films you've seen recently and would NOT recommend

crackerjack

Well-known member
he seems to admire/be fascinated by those who can tame nature to some extent (eg Fitzcarraldo), even if, as you say, they ultimately fail in the face of its strength and unpredictability (Treadwell getting mauled by the bear).

That's certainly how I saw it. The best part of Rescue dawn (which I enjoyed) isn't the escape or the imprisonment, it's the long schlep thru the jungle to god knows where, peeling leeches off his body etc etc. Likewise with Aguirre, although it's notionally about greed, it's nature that kills him, right? (I mean, I know it's little men in the jungle with their blowpipes, but you get my drift - they represent something that can't be tamed or conquered).

I was expecting more of the same with Grizzly Man, but it just felt like a shitty little Channel 5 doc called the Man Who Fantasised About Bears.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
But if Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre both show protagonists who eventually but gloriously fail to defeat nature, Grizzly Man is a contemptuous portrait of a fool who isn't even able to comprehend that he is involved in a battle. Herzog doesn't miss any opportunity to undermine what Treadwell is saying or highlight his naivety and desire to project human personalities on the animals in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

OK I'll have to take your word for that. I felt a bit dirty so stopped watching halfway through. There was someone saying TT did more harm than good, but the elephant in the room was that we were watching a mentally ill man acting out bedroom fantasies with real bears. Maybe he made that point later on.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
OK I'll have to take your word for that. I felt a bit dirty so stopped watching halfway through. There was someone saying TT did more harm than good, but the elephant in the room was that we were watching a mentally ill man acting out bedroom fantasies with real bears. Maybe he made that point later on
Well I'm not disagreeing with your take on that film, it's just a question of whether or not you could stomach the fact that it was taking advantage of someone. A film of extremely dubious morality but one that I found very watchable.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well yes, he somehow got his hands on that guy's footage (presumably not revealing that he was going to make him look like a fool) and then edited it and added his own voice-over to make it show exactly what he wanted. It's not as though Mr Grizzly had any veto in the final product, he was long dead.
 

STN

sou'wester
Well yes, he somehow got his hands on that guy's footage (presumably not revealing that he was going to make him look like a fool) and then edited it and added his own voice-over to make it show exactly what he wanted. It's not as though Mr Grizzly had any veto in the final product, he was long dead.

Is there a way to spin going up to bears and stroking them so that it doesn't look a bit daft?
 

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
I really enjoyed this movie!

I remember it going down the middle - you kind of like the chap for being very gentle, loving nature but also laugh at him for his eccentricity. I wouldn't say he came across as mentally ill though. The bit where he was rhapsodising about the bee on the plant that he thought was dead was hilarious.

I saw Herzog at the BFI too. He is quite funny but those talks are always so so sycophantic it makes me squirm. The interviewer is telling them how great they are and then most of the questions from the audience are prefaced by 'I just love your films, blabla you are a genius'.

His stance on nature is 'cold indifference' or something like that - he found it very odd Treadwell thinking the bears were his friends.

I like Fitzcaralldo and Aguire then, because they are humans struggling against an indifferent material world. It isn't evil or bad, just vast and non-responsive.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Anti-Christ by Lars.

what. the. fuck. was that shit.

i walked out during Chapter 4 or 5 can't remember. well after she drills his leg and digs him out of the ground with the shovel.

cruelty and sado masochistic excess doesn't necessarily bother me, but when there isn't much else going on and when it's coupled with cringe worthy sophomoric attempts at poetics and first year existentialism...

i guess i knew it was going to be an especially self indulgent thing coming from an already very self indulgent man, as he admitted it being "therapeutic" for his battle with depression... what the fuck ever. no thank you.
 

Kate Mossad

Well-known member
Baader Meinhof Complex. Stylish but unfocused and too long. Even knowing the story inside out I was struggling to work out what was supposed to be going on at some points.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
that big 3D excercise in plot-lessness, the magic traveling circus side show one. some eye candy in the first 30 minutes but quickly becomes nauseating... and not in a good way.

and what do you brits make of the new hollywood Sherlock Holmes? ;)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
and what do you brits make of the new hollywood Sherlock Holmes?
I saw an interview with Ritchie where he said that he was a massive fan of the books and the previous adaptations and that his take would be respectful and true to the original ideas and aesthetic. Then I saw the trailer and realised that he was talking out of his arse again.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Irréversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002) = Rubbish.

co-sign x 1 000 000.

"Try taking that unthreatening strobe-lit underground passage, Monica. No ill can come of it."

Oh, and then we'll do the most gratuitous and stylised rape scene in film history.

Absolute rubbish, Bellucci gorgeous.
 
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BareBones

wheezy
Haven't seen it since it came out so i can't remember it perfectly, but i'm not sure "stylised" is the right word for the rape scene in irreversible, doesn't the camera just sit there? no cuts or editing or movement or anything? i suppose you could say that that in itself is kind of stylised but at the time i thought it was a way to force you to confront your own grisly voyeurism, or something. it is pretty shit though, yeah, and the backwards timeline is pretty gimmicky.

saw 'District 9' recently, that was utter shite.

and I saw 'up in the air' too - also shite.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Haven't seen it since it came out so i can't remember it perfectly, but i'm not sure "stylised" is the right word for the rape scene in irreversible, doesn't the camera just sit there? no cuts or editing or movement or anything? i suppose you could say that that in itself is kind of stylised but at the time i thought it was a way to force you to confront your own grisly voyeurism, or something. it is pretty shit though, yeah, and the backwards timeline is pretty gimmicky.

Maybe not the perfect word, no. I was referring to the ridiculous red (?) neon light in an underground subway, and the general feeling of sub-Lynchian unreality (badly acted, too). To me it fetishised the act rather than making anyone confront voyeurism.

I don't believe in the whole 'makes you confront your own voyeurism' excuse line, anyways. (I don't think you do either, from the tone of what you said)
 
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swears

preppy-kei
Irréversible is a comedy, chill.

the-lovely-bones-24-11-09-kc1.jpg


^^^ I don't plan on seeing this, because it's pretty obvious the killer was Robert Elms.
 
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