Mark's Movies Mark D

Hey everyone, just looking back on 2022 for a second. Just taking a breath.
"Late Night Radio"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
I think I only mentioned Hearts in Atlantis for 3 movies this year? That feels like a low number but that's what my data is telling me.
Dazed and Confused, Bull Durham, and High Fidelity.
Maybe the transcriptions are off.

The squad from High Fidelity are at it again? in what is the kinda prequel, in a meta production sense, and a really great movie in my eyes. It makes me feel good. The cast really brings it, the movie is fun, and I think it set up some conventions or archetypes that carried forward into movies we see today (I think, at any rate).
This is the first time I actually make something that sounds like it's in car so if you're in a car it's double messed up. A bold strategy, Cotton. I didn't talk about the action at all. I realize that. The action isn't huge but it's good. They've got Cusack doing the most he possibly can which might have actually been all of it (I can't remember at the moment--it's been absolutely nuts this entire past month and the month before). Makes it feel good. It's not too serious, not too goofy. Groundedly whimsical.
There's a lot of daytime in this movie. I think they intentionally wanted it to feel more like a high school reunion movie that has an assassin in it than an assassin movie taking place at a high school reunion. The big action scene is set in the middle of the day. It's cool. It really genuinely is.
If I had to choose a favorite little shot I would choose the one set in Debi's bedroom when Martin is leaving. She tells him "you're a fucking psy-cho" and does like a hand talking thing. That was an improvised gesture--she previously saw John and Joan doing that to each other between setups. That's one great part but the opposite shot, John's kinda manic wild "don't rush to judgement on something like that" is just very unique and fits perfectly. Unhinged but just under the surface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgGTP5Cevrs - (2948) Benny "The Jet" Urquidez • Highlight - YouTube
"Cool Rock", "Blue Ska"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
I love the movie. It's worth a look. A lot of nostalgia for this one. Check it out. I'm @coolmarkd on twitter for as long as it lasts.

Top 5 hackiest tropes in media analysis and presentation:
* Cribbing aspects of the media itself
* Talking about how you can do a thing but haven't and then, in the edit, do the thing.
* Not actually organizing thoughts into coherent and structured form
* Being late and making it rushed
* Starting a Top 5 list and then running out of things so you have filler
Yeah, I'm Mark and this is 2000's High Fidelity. Let's get this Hamletesque Annie Hall-like romcom on the road. To be fair the Annie Hall comparison brings a lot of baggage with it that is undeserved. But it's more the deconstruction from a male-centric point of view that I mean. And also the main character slowly losing their mind. The Hamlet link is a reach--I just like alluding to it. Makes me feel like I learned something in school.
I feel like I really had Things To Say here but this month has been absolutely destructive to me. No thoughts head empty. So I'll leave you with it. Oh, right! I didn't mention how "High Fidelity" is the opposite of the infidelity that occurs and how that concept is defined. I won't though. I'm exhausted.
Smooth Lovin' Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
If you want to reach me, I'm @coolmarkd on Twitter.

What could go wrong when you convince a mathematician at a prestigious university that you're a genius, with the help of geniuses, just to go on a date with her? Not much, right? Right. This is I.Q. and, when I write it out this way, it seems wild.
It is wild. Leave your practical brain at home and enjoy the performances, Matthau especially, and conceits of this movie as they come. Do your thing. Odds are you haven't seen and cannot easily see this movie anyway, so stay a while--and listen.
@coolmarkd
I want to point out that Princeton at this point in time was an absolute pop off of technology and research. I don't remember placing the exact year that this movie was set in (nor do I think that it particularly matters--it's roughly mid 50's) but at Princeton you could have run into John von Neumann who is, arguably, more important than Albert Einstein in a lot of ways. Check him out if you get a chance. This man's biography is where I learned that I do not like reading the biographies of people wildly more interesting than I am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

This is it. This is the pinnacle of baseball movies. As it is the pinnacle of baseball movies, it is the pinnacle of sports movies. Not in a sports way but in a movies way. This, like THE SANDLOT (which you listened to that episode, right? It's back in season 2 or whatever), has no big game. It's about more than baseball but baseball is both the frame and the delivery mechanism. Baseball teaches us about life so often--as a sport where succeeding 1/3 of the time is hugely successful will--and it has more than just baseball. This is BULL DURHAM.
There is a lot going on in this movie. There is a lot that I talk about--it's one of the longer episodes that I've recorded and that's that I already know that I should never record longer episodes. And there is just a ton that I left out. I'll look at some of that here as is my way.
Ron Shelton slaps. That's that. Dude is a gangster and lives in a similar space as Linklater. I don't exactly know how to communicate it but I would say it's the writer/director that fully understands their niche and understands themselves and, regardless of whatever copious life experience they may have, understands how to distill these concepts to something that really works in a movie. For more, you can check out my episode on DAZED AND CONFUSED.
Sarandon, Costner, and Robbins were almost picture perfect. Costner does this sarcastic chuckle thing that I'm sure seemed cool on paper but it's a little less successful in practice. Other than that he was made for this role. I've heard that Costner is not necessarily the best person to be around while being a mere mortal but you cannot fault him in this role whatsoever. This was also "before he was famous" and that's weird to me because fuck Untouchables or whatever--this is what made Costner for me. Robbins knocks it out of the park. I love watching Tim Robbins--like everyone with cable I've seen THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION only a few dozen times and I still eat it up every time. But he was always that Tim Robbins--even in BULL DURHAM. Even in HIGH FIDELITY.
Susan Sarandon was aces in this. She goes on from here to do THELMA & LOUISE which co-starred Gena Davis (yeah, you thought she was going to come up but I said this was the last baseball movie.... for the moment) and was directed by Ridley Scott. She's top-tier. She's stellar. She's in peak form at all points in time--there is zero phoning it in. Sarandon's performance was my favorite as a character in this movie. I only say that because Costner is 100% an actual baseball player while playing a baseball player and knowing the mind of a baseball player because he is an actual baseball player while playing a baseball player ad nauseam.
Yes, this movie does have some exploration into homophobia of some sort. It's not as bad as this might make it sound but it does happen. It's probably better than average for a movie coming out in the 80s and is not outright hostile. There is a point where a character questions their sexuality and that's actually interesting--not offensive. This is all relating to the academic paper that I mention in the podcast (at the end). I think it comes from a very reasonable place where the ideal set for masculinity isn't complete domination but instead security and support. The characters themselves are trying to figure things out at times. There's another time where it's just an insult but, to quote Ralph Maccio--politics aside because his views are bad--"hey, it's the 80s". That's actually quoting his character, Daniel LaRusso, who isn't the bully but becomes able to defend himself. I realize that COBRA KAI might take that view a little differently when extrapolated however I'm reading from the text of THE KARATE KID and haven't watched COBRA KAI because, when I tried to cast it to my TV, YouTube wouldn't let me watch it fully. When you watch BULL DURHAM just think of that statement. Not about Ralph Maccio but the statement about masculinity.
I've seen se

Yeah, this one didn't stand the test of time. It's unfortunate but it happens. You can tell just from the poster. See what this Cleveland baseball team is up to, again! Wow. My lack of enthusiasm is apparent. But it's 1994's Major League 2 and hopefully some folks made money off of it.
This is the second at-bat for the baseball trilogy, and it is... not good. Ground ball to short and a throw out at first, perhaps. It's fine. It was fine for the time. There were a flood of kid-oriented baseball movies coming out that were doing numbers. I get it. But it's not worth going out of your way for in 2022.