The Movies

[DCP]

Finished High and Low by Kurosawa last night. Excellent film, but certainly not his best.

Glad you enjoyed it as well! I think my favorite Kurosawa movie changes weekly now since I have been rewatching all of them. It's seriously amazing how well Seven Samurai holds up after multiple viewings and Throne of Blood is the best Macbeth adaptation on film.

[Giri Kotte]

Finished High and Low by Kurosawa last night. Excellent film, but certainly not his best.

What do you consider to be Kurosawa's best? He has all the meticulous obsessive detail that Kubrick has but has humane warmth in his films.

You should try his Sanjuro, starring his muse, Toshiro Mifune. I would also recommend Kill! by another master, Kihachi Okamoto. It's based on exactly the same story, starring Tatsuya Nakadai (the lead who succeeded Mifune as Kurosawa's muse) but told from a cynical and satirical view of the whole samurai honor and such. Just as good as Sanjuro. Another great by Okamoto is Sword of Doom, a sociopath samurai's gradual descent into destruction.
The greatest movie of that era, in my opinion, is Harakiri by yet another master filmmaker, Masaki Kobayashi.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I haven't watched all of his work, but the best I've seen is Ran.

[Giri Kotte]

I haven't watched all of his work, but the best I've seen is Ran.

Ran is unusual among his body work in it's absolute pessimism. His only color feature and features one of the best use of color in films.

[Christopher Anderson]

So watched Passengers and it was a decent flick as far as the story goes. They bone I have to pick with this film and may others is the use of great actors in small parts where they barely speak or do not speak at all and are only in the film for a very short time. This film has Lawrence Fishburne and Andy Garcia in it. Lawrence Fishbourne has about 10 min in the film and Andy Garcia is only seen for 15 seconds at the end with no lines at all. Why even have them in the film? Why not just fill those rolls with up and coming actors or someone else, why fill them with good actors who are not used properly! This kills me.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This used to be called a "cameo" appearance. The actor wanted to be involved, and was accommodated.

[Christopher Anderson]

This used to be called a "cameo" appearance. The actor wanted to be involved, and was accommodated.

I can respect that if they are used in a clever way much like a Tarantino film, but these weren't really like that. I do like Stan Lee's cameos in the Marvel movies.

[TommyGun]

It was pretty good, and Cruise is a great workmanlike actor for a part like that, believable in the role. I'd recommend it, but the script is just not deep enough to demand a second trip.

Funny because a book I have about writing screenplays describes the Collateral screenplay as an almost perfectly written action script. The sections of the screenplay that I read are amazing, it is too bad it did not translate as well on screen. (Two things I think about way too much but take no action on writing the great American screenplay and entering my first meet.)

I haven't seen any of his movies. I'm a fan of the shorter stuff in this collection:

Amazon.com: Essential Ernest Collection (Ernest Goes to Africa / Ernest's Greatest Hits I / Ernest's Greatest Hits II / Ernest in the Army / Hey Vern! It's My Family Album / Your World As I See It): Jim Varney: Movies & TV

I love the Ernest movies. I make my wife and kids watch them with me. As much as they dont want to, tjey laugh out loud at the silly gags. Great lowbrow comedy, great punch line setups. I feel better now, I never said anything like that in public.

[Christopher Anderson]

Saw John Wick Chapter 2 this weekend. It was a very good sequel in my opinion, not as good as the first but a very good follow up. The action was great, and they really didn't do a lot of cut jobs where they changed views 1000 times a scene. You can very clearly see that it is Keanu Reeves doing the dirty work. The guns were fantastic because as a gun enthusiast I could tell that they knew what they were doing with weapon choices. I think it's worth going to theaters to see.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Finished Throne of Blood last night. Good, but not his best.