Film forum off topic/random chat thread

Sad Professor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118388455#Comment_118388455

Grounded mixture of vitamins I think, though you'll find they are just pretending to snort it most of the time. It's rare enough to even see an actor actually eat or drink for a real in a movie.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118388641#Comment_118388641

One of the trivial nothings that always irritates, are scenes with characters holding clearly empty takeout coffee cups. Just a silly detail that I notice, especially when a character starts gesticulating the hand holding the cup.

IIRC, if a scene absolutely must involve eating, a dinner scene or some such, there'll be a spit bucket out of shot where the chewed food is spat up between takes. Necessary, but gross.

Agent Coulson

Brad Pitt’s gimmick is that he always eats on screen in his movies.

Sad Professor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118389552#Comment_118389552

lol yeah it's very obvious when the cup is empty. People running with takeaway cups supposedly full of hot coffee as well. Another thing I often notice is bags and backpacks that obviously have no weight in them.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118389552#Comment_118389552

It's even worse when they drink from the empty cup and don't swallow.

FunLover18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118389552#Comment_118389552

So annoying, how hard would it be to fill them with water. Even worse I'm pretty sure some shows even go to the effort of putting in fake steam using vfx.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118391583#Comment_118391583

I presume the thinking is to avoid splashing, but was the thinking, then fine; put a weight in the cup to give it heft so the actor isn't waving it around like a magic wand. I bet David Fincher wouldn't put up with that kinda thing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118390755#Comment_118390755

Ha yes. Also, fake babies. Though that one is understandable, as I doubt many mothers would hook their kid up with an agency hours after birth; instead there'll be a medium shot of the guardians, holding an obvious doll or dummy, wrapped in cloth. Smash cut to close up of random baby 🤣

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118388455#Comment_118388455

That is a good question and something I never thought of before.

are they actually snorting anything? Anything going up the nose is going to cause discomfort at the very least

I was watching Trading Places for the first time the other day - the cop sampling the Angel Dust, haven’t seen that nonsense. In years in a movie

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118392507#Comment_118392507

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/armie-hammer-sorry-to-bother-you-cocaine-1203080111/amp/

similar set up to what the makers of The X-Files did for William B. Davies - the little hose would puff out the smoke

Agent Coulson

If cocaine was the worst thing Hammer was ingesting he might still have a Hollywood career.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I was talking to someone over Christmas about Steven Spielberg and it came up that I'd only seen like 4 or 5 of his films. Shocking, I know. But it got me thinking which other BIG directors there were, the kind that are on the same level as Spielberg in terms of just the overall contribution to cinema, not necessarily being consistently great, so I could check how many of their films I'd seen. Scorcese was the only other one that sprang to mind. Anyone else think of one?

I'm talking about the kind of directors that most people, even the most casual of film viewers would have heard of and probably seen a handful of their films without making any conscious effort to.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118403825#Comment_118403825

Jesus...that'll be some list there.

Off the top of my head...

Alfred Hitchcock

John Huston

Sam Peckinpah

Francis Ford Coppola

Stanley Kubrick

Sidney Lumet

Ken Loach

Mike Leigh

Wes Anderson

The Coen Brothers

Clint Eastwood

William Friedkin

Brian De Palma

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118403870#Comment_118403870

Some of those aren't really what I'm talking about. Spielberg and Scorcese have 25-30 films each that most people have probably heard of, film fan or not. The Coens and Wes Anderson don't even have that between them.

Coppola was probably the other main one I was trying to think of but couldn't remember. And Hitchcock, of course.

Tony EH

Well, what are we talking about here? Influence, productivity or popularity?

Somebody like Akira Kurosawa or John Casevettes would have been quite prolific and influential, but they wouldn't be household names. But then somebody like Woody Allen would.

The Coens and Anderson may not have a huge output, but you can bet that there's a huge number of people who have seen at least one of their movies. Christopher Nolan would fall into that category too. They've put out films that would be quite popular.

The time period too is probably important. Howard Hawks or, especially, John Ford put out a ton of movies and were highly influential, but would the casual film viewer be that aware of them today?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118403954#Comment_118403954

I guess I was talking about people still making films now, like Scorcese and Spielberg, who have been making films of renown for multiple decades. Very specific, I know.

I guess people like Hitchcock or John Ford would count in a way too, given most people would at least have heard of several of their films, even if they'd never seen them.

I'm thinking Ridley Scott would count too.

(I'm not doing anything important or scientific with these names, I was just looking at my stats on Letterboxd and noticed I've seen around 1600 films, and apparently they're from 1100 different directors, which got me thinking about how many quite famous, and prolific directors I've probably only seen one or two films from. I was surprised myself at the number of Spielberg films because he's made so many instantly recognisable ones)

johnny_ultimate

The Coens have 19 ‘major’ films (plus a couple of extra ‘written by’ credits) so that’d be a pretty darn significant filmography by my count :) They’d be well ahead of Tarantino, Anderson, Nolan etc in terms of sheer volume of work.

In terms of household names, I’d add Kubrick and Hitchcock to the Spielberg and Scorsese list too for sure. I’d say John Ford probably on the border as well given his work casts a big shadow over mid-century American cinema (there’s maybe a case of Clint Eastwood too). Kurosawa is probably the closest to a world cinema director that fits the bill - I’d imagine even most very casual cinephiles would’ve seen or at least heard of Seven Samurai. John Carpenter maybe in the genre space? Beyond that I’m not sure how many ‘household names’ you’d be dealing with, except for more contemporary filmmakers like Tarantino or Fincher.

As an aside, I think deep dives into a director’s filmography is one of the most rewarding things you can do. I think when you hit one or two of the big works and move on you probably won’t get a real feel for what makes their filmmaking so special. Starting to see the repeated rhythms, diversity of ideas, recurrent collaborators and more will really give you a proper feel for it. Of course, some filmmakers’ filmographies are so broad and dense - say a Godard, Bergman or a Kurosawa - that even seeing four or five films is probably not really enough to get you properly into the weeds. I’d include Spielberg in that category too :)

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

@johnny_ultimate I've enjoyed watching newer film makers as their films come out, seeing those things you mention grow and develop, or be dropped completely as they make more films. I can imagine doing a deep dive into someone with 30+ films to their name would be very rewarding in that respect.

Edit: I had assumed the Coens made all their films together so was only looking at Ethans films, which is why I lowballed them.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118403825#Comment_118403825

I hadn't seen it mentioned but what about David Fincher? Guy seems like a household name I'd speculate casuals would know of, but a definite auteur who makes what he wants, when and how he wants.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118404027#Comment_118404027

Joel usually takes directorial credit and Ethan producing, although they have a few shared director credits and almost always co-writing credits. But they’re proper collaborators despite the individual credits, hence the usual ‘collective’ crediting when people talk about them.

The only exception is actually the just released Tragedy of Macbeth, which is just a Joel solo effort without Ethan.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118403992#Comment_118403992

Well, if we're talking of people still making films, then somebody like Eastwood would fit the bill. Or someone like Tarantino, as JU mentioned. Although he's semi retired, so he says. James Cameron? Tim Burton? David Lynch? David Cronenberg?

Hard to imagine anyone who's interested in films that has never seen one of theirs.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118404715#Comment_118404715

Tim Burton is actually the director I've seen most by, and that was mainly unintentional. As in before I actually started paying attention to who was making the things I was watching. That said, it's about 5 years since I watched anything by him, but he's still at the top of my stats.

Robert Zemeckis is another one. Again, never intentionally sat down to watch a film of his, but I've still seen quite a few.

Agent Coulson

Went down a Youtube rabbit hole and came across this.

Al suffered a stroke in 2005 and retired from being on screen but looks great for a man of 69 who had brain cancer as well in this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2sBRm_clCk&ab_channel=MartialArtsHistoryMuseum

The Black Oil

Well, this is going back a few decades.

https://twitter.com/MikeJudge/status/1478562912113508352

Agent Coulson

Netflix are remaking The Raid with Michael Bay producing.

Patrick Hughes The Hitman's Bodygurad & Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard director being looked at to direct.

FunLover18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118452253#Comment_118452253

I remember there was a remake of this announced years ago with Frank Grillo.

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118393929#Comment_118393929

The things being said about him were so extreme that I said to myself it had to be made up

the management agency and PR agency dropping made me think “bloody hell, does that mean it is true”

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118441790#Comment_118441790

I remember that face and the Fu Manchu tasche

He used to be a a lot of 80s like A-Team - i might be wrong but I think he did multiple episodes of all the big action shows. I started a rewatch of 24 last year and he was a part of the gang that kidnapped Kim and Teri.

I think he was in Die Hard too

Need a Username

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/the-worst-person-in-the-world-joachim-trier-award-winner-has-a-trailer-online/

Dies anyone know what the I opening line of the article is about?

“ Tempted as we are to make a political joke about its title given current events,”

Sad Professor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118459166#Comment_118459166

Dig at Boris Johnson over him allegedly attending a party during covid lockdown I assume.

Need a Username

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118459254#Comment_118459254

Okay I was wondering if it was something I had missed