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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 12, 2020 15:39:42 GMT -8
Hey snipe! Pretty good! Thanks. Managing a job, school, and a relationship is hard work...seemingly more so for a rather low-energy person like myself, but things have reached a certain stability where I feel I have the time to engage in hobbies again (in truth, actually quite a bit earlier, but i was obsessed with poker as a hobby instead xD) Glad to hear it! What's your line of work? And am I right in thinking you're majoring in psychology? Not sure I approve of the gambling but that may just be because I have no idea how to play any card games - if I did and could indeed capitalise on that, I dare say I'd quickly abandon my misgivings. Which is not to say I haven't enjoyed some films I've seen in the interim. I also watched 'Your Name' which I thought was beautiful but not quite as effective for me as 'Weathering with You' which I actually liked quite a bit (though it has some obvious issues). I've always liked Makoto Shinkai whilst acknowledging he's very much a maker of Fabergé eggs - there's no faulting his visual sensibility and his animation is downright silky, but I invariably get the impression that he regularly mistakes the meeting of a gawky, nebbish guy and a cute, headstrong girl for profundity. He seems like the sort of bloke who'd break down in tears at a calendar of sunsets. He nevertheless continues to occupy a deserved place (towards the back) in my list of favourite directors. I thought you'd already seen 2049 around the theatrical release (and rightly approved its impressiveness)? Oh, and because I can never resist a minor dick move with people I haven't spoken to for s while, I just thought I'd mention that Fury Road is on TV right now - only I happen to be watching a Basil Dearden film on another channel.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Feb 12, 2020 17:50:32 GMT -8
Hi there!! Good to see you again, how's things? Hey snipe! Pretty good! Thanks. Managing a job, school, and a relationship is hard work...seemingly more so for a rather low-energy person like myself, but things have reached a certain stability where I feel I have the time to engage in hobbies again (in truth, actually quite a bit earlier, but i was obsessed with poker as a hobby instead xD) I saw Rosemary's Baby for the first time, and thought it was phenomenal. Hahaha. I take it you like the film then (actually thinking about i do seem to recall it being rather high in your top 100 films). Yes I thought it was so geniusly done, I actually quite like a line from Ebert's review regarding the tension: "by the time the movie's halfway over we're pretty sure what's going on in that apartment next door. When the conclusion comes, it works not because it is a surprise but because it is horrifyingly inevitable." Interestingly, most of the surprise factor is really built into that last scene (what happens now?). It was the movie that kind of broke me back into seeking out films. It's been more of a 'watch whatevers new and on' in my free time with my roommates, Rosemary's Baby just happened to be very accessible. It was so refreshing to feel excited and with joy at the end of a movie rather than the feeling of 'ok' that most movies have seemed to left me of late. I felt this way again with American Beauty recently. Which is not to say I haven't enjoyed some films I've seen in the interim. I also watched 'Your Name' which I thought was beautiful but not quite as effective for me as 'Weathering with You' which I actually liked quite a bit (though it has some obvious issues). Also just as an update for general impressions of films I can recall: quite awhile ago I watched Cronenberg's 'Dead Ringers' (very good), Villeneuve's 'Enemies' (meh to alright), Frozen (quite bad), Phantom Thread (quite good), Blade Runner 2049 (good), Marriage Story (very good) and Uncut Gems (good). ...oh and all the new Star Wars films, which were varying degrees of bad. Heh. Rosemary's Baby pretty much singlehandedly created a new generation of Christian fundamentalists and mass hysteria around the Occult/Satanic arts. Which is basically the highest compliment a horror film can receive.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 12, 2020 20:05:06 GMT -8
Glad to hear it! What's your line of work? And am I right in thinking you're majoring in psychology? Not sure I approve of the gambling but that may just be because I have no idea how to play any card games - if I did and could indeed capitalise on that, I dare say I'd quickly abandon my misgivings. I'm acutally a Computer Information Systems Major. I'm also taking individual certification courses online in Cloud Computing. I think i had (and still do of course) a preliminary interest in Psychology, but y'know, between two things I love I'm gonna pick the one that makes money. Poker's great! It's a lot of strategy and theory which made it a fun learning experience for the better half of a year. I quickly climbed up the microstakes (basically .05 to .50 hands) and then once i was doing well enough (not great by any means though) i got instaneously bored. Like obsessed the day before then not at all. Pretty much how it goes usually *shrug LOL. Nearly spit out my drink. I'd have to agree though. Oh probably. I may have mistaken when i first saw it. What's funny is I had to really think hard about what you were talking about haha. Wasn't there another film that you refused to see as well?
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 13, 2020 9:34:58 GMT -8
Nolan himself is a magician, and the irony of him selecting a film surrounding magicians and deceptions is not lost on me. he dazzles and engages, fools you, fools you again, on and on it goes until the 'dramatic shocking finish' that leaves you in astonishment.
Like a magic act though, behind all the elaborate plot machinations, the tricks and the deception that made Nolan (and other fellow magicians) so famous reveals the inherent sin that embeds itself in all his works.
If the best films (or the best art for that matter) are those that illuminate truths, express honesty, provoke thought, or even elicit change, Nolan falls far short. Under all the deception and trickery is simply a barren illusion. This may fool for a time, but once you know the trick, the magic is revealed as only a cold deception.
If there a better analogy in my mind for the experience of Nolan's filmography, I haven't found it. His films are in one moment exhilarating and magical, but with wisdom revealed to be hollow and empty.
This isn't to say The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, and Memento are bad films; it's quite the contrary. The disappointment lies in that these are rather clever, elegant, well-made films that will always elude greatness by virtue of their design. It's therefore a great shame that Nolan concerns himself with fooling the audience below him rather than attempting to enlighten and lift them up with him. Hiya (waves) So the funny thing is, I would have agreed with you a couple years ago. And I still agree with you re: Memento, a triumph of form that I think remains popular largely because the concept is neat and the film is very tidy. It's a film to be "gotten" rather than enjoyed, I think. But I think Nolan's filmography is interesting because I think he mastered plot early on, and has slowly figured out how to have a thematic and emotional core animating that tidy plot. I think Inception and Interstellar, in particular, are really underrated in this regard. Underrated because Nolan's ability to make these films' conceits really clear despite their screwiness is actually very impressive in a way I think people take for granted (how many movies fuck up time travel?), but also underrated because the showy plot elements aren't the parts of these films that stick with me so much as the emotional through-lines. I don't remember all the plot machinations in Interstellar - but I do remember how they enabled that scene where whatshisface watches his son age twenty years in two minutes, for instance. (I haven't seen Dunkirk and can't figure out if his filmography is a straight line from "hollow puzzlebox" to "emotionally and visually vivid puzzlebox.")
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 13, 2020 11:15:44 GMT -8
Poker's great! It's a lot of strategy and theory which made it a fun learning experience for the better half of a year. I quickly climbed up the microstakes (basically .05 to .50 hands) and then once i was doing well enough (not great by any means though) i got instaneously bored. Like obsessed the day before then not at all. Pretty much how it goes usually *shrug I've done that with a number of things in my life - people wouldn't believe it now but as a kid I was obsessed with video games, and then one day I just seemed to pretty much abandon them altogether. I reckon I played maybe eight hours' worth of VGs through the whole of the 2010s, and most of that was just showing willing at my brother's house at Christmas. What's funny is I had to really think hard about what you were talking about haha. Wasn't there another film that you refused to see as well? I wouldn't say "refused", if only because I'm very rarely strongarmed into anything; "declined" would be closer to the truth. What you're probably thinking of is The Sopranos, but we probably don't need to go over all that again.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 13, 2020 19:58:51 GMT -8
Hiya (waves) So the funny thing is, I would have agreed with you a couple years ago. And I still agree with you re: Memento, a triumph of form that I think remains popular largely because the concept is neat and the film is very tidy. It's a film to be "gotten" rather than enjoyed, I think. But I think Nolan's filmography is interesting because I think he mastered plot early on, and has slowly figured out how to have a thematic and emotional core animating that tidy plot. I think Inception and Interstellar, in particular, are really underrated in this regard. Underrated because Nolan's ability to make these films' conceits really clear despite their screwiness is actually very impressive in a way I think people take for granted (how many movies fuck up time travel?), but also underrated because the showy plot elements aren't the parts of these films that stick with me so much as the emotional through-lines. I don't remember all the plot machinations in Interstellar - but I do remember how they enabled that scene where whatshisface watches his son age twenty years in two minutes, for instance. (I haven't seen Dunkirk and can't figure out if his filmography is a straight line from "hollow puzzlebox" to "emotionally and visually vivid puzzlebox.") Hey there! You may be on to something. To be fair that review is in the context of watching his filmography in fuck-all order. I'd have to agree that Interstellar, and to a lesser extent Inception, are indeed more emotionally and thematically daring. Although if I recall correctly (and I very well might not be) the latter still suffered from the same issue for me (I don't remember the emotional through-line of that film to save my life). I believe Interstellar presented some of that issue for me, but I think I had other unrelated problems with that film in addition to the relative exhaustion at Nolan's puzzle formula. It would probably be best to rewatch those films in order to get a better understanding of how I feel about them exactly with regards to their emotional output, but IIRC, even when Nolan manages some emotional resonance (I do recall feeling something during Interstellar), I felt that those attempts too were rather fleeting and superficial. It's a tad difficult to quantify or even analogize varying degrees of 'emotional complexity' or 'emotional depth' or whatever, but if I were to try i'd say Marriage Story is sad because it has a wealth of backstory, built character complexity, and an honest-to-god emotional driving force that strikes you in your gut because of its relevance to the reality of relationships, and the end of Interstellar is like how you cried when you were 11 because your girlfriend didn't want to go the ice cream bar with you and preferred to chat with her girl-friend by the pool instead. In this sense, even Nolan's...uh...emotionalizing (oh wow that's a word - source: Google), seems to me more trick than treat. Except for The Dark Knight...that's why I like The Dark Knight...or maybe it's because the trappings of a comic book superhero movie is perfectly commensurate with being 'superficially emotional'...either way...i just want to say I really like The Dark Knight. Dunkirk is really neat because it really doesn't have any Nolan trappings (and is quite good), I wouldn't have been able to tell if it weren't for the title credits.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 13, 2020 20:03:17 GMT -8
What's funny is I had to really think hard about what you were talking about haha. Wasn't there another film that you refused to see as well? I wouldn't say "refused", if only because I'm very rarely strongarmed into anything; "declined" would be closer to the truth. What you're probably thinking of is The Sopranos, but we probably don't need to go over all that again. Oh right... Yeah you should still watch both The Sopranos and Fury Road Although to be honest the former is quite a time commitment and if you're more interested in film or if the topic doesn't interest you, that's fine. Admittedly I think I mostly just found the combat fun.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 15, 2020 13:44:53 GMT -8
Got around to watching Starship Troopers today
Starship Troopers is an odd film, in that film snobs and others who wish to be permitted in the group cult endlessly praise its 'clever genius amazing' subtle satire that just slips under the general public's nose...that's how subtle and clever it is. What's remarkable though is just how average the film is. Completely disregarding the question of its satirical quality, the film is cheap-looking, poorly plotted, and absolutely risk-free. Now this isn't to say there isn't a lot of charm in the wooden, cliched, campy acting and the absurd satirical news segments. There's certainly an admirable and absurd facet to the juxtaposition of Disney-like interpersonal beats mixed with brutal gore, action, and T&A. This would seem to imply that perhaps it's true that Verhoven is smartly aware of the action movie tropes he employs here. Unfortunately, self-awareness does not a good film make. Bad action scenes of boring CGI battles are still boring regardless of how clever your philosophy is for employing them, and in this film it takes up much of the running time.
Even supposing the satire is effective, the scene-to-scene beats still only vary from mostly mindless boredom to the occasional enjoyable soap-opera shlock and absurdity...but the satire isn't effective. If Starship Troopers is indeed subtle satire on absurd militarism (and I do expect it is), then it's not very good satire by any means. There are no dramatic ironies or emotional heart to witness behind the satire; the movie is played pretty straight, and there are no clear winks at the audience save the commercial segments, which is unsurprisingly when the film is at its satirical best. It's a mistake to confuse subtlety with efficacy. Preaching can ruin a message, but refusing to direct it in anyway is weak and hollow.
If The King's Speech is prototypical Oscar Bait, then Starship Troopers is an elegant example of snob-bait; it contains just enough cleverness and just the right reputation for its folowers to stretch and overanalyze this work into a misunderstood masterpiece. If you don't agree, you just don't get it.
It is for these reasons that I prefer to view it simply as what it presents on face-value: a mediocre and occasionally engaging shlock action-movie.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Feb 15, 2020 17:55:42 GMT -8
What the hell?? I also am lukewarm on Starship Troopers for the exact same reasons you are. It's the origin of this saying I made up which I am now going to call "Verhoeven's Maxim" - Making a satire of shallow action flicks doesn't justify making a shallow action flick. Or something like that.
Anyway, this perhaps relates to what I wanted to say in this thread, albeit a year after the rest of you Western cinemagoers. I watched Us last month, and loved it, and then proceeded to be very confused when every single person I knew had come to the consensus that it was a worse movie than Get Out. This is insane to me. Us is clearly the superior flick - I think it's less explicit in its themes than Get Out, and you have to strain harder to write a thinkpiece about how Red represents the proletariat or whatever than you had to with Get Out's not-even-subtext about American race relations. But the imagery in Us is so much more vivid, and Lupita Nyongo's performance is so fantastic, and if anything the comedy/drama/horror balance in Us is so much better1, that it's just no contest for me. I guess there are some ""plotholes,"" to which I will merely say "it's an allegory, stupid!" This is cinema, not CinemaSins.
1. Your mileage will vary on this one! Much as I loved Lil Rel Howery in Get Out it's kind of hard to deny that he felt like an interloper in Daniel Kaaluya's story, and that his commentary on what was happening was a bit distractingly cute/meta.
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Post by Jeremy on Feb 15, 2020 18:17:53 GMT -8
I think I've recounted this story before, but Starship Troopers was the first R-rated film I ever watched, back when I was too young to understand satire (or process the true gross-out levels of its imagery). There's a part of me that wants to revisit it for nostalgia's sake, but the more sensible part of me knows to avoid it at all costs.
On Get Out vs. Us, I'd say the former benefits from a stronger story and more pointed themes, two of my most important factors when it comes to qualitative judging. I do wonder, though, if Us had been Peele's first film, would it have generated the same reaction as Get Out did? Critics do seem to love both movies, and much of the buzz around Get Out's debut centered on the idea that one-half of the East/West College Bowl draft had become the new Wes Craven. Us would have made for a remarkable debut film as well.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 15, 2020 19:28:22 GMT -8
What the hell?? I also am lukewarm on Starship Troopers for the exact same reasons you are. It's the origin of this saying I made up which I am now going to call "Verhoeven's Maxim" - Making a satire of shallow action flicks doesn't justify making a shallow action flick. Or something like that. Anyway, this perhaps relates to what I wanted to say in this thread, albeit a year after the rest of you Western cinemagoers. I watched Us last month, and loved it, and then proceeded to be very confused when every single person I knew had come to the consensus that it was a worse movie than Get Out. This is insane to me. Us is clearly the superior flick - I think it's less explicit in its themes than Get Out, and you have to strain harder to write a thinkpiece about how Red represents the proletariat or whatever than you had to with Get Out's not-even-subtext about American race relations. But the imagery in Us is so much more vivid, and Lupita Nyongo's performance is so fantastic, and if anything the comedy/drama/horror balance in Us is so much better 1, that it's just no contest for me. I guess there are some ""plotholes,"" to which I will merely say "it's an allegory, stupid!" This is cinema, not CinemaSins. 1. Your mileage will vary on this one! Much as I loved Lil Rel Howery in Get Out it's kind of hard to deny that he felt like an interloper in Daniel Kaaluya's story, and that his commentary on what was happening was a bit distractingly cute/meta.Glad I'm not alone in my thoughts on the film. As someone who generally appreciates satire (and can certainly imagine LOVING it with a shlocky wrapper - action shlock is fun!), I was incredibly let-down. And hey I liked Us! I thought it was really quite thrilling and suspenseful from start to finish. In fact I'd even go as far as to say I may have even enjoyed it more than Get Out. That being said, I find Get Out to be the better made film. I had some gripes and issues with Us (i can't remember...memory bad) but very few with G.O. (honestly my biggest gripe I can think of is how close they came to choosing a very poor alternative ending).
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 15, 2020 19:30:57 GMT -8
Deep Red (1975)
I feel too taken aback to properly review this film...its a very new style for me so I'm still processing (my first real Giallo).
I think this sums it up nicely though:
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Post by guttersnipe on Feb 16, 2020 16:34:10 GMT -8
Starship Troopers is an elegant example of snob-bait; it contains just enough cleverness and just the right reputation for its folowers to stretch and overanalyze this work into a misunderstood masterpiece. If you don't agree, you just don't get it. This isn't new territory for Verhoeven, mind; RoboCop and Total Recall are very much in line with his particular brand of sledgehammer satire. Though I believe Showgirls was my first real experience of hipsterism, whereupon I just furrowed my brow at anyone who found it anything above execrable, and pondered if there were cool points available from some notional gallery for pretending to appreciate junk. Deep Red (1975) I feel too taken aback to properly review this film...its a very new style for me so I'm still processing (my first real Giallo). I think this sums it up nicely though: Hooray! Giallo is the business and Profondo Rosso is one of the best examples of its kind.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 16, 2020 17:29:26 GMT -8
This isn't new territory for Verhoeven, mind; RoboCop and Total Recall are very much in line with his particular brand of sledgehammer satire. Though I believe Showgirls was my first real experience of hipsterism, whereupon I just furrowed my brow at anyone who found it anything above execrable, and pondered if there were cool points available from some notional gallery for pretending to appreciate junk. Robocop and Total Recall are geniunely fun films from top to bottom for me, I definitely wouldn't say either are 'great satire' but Total Recall in particular is just a fantastic time. Starship Troopers lacked the fun of it all. Yeah it was quite awesome. It was surprising how it worked just as a solid mystery thriller not even taking into account the stylistic elements. I definitely dig all of it though, the stylish camera movements, the odd musical choices, it's all very effective. I was momentarily displeased with the alcoholic friend being the murderer. Til I found out it was a red herring.
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Post by unkinhead on Feb 19, 2020 9:22:25 GMT -8
Saw Little Women last night. I thought it was excellent. In fact probably my favorite film I've seen in 2019 (so far).
I had two annoyances throughout the entire screentime and they're both rather small:
1) The fake 'happy ending' scene didn't work for me. Not sure why. It's not because I wasn't invested, the scene just before of Jo begging her to fight was very effective for me. I think its probably because that entire segment is so long that as soon as it cuts back you instantly know that its bleak, but the dramatic moment of her coming down the stairs to see it is several seconds later.
2. The guy going "What!?" when the little girls bring in the Little Women book and want to know more was so cartoony. A shocked face with no dialogue would have been much better. It really comes across as "Wha...what?! You're interested in...a book about WoMeN?! Propestrous!!!".
Other than that, the film achieves a level of sincerity and warmth without a hint of pretension or pandering. It handles the time period beautifully and never seems to extend itself to political posturing or anything of the sort. The characterization is uniformly excellent throughout and the time skipping keeps you questioning just enough to add a level of engagement and mystery.
It's refreshing to see such a deeply compassionate film in the 21st century that isn't laden with irony, that doesn't demonize, and genuinely seeks joy, achievement, and love as central themes.
As an extension to this, I found it fascinating that Little Women has ZERO villians, and it's all the better for it.
...it was also really hard not to bust out laughing at the reveal of Saul Goodman as the father.
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