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Valeyard

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After feeling fucking gross after The House That Jack Built, I started Bully.

I'm just ten minutes in and it's everything I remembered. Still unintentionally funny and Larry Clark is still a fucking scumbag. Happy Sunday.
 

Epic Springs

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You made me want to revisit Bully (PS I hate you) and found this afterwards. I'm really amazed this dude didn't get #MeTooed to the highest degree.
 

Valeyard

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Him talking about Bijou Philips is really creepy. Fucking hate this guy.
 

Valeyard

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Also, Q: The Winged Serpent is better than it has any right being. But it's David Carradine, Richard Rountree, and Michael Moriaty vs monster so it isn't like it could be bad. Plays into a great deal of my sensibilities as a fan of film.
 

Valeyard

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So since I've been rewatching a variety of stuff when I have time off, figured I'd just use this thread sometimes instead of clogging up others.

Having gone through some Coen brothers I haven't seen in years (Fargo, Lebowski, O Brother, and No Country For Old Men) I really appreciate them now. It's taken a lot of life between the first time I've seen some of these to now but man they're so good. I was surprised most at how much I dug O Brother Where Art Thou, really, since I didn't really have an opinion of it at the time beyond the soundtrack being everywhere.

Big Lebowski has just gotten better over time. Everyone looks like they're having so much fun. Julianne Moore is kind of a quiet MVP based on how people talk about the movie; Bridges and Goodman are awesome, sure, but she makes every second she's there matter and that Katherine Hepburn accent kills me. I wish this was a series of novels, same way I do with Fargo.

No Country For Old Men is still the best adaptation I have ever seen. I read the book and was scared when it came out because most adaptations are so much less, by and large, but everything is down exactly. Never thought I'd be so happy to see something as small as someone shaking the dirt off their boots exactly how it was written. I like Tommy Lee Jones' performance more now, maybe it's a life experience thing.
 

Incandenza

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I mean yeah, it has some really disturbing/horrifying bits but it's also often genuinely funny
 

Valeyard

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I can see that. It doesn't feel intentional, though. Last 20 minutes or so is hilarious but I can't tell if it's meant to be, like the talking fox in Antichrist.

I've got a Von Trier fascination.
 

Valeyard

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Eyes Wide Shut is a Christmas movie. Truly a comedy as well, really.
 

Valeyard

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How do you rank Reservoir Dogs out of the Tarantino movies?
 

Incandenza

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Somewhere around the bottom with The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained

I don't think the man has made a *bad* movie, but after his previous high point Inglorious Basterds things were getting dicey until his career-best OUATIH.
 

Valeyard

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I like Reservoir Dogs a lot, but I very much agree. Individual performances are fantastic, though. Frankly watching it again made me hope somewhere a ballsy theatre troupe has tried to make a stage version.
 

Valeyard

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Fast Times At Ridgemont High is one of my all time favorite movies. Cast is incredible, soundtrack is amazing, and has no slow spots. I get pangs of jealousy as my high school experience was nothing like that, not even a mall, but that probably happens to everyone when it comes to certain teen movies. But it's still the only movie I can tolerate Sean Penn in and someday I'll read the book.

I miss Phoebe Cates.
 

Valeyard

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When I had to downsize last year, I didn't keep much in the way of DVDs/Blu Rays because I simply did not have enough room. One of the ones I kept though was my Ingmar Bergman box set because he's probably in my top three favorite directors. That said watching The Seventh Seal at three in the morning doesn't help any extistential crises one might have.
 

Valeyard

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Just the last couple nights:

--Despite it being spoiled for me, I loved Clerks 3. I just wasn't ready and am still not sure what to do with myself mentally. Inner child vs outer adult shit, it's complicated.

--Chasing Amy has held up so much better than I ever expected to the point where it's possibly the most progressive movie of its time in how it portrays sexuality, gender, and mental health. Fight me. I still have tons of the same problems I always have but I didn't expect it to be powerful on that level.

--The initial blowup in the hotel room in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is some of the best acted and best edited work one could ever ask for.

--Tarkovsky's Stalker is what's up and I feel very bad I only saw this now because it's a lot of things I would've really dug years ago.
 

Laz

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--Chasing Amy has held up so much better than I ever expected to the point where it's possibly the most progressive movie of its time in how it portrays sexuality, gender, and mental health. Fight me. I still have tons of the same problems I always have but I didn't expect it to be powerful on that level.
Kinda funny that, for all the shit Smith got over the years ("a lesbian turned straight?!"), the movie explores bi/pan/polysexuality better than you'd think. Smith just didn't know it yet.
 

Epic Springs

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Chasing Amy was my favorite KS movie for a long, long time but I think Dogma edges it out upon rewatching.

Fun fact: Apparently Harvey Weinstein owns the rights to Dogma which is why it's not streaming anywhere and why it's hard to obtain a copy.

I enjoyed Clerks 3 but it's definitely the most "for fans" movie ever.
 

Valeyard

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Dogma's on Youtube and I'll get to it sooner than later, I'm sure. That I don't think I've seen since I was maybe 16.

Chasing Amy is legit more than ever, but man. If anything how good it is now puts more holes in Affleck's performance, which was already the weakest part. The character had issues at the time but looking at the scope of what the movie is now vs then, but now it's just such a maturity difference that it feels like he was from a way earlier draft of a script. Joey Lauren Adams should've blown up, man. I can't say it's my favorite but it's definitely his best script.

--Joey Lauren Adams should've been Laura in High Fidelity, I realize now. I love High Fidelity, and the novel is one of my personal favorites, but the casting in the movie is atrocious for no reason. The character has shit to do and needs facial expressions as well as a conversational knowledge of the English language.

--Stand By Me is one of my favorite movies of all time. First rated R movie I ever saw. Maybe top two Stephen King adaptations. It always gets me, every time, at the same things. That said I just don't like Wil Wheaton and sometimes it becomes distracting how Wil Wheaton he is, even though he wasn't Wil Wheaton yet. Also Bradley Gregg is in this and it was driving me crazy where I'd seen him, given that he looks like a fake Astin, but I was very happy to remember he was the dude who gets puppeted by his veins in Dream Warriors. Good.

--I got some big issues with Forrest Gump that get bigger more and more, but when it hits it knocks it out of the park. Some parts are fucking amazing, many others are atrocious, and it's hard to figure out the middle ground for me because of it. I also think it has aged horribly on a production level, which does not help no matter how much of a Zemeckis simp I find myself. I always go back to when I was in my teens and every year bought those giant Leonard Maltin guides and loving that he rated Forrest Gump **1/2 but gave Evil Dead 2 ***. There's absolute merit for that.
 

strummer

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Not a big Smith fan but I do like Chasing Amy to a degree. I would agree Affleck just isn't there yet as an actor. He's just not that good at reciting Smith's dialogue. Damon, Lee and Adams, etc. seem much more natural in that "universe". He's better in Dogma.

I can't stand Jason Mewes

Same on Wheaton. Honestly he was one of my idols as a kid but now just seems like such a smarmy douche. He's a tough guy to like but Stand By Me is still one of favorites ever and likely always will be.
 

Epic Springs

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I third the SBM love. One of the first R rated flicks I remember watching on VHS.
 

Valeyard

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My older brother got me to watch it when I was like 9 and had no idea what the significance of anything really was, but I wound up growing into it. One of the many reasons why the brother shit hits different when I watch it. But I had no business watching it at 9, just based on the heaviness rather than actual content, if that makes any sense.
 

Epic Springs

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Definitely remember watching the lardass scene as a kid and not knowing where to place it as an adult. It wasn't until I rewatched the movie in my 20s that i was able to connect the dots.
 
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HarleyQuinn

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--I got some big issues with Forrest Gump that get bigger more and more, but when it hits it knocks it out of the park. Some parts are fucking amazing, many others are atrocious, and it's hard to figure out the middle ground for me because of it. I also think it has aged horribly on a production level, which does not help no matter how much of a Zemeckis simp I find myself. I always go back to when I was in my teens and every year bought those giant Leonard Maltin guides and loving that he rated Forrest Gump **1/2 but gave Evil Dead 2 ***. There's absolute merit for that.
Right there with you on Forrest Gump... Some stuff holds up well and is great but a lot of it either sucks or isn't as much of a high point as I thought it was. I feel like every re-watch actually makes it worse in my eyes.
 

Valeyard

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Hanks is great a lot of the time and has some incredible moments. Jenny is too terrible a person to get behind so I hope Robin Wright did it on purpose. Sally Field is great. Sinise is fine but it isn't like he was the only person who could play that part. Bubba is fine but seeing that he played Chicago Wind in Black Dynamite I can definitely say Bubba is my least favorite performance of his.

The CGI is so iffy. I think some looks great but literally all the times they insert him into old footage it looks terrible. Which leads me to what has always been my real problem: it gets too cute and it ruins all immersion. I can suspend my disbelief at stuff like Vietnam or pingpong or Bubba Gump, but fuck all this "Imagine" Watergate slogan/t-shirt inspiration trash. It completely ruins everything. It just all doesn't work like they think it will, which makes you think of the movie the opposite way they want you to.

Forrest Gump, Big Fish, and The Jerk are totally an informal trilogy though.
 

King Kamala

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I wonder how history changes if Dave Chappelle is cast as Bubba. Does he still become a generational stand up if THAT is his breakout role? I genuinely do not know.
 

Valeyard

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Probably hinders him since no matter what he'd have been very miscast.
 

King Kamala

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Dave Chappelle doing a toothless best buddy role in You've Got Mail is the '90s/'00s stand up equivalent of Jimi Hendrix opening up for the Monkees.
 
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