[Rob Instigator]

I never liked Python stuff. Never have found it more than mildly humorous at best.

[!@#$%!]

and yet, the influence of monty python can be found in things as diverse as…

oh, too much work. check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_P...ural_influence

plus a ton of things that haven't yet made it too that page.

[Rob Instigator]

Shit has just as much influence as gold. Influence does not = worth.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

The Running Man.

 

Fucking shit 1980s Schwarzneggar movies remind me why I love the guy. He was good. And no, I don't care if you disagree with me

[!@#$%!]

i needed a break from too much thinking and got me BLUE JASMINE

 

cate blanchett is FANTASTIC. out of this planet. damn, can she act! i can't praise her enough. she's a force of nature. more than brilliant. just-- wow.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

cate blanchett is FANTASTIC. out of this planet. damn, can she act! i can't praise her enough. she's a force of nature. more than brilliant. just-- wow.

I've not seen that film but I'm glad you said that. She's one of those who's famous and respected but still doesn't get the praise I think she deserves. And almost inconceivably beautiful. Which may be her problem re critical recognition.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

atsonicpark and I would get into heated exchanges about film, art, how to view things, how to judge things, intellectual things. I am the better person for it.

rob, im glad you posted this today cuz yesterday i was at my wit's end trying to figure out how to answer your summary dismissal of monty python. so thanks for the opportunity.

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Shit has just as much influence as gold. Influence does not = worth.

right, but there are also shit tastes and shit opinions. your taste judgments aren't universal. just because they don't do much for you it doesn't automatically turn them into shit for everyone else. millions of intelligent fans overrule your judgment, and monty python remains an icon of late 20th century culture and a seminal comedy troupe. yes, they are not for everyone, and maybe you don't get them because their imitators watered them down for you first, but they can't be dismissed as if they didn't matter--that would be ignorant.

for example, i have no taste for horror movies. i really don't like them. but just because i don't like them i can't be saying that they are shit or irrelevant or that they aren't important. horror films are important to the audiences, to the culture, and to film itself, even if they don't particularly appeal to me. i am not the whole of the culture, thank fuck.

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I've not seen that film but I'm glad you said that. She's one of those who's famous and respected but still doesn't get the praise I think she deserves. And almost inconceivably beautiful. Which may be her problem re critical recognition.

well she looks amazing in the movie but she can also fall apart right before your eyes and she does it so incredibly well it's spooky.

there are more things i'd like to mention about it, but i fear the spoilers. so check it out and let me know what you think.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

millions of intelligent fans overrule your judgment, and monty python remains an icon of late 20th century culture and a seminal comedy troupe. yes, they are not for everyone, and maybe you don't get them because their imitators watered them down for you first, but they can't be dismissed as if they didn't matter--that would be ignorant.

Not dismissing them at all but I've personally never found them that funny. Which puts them in the same category as Chaplin for me. As you say, iconic but, besides maybe the odd scene or sketch, neither of them have ever particularly made me laugh.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Not dismissing them at all but I've personally never found them that funny. Which puts them in the same category as Chaplin for me. As you say, iconic but, besides maybe the odd scene or sketch, neither of them have ever particularly made me laugh.

chaplin was so widely influential and imitated that by the time we got to see him he didn't look that fresh anymore. fellini's giulietta massina is chaplinesque. jacques tati is chaplinesque. i know people compare rowan atkinson with buster keaton but i find a lot of chaplin in his mr. bean. chaplin is more obvious in those performers but who didn't he influence in comedy really? he's like water and we're fish.

anyway, i am not always in the mood for monty python, sometimes they are too nihilistic for me (as in "the meaning of life"), but i can't ignore their contributions. anyway, to continue from where this conversation begun, they are much much bigger here than whitnail and i or fawlty towers. their broadway musical alone (oh, there's a genre i truly detest, but is very culturally relevant regardless) has been going on non-stop since their debut in 2004 and shows no signs of abating.

ps- heres an article that might shed light on the impact of python on the us vs. england
http://www.theawl.com/2013/03/the-be...-flying-circus

I was to learn, on first visiting England in the late 1970s, that the natives (impossibly!) thought Monty Python rather passé.

and here an example of how far fans will take things. you don't have to read it all, just check it
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-mo...-business.html

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Oh, that's a loaded question. Movies are my life. I review movies for Netflix, and I'm actually currently #155. Of all the people on the site reviewing movies, I'm ranked #155.I'm a big movie dork. I really could go on and on all day for this one, but let me just list a few of my all time favorites: Hana-Bi, Eureka (2001), Sonatine, Dolls, Violent Cop, Period Piece, Touch Me in the Morning, Garbanzo Gas, Everlasting Pine, Bride of Frank, the Corndog Man, Reflections of Evil, the Killer, ZERO, Migrating Forms, Back Against the Wall, Combat Shock, Fatty Drives the Bus, Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy, Izo, Maniac, The Gates of Hell, Tenebre, Beyond the Darkness, Stalker, Bad Lieutenant, Night Train to Terror, Visitor Q, Pinnochio 964, Tetsuo, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Dead Zone, Tokyo Fist, Death Powder, Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet, El Topo, Long Live Death, Holy Mountain, Once Upon a Time in the West, Dog Star Man, Fallen Angels, Fulltime Killer, Eli Eli Rema Sabatchthani?, Lucifer Rising, Chungking Express, Survive Style 5+, Clean Shaven, Pistol Opera, Bullet Ballet, Liquid Sky, Doom Generation, Totally Fucked Up, The Living End, Nowhere, Taxi Driver, Possession, Blow Out, Koyaanisqatsi, Sombre, I Stand Alone, A Clockwork Orange, Man Bites Dog, Heart of Glass, The Beyond, Happiness, Last Life in the Universe, Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky, Brain Damage, Begotten, Home Alone, Deep Red, Barton Fink, Freddy Got Fingered, King of Comedy, Casino, Hard Boiled, Aguirre: Wrath of God, The Untold Story, Body Double, Obsession, Dressed to Kill, All About Lily Chou-Chou............ jesus. I'll stop now. My favorite director is either Giuseppe Andrews or Takeshi Kitano, though I also love Dario Argento, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Brian DePalma, Abel Ferrara, Shozin Fukui, Lucio Fulci, Stuart Gordon, Frank Henenlotter, Werner Herzog, [early] Peter Jackson, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Lloyd Kaufman, Ki-duk Kim, H.G. Lewis, David Lynch, Takashi Miike, Gasper Noe, Chan-Wook Park, Martin Scorsese, Jan Svankmajer, Shinya Tsukamoto, Brian Yuzna, John Waters, John Woo... and the Coens. Whoo! I am in the early process of making a film but right now I'm too busy absorbing all the films I've been meaning to see but haven't gotten around to yet. I have approximately 150 old movies to watch and I've officially seen every film that I've ever been interested in in the least. Then, I can just watch new films!

[evollove]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

cate blanchett is FANTASTIC. out of this planet. damn, can she act! i can't praise her enough. she's a force of nature. more than brilliant. just-- wow.

Wow. When someone praises a performance in an Allen film, I consider that very high praise, since off the top of my head I can't think of any bad acting in his movies. I mean, if Andrew Dice Clay does a respectable job, you know Cate's gonna knock it out of the park.

This flick comes close to his work in the 80s, which I consider his golden age. At first I thought a re-telling of Streetcar Named Desire would be pretty pointless, but this is a very good re-telling.

By the way, after Match Point came the poor Scoop. After Vicky Christina came the forgettable You Will Meet a Tall Handsome Stranger. After Midnight in Paris came the okay When in Rome. What I'm saying is, his next one probably won't be that great.

Hope I'm wrong. Hope he makes just one more movie as good as Hannah and Her Sisters or Crimes and Misdemeanors. Just one.

[Tokolosh]

 

Thanks for the tip a while back T&B. A frightening documentary.

 

Burden of Dreams (1992)

A brilliant documentary about the making of Werner Herzog''s Fitzcarraldo (1982). Highly recommended if you're a fan of Herzog's work.

 

Unbelievable!

[!@#$%!]

IN A LONELY PLACE

 

humphrey bogart+gloria grahame+nicholas ray = teh win

[Derek]

Watched John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright. A much more appropriate depiction of Judge Priest than his initial film.

Also watched Louis CK's film Tomorrow Night from 1997. This is much more Woody Allen-esque than his TV show, which I personally didn't think was Woody Allen-esque in the first place. There's also a touch of John Waters in the absurdism of it. Great stuff.

[!@#$%!]

 

gainsbourg: a heroic life

i'm really liking joann sfar as a writer/director. i've never read his graphic novels, but first watched "the rabbi's cat," which was amazing and hilarious and incredibly imaginative, an that got me hooked.

this is a totally different thing because it's not an animation, except for little bits and pieces, and some puppets, but the introduction of a parallel mythological sort of reality to a straight biopic works really well for my taste.

the ladies who play gainsbourg's legendary lovers are all mind-blowingly gorgeous. and laetitia casta's resemblance to brigitte bardot is particularly amazing. wow!

 

[pad_023]

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

 

Why are chicks always jealous of instruments? Let the dude practice chick, there will be plenty of time to pipe it down later, music is important.

 

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Why are chicks always jealous of instruments? Let the dude practice chick, there will be plenty of time to pipe it down later, music is important.

they compete for attention i suppose (i know a story about this i can tell later)

 

but if you aren't a little jealous of gainsbourg, you're in denial!

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

they compete for attention i suppose (i know a story about this i can tell later)

I see..

 

this is also why they are jealous of the weed man.

[Derek]

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002)

Wow, there's something reassuring at seeing a fellow Scot make such a complex mood piece. Every shot feels so full of depth and warm but never goes out of its way to present itself as such. The plot is illogical but that's so beyond the point of what it achieves, especially when you're dealing with characters who exist through their emotions than their mind. It's perhaps impenetrable in certain aspects but I liked that.