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Films II : The Filminator


Bob

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I’v probably forgotten something but in recent weeks I’ve watched Communion (Alice, Sweet Alice), Leave the World Behind and Look Back.

 

Communion is an enjoyable 70s horror film that I think any fan of the genre would enjoy.

 

Leave the World Behind is long but also fairly enjoyable. I’ve seen some really scathing reviews of it but I enjoyed it. In spite of its length it’s never really boring.

 

Look Back is a quite moving one hour Japanese anime. It doesn’t even try to be subtle with the emotional manipulation but…it is pretty effective.

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Just heard Conan O'Brian talk about his role in an upcoming A24 movie called If I had legs I'd kick you. Apparently he's playing a really serious role as Rose Byrne's psychiatrist and is kind of an asshole, too. The movie is about Byrne's character who struggles to balance her mental health and her role of a mother or something. Sounds quite interesting I think, couldn't find a trailer for it though.

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I watched Stagecoach (1939) on criterion channel, I have a sub on it with a VPN. I've basically avoided most classic westerns cause well the whole thing seems so jingoistic and racist to me. Which well, this is when it comes to its depiction of native American tribes, but I was also just sort of gripped by it. Premise is a bit 7 Samurai in how it brings all these different types of characters together, a Marshall, a gambler, a sex worker, a drunk doctor (the best character), an outlaw played by John Wayne and a buncha others. It establishes and builds their relationships with such ease in just 90 minutes. Definitely gives you the sense of how John Ford's films made such an impression on Kurosawa in terms of development and action at least, and the economy of its visual storytelling

 

Basically they're trying to get to some town, I forget the name of it, but they ride through Apache land and will instigate an attack on them if they do so. Ends up sort of being about how they learn to look past their prejudices towards each other and band together to stay alive, which is a bit ironic in a way

 

The only other John Ford I'd seen before is The Searchers (1956), which is a film I could not understand the appeal of all at the time I watched it, pretty much hated it so I might give it another look down the line to re-evaluate maybe

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Weird movie / TV question -

 

Has anybody been dull enough to collate a TV/movie series credits to check out whether there is any job progression evident in the passage of time - e.g. if you watched a long running TV series do any people in 'assistant' roles eventually become the departmental 'lead' etc?

 

Furthermore there must be some natural movement of staff between a film starting production and being released, so do credits include everyone that has been involved, or just those in the role at time of release ?

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1. When they do it’s blatantly obvious and character/plot progression related. If you mean someone in the background with no speaking role ever then it’s unlikely, what would be the point?


2. Credits include everyone unless they specifically asked to be removed. Almost everyone will have moved onto a new project before the last releases.

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I'm thinking more of all those off-screen roles aka 'normal jobs' rather than actors, and that I'd imagine for an enduring series (or running film franchise) the same people might end up working on them for several years (same crew working for a particular production company etc).

 

So I just wondered if you can actually see career progression over a series or three, or, let's say, from the first Avengers movie to the latest movies etc 

 

Guess it's be no different in game credits (assuming people are employees rather than freelance) - so like whether people from Rockstar North who were credited on RDR2 then GTA V might have been promoted in between games.

 

I know it's maybe a bit drab, but just something I pondered when watching scrolling credits one day.

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I don't know the answer to that but I do remember reading an article recently that was about difficulty in getting promotions in Hollywood cause of all the old guard staying put

 

I don't know if this was that same article but it seems to be about the same thing

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hollywood-workers-stuck-battle-opportunity-1236047705/

 

Tho it seems to be more about people in the boardroom than people actually making the films

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I never paid attention to it myself and this isn't directly related to the question, but I do remember a little anecdote Patricia Arquette once told in an interview when she talked about Boyhood, as there was one person who over the span of those 12 years managed to climb up the career ladder in the business but kept his role of assistant throughout the entire project.

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Baftas the other night, Mikey Madison won for Anora. I have to sit down and watch this film at some point, got it on apple a while ago and watched 30 minutes and well I wasn't expecting near the entire thing to be T&A lol. I do like Sean Baker's films so will get to it another time

 

Conclave won best film.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/16/baftas-2025-conclave-beats-the-brutalist-to-best-picture-as-mikey-madison-surprises-as-best-actress-winner

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I wanted to go watch The Brutalist the other day but then I saw it's three and a half hours long (beating out Ben Hur by a few minutes). Will have to find a free day and a midday screening for that monster I think, or wait for the home release and split it into two pieces.

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I can't remember the last really really long film I saw in a cinema. I think it was a return of Lawrence of Arabia for one of its anniversaries, can't remember if it was 70mm but there's something to be said about those sorts of long films in an environment like that where they demand your attention

 

The good thing with Lawrence tho is it has an intermission, at a narratively appropriate moment in the film. Business interests make intermissions a no no these days, fewer screenings and all that. Which sucks I think. Scorsese's last two films needed intermissions

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An intermission would be a decent idea for sure. Would also prevent the sudden wave of people running to the toilets after the first 100 minutes because they keep overestimating their bladders.

 

The whole runtime thing reminds me of the week Return of the King came out and we went to a screening of the entire LotR trilogy (Fellowship and Two Towers being shown in their extremely long Director's Cut versions). I was so through the wringer by the time the third one started I slept through almost all of it and only properly saw it for the first time on DVD.

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7 hours ago, Maryokutai said:

I wanted to go watch The Brutalist the other day but then I saw it's three and a half hours long (beating out Ben Hur by a few minutes). Will have to find a free day and a midday screening for that monster I think, or wait for the home release and split it into two pieces.


Brutalist has a 15 minute intermission built into it if that helps.

 

I’ve only ever once seen a movie with an intermission. I want to say it must have been a lord of the rings but I can’t be 100% sure. 

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After watching Stagecoach, I found this: https://thetwingeeks.com/2018/12/01/the-ten-greatest-western-and-the-order-in-which-to-watch-them/

 

Some of these I've seen before (Shane, Searchers, TGBU, Unforgiven) but I feel it could be interesting to see the way the genre change over time by following the order here. So I watched Rio Bravo (1959) and Red River (1948), both by Howard Hawkes and with John Wayne in them 🤠

 

Rio Bravo I didn't enjoy as much. It's a sort of slow burn, tension fueled type of thing where these outlaws are trying to get their friend out of jail, and the sheriff played by Wayne and a few others have to use their wits and limited resources to stop them. The action and interpersonal stuff is good but overall it's just a bit corny. Apparently this is Tarantino's favorite film so maybe I just missed something about it.

 

Red River I liked a lot more, much more of a dark story that's lightly critical of manifest destiny, at least as much as a film in this era will ever be I suppose. John Wayne is more of a dickhead in this, a kinda Captain Ahab-type leading a cattle run from Texas to Missouri and executing anyone in his group who goes against him. Which is great cause I like films about assholes. The ending is a bit stupid but the film generates an interesting conflict between its main stars, the other played by Montgomery Clift and I think this is one of his first roles. He plays Wayne's surrogate son who survived an attack earlier in the story and wants to go to Abilene instead, a much less fraught journey

 

The ending threatens to undo it tho, too upbeat for a film that needed something more dark. But it's a golden age Hollywood film and lots of these films have these kinda endings. Not everything is Citizen Kane and deliciously dark like that.

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