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Author Topic: Top 100 Club: 1SO  (Read 51305 times)

oldkid

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #210 on: March 05, 2020, 02:53:59 PM »
I always like it when it's 1SO's turn, because while he might have eccentric taste in more recent films, his pre-60s film choices are always interesting and excellent.

I would love to see Happy Death Day and Stake Land, simply because they sound like fun.  But I'd love to explore some of his westerns: Westward the Women; Too Late for Tears; Canyon Passage.

I should really see Young Mr. Lincoln.  I could make a Henry Fonda double feature and watch Grapes of Wrath as well.

Well, we'll see.  I always have high ambitions, but I should be content if I watch and review one of these films this month.
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Antares

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #211 on: March 05, 2020, 05:39:53 PM »
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly seem like a good way to get a western and a film on your list at the same time.

If I were you, I'd start off with No Name on the Bullet, Audie Murphy's best western. We've been passing this one along to others for years now. It's a hidden gem.
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1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #212 on: March 05, 2020, 06:26:02 PM »
I would love to see Happy Death Day and Stake Land, simply because they sound like fun. 
The years are so far very kind to Happy Death Day, which often comes up as one of the decade's great Horror surprises.


But I'd love to explore some of his westerns: Westward the Women; Too Late for Tears; Canyon Passage.
Too Late For Tears is Noir, but these are all excellent and widely-praised films.


I should really see Young Mr. Lincoln.  I could make a Henry Fonda double feature and watch Grapes of Wrath as well.
That would also be two of John Ford's best. Lincoln is one of the three Ford films that even MartinTeller likes.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 10:44:04 PM by 1SO »

oldkid

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #213 on: March 05, 2020, 10:30:17 PM »
They all sound so good!
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #214 on: March 05, 2020, 11:01:48 PM »
OUTWIT     OUTPLAY
SURVIVOR: VERA CRUZ
OUTLAST



In this season of SURVIVOR, we're heading to the scenic port of Veracruz during the time of the Second Franco-Mexican War. The stakes are high and the castaways are unstable, because the conservatives are utilizing the post merge strategy of Pagoning - "voting out" members of the opposing Juárez tribe. These poor outcasts are outnumbered and outgunned. You heard right, outgunned. As another season's castaway member, Lucky Day says, "Oh great... REAL bullets." Yes, this show is brutal. There is much bloodshed as contestants build alliances, discard them, and patch together new ones. The twists and flips will make you motion sick, so bring your Dramamine. True to form, a power couple emerges between Cooper and Lancaster and promises to be especially volatile and agitated. Frenemies to the end with a possible special duel challenge. As an added bonus, insults abound, such as Lucky's classic, "You son of a motherless goat!" He's right, there are goat castaways scattered throughout the show and you'll see them in subsequent seasons, such as SURVIVOR: The Wild Bunch and SURVIVOR: Once Upon a Time in the West. These ragtag cutthroats are always up for a competition, but never destined to win. If this season seems to have crossed a line in reality entertainment, remember, all this could have been averted, if the dominant tribe hadn't rejected the immunity Monroe Doctrine idol. The two tribes to the north, who could have held a council to demand it's validity, were too busy with their own intense challenge, snuffing out each others torches.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 11:04:28 PM by Sandy »

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #215 on: March 05, 2020, 11:20:24 PM »
That's one way of looking at it, and I love how your comparison fits pretty much down the line. Got me thinking that a lot of Westerns are built on uneasy alliances thinning the numbers until the two big names must face each other. This pre-dates your other Survivor options and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, yet you'd hardly know it by the violence and tough situations. It's what I like about director Robert Aldrich, best known for The Dirty Dozen... another Survivor film.

jdc

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #216 on: March 07, 2020, 06:46:14 PM »
I have Old Boy, Thirst, and Handmaiden in my TOP 100 but I have never watched the other two of the revenge trilogy so will watch Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. 
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smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #217 on: March 09, 2020, 01:52:49 AM »
Midsommar spoilers throughout

Best line in hindsight: "So we're just going to ignore the bear then?"

It does bring to mind a question though. How would this have played out had everyone simply stayed calm and accepted it. Nothing happens to anybody in the film until they actually make a wrong step. Whether it was attempting to leave, or pissing on a sacred tree, or trying sneak photographs of a sacred text, or simply trying to hide. Even Dani was arguably a target of violence. Early on she has a bad trip after drinking that tea or whatever and she runs off into the forest. It cuts abruptly while she is still running. Maybe she got knocked out. They were awfully good at sneaking up on people and hitting them in this movie. Any physical pain she experienced when she woke up could be attributed to a hangover. Another question is, unlike the men in the film who get offed, I don't believe we ever find out what happened to Connie (except a false story about her having been driven to the train station). It's entirely possibly she's being kept alive for child-bearing reasons or something. That's one of the more chilling scenes is when one of the guys is just meandering around a field, and hears a scream (which was so faint I questioned whether I heard it myself, but I'm pretty sure I did.

Seems odd that the plan would be to bring so many people just to kill the majority of them. So I imagine in theory they all could have lived, had they all been agreeable to the events.

Pretty good engagement throughout. Lots to see and anticipate. Lots of surprises. Gotta hand it to those cults though, they do so often pick a beautiful landscape for their disgusting behaviour. Putting people's mind at ease is a part of the play.

I'd give it a 3/4 or so. Solidly done.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2020, 03:13:50 AM by smirnoff »

1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #218 on: March 09, 2020, 10:15:54 AM »
Midsommar spoilers throughout
The newest film on my list, but it's rich with talent on both sides of the lens, with moments open to interpretation and easy to criticize if you're not liking it.


It does bring to mind a question though. How would this have played out had everyone simply stayed calm and accepted it. Nothing happens to anybody in the film until they actually make a wrong step. Whether it was attempting to leave, or pissing on a sacred tree, or trying sneak photographs of a sacred text, or simply trying to hide.
1. Possibly related, but my favorite comment about Raiders of the Lost Ark is thinking about how everything would've turned out if Indiana Jones didn't go after the ark. How he fails every step of the way and we regard him as a great hero.

2. Making a wrong step seems inevitable. How many horror films have been made where a bunch of college students who think they know everything tangle with a culture (or supernatural curse) because they see themselves as superior, only to find they're in way over their heads and by being disrespectful they bring about their own doom? So at its core, Midsommar is one of the most typical horror plots ever, but it's told with a high level of intelligence and sophistication.


Another question is, unlike the men in the film who get offed, I don't believe we ever find out what happened to Connie (except a false story about her having been driven to the train station). It's entirely possibly she's being kept alive for child-bearing reasons or something. That's one of the more chilling scenes is when one of the guys is just meandering around a field, and hears a scream (which was so faint I questioned whether I heard it myself, but I'm pretty sure I did.
I've seen (and we've all experienced) many filmmakers who are worried they are being too vague and that their audiences won't get what they're doing, so they explain too much. This is Ari Aster's 2nd feature and he's confident that he's giving us just enough to unnerve us by what we're not having explained.


Seems odd that the plan would be to bring so many people just to kill the majority of them. So I imagine in theory they all could have lived, had they all been agreeable to the events.
Yes. This is what sets it apart from The Wicker Man, which is about a bunch of pagans searching for a blood sacrifice. What the townfolk are doing isn't a trap and isn't evil when viewed from their cultural perspective. Some parts of Japan had a way of dealing with the elderly that's as cruel as what happens here. That scene here, the first real bit of hide-your-eyes horror, is so unnerving because the Americans are as shaken as we would be, while the townfolk just go about it in the calm manner of an a ancient custom.

oldkid

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Re: Top 100 Club: 1SO
« Reply #219 on: March 09, 2020, 11:34:50 AM »
Smirnoff, you hit upon the element that kept me from really appreciating Midsommar as much as I would have liked to.  I have an aversion to cultural narrow mindedness and this movie is fueled by that, which would be fine but it felt that we were supposed to take the same views as the protagonists.  I was torn  by the scene of the elderly committing suicide, because while I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, the couple was committing the act of self harm so peacefully, without coercion.  I think the mistake is the community allowing outsiders to watch a very personal ceremony, but I also think it wasn’t the outsiders’ place to judge.  I’m not saying that the community isn’t shown to be evil by the end, but by the end I strongly disliked all the protagonists for their tunnel vision.
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