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It seems Googling Real Men has been enough for my computer to start recommending forgotten 80's **** like The Heavenly Kid and Modern Problems to me.



How can I possibly say no?


(please, let me say no, I have Themroc to watch)



It seems Googling Real Men has been enough for my computer to start recommending forgotten 80's **** like The Heavenly Kid and Modern Problems to me.



How can I possibly say no?


(please, let me say no, I have Themroc to watch)
Themroc? Sounds like a made up movie.


Modern Problems? Which a Letterboxd review leads me to believe makes a joke about Chevy Chase's rampant cocaine usage? How can you lose?





Modern Problems? Which a Letterboxd review leads me to believe makes a joke about Chevy Chase's rampant cocaine usage? How can you lose?

I've been drawn in by claims that this is Chase at his most unlikable. Of course, it is now in serious contention to be the next thing I watch.



Ultimately, Themroc will probably win this battle. Even though I know it's going to be a disaster.



My brain is jelly from movies.



Also, how are you watching Themroc? I vaguely remember reading about it when I picked up a Pauline Kael anthology in my younger years, but at the time couldn't get a hold of it at all.



Also, how are you watching Themroc? I vaguely remember reading about it when I picked up a Pauline Kael anthology in my younger years, but at the time couldn't get a hold of it at all.

I found it pretty easy googling.



The Themroc fanclub needs more members. Everyone is required to watch it.
I already watched one movie this year (Taking Care of Business). Will have to wait until 2023.



Most watched director is Jesus Franco? Ewww...
Oddly enough, I actually watched most of those after you made that thread, haha.



Heart of Dragon (Hung, 1985)



The opening scene of Heart of Dragon should clue you into the fact that this is not business as usual for our star Jackie Chan. Jackie can be seen running around in a yellow jumpsuit, waving around a fearsome looking machine gun, blasting commando-looking guys left and right. Certainly Jackie has used guns in the past, but they've never fit his presence like a glove. Guns are such a mean, efficient way of dishing out violence. Jackie usually only hurts people when he absolutely has to, not because he wants to. (Please ignore the final minute of Police Story.) What's he of all people doing with a gun? The other thing that should clue you in that something is off, at least in this one scene, is his screaming yellow jumpsuit, which no sane person would wear were they trying to escape with a hostage through the jungle. Of course it turns out that this was only an exercise conducted by Jackie's squad commander Lam Ching-ying, who angrily cancels the vacations of everyone except Jackie's team. (If you watch the extended Japanese cut, this action scene is scored to a song called "China Blue", which has **** all to do with the proceedings but is sung by Jackie himself. Another song called "Tokyo Saturday Night", also sung by him, plays over the end credits.)

Heart of Dragon was something of an attempt for both Jackie and Sammo Hung to stretch their images from pure action comedy stars and show audiences that they were capable of drama. Now, with Hong Kong movies, there's a certain amount of tonal whiplash one can expect. When I first started diving in, I viewed that element as something of a flaw, but with enough time, I accepted that it was just part of these movies' flavour. That being said, this has some of the most severe tonal whiplash I've seen in a movie. Jackie plays a cop who looks after his developmentally disabled brother played by Sammo. Now, there are ways to play this material sensitively and realistically. This movie does neither. Sammo doesn't play his character as "childlike" so much as an actual child, walking around in ridiculous looking overalls, playing with toys, having only school children as friends, and nearly drowning in a bathtub while playing with his toy duck, meaning we have to look at his ass longer than anyone (other than maybe his wife) would reasonably want.

There's a perhaps insensitive but fairly astute conversation in the movie Tropic Thunder about how clumsily movies portray characters with developmental disabilities. This movie is guilty of all those crimes. Where the whiplash comes in is that this is still a Sammo Hung Hong Kong action movie, which not only means that it contains a pretty formidable level of action direction, but that it also goes all in during any given scene, like where Sammo is hassled by restaurant employees after being unable to pay the bill, or Sammo and Jackie have an argument at home. And what's most shocking is that this approach kind of works. Sammo plays his role and the material extremely broadly, but there's a certain pathos about how he treats the character that did kind of tug at my heartstrings. The closest comparison conceptually I can think of is the Shahrukh Khan movie My Name is Khan, which is like if they made a sequel to Rain Man but about 9/11. That movie is also completely shameless, tonally all over the place, but has a certain cloying sincerity that breaks through your defenses. (That movie sadly has zero kung fu fights.)

And as an action movie, this is pretty enjoyable, even if the structure is a bit more shambling than I'd like. (The movie eventually becomes about a gang of jewel thieves who take Sammo hostage, but the first half is fairly episodic, with scenes of Jackie doing cop stuff, Sammo doing cringe stuff and occasional appearances from Jackie's girlfriend Emily Chu, who the Japanese preview calls out with "Hey, who's that cute girl?") Sometimes I find it difficult to summarize why exactly a Hong Kong action scene is impressive beyond vague references to shot lengths, astutely chosen cuts and the acrobatic abilities of the performers, but you can see how this movie accentuates the bruising qualities of the action in comparison to the action comedies Jackie and Sammo had been making in prior years, with how the camera hovers above Jackie's shoulder in an early fight scene, and the abundance of blood in the climax. (This is serious business, folks.) And I must make note of a car chase that echoes the colour scheme of the opening scene, where a boxy yellow Mitsubishi hurtles through the cramped cityscapes and roads of Hong Kong. (The city here and elsewhere is depicted with a certain claustrophobic quality, so that even its equivalent of the open road has tons of people jumping out of the way of the action.) And before the show is over, Sammo finds a way to end the action with a bang and tug at our heartstrings one last time, with a montage set to sentimental music. Did it work on me? Eh...it's the thought that counts.




Rope (Hitchcock, 1948)




This review contains mild spoilers.

When I'd first watched this nearly eight years ago, I'd very much enjoyed the film as a work of suspense, but observed in a blog post and on a defunct forum that its "depiction of the obviously homosexual killers won’t win any points for political correctness". (Not linking because I will be recycling my other comments heavily. It's not cheating if you copy off your own paper.) At the time an internet compatriot gently rebutted my assertion, offering that the movie's handling of homosexuality was more complex and perhaps even sympathetic than I had claimed. If I recall, he made some pretty interesting points that I said I would chew over on a rewatch, but now after all these years I've finally paid the movie another visit and will concede that he was right. The movie is based on the Leopold and Loeb case and depicts a pair of obviously gay killers (or as obviously as a movie in 1948 could without outright saying it), and while on one level it's obviously a negative role, I think the movie is actually pretty bold in bringing the audience into their perspective.

We see the killers commit the crime and then tidy up the proceedings so they can host a dinner party, with one of them, John Dall, almost daring to get caught and the other, Farley Granger, trying to maintain his nerves. So on that level we're already identifying them, similar to how Hitchcock had us rooting for the killers in Psycho and Frenzy when they tried to erase evidence of their crimes. (Like those movies, there is a sexual charge to the killings, which Dall's character readily admits over dialogue.) Hitchcock has always had a taste for psychopaths, and he aligns our perspective in particular with one played by Dall, the more assertive of the two killers. Dall's character, like many real life serial killers, flaunts his superiority over ordinary people, both through dialogue ("Good and evil, right and wrong, were invented for the ordinary, average man, the inferior man, because he needs them") and by leaving clues in plain sight (the chest containing the victim's body, the rope used to kill him), amusing himself with the likelihood of anyone catching on to his scheme. It helps that Dall and Granger have more dynamic personalities than the boring normies who attend their party.

Of course, someone does catch on: their old teacher played by Jimmy Stewart. Stewart, who exudes a certain wholesome American quality, is perhaps the movie's boldest casting choice, as his presence doesn't so readily read as "gay" despite his character obviously being so. What's even more interesting is the way that Stewart, Dall and Granger navigate the party as outsiders insinuating themselves into the social dynamic in different ways. Dall seems driven by contempt and finds joy in manipulating the other guests. Stewart in contrast is bemused by the banality of the conversation ("The Something of the Something"), but mostly genial, and you can see how he tries to liven up the conversation with his theories on murder and then pivots to dialing things down when it's obvious others are taking offense. I definitely didn't appreciate in my earlier viewing the extent to which Stewart's character carves out a place for his distinct brand of queerness (for lack of a better phrase) within the greater social dynamic.

And this is integral to the movie's success as a thriller, as Stewart, as a gay man, understands the kind of code that Dall and Granger seem to be speaking in, and as a result can pick up clues that would be indecipherable to the straight guests (he immediately picks up the significance of the chest in the middle of the room and presses Granger on his phrasing). Of course, Hitchcock makes this code understandable to the viewer, as he aligns our perspective with these characters and allows the movie to develop almost in real time. The movie is shot with a series of long takes, which sometimes duck a little too obviously behind corners (often the shadows of a character's back) to hide the transitions, but mostly allows Hitchcock to exercise the laser-precise visual storytelling he's known for, with well timed pans and zooms deployed seamlessly within the overall visual style to highlight important moments. (The movie's stage origins are apparent with the use of a single set, but Hitchcock is able to make the proceedings feel almost brazenly "cinematic". He would take a similar approach a few years later with Dial M for Murder, where he shot a movie based on a play in 3D. Unfortunately, I've only ever seen it in two dimensions, so perhaps some of the impact was lost on me.) The movie perhaps fumbles a bit with Stewart's moralizing speech at the end, but Stewart certainly does his best to sell it, and the movie's closing shot, a slow pull back of the camera with a flickering neon light peeking in from one of the windows, is a chef's-kiss-worthy image to close on.




The movie perhaps fumbles a bit with Stewart's moralizing speech at the end, but Stewart certainly does his best to sell it, and the movie's closing shot, a slow pull back of the camera with a flickering neon light peeking in from one of the windows, is a chef's-kiss-worthy image to close on.
Yeah; it's been a while since I've watched Rope, but I remember it being a good one, and less "compromised" by having to shoot so much in single takes as you might think. I also don't remember being bothered by Stewart's speech towards the ends, but I also wasn't annoyed by the psychiatrist's monologue in Psycho, even though that's the part of the movie that everyone seems to hate the most:




I don't think either one is movie-ruining bad. The one in Rope is probably "better" in that it's more organic to the proceedings, but I found it a bit clumsy compared to the dialogue in the rest of the movie. I'm also never been too bothered by the one in Psycho, as Hitchcock follows it up with a great closing shot. Maybe that's the key to selling clunky speeches?



I don't think either one is movie-ruining bad. The one in Rope is probably "better" in that it's more organic to the proceedings, but I found it a bit clumsy compared to the dialogue in the rest of the movie. I'm also never been too bothered by the one in Psycho, as Hitchcock follows it up with a great closing shot. Maybe that's the key to selling clunky speeches?
I haven't seen the movie in probably 20 years, but I can hear Stewart saying "You're gonna die, Brandon" clear as a bell. (Um, hopefully that's something he actually says in the speech . . .)