Eephus
Footballguy
H8 should have been awarded a special Oscar for "Least necessary expanded director's cut"
Who was the joker who chose it for the old FFA Movie Club?
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- Thread starter Memphis Foundry
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H8 should have been awarded a special Oscar for "Least necessary expanded director's cut"
Who was the joker who chose it for the old FFA Movie Club?
Dan Lambskin
Footballguy
Yeah it seemed like it was 8 hours long and I hated it
Ilov80s
Footballguy
That was me but in fairness, I had never seen it and a QT movie seemed like something with mass appeal since it was the very first month we did it.
jamny
Footballguy
Samsara was quite an experience. Beautifully shot and sometimes painful to watch, it puts you through a lot of emotions. And I was totally straight watching it! I can't imagine what it would be like while being high. Some visions of hell on earth really make you uneasy. I had to fast forward through a bit of the animal processing parts. Ugh.
I found it on the Hoopla app.
I found it on the Hoopla app.
Woohoo!! It's here!!!
SISU: Road to Revenge
If you haven't seen it, watch the first Sisu and be prepared to be entertained! Pure popcorn action flick with a great lead character. Love this movie!
SISU: Road to Revenge
If you haven't seen it, watch the first Sisu and be prepared to be entertained! Pure popcorn action flick with a great lead character. Love this movie!
foxco
Footballguy
Stephan Lang is a nice addition to the sequel.
Tick
Footballguy
Assault on Precinct 13 (Prime): 1976, IMDB 7.3. I’m not intentionally working my way through Carpenter movies, but he really had a run of high ratings. I’ve seen the modern remake, which has a pretty insane cast, but this was my first time watching the original.
There were my usual annoyances about the pacing of 70s movies (at least this wasn’t rapey), and some of the sound recording stuck out as too natural (meaning hard to hear and echoey as people moved through a building, but this was pretty fun. I’m guessing the concept of automatic weapons (which if I’m not mistaken weren’t even used) was pretty scary at the time, but after movies like Heat, this didn’t hit that hard.
I’m curious about how the opening scene was perceived at the time.
I don’t really see a 7.3 rating in this, but I’m glad I watched it.
One oddity: there’s a background song on the soundtrack called Precinct 9, District 13 that MUST have been the inspiration for the Mad Season song “Wake Up”.
youtu.be
youtu.be
There were my usual annoyances about the pacing of 70s movies (at least this wasn’t rapey), and some of the sound recording stuck out as too natural (meaning hard to hear and echoey as people moved through a building, but this was pretty fun. I’m guessing the concept of automatic weapons (which if I’m not mistaken weren’t even used) was pretty scary at the time, but after movies like Heat, this didn’t hit that hard.
I’m curious about how the opening scene was perceived at the time.
I don’t really see a 7.3 rating in this, but I’m glad I watched it.
One oddity: there’s a background song on the soundtrack called Precinct 9, District 13 that MUST have been the inspiration for the Mad Season song “Wake Up”.
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identikit
Footballguy
Never made it through the short version
Eephus
Footballguy
I haven't done a director deepish dive for a while but when I accidentally stumbled into one this month I decided to keep on going. The spotlight is on Sydney Pollack who was well known "name" director in the 70s and 80s but isn't discussed much nowadays. The kind of adult character driven pieces he specialized in went out of vogue during his lifetime so he transitioned to more of a producer type in the last decades of his life.
Pollack came to movies at a good time for directors in Hollywood. The studios were at their least powerful and directors and independent producers were on the rise. He was a former actor and Emmy-winning TV director who was able to establish himself as a player in New Hollywood. He had a reputation as an actor's director who was able to handle stars' egos. His seven films with Robert Redford is testament to the relationships Pollack was able to develop on set.
The Way We Were (1973) was the first of the four Pollack films I watched. It was a huge hit at the time and is regarded by some as a classic movie romance. Call me unromantic but I didn't like it at all. The love story had some big gaps where the characters' relationships changed without explanation. I also didn't get the chemistry between Streisand's overacting and Redford's under. Pollack's technique was mostly invisible; there wasn't a lot of flash. He just bathed everything in a nostalgic tone and let his stars do their thing.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) was Pollack at his best. It's a relentlessly bleak story set at a dance marathon during the Great Depression. Pollack keeps things interesting visually even though it's basically a one set production with only a couple of scenes taking place outside of the dance hall. There are great performances wherever you look especially Gig Young's Oscar winning turn as the master of ceremonies. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
The Firm (1993) is a star vehicle for Tom Cruise based on the legal thriller by John Grisham. I've never read the book but my guess is it's better than the movie. In spite of the efforts of some of Hollywood's best script doctors, The Firm never really achieves liftoff. The Cruise character's escape from his predicament is hard to follow and seems to drag on forever. Pollack gets strong performances from an excellent cast including Gene Hackman.
The Scalphunters (1968) is a revisionist Western starring Burt Lancaster. It's a strange mix of action, comedy and 60s social commentary involving a runaway slave character played by Ossie Davis. There's not much of a plot to speak of and what there is is completely implausible but it's a very entertaining movie in spite of it. I never figured Sydney Pollack for a director of Westerns but this one just worked for me.
His final feature The Interpreter (2015) is on Netflix and I might get around to it later this month.
Pollack came to movies at a good time for directors in Hollywood. The studios were at their least powerful and directors and independent producers were on the rise. He was a former actor and Emmy-winning TV director who was able to establish himself as a player in New Hollywood. He had a reputation as an actor's director who was able to handle stars' egos. His seven films with Robert Redford is testament to the relationships Pollack was able to develop on set.
The Way We Were (1973) was the first of the four Pollack films I watched. It was a huge hit at the time and is regarded by some as a classic movie romance. Call me unromantic but I didn't like it at all. The love story had some big gaps where the characters' relationships changed without explanation. I also didn't get the chemistry between Streisand's overacting and Redford's under. Pollack's technique was mostly invisible; there wasn't a lot of flash. He just bathed everything in a nostalgic tone and let his stars do their thing.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) was Pollack at his best. It's a relentlessly bleak story set at a dance marathon during the Great Depression. Pollack keeps things interesting visually even though it's basically a one set production with only a couple of scenes taking place outside of the dance hall. There are great performances wherever you look especially Gig Young's Oscar winning turn as the master of ceremonies. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
The Firm (1993) is a star vehicle for Tom Cruise based on the legal thriller by John Grisham. I've never read the book but my guess is it's better than the movie. In spite of the efforts of some of Hollywood's best script doctors, The Firm never really achieves liftoff. The Cruise character's escape from his predicament is hard to follow and seems to drag on forever. Pollack gets strong performances from an excellent cast including Gene Hackman.
The Scalphunters (1968) is a revisionist Western starring Burt Lancaster. It's a strange mix of action, comedy and 60s social commentary involving a runaway slave character played by Ossie Davis. There's not much of a plot to speak of and what there is is completely implausible but it's a very entertaining movie in spite of it. I never figured Sydney Pollack for a director of Westerns but this one just worked for me.
His final feature The Interpreter (2015) is on Netflix and I might get around to it later this month.
TripItUp
Footballguy
identikit
Footballguy
The Way We Were (1973) was the first of the four Pollack films I watched. It was a huge hit at the time and is regarded by some as a classic movie romance. Call me unromantic but I didn't like it at all. The love story had some big gaps where the characters' relationships changed without explanation. I also didn't get the chemistry between Streisand's overacting and Redford's under. Pollack's technique was mostly invisible; there wasn't a lot of flash. He just bathed everything in a nostalgic tone and let his stars do their thing.
Did a rewatch of this recently, post-Redford's death. What stars Redford and Streisand were! Every time they were on the screen, it was hypnotic.
I suppose it's reflective of the timing of it in my life.
For all of its flaws, I still love the film
Did a rewatch of this recently, post-Redford's death. What stars Redford and Streisand were! Every time they were on the screen, it was hypnotic.
I suppose it's reflective of the timing of it in my life.
For all of its flaws, I still love the film
identikit
Footballguy
The Firm is definitely my favorite of all Grisham treatments.
My biggest complaint about them is that they are always so neatly wrapped up at the end; completely unrealistic
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Not sure if that is a good or bad wow. I am 1/2 way through my 4th rewatch, and I would say it's my favorite movie of the last couple years. I don't expect many positive reviews in here, but we will see.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Oh nice it’s streaming now? Once I finish my noir watching I’ve got a bunch of new stuff on streaming to see. Eddington, Frankenstein, Nouvelle Vague, Ballad of a Small Player, The Materialists, Warfare, Sorry Baby, A House of Dynamite.
Eephus
Footballguy
In addition to Cruise and Hackman, the other standout performance came from Wilford Brimley of all people. I've never read any Grisham and have no idea how closely the movie character tracked the novel's but Brimley made a perfectly malevolent and believable henchman.
identikit
Footballguy
It encapsulates and lays bare all of the worst in today's crippled, deeply divided, internet-fueled world
Left me less optimistic about this current world of ours
Eephus
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Of course that was one of the ones I was most interested in. They redeemed themselves with the pairing for 2001. I see that's on Criterion, so that will make a perfect double feature next month when I hit the 60s. Other than that, I was a little disappointed with the suggestions with the other 5 movies. The only other that really stood out was the Bergman that was suggested with Full Metal Jacket.
Their mention of Bergman and the tidbit about Kubrick sending him a letter got me staring again at my box set I am behind on. I watched a couple documentaries on Criterion channel about him and his movies and this week I am going to knock out a couple of his 50s movies I haven't gotten to. Waiting Women, Brink of Life, and The Magician are at the top of the queue.
Eephus
Footballguy
Cruise's get out scheme was very complicated and Pollack and the screenwriters left the reveal too late for my liking. In the meantime, only Cruise's character knew what was going on.
I read the Wikipedia synopsis for Grisham's book and was surprised that the filmmakers changed the ending of a book that was so well known at the time
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Yep, it did all that but it still made me laugh a lot in the process. Despite how fantastically shot his movies are, I love the minute details in Aster's movies that for me makes them so rewatchable despite their often bleak subject matter. In Eddington there are so many things in the background that I pick up that enhance the rewatch and make me laugh at something new. From a video someone is watching to a poster or bumper sticker there is something to pick up on.
identikit
Footballguy
He is definitely an equal-opportunity exposer
Reminds me of South Park in that way; nothing is off-limits and/or sacred
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I agree the recommendations weren't great- many were just too difficult to see or too obscure. Captain Lightfoot by Douglas Sirk sounded interesting though, I will keep an eye out at least for it.
I should dig a little more into Bergman. I would like giving a couple of the ones I liked another watch (Seventh Seal, Autumn Sonata, Winter Light, Fanny and Alexander) and also a couple I haven't seen yet like Scenes from a Marriage, Crimes and Whispers, Summer with Monika, Virgin Spring. Mabe next year.
Eephus
Footballguy
You could watch it for Rock Hudson's 100th birthday which was yesterday. I watched A Farewell to Arms instead and probably should have gone in another direction.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I've seen the Gary Cooper from the 30s and it is disappointing. It's been awhile since I read the book but it felt like there was room for a very good movie in it.
My favorite note about that 50's version is this:
When producer David O. Selznick crowed that his wife, Jennifer Jones, was starring in “A Farewell to Arms” and he’d pay Hemingway a $50,000 bonus from any profits, the novelist wrote back: “If by some miracle, your movie, which stars 41-year-old Mrs. Selznick portraying 24-year-old Catherine Barkley, does earn $50,000, you should have all $50,000 changed into nickels at your local bank and shove them up your [bleep] until they came out of your ears.”
Eephus
Footballguy
Mrs. Selznick/Jennifer Jones is awful in the movie. Her acting when Catherine goes into labor is the definition of ham.
The movie can't decide whether it's a huge 50s Cinemascope war epic or an intimate story of star-crossed lovers but it does better as the former. It would have been 1000% better with Elizabeth Taylor playing opposite Hudson.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Yeah, he said in an interview he had an Eddington sequel, a horror movie, and a sci-fi movie swirling around in his head.
B Maverick
Footballguy
Sadly I did too. Alan Ritchson was great in it but outside that, the rest was so bad. Almost turned it off during the beginning before Ritchson was introduced. Kevin James was a boring version of himself, and I am not that big a fan of his anyway.
Kid and I went to see Now You See Me, Now You Don't. She liked it a lot. I thought it was better than the 2nd one, but kind of left me meh. It had a lot of the same as the first two, and some good misdirects. Probably going to be another with the new group, which could be ok.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Jennifer Jones is an interesting one because she was quite beautiful, she seemed to be a respected actress as she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actress. She was nominated 5 times (including 4 consecutive nominations in the 40s). So obviously she was considered a great actress over a very long (though not very busy career). She had several big hits that made lots of money but despite being such a big star, she has very much faded from public consciousness. I've seen a lot of old movies but the only one that she is in was John Huston's Beat the Devil which isn't all that good. She was unlucky in the parts she did take- none of them seemed to hold up over time. Rosalind Russell had His Girl Friday, Claudette Colbert had It Happened One Night, Danny Kaye had White Christmas and those movies helped them live on but Jennifer Jones seems to have vanished.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
For a silly "family" double feature on my day off yesterday, I watched The Great Outdoors and The Simpsons Movie. The Great Outdoors got me to go down a 1988 rabbit hole, and that is definitely a year I underestimate as being an all-timer, at least for movies that I hold in high regard and/or just have a huge soft spot for. I was 12-13 at the time and remember seeing a ton of movies in the theater, but even some of my favorites of the 80s I saw in adulthood are from the year as well. For me one one of the best 12month runs of movies would be if I could go 84 into 85, but as a stand alone year '88 probably beats both.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I’m anxious about rewatching some of the movies I loved as a kid from that era. When I watched The Great Outdoors a few years ago, I was pretty disappointed. I used to absolutely love Summer Rental. Have you seen that one?
FarFromHome
Footballguy
I watched a brat pack doc that took me down the 80s rabbit hole. I rewatched Pretty in Pink with my 19 year old daughter. It was quite bad. Better Off Dead with John Cusack was a damn classic. I rewatched last month and couldn't get halfway through it. Smh. No way the Great Outdoors could be bad if I rewatched it? Right? Ha ha
Eephus
Footballguy
Jones was quite a bit younger than the other actors you mentioned so she missed the golden age of the studio system where she might have been cast in one of the enduring classics. The probability is naturally greater when you're making 4-6 movies a year.
Jones only had 26 screen credits, far fewer than Russell or Colbert. Much of her work came in films produced by her husband--Selznick post-GWTW specialized in the type of prestige melodramas that seem more old fashioned today than His Girl Friday or It Happened One Night. Selznick was also protective of his wife's image which limited the types of roles she took although this doesn't really explain Duel In the Sun.
She also stars in the 1962 version of Tender Is the Night that we discussed a couple of weeks ago. I haven't seen it in years so I don't remember her performance but she's much older than Nicole Diver from the book.
Eephus
Footballguy
That was the VHS era where it was relatively easy to turn a profit on combined theatrical and home video sales. So a lot of projects were made.
If you take off your nostalgia goggles, I don't know if it was a great year for cinema but movies are memories.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
You could be right, and I am mostly looking at the genre movies on the list. However, what made me do a bit of a deeper dive is seeing some of my favorite international movies listed for the year: Wings of Desire, The Vanishing, My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies. The Thin Blue Line is a great trailblazing doc as well. I do agree there wasn't much as far as serious dramas that I wrote down. There is a bit of nostalgia with those, but there are some legit greats from each genre from this year.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
There are disappointments for sure, but I have found the ride well worth it, and it makes me love the ones I do still think hold up even more. Ones that I didn't like as much watching in the recent years just from today's '88 list are: Nightmare 4, Beetlejuice, They Live, and Roger Rabbit. Stuff like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Naked Gun, Coming to America, and Die Hard I love more than I did 30+ years ago.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
@Eephus - as I went, I actually made a note for a "real" pick and a pick that is more nostaligia (but I will still go to bat for):
Action had Die Hard as a legit pick, and Bloodsport as an awesome nostalgia pick.
Teen comedy had Heathers, but also the Coreylicious Licence to Drive
All time sport movie with Bull Durham
I bag on 80s horror, but Serpent and the Rainbow and Child's Play stood out and a couple of my favorite 2025 discoveries of Pumpkinhead and Night of the Demons did as well.
Big and Willow are still good family movies
We know my history with comedy, but I had Coming To America, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Naked Gun, and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka Written down.
Scrooged is an all-time Christmas movie
That didn't include a ton of movies I haven't seen or didn't remember enough to include in my calculation like A Fish Called Wanda, Midnight Run, Working Girl, Last Temptation of Christ, Frantic, and others.
Action had Die Hard as a legit pick, and Bloodsport as an awesome nostalgia pick.
Teen comedy had Heathers, but also the Coreylicious Licence to Drive
All time sport movie with Bull Durham
I bag on 80s horror, but Serpent and the Rainbow and Child's Play stood out and a couple of my favorite 2025 discoveries of Pumpkinhead and Night of the Demons did as well.
Big and Willow are still good family movies
We know my history with comedy, but I had Coming To America, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Naked Gun, and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka Written down.
Scrooged is an all-time Christmas movie
That didn't include a ton of movies I haven't seen or didn't remember enough to include in my calculation like A Fish Called Wanda, Midnight Run, Working Girl, Last Temptation of Christ, Frantic, and others.
Tick
Footballguy
Old Henry (Kanopy): 2021 western, IMDB 7.3. Tim Blake Nelson and his son find a man injured by a gunshot with a bag of cash. Pa seems pretty good with a gun.
This was 98 minutes, basically one simple story. I liked it - it’s a sort of story we’ve seen before, but it was well done here.
This was 98 minutes, basically one simple story. I liked it - it’s a sort of story we’ve seen before, but it was well done here.
BLOCKED_PUNT
Footballguy
I watched A Fish Called Wanda a few years back and really liked it.
The Land Before Time is very nostalgic for me and I'd argue a good family movie.
The Land Before Time is very nostalgic for me and I'd argue a good family movie.
Eephus
Footballguy
Eight Men Out
