Chorus.Fm Weekly Movie Club • Page 5

Watched this tonight.

This is one of films where I know it through cultural impact and the number of times you hear "Stepford Wives" referenced in other areas, but hadn't actually seen the film itself. It's a familiar story of the trappings of mundane suburban existence, with secret and repressed horrors lurking not far below the supposedly idyllic surface.

I knew the "twist" from various pop culture parodies and references, but it works as a remarkably good shock here - I imagine it would have played very effectively in 1975. Even knowing it's coming, it still works as a great surprise, particularly "how" it's revealed, and the fallout from there.

The film itself is visually fairly plain, but it's well scripted and performed, taking a long time to warm up, we're practically an hour in before we start to twig that there might be something sinister here, and then we have the excellent tension in the final 15 minutes, where it turns into a straight up horror film, leading to a fantastic final set of images and coda.

We have the mundanity and laziness of evil and oppression here, these robot wives are created just "because we can" - there's no bigger reason here, these men just want their compliant wives with a full set of make-up, big tits and doing all the domestic chores at home. They don't see their wives as human and equals in the first place, so there's nothing for them to lose, it's an entirely practical and straightforward decision for them, like buying a new household appliance, or a better car. Easy to see the relevance now, with all the AI and ChatGPT stuff, turning humans into "perfect" drones, and eliminating all art.

Basically it's this tweet, in film from nearly 50 years ago; twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538?s=20

I had to Google "Ring Dings"...

 

This was a great choice.

It is interesting because it is a film where its' themes and ideas have diffused so much through pop culture, but not a film that people usually talk about in the same way as other historically significant films. The remake, although terrible, shows up first on a Google search.

I wouldn't call the film itself great, but it is more important at a cultural piece than anything else. Any time you can get such clear and stark criticisms of the status quo in mainstream films, the more interesting things get.

 

I really enjoyed this, It directly speaks to my own opinions that suburbs are cultural death, it places the blame squarely on the hegemony and it did it in 1975. Is there anyother prominent examples of art doing this earlier?

 

Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows from 1956 is an early example of something similar, the small mindedness and misery in comfortable, affluent suburban life.

No robots in it though…

 

awesome i will check it out!

 

Just finished it, instead of robot horror its got a manic pixie tree boy. Really enjoyed it, gorgeous film.

 

I wasn’t getting notifications so I missed this week. Might try to fit it in tomorrow night but not looking ideal. My bad

 

@chris is up in Monday.

 

My pick is William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977), I think it's just available to rent currently but I can try and put it on google drive or something when I have time later

 

Hell yeah haven’t seen that yet

 

Sorcerer rules

 

Man Cockfighter loses so, so much from the text. Both in terms of over-explanation from other characters and the limited narration by Frank. It captures some of the point, I guess, but it really just made me appreciate the novel so much more.

edits as I watch:

The kid sticking the finger up the cock’s ass is funnier in the movie.

Yeah this is a mediocre film for a great book

 

Ill check out the novel, cockfighter for better or worse is the film ive thought the most about this month. the parts of prose lifted from the book were really good.

 

Got in The Stepford Wives. It's funny that it's known as sci-fi and horror, but the majority of its DNA is in the insanely bleak paranoid thrillers of the '70s. It's really unfortunate to already know the big reveal ahead of time, but the last act really slams you with that creeping dread so effectively that it's definitely a win overall. Insane to me that apparently so many people at the time took it as a face-value endorsement and decried it as sexist. The indictment of men in our culture seems almost thunderously heavy-handed (if apt) at times.

 

Whom amongst us hasn’t fingered a cock’s ass???

 

Anyways, glad my pick was a good experience for everyone. I watched it last night and was super happy it was the one I went with. Great experience sitting with this one.

I had a conversation with a coworker a few nights ago about our different but intersecting baggage with American evangelical culture, which the suburban patriarchy of this dovetailed with quite nicely. Which, imagining what it’d be like if I went to work next week and found her part of the system like Joanna found Bobbie… It’s so valuable to find someone else you can confide in (I’ve had more than one Bobbie in various situations), and so horrific to think of losing that someone while still surrounded by that system.

 

Rewatched Sorcerer over the last two nights. Still fucking rules. The bridge scene is insane.

The first time I watched it, the prologues kind of threw me (i thought I might’ve been watching the wrong movie or something) but this time I really loved those scenes

 

Out of curiosity, have people already seen the movie Sorcerer is a remake of, The Wages of Fear? It's a masterpiece.

 

Are we watching the 1977 one?

 

Yup

 

Watched this tonight, I have seen Wages of Fear, but it reminded me a bit more of the middle child between Herzog's Aguirre Wrath of God & Fitzcarraldo. It's a mad task through the jungle, trying to bend nature to your will, and achieve the impossible. So much of this is down to fate and dumb luck, after getting through the most treacherous moments, all it can take is a little bump in the road to derail you.

The explosions in this are excellent, clearly a benefit from shooting on location, allowing Friedkin the space and opportunity to blow things up at scale. The dramatic oil field explosions are cataclysmic, a real great sense of disaster on scale. The bridge scene(s) are also remarkable, again a huge benefit to shooting on location, and looking downright terrifying.

Not that it mattered much, but is the Spanish dialogue intentionally un-subtitled here? I could work enough out, and considering our leads don't speak Spanish for the most part, it would make sense, but not sure if this was just a consequence of where I got the film from.

 

Jesus, that's a good movie. It only suffers slightly in comparison to the damn near perfect original. The bridge scene is absolutely incredible. Just nail-biting shit.

 

This gave me flash backs to collectivo trips in Peru through the mountains. Parts of the road had collapsed over shear drops, sections of falling rocks blocked half the road, periodicly I looked over the edge and saw the wreckage of different collectivos.

really to cool hear tangerine dream doing the sound track in the 70s with the sound that would define the 80s

Agree with George those explosions were epic! Neat to see the IDF using uzis. lol never give someone a letter to post incase you dont come back cause you not gunna.

 

Your turn @PepsiOne