A New New Thought for Random Thoughts About Movies

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Ghost, Dec 1, 2007.

  1. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    I quite liked simply seeing the same actors as both young and old versions of their characters. Seemed a waste of $$ in The Irishman
     
  2. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    I doubt race has a role in this. Simply, Scorcese has more clout than Spike and Scorcese's film stars 2 legends who may not be box office hits for a long time now; people still follow what their next project is.
     
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  3. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
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    A movie that has pops into my mind as things such as the Rachel Dolezal controversy and BLM protests call to mind the Black experience in the US in the mid-80s comedy "Soul Man." It centers on a rich white guy who wants to go to Harvard Law but his dad won't pay, and when he hears of a full ride scholarship available to a Black person in the greater LA area, he dons blackface (or takes drugs to darken his skin), wins the scholarship, and is off to Harvard where a comedy of errors develops betwixt keeping it from his parents, fending off sexual advances from a white girl, falling in love with a single (Black) mom, and going to school. Lessons are learned.

    It was awkward in 1986 when it came out. One of the things I wonder about is what (if anything) someone like James Earl Jones thinks of his role in the film.
     
  4. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    he thinks of so few roles in Hollywood $$$
     
  5. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
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    HBO Max to Release Longer, More Violent Cut of 'Casino Royale' - Bloody Disgusting
    https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/hbo-max-set-release-longer-violent-cut-casino-royale/
     
  6. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

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    Federal Judge Agrees To End Paramount Consent Decrees - CNBC
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-...-movie-theater-rules-governing-hollywood.html
    A federal judge on Friday granted the U.S. government’s request to immediately end the Paramount Decrees, a set of antitrust rules from the late 1940s and early 1950s that ended Hollywood’s monopoly on producing, distributing and exhibiting movies. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan said the Department of Justice “offered a reasonable and persuasive explanation” for why terminating the consent decrees would “serve the public interest in free and unfettered competition.”

    Last November, the Justice Department moved to end the decrees, enacted after the Supreme Court in 1948 said Hollywood’s biggest studios had illegally monopolized the movie distribution and theater industries. New rules made it illegal for studios to unreasonably limit how many theaters could show movies in specific geographic areas. They also banned “block booking,” which forced theaters to show bad movies as well as blockbusters as part of a package, and “circuit dealing,” the mass licensing of movies to theaters under common ownership rather than theater-by-theater.

    The Justice Department said the decrees were no longer needed after multiplexes, broadcast and cable TV, DVDs and the internet changed how people watch movies, and because studios no longer dominated movie theater ownership. Torres’ order includes a two-year “sunset” provision for ending the block booking and circuit dealing bans, to minimize market disruption.

    Three chains - AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Regal - control about half of the 41,000 U.S. movie screens.
     
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  7. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
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    As if there aren't enough reasons not to bother with the Oscars anymore...

    Oscars Announce New Inclusion Requirements For Best Picture Eligibility - L.A. Times
    https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...ademy-oscars-inclusion-standards-best-picture

    And the Oscar goes to ... inclusion. In the latest step in its ongoing effort to boost diversity both within its own ranks and across the film industry, on Tuesday the film academy announced new representation standards for films to be eligible to compete for best picture.

    Developed over the past few months by a special task force as part of the organization’s Academy Aperture 2025 initiative, the standards encompass both representation onscreen — in the types of stories being told and the actors involved — as well as behind the scenes in the makeup of the crew and in the inclusivity of the companies involved.

    To be eligible for best picture, a film must meet at least two standards across four categories: “Onscreen Representation, Themes and Narratives,” “Creative Leadership and Project Team,” “Industry Access and Opportunities” and “Audience Development.” Within each category are a variety of criteria involving the inclusion of people in underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and those with cognitive or physical disabilities. (Other Oscar categories will not be held to these same standards, but the contenders for best picture typically filter down to other feature-length categories.)

    The new standards will not go into effect until the 96th Oscars in 2024. But at a time of racial reckoning both for Hollywood and the nation as a whole, the academy believes the requirements provide a road map for how the industry can ensure that at least those films that compete for its highest honor reflect the diversity of the moviegoing audience and the wider world.

    Previously, the only standards to qualify for best picture involved a film’s running time (over 40 minutes) and specifics about how, where and when it’s screened in a public venue. Among the new standards, those concerning onscreen representation are likely to garner the most scrutiny. Indeed, some recent best picture nominees that featured almost exclusively white and male casts — including the World War I film “1917" and the gangster epic “The Irishman” — might have had difficulty meeting the new onscreen standards.

     
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  8. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    A pretty good critique by a writer whose bloggingheads.tv channel (Feminine Chaos) is one I check out every now and then.

    https://reason.com/2020/09/11/the-oscars-new-diversity-rules-wont-change-who-wins-best-picture/

    On its own, the conflation of diversity with quality raises interesting questions; under these standards, the massive Fast & Furious franchise would be Oscar eligible, but Martin Scorcese's entire library would struggle to make the cut. But in practice, it's not Hollywood's major players who will be scrambling under the new regulations. The higher your budget—and the bigger your back office—the easier it will be to meet these criteria. If they wanted to, big studios could completely ignore the "Representation" and "Creative Leadership" categories that dictate which stories are told by who, and continue to make prestige pictures by and about white men, knowing that they could simply check "Audience Development" and "Industry Access" boxes by filling marketing positions and internship programs with a diverse staff. Instead, the impact will be felt most by indie directors, who work on shoestring budgets, with limited resources and no guarantee of being picked up by a distributor with adequately diverse executive leadership. For them, it becomes a choice: sacrifice their shot at the industry's highest honor (with all the career-boosting benefits an Oscar nomination entails), or conform.

    Of course, that's assuming this even happens. But it doesn't sound like it will be anything but.. well, lending itself to satire...

    That's assuming the AMPAS rules actually go into effect, instead of imploding in a maelstrom of grasping identitarianism, opportunistic comings-out, internecine fights about which groups count as "underrepresented," and uncomfortable questions about how the Academy intends to enforce its own standards. (As the essayist Wesley Yang noted on Twitter, the current literature suggests that sets would undergo "spot checks" for the presence of marginalized cast and crew, an idea that would be amusing if it weren't so incredibly creepy.)
     
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  9. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
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    I know which movie will get me back to the theater for the first time in a couple of years:

     
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  10. Bazi

    Bazi Member+

    Jan 15, 2009
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    I'm going to watch it just because I thought the director's Bladerunner movie was pretty damn good. I knew BG didn't like it but I enjoyed it tremendously.
     
  11. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    In the 1980s, two comic mystery novels by Gregory MacDonald were made into movies starring Chevy Chase, Fletch and Fletch Lives. A third novel by the same author is being adapted right jow as I type (about five miles as tje seagull flies from where my wife and I are on vacation: Confess, Fletch. Chevy Chase is not playing the title character.

    John Hamm is.

    Hope they don't screw this up.
     
  12. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    Hollywood keeps trying to make Hamm into a movie star. I don't know about this. I would have enjoyed seeing Zach Braff play him back in the late 00s when he was rumored for the role.
     
  13. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    Hamm is quite good at comedy, as his bit parts in 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt showed. Though Braff probably would've been good, for sure.
     
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  14. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I think not liking it is overstating it a bit. I thought it was alright. Visually it had some very interesting and well-made sequences. Most of my issues with it were with the writing.
     
  15. LouisianaViking07/09

    Aug 15, 2009
    True that, he was hilarious in that stuff.
     
  16. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I'm the last person to have much sympathy for the Mouse company.
    This does seem like a hard one to judge.
    Arguably any theater exclusive release would have probably have to wait another six months at least, if the idea was to open it up to as many markets as possible.
    And the movie already had its release delayed several times.
     
  17. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
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    Speaking of Fletch, here's an article from a 2010 issue of Entertainment Weekly titled "The Curse of Fletch" about what had been (at the time) a 20+ year gap between films, and all of the starts and stops in trying to relaunch the franchise.

    The books are great by the way.
     
  18. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    The one that's being adapted now is my favorite (though there are about five I haven't read), with a great cliffhanger, as I recall.
     
  19. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    Apparently, Soylent Green is set in the year 2022.
     
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  20. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    This is primarily about being technically accomplished.
    De Palma's visual style was heavily influenced by the likes of Powell & Argento.
    But he mastered the style and did his own stuff with it. That's why you have epic sequences even in semi-classic De Palma's like the Untouchables.

    e.g. what is essentially a near Argento homage in the scene where Malone is killed:



    Who the ******** is even still doing this kind of stuff in modern day mainstream film-making?
     
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  21. Belgian guy

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    1490362535333216264 is not a valid tweet id


    This is such a western cliché at this point that even Seth MacFarlane had it in his western.
     
  22. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    If you love cinema I don't know how you can't love this man.

    It is only in recent years that I have began to appreciate that not every major director is a huge film nerd like Marty.
    I remember being shocked when Christopher Nolan admitted he had never seen Key Largo (until he watched it in preparation of an sit-down conversation he was supposed to have with Tarantino about The Hateful Eight).
    And I just read earlier this week that Rian Johnson admitted to never having seen Water Hill's The Driver.
    I always assumed that these major directors were also huge movie nerds who watched countless movies but apparently those dudes are relatively rare even among the upper crust of the profession.
    Scorsese is one. Tarantino another. And perhaps surprisingly, so is Edgard Wright.
     
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  23. Belgian guy

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    This is like Nic Cage's own JCVD!
     
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  24. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I have to say that this is something I have thought a lot watching MCU films.
    How relatively poor a lot of what is put upon the screen looks. How I very often times watch small indies that are better at the meat and potatoes film-making stuff like staging, blocking, lighting, ...
    I don't know what that is about. One possibility is that some of the film-makers just care less because the films are made by committee so it's far less their own "baby" than say an indie flick a film-maker has been walking around in his head with for a decade before he or she gets a chance to actually shoot it?
     
  25. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    On the same topic:

    1502753680919044098 is not a valid tweet id
     

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