Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

[IdleRich]

I dunno if it's a great film or anything but sometimes I can really get in the mood for this kind of thing. I absolutely loved all the stuff about cracking the maze on the cereal box or whatever it was. And the owl woman... truly creepy when she actually appears.

 

[version]

I dunno if it's a great film or anything but sometimes I can really get in the mood for this kind of thing. I really loved all the stuff about cracking the maze on the cereal box or whatever it was. And the owl woman... really when she actually appears.

Yeah, it reminded me of Inherent Vice a lot. The score in particular had this eerie, classic Hollywood feel to it that was also in IV.

 

[IdleRich]

Also Lynch I suppose (inevitably) - even down to the owls.

 

[version]

And the owl woman... truly creepy when she actually appears.

That leg coming out of the cupboard.

 

[version]

The scene with the songwriter claiming to have written all popular music for decades was intriguing too.

 

[IdleRich]

Oh yeah, that was a great conspiracy theory thing.
I really liked the whole film in fact.
Would love some more tips of similar - might try that Guest thing you mentioned, trailer looked intriguing.

 

[IdleRich]

I recommend Gemini if you enjoyed UTSL though.

 

[version]

The stuff I've seen that's closest to UTSL would be The Long Goodbye, The Big Lebowski, Inherent Vice and that TV series, Lodge 49.

 

[IdleRich]

I think it was a real shame that Lodge 49 was cancelled.

 

[version]

I watched an interview with the set designer for UTSL and he said they very consciously played around with various periods. The apartment's got a 50s bathroom, 70s living room. They also got some backgrounds done in the style of older films, that shot when he climbs over the wall and heads to the songwriter's mansion and when they're hopping the fence into the reservoir.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah maybe there is a little bit of Sunset Boulevard in there too.

 

[version]

It's already become something of a cult film. There are people online trying to decode it all. It's one of those machines znore talks about in the Yoyodyne post,

In like manner, Pynchon's novel can be described in precisely the same terms as Umberto Eco once applied to Finnegans Wake:

" ...a complex machine destined to produce infinite meanings, operating beyond the years of it's own Creator."

Both texts are perpetual meaning machines. Artesian wells of signification. What Joyce invokes with thousands of inexplicably cross-referencing, multi-linguistic puns, Pynchon summons with an over-saturation of hyperlinked symbolism and imagery.

Both authors, both engineers, have been rendered obsolete by their creations. For a perpetual motion machine is also an Artificial Intelligence. Once it overcomes, Frankenstein-style, its own creator it becomes enabled to create creators who are then equipped to create beyond themselves. A kind of singularity is the result, a singularity that works of art like the Wake and Lot 49 only mirror and prefigure in the culture at large.

 

[version]

I don't think it's on the level of Joyce or Pynchon, but it's clearly reaching for the same thing and pulls it off to a degree. I mean we're still talking and thinking about it.

 

[version]

The hobo's guide thing is apparently real, although they seem to have tweaked the meaning of that one symbol slightly for the film.

38. Keep quiet baby here: One thing that most hobos agreed upon was the protection and respect of young families. This symbol would remind hobos of their code and instruct those who saw this symbol to be quiet and not to disturb them.

Hobo Code: The Signs and Symbols Used by Travelers of Old

The early 1900s were a time of displacement for over 500,000 people in the U.S. Many became hobos and traveled constantly in search of better things. As they traveled, they developed a code of symbols to communicate and help out fellow travelers.

owlcation.com

Those Hobo Symbols Seen on Posts and Fences Relayed Important Messages. Can You Decode Them?

These are the marks that told travelers whether a town or house was friend or foe.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah for sure... it's one of the films that interested me the most over the last few years. I think in a way that Lodge 49 is a kind of sunny daylight LA mystery and Under etc etc is its nighttime companion.

 

[IdleRich]

The hobo's guide thing is apparently real, although they seem to have tweaked the meaning of that one symbol slightly for the film.

Hobo Code: The Signs and Symbols Used by Travelers of Old

The early 1900s were a time of displacement for over 500,000 people in the U.S. Many became hobos and traveled constantly in search of better things. As they traveled, they developed a code of symbols to communicate and help out fellow travelers.

owlcation.com

Those Hobo Symbols Seen on Posts and Fences Relayed Important Messages. Can You Decode Them?

These are the marks that told travelers whether a town or house was friend or foe.

www.popularmechanics.com

The signs on gates and things? I've seen that mentioned in a few other things previously. There is an episode of Mad Men called The Hobo Code for instance.

 

[version]

Also Lynch I suppose (inevitably) - even down to the owls.

The bloke who tells him about the Owl's Kiss is the one who has the dream about the guy behind the diner in Mulholland Drive,

 

[IdleRich]

What is it with owls... owl service, owls are not what they seem, owl woman (edit: owl's kiss sorry) etc etc
Also my favourite joke... girl from Hackney is in countryside and hears a spooky sound "what was that?" "Just an owl" "I know it was an owl - but what owled it?".

 

[version]

What is it with owls... owl service, owls are not what they seem, owl woman (edit: owl's kiss sorry) etc etc

There's a giant owl at Bohemian Grove too,

Since the founding of the club, the Bohemian Grove's mascot has been an owl, symbolizing wisdom. A 30-foot (9 m) hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports stands at the head of the lake in the Grove. This statue was designed by sculptor and two-time club president Haig Patigian. It was constructed in the late 1920s. Since 1929, the Owl Shrine has served as the backdrop of the yearly Cremation of Care ceremony.

 

[luka]

This man is obsessed with owls http://hiddenexperience.blogspot.com/2011/12/evolutionary-triad.html