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Lol, I just happened to see it on the front page of netflix -- it's a documentary about Misty Copeland, the first African-American prima ballerina for a major ballet company ever. It was just plain narrative and wasn't captivating at all.
Haha. Just two ballerina movies I threw out there. Neither is anything special. You've never heard of Billy Elliot? Was all the rage around her around the turn of the century. The Unfinished Dance is a good kids movie... though mostly I remember it for how gorgeous the two leading women where.
Haha. Just two ballerina movies I threw out there. Neither is anything special. You've never heard of Billy Elliot? Was all the rage around her around the turn of the century. The Unfinished Dance is a good kids movie... though mostly I remember it for how gorgeous the two leading women where.
Finally got round to watching The Colour of Pomegranates, holy shit what a great film. Didn't know anything about Sayat Nova coming into it and as it was it was not a biographical film in any normal sense I still don't know all that much about him, but obviously that's not particularly the point...it was trying to convey his life through the emotion and imagery of his poetry. I read an article where someone described the effect of the film as being like reading poetry, where each image stays in your mind like individual lines of a poem after you watch it, which describes it perfectly to me. Naturally, as a Soviet film about an artist and because Tark and Parajanov were quite close, it draws some comparison to Andrei Rublev, stylistically and thematically there are lots of similarities in that they are both attempting to portray the artists life through emotion and art rather than literally, but compared to this film Rublev is practically conventional (not that either is better than the other though). Anyway, I am glad I finally got to see it, I will definitely watch Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at some point as well.
Just watched The Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau. Very strange film, according to Cocteau it is definitely not a surrealist film but it felt pretty fucking surreal when I was watching it haha. I do know what he means though, reading this essay - https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/16-the-blood-of-a-poet was very helpful. It was a very interesting film though, still not sure what to make of it, but it was interesting...
it draws some comparison to Andrei Rublev, stylistically and thematically there are lots of similarities in that they are both attempting to portray the artists life through emotion and art rather than literally,
I agree with this assessment. But honestly... I just didn't find Sayat Nova to be that emotional nor poetic in its surrealism. It's not bad or anything, but it fails coming anywhere near the metaphysical levels Tarkovsky reached in Andrei Rublev, or any of his other works.
I think the deciding factor for me is that in Tarkovsky's work there is an abundance of vibrancy. Becuse of this, the physical matter that he shoots through his camera feels animated, enlivened, glorified. This is of the utmost importance, becuse it has the effect of making the spiritless and the profane feel as if it has been lifted upwards and elevated onto an exhalted, metaphysical plane. Through vibrancy, common matter is infused with something beyond the common.
The shoot-composition in Sayat Nova though, felt rather stilted and amateurish to me. Through its inanimation, you get a feel for how false it is. You feel that it's artificial. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of good ideas in there, nor some stuff that actually work (for example, I remember the scene where the sheep fill the church to contain a few sparkling sequences). But overall I got the feeling of watching a church-show, a fan-letter to its iconography, instead of something trying to cross the metaphysical veil.
Basically... I get the feeling that both Tarkovsky and Parajanov are two guys that has spent waaaaay to much time gazing at Ortodox icons. But while Parajanov is building upon their composition, Tarkovsky expands on the thematic subject matter that they teach.
(not that either is better than the other though).
Never seen The Blood of a Poet. But his version of Beauty and the Beast is definitively something magical. And if he dennounced Beauty and the Beast as not being surreal, then I can't imagine how something like Blood of a Poet would make my head spin.
I agree with this assessment. But honestly... I just didn't find Sayat Nova to be that emotional nor poetic in its surrealism. It's not bad or anything, but it fails coming anywhere near the metaphysical levels Tarkovsky reached in Andrei Rublev, or any of his other works.
I think the deciding factor for me is that in Tarkovsky's work there is an abundance of vibrancy. The physical matter that he shoots through his camera feels animated, enlivened, glorified. This is of the utmost importance, becuse it has the effect of making the spiritless and the profane feel as if it has been lifted upwards and elevated onto an exhalted, metaphysical plane. Through vibrancy, common matter is infused with something beyond the common.
The shoot-composition in Sayat Nova though, felt rather stilted and amateurish to me. Through its inanimation, you get a feel for how false it is. You feel that it's artificial. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of good ideas in there, nor some stuff that actually work (for example, I remember the scene where the sheep fill the church to contain a few sparkling sequences). But overall I got the feeling of watching a church-show, a fan-letter to its iconography, instead of something trying to cross the metaphysical veil.
Basically... I get the feeling that both Tarkovsky and Parajanov are two guys that has spent waaaaay to much time gazing at Ortodox icons. But while Parajanov is building upon their composition, Tarkovsky expands on the thematic subject matter that they teach.
Hmm. Yeah I definitely see what you are saying there,.ie. "Through vibrancy, common matter is infused with something beyond the common". In a sense that is the whole theory behind religious icons too, so you are spot on there. I do think Parajanov achieves that in many places in the film though, albeit maybe not as often or in the same manner as Tarkovsky. So generally I agree, in that the film as a whole (while it is obviously visually memorable the whole way through) does sometimes lack that metaphysical vibrancy that you are talking about, as opposed to simply visual vibrancy, but there are definitely moments or themes in the film which achieve that I think. You mention one example with the sheep in the church, but there are certain themes which run through the whole film which for me, portray similar things to what Rublev does. An example might be the contrast be sensuality and religious spirituality. In Rublev, there is of course the scene where he observes the pagan rituals and is untied by the woman:
And it is very much a specific plot element, whereas although I thought that Parajanov dealt with this theme too, it's clearly in a much different manner. You have the use of Nova's poems over and over again ("You are fire. Your dress if fire. You are fire...") along with very sensual imagery -
The seashell is obviously connected to that, and it's an image that is shown again with Nova himself. All this is obviously followed by the scenes in the monastery, but it's not a plot element in the same way (because there isn't really a plot per se haha). So I think that clearly both films are attempting to convey a similar theme but going about it in a different manner. That's just one specific example out of many of course.
Ultimately, I suppose it does come down to which approach you find more convincing and which is the more emotive...so I get what you are saying in that The Color of Pomegranates lacks vibrancy, and feels very "false" (Parajanov himself compared it too a 'Persian jewelry case', which I guess says a lot) but I still feel that it is very effective, in certain scenes at least, at conveying that same "thematic subject matter" which you mention, mostly in that each 'tableau', however unreal they might be, do present a certain kind of feeling and through the juxtaposition of these different scenes I think a certain kind of understanding is reached. That's the impression I had when I watched the film anyway. You mention the spiritless and profane being used to reach a higher kind of feeling in Tarkovsky, which I completely agree with, but again I think Parajanov achieves something similar through a different approach. For instance you have the traditional folk culture and art of Armenia, in the form of costumes, rugs as well as the everyday life of common people, such as knitting and dyeing wool, sacrifices and so on, contrasted with Orthodox religious iconography. Perhaps I need to reflect more on it though, when it comes down to it, as I said it is a question of approach and ultimately I do find Tarkovsky more 'moving' on the whole. I am glad I watched Parajanov though, I still think it is fantastic and I'll watch more of his stuff. Not that you said he was bad or anything.
As the official High-Cultist of the Serious Movie Discussion Tarkovsky fan-cult, consider yourself banned for life for uttering this heresy!
This weekend was fucking insane. I went to a martial arts cinema conference on Friday. Not only did I get to meet Bey Logan (he was the opening keynote and participated in a panel about the film industry from the marketing/distribution side of things) I got to debate him on the merits of MMA after my presentation. He's exactly as cool as you'd think/hope he'd be. Over the course of the day, I got to talk one-on-one with him about half a dozen times and I lost count real fast how many times in a conversation he'd ask me if I'd seen this movie or that movie and I'd have to say no. The man has seen every fucking martial arts movie ever made! It's also just cool to have been able to shake the hand that pulled Bruce Lee's lost footage from The Game of Death out of a vault so that the world - and, more importantly, so that I - could see it
I also ended up going on a big Marvel kick. I watched Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 for the first time, rewatched The Avengers, and then watched The Avengers 2 for the first time.
I was surprised at how little I remembered from The Avengers. I barely even remember what my response to it was. I think I was pretty lukewarm, which I have to imagine was because of how little I knew/cared about the characters. Rewatching it having seen and loved Thor and Captain America 2, I found myself fucking loving it. I might even like it more than Captain America 2. It felt like every scene was better than the last. That huge set-piece on the submarine/airplane thing was spectacular (although, for me, Thor seems to suffer from Superman syndrome in that I don't find it plausible that he'd have a difficult time with anybody/anything, including The Hulk) and then the finale was phenomenal (loved RDJ going through that wormhole with the nuke).
After that, I went to Iron Man 3, and I loved the hell out of it. Before the next Avengers comes out, I'm going to do a proper run through of literally every Marvel movie that they've made since Iron Man in chronological order so I have everyone/everything fresh in my head, but after loving Iron Man 3, I was tempted to rewatch the first two (I remember literally nothing about either except Mickey Rourke from the second one talking with an accent). Didn't people say Iron Man 3 sucked? I don't know what could've possibly bummed people out. RDJ was hilarious, as usual, and his PTSD freakouts were great, especially being paired with that kid (loved that moment at the end). I also liked the Guy Pearce angle, I was loving Favreau in the beginning (did he act in the first two?), and the ending was shocking and awesome.
Same thing with Thor 2. @europe1, didn't you call this the worst superhero movie ever? I FUCKING LOVED IT! I loved Thor and I actually think Thor 2 was even better. The war angle was cool as hell and the attack sequence was amazing, Natalie Portman's arc with that London portal thing was cool, all of the shit with Loki - who I've hated (not in the good way you're supposed to hate the villain) every time out - was brilliantly conceived and excuted (except the ending, that was dumb, I wanted that story to end on the fantastic note it pretended to), and holy shit Kat Dennings was funny as fuck. I think I laughed at every single scene she was in. The writing was just fantastic (it probably also helps that I've been doing the American in the UK thing myself for the past year) and the comedic relief was not only hilarious in and of itself but it was integrated flawlessly with the action (her making out with the assistant is probably the hardest I've laughed in any superhero movie ever other than RDJ's Point Break line in The Avengers).
Unfortunately, the awesomeness stopped with The Avengers 2. That movie was just a massive fuck-up. All of the comic backlogs, all of the insane villains, and they go the AI route? I thought that was a stupid decision right there. Add to that the creation of another AI who I still don't really understand but who seems to be the smartest and strongest thing to ever exist (when he picked up Thor's hammer, I seriously considered just stopping the movie).
All of the ancillary stuff - Renner's arc, the Scarjo/Ruffalo arc, the Evans/RDJ arc, Jackson popping in, those freak twins - was on par and was working splendidly, but the core conflict was just dumb and the villain sucked. Also, the effects in the opening scene were hysterically awful. The first one is absolutely stunning, and the contrast just cracked me up. And the finale is so conspicuously redoing the first one, just much lamer. Hopefully they come up with some new/better ideas for the next one.
Lastly, I was considering not even bringing this up, but I did try after all of those superhero movies to watch Guardians of the Galaxy and I turned it off after 20 minutes and I can confidently say that I will never watch that movie. Way too Disney and goofy for me. The Mommy cancer opening already had me hovering over the X on the tab, him dancing with his walkman on the alien planet almost got me, and then I just shut it off somewhere after that. Aside from the kid-friendliness of it (I seriously felt like I should've been watching it while eating a Happy Meal) I think the biggest failing of the film was how little information is given about that world and the people/things in it. I didn't know a single fucking person/thing in there, I didn't know where they were, I didn't know the rules in terms of powers and shit. They just dumped me into a world with green and blue things and a dude with a walkman flying alien spaceships with a red chick in his plane and Zoe Saldana. If I at least knew who the fuck these people were and WTF was going on, I might've made it to the halfway point before shutting it off. Instead, I cut and ran much quicker and I'm not looking back. It sucks that this is part of the same universe, because it'll mean there'll be holes if they integrate shit from this into Avengers-related stuff, but I'd rather play catch-up on Wiki than watch this or any of the inevitable sequels.
Sadly, no. And, like I mentioned earlier, even most of the people who claim to like her don't really know or understand what she was about and tend to just repeat lines said by other people who'd barely scratched the surface of her thinking. The misunderstandings are so fucking rampant, it's insane. Hell, in the most recent episode of Elementary some journalist is writing an article about a con man setting up a doomsday shelter for the rich and he calls his article "Ayn Rand Shrugged" and opens it with a line about how "aren't rich people the ones who say it's every man for himself?" If this is what passes for the common understanding of Rand's thinking - and that certainly seems to be the case - then I'd rather people reject it than consider it cool and promulgate it by attaching her name to it. It'd just be nice if people knew when they were rejecting "Randian" ideas which ideas are actually in line with her thinking and which ideas are straw men.
Literally never heard of this, but I Wiki'd it and found it hilarious. The city of Rapture is obviously Atlantis from Atlas Shrugged (except Rapture is underwater while Atlantis was hidden in the Rockies) and it was designed by "Objectivist business magnate Andrew Ryan." Whoever thought this game up definitely liked Rand
Seriously, the John/Cameron arc is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. From that first spark when she takes one of his potato chips ("You seem...different" / "I am") to that moment when Derek is holding her chip and then later when John reboots her and catches himself caressing her face to when she's glitchy and he can't decide what to do (or, more accurately, has realized that there's no decision to be made) to late when he's "inspecting" her to see if she's leaking radiation to that final moment in the future. The whole thing is told with an eye on the long game and it's expertly rendered.
The whole second season storyline with Riley is John trying to deny/sublimate his attraction to Cameron stemming from that moment in the second season opener when she not only tells John that she loves him but that he loves her. The latter is what really gets to him, to have that stated out loud and directly. He tries to shut that out and resents her for much of the second season for having to do that, but even so, he can't let her go. That moment in the finale when he's looking at his mom and says, "He's got her chip. He's got her." That's the shit, man. And then he sees the pre-cyborg human version of her. What!?!?!?! Comparing Ex Machina to this is honestly insulting. It ain't the same fucking ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fucking sport!
The saddest part is that what you call "nothing sentences" are the most desperately necessary formulations in academic thinking. In the simplest terms, Objectivism is common sense philosophy. If you reduce the history of philosophy to the battle between Plato (there are two worlds, a world of Forms which is inaccessible to us and the world of shadows which is our world) and Aristotle (there is only one world, this world, and the knowledge we acquire about the world is precisely knowledge of the world), then Rand is an Aristotelian who places a premium on rational cognition and the abilities of humans to form concepts to enable them to understand themselves and the world in which they live.
Something like "reality is independent of consciousness" might seem so straightforward that it shouldn't even need to be said, but considering the history of philosophy from Plato through Descartes and Kant up to Foucault and Derrida, much of philosophical thinking is directed specifically at denying that reality is independent of consciousness.
It's an oddly black and white approach to an incredibly complex situation and is largely only worth studying out of interest rather than any practical implementation
This is for both you and Shot (from The Voice of Reason):
"A peculiarity of certain types of asphyxiation - such as death from carbon monoxide - is that the victims do not notice it: the fumes leave them no awareness of their need of fresh air. The specific symptom of value-deprivation is a gradual lowering of one’s expectations. We have already absorbed so much of our cultural fumes that we take the constant pressure of irrationality, injustice, corruption, and hooligan tactics for granted, as if nothing better could be expected of life. It is only in the privacy of their own minds that men scream in protest at times - and promptly stifle the scream as 'unrealistic' or 'impractical.'"
Rand lived long enough to see her thoughts frequently and erroneously lumped together with Nietzsche, so she was always very careful to specify the terms of the Objectivist ethics. Rand (in)famously cited "the virtue of selfishness" as an ethical/political premium, but in Objectivist terms, selfishness pertains to the principle that each individual, to the extent to which he values his life and is devoted to the pursuit of happiness, “must act for his own rational self-interest,” which is to say he “must always be the beneficiary of his action.” Rand’s emphasis on rationality is to indicate that the Objectivist ethics is not, as she states in no uncertain terms, a justification for hedonism: Against those to whom she refers as “Nietzschean egoists” for whom “any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit,” Rand underscores the fact that, according to the Objectivist ethics, “just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires.” Morality, to her, “is not a contest of whims."
The power of Barry Lyndon for me has always been that Kubrick eschewed the logic of the morality play. He doesn't have a cathartic "victory of truth" ending or a morally righteous climax. On one reading, you could say that the general logic showcases the "cheaters never prosper" maxim, or that karma is a bitch, but it's so tough to find satisfaction with these kinds of interpretations because Bullingdon does the right thing the wrong way while Barry does the right thing and suffers for it.
Your first reaction is valid, Bullingdon is in the right and Barry did act like a douche and cause his wife/Bullingdon's mother suffering...but he's such a little shit that it's hard to side with him. Conversely, Barry does (marginally) redeem himself by showing Bullingdon mercy, he does the right thing and follows through on it in a way that he hadn't since he saved that dude during that battle...and he loses his fucking leg and lives the rest of his life in ignominy.
It's not a teleological film, so the tragedy isn't on the order of Oedipus where we've already had the dots connected and we're just watching the helpless characters hit their marks on the road to their inevitable destruction; rather, the movie hits so hard because Kubrick shows you every side of every issue but he doesn't just stop at right or wrong, he actually follows through on what happens next, he shows the consequences of every action and what it means to truly accept the consequences for your actions.
Lord Bullingdon's actions isn't those of a heroic coward, it's self-serving. He is possessed with his mother and wants to own her. He "rescues" her yet she never wanted to be "rescued". Her personal wishes don't matter to him. All that was just a narrative he spun so to justify his actions. So Lord Bullingdon transforms into a self-serving, craven hypocrite instead of a heroic coward.
I'm with you here, except that I want to stress that Bullingdon's rationalizations never reach a level of consciousness where he is aware of his own hypocrisy. I'd also say that Lady Lyndon did want to be rescued, but she wanted Barry to rescue her from her unhappiness and show a desire to fix their marriage. So it's not that she didn't want to be rescued, she just didn't want to be rescued by her son in a way that truly drove the nail into the coffin on their dysfunctional family.
The Roaring Twenties felt rather toothless. It's still a very good film. The storytelling is very smooth. It had a good use of montage. But personally it just didn't feel as special or memorable
Really? I think it goes Angels With Dirty Faces, White Heat, The Roaring Twenties, and The Public Enemy, with the latter a step or two behind the pack while the first three are going for a photo finish. What did you think of the Cagney/Bogart rivalry? I've always thought The Roaring Twenties was their best battle and my favorite of all of Bogart's '30s characters, just such a nasty motherfucker.
So... has anyone seen the sequel to Cat People, Curse of the Cat People? It's quite an head-scratching film [...] you have to ask yourself... Cat People was a horror movie with a lot of sexual undertones. Why in the hell would you follow that with what is basically a childhood horror-fantasy flick?
As to your issues with Curse of the Cat People: Lewton actually never intended that to be a sequel. He made a bunch of quick, low-budget, high-profit horror movies in the span of a year - Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim, and Ghost Ship - and he wanted a change of pace. Curse of the Cat People was supposed to be a semi-autobigraphical children's fantasy film about a child with an active imagination. It was his bosses who pushed him to bring his non-horror story into the Cat People world so they could keep raking in the profits. Lewton grudgingly accepted, which explains the unevenness, but even so, I think it still works and the way Simone Simon figures into the story with the little girl was handled rather elegantly. Trivia bit: Curse of the Cat People was one of the most influential films for William Friedkin who took a lot of his cues for The Exorcist from this Lewton effort.
Ok, first my friend tells me it ends with the monster, then Flemmy says it has nothing to do with the monster, and now you're saying it does have the monster. Is this a Cloverfield movie or not? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS MOVIE?!?!?!?!
The film defeats itself on this account through Fassbender's performance. The Jobs that Fassbender is couldn't conjure the iPod [...] Missed a trick there with the casting.
There are different levels to this charge and I want to be clear on the exact charge you're making. You mention Fassbender's performance, the emphasis on which would seem to be more on Fassbender than Sorkin; you mention the character, the emphasis on which would seem to be more on Sorkin than Fassbender; and you mention the casting, which is all Fassbender. It sounds to me like you had more of a problem with the version Sorkin created to which Fassbender gave life, yet Fassbender seems to be taking the brunt of your criticisms.
The saddest part is that what you call "nothing sentences" are the most desperately necessary formulations in academic thinking. In the simplest terms, Objectivism is common sense philosophy. If you reduce the history of philosophy to the battle between Plato (there are two worlds, a world of Forms which is inaccessible to us and the world of shadows which is our world) and Aristotle (there is only one world, this world, and the knowledge we acquire about the world is precisely knowledge of the world), then Rand is an Aristotelian who places a premium on rational cognition and the abilities of humans to form concepts to enable them to understand themselves and the world in which they live.
Something like "reality is independent of consciousness" might seem so straightforward that it shouldn't even need to be said, but considering the history of philosophy from Plato through Descartes and Kant up to Foucault and Derrida, much of philosophical thinking is directed specifically at denying that reality is independent of consciousness.
Rand lived long enough to see her thoughts frequently and erroneously lumped together with Nietzsche, so she was always very careful to specify the terms of the Objectivist ethics. Rand (in)famously cited "the virtue of selfishness" as an ethical/political premium, but in Objectivist terms, selfishness pertains to the principle that each individual, to the extent to which he values his life and is devoted to the pursuit of happiness, “must act for his own rational self-interest,” which is to say he “must always be the beneficiary of his action.” Rand’s emphasis on rationality is to indicate that the Objectivist ethics is not, as she states in no uncertain terms, a justification for hedonism: Against those to whom she refers as “Nietzschean egoists” for whom “any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit,” Rand underscores the fact that, according to the Objectivist ethics, “just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires.” Morality, to her, “is not a contest of whims."
Well it's in my own best interest to not waste my time thinking about this stuff. A lot of philosophy borders on my experience with a Scientology exhibit i went to, where it was immediately clear to me that you can navigate through life having all of this banked in your subconscious. All the exposition gets abstract, and is so poorly articulated that a summary left me with the wrong impression of it.
And that's the key. It's not that you don't have the time, it's that you don't want to make the time. And that's valid. I'm just trying to persuade you to make an exception every once in a while, because there are some shows out there that kick a serious amount of ass.
A lot of philosophy borders on my experience with a Scientology exhibit i went to, where it was immediately clear to me that you can navigate through life having all of this banked in your subconscious. All the exposition gets abstract, and is so poorly articulated that a summary left me with the wrong impression of it.
When it comes to critical thinking, I always urge people to reverse the "don't hate the player, hate the game" maxim. The fact that you were confused by a Wiki entry shouldn't be a mark against philosophy. It should just be a mark against that Wiki writer. This issue, in fact, speaks to one of the many reasons I've responded so strongly to Rand's stuff. I've never taken a single philosophy class, all the philosophy I've read has either been ancillary stuff from my film studies reading or shit I just felt like trying my hand at, and without fail, everything I ended up reading sounded for the most part like nonsense, and what's more, nonsense articulated in the most convoluted and jargony fashion. I used to think I just didn't have a head for philosophy, but once I started moving away from Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Derrida, and all of those guys and towards people like Cavell (and, from him, Emerson and Austin) and, most recently, Rand (and, from her, Aristotle), I realized my problem was the philosophers I'd been reading rather than philosophy itself.
I also disagree with your point about "navigat[ing] through life having all of this banked in your subconscious." You can make it through, but it'll be a different experience than if you're holding your philosophical convictions in the field of your conscious awareness. I posted this quote from Rand earlier in conversation with HUNTER but I'll post it again because it's relevant:
"As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation – or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts, and fears, thrown together by chance but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy … You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas … your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions – or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context, and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew."
And that's the key. It's not that you don't have the time, it's that you don't want to make the time. And that's valid. I'm just trying to persuade you to make an exception every once in a while, because there are some shows out there that kick a serious amount of ass.
I watch reality tv and one or two sitcoms. I never got too into the dramas, although that one with James Franco looks really good.
If i were going to tackle a show, it would probably be one that was allegedly good and only 2 or 3 seasons long. Wet Hot was prefect for me. True Detective too.
I liked Lost a lot, but everything else I've tried i had problems with either getting into it or staying into it.
When it comes to critical thinking, I always urge people to reverse the "don't hate the player, hate the game" maxim. The fact that you were confused by a Wiki entry shouldn't be a mark against philosophy. It should just be a mark against that Wiki writer. This issue, in fact, speaks to one of the many reasons I've responded so strongly to Rand's stuff. I've never taken a single philosophy class, all the philosophy I've read has either been ancillary stuff from my film studies reading or shit I just felt like trying my hand at, and without fail, everything I ended up reading sounded for the most part like nonsense, and what's more, nonsense articulated in the most convoluted and jargony fashion. I used to think I just didn't have a head for philosophy, but once I started moving away from Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Derrida, and all of those guys and towards people like Cavell (and, from him, Emerson and Austin) and, most recently, Rand (and, from her, Aristotle), I realized my problem was the philosophers I'd been reading rather than philosophy itself.
I also disagree with your point about "navigat[ing] through life having all of this banked in your subconscious." You can make it through, but it'll be a different experience than if you're holding your philosophical convictions in the field of your conscious awareness. I posted this quote from Rand earlier in conversation with HUNTER but I'll post it again because it's relevant:
"As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation – or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts, and fears, thrown together by chance but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy … You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas … your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions – or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context, and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew."
I haven't found one maybe, but "common sense" has to be the last thing I'd find worthy of introspect.
And that's another thing. I am introspective. I kind of have thought out things i find important. It becomes dogma, it's all very broadbrush, and i have found myself in trouble too often because of it.
I've actually probably become a lot more empathic through apathy. I don't care enough about my own philosophies to tell someone how they should think.
Let me put things into context. Yesterday, I watched David DeCoutou's A Talking Pony (don't ask). It was one of the most cheap, inane, lazy, brain-meltingly boring things I've ever laid eyes on. The only joy I could have was trying to figure out which of the pretty-boy actors DeCoutou was buggering in-between takes. One of the most cynical money-grab schemes I've encountered. But I'd still rather watch it again than to rewatch Thor 2. Thor 2 was one of the most unengaging things I've ever seen. You have to mention stuff like..... Transformers or Secret Agent Super Dragon, to reach the levels of unwatchability that Thor 2 possesed.
I admit that my memory is a bit hazy. After the mother died I kind off phased out mentally, as a defense mechanism. But it just felt so... faux-epic. Take the mothers funeral for example. The drama-bait is just so pathetic that it's painful to watch. Here you have this character that we can barely remember and care about, and they're trying to pass her funeral off as goddamn Boromir. The "epic" music is blaring at full volyme, and she goes off a goddamn waterfall as if that was supposed to make it sadder. Few things bug me as much as "faux" veneration for a scene, -- grandness that dosen't feel grand -- where the director goes overblow on the drama so to compensate for any skill required to actually convey it.
Or take the Dark Elf antagonists. They're characterization is just so lazily, cheeply and video gamey done. Why should I care about Thor fighting these emo kids? There has to be some gravitas to this stuff.
As for your opinion on Thor 2 and the rest of the Superhero write-up, I'm just going to pass that off as troll bait. I know that you're a Martian and all that but if that's how you actually feel then I think I'm going to be forced to start considering a "Final Solution" to the Martian question.
Except for the two Cat People, I've only seen Ghost Ship. Which I remember thinking was fairly good, trying to pass of the machinery of a ship as some sort of ghostly aberration and all that.
I think the iconic visuals in Public Enemy elevates it above Roaring Twenties, there's some really striking imagery in there, even though the "mommy cries" moralizing is a bit trite.
I remember trying to read Karl Marx and actually laughing out loud at some of the articulations he made. And it was not helped by the fact that half of all the terms he used he had invented himself.
It took me a really long time, but once I got into the dramas, I started kicking myself for taking so long to get there. I'm still playing catch-up on a lot, but I couldn't imagine life without having seen some of the amazing shows I've been fortunate enough to have seen in the last few years.
"It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with rational speech when the use of rational speech … can confer the greatest of benefits … Before some audiences, not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction … [Here,] we must be able to employ persuasion, just as deduction can be employed, on opposite sides of a question – not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong) but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him."
I consider this philosophy-as-self-defense. If you don't have your shit clear in your head - including even the clearest stuff imaginable, the stuff that should be clear to everyone with the ability to think - then when you run up against a nutjob you've got nothing to fight them with.
I thought it was suitably epic. The finale with the convergence was far cooler and more engaging than The Avengers 2, and more than any other superhero movie I can think of, Thor 2 integrated the humans and the super characters perfectly on the strength of that teleporting shit Natalie Portman had.
I'll admit that the actual funeral was a bit much, but I thought it functioned a lot better than you in relation to the story and the characters. You're talking about it from the perspective of that character, but Rene Russo herself was (literally) expendable. Now that can be a charge some screenwriting-conscious viewers like @theskza or @Ricky13 might want to level at the film, but I was okay with the way she was used. They set her up perfectly in relation to Anthony Hopkins - and let's pause for a minute to realize how awesome it is that Anthony Hopkins is Odin - and they actually made her pretty bad ass (not as bad ass as her character in the Lethal Weapon movies, but wait, I forgot you don't like those either ). The stroke of genius, though, was her angle with Portman. That was the most novel version of the "guy brings girl home to mom" angle I've ever seen, and when Thor introduces her to his mother, it's just so perfectly done. You've got this girl who's been transplated to ANOTHER FUCKING DIMENSION, hanging out with her bf/Thunder God, and his mom shows up, the fucking Queen of this realm of superhumans. That added dimension was handled brilliantly, plus you have her protecting Portman and dying for it, and there's that shot of Thor with his hammer and Hopkins by her side, both of these titans powerless to save her, plus Loki downstairs losing his shit.
But that's why it works so well. She's the emotional lynchpin that ties everything and everyone in the plot together. Her death is the splash of cold water on Hopkins' face, the kick in the ass for Thor, and the slap upside the head for Loki. As for Portman, I like that the spectacle of the funeral, as part of the Asgard tradition, is another element of life in that world into which Portman was being initiated.
I'm telling you, man, that shit worked for me big time.
As for your opinion on Thor 2 and the rest of the Superhero write-up, I'm just going to pass that off as troll bait. I know that you're a Martian and all that but if that's how you actually feel then I think I'm going to be forced to start considering a "Final Solution" to the Martian question.
We are when the producer is Val Lewton. I wish my Classic Film threads didn't get deleted in the purge, because I wrote about all of this shit at length. Basically, after Orson Welles nearly bankrupted RKO with Citizen Kane, they needed someone to come in and right the ship. Lewton showed up and started bringing in the money and fostering a hell of a talent department. He worked in close collaboration on all of his projects, setting off on their own excellent careers the likes of Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise, and Mark Robson. And Curse of the Cat People was more of a Lewton film than any of the others.
Except for the two Cat People, I've only seen Ghost Ship. Which I remember thinking was fairly good, trying to pass of the machinery of a ship as some sort of ghostly aberration and all that.
You've got to see I Walked with a Zombie, which is just extraordinary, and The Body Snatcher, with Boris Karloff just dominating every fucking frame of that movie.
I remember trying to read Karl Marx and actually laughing out loud at some of the articulations he made. And it was not helped by the fact that half of all the terms he used he had invented himself.
Well Marx was pulling from Hegel, who is quite possibly the most confounding philosopher ever.
Rand on them both:
"While scientists were performing astounding feats of disciplined reason, breaking down the barriers of the 'unknowable' in every field of knowledge, charting the course of light rays in space or the course of blood in the capillaries of man’s body - what philosophy was offering them, as interpretation of and guidance for their achievements, was [the philosophy] of Hegel, who proclaimed that matter does not exist at all, that everything is Idea (not somebody’s idea, just Idea), and that this Idea operates by the dialectical process of a new 'super-logic' which proves that contradictions are the law of reality, that A is non-A, and that omniscience about the physical universe (including electricity, gravitation, the solar system, etc.) is to be derived, not from the observation of facts, but from the contemplation of that Idea’s triple somersaults inside his, Hegel’s, mind. This was offered as a philosophy of reason.
While businessmen were rising to spectacular achievements of creative ability and self-confidently ambitious courage, challenging the primordial dogma of man’s poverty and misery on earth, breaking open the trade routes of the world, releasing mankind’s productive energy and placing in its service the liberating power of machines ... what philosophy was offering, as an evaluation of their achievements and as guidance for the rest of society, was [the philosophy] of Marx, who proclaimed that the mind does not exist, that everything is matter, that matter develops itself by the dialectical process of its own 'super-logic' of contradictions, and what is true today will not be true tomorrow, that the material tools of production determine men’s 'ideological superstructure' (which means: machines create men’s thinking, not the other way around), that muscular labor is the source of wealth, that physical force is the only practical means of existence, and that the seizure of the omnipotent machines will transfer omnipotence to the rule of brute violence. This was offered as a philosophy of history and of political economy."
And Shot and The Hug Dog are talking about how Rand's ideas are crazy and impractical
Terminator and Battlestar Galactica are two that I've been meaning to check out. I remember they were on Netflix, then i heard they were awesome, went to check them out, and they were taken down. Forgot about them ever since.
Hannibal would just be a straight favor. I'll watch it if you watch Nathan For You. Have i told you to watch this before? I think we agree the most when it comes to humor, and you will love that show. I guarantee it.
AHS. Didn't bother after season 1 ended so poorly.
Breaking Bad. Didn't like it til season 4.
Dexter. Quit after one episode.
Shameless. Labored through seasons 3 and 4, quit halfway through 5.
Newsroom. Lasted about one or two minutes after the opening scene.
You should watch the HBO flagships. Only problem is they're not short. But I can't believe (that I could be deceived) that knowing as much as I do now about what cinema you've watched, that you've not see any of those. And if you ever get over the cartoon thing, Rick and Morty is doing things that makes most sci-fi look just, pathetic. Easy to watch as well.
You should watch the HBO flagships. Only problem is they're not short. But I can't believe (that I could be deceived) that knowing as much as I do now about what cinema you've watched, that you've not see any of those. And if you ever get over the cartoon thing, Rick and Morty is doing things that makes most sci-fi look just, pathetic. Easy to watch as well.
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