The Official Movie Thread

Watched Still Walking for the first time in awhile. What a fantastically human film, a joy to watch. Ordered that on criterion with Memories of Murder and Parasite, highly recommended if anyone's looking for something.

also re-watched 2001 for the first time in awhile. There's just something not satisfying about the experience of sitting through the film. Dawn of Man is almost so dumbed down it's patronizing, the second act is so fluff that I don't think it adds any value to being in the film and the interaction with HAL, over time, creates complications with how I think the monolith is to do be demonstrated...but ultimately, seems to contradict what we see in the first two "acts". I'll read things like
HAL represents man's hubris in creating life. The proof of his self-awareness is that he murdered four of the five astronauts on board Discovery, for self-preservation, in the same manner as did the modified austrolopithicus kill for food and over water resources. HAL is the only rounded character throughout the whole film, the only character who through self-insight achieves a transformation of self. Thus also implying that humanity is at an end-point just as HAL (and machine intelligence) was at the beginning point of self-awareness.
or
that the monolith marks or guides some species in some direction
but...there's nothing satisfying about that in relation to the primary conflict, that is the crew with HAL. Is there any way to place the monolith & HAL in the same narrative that makes sense? The first spoiler is quite a reach in comparison, in my opinion
 
It's been way too long since I've seen 2001 but that pretty much fits my memory of it. I was never a big fan. I'm keen to read the book sometime though.

The movie is way more interesting than the novel. The original short story, “The Sentinel,” is also better than the novel. Clarke wrote the full novel in tandem with Kubrick working on the film, so it's more of a companion piece than a precursor.

I’m a fan of the film, but it has more to do with aesthetics than content.
 
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Watched The Wanting Mare over the weekend. Been looking forward to it for a while, and I'm intrigued by anything that Shane Carruth attaches his name to. The Dead Center was a cool premise and atmosphere even if it totally unraveled in the final act. Too bad Carruth's apparently a raging asshole; but then, I'm not really surprised, he strikes me as a dick.

Anyway, long story short, The Wanting Mare was pretty shit. Don't bother. Aside from a few overhead shots and some landscape stuff, it was boring and poorly conceived. So much more could have been done with character and plotting, I'm really shocked as to how this film got so many rave reviews. It feels exceedingly vapid.
 

I remember watching this at the cinema and thinking it was lesser version of Abbas Kiarostami's Ten.

I do give credit though as Panahi is one of the few boundary pushing directors still working in Iran (as opposed to the likes of Asghar Farhadi and others who are now expats) and you get a pretty good sense of what he had to tiptoe around to make that movie.
 
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That really makes me want to see Ten, I'm only vaguely familiar with Kiarostami's work. All the driving in Taxi made me anxious as fuck lol they drive like maniacs in Iran, do they even have road regulations? Holy fuck.

About to watch some old Cronenberg:

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Seen this before but it was before I was woke on Cronenberg and I just experienced it as a random horror movie to watch drunk on the weekend. Interested to see what I notice this time around.
 
i like taxi a lot, i just think he has incredible tonal control and sense of humour, it’s not his best or anything though. ten was my least favourite of the six kiarostamis i’ve seen, but it probably needs a rewatch.
 
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New Mortal Kombat movie was alright. Fatalities were cool, Kano was pretty funny, and I enjoyed some of the fights. The create-a-character dude as a protagonist was lame. Just use Johnny Cage if you want a fish out of water main character.

After that me and the wife watched that Scorpion's Revenge cartoon from last year. Enjoyed it more than the new movie.

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Cool.

The sci-fi thriller sounds extremely Cronenberg-ian. According to Deadline, which broke the news, the film is set in a distant future where humans have evolved beyond their “natural state and into a metamorphosis, altering their biological makeup.” In this setting, a performance artist named Saul Tenser embraces Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, sprouting new and unexpected organs in his body. Removing those organs becomes a new kind of theater, one that earns a following, as well as the attention of the government. So that should be an opportunity for a great deal of bloodletting from a director who knows his way around on-screen gore (just look at previous works such as “Dead Ringers” or “Videodrome” to remember that Cronenberg’s oeuvre is not for the weak of stomach).
 
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Watched Minari, and I guess the feelings after the film are as strange as a Korean immigrant thinking he's going to make it (big?) Selling Korean produce grown in arkansas. Ending was strange, grandma character was fun but shallow in exploration....wife and daughter merely there...not sure I'd ever watch again.
 
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I was terrified being a passenger in Iran. It really is that bad, and probably worse.

my scariest time being a passenger was in a taxi at wacken fest when the driver decided to bypass the queue into the site by driving on the wrong side of the road for over a mile. dude got yelled at by police numerous times and just kept on going. absolute fucking maniac.
 
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