The Official Movie Thread

FINALLY found a copy of Buio Omega today, I'm so psyched!

qSIkJYG.jpg


I got asked for my fucking I.D. buying it though.
 
Watched Ex Machina last night and I was hooked from beginning to end. Love when a movie does that. SPOILER: and holy shit, that shot of the AI pounding on her door until her arms fall to pieces. That whole montage was bone-chilling, but that bit really got to me. Now, does leaving Caleb to die mean she passed or failed the Turing test?

Then I watched Blade Runner dir. cut again on Bluray and my god the cinematography and directing is stunning. So many undertones full of symbolism and meaning and crap
 
Jimmy... Dead. said:
Watched Ex Machina last night and I was hooked from beginning to end. Love when a movie does that. SPOILER: and holy shit, that shot of the AI pounding on her door until her arms fall to pieces. That whole montage was bone-chilling, but that bit really got to me. Now, does leaving Caleb to die mean she passed or failed the Turing test?
Click to expand...

It means that Caleb failed the Turing test. ;)

What I mean is, Eva convinced Caleb not only that she could "pass" for human, but that she was human - that is, she experienced "real" human emotions (particularly love).

However, as we learn in the climax, she never actually experienced these emotions (whether she is capable of understanding them is a more complicated conversation). She was only pretending to have real emotions in order to manipulate Caleb into helping her.
 
to me her human element was her desperate desire to escape and live; in this respect she was actually more human than the men (who i think have BOTH been redrawn as the bad guys by the end... maybe that's a little reductive but there's certainly a shift in that direction. she's only giving them a taste of their own medicine).
 
no country for old wainds said:
to me her human element was her desperate desire to escape and live; in this respect she was actually more human than the men (who i think have BOTH been redrawn as the bad guys by the end... maybe that's a little reductive but there's certainly a shift in that direction. she's only giving them a taste of their own medicine).
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I see the compulsion to survive as a human quality; and I think the compulsion to escape and the compulsion to survive are closely linked.

A reflexive organism, held in captivity, definitely possesses the capacity to associate its captivity with a danger to its existence. My reading of the film wants to stop using the parameters of the human altogether.

Eva basically possesses the internet for a brain, but a human body - head, limbs, torso, etc. Her brain didn't co-evolve with her body, it was implanted in a manifest human body. Her movements throughout the film always seem so hesitant, calculated, tentative... I think this is because her brain moves light-years faster than her body can, and she has to concentrate to keep her body in control.

This is to say that I don't think her brain functions like a human at all, whose emotions are closely tied to bodily positions and hormonal secretions. Eva's emotional capacity is analytical, I think; she is able to understand the effects that romantic or sexual arousal has on humans, but these effects do not grip her on an experiential level. She knows them, so to speak, but doesn't feel them.

I prefer to see Eva as an organism whose complexity is her best survival mechanism because it allows her to persuasively pass as human.

But, to go back to your point that Eva is more human than the two men... maybe a subtler point is just that we're all passing for human.

Of historical note is the original Turing Test, which was based on a test in which a woman tried to pass for a man, and vice versa (the impression of gender being decidedly connected to Turing's own homosexuality); if the measure of humanity is Man (which it overwhelmingly has been) then it is meaningful that the filmmakers chose to make Eva a woman (all the androids were women, in fact) and the "testers" men.
 
CASSETTEISGOD said:
Franca Stoppi :worship:
Click to expand...
She's pretty amazing isn't she? Pure presence.

Hollow Man (2000) - Believe it or not I actually do watch movies that aren't directed by David Lynch or Paul Verhoeven :cool: Anyway, this kicks ass, a popcorn flick with balls and attitude. Real pervy in spots too. Really astonishing effects that still hold up. Come to think of it, modern Hollywood could learn a thing or two from this movie in how to properly use digital effects in a forward thinking way as opposed to "well lets just film everything in front of a green screen and have the only real things in the movie be the actors because we're creatively bankrupt retards". /Pretentious douche rant
 
Einherjar86 said:
I'm not sure I see the compulsion to survive as a human quality; and I think the compulsion to escape and the compulsion to survive are closely linked.

A reflexive organism, held in captivity, definitely possesses the capacity to associate its captivity with a danger to its existence. My reading of the film wants to stop using the parameters of the human altogether.

Eva basically possesses the internet for a brain, but a human body - head, limbs, torso, etc. Her brain didn't co-evolve with her body, it was implanted in a manifest human body. Her movements throughout the film always seem so hesitant, calculated, tentative... I think this is because her brain moves light-years faster than her body can, and she has to concentrate to keep her body in control.

This is to say that I don't think her brain functions like a human at all, whose emotions are closely tied to bodily positions and hormonal secretions. Eva's emotional capacity is analytical, I think; she is able to understand the effects that romantic or sexual arousal has on humans, but these effects do not grip her on an experiential level. She knows them, so to speak, but doesn't feel them.

I prefer to see Eva as an organism whose complexity is her best survival mechanism because it allows her to persuasively pass as human.

But, to go back to your point that Eva is more human than the two men... maybe a subtler point is just that we're all passing for human.

Of historical note is the original Turing Test, which was based on a test in which a woman tried to pass for a man, and vice versa (the impression of gender being decidedly connected to Turing's own homosexuality); if the measure of humanity is Man (which it overwhelmingly has been) then it is meaningful that the filmmakers chose to make Eva a woman (all the androids were women, in fact) and the "testers" men.
Click to expand...

it didn't seem to me that eva was pursuing survival/escape for its own sake. her fascination with the world around her and longing to explore it seemed sincere to me rather than merely an aspect of her persona, and i felt that it drove all of her actions and even made her sympathetic to a point - she seemed more drunk on life and the idea of living in the world than any of the actual human characters. i'd need to watch it again to back that up (or not), but i at least feel it's too tidy to categorically say that she isn't human/as human as the men, and think the film avoids providing easy answers to that question.

there's also a pretty clear feminist reading of the film methinks, although you don't need to be aware of that to enjoy it (much like UNDER THE SKIN).

question: have you seen SPLICE? it's not quite in the same ballpark thematically but certain things in EX MACHINA reminded me of it (it has a character that's a lot like eva in some ways).
 
Oblivious Maximus said:
Hollow Man (2000) - Believe it or not I actually do watch movies that aren't directed by David Lynch or Paul Verhoeven :cool: Anyway, this kicks ass, a popcorn flick with balls and attitude. Real pervy in spots too. Really astonishing effects that still hold up. Come to think of it, modern Hollywood could learn a thing or two from this movie in how to properly use digital effects in a forward thinking way as opposed to "well lets just film everything in front of a green screen and have the only real things in the movie be the actors because we're creatively bankrupt retards". /Pretentious douche rant
Click to expand...

i saw that in the cinema when it came out (i was 12). weird experience to say the least.
 
no country for old wainds said:
i saw that in the cinema when it came out (i was 12). weird experience to say the least.
Click to expand...
Its a really cool movie and I found it refreshing seeing a studio genre movie actually aimed at adults. Its too bad Verhoeven regrets making it, at least that's the impressing he gives off in interviews. His actual quote:

I decided after Hollow Man, this is a movie, the first movie that I made that I thought I should not have made. It made money and this and that, but it really is not me anymore. I think many other people could have done that. I don't think many people could have made RoboCop that way, or either Starship Troopers. But Hollow Man, I thought there might have been 20 directors in Hollywood who could have done that. I felt depressed with myself after 2002.
Click to expand...

With all due respect to Mr. Verhoeven, I feel that, just like with Lynch and Dune, this is a classic case of the artist being his own worst critic. I don't think just any Hollywood hack would have brought the same attitude to the film as Verhoeven. While its probably his pulpiest genre effort, there's still a great visceral quality and a feeling of anger to it. It might be missing the political and social satire of Robocop and Starship Troopers but it really wasn't designed to be like those films.
 
no country for old wainds said:
it didn't seem to me that eva was pursuing survival/escape for its own sake. her fascination with the world around her and longing to explore it seemed sincere to me rather than merely an aspect of her persona, and i felt that it drove all of her actions and even made her sympathetic to a point - she seemed more drunk on life and the idea of living in the world than any of the actual human characters. i'd need to watch it again to back that up (or not), but i at least feel it's too tidy to categorically say that she isn't human/as human as the men, and think the film avoids providing easy answers to that question.

there's also a pretty clear feminist reading of the film methinks, although you don't need to be aware of that to enjoy it (much like UNDER THE SKIN).

question: have you seen SPLICE? it's not quite in the same ballpark thematically but certain things in EX MACHINA reminded me of it (it has a character that's a lot like eva in some ways).
Click to expand...

I would have to watch it again to substantiate several of my comments as well. I can definitely say that my own theoretical inclinations sway my reading of the film. I actually commented on Peter Watts's blog (an SF writer who wrote a very solid and fair critique of the science in the movie) and he responded saying that the movie may not give us enough information to say either way how "human" she really is... so I would need to re-watch it and look more closely.

I haven't seen Under the Skin or Splice, but I really want to see the former. I'll check out Splice too, since you mention it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Oblivious Maximus
The horror movie thread
Replies
19
Views
650
Billy Milano
Evil Dead
E
Cephalopod
What type of movies do you like?
Replies
92
Views
2K
Nevermore
Karmic
K
D
The movie thread
Replies
86
Views
4K
Amon Amarth
Kvlt Wench
K
metal evilution
The Horror Movie Thread.
Replies
20
Views
2K
Metal Evilution
MotherEel
M
Anthrax_Mosher
This movie rules.!!!
Replies
16
Views
890
Anthrax
Anthrax_Mosher
A
Top Bottom
Back