Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
The Last Horror Movie - a nice surprise, even if it did seem to be a rip off of Man Bites Dog.
What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)
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alsoknownas
some bloke
Ex Machina - I was severely disappointed. Very well executed film, but fuck me - are we still at the sexy-lady-robot (wouldn't it be cool if we could just program women to fuck us) narrative? 
. I know all this was couched with a Bad Naughty Programer tilt, but the whole film is male POV, titillating crap.
And surprisingly unprofound too; I feel like I've been around that 'do robots really feel' thing a dozen times lately with no meaningful insight apparent.
. I know all this was couched with a Bad Naughty Programer tilt, but the whole film is male POV, titillating crap.And surprisingly unprofound too; I feel like I've been around that 'do robots really feel' thing a dozen times lately with no meaningful insight apparent.
Reno
The In Kraut
Ex Machina - I was severely disappointed. Very well executed film, but fuck me - are we still at the sexy-lady-robot (wouldn't it be cool if we could just program women to fuck us) narrative?
And surprisingly unprofound too; I feel like I've been around that 'do robots really feel' thing a dozen times lately with no meaningful insight apparent.
I don't think the sexy lady robot is gratuitous. The characters sexuality, vulnerability and empathy are woven into the fabric of the plot and are all set up for
the trap the film springs. I'm not claiming the film does anything particularly original or that it's that great, but thanks to the performance of the actress, who plays a doe eyed victim throughout out so well, it really works when it turns out at the end that all along she has been an ice cold machine with her own agenda. So it punishes both the lead character and the audience for getting her wrong all along.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Caught up with all of the laest Hannibal. Had given up but I came back to it and was pleased to find them lifting plotlines from the films/books- so we've had verger, now its buffalo bill. Good move, has really bought it back to life. Even if everyone is a therapist and/or murderer and they all speak to each other in oblique psychobabble
alsoknownas
some bloke
Yeah, but for me that's classic have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too redemptive plotting. I agree that sexuality and power are central to the story, but what do we actually see through the majority of the movie? Nubile bodies silently on display, or performing service, or (
) being hacked to pieces. The majority of our journey is spent with the spectacle of the serving-woman-robot, and the two blokes swigging beer and cock-jockeying. For a film that has sexuality at it's heart, and nudity as a deliberate design element there's a (complete?) absence of male nudity. It doesn't wash with me to just go.....oh but she was really the powerful one all along...
...for the last ten minutes or whatever.
Reno
The In Kraut
Yeah, but for me that's classic have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too redemptive plotting. I agree that sexuality and power are central to the story, but what do we actually see through the majority of the movie? Nubile bodies silently on display, or performing service, or (
..oh but she was really the powerful one all along...
...for the last ten minutes or whatever.
The last ten minutes are what the film is all about, it's a film entirely engineered around the twist. It's not like that is something the film produces out of nowhere to justify the objectification of the female character, its at the centre of the film. Something is only gratuitous if its introduced for its own sake. Here it's what the film is ultimately about. And the film is explicitly critical of its male characters who are shown to act unethical and boorish throughout. I also found the nudity rather tame and matter of fact under the circumstances and if someone wants their kicks, there is stronger stuff out there.
Anyways, I'm not trying to convince you to like the film, I didn't love it myself, but what it does has to be looked at in context of its overall design and the end is what it's all about. I personally wasn't that keen on the film exactly because I don't like films which are entirely about the twist.
Anyways, I'm not trying to convince you to like the film, I didn't love it myself, but what it does has to be looked at in context of its overall design and the end is what it's all about. I personally wasn't that keen on the film exactly because I don't like films which are entirely about the twist.
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alsoknownas
some bloke
Yeah, but films are not just their story, or the moral they are trying to sell - every image, every moment, cut, sound, etc. has a sensual effect on the audience and takes you on some kind of a journey. The main thing that jarred for me was perspective - the women in the film all exist to be stared at - by the audience of the film, by the men in the film, by the security cameras, etc., and away, for a second, from the story and the supposed moral, the experience on offer, to be lived-in and traveled-through, was one of two blokes enjoying the luxury of enslaved service, while casually discussing it over vodka and beer.
For me it's an old trick (Hay's Code origin?) - show what you like, then subvert it at the end and everything will be alright. Exploitation movies worked like that, and video nasties (I'm thinking of stuff like 'I Spit On Your Grave') - you get to see women being raped and stuff, but as long as they get a bit of redemption eventually then the movie can claim the high ground.
I'm not trying to say that Ex Machina is trying to be porn - I'm talking about a more subtle kind of fantasy enjoyment, with a sprinkling of titillation thrown in. I found it a bit depressing that that's where we're still stuck at to be honest.
Reno
The In Kraut
Nothing to do with the Hays Code, that was right wing, puritanical censorship which ruined Hollywood films for decades.
You are basically accusing Ex Machina of being exactly what it criticises and satirises. It's a sci-fi allegory about men creating women to be their playthings but it's nowhere endorsing that. Of course it has to show what it does to condemn it and along the way it implicates its male audience.
It's a very 70s way of looking at film spectatorship to just look at the representation and to ignore the context, Laura Mulvey, etc. I don't buy the "cake and eating it" argument when the "cake" is the subject matter of the film.
Anyways, that's as much I can be bothered with, it's going to get repetitive.
You are basically accusing Ex Machina of being exactly what it criticises and satirises. It's a sci-fi allegory about men creating women to be their playthings but it's nowhere endorsing that. Of course it has to show what it does to condemn it and along the way it implicates its male audience.
It's a very 70s way of looking at film spectatorship to just look at the representation and to ignore the context, Laura Mulvey, etc. I don't buy the "cake and eating it" argument when the "cake" is the subject matter of the film.
Anyways, that's as much I can be bothered with, it's going to get repetitive.
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The Octagon
Stop...Hammertime
Managed 20 mins of Sharknado 3 whilst flicking thru the channels last night.
Not even so bad it's good, fucking Jedward turned up at one point in a mercilessly short cameo, then the main characters went to space with David Hasselhoff for... some reason.
Not even so bad it's good, fucking Jedward turned up at one point in a mercilessly short cameo, then the main characters went to space with David Hasselhoff for... some reason.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Perfect Creatures
sort of an alt history\steampunky vampire film basically although they are gene engineered superhumans so they don't say the v word and there is no supernatural stuff. It was OK. Interesting visually anyway
sort of an alt history\steampunky vampire film basically although they are gene engineered superhumans so they don't say the v word and there is no supernatural stuff. It was OK. Interesting visually anyway
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
Maybe a nod to the Hoff's third ever film appearance, 'Starcrash' from 1978?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcrash
Reno
The In Kraut
The documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films about the frequently misguided output of the trash peddling 80s production company, which was very entertaining.
Three episodes of Wayward Pines. Not yet sure about this one, though the cliff hanger of episode 3 has me just about intrigued enough to hang in there. It's one of these Lost style conspiracy scifi things which is light on characterisation and all plot twists. I thought it would be a Twin Peaks style show, but it's more like one long Twilight Zone episode. Special agent Matt Dillon Goes looking for his disappeared colleagues and after a car crash wakes up in a town where nobody can leave and where time seems to pass differently. Good cast and at least this will get be wrapped up after ten episodes.
Three episodes of Wayward Pines. Not yet sure about this one, though the cliff hanger of episode 3 has me just about intrigued enough to hang in there. It's one of these Lost style conspiracy scifi things which is light on characterisation and all plot twists. I thought it would be a Twin Peaks style show, but it's more like one long Twilight Zone episode. Special agent Matt Dillon Goes looking for his disappeared colleagues and after a car crash wakes up in a town where nobody can leave and where time seems to pass differently. Good cast and at least this will get be wrapped up after ten episodes.
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trabuquera
Modesty Bag
I'd say stick with it Reno - it's audacious, if nothing else. Still not sure what all those top-notch names were doing wandering around in it though! Wayward indeed.
I watched La Rafle (The Round Up - 2012) and haven't often had such conflicting feelings about a movie. Because it's an honourable attempt to remind France about the horrors of the roundup and deportation (to Nazi extermination) of Jews from Paris - the Vel d'Hiv affaire of 1942 - which could hardly be more timely or more important, when you think of how many people today think it's ok to vote for Marine Le Pen and the Front National. Otoh, this film is from the schlocky TV mini-series school of aesthetic with a heavy Jean de Florette or Amelie filter - all the usual clichéd tropes of middlebrow French cine are in there, from sexy pouty adolescent girls to knitting nanas to sunlight filtering through the plane trees of a heavily-cobbled Montmartre and an overload of sickly-sweet gamin kids. Almost embarrassing to watch at times (the attempts to grapple with actual historical figures are clumsy and the sequences with 'Hitler' are jawdroppingly badly done; as with a Tarantino WW2 fantasia you check yourself and wonder what exactly is being sent up here, but the sad thing with La Rafle is that I don't even think they knew). There are some decent performances (Jean Reno, Adele Exarchopoulos, Melanie Laurent) amid the mush, but I think honestly if you want to know more about this atrocity you'd be better off with a book.
I watched La Rafle (The Round Up - 2012) and haven't often had such conflicting feelings about a movie. Because it's an honourable attempt to remind France about the horrors of the roundup and deportation (to Nazi extermination) of Jews from Paris - the Vel d'Hiv affaire of 1942 - which could hardly be more timely or more important, when you think of how many people today think it's ok to vote for Marine Le Pen and the Front National. Otoh, this film is from the schlocky TV mini-series school of aesthetic with a heavy Jean de Florette or Amelie filter - all the usual clichéd tropes of middlebrow French cine are in there, from sexy pouty adolescent girls to knitting nanas to sunlight filtering through the plane trees of a heavily-cobbled Montmartre and an overload of sickly-sweet gamin kids. Almost embarrassing to watch at times (the attempts to grapple with actual historical figures are clumsy and the sequences with 'Hitler' are jawdroppingly badly done; as with a Tarantino WW2 fantasia you check yourself and wonder what exactly is being sent up here, but the sad thing with La Rafle is that I don't even think they knew). There are some decent performances (Jean Reno, Adele Exarchopoulos, Melanie Laurent) amid the mush, but I think honestly if you want to know more about this atrocity you'd be better off with a book.
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DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
these days its all about 'Questioning the numbers' for the nazi apologists.
I watched Killjoys latest. SyFy have done it again, they've produced an interesting world and a great premise, made it visually pleasing and then stocked it with dull formulaic one note characters and leaden obvious plotting. This gets one more episode before I sack it off as another syfy failure
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
I'm watching High On Crack Street. It's really sad (unsurprisingly!)
pesh
Well-Known Member
First few episodes of The Brink http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3216586/
fairly dark new HBO comedy starring Tim Robbins and Jack Black who are trying to prevent WW3 kicking off following a coup in Pakistan.
fairly dark new HBO comedy starring Tim Robbins and Jack Black who are trying to prevent WW3 kicking off following a coup in Pakistan.
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
I watched Interstellar and Boyhood this week. Both were excellent fairplay but Boyhood was superb. Loved it
Johnny Doe
Well-Known Member
The Hijacking - kinda like a Danish 'Captain Phillips' if you've seen that
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
On The Road. Ages since I read the book, but I remember enjoying it. Thought the film was very good.
Reno
The In Kraut
God Told Me To by 70s B-movie maverick Larry Cohen. It's the only one of his 70s/80shorror films I'd never seen. It's got pacing issues and as a director he never lived up to his concepts, but as far as I know it's the only the only horror film to feature an alien hermaphrodite Jesus with a vagina on his/her abdomen.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I've just looked, no one else has ever said "a masterpiece of erotic obsession." on the internet before. Variants, sure, but never the phrase. I find that surprising.
And yes - it's a wonderful film. Pretty much very angle done well or perfect.
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