Films Recently Watched

I also watched the new mutants and I must say the rotten tomatoes score is right on the nose.

  On 11/13/2020 at 7:14 PM, markedone said:

i didnt really like this film, which was surprising considering im generally a fan of real-leaning or minimal-storytelling scifi. been quite a few years tho.. worth giving it another chance?

No, Moon is insanely overrated.

Pretty much any early Cagney flick is insanely watchable. He’s a real charmer. He’s also so energetic and graceful. The man is magic. This movie is really fun. The first half is also a bit of an interesting snapshot of life in the depression. There is an incredible shot of Cagney being chased by an angry mob in full sprint as the camera tracks backward from a high angle (probably from a crane... or more likely a scaffold on a truck or something back in those days). Ambitious shots like that in early films really blow me away. 
One reason I love pre-code Hollywood films (among many) is that I feel like the characters are often a bit more socioeconomically realistic. You have people living through hard times, quite like they do now, but their stories incorporate their hardships more organically than they do today. Modern films tend to largely be written from a perspective of someone with money or status, and a film about someone in a lower socioeconomic status is usually more of a genre film. It seems like it’s rare for a film today to be written truthfully from the perspective of someone struggling because filmmakers are mostly creating from a position of privilege or class superiority. I know that sort of thing is still in early Hollywood films, but back then, it felt more like escapism than creative ignorance. 
Anyway. Jimmy Cagney deserves his own thread, imo. 

Land of Silence and Darkness by Werner Herzog (1971) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68tMGEqL5o
"A 1971 documentary film about deaf-blind people and their experience of life."

If you are looking for a good documentary, this is one of my favourites... although you may have to prepare some tissues as it exposes you to the pure existential torment of being locked inside a body. I have seen about 20 Werner Herzog films now and think this is one of the best.
 

Splice - really fun watch... tell me I'm not the only one who felt, hmmm, you know, in that particular scene... 

my octopus teacher - what a creepy dude ... poor octopus ... people who think this is good are braindead... 

  On 11/14/2020 at 8:55 PM, Tim_J said:

my octopus teacher - what a creepy dude ... poor octopus ... people who think this is good are braindead... 

Explain yourself

  On 11/14/2020 at 9:24 PM, MadameChaos said:

Explain yourself

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12888462/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0

Kind of surprised by all the negative reviews. Could of been faked but giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think somebody like that has to be a bit crazy to do what he did, or atleast a dedicated scientist wanting to document the life of an octopus? I interpreted it as him throwing his life into this passion and growing attached to this animal which I don't blame him. But in the end how could he intervene with wild life on natures surf like that? He even questions his actions as if he might have distracted the octopus when it got attacked. It seems to have lived a full life anyway, their lifespans are about two years. I'm not sure what people are expecting, it's not a pet, still a wild animal out there

film recommendation from big T. its based on a true story like ET or Top Gun

  On 11/14/2020 at 12:43 PM, gnarlybog said:

Land of Silence and Darkness by Werner Herzog (1971) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68tMGEqL5o
"A 1971 documentary film about deaf-blind people and their experience of life."

If you are looking for a good documentary, this is one of my favourites... although you may have to prepare some tissues as it exposes you to the pure existential torment of being locked inside a body. I have seen about 20 Werner Herzog films now and think this is one of the best.
 

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Yeah this one and The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner are my favorite documentaries of Herzog's. The floor-level shot of the girl with the ball is incredible.

  On 11/15/2020 at 5:43 AM, Taupe Beats said:

Yeah this one and The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner are my favorite documentaries of Herzog's. The floor-level shot of the girl with the ball is incredible.

Same. 
Also that shot at the end when that person hugs the tree. So good. 

I'm thinking of ending things - I'll never fully understand this movie but the experience in itself was deeply unsettling... what a nightmare... I loved it! 

  On 11/15/2020 at 4:35 PM, Tim_J said:

I'm thinking of ending things - I'll never fully understand this movie but the experience in itself was deeply unsettling... what a nightmare... I loved it! 

I found that @Silent Member explained the basic plot (as far as the term applies) pretty well further upstream.

  On 11/15/2020 at 4:54 PM, IDEM said:

I found that @Silent Member explained the basic plot (as far as the term applies) pretty well further upstream.

Taking the risk of sounding more of a dimwit than I already am, if that's even possible, I rather not read it? I usually refrain myself from movies analisys cause in the rare times I do it I feel extremely frustrated cause I couldn't come up with it myself... It happens a lot with lynch stuff and alike... I guess I rather stay in the dark and completely confused just like the characters in said movies, if that makes any sense... 

  On 11/15/2020 at 5:25 PM, Tim_J said:

Taking the risk of sounding more of a dimwit than I already am, if that's even possible, I rather not read it? I usually refrain myself from movies analisys cause in the rare times I do it I feel extremely frustrated cause I couldn't come up with it myself... It happens a lot with lynch stuff and alike... I guess I rather stay in the dark and completely confused just like the characters in said movies, if that makes any sense... 

Yeah, I totally get that. I've always loved Lost Highway, and then when I took a seminar on Lynch, I realized how many layers of it I hadn't understood or barely realized were there. When you read up on it, it often feels so logical that you don't know why you haven't come up with it yourself. On the other hand, the explanations didn't take away from my enjoyment of the movie at all. My usual MO is to watch complex shit like that several times and then maybe read a couple of interpretations and refresh my excitement, change the perspective, look for other details. A bit like unlocking an Autechre album step by step, just with a little cheating along the way.

Also, every interpretation is of course just that. Food for thought, but not the ultimate key.

About The Octopus Teacher... In one moment he was raving about how intimate that bonding was yada yada yada this octopus likes this human and can trust him like if it's the next a big thing and in the next he was swimming with the cute little thing and there was clearly someone filming them... So much for that intimate bonding... None of the creatures in that forest feared him, hell, even in the last scenes of the doc they showed lots of sneces of him touching multiple animals with no problem at all... The narrative and editing are extremely manipulative... It's all a big money grabbing facade... He's all like oh I can't interfere when the poor creature is being eaten and he chooses to ignore the fact that that's exactly what he's been doing since day one... Worst of all, that fucking attack was mostly his fault cause he was with her at the moment and probably distracted her... I could go on and on... Read some of the reviews from the link I posted... 

Watched Blade Runner 2049 again. Still a great movie

  On 11/15/2020 at 6:10 PM, chronical said:

Watched Blade Runner 2049 again. Still a great movie

HATED it the first time, kinda liked it on the second go. Maybe I should give it a third try.

3rd time is the charm... 

The first 10 minutes were good. 

I remember the plot being quite meh but the aestetichs and atmosphere are great... probably better to watch on a big screen... 

  On 11/15/2020 at 6:49 PM, Tim_J said:

I remember the plot being quite meh but the aestetichs and atmosphere are great... probably better to watch on a big screen... 

Yeah, that was my takeaway too, but ironically, it led to my being totally disappointed in the theater (incredibly boring, much too long, betraying the legacy, etc.), and then when I watched at home and knew what to expect, I could enjoy the undeniable aesthetic values.

Would be interesting what would happen the third time. Maybe I'd just get bored and hate it again, lol.

The social dilemma - welcome to 2010

Eric Andre legalize everything - some pretty good lols

  On 11/15/2020 at 6:10 PM, Tim_J said:

About The Octopus Teacher... In one moment he was raving about how intimate that bonding was yada yada yada this octopus likes this human and can trust him like if it's the next a big thing and in the next he was swimming with the cute little thing and there was clearly someone filming them... So much for that intimate bonding... None of the creatures in that forest feared him, hell, even in the last scenes of the doc they showed lots of sneces of him touching multiple animals with no problem at all... The narrative and editing are extremely manipulative... It's all a big money grabbing facade... He's all like oh I can't interfere when the poor creature is being eaten and he chooses to ignore the fact that that's exactly what he's been doing since day one... Worst of all, that fucking attack was mostly his fault cause he was with her at the moment and probably distracted her... I could go on and on... Read some of the reviews from the link I posted... 

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I was a bit curious if he maybe only visited the octopus 5 or 6 times and added a bunch of super-titles (like “day 20”... “day 58”... “day 134”... etc) to make it look like he was going back every day for a year.