I hear a lot of praise for Joe v. Volcano, but I saw it again about a year and and still did not like it.
I gather it used to be a rather suave move for a man to light two cigarettes and then give one to his woman. It’s wonderfully parodied in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. Rigby (Steve Martin) lights an unfiltered cigarette, turns it around and lights the other end, then tears it in two and gives one half to Juliet (Rachel Ward).
Luggage is the central preoccupation of his life.
There’s one scene near the end that just kills me.
I consider this a vastly underappreciated film. There’s just so much subtlety and detail to the parodic use of old film clips.
Joe vs the Volcano, however, I can take or leave.
The reviews on IMDb include a lot of ”1”s and a lot of ”10”s.
Count me in as another who really enjoys that film. Although it is a tad too long. The scene at the end with the aeroplanes almost gave me vertigo in the cinema back in TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE good god am I getting old!!
I remember when this movie was announced before Lord of the Rings. Jackson couldn’t get the funding and somehow managed the miracle of funding for Lord of the Rings.
Miracle Mile 1988 with Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. Not perfect but I really liked it. It went in directions I wasn’t expecting which made it more enjoyable.
I’ve seen Meet the Feebles, one of Jackson’s films from his early days in New Zealand. If it wasn’t done with puppets, it would probaby be X rated. Nothing about it says “here’s the director who can bring Tolkien to the screen.”
I’ve seen, I think, all his movies before he made Lord of the Rings. Nothing particularly says he should be the guy for the job, but his passion and vision got it approved…from New Line Cinema. Not the first company you would have thought of for such a project.
Made famous by Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager (1942):
"His last noteworthy appearance during the fifties was as an itinerant magician in the oriental extravaganza Siren of Bagdad (1953) . The most memorable of several in-jokes, had Henreid lighting two hookahs (water pipes) for one of his harem girls, spoofing his famous scene from “Now, Voyager”. - Paul Henreid - Biography - IMDb
Meg Ryan, Hanks and Spielberg all bashed the film years later. They’re wrong, it’s a classic. From beginning to end it’s a modern fairy tale about finding meaning and purpose in the modern world. But unlike a dystopian film like Brazil it doesn’t blame the world, Joe in fact blames himself for not seeing the value of the time he had.
I have seen it 10+ times over the years and it makes even more sense in my middle age. I still haven’t decided if Joe has the brain cloud or not, either Joe is an unreliable narrator cause he has it or as a fairy tale the story itself is unreliable.
Either way, careful examination of every carefully and yet subtly bizarre setting in the film will tell you Joe does not exist in our world.
From that era, I liked the Burbs.
I remember seeing Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid in a packed theater when it was first released and when Bogart appeared on screen I heard someone in back of me say to her companion “I thought he was dead!”
I’d bet that at least half the people who saw that movie entirely missed the gimmick, but even at face value, it’s a pretty funny movie. All the more so for those of us who got it.
I’ve called it the perfect genre film, but you’re right, too. Not quite so fond of the sequels as @Mahaloth is, though.
I’ve watched a ton, including a lot of fun B films. Everybody in those smokes like a chimney. Everybody always has a cigarette in their hand or are lighting one up. It’s become so rare in movies nowadays that I really notice it in these oldies.
And they took craps and urinated. But they dont show that, do they? Also gum chewing was heavy and widespread, but is rarely shown- because Wrigleys wont pay filmakers $$ to show people chewing.
Right. Smoking yes- eating no.
Not in public as a part of their normal day. People smoked. All the time. In public. In offices. On the trains. Nobody went and stood outside their offices and smoked. It was a normal part of public life, like it or not.
It is historically inaccurate to remove it from dramas. It is the norm nowadays to do this. So don’t get wound up the few times that they portrayed real life accurately. Especially in a movie from that time.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976).
I didn’t recognize any names in the titles except (director, writer, editor) John Carpenter’s but was instantly drawn in by the opening music (also by Carpenter). I did recognize the face of the top billed cop character as one of the humans in Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
We are quickly introduced to a cult-like street gang (perhaps one of Hollywood’s first politically correct multi-ethnic gangs?), an act of senseless violence that you would never see in a modern film, and the promised siege of a police station defended by the cop hero, a strong female character, and a couple of criminals.
Not bad at all for a low-budget movie. I quickly picked up that Carpenter dropped homages to his favorite films all over the script like some sort of proto-Tarentino, which was a lot of fun. And again, I can’t over-emphasize just how brilliant Carpenter’s synth and drum machine score is.
Most films are historically inaccurate. How much smoking in Saving Private Ryan? Did you miss it?
[Moderating]
OK, that’s enough of the smoking hijack. If you want to discuss it further, open a new thread.
I watched Deadpool and Wolverine last night. I wasn’t a big fan of the first Deadpool, and wasn’t all that impressed by the second Deadpool, but it was slightly better due to it not being a script that had been overworked for fifteen years. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn’t much like this new Deadpool either.
Fourth-wall breaking needs to feel organic, natural, and surprising. This was not that. I also dislike crude insulting swear-filled humour, and excessive gory violence. So why the heck did I watch this film at all? Because everyone said it was the best yet, so I held a small hope that meant they got the balance right. But no, it was tedious juvenile claptrap, just like the others.