JFF: What Was the Last Film You Saw, and How Would You Rate It? (Pt. 20)

The Lincoln Lawyer (Season 2) - 9/10

Monday:

@Tsarstepan 

Saw your comment from the other thread in e-mail; not sure if you removed it or the spam filter ate it.

I hope you're wrong about Charles and Oliver being written out; the generation gap with Mabel is a major source of comedic value. Anyway, I think Tobert is the villain.

@NYVKE​ Be careful. I have a weird feeling and I suspect it actually might be some kind  spoiler of violation. There were no links in that post.

Okies.

Both our posts were only speculation though.

Anyways, bygones. We'll see next week.

I don't believe the filter has an inherent sense of what is a story spoiler or not.

@jeorj 

Yes, that's the point 🤐

@jeorj_euler​ I'm going on the premise that someone may have reported my post and an admin might have censored it.

Well, I only submit reports against spam (actual abuse), and more than three quarters of the time, no action is taken on account of my report alone, even though the every report is completely legitimate. I'm thus under the impression that only when a post is reported my multiple participants (or perhaps just one important participant) of the forum will it wind up disappeared. I've never had one of my posts marked private for reasons other than containing embedded YouTube videos, hyperlinks to YouTube channels, too many hyperlinks to non-IMDb websites or raw source code (such as web browser bookmarklet presentations [JavaScript]), and usually these are unmarked from being private within four days, basically except for one (that shows some excerpts from Song for a Raggy Boy, which does depict some antiquated cruel punishments), remaining stuck indefinitely marked as private.

@jeorj_euler 

Well, I, Maxence/cinephile, and Tsar have had totally benign posts swallowed by the spam filter - posts that did not have any links, adverts, "bad words" or even any sort of "fighting" etc.

Oddly enough many blatant advertising spam posts that link to commercial products or malicious sites get through the spam filter and have to be explicitly reported.

@NYVKE​ I'm still finding spam posts I reported months ago that are still publicly posted on far too many open threads.

That person who often had "alex" or "lex" in their username?

They have been spamming for years.

🎼🎶🎼

Catchy.

They aren't singing in praise of mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung, are they?

"Giáp dénonce, je renonce Mao Mao!"

@NYVKE​ 

Yes and No. 

The song itself is a praise to Mao. At that time, Godard, the filmmaker was socialist. He supported the student manifestation in France in 1968. 

However, after watching this film, I do not find it a really strong propagandist film for Maoist. Maoist even disliked the film. The film's portrayal of its communism protagonists is understanding, but critical at the same time.

One of the character meets Francis Jeanson a real philosopher. She exposes her idea to him. He says that he agrees with her, but that the situation in France is not suited for revolution, and that he doubts that the terrorist act that she will accomplish will change anything. The film also portrays major differences between the members of the communist cell. 

However, I repeat that Godard supported the student manifestation in 1968.

Overall, my opinion is that the place of this song in the film is very much satirical, it satirizes the unrealistic ambitions of France's youth. Yet, it finds some things worth keeping: the Mao song is definitely not something Godard finds helpful to the cause I think. 

As for me, I posted this song because I found it catchy. I do not like Mao at all. 

You probably found my answer ambiguous. I tried my best. The film is really paradoxical and ambiguous.

Ah, such innocence.

@jeorj_euler 

Innocent? Moi?

Nope, just don't know more than 10 words of French.

From Wikipedia

Godard suggests that the students are, at the same moment, both serious committed revolutionaries intent on bringing about major social change and confused bourgeois youth flirting with the notion of radical politics as a fashionable and exciting distraction.

I meant that Godard and Guégan, et al., may have been a bit aloof at one time or another. Outside of the People's Republic, seemingly Mao hasn't remained all that adored. Even there, dissonance probably exist to some degree ever since the policies changes leading up to the Spring of 1989, given the international trade relationships that have emerged.

Okay, so I decided to watch La chinoise on the streaming service Plex. I hadn't seen it before, and it felt like Das schreckliche Mädchen may have been partly inspired by it, given some vague similarities in the satire. To me, these kind of films seem uncommon in the United States, and honestly I'm not aware of any film at all that mocks university students in the context of their great excitement with their own ideological thoughts or those of their professors. I've only seen the "college experience" mocked. I don't know. Seemingly overall, the culture has an aversion to criticizing anything at all about universities themselves apart from the bagged university folks bring with them to the academic environment. The closest thing I can think of is some of the ironies revealed by some conversations between Stellan Skarsgård's character and Robin Williams' character in Good Will Hunting.

@Tsarstepan​ 

I wanted to see it today, but the screening was complete :( I saw two other films instead. See my latest post.

Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built had such a satisfying ending to complement the pain of everything following up to it.

One day, a week ago, I noticed this one being advertised like crazy at the top of every IMDb page.

@jeorj_euler 

Not sure if you like Horror-Comedies, but if you do, this is the best I have seen in a while.

It's up there with "Ready Or Not" and the "Happy Death Day" films.

I've probably seen some horror comedies that I liked, but I cannot think of any off the top of my head, maybe except for Slaughterhouse Ruelz, which was ridiculous despite not being of the spoof style. I have McG's The Babysitter in my Netflix list, but I've not seen it yet, so I'm not sure what kind of horror it is, just that the preview reveals a lot of modern camp.

Yeah, that was a great movie adaptation attempt that met an unfortunate demise, in the sense of Ascendant being stuck indefinitely in limbo, basically cancelled, on account of Allegiant not being a box office success. I kind feel like Divergent, The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner movie adaptations shouldn't have come out in the same decade, or at least not overlap so much within the same half-decade span. Ender's Game, as I understand it, failed because it didn't stay true enough to the source material. I don't know much about The Giver, apart from seeing the movie adaptation, but I can't shake the feeling that it is supposed to have a sequel or a prequel. I thought it was a neat concept, and decent execution for a medium budget. And as for The Chronicles of Narnia, I guess, there was no way to make enough of these fast enough that the children wouldn't grow up before the end. Whereas A Wrinkle in Time has always apparently been a struggle. I don't why some youth adult novels cannot just be adapted into television mini-series instead of red-carpet affair, silver-screen products.

Making the last book into two movies for money is always a disaster.

The first part becomes sluggish and boring.

Mockingjay Part 1 was the only weak installment of the otherwise excellent "Hunger Games" franchise.

"Twilight" had a few disappointing installments, but Breaking Dawn Part 1 was by far the worst.

"Maze Runner" did not really do it for me. I barely got through the 1st film and gave up on the 2nd about 30 minutes in.

I've not really seen The Maze Runner either. I think, I saw most of the first movie, though. I didn't see any of the Twilight saga really, just CinemaSins' review of the last move in the series. On top of that, at the time, I wasn't a fan of Stewart, Pattinson or Lautner. If not for the third generation of Charlie's Angels, I would probably still be hesitant to see a movie starring Kristin Stewart. I did see a few of these quirky non-mainstream movies starring Robert Pattinson, and on account of those, I did (unlike a lot of superhero media "junkies") wind up considering him to be a plausible Bruce Wayne before seeing the teaser trailers for The Batman. (He wound up being a somewhat anime-emo-looking Bruce, which is shocking but acceptable since he behaves right.) Plus, I had already come to appreciate Batfleck whom I initially thought was cast by too high-profile of an actor (almost like Di Caprio, Pitt, Cruise, Hanks, De Niro or somebody, with a large filmography behind him) to be viable for a comic-book-derived flick. I'm going off on all kinds of tangents now.

I'd be curious to know what you think of James Cameron's Avatar movies thus far, NYVKE. I hesitate to describe them as boring, but they are definitely operatic, maybe like The Godfather but with a sci fantasy theme and far less of a strong storyline. Honestly, there were times during watching The Way of Water where I almost feel asleep, and because it has such a long running time, I don't know when (or if) I will see it again (without skipping around via disc or VoD). Just to note, my issue with The Godfather movies is how the best two of them pack in so many characters and interwoven story arcs. Makes want to take notes while watching.

@jeorj_euler​ 

Titanic and Avatar are two of the most visually stunning films I have ever seen.

They are also two of the films with the most blase, uninspired plots I have ever seen. I rate them both as 6s, purely in deference to audio-visual production quality.

I have not yet seen the Avatar sequel. I may never see it.

--

Regarding Robert Pattinson, his performances in Tenet, The Lighthouse and The Batman now make me see him as a legit talented actor; he has shed his Twilight infamy.