What was the last movie you've seen?

[Jmustang1968]

I pretty much ignored the politics in Elysium and focused on the action movie and enjoyed it. As for Chappie, I disagree entirely with the notion that it drops its plot threads for an action movie at the end; yes, there's a lot of action and explosions in the finale, but they serve the story.

So you liked about 10 minutes of it?

[Ack]

I pretty much ignored the politics in Elysium and focused on the action movie and enjoyed it. As for Chappie, I disagree entirely with the notion that it drops its plot threads for an action movie at the end; yes, there's a lot of action and explosions in the finale, but they serve the story.

So you liked about 10 minutes of it?

"Once I got past the 'class warfare is ok as long as it comes from poor people because rich people are all stupid and evil' message, the film was good."

[MrPopo]

I pretty much ignored the politics in Elysium and focused on the action movie and enjoyed it. As for Chappie, I disagree entirely with the notion that it drops its plot threads for an action movie at the end; yes, there's a lot of action and explosions in the finale, but they serve the story.

So you liked about 10 minutes of it?

"Once I got past the 'class warfare is ok as long as it comes from poor people because rich people are all stupid and evil' message, the film was good."

Clearly. It was a perfect example of a workers revolution against the bourgeoisie.

Honestly, I wasn't even paying attention to the class warfare stuff. What I saw was a guy got radiation poisoning and put on an exoskeleton to break into the one facility that had a super healing machine. The only thing that made it class warfare was the fact that all the rich people had one instead of just one rich person.

[Ack]

Clearly. It was a perfect example of a workers revolution against the bourgeoisie.

Honestly, I wasn't even paying attention to the class warfare stuff. What I saw was a guy got radiation poisoning and put on an exoskeleton to break into the one facility that had a super healing machine. The only thing that made it class warfare was the fact that all the rich people had one instead of just one rich person.

How you could not pay attention to it? Even during the trailers, the film was drowned out by the sound of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky collectively fapping from beyond the grave. Shoot, I think I even heard Mao do a money shot on some young worker's face.

[fastbilly1]

If you haven't seen it, go with The Secret of Kells. It is great. (The vikings in the film are genuinely terrifying, however; so, be careful if you are watching it with children.)

One of the best animated films of 2009

[MrPopo]

Clearly. It was a perfect example of a workers revolution against the bourgeoisie.

Honestly, I wasn't even paying attention to the class warfare stuff. What I saw was a guy got radiation poisoning and put on an exoskeleton to break into the one facility that had a super healing machine. The only thing that made it class warfare was the fact that all the rich people had one instead of just one rich person.

How you could not pay attention to it? Even during the trailers, the film was drowned out by the sound of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky collectively fapping from beyond the grave. Shoot, I think I even heard Mao do a money shot on some young worker's face.

Yeah, I didn't get that from the trailers. What I got was there was this bastion of technology somewhere and these guys were going to get into it. Sure, in retrospect what you're bringing up comes through, but at the time I was focused on the cool future tech being shown.

I really don't pay attention to anything related to social stratification because I consider it to be something that's so ingrained in the human psychology that it's never going away and attempts to abolish it will only end up fucking the general populace worse than they already were.

[mjmjr25]

If you haven't seen it, go with The Secret of Kells. It is great. (The vikings in the film are genuinely terrifying, however; so, be careful if you are watching it with children.)

One of the best animated films of 2009

Interesting - this keeps coming up on our Netflix recommendations, but we just haven't clicked on it yet. Shall rectify.

[J T]

Faust (1926)


Last night I watched the F.W. Murnau silent movie classic, Faust. It was an amazing movie for its time with fantastic special effects and cinematography, which still hold up reasonably well almost 90 years later. The imagery is striking and many of the shot compositions and actor blocking configurations conjure up images reminiscent of Renaissance and Expressionist painters. As you likely know, Faust was a good man who sold his soul to the devil. The chiaroscuro lighting effects bring home this tension between good and evil, light and dark.

What made this movie particularly thrilling for me, however, was how I saw it. The Paramount Theatre in Seattle was originally designed to be a grand movie palace for silent pictures back in 1928. It was designed with a mighty Wurlitzer organ back in those times, which means that extensive work was done to build the organ's pipes into the architecture of the walls. It is estimated that there are somewhere near one million parts for this organ and all of its pipes to function. Unfortunately for the Paramount, the first talking pictures came out just as the place had been built, and it struggled to stay afloat. The organ console (the part that you play) was removed for decades and the venue was repurposed to be used for plays, music events, and other performances, but the pipes remained.

Fast forward several decades and a group of organ enthusiasts become very interested in the mighty Wurlitzer, which they work for years to restore, cleaning the pipes and refurbishing the aged console. There are only 4 of these organs in the country that are still in working condition. The Paramount's Wurlitzer organ lives again, and along with film history buffs getting involved, and a sponsorship from Trader Joes, you can now watch classic Silent movies at the Paramount as if you were paying top dollar back in the 1920s for the premiere movie going experience.

Last week I also saw Fritz Lang's Metropolis at this venue, but they didn't use the organ for that showing and instead had the Degenerative Art Ensemble performing compositions they had written specifically for the movie. Metropolis is the first feature length Science Fiction movie, and I watched it the day after I had seen Interstellar, so I was getting the oldest and most current Sci-Fi all in one weekend. It was awesome. (I was going to write about that, but the messageboard went bonkers last week.

Here are some pictures I took for you all to enjoy this classic movie experience!


Panorama of the theatre


The Paramount Theatre lobby as seen from the balcony


The organ console and screen


The Mighty Wurlitzer!


Close up of the bells and whistles

[Stark]

Oh man J T, that is awesome! I'm gonna have to do that.

[Ack]

JT, if you enjoyed Faust so much, I would heartily recommend you check out Haxan, a Danish "documentary" about witchcraft.

Lately I watched these:



Grand Prix



The Naked Spur



White Heat

Unfortunately due to the forums being down, I decided not to post about these in my usual fashion. Instead, I'll do a quick run through.

I loved Grand Prix. It's a gorgeously shot film with some incredible racing sequences, but I also enjoyed the contrast from the four different competing males racing against each other. Yes, they fill roles more as archetypes as opposed to well-defined characters(the one recovering from an injury, the one recovering from disgrace, the young upstart, the jaded old man), but there is something inherently masculine about their struggle and need to compete while examining their competition or sinking entirely into haughtiness and bravado over their skill and recklessness.

The Naked Spur I liked, but despite its high praise for the screenplay, there is a hole in the plot: why was James Stewart specifically pursuing Robert Ryan. Yes, I understand that Stewart's character wants the money on Ryan's head, but why specifically? They hint that they know each other, and Stewart seems angry with Ryan, but they never establish a connection between Ryan's character and the events that led Stewart to need the money. By the end, I felt like there was a piece of a puzzle that was missing.

As for White Heat, James Cagney makes a glorious psycho slipping further away from reality in the wake of his mother's death. He's the ultimate crazed criminal, powerful, violent, with no ability to empathize with anyone except the woman who raised him. His character is awesomely terrifying in his abuse, his cruelty, and his self-interest. While the film is all around excellent, it's worth watching just for him alone.