A few films recently watched.

[Squee]

I'll wait right here.

[lumpenprol]

i'll do my best for the breast man :)

[Guest Yegg]

yawn. vanity abounds in almost any exposition. doesn't negate the fact that he at least attempted (and succeeded I would argue) to provide a valuable service practically tempered/compromised with focus relevant to the masses. a dry egoless comprehensive treatment would have been straight to dvd and buried. that shit is a dime a dozen.

 

Exposition or expose?

 

Personally, I don't think being a smarmy asshole counts as a public service. The film isn't meant to convince Xtians/Muslims/Jews to go apostate, it just functions as an intellectual reach-around for other smug atheists. Plus, Maher using the exact same ridiculously editorialized strategies that people like televangelists use to ridicule atheists makes him lose all credibility in my book.

[Guest analogue wings]

the girl with 4 nipples

 

[essines]

haven't seen any of those, but i guess this thread is for us to post films we recently watched?

 

can't be arsed to elaborate but:

 

watchmen : bloated mess

chungking express (criterion blu ray) : beautiful

the aviator : really great biopic, my favorite scorsese movie

hostel 2 : lol

 

it gives me a hard on to know you like the aviator.

 

I just watched Big Trouble In Little China and Magnum Force the other day, both good films, Big Trouble being awesomely rediculous. I also watched Gran Torino. I really like this film. Sure the cheesey asides that Eastwoods' character makes every 20 minutes can be a bit much, but really, the whole bad assedness of it is epic. I found the movie to be fun as hell. so fuck you.

 

the adventures of baron munchausen - 8/10

 

uma thurman looks really good here

 

love this movie, never understood why it did so poorly.

[lumpenprol]

the adventures of baron munchausen - 8/10

 

uma thurman looks really good here

 

love this movie, never understood why it did so poorly.

 

yeah, great film. Even that stupid steven chow (sp?) kung fu movie cribbed from it.

 

ok, so last night I chose to revisit My Own Private Idaho (criterion version, ripped and reproduced by some enterprising Chinaman). It was as good as I remember it being when I saw it in theaters, as a young sexually inexperienced and thus somewhat ambiguous teen. Great, great film, flaws and all. Anyone who hasn't seen it or who thinks Van Sant is shit due to later films should check it out. Then this morning I finally got around to watching...

 

DOGVILLE! I owe Lars Von Trier an apology for skipping this in the theater, as when I heard the concept of it taking place on a stage with white lines to indicated houses and props I figured it'd be pretentious. I also figured that after Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark I was tired of his depressing shtick. I was happily proven wrong - it only took a moment to get accustomed to the lack of an environment for the actors, and the lively camera work compensated for what otherwise could have been too stagey/waiting for godot-like.

 

Though it could have been a bit shorter and I'm not sure the voice over added anything, the ending was fantastic - I burst out laughing and it left me with a spring in my step. The whole thing ends up being basically just a big FUCK YOU to America and hypocritical and narrow minded people in general, which is kind of funny to devote a (3 hr?) film to. As an American I loled - 9/10. Probably Trier's best film that I've seen, in the sense that his message and techniques don't seem to be at odds with each other. I found the detached irony in Breaking the Waves to be annoying, for example, but here it works in service to the punchline.

 

 

[takeshi]

My Own Private Idaho is a great film, despite having Keanu Reeves in it. Have you seen Drugstore Cowboy, Lumpy? If you haven't I'd recommend that it. Speaking of Van Sant, what didn't you like about Milk?

Also...

Dude, you promised nipples.

[lumpenprol]

lol, i was making a valiant attempt to get the thread back on track. About the four nipple girl, it sounds better than the reality - the extra nips aren't that different from moles, and have no breast tissue behind them. Her actual breasts are pretty incredible though so I will try to get a snap at some point. I just don't like taking pictures of someone if they aren't into it (ethics of posting on the net aside).

 

Edit; Ah you edited too. I did see Drugstore Cowboy but need to see it again, it's completely faded out of my memory. The extra disc for Idaho also mentioned Mala Noche, would like to see that.

 

In regards to Milk, I'm pretty sure I didn't give it a fair shake, and I would have liked to have made it as far as Josh Brolin's portrayal of Dan White. It just seemed a little to hagiographic and not erotic enough for me - as good as Sean Penn was I didn't feel any eroticism and I guess I'm just not interested in a PC gay movie if it doesn't have something that puts me outside of my comfort zone in some way.

[lumpenprol]

i hope mirezzi and zapod weigh in on dogville. Also, if you haven't seen it and want to, don't read reviews as they may spoil the ending.

[Guest melotronic]

dogville was interesting, if bloated

[takeshi]

i hope mirezzi and zapod weigh in on dogville. Also, if you haven't seen it and want to, don't read reviews as they may spoil the ending.

 

Yeah, I should. I actually have it lying around somewhere and just never feel like I'll be in the mood to watch it. That reminds me that I need to put Mala Noche on my Netflix queue. It just got the Criterion treatment and I've only heard good things about it.

 

the good, the bad, the weird - 6

yama no anata - 7

ashes of time redux - 9

helpless - 6.5

onna no mizuumi - 6

okuribito - 8.5

 

Where are you renting your films from, Philia? Because I haven't been able to find half the movies you've recommended to me.

[awepittance]

so no point in addressing every tom dick and harry religion out there.

 

2 very large religions Buddhism an Hinduism i would not classify as 'tom dick and harry' the fact that Maher stayed away from them shows his obvious intellectual weaknesses. Simply put he had too much angsty knee jerk anti judeo-christianity in him to even wrap his head around non monotheistic religions. and for this i think his movie is head first dive into a 15 year olds atheistic discovery

[awepittance]

doesn't negate the fact that he at least attempted (and succeeded I would argue) to provide a valuable service practically tempered/compromised with focus relevant to the masses

 

relevant to only the masses that practice in monotheistic religions (jews christians and muslims)

the guy pussied out and couldn't handle doing anything else, he took the easy way out.

 

there are many critiques one can give of the very nature of believing in God, unfortunately Maher didn't focus on this generality very much instead going around discrediting figureheads from various organized religions

Actually to be honest i came away from the movie thinking Bill Maher secretly does believe in God because he never once as far as i could tell made an argument against why humans like to believe in god, just specific popular gods.

If the guy had made a 30 second statement in his film to the effect of

'all religion's central thesis is the belief in or faith in a higher power, but in reality this belief in god is the adult equivalent to a child's lullaby to go to sleep. but in this case with an adult sleep means death'

i would have enjoyed the movie significantly more.

[essines]

i watched Big Touble In Little China the other day

 

and I watched Gran Torino again today. I really like that movie.

[Guest Mirezzi]

I'm a big fan of Dogville and Von Trier generally. I think Dancer In the Dark is one of the most flawed masterpieces ever made.

[Guest zaphod]

i've never seen dogville but von trier has got one bizarre looking horror movie coming out:

 

[lumpenprol]

yeah I'm not sure if I just found Dogville funny because I've moved on from Trier's viewpoint, or if he genuinely meant it as something of a pisstake. When I first saw Breaking the Waves years ago I felt gut-punched, it really moved me. With Dancer in the Dark I was less moved, and with Dogville I just burst out laughing at the end. Maybe I'm just a bit more desensitized now, but I can't help but think that was partially his intent - it sorts of seems like a better version of "Natural Born Killers" - experimental cinema posing as social commentary that really just wants to rip off your head and shit down your neck hole. But then I read some reviews on IMDB and everyone seems to take it so seriously so I don't know...I just feel like Von Trier is basically a misanthropic, sadistic, and misogynistic guy who happens to have a peculiar sense of manipulative humor. I didn't find Dogville got under my skin or made me rethink human nature, but it was exhilarating in the sense that it has the form of one of those classic gothic American tales, like "The Lottery" or something by Flannery O' Connor or Faulkner, but then the ending totally breaks form.

[Guest Yegg]

i've never seen dogville but von trier has got one bizarre looking horror movie coming out:

 

 

Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg ftw

 

esp. if they're fucking

[takeshi]

Von Trier is basically a misanthropic, sadistic, and misogynistic guy who happens to have a peculiar sense of manipulative humor

I always had that feeling, too. And after watching this film that belief was affirmed.

[Guest analogue wings]

yeah i get the feeling von trier is a complete prick who i would probably want to punch if i ever met him.

 

unfortunately, like hitchcock before him, he's also the greatest living filmmaker.

 

i hope you all have seen the kingdom. holy shit.

[Guest Yegg]

Von Trier is not a prick.

 

 

 

Evidence.

[Guest abracadabra]

Just saw Holy Mountain.

 

Hated it

[Guest analogue wings]

Von Trier is not a prick.

 

yes but have you seen The Kingdom?

 

[lumpenprol]

I can't see those youtube clips in china :(

 

Apparently there's a doc called Dogville Confessions about how much of a prick (or choose your term) Von Trier is to actors:

 

from imdb:

"We discover that director Lars Von Trier doesn't get along with actors so well. And it really comes out in Confessions when we get to see first-hand how ineffectively he interacts with the actors, in particular with Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany and Stellan Skarsgard.

 

We see tempers flare on set. There are tears, arguments, confusion."

 

Apparently Paul Bettany was so intimidated by Von Trier he moved his bed away from where Von Trier slept. Given Bettany's fairly cold onscreen persona, I find that interesting if true.

[Squee]

Imagine growing up with this every friday night at the age 9-11:

 

 

I both loved and hated it.