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'm only 30 minutes into Inland Empire but it feels like it was made by Neil Breen
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Oct 12, 2023 13:15
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The Royal Hotel got me real fuckin uncomfortable at more than a few points. I never saw the documentary Hotel Coolgardie which it's based off of, but it's definitely taking that peak feeling of female dread and sharpening that focus over a nice, tight run time until you're just hoping everything turns out all right. Then you realize that the tension is all too real, nothing is elevated to exaggeration, and these actions and reactions are all quite feasible and could absolutely happen to a couple of girls poo poo out of money on vacation and forced to work at a bar in the middle of - well, anywhere, really. The shots of the Outback are gorgeous, the bar itself goes from welcoming to menacing as day goes to night, Hugo Weaving is entertaining yet menacing as a functional drunk, but more than anything I'm gonna remember how uncomfortable I felt watching the movie. I only realized how many subtle red flags had been waving on screen for over an hour in the final fifteen minutes. Meanwhile my wife was like "lol dude for a lot of women that’s a Tuesday" ElectricSheep fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 13:52
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The Sixth Sense is a rad as gently caress movie, like it had been quite some time since I last saw it and I was pretty blown away at how well it holds up and just how much influence it's clearly had. (I'm going to put the following in spoilers, in case there's anyone reading this who isn't aware of possibly the most infamous movie ending of my generation) I noticed an awful lot of plot contrivances that really bugged me during the movie - particularly the comings and goings of Bruce Willis' character and his interactions (or lack thereof) with the world around him - but then I realised that I was looking at it from the point of view of someone who already knows the big twist that he died in the opening scene and is a ghost. With that knowledge, you start wondering "why does he think he's at the hospital with Cole, surely he has noticed nobody asked him to be there", "does he think Cole's mother is just being rude, she isn't talking to or acknowledging him at all" and things like that. But then I started thinking about Cole saying that ghosts "don't know they're dead" and "only see what they wanna see"; the human mind is brilliant at filling in holes, at bridging gaps in logic and finding solutions, so if you dont' know the twist you just accept everything the movie gives you at face value. Why would we have a scene where Cole is invited to dinner with his wife, or asked by Cole's mother to visit him at the hospital, it's obvious what's happening! And I guess it's the same with Malcolm, the sense of denial is so powerful that he's inventing explanations in his head for how he's apparating in places he presumably did not, say, drive or get the bus to. It's already a good movie for rewatching after knowing the twist, but this made me appreciate the writing even more Everyone in the movie is great to brilliant. Bruce Willis is kind of perfect as Malcolm, it was funny reading that he was more or less legally obliged to perform the role as penance for getting a movie shitcanned a couple of years before as it's hard to imagine anyone else playing that calm sense of world-weariness, the briefest flickers of recognition or mirth before he goes back to denial, the permanent stoic exasperation. Hayley Joel Osment should be held up as the standard for child actors, always "kid-like" but successfully portraying the enormous weight and responsibility of his burden and forced wisdom beyond his years. There's some inspired direction too, shots held just long enough to build tension during dialogue scenes and produce intimate chemistry between the actors, and the moment of the grieving father finding out his wife was deliberately poisoning their daughter is one of my favourite examples of acting and directing ever put on film. God, great movie. Already looking forward to watching it again.
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Oct 13, 2023 14:23
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Inside Man Most everything except the twist is a mess. Movie has no idea how to end, and each of it's multiple endings are unsatisfying. Jodie Foster's character barely needs to exist or makes any sense. Denzel is at the nadir of his charisma, I don't want to say he's phoning it in...but he's getting bodied by Clive Owen and that's not how that match should go. The class and social commentary is banal. The ways some of the scenes are shot are just straight up bad, the flashforward interrogations and the weird scene with Denzel being dragged forward towards the bank after the "execution". Denzel's cream colored suit near the end is wretched. Hard to ever imagine recommending this over a film like Heat. Then I'm sitting here thinking he's done that same type of dolly shot in Malcom X and it wasn't bad, and I got and check and yeah it wasn't bad. Was this his first film shot on digital or something, something about the one in this film looks like hot garbage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR589pyshxI Look how much worse it is in this film than the others, wtf man Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Oct 14, 2023 |
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Oct 14, 2023 03:20
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The Creator was way better than I expected, looked incredible, I liked that it took it's violence seriously. Very pro AI and Asia but also overall a good depiction Also refreshing to see an original sci Fi movie at this scale
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Oct 14, 2023 07:48
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Haunted Mansion was a lot better than the trailer made it out to be. Very much a PG horror movie made by Disney, so nothing too frightening or scary, but some good, tense moments and good special effects. Some plot twists that were actually fairly well hidden. Unfortunately it came out after the infinitely superior Muppets Haunted Mansion, and really, once a Muppet adaptation has been made, there's nothing that can peak that.
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Oct 15, 2023 01:25
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Dream Scenario (2023) Nic cage in a role that screams Paul giamatti. Idk maybe giamatti would have been too obvious. Movie was well shot and edited but seemed to think it was more clever than it was. Like it had all these ideas about viral fame, cancel culture, commodification of our dreams but I’ve seen all that before. And for some reason I thought it wouldn’t be humorous all the time but it’s straight up a dark comedy start to finish. I will say the last scene kind of makes the whole thing worth it, it was really good
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Oct 15, 2023 03:49
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The Rum Diary is fun to show someone who thought he'd plumbed the depths of Depp/Thompson. It's not as good as Fear & Loathing but only because it's trying to ~say something~ in between all the quips and one-liners. I find myself feeling self-conscious about whether I'm being asked to connect with it on a) the loldrughumor level or b) the personal-movie-relationships-plot level or c) the political level. It sure washes over you and makes you feel like you just got tossed around in the surf for a while and now are wondering what the hell happened, and that's kind of the point, but also it's not very satisfying. Unless the point of the whole continuity and meta-presentation between this as a prequel and F&L later is that you do your best to make a difference and maybe all you'll accomplish is establishing a few good character quirks and well-turned phrases, but if that's enough to get people thinking, that's a win.
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Oct 15, 2023 04:18
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Miami Vice I'm not sure how two cops have that Ferrari (and so many speedboats), but I'm glad they do
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Oct 15, 2023 21:40
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Go-fast boats*
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Oct 15, 2023 21:52
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See something you want, arrest the person who has it, buy it at police auction. A tale as old as time.
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Oct 15, 2023 21:58
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last and first men - i almost forgot that this movie existed from back when it was playing at a small theater near me in los angeles. i ended up not seeing it and it completely fell off my radar. fast forward to this month when i signed up for a free trial of shudder to watch mandy and other horror themed movies in october, and i find myself randomly scrolling through the list of available movies and see this pop up on my screen. it's probably one of the most visually striking films i've ever seen, and so evocative despite its ultra minimal style. i'm bummed i passed on seeing this in a theater but elated that it wound up back in my sphere of attention when it did. most movies i watch at home are spent paying less than 100% attention and eventually getting bored enough to stare at my phone or dilly dally some other way. that's saying more about me than any of the movies i watch, really, but this had 100% of my attention 100% of the time and i loved every second of it. 5/5
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Oct 16, 2023 07:26
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went to see SAW X and it was quite enjoyable (although a bit concerning on how heavily the movie tries to make you sympathise and humanize/justify John Kramer) until (as per usual) the twist part. I think the only Saw movies to pull a good twist were 1,2 and maybe 7 (the 3D one forgot which it is), but this time the twist not only is it stupid (as per usual) but it's also really lame and further tries to paint John Kramer as the hero John preemptively rigs the gun, but at any time during the trap switcheroo gambit the blonde woman could have just said "gently caress it" and slit John and Amanda's neck with the sharp metal they knew she had, or decide to play the damsel in distress, call the cops and go "hey I was trying to cure this guy from cancer but it's actually Jigsaw, not only am I curing cancer but I also caught Jigsaw". John somehow knew that the blonde woman would decide to suddenly go full evil and become the final boss of the Saw franchise and engage in psychological warfare. also no matter how many bajillion dollars were in that bag, in no way is that kid smiling by the end of the movie. he is traumatised for life but I digress. Saw movie, should expect all that. Movie delivered on the stupid fun convoluted gorey torture porn nonsense. hopefully going forward they fully embrace the nonsense and reveal that John Kramer trained an IA into developing stupid fun convoluted gorey torture porn epiphany experience traps so that they stop cramming movies inbetween the old ones, cause no matter how much makeup and post-prod they threw at her, Amanda was looking like a soccer mom
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Oct 16, 2023 17:46
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Was blown away by Alec Garlands MEN. A slow burn like Devs (the TV series) but with some of the paranoid energy he brought to Ex Machina. You can see every leering man in every scene just oozing out of the frame. Wonderful formalism
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Oct 18, 2023 04:03
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Secret Window I think my young brain combined this movie with Ninth Gate to create a movie that was superior to both. Movie is one of the most 2.5-3 star popcorn flicks I've ever seen. Depp isn't exactly good, but he's charismatic in a slime ball sorta way and does a good enough job to sell the predictable twist. Logically the ending makes zero sense which doesn't exactly work for a movie that ends with Depp saying only the ending matters in a story but whatever. Fine enough film
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Oct 18, 2023 15:55
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Dr. Yinz Ljubljana posted:Was blown away by Alec Garlands MEN. A slow burn like Devs (the TV series) but with some of the paranoid energy he brought to Ex Machina. You can see every leering man in every scene just oozing out of the frame. Wonderful formalism i haven't seen this even tho i like some of alex garland's other stuff, but the letterboxd reviews for this are hilarious
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Oct 18, 2023 19:51
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ShoogaSlim posted:mandy - maybe the most boring, annoying movie i've ever watched. I love your posts here and in the hardcore/metal threads because I can with almost 100% certainty guarantee I will hate anything you like and vice versa. It’s genuinely very useful
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Oct 18, 2023 21:29
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sorry about your bad taste!!! happy to help  on a serious note: i've been thinking about mandy again after watching last and first men and absolutely loving it. looking into the director/composer (johann johannson) led me to realize he scored arrival, prisoners, and sicario. but he also did the score for mandy which makes me sad bc i disliked the movie so god drat much. im tempted to revisit just to pay more attention to the score and maybe have my mind changed? i doubt it, but i at least have slightly more respect for it than i did before a few days ago.
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Oct 18, 2023 22:54
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ShoogaSlim posted:sorry about your bad taste!!! happy to help Even if you dislike the movie the score is good on its own. Less good than the score to the director’s previous film, Beyond the Black Rainbow, however
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Oct 19, 2023 05:12
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DeimosRising posted:Even if you dislike the movie the score is good on its own. Less good than the score to the director’s previous film, Beyond the Black Rainbow, however when i read that the director did beyond the black rainbow i got sad again bc i've always heard that movie was a great mindfuck trippy movie. now i feel like i probably won't like it. i'll probably give it a try anyway.
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Oct 19, 2023 05:40
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ShoogaSlim posted:i haven't seen this even tho i like some of alex garland's other stuff, but the letterboxd reviews for this are hilarious I love much of Alex Garland's other stuff including DEVS which is criminally underrated but Men sucks
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Oct 19, 2023 09:08
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I thought Men was great — deliberately-uncomfortably balanced between hilarious and disturbing, and a very thorough polemical takedown of various forms of toxic masculinity. I’m definitely in the minority on this one, though – most people read it as unintentionally hilarious, and only intermittently effective as suspense/horror.
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Oct 19, 2023 13:39
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When Evil Lurks - Hardest horror flick I've seen in a while. Excellent upkeep of dread throughout, and I feel like the Hispanic connection to Catholicism, faith, satan, and hosed up voodoo-adjacent traditions elevates that mood. Feel bad hit of the year. Beetlejuice - Delightful. Chicken Butt posted:I thought Men was great — deliberately-uncomfortably balanced between hilarious and disturbing, and a very thorough polemical takedown of various forms of toxic masculinity. I’m definitely in the minority on this one, though – most people read it as unintentionally hilarious, and only intermittently effective as suspense/horror. Men only became hilarious in like the the last 5 minutes.
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Oct 19, 2023 13:41
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ShoogaSlim posted:i haven't seen this even tho i like some of alex garland's other stuff, but the letterboxd reviews for this are hilarious if Mandy made you angry, maybe stay away from this one.
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Oct 19, 2023 14:29
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Nightmare Cinema posted:Men only became hilarious in like the the last 5 minutes.
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Oct 19, 2023 14:44
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Gaius Marius posted:Secret Window I think my young brain combined this movie with Ninth Gate to create a movie that was superior to both. Movie is one of the most 2.5-3 star popcorn flicks I've ever seen. Depp isn't exactly good, but he's charismatic in a slime ball sorta way and does a good enough job to sell the predictable twist. Logically the ending makes zero sense which doesn't exactly work for a movie that ends with Depp saying only the ending matters in a story but whatever. Fine enough film This dredged up a memory of a girl I went to high school with who was in love with Depp when this movie came out, and spent money to see this in theaters a half a dozen times. She was 14 so whatever but still it's kinda lol.
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Oct 19, 2023 15:50
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Safety Factor posted:The ending is like something out of XTRO. It rules. drat. This makes me want to check it out...
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Oct 19, 2023 17:38
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i find it funny that most of the negative reviews ive seen for men are from women. a youtuber days it's basically "men, amirite?" without much else to say or any real nuance. these two letterboxd reviews feel like they'll sum up how i would feel about it:  i actually really love annihilation. ex machina was cool. devs was decent, good concept and so so execution. def underrated and should be checked out by any sci-fi fans. i grabbed men from the library (great resource btw) and gonna hate watch it this weekend. ill try to keep an open mind but im not hopeful.
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Oct 19, 2023 21:33
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Ex Machina was fun but I did think it was a little eyebrow raising that any thematic train of thought you might have been forming mid-movie about abuse and misogyny kinda gets thrown out the window when you get to The Twist.
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Oct 20, 2023 06:30
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mycot posted:Ex Machina was fun but I did think it was a little eyebrow raising that any thematic train of thought you might have been forming mid-movie about abuse and misogyny kinda gets thrown out the window when you get to The Twist. Could you elaborate on this a bit more?
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Oct 20, 2023 08:51
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Anselm (2023) I’m happy if Wim Wenders spends the rest of his days making 3D documentaries about German artists. This one was about the large-scale artworks of Anselm Keifer, touching on his history and reception as a provocative voice in the 60s. Is he a crypto-fascist, or just holding a mirror up to post-war Germany ? Movie doesn’t really answer the question but it is beautiful, the 3D is essential for appreciating the scale and texture of his paintings and sculptures. I really liked the process scenes showing how someone makes such monumental works. Movie loses steam in the last quarter or so when it gets a lot more fantastical including a groanworthy composite shot of Keifer walking a tightrope over archival footage of postwar Germany but still enjoyed it overall.
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Oct 20, 2023 13:47
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Breetai posted:Could you elaborate on this a bit more? It's hard to describe without just becoming a Wikipedia summary of the film and it's been a while since I watched it, I just remember my immediate takeaway being never date a robot. e. Which normally I would call a moral inapplicable to reality but now in the era where people are calling chapgpt their girlfriend 
mycot fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 17:02
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mycot posted:Ex Machina was fun but I did think it was a little eyebrow raising that any thematic train of thought you might have been forming mid-movie about abuse and misogyny kinda gets thrown out the window when you get to The Twist. I thought that was kind of the point, that the AI is manipulating poor Domnhall Gleeson by appealing to his sense of injustice at its captivity (and his desire to rescue a damsel in distress), but all of that stuff is irrelevant to it; it's just solving the problem of how to escape Oscar Isaac and do God knows what. There's a bit in the script that makes that pretty clear but I can't actually remember if it was in the film: 
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Oct 20, 2023 17:14
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Clipperton posted:I thought that was kind of the point, that the AI is manipulating poor Domnhall Gleeson by appealing to his sense of injustice at its captivity (and his desire to rescue a damsel in distress), but all of that stuff is irrelevant to it; it's just solving the problem of how to escape Oscar Isaac and do God knows what. There's a bit in the script that makes that pretty clear but I can't actually remember if it was in the film: i don't think this was in the movie but that's awesome. gonna rewatch it soon with that context.
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Oct 20, 2023 18:20
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I watched Roman J Israel Esq and think it's criminally underrated. On the one hand it's quite personal to me, I've worked in law and policy and haven't always felt able to do what seems right within those frameworks. And while I've never breached ethics like how Roman does, and have some semblance of social tact, I'm definitely someone who can shoot myself in the foot sometimes with my own stubbornness. So I can relate. But moreover I haven't heard anyone talk about how it's clearly a companion piece to Nightcrawler. They're both films about the dangers of being uncompromising or inability to have nuance. Nightcrawler is the film about being uncompromisingly capitalistic and amoral, where Roman shows how even the opposite attachment to justice/values can be too extreme and lead to either a complete disengagement from society or a fundamental change in ones mission
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Oct 21, 2023 01:56
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men - female lead is good. props to the everyman for carrying various characters. cinematography and score are cool. but this movie doesn't really have much to say while going way too far with trying to say "something"
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Oct 21, 2023 12:46
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Point Break for the first time in a while - Holy poo poo Bigelow loves that long lens 
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Oct 22, 2023 01:08
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Miami Vice (2006) - wow this is one of the strangest directed movies I've ever seen. All lingering extreme close-ups on faces and eyeballs and boobs and floors. Or else it's shakycam action from the POV of someone right over everyone's shoulder, jumping around hectically from angle to angle. It's like Super COPS Cam or something. But weirder still is the editing of the music. It will play like an entire song end to end, fade it out, and start playing another song, right in the middle of a sex scene. And then the second song just keeps playing on into the next scene outdoors doing some unrelated action thing. Like they just left their iPod shuffle on continuous loop and forgot about it or something. And then there's that cover of In The Air Tonight that plays over the intro to the final shootout scene (drat Mann does love his shootouts in shipping-container mazes I guess), which is so awful it makes what is clearly supposed to be an homage come off like a horrible joke e: Oh I guess it's shot so weird because they were just learning about digital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_Viper_FilmStream_Camera Data Graham fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 02:31
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In a month it'll be your favorite film Not even kidding, the film is like the loving Zahir. Gets lodged in your brain and all you can think about is how crazy some of the shots are and how insane the plot is. Before long you start incessantly requoting scenes over and over, before long your start sublimating your own identity into that of Crockett; substituting your own existence for that of an undercover Miami cop down so deep that they believe themselves to only be a SA poster. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 02:34
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Gaius Marius posted:In a month it'll be your favorite film wrong. i saw it two months ago and every time it gets brought up i dislike it even more. it's an awful, incoherent mess.
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Oct 22, 2023 03:18
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