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i'm one of those people who doesn't really get the distaste for Natalie Portman. i mean, i don't think she'd necessarily be good for an Aliens movie, but i don't find her awful.




but maybe it's because i think she's mega hot.

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man, i love these people

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i thought Zebraman got kind of horribly boring towards the end and felt that Big Man Japan did a much better job with the whole thing.

on the other hand, i also enjoyed Sukiyaki, which is not really too loved.

that said, Gozu and Ichi are my absolute favorites.

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I saw "Enter the Void" this past Friday.



holy shit

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having seen Enter the Void twice now, i can say that the only real complaint i have against it is that some of the shots could probably have been edited down a bit. it works really well on a large screen the first time you see it, as it's sort of disorienting (much like a lot of the film), but i found myself getting impatient between transitions into the lights in the rooms.

it's not a subtle movie in the least, but i'm not sure it's supposed to be torture porn either.

as a friend texted me during the film (upon his first viewing), "i'm glad they put that shot in "Void" of the penis cumming in the vagina cause i had no idea what those two characters were doing"


Black Swan looks...all right. i'll see it because Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis

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yea, Big Fan is surprisingly entertaining

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im not really getting the whole "no characters" thing. everyone in the climax appeared earlier in the film.

I'm not going to list every single character in the film, nor am I going to say the film is perfect, but...what?

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i have no idea what this film is about aside from the fact that it involves Mel Gibson and a beaver animal puppet. is there any chance that it could actually be something worth seeing beyond the whole "mental breakdown" aspect?

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awwwwweesommeeeeee

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This isn't going to be a very long post, but from what ive read, Noe has stated that he is an atheiest and that the film is, at it's core, a movie about a guy who is on psychedelic drugs, gets killed and is tripping out while he remembers ideas about a book he just read.

nevermind that DMT doesn't really last longer than 20 minutes, but, ya know.

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hah, wow.



aside: i've always thought that The Holy Mountain would be pretty neat in 3D.

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saw True Grit last night. ahhhh so fucking wonderful. it's almost 2 hours long and it felt like 30 minutes.

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i saw Scott Pilgrim a month or so ago. i thought it was pretty ok, as in, neither excellent, great, nor abominable.

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hah, good times.

i'm not familiar with this film or the director, but...man, gotta love that guy's sense of entitlement.

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The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye // Trailer from Marie Losier on Vimeo.

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:)

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i really can't see live-action Akira turning out anywhere even approaching the concept of "okay."

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SILENCIO

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yesterday, i decided to get drunk in my apartment, get tacos and watch Irreversible. the results were, um, varied.

the only Noé i'd seen at this point was Enter the Void (three times now, because i still don't know if i like it [i think i do?]), though i'd been told about a good amount of the shocking stuff in Irreversible. still, actually watching this thing is quite different. at the time the scenes are occurring, i find myself wondering "who would/why would anyone make this," but by the end of the film, it seems to make a strange kind of sense.

at the very least, Noé seems to have a knack for capturing some of the most horrific/traumatic moments of the human experience and, for that, i have a vague respect for what he does. also, i really enjoy his cinematography and how he uses cameras to create completely disorienting environments.

the main question that lingers for me with his work relates to what he is trying to accomplish exactly, since i don't know if i trust everything that comes out of his mouth during interviews. also, for whom is this being made? the experience is incredibly visceral and there's something to be said for exposing oneself to artforms that are inherently uncomfortable, but do i really need to see these reminders that life can be terrible? is this a kind of torture porn for people who lead blasé lives or is Noé simply trying to put to film experiences that we often try to shove in the back of our minds?

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i acted as a chaperone for this 19-year-old art student i know. she wanted to see Enter the Void, i warned her, she wouldn't listen. ultimately decided it'd be better if i came along and got her drunk afterwards to help deal.

pretty sure Fort90 once brought a date to see Irreversible when it first came out (he did not know what the movie was about).

he did not go on a second date with this girl.



but what you're saying about being in a room full of strangers is kind of accurate. when i first saw EtV, basically as soon as the last scene came onto the screen, this one girl in the back of the theater just said "oh fu...oh fuck." the entire audience started cracking up and it was fairly cathartic.

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hahaha.

well, i dunno, i do write a lot of shit in sperm and blood, so...


ok, yea, that is a compelling argument. i think primarily it's the idea of trying to reason out the "why" or what he does because, as you say, it seems pretty straight-forward and not necessarily in place to present a complex situation. at the same time, i don't necessarily thnik it's something he's gleefully doing, either. which is where i suppose my semi-fascination with his work comes into play here. it's at once horrible for horrible's sake while at the same time doing it in a way that no one else really is. even something like Antichrist, with all the horrific shit that happens there, has enough surrealism and lol moments ("CHAOS REIGNS") to sort of give everything a glossing over of "this is not reality."


edited to also address remote: yea, i think the fact that i'm thinking about this stuff so much does imply that, to me, at least, it's thought-provoking, but yes, it's fairly straight forward. and in a way, that makes it slightly better, because i would rather not have some allegory attached to the shit he displays on screen.


anyway, this is starting to sound kind of jumbled now, but, clearly, i still have no idea what i think of Noé.

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on Noé: i don't necessarily get the impression that he thinks these are universal truths he's flinging upon the audience to elicit some kind of revelatory experience. that press thing he wrote for Irreversible is kind of silly, but from what i've heard him say in regard to his films, he seems kind of vague with the exact intentions of what he makes. i.e. he doesn't come off like a total ass and say things like "i want the audience to FEEL SOMETHING THEY NEVER HAVE" etc. etc. or, at least in what i've heard him say, he doesn't do this, though it's possible he does elsewhere.

i don't really get any sense of hope out of his films, but i do think they do something similar along the lines of the music of Coil or Swans, in that, they seem to capture some horrific moments. the difference is the medium and, when something is visual as opposed to auditory, it's a lot more direct and allows for less personal interpretation. i mean, you can, of course, interpret visuals, but there is a difference, i think, between listening to something that sounds like what i imagine death sounds like and actually watching someone have his face smashed in with a fire extinguisher.

Ronnoc: first i'm going to pull the stupid "you should have seen it in a theater" card, which...admittedly, is a weak thing to say. but, really, EtV really benefits from a large screen. but maybe you have one! second, maybe we're all just fucked over here, but every time i saw the film, people generally laughed at the "I'll kill the baby" line. last, the incest! the funny thing about the incest in that movie is that it's probably the least disturbing thing about everything that is going on and, in an extremely weird way, i almost found it comforting amidst all the other shit that i had been watching for two and a half hours. it was like, "aw, i hope they get togeth...wait what?"

see, i agree; he isn't saying anything about incest, but i don't think it's in there because he thinks it's deep. it's just another bizarre part of the human experience that he is throwing onto the screen (though i've seen a decent number of French films with incest so uh, it's not exactly new).

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truth

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i mean, has Galifinakis ever actually been in a good film? i gather it's really just a source of income for him. it's not like his stand up could really transition into any kind of cinema. i guess the closest i've seen to what i think suits him is his work with Tim and Eric. and...well, i guess that may or may not make things better, depending on one's opinions about that show.

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yea, Robocop is a weird example of how Rated R films were somehow made into successful children's toy lines. does this still happen? i'm assuming...no? because how many films do they even make like this anymore?

but agreed, it wasn't until rewatching Robocop a few years ago that i saw how excellent it actually is. one of my favorite things to do is rewatch it with other people who may have similarly written it off as a silly 80s action flick.

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nah, Lady Vengeance is pretty great.

Sympathy is probably my favorite, because, despite being pretty brutal at points (thematically and uh...physically), it's a really quiet film with some gorgeous, tragic moments.

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i don't think Ip Man 1 or 2 were more nationalistic than anything like, say, Rocky IV


meaning, it's obvious and a little silly, but i still enjoyed them.

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what...?

but i like Pan's Labyrinth...

or...at least...i wouldn't qualify it as bad?


man, sometimes i read some of the movies you guys don't like and i get hells of confused.

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no idea what it's about, but going to have to see it

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recently watched the Russian film "The Return." hadn't heard of it before, but was pleasantly surprised. it's...intense, without being overtly so. kind of sublime and mellow the whole way through.