has some great ones I'd forgotten. "Man Bites Dog"!
Top 3
1. Night of the Hunter
2. Citizen Kane
3. Badlands
Not bad.
The only one on that list I don't like is "Buffalo '66". I remember watching that movie and thinking 1) Christ Jesus is Christina Ricci hot, and 2) it's pretty hard to accept the spectacular Christina Ricci falling for a dirtbag like Vincent Gallo, especially after he, you know, kidnaps her.
The Third Man wrote:Donnie Darko or Hard Eight above Badlands is madness.
I love Hard Eight so much. The way Anderson used the camera in that film is no less virtuosic than it is in his later work, from the Goodfellas-influenced long tracking shots (the casino one and the one with Hall, Reilly, Paltrow leaving the seedy motel) to the framing of that first shot with Reilly sitting in front of the diner where the semi fills the frame perfectly for a second then the camera moves in and a voice goes "You want a cup of coffee? You want a cigarette?" The Philip Baker Hall performance is Oscar worthy in a world in which Oscars are correctly awarded. It's a film that practically made John C Reilly. It was so good peak Paltrow and peak SL Jackson did small parts for him when PTA was nobody. And SLJ is no less hilarious in this than he is in Pulp Fiction or anything else--that "No. I work inside the casino" line where he goes from swagger to hurt to swagger in like 1/10 of a second is just...wow. The performances PTA got as a first time director across the board are insane. There's not a single wrong thing in it. It's perfect. Flawless. I could go on all day about Hard Eight.
"Hard Eight" is a pretty tremendous movie, Paul Thomas Anderson arriving as a fully formed auteur. It's one of the few Gwyneth Paltrow films where she isn't irritating. She needs to play more whores.
Watched "Patton". Pretty complex film. I like how the iconic flag-waving scene of Patton addressing his troops is immediately followed by a shot of dead American soldiers at Kasserine Pass, being looted by locals and pecked on by vultures.
The Third Man wrote:Donnie Darko or Hard Eight above Badlands is madness.
I love Hard Eight so much. The way Anderson used the camera in that film is no less virtuosic than it is in his later work, from the Goodfellas-influenced long tracking shots (the casino one and the one with Hall, Reilly, Paltrow leaving the seedy motel) to the framing of that first shot with Reilly sitting in front of the diner where the semi fills the frame perfectly for a second then the camera moves in and a voice goes "You want a cup of coffee? You want a cigarette?" The Philip Baker Hall performance is Oscar worthy in a world in which Oscars are correctly awarded. It's a film that practically made John C Reilly. It was so good peak Paltrow and peak SL Jackson did small parts for him when PTA was nobody. And SLJ is no less hilarious in this than he is in Pulp Fiction or anything else--that "No. I work inside the casino" line where he goes from swagger to hurt to swagger in like 1/10 of a second is just...wow. The performances PTA got as a first time director across the board are insane. There's not a single wrong thing in it. It's perfect. Flawless. I could go on all day about Hard Eight.
The idea that Hard Eight is flawless totally falls apart when you bring up the writing, which you haven't mentioned. The plot feels like it was cobbled together from every generic crime film ever and thrown into a blender, and the dialogue is often stilted. PTA's weakest writing by miles, which is certainly where it most suffers in comparison to Badlands. The characters rise and fall on the strength of the performances, there's not much to them besides. (Also snickering at the idea of "peak Paltrow" being anything to get jazzed over.) And that twist at the end felt pretty lame. It's certainly a fine early showcase of what an obvious talent PTA was/is, but it's hardly Dwight Gooden's rookie season - more like Roger Clemens'.
The Third Man wrote:Donnie Darko or Hard Eight above Badlands is madness.
I love Hard Eight so much. The way Anderson used the camera in that film is no less virtuosic than it is in his later work, from the Goodfellas-influenced long tracking shots (the casino one and the one with Hall, Reilly, Paltrow leaving the seedy motel) to the framing of that first shot with Reilly sitting in front of the diner where the semi fills the frame perfectly for a second then the camera moves in and a voice goes "You want a cup of coffee? You want a cigarette?" The Philip Baker Hall performance is Oscar worthy in a world in which Oscars are correctly awarded. It's a film that practically made John C Reilly. It was so good peak Paltrow and peak SL Jackson did small parts for him when PTA was nobody. And SLJ is no less hilarious in this than he is in Pulp Fiction or anything else--that "No. I work inside the casino" line where he goes from swagger to hurt to swagger in like 1/10 of a second is just...wow. The performances PTA got as a first time director across the board are insane. There's not a single wrong thing in it. It's perfect. Flawless. I could go on all day about Hard Eight.
The idea that Hard Eight is flawless totally falls apart when you bring up the writing, which you haven't mentioned. The plot feels like it was cobbled together from every generic crime film ever and thrown into a blender, and the dialogue is often stilted. PTA's weakest writing by miles, which is certainly where it most suffers in comparison to Badlands. The characters rise and fall on the strength of the performances, there's not much to them besides. (Also snickering at the idea of "peak Paltrow" being anything to get jazzed over.) And that twist at the end felt pretty lame. It's certainly a fine early showcase of what an obvious talent PTA was/is, but it's hardly Dwight Gooden's rookie season - more like Roger Clemens'.
This is pretty close to how I felt about it. I do like it more than Boogie Nights, if only because I think it does a better job of what it's trying to do. Doesn't shoot as high, but it's a nice little crime movie done well.
I'm not saying "peak Paltrow" is good, like, hey, he got Paltrow, she's awesome, she elevates the movie. I'm saying as a first-time director landing Paltrow when her career was blossoming and she was the It Girl and getting her to play a small part in a very small movie tells you how well the script probably read. If he doesn't land Paltrow and Jackson, does that movie even get made? The script was good enough to attract two marquee names to play very small parts in support of character actors who had the leads. It's a little 2-3 million dollar production that probably didn't make a tenth of it's budget at the box office, it was dumped so hard and fast. Also: Paltrow's really good in Hard Eight.
Finally took the wife to see Nightcrawler. I see why JL loved it. It was disturbing and entertaining. I think the music was a reflection of how Lou felt about himself. In the scene of the collision on Benedict Canyon Dr, he feels bold but scared. The music had a tension under the optimistic theme. It made me feel anxious. Later, when Rick has been shot, the music is religious. Lou thinks he did the right thing. He is a sociopath.
