What Are You Watching Right Now? Episode 3 - Turtles in Time

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Was that at the Alamo?

I'm going to see Police Story tonight, for the first time.

This Season Pass is awesome

[Buscemi2]

Yes.

You going to do Reel Film Day next week, Banks?

[W]

Didn't want to make a new thread for this, but if you're stuck on an island with only one year's movie releases, which would be the best?

I'm going with 1994. It has everything you'd need. Some of the best rewatchable movies ever made (Shawshank, Gump, Pulp Fiction), possibly the best animated movie (Lion King), so many sports movies (Little Giants, Angels in the Outfield, The Scout, Blue Chips, Major League II, so many more), dumb 90's comedies I love including Jim Carrey at the height of his powers (The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, AND Ace Ventura?!?!). Nostalgia abounds as well. And I didn't mention Ed Wood, Shallow Grave, Quiz Show, Surviving the Game (oh I love Surviving the Game), True Lies...

[numbersix]

Great question.

I thought 2001 was a superb year of cinema. Looking at my Top 10 from that year it goes

Mulholland Dr
The Royal Tenenbaums
Sex and Lucia
Amelie
Monsters Inc
Donnie Darko
LOTR:Fellowship of the Ring
AI
Read My Lips
The Man Who Wasn't There


Some of those are my all time favs.

I'd also look at 74 and 76 as two exceptional years.

[W]

Our tastes are much different. I like to re-watch lowbrow (read stupid) comedies and action movies for the most part. Besides Shrek, Monsters Inc., and Memento my 2001 by rewatchability factor include:

Freddy Got Fingered
A Knight's Tale
Saving Silverman
Rush Hour 2 (Just for the craps scene)
The Fast and The Furious
Double Take
Harry Potter #1
Joe Dirt
Rat Race

[transformers2]

Gotta be 1999 for me. 5 of my top 50 favorite movies (Fight Club, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Matrix, The Green Mile, Office Space) were released in the US that year plus a bunch of great comedies (South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut, Dogma, American Pie, Detroit Rock City, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me), underrated gems (The Wood, Varsity Blues, Payback), trash entertainment (Deep Blue Sea, Wild Wild West), childhood staples (Big Daddy, Toy Story 2, Galaxy Quest) and a Best Picture winner that I love (American Beauty).

[JohnErle]

Without giving this an excess of thought, I'd have to go with 1988. So many of my all-time favorites came out that year, possibly because I was still young enough to have my tastes shaped by what I was watching.

Bull Durham
Dead Ringers
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Eight Men Out
A Fish Called Wanda
Die Hard
The Naked Gun
Midnight Run
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Mississippi Burning
Beetlejuice
Big
They Live!
Heathers

That's quite a list.

[undeadmonkey]

i cant choose, 2003-2005, besides lion king and se7en, my top ten are all within these years,

interesting to see, must have been my impressionable years.

also interesting to see, when i went over my first 1st top 100 films, there are definitely some films that have not aged well for me.

[Buscemi2]

Not as good as I remember it, though that might have something to do with the dreadful dub I saw (had this been advertised as dubbed, I wouldn't have gone). More or less an anime version of a Brian De Palma film, I'm convinced this wouldn't have the following it has had it come out after the 90's or had Darren Aronofsky not sung its praises (and to the person in the audience who claimed Black Swan ripped off this film, Black Swan's first draft was sold before Perfect Blue was released in Japan). The story overcomes many of the film's flaws and I give it credit for not overstaying the 80 minute run time. Any longer and it might be uncomfortable. I'd watch the original Japanese version again but I'd feel dirtier than I already do (I saw someone brought their elementary school-aged kid this, did the parent not note the rape scenes?).

Also, there were people laughing during the death scenes. Is there something I don't know where death scenes are considered funny in Asia (same thing happened when I saw The Raid 2)?

Up next: From Dusk till Dawn (in 35mm).

[numbersix]

Black Swan was sold before Perfect Blue was released? But didn't Aronofsky license the bathtub scene from Perfect Blue for Requiem? So he knew it in the late 90s - does Black Swan go back that far?

[Buscemi2]

The original draft to Black Swan, The Understudy, was sold to Mike Medavoy (head of Phoenix Pictures) in 1997. Perfect Blue opened in Japan in January 1998.

Aronofsky bought the remake rights to Perfect Blue to reference the bathtub sequence. But what I'm getting at is that Black Swan isn't a ripoff of Perfect Blue. There are too many differences to call them similar. And that's even after you realize all of the revisions the script underwent (apparently, The Wrestler was born from one of these rewrites).

[Buscemi2]

Seemingly a film not often talked about when mentioning Tarantino or Rodriguez, this is a fun ride that is often used as the textbook example of a halfway plot switch (personally, I like the first half more). I have to wonder how audiences back in 1996 reacted when the vampires showed up after it had been a kidnapping thriller for the first hour. Also, it seems like that studios don't make these kinds of horror films anymore. I'm not sure if it's because of budgets or the MPAA (I recall this one had to be cut down to get an R) but you don't see the horror film that indulges in its own imagination or terror. It's all about the bottom line and trying to ape the other.

And since Six and Chien had their own film industry stories, I have mine. I know someone whose mother was the visual effects supervisor on this film. Back in the day when people were trying to set us up (there were too many things that set us apart and she now lives in Brooklyn), she would talk about hanging out on the set while her mom would work with Robert and the KNB people and five-year-old her hanging out with the cast and crew. All nice people, I've been told.

As for the 35mm print, it was cobbled mainly from a print from the international release (I was surprised to see a Buena Vista International logo at the beginning). Most of the reels seemed to be from a dupe print while a couple of reels were from an American print with the SDDS mix (the theatre posted pictures from the print on Instagram and I managed to find the strip the decoders would read). I'm pretty sure the film was run on Dolby Digital as newer theatres don't install SDDS (also, most of those tracks are in bad condition). The sound mix (5.1, select SDDS prints had a 7.1 mix) held up really well on this 23 year old print.

Up next: The Big Lebowski.

[Chienfantome]

From Dusk til Dawn was so much fun for me when I saw it in theaters back then.
In France the film was forbidden for under-16 kids, it was summer '96 and I was only 14 but I sooooooo wanted to go see it. I had tried to sneak in twice but couldn't in Paris multiplexes. But later my local arthouse cinema screened it, and I didn't see any mention of the "under 16" factor in their program so I gave it a try, went to the cinema, asked for a ticket for the film, and no one asked me my age. It was so thrilling. I had a blast with the film and fell in love with Salma Hayek.

[numbersix]

From Dusk Til Dawn was banned completely in Ireland. I think it was one of the last ever movies to be banned in my country. As a Tarantino nut in the late 90s this drove me nuts. I just bought the screenplay and reread it. Eventually it was released, or we got a dodgy bootleg VHS from my Irish language teacher, can't remember which.

EDIT: it was the latter, as the ban was only lifted in 2004. Fucking hell. And I see Man Bites Dog, Baise-Moi, and Romance are all still banned?!?!?

[Chienfantome]

From Dusk Til Dawn was banned completely in Ireland. I think it was one of the last ever movies to be banned in my country. As a Tarantino nut in the late 90s this drove me nuts. I just bought the screenplay and reread it. Eventually it was released, or we got a dodgy bootleg VHS from my Irish language teacher, can't remember which.

EDIT: it was the latter, as the ban was only lifted in 2004. Fucking hell. And I see Man Bites Dog, Baise-Moi, and Romance are all still banned?!?!?

That's crazy !