Watched LoC last night. Watched T:ROTF tonight. LoC was art...stylish, great music, great cinematography, subtle story. T:ROF may be the dumbest movie I've ever seen. Big, loud, incoherent, painfully stupid dialog(did have a nice yellow Camaro, though).
What a contrast.
Discuss.
Allow me to introduce myself: I am your nemesis, your foe, the black to your white, the Ford to your Chevy, the Windows to your Mac, the man who will agree to disagree.
I found LoC to be the greatest waste of two hours of my life. Since you liked the film, I shall not enumerate the many ways and reasons for my dislike of it, but let it be known, that there I found nothing of redeeming value, nothing entertaining in it.
Meanwhile, T:RotF was plain, good entertainment. Sure, it wasn't an intellectually rewarding film by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't meant to be. It brought a few hours of pleasant reprieve from the troubles of life, some escape, some Michael Bay-ey explosion filled goodness that soothes the soul in the worst of times just as well as, say, the genius of Hitchcock's "Rear Window". Of course it doesn't compare with the aforementioned, but it serves a purpose: to entertain, and it did so well enough. And precisely that is what I found lacking in LoC.
Believe me, T:RotF is far from the dumbest movie out there. Titanic comes to mind. How that fecund pile of excrement ever made as much money as it did... it baffles the mind.
No problem. I only compared them because I watched them on subsequent nights.
I have nothing against big budget Hollywood action movies, or even Michael Bay. Agreed about Titantic. I liked the Bad Boys movies. I just found xformers painfully bad.
For action, I esp. like the Bourne movies, some Luc Besson films, HK action films, most anything w/ Jean Reno or Jason Statham.
I'm a big fan vintage French gangster movies of Jean-Pierre Melville, like 'Le Cirque Rouge'..the ultra cool '60s Alain Delon movies..I do think one aspect of Jarmusch's LOC is it is somewhat an homage to those films, w/ their loner assassins and gangsters.
Cheers.
Again, I have to differ. Le Samourai, Le Cercle rouge, whilst fairly called "minimalist", are superior in my opinion to Limits of Control.
No doubt that Jarmusch's Ghost Dog in the eponymous film is an homage to Melville's Jef in Le Samourai, and as such, entertains well. Whitaker, whilst playing the Bushido-follower to a T, entertains, the same way that Delon's Jef did.
Unfortunately Bankole's Lone Man in Limits of Control is a dull, mind-numbing character who shares nothing of the reserved, studied calm and quiet intensity. He gets upset about the way his order for coffee was handled? Really? Ghost Dog or Jef would never behave that way. Nor would they suffer endless pointless drivel rolling off the lips of random nobodies they just met. They are men of action, at the end of the day, not inaction. And that is, I'm afraid, very much what Bankole's Lone Man seems to be. His final act seems all that more unlikely, pointless, and idiotic, because of how he acted (or, rather, didn't) throughout the film up till that point. It's drivel, cinematic persiflage. Jarmusch is lost or confused, but one thing is for sure: The emperor is naked. There is nothing to see in Limits of Control, unfortunately.
Anyone seeking a Jarmusch movie worth seeing, try Ghost Dog.
Titanic? Titanic? Just shows how dumb you are. It made money because it was a good movie. Well made and far more entertaining that T:RotF. At least Titanic had a story about something. Some historical Background that the audience could learn from. I'm sure it baffles your mind due to the fact your BRAIN is the size of a pea. Not saying Titanic is the best movie ever. You are clearly in the minority on titanic. That has to count for something. I love it when people chime in on how they Thinks a movie is the worst. All critics have a base that is a personal view. That's the most of it. Critics, when they agree usually are on the money. And when they think a movie is bad they seem to now. but if you look at Rotten Tomatoes you will see critics not liking The Godfather, Fargo, 2001 ASO. So who is correct and who is not? I say the Minority are the incorrect ones. There lies the PERSONAL view. Ya just did not like it. Does not say it's a bad movie. Titanic is far from the dumbest movie.
shareTitanic? Titanic? Just shows how dumb you are. It made money because it was a good movie. Well made and far more entertaining that T:RotF. At least Titanic had a story about something. Some historical Background that the audience could learn from. I'm sure it baffles your mind due to the fact your BRAIN is the size of a pea. Not saying Titanic is the best movie ever. You are clearly in the minority on Titanic. That has to count for something. I love it when people chime in on how they Thinks a movie is the worst. All critics have a base that is a personal view. That's the most of it. Critics, when they agree usually are on the money. And when they think a movie is bad they seem to know. But if you look at Rotten Tomatoes you will see critics not liking The Godfather, Fargo, 2001 ASO. So who is correct and who is not? I say the Minority are the incorrect ones. There lies the PERSONAL view. Ya just did not like it. Does not say it's a bad movie. Titanic is far from the dumbest movie.
sharePopular does not equate to good. Titanic was immensely popular. Titanic wasn't very good.
T:ROTF will be considered a masterpiece in a century from now, whereas LOC will be swept away into the dustbin of forgettable cinema far, far sooner. Oh sure, T:ROTF on the surface would "seem" fairly insipid to the untrained eye, when you undestand what a humanist Michael Bay is, and how his films are an intentional misdirection of the key subtext of his works, which is, entirely about mankind's inhumanity toward mankind. Michael Bay is this generation's Kurosawa. He simply chooses not to get snooty about it. Mr. Bay presumes, correctly, that if he can get the majority of the great unwashed masses into the theatres to see his work, than his powerful messages will go to work on them subconciously and bring about peace to all mankind.
Are all those explosions needless? Not when it's a metaphor for creation that he knows must constantly be hammered home! The inane banter that passes for dialogue? He simply doesn't want over intellectualizing by the viewer for fear they will probably miss the subtext. The melodrama and sub-par acting? Again, all intentional. People would be too caught up in the actors and visuals, missing that important message he's trying to pass along. It takes a certain kind of genius to achieve this...and to think, they called him mad!
The subtext of LoC on the other hand was entirely about ennui and how one develops it watching art house jive like LoC. Jimmy peaked with Night on Earth. Now that was a great goddamned film! Maybe not T:ROTF good, but damn fine nonethless.
Ariverdeci!
Le Cutter
Heh heh heh... wow, you almost had me going there. For a second... maybe two, I actually thought you were serious about Michael Bay and TRANSFORMERS 2. That was surreal. Nice one. :)
Bay is a commercial hack with a profound contempt for both the art of cinema, and his audiences. However, I can't really fault him for doing what he does... the blame is with us for eating it up.
I find great fault with the notion that "entertaining" equals "quality". I have great respect for those who can admit to being entertained by things, even while acknowledging that they're absolute drivel. However, those who like something (such as, for example TRANSFORMERS:ROTF), and then feel that they have to rationalize their enjoyment of it by insisting that it's actually GOOD... those people have to grow a brain!
LIMITS OF CONTROL is deeply flawed... it totally got lost in the hubris of the director. Perhaps one could say it belongs in the same category as something like Wong Kar-Wai's ASHES OF TIME or Alain Resnais' LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD... but I think it's far to self-consciously obscure and subjective to work on that level. I think Jarmusch has fallen into the trap of pretention... when even his own comments about his film are a rehearsed and purposely oblique performance. Grow the *beep* up, Jim.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere and cinematography in LIMITS OF CONTROL, but unfortunately it's marred by it's own self-indulgence. There's just not enough there to encourage the viewer to dig any deeper into the implied meaning behind the whole exercise (and sadly, that's what it is... just an "exercise")... and any clues just suggest whatever might be discerned would be the director's own adolescent preoccupations with himself and his artistic role.
Interesting cinematic craft involved here, but the script is just disappointing.
Yes the contrast between real artistic films and junks (motion pictures) are so much that no normal human can imagine comparing them with each other.
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@cubicledweller
your thread title "Limits of Control vs Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "did have a nice yellow Camaro, though" made my day. :)
Thank you, kind sir.
I had an imaginary friend but he won the lottery & went to Brazil, that jerk!!share