I See Dead People (no. 2)

[koganbot]

Look, this is really sad. No list of all-time great movies whose top ten includes only movies I've already seen can be credible.* Or if it is credible, this is a sad world. Not to denigrate my own tastes, judgments, and habits, but round '78 I decided that I didn't have the time or money to watch a lot of movies. And in 1999 I made the decision, I can either be a writer or someone who owns a TV set, but I don't have time for both. So not a lot of movies made in the last 35 years have unfolded (or unspooled or whatever) in front of my eyes.

Not that I've seen nothing in that time. Likely any movie with Steven Seagal that appeared on cable in the late '80s got viewed by me. But in general I no longer have my explorer's hat on.

I'm sure the Sight And Sound poll included gobs of people excited by right now, but obviously there was no consensus in it, no "Here's a movie that's changed the game" or "Here's the flick that called out to everyone."

Strange: visit a local lending library and you'll see just the opposite, the past a bare flickering shadow, westerns all but nonexistent, everybody relaxing into the here and now.

In any event, what's the next movie you're gonna see? Here's mine, if I can find it streaming somewhere for free (was taken down from mysoju):

Watch on YouTube

*Unless the list is entitled Frank's All-Time Top Ten Movies (Restricted To Movies That He's Actually Seen).

Comments

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Laramie is a Mann: the overall story is flabby bcz it divides its attention too much without effecting connections between Fonda's character (which is sketchy: he's seeking the man responsible for his brother's death and er that's it)* and the Waggoman family, a blind rancher with two sons, one a sadistic dimwit, the other adopted, seemingly level-headed, but deeply angry about being overlooked and undervalued. This triangle is interesting, and Fonda's arrival sets all the oedipal wasps a-buzzin, but Fonda functions more as catalyst than as interraction. There's also a very underpowered love element -- basically it gets along at a nice clip and has several terrific setpieces, of sudden scrambling unglamorous violence, but no space to do more than dab in the characters. Plus the Apaches, as abstract (not to say racist) cipher of pure lurking evil.

*Fonda is always interesting, because -- as Manny Farber semi-said -- he's so concave of body and bearing, but this is a bit too much "Fonda being loveably Fonda": you don't quite believe his revenge-fueled drivenness, which is sentimentalised when it's actually psychotic.

the elvish curse of CGI

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

inc.one very minor scene where my mouth-dropped open and i thought "how the FUCK did these guys set-direct the sky?" -- a sun-and-cloudscape dazzlingly beautiful and dramatic simply for fonda to ride desperately across in front of, along the skyline

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[koganbot]

Laramie is the only Mann western where I actually got bored, though I remember it so poorly that I didn't even recall that Fonda was in it. From your description, I'd imagine that with the right script, and a different conception of the part by the director, this'd be perfect for Fonda. I remember an Andrew Sarris appreciation of Fonda where Sarris stressed the potential for violence that Fonda brought to Tom Joad. Fonda was the wrong age and had the wrong image, but I imagine he could have done a more stressed and taut and truly dangerous Dirty Harry than we got from Eastwood. Also think with a different director and script he'd have done the same for High Noon (I'll confess that I've only seen bits and pieces of that "classic" [derided by many] on TV). Did see — again, only a bit and a piece — a movie where he played a bitter sheriff who did the town's dirty work largely unappreciated by the people he was protecting. I forget the title.

An actor where whole hunks of what he actually did onscreen don't match his image. Of course he was an excellent bad guy in Once Upon A Time In The West; but a coiled, distressed, possibly out-of-whack good guy might have been the best vehicle for his talent for feeling and causing pain.

Re: Haven't done one of these in a while.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Basically I felt that the idea for the characters and the character structure is set out like chesspieces -- and it's not a terrible idea -- but then no game gets started that sets up any tension (= interest). At 100 mins It's actually the shortest Western in my line-up (this is actually why I started with it), and really doesn't dwell on any element or scene for very long at all, but overall it still feels static, without momentum or interesting revelation. (Admittedly I'd spoilered myself on who the actual villain was by reading up in advance, but it was in any case pretty meh, and they did next to nothing with it. I agree about Fonda -- perfect for the role if they'd thought it through and written it out -- but we just don't get enough of him.