In this journal, Tyler and David discuss the various movies and TV shows they’ve been watching, including:
RED HOLLYWOOD WELCOME TO ME CINDERELLA TRUE STORY JULIET OF THE SPIRITS GUN CRAZY MONKEY KINGDOM THE LAST MAN ON EARTH SILICON VALLEY DAREDEVIL GOTHAM SURVIVOR COMMUNITY THE AMAZING RACE
I’ll echo Tyler’s thoughts on Daredevil when it comes to the blindness thing. It’s like the writers just forgot, even though they did a great job on most everything else. Ironically, the far inferior 2003 film did make a decent attempt to convey Matt Murdock’s way of “seeing” the world, from little things like having to fold his money in certain ways to hitting his billy club against a metal bar to create sound in the room. Still the show is very good in most other ways, so I don’t get too bent out of shape about its problems.
Also Cinderella is currently my favorite movie of the year. So wonderful. Makes me hate that my Movie Pass (thank you, Tyler) can only work on a film once. Because I would probably go see it at least three times.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa is amazing. Rosa is widely considered to be the second best “duck” artist after the legendary Carl Barks. Barks’ stories were a huge influence on Indiana Jones and share the pulp, movie serial, action adventure feel. Rosa has a huge reverence for Barks and he basically takes the classic Barks stories and expands upon them. Rosa does this in a couple ways. He retells the stories through flashback or alternative view points. He adds a ton of depth to the characters including motivations or reflections. You don’t need to have read Barks before. I hadn’t and I loved the hell out of the book. So much so that after reading it and the companion book about 7 years ago, I’ve since been collecting the Complete works of Rosa and Barks as they’re published by Fantagraphics Books ( which if you haven’t heard of them, they are more or less the equivalent of Criterion in the art comics scene).
This is kind of a random comment, but do you guys ever consider putting the titles of the movie in the headline of your movie reviews. Looking on my phone right now, I see “Hogwash” and “Monkey Trouble”. I assume from past experience that those are recent movie reviews, but I have no idea what movies. It makes it rather difficult if I want to know what you guys think of a specific movie, and don’t want to just start clicking randomly.
I’ve been meaning to play along with these movie journals for awhile and now that the Wisconsin Film Festival has wrapped up, now seems like a good time to start. For now, I won’t write any blurbs about the films I saw since I saw so many over the past week but in the future I’ll try to add some comments to go along with my ratings (sorry in advance for the huge post).
-Results (2015) 6/10
-The End of the Tour (2015) 7/10
-Güeros (2014) 5/10
-Free Fall (2014) 4/10
-Bloomin Mud Shuffle (2015) 5/10
-Western (2015) 8/10
-The Keeping Room (2014) 7/10
-Girlhood (2014) 8/10
-White God (2014) 8/10
-Roar (1981) 8/10
-Tu Dors Nicole (2014) 7/10
-A Hard Day (2014) 7/10
-The Astrologer (1975) 7/10
-Almost There (2014) 5/10
-The Russian Woodpecker (2015) 7/10
-In Order of Disappearance (2014) 6/10
-A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) 6/10
-Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten (2014) 4/10
-Gemma Bovary (2014) 7/10
-The Look of Silence (2014) 9/10
-Beloved Sisters (2014) 6/10
-Manglehorn (2014) 7/10
-Polyester (in Odorama) (1981) 6/10
It really is something that needs to be seen to be believed. Friend of the show Pay Healy was at the festival to introduce the film which was cool (I also saw him at a few other screenings throughout the week). My mind keeps coming back to some of the mind boggling decisions director/actor/megalomaniac Craig Denney made in the film; I won’t spoil any of it for you. It genuinely makes me sad that I may never get another chance to see it again since a DVD/Blu Ray release seems impossible.
I haven’t read the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, but I got my hands on it’s sequel story: the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion. Even that is completely worth checking out.
Oh and I haven’t seen Daredevil yet (I’m in China right now, so no access to Netflix) but some of my favourite Daredevil moments take advantage of the blindness to show how it may seem like it’s not a handicap in fighting evil, it can be. The most common way (as a kryptonite-like weakness) is to show his sensitive senses get overloaded but two of my favourite moment include Daredevil fighting a particularly tough villain named Ikari who Daredevil slowly realizes has all of his abilities. Daredevil then feels that while this is a problem, at least they are on even ground. Unfortunately, when Daredevil, in a sporting goods store, reaches for a baseball bat, his opponent simply says “try the red one”, revealing he has one big advantage over him.
Another one is during a time when a government agent in need of money reveals Daredevil’s identity to a newspaper, Matt Murdock finds himself under a siege of paparazzi and scrutiny (and if it is definitively proven, then Matt Murdock will have committed countless crimes in court, particularly when Spider-Man has taken the stand disguised as Daredevil). But he refuses to stop being Daredevil despite Foggy’s objections. at one point, during a very public street fight, he knocks a villain through a window of a cafe. When coming to take him away, one bystander asks “Hey Matt, what color’s my shirt?” Obviously, Daredevil says nothing (when your the kind of crime fighter who tries to give off a threatening air, you aren’t always expected to say a thing) but all the same, there’s a moment of hesitance from Daredevil, which speaks volumes.
I also saw True Story this week. I enjoyed the performances of the two leads. The pacing was off and the themes were not explored as well as they should have been but, for me at least, I thought that Hill and Franco had enough chemistry to keep me entertained. i would see another film by this director if given a chance to see if he grows as a filmmaker.
Also you should check out the south african movie Dust Devil starring a young Robert Burke directed by Richard Stanley.
I’ll echo Tyler’s thoughts on Daredevil when it comes to the blindness thing. It’s like the writers just forgot, even though they did a great job on most everything else. Ironically, the far inferior 2003 film did make a decent attempt to convey Matt Murdock’s way of “seeing” the world, from little things like having to fold his money in certain ways to hitting his billy club against a metal bar to create sound in the room. Still the show is very good in most other ways, so I don’t get too bent out of shape about its problems.
Also Cinderella is currently my favorite movie of the year. So wonderful. Makes me hate that my Movie Pass (thank you, Tyler) can only work on a film once. Because I would probably go see it at least three times.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa is amazing. Rosa is widely considered to be the second best “duck” artist after the legendary Carl Barks. Barks’ stories were a huge influence on Indiana Jones and share the pulp, movie serial, action adventure feel. Rosa has a huge reverence for Barks and he basically takes the classic Barks stories and expands upon them. Rosa does this in a couple ways. He retells the stories through flashback or alternative view points. He adds a ton of depth to the characters including motivations or reflections. You don’t need to have read Barks before. I hadn’t and I loved the hell out of the book. So much so that after reading it and the companion book about 7 years ago, I’ve since been collecting the Complete works of Rosa and Barks as they’re published by Fantagraphics Books ( which if you haven’t heard of them, they are more or less the equivalent of Criterion in the art comics scene).
I definitely need to check this book out.
– David
I was waiting the WHOLE discussion of Monkey Kingdom for “Baboons are dangerous” so I’m glad it happened.
This is kind of a random comment, but do you guys ever consider putting the titles of the movie in the headline of your movie reviews. Looking on my phone right now, I see “Hogwash” and “Monkey Trouble”. I assume from past experience that those are recent movie reviews, but I have no idea what movies. It makes it rather difficult if I want to know what you guys think of a specific movie, and don’t want to just start clicking randomly.
I’ve been meaning to play along with these movie journals for awhile and now that the Wisconsin Film Festival has wrapped up, now seems like a good time to start. For now, I won’t write any blurbs about the films I saw since I saw so many over the past week but in the future I’ll try to add some comments to go along with my ratings (sorry in advance for the huge post).
-Results (2015) 6/10
-The End of the Tour (2015) 7/10
-Güeros (2014) 5/10
-Free Fall (2014) 4/10
-Bloomin Mud Shuffle (2015) 5/10
-Western (2015) 8/10
-The Keeping Room (2014) 7/10
-Girlhood (2014) 8/10
-White God (2014) 8/10
-Roar (1981) 8/10
-Tu Dors Nicole (2014) 7/10
-A Hard Day (2014) 7/10
-The Astrologer (1975) 7/10
-Almost There (2014) 5/10
-The Russian Woodpecker (2015) 7/10
-In Order of Disappearance (2014) 6/10
-A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) 6/10
-Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten (2014) 4/10
-Gemma Bovary (2014) 7/10
-The Look of Silence (2014) 9/10
-Beloved Sisters (2014) 6/10
-Manglehorn (2014) 7/10
-Polyester (in Odorama) (1981) 6/10
Awesome! I really need to check out The Astrologer.
– David
It really is something that needs to be seen to be believed. Friend of the show Pay Healy was at the festival to introduce the film which was cool (I also saw him at a few other screenings throughout the week). My mind keeps coming back to some of the mind boggling decisions director/actor/megalomaniac Craig Denney made in the film; I won’t spoil any of it for you. It genuinely makes me sad that I may never get another chance to see it again since a DVD/Blu Ray release seems impossible.
I haven’t read the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, but I got my hands on it’s sequel story: the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion. Even that is completely worth checking out.
Oh and I haven’t seen Daredevil yet (I’m in China right now, so no access to Netflix) but some of my favourite Daredevil moments take advantage of the blindness to show how it may seem like it’s not a handicap in fighting evil, it can be. The most common way (as a kryptonite-like weakness) is to show his sensitive senses get overloaded but two of my favourite moment include Daredevil fighting a particularly tough villain named Ikari who Daredevil slowly realizes has all of his abilities. Daredevil then feels that while this is a problem, at least they are on even ground. Unfortunately, when Daredevil, in a sporting goods store, reaches for a baseball bat, his opponent simply says “try the red one”, revealing he has one big advantage over him.
Another one is during a time when a government agent in need of money reveals Daredevil’s identity to a newspaper, Matt Murdock finds himself under a siege of paparazzi and scrutiny (and if it is definitively proven, then Matt Murdock will have committed countless crimes in court, particularly when Spider-Man has taken the stand disguised as Daredevil). But he refuses to stop being Daredevil despite Foggy’s objections. at one point, during a very public street fight, he knocks a villain through a window of a cafe. When coming to take him away, one bystander asks “Hey Matt, what color’s my shirt?” Obviously, Daredevil says nothing (when your the kind of crime fighter who tries to give off a threatening air, you aren’t always expected to say a thing) but all the same, there’s a moment of hesitance from Daredevil, which speaks volumes.
I also saw True Story this week. I enjoyed the performances of the two leads. The pacing was off and the themes were not explored as well as they should have been but, for me at least, I thought that Hill and Franco had enough chemistry to keep me entertained. i would see another film by this director if given a chance to see if he grows as a filmmaker.
Also you should check out the south african movie Dust Devil starring a young Robert Burke directed by Richard Stanley.