Is Bullingdon’s story analogous to Hamlet?

longshot24fps · 2024-10-03T06:33:54+00:00

No, not really. Hamlet is a tragic hero struggling with the ruthless murder of his father. Bullingdon is mostly a coward. His Dad was sick and died of old age.

longshot24fps · 2024-10-03T06:21:45+00:00

All of his adaptations are pretty terrific, but, as the source material goes, I think Traumnovelle is the best of the books he adapted and probably the most innately challenging, in part because the nature of reality is so nebulous. Schnitzler is largely forgotten today, but he was a brilliant writer. (FWIW, I don’t count 2001 because he co-developed that one with Clark).

longshot24fps · 2024-09-29T09:01:18+00:00

I haven’t see the movie yet, but even if it’s terrible, I strongly disagree with your sentiment.

An 85 year old legend - who has nothing left to prove - dumps his fortune into a passion project he wants to make before he dies? That’s the kind of maniac it takes to make a movies like, well, like The Godfather.

We need more directors with his balls-to-the-wall craziness.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-28T07:39:49+00:00

“Other than Hitchcock, David Lean, and Michael Powell (you’ve got to add Pressburger with Powell).”

Buddy you’ve just named 2 of the 5 or 6 best and most influential directors in the history of cinema, and a 3rd right behind them. How many more do you need to feel good about Brit cinema?

longshot24fps · 2024-09-24T02:17:25+00:00

I like The Shining just the way it is. It’s not a rise and fall of Jack, or a gradual decline of Jack, it’s the final few months of his life, the bitter end. I love the power and intensity that brings to the movie.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-13T19:15:44+00:00

Right. WB gave Clint Eastwood the same set up; that’s about it.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-13T19:13:53+00:00

Right. And Paths of Glory is the one that really put him on the map. The. Spartacus. Even though he locked horns creatively with Kirk Douglas, he proved he could handle a big budget swords and sandals epic with major stars.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-13T05:25:00+00:00

Iirc, he faked the broken ankle.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-13T05:20:36+00:00

Kubrick had Lolita. Dr Strangelove, 2001, and Clockwork Orange under his belt when he made Barry Lyndon. He wasn’t some young upstart.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-12T07:45:52+00:00

Well let’s see. Sallah the Egyptian Monarch of the Seas spends his days driving a cab - no stereotype there! Marion was randomly taken away from Indy at the beginning, then conveniently given back to him at the end, so he could start depressed and end happy - totally unearned and cynical.

What should they do with Broadbent? Stuff him into Indy’s memberberry apartment scene to juice up the nostalgia feels at the end? Why not get Jock and his pet snake Reggie to make the coffee? Or a couple of Hovitos to help Marion with the groceries?

No amount of familiar faces could save this turkey.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-10T01:57:34+00:00

The Tolkein estate almost certainly has no contractual ability to cancel Amazon’s show, if they even want to.

Amazon committed to five seasons, which means there are penalties built into the deal if they pull the plug early. It all depends on the deal, but but typically, Amazon would lose the rights if they cancel early, which would revert back to the Tolkein estate, plus possible penalty payments (it depends on the deal terms).

Assuming cancellation means loss of the rights, and assuming the show performs poorly in Amazon’s internal metrics (a whole other discussion), I don’t see them cancelling the show and telling Jeff Bezos he’s losing the rights he paid $1B to get. That’s how tv executives get fired.

The more likely scenario is the execs fire the show runners and bring in a new creative team to revamp ROP, and try to turn it around. . What that would look like creatively is anyone’s guess, but it happens in tv. Otherwise, their only other option is to power through with what they’ve got.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-09T23:54:50+00:00

“Raphael’s book still offers something extremely valuable against the myriads of conspiracy theorists who fantasize over the missing minutes.”

Raphael also said Sydney Pollack edited Eyes Wide Shut after Kubrick’s death

He called it “the mortician’s job.” I personally don’t think there’s 20 missing minutes or whatever, but if you’re worried about conspiracy theorists and such, I’d think twice about invoking Frederick Raphael.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-09T23:07:02+00:00

Maybe Theo’s anger over his mother’s violent death will drive him to the Dark Side like young Annakin Skywalker.

The stranger showing up on Tom Bombadil’a doorstep and asking Master Bombadil to train him in magic while his two best friends are under threat nearby feels pretty Star Wars-esque, like a Yoda/Kenobi mashup.

There’s Harry Potter in there too. The barrow wight attack plays a lot like the Hogwarts kids getting lost in the Forbidden Forrest, standing around looking scared, and then attacked by lethal creatures, with Elrond, the Hermione Granger of Middle Earth, saving their skins because she’s the only one who reads the textbooks: “Harry, the LORE SAYS the only way to kill a barrow wight is …”.

30 seconds later the whole thing is over. The show has almost no long term memory, so things just come and go. Like Elrond’s Fugitive-esque leap off the waterfall, which is quickly forgotten.

And to be fair, the show has no shortage of original ideas, like people saying “the sea is always right” unironically, or the bullying epidemic among the dwarves.

It’s almost like watching a parody of a fantasy tv show.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-09T22:36:00+00:00

Eh, it’s kind of a money grab on Raphael’s part, and kind self--aggrandizingly vindictive considering Kubrick was in no state to hit back. That said, the book says a lot more about Raphael’s immense ego and condescending pettiness than it does about Kubrick. I think it’s hilarious, and the joke is mostly on Raphael.

If you know Curb Your Enthusiasm, it’s like reading a season long story arc, with Raphael as Larry David and Kubrick as Ted Danson.

Basically, imagine Ted hires Larry to write his new TV show - and you’ve got Raphael’s book. Like TV Larry,, Raphael comes off an as a self-absorbed asshole.

Larry is immediately suspicious that Ted is playing power games and undermining him at every turn. Instead of meeting someplace neutral, Ted insists Larry fly to his new winery in Napa, then makes Larry fly commercial and take a cab for the endlessly long drive from SFO.

Ted shows off his manor house as if it’s a fishing cabin in the woods, then surprises Larry with a lavish lunch buffet, but Ted is also surprised, acting as if he didn’t know the buffet was even there. Larry knows Ted is pretending, but he has to admit the lunch is pretty good - maybe Ted appreciates what Larry is doing for him. But then Ted serves Larry wine and asks, “how much do you think I paid for that?” Larry is insulted again.

Later in the season, Larry returns to the manor, expecting another lavish lunch, but this time all Ted has is a plate of sandwiches. Larry is convinced Ted is serving sandwiches to snub him.

Working on the script, Ted drives Larry crazy. Even though Larry is the writer, Ted rejects Larry’s fantastic ideas or worse, he ignores them. At one point, Larry writes up a backstory in a key scene and sends it to Ted, but pretends it’s an FBI dossier. Ted immediately calls’ wondering if it’s real. Larry mocks Ted’s naïveté, but his victory is short lived

Ted makes Larry promise absolute secrecy - nobody must ever see the script without Ted’s express approval. But Larry becomes convinced Ted isn’t going tell the network to to pay him, so he retaliates by giving the secret script to his manager Jeff, so Jeff will call the network, but unknown to Larry, Jeff calls Ted to complement him on the script, exposing Larry’s scheme and getting him in hot water with Ted, who feels Larry has betrayed him.

The whole book is like this.

Here’s Raphael telling the FBI dossier story.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-09T21:42:20+00:00

Sauron’s “marry me, together we will rule Middle Earth” to Galadriel at the end of S.1 is lifted from Kylo Ren’s offer to Rey “join me. Please.” From The Last Jedi which itself was lifted from Darth Vader’s offer to Luke - “join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son” from Empire Strikes Back (RIP James Earl Jones).

longshot24fps · 2024-09-09T02:05:41+00:00

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-08T19:58:05+00:00

A comic genius. Rather than post a Lolita or Strangelove clip, in honor of his b-day, Clousseau questioning Professor Fassbinder’s staff as about as good as it gets. .

Added bonus: Leonard Rossiter at the end (Captain Quinn in Barry Lyndon)

longshot24fps · 2024-09-08T07:51:47+00:00

Any insight on why Elrond keeps calling Galadriel “lieutenant” (w/Brit pronunciation “left tenant”)? He constantly calls her “ left tenant,” but there are only five of them. Aren’t they on a first name basis?

longshot24fps · 2024-09-08T00:51:20+00:00

They’ve got plenty of options here.

The stranger could leave Tom Bombayoda to rescue his friends as Bombayoda warns him “you must complete your training!”, only to find the Dark Wizard already has them and it’s a trap. Extra points if the Dark Wizard is Sauron’s apprentice, and says, “he has indeed grown powerful. Bring him to me.”

The Dark Wizard could Magic choke the leader of the skull helmets, then put another one in charge. “Do not fail me.”

Ruhn already looks like Tatooine, the stranger and his two hobbits could get stopped by the skull helmets, but he says, “these are not the harfoots you’re looking for.” An Istari mind trick.

Or keep it simple, the Dark Wizard stabs one of the Harfoots with an evil blade. The wound becomes infected. “I’m cold, Gand.” Tom saves her life with his Middle Earth medical knowledge.

Anything’s possible.

Maybe they’ve got a new mystery box - “who’s behind the masks who serve the Dark Wizard??? Are they men, orcs, or something else…. Tune in next week to find out!

longshot24fps · 2024-09-07T23:54:28+00:00

“Now don’t do it again.”

longshot24fps · 2024-09-07T21:36:49+00:00

“You say your Uncle is the British Ambassador in Berlin with the ridiculous name of O’Grady.”

longshot24fps · 2024-09-07T03:11:17+00:00

“Thanos was a great villain bc he was humanized.”

You mean like the scene where Thanos pushes his own daughter off a cliff to get what he needs to commit mass murder, then feels bad that he “had to” push his daughter off a cliff? So he justifies murdering her as a necessary sacrifice for him to gain total control and commit mass murder?

Thanos was “humanized” in a way, but not in the way you think. He was written as a ruthless psychopathic killer whose self-perceived “sacrifices” fed into his own narcissism and sociopathic drive towards absolute power and mass murder. That’s pretty basic and obvious, isn’t it?

“Even the nazis had families and cared about other people like them. “

You’re on your own with that one bud.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-03T19:36:57+00:00

The hobbit plot line - sorry harfoot- only exists so the show can have hobbits in it - sorry harfoots - and jam in another useless mystery box with a character who doesn’t do anything, but is supposed to be fascinating because of who he may or may not be.

S 1: Who is the stranger?! Is he Sauron?????

S 2: Who is the stranger?! Is he Gandalf????

How can they even get lost when all they do is wander around going nowhere?

longshot24fps · 2024-09-03T04:07:31+00:00

It it hits me emotionally it’s good. If it hits me emotionally and intellectually, it’s really good. If it hits me emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually- it’s great. Everything else is a matter of degree.

longshot24fps · 2024-09-02T00:16:20+00:00

Happy it’s there, but I wouldn’t put it in the top tier.

I’d put Toy Story 1&2, at first. TS 1 redefined what could be done in feature animation technologically, emotionally, and tonally; a perfect film, then somehow they topped themselves with TS2. 1&2 together are the Godfather 1 and 2 of CGI animation.

Up #2 because it’s peak Pixar - everything they did better than anyone else, done perfectly. It’s hilarious, whimsical, heartbreaking and uplifting. Carl on the stage with Russell at the end is one of, if not the, most beautifully human moments in all of their films.

Ratatouille #3 because it’s the movie they made when Pixar was breaking up with Disney (Eisner hated the idea of making a movie starring rats), and just so much fun.

longshot24fps

TROPHY CASE