It's been that long since I saw it I can't remember the soundtrack but after reading this snippet I found I guess it's time to delve right in.

"As for the soundtrack CD, get it if you like the movie or if you want a good, creepy soundscape for a Halloween party or freaking out your annoying girlfriend. It evokes a mood more than a specific film, and that's okay; it just isn't for everyone."

how in the utter name of fuck is it an existential morality play?

not being a dick here i'm just baffled to hear you say this.

i think it's actually one of the most utterly disturbing films of all time. the protagonist is lost in space, hallucinating that a corpse is still alive, trying to guide her back to earth. it's a fucking nightmare. it's just pure delusion, and then she ends up back on earth, sentenced to the dire fate of parenthood.

if this is the human condition in 2014, and the only hope we have is crashing back to earth as we desperately follow the signals of a now dead paternalism, which is the only thing, apart from our own debris, that has a hope of "saving" us, then - fuck.

Gravity must be a better film than I realized.

I liked it a lot as a thriller. It scared the hell out of me and I was emotionally drained by the credits, but also satisfied with my movie-going experience.

But I didn't look for or become aware of any deeper meaning. It's really cool that others have. To me, the best films work that way: something for everyone, the thinkers as well as the "just entertain me" crowd.

Rating::( :( :(

I never read any greater meaning into it either. I found the last quarter of the movie very moving but I'm not sure that I took any deep message from it.

Gravity sucked, but Mamet sucks even more

if by suck you mean, "WRITES AMAZINGLY SHARP AND ENGROSSING DIALOGUE!"

I love how divisive Mamet is.

"People don't talk that way," is the most frequent criticism thrown at him, to which I say, "Yeah, too bad for people." Why blame a writer for not being as boring as the average person?

people do not talk the way that actors talk in most all television and film, but no one cares about that.

How was it an existentialist morality play? The fucking film was.about how.sandra.bullocks.cjaracter was paralyzed in her life with grief over losing her daughter, she is A FUCKING ASTRONAUT IN SPACE and yet only the.free spirited Clooney is ever enjoying the view? He has to talk her through it, her epiphany is that her life was worth moving on and fighting for.. also did you notice almost miraculously everything kept going just right? She makes it to space station just on time, then the station catches on fire forcing her to the escape pod just in time to escape the debris.destroying it.. oh yeah, she randomly brings the fire.extinguisher to the chinese station and only has it because of the fire.. then uses that extinguisher to propel herself to the last station? All those sequences were.about how everything in our lives adds up, how is that NOT existentialism? Notice I didnt say rreligious..

some people think existentialist only refers to someone moping about because they feel life is empty of meaning.

Well.. shit wasnt kind of exactly what Sandra Bullocks.character doing until she.had that dream.about Clooney and the vodka?? I meant existential in the way it was about the both randomness yet self driven patterns of human life. Everything that happened was a matter of circumstance yet conversely had Sandra Bullocks character also.not made some seriously driven decisions all the circumstances which benefited her would have been for.naught. further the movie seemed a great analogy for the risk reward aspect of daily life. We are daily presented with.circumstances entirely.out of our control yet how.we respond entirely defines our existence.

Just watched Argo.. fucking shit was as brilliant as the talking heads said!

unless a piece of space debris gives you a whole new face, but yes, the movie was great at examining that.

I found ARGO entertaining as a piece of filmmaking and dull as a piece of expository "history." I do not know if the reason is that I find Ben Who-ffleck to be a one-note actor with the subtlety of a Gallagher joke, or because it was so damn "Hollywood" in it's plot conventions.

Not to mention the USA_aggrandizing lies told through it all.

Basically I found the film to be another version of Hollywood sucking it's own cock, praising itself for being so cool as to help save white hostages from brown folks. The entire actual operation was 90% Canadian, and very little help from USA was given. The academy of motion pictures loves to suck it's own cock by awarding Oscars to movies that glamorize the work of Hollywood.

It was NOT deserving of even a nomination.

Lies lies and more lies

i liked argo okay, with a very funny streak throughout (the old producers, etc.) but i don't recall it blowing my mind or anything. very entertaining though. certainly not "best" anything except maybe for alan arkin.

as for historical inaccuracies, they are legion, but this is my main beef-- that in the face of such a collaborative enterprise as the hostage rescue, hollywood's americanizing ideology overemphasizes individualism and always insists on propping up the lone hero-- even when it depicts a team effort, it always needs a "main guy" to worship from beginning to end. the center of it all. that is more toxic and pervasive than taking mere historical license to serve fiction. i keep faithfully waiting for the 2nd coming of eisenstein to liberate us from these delusions.

part of the American lie is that the individual is primal, and that only through the heroic efforts of an individual is anything ever achieved or gained.

It is a pernicious lie.

I didnt see it.demonize the Iranians at all, indeed in several aspects it almost seemed to portray the.situation respectfully.. also it.didnt.romanticize the.CIA, it.seemed to.mostly.vilify the ranking.command. it was the cinematography I loved most

it was entertaining, no doubt,. and I did not see it demonizing anyone, as much as it does aggrandize Hollywood itself, as being a patriotic all-american wonderful thing.....

I didnt see.any.mindless flag waving and im.pretty judgmental against patriotism and jingoism

can we all agree that theocracies are shit and iran sucks though? a country that tortures and then hangs rape victims for defending themselves from their rapists. fucking nightmare shithole.

Not necessarily any worse than our own shithole, rape victims here have their own kind of publoc torture

thats fine tho but IRL objects dont magically adhere to the demands of our subjectivity and fiction that pretends about this is imo despicable, cheap and evil.

also the morality is pretty horrible because its basically saying "get your shit together woman and be a good mother". ethically, people should neither breed nor exist so i am totally opposed to this film.

rabgor and sybill got it right about argo.

also it was just a boring film.

"Something Big" - this is more of a farce than a comedy western, but the cast is really good. Dean Martin kills alot of mexicans with a Gatling gun

I re-watched this last night and can't for the life of me think where this was even implied.

Exactly, the.daughter.was dead! Movie was.about "ridley get your shit together grief has paralyzed you"... I recently watched American Hustle and it suuuuuuuuuucccckkkkked so bad! Pet Cemetery was ok.. kind of boring at first.and.cant for the,life of me see why the Ramones did the.soundtrack

recently seen:

Birdman (2014)- one of the best of the year. visually stunning and emotionally jarring. Just give Keaton the Oscar now!

Nightmare City (1980)- Umberto Lenzi is a low-rent Lucio Fulci, which is a fun thing sometimes.

Nightbreed (1989)- Shout Factory recently released a blu-ray version of this film. Still holds up from my youth. Terrific creature costumes and twisted mythology.

Rage (1972)- George C. Scott's directorial debut and he stars in it... about a father who takes revenge on the establishment after his son dies. Good stuff.

Fury (2014)- hated it. hated it. walks the uneasy line between John Wayne like jingoism and new liberal Hollywood bullshit. Anyone who reads one iota on the SS knows a final act reprieve is just mind boggingly bad.

St. Vincent (2014)- Bill Murray doing Bill Murray which is never a bad thing.

ms Ild and I watched Bullock/Clooney space opera the other night. We both thought it sucked. It reminded me of the Wm Burroughs sentiments about space, how we were taking our earthbound bullshit off the planet. Really a retarded script. Jingoistic and retreaded concepts, including how the Russians pretty much ruin everything. 6 thumbs down from the Ilds. (Our cats didn't like it either)

Nightbreed is brilliant, have you read the book? Clive barker could have been a Horror flick masrer but his shit is too smart for the slasher flick masses so the Hollywood suits never greenlighted much. Im glad you mentioned the mythology part, same thing with Lord of Illusions or Candyman, Barker creates stories that are worls unto themselves

As to William Burroughs.. of course we bring our human shit with us to space, its how our brains and souls work! Its why terraforming is a myth, whats the point of turning Mars into earth? It'd be same shit different toilet err.. planet ;)

I never read the book (or any of Barker's for that matter) but I can see your point. I seem to remember the film originally getting pummeled when it was released back in the day because expectations were so high. It seems hard when you have someone like Barker (or for that matter authors like George RR Martin and sections of "Game of Thrones") who build up these expansive, indelible universes in print that can never adequately translate to the screen. Must suck to be a genius writer.

I always loved his films and think he should have made more.. but I.dont think.he much Iiked the movie industry

 

The photography is undeniably great, but watching the evolution of a highly despicable character for 3 hours is a bit annoying, all the more as the plot isn't that great (it's pretty mechanical and predictable especially in the second half - cf the chapter titles). My least favourite Kubrick film with Eyes wide shut.

Kubrick's flaw is probably a (strong) tendency to be overly technical on the expense of the humanity of his characters.

That one where Dustin Hoffman is a reporter and John Travolta just wants his job back.

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Ski School

oh maaaaan! this is one of my most loved kubrick movies!!! i've seen it a bunch of times

yes i get what you sway about the coldness and emphasis on the technical (and what technique! those wide shots make me nauseous with pleasure) but

a) i don't find lyndon particularly more despicable than the rest of the people around him-- he's just a different social class

b) all tragedies are predictable in their trajectories

no, i get why you don't like it, i do, but that's precise it why i like it so much at the same time. even the choice of that particularly wooden actor (the same thing he does with tom cruise in the other movie you dislike) serves to make the circumstances bigger than the person. you get the same flavor out of early soviet cinema.

check out robert bresson's "notes sur le cinématographe" for an alternative theory on acting ("models" he called them). even if bresson didn't completely follow with it in practice-- it's the approach away from filmed theatre to something else entirely.

Thanks for the input :)

 

9/10