Movies in a thread

[G.C.R]

I actually wanted to write about movies I've seent he last couple days, but the old thread is full and I couldn't think of a snappy new thread name. I still can't, but that's not going to stop me!

I cannot afford to go to hardly any films in the film festival this year, and i think the two i went to on the weekend will be around about my limit. Pity, because it looks to be a great one this year.
The new film directed by Hong Sang Soo, HaHaHa, was fucking great, though I think possibly if you didn't like his stuff already this would be an odd place to start. Its gentler and sillier than a lot of his recent films - gentler in that the guys in it are still constantly putting their foot in their mouths in their attempts to connect, but they really do seem to be trying to do right by the people they are trying to connect with. And sillier in that the men in it are constantly bursting into hysterical tears at the drop of a hat. I had a lot of fun watching this film, and came out of it hungry to be seeing more.

I want to say lots about Asylum Pieces too, an NZ film I saw on Saturday, because it was amazing, but I have 15 minutes before class starts so I'll write it later.

[Anne the Man]

I watched Inside Job yesterday (doco about why the financial crisis happened). It was good. Tbh I'm still not a lot clearer on how finance works, but someone on there said you could have a doctorate in math and some of that stuff still wouldn't make sense. I didn't realise the study of economics itself was so corrupted by the market, that's depressing. I feel like this is a constant gripe, but there were only two or three woman interviewed. There were a couple of high-up women who had declined to be interviewed for the film, but still. I think that may be just a general state of affairs rather than intentional bias by the director, at least. At the end it says we have to fight this market shite, but doesn't give many pointers on how to do that

[Ah_Pook]

i watched jaws 3 and 4 the other day. jaws 3 was really endearingly bad, with the horrible 80s 3d and dennis quaid and seaworld. jaws 4 was just kinda dull and not particularly entertaining. the best thing i can say about jaws 4 is that it had the immortal tag line "This time... it's personal!".

[jm]

I watched Predator and Predator 2 the other night, a housemate having just recently downloaded extant Predator movies.  I haven't seen these since they came out.  Jesus, this shit is so goofy.

[Ah_Pook]

goofy, yes. awesome, also yes.

[elpollodiablo]

Has anyone else seen Inception? I wanted to organize my thoughts on it over the weekend, but didn't, thinking that I'd have time during the day at work. Unfortunately I'm training my replacement all this week. Blerg.

Anyway, I'd give it a B+. Probably could've been an A with the help of a script doctor.

[Captain]

I saw Inception!  Boy, that movie is long, huh?

Just kiddin'!  I think the movie is fun, but kind of asks you to "go with it" a lot.  Like, does this plot or sequence make much sense?  No time for that--just kind of go with it.  That whole part with the "nested" action scenes seemed pretty ripe for parody (I don't want to give too much away, so I don't want to describe it as anything but nested). 

The person I saw the movie with found the characters kind of empty.  Without characters, it failed for him.  I thought about it a little... yeah, maybe he's got a point.  But it's appeal, I suppose, is in that of the caper.  It's kind of like Oceans 11.  But in THE MIND--kind of.

So anyways, I was glad I saw it on a big screen.

[peacocks]

Inception definitely asks you to "go with it" a lot.  I am usually a sucker for that kind of thing and can easily get into the feel of a movie and just go along with the ride.  The end had me all sitting forward waiting to see what was going to happen (even though you know) but like your friend said, Captain, I had a hard time giving a shit about the characters and there were many script induced eye rolls.  Some parts were cool to look at but as soon as I left the theater I kind of just forgot about it.  Man, it could have been so interesting. 

[hannah]

Ocean's 11 et al. are funny. Inception is pretty humorless.

[elpollodiablo]

Soooo self-serious. Really took the air out of some potentially great scenes.

[peacocks]

agreed.  And some parts that maybe were supposed to be funny just fell flat

[hannah]

Also, a character who designs labyrinths named Ariadne!!!!!! Played by the woefully miscast Ellen Page.

[elpollodiablo]

Also woefully untalented, you ask me. She seemed completely uninterested in the whole enterprise.

And yeah, the name. Ugh.

[YojimboMonkey]

This is that one with the trailers that give you no idea what the movie is about but have a part where they roll a city up like a burrito?

[Maaik]

Sure is.  My favorite thing to come out of the internet this past week was this parody of the Inception trailer

[G.C.R]

So, Asylum Pieces the other day. This was a film pretty much guaranteed to tear me to fucking shreds  - or anyone really - its an essay film about the old Porirua mental hospital outside of Wellington, which closed in 1992 and whose buildings have since been partly hostels, partly mental health service related facilities, but for the most part, its a slowly decaying ghost town.
The film was started as a project of still photos by the director Kathy Dudding (a friend of mine, in a smalltown Wellington talk-at-parties sort of way) and her partner, who killed himself when the project was still in its infancy. She decided to continue with it, and it became this film, which is both a history of the institution, a history of mental health treatment in New Zealand, a personal poem about coming to terms with the death of a partner, and a furiously, painfully angry polemic about antidepressants, especially in terms of the way they are prescribed in this country - simultaneously a complete reliance on them coupled with a major lack of support and information to patients and their families about them. (This part was the hardest for me to take: I related to it strongly in a lot of ways.)
The only minor quibble I had with this was that there was some bad casting/performance in terms of one or two of the voice over narrations, but overall, damn. This was really good.

[Ah_Pook]

inception was a lot of fun. it was about a half hour too long though. not that there was anything that obviously screamed to be cut while i was watching it, it was just fatiguing to watch after a while. i felt exactly the same way about the dark knight though so maybe its just nolan's style.

[elpollodiablo]

So when the third (fourth?) level scene started, in the snow, who else was thinking "GOLDENEYE?" Cuz I mentioned it to D when we were leaving the theater, and a few people on one of my regular weekly podcasts also picked up on it. If it's a coincidence, it's a pretty stark one. I think it's reasonable to assume that Murphy's character, being in his late 20s/early 30s, might dream a video game every once in a while.

Although that speaks to one of my main criticisms of the film: I was expecting some really strange and surreal images, a more dreamlike visual experience. Maybe that was naive considering Nolan's aesthetic has always been rather demure and staid, but his dream world was very sterile and utilitarian.

[Ah_Pook]

i was thinking modern warfare 2, personally. specifically this level. also, they built that world for him to dream in, it didnt come from murphy.

[girl]

Streaming on Netflix, Mary and Max

Mary Dinkle, a chubby 8-year-old Australian girl, and Max Horovitz, an obese, middle-aged New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome, are a pair of unlikely pen pals in this quirky clay animation feature from writer-director Adam Elliot.

My thoughts at the description "that sounds awful, I'll watch that".  Holy cow, you guys! This movie is charming and sweet and awkward and painful and funny and heartbreaking. Highly recommended!

[Ashley]

My friend made me download + watch that.    I agree with your post.

[Anne the Man]

Dang, I just saw the trailer for Inception that actually tells you what's going on and that's an awesome premise. What a shame if they didn't do it right!

[davy]

So, hey, Blade Runner's pretty good, yeah?

[Ignatius]

Blade Runner is one of those movies that is about something else every time I watch it. It is always good, though.

[davy]

What blows my mind is how fucking GOOD it looks, for a sci-fi noir released in 1982. I mean, the only cheesy visuals in the entire movie are hairstyles, and you can hardly fault them for that. It has aged exceptionally well.