BP Movie Journal 9/1/16
Tyler and David discuss the movies and TV shows they’ve been watching, including:
Movies
ABORTION: STORIES WOMEN TELL
SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU
BEN-HUR
KICKS
DAWN OF THE DEAD
KUBO AND THE TWO SRINGS
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS
THE WITCH
COME WHAT MAY
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
COMPLETE UNKNOWN
NERUDA
THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF
BLOOD FATHER
DON’T BREATHE
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
WEREWOLF OF LONDON
THE TENTH MAN
THE NUTTY PROFESSOR
SAUSAGE PARTY
THE LADIES MAN
FIRE AT SEA
FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS
A TASTE OF HONEY
IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY
HELL OR HIGH WATER
TV
THE NIGHT OF
SOUTH PARK
After asking if Tyler was familiar with the film maker, Pablo Larraín, I’m surprised David didn’t ask him if he was familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda.
There’s only one Pablo I’m interested in, and that’s Escobar.
My reasons are not important.
-Tyler
I enjoyed Sausage Party. Its wasn’t bright but I had fun with it. I’ll take this over most films that are supposed to be comedy.
Also, I there are not a lot a movies focused on the atheist perspective. I may get some disagreement here but most movies are simply neutral. Also most movies that feature skeptics show them to be wrong or foolish. Most skeptics I see in fiction are shown as missing something and either end up living unhappily or embrace some form of belief.
The ’78 Body Snatchers is pretty brilliant. Nimoy is used perfectly, for instance. His seeming coldness during the big expository conversation can be ruled out because we know him as Spock, and what if that’s just how Nimoy is? It’s Cartwright’s best work too.
David is right about the leads coming into the story after the start of the invasion. When Brooke Adams steps out into the city at the opening of the film we see a garbage truck with the grey, dry insulation stuff, and we hear one of those screams way in the background, just as city noise. Ben Burtt placed that and some sirens in right away, when the film has just focused us on the invasion with the opening, then they mostly stay out of the sound mix until we see Kevin McCarthy raving about it, and then in the final third when the invasion is a proper invasion. It’s psychological prep. Also we have a school teacher telling her kids to go pick flowers and looking at Brooke Adams coolly, and Robert Duvall on that swing, dressed as a priest (he was shooting True Confessions) just staring at her. It’s blended in wonderfully, easily dismissible as city setting stuff.
Later, when Sutherland is trying to gather his forces during the day, clearly the crew just followed him down busy streets, letting people who were not extras glance at both him and right at the camera, the way one would at anything odd in one’s walking path. Those glances are part of the unsettling quality of that sequence. It made normal stuff, like walking down a city street, feel odd for a while, since that was the imagery connected with the suspense of the movie. Everything in plain sight felt suspect.