GWJ Film of the Week

[size=30]GWJ Film of the Week #8[/size]

[size=20]Into the White[/size]

IMAGE(http://cdn7.nflximg.net/images/5067/3015067.jpg)

Release Year: 2012
Director: Petter Naess
Writers: Ole Meldgaard, Dave Mango
Notable Actors: Florian Lukas, David Kross, Lachlan Nieboer, Rupert Grint (Ha!)
Synopsis (Netflix): In the early days of World War II, two military airplanes -- one British and one German -- are shot down over Norway. Now, the crews of both aircraft are forced to work together in a desperate attempt to survive the harsh winter conditions.

It's available to watch on Netflix here. I came across this movie the other day and ended up watching the whole thing. There's nothing particularly special about it, but it's very enjoyable to watch.

BadKen wrote:

I'm with Stele, but I'd rank Mallrats higher.

And Zack & Miri Make a Porno belongs somewhere in there too, near the bottom. :)

Yeah I might actually have it above Clerks 2 as well. There are definitely some great parts to it, but the whole isn't great. I know Smith himself was very down on the movie later. I'm trying to remember, maybe DVD commentary... or maybe it was on the Clerks X edition... somewhere he talked about how they got all this money and didn't really know wtf they were doing on Mallrats, didn't shoot enough coverage, extra angles, or whatever, and really didn't have any deleted scenes for the DVD because they put everything in there and there wasn't much to edit.

And I purposely kept the list to the 5 movies. Zack & Miri and Jersey Girl do not count. They are on their own list as ok, and pretty bad (Z&M).

Mallrats was actually the first of his movies I saw, around 2000 on TV, which made me seek out the full version, and then Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma, back when there was a Blockbuster to rent such things.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

[size=30]GWJ Film of the Week #8[/size]

[size=20]Into the White[/size]

IMAGE(http://cdn7.nflximg.net/images/5067/3015067.jpg)

Release Year: 2012
Director: Petter Naess
Writers: Ole Meldgaard, Dave Mango
Notable Actors: Florian Lukas, David Kross, Lachlan Nieboer, Rupert Grint (Ha!)
Synopsis (Netflix): In the early days of World War II, two military airplanes -- one British and one German -- are shot down over Norway. Now, the crews of both aircraft are forced to work together in a desperate attempt to survive the harsh winter conditions.

It's available to watch on Netflix here. I came across this movie the other day and ended up watching the whole thing. There's nothing particularly special about it, but it's very enjoyable to watch.

Must... not... make... flying car joke.

He's actually pretty good in it. You forget about the Potter stuff pretty quickly.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

:) He's actually pretty good in it. You forget about the Potter stuff pretty quickly.

Escapum Germanicus!

OG_slinger wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

:) He's actually pretty good in it. You forget about the Potter stuff pretty quickly.

Escapum Germanicus!

Spoilers!

All you people hatin'. I actually enjoyed Clerks 2 quite a bit. I also find the notion of disliking Chasing Amy because the protagonist is a douche while ranking Clerks highly a bit comical, as Kevin Smith is all about douchebag protagonists that act like they got their sh*t together and really don't.

In the end, Mallrats is hardly memorable because T.S. is barely a personality, hence why Brodie, Jay and Silent Bob steal so much of the show.

But we're not discussing those films.

I'll try and give this one a watch. I'd actually like to see what Rupert Grint can do outside of being a Weasley.

ccesarano wrote:

I'll try and give this one a watch. I'd actually like to see what Rupert Grint can do outside of being a Weasley.

He was cute in this (so was his attempt at facial hair)

Ha! I forgot about that movie. It's great.

ccesarano wrote:

All you people hatin'. I actually enjoyed Clerks 2 quite a bit. I also find the notion of disliking Chasing Amy because the protagonist is a douche while ranking Clerks highly a bit comical, as Kevin Smith is all about douchebag protagonists that act like they got their sh*t together and really don't.

Yeah, but Dante Hicks didn't have to try to be a romantic lead. (In Clerks, that is. In Clerks 2 he kind of did, among many reasons that movie failed.) And while his character does bad things, he's at least relatable in all his put-upon self-inflicted neurotic misery.

I watched Into the White last night and I have to agree that it's good.

It helps that I'm a huge fan of films that purposefully limit the scope of the set to focus the action on the characters and their interactions with each other like Lifeboat, Rear Window, 12 Angry Men, Reservoir Dogs, and others.

While Into the White was good, I don't think it quite approached the level of those films.

I think a large part of that was because the film focused on two groups that were already at war with each other who then had to learn how to cooperate versus starting with a unified group that starts to war with itself. I guess it was like Enemy Mine, but with more snow and less reptilian babies.

I was glad to see that Rupert Grint can act outside Harry Potter and I particularly liked the side story his character had with Strunk (who was well played, as well).

I enjoyed the ending and I especially liked the scene when

Spoiler:

Schopis returned Davenport's lighter when they were at the Norwegian military outpost. Florian Lukas, who played Schopis, did an outstanding job in that scene. I mean he just stood there and barely said anything, but you could tell from how he was looking at Davenport that he wanted some validation that he wasn't as big as screw-up as an officer as he felt, that the deaths of two of his men meant something, and that the friendship the men had shared was real. Very well acted.

Nice find, tuffalo!

OG_slinger wrote:

While Into the White was good, I don't think it quite approached the level of those films.

Totally agree! I was definitely reminded of Lifeboat, too. Because of the WW1 setting, I was also reminded a bit of La Grande Illusion. Agreed about the ending, too. That was some good stuff.

Anyways, glad you enjoyed it! It's not the best film ever, but it's very solid.

And into my Netflix DVD queue goes Le Grande Illusion...

OG_slinger wrote:

And into my Netflix DVD queue goes Le Grande Illusion...

Yeah, that's a great one. It definitely has that surreal war thing with people trying to kill each other but there are all these rules as to how that's going to happen. There's also some of the class dynamics with foot soldiers and officers. It's been awhile since I've seen it. Sounds like it's not streaming on Netflix. If it's on Hulu+, maybe I'll have to make that movie of the week next week.

You'd bump Rad for Le Grande Illusion? Philistine.

Well, I could stipulate that you must listen to The Final Countdown on repeat while watching it...

[size=30]GWJ Film of the Week #9[/size]

[size=20]The Sacrifice[/size]

IMAGE(http://cdn0.nflximg.net/images/5790/2155790.jpg)

Release Year: 1986
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Writers: Andrei Tarkovsky
Notable Actors: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall
Synopsis (IMDB): At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.

It is available to watch on Netflix. I haven't seen it before and wanted to do a Russian film that was up on Netflix.

ooo nice pick! That's been on my list for awhile.

I watched The Sacrifice last night. I did not end up expecting to watch a Bergman film! Yeah, it was very similar to Bergman's films, and being set in Sweden was only a small part of that. It was good, although a bit slow which I wasn't particularly in the mood for.

Spoiler:

Burning down the house at the end was pretty crazy. That was a crazy inferno.

I'll get the next movie up a bit later today!

[size=30]GWJ Film of the Week #10[/size]

[size=20]Lord of the Flies[/size]

IMAGE(http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/release_boxshots/4115-79d3403607f9d3876f811a31f690c72a/43_BD_box_348x490_original.jpg)

Release Year: 1963
Director: Peter Brook
Writers: William Golding (novel)
Notable Actors: James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, and Hugh Edwards
Synopsis (Criterion): In the hands of the renowned experimental theater director Peter Brook, William Golding’s legendary novel about the primitivism lurking beneath civilization becomes a film as raw and ragged as the lost boys at its center. Taking an innovative documentary-like approach, Brook shot Lord of the Flies with an off-the-cuff naturalism, seeming to record a spontaneous eruption of its characters’ ids. The result is a rattling masterpiece, as provocative as its source material.

I've never watched this movie but picked it up during the Criterion B&N sale this year. It's available to watch on Hulu+.

Ughhhhh. Can't I just read the book?

Wait....

[size=30]GWJ Film of the Week #11[/size]

[size=20]Snow Trail[/size]

IMAGE(http://ib1.huluim.com/movie/40033648?size=220x318&region=us&fallback_to_the_invisible=1&region=us)

Release Year: 1947
Director: Senkichi Taniguchi
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Notable Actors: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune
Synopsis (Hulu): The keepers of an inn high in the Japanese alps are unaware that their three guests are actually fugitive bank robbers.

Since interest has died down, I'm just picking stuff I want to see and using this thread as a way of motivating me to watch something interesting each week. Anyone's still free to join in if they want. I loved Lord of the Flies! It was very well done and the Blu-ray looked incredible. Sure is brutal, though. Geez. That kid with the knife was a complete dumb-ass. He reminds me of, oh, let's say, most of humanity.

I will continue to do Netflix stuff sometimes. This movie doesn't actually require Hulu+ to watch, so anyone can watch it!. It's available to watch here.

Wow, I feel like I should know something about this movie, but this is the first I've heard of it.

Switchbreak wrote:

Wow, I feel like I should know something about this movie, but this is the first I've heard of it.

I hadn't heard of it either, but it showed up on the Criterion home page when I was looking for something for this week. Doesn't it sound interesting? Also, it has Takashi Shimura AND Toshirô Mifune, so it can't be bad.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Since interest has died down

Crazy time of the year for movies here. Local movie festival restarted up again and just finished and we have our horror fest and zombie walk shows coming up. Barely have time for new movies. Between training for work and football not much time to get in any extra.

ranalin wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Since interest has died down

Crazy time of the year for movies here. Local movie festival restarted up again and just finished and we have our horror fest and zombie walk shows coming up. Barely have time for new movies. Between training for work and football not much time to get in any extra.

I should have put that more positively. I fully intend to keep doing this and hope people can join in every once in awhile! In the last two weeks, I've barely been able to make the time to watch the movies I've picked! I ended up watching them both on Sunday.

My hope is that whenever the occasional person actually has time to sit down and watch a movie but doesn't know what to watch, they can go check what the movie of the week is and that might happen to look interesting.

I always intend to join in and make some comments but I haven't seemed to have had the time to watch anything as of late.

Norfair wrote:

I always intend to join in and make some comments but I haven't seemed to have had the time to watch anything as of late.

+1

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
ranalin wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Since interest has died down

Crazy time of the year for movies here. Local movie festival restarted up again and just finished and we have our horror fest and zombie walk shows coming up. Barely have time for new movies. Between training for work and football not much time to get in any extra.

I should have put that more positively. I fully intend to keep doing this and hope people can join in every once in awhile! In the last two weeks, I've barely been able to make the time to watch the movies I've picked! I ended up watching them both on Sunday.

My hope is that whenever the occasional person actually has time to sit down and watch a movie but doesn't know what to watch, they can go check what the movie of the week is and that might happen to look interesting.

Yes, please do keep posting them! I don't always have time to watch it in the week, but I always check to see what you've found for possible future viewing.