mentioning True Romance from 1993. I don't think your Tarantino experience can be complete without seeing that one. Even though he didn't direct it, he wrote the script, and it's got all the recognizable characteristics of a Tarantino flick.
Byzantine
Sink me in the ocean.
@valcik, I'm afraid I'm having a hard time looking for a copy of La Jetée with English subtitles. I'll keep trying to sniff out one, but from what I've seen of the untranslated version, in addition to what I've read about the narrative, it looks and sounds amazing. Thank you for prescribing it to me! As for On The Beach... I can't find it anywhere! Since it has Gregory Peck in it, I already suspect it's a good film, all the same, and the plot sounds promising. I'll try to find a copy of it on Amazon, since I can't find the whole feature on YouTube or other video sites. In the meantime, I would strongly recommend The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) with Henry Fonda, if anyone's interested. It's an incredibly moving film that may or may not shake up the little "Occupy Wall Street" hippie in you.
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I saw La Jetée, Byzantine, and take it from me that you're not missing anything. It's not even a movie. It's a series of artsy fartsy stills with a voice-over and - thank Gawd for that - it only lasts for a half hour or so. Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys was influenced by this 'photomontage' ('cause that's all it is) and is way better.
If you nevertheless want to check it out for yourself, there's an English version of La Jetée on vimeo.
If you nevertheless want to check it out for yourself, there's an English version of La Jetée on vimeo.
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maximaz
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Great flick. Can definitely tell the dialog was written by QT. Oldman was freaking excellent as well.
Akratus
Bleep bloop.
In the middle of Stalingrad (1993) and "Unsere Vater, Unsere Mutter" right now. Also watched Napola. It's great to watch movies that are interconnected like this.
But Stalingrad is really weird. I've never seen a movie like this. That is, one that has good qualities yet also some big mistakes in editing. The acting is good, the story is good overal, writing is acceptable. But then the soldiers arrive in Stalingrad and there's very little to establish the location. We go head first into urban combat. Okay, I can deal with that. And then there's a scene where they push a cart full of apparant explosives towards the enemy. Apparantly it exploded and killed them. Apparantly, because I couldn't see it. There was fire and explosions, but I couldn't see where it came from. And then there's other scenery changes without ANY establishing shots. They should've fired that editor and redone the whole thing. Or maybe the man who did the storyboarding fucked up. Someone fucked up.
Everyone should see the scene in the supplies storage though, that's the kind of scene you only see in non-english movies.
But Stalingrad is really weird. I've never seen a movie like this. That is, one that has good qualities yet also some big mistakes in editing. The acting is good, the story is good overal, writing is acceptable. But then the soldiers arrive in Stalingrad and there's very little to establish the location. We go head first into urban combat. Okay, I can deal with that. And then there's a scene where they push a cart full of apparant explosives towards the enemy. Apparantly it exploded and killed them. Apparantly, because I couldn't see it. There was fire and explosions, but I couldn't see where it came from. And then there's other scenery changes without ANY establishing shots. They should've fired that editor and redone the whole thing. Or maybe the man who did the storyboarding fucked up. Someone fucked up.
Everyone should see the scene in the supplies storage though, that's the kind of scene you only see in non-english movies.
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Yesterday evening, I watched Cloud Atlas. Odd movie. Six interwoven stories spanning several time periods. Great use of good ol' fashioned make-up (most actors play several different roles). The sci-fi parts aren't exactly convincing and, to me at least, aren't on par with the rest of the movie, but they're not downright bad or boring, just a little far-fetched. I've seen "similar" movies that were and worked a lot better, Mr. Nobody comes to mind (a Belgian movie in English that each and everyone of you should see right now, get to it, people). Cloud Atlas was made by the guys (well, man and transgender) who made the Matrix movies and it lasts for almost three hours.
Akratus
Bleep bloop.
Yeah I saw both of those. Cloud Atlas is worth a watch even just for it's great style and structure. I'm less hopeful about that new flick by them, Jupiter Ascending. Looks like some simple adolescent action fantasy, though I haven't really looked into it. Mr. Nobody also, is a unique film, and definitely worth a watch. I still don't know if I really loved it though.
I have the feeling that the Matrix trilogy will always stay their best work, and from those 3 movies pretty much the first one is the true master-piece, not that Matrix 2 and 3 are bad, but they do kinda ... fall short compared to the first movie.
Also, I really liked Butterfly effect. Maybe not the best movie, but still very entertaining. You just have to pretend that Butterfly effect 2 and 3 don't exist, because they are absolute crap.
Also, I really liked Butterfly effect. Maybe not the best movie, but still very entertaining. You just have to pretend that Butterfly effect 2 and 3 don't exist, because they are absolute crap.
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