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Watch, Watched, Watching: The Director's Cut


RedEyedGhost

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For working out in the morning I'm tearing through Person of Interest on Netflix (although I've been watching a lot of it in the evenings as well).  I have finished the first 3 seasons, and will probably be done with season 4 by the end of next week.  After that I think I'll rewatch Being Human (US, I never cared for the UK version); I think I'll try to keep this to mornings only in order to prolong it. 

The past few nights I've been watching Mozart in the Jungle season 1.  It's pretty good, but nothing too special.  I'm probably try the new Amazon Prime show, Mad Dogs, in a couple of days.  Earlier tonight I watched a Simon Pegg movie on Netflix, A Fantastic Fear of Everything (or something like that), and it was hands down the worst movie I've ever seen him in.  Terrible.

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WOW!!!

The Daily Show took me to Star Talk which took me to a Chris Nolan interview which took me to this link, which left me absolutely floored as my favorite film maker explained one of my favorite films in 15 seconds with a piece of chalk and a chalkboard.

I'm fairly well educated. I have a degree in my field that has gotten me a decent job, and while I know I'm not particularly bright I also know that I'm not a complete moron unless I'm trying to decipher a slogodin post. But seeing Chris Nolan chart the narrative concepts of Memento in a quarter of a minute with seemingly no preparation blew my damn mind.

Seriously, it's incredible. Here's the link.

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40 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

17:53. I better strap in. Mixed drink prepared and I'm ready to go. 

Edit: Did I get all that? No. Would I watch the movie? Yes. 

Exactly. Nothing touches me more as a cinemaphile (spelling?) than just being left agape, and Memento has always accomplished that. Throw in this Chris Nolan deconstruction which somehow leaves all of the wonder intact, and somehow increases it through explanation and I'm left swooning.

ETA: This particular clip in question leaves me knowing (much like the Neil deGrasse Tyson pieces aforementioned) that I'll never actually understand what they're talking about, but damn if I don't appreciate it.

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I watched Nightcrawler again because I thought it was an incredible film. The second time round I realised JG would make a fascistic Joker. I also realised that RR's performance was even better than I thought it was at first viewing. 

We felt like watching something unchallenging after a long week so we gave Mockingjay part 1 a go. Glad I didn't bother with it at the cinema. There were a few too many 'and now emote' moments. And it gave me zero feels. But then the third book felt a bit shallow to me anyway.

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I watched Grave of the Fireflies tonight :crying: One of the saddest movies I have ever seen, but undeniably beautiful at the same time. A terrfic movie that I'd recommend to anyone, even if they aren't a fan of animation.

Spoiler

Little Setsuko broke my heart. There was hardly a scene she was in that didn't make me feel something, even if it was her eating a fruit drop.

 

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I got stoned to Fantasia yesterday. It might not be the finest Disney film, but it's always been my favourite. As a fan of classical music, I can take umbrage at some of the excisions to the scores, and the playing on The Rite of Spring is sometimes woefully innaccurate into the bargain, but the film is total eye-candy. I could watch the abstract grandeur of the Bach section and the gorgeous animation of The Nutcracker Suite repeatedly, and repeatedly coo at the adorable girl centaurs during the Pastoral Symphony.

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Still watching Gilmore Girls...made it to season 6. I've somewhat warmed to Lorelei. She goes through some stuff and takes it well. Rory, on the other hand, is just becoming more and more of an unspeakably obnoxious Mary Sue with each episode. The writers seem to have this idea of her being the cinderella to a narcissitic blonde millionaire prince since day 1 and keep coming back to it, no matter how much it goes against everything else they're always telling us about who she is. I love Matt Czuchry on the Good Wife, and he does his best here to give him some charm that might explain why the hell this - supposedly - brilliantly ambitious introvert of a girl might be drawn to him, but there's no making Logan anything but a smarmy tween fantasy of a rich bad-boy boyfriend.

I'm also starting to think some of it is down to how much of a flouncing limpid wet paper towel Alexis Bledel's acting here is. The same quirky-witty-determined-entitled "this is me, I'm awesome, deal with it," monologue when Lauren Graham as Lorelei delivers it has some shred of charisma that makes it work at least sometimes and gives a sense of a woman who's determined to get something at least approaching what she wants from life. When Rory does the same kind of thing, she's never anything but whiny and absurd and you wonder why anyone even stays in the same room with her.

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Snowed in yesterday, so we watched two documentaries about New York City. (both are available on Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services)

Rubble Kings -- covers the gang culture of NYC, and the African-American and Latino gangs of Harlem and the Bronx in particular, of the 1970s. Anyone who has seen the Warriors knows the phrase CAN YOU DIG IT? But did you know that gang summit actually happened? And in the peace brokered during that summit is what helped foster the atmosphere from which hip hop eventually emerged. Archival footage spliced with interviews done in 2010-2013 (or so).

Paris Is Burning -- covers the ball culture in Harlem and the African American and Latino gay and trans individuals in it. Footage was filmed in 1987-1989, and the film was released in 1990. As such, it has a very different feel than Rubble Kings -- it is very much in the moment. It did a great job of letting the individuals speak for themselves, rather than have a narrative dictated to them. 

Watching the films back to back really highlighted how gangs -- in the case of the ball participants, they also formed gangs called "Houses" -- provide family units for those who might not have a stable traditional family at home. Recommended.

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3 hours ago, Leap said:

Well I started watching Foxcatcher last night, but I could not get into it at all, and I ended up stopping watching with about an hour left.

It's not that I thought it was bad, it's just that I had very little interest in it. I thought Carrel and Tatum were both pretty good, but there was maybe an overuse of artistic pauses in shots they were in, which undermined them imo. Mark Ruffalo was excellent in what I saw.

When I watched it it took me ages to get into it. I was actually advised by people at the time to just stop fiddling about with other stuff at the same time (ie Twitter) and just focus on the film. But by the time I was actually really into it, I wished I'd paid more attention earlier on. It's an intense film which is quite slow. I had another issue with it too - the sound quality was very off putting to me. I looked this up and they did it on purpose. For me, I had to have the volume on my TV at almost 40 (where a normal TV show would be about 20) otherwise the sound dropped in and out so much I felt that I was continually missing things. So I will definitely watch it again and watch it 'properly' next time.

Last night we watched Pi. That was pretty intense. I'm cool with the film being ultimately futile and all but it was a little bit IN YOUR FACE for me. Certainly not a relaxing film to watch. :) But after watching that we got into a general discussion about films which are supposed to be about the nature of reality. We have Tree of Life on our to watch list. But there is a film I have seen which I am blanking on the title of right now. It is similar-ish to The Fountain (which I've seen) and I'd really like for us to sit down one weekend and watch Tree of Life, The Fountain and this other film close together.

So please, you guys, can anyone think of a film which is similar in theme to The Fountain and came out around the same time (within a year or two)?

I have tried googling 'movies like The Fountain' but that didn't get me anywhere. It isn't Primer or Upstream Color.

 

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12 minutes ago, Isis said:

So please, you guys, can anyone think of a film which is similar in theme to The Fountain and came out around the same time (within a year or two)?

I have tried googling 'movies like The Fountain' but that didn't get me anywhere. It isn't Primer or Upstream Color.

 



Millennium Actress has some similar ideas about memory and life and all that and has a similar idea of telling one story through various 'realities' or timelines, but I guess you'd remember if it was an anime (plus it's a little early, 2002). 

Was it an American/English-language production, the one you're thinking of? 

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Just finished Bringing Out the Dead. Certainly not one of my favorite Scorsese movies, but it was solid. Nicholas Cage was a perfect choice, as I think he does weird pretty well. Good soundtrack too. I'm now down to only Kundun to have seen Scorsese's entire filmography. 

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Watching Mad Dogs, an Amazon remake of a British black comedy. It's about four friends who go visit their rich buddy in Belize, where things start to get out of hand. I'm quite enjoying it but I am not sure most people would. If you like movies like Very Bad Things or Go, give it a shot.

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