patrickhwillems
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The Modern Class of Gonzo Blockbusters
🕑 Added 2020-09-01 14:11:50 +0000 UTCI'm back in New York! The talk show is over! A new era begins!
Okay this new era is really just..how we made videos before I got quarantined up at my parents' house, but we're running with this and working all these real-life events into the ongoing story. This episode is a big one for that.
This one is about a group of movies I've been thinking about for a couple years now, this grouping of movies from the past 5 years or so that use their massive budgets for truly insane spectacular worldbuilding with an absolutely relentless imagination. They have some new wacky thing appear onscreen every couple minutes. And most of them were huge box office bombs.
So naturally I made a video celebrating them.
Comments
Dean Madden
Magnificent episode nestled in a sea of brilliant episodes! Thanks so much for this! Sent me down a path that led almost directly to Flash Gordon. So I ask for this format or perhaps for The Infinity Podcast: is "Gordon's alive" the best line read in cinema history?
Patrick (H) Willems
The word existed before the term "gonzo journalism" was coined! It just means outrageous/crazy/extreme, which is how I'm using it here. If anything I'm just trying to bring back the usage of the word as an adjective outside of its association with Thompson's work.
Question: I've always heard Gonzo filmmaking and writing referred to as inserting yourself into the story, along with often being wild and exaggerated. Werner Herzog for film and Hunter S. Thompson for lit are the classic examples here... Did I miss it, but how does Pat reconcile the term with his expansion of it to mean high concept inventive world-building? In my mind, it previously linked up with auteurist theory. Not trying to start shit (as I love the study/conversation of film - I live for it!), I think this is a genuinely interesting expansion of the term/definition, so could be cool to explore. Also I hope Matt's ok!
Nick Vance
We were talking about Fury Road in the middle of the video and cheered when you finally brought it up! Also curious where the Guardians of the Galaxy movies rate here. They’re pretty dang weird movies about raccoon people lots of other aliens. Kinda all the things you said safe movies avoided...
Pete Ashton
Loved this, but two things came to mind. I can't find the reference but I'm sure the octopus in Aquaman was included because the director saw the Doof Warrior in Fury Road and was "well, I guess anything goes now!" Always find it weird when people talk about Gonzo but don't mean Hunter S Thompson's style of journalism.
It's videos like this that make me excited about film again. The enthusiasm is so infectious.
David Daut
Curious where you would rank Gore Verbinski’s Pirates movies on this scale. Obviously they’re closer to Aquaman than Jupiter Ascending in terms of being big, successful franchise films, but there’s still a sense that Verbinski and co. ran off with $500 million of Disney’s money and made some of the weirdest goddamn movies ever while no one was looking.
Jake Parker
You are the bright shining light of my 2020 Patrick.
