rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Lol, meaning that if he were Chinese-Chinese, he would of course have total loyalty to his country's government? (I know you don't mean that exactly, but...)

I think we can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and the country's military doesn't necessarily make him a self-loathing race-traitor.

im saying that american international relations/biases can be absorbed quite easily, even if he is 'ethnically chinese'.

as far as the film, id say chinese military/govt people actually came out of it sympathetically in the end, or at least at the very end.

on a very similar note (because it saves its big reveal until the final hand, except here the british govt come off worse, after being depicted with much stilted even handedness, while in arrival, the chinese govt come off sympathetically, after many displays of kneejerk irrationality), i saw viceroys house. id say the british come out of it pretty well. theyre not implicated as much as you might imagine, nor are they let off the hook entirely. the film walks this balancing act almost to a fault really, so fairly it ties itself into a bit of a dull knot. but emotionally, its pretty powerful. as good a film as the modern british film industry is prob going to allow anyone to make about british rule in india. though i dont know if i know many other films about the british empire. i might need to go back and rewatch jewel in the crown and some of those merchant ivory films.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
im saying that american international relations/biases can be absorbed quite easily, even if he is 'ethnically chinese'.

as far as the film, id say chinese military/govt people actually came out of it sympathetically in the end, or at least at the very end.

And my point was that I don't think you need to've been brainwashed by Uncle Sam to have not entirely warm feelings towards the Chinese government, especially if your own parents are Chinese.

But yeah, the Chinese general was portrayed pretty sympathetically. And let's not forget that some American jarheads nearly wreck the whole thing with that bomb.
 
And my point was that I don't think you need to've been brainwashed by Uncle Sam to have not entirely warm feelings towards the Chinese government, especially if your own parents are Chinese.

But yeah, the Chinese general was portrayed pretty sympathetically. And let's not forget that some American jarheads nearly wreck the whole thing with that bomb.

It's a very good film, it's hit me hard both times I've watched it. Conceptually subtle too - strong whorfian hypothesis, reverse causality, ET noblesse oblige and a potent emotional punch, for me anyway. What I'm saying is I blubbed, copiously and at length.
 
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droid

Well-known member
well, chinese-american.

though as milio yiannopolis should have taught everyone by this point, being part of a particular group does not mean you speak for that minority.

i dont know how faithful the film was to the book...

One thing which was a huge improvement was the daughters death. A freak congenital disease is inevitable and unalterable as compared to a rock climbing accident.

That said, the short story is immense.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I watched Stalker by Tarkovsky which was a strange ride. Despite the tempo being very slow, I was constantly faced with the unease of not being able to digest it all in time. Right from the opening scene, you know you're being told a story by someone in supreme capability. Every nuance matters and nothing is present by default. Maybe I was too engaged in the ongoing cerebral analysis that I didn't let my instincts lead me onto what this movie is about, but I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.

For those who are unfamiliar with the film, it's a 1979 sovjet science fiction. The main character, the Stalker, is one of few around capable of and desirous for entering and roaming "the zone". We're not introduced to the concept of the zone in any univocal way. It's sealed of to the public by the military but it's unclear exactly why, except for the prospective presence of some kind of metaphysical force. Anyways, the Stalker is in the business of taking tourists to the zone and the plot tells the story of him shepherding two peculiar guys around in search of 'the room' at the center of the zone. This room is said to provide its visitors with the fulfilment of their deepest desires.

My thoughts on interpretation really doesn't make sense unless anyone else has seen it. I can't really get it out of my head, and that must be a good sign at any rate, so I do recommend it strongly to anyone who hasn't seen it. I seem to recall K-punk mentioning it in some blog post, too, but I have forgotten what post or in which relation it was brought up.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
^ a stone cold classic

speaking of classics, i lent bladerunner to a friend who had never seen it. his roommate, who had seen it once before, had this to say:

So I watched blade runner for the second time, and I have to say I just don't dig it. I know it's supposed to be this great pivotal sci-fi movie, but there's hardly any plot, less dialogue, and the scenes drag on. Also there are flying cars but the TV's all have static. I don't know maybe I don't fully appreciate it. I'll put Chinatown and citizen cane in the same category of "great films" I didn't like.


at first i was shocked but all his points are correct*. i am just not put off by those things.



* actually the thing about TV static is kinda off. here in the future, who would have thought we'd be watching shitty-resolution videos of old shows on youtube, that we'd be listening to lower quality reproductions of music (streaming, digital formats) or that the sound quality of phone calls would degenerate. who ever had a dropped call on a landline?
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't rate Blade Runner as highly as others do, and feel somehow guilty or shortchanged as a consequence.

I think Blade Runner might mean more to people who saw it at the time, and are therefore more able to see how it created a whole look, sound and feel for sci-fi that didn't exist before. (That is, at least, I don't think it existed before.)

The look and sound of it remain stunning. The opening shot, flying over the cityscape with that Vangelis music, is absolutely brilliant, and the effects haven't dated.


I miss that gritty look sci-fi had back in the 70s/80s. I think I first became acquainted with it through Red Dwarf, actually. Then later on 2000AD. All exposed piping, steam, spaceships that look like they're about to fall apart, etc. Nowadays I think it's fair to say that even sci-fi dystopias will tend to look like they were designed by Apple.
 

sufi

lala
^ a stone cold classic

speaking of classics, i lent bladerunner to a friend who had never seen it. his roommate, who had seen it once before, had this to say:

So I watched blade runner for the second time, and I have to say I just don't dig it. I know it's supposed to be this great pivotal sci-fi movie, but there's hardly any plot, less dialogue, and the scenes drag on. Also there are flying cars but the TV's all have static. I don't know maybe I don't fully appreciate it. I'll put Chinatown and citizen cane in the same category of "great films" I didn't like.


at first i was shocked but all his points are correct*. i am just not put off by those things.



* actually the thing about TV static is kinda off. here in the future, who would have thought we'd be watching shitty-resolution videos of old shows on youtube, that we'd be listening to lower quality reproductions of music (streaming, digital formats) or that the sound quality of phone calls would degenerate. who ever had a dropped call on a landline?
I relate.
I was but a wee bairn when blade runner came out - too young to see it in the cinema, and videos were barely accessible to me (imagine!) back in that antidiluvian era, but my bigger cousins loved it (esp those with shiny eyes for Harrison Ford). By the time i got to see it probably 10 or 15 years later, it just was not so shockingly new - less the tech than the atmosphere - the grubby dystopia had been done endlessly, though perhaps less well, in countless other movies.
Also i was an avid 2000ad reader and so maybe grubby dystopias and gritty antiheroes weren’t that much of a shocker anyhow.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
According to the infallible Wikipedia, the look of Blade Runner was inspired in part by the Moebius illustrated 'Metal Huralnt' comic series:

the%2Blong%2Btomorrow.jpg


Sure you could do a whole thread on the influence of Blade Runner on jungle/DNB alone.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, visually (and sonically) Blade Runner is about as close to perfection as a movie gets, I think. Having Sean Young and Harrison Ford in the lead roles doesn't hurt, of course, on this front. I don't know if 'hardly any plot' is really fair - it's more that the plot is pretty straightforward (an enforcer of some kind on a mission to round up/kill a band of miscreants one by one - done a hundred times over in Westerns/cop films, of course) - and kind of secondary to the aesthetics and action.

I'll be interested to see what they've done with the sequel, coming out later this year.

We could probably have a whole thread about big-budget sci-fi films from, what, the late '70s up to the early '90s? RoboCop, Total Recall, The Abyss, all of that. Bookended by Alien and Terminator II, I guess (although luka would bitch because that timeframe excludes The Matrix, a.k.a. The Greatest Movie Of All Time). The period in which CGI started to come into its own, but before it totally took over.
 

you

Well-known member
Watched Snowtown (2011) last night.

Some seriously intense food chewing going on in that. Great film. Haven't quite seen a film with such a heavy lurking threat of raw violence since Nil by Mouth.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've wanted to watch Snowtown for a while but I can't quite bring myself to. Stuff like that really gets under my skin. (No pun intended.)

I can handle fictitious torture but knowing it's based on real events disturbs me. That's why I avoid rewatching 'Zodiac' even though it's one of my favourite films.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
We could probably have a whole thread about big-budget sci-fi films from, what, the late '70s up to the early '90s? RoboCop, Total Recall, The Abyss, all of that. Bookended by Alien and Terminator II, I guess (although luka would bitch because that timeframe excludes The Matrix, a.k.a. The Greatest Movie Of All Time). The period in which CGI started to come into its own, but before it totally took over.

Start one, then!
 

you

Well-known member
I've wanted to watch Snowtown for a while but I can't quite bring myself to. Stuff like that really gets under my skin. (No pun intended.)

I can handle fictitious torture but knowing it's based on real events disturbs me. That's why I avoid rewatching 'Zodiac' even though it's one of my favourite films.

I really rate Zodiac.

I think it explores the passage from the good old days to the amorality of the 70's very very well. The cast is excellent too. Really one of my favourite films.
 

martin

----
After 27 years of vague flashbacks, not remembering the title and constantly getting it confused with 'Safe' (which is similar territory but pretty conventional in terms of style), I watched 'Sweet Nothing' on YT (it's never been released on DVD) the other night. Found it even more brutal and trippy than I remembered it originally.

It seems to have polarised a few people online - some view the more 'fantastic' plot developments as diluting what otherwise would have been a masterpiece of gritty social realism. But if you let it suck you in - treat it as a horror flick, with the characters pitted against a deranged Sadean world, hell-bent on stripping them of dignity, sanity and visibility - it does work. Some of the more surreal moments could be deliberate attempts at capturing drug-/hunger-/exposure-induced hallucinations. Either way, it feels like a flu dream.

Not that I'd recommend this as 'fun', as some of it's as dark as 'Threads'...however, anyone nostalgic for footage of old late '80s London will probably find something to like - there's a sequence shot in a graffitti'd up tunnel, early on, with a bloke thrashing on an electric guitar (which I actually remember being not uncommon outside and around tube stations around '90/'91...) dunno where, Waterloo? Tottenham Court Road?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
...a bloke thrashing on an electric guitar (which I actually remember being not uncommon outside and around tube stations around '90/'91...) dunno where, Waterloo? Tottenham Court Road?

There was a guy with a guitar and a portable amp who used to play on the northbound platform of (I think) the Piccadilly line, maybe other spots too, at KX/SP around the turn of the century. Hard to call him a 'busker' as such, as he seemed to play entirely for his own amusement and I never saw him trying to solicit money. As far as I could tell, he knew two riffs: Smells Like Teen Spirit and the Marilyn Manson version of Sweet Dreams.
 
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