Pretty interesting. I suddenly want to see if I can find a cheap copy or stream of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Players_(1979_film)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 18:57 (three weeks ago) link
Oops:
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 18:58 (three weeks ago) link
That should go right to the film but doesn't...so we'll try this:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079723/
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 18:59 (three weeks ago) link
Always a good place to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEbG5T-4fs
― clemenza, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 19:03 (three weeks ago) link
Wesley Morris and Alissa Wilkinson chew on the ending:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/movies/challengers-ending-zendaya.html
― jaymc, Wednesday, 8 May 2024 04:05 (three weeks ago) link
Not surprisingly, I thought the ending was the best mainstream movie ending I’ve seen in many cycles (last line of BARBIE probably pretty close)
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Saturday, 11 May 2024 12:38 (three weeks ago) link
(Oh I guess THE FABELMANS’ ending was also great)
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Saturday, 11 May 2024 12:39 (three weeks ago) link
Have you seen the emotional home run scene from The Natural?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvUjK27ybk
― clemenza, Saturday, 11 May 2024 17:37 (three weeks ago) link
👍🏻
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Saturday, 11 May 2024 17:41 (three weeks ago) link
To be honest, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what these characters want (maybe because I went back and saw it again!). Art wants Tashi, and he wants to rest. Patrick also wants Tashi, and he wants Art, too, but he also wants to crush them both a little, so that he feels like he’s reintegrated into their relationship. And Tashi just wants to win at tennis, because to her that is a relationship. That is love. She says as much the night they all first meet.
I think I fall on the side that Tashi won the match, because the scream of “Come on!” she lets out just before she smiles is precisely the same scream she lets out when she was winning the junior U.S. Open all those years earlier. But I think you’re also right, and that whatever happens right there at the end will result in expulsion, and probably it doesn’t matter. The whole point was for Art to get his groove back and Patrick to feel like he’s back in the game — that is, the three-way relationship — and they got that, too.
sounds right
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 11 May 2024 18:13 (three weeks ago) link
I love Ron Shelton's good movies, and obv he would've been a less formally sassy director for this material -- but then his movies are cheerfully heterosexual. Morris misses that point, I think.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 11 May 2024 18:17 (three weeks ago) link
this looks like an insurance advert https://t.co/sRsok9Oz3b— joolsd (@joolsd) May 19, 2024
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 19 May 2024 21:53 (two weeks ago) link
He makes very pretty advertisements too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pObRIP1H4us
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 19 May 2024 21:58 (two weeks ago) link
I'll buy it
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 19 May 2024 22:22 (two weeks ago) link
god i loved this ridiculous movie
― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Sunday, 19 May 2024 23:18 (two weeks ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/gf3udlL.gif
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 19 May 2024 23:22 (two weeks ago) link
My wife went to see this and she thought it was so bad she walked out!
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Monday, 20 May 2024 15:35 (one week ago) link
what insurance adverts involve a live tennis ball cam
― ivy., Monday, 20 May 2024 15:39 (one week ago) link
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Monday, May 20, 2024 1
how well do you know her
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 May 2024 15:41 (one week ago) link
xp I don't think something seeming like a stylized commercial or music video is an indictment! A lot of directors and cinematographers started out doing that (or do so as a side gig) because you get to do a lot of interesting action camera work and the budget per minute is higher than a movie would be.
The reason entire movies tend to not be that punchy is it'd be tiring and expensive.
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Monday, 20 May 2024 16:18 (one week ago) link
That tennis ball thing just seems pointless. Like, there's no possible way it can serve a narrative function that could not have been served in any other way. It's just the director (or, more precisely, the VFX department) jacking off.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 20 May 2024 16:20 (one week ago) link
Or having fun! (Not that jacking off and having fun are mutually exclusive.) I enjoyed it in the moment, it was in keeping with the dizziness of the whole thing.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 20 May 2024 16:22 (one week ago) link
(Not that jacking off and having fun are mutually exclusive.
on ILX I guess they are
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 May 2024 16:31 (one week ago) link
every camera choice must serve a narrative function
― ivy., Monday, 20 May 2024 17:03 (one week ago) link
but it's also one of the last shots of a tennis exchange, and the tension has been building over the whole movie to this point, so yeah i'd say it serves a narrative purpose, given that these two are only communicating their totally repressed love for each other through the medium of a tennis ball. why am i arguing with someone who hasn't seen the movie
― ivy., Monday, 20 May 2024 17:05 (one week ago) link
the audience i saw this with were audibly enjoying themselves throughout the movie but they really lost it during that scene
― ivy., Monday, 20 May 2024 17:12 (one week ago) link
YES. That function may be "disruption, because narrative coherence is a bourgeois construct," but every shot in a movie must carry meaning, whether textual or subtextual.
but it's also one of the last shots of a tennis exchange, and the tension has been building over the whole movie to this point, so yeah i'd say it serves a narrative purpose, given that these two are only communicating their totally repressed love for each other through the medium of a tennis ball.
So it's a cumshot? Why didn't you say so? That, I get.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, 20 May 2024 17:13 (one week ago) link
Do they love each other? I'm not sure. They'd fuck each other blue, yeah. It's all in the game.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 May 2024 17:20 (one week ago) link
yeah i think i meant to type "repressed longing"
― ivy., Monday, 20 May 2024 17:26 (one week ago) link
I know this is small fry, but, god, to watch a mainstream movie reeking of sex and whose camera kept leering at totally willing male actors was such a trip.
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 May 2024 17:32 (one week ago) link
It is obvious subtext needed to be text, ergo, the final shot of the movie would have to involve one ramming a churro down the other's throat since they left that plot point hanging uh wait.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 20 May 2024 17:41 (one week ago) link
The churro scene is great because it's so on the nose, it's like a porn movie parody and it's hilarious.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 20 May 2024 18:55 (one week ago) link
down to the powdered sugar on the nose
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 May 2024 20:19 (one week ago) link