5,962 Forum Posts by "Dr-Worm"
I want a lil pig. I know some people actually do keep them as pets, but supposedly they never stay as small as advertised and end up becoming really difficult to take care of. I'm talking about a real mini-pig.
At 3/21/14 07:33 PM, Stereocrisis wrote: I say things like, "Oh, that a very nice piece of pussy." and tag her with a pricing gun.
I just might have to steal this as my new go-to metaphor to describe PUA douchery.
At 3/21/14 05:07 PM, Slint wrote: So what do you guys do?
To quote the Boss, I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find. More specifically I've been looking for work in TV production while writing on the side (among other things I'm in the process of editing a film crit piece I wrote for publication in a journal).
I actually have a couple promising leads and upcoming interviews and stuff right now so I'm pretty confident I'll be gainfully employed soon enough. I hope.
Do you like it? Would you rather do something else?
Well obviously I'd much rather be working than not working. But in terms of different career fields I've had a little experience working in education and I really enjoyed that, so who knows, a few years down the line if I feel differently about what I'm doing now maybe I'd look into teaching.
Do you have a degree? On what?
BA in Film & Media Studies and History (double major).
What's your dream job?
As of now, writing for film and television.
Will you be doing it in the future?
For shits and giggles and small side projects with friends, sure, I'm doing it right now. As an actual career, we'll see...
At 3/21/14 06:18 PM, Darthdenim wrote: Isn't making fun of people for living with parents kind of an antiquated notion now?
Yup. A degree no longer in any way guarantees any job for young people, let alone one that pays well enough to fully support yourself. And that's especially true if you want to live in a major city (or have to; my field essentially doesn't exist outside of NY and LA).
At 3/19/14 02:03 AM, HeavenDuff wrote: Then don't just start with this annoying assumption that I'm stuck in my colonial and ethnocentric views of the world. If this is an actual issue, it's not a presumption you can just make on anybody.
All the problems I've talked about are problems I have with middlebrow Important Issue movies, not you personally. I don't recall making any of the assumptions you're talking about and I don't know where you're getting this from.
Unless you're conflating criticizing the pop culture a person likes/doesn't like with criticizing the person himself, which would be kinda funny because isn't that exactly what bothered you about Profanity's posts?
The movie, yes. Not the book. That's the issue. Shitty adaptation for so many reasons... and that's one of the main reasons.
Dude, the entire book is, like, primarily about sexuality, and there are plenty of highly sexually charged passages throughout (especially for the time period). Obviously a modern film adaptation is going to be more explicit than a Victorian novel, but it's hardly off-base from the source material.
Like you said, there are lots of reasons to dislike that movie. But this is kind of a weird one.
At 3/19/14 03:07 AM, AxTekk wrote: He's not really a magical negro so much as a good samaritan, at least for me.
Yeah, that's a reasonable reading, and probably closer to what the filmmakers were going for. I just don't think it's successfully borne out in the execution, in part because of the film's ham-fistedness and self-importance.
I've never read the original story so I don't know what might have been lost in translation.
At 3/19/14 10:30 AM, Vinnyy wrote: I agree with you on Avatar. They were silly to think they could condense an entire TV series into a two-hour long film. They had to leave out a lot of important scenes.
No, that's actually all they had to do to make it a decent movie. There was more than enough fat to trim in the first season of that show for them to cover the highlights and make a straightforward adaptation.
Which is what any passable journeyman director would have done, but no, they had to hire Visionary Auteur M. Night Shyamalan, who insisted on fixing things that weren't broken and forged ahead seemingly without actually ever watching or understanding the thing he was adapting.
At 3/18/14 01:22 AM, Jercurpac wrote: An experience you're invested in doesn't end just because the credits are rolling. As long as it remains important to you it never really ends.
Yup. Plus any really great piece of art will lend itself to frequent re-watching/listening/reading/playing anyway, and always have something new to show you.
Not to mention that even if the work never changes, you will. Old favorites can become totally different, new experiences when you revisit them years later, as a different person with new experiences and knowledge under your belt.
At 3/18/14 10:43 PM, HeavenDuff wrote: The Green Mile exposes the inequalities and racism within the judiciary system and how easy it was (talking historical context, here) to condemn a black man for a crime he did not commit.
But there are plenty of other works with similar subject matter that accomplish this with black characters who are actual human beings with their own wants and needs and not just victims or symbols or plot devices who exist solely to effect the redemption or condemnation of white people.
And with this film as well as the other two movies I mentioned, it doesn't matter how good the movie's intentions are or what nominally progressive point it's trying to make if it expresses that point in such a ham-fisted, didactic and self-important way. Because in doing so these movies fail to engage with these issues as they actually exist* and therefore fail to effectively comment on those issues. Not to mention it's just bad storytelling.
Maybe it uses cliché story-telling methods to do it, but that's not racism.
The "magical black man" trope isn't just a cliched storytelling method, it's a distinctly racist cliched storytelling method. It removes all agency and humanity from a prominent black character, making it his sole purpose in life to serve the spiritual (never intellectual) needs of the white protagonist and then promptly disappear once that service is no longer required (often, as is the case in this film, by actually dying).
No, that's because you don't speak french and so you just ignored the three movies with french titles.
I'm not unfamiliar with contemporary race-themed French cinema, I wrote a term paper on how Cache and Entre les murs explore racial and ethnic issues in postcolonial France (both are good examples of films that actually explore these sorts of issues in nuanced, complex ways), I just haven't seen the particular films you mentioned so I didn't comment on them.
and when it comes to Life is Beautiful, it's pretty much about Italian Jewish people so... what could I possibly do.
That movie has the same sorts of problems I'm talking about though. It doesn't even come close to approaching the reality* of the Holocaust, so how can it be said to legitimately comment or reflect on it in any serious way?
*By "actually" and "reality," I mean in terms of thematic truth, not necessarily literal realism, though the latter can often be a direct and easy way to get at the former.
Or Harold and Kumar, right? Because you totally just tried to back the motherfucker
How am I "backing" anyone? I'm disagreeing with you about something entirely unrelated to your argument with Profanity and I've never even mentioned his posts or Harold & Kumar.
I'm reading feminist post-colonial essays, but let's just assume that I'm ethnocentric because I'm white.
Whoa there, you're getting way ahead of yourself and putting words in my mouth. I haven't accused you of being ethnocentric and I certainly haven't done so "because you're white." I'm just pointing out that you're rejecting a conventional, simplistic movie with some racial themes and non-white protagonists but providing as counterexamples mostly a bunch of similarly conventional and simplistic movies with white protagonists.
I didn't say it was racist or ethnocentrist, I just said it was silly. Which it is.
You guys I think Wriggle might be the Yellow King.
At 3/18/14 08:19 PM, HeavenDuff wrote: What do you mean by ZAZ?
Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. Dudes who made Airplane! and The Naked Gun.
There are quite a few good movies that explore social issues related to ethnicity and racism. American History X, The Green Mile, Slumdog Millionaire, The Life Of David Gale...
...Are not among them. I like Slumdog Millionaire but I don't see how it's at all about ethnicity or racism (or much of anything, really). The Green Mile is one of the more flagrantly racist films of recent memory, to the point where it serves as the most literal textbook example of the "magical black man" trope. The other two are cartoonish melodramas that exploit real social issues as tools of emotional manipulation and as window dressing for conventional dramatic arcs but can't seriously be said to explore any of those issues in any sort of nuanced or meaningful way.
To me those last three I mentioned are exactly the kind of bile-inducing movies I was talking about at the top of my last post.
Also don't you think it might be kinda silly that the films you've listed here as prime examples of "good movies about ethnicity and racism" are almost exclusively about the perspectives of white people?
The first thing I think of when you say "good movies about ethnicity and racism" is Do the Right Thing.
At 3/18/14 06:22 PM, Oolaph wrote: You can't only dislike the fifth element, you either like elements or you don't.
I know, I don't like any of them. Bromine, tungsten, francium, fuck all those guys.
At 3/18/14 06:21 PM, Profanity wrote: Wow, you have no appreciation for genres outside your little peanut gallery.
You're not using the term "peanut gallery" correctly.
OK, that's enough. Someone needs to track this french bastard down and kick his ass.
Yeah man, how dare he not like the same things as you.
Aw c'mon, a real worst movie can't just be something dull or incompetent or mercenary like most of the things on this list. It's got to be a deep, primal loathing that offends the very core of your being. It's got to be personal. That's the only way to really have any fun with a thread like this.
I've been lucky enough to mostly avoid truly execrable movies so I have trouble coming up with a real all-time least favorite. My go-to answer is usually Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, but I feel like I might be half-joking when I say that, plus I just think it's a good conversation starter/litmus test.
At 3/18/14 05:20 PM, HeavenDuff wrote: Not Another Teen Movie (Dir.: Joel Gallen, 2001)
That movie is half great ZAZ-inspired parody and half sub-Friedberg and Seltzer juvenile garbage. It's frustrating to watch. My guess is there were just too many chefs in the kitchen, either right off the bat or via studio-mandated rewrites and reshoots.
Rocky IV (Dir.: Sylvester Stallone, 1985) (I'm expecting a lot of hate for this one)
I mean, yeah it's a terrible movie and I think most people readily acknowledge that, but it's the fun kind of terrible. Nobody actually likes that movie unironically...right?
The Fifth Element (Dir.: Luc Besson, 1997) (Big time! And I don't even feel bad about it!)
Yup. You're not alone.
At 3/18/14 05:37 PM, GIacier wrote: But, to honestly say that you like Alien but don't like Alien Resurrection does not make logical sense and there is a motive behind it.
Um, what.
Would you also say it "does not make logical sense" if someone dislikes The Godfather Part III but likes the other two? What about people who like the original Star Wars trilogy but not the prequels?
At 3/18/14 02:33 PM, Jackho wrote: Right I guess this week we'll be watching Perfect Blue
Great pick, this has been on my watchlist for a while. The only Satoshi Kon film I've seen is Paprika and that one was pretty impressive so I'm looking forward to watching this. I also have all the episodes of Paranoia Agent but I haven't watched them yet, I should probably get around to that sometime soon.
So @Jackho will be this week's picker by default. Yaaay! Remember: different decade, different genre, preferably different country.
At 3/17/14 11:43 PM, Jackho wrote: So I just finished it. It was alright. Started off boring but got more interesting as it went along, although it would still be fairly dull if you didn't read about it before watching. Not sure if I agree with all the five star ratings.
I mean, that's kind of the point though isn't it. If he was able to make a really exciting movie from his house on his phone then this film wouldn't need to exist. I mostly agree with your assessment during the more mundane fly-on-the-wall stuff (good thing the pet iguana is there to spice things up), but I also get why those scenes are necessary.
And obviously the centerpiece that makes everything else work is Panahi's breathless recreation of how he would shoot his next film, and that sequence is totally captivating and heartbreaking. Also his and Mirtahmasb's casual attitudes and good humor throughout the movie in the face of the risks and consequences they're facing is pretty astounding and impressive in its own right.
At 3/16/14 12:38 PM, Dean wrote: Interested in hearing if the film is a good adaptation worth giving a watch once I get done reading. I notice only one of my Letterboxd friends (@Doctor-Worm) have seen it and they didn't leave a rating for it.
The film is not very good. Watching it won't diminish the (excellent) book and there's some fun to be had in the novelty of seeing these characters in live action, so it wouldn't be a total waste of time, but it's hardly essential.
If I had to rate it on Letterboxd I'd probably give it like 2.5 stars. It's basically competent but soulless and totally misses the point of the book.
Anyway, I really like Watchmen (I wrote a term paper on it once) and I really don't like Zack Snyder so apologies in advance if the rest of my post devolves into frothing rage.
At 3/16/14 02:09 PM, Auz wrote: It is probably the most faithful film adaptation of a book that I've ever seen.
The movie is slavishly faithful to the letter (or in this case the images) of the book, but utterly fails to capture the spirit. I think Zack Snyder is kind of an idiot and has no idea what Watchmen is actually about, so he just copied the prettiest pictures in the book and inserted his own pet themes and preoccupations where he saw fit.
The most glaring and oft-cited example of this would be Dan and Laurie's fight scene with the thugs in the alley, which Snyder stages with his typical style of speed-ramping and badass poses and physics-defying fight moves, effectively doing literally the exact fucking opposite of what the entire book is trying to express about superheroes (and superhero stories). This is true of more or less every instance of violence in the film, including that bit after everything's pretty much already said and done where Dan beats up Ozymandias anyway, which does not happen in the book. But god forbid the bad guy gets away with it without getting beaten up a little first because he's so mean and bad.
And don't even get me started on the fucking soundtrack.
Basically whenever the movie is copying the book shot for shot it's fine enough and whenever Snyder is doing his own thing it's horrible (with the exception of the opening credits, which are the high point of the film...not a good sign), making the whole thing a pretty pointless exercise at best.
The whole point of the book was to utilize all the unique properties of comics and to comment on storytelling in comics. The only way it would have made sense as a movie would be a looser adaptation with the same thematic concerns but with its form and content shifted to reflect cinema instead of comics. That would require the vision of a real director, though, not the doofus who on his previous film unwittingly made fascist propaganda.
It's kind of impressive that anyone managed to make a mostly functional film adaptation of this book at all, and it obviously could have been so much worse in so many different ways, but even so, yeah, I'm not a fan.
Only the ending is very different, but I actually like the film's ending better than the book's ending.
*SPOILERS FOR NEARLY 30-YEAR-OLD COMIC BOOK I GUESS*
How? I could buy that it fits into the story more neatly than the squid does*, but that doesn't really count for much when the execution is so awful and (both literally and figuratively) bloodless. The book acknowledges and makes us care about the innocent bystanders to the story through the sections focusing on the people around the newsstand, which heavily increases the impact of the already viscerally gut-wrenching ending with its multiple consecutive splash pages of horrifyingly detailed carnage. We're made to feel the full weight of Ozymandias's actions and the secret the other characters are keeping.
The movie, on the other hand, gives us no characters who aren't superheroes and climaxes in a sterile CGI explosion that makes a big crater or whatever. I will gladly take a nonsensical psychic alien squid monster over that bullshit.
*Though really it doesn't make much logical sense. The whole point of the squid is that it's a totally external threat, alien to everyone on Earth. Doc is not external; the rest of the world would still view him as a product of America and almost certainly blame America for what happened, even if American cities got attacked too.
At 3/15/14 02:20 AM, Oolaph wrote: Listened to Shoot Out the Lights. I agree with Sekhem on the production here being poor, the songs on this album have a very nice rhythm section and the whole thing is performed well, but the production really keeps it from having any sort of impact.
Yeah, listening to the album after reading all your posts it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the production is not quite right. That just doesn't really diminish the album's impact for me. Linda's voice on "Walking On a Wire" and Richard's blistering guitar on the title track cut straight through any production nonsense.
Maybe as a fan of lo-fi and punk and old garage rock and even older folk and blues I'm kind of used to listening to music that sounds like it was recorded underwater, and I'm much less sensitive to production issues.
Turns out @Snuff is the man of the week! Different genre, different decade, have fun, blah blah blah.
Btw, to drum up interest in AotW it might be a good idea to @ mention some people who aren't regulars in this thread but are definitely into music and might be interested in getting involved (I mean, I basically found it by accident). The regulars over on the "Post music, rate the one above" thread in General might be a good place to start.
At 3/11/14 07:07 PM, Snuff wrote: As a whole I enjoyed it, and I thought it was well written with some great instrumentation, especially from the guitars.
Yeah, Richard Thompson might be my all-time favorite rock guitarist. His style is really different from that of a lot of his more well-known contemporaries, I think it's because unlike most of those guys he's more influenced by folk than blues.
His live stuff is fucking insane. Aaand upon typing that I realized how cool it would be to see him live and looked up tour dates on a whim, only to find out that he apparently played a show earlier tonight like fifteen goddamn minutes from my house, and he isn't going to be in my area again for the foreseeable future.
Fuck.
I imagine that makes little to no sense to anybody else but I know what I mean.
I think I get what you mean, I've just never really noticed or cared about it much because the drums are so deemphasized and mostly functional throughout. But I think for this particular album that low-key style is exactly the right choice; weary resignation towards the slow collapse of a relationship probably should sound a bit anticlimactic. If you go into it specifically listening for the drums I can see how it might be an issue, though.
As for the writing side of things, it was obviously very apparent what the album was about as Dr Worm said, but I found it hard to sense much emotion in the writing.
Well like I said most of the songs were written a few years prior and at least nominally aren't about their failing marriage at all. I think the tensions come out mostly through the music (though of course a lot of the lyrics also just happen to be about broken relationships and whatnot). It might help to compare this album with some of their earlier stuff like "Dimming of the Day" (imho one of the best love songs ever) or "A Heart Needs a Home".
Which isn't to say that the album should even automatically be read as being about their specific relationship, because it totally shouldn't. But in a more general sense I think the album's emotional and thematic content is definitely chiefly concerned with bitter separations and messy endings.
At 3/14/14 09:44 PM, Sekhem wrote: the emotion is there, but you just can't hear it
Eh, I still think Richard and Linda's musical talents and songwriting skills more than make up for the less than ideal production circumstances (I don't know much about music production, but in addition to the alleged shitty audio engineers the whole recording process itself was pretty rushed, plus of course there was Richard and Linda's increasingly strained relationship and Linda's pregnancy).
Not to mention that the arrangements are pretty spare to begin with.
i understand why steve albini hates him so much after listening to dr worm's rec'd album
Yeah, but Steve Albini hates everything so much.
Also, whatever Joe Boyd's flaws might be, dude produced Just Another Diamond Day. I mean, again, my ear's pretty untrained when it comes to this sort of thing, but from what I can tell the production on that album is pretty much perfect. And he's produced some other great stuff as well like Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief and Nick Drake's first two albums.
just the motion is the only real standout track in my opinion
I think tracks 2-5 are all pure gold, but then again I'm already a devotee.
At 3/14/14 06:42 PM, Gobblemeister wrote: The chat doesn't matter and certainly doesn't speak for the views and beliefs of NG as a whole
Shit can get pretty bad around here too though...
Now that I've finally gotten around to updating my computer to a current OS I'm getting the chance to play lots of great games I missed last year. I recently finished Guacamelee!, which is a light Metroidvania-type game with a unique aesthetic and a great sense of humor, plus some really clever level design. It doesn't really do anything I haven't seen before, but it does an excellent job within that familiar structure.
I also played all the way through Gone Home tonight and I was kind of blown away by it. It's such a brilliant and unique way to tell a story and it's not something I've ever really seen a game do before, certainly not to this great an extent. Several characters and stories and a whole family dynamic are fully fleshed out and made compelling entirely through the random crap they leave behind in their house, and the game respects the player enough to mostly leave it up to us to connect all the dots. The whole thing is just so thoroughly detailed and wonderfully executed. I dunno, I was really surprised and impressed with this. It's one of those rare games that actually makes me excited and optimistic about where this medium is heading.
I've still got lots of things in my Steam library I haven't played yet, so I'm looking forward to chipping away at those. I think I'm gonna start with Papers, Please and Fez.
At 3/11/14 02:32 PM, Natick wrote: This is not a Film (2011)
Normally this would violate the "different decade" rule, but I guess this time we can let it slide since most of last week's pick was technically made during the previous decade, and since this pick is such a departure from last week's in other ways (and, if we're being honest, since this movie is already in my Letterboxd watchlist).
If you feel especially strongly about it and want to pick something else instead, try to do it soon since it's already Tuesday. But otherwise s'all good man.
At 2/27/14 11:12 PM, Viper50 wrote: Mania - The Expulsion
Reminded me a little of Spinal Tap. Not in a good way. 5/10
The Randomizer has spoken, and it has selected @Natick to pick this week's film! Something something horizons whatever.
Ah shit, I forgot to throw in some @ mentions so people see there's a new pick.
@Oolaph
@Gobblemeister
@JaY11
@Slint
@Ryanson
@Makeshift
@Snuff
@Innermike
At 3/10/14 04:42 PM, Oolaph wrote: @Dr-Worm, you're up! You know the drill: different genre and decade (and country if you want to be super cool) than the previous pick, and have fun with it.
Whoa, awesome. I was struggling to pick between two things, but I guess in order to be super cool I'll pick the one that isn't American (it's British; the album I didn't pick, which I guess I'll save for another time, was Big Star's #1 Record). Plus, this album should make for a nice contrast with the swooning, idealistic romanticism of Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, because it's one of the all-time great breakup albums:
Richard & Linda Thompson - Shoot Out the Lights (1982)
Shoot Out the Lights was the last and best album recorded by the British folk-rock musician Richard Thompson with his wife Linda; they were divorced by the time the album was released. Thompson has gone on to have a pretty excellent solo career (and he did some great stuff with Fairport Convention prior to Linda as well), but as far as I'm concerned nothing can top his work with Linda, especially on this album.
The album isn't quite literally about their marriage falling apart, as most of the songs had originally been written a couple years earlier, but that theme is pretty hard to deny regardless, not just because of the downcast relationship woes that make up much of the lyrical content but because of the tension and emotions that run through the music. Linda's voice and Richard's guitar are some of the best in rock music and they do not fuck around here.
Anyway, this is one of my favorites and hopefully it isn't one too many of you have heard before (if so I could always pick something else instead). Enjoy!
Police Squad! is the greatest, packing more clever jokes into its opening credits sequence than some comedies manage in an entire episode.
Cowboy Bebop is probably the gold standard. Just pure effortless cool.
Freaks and Geeks brilliantly uses the device of getting school pictures taken to perfectly encapsulate the personalities of each member of the main cast in the opening credits.
The Adventures of Pete & Pete is the rare show with an original theme song that can actually be listened to on its own merits, Polaris's awesome "Hey Sandy." And the credits even thoughtfully include title cards for "Mom's Plate" and "Petunia."
Game of Thrones and True Detective are also pretty great.
At 3/9/14 09:18 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Orphan Black
The Wire
Baccano!
Niiice. Baccano! is another show that does a good job of efficiently introducing an entire ensemble cast in the opening credits.
And Orphan Black comes back next month! I'm kind of surprised by how excited I am for it.
At 3/9/14 10:45 PM, ZJ wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cWbkWTYwTw
YES.
At 3/10/14 03:43 PM, TheMaster wrote: Meant to go see The Grand Budapest Hotel today but got stuck in the house waiting for a phone call.
Yeah, I wanted to see it yesterday but none of my friends were around and for whatever reason I still haven't quite gotten over the silly and arbitrary stigma of going to the movies by myself. I think the first time I've ever done it was a few months ago when I went to see Her (which seemed pretty appropriate).
I'll probably see it this weekend though. I love Wes Anderson's movies and this looks like it could be one of the great ones.
Looking forward to that Japanese remake of Unforgiven, too.
Whoa, that's like Influenception.
I'm going to wait a little bit to post more detailed thoughts on It's Such a Beautiful Day (and to announce this week's picker, since there are a couple people who had said they planned on watching so I'll give them a little more time), but I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. It's easily one of my all-time favorites.
At 3/9/14 10:21 AM, Atlas wrote: I decided since I was away from the Internet for a bit to not do this week's MoTW
I hope you go back and watch It's Such a Beautiful Day anyway when you get the chance. I know I say that every week but this time I really mean it, it's just a phenomenal (and really short!) movie and a must-see for any fan of animation.
At 3/8/14 03:44 PM, Jackho wrote: I honestly didn't get much from Meaning of Life or Rejected either. After watching the rest of Don Hertzfeldt's shorts my favorite is probably Lily and Jim. The rest are alright but for the most part just feel like additional Rejected jokes.
I did consider picking "Genre" or "Lily and Jim" instead of "Rejected," but I figured the latter was more recent and polished and ultimately did the best job of both summing up Hertzfeldt's earlier style and hinting at his later evolution.
"Lily and Jim" is pretty good, though, and probably hits closer to home than I might care to admit.
If you're watching a film by yourself I honestly don't think there's much difference in watching it on a 4 inch phone with headphones and watching on a TV. All that matters is how close you're sitting.
I can't even summon up the words to respond to this so I'll just let Kevin Spacey do it for me.
At 3/7/14 08:08 PM, Oolaph wrote: I haven't watched It's Such a Beautiful Day yet, and I'm not sure if I'll get the chance to until next week. I'll definitely try to get around to seeing it, though. It seems like quite a leap for this guy and I'm hoping that means there's something more to this one.
To call It's Such a Beautiful Day "quite a leap" is kind of a huge understatement. It's light-years ahead of the shorts and part of the reason why I picked all three films was to illustrate how incredible Herztfeldt's evolution as a filmmaker has been in such a short span of time, which only highlights how much of a staggering achievement ISaBD is.
"Rejected" is cute and "The Meaning of Life" is intriguing, but It's Such a Beautiful Day is a flat-out goddamned masterpiece.
At 3/10/14 12:49 AM, Natick wrote: and god bless you, dr. worm, it's such a beautiful day? more like it's such a beautiful film! i can't recall being this moved by an animated film in a long time.
Haha, I'm glad you got a lot out of it.
sure, it takes a while to really get going but once it gets past the first chapter filled with bill's psychological breakdown, it becomes an astonishing work of art by a genius animator and writer whom i wish i could say i have heard of before now.
Huh, I actually think the first section is better than the other two overall (though the last parts of the third section reach the same heights). I'd say the middle section is easily the weakest, though obviously all three are pretty much brilliant in their own way.
still, no matter how surreal things got, all the elements worked together and kept me engaged from the first frame. i loved the in-camera effects and mixing stick figures with photographs in the third chapter
Yeah, the effects are just incredible. You don't really realize how claustrophobic and isolating and depressing all the black circular frames and filters and stuff are until they suddenly disappear and the frame opens up towards the end. It's so beautiful, and does such a great job of emphasizing the push and pull between Bill's downward spiral and his moments of clarity and hope.
and i don't know why yet but for some reason i felt deeply moved by the scene where the man is just blowing leaves at the bus stop as bill stares at him.
There are lots of fantastic little moments like that throughout the film, that scene being one of the best (it's kind of like the antithesis of that pat bullshit plastic bag scene from American Beauty, I love it). I think whatever meaning lies behind a lot of the images in the film is supposed to be kind of intangible like what you're describing (if "The Meaning of Life" is any indication). It is just a great and very human moment though. I think there's a ton of empathy in ISaBD that isn't really present in the misanthropic "Rejected" or the cosmically detached "The Meaning of Life." It's a much more mature work.
I think the parts that got to me the most were Bill's discovery of his mom's notebook and his reunion with his father where both men's minds have deteriorated so much that they don't even recognize each other at all but they still kind of hang out anyway and oh my god I'm getting all verklempt just typing this.
the soundtrack was sublime the whole way through as well.
Hertzfeldt's use of classical music is great. It reminds me a little bit of Ren & Stimpy in the way it's sometimes used to comically undercut the images onscreen (particularly towards the beginning), but then there are also plenty of moments that use the music totally sincerely, and somehow it all works together.
So I listened to Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite a couple times this week and really enjoyed it even though I don't listen to much RnB. Maxwell doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel here, it's a pretty straightforward '90s update of '70s sounds, but it's all expertly and very neatly arranged. And Maxwell's singing voice isn't especially distinct or noteworthy, but he surrounds it with great instrumentation and tight production; I loved the incredibly smooth bass work throughout the album and the nicely varied use of other instruments and styles throughout (like that great funk guitar on "Welcome" or the disco-ish feel of "Sumthin' Sumthin'"). I think "...'Til the Cops Come Knockin'"probably best illustrates what I'm talking about here as a whole, and it's my favorite track on the album.
All in all, the album is just a finely-tuned, well-oiled baby-making music machine. Good stuff.
I don't know much about the whole neo-soul thing, but I do really like D'Angelo's Voodoo ("The Root" is such a great song). I think I actually prefer the looser vibe of that album to Maxwell's, which sometimes feels almost mannered to a fault. But it was still a great listen and I'm definitely interested in checking out more of this kind of music.
At 3/8/14 07:19 PM, Oolaph wrote: Speaking of which, @Dr-Worm, I listened to Colour Green and it was really great. I especially loved the track William, really pleasant and relaxing. Thanks for the rec, I'll definitely be coming back to listen to this album every now and then.
Awesome, I'm glad you liked it. I haven't listened to the whole album in a while but I love "Tonight" and "Give Me a Smile."
I like it. I think it's the first show to successfully translate Internet humor to a television format (no, Tosh does not do this successfully). That's probably mostly because it stacks the deck by regularly employing the same people who make that humor on Twitter and so on, but I also think the structure and flow of the show itself is a factor. Everything is very loose and casual, everyone on the show always seems to be having a lot of fun, and Chris Hardwick makes for a surprisingly endearing host considering he has one of the most eminently punchable faces in show business.
It's not high art but it's always entertaining and there are worse ways to spend a half-hour.
At 3/5/14 02:15 AM, exudaz wrote: It's basically c-list celebrities. 95% of which no one has ever heard of
It's mostly comedians, most of whom anyone who's into comedy will have heard of.
At 3/3/14 09:24 PM, Oolaph wrote: I put it on the list, and I'll probably choose it at some point down the road because I love that album too. One of my all-time favourites.
Yeah mine too. The album sounds like it was recorded via time travel in a gorgeous pastoral village 500 years ago.
If you haven't heard of her already, Sibylle Baier has a somewhat similar ethereal thing going on.
Lookaftering is great too, I love the production on it and her voice is just as beautiful as it was on Diamond Days, which is absolutely incredible considering the huge time gap between the two records.
Yes, exactly, it's amazing. And it lends credence to my theory that she's not really a human being and is actually some kind of mythical forest sprite or something.
I seriously need to work on actually posting about the Movie of the Week in there, I keep watching the films late and forget to post about them.
Well even if it's too late to get into the following week's pool, definitely don't hesitate to post your thoughts or respond to other people's. It's not like we can never discuss something again once its week is through, there's always more to talk about. I've missed two of the MotWs so far but when I get around to watching them I'll probably still post something and go back to other people's comments from those weeks and respond.
THANKS FOR @ MENTIONING ME YOU DICKS.
Srsly tho, I'm happy that what I set up over on the Cinema Club thread (which you should all check out!) is proving useful for you guys and that you decided to go through with this idea. I'm definitely down to participate so please add me to the @ mentions when new picks are announced.
I know next to none of the technical language of music and I've always been kind of terrible at analyzing music or articulating why I do or don't like certain things, but I guess this is a good opportunity to learn. I do love all kinds of music so it'll be cool to branch out and hear some good new shit.
At 2/15/14 11:57 PM, Ryanson wrote: You totes linked the wrong thing
Heh, funny you should say that because when I checked my PMs just now I realized you actually did try to tell me you guys were starting this, but you accidentally linked me back to the Cinema Club thread instead of here!
At 2/20/14 08:16 PM, Oolaph wrote: Alright, Ryanson and I threw together a quick list of records to get the ball rolling. Go ahead and pick one out of this batch, or if you hate all of them and have a better one in mind, feel free to suggest your own.
Ah dammit I totally would've voted for Vashti Bunyan, I fucking love that album. I don't know which of you two nominated that but if you haven't heard her more recent (well, 2005, but whatever) album Lookaftering it's definitely worth a listen. "Here Before" is up there with her best songs.
At 2/16/14 05:31 AM, Makeshift wrote: I'm gonna have to listen to some music I don't like aren't I? I'll do it I guess. It's a lot easier than keeping up with that movie of the week thing. I could barely find any of the movies so far.
This week's is super easy to find if you have three bucks (and pretty easy to find if you don't) and I linked right to it in the post! And it's only an hour long!
Also if you want to watch the week's film but you're having trouble finding it just send me or that week's picker a PM. Part of the rules are that the picker has to make sure the film is readily available in some form online, so it should never be too hard to find (I've managed to find everything so far so I can help you out if you want).
At 2/17/14 05:17 PM, Sekhem wrote: I've always meant to participate in Cinema Club, but I doubt I will feel like watching a movie and writing my thoughts on it very often. Music, however, isn't so tiring.
Yeah I get that. It'd definitely be cool if you dropped by every once in a while, though, I feel like you have a lot of breadth in terms of the kinds of shit you watch so it'd be interesting to see your thoughts and picks.
Okay sorry I'll stop talking about movies now I promise.
Shit, I forgot to include a picture. Here ya go.
At 3/3/14 01:45 AM, EclecticEnnui wrote: It was alright. There were some funny moments, like when the host was dressed as Glinda from The Wizard of Oz. I was guessing that the song "Let It Go" would win and, sure enough, it did.
I haven't seen Frozen but that song is pretty damn catchy. I can get why it's so popular.
