Flipside Movie Emporium

beltmann · Posted: 10.10.2006 2:00 pm Post subject:

10/2 ? 10/8/06

Time for only one film last week, late Sunday night: The Departed felt a little bit like a Scorsese Greatest Hits collection, but it was still a terrific entertainment. And I think it improves upon the source material.

xAndyx · Posted: 10.10.2006 7:54 pm Post subject:

I liked V...but I am not going to even argue that. On another note I went to see Employee of the Month this past friday and while I liked the movie there were probably 20 boom mic slips. Seriously, how do they miss that?
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Michael Scrutchin · Posted: 10.10.2006 8:15 pm Post subject:

Danny Baldwin · Posted: 10.10.2006 10:41 pm Post subject:

beltmann · Posted: 10.11.2006 3:55 am Post subject:

Andy, prints routinely arrive at theaters with ?fringe? material never meant to be seen by the audience. Proper projection will always ?mask? that portion of the image. The habitual presence of microphones on screen is always an indication of misframing.

And yet multiplex projectionists are routinely ignorant of this fundamental principle of film projection. (Seriously, how do they miss that?)

When I saw The Terminal, for example, the film was misframed far too low--so low that in nearly half the scenes we could clearly see the set microphones on the screen. Although we twice notified ushers of the problem, it remained misframed throughout the film?s duration. Afterwards I asked to speak to a manager, who told me the presence of microphones was the result of faulty filmmaking--as if DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg, and Mr. Hanks somehow failed to notice the mics while shooting and editing a big-budget picture--and the projectionist himself claimed ?there was nothing? he could do.
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Danny Baldwin · Posted: 10.11.2006 4:36 am Post subject:

Given I'm probably the least-knowledgeable projectionist in the world and can properly frame a movie, it isn't rocket-science.
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xAndyx · Posted: 10.11.2006 5:16 pm Post subject:

Now that you mention it there was a point where text was shown below the screen...so it would have been framed wrong. That is actually quite interesting, I never knew they left some of that in for the projectionists to cut out.
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One day you will look behind you and you will see we three, and on that day, you will repent, and we will send you to whatever god you wish.

-The Boondock Saints

Danny Baldwin · Posted: 10.11.2006 11:15 pm Post subject:

Post SDFF screenings through today:

The Science of Sleep (Gondry, 2006) B

The Departed (Scorsese, 2006) B-

The Last King of Scotland (Macdonald, 2006) C+

While I found the latest Gondry to be bitingly humorous, it's basically the artsy lesser of Eternal Sunshine.

The latter two, though, were both big disappointments. Scorsese's latest is a technical marvel, to be sure, but where's the passion? Even if I wasn't blown away by the lopsided vigor of The Gangs of New York or The Aviator, they struck far stronger a chord with me. People seem to like The Departed because it's a return to the territory that made Scorsese the renowned filmmaker that he is, but I can't really gather up much enthusiasm for what Goodfellas did better.

Forrest Whitaker gives a bombastically passionate performance as Ugandan leader Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, but the movie is nowhere near as original as his daring interpretation of the big-headed figure he plays. I love director MacDonald's Touching the Void, but his method of building an intimate narrative here is hindered both by lack of flavor and by underdevelopment of historical context.
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Tooky Cat · Posted: 10.12.2006 3:49 am Post subject:

I saw The Departed this past weekend, and I feel I have an unbiased opinion as I've never seen Goodfellas or the like.

I thought Departed was fantastic, and got increasingly better as it went along. I gave it 9/10. I am, however, incredibly annoyed by the number of articles I've read in the school newspapers here saying it's "the best American movie" in years or whatever. I mean, I don't even bother to read "criticisms" that start out like that.
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Tooky Cat · Posted: 10.12.2006 3:51 am Post subject:

Speaking of Scorsese, I also saw Raging Bull, by which I was generally unimpressed and very disappointed. Explain this to me. Even if it's a "technical marvel" as my Comm Arts professor seems to believe, it's still not very engaging, entertaining, or engrossing.

Perhaps this is because I generally dislike boxing movies. Or any sports movie.
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beltmann · Posted: 10.12.2006 4:10 am Post subject:

Raging Bull is not a sports movie. It's a psychological drama about a self-destructing character who happens to be a boxer.

In fact, the boxing scenes are intentionally inauthentic, designed to play into the movie's themes regarding one man's sentimental (and savage) codes of masculinity. The scenes in the ring have about as much to do with sports as the domestic scenes set in LaMotta's kitchen do.
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beltmann · Posted: 10.12.2006 4:24 am Post subject:

Jack D Ripper · Grip Joined: 27 Jan 2006 Posts: 16

i most recently checked out hard candy on dvd. this is 3/4 great. the miike inspired tourture sequences and the lead up to them are very well done but it goes a little haywire at the end. found it very anti-climactic.

beltmann · Posted: 10.12.2006 3:38 pm Post subject:

Monkeypox · Posted: 10.15.2006 8:18 am Post subject:

Well, I will hyperbolize this one for The Departed - it was the greatest performance anyone has gotten out of Marky Mark.

I find that as more time goes by, I get MORE out of Scorcese's latest. I consider it that rare improvement on the original. Of course, one could probably make an argument for me being a Scorcese fanboy.
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