The Official Movie Thread

[no country for old wainds]

Lies, you're just not looking hard enough.

na, i just have high standards

basically in an average year these days there's less than 5 films that are mindblowingly awesome, and the hurt locker is not in my top 5 for the year, so..

 

[NinjaGeek]

I suppose if we're talking only recent film releases probably true. (Or more likely the really good stuff is still difficult to find).

But overall I'd say I get to watch a mind-blowingly awesome film several times a week if not several times a day. There's a shit ton out there and catching up on them is a mammoth endeavor.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Can I ask you to name some of your favourite movies, NinjaGeek?

 

[Evil?]

Just popping in to say that they had a pretty obvious "Catwoman is going to be in the next movie" moment in The Dark Knight. Bruce asks if his new suit will protect against dogs and Morgan freeman says something like, "No but it will work against cats". He then winks at the camera. Well, not really but he may as well have.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I suppose if we're talking only recent film releases probably true. (Or more likely the really good stuff is still difficult to find).

But overall I'd say I get to watch a mind-blowingly awesome film several times a week if not several times a day. There's a shit ton out there and catching up on them is a mammoth endeavor.

in the 70s practically every movie was mindblowingly awesome wish i was alive back then

 

[Dak]

Me too.

 

[NinjaGeek]

Can I ask you to name some of your favourite movies, NinjaGeek?

Gonna be difficult to keep it short but here are some of the big ones...

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
Lunacy (Jan Svankmajer)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog)
La Roue (Abel Gance)
Le Brasier Ardent (Ivan Mosjoukine)
Feu Mathias Pascal (Marcel L'Herbier)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Mascot (Ladislas Starewicz)
Videodrome (David Cronenberg)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
Sante Sangre (Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
The Steel Helmet (Sam Fuller)
Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma)
Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton)
Steamboat Bill Jr. (Buster Keaton)
Hellzapoppin (Starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson)
Seven Men From Now (Budd Boetticher)
M (Fritz Lang)
Ivan's Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky)
In The Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Parajanov)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Buñuel)
Fighting Elegy (Seijun Suzuki)
Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Testuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto)
Gozu (Takashi Miike)
Tears of the Black Tiger (Wisit Sasanatieng)
Lemonade Joe (Oldrich Lipsky)
Deadly Invention (Karel Zemon)
Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino)
Come Drink With Me (King Hu)
Killer Clans (Chor Yuen)
Dirty Ho (Lau Kar Leung)
Pedicab Driver (Sammo Hung)
Shaolin Drunkard (Yuen Wo Ping)
The Heroic Trio (Johnny To)
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (Tsui Hark)
Burning Paradise (Ringo Lam)
Last Hurrah for Chivalry (John Woo)
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (Lam Nai Choi)
Ashes of Time (Wong Kar Wai)

 

[Killbot]

I'm getting pretty annoyed at the opinion that the current state of movies is terrible or movies have been going into decline etc.
Time acts as a filter and only the outstanding pieces are remembered. In thirty years time nobody will remember Ghost Rider for example, they will remember the masterpieces, compare them to the waves and waves of releases and say 'oh how I wish it was the 2000's again'

There are as many brilliant movies being released as ever, it's just we are here to experience all the shit that comes with each one and sometimes they get buried.

 

[NinjaGeek]

I agree with you completely, which is why I added that the good ones are probably difficult to find.

I think hollywood has declined overall, there's some good stuff yes, but a lot of the stuff people are proclaiming as great (Dark Knight for example) is only great in comparison to the utter shit we're seeing, but in the context of the history of cinema, is really just garbage. Now I'm sure there are brilliant filmmakers somewhere in the world making truly great stuff, but history hasn't cleared out all the dreck yet.

I'm lazy so I don't really try to keep up with modern film-making trends all that much. I prefer to wait until others have sifted through all the shit to find the gems for me.

 

[Badbird]

I would like to find thoses movies you talked about Ninjageek someday.

 

[Killbot]

I think hollywood has declined overall, there's some good stuff yes, but a lot of the stuff people are proclaiming as great (Dark Knight for example) is only great in comparison to the utter shit we're seeing, but in the context of the history of cinema, is really just garbage. Now I'm sure there are brilliant filmmakers somewhere in the world making truly great stuff, but history hasn't cleared out all the dreck yet.

I'm lazy so I don't really try to keep up with modern film-making trends all that much. I prefer to wait until others have sifted through all the shit to find the gems for me.

Very well put.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I'm getting pretty annoyed at the opinion that the current state of movies is terrible or movies have been going into decline etc.
Time acts as a filter and only the outstanding pieces are remembered. In thirty years time nobody will remember Ghost Rider for example, they will remember the masterpieces, compare them to the waves and waves of releases and say 'oh how I wish it was the 2000's again'

There are as many brilliant movies being released as ever, it's just we are here to experience all the shit that comes with each one and sometimes they get buried.

i think it's just as stupid to say that every decade automatically has the same amount of brilliant movies as every other, there's no reason to assume that. in fact i'm absolutely certain that the '70s was better than any other decade before or since. but i don't really mind your argument as there's a fuckload of quality movies from the last 10 years, and people who whine about the terrible state of things tend to be queers.

btw i'm actually not that fond of dirty harry.

 

[Killbot]

i think it's just as stupid to say that every decade automatically has the same amount of brilliant movies as every other, there's no reason to assume that. in fact i'm absolutely certain that the '70s was better than any other decade before or since. but i don't really mind your argument as there's a fuckload of quality movies from the last 10 years, and people who whine about the terrible state of things tend to be queers.

I didn't mean to give off that assumption. I agree some eras and scenes will result and have resulted in a higher concentration of quality movies than others, for instance I can't think of many films from the mid 80's I consider masterpieces (I'm sure plenty disagree, it just wasn't an era that struck a chord with me). Sometimes the way of life or attitude of a generation all comes together in a certain place to provide a breeding ground of inspiration for great cinema.

I just take issue with the complaints that arise every year that 'cinema has never been this bad'. People are more aware of and more likely to watch bad/average movies being currently released than they are of previous movie eras either because they weren't old enough or because the bad/average movies they saw then have been forgotten. Recent movies will be at the forefront of our memory whether they're good or bad because they are everywhere - being reviewed, advertised and at the cinema, but nostalgia and our nature to forget the forgettable with time means that the media and on a personal level we will only recall the best aspects of years past. Although I can't say for sure this era will have near enough as many masterpieces as ever, the history of cinema and my own personal experience of some the movies and directors so far suggests it will.

 

[ArneZ]

Avatar was such a lame movie, how can people like this? It was almost as shitty and bad as Transformer 2, and the story was rip-offs from at least 4-5 other movies Ive seen. The characters sucked as much as the actors. The only, only good thing about this movie was the effects. Everything else was nothing.

 

[Psychonaut]

Ong Bak 2 - Pretty good. The fights didn't seem as free-flowing as usual but some of them were pretty cool. Using an elephant as a prop in a fight was rad. This one had a much bigger budget than the last. It had some great set pieces and costumes.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Avatar was such a lame movie, how can people like this? It was almost as shitty and bad as Transformer 2, and the story was rip-offs from at least 4-5 other movies Ive seen. The characters sucked as much as the actors. The only, only good thing about this movie was the effects. Everything else was nothing.

so self-evident it's not even worth saying

 

[Anticitizen One]

This on the other hand is pretty good.

 

[Anticitizen One]

Unrelated and maybe slightly less obvious: man, did The Hurt Locker ever squander its potential by diffusing its own tension with stupid cliches and a cheesy meandering narrative that never went anywhere, thanks to the central redneck dumb shit.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

Ong Bak 2 - Pretty good. The fights didn't seem as free-flowing as usual but some of them were pretty cool. Using an elephant as a prop in a fight was rad. This one had a much bigger budget than the last. It had some great set pieces and costumes.

damn, I forgot all about that movie. must see.

 

[Anticitizen One]

http://www.alchemylab.com/alchemical_kubrick.htm

This is really incredible. I had understood most of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I believe (it is, perhaps tied with Stalker, my favorite film of all time), but this puts words to some things that are sort of blowing my mind right now. I need to sit down and watch this film again tomorrow night, I think.

It has been a while since I last watched it, but I feel almost ashamed that I had never before thought to view the empty black opening screen (accompanied by Ligeti's "Atmospheres") as the first occurrence of the monolith—or, rather, as an implication that the film itself is the monolith to its audience—our very own alchemical stone of gnosis. We pass through it and witness transcendence.

The film truly is a masterpiece. Kubrick was a genius.