Author Topic: Top 100 Club: Teproc  (Read 23021 times)

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #120 on: October 05, 2020, 08:17:05 PM »
It was a good decade for Spielberg.

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #121 on: October 05, 2020, 08:23:26 PM »
Yeah, both Duel and The Sugarland Express are well worth watching too. Just skip 1941.

Thinking back to my Spielberg marathon where I paired up with different people for each decade makes me miss old forum times. Sam, you were the 70s, right?
« Last Edit: October 05, 2020, 08:26:32 PM by Bondo »

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #122 on: October 05, 2020, 08:38:37 PM »
Yup.  :D

1SO

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 36129
  • Marathon Man
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #123 on: October 06, 2020, 01:06:13 AM »
Nights like this are why I love Top 100 Club!

Good Manners (2017)
★ ★ ★ - Good
Normally, when I wrote for Top 100 Club I don't worry about Spoilers. These posts are more aimed directly at the Host. However, I am aware others tend to at least skim what's said and they might read with a little more attention when I say this may be the best Horror film I see all month. On top of that, it's a film with a unique structure that I loved, and I wouldn't want others to go in knowing how the script chooses to reveal information. That's the Spoiler part, not what happens but how it happens. Avoiding specifics means making comparisons to other films, so let's start with your review mentioning del Toro and The Shape of Water. I agree with what you wrote, but what I was thinking is this is a werewolf version of Let the Right One In. By that I mean it unfolds in a more realistic, character-driven way that makes the later scenes of confrontation more memorable.

There are some really cool choices here by directors Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas, like a scene told through paintings and a couple of jaw-dropping time transitions. I don't think the Musical aspect works as well, mainly because I don't like any of the songs so it's especially jarring when characters start to sing, though I like how this sneaks into the movie, you don't even realize it's happening, then you dismiss it as a strange choice and by the end it seems like an essential aspect of the storytelling.




Taxi (2015)
★ ★ ★ - Okay
I don't know why I put these two films together like some kind of Deathmatch. Maybe it's because I've never liked a Jafar Panahi film, so I planned to write something very brief and move away from it. I especially didn't like the thrown together noodling of This is Not a Film, but here I thought he cracked how to use the unfair restrictions placed on him to his advantage. It's an interesting meta-experiment, but it's also full of life and there's a joy to the world outside the taxicab window, along with Panahi's warm smile at the center.

I don't have the interest to unpack Taxi too deeply, but I'm curious how many intentional Easter Eggs are here. Most characters directly reference a Panahi film, the little girl appears dressed just like the one in The Mirror and there are two men on a motorcycle that look like the criminals in Crimson Gold.

Teproc

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3529
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #124 on: October 06, 2020, 02:12:58 AM »
Nights like this are why I love Top 100 Club!

 :D

Good Manners (2017)
★ ★ ★ - Good
Normally, when I wrote for Top 100 Club I don't worry about Spoilers. These posts are more aimed directly at the Host. However, I am aware others tend to at least skim what's said and they might read with a little more attention when I say this may be the best Horror film I see all month. On top of that, it's a film with a unique structure that I loved, and I wouldn't want others to go in knowing how the script chooses to reveal information. That's the Spoiler part, not what happens but how it happens. Avoiding specifics means making comparisons to other films, so let's start with your review mentioning del Toro and The Shape of Water. I agree with what you wrote, but what I was thinking is this is a werewolf version of Let the Right One In. By that I mean it unfolds in a more realistic, character-driven way that makes the later scenes of confrontation more memorable.

There are some really cool choices here by directors Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas, like a scene told through paintings and a couple of jaw-dropping time transitions. I don't think the Musical aspect works as well, mainly because I don't like any of the songs so it's especially jarring when characters start to sing, though I like how this sneaks into the movie, you don't even realize it's happening, then you dismiss it as a strange choice and by the end it seems like an essential aspect of the storytelling.

For those who don't want to go to the trouble of looking up my review, I said there was more cinema in any scene of this than in the whole of The Shape of Water (a film I think is... fine). Let te Right One In is an interesting comparison as well (I don't think I had seen it at that point). Reading your reaction really makes me want to rewatch it, really.  :D

I quite liked the musical aspect, though I agree it is jarring. I was pretty enthused by the boldness though. I do like the first half more than the second though, huge mounting tension and mystery is 100% my jam, and there are some wobblier scenes later on, but the film's formal boldness really holds it together I think, along with the central performances.

Taxi (2015)
★ ★ ★ - Okay
I don't know why I put these two films together like some kind of Deathmatch. Maybe it's because I've never liked a Jafar Panahi film, so I planned to write something very brief and move away from it. I especially didn't like the thrown together noodling of This is Not a Film, but here I thought he cracked how to use the unfair restrictions placed on him to his advantage. It's an interesting meta-experiment, but it's also full of life and there's a joy to the world outside the taxicab window, along with Panahi's warm smile at the center.

I don't have the interest to unpack Taxi too deeply, but I'm curious how many intentional Easter Eggs are here. Most characters directly reference a Panahi film, the little girl appears dressed just like the one in The Mirror and there are two men on a motorcycle that look like the criminals in Crimson Gold.

This was my first Panahi film, so I'm very intrigued by the references you mention. I'll have to revisit it when I've explored more of his earlier stuff, which I shamefully still haven't done despite absolutely loving this one. I agree about the vitality of the Tehran which Panahi explores here, seeing that was pretty revelatory to me for what cinema could achieve in showing us the world in ways we could never hope to see it in any other way, especially for a country as (relatively) closed-off as Iran.
Legend: All-Time Favorite | Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Poor  |  Bad

Letterbox'd

Eric/E.T.

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3830
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #125 on: October 19, 2020, 02:25:43 AM »
Our Little Sister
My second Kore-eda, and probably the second destined for my own 100. Bold statement, but I just lived in this film for two hours and change, and I loved every last second. The environment, the food; the cherry blossoms and the plums and the whitebait toast. Three sisters + another, the irresponsible and fun-loving one, the quirky background one, the older motherly one, and then the one the film is centered around, the precocious, wide-eyed, and subtly troubled little one. Every single place and person, utterly developed, and the score is as rich as the homes, environs, and people. It's an optimistic piece of naturalistic cinema that was simply destined to be an insta-favorite.
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

Teproc

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3529
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #126 on: October 19, 2020, 03:29:16 AM »
Glad this one worked out so well for you! It is a lovely, lovely film, my first exposure to Koreeda and still my favorite of his at this point (though I have many left to see). I have four (older) sisters, and I kept finding aspects of each one in these characters, and I guess I come back to that sense of family (as in Les ogres, albeit in a much gentler, quieter way here) that really makes these films tick for me.
Legend: All-Time Favorite | Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Poor  |  Bad

Letterbox'd

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #127 on: October 19, 2020, 05:23:03 AM »
Thanks to this film I learned that plum wine is very yummy. But yeah, it's just such an enjoyable film to inhabit.

Eric/E.T.

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3830
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #128 on: October 19, 2020, 10:33:22 PM »
Thanks to this film I learned that plum wine is very yummy. But yeah, it's just such an enjoyable film to inhabit.

Where’d you try it? It DOES look legit, but where do you get some of that good stuff?

I think I Wish will be my next Koreeda. I do need to see another one soon. And Our Little Sister and Shoplifters again...soon.

A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

Dave the Necrobumper

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 12730
  • If I keep digging maybe I will get out of this hol
Re: Top 100 Club: Teproc
« Reply #129 on: October 20, 2020, 02:00:16 AM »
You can often find plum wine in Japanese restaurants, it is a sweeter wine.

 

love