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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)


Mr. Breathmask

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Respectable noir by Ed Norton, the catch of this Chinatown-variation (urban development instead of urban waterworks) is that the hero suffers from Tourette, though it's not entirely clear what it adds to the story other than a slightly off-kilter feeling. It's roundabout solid, in an old-fashioned sort of way, with great cinematography and a jazzy, percussive Pemberton score that adds a gripping pulse and reliable performances by Willem Dafoe, Bobby Cannavale and Alec Baldwin. The familiar big-scale corruption topic and the rather perfunctory interpersonal relations to it diminishes the impact, it feels like a slightly more expensive City Hall. Still worth a watch.

 

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Call Me by Your Name is a very sensual (and gay) film that is like a time machine. It puts you back in your teens or twens and lets you experience all the gooey stuff you felt when you were 17 (18, 19, 20) years old and hopelessly in love for the first time (at a board populated by male film nerds this may not register as strongly).

 

Italian director Luca Guadagnino tells the story of 17-year-old Elio spends the summer months with his family in their country estate near Lake Garda. The father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is an archeology professor and is responsible for ancient excavations. For this purpose, he invites a scholarship holder for a research stay every summer. This year it's Oliver (Armie Hammer), a blonde Adonis from New England.

 

After his arrival, he appears casual, natural and arrogant to the shy Elio, who lives entirely in his world from books and Beethoven and spends very little time with his peers. The hearts of the girls fly to Oliver, which Elio initially observes as an outsider. But of course, during the course of this very sensual, graceful movie, things develop differently (no sex scenes, which helps).

 

Its simplicity is the unique selling point of the movie, its intensely 'summer-y, yet it avoids any hint of kitsch and instead uses the surroundings as a tableau for Elio's unfolding emotional world. The film score fan in me would have wished for a coherent score instead of the needle drop approach to music chosen by the director, but it's still a great movie that should not be missed.

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57 minutes ago, publicist said:

Its simplicity is the unique selling point of the movie, its intensely 'summer-y, yet it avoids any hint of kitsch and instead uses the surroundings as a tableau for Elio's unfolding emotional world. The film score fan in me would have wished for a coherent score instead of the needle drop approach to music chosen by the director, but it's still a great movie that should not be missed.

 

I think the mix of Sufjan and Adams/Ravel adds to the timeless quality that a traditional score probably would not have been as effective at.

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6 hours ago, publicist said:

It puts you back in your teens or twens and lets you experience all the gooey stuff you felt when you were 17 (18, 19, 20) years old and hopelessly in love for the first time (at a board populated by male film nerds this may not register as strongly).

Why should a film nerd not be hopelessly in love? I mean, I registered the joke, but it doesn't make sense, when you think about it for a second time.:D

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9 hours ago, publicist said:

I never was a fan of transplanting a director's record collection into a movie. I know that's hopelessly anachronistic by now, but what i like and accept in tv series i just don't want in movies.

 

I don't see why some directors are against an actual musical score. Scores are supposed to enhance a film's emotions and accentuate the storytelling. I get it if they don't want to use a score, but going for needle drops (like Scorsese and Tarantino) is just laziness.

 

And they cost more.

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6 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Why should a film nerd not be hopelessly in love? I mean, I registered the joke, but it doesn't make sense, when you think about it for a second time.:D

 

I didn't say they wouldn't, i say 'register as strongly', meaning that there is probably a substantial number of them that just are not. At least not at that crucial age.

 

2 hours ago, Matt C said:

I don't see why some directors are against an actual musical score. Scores are supposed to enhance a film's emotions and accentuate the storytelling. I get it if they don't want to use a score, but going for needle drops (like Scorsese and Tarantino) is just laziness.

 

Scorsese did use one on occasion (Age of Innocence and Cape Fear, for instance) and when he did, it worked brilliantly. But i also admit that he and Tarantino are two directors where i accept that their style and the needle drops work perfectly, especially because the popular stuff and the content go hand in hand, whereas i never liked Kubrick's or Malick's approach, often bordering on intellectual pretension. 

 

In this case i found the pieces too unrelated, or better, randomly fitted to certain momentary moods without ever being the glue that holds all those moments together.

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57 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

In this case i found the pieces too unrelated, or better, randomly fitted to certain momentary moods without ever being the glue that holds all those moments together.

 

Okay. Examples? 

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1 hour ago, Alexcremers said:

Examples in, let's say 2001: ASO, where, according to you, the music has no effect and feels unrelated to the images. 

 

This sentence is a complete Cremers fabrication and it's not what i said at all, i called it pretentious which IMHO it becomes through a) an association to a piece of the classical music sphere that often comes with its own baggage (depending on the guy watching it) and b) the needle drop itself, which distances the watcher from the images more than drawing him in. It draws attention to itself, which i find find immensely distracting. The worst case may be Malick's use of Preisner's Lacrimosa in Tree of Life's birth of universe.

 

In general, i see it as an approach that tends to impress the musically ignorant while it often annoys the more knowing. 

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So? Doesn't say it doesn't fit, just says it does so without developing organically, though i never said this about i. e. 2001, a concept movie with completely different chapters where such an approach is much easier to defend. 2001 never bothered me much, because it was pop/culture philosophy, anyway, and not a classic narrative.

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56 minutes ago, publicist said:

2001, a concept movie with completely different chapters[...]2001[...]was [...] not a classic narrative.


It actually is a classic narrative. It just got away from itself in its attempt to also be a semi-travelogue. Its trying to do the Lawrence of Arabia thing, but overdoes it. This gives the impression of an anthology but it isn’t one.

 

But I agree with your main point. A better example may be the use of Wagner in Excalibur. 2001 was at least novel, bold and grand enough to “afford” its music, whereas Boorman’s over-the-top, hokey fantasy has nothing to do quoting the Siegfried’s Tod: that music is out of the movie’s league.

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But that's mincing words, nobody would mistake 2001 for a typical narrative, even if it obviously was planned as such. I would even say it's LSD-fuelled reputation springs from the avoidance of a clear narrative, or to be more exact, the impression that it's more than that.

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You're right, of course. But I do think most people will realize that there is a narrative there, its just obstructed by the mock-travelogue nature of the film.

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Let's see what Alex says. I hereby confirm that 2001 is one of the movies that are overdiscussed here and should be regularly banned from being mentioned. 

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The Ipcress File - classic spy thriller with Michael Caine as Harry Palmer (unnamed in Len Deighton's source novel). It amuses that 007 producer Harry Saltzman embarked on what was intended as an 'anti-Bond' franchise and used Bond alumni (John Barry, Ken Adam, Peter Hunt) in the process.

Extraordinary to think that this was released in the same year as Thunderball ... Harry Palmer's 60s London isn't exactly 'swinging', in fact it's not even swaying slightly.

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18 minutes ago, publicist said:

I hereby confirm that 2001 is one of the movies that are overdiscussed here and should be regularly banned from being mentioned. 

 

I don't care for it too much, but people are gonna talk about whatever it is they want to talk about...

 

But yeah, I'm sure someone will rally to the film's defense within the hour.

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3 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I'm sure someone will rally to the film's defence within the hour.

3 hours. You lose.

 

2001 is one example where the needle drop music is indelibly connected to the images. You don't believe me? Try watching 2001 with the music replaced by Alex North's score.

Doesn't work, does it?

I have no issue with neither needle drop songs, nor pieces of music. Some work (Adagio For Strings, in THE ELEPHANT MAN; that music played at the end of JACOB'S LADDER), and some don't. Then again, some original scores work, and some don't. Recently, I watched a film that is considered among the greatest of the last fifty years, and I kept thinking "FFS, not this piece of f***ing music, again?! Stop, for the love of all that is holy, sacred, and profound, just stop!!".

Still, that's just me.

At best, needle drop songs/music can introduce an audience to new artists (the use of Under Fire, in DJANGO UNCHANGED gave that piece to the sort of exposure that the film that it was composed for could not even hope to offer). At worst, it can be an irritant, taking the viewer out of the cinematic experience. That's a decision that the director has to make when selecting the music for their film, and that's the risk that they run.

 

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31 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Try watching 2001 with the music replaced by Alex North's score.

 

Yeah, North's score doesn't measure up. But then, during the editing, footage from 2001 got temped with all sorts of music (Mahler's 3rd springs to mind, but there were others too) and some it would have fit the final movie just as well as what we ended up with. So its not like some marriage between those visuals and those specific pieces was made in heaven.

 

Kubrick had subtextual reasons to choose the pieces of music that he did, rather than purely dramatic reasons. The title of the piece Also Sprach Zarathustra referes to the writings of Nietsche, who wrote about the Übermensch, and so Kubrick uses it as an "evolution theme." Its like how Boorman used Parzifal for Percivel.

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I wouldn't say that North didn't do the movie justice, it's just impossible to grasp its qualities properly after being familiar with the Kubrick choices. 

 

The Coens, Scorsese and Tarantino and a few others (on occasion) are brilliant at needle-dropping - just watch Lebowksi -, too often it's just downright terrible. I don't need to hear a famous adagio used the fiftieth time for supposedly wrenching effect when it makes me go 'Oh, that Barber piece again'. It works better with pop music, but even then, the same Sinatra piece used for ironic comment is just an eye-roller. 

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57 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

2001 is one example where the needle drop music is indelibly connected to the images.

 

 

I would even go as far to say that we associate those classical selections with the movie and no longer with the concert hall. 

 

57 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Try watching 2001 with the music replaced by Alex North's score.

Doesn't work, does it?

 

I do think that, on its own, it's an incredible score.

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12 minutes ago, publicist said:

I don't need to hear a famous adagio used the fiftieth time for supposedly wrenching effect when it makes me go 'Oh, that Barber piece again'. 

 

I feel like Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" has taken Barber's place. The other day I was watching Will Ferrell's Stranger Than Fiction and the piece just randomly popped up to imply some vague sadness. It was awfully distracting.

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1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Recently, I watched a film that is considered among the greatest of the last fifty years, and I kept thinking "FFS, not this piece of f***ing music, again?! Stop, for the love of all that is holy, sacred, and profound, just stop!!"

 

I love Death in Venice!

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27 minutes ago, publicist said:

I wouldn't say that North didn't do the movie justice, it's just impossible to grasp its qualities properly after being familiar with the Kubrick choices. 

 

The Coens, Scorsese and Tarantino and a few others (on occasion) are brilliant at needle-dropping - just watch Lebowksi -, too often it's just downright terrible. I don't need to hear a famous adagio used the fiftieth time for supposedly wrenching effect when it makes me go 'Oh, that Barber piece again'. It works better with pop music, but even then, the same Sinatra piece used for ironic comment is just an eye-roller. 

 

The worst recent offender, in my book, was the use of Albinoni's adagio in Manchester by the Sea

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26 minutes ago, publicist said:

The 'Arrival' piece?

 

Yup. It was terrible in that one too.

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And what about Terrence Malick? His classical selections usually work great alongside the original choices. 

 

For instance, Horner may have detested, but I liked the use of Richard Wagner on The New World.

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3 hours ago, publicist said:

The Coens, Scorsese and Tarantino and a few others (on occasion) are brilliant at needle-dropping - just watch Lebowksi -, too often it's just downright terrible. I don't need to hear a famous adagio used the fiftieth time for supposedly wrenching effect when it makes me go 'Oh, that Barber piece again'. It works better with pop music, but even then, the same Sinatra piece used for ironic comment is just an eye-roller. 

 

When needle-dropping is done well, I'm fine with it. Even a film that mixes original score and needle-drops well I'm fine with, like Elfman's Batman with Prince's songs.

 

Some of Scorsese's and Coens' best work is when they let their composers work their magic, like Elmer Bernstein's Age of Innocence, Howard Shore's Hugo and Carter Burwell's True Grit.

 

Tarantino's needle-drops, for me, are another aspect of his movies I don't care for. People rave about his movies but a lot of them cribs from better international directors like Kurosawa and Leone. Or just bigger budgeted exploitation remakes of movies he's seen a zillion times while he worked at Blockbuster. 

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9 minutes ago, Matt C said:

 

Tarantino's needle-drops, for me, are another aspect of his movies I don't care for. 

 

Tell me why the 'Stuck in The Middle With You' scene in Reservoir Dogs doesn't work for you. 

 

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On 7/12/2020 at 12:41 PM, KK said:

 

I think the mix of Sufjan and Adams/Ravel adds to the timeless quality that a traditional score probably would not have been as effective at.


“Une barque sur l’océan” fit the tone of the film so perfectly.  It’s one of my favorite movies of the past several years.

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Just Stranger Than Fiction, Shutter Island, and Arrival for me, and even then, I only learned after the fact the same piece of music was in all three films, and it's name, after Arrival.  Didn't notice any repeated music when seeing those films originally

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51 minutes ago, Jay said:

Just Stranger Than Fiction, Shutter Island, and Arrival for me, and even then, I only learned after the fact the same piece of music was in all three films, and it's name, after Arrival.  Didn't notice any repeated music when seeing those films originally

 

Yes.

 

...and I've seen all of those more than once.

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