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EvRobert

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Posts posted by EvRobert


  1. 41 minutes ago, GrahamS. said:

    I actually suggested this as an HDTGM film, not because I think it’s bad (I’d give it a C+, for reasons I’ll get into) but because it’s insanely 80s (which I’m sure June would enjoy) and also intensely problematic.

    Here’s what I said:

    This will be a controversial choice. I just watched this. Here are the things that are good about this movie.

     1. Prince’s opening and closing performances.

    2. Morris Day (who’s also fucking awesome). Acting-wise, he’s the best thing in this film. Pretty much every scene he’s in is funny. And his music numbers are entertaining.

    otherwise, holy shit,Prince is a fucking asshole in this film. And I’m a Prince fan. I’m legitimately surprised that he allowed himself to look THIS bad. Perhaps he thought he was giving off a tortured artist vibe—and the film is semi-autobiographical—but he treats Appolonia (and pretty much all the women around him) like shit. Why her character is romantically drawn to him is a totally underdeveloped mystery, since he abuses her fairly routinely.

    Also: I will go out on a limb and say Computer Blue is a terrible song. So is Appolonia’s song.

    Dont get me wrong, the soundtrack to this movie largely kicks ass and some of the musical sequences are great (and besides Morris Day, they’re the main reason to watch the film). But man, there’s some dark stuff here that’s given a superficial 80s music-video style treatment, and it’s pretty fucking jarring.

    i know people—especially Jason—would object, but I would be interested in hearing Jason, June and Paul take an honest look at this film. I know this film has an iconic reputation, but goddamn is it problematic

    yeah I generally agree with you on this point. Great musical performances but Prince comes across as an asshole 

    • Like 2

  2. I haven't gone through all seven pages of t his thread yet so I may be hitting on something that has already been discussed, but is it possible that, like others have pointed out, Fred is both real and imaginary. 

    My supposition is this, that Fred is a tulpa, albeit (like the other imaginary friends) an accidental one. for those not in the know, a "tulpa is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers...Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of willed imaginary friend which practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively autonomous." Source Link from Wikipedia

    Now, tulpas, seem to be done on purpose according to modern practitioners, but I think that Elizabeth (and others) have created Fred (and other imaginary friends) as a way of dealing with emotional and mental issues that they can't deal with in other ways. Their belief in these friends has given them life and Elizabeth's belief that her mother has trapped Fred, trapped him. thus Fred serves as both an extension of her emotional and mental health, her dealing with the problems her parents are going through, etc and as a real, autonomous being. 

    The imaginary friend coming to life is a concept that has been explored in the good (from my AV choice you can see I'm a fan of probably the best version of this, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) and the bad (worse than Drop Dead Fred, check out Imaginary Mary which has this exact same concept but stars Jenna Elfman and ran for one season.) to the weird (I'm looking at you Happy). And that ultimately lead me to go with "Team Sanity", because while I agree the themes are great and are there, they are handled in a way that just doesn't work. I think this is handled much better in Foster's  and Happy.

    • Like 1

  3. I'm torn on this film, but I ultimately decided it did deserve to be on the list. It's not my favorite QT film (that honor belongs to Jackie Brown, which is probably the best of the late 90s/early 00s Elmore Leonard adaptations and in my opinion QT's most mature film) but I don't think you can ignore it's undeniable influence on filmmaking and indie film culture in the 1990s. Sure, there was Soderberg and Linkletter and Rodriquez and Smith circling him at this time, and while others may be better filmmakers or better at combining the commercial and their indie sensibilities (Soderberg and Linkletter) or have leaned into their own weirdness and quirks (Rodriquez and Smith), none managed to become the household name that QT did.

    Interestingly, I tried to show Pulp Fiction to my little brother (born in 89, 12 year age difference between us) about 9 years ago, and he was, like others have stated, kind of bored by it. I think if I showed it to him today, the expirence would be different, but as a 21, 22 year old, he wasn't interested, but he loved Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained.


  4. 14 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    Is this town next to the Footloose town? I don't know if it's because we rarely went to church or what but to run a single mother out of town for singing secular music seems a *bit* extreme yes?

    I used to heavily be involved in church culture, including managing a Christian bookstore. A friend of mine asked me to hold a case of beer for him while he went to go and grab something else and I almost lost my job because of it.

    • Like 5

  5. 3 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

    Which makes sense for Beyonce but was Montell Jordan a thing anymore?

    He hasn't had a hit since maybe 1998 unless he had a song after Let's Ride that I don't know. I know he wrote hits for others but I don't think he was a big name outside of the industry anymore.

    I know Ignition (Remix) I can still play almost every weekend at wedding dances and people love it. *shrug* 

    • Like 1

  6. On 5/19/2019 at 9:52 AM, Cameron H. said:

    Btw - this is currently on Tubi. It’s free but has commercials :) 

    ahem

    On 5/16/2019 at 3:23 PM, EvRobert said:

    I came real close to picking Scott Pilgrim because it's soundtrack is so ingrained into the makeup of that film. 

    Also, I neglected to mention The Fighting Temptations is available for free on TUBI which I have never used, sorry guys :D 

     


  7. I know I picked this movie because when it came out I remember it being sort of an outlier in film. It's an MTV production (and Beyonce's third film--her second with MTV), features Cuba who was still kind of riding on the coattails of his Oscar win, Mike Epps and Steve Harvey were name actors, and yet with some exceptions falls into the Christian church movie field (basically anything to do with Mike Epps and Steve Harvey). If it didn't have those 4 names, this would have probably been put out by PureFlix (and believe me, I almost picked Sunday School Musical :D ). 

    RE: young Cuba and young Beyonce...yeah that was very creepy. It would have made much more sense if she was asking him to be her boyfriend and not the other way around.

    RE: Why isn't the story acknowledged that Beyonce and her son share the same story as Cuba and his mom, because it makes more sense for the audience to put this together ("ohh look it's the same"). I actually kind of appreciated that they didn't point it out, because it probably would have been way too heavy handed. Should something have been mentioned? For sure, but the fact that they had the restraint not to, didn't bother me. 

    RE: The Fighting Temptations name, I think it's a duel thing. There are several bible verse about resisting temptation or "fighting temptation". so the choir is named "the Fighting Temptations" as an homage to that, but the whole movie is sort of about fighting the temptation and Cuba's nature to lie, and the temptation to hate or fight back, etc. That's just a guess though

    • Like 3

  8. So I've been debating on a couple of film and have watched several over the past couple of months because I knew I had a pick coming up. I wanted one that would fit the whole How Did This Get Made question, one that would be easily available to stream, and one that at least one participant was currently in the news.

    So, as much as I wanted to do a Hope/Crosby "Road To..." movie it didn't fit my self imposed parameters nor did the Hugh Jackman Live On Stage version of Oklahoma!

    So with that in mind, I give you a film that makes you go "huh?" I hope. It features an Oscar winner, a Grammy winners, a Christian rapper, a Billboard #1 artist, an Emmy winner, a Golden girl, and a guy who performed with Bob Dylan

    91VuhFAPXIL._SY445_.jpg

    • Like 5
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