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distortion park posted:The Master This was very good, strongly recommend watching it, I didn't "get" it or the themes at all but the amount of craft on display is incredible. have you heard of scientology?
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# ? May 14, 2024 02:03 |
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ShoogaSlim posted:have you heard of scientology? yes, and obv the setting is an off-brand scientology. I enjoyed it as a character study and examination of how a cult like that works, but there was obviously a lot more going on which was completely opaque to me. Like joining an argument that has been going on for 2 hours already.
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distortion park posted:yes, and obv the setting is an off-brand scientology. I enjoyed it as a character study and examination of how a cult like that works, but there was obviously a lot more going on which was completely opaque to me. Like joining an argument that has been going on for 2 hours already. i've seen this a few times and go back and forth between thinking it's a very good movie or a pretty good movie or a masterpiece. less so the last one, but definitely one of the first two. i think, at its core, it's just a movie about wanting control over others to makeup for the lack of control over yourself. both of the leads are addicts and manipulators who use other people and each other to validate their "talents" while running from their problems. i should watch it again soon probably.
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Just watched Stuck (2007), directed by Stuart Gordon It's about a woman who does a hit and run on a homeless guy, and he gets stuck in her windshield. She doesn't call the police, and instead just drives her car home, where the homeless man struggles/escape survive. Mena Suvari has corn rows in this movie, which is pretty funny right off the bat. The movie gets a lot of horror out of the homeless man's struggle to survive, but it also, more subtley gets a lot of horror from the psychology of the woman responsible. I found it quite disturbing in a sense, because she didn't strike me as being a bad person, just one who has a lot of anxiety. It's about 85 minutes and most of those minutes are filled with horror, tension, dark comedy, class commentary/satire and good acting. It's definitely worth watching, but it seems like it could be boring to rewatch. It does a lot with a simple story and short runtime though. 7/10
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I got a lot more out of The Master the second time I watched it (it also helped it was from a beautiful 70mm print).
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Fighting Elegy posted:Just watched Stuck (2007), directed by Stuart Gordon She has cornrows because in the story the movie is based on the woman was black. I haven’t seen it in a while but I could swear they put bronzer on Suvari as well.
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distortion park posted:yes, and obv the setting is an off-brand scientology. I enjoyed it as a character study and examination of how a cult like that works, but there was obviously a lot more going on which was completely opaque to me. Like joining an argument that has been going on for 2 hours already. Like all late PTA it's about control and how it's not so simple as dominant and submissive roles in a relationship. That extends from the personal to the societal. Memories A collection of three short anime films headed by the man who directed Akira. Unfortunately the quality varies wildly between the parts. Pt. 2 Stink Bomb Quite poor. There is some very, very good animation and directing in this short but the plot is both stupid and unfunny in it's stupidity of having the worlds dumbest man accidentally become a lethal stench creator and take down the Japanese and US military. Giving it two stars in generous Pt.3 Cannon Fodder Much more interesting. A city that has it's entire existence built around fighting and unseen and unheard enemy using cannons explored through a single day in the life of a Husband, Wife and Child. The Wife works at a factory making shells, the man is a loader for one of the larger cannons, and the son learns trig and chemistry to contribute to the war effort. Pretty standard anti war, anti war culture critique but shot in an interesting psuedo-one take that's fascinating. Plus the cannon aesthetic goes so far it becomes pretty funny. 3.5-4 Stars Pt.1Magnetic Rose There's a reason I put this one last despite it being first in the film. That's because it's a loving 5/5 banger despite it's short length. This was written by Satoshi Kon and it bears all the marks of it, the liminal nature of space, the dream and real worlds coming together, the mutability of memory. Incredible poo poo. Smatterings of Alien, The Shining, Last Year at Marienbad and Planetes all wrapped together into a beautiful little package. If the film had just been this and had been extended to full length it would easily go down as one of the greats along with Akira and Kon's other works. I really don't want to say any more as I hope people will take the time to watch it instead, it's only 30 or so minutes.
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Magnetic Rose also has music by Yoko Kanno. I like the others more than you i think, but no doubt Magnetic Rose is the peak and the one I usually rewatch. Stink Bomb is funny though as my spouse is from that city, which doesn't come up too often.
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Incredibles 2: It's pretty wild (incredible) that Into the Spiderverse came out the same year as this. It's such a contrast as Spiderverse comes in with a superhero movie and just smashes it. Incredibles 2 just visually doesn't look as interesting and never comes close to the same heights in emotion and action. The big problem is that the end of the first Incredibles promised a united superhero team working together. But this doesn't happen until the end of the sequel again. Instead it's the challenges of parenthood and single income families. Music is good though.
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The designs for the new superheroes in Incredibles 2 were bizarrely awful looking. I remember feeling like I was tripping when they came on screen. Clash of Clans rear end character design.
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Everyone was desperate for Incredibles 2 for years, until we actually got it.
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The fact that Incredibles 2 was Brad Bird's penance movie after Tomorrowland flopped probably had something to do with the final product being so uneven. Dude's heart just wasn't in it.
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I'm going to suggest that the ideal way to watch Skinamarink is not while you are on a treadmill. I watch movies on the treadmill because it makes me forget how much I hate being on the treadmill. That being said, your point still stands because the ideal way to watch it is not at all. ![]() shoeberto posted:Too late for you now, but Skinamarink was basically a feature length extension of a short film from the director called Heck. I thought Heck was great as an experimental piece but was glad it was only 20 minutes or whatever. Yeah, that would have made more sense. So much of Skinamarink felt like filler. The movie has some interesting ideas but they get old really fast with that runtime.
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All Fun and Games 2023: This is like the polar opposite of Skinamarink in that it is a short film full of exposition. It's 76 minutes long and manages to cram a story into it. It's a dumb teen slasher horror film that goes into some pretty yikes territory with the source of the drama. It took me sitting at the computer typing this out for the message to click in my head, but I still feel like it is just loosely tied to the action. The non-spoiler premise is that it takes place in Salem and the protagonists are siblings (Marcus-Asa Butterfield, Billie-Natalie Dyer, and Jo-Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). They are all part of a dysfunctional family with a single mom and a good-for-nothing uncle. Jo breaks into an old house, finds a book and an ancient knife, takes it home with him, and so begins a movie involving the Salem Witch Trials, curses, and killings. The message I think the movie wants to convey is how trauma shapes families, like how being bullied or persecuted by your community boomerangs that pain back onto those who inflicted it. And that said trauma doesn't go away. There might be a longer cut out there that better fleshes out that message, but what is on Hulu doesn't really deliver convey it beyond Billie's final narration outside of one or two scenes showing Marcus and Jo dealing with teen bullies. It also doesn't help that Marcus, who ends up being the curse's vessel after saving his younger brother from becoming its victim, gets tossed in jail for the murders because there is no real rational explanation or tangible evidence to exonerate him. The thing that the movie really left me thinking about is Natalie Dyer and her haircut for the film: ![]() It looks like they gave her Finn Wolfhard's bangs: ![]() And that kept making me laugh throughout the film.
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Bogus Adventure posted:I watch movies on the treadmill because it makes me forget how much I hate being on the treadmill. That being said, your point still stands because the ideal way to watch it is not at all. i have never and will never watch skinamarink, but i feel like it's probably one of the few movies that unironically is better watched in bed on an ipad with the lights off
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Almost went to see Dune 2 at the local cinema last night, but decided to wait until I can see it on a bigger screen next week and watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire instead, and am glad I did. It feels like it starts slow and cold, but as the film progresses you learn that it's taking the time required to tell this tale properly (calling it a "tale" feels reductive but idk how else to put it). By near the end of the film just the appearance of a random man in the kitchen feels like an invasion. Reading reviews of this they all fail to really communicate what makes this film powerful to me, which is probably a sign that it's a real achievement. I have some rather underbaked thoughts comparing this and Unrest. Both have a lot of shots of portrait like shots of the cast - the actors in the middle of the frame barely moving, which was thematically appropriate for Portrait at least. I saw Unrest first and it is far more stylised which I think lessened the impact of these shots for me in Portrait. They also both do something interesting with high resolution cinematography, I'm not exactly sure but they're both very sharp and clearly filmed for period pieces. The sets are very clean and feel mostly authentic (but don't fully hide that they are in fact modern reproductions), and there's no attempt to soften the images of the cast, all the textures are there. Unromanticised maybe?
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Dune 2: holy poo poo this was an incredible experience in 70mm imax.
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distortion park posted:Almost went to see Dune 2 at the local cinema last night, but decided to wait until I can see it on a bigger screen next week and watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire instead, and am glad I did. It feels like it starts slow and cold, but as the film progresses you learn that it's taking the time required to tell this tale properly (calling it a "tale" feels reductive but idk how else to put it). By near the end of the film just the appearance of a random man in the kitchen feels like an invasion. Reading reviews of this they all fail to really communicate what makes this film powerful to me, which is probably a sign that it's a real achievement. We also just saw Portrait this weekend and I agree it's so good. I love exactly what you are talking about, where the random dude does feel so jarring. All three performances were so amazing, and just this feeling the film can generate is astounding.
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Killing Ground (2016) An Aussie couple go camping and find an abandoned truck and tent, though they don't realise they're abandoned at first, then bad poo poo starts to happen. Not an amazing film by any stretch, and it's pretty harrowing in parts, but as a thriller I really enjoyed it. There's some solid low-key acting, people behaving realistically in a terrifying situation, decent pacing and a shitload of tension, and the film lets you know quite early on that the ending probably won't be happy. The only real downside is that the film jumps back and forth between two points in time in a way that possibly lets on too much, and it's done kinda clumsily. I loved the scene early on when the toddler stumbles out of the woods, barely in shot. Properly gave me chills, I kinda wish more of the film had that vibe. Also that lady's face at the end, drat. Just dont watch the trailer if you're planning on watching the film. 3.5/5 toiletbrush fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Night of the Comet I was never a mall person growing up. But ever since they've started disappearing I've started to gain more and more nostalgia for the experience of just sitting in these giant buildings with all these products and attractions. Watching those dead mall videos is quite relaxing, but the problem is I don't particularly wish to be in those areas with other people. So seeing this movie where there aren't any people but there are malls at the height of American consumerism is quite appealing. Secondly, this movie is so much more Shin Megami Tensei, the first game not the franchise, then I would have ever thought. Exploring a world with ninety percent of people dead. Robbing stores for guns and supplies. Even being kidnapped and forced to take part in evil medical trials. Really for a B movie it's a lot of fun. It never takes itself too seriously and is driven primarily by the vibes of seeing empty neighborhoods, abandoned cars, eighties radio stations, and shopping sprees in seemingly empty malls. The back half is a bit weaker with all the science poo poo, I wish it had just been the two sisters loving around in an empty world the whole time honestly.
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AmbuLAnce (2022) - Michael Bay discovers drone photography
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A review of Fallen Leaves (2023), dir. Aki Kaurismäki: "There was no way the cops could have handled it. There were simply too many zombies. I've never laughed so hard." and also: "You're so playful." and additionally: "Coma patients can wait for five minutes or more." and furthermore: "Dog. Dog!" and not to forget: "I am his sister. In faith." and what's more: "I hope. I changed the lock." and finally: "Bloody war."
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I'm going to suggest that the ideal way to watch Skinamarink is not while you are on a treadmill.
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In defense of that guy, I watch a lot of movies while exercising. But some are definitely better choices than others. Action is ideal, comedies can be tough if I'm laughing too much.
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I watched most of Skinamarink on a treadmill and I absolutely loved the first half. It probably helps im down in a pitch black spooky as gently caress basement with noise canceling earbuds. Philthy fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Mar 15, 2024 |
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Philthy posted:I watched most of Skinamarink on a treadmill and I absolutely loved the first half. What movies are good for pretending you're running away from something?
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The Running Man, duhhh
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distortion park posted:What movies are good for pretending you're running away from something? The Passenger
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The Fugitive!
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It Follows
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distortion park posted:What movies are good for pretending you're running away from something? Run Lola Run Or any Tom Cruise movie
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distortion park posted:What movies are good for pretending you're running away from something? Halloween?
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I'm going to suggest that the ideal way to watch Skinamarink is not
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Starship Troopers - lol I forgot they took a potshot at Mormons in this Also I got to witness a remarkable phenomenon this time, someone who queued it up because he "wanted to see Neil Patrick Harris being a Nazi", but then proceeded to watch the entire movie as a straight non-satirical oorah war movie and yelling "gently caress yeah" at all the slaughter. Then when NPH showed up in his long leather duster and peaked cap he burst out laughing. Like he gathered at some point through the grapevine that the movie is a satire of fascism but he thinks that just means "NPH dresses as a Nazi at one point", but that's just one silly little sidelight in an otherwise mainline war film where you can cheer the good guys and be like "Yeah this whole defense of the fort is a reference to Daniel Daly, look it up ![]() Data Graham fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Data Graham posted:Starship Troopers - lol I forgot they took a potshot at Mormons in this It’s so god damned funny! I keep thinking the South Park guys were involved cause they love the church. Joe Smith ![]()
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Cade: The tortured crossing (2023) Neil Breen continues to regress as a filmmaker in basically every single way. There’s an unexplained TikTok dance number that goes on for two minutes in the middle of the movie. The same scenes repeat at least twice. There are slow fades to black in the middle of fight scenes. Neil fights an animorph. Every single shot that isn’t stock footage is green-screen with zero camera movement. Double Down and Fateful Findings are genuinely interesting attempts at movies by comparison. At least this one didn’t end with a violently libertarian rant but I think it might also be anti-vaxx? Maybe? It’s his most baffling movie because there’s just nothing here.
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Island Zero (2018) - fantastic setup, fantastic location, fantastic photography, but everything else is shiiiiiiiiiiiittttt
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I expected to really enjoy Love Lies Bleeding but ultimately thought it was just okay. Kinda feels like someone put the "terminally horny" internet memes into a blender with Grindhouse and this is what came out.
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perfect days dear lord, this is the best movie since banshees or aftersun. i think it might be better than either of those? either way, must see for yakusho's performance alone. just expertly done in every regard. hard to go into much detail without giving something away, but just go see it.
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# ? May 14, 2024 02:03 |
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surf rock posted:I expected to really enjoy Love Lies Bleeding but ultimately thought it was just okay. Kinda feels like someone put the "terminally horny" internet memes into a blender with Grindhouse and this is what came out. Yeah same here. The casting and acting are really good … I think it was going for a Coen Bros vibe, but it failed to be quite clever or engaging enough. The climactic moment of magical realism elicited roars of laughter in my theater, which I’m not sure is what they were going for. The “gross underbelly of America” atmosphere (underscored by one of Stewart’s character’s first scenes being her unclogging a toilet with her hands) was cool, though.
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