Movie Thread

[Cuckara]

Spot-on. Scorsese actually gives a shit about characters and stories, whereas most capeshit characters can be summed up in a sentence or two, and every Marvel movie tells the same damn story. I would love to see Gunn try to argue that the characters in Guardians of the Galaxy are as nuanced and thought-provoking as Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta.

[Kugelfisch]

Spot-on.

Naturally, because that's basically what he said himself in some interview I've read.

[Rushy]

Just marathoned the whole Rob Zombie Firefly trilogy for my definitive thoughts on these movies.
1) House of 1000 Corpses is easily the best film he ever did. He peaked very early. It's basically another Texas Chainsaw Massacre film(even includes a raving Bill Moseley and a family member wearing a leather face) with a very colourful direction. It's a fun time.

2) Devil's Rejects only works if you buy into Zombie's attempt to try and humanize the killers. But I don't think Zombie is a strong enough writer for that to work. The characters are still fun and I like seeing Zombie's own passions bleed through on the screen(the Groucho Marx-adoring critic cracks me up), but I don't think much of his attempt to ground the series in reality. Zombie's approach to filmmaking is and always will be throwing stuff at the screen and seeing what sticks. Problem is he has less and less stuff to throw as the films go on.

3) Three From Hell is basically the equivalent of Jason Takes Manhattan - Zombie is in the has-been phase and he's brought (two of) these characters back for really no other reason than sending them to Mexico. The film doesn't take itself seriously at all and the pointlessness of its existence oozes off the screen. It has such an improvised and relaxed feel that I could swear Zombie just turned on the camera and told Moseley and co to just fuck around and do whatever they wanted.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Why'd they even ask Scorsese?

They wanted him to validate their "fine" taste. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Guest]

Devil's Rejects does this weird thing were it turns the Fireflies from really disgusting and horrible slashers into romanticized outlaws.

We just saw an entite movie of them being sadistic psychopaths, and another movie before that of them being cartoonishly evil sadistic psychopaths. I can appreciate trying to show greater depth to your villains. The concept that a family of murderous hillbilly serial killers is still a family that loves each other isn't a bad one. But Rob Zombie underwrites Sheriff Wydell, and that entire conflict, so it all just comes across as hollow when it should have been the most interesting and engaging plotline in the entire movie.

[Guest]

Reminds me of the Texas Chainsaw sequels where they show Leatherface murdering innocent people for 90 minutes then expect you to root for him as he fights a mean sheriff. Daddario's massive chesticles in that one sequel were nice but what the hell?

[Rushy]

Makes a bit more sense with Leatherface because even in the original film he's retarded and just does whatever his family wants him to do.
But Otis, Captain Spaulding and Baby are all inherently evil and sadistic

[Cuckara]

I feel like Tobe Hooper's estate should get a cut of Rob Zombie's film profits. Throughout his entire career, Zombie has pretty shamelessly ripped off Hooper. All of Zombie's films blatantly steal from Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Zombie's carnie obsession stems from The Funhouse.

[Guest]

The Sheriff Wydell character is such a waste of a good concept. I don't mean to go all "fuck the police" but making their nemesis a cop just keys into the whole badass outlaw mythology Rob Zombie tried to construct out of charactere that were just goofy ripoffs of the TCM family. It should have been one of their victims who escaped the house and got to the police. Then, after a few years on the road laying low they feel safe enough to get back up to their old tricks but the survivor comes back to inflict the same terror on them they inflicted on him.

The narrative tries to make Sheriff Wydell out to be some kind of out of control corrupt cop with mental issues. Even the guy's brother is treated like a flimsy excuse just to hurt these people, like he's overstepping his bounds. Having the character be an escaped victim could have offset this.

But I'm just writing gay fanfic at this point. The movie is what it is. I think Rob Zombie is like Zack Snyder. They have some interesting ideas, particularly when it comes to approaching genera fiction, but ideas do not equal ability. Anyone can have a good idea, but not everyone can realize that idea. And they both have their weird personal hangups they're more interested in indulging than giving the story the attention it needs.

[CuckTurdginson]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/o ... 1570191045

This review makes the movie sound like the most meme-laden nonsense in the universe.