rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
JLG wasnt much better. i dont expect directors to be good people.
Films You've Seen Recently and Don't Know WTF to think
- Thread starter zhao
- Start date
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
The Nightingale
a lot of rape, too much really, wasn’t expecting as graphic a representatiom as if seeing a newborn being flung to death and aboriginal genocide aren’t abhorrent enough, incorporating their depiction and influence didn’t advance anything when the leads are idiot balling and continually stumbling into each other and other people in bush land at random intervals after the preamble
I get the lead was motivated by x,y,z and dismantling colonial legacies will always be ongoing but did they have to narrow their creative endeavours down after the shock set up? Clumsy and the female lead does rock what she’s given, standout and a voice too, just never listening to a certain mate ever again about films
a lot of rape, too much really, wasn’t expecting as graphic a representatiom as if seeing a newborn being flung to death and aboriginal genocide aren’t abhorrent enough, incorporating their depiction and influence didn’t advance anything when the leads are idiot balling and continually stumbling into each other and other people in bush land at random intervals after the preamble
I get the lead was motivated by x,y,z and dismantling colonial legacies will always be ongoing but did they have to narrow their creative endeavours down after the shock set up? Clumsy and the female lead does rock what she’s given, standout and a voice too, just never listening to a certain mate ever again about films
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Mandy
Visually nothing like anything else I've seen, loved the soundtrack, etc. It was an "experience" and no mistake.
But OTOH, it was silly and dumb and left a nasty taste in my mouth (as all revenge thrillers must I suppose).
Violence is horrific, in principle (when the innocent are being killed) but is also thrilling and cathwrtic and lingered over.
It reminded me of a lot of recent films I've seen (a24 stuff) with all the colour filters and style with a capital STYLE, but feels hollow somehow.
Visually nothing like anything else I've seen, loved the soundtrack, etc. It was an "experience" and no mistake.
But OTOH, it was silly and dumb and left a nasty taste in my mouth (as all revenge thrillers must I suppose).
Violence is horrific, in principle (when the innocent are being killed) but is also thrilling and cathwrtic and lingered over.
It reminded me of a lot of recent films I've seen (a24 stuff) with all the colour filters and style with a capital STYLE, but feels hollow somehow.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yesterday I watched this film called The Fall directed by Tarsem Singh who did The Cell - I think he also did a lot of commercials and music videos - two films which are famed for their lush, over the top, visuals. Some cite them as amongst the most beautiful and visually extravagant movies ever made, some say they look like extended music videos and that they have as much depth.
I think that people saying that are a little harsh and miss the point somewhat, cos the film is certainly not without meaning, it feels like a real labour of love, an attempt to do something interesting... to muse on the nature of story-telling and the differences between what is said and what is understood. The problem is more that these attempts don't really work and that the differences we see are just not that exciting.
To illustrate better what I'm saying, I should say what the film is about I guess. It's set in a hospital in LA in the early 20th century, one of the patients is a stuntman from a film who has suffered a horrific injury while trying to jump off a train on to a horse or something - he begins to tell a story to a young girl who is there because of a broken arm, but it soon becomes clear that the story telling is really a ruse to manipulate the young girl - he stops at cliffhangers until she agrees to steal enough morphine for him to attempt suicide (is that really the best way to persuade her?). The main disparity that you notice straight away is that he describes one of his characters as "An Indian" and it's clear from what he says about him - his wife is his squaw, he lives in a teepee - that he is talking about a Native American, however the girl thinks that he means someone from India, and so you get the disparity that the voice over is talking about one person and the visuals which represent the girl's imagination show another. Now I'm not saying that that is, in itself, a bad idea, it's just that I don't find it a remarkable enough observation to hang a film on.
This kind of set up - where one character tells a story and this story sort of escapes the page and overlaps with life and somehow you end up learning something real and powerful from the relationship between the two - is not really a unique one. It's roughly the same type of thing as The Singing Detective or The Neverending Story, The Blind Assassin.... in fact I'm sure that if I put my mind to it there are many many more (help me out here), and they're almost all better than this. Cos the problem is that the story that the character tells just isn't that good, the colours and locations (and there are many many incredible locations, so much so that they have the opposite of the intended effect and by the end you find yourself thinking "I can't believe they went to so much trouble just for this") can't make up for the thinness of the plot, the lack of tension and the unsatisfactory resolution of every problem they face. And seeing as this "story within a story" makes up most of the film, that's quite a problem.
And, if that wasn't enough, to make matters worse, I didn't find the interaction between that story and real world that interesting either, there is too much telling and not enough showing in the linkages and ultimately the subtle beautiful incursion of one upon the other that you need just isn't really there.
I think that people saying that are a little harsh and miss the point somewhat, cos the film is certainly not without meaning, it feels like a real labour of love, an attempt to do something interesting... to muse on the nature of story-telling and the differences between what is said and what is understood. The problem is more that these attempts don't really work and that the differences we see are just not that exciting.
To illustrate better what I'm saying, I should say what the film is about I guess. It's set in a hospital in LA in the early 20th century, one of the patients is a stuntman from a film who has suffered a horrific injury while trying to jump off a train on to a horse or something - he begins to tell a story to a young girl who is there because of a broken arm, but it soon becomes clear that the story telling is really a ruse to manipulate the young girl - he stops at cliffhangers until she agrees to steal enough morphine for him to attempt suicide (is that really the best way to persuade her?). The main disparity that you notice straight away is that he describes one of his characters as "An Indian" and it's clear from what he says about him - his wife is his squaw, he lives in a teepee - that he is talking about a Native American, however the girl thinks that he means someone from India, and so you get the disparity that the voice over is talking about one person and the visuals which represent the girl's imagination show another. Now I'm not saying that that is, in itself, a bad idea, it's just that I don't find it a remarkable enough observation to hang a film on.
This kind of set up - where one character tells a story and this story sort of escapes the page and overlaps with life and somehow you end up learning something real and powerful from the relationship between the two - is not really a unique one. It's roughly the same type of thing as The Singing Detective or The Neverending Story, The Blind Assassin.... in fact I'm sure that if I put my mind to it there are many many more (help me out here), and they're almost all better than this. Cos the problem is that the story that the character tells just isn't that good, the colours and locations (and there are many many incredible locations, so much so that they have the opposite of the intended effect and by the end you find yourself thinking "I can't believe they went to so much trouble just for this") can't make up for the thinness of the plot, the lack of tension and the unsatisfactory resolution of every problem they face. And seeing as this "story within a story" makes up most of the film, that's quite a problem.
And, if that wasn't enough, to make matters worse, I didn't find the interaction between that story and real world that interesting either, there is too much telling and not enough showing in the linkages and ultimately the subtle beautiful incursion of one upon the other that you need just isn't really there.
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Synchronicity is a weird thing, ten minutes ago I'd never heard of Claes Bang, now he keeps popping up
Academic geek in The Square
Psychopathic viking warrior king usurper in Northman
And on Sunday had one of those lazy "after getting fucked up" days where you lie in bed and watch telly and get Uber Eats twice, saw this thing called The Outlaws in which he turns up as a nasty bast of a drug dealer type from London called The Deacon
He looks pretty different in all of them, I'm not sure I would have recognised it was even the same guy except for the name is so memorable. I wish my name was Clash Bang.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Infinity Pool - Skarsgard reprises his role from the Norhtman, once more pretending to be a dog and breaking down his personality with loads of incoherent screaming. The film started so well, like a faster paced White Lotus, when it kept the plot on a tight, tension-building leash, but as it was paid out and the film expanded into madness I found myself alternately bored and amused but never really disturbed or even touched by the whole thing. It felt like a useless fighter desperately flailing around and expending loads of energy but not managing to land a single worthwhile blow.
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Enys Men
looks spectacular at times but wtf is going on? lone female natural resources researcher maybe/maybe not loses it on a Cornish island in 1973, which seems the whole sum of its parts
bit folk horror, bit philosophy of the natural world but lacks the heft and editing snap of Roeg andwhen the standing stone appeared at the door I really wanted to switch it off
frustrating - colours are incredible at times but what did her scar signify, who was the girl, is it themed around precognition, wtf lichen, “no change”, weird for weird’s sake but will retry end of the week after actually sleeping (instead of fatigue-pickled)
looks spectacular at times but wtf is going on? lone female natural resources researcher maybe/maybe not loses it on a Cornish island in 1973, which seems the whole sum of its parts
bit folk horror, bit philosophy of the natural world but lacks the heft and editing snap of Roeg and
frustrating - colours are incredible at times but what did her scar signify, who was the girl, is it themed around precognition, wtf lichen, “no change”, weird for weird’s sake but will retry end of the week after actually sleeping (instead of fatigue-pickled)
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I'm watching "300" by Zack Snyder.
It's absolutely ridiculous and contemptible but I have a nagging sense that there's something remarkable about it. It's like a fascists fever dream, or a teenage boy's wet dream.
Supposedly they shot the whole thing in a studio and all the settings are VFXd in. The sense of total unreality is part of its weird uncanny charge. Nothing feels real, least of all the six packs.
It's absolutely ridiculous and contemptible but I have a nagging sense that there's something remarkable about it. It's like a fascists fever dream, or a teenage boy's wet dream.
Supposedly they shot the whole thing in a studio and all the settings are VFXd in. The sense of total unreality is part of its weird uncanny charge. Nothing feels real, least of all the six packs.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
"an eerily convincing formal attempt at making fascism cool as hell. still unsure how much of this is supposed to be intentional (snyder's use of imagery + mythmaking is too good to ignore) vs. a peek into a terrifying subconscious (certain online users that use this as an ethnostate model don't make it easy to go to bat for) but it is truly something to behold regardless. the only thing zack snyder believes should be more massive than his sense of style is the men in his frames. also love the gay persian sex party—it's like the "this is the future liberals want" meme but unironic."
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Found a post by k pink criticising this Zizek post about 300
Not too interested in zizek's argument that the film isn't fascist but communist but this para is good at clarifying that uncanniness I'm in about
Not too interested in zizek's argument that the film isn't fascist but communist but this para is good at clarifying that uncanniness I'm in about
Slavoj Zizek - The True Hollywood Left
www.lacan.com
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
courtesy of a mate’s vhs library and spectacular shimmering hashish, an Australian dollop of 80’s surrealism where I’m grateful this wasn’t 30 years ago aided by microdots at 5am
night shift fugue meant a rewatch is necessary but the cunt insisted so as a guest you oblige, never less than entertaining will say that much like a hypnagogic vision of bedlam
night shift fugue meant a rewatch is necessary but the cunt insisted so as a guest you oblige, never less than entertaining will say that much like a hypnagogic vision of bedlam