A few films recently watched.

[lumpenprol]

The Reflecting Skin - ?/10 - Not really sure, at all, what to make of this. It was like Days of Heaven getting chewed on my David Cronenberg then spit down David Lynch esophagus thus digesting into this celluloid nightmare. It's beautifully shot and edited but I felt rather cold towards its characters and fractionated story. I got and understood the loss of innocence and picked up on the Freudian violence on children spittle but fuck me was it over acted with a few too many mouthfuls of pretentiousness. maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind for this film.

 

haha, I've been thinking about watching this movie since it came out - the box cover always intrigues me - but I've held off as I got the whiff that it's exactly as you say. Funny thing is your review leaves me with exactly the same ambivalence as before I read it :-\

[kokoon]

lol, i know. it's just... imagine being yourself in that old man's shoes. you are left alone. the unrealized plans you had together - pain. the loneliness - pain. everything around you constantly reminding you of her - pain. it really doesn't change anything if you tell me it's cheap, it still hurts me, if i imagine myself in his position.

 

and the real pain, of course, is in knowing that some day i will be in his position.

 

kokoon, you mustn't forget that it was YOU that made UP complete at the emotional point. You needed it and it needed you. That doesn't make it worth everyone's emotions.

but of course. i'm not arguing qualities of the movie, i just shared my experience with it. however, i'm not sure i understand what you mean about its worthiness.

[gaarg]

lol, i know. it's just... imagine being yourself in that old man's shoes. you are left alone. the unrealized plans you had together - pain. the loneliness - pain. everything around you constantly reminding you of her - pain. it really doesn't change anything if you tell me it's cheap, it still hurts me, if i imagine myself in his position.

 

and the real pain, of course, is in knowing that some day i will be in his position.

 

kokoon, you mustn't forget that it was YOU that made UP complete at the emotional point. You needed it and it needed you. That doesn't make it worth everyone's emotions.

but of course. i'm not arguing qualities of the movie, i just shared my experience with it. however, i'm not sure i understand what you mean about its worthiness.

 

I wanted to point out, that sometimes the movie (or cartoon) is filled with emotion in itself, and sometimes it's hollow in a way, that it needs the observers emotions to make itself complete. I'm sorry, because I don't know at this point how to explain it better, so I'll meditate in this further.

[kokoon]

I wanted to point out, that sometimes the movie (or cartoon) is filled with emotion in itself, and sometimes it's hollow in a way, that it needs the observers emotions to make itself complete. I'm sorry, because I don't know at this point how to explain it better, so I'll meditate in this further.

the obvious question - aren't all the movies empty of emotion? don't they all need the viewer to "complete" them?

[gaarg]

I feel that some movies give you their emotions, while some take your to make them complete. This might turn out as a arty point of view, but forcing people to feel sad or happy or hatred seems kinda fashistic to me. The cool thing for me is, when protagonists act it out and its you who decides what and how to feel. Most hollywood films seem straigtforward at this point: its obvious when you're supposed to laugh, when to cry jadda jadda, but life isnt all like that. Real situations are complex and have deeper layers of understanding within them and taking that away from the audience is like treating them(us) as kindergarteners.

[kokoon]

yeah, but movie isn't real situation. it's like, scripted and all.

[gaarg]

But if it banalises reality it goes the wrong way. Even if it's meant to be for children.

[Guest Mirezzi]

500 Days of Summer - Defying all odds, this actually succeeded in being worse than Adventureland. Why? Because the only actress more annoying than Kristen Stewart is probably Zooey Doucheannel. The only idea that had the potential to be interesting was the critique of pop-culture leveled by the protagonist about 3/4 through the film. In his semi-flaccid rant, he goes on about how people don't know how to communicate anymore. Rather, they depend on the banal words scrawled in Hallmark greeting cards or the words to their favorite pop songs. In other words, he was criticizing the very thing 500 Days of Summer had been setting up for 90 minutes. There was something a bit perplexing about the movie. I got the impression that somebody behind it really wanted to play the cynical card but either pussed out or was told to back down by producers or something. In the end, it's a routine rom-com, heartbreak movie, filled with all the precious and oh-so-cute moments that would ostensibly make Cameron Crowe and John Hughes proud. Final word: make this bitch Zooey go away...I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but I don't think he's a very good actor. The actual ending, which I won't spoil for all you 14 year-olds, was unironically nauseating.

 

Public Enemies - Looked great, sounded great, was almost convincing until I stopped to realize, "This is really.......fucking..............boring." If Mann set out to subvert the romantic mythology behind Baby Face, Pretty Boy, and Dillinger, he did a magnificent job. His use of HD video cameras more or less reinforces such an idea. However, for the purpose of depicting the bland dullards lurking behind the glamorized, Hollywood-created larger than life criminals of the Public Enemy era, I much prefer what Andrew Dominick and Brad Pitt did with The Assassination of Jesse James.

 

Star Trek - I liked this quite a bit, lens fares notwithstanding. This was the Star Trek for people who hate Star Trek, which is probably 90% of the reason I liked it. Instead of the joyless, intellectual posturing and post-human utopian horseshit of the original show, Abrams gave us a Star Trek for Dummies. Being dumb is sometimes pretty awesome.

 

Up in the Air - I really enjoyed Thank You for Smoking. No, I didn't bother thinking too deeply about the suggestions it makes, politically, which are straight out of the Young Libertarian's Handbook, but I still thought it was a tight production and had all the things that make movies good (if on auto-pilot): acting, writing, and charming characters. Juno, as most people agree, was what you'd get if Karl Rove hired a stripper to write an anti-abortion movie. It also lacked: acting, writing, and charming characters. Up in the Air was a return to form for Reitman. He still managed to push a semi-conservative agenda but it was one that resonated with a lot of people, worldwide, following the mega-million layoffs of the last five years. This movie's "turn" really divided a lot of people, but I'm in the camp that found it perfect. The story starts with the sort of rapid-cutting and overly conscious camera work we all associate with Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, et al. We see Clooney being Clooney, charisma dripping out of his ass as he walks through airports from job to job. It even features the trademark "This is my life" voiceover. All the panache fades by the middle of the story and we're caught in a character study. Rather than continue being puppets for writers to practice their favorite one-liners, the characters become real, they become vulnerable, and as a result, they become interesting. I was sold. Completely. What I am most impressed by with Up in the Air is Reitman's ability to direct actors and his patience for letting them do so. All the annoying stylization of the first 30 minutes of the movie gives way to something austere and very human. This is probably my vote for best Hollywood film of 2009.

 

Inglourious Basterds - As with Up in the Air, the first 20 minutes or so are totally annoying, mostly Brad Pitt's useless inability to act being displayed proudly. How the fuck did people like that introductory scene with him addressing the Chosen Jews With Guns? It was straight out of a shitty student film. So for probably 30 minutes, this movie ate shit and I hated it. The Bear Jew was more useless than Brad Pitt and I hope one day Tarantino wakes the fuck up and realizes that by casting Pitt and Roth, he basically knocked his movie down about five or ten pegs. NONETHELESS, it turns into something either very brilliant or very retarded. There can be only one reading and, shockingly to most of you I'm sure, I thought it was very brilliant. No, it wasn't as good as Jackie Brown, but it was better than any other movie Tarantino has made.

 

Wait, oops, I fucked that up. The actual beginning was great and had me captivated entirely (the Jew Hunter interrogating the Frenchman).

 

Anyway, there were a few things that stood out to me and made the whole project brilliant. I loved the Reservoir Dogs shootout scene being revisited in the underground bar with the Nazis. Everybody has a gun turned on them and just about everybody is gonna get shot/killed. The setup for that entire scene was really clever and fun. Of course, anything with Hans Landa was immediately awesome (Christopher Waltz deserves recognition and awards for this performance).

 

Okay, I'm tired of typing. The silver screen, both metaphorically and literally, getting the opportunity to kill Hitler and a barrel of Nazis in a movie theater, is pretty fucking aggressive but I think the gamble Tarantino made ultimately paid off. Next time he makes a film of this nature, I hope he forgoes the gimmicks and doesn't hire somebody like Brad Pitt and doesn't bother with the torture porn because that shit almost ruined the movie for me. I don't have a weak stomach. Quite the opposite. I can't stand it when a filmmaker thinks he's cool because he puts a silly torture scene in his movie. That shit was boring 10 years ago, so it's just about unacceptable in 2009.

 

P.S. - Vera Farmiga.

 

*ejacuexplodes*

[Guest zaphod]

was there really any torture porn in inglorious basterds though? a guy getting his head rammed in with a baseball bat hardly counts.

 

i would have preferred the movie without any of the basterds, just focusing on the main jewish girl and her lover and hans landa. i think it would have been much, much stronger.

[Guest Mirezzi]

was there really any torture porn in inglorious basterds though? a guy getting his head rammed in with a baseball bat hardly counts.

 

i would have preferred the movie without any of the basterds, just focusing on the main jewish girl and her lover and hans landa. i think it would have been much, much stronger.

Eh, it doesn't matter if it was specifically torture porn. That scene seemed to play with the fact that it was Eli Roth doing the bat swinging. I think I'm just bored by that kinda violence. "OOHHHHH, DAMMMMMN, THAT NIGGA JUST CRACKED HIS HEAD OPEN, DAMMMMMMNNN..."

 

As for the rest, you're right of course, except we'd lose the scene in the bar, which was brilliant IMO.

 

Nice Total Recall screen cap avatar, Zaphod. lol

[Guest zaphod]

meh, the bar scene was great as an exercise in building tension (tarantino may be the best director working today with regards to this) but holy shit was the dialogue boring and self indulgent. that scene seemed to last forever and i was just waiting for everyone to die.

 

i came away from that film thinking that tarantino should direct a horror film, but i'm not sure he can build atmosphere effectively. i think it would just end up being like deathproof, which was a failure.

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

encounters at the end of the world 7/10

didnt know what to expect from this one. had seen the deranged penguin scene on yotube. i really liked any part scored by the screechy violin/cello/? but hated the parts scored by the choir. the seal noises were incredible. fuck whalesong this is the greatest nature sound. the movie was about the people who lived there really but i didnt care about the much. i kinda felt I could go to my local walgreens and meet people about as interesting. 7/10 for the score/seal sounds and general nature shots.

[kokoon]

500 Days of Summer - Defying all odds, this actually succeeded in being worse than Adventureland. Why? Because the only actress more annoying than Kristen Stewart is probably Zooey Doucheannel. The only idea that had the potential to be interesting was the critique of pop-culture leveled by the protagonist about 3/4 through the film. In his semi-flaccid rant, he goes on about how people don't know how to communicate anymore. Rather, they depend on the banal words scrawled in Hallmark greeting cards or the words to their favorite pop songs. In other words, he was criticizing the very thing 500 Days of Summer had been setting up for 90 minutes. There was something a bit perplexing about the movie. I got the impression that somebody behind it really wanted to play the cynical card but either pussed out or was told to back down by producers or something. In the end, it's a routine rom-com, heartbreak movie, filled with all the precious and oh-so-cute moments that would ostensibly make Cameron Crowe and John Hughes proud. Final word: make this bitch Zooey go away...I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but I don't think he's a very good actor. The actual ending, which I won't spoil for all you 14 year-olds, was unironically nauseating.

thank you. i cannot express how i loathed this film, more and more every minute. i don't want to argue with anybody that liked it, i'm just glad i'm not the only one.

 

encounters at the end of the world 7/10

didnt know what to expect from this one. had seen the deranged penguin scene on yotube. i really liked any part scored by the screechy violin/cello/? but hated the parts scored by the choir. the seal noises were incredible. fuck whalesong this is the greatest nature sound. the movie was about the people who lived there really but i didnt care about the much. i kinda felt I could go to my local walgreens and meet people about as interesting. 7/10 for the score/seal sounds and general nature shots.

i just saw this a few days ago and i thought it was simply brilliant. never saw a herzog documentary before though - what should i see next? is the white diamond any good?

[goffer]

encounters at the end of the world 7/10

didnt know what to expect from this one. had seen the deranged penguin scene on yotube. i really liked any part scored by the screechy violin/cello/? but hated the parts scored by the choir. the seal noises were incredible. fuck whalesong this is the greatest nature sound. the movie was about the people who lived there really but i didnt care about the much. i kinda felt I could go to my local walgreens and meet people about as interesting. 7/10 for the score/seal sounds and general nature shots.

i just saw this a few days ago and i thought it was simply brilliant. never saw a herzog documentary before though - what should i see next? is the white diamond any good?

There was this Docu about the making of the Herzog film Fitzcarraldo, though not directed by Herzog, still pretty interesting.

 

Burden of Dreams

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

only seen grizzly man and encounters myself. can recommend grizzly man but i'm sure hes done better. his narration is great.

 

every sentence starts "to me it looked like..."

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

500 Days of Summer - Defying all odds, this actually succeeded in being worse than Adventureland. Why? Because the only actress more annoying than Kristen Stewart is probably Zooey Doucheannel. The only idea that had the potential to be interesting was the critique of pop-culture leveled by the protagonist about 3/4 through the film. In his semi-flaccid rant, he goes on about how people don't know how to communicate anymore. Rather, they depend on the banal words scrawled in Hallmark greeting cards or the words to their favorite pop songs. In other words, he was criticizing the very thing 500 Days of Summer had been setting up for 90 minutes. There was something a bit perplexing about the movie. I got the impression that somebody behind it really wanted to play the cynical card but either pussed out or was told to back down by producers or something. In the end, it's a routine rom-com, heartbreak movie, filled with all the precious and oh-so-cute moments that would ostensibly make Cameron Crowe and John Hughes proud. Final word: make this bitch Zooey go away...I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but I don't think he's a very good actor. The actual ending, which I won't spoil for all you 14 year-olds, was unironically nauseating.

thank you. i cannot express how i loathed this film, more and more every minute. i don't want to argue with anybody that liked it, i'm just glad i'm not the only one.

 

 

it was ok for me. i like gorden levvit in anything. my wife hated the part in the lift where she recognises the smiths and he cums in his pants. as if no girl has ever liked the smiths before. i wish they had chosen like autechre or something which is rarer but still widely girlknown. the fucking smiths. dumbass movie writers. why not jut use the fuking beatles

[Guest Z_B_Z]

he was amazing in "mysterious skin". a really brave performance.

[awepittance]

The Reflecting Skin - ?/10 - Not really sure, at all, what to make of this. It was like Days of Heaven getting chewed on my David Cronenberg then spit down David Lynch esophagus thus digesting into this celluloid nightmare. It's beautifully shot and edited but I felt rather cold towards its characters and fractionated story. I got and understood the loss of innocence and picked up on the Freudian violence on children spittle but fuck me was it over acted with a few too many mouthfuls of pretentiousness. maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind for this film.

 

haha, I've been thinking about watching this movie since it came out - the box cover always intrigues me - but I've held off as I got the whiff that it's exactly as you say. Funny thing is your review leaves me with exactly the same ambivalence as before I read it :-\

 

I love Reflecting Skin , and i agree with the Roger Ebert review on the back of the VHS box. It's like a Lynch movie but almost done better with more coherency and a clearer more clever narrative. as with all movies with a kid as the lead, the acting detracts somewhat from how good of a movie it is. One of Vigo Mortinson's finest roles. the only DVD available of this movie is a bootleg and is not very good quality, the VHS copy i have is actually higher quality than the DVD i've seen. This director mostly does plays but he did one more film to my knowlege called the Passion of Darkly Noon about a crazy christian guy who slowly covers himself up with barbed wire in order to suppress his horniness for a hot as fuck southern Ashley Judd

8/10

 

Coil sampled the part from the film where the woman says 'are you exploding frogs again' on the song 'oomlagus garfungililoops' from stolen and contaminated songs

[awepittance]

anybody else tired of movie critics saying a type of movie is "_______ porn"

 

i just read a review for 'it's complicated' that referred to it as 'middle aged women fantasy porn'

and Precious which i'm sure many of you have seen it referred to as 'poverty porn'

and of course the most famous of which is the term used to describe Hostel and Saw movies 'torture porn'

 

when will this over use of the word porn stop?

[gaarg]

anybody else tired of movie critics saying a type of movie is "_______ porn"

 

i just read a review for 'it's complicated' that referred to it as 'middle aged women fantasy porn'

and Precious which i'm sure many of you have seen it referred to as 'poverty porn'

and of course the most famous of which is the term used to describe Hostel and Saw movies 'torture porn'

 

when will this over use of the word porn stop?

 

They probably use "porn" to avoid the term "vulgar"

[Guest futuregirlfriend]

encounters at the end of the world 7/10didnt know what to expect from this one. had seen the deranged penguin scene on yotube. i really liked any part scored by the screechy violin/cello/? but hated the parts scored by the choir. the seal noises were incredible. fuck whalesong this is the greatest nature sound. the movie was about the people who lived there really but i didnt care about the much. i kinda felt I could go to my local walgreens and meet people about as interesting. 7/10 for the score/seal sounds and general nature shots.

i just saw this a few days ago and i thought it was simply brilliant. never saw a herzog documentary before though - what should i see next? is the white diamond any good?

There was this Docu about the making of the Herzog film Fitzcarraldo, though not directed by Herzog, still pretty interesting. Burden of Dreams

 

i've got to get this.

 

and kokoon, do watch the white diamond. there are some interesting stories in there.

[goffer]

The Reflecting Skin - ?/10 - Not really sure, at all, what to make of this. It was like Days of Heaven getting chewed on my David Cronenberg then spit down David Lynch esophagus thus digesting into this celluloid nightmare. It's beautifully shot and edited but I felt rather cold towards its characters and fractionated story. I got and understood the loss of innocence and picked up on the Freudian violence on children spittle but fuck me was it over acted with a few too many mouthfuls of pretentiousness. maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind for this film.

 

haha, I've been thinking about watching this movie since it came out - the box cover always intrigues me - but I've held off as I got the whiff that it's exactly as you say. Funny thing is your review leaves me with exactly the same ambivalence as before I read it :-\

 

I love Reflecting Skin , and i agree with the Roger Ebert review on the back of the VHS box. It's like a Lynch movie but almost done better with more coherency and a clearer more clever narrative. as with all movies with a kid as the lead, the acting detracts somewhat from how good of a movie it is. One of Vigo Mortinson's finest roles. the only DVD available of this movie is a bootleg and is not very good quality, the VHS copy i have is actually higher quality than the DVD i've seen. This director mostly does plays but he did one more film to my knowlege called the Passion of Darkly Noon about a crazy christian guy who slowly covers himself up with barbed wire in order to suppress his horniness for a hot as fuck southern Ashley Judd

8/10

 

Coil sampled the part from the film where the woman says 'are you exploding frogs again' on the song 'oomlagus garfungililoops' from stolen and contaminated songs

I was able to find a 720P rip of it and it looked better then I was expecting. I guess him being a play-write somewhat explains the overzealous acting and characters. Everything just seemed so forced for me and lacking flow... just a large, globby mess of beautiful celluloid.

[awepittance]

i saw it quite a long time ago, probably right after i had only seen one Lynch film Blue Velvet so i was a lot more impressionable back then but i don't remember it seeming that forced. I remember fondly the sheriff character who would tell stories about how many injuries he sustained from wild animal attacks. Ill have to track down the 720p version. Still trying to track down Millers Crossing and Barton fink in HD, i just found Fargo, big lebowski and raising arizona

[awepittance]

anybody else tired of movie critics saying a type of movie is "_______ porn"

 

i just read a review for 'it's complicated' that referred to it as 'middle aged women fantasy porn'

and Precious which i'm sure many of you have seen it referred to as 'poverty porn'

and of course the most famous of which is the term used to describe Hostel and Saw movies 'torture porn'

 

when will this over use of the word porn stop?

 

They probably use "porn" to avoid the term "vulgar"

 

i don't think that's how they are using it though, especially in the context of Precious they are using it to mean that like the movie serves a utilitarian purpose to feel a specific kind of 'release' or cathartic emotional effect.

kind of like how porn mostly serves the function of helping someone achieve orgasm

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

critic porn