What Movies Are You Watching Lately

[Usonian]

Interesting comment, if only because I don't think Thin Red Line was realistic per se...it's almost aggressively, hyper transcendental in it's portrayal of the ordinary. Having seen snippets and having read about his later movies, Thin Red Line is definitely a step towards the style Malick is known for now, with a combination of sweeping vistas but also tracking shots, intimate close-ups, and aggressive perspective. That combined with majestic, soaring scores is very powerful. Days of Heaven basically deploys the ultimate cheat code of shooting an entire movie during the Golden Hour - it's insanely beautiful, but not as intimate. The voiceover plays a much more interesting role in Days of Heaven, provided from a single perspective and used to drive some of the emotional currents of the movie in how the narrator perceives, or even misunderstands, the events happening around her In Thin Red Line it's a lot more schizophrenic, with every major actor billed getting a voiceover, oftentimes to the point where I wasn't sure who the voice over was from, and who it was necessarily for: the viewer? themselves? the person they're standing next to? Some of the voice over is also like, freshman dorm bong rip-level questions about "why do we fight, man." That said, I still liked it. It's gorgeous. I'll watch more of his movies.

I'll also mention that I actually only watched Days of Heaven because I watched David Gordon Green's George Washington and found it to be profoundly moving, and it's definitely one of my favorite contemporary films:

View attachment 1667427

It's on Criterion, and I'd highly recommend it if you like Malick. Green is definitely inspired by Malick in his cinematography and his use of voiceover here, and takes those tools to focus on a group of poor urban kids. I cannot recommend it enough. Here's a clip of David Lowery talking about it, who mentions Malick as a reference for Green:

Well that was a terrific little clip, I'll definitely have to check that out because it certainly looks right up my alley.

As for the realism comment, perhaps realistic isn't quite what I got from it, but there's something real about the emotion that he's able to communicate, and that specifically feels completely authentic to me, whether the story itself is realistic or not. whatever it is he's able to communicate, there's something in it that feels so relatable that I think few other directors are able to achieve.

I do think that's a great question to ask though, who is it for? Certainly one of the things I appreciate about the artistic process in general, whether the film was purely the exploration of a curiosity on Malick's end, or if he's poking all of the viewers to consider themselves, the actors/characters, or the film itself. I love me a movie that gets me thinking... or even if it doesn't, I love a movie that actually makes me feel something or consider something beyond "that was a fun movie."

 

[noob in 89]

Ah, man. Beat me to the punch on the David Gordon Green rec. I kind of wish he’d stuck with the drama, though it’s hard to argue with his slick comedic stuff (Eastbound and Down, etc).

 

[Matt]

Needed to be 45 minutes shorter

 

[circumspice]

Are you Days of Heaven stans from the west coast, or not from the US? I tried watching it a few months back, and could not deal with a storyline of a trio from Chicago where the kid has the most New York accent ever. It didn't feel like there was any real plot point to choose Chicago versus New York.

It the the equivalent to me of some period piece where one of the main characters is wearing a clown nose or Grouch Marx glasses

 

[King Calder]

I really don’t care about accents unless they are just aggressively bad (think like Don Cheadle in Ocean’s 11), and tbh it hadn’t even registered to me that there’s a discrepancy there. I think Manz does an excellent job narrating the movie regardless of the accent.

 

[Texasmade]

I really don’t care about accents unless they are just aggressively bad (think like Don Cheadle in Ocean’s 11), and tbh it hadn’t even registered to me that there’s a discrepancy there. I think Manz does an excellent job narrating the movie regardless of the accent.

Don’s was still better than Kevin Costner in Robinhood.

 

[beargonefishing]

I turned off that Michael Keaton film Worth a couple days back because of his awful accent.

 

[Van Veen]

I prefer aggressively bad to just slightly off.

Eddie Redmayne and the other young British actor's American accents kept slipping in Trial of the Chicago 7. Drove me nuts.

 

[beargonefishing]

I prefer aggressively bad to just slightly off.

Eddie Redmayne and the other young British actor's American accents kept slipping in Trial of the Chicago 7. Drove me nuts.

Borat's accent was awful in that as well.

 

[noob in 89]

Needed to be 45 minutes shorter

View attachment 1667514

Wait, why did they make Damon look like every Covid-denying Magastani around here?

 

[Matt]

 

[mhip]

I prefer aggressively bad to just slightly off.

Eddie Redmayne and the other young British actor's American accents kept slipping in Trial of the Chicago 7. Drove me nuts.

Eddie Redmayne's voice performance in Jupiter Ascending was worse than the whole horrible movie was.
What didn't suck about that movie?
Tuppence Middleton's hotness.

 

[double00]

for me Black Hawk Down took the cake , a cavalcade of british n australian thespians wearing various *american* drawls

incidentally i started Thin Red Line but intend to restart and watch through . so far it's superb but i want to watch a bit more intentionally

also: started The Two Jakes i had no idea there was a sequel to Chinatown. Nicholson directs ! will poast thoughts later

 

[Van Veen]

Wait, why did they make Damon look like every Covid-denying Magastani around here?

do you live in oklahoma?

 

[noob in 89]

do you live in oklahoma?

Texas.

He looks like a Cletus or Randy Roo from around here; you know, the kind of guy bent over an open engine saying, “You know that even if someone dies in a motorcycle accident but has Covid, they mark it down as a Covid death?”

And you’re like, “Uh-huh. Sure Randy, sure…” while slowly backing away.