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What do you mean by that? Are you saying it's a commercial Hollywood movie?
It has nothing to do with it being a commercial Hollywood film, it's about taste. Pulp Fiction, Guardians of the Galaxy, and I, Tonya have great soundtracks that had obvious popular songs but they also mixed it up.

For example, a great use of a non obvious but popular song



Lyrically it doesn't make sense for the scene, but it works well because of Dylan's tempo.



I think he was just referring to the music. It's all licenced, popular songs instead of having any alternative or relatively unknown tracks, or an originally composed score.

I believe I read somewhere that the cost of licencing all those songs left no room in the budget for any other music. It kind of sounded like they might've done things differently if they had the money, but I actually like the way music is used. I think that it really fits the film.
George Lucas said in the Making of American Graffiti documentary, that his sister had a huge collection of 50s & early 60s Top 40 rock songs and he personally choose the songs from this collection and matched the mood and theme of each song to the emotion of each scene.

You're right they had a limited budget and spent a lot of it on the music as the music was a big part of the film. Today all those songs would cost such a ridiculous amount for royalties, and that's why you usually don't hear a lot of classic rock songs in movies, cost prohibitive



It has nothing to do with it being a commercial Hollywood film, it's about taste. Pulp Fiction, Guardians of the Galaxy, and I, Tonya have great soundtracks that had obvious popular songs but they also mixed it up.
That's your argument? why you didn't like it... because you don't like Top 40 Rock songs from the early 1960s. It's a period piece movie, like Mark said what did you expect them to play?

You said you liked Paul Le Mat's story line the best, why? Give me some details, not just a one liner why you don't like something.



I think he's saying they took the songs that were the most popular from that era and put them in the movie. It's an interesting point, although I'm not sure I could consider it a negative. Also, some music becomes more popular as time goes on as they are used in popular culture, and I wonder if American Graffiti could have contributed to that in the case of some of those songs.



I think he's saying they took the songs that were the most popular from that era and put them in the movie. It's an interesting point, although I'm not sure I could consider it a negative. Also, some music becomes more popular as time goes on as they are used in popular culture, and I wonder if American Graffiti could have contributed to that in the case of some of those songs.
I'd be willing to bet yes.



That's your argument? why you didn't like it... because you don't like Top 40 Rock songs from the early 1960s. It's a period piece movie, like Mark said what did you expect them to play?

You said you liked Paul Le Mat's story line the best, why? Give me some details, not just a one liner why you don't like something.
I liked Paul's story the best because it felt the most real and it was memorable. It didn't feel as predictable as Howards, Dreyfuss's and the other guys plot.

I also didn't say I didn't like, I liked it more on the second watch then I did the first time I saw it 20 years ago.



I think he's saying they took the songs that were the most popular from that era and put them in the movie. It's an interesting point, although I'm not sure I could consider it a negative. Also, some music becomes more popular as time goes on as they are used in popular culture, and I wonder if American Graffiti could have contributed to that in the case of some of those songs.
I'd say yes too. And I learned the movie made car cruising popular again...it had all but died out in the late 60s during the hippie movement, but after the movie kids started car cruising again.



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
L’Avventura



This is a strange film. It manages to convey quite perfectly the state of mind of the main characters - however, as that is a combination of shallowness, ambivalence, ennui, vague lust and disappointment, this is not necessarily quite the success it might at first appear.

It has a sort of hazy, dream like quality which carries it along in the absence of anything resembling a story. There are beautiful people and beautiful scenery, but it’s like looking at them through a glass, you never quite understand them. They are paralyzed by their own inertia and ennui and it has a sort of soporific effect on the viewer.

There’s also a feeling of unease from the start, the suggestion of something sinister going on on the island. One of the characters goes missing early on, but it never quite turns into a mystery. It reminded me a bit of Picnic At Hanging Rock - it’s more about the atmosphere than the mystery. Its almost like the story is happening somewhere else. Or that it’s there and it could happen, but not to these characters, because they’re too vapid. Their emotions are illusory. They don’t really care if they find her. Do we care if they really care?

Is it deep or shallow? Is it fascinating or utterly tedious? Do I like it, hate it, or really not care? Or all of the above? I don't know.





Rebecca (1940)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock

From the opening shot I was sold on watching this with little effort. Beautiful photography, lighting and miniatures. The trees loomed within a fog, and the camera lens had a spread de-focus around the edges creating a hazy frame.

When the dialog started it was that thick Mid-Atlantic accent that would require me to hit pause and go find some chocolate. I grabbed 2 cherry covered Cella's and a cup of marshmallow cocoa sprinkled with nutmeg powder and returned to viewing. I need to be prepared for these kinds of things. Frame of mind is very important seeing films outside of your comfort zone.

Now I was ready.

I thought Joan Fontaine's character of The Second Mrs. de Winter was simply adorable, and I got a few nice light laughs from Olivier's Maxim character constantly berating her in a playful manner. Sometimes I felt kind of bad laughing, though. She is so cute and beautiful, how could anyone treat her like that, joking or not? Well, she didn't seem to mind so..anyway.

I enjoyed the twists and the acting. I kept waiting for de Winter II to fire that haggish old maid but it just didn't happen. I was yelling at the screen at one point for dWII to just "get out! Get out of that house!"


This wasn't a masterpiece of cinema to me but it did entertain me and allow me to escape from an otherwise stressful day, and for that I am thankful.

The interiors were all lavish and complex. Sometimes I wondered whether they were matte paintings or a real location. Black and white photography really takes advantage of that in that you're not always sure. One thing I was sure about was the rear projection work. There was even a scene when the married couple walks along the sea up on the road through the trees. They rear projected that!

I had a good time.
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Btw, is it me, or does Cary Elwes look a lot like Laurence Olivier?





Shallow Grave (1994)

I have to say the first 18 minutes were a drag...yes, I timed it. I quickly grew tired of the trendy, aka trying way to hard to be hip, film making vibe that those first 18 minutes gave off. I don't know if I was suppose to find the interviews of the prospective roommates funny, but I didn't, grating was more like it. Luckily after 18 minutes the movie settles down and I became interested in the story.

Boy! did they have one nice apartment flat or what? Very cool looking decor, especially the 1950s Electroluxe refrigerator...yahoo! It was odd though that the set designer took the nickle chrome finish off the fridge and redone it in gold plating. Then again, thinking about the early 1990s I remember gold plated looking faucets and light fixtures were a big deal then. I always liked chrome better myself. Someone said the film really looks like the early 90s was a long time ago, yup and this film is like a time machine back to big glasses, blow dried hair, long sweaters and bulky computer monitors!

Kerry Fox and Christopher Eccleston were both OK in this. But could Ewan McGregor be anymore annoying? Ugh, just looking at that photo makes me want to slap his smug lil' face. Which then makes the movie's surprise ending all the more fun!
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The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
Imdb

Date Watched: 02/22/18
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching:15th Hall of Fame, nominated by @jiraffejustin
Rewatch: No.


Joseph Merrick was a man with severe physical deformities who was exhibited in freak shows in the 1880s, billed as "The Elephant Man." He was befriended by a surgeon named Frederick Treves who documented his condition and offered him care and lodging at the London Hospital. The film entitled The Elephant Man tells his story... sort of...

...and it didn't do a very good job of it, in my opinion. I realize that this film was perhaps at least influenced by the play of the same name rather than totally on the real Joseph Merrick (both the film and the play call him John Merrick, though I read somewhere that the misnomer was the fault of Dr. Treves's writings) and normally historical inaccuracies don't bother me, but I must admit it bothered me here. I feel like the film needlessly made Merrick out to be more of a victim than he really was and, frankly, this portrayal of Merrick here made him seem less than human. I don't mean that in reference to his deformities or to the way in which the others in the film treated him, but rather in reference to his own behavior. I very much had trouble buying that a man who suffered that much cruelty (according to the film anyway, there's nothing that I've read about the real Merrick that would suggest that his exhibition as a freak was not by his own choice or that any promoter was physically abusive to him), and who was in full possession of his mental faculties, would be so utterly devoid of anger or bitterness.

Which is not to say that there was anything lacking in the performances. John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins did well enough with the characters they were given, but the exaggerated situations and the characters' reactions to them just didn't click with me. The result was that the delivery of the film's message of acceptance and charity just didn't strike a chord and by the time we hear Merrick cry "I'm not an animal! I am a human being!," I was too disinterested to care.

I should give praise though for the look of the film. The prosthetics and make up, costuming, set and prop design, and the cinematography were all very good, but overall the film just didn't work for me.

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Btw, is it me, or does Cary Elwes look a lot like Laurence Olivier?
I also think they look quite similar, especially from certain angles. I actually think the artwork in the poster you used looks a little more like Cary Elwes than it does Laurence Olivier haha.





Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

OK, so not my type of movie, no surprise there...and a few of the more gratuitous physical stuff was yuck for me to watch. If this had been a PG rated movie, I might have liked it better.... But, I do understand other people like this and so for what the movie intends to do, it does it pretty darn well. I thought the early career flashbacks of the band was interesting and funny too. They played in all these gawd-awful places.

The Women's concert in East Germany with rows of porta potties and only 1 lone fan in the audience was funny. When Hedwig invited the girl to sit on the stage with the band, that was a nice gesture and added something extra. And the film has lots of little extras that shows the director/writer put a lot of effort into this... Another example of that effort is: The deli scene where we see the band playing and we think they are in a big venue, then we get a camera shot from behind the band and see it's just a tiny deli, ha!

Lots of clever, witty, ironic stuff, like the tiny, tiny East German apartment with the severe mother..who gives the kid an oven as a room!

The director, writer and actor James Cameron Mitchell created a unique and inspired niche market movie. Albeit a niche movie that is far outside of my comfort zone.






...and a few of the more gratuitous physical stuff was yuck. If this had been a PG rated movie, I might have liked it better....
What gratuitous physical stuff? The hand job scene (where we see nothing but Tommy's face)? The couple of butt shots, neither of which were actually sexual? The scene where Tommy and Hedwig make out while fully clothed? I rewatched it last night as well and I didn't see anything I would call even remotely gratuitous.

Also this movie would not work if it were PG.