Welcome to one of those very rare shows missing both Andrew, and any reviews of new films. In order to fill out a trio with Gamble & Halfyard, The Documentary Blog and Film Junk regular Jay Cheel joins the Cinecast once again, and despite lacking any new/theatrical reviews (want to talk Transformers? Go to the Mall), we still chug along for nearly 3.5 hours (fair warning folks!)
At the halfway mark of 2011, just past American Independence day, we have a Top 5 for you, a rather unusual one, to celebrate the recent christening of THE WATCH LIST, each of us gives the top 5 older films that we saw for the first time this year. It’s an eclectic mix of art and trash that keeps the ’round table’ format going
like a schizoid energizer bunny before arriving at DVD picks for this week. And that is it folks. If there is a Cinecast episode to find strange and unusual film recommendations we hope this is the one: We go from Bill Hicks to Mike Nichols to Alice Cooper and the director of Troll 2 to an elderly Japanese Judge Dredd to All The President’s Men and back around to Captain Ron. Stretch back and relax to the dulcet, soothing tones of people chatting about a lot of cinema.
As always, please join the conversation by leaving your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!
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http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_11/episode_220.mp3
Full show notes are under the seats…
IN-HOUSE BUSINESS:
– Jay Cheel Fills in For Andrew who is still on vacation.
MAIN REVIEWS:
– NONE THIS WEEK
THE WATCH LIST:
Matt
– 13 Assassins
– 50 Worst Movies Ever Made
– American: The Bill Hicks Story
– Naked Ambition
Jay
– The Stuntman
– Robot Jox / Crash & Burn / Robot Wars
– Triangle
– Lord of the Rings: The Costa Botes Documentaries
Kurt
– Shock Corridor
– A Serious Man
– Closer / Happythankyoumoreplease
– Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Top 5: Older Films Watched for the first time in 2011
Matt
5 – Viridiana
4 – Death Game (1977)
3 – Calibre 9
2 – Monster Dog
1 – Sword of Vengence
Jay
5 – Juggernaut
4 – Bad Boy Bubby
3 – All The President’s Men
2 – A Woman Under the Influence
1 – Emperors Naked Army Marches On
Kurt
5 – Hardcore
4 – Calibre 9
3 – Los Angeles Plays Itself
2 – Lake of Fire
1 – Black Narcissus
DVD PICKS:
Matt
– Crack in the World
– 13 Assassins
Jay
– Hobo With A Shotgun
– Overboard
Kurt
– 13 Assassins
– Das Boot (BLU)
OTHER DVDs NOW AVAILABLE:
The Passion of Darkly Noon
Wake Wood
and of course,
See Jandy’s DVD Triage Post
OTHER STUFF MENTIONED:
Hooper
Full Moon Pictures
Made in Serbia / Life and Death of A Porno Gang
Monster Dog Poster
Los Angeles Plays Itself (on You-Tube in 12 parts)
NEXT WEEK:
Possibly: Horrible Bosses, Ironclad, Project Nim, The Ward
PRIVATE COMMENTS or QUESTIONS?
Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, or email us:
feedback@rowthree.com (general)
andrew.james@rowthree.com
kurt@rowthree.com
Harakiri has one of the best, at the very least distinctive seppuku scenes I have ever seen. I would say Harakiri and Sword of Doom are my favourite of the genre. Tatsuya Nakadai is just awesome.
Hey guys, sounds great. Sorry I couldn’t make it for this one, but sounds like you managed to fill out Hatter’s requisite time of over 3 hours.
To everyone else – I’m contacting the people who submitted entries for the renaming contest in chronological order. It’ll take some time but I’ll get to you eventually. Thanks again everyone.
Harakiri is a masterpiece.I’m afraid of watching Miike’s remake.
I can’t remember where, but I’ve read in a couple of places that it is terrible.
13 Assassins is one of the best of the year though. And I agree with Gamble about how well grounded the first half of the movie is. Can’t decide which I like better: the dialogue driven, character building of the first half or the balls-out action of the second half.
Yep, big fan of Sword of Doom. I’ll have to get on top of HaraKiri though. At least before I attempt the Miike remake (in 2D).
Harakiri, the original, plays like Seven from John Doe’s perspective with the audience largely sympathetic towards him. Then the reveal happens and shit hits the fan. I think Harakiri is probably Nakadai’s most ambitious and impressive performance.
In my opinion, Harakiri is the holy grail of samurai films. Better than any of Kurosawa’s samurai films.
I saw Monster Dog last week going simply by the poster, and Gamble’s spot on: It’s so unbelievably bad, it’s a wonder to behold: Scooby-Doo vans, shitty songs, Alice Cooper looking like Harry Dean Stanton giving the stink-eye, a pack of cheery, playful-looking dogs…
More love for Harakiri…It’s not just one of the best samurai films (as Antho mentioned) or one of the best japanese films of the 60s, it’s simply of the best films of that entire decade. Just bubbling under my all-time personal top 20.
Nice to see two mentions of Calibre 9. It’s the only one from the Di Leo set I’ve watched so far, but great fun.
It’s “Luis” Bunuel, not “Louie” Bunuel.
To be fully accurate, since we’re at it, it’s Luis Buñuel.
I haven’t gotten through this entire episode yet since I’m saving it for later today, but looks like Kurt and I have another major disagreement: CLOSER. I cannot stand that movie from that opening slow motion scene… featuring that horrible Damian Rice song to the majority of the performances (Clive Owen being the only memorable thing about that movie).
And it’s crazy because I love play adaptations for the most part, but this one really left me cold. I found it too over-the-top, stilted, and just un-involving. I couldn’t care less about who was sleeping with whom, etc. Natalie Portman seemed out of place to me, and I think the only time I’ve enjoyed Roberts was in Erin Brockavich… but I do enjoy Clive Owen’s delivery of the line “Because I’m a fucking caveman!”
Julia Roberts is excellent in CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (also Mike Nichols directing), DUPLICITY (also with great chemistry with Clive Owen) and the quite underrated THE MEXICAN, an early Gore Verbinski film. Of course, Oceans 12, but that seems to be a major point of contention around here.
Anyone bothered with her newest with Tom Hanks? I know nothing other than the Hanks’ interview with Simon Mayo in which he claimed responsibility for Hooch’s death.
Don’t read the previous comment if you haven’t seen Turner and Hooch. It’s a spoiler.
Remember Gamble talked about it on a previous show and said it was just generally LAZY and forgettable. This seems to be the general consensus critically on the film, and oddly enough, for two rock solid Hollywood stars putting out a film together, the marketing is very, very low key for it.
@Kurt Hanks also directed, co-wrote, and produced it. There’s barely any tension/conflict/plot, and it’s pretty much just feel-good fluff for women 45 and up.
I mostly agree with Jim – I really couldn’t stand “Closer”. I know it’s beloved by several here, but I too couldn’t care less what happened to any of those people. I know I wasn’t supposed to like them (I’m OK with that), but not only didn’t I care about them, I also didn’t find anything interesting or compelling about them. Roberts stood apart from the rest of the cast in that her performance felt “natural” as opposed to “mannered”. I guess depending on how you thought the cast should act, she was either very good or completely missed the point.
Boy, that was one pretty looking film though.
“Of course, Oceans 12, but that seems to be a major point of contention around here.”
Not with me!
It’s weird. Normally I HATE movies with no redeeming characters (Other Bolyn, Virginia Woolfe, Margot at Wedding), but for some reason I really enjoyed Closer. Need to rewatch soon. I even own the darn thing on Blu-ray.
my extended ruminations on Closer here: http://www.rowthree.com/2008/12/02/extended-thoughts-closer/
“This nesting of the morality play within a ‘Hollywood Romance’ is Mike Nichols’ stroke of genius”
I am a big fan.
As long as the characters are interesting, I do not care whether they are likable or not.
Okay I’m calling a moratorium on the following phrases:
- Off the rails
- In your wheel house
- Over the top
- Balls to the wall
- Bat-shit insane / crazy
- Clearly / literally
- Pull any punches
- Slow burn
- At the same point
Thankfully Andrew wasn’t around to say “shit ton” a dozen times.
This episode gathered a bit of an injoke to purge these expressions out by burning them out of our system. The gag (although not pre-planned) was to work them in as much as possible, and enhance any ‘drinking games’ that may have developed within the Cinecast listenership!
Kurt, looking at your Top 5, I think you might get a kick out of this little clip:
That is absolutely perfect, Rex. It should become an internet meme.
Note, in this cinecast we talked about Aronofsky at one time long ago, adapting the novel FLICKER (sort of a silent-flickers-and-movie-editing-DaVinciCode) but the project never got off the ground (the phrase ‘unfilmable’ comes to mind). The author of the book (which you should read instead of that Dan Brown crap) just died: Theodore Roszak, 77: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/books/theodore-roszak-60s-scholar-dies-at-77.html?_r=1
Do you guys use the word “Fucking Brutal” as much as Film Junk? I’m gonna start keeping tabs on overused expressions/phrases myself. Matt sure loves to say “Fucking terrible” quite a bit (which makes me wonder if he’ll break the record for saying that during the upcoming DePalma episode of our podcast). I definitely hear the use of “Fucking gorgeous” quite a bit. May the Cinecast drinking game commence!
You’ll hear the word Brutal from FilmJunk about 25 times per episode (and that’s not much of an exaggeration). Also, Frank likes to say, “right? like…”
‘I say “totally” a lot. I gotta find a new word that means the same thing.’
‘Mitch, do you like grilled cheese sandwiches?’
‘All encompassingly!”
PS I will rewatch Closer in the next couple of weeks. We’ll probably revisit a brief discussion of it during your appearance on Director’s Club at the end of the month, Kurt. I’ll try and keep an open mind, but I remember actively disliking it when it first came out.
One word I hate hearing on any podcast is “definitely.” Not only overused and meaningless, but it just sounds bad and mumbly when spoken quickly by most people. Try it!
My pet words: Ubiquitous, Shadenfraude, Plethora and Exhausting. Of course don’t forget the old standbys: Pandering and Fascist.
I think Gamble’s catchphrase is “you’re a fucking idiot”
…or *SIGH*
@Andrew: I ordered a club sandwich, and I’m not even a member. I don’t know how I get away with it, man.
I’m sure the word ‘brutal’ comes up often on the Film Junk podcast (I seriously doubt 25 times in one episode), but isn’t that sort of like pointing out the over use of words like ‘awesome’ or ‘shit’? These are just adjectives that are used when talking about something being bad or good. I think it’s more entertaining pointing out actual catch phrase descriptors like ‘off the rails’, and in that game, the Cinecast “definitely” (for Miike) wins (or loses? I’m not sure). Having said that, I would accept “It is what it is.” from our end, but the overuse of that is sort of an inside joke resulting from an email in which a listener claimed that it meant nothing. Besides, I think I’ve heard it used almost as many times on the Cinecast.
I would add to the list Kurt’s ability to refer to almost every movie as a ‘hanging out’ movie.
I love the word ‘brutal’ and use it for the absolute lowest of the low performances/experiences. Unless of course the conversation is about death metal in which case I can expect something else entirely
I love the way FilmJunk uses brutal too!
I use brutal cause it pisses my girl friend off. Meh.
What about Kurt’s novel approach to multiple pronunciations?
Sean actually might be most guilty of catch phrases of anyone on Film Junk.
I have no qualms with overusing phrases or words at all, actually. If a movie is terrible, then nothing wrong with using that word to emphasize it. I was just pointing it out for the purposes of a fictional drinking game (or sayings that are associated with my favorite podcasts). Overuse of an adjective is commonplace in nearly every weekly podcast I listen to. It’s also probably because I know we do it as well (Patrick and I say “Absolutely” quite a bit). When one talks for three hours about movies on a regular basis, it’s kinda tough to come up with new adjectives or ways to describe things. I never fancied myself the most original conversationalist that can consistently be interesting with descriptions.
For some reason, the familiarity of Sean saying something like “Fair enough” or “Ouch” is endearing and distinctive, rather than off-putting for me. Same goes for Kurt’s mispronunciations. They’re almost like personality traits at this point. It’s not like I would expect everyone to keep a thesaurus on hand during a conversation or recording; it’s just fun to point these things out, but they’re never meant as a criticism.
Plus it would suck if the familiarity of hearing the word brutal went away. “That movie was fucking calamitous” just doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well. Oh well. It is what it is. Talk hard, gents.
Jim, absolutely agree with everything you said. I wasn’t suggesting everyone should stop using the word ‘brutal.’ Just an observation that we aren’t the only ones who use “catch phrases.”
On Filmspotting, how many times is “stakes” talked about? Or “show me don’t tell me?”
@Andrew: Totally. I do still listen to Filmspotting on a semi-regular basis but only when I am really interested in what they’re reviewing. Am I nuts, but I really liked Sam Hallgren’s contributions far more than Matty Ballgame. I don’t think he’s a bad co-host per say, but there’s something about him that irks me despite not knowing exactly what it is. Maybe i just prefer lots of vulgarity and explicit language in my podcast listening
I decided to do one of those “FF” tweets with a list of my favorite podcasts for today on Twitter. Filmspotting did not make the cut.