movies

[Jocephus]

so i just finished watching kurosawa's "throne of blood"...ive had it home since 3/23...dont know why i waited so long...

first kurosawa/classic samurai movie ive seen (im a terrible movie watcher)...so it was kind of an adjustment to get used to the style, but i liked it...noticed a lot of parodied stuff id seen earlier in comedies and stuff, but it was cool to see where they originated from (if that makes sense)...i thought the lead guy (Toshirō Mifune) was really good and a badass, and the final scene was cool and impressive

4/5

[Richie Allen]

so i just finished watching kurosawa's "throne of blood"...ive had it home since 3/23...dont know why i waited so long...

first kurosawa/classic samurai movie ive seen (im a terrible movie watcher)...so it was kind of an adjustment to get used to the style, but i liked it...noticed a lot of parodied stuff id seen earlier in comedies and stuff, but it was cool to see where they originated from (if that makes sense)...i thought the lead guy (Toshirō Mifune) was really good and a badass, and the final scene was cool and impressive

4/5

Mifune is the coolest. Welcome to the world of Kurosawa. You may even like them more as you get a little more accustomed to them. You could watch Seven Samurai without the subtitles and know exactly what's going on. Amazing films and an amazing film maker.

[JL21]

Mifune is the coolest. Welcome to the world of Kurosawa. You may even like them more as you get a little more accustomed to them. You could watch Seven Samurai without the subtitles and know exactly what's going on. Amazing films and an amazing film maker.

Let's hear it- rank your five favorite Kurosawas. In order if you can, but that might be asking too much.

I'll go first:

-Ikiru
-Rashomon
-Throne of Blood
-Yojimbo
-High and Low

Honorable mentions to.... well, everything else that I've ever seen by Kurosawa. I've got Dersa Uzala and Ran both on my DVR right now and I need to pick a weekend to knock them both out.

Joce, if you want to see where Jorgé Lucas (friend of Stephen Speilbergo) got a great deal of inspiration for Star Wars, check out Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress".

[Jocephus]

i will do that (there are lots on kurosawa's on instant netflix, including hidden fortress)

[The Third Man]

Seven Samurai > Rashomon > Ran > Yojimbo; those are the four I absolutely ove. After that I could make an argument for any of Red Beard, Ikiru and Sanjuro. High and Low is right behind those. Like those four a lot too. Not nuts about either Kagemusha (a fair bit bloated) or Throne of Blood, but both are good. That's all I've seen. I need to rewatch most of these, the only one I've seen more than once is Seven Samurai.

[The Third Man]

Also, if Nashville is any indication of how good Robert Altman is I am going to have a new obsession.

[JL21]

Also, if Nashville is any indication of how good Robert Altman is I am going to have a new obsession.

Yikes. You're going to go nuts for him, then, because that was far and away my least favorite Altman. Then again, I was mostly really angry that an hour or so of it was dedicated to [expletive] musical numbers (and [expletive], 70's country and western musical numbers at that).

I've still got a lot of Altman films to see but I've liked almost all that I have seen. Seriously, "Nashville" is the only major exception. "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" was pretty meh as well for me. These are must-sees, IMO:

-3 Women (Altman's homage to Bergman's "Persona")
-M*A*S*H, of course
-McCabe and Mrs. Miller
-Secret Honor (must see to a lesser degree than those first three I listed, but it's frankly my 2nd favorite Altman film)

"Vincent and Theo" is also good.

[The Third Man]

Yikes. You're going to go nuts for him, then, because that was far and away my least favorite Altman. Then again, I was mostly really angry that an hour or so of it was dedicated to [expletive] musical numbers (and [expletive], 70's country and western musical numbers at that).

I've still got a lot of Altman films to see but I've liked almost all that I have seen. Seriously, "Nashville" is the only major exception. "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" was pretty meh as well for me. These are must-sees, IMO:

-3 Women (Altman's homage to Bergman's "Persona")
-M*A*S*H, of course
-McCabe and Mrs. Miller
-Secret Honor (must see to a lesser degree than those first three I listed, but it's frankly my 2nd favorite Altman film)

"Vincent and Theo" is also good.

Sounds great to me; the music in Nashville didn't bother me at all, and there were even a few songs I loved ("Since You've Gone" and "Dues" to name a couple). Of course, my favorite musician is Emmylou Harris so there you go. There was so much to bite into: the political satire, the commentary on celebrity worship, the way it manages to juggle so many different plots without feeling forced (a flaw that could, for example, be leveled at Magnolia, which I love anyway), the way it hits on so many different moods, how it never insists on neatly concluding different plot strands, etc. etc. I could think about it for days (and probably will be).

[/youtube]

You name most of my most-wanted Altmans (I've seen McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and loved it as much as more than Nashville). The only additions I'd make are Short Cuts, which I have from Netflix right now, and The Player, off the top of my head.

[JL21]

Eh... with only one obvious exception off the top of my head (and maybe more if I thought about it, but not many more), I HATE musical numbers in movies. It's a pet peeve of mine. Even if it's a song I like, if I wanted to listen to people singing, I'd pull out my iPhone. And in Nashville's case, it was such a huge part of the movie. I say "an hour" out of hyperbole, but it probably wasn't that far off of a full hour of musical numbers. It reached a point where I found myself saying "Are you [expletive] kidding me? Another goddamned musical piece?!?!"

But all of the things you say about the movie are true.

[ghostrunner]

I've seen MASH, Brewster McCloud, Nashville, "Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", Popeye, The Player, Pret a Porter, Short Cuts, and parts of Gosford Park.

Out of those the only one I liked was The Player, and Gosford Park seemed okay despite not being a genre I usually care for.

Short Cuts was like torture, except for Lyle Lovett. Julianne Moore walks around bottomless for about 5 minutes, but there's absolutely no joy in it.

I'm not a big fan of his style. The whole meandering between conversations thing I can deal with, and I'm not a stickler for formal plot structure, but he just carries on that way for too long. For my taste anyway. The Player forced him to stick to the plot more, so it's probably why I like it more than the rest.