I was sort of joking about downloading from Hulu, although I do like to have files to transfer between devices.

I don't get ads on youtube, and now that I've figured out that you can change the playback speed, I spend the vast majority of my fuck-around time on that site. And a youtube downloader program has proven very useful. Worst thing is the frequently loathsome comments. (I don't really care about quality, otherwise that would probably be a strike.)

See? Just searched for Billy Wilder. Tons of stuff. There goes my weekend.

THICK OF IT: I almost always watch each episode twice, sometimes immediately. At least the beginning. It's usually halfway through when I finally get what's going on. I don't think UK's parliamentary system and sprawling bureaucracy is something one can grasp intuitively. Still not sure what Ollie's job is. Really, I don't think this is a case of stupid-American-itus.

The thing is, I still enjoy the show a lot. I "like" the characters and all I really need to know in a given scene is who has the most power. The problem for me is how the scenes add up, and to entirely figure it out, I might also take a peek at Wikipedia in addition to a re-watch.

So even if I am a stupid American, the show ends up making me slightly less stupid.

PS- Re-re-watched IN THE LOOP.

I agree, i get all my live shows and bootlegs from youtube using RealDownloader.. recent finds include the Sleater-Kinney NPR show in DC..

I watched Gang Related last night, its not bad for a John Bellushi flick, but Tupac was wasted on it, he just wasn't a convincing cop.

recently seen:

1. Tomorrowland (2015)- Take a spoonful of "The Matrix's" well-tread ideas of a 'chosen one', cartoon action sequences and George Clooney doing his best Disney-dad superhero figure, and one gets Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland". It's a good film, just ordinary and non adventurous fun for the whole family. If that's your thing....

2. Aloha (2015)- Filmmaker Cameron Crowe has some genuine things to say about the messy and intricate crashes of affection between people, they just can't be found here. Reviewed at www.Dallasfilmnow.com

3. Police Python 357 (1976)- Doesn't quite rise above its implausible French 'policier' instincts, but filmmaker Alaine Corneau manages to shroud most of the film in his dour, harsh vision, such as the central murder scene and cop Yves Montand disfiguring himself.

4. Two In the Wave (2010)- Hum drum documentary about the budding relationship and career trajectories of Godard and Truffaut. The problem is, it never tells us anything new about the duo or their circumstances that hasn't already been written about or discussed at length over the past two decades. Or at least for us nouvelle vague affecionados.

5. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)- Holy hell, what a ride. I'm usually highly averse to the split second style of cutting in modern action films, but director Miller not only manages to create a cohesive vision of amplified violence and insane creativity, but the continuity of the action is splendid. See a body being thrown from a rolling vehicle one shot and there's the body falling in the background of the next. One of the great pleasures of the year so far.

6. Maggie (2015)- Slow burn and contemplative, and a film whose intimate drama is just as compelling as the melee on "The Walking Dead". Reviewed at www.dallasfilmnow.com

7. On the Edge (1985)- Bruce Dern as a banned athlete bucking the system and running in a California race anyway. Director Rob Nilsson may be a far left-wing nut in his beliefs, but the few films of his I've seen respectfully and dutifully evoke a very specific time and place (Northern California) like the best indie filmmakers.

8. The Seventh Companion (1968)- Finally tracked down the first film of Alexie German's career. I have to admit disappointment with his debut thought after the cumulative power of the rest of his films ("My Friend Ivan Lapsich" especially). The oblique nationalist references are there, but it plods along without the same caustic energy of his later efforts.

9. Kid Blue (1973)- Another long time track down, James Frawley's western starring Dennis Hopper as the title character easily takes the prize for most hippie western ever. Sure, lots of filmmakers "claim" to have made a hippie western (Monte Hellman and any number of z-grade Italians) but this one-featuring "The Man" constantly trying to halt Kid Blue's reformed status and a possible "free love" relationship between Hopper, buddy warren Oates and his wife Lee Purcell, sidesteps the veiled references and settles into 'hippiedom' pretty readily.

10. We Are What We Are (2013)- Devastating. Director Jim Mickle is the absolute best guy working the horror genre today. Not only is this remake better than the original film it's based upon, but it's a unique, measured pressure-cooker of a film that would be remarkable even without its gory accentuates.

Yes, the state of on line TV is getting worse. I just generally search by the show title and you can get quite a few decent transfers free. Lately, I've Ben seeing more and more small video windows embedded in a matrix of other still content, show title, photo of main character, etc. WTF is that, and does anyone know how to zoom and pan on YouTube?

I saw Love and Mercy earlier this evening. Usually I hate biopics but this one is so well done Brian Wilson could have not existed and this film would would still have a purpose. It was inspiring and heartbreaking and definitely worth a watch. Paul Dano and John Cusack were great as young and old Brian Wilson. Didn't know Cusack was that good!

^ I've heard only good things.

Nightcrawler. Creepy. Flawed, though.

Why so? I thought it was one of the best films of last year.



Great film. It's a pretty slow film, but certainly not boring in any way. It certainly left me feeling that there could be a sequel. Doubtful I know, but it's a nice idea.

It got clunky towards the end. The inabilty of the police investigators to nail him rang false. I was waiting for a surprise, as well; for example, Nina could have crushed him in the end by refusing to air his video of the shootout, calling him, finally, on his cruelty, and possibly also getting a confession from him as a wired police accomplice.

A very good movie, don't get me wrong. I just didn't like the ending.

Jurassic World. Not really that much new in terms of overall plot, there was some new details of course from US defense, but you know.

Still a nice little thrill ride overall.

^^ bullhead is good! depressing though.

most recently i've watched...


THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE (KIESLOWSLI, 1991) - fantastic, luminous... and slightly incomprehensible too.. the criterion edition has a full disc with great interviews and other materials, and that of course helps.



WILD TALES (RELATOS SALVAJES) - DAMIAN SZIFRON, 2014.
everything that this poster says is true. this movie is hilarious and fucking great. i expected to like it but not this much. not sure how it will read in translation/subtitles but ha ha ha ha-- im just remembering this now. this is a true black comedy, not some depressing shit with jokes in it, but rather, you'll laught until the end while you watch some dark shit. it's great.

shot in argentina but backed by "el deseo", the amodovar bros. production company. watchitwatchitwatchit.

Wild Tales was one of the best I've seen in a long time. The airline sequence was especially good, a sllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooowwwwww ww build up,and a spectacular ending, the road rage part was pretty great, too "lovers quarrel!?!"

I liked it. Lots of well-worn sci-fi tropes but I found it cool.

I remember hearing about Wild Tales. I just added them to the NF queue. Bal'shoye spaseeba!

Re watched Down Terrace, it's another on my best list. Dark humor, some fantastic sequences, " could you hold this up here for me, guv?" Also a couple of the worst parents imaginable in a slyly devious and manipulative vein

Inside Job, a documentary on the financial crisis of 2007–08. I can highly recommend it.

In a mood to rewatch 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The one thing that ruined it for me was the plausibility of the whole train premise. I guess it's supposed to be metaphoric, but it sure lost this scientist/engineers credibility right off. I really liked "Mother" a lot better, or for Bong scifi, "The Host"

^Yeah, the train thing is a bit of a stretch, as railways require steady, constant, intensive maintenance 24/7, especially one "worldwide." I also did to realize it was CaptainHumanAmericaTorch in the lead role. I am terrible at recognizing faces on screen...

Mrs. Instigator and I watched this movie on a slow Saturday.


It was described as "gripping" and "tense" and it was NOT. Basically a slice-of-life tale of a young teen growing up on a river. No one learns anything, and the action is pointless. it was filmed nicely, but every single secondary story thread was left to die on the thread vine.

Then, to get the taste out of our mouths, we watched this


I enjoyed it more than the first one, but they made Khan Nooyen Singh into some sort of action baddy, and frankly, it could have been any damn bad guy. It did not need to be the iconic Khan. Cumberbatch was wasted in this. Khan should be a more cerebral enemy, not bang bang blast punch kick jump ninja shit. plus, I HATE THE FAKE, SUPERFLUOUS LENS FLARE.

All of those descriptions are totally wrong. It wasn't necessarily a bad movie and at if it was lile half an hour shorter and had a narrator or some more story development it could possibly have been great. There was a lot of potential in that film noirish cinematography.. of course that essentially they filmed the whole thing just driving up and down Sunset Blvd bugged the shit out of me but they did it in a way that unless youve been there a lot or really paying attention no one would notice. But i did..

I don't know what it is but I really don't like Jake Gyllenhaal. Maybe because I'm always being told how great he is.

He somewhat reminds me of Johnny Depp: not a terrible actor, but if born slightly less attractive, he'd spend his entire career in supporting roles.

dammit, man, i have that rental ready to watch one of these days.

maybe i'll like it cuz we have sort of opposite tastes in movies, ha ha ha.

It was 50/50. The kids in it are awesome, especially the main kid's friend. The story just loses itself. Let me know.

watching it all I coul;d think about is this Primus song https://youtu.be/953PkxFNiko

^^ i can't open youtubes for another 15 minutes! my satellite internets are in 1992 until 8am...

Ghost Protocol was awesome.

i watched some weird anime shit called KITE

it's supposed to be a movie, but it's only 45 minutes long (huh?)

it's kind of creepy-- it's about child-molested assassins who kill child molesters

yes, there is a great sense of satisfaction in seeing creepos die of exploding bullets

but the story is kind of absurd and the animation rather nonexistent and i think it's more of an excuse for people who like to fap while looking at "adult" anime of little girls with big tits

just... weird

netflix predicted i'd give it 4/5 but it's definitely a "do not like" sort of non-movie.

That's what happens when Japan is forced to censor all their porn, they just put it all in their animation. At least that's what I've heard, and why if you watch live action porn from Japan they pixilate or blur out the frontal nudity.

right, a lot of it is suggested/implied but still creepy-- old creeper cop standing over a scared little girl on the bed. it's meant to suggest trauma of the young girl, but then the "grownup" version of the girl (looks the same) is there w/ tits hanging out and i'm like "wtf is the intention here?".

this thing is from the 90s.

o wait wait i found a wikipedia entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_(1999_film)

looks like lucky for me i missed 15 minutes of hardcore cartoon rape. kindly keep them, as i won't be needing them. ufff...!

It is their morbid fear of pubic hair. Honestly, that is what they do not want to show....

okay so i finally watched this last night and i have to ask WATT??

movie was great! i think you missed some things-- all the stories wrapped well. everyone learns. maybe too subtle?

a lot went over my head!

everyone learns? Learns what?????

I hate "slice-of-life" movies, especially indie ones where there is no real plot and only endless scenes of people making anguished faces remembering bullshit we are supposed to care about. wrapped up? are you crazy man? that kid witnessed a fucking slaughterbloodbath, his hobo friend gets killed (as far as he knows), his life is over as he knows it, and all is cool cuz there are cute girls in the apartments he moves into with his mom?
the subplot of his folks divorcing? jesus christ what a load of shit.
Fuck everyone in that movie. Fuck a movie set in the backwoods of texarkana border that includes absolutely no black folks or hispanic folks.

Pointless navel-gazing. I can't stand that shit.
The best character was the main kid's friend, and the whole weak ass subplot of his uncle and shit was pointless.

It tried hard to be about something and was about nothing.

Everytime I think about it I hate myself more and more for wasting 2 hours of my day off in this drivel.

haaa haaaa haaa

your rants are hilarious.

that doesn't make them true for me though, but i enjoy the comedy.

that wasn't the story.

********** WARNING SPOILERS *************

the story was ellis the next mud in the making. old-school romantic who lives in the river, ready to fight for a lady's honor, gets used and abused by women who play that angle. the girl the boy kisses is older/more experience and is just toying with him. same shit with mud, as blankenship explains.

mud learns to finally call it quits.

the kid...?

the kid who "ain't no townie" finally learns to accept that his old life is getting torn apart, and to stop idealizing/romanticizing the "one" girl that he "loves".

acceptance of change is learning.

the girls outside his mom's apartment don't mean "all is cool", they mean "you don't need to cling to the user/abuser who plays with you". of course it also means "oh... girls..." because he's 14/15 with a brain full of semen (haven't we all been there?)

the divorce is a metaphor for the rip in history of the PLACE. the mother wants city, the father wants a riverboat, they cannot stay together. the houses get torn down. the life that they've had for generations is over. the apartments are new and shiny. life changes, history moves "forward," individuals have to live through them.

and mud and his girl are sort of the same thing-- mud lives in the island, the girl lives in the motel, they can't stay together. theme & variations. like music.

and the struggle of the river life vs. the city is the old nature vs. civilization-- since gilgamesh and enkidu.

the divorce is also the propellant for him to really go after this "true love" shit that his parents are failing at-- it provides him with motivation to overvalue his "romantic" attachments in the face of domestic failure.

the old man blankenship who left civilization must at the end go deeper into nature to help his wildling son. he wanted quiet at the edge but he has to give it up and help mud go back to where he came from and he's not being hunted.

it's all really very carefully constructed, and yes, real life doesn't work like that, first act, second act, third act, theme and variations, but to request journalistic/scientific realism from movies is what hitchcock called moronic logic.

the movie works, and it does so beautifully. good writing, acting, camera, everything. there is no pointless navel gazing except the one i think you're projecting onto it.

************** END SPOILERS *************

maybe you're right. It still seems pointless to me. Like I said, I don;t give a fuck about other people's "slice of life" stories. I love symbolism in film but I hate metaphor.

I think this comes from being a visual artist BTW... It's why I hate/rarely understand poetry.

yeah it's not a slice of life though. there is clear exposition and massive drama and tension and confrontation and blam-blam bloody resolution. definitely a clear plot from start to finish.

symbol and metaphor are pretty much the same thing, making one thing stand for another, though technically there are distinctions about how they operate-- association vs. replacement. maybe the divorce is actually a symbol because it stands for a different sort of breakup. anyway it's the same theme, playing at a different level-- river life, city life, each set of players goes through it. hey, even ellis and neckbone split, though they're still friends.

i get it that the movie doesn't speak to you because maybe you have little interest in the interior states of people and their emotions, and prefer ideas that are "outside" of them, but it does not follow that the movie itself sucks. it'rs a really well made movie. even if the subject matter didn't interest me, i'd have to recognize it's just really well made/shot/acted.

sort of like i'm not much interested in champagne but i recognize the skill that goes into making it and quality it can achieve.

"wow this is a really nice bottle of champagne. now where the fuck is the scotch?"