Author Topic: 1SO vs. All the Directors  (Read 85467 times)

1SO

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Todd Solondz
« Reply #640 on: May 14, 2020, 09:23:21 PM »
#246 Todd Solondz Ranked List

One of my more unusual filmgoing experiences was with Happiness. For a couple of minutes, I felt out of sync with the tone, but there was someone in the audience laughing hysterically at the opening, where Jon Lovitz senses he's about to get dumped and quickly turns the table, announcing "Well, you're wrong, 'cause i'm champagne, and you're shit." By the end of the scene, I was laughing too and I kept on laughing for the next two hours. That's what's great about Todd Solondz, but also why he doesn't often click with me. He hasn't clicked with most people because his fanbase rapidly died off.

LIKELY:
Storytelling (2001)
Life During Wartime (2009)

1SO

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Barry Levinson
« Reply #641 on: May 20, 2020, 05:16:44 PM »
#247 Barry Levinson Ranked List

A top filmmaker in the 1980s, up and down all through the 90s, in need of a comeback in the 00s and now he seems completely uncertain, with an occasional success. I used to think of his films as unmissable, which is why I saw Avalon, Jimmy Hollywood and Sphere, but Bandits broke me of this habit once and for all.

I don't expect to find any answers and there's nothing here I'm being pressed to watch, but I'm curious about a few.

MAYBE:
Man of the Year (2006)
What Just Happened (2008)
You Don't Know Jack (2010)
The Wizard of Lies (2017)
« Last Edit: November 12, 2020, 10:33:38 PM by 1SO »

pixote

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #642 on: May 20, 2020, 06:56:59 PM »
Those titles all sound like the names of the generic bad movie a director makes in a film within a film.

pixote
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Corndog

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #643 on: May 21, 2020, 08:05:41 AM »
I recently watched Paterno from Levinson. I can't say it was anything you would need to rush out to see, I doubt you would think much of it.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

1SO

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors - Russ Meyer
« Reply #644 on: July 05, 2020, 03:33:16 PM »
#248 Russ Meyer Ranked List

This Marathon is just full of surprises. I didn't even know we had a thread for Russ Meyer, and I'm not sure what to watch, though I imagine availability will be a factor. I'm going to look for more of his artistically ambitious projects and try to avoid the stuff that's grindhouse titillation.


MAYBE:
Mud Honey (1965)
Vixen (1968)
Supervixens (1975)
Up! (1976)
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 03:39:09 PM by 1SO »

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1SO vs. All the Directors - Harold Ramis and Franklin J. Schaffner
« Reply #645 on: July 07, 2020, 06:04:04 PM »
#249 Harold Ramis Ranked List

Like Judd Apatow, I like Ramis as a writer much more than as a director, though he has made a few good films. I've also worked with him and he's extremely pleasant on set, while having excellent instincts for helping actors to be funny. So while I've seen all of his features except for Analyze That, I won't be watching it. Moving on.



#250 Franklin J. Schaffner Ranked List

Two opinions about Schaffner.
1) I think he's stuffy
2) The Best Man is one of the greatest political films ever made.

Looking at his IMDB, a third of his features rate higher than 7.5 while another third rate below 6.0. There's little consistency.

IMDB, Letterboxd and ICM point me to Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) but it's three hours and sounds like what I like worst about Schaffner. I'm leaning towards rewatching Patton (1970), which I haven't seen in over two decades.

pixote

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #646 on: July 08, 2020, 03:05:23 PM »
His tv work seems more interesting. I'd like to check out his episodes of The Defenders or his Studio One productions of Twelve Angry Men and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

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Antares

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #647 on: July 08, 2020, 05:00:31 PM »
His tv work seems more interesting. I'd like to check out his episodes of The Defenders or his Studio One productions of Twelve Angry Men and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

https://dai.ly/x3lkrc0

His version of Twelve Angry Men is interesting to watch, especially if you've seen the Lumet film many times. Schaffner is constrained by two things that Lumet was not, time and a live performance. At just under an hour a lot of the subplots in the film are not there, and some of the characters suffer for it. If you had never seen the film, this wouldn't be a problem, for the story still works in this abbreviated form. As for it being live, you can tell the moments, when an actor flubbed a line or didn't quite get the line quite right in emotion. The other advantage that Lumet had was that he could use so many different camera angles and edits to use the room as a thirteenth character in the proceedings. The one surprise for me was how good Robert Cummings was in the Fonda role. I actually found him to be the more believable character. Fonda plays him like the righteous, white night savior, while Cummings is unsure of his actions in the beginning and this makes his attempt to find true justice more appealing and true.
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1SO

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #648 on: July 08, 2020, 08:54:20 PM »
I was getting ready to post about Patton and move on, but now that you gave me a link I'll watch Twelve Angry Men (1954) first.

1SO

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Re: 1SO vs. All the Directors
« Reply #649 on: July 09, 2020, 12:25:38 AM »
His tv work seems more interesting. I'd like to check out his episodes of The Defenders or his Studio One productions of Twelve Angry Men and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

pixote
I would love to know how to tell the story of Mr. Ripley in under and hour, and I assume as a play.