Subtitles weren’t working for us the first night, so we missed some of the mumbo-jumbo-mumbled world-building that went on in bits-and-pieces in different replays.
I was a little surprised to read that Saturday Night Fever was Gene Siskel’s favorite movie (though he was the one of the pair that gave Starship Troopers a thumbs up so…), but I was certainly pleasantly surprised by it. I even found myself hearing the music in a new light. The music, the dancing, whatever one remembers of those things in the context of the time, I thought all the elements were well integrated (instead of seeming like a movie where they just shoehorned some shallow characters around a dance), and most importantly it came across as sincere.
Oh god, yes. I love love love that film. It is one of my favorites.
Even with its racism, homophobia, drug use, and rape scenes it feels like a perfect representation of the times and the place it was filmed. These things are presented without comment and never glamorized.
Everybody focuses on Travolta and his iconic white suit, but at its core it is a dark and depressing story.
Staying Alive, the sequel, is a giant turd though.
I think that’s one reason I never watched it until now. I was too young when it came out, and by the time I was old enough it was the 80s and it was just “that disco movie”, and what kind of loser wanted to watch a disco movie in the 80s?
Indeed. I originally watched it in the 1990s because as a young adult I had a fascination with the 1970s and was big into cinema so I rented it thinking it would be a romp (Bee Gees! Disco! Travolta! Lol!). I was very wrong.
Funny, because I’d brought it up in response to a mention of the street over in one of the Wells Fargo threads.
Before seeing that film, I’d only really known Oingo Boingo for ‘Weird Science’ and of course Elfman’s work on film scores. Seeing Forbidden Zone got me interested in looking up more of the Knights and their music videos and stuff. I really should buy some of it for my music library.
Anyhow, I didn’t love FZ but I thought it had a lot of creative merit. Certainly a great example of getting real shit done on a shoestring.
They just showed Patton on my public TV affiliate.
The photography is unmatched. I found the extensive use of wide-angle lenses interesting, too.
Getting all those perfect exposures on location with the tanks and explosions and extras and the damn airplanes moving through a perfectly balanced composition–say goodbye forever to that type of filmmaking.
the subject of WWII had even then been played out, though Scott performed admirably.
Tangentially, Patton always struck me as the 20th century Custer. “Brave but crazy, tactically useful but strategically idiotic” seems to be a repeating American military archetype.
Love that Hell’s bounty hunter was called “The Accountant”. It makes me think of a super competent less pervy version of Cyrill Figgis on Archer.
The “Sex and gunplay scene” with Charlotte Ross becomes more fun to watch knowing she plays Donna Smoak on Arrow.
The movie had no pretensions for greatness. It was a salute to 70’s trash genres without being so Quentin Tarrantino/Roberto Rodriguez nod and winked to death.
Still not the worst movie Nicholas Cage has done, nor will do.
Just finished It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Took me 3 days because I couldn’t watch more than an hour without getting so annoyed at it’s awfulness I had to turn it off.
Rarely has such a talented cast and such beautiful filming gone to such awful dreck. I’m blown away that this was both a critical and commercial success. Very unfunny.
