Films Recently Watched

  On 11/6/2013 at 6:46 AM, zaphod said:

ender's game

 

i haven't read the book. this was disturbing. ender is a little innocent destroyer of worlds. the whole movie has a pretty creepy vibe. seemed like ender liked violence and created a necessity for it. felt like a 12 year old's power fantasy and eventual scolding by a parent. very warped morality on display here, based on motive and not action. ender feeling bad at the end doesn't make sense anyway. if he's preparing to destroy the home world of these aliens, why is he surprised when he eventually does it? why is anyone surprised? that's the whole purpose of their training, and suddenly they're sad when they put it to use? movie makes no fucking sense.

these are the exact same problems of the book - orson scott card is a maniac

yeah, i'm going with lopez on this. i've read john kessel's critique of the book and i feel the film has the exact same issues, just condensed in a matter that makes the faults more obvious. i'm kind of disturbed that the book is on some reading lists in schools.

lol, knee jerk much?

I read the book years ago, it's quite fuzzy but I remember liking it.

I think the sequel Speaker for the Dead deals more with the aliens. Quite a weird book actually from what I recall, but also interesting. By the way he had the idea for Speaker for the Dead first, apparently, then did Enders Game as a lead-up to it.

Card seems a bit wacky but you should probably, you know, read the book before saying it should be banned from schools.

i didn't say it should be banned, i said i'm a little disturbed by the morality at play in the story, meaning both book and film, and so i'm questioning why it would be part of an english curriculum. there are better sf books that kids could read. but you're right, i'll read it and see if there's some crucial point missing from the film that's present in the book.

  On 11/5/2013 at 10:35 PM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 9:25 PM, olo said:

 

  On 11/5/2013 at 8:08 PM, Nebraska said:

 

 

in other news, cronenberg thinks kubrick didn't understand the horror genre

 

I kinda see where he's coming from. The Shining is a bit overrated really. This is just my opinion. Not looking to start beef.

 

 

i think so too. and stephen king was famously quoted as saying "he hated it".

 

i've never understand why it's considered in such high criterion for horror films. the thing about cronenberg though is he hasn't exactly made anything interesting since existenz and (or) spider.

 

I thought the same at first but like most Kubrick you need to watch the Shining a few time to appreciate it as it's not about the play the way its played out. Stephen King distanced himself from the Shining as Kubrick had made a totally different angle on the story.

As far as Cronenberg goes Crash was OK and his sons recent film Antiviral has followed the body shock heritage even if the concept was totally ridiculous in a good way.

im probably alone but I thought Crash was like his magnum opus, It's easily my favorite movie he did other than Videodrome.

  On 11/6/2013 at 7:49 PM, zaphod said:

yeah, i'm going with lopez on this. i've read john kessel's critique of the book and i feel the film has the exact same issues, just condensed in a matter that makes the faults more obvious. i'm kind of disturbed that the book is on some reading lists in schools.

  On 11/6/2013 at 9:07 PM, zaphod said:

i didn't say it should be banned, i said i'm a little disturbed by the morality at play in the story, meaning both book and film, and so i'm questioning why it would be part of an english curriculum. there are better sf books that kids could read. but you're right, i'll read it and see if there's some crucial point missing from the film that's present in the book.

I had to read it in high school, that's why I did the first time. I was bummed I never had to read Fahrenheit 454 or Lord of Flies or Brave New World but just about everyone else I know from other schools did. The same teacher I had also had us read Anthem (Ayn Rand's shortest book - thank god it wasn't one of the other ones, Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged or whatever) but like Ender's Game he seemed to use it more as a means of getting the class to debate and for the students to evaluate their own ideologies and perspectives. After all, we also read Invisible_man which discusses Black Nationalism and Marxism in detail. Ender's Game in particular was more of an end-of-school year bonus read: I think it was like "get a kick out of the twist in this book." When I was told it was about humans fighting ant aliens I was like "dafuq, we're reading that?" But I personally liked it a lot, and admittedly the gravity of how fucked up it is a lot more apparent when your older. I think he was a liberal-leaning independent, but I dunno. It was an honors class and he pushed most of us to do well on AP English and SAT writing tests.

Book lists are interesting, I went to schools where the parents never really complained. My favorite was 9th grade, when we would actually have a separate independent book report every 6 weeks (on top of what everyone in class read) so we got to pick from like 25-30 books to read. I ended up reading The Hobbit and On The Beach and this fascinating novel called Black_Like_Me through that.

For some context, I went to two high schools, a DOD school for military dependents in the UK (9th grade) and then in a city district high school in Texas for 10th-12th when I moved. It was interesting because compared to most suburban or rural school districts in Texas it had a lot more PC vibes (a bit too much bureaucracy too) in it's administration and a better mix of conservative and liberal teachers - though most were non-bias in the classroom. But like, we watched a Michael Moore doc in government class for example, which would be impossible to even consider in most TX school districts. I met people who went to high schools 5-10 miles from mine and they often had completely different curriculum standards and rules and regulations. Very odd.

sure, i read invisible man. i think anyone taking an ap english course had to read that. i have no issue with reading books that make you reassess your own ideals, i just don't think ender's game is one of those books. but i'm talking a lot about a book i haven't actually read. it's one of those "classics" of sf that i've always avoided because of its author's general insanity, and it just sounded really fucking boring. but i'm going to read it now, because i'm interested to see how different the film version really is thematically. i have a feeling not very, but we'll see. my issue with it being on reading lists might honestly have more to do with my own sf/fantasy obsession and how ender's game seems to be the representative genre work that high schoolers read. i think that's a bad thing. there are better works, more literary works (i don't need to read it to know this) and more challenging works. but then, most of the high school english curriculum is pretty lame.

  On 11/6/2013 at 9:55 PM, soundwave said:

As far as Cronenberg goes Crash was OK and his sons recent film Antiviral has followed the body shock heritage even if the concept was totally ridiculous in a good way.

 

Interesting, Crash was the one film i thought of when I watched Antiviral. Antiviral takes an idea and pushes it to it's most ridiculously extreme and if you can get over that hurdle then you'll enjoy the film, if you don't you will really struggle to even pay attention.

possession (1981)

holy shit. blown away. this is like a stage play that includes every method of acting imaginable, filmed by david lynch. sam neill is completely feral. i didn't know what hit me when it was over.

ooh, imdb had me at Isabelle Adjani

  On 11/7/2013 at 6:44 AM, zaphod said:

possession (1981)

 

holy shit. blown away. this is like a stage play that includes every method of acting imaginable, filmed by david lynch. sam neill is completely feral. i didn't know what hit me when it was over.

Man, I think I watched an edited version of this maybe 15 years ago. Forgot it existed. Really need to rewatch.

  On 11/6/2013 at 10:03 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

im probably alone but I thought Crash was like his magnum opus, It's easily my favorite movie he did other than Videodrome.

You are not - this is my favorite as well! Probably the last DVD i bought too.

  On 11/7/2013 at 6:44 AM, zaphod said:

possession (1981)

 

holy shit. blown away. this is like a stage play that includes every method of acting imaginable, filmed by david lynch. sam neill is completely feral. i didn't know what hit me when it was over.

Isabella Adjani <3 <3 <3

someone mentioned possession to me the other day as 'the best sam neil movie besides mouth of madness' so i was curious about it, didn't know lynch was involved.

he wasn't, it just felt like a lynch film. or cronenberg, actually. had a lot in common with the brood.

+1 for Possession!

Ridiculous film.

Gonna have to subject my girl to it today now.

Hangover 3 - 5/10 pretty bad as far as sequels, Ken Jeong's schtick has worn thin, the rest are just coasting.

The To Do List - 6/10 soo much wasted comedic talent, Aubrey Plaza seems boring actually here. Clark Gregg pretty much had every funny line in the flick.

wolverine - the bullet train fight was alright, very impressive arm veins on hugh jackman as well (wonder if it's cgi).

Burning Man 8/10

starring the delectable Devon born Matthew Goode, this film has a very interesting plot twist and some very strong performances.

Goltzius and the pelican company: 9/10 Pretty, pretty awesome, I think a lot of you might enjoy this. This movie had some of the best visual effects I've seen (not cgi ones)

^ Wow, looks great.

I didn't actually know Peter Greenaway was still making films

Not heard of Greenaway doing anything for years. I thought he'd fell off the radar. This film seems to have passed many by. I'm gonna seek it out. Anyway, had a look on his twitter and he's still doing some crazy shit https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=frWdUQGeY9o

heeeeelarious film. basically, rza gets his arms cut off, then somehow ends up in a monastery where they melt iron to fix him new hands- then he trains with gordon liu who was in the original enter the 36 chambers) then lucy liu shows up with a bunch of asian ho's that also happen to be deadly. then there is a dude doing a ninja scroll thing of turning into a rock when it's most convenient. he's also pissed always, coz, you know, he's the bad guy and bad guys NEVER smile unless they're laughing at your misfortune

anyway, the film is a mess. it's an attempt to compile ideas and scenes from the following films: kid with the golden arms, the ten tigers of kwangtung, born invincible and kill bill (which also is an attempt at compiling ideas and scenes from other films). it's also got a funny soundtrack that has really silly quotables from rza

rated lol

  On 11/8/2013 at 8:22 PM, Schlitze said:

Not heard of Greenaway doing anything for years. I thought he'd fell off the radar. This film seems to have passed many by. I'm gonna seek it out. Anyway, had a look on his twitter and he's still doing some crazy shit https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=frWdUQGeY9o

i don't think he fell off the radar as much as he probably got blacklisted.

he does about 1 film every 2 years or so (or whenever kes kassender can afford to throw him a couple million euro) and at least 3 or so art installations annually. he has one movie out this year that he's trying to shilling to anyone who will buy it and distro around the world (he hasn't had an american distributor in decades)

he was doing this AMAZING last supper thing in rome which lasted a while, and then he started lecturing people about why they suck. then he went back to teaching kids in the swiss alps by giving them assignments to watch his movies and stuff he loves

he'll be in mexico next year doing a film about einstein which probably 20 people will watch