24 frames per second: new movie thread

[Andrew_TSKS]

TSKS

hey TSKS

remember when i was talking about a scene in day for night?

well i threw it on youtube for you

hah, nice. that's really interesting. i want to see the rest of the movie now.

[guanajuato]

viacom now OWNS youguyss

[Andrew_TSKS]

It most certainly is partially the professor. But to answer Andrew's question, no, I don't think there's any interest among the class in exploring that particular avenue of inquiry--like I said, I think it's self-evident to most of the class why they like these films. Either that, or they just haven't given it much thought. I don't doubt that if I asked them why, they'd probably give answers which just described the films: the gore, the frights, the larger than life killers, etc.

that's interesting, because as a fan of slasher films myself, i think i have some ideas on exactly those questions. now, i don't know if i could spiel them out for you right now, or even if i could satisfactorily put them into words without thinking for a while. but i've certainly considered it.

i guess there's a big difference between me and the type of people who watch movies like that because they like the special effects and are stoked on how metal all the decapitations are.

xpost--milly, what ARE you talking about?

[guanajuato]

http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080703/1194791404540.html?.v=3

the idea of academically studying friday the thirteenth jason goes to hell fills me with delight!

"today we are going to discuss jason's motives in coming back from hell to get revenge on campers."

[Andrew_TSKS]

Ok, let me roll out a proper review post here--"Detour" tonight, on a super bare-bones DVD that could play the 67-minute film or skip to one of 8 chapters; nothing else. I'm thinking at least 3/4 of the DVD was left blank, and that's on top of the fact that the print was dodgy and at times the sound and picture would get downright atrocious. It was all good enough quality to watch and understand, though a better DVD transfer is begging to be created--not to mention some bonus features.

Anyway, about the film--I think this might be the most obvious precursor from the American noir genre to the French new wave genre that I've seen yet. This movie had no real crime/suspense plot--it was just about a guy hitchhiking cross-country to reunite with his girlfriend, and getting into a jam when the guy who picks him up hitchhiking drops dead on him. Of course, he reacts by panicking, hiding the body, and assuming the guy's identity, but you can almost understand why; he's convinced that if he went to the cops and told them the truth, they'd think he killed the guy. But that's just the beginning of the mess the guy gets into. And I don't really want to go into any more detail about the plot, as I hate spoilerific movie reviews (even when the spoilers are whited out), but I will say that it seems like hiding the dead guy's body is the only really actively wrong thing that the main character does at any point during the movie. And even that, you could argue, wasn't that bad. Everything else that happens to him--and a bunch of stuff happens to him, all of it bad--happens almost completely at random. This feels like a movie about living poor and living hard, and how that sort of lifestyle often puts people who'd otherwise never run afoul of the law into bad situations. And it also feels like a movie about that cliche phrase, "the fickle finger of fate." It seems like life, for the main character but really, for EVERYONE, is held together by the most tenuous connections, and it can all fall apart on you so easily, and without rhyme or reason. The existential bleakness of "Detour" seems like a really obvious precursor for a movie like "The 400 Blows", to me, and I can understand now more than ever what French new wave directors were taking from cheap American crime/noir B-pictures like this one. Not a perfect movie, but definitely a diamond in the rough. I'm glad I saw it.

[Andrew_TSKS]

http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080703/1194791404540.html?.v=3

what's the biggest load of bullshit in all of this is that it seems like one of the eventual aims here will be to sue people for watching movie clips on youtube. this is even worse than suing people for downloading music. are they seriously going to try to hold people accountable for watching free content provided on a website?

[guanajuato]

i'm not real worried about that. i think it's kinda funny. it'd be pretty hard to get all those user's names! this is a century long project! in 2108, after the great usa water shortage, during president victron's 2nd term, viacom -- by then a small degraded company of 10 employees will shift in their seats at their terminals as a red button begins blinking... 'task complete' will flash across all their screens.

i'm more or less bemused if they ever find out about my youtube habits. omg, someone out there may finally know that i watched the end clip of howard the duck like 8 times. oh geez.

[Andrew_TSKS]

what's really funny about it is that you don't have to be logged in to watch youtube, and i myself have never once in my life logged in to watch anything.

[guanajuato]

plus i've watched this like 2 zillion times because i enjoy that rendition of 'danny boy'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqu6LGAtEIU

viacom will KNOW

[guanajuato]

what's really funny about it is that you don't have to be logged in to watch youtube, and i myself have never once in my life logged in to watch anything.

yeah who logs into youtube? i can't remember ever doing that.
viacom are a bunch of weirdos.

[girl]

  The existential bleakness of "Detour" seems like a really obvious precursor for a movie like "The 400 Blows", to me, and I can understand now more than ever what French new wave directors were taking from cheap American crime/noir B-pictures like this one. Not a perfect movie, but definitely a diamond in the rough. I'm glad I saw it.

Yes! I think Detour is quite the little gem of a movie. (You pretty much covered it in your review.)

[elpollodiablo]

We saw WALL-E and Hancock this weekend. The former was outstanding, the latter was decent enough that I can recommend it.

[Thermofusion]

Will the latter help perpetuate my ongoing man-crush on Jason Bateman?

[elpollodiablo]

I can't imagine it reducing its intensity, since he's playing essentially the same role he always does: well-intentioned yuppie straight man.

[Thermofusion]

Hot Damn!

I'm ecstatic the Arrested Development movie is finally looking a reality.

With each review I read of Wall-E, I want to see it more and more. Unfortunately I'm probably well past the "I Know Way Too Much About A Movie I Haven't Even Seen" mark.  I do think it's interesting how violently the fat acceptance movement is reacting to the movie, though.

[Andrew_TSKS]

oh really? what's that about?

[guanajuato]

i could have watched wall-e build those fockin garbage skyscrapers for 2 hours plus. the story got in the way. whenever i saw one of them, i started plotting one out in my mind and how i could build one that would be stable and offer a secure path to stack more garbage. i wonder how high i could get it.
pretty high i think. sorry were you guys talking about the story component to wall-e?

[Thermofusion]

oh really? what's that about?

Wall-E: Everyone Who Loves 'Wall-E', Step Forward! Not So Fast, Republicans, Fat People

and

Pixar joins in on fat-bashing

From the latter:

But WALL-E specifically singles out and targets obese people as the primary cause of mankind’s demise, further perpetuating the stereotype of the gluttonous, slothful fat person. Furthermore, the film suggests that, in their exaggerated laziness, obese people disregard not only personal health, but also that of the planets, and are held up as the cause for the destruction of the environmental landscape.

This is, despite mountains of evidence that show, as a group, fat people do not eat more than thin people, nor are they less active and that the so-called “obesity epidemic” has been greatly exaggerated by self-serving corporate interests.

edit: that last paragraph in the above quote gives me the lolz

[Andrew_TSKS]

you know, as a fat guy who often feels like fat people are unfairly maligned as solely responsible for their plight, i STILL think these people are grasping at straws! i DO feel like things could get remarkably worse in the future if the current trends towards unhealthy foods, stressful yet sedentary work environments, and ever-decreasing spare time for the middle and lower classes continues. i guess the difference is that i don't see this as the fault of the fat people, but more the fault of a society that makes staying thin harder than ever.

maybe the people who wrote those articles need to take a step back and consider whether or not they are assuming a blame on the fat people themselves that isn't actually being placed there.

[Thermofusion]

I only found out about the fat acceptance movement because I was reading way too many Wall-E reviews.  But apparently there's a whole network of blogs, organized groups and even some political lobbying being done by these folks.  With the caveat that I don't yet have a complete grasp on their ideology, I'm so far feeling pretty mixed about the whole thing. 

Let's get this out of the way first: people generally have a right not to feel made fun of for who they are.  Or marginalized for things that aren't 100% their fault.  I agree with the FAers on that.  Some of the blogs I've read come a little too close to suggesting censorship for what they feel is "anti-fat" propaganda, and while I think this is probably a natural overemotional reaction, I have to disagree there.

The problem is this: the fat acceptance movement paints itself as radical, as fringe, as revoutionary...and I see them as the complete opposite: totally conformist.  Conformist to big corporations like Coke and Pepsi and McDonald's, conformist to our unhealthy sedentary lifestyle, conformist to eating the worst processed food Swanson can toss at your freezer aisle and conformist to a commerical medical/pharmaceutical establishment which relies on our modern unwillingness to exercise or take steps to lower our risk of diabetes or heart disease so that it may peddle more and more drugs at us. These are the sorts of things that are either directly responsible for the stratospheric rise in the national obesity rate or help perpetuate it.  And, at some level, to say "fat is OK and I'm not gonna do anything about it" not only plays into these institutions' hands; it conforms to an unhealthy lifestyle they've gleefully laid out for you.  So it's not radical at all -- it's pro-all the things that make us fat and that makes me cringe hardcore.

I think if I were debating an FAer, this is the point where they'd counter that a separate commercial marketing complex has been built up around advertisements and exercise videos and diet books and weight loss supplements  and weight-loss pills (and so forth) to 1) take advantage of fat peoples' personal insecurities and marginalize them as non-entities in society and 2) humiliate them into buying products that promise to bring them back to a socially acceptable body mass.  And I'd have to concede that there's probably some truth to that. 

But what does that leave us with?  On one side, the massive commercial complex of fast food chains, soda companies and pharmaceutical giants; on the other side, the massive commercial complex of diet products, exercise programs, dubious weight loss supplements and...pharmaceutical giants.  If put between two evils, the only sensible choice is to either strike your own path or at least pick the healthier of said evils, but the fat acceptance movement does neither and ultimately plays into the hands of those who'd happily watch them Coke & Taco Bell themselves to an early grave so long as they keep shellin' out for that 3-liter of Mr. Pibb along with their cart-ful of Hungry Man dinners.  It's nothing to be made fun of, but it is sad, and unless I've a vast misunderstanding of their ideology then I have to disagree with it out of sheer principle.

[Thermofusion]

And, just so I don't derail this thread, I'll add that I saw Die Screaming, Marianne last night and it was fucking awesome.

[Andrew_TSKS]

re: fat acceptance--yeah, it's a tough thing to get one's head around. because yes, to a certain extent, there are metabolic factors that appear to be different from person to person that have a decent amount of influence on whether you tend towards being thin or overweight. and yes, there's a lot of crappy horrible food out there that's kind of hard to avoid if you've got an actual life and aren't well-off financially. believe me, that's one i struggle with a lot. and finally, yes, the industry around dieting is massive and does use negative attitudes towards people's weight to sell their product. there's one commercial i sometimes see on late night tv around here that begins with a declarative statement along the lines of "extra body fat is unsightly and unattractive." and then does its diet-pill pitch from that foundation. all of this is terrible.

on the other hand, i recognize that this does not absolve me of the responsibility i have to avoid crappy food when possible, and to get exercise when possible, and it does indeed seem like some of the fat-acceptance people want everyone to look at their situation and see them as just the same as thin people no matter what they do--even if they are absent any medical problems and really only fat because they choose not to do anything to improve their health. now, i'm not one who advocates prejudging people based on how they look, and i do think that people judge fat people a lot without necessarily understanding where they're coming from. but it's also hard to have sympathy for people who don't seem to be doing the work necessary to improve their situation. then again, too, what they're actually doing is different for everybody, so i can't know the specifics of any one person's situation until they talk to me.

in the end, there's a major argument in favor of not prejudging fat people to the extent that is done in our modern society. but there's also a major argument in favor of doing one's best to stay as healthy as one possibly can, which seems like the kind of thing that some fat people would find insulting.

i personally don't mind it so much, as i recognize it to be the case, but ymmv.

[andronicus]

3-liter of Mr. Pibb

Mr. Pibb doesn't really make a 3 liter and that fact pisses me off, quite frankly.

[elpollodiablo]

We watched In the Name of the Father last night. It was pretty decent.

[Thermofusion]

in the end, there's a major argument in favor of not prejudging fat people to the extent that is done in our modern society. but there's also a major argument in favor of doing one's best to stay as healthy as one possibly can, which seems like the kind of thing that some fat people would find insulting.

This is essentially my view, too.  Also, while I can commiserate with an individual's struggle with obesity and am 100% against prejudicing them, my support ends is at the point they begin to politicize obesity as healthy (which is apparently what they're trying to do via references to dubious scientific/medical papers that contradict basic accepted conclusions such as "obesity increases risk of congestive heart failure and diabetes", etc.).

All of this comes with the caveat that, physically, I'm a rail and can't necessarily see things from the other side.

Mr. Pibb doesn't really make a 3 liter and that fact pisses me off, quite frankly.

While we're on the topic, what's with all this "Pibb Xtra" B.S?  "Mr. Pibb" = whimsical, mirthful.  "Pibb Xtra"= I wanna shoot myself after saying it out loud.