ryan dell blog

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Fri, 10 May 2013 23:56:35 -0400

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Sun, 05 May 2013 02:18:29 -0400

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Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:25:00 -0400

Top 3 Famous People Who Are Currently Dead, But Weren't A Decade Ago, Whose Last Names Are The Same Word As Things We Don't Have Anymore

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 08:29:25 -0400

Top 3 Famous People Who Are Currently Dead, But Weren't A Decade Ago, Whose Last Names Are The Same Word As Things We Don't Have Anymore:

Sometimes, great people die. It’s sad, but it happens. Usually, though, the loss of a great person just means that person is gone. That really shouldn’t be a problem, right? If you’re a great perso…

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Sat, 13 Apr 2013 02:06:19 -0400

shit i watched recently XXXIX

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 10:34:03 -0400

this week; AMOUR, DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER, and DOGMA

AMOUR

5/5

Haneke seems less like a storyteller or filmmaker than he does a WWII Nazi scientist coldly experimenting. I thought CACHE intentionally used long static shots because they stylistically evoke security cameras, and he was making some kind of visual connection between his movie and the feeling you get from watching security tapes, where you’re hyper alert and looking for the smallest incongruity or change to occur. Whether that was true or not, this movie has the exact same emotional and stylistic distance for no reason. His reason for making this movie is “fuck you”. Wanted to see an old woman die, huh? You’re gonna see every agonising second he can possibly fit into two hours

Haneke is a great writer, though. He sometimes changes simple scenes into puzzles, where you have to actually work to figure out what’s going on. When Georges is taking a phone call, the film doesn’t tell you who he’s talking to or about what, and you have to stick with the scene for a while to figure out what’s happening. When Anne has her stroke, the movie goes for a long time without telling you as much. She or Georges don’t say “Do you think I had a stroke?” Same goes for the opening dance scene (which would play amazingly in a theatre, an audience staring at an audience) - you don’t see the actual performance they’re watching, or where the characters are sitting, so you have to play a bit of a game with the movie and try constantly to figure out what’s happening.

The back half of the film was excruciatingly good as showing how frustrating a real stroke is. Long scenes and takes where Anne just can’t talk properly, moaning over and over or murmuring “Mum! Mum!” over and over. If Haneke does this kind of stuff in the pursuit of realism, then that’s kind of weird, huh? Especially when you consider how good this apartment looks. And the dream scenes, which aren’t ludicrous or crazy but still unrealistic by design. So that’s weird. Most of the movie by design is trying to be realistic, avoiding narration or overediting or anything else too unrealistic or stylistic or filmy. But does that make the surreal parts of the movie more interesting or more confusing and incongruous?

It’s kind of weird this movie was as big a thingy as it was (nominated for Best Director and winning best Foreign Film and doing okay at the American box office), considering that after the opening it all takes place in an apartment building on a single set, so it really feels like more of an almost unbearably minimalistic experiment than anything else. If it wasn’t for the jumping forward in time it would be a perfect script for the theatre, someone will probably stage it that way

Small cultural note; this movie does a nice little job of showing how great the French healthcare system is, with the government paid nurse and the doctors visiting the home and so on

“Almost unbearably minimalistic!” would be a good quote for the DVD cover

DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER

2/5

I went into this thinking it had the reputation of being shit and awful, so it’s cool to see that it isn’t that bad. It’s just kind of boring. It actually just feels like an okay thriller movie that someone decided to throw John McClane into. The movie places way more focus on the bad guys and the mechanics of the airport police than it does on McClane and what he’s trying to do. If they’d made DIE HARD 2 as its own movie it would have been fine, it’s only when the movie insists on comparing itself to DIE HARD that it stinks, with dialogue about the “legendary Nakatomi crisis”, “How does this happen twice?”, reappearances from DIE HARD like the smug news reporter dumb guy and the guy who eats the twinkies, etc. But when you actually compare the two movies, DIE HARD 2 reveals how tight the structure of the first DIE HARD was. Whenever DIE HARD 2 wastes time on stuff like the dumb foreshadowing where an old lady shows off her taser or we have a cameo from Al from the first movie, you sense the lack of careful design that the original DIE HARD had.

In DIE HARD, every scene and line of dialogue is crucial - or feels crucial. The film spends so much energy setting up stuff like McClane’s bare feet with the bit about air travel, Holly putting down the photo out of anger so Hans doesn’t immediately know about the family relation, Argyle waiting in the garage for the whole movie, etc. that it feels like every single minute of the movie is super duper important. Here, the film is so eager to waste time or spend it on shit that doesn’t matter for a cheap joke or dumb audience reaction that it does just end up feeling like a simple thriller instead of the borderline perfect script that the first DIE HARD had

The guy that directed this is Renny Harlin, a guy who has a history of doing for-hire projects (an EXORCIST prequel, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, episodes of BURN NOTICE), but DIE HARD 2 does feel mostly well constructed. Sometimes during messy scenes the editing is a bit iffy. During big action scenes, there’s a lot of 0.5-second cutaways and weird ADR (Bruce Willis yelling “There’s two of ‘em?!” as he’s panting and wheezing up a balcony, facing away from the guys he’s referring to, and saying “Where’s the door?” when he’s struggling to get out of a parachute). But there’s a lot of long takes or smooth tracking shots that are pretty impressive. And the airport setting does the same thing the first DIE HARD did so well and so importantly - keeping the movie in a really tight setting and making the most of those limitations and being creative with that setting.

Even though it’s clearly just a studio product movie it’s pretty fun and the craft is mostly there. Worth watching if you’re interested, I guess. Not as good a number 2 as LETHAL WEAPON 2 or BEVERLY HILLS COP II, which are both in this police-action kind of genre and they were basically produced for the same kind of straightforward dumb financial reason that this movie was

i think the “How does the same shit happen to the same guy twice??” line might have been put in the first draft of the script out of obligation and the writer/s forgot to try to take it out later, it pops up in the movie pretty inorganically. a whole shot is devoted to McClane just saying that line and that shot could have really easily been cut in a way that would have improved the flow of that scene

DOGMA

4/5

DOGMA is a pretty fun movie, and the first time I’ve ever seen Kevin Smith be able to cooperate with a studio and make a big budget story movie like this. I really liked how the story developed - everyone in real life is pretty aware of Christian mythology and the Bible, so it’s interesting to see a movie that hijacks it for a comedy while taking that actual story totally seriously and being faithful to specific details

it’s sort of interesting how, late in the third act, the movie figures out how to be genuinely suspenseful by introducing the idea that God takes vacations and hadn’t been reporting back for a while. For the first half of the movie i was just expecting everything to turn out peachy ‘cause obviously God in the canon of the movie knows everything that’s going on and won’t let any real trouble start. this is a super small story detail but it’s proof of Smith’s talent as a writer, he can be very conscientious of what an audience is processing and what they’re expecting in the flow of the story

this is also a surprisingly amazing cast for Smith to be working with, he usually chooses to only work with friends. here he has Ben Affleck and Matt Damon together, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek in a small bit, Alan Rickman in a small but crucial bit, and the lead Laura Fiorentino who I haven’t seen in anything else is really great and dry here, gonna try dreg up anything else cool she could have been in. i looked around the world wide net to read about this movie and Smith described the cast as “real actors”, it’s a really cool cast he pulled together here

this is probably the craziest movie in the Kevin Smith continuity. characters teleporting, murdering people, all the stuff about angels. how did jay and silent bob just go from this magical crazy stuff to CLERKS II

i saw part of this movie on a movie channel a couple years ago, and that time i gave up after the bit with the monster made of shit

some goofy awful CGI wings at the end there

some very 90’s esque cameos, like George Carlin and the CLERKS guys. i thought Garofalo would be more important when i saw her but she’s just in one scene

Roger Ebert died.

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 05:25:00 -0400

Ebert’s reviews were really important to me when I was younger. I didn’t used to actually watch many movies, I would just read the Wikipedia page and IMDb trivia and kind of absorb the idea of the film. Ebert’s reviews were a huge part of that process. I’d read his reviews for movies like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, LETHAL WEAPON, and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT years before I actually bothered to watch them. I’d read these kinds of reviews over and over, making sure I knew what these movies were before I actually experienced them myself. When I actually saw these movies years later, I’d always go back and reread what Ebert had written, because even when I disagreed with him he was good at making his opinion seem fair. He could explain the movies premise, what was appealing about it, and why it worked, plainly and simply.

Ebert was clear, had strong opinions, and was a great communicator. The weird way he wrote reviews could be really charming. Sometimes, his reviews would mostly be him just reciting the plot of the movie. Sometimes, like for DIE HARD or WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, he’d get strangely nitpicky and anal. Sometimes he gave great films okay reviews for the funniest, weirdest reasons. I wish I could find that clip online of Howard Stern calling him out for being so fussy about THE GODFATHER PART II, even though he gave PART III a better review.

He was also a great talker. Whenever he got upset on “At The Movies”, or disagreed with someone, his real passion for cinema came through. He cared so much, and he and Siskel’s enthusiasm are probably responsible for bringing the whole new waves of young cinephiles over the last few decades. He was fun to listen to, spirited and passionate. When watching all the clips of “At The Movies” on YouTube, I always loved the way he referred to “Gene”, always sounding like he was talking to a beloved old friend, or how upset he could look when he had to wait for his turn to talk.

Ebert’s reviews were fun to read and he was fun to listen to. I’ll miss him.

@ryandeel you literally got paid for sleeping — Wepeel (@Wepeell) April 1, 2013 i’ve made...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:09:31 -0400

@ryandeel you literally got paid for sleeping
— Wepeel (@Wepeell) April 1, 2013

i’ve made more than $750 off of ads on videos of me just sleeping in my bed, because i labelled them as scary movies

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Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:52:29 -0400

radock: cringlehuffer: Meme University!! :D REBLOG IF YOU...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 05:54:30 -0400

radock:

cringlehuffer:

Meme University!! :D

REBLOG IF YOU WANNA BE HERE!!!!

his nose is two inches away from the camera

dominio’s® pizza man dead vidoe

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:51:44 -0400

dominio’s® pizza man dead vidoe

frankhowley: franksino: I’m out this bitch. Derrick and I...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:00:51 -0400

frankhowley:

franksino:

I’m out this bitch.

Derrick and I lost our minds at PAX.

just to be clear that last reblog was ironic in context and i don’t actually pretend to cum in...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 09:05:01 -0400

just to be clear that last reblog was ironic in context and i don’t actually pretend to cum in peoples mouths on twitter dot com

funnyinternetjoke: this is sexual assault and it is not okay...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 06:26:09 -0400

funnyinternetjoke:

this is sexual assault and it is not okay please block and report this notorious troll

zpxlng: busterbeam: reminder that patrick alexander is one of...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:57:07 -0400

zpxlng:

busterbeam:

reminder that patrick alexander is one of the best people

Bless you.

[LEAK] THE HANGOVER PART III, SCRIPT LEAK

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:49:00 -0500

[LEAK] THE HANGOVER PART III, SCRIPT LEAK:

wow i can’t believe that this script got leaked

ULTIMATE COOL PERSON: Movie a Day: Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:50:33 -0500

ULTIMATE COOL PERSON: Movie a Day: Punch-Drunk Love (2002):

iamthebesthumanbeing:

ryandeel:

this week; the highest grossing film of 1974, THE TOWERING INFERNO, and P.T. Anderson’s self-described “arthouse Adam Sandler movie”, PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

Read More

i remembered i wanted to watch Punch-Drunk Love (2002) after looking for Ryan Dell’s Metropolis review & seeing he…

hey thanks, i’m glad you liked that movie too

here’s an interesting other take i’ve seen on the movie since then, one that isn’t about Sandler’s movie persona - can you read the movie as a breakdown of the Superman mythos, and how distant Superman is from other people?

- Barry can break the glass pretty easily, recovers from that weird leap he does really quickly, breaks the unbreakable plunger handle, and beats up those guys without trying. how strong is he? does his strength scare people or cause problems? why is the phillip seymour hoffman character so frightened of him at the end of the movie?

- on the date, Barry says his favorite radio guy is “DJ Justice”. he gets in trouble with the chef for standing up for Lena

- with the frequent flyer deal, Barry can fly wherever he wants. he never takes luggage with him

- Barry’s never shown wearing anything other than his blue suit, the final shot of the movie has Lena in her red dress hanging around his shoulders like a cape

it’s a bit of a crazy extrapolation but there’s a lot of stuff in the movie that backs it up. it’s an interesting approach, give this video essay a watch

i couldn't believe it sonic won an oscar

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 21:49:00 -0500

noface-greenstrong:

chombiechom:

isadultart:

amal-albuloshia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj_Znij3Sug

HAHAHAHAHA

uh

trublu1

My Vid

oscar predics

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

the oscars are tomorrow so here’s my oscar predics

- the top choice is the “safe” option, the one that won all the other awards this season and seems like the safe vote for Academy members

- the bottom choice is the “crazy” one, a more esoteric option that could either get advertised and screened like crazy and has enough goodwill behind it to possibly win

- the bolded one is my actual prediccy, if the other one wins then i’ll be wrong but at least i had an inkling that one could have been the real winner

okay here we g

BEST PICTURE

Argo

or, Silver Linings Playbook

BEST DIRECTOR

Ang Lee (Life of Pi)

or David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

One of two things is certain with the above categories - either Argo will get Best Picture and, now by force, lose out Best Director to a really weird unexpected choice, or Harvey “Shalom” Weinstein will bully his way into winning both categories. Ang Lee seems like the most likely non-Weinstein nominee, I don’t think Spielberg will be able to get any sympathy or pity votes

BEST ACTOR

Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)

or Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

BEST ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

or Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

or Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) [definitely no contest, this one was locked down months ago and there’s no other ringers here]

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Django Unchained

or Zero Dark Thirty

I have no fucking idea, usually it’s pretty easy to guess this one but there’s no ringleader this year. I’d like to say Moonrise Kingdom, but it doesn’t have the goodwill and they aren’t likely to bother advertising it now. It’ll either be Django Unchained, so Tarantino can have his own Oscar, or Zero Dark Thirty so the Academy can be seen as supporting provocative movies. Sometimes with these things it’s more about the story being told with the award than the award itself, especially in weird categories, and that’ll probably be what happens here. I’d probably say Django Unchained is my safe guess, it might be the only award that it has a strong chance of winning

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Lincoln [because all the press about the movie is about its great script]

or Argo [to continue its potential streak]

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Brave

or Wreck-It Ralph

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Amour [no contest]

BEST EDITING

Argo

or Zero Dark Thirty

BEST SONG

Skyfall [no contest, everyone’s rooting for it and assumed its won already]

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The Avengers

or Life of Pi

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Life of Pi

or Skyfall

THE OTHER CATEGORIES

too narrow or esoteric to be worth guessing at, I won’t even bother trying

let’s see how wrong i am

i love u and u have nice taste for paper mari

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:36:03 -0500

thanks