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Author Topic: Top 100 Club: Teproc  (Read 22999 times)

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2018, 08:07:11 PM »
I like the way the gang feels like a supernatural force more than anything: my Romero reference would be Dawn of the Dead but it also works with Night of course. I find the leads charismatic enough, but I'd say what makes the film special for me is the simplicity of it, and the end-of-days mood Carpenter creates. The synth score, too: very simple but really effective, like the whole film. "Ragged" doesn't seem to fit Carpenter to me, as I'd say one of this film's biggest qualities is how lean it is, but maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by ragged ?
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Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2018, 02:40:13 PM »
Hi Teproc!

This month I'm going to watch,

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jackie (a convo review with Knocked Out Loaded)
The World's End (need to finish the Cornetto trilogy!)

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2018, 04:54:10 PM »
Hi Teproc!

This month I'm going to watch,

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jackie (a convo review with Knocked Out Loaded)
The World's End (need to finish the Cornetto trilogy!)

Looking forward to reading all of those (especially the convo review, those are always interesting).
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1SO

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2018, 12:02:31 AM »
Nocturama
In my post-watch I read your review where you say, "I kinda wish everyone could come to this without knowing anything." You got your wish with me, and it makes for a disorienting, kind of dazzling first hour. I'm trying to piece together what I've signed up for and Bertrand Bonello keeps cutting to different people and jumping around in time, seemingly at will and yet there's this definite pull towards a climax. All the walking reminded me of Elephant and I mention that because those kids were just roaming the halls and going nowhere. Here, there's a definite plan, to the point where I wondered if they were taking too many precautions. It's all so coordinated and planned just in case somebody is suspicious. It doesn't appear that anyone is, but the more time you spend the more you see them screwing up the simple stuff. You see it's pretty obvious these are a bunch of amateurs and it's no surprise that they're drawing attention.

Back to the middle (and I'm deliberately aiming to make this uninteresting to anyone except Teproc, trying to preserve the fresh experience I had.) There's a scene of dance set at night to an electronica instrumental I don't know. The group comes together into a hug and the whole film kind of came together for me too. It's not that I wasn't enjoying piecing together all the walking, it's that at this point I could finally see a movie with a beginning, middle and end. This is mostly a lie because the back half has even less story than the front and because it's post-climax, there isn't the feeling of heading towards something. The current has died down to a lazy drift and while there's a dreaminess to it, I don't see myself wanting to sit thru the last 30 minutes again. The spell was broken.

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2018, 03:46:59 AM »
Nocturama
In my post-watch I read your review where you say, "I kinda wish everyone could come to this without knowing anything." You got your wish with me, and it makes for a disorienting, kind of dazzling first hour. I'm trying to piece together what I've signed up for and Bertrand Bonello keeps cutting to different people and jumping around in time, seemingly at will and yet there's this definite pull towards a climax. All the walking reminded me of Elephant and I mention that because those kids were just roaming the halls and going nowhere. Here, there's a definite plan, to the point where I wondered if they were taking too many precautions. It's all so coordinated and planned just in case somebody is suspicious. It doesn't appear that anyone is, but the more time you spend the more you see them screwing up the simple stuff. You see it's pretty obvious these are a bunch of amateurs and it's no surprise that they're drawing attention.

Back to the middle (and I'm deliberately aiming to make this uninteresting to anyone except Teproc, trying to preserve the fresh experience I had.) There's a scene of dance set at night to an electronica instrumental I don't know. The group comes together into a hug and the whole film kind of came together for me too. It's not that I wasn't enjoying piecing together all the walking, it's that at this point I could finally see a movie with a beginning, middle and end. This is mostly a lie because the back half has even less story than the front and because it's post-climax, there isn't the feeling of heading towards something. The current has died down to a lazy drift and while there's a dreaminess to it, I don't see myself wanting to sit thru the last 30 minutes again. The spell was broken.

Glad you could watch it with no prior knowledge, I think it really adds to the experience for this one. It's very much a film of two halves, and I agree that the first is the most intriguing one. That first sequence in the metro, when you're putting together what is happening is definitely my favorite part of the film, it's incredibly tense and completely engrossing.

I can certainly see how the second half can lose you after that, but I think there are some standout sequences here (mostly musical) that really make it tick, and I also found the ending quite powerful.
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smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2018, 09:31:24 PM »
What would you say are your most watched films on your top 100 Teproc?

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #16 on: September 08, 2018, 02:20:35 AM »
What would you say are your most watched films on your top 100 Teproc?

I don't rewatch movies a lot in general, so there's a good chunk of the list that I've only seen once. Pulp Fiction is probably the one I've seen the most, because I did introduce it to some friends when I was in middle school, so I saw it quite a few times around that time, and I've rewatched it occasionally since then (the last time being a year or two ago when I actually got to see it on the big screen). Then there's the Chihiro/Mononoke/Totoro trio (which I sometimes call the Holy Trinity of Miyazaki, because my ranking of them changes everytime, and I think of them as a unit despite their obvious differences), I've seen each of those at least three or four times (which, again, is  a lot for me). Amélie, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre are the only ones I could say for certain I've seen three times. Come to think of it, these are all very high on the list, which I suppose makes sense.
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smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #17 on: September 08, 2018, 10:19:54 PM »
Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2015)   -   Teproc's #73

It went somewhat against my better judgement deciding to watch this film. Where characters are concerned, I often feel that with Japanese dramas I will be doomed to follow some hopelessly forlorn individual. They won't talk, they won't express emotions, they'll just brood. It's not always the case that an unlikable character makes for an unlikable film, but if it's an intimate drama and their life and uneventful, then yea, it kind of does. At least for me. And I've got enough experiences of exactly that through the Far-East Bracket to mark it as a tendency. Koreeda's own film Maborosi falls into this category in my opinion.

But I decided to go ahead and watch Our Little Sister for a couple reasons. First, it was available on Netflix. Second, because looking at Teproc's top 100 I struggled to find anything I hadn't already seen that jumped out at me (I'm very hot and cold on your list Teproc... it has got films on it I have in my own top 100, but also films on my Top 5 Movies You Hate But Haven't Actually Watched :))). Our Little Sister at least was made this decade, and had people smiling on the poster, and had no reputation that I was aware of, so that put it well ahead of films like High and Low, Stalker or Fitzcarraldo (which, I'm sorry, but I will probably die without having seen, and I'm okay with that :))). Also, in the spirit of club I figured it would be more sporting to go with a film I never would have chosen to see otherwise (unlike, say, Annihilation, which is one I'll get to on my own).

I must say, the opening shot made me groan. It wasn't bad in itself, but it was familiar... and not in a good way. A couple on a bed, asleep, naked but covered by a sheet. The camera pans over them, everything is silent, they're slightly sweaty, the room is dishevelled, a phone somewhere makes a noise and one of them fumbles around for it, looks at it, puts it back, and gets out of bed. That description won't communicate the feeling of the scene, but it was like catching a whiff of something I recognized. A flat, expressionless quality that's unmistakable. *shudders*

That was, quite literally, the one and only time I thought anything negative about the film. And it wasn't even a misstep by the film itself, but merely an inadvertent trigger for my own bad memories.

This film was wonderful. So so wonderful. What a pleasure to spend time with these characters, to be invited into their cozy old home, to share in their family traditions, to meet their friends. I very much admired them. The experience was a rare kind of wholesome... it's hard to think of something else to compare it to, so I guess that means it's special. :)

« Last Edit: September 08, 2018, 10:22:49 PM by smirnoff »

Teproc

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2018, 03:52:16 PM »
Our Little Sister (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2015)   -   Teproc's #73

It went somewhat against my better judgement deciding to watch this film. Where characters are concerned, I often feel that with Japanese dramas I will be doomed to follow some hopelessly forlorn individual. They won't talk, they won't express emotions, they'll just brood. It's not always the case that an unlikable character makes for an unlikable film, but if it's an intimate drama and their life and uneventful, then yea, it kind of does. At least for me. And I've got enough experiences of exactly that through the Far-East Bracket to mark it as a tendency. Koreeda's own film Maborosi falls into this category in my opinion.

But I decided to go ahead and watch Our Little Sister for a couple reasons. First, it was available on Netflix. Second, because looking at Teproc's top 100 I struggled to find anything I hadn't already seen that jumped out at me (I'm very hot and cold on your list Teproc... it has got films on it I have in my own top 100, but also films on my Top 5 Movies You Hate But Haven't Actually Watched :))). Our Little Sister at least was made this decade, and had people smiling on the poster, and had no reputation that I was aware of, so that put it well ahead of films like High and Low, Stalker or Fitzcarraldo (which, I'm sorry, but I will probably die without having seen, and I'm okay with that :))). Also, in the spirit of club I figured it would be more sporting to go with a film I never would have chosen to see otherwise (unlike, say, Annihilation, which is one I'll get to on my own).

I must say, the opening shot made me groan. It wasn't bad in itself, but it was familiar... and not in a good way. A couple on a bed, asleep, naked but covered by a sheet. The camera pans over them, everything is silent, they're slightly sweaty, the room is dishevelled, a phone somewhere makes a noise and one of them fumbles around for it, looks at it, puts it back, and gets out of bed. That description won't communicate the feeling of the scene, but it was like catching a whiff of something I recognized. A flat, expressionless quality that's unmistakable. *shudders*

That was, quite literally, the one and only time I thought anything negative about the film. And it wasn't even a misstep by the film itself, but merely an inadvertent trigger for my own bad memories.

This film was wonderful. So so wonderful. What a pleasure to spend time with these characters, to be invited into their cozy old home, to share in their family traditions, to meet their friends. I very much admired them. The experience was a rare kind of wholesome... it's hard to think of something else to compare it to, so I guess that means it's special. :)

Well, that was suspenseful... I'm glad you had such a good time with it! Wholesome is a good way to describe this film, because it's not quite a feelgood movie (there is some pretty serious family drama here) but it has such a warmth to it - a quality rarely found in arthouse films these days. From what I hear, Koreeda's Palme d'Or winner from this year might have some of that too, I'm really looking forward to it.

As for your troubles choosing a film: have you seen Wild Tales ? It is decidedly not wholesome (quite the opposite, it's probably the most cynical film on my list), but I think you might enjoy it. As for the classics you cited, I think High & Low would be much more your speed than something like Stalker, though I don't know what your view on Kurosawa is generally.
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smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #19 on: September 10, 2018, 03:58:12 PM »
Well, that was suspenseful... I'm glad you had such a good time with it! Wholesome is a good way to describe this film, because it's not quite a feelgood movie (there is some pretty serious family drama here) but it has such a warmth to it - a quality rarely found in arthouse films these days.

I agree. Feelgood doesn't quite capture it does it. The film doesn't end with a triumphant shedding of all the protagonist's problems, which I think is more characteristic of the feelgood film. On the other hand, calling it bittersweet (which I was tempted to do) seems to go a little far in the other direction. So maybe wholesome is the happy medium. :)

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As for your troubles choosing a film: have you seen Wild Tales ? It is decidedly not wholesome (quite the opposite, it's probably the most cynical film on my list), but I think you might enjoy it.

I checked out the trailer when I was browsing your list... it was a tough one to gauge. The film may be rated-R but the trailer isn't... so I wonder if it was coming across lighter than the film really is. Does it pack a good punch?

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As for the classics you cited, I think High & Low would be much more your speed than something like Stalker, though I don't know what your view on Kurosawa is generally.

He's not really for me (if Ran, Rashomon and Seven Samurai are anything to go by). My appreciation would likely be academic at best, since the age of the film (and style of filmmaking that goes with it) usually presents too large a hurdle for me to experience the film in any other way.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2018, 03:59:48 PM by smirnoff »