For a Few Dollars More & Sanjuro

did the same thing as I did with Fistful of Dollars/Yojimbo and watched the follow-up to both. In this case the stories weren't carbon copies of each other, but still definitely some similarities. Once again I thought Kurosawa's > Leone's movie. I think I like Mifune's character more than Eastwood's in general, he's got such a great laidback swagger. I did like the addition of the Colonel as a foil to Eastwood in Few Dollars though, if there was anything Sanjuro was missing it was strong secondary characters to bounce off the ronin, Muroto was about the closest thing to that

The Dollars movies definitely have the upperhand as far as combat goes, the samurai fights in these movies are mostly ehh

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with the exception of the ending of Sanjuro, although that was less about combat and more about the gnarly effect. Loved that tense stand-off beforehand - as good as Leone's signature close-ups before the quick draw are, that simple static shot of the two of them facing each other worked even better for me

Seconds
What a trip. I loved the way this was filmed. The shots are so dynamic. It's incredibly weird, but the story is so gnarly. Great ending.


Brazil
The production design in this movie is unreal. It's got some great bits and wonderful imagery but was a little too long for my taste. The humor and performances are a lot of fun, but it's easy to get lost in everything. Incredible dark and satirical.

Ready or Not

Fairly fun! But I watched it in a near empty theater and it’s definitely a movie that needs a good crowd so that hurt it for sure. It was enjoyable all the way through though

A Brighter Summer Day

A Taiwanese four hour epic that's considered one of the best movies ever made and a masterpiece and I did not give a shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit about most of it. Over 100 different characters and I couldn't tell you who was who or how they were related or what anyone was talking about in most scenes. It's definitely partially my own fault, after the first hour with three hours left I could feel myself not digging it so I started to check out. But it just did nothing to make me interested

Its been on my radar for so many years so I'm p bummed, people go NUTS over this movie. It's in the top ten all time on Letterboxd. Out of all the 3.5+ hour epics that I've seen this is the one that I dug the least. This has gotta be one of the biggest differences between my rating and an LB rating but this just did not do it for me sadly

I liked some of the ending as the point of it all became more clear and I liked the scene when the lil kid sang. And I liked the massacre scene. I don't have much more to say. 6/10

A Brighter Summer Day - WHEEEEW. For being a 4 hour movie I can at least credit it for mostly holding my attention throughout, though I was hoping to get a lot more out of it for being such an investment. It had its MOMENTS and was pretty to look at throughout, but I really feel like they could've just as easily delivered the same story more effectively in 2-3 hours

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the way the stabbing was shot gave me GOT flashbacks, except in this case it was actually earned. That transformation was pretty well-done I thought That said I think my main complaint with this movie WOULD be the characters, for having such a long runtime I would've thought I would've got to know all of them better. By the end I feel like I just had the vaguest idea of any characters' traits outside of Si'r (who still was fairly thinly drawn considering). Also doesn't help that I was VERY confused on who was who for like the full first hour, it took me way too long to differentiate Si'r and Sly I didn't read very much about it beforehand but I was under the impression this would be a Boyhood/Moonlight type narrative where we track the main character growing up in Taiwan in the 60s-80s. I kept waiting for a time jump to happen (: I feel like that definitely could've made for a more interesting movie

Brazil - THIS on the other hand was the shiiit. Jonathan Pryce killed it, I'd never seen him as much more than a character actor before but I loved him in this. The set design was unreal, holds up so well

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BOY that ending was a bummer but at least he found his inner peace...?? COULD BE WORSE! The comedy in this was great across the board, I think my favorite bit was "How are the twins?" "Triplets." "My how time flies!"

Curtis @ 14/9/2019 20:17

Out of all the 3.5+ hour epics that I've seen this is the one that I dug the least.

???

Boc @ 14/9/2019 23:49

Curtis @ 14/9/2019 20:17 Out of all the 3.5+ hour epics that I've seen this is the one that I dug the least. ???

Get that outta my face!

I thought it was gonna be some sprawling epic spanning a longer period of time too. I saw one rave review praising how incredible the movie is at showing the passage of time. ???? . It could’ve taken place over a long weekend as far as I’m concerned, I couldn’t tell

Well!

A Brighter Summer Day

Well...I personally loved it.

Edward Yang is such a great director. Every frame feels so thought out. The choreography of the actors and camera movement is so subtle. The runtime didn't bother me at all. I've watched 90 min movies that have felt longer than this.

There are a shit-ton of characters, but it didn't bother me at all. It creates a genuine sense of community of the town. I caught on to who the main people were, and that's all that mattered for me. Cat was definitely my favorite, especially when he fucking throws the wooden chair after Si'r gets taken away.

I could go ON but I WON'T. This doesn't top Yi Yi for me but I still think it's amazing.

Well!

brighter summer day is so weird. i dont think of it as either an epic where you're witnessing a great and transformative cultural shift or a character-focused epic. the movie's very still, very portrait-like, and you're not witnessing change per se. and the movie's so rooted in a very specific taiwanese milieu, with really detailed (but kinda vague) references to actual bits of history. when i saw it (about a year ago) i didnt even understand the purpose of the dad's interrogation for communist sympathies, although i guess that's more my bad.

the lack of change hurts the novelistic feeling i was told it had. it doesn't really seem like there's any kind of narrative direction to the movie, especially after the first half. and what it's trying to say about taiwan falls a little flat for me because i didnt totally get the society being presented, especially with how melodramatic certain elements felt, like the teen gang straight outta twin peaks. is this true to the world the movie depicts? maybe. but i dont think its true to the world of the movie, where everything is super muted and repressed.

so it's a movie where each of its two halves ends with a pretty brutal bit of violence, but both played almost indifferently. it reminded me a little bit of that line about GOT growing from a sociological show to a psychological show, only this movie is entirely on the social end.

i liked taipei story and yi yi quite a bit, so this one, as praised as it is, was a little disappointing for me.

the last movie i watched was the nightingale. best of the year

a while back my buddies and i would go into the theater i work off hours to watch 4 hour movies we'd never seen before. that was one, along with seven samurai and lawrence of arabia and dr mabuse, the gambler (which is one of the most entertaining silent films i've ever seen). and also heaven's gate, which is quite shockingly grand and moving, as great as any of the Great westerns

Hupu film cricket is BACK!

Nightingale is on my watchlist 4sure