RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before putting a film into a greatest/favourites list?

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RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 3:20:59 PM

great_badir

Posts: 4173
Joined: 6/10/2005
From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris kilby

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

I think Drive is more very much old - it reminds me a lot of 70s filmmaking, even with the One From Your Heart music and colours.

More like early 80s Michael Mann, I'd have thought. Specifically Thief. Right down to the day-glo, "handwritten" titles and Tangerine Dream-like score...

Also major influences from (The) Driver and To Live and Die In LA.

Drive is a good (as in quality) example of pastiche. Unlike Reservoir Dogs.

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Post #: 61

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 3:36:09 PM

horribleives

Posts: 4183
Joined: 12/6/2009
From: The North

So what is it you don't like about the second best film of the '90s?

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Post #: 62

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 3:49:24 PM

great_badir

Posts: 4173
Joined: 6/10/2005
From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

I've gone into this in far more detail, on more than one occasion, elsewhere on the forum.

So, rather than go over old ground again, if you click the FAVE FILMS link in my sig and head to page 15, scroll down a little bit and most of my problems with the film are explained there.

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Post #: 63

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 8:23:28 PM

horribleives

Posts: 4183
Joined: 12/6/2009
From: The North

quote:

ORIGINAL: great_badir

I've gone into this in far more detail, on more than one occasion, elsewhere on the forum.

So, rather than go over old ground again, if you click the FAVE FILMS link in my sig and head to page 15, scroll down a little bit and most of my problems with the film are explained there.

Had a look. Interesting read and some good points. I totally disagree with most of them but well argued nonetheless.

I will say though, that there were plenty of reviews and features (including an Empire one not long after the film's February '93 release) that aknowledged the movie's debt to Hong Kong cinema - and specifically its similarities to City On Fire - while still being mightily impressed by it, so I don't buy the idea that until Mills lifted the lid everyone was in the dark and had to re-evaluate their opinion. Plenty were aware of the story's influences and Tarantino's magpie tendencies from the get-go but were blown away by the movie regardless.
Anyway, to drift slightly back on topic, I'd wager both this and Pulp Fiction still sit happily in the All Times Classics files of most film fans but I'd be surprised of anything else he directs has such longevity.

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Post #: 64

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 8:37:01 PM

elab49

Posts: 51612
Joined: 1/10/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: great_badir

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris kilby

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

I think Drive is more very much old - it reminds me a lot of 70s filmmaking, even with the One From Your Heart music and colours.

More like early 80s Michael Mann, I'd have thought. Specifically Thief. Right down to the day-glo, "handwritten" titles and Tangerine Dream-like score...

Also major influences from (The) Driver and To Live and Die In LA.

Drive is a good (as in quality) example of pastiche. Unlike Reservoir Dogs.

The Driver was my original thought. Hill and Friedkin seem better references than Mann, IMO. And if the ref is going to be Tangerine Dream that takes you back to Friedkin from the other direction anyway

And with One from the Heart you don't just have the specific title card in text - and the pink surely a direct nod?

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Films watched 2012

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(in reply to great_badir)

Post #: 65

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 10:06:54 PM

rawlinson

Posts: 40194
Joined: 13/6/2008
From: Timbuktu. Chinese or Fictional.

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

And with One from the Heart you don't just have the specific title card in text - and the pink surely a direct nod?

.
Oddly, Risky Business

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nicolas-winding-refn%2C61788/

quote:

AVC: I was thinking also of the opening titles [of Drive].

NWR: Me and Mat Newman, who edits all my movies, we stole that in the editing table from Risky Business.

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quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b

I would plough my way through MonsterCat

quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b

I desire MonsterCat to go down on me.

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Post #: 66

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 10:43:10 PM

great_badir

Posts: 4173
Joined: 6/10/2005
From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives
I will say though, that there were plenty of reviews and features (including an Empire one not long after the film's February '93 release) that aknowledged the movie's debt to Hong Kong cinema - and specifically its similarities to City On Fire - while still being mightily impressed by it, so I don't buy the idea that until Mills lifted the lid everyone was in the dark and had to re-evaluate their opinion. Plenty were aware of the story's influences and Tarantino's magpie tendencies from the get-go but were blown away by the movie regardless.

Granted, that was certainly the case in the "geek press". But the mainstream media and mainstream audiences were basically tricked, and not once, until very late on after its release, did Tarantino directly acknowledge his, ahem, "influences". It's easy to forget how, back then, mainstream audiences were nowhere near as well versed in cinema history as they are today, thanks to the sheer ease and low cost (cinema excluded) of seeing or purchasing a film - before the internet and DVD, budget VHS videos were �5.99 and if you couldn't find it in your local store, then you basically couldn't get it. Now, of course, with stupid-cheap DVDs, multiple TV channels, downloads, YouTube etc etc, people have heard of The Taking of Pelham 123, they know about Chow Yun Fat and 80s Hong Kong cinema and so on and so on.

Okay, maybe I was over-stating Mills' "reveal", but that was certainly the only thing I'd seen at that point that was so majorly succinct and specific about QT's cinematic kleptomania, and specific about it being cinematic kleptomania.

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Post #: 67

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 10:58:39 PM

UTB

Posts: 8976
Joined: 30/9/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: vad3r

I watched Drive and it immediately topped my favourite films list. What does this make me?

Young?

(in reply to vad3r)

Post #: 68

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 11:11:37 PM

elab49

Posts: 51612
Joined: 1/10/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: rawlinson

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

And with One from the Heart you don't just have the specific title card in text - and the pink surely a direct nod?

.
Oddly, Risky Business

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nicolas-winding-refn%2C61788/

quote:

AVC: I was thinking also of the opening titles [of Drive].

NWR: Me and Mat Newman, who edits all my movies, we stole that in the editing table from Risky Business.

DId Risky Business nick it from One From the Heart? (I'm afraid I'm blank on the opening titles for that - I may have a distant relationship to the Coppola, but Risky Business is just shit, IMO).

_____________________________

Lips Together and Blow - blogtasticness and Glasgow Film Festival GFF13!

Films watched 2012

What are your top 10/25 films of 2012? Vote in the forum Annual Poll now! Deadline is Sunday.

(in reply to rawlinson)

Post #: 69

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 24/8/2012 11:11:54 PM

Prophet_of_Doom

Posts: 726
Joined: 15/2/2006

quote:

ORIGINAL: UTB

quote:

ORIGINAL: vad3r

I watched Drive and it immediately topped my favourite films list. What does this make me?

Young?

I'm far from being young and it's in my top 10! But that's probably down to an unhealthy man-crush on Gosling.

(in reply to UTB)

Post #: 70

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 25/8/2012 11:02:49 AM

chris kilby

Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010

quote:

ORIGINAL: horribleives

quote:

ORIGINAL: great_badir

I've gone into this in far more detail, on more than one occasion, elsewhere on the forum.

So, rather than go over old ground again, if you click the FAVE FILMS link in my sig and head to page 15, scroll down a little bit and most of my problems with the film are explained there.

Had a look. Interesting read and some good points. I totally disagree with most of them but well argued nonetheless.
I will say though, that there were plenty of reviews and features (including an Empire one not long after the film's February '93 release) that aknowledged the movie's debt to Hong Kong cinema - and specifically its similarities to City On Fire - while still being mightily impressed by it, so I don't buy the idea that until Mills lifted the lid everyone was in the dark and had to re-evaluate their opinion. Plenty were aware of the story's influences and Tarantino's magpie tendencies from the get-go but were blown away by the movie regardless.

City on Fire
The Taking of Pelham 123
The Killing...

And a fair few others, I expect. Everyone does this to some extent or another - everything influences everything else. Everything's connected, maaaaaaaaaaaan! Seven Stories and all that. Although, granted, Tarantino is more shameless than most when it comes to blatantly, er, homaging the work of others. Even Pulp Fiction is deliberately inspired by some of the hoariest cliches in all of crime literature - The Boxer Paid To Throw The Fight? That's Robert Ryan in The Set-Up.

But look at Drive (Thief, The Driver, Le Samorai), The Dark Knight (Heat) and from Kurosawa to Riefenstahl, The Searchers to The Wizard of Oz, Laurel and Hardy to The Dambusters, you could fill a book with Star Wars' influences. Someone probably has. All films which proudly wear their influences on their half-inched sleeves. Or "haircuts" in Hollywood screenwriting parlance - as in "Speed gave Die Hard a haircut." There are rip-offs and there are rip-offs. What's that old saying again? Minor talents plagiarise, great artists steal?

It all rather depends how much style, imagination and, er, originality it's done with. To the point that sometimes it's the "rip-off" which endures while uninspired "originals" are forgotten. (Even Hamlet was a "rip-off"/parody of the bloody Jacobean Revenge Tragedies which were popular at the time - The Dane's notorious "procrastination" was meant to be satirical.) The same thing can happen with cover-versions (Hound Dog) and re-makes (The Maltese Falcon). Reservoir Dogs and Star Wars might be a load of old cod, but they are served up with a lot of relish.

Now there's a title for a thread: Who's The Bigger Movie Magpie/Rip-Off Artist - Lucas or Tarantino...?

(in reply to horribleives)

Post #: 71

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 25/8/2012 11:14:48 AM

chris kilby

Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010

quote:

ORIGINAL: great_badir

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris kilby

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

I think Drive is more very much old - it reminds me a lot of 70s filmmaking, even with the One From Your Heart music and colours.

More like early 80s Michael Mann, I'd have thought. Specifically Thief. Right down to the day-glo, "handwritten" titles and Tangerine Dream-like score...

Also major influences from (The) Driver and To Live and Die In LA.

Drive is a good (as in quality) example of pastiche. Unlike Reservoir Dogs.

That's an interesting distinction. Between rip-off (bad) and pastiche (good).

So Drive, Star Wars and Tarantino's entire back catalogue are "good" while a lot of Roger Corman and Asylum's entire back-catalogue (All those Mega Shark V Giant Octopus things which poor old Kim Newman has to endure for his sins - which must be considerable), er, aren't.

Yet even blatant rip-offs can endure and, over time, even surpass the originals. Don't laugh, but I'm thinking of Commando! A guilty pleasure for sure, but an entertainingly trashy and tongue-through-cheek Rambo rip-off which makes the po-faced, Reagan-era Commie-bashing of the original even more embarrassingly unwatchable than it was at the time. Plus we're supposed to laugh at Commando's outrageous (and camp) macho posturing. At least, I think we are...

< Message edited by chris kilby -- 25/8/2012 11:26:03 AM >

(in reply to great_badir)

Post #: 72

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 25/8/2012 11:30:54 AM

chris kilby

Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

quote:

ORIGINAL: rawlinson

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

And with One from the Heart you don't just have the specific title card in text - and the pink surely a direct nod?

.
Oddly, Risky Business

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nicolas-winding-refn%2C61788/

quote:

AVC: I was thinking also of the opening titles [of Drive].

NWR: Me and Mat Newman, who edits all my movies, we stole that in the editing table from Risky Business.

DId Risky Business nick it from One From the Heart? (I'm afraid I'm blank on the opening titles for that - I may have a distant relationship to the Coppola, but Risky Business is just shit, IMO).

I think it was just the fashion at the time. I was watching Into The Night (1985) last night and its titles are the same - not pink, but "handwritten." Which is annoying cos it actually makes them hard to decipher. It's a good job the opening crawl in Star Wars didn't succumb to this trend - have you seen George Lucas' handwriting...!?!

< Message edited by chris kilby -- 25/8/2012 11:33:20 AM >

(in reply to elab49)

Post #: 73

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 26/8/2012 5:55:14 AM

Squidward Hark Bugle

Posts: 9386
Joined: 17/10/2007
From: Laurel Canyon

I think in order to appear credible, the list-makers should consider ALL feature films, from the very beginning to the present day. If one of the criteria for being a great film is whether it has "stood the test of time", then it's as though the list-makers are plainly admitting they don't know all that much about film, and are just waiting for people to keep talking about certain films in the following years for confirmation of a film's greatness.

Besides, as far as individual lists go, someone may watch a 2012 film, then a 1930 film then a 2001 film, all on the same day, and like them or dislike them equally. As far as the viewer is concerned, all three film popped into existence the day he or she watched it, and three months later the 1930 and 2012 films may have faded from memory but the 2001 film still holds strong.

< Message edited by Squidward Hark Bugle -- 26/8/2012 5:56:41 AM >

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Post #: 74

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 26/8/2012 2:23:32 PM

chris kilby

Posts: 1189
Joined: 31/3/2010

There's a thing. For any such list to have any kind of legitimacy, everyone voting for it would have to have seen every film ever made. Which, of course, is impossible. Unless you're Kim Newman, of course. Ask him what the Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time are and I'll go by what he says.

(in reply to Squidward Hark Bugle)

Post #: 75

RE: Should there be a certain amount of time before put... - 26/8/2012 6:07:17 PM

MB2

Posts: 322
Joined: 16/6/2009

quote:

ORIGINAL: chris kilby

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

quote:

ORIGINAL: rawlinson

quote:

ORIGINAL: elab49

And with One from the Heart you don't just have the specific title card in text - and the pink surely a direct nod?

.
Oddly, Risky Business

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nicolas-winding-refn%2C61788/

quote:

AVC: I was thinking also of the opening titles [of Drive].

NWR: Me and Mat Newman, who edits all my movies, we stole that in the editing table from Risky Business.

DId Risky Business nick it from One From the Heart? (I'm afraid I'm blank on the opening titles for that - I may have a distant relationship to the Coppola, but Risky Business is just shit, IMO).

I think it was just the fashion at the time. I was watching Into The Night (1985) last night and its titles are the same - not pink, but "handwritten." Which is annoying cos it actually makes them hard to decipher. It's a good job the opening crawl in Star Wars didn't succumb to this trend - have you seen George Lucas' handwriting...!?!

Definitely the case, look at GTA Vice City who used the same font.

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(in reply to chris kilby)

Post #: 76

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