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lord_clyde wrote:1. Zodiac

Probably the best March release I've ever seen.

I had similar thoughts, until I remembered Mamet's Spartan.

Highway 61 wrote:Mamet's Spartan.

Hell yeah! SPARTAN!!!

lord_clyde wrote:

Highway 61 wrote:

lord_clyde wrote:1. Zodiac
Probably the best March release I've ever seen.

I had similar thoughts, until I remembered Mamet's Spartan.

Hell yeah! SPARTAN!!!

One of the best films of this decade so far. So incredibly good, and so completely overlooked.

denti alligator wrote:

lord_clyde wrote:Hell yeah! SPARTAN!!!

One of the best films of this decade so far. So incredibly good, and so completely overlooked.

Definitely overlooked, but even more bizarre is every person I show it to HATES it. What gives?

Good to see some Spartan appreciation. I thought I was going to get eaten alive when I mentioned it as I usually encounter the same sentiments Lord Clyde does.

lord_clyde wrote:

denti alligator wrote:One of the best films of this decade so far. So incredibly good, and so completely overlooked.

Definitely overlooked, but even more bizarre is every person I show it to HATES it. What gives?

People have no taste. Spartan is excellent, too bad there wasn't much discussion on it here when it came out, I think the film has quite a bit of depth for a "spy thriller", and it might just be Mamet's finest work in cinema so far. Not to mention having possibly the best Val Kilmer performance in ages, he's just phenomenal in it. The scene where he tags along to interrogate the secret service guy is brilliant and he's so obviously at home with Mamet's dialogue. Fantastic film (such a shame Mamet's tv series "The Unit" turned out to be such a disappointment despite the promising names behind the production, I had hoped for something like "Spartan - the series" instead of a mostly dull weekly retelling of various conventions of the military tv genre).

"Don't you teach 'em knife fighting. Teach 'em to kill. That way, they meet some sonofabitch who studied knife fighting, they send his soul to hell."

Spartan also gets points for having one of the best dvd commentary tracks ever recorded. Val sounds like he's really having fun recording it.

The dialogue in this film is amazing! It made me an instant fan of Mamet, and the only other movie I've seen from him is Heist.

On a side note it also introduced me to Kristen Bell. I'd never seen her before and had no idea within a few years she would be the star of my favorite television show.

lord_clyde wrote:

denti alligator wrote:

lord_clyde wrote:Hell yeah! SPARTAN!!!

One of the best films of this decade so far. So incredibly good, and so completely overlooked.

Definitely overlooked, but even more bizarre is every person I show it to HATES it. What gives?

I'm surprised by the reaction as well. I remember finally getting around to renting this quite a bit after it came out on video. I loved it and told someone at work, also into movies, and they watched it and also loved it. The two of us were then talking about it for quite a bit at work over the week, talking about the dialogue, the clever plot (which was hard to predict) and just cool little touches in the movie. Then everybody else at work rented it based on the fact the two of us wouldn't stop talking about it. We were both quite shocked everyone else hated it. We both knew it was "different" but it still seemed mainstream and safe enough. But whatever, the movie conversations in that place always grated me.

And heck, I didn't even realize that was Kristen Bell. Now I may have to finally get around to buying it.

Len wrote:People have no taste. Spartan is excellent, too bad there wasn't much discussion on it here when it came out, I think the film has quite a bit of depth for a "spy thriller", and it might just be Mamet's finest work in cinema so far. Not to mention having possibly the best Val Kilmer performance in ages, he's just phenomenal in it. The scene where he tags along to interrogate the secret service guy is brilliant and he's so obviously at home with Mamet's dialogue.

Agreed. The film is full of Mamet's trademark biting wit, like when Curtis tries to get chummy with Scott and he quickly rebuffs the young recruit by saying, “If I want comraderie, I'll join the Masons.â€

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:Imagine, Kilmer's cadences delivering this line and you'll get a vague idea of how odd it is...

Not to mention the whole "I didn't watch my buddies die face down in the mud at Khe Sahn just to be picked off by some sniper off Cape Cod."-bit. I almost literally fell on the floor laughing.

"Daviid Mameeeet, as he's known in the theatrical circles"

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:It was also nice to see Mamet alum Ed O'Neill (The Spanish Prisoner) and William H. Macy with roles.

Ed O'Neill is excellent here, doing so much with so little screen time. As much as I love Al, O'Neill's too talented to be lost in his shadow forever. So many fantastic TV actors can never break awar from their one big role, so I'm glad Mamet uses him.

I just watched this today based entirely on the recent comments in this thread. One thing no one has mentioned yet, to my knowledge, is the beauty of Spartan's cinematography as well as the orange and green color scheme. It makes me think of Andrew Niccol's obsessive use of neon green in Gattaca and Simone or Mann's use of the same shade of green in the a large number of the shots in Manhunter.

It's a fabulous movie, so incredibly taut. The punchlines always get such deadpan deliveries.

The bit I heard of Kilmer's commentary is also a hoot:

"That's my actual blood. David asked me to give my actual blood for this scene. He didn't think I would, but I did."

Highway 61 wrote:

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:It was also nice to see Mamet alum Ed O'Neill (The Spanish Prisoner) and William H. Macy with roles.

Ed O'Neill is excellent here, doing so much with so little screen time. As much as I love Al, O'Neill's too talented to be lost in his shadow forever. So many fantastic TV actors can never break awar from their one big role, so I'm glad Mamet uses him.

Many years ago, whenever Ed O'Neill had that short-lived drama on CBS, I saw him on some Late Night-type show at about 2am, in a very Tom Snyder Show-esque environment, and he came off as a genuine, articulate, intelligent man. He talked about how because of the success of Married With Children, it was near impossible for him to find dramatic roles, and he told the story of how he was cast in a film (I don't remember which) and during the early screening, the audience started laughing and getting rowdy as soon as he appeared and the filmmaker was forced to reshoot all his scenes with another actor. Really heartbreaking when you think about it.

I think the movie you're thinking of was Flight of the Intruder. One of the producers of Married... talked about that incident on that show's episode of True Hollywood Story.

"Spartan" is my favourite Mamet -- tight as a drum, not one speck of fat. It's also one of the best political satires, cleverly using the template of a spy thriller, without doing any injustice to the latter. And Val Kilmer is just perfect here; delivering the scorching Mametspeak (“You need to set your motherfucker to ‘receive.'â€

Not really a surprise as "Dubai" was actually shot in the back lot of L.A.

[quote="a.khan"]And Val Kilmer is just perfect here; delivering the scorching Mametspeak (“You need to set your motherfucker to ‘receive.'â€

Rewatched Spartan tonight for the first time in ages, and it doesn't just hold up but is also arguably Mamet's most entertaining film. This ceaseless strings of twists and setpieces are so intelligently constructed that I', inclined to call it his smartest work on a purely surface level. Homicide ties that honor in terms of erecting a framework that delivers an existential thematic payout, while this breathes on political thriller candy. I particularly appreciate Kilmer's density in character, which keeps the audience questioning motives and authenticity of action from the getco, until the series of behavioral interactions summed up form a trusting character we can consistently engage with on his terms (and in the process reveals that we never should have second-guessed ourselves, and only did because Mamet wrote a character that has been self-actualized with clarity from the beginning without any conditional handholding development from its audience). I don't know if I've had this much fun riding on waves of action unexpectedly spilling into each other since North By Northwest.

I'm a big fan of this film, too. Juan Ruiz Anchia's photography perfectly complements the world Mamet creates in his films.
Ed O'Neill (whose career started with a Mamet stage production, Lake Boat, which is an underrated film as well) is
great, too.

Are you a fan of Redbelt? It's weirdly perhaps his most personal film, as he's really into MMA and kickboxing. It's like Soderbergh's
Haywire in that it's a really cerebral and distinctive action film that veers away from many of the genre tropes.

I love just about every one of Mamet's efforts directing his scripts, with only Oleanna being a disappointment for reasons domino has mentioned elsewhere, and Phil Spector never emerging from its admittedly-intelligent construction into anything of interest to me personally. Redbelt isn't one of my favorites but I still like it a lot, and I bet that when I revisit the film I'll like it a whole lot more. Everything else he's done is phenomenal, and I'm grateful that I saw a lot of his work at a very young age which showed me that the 'twisty thrillers' I was chasing in subpar 90s/early aughts entries could be really smart and grow in appreciation as I aged, rather than only dwindle with maturity like most have. The Spanish Prisoner is a great example of a film that I saw probably in 5th grade and has remained a perfect summation of deceptive thrillers ever since, while I saw Heist in theatres with my dad in 6th or 7th grade- since we were both fans of Mamet- and it blew us away and rendered the rest of those kinds of films empty by comparison.

My father's life is karate, and he teaches group blackbelt classes as well as 1:1 sessions in a program for women living with trauma from assault, so I don't know why I've never recommended Redbelt to him, since as a Mamet fan he'd probably not only love it but go on a nice tangent on its realistic components to help me appreciate it more too.

Redbelt is actually quite good till it's last 10 or so minutes, the ending is very underwhelming and just makes no sense to me.

Can anyone comment on the quality of the German blu ray?

I have it and watched it a few years ago, I don’t remember any issues