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Yesterday it boiled down to 3 movies: Caligula, to which I said NOPE! (he thought I was only joking when I explained to him that it was produced by Penthouse and they altered the final product a little and it would be quite uncomfortable viewing for us) Deliverance and Dear God No. He went outside the box and surprised me by picking a documentary. One I had kind of given up on. A thoughtful meditation of the plight of poverty stricken octogenarians in major European cities.





or it's about a film crew following around a vicious serial killer. I get my doc.'s confused sometime. Anyway, he watched the first scene of Man Bites Dog about a week ago and was kind of a big NO on watching it so I was quite surprised when he said lets give it a go. After all, b&w, foreign films, I thought, were kryptonite to him. Reading?!? Eff that!

Surprisingly he enjoyed it. However, for about the first 15 minutes he didn't look happy, at all, and I think I know why. After awhile he asked "Should I be laughing at any of this?" I said "why would you be laughing at a serial killer murdering people?" to which he said "because it's kind of funny." To be fair, he wasn't laughing while there were onscreen murders but Ben, the films star, has a way about him that can be funny. The pic above kind of captures a little bit of the comedy. A serial killer lamenting violence in poor communities. So the fact that it is a very dark comedy threw him at first. Don't think this is high on his must see again list but we managed to watch a film that has two of his big no-no's, opening more doors perhaps. I'm guessing he'd give this a
He said he liked it better than 3 Men and a Baby, which he thought was enjoyable fluff.



A couple quick ones we knocked off lately:

My reaction when he told me he didn't like the next one very much:




That's right. He was not a fan of Die Hard. It was OK he says. WTF was wrong with it I ask but before he can answer I'm already all puffed up and like, just GTFOH! COME BACK AFTER YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST SAW AND COMPARE IT TO WHAT YOU JUST SAID! I'm beginning to think action/adventure just isn't his bag. He didn't like Raiders of the Lost Ark either. I know he didn't like the fact that they made the CoP a complete moron but I thought the rest of the movie covers for that. Guess not. On a positive note he did like Alan Rickman and thinks it is a Christmas movie but not as Christmassy as Lethal Weapon.


*****

The next one is one he's wanted to see for awhile and I figured he'd like it a lot and he did. He's always asking for to see more Nicholson movies BUT not those...they're old. But this one:



this one hit the spot. He was a little shocked at just how awful Melvin was/is but couldn't help but laugh at some of the awful things Melvin would say. He's been a fan of Helen Hunt for awhile so having her in this helps. Some of his favorite laughs were from Greg Kinnear imitating Jack. Before we started this movie watching thing, these are the kinds of films I knew he would like. Stuff like this and When Harry Met Sally. Comedy/drama throw in a little roadtrip and the bully getting a little thrown back at him....perfect This is probably one of his fav's so far and I guess that means this one was about As Good as It Gets



Finally got around to watching a movie made before 1980. Before 1960 actually. "Is it in color?" he asks. "Not only is it in color but it's better than color" I tell him. "It's Technicolor." Then we got into a discussion about Technicolor and when that got dull we decided to watch the movie, my favorite from this director.



Rear Window is to me, one of the best movies ever made. There isn't anything I don't like about it and it was one of the first "old" movies I ever saw. I loved it immediately. Would it impress the kid in the same way? Short answer - Nope! "This sure is dialogue heavy isn't it?" I guess, yeah, I mean there isn't a lot of ***** blowing up or people turning into bugs but if you pay just a little bit of attention you'll see there just may have been a murder where the body is dismembered. Pretty gruesome, no? There were a lot of things he didn't like, the biggest being the creepiness of Jimmy spying on his neighbors. I don't think he ever got over that. I tried to explain that living in a courtyard like that and NOT closing the curtains is the 1950's version of posting on instagram but he didn't buy it. As far as putting down the movie the worst thing he may have said was that Grace Kelly would just be meh if she were around today. Did he like anything about it? Actually, yeah. The Technicolor. He made several comments about the colors and how eye popping they were. So Technicolor is the key to older movies going forward. I need a good, short , Technicolor movie where shit blows up and people transform into fly's. Afterwards, he did admit that he was tired and that may have affected his focus. He did say he'd give it another shot sometime. Maybe when he isn't so tired. This was the first 1950's movie he ever saw. I was debating showing him this or 12 Angry Men and ultimately decided on the one with color. In hindsight, I think 12 Angry Men may have been the better choice because he may connect with the subject matter of that one better.

So get the bad out of the way first because the next movie he liked a lot and I told him if you like it this much on the first viewing wait until you watch it again. There is so much packed into this movie, so much stuff you have to follow, that missing something on the first go is almost expected.





I wasn't sure how this would go over just because there is so much to follow. Before we even started watching this I said "this....this is one you don't want to be peeking at your phone unless you want to get completely lost before it even gets started." This was a blind watch for him so I told him it's a little like La La Land - kind of a love story to Hollywood. It didn't take long for him to realize I was full of **** and this was not a love story to Hollywood. It was kind of fun watching his thought process change with almost every scene. He's the bad guy. No, now it's him. Ah shoot! Him? Finally, I have no idea who's doing what. For a quick minute he thought Exley was the bad guy. That cracked me up. After the Night Owl arrests he was thinking it was over except that there was still over an hour left. So what gives? Just keep watching, that's only a piece to this puzzle and L.A Confidential kept him guessing until the very end. When it was all over he was pretty impressed with most of it. The Kim Basinger Oscar win he didn't understand but the rest of the movie he really liked.


His top 5 so far:
Goodfella's is THE no. 1 movie so far and I don't think it's even that close. The rest of his top 5, no particular order, are:
The Fly
A History of Violence
As Good as it Gets
My Cousin Vinny



I wouldn't have thought of a better film than Rear Window for a first dip into "classic cinema", to be honest. Maybe a rewatch later down the road will help him appreciate it more.

Anyway, him loving L.A. Confidential is a great cleanser. I love that film.
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I thought Rear Window was a solid choice but ya never know. Picking older films that work for him is going to be tricky but I should have seen that he was in a Savage Streets mood and not a Rear Window mood. At least he's willing to give it another shot someday.



Gonna tick off a few really quick:

The Bank Job - Based on a true story, Jason Statham and friends rob a banks vault (the safe deposit boxes), pissing off everybody in London from porn producers to MI5 to political revolutionaries. Kind of an underrated movie, imo, and he enjoyed it's twists. Took him awhile to get what was going on. I think he was expecting a break in and a big long chase and that's not this movie.


Ringu - Oh No! A foreign film. Here's the thing that bugs me about his phobia about subtitles - he uses subtitles when watching stuff in English. It's weird. Anyway, it was a little slow for him and he didn't think it was scary at all but he didn't hate it either.


The Untouchables - He liked this. He's starting to see a pattern: if the movie has won an Oscar he's probably going to like it. He really liked the look of the movie, the music and he thought Sean Connery and Andy Garcia were pretty awesome.


The Departed - This was fun. He wants to see more Jack but this also has Leo and Matt and Mark who he isn't really a fan of. He was liking this quite a bit until the elevator scene near the end when he says "ya know, I really don't like this anymore." I laughed it off knowing he'd come around when it was ALL over and he did. This will get a rewatch from him


Three Kings - I knew he didn't like Leo or Matt before we watched The Departed but I didn't know about the Mark thing so of course I picked this as the next movie. To add insult to injury, he doesn't like war movies. I figured he'd like the appearance of Malibu's Most Wanted in a small role and one of the creators of Jackass, so it's a push, right? And it's not REALLY a war film. It's a robbery set in the middle of the desert. Surprisingly, he enjoyed this more than I expected.


The Iron Giant - He absolutely loved this story about a gigantic, alien, iron, war machine that is set out to destroy all humans. Or maybe it's about friendship. He wanted something light after watching Man Bites Dog and when it comes to lighter fare I have this and Disney Classics but the Disney flicks are a no go for him. The Iron Giant cracks his top 5 animated movies of all time.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
If you wanna ease him into musicals, my go-to recommendation for that is usually Once. He also dug When Harry Met Sally, so try something like (500) Days of Summer.

As far as other more regular recommendations, what about...

Heat
RoboCop
Source Code
The Silence of the Lambs
Seven
Prisoners

I kinda read Se7en as you suggesting it as a musical.
o.O


Btw, love this thread.



I kinda read Se7en as you suggesting it as a musical.
o.O


Btw, love this thread.
Oh, I would definitely be up for a Se7en: The Musical adaptation

"I hate every man I see, from Number 1 to Number Seeee-ven!"



Oh, I would definitely be up for a Se7en: The Musical adaptation
Se7en Boxes For Se7en Brothers?



the worst thing he may have said was that Grace Kelly would just be meh if she were around today.
I think it's time to abort this mission. It was a valiant effort on your part but I'm afraid it's hopeless.



I think it's time to abort this mission. It was a valiant effort on your part but I'm afraid it's hopeless.

Right! I should but I enjoy telling him how awful his opinions are.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Twist: He's reading this thread and feigning strong negative reactions to older films to make you mad.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Oh, I would definitely be up for a Se7en: The Musical adaptation

"I hate every man I see, from Number 1 to Number Seeee-ven!"


🎵 What's in the booooooox, you son of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.....?🎵
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Thought I'd introduce him to the world of Wes Anderson, see how that would go over. We didn't watch my favorite film from Wes, that would be Moonrise Kingdom, but instead went with one where the sheer number of recognizable cast members would keep him interested if the story didn't.




And The Grand Budapest Hotel was a big success. The funny thing about this is I just started playing it. He was sitting there flipping through his phone, not paying any attention to the real world, when after a few minutes he asked "Is that Jude Law? What's this?" I said "I don't remember but I think it's supposed to be good" and he went back to his phone. After awhile his looking up became more frequent than his looking down and that's when I knew he was getting interested.

When it was all over he said "I don't think I've ever seen anything like that." Yeah, that's Wes Anderson. His movies look and play like nothing else out there right now. Once I realized he was getting into it I did explain a little about Wes' Worlds. Kid, no matter how serious or bleak things may be getting in the movie, things will still look fake or silly on purpose, so just go with it. He laughed quite a bit which surprised me a little (didn't think it would land that well) but his biggest laugh came from his favorite actor, Dafoe, in a blink and you'll miss it event - "Did he just throw the cat out the window?" "Well, what did you see?" "I saw him throw the cat out the window." We had to watch it again because he couldn't believe that actually happened. Overall, The Grand Budapest was a hit. Not sure how well the rest of Andersons' films will go over, tbh I'm not much of a fan of his earlier stuff, but Wes is batting 1.000 so far.





We also hit up a couple throw aways. One he's been wanting to see and one he never heard of.

The first was The Green Inferno. No clue as to why he wanted to see this but he's been wanting to see it for a long time so we gave it a spin. I don't think he's ever seen a cannibal movie before so I guess it's best to start small and work your way up although I would have preferred The Mountain of the Cannibal God for his intro. He thought Inferno was gross a couple of times but other than that he wasn't terribly impressed. The weed scene, that's when he really lost it "C'mon? Really?" We got it out of the way.


The next was his intro to Robert Rodriguez, is something he never heard of and is the first Vampire movie he's ever seen - From Dusk till Dawn. He said, about 3/4 of the way through, "I don't think I've ever seen a movie that switches it up this much." If I had told him it was about vampires there's no way he would have went for it. I asked what is it about vampires that he doesn't get and he immediately went to the Twilight stuff. I told him the '80's has a few good vampire movies but other than them I'm not a fan either. Might be able to squeeze Fright Night or Lost Boys or Near Dark in sometime in the future. He compared this to Shoot 'em Up, not the greatest movie but a ton of fun.
He did ask me about the big dance number "Is that Selma?" "It is." "Wow....how tall do you think she is?"




As noted earlier he didn't like Pulp Fiction at all. I told him I didn't care for it at first either but the older I got the more I liked it. So, maybe you should give it another try now that your older. When did you watch it? "Last year." Never mind. I don't think he likes QT very much which is why it surprised me when he said he wanted to watch this one about a jewel heist gone awry.



I asked him why this one? You don't even like QT? "I haven't seen it yet." I guess that's about the best reason to watch something. This was another one where he kept trying to guess who was the rat and it kept changing almost every other scene. He was into this right away. Opening scene, once Mr. Pink started talking about tipping, got to him and by the time it all ended Reservoir Dogs was safely in his top ten. Actually pretty surprised about this one.



For whatever reason he thought the next movie was going to be a rom-com. Yeah, he had no clue what it was about. When it was over I asked him "What makes you think I'd watch a rom-com with you?" Him: "I don't know. It did seem a little weird." Anyway, this one, about Dan and Alex and love and sex and a Fatal Attraction, he thought very highly of.




He was still thinking this was a romance up until the moment Alex had her first little fit, the moment where Dan essentially tells her "Thanks for the good times but I'm outta here." The mood in the room changed drastically after that scene.

According to him this may be the scariest movie we've seen. Glenn Close as Alex terrified him. He had never seen her in anything and she blew him away. The way the movie ramps up the tension scene after scene as Alex begins her decent into family, fantasy land is almost perfect and most of it is quite believable. His scariest moment was when Alex visits Dan's wife and Dan stumbles in on them. This was fun because there was a lot of "What would you do if you were Dan?" going on between us. He did think Alex took things a little over the line but... Dan is a douchebag. It almost reminded me of the SWOTing episode of Silicon Valley. Another winner, he thinks it's one of the best suspense/thrillers he's ever seen and another top 10 movie





Knocked off a few more. Nothing special but some big name movies he hasn't seen.

Mission:Impossible - I remember when this was first released one of the knocks was that it was too confusing for the average moviegoer. That still holds true. While he enjoyed most of it he did get lost with the story. He asked me if this was Tom Cruise's best movie and I said I don't think so. I like M:I but it's not a classic/classic like All The Right Moves. Anyway, I told him that this is the most confusing of all the M:I movies so he is open to watching the sequels.

---
Now he saw the remake/reboot to this but never saw the original and he wanted to see what kicked it all off. He actually remembered a little bit of this from when he was a kid. I guess I was watching it and he was sneaking a peak while he was supposed to be asleep. He caught the very ending and it scared the shit out of him. Good! Did it give you nightmares? "For like a night or two. Me: "Good." He asked if this was my favorite of the series and I said no. Part 2 or 4 are my fav but part one is neat because it's a bit of a mystery as well as a slasher. Of course the series could only be Friday the 13th. He liked this enough and thought Kevin Bacon got it the best.

--
This next one...what can you say. He was interested in The Green Inferno and I asked if he wanted to see one of the films that inspired it. He said "Yessss?" Okie Dokie. You probably will not like this but here we go. Now relax...I did not show him the grandaddy of all cannibal films. I'm not that big of a sadist. Sheesh! We started watching Mountain of the Cannibal God but he was losing interest (I told him Ursula gets Naked later - he said "Who?") so I switched it up and I showed him the grandmama of cannibal films - Cannibal Ferox and he did not enjoy it. At all. He conceded that Inferno pulled quite a bit from this but didn't like the extreme nature of this one. The one thing that did surprise him was that the film wasn't just nasty scene after nasty scene, like Men Behind the Sun which he also apparently sneaked a peak at as a kid, but that it did make an attempt at telling a story. He just didn't like it.


Gonna try some foreign films for awhile. I know he liked The Raid, Porco Rosso, [rec] and Them, Apocalypto he's been wanting to see and based off what we have watched so far I think Timecrimes and Oldboy might work as well. That black and white phobia is stronger in him than I had previously thought. As far as English speaking movies, the only two must sees right now are Apocalypse Now and Schindler's List.



Knocked off a few movies this weekend, a Korean film, a Japanese film and a BIGGIE made before 1980. That's three movies out of his comfort zone and I'm not even going to include the Jim Wynorski b-movie classic, The Lost Empire and it's Russ Meyer inspired casting, which I busted out for a little change of pace. So the first film:



We hear ya! I Saw the Devil is an extremely violent cat and mouse where the bad guy, a serial rapist/murder, has some problems with the fiance of his latest victim, a special agent in Korean law enforcement. The agent isn't terribly interested in killing this spud too fast. He's more interested in torturing him, repeatedly. So he finds the killer, beats the ever loving ***** out of him, lets him go only to find the creep later and do it all again. It's great! But...

There's more to this movie than just torture, the entire vigilante angle and what that may do to somebody is touched upon, but we have to have some torture before that gets explored, right? Right. The Kid loved this and I kind of thought he would based off of what he's liked so far. All the twists and turns seemed plausible in this world and kept him guessing. His only complaint was a scene near the end when the agent picks up the killer for the final time. That he didn't buy but he also said "I can take one scene like that in a movie like this." It was important for me to find a foreign language movie that started off fast and never lets up which this one does. After a day of thinking it over the Kid says this may be in his top ten of all time. Guess he liked it. A good sign for Korean movies going forward.

***
Our next movie is another bloodbath. A zombie flick from Japan that happens to be one of my favorite films of the last five years.

Not a movie that you can really get into too much without giving away everything that makes it so much fun. We watched this after The Lost Empire, so the first 35 minutes or so the lad thought this was another one of THEM movies only without the boobs. After 35 mintues and the credits start rolling he says "It's not the worst zombie movie I've ever seen but..." I think he was trying to let me down easy. Grab some wood there Bub! It ain't over yet! By the time it was over he had laughed a few times, was smiling a lot and was sold. Oh yeah, this is One Cut of the Dead. His favorite part: when the back up camera girl took a header while running to prep the next shot.


***

Finally we watched one I've been hyping for quite some time but it's one he's never showed any interest in seeing. In fact, he seemed to take pride in the fact that he hadn't seen it and probably never would so it was a complete shock to me when he suggested we watch it. I asked why now? "Eh, it seems like one I should probably watch some time."


Whoops! Not that one! This one:


Yep, he finally watched Jaws. This checks off a movie before 1980. Now, I didn't expect him to like this and he didn't expect to like this but he gave it a fair shot and...he liked it. Didn't love it but it exceeded his very low expectations. For whatever reason he thought the entire movie was a couple guys sitting in a boat talking about a shark. Kind of a My Dinner With Andre set at sea. WTF? Anyways, one of the greatest movies of all times, arguably, exceeded your expectations? "Yep." Okay, sounds like a win to me.

He would have fit in perfectly back when this was released - talking to the screen and stuff. Right away, first scene, "Why is she swimming so far out? Why? Why? WHY?" I don't know why. I don't understand ocean people either. Then, later, when Hooper is going to investigate Ben's boat - "I wouldn't do that. Would you do that? Why is he going in the water? Don't do that!" That's about the same time he asks me "Is this supposed to be a horror movie?" "Shhh....Depends who you ask. I think it is but according to this movie site I visit once in a while, it's not." A minute later he's angry at himself for jumping out of his seat - "I knew something was gonna happen! I knew IT!" uh huh.

Even though he's not a fan of a lot of talky talky in movies he did think this one managed to pull it off. He thought the pacing between action and talking was pretty good. It never bored him and it wasn't pointless blather. The Mrs. Kitner scene really hit em hard and is one of the scenes he was surprised to find in a movie like this. He also thought the fx held up pretty good for such an "old" movie which is pretty important to him. Bad/poorly aged fx can ruin a film in his eyes. This was a big step for him I think. If he was so off on this classic of the 70's maybe he's off on some other 70's classics. He's already mentioned maybe it's time for 2001. Nah, not yet, but maybe, perhaps, The Godfather?




He probably wouldn't mind doing that but I wouldn't like it nor would I know how to even go about setting that up. Doing something like that for 2001 and there's a good possibility that you'd get 2+ hours of sleeping. Seeing how far off he was about Jaws makes me think that he thinks 2001 is some sci-fi, action thing. Fatal Attraction would have been a fun one to livestream or even Cannibal Ferox.