Hey, lovely people! As I'm still in such sour a weekday as to have no time to watch any movies (except Dante's Peak in science class), and therefore not share my thoughts on them with you (because I know my opinions are like oxygen to you), I have come up with a game to keep ya'll occupied until my triumphant return!
I know! So, here it is: Down there in the comments, if it be convenient, have a conversation using nothing but titles of movies, books, songs, whatever. Only titles, though, no bylines. I shall start, because this is my blog, and I can.
"Hey, Jude".
Not anything real, really...but over at Cinema Obsessed, I submitted an tagline for The Goonies and I won the poll. Hazzah!
(all these short things are obvious placeholders for my laziness in real posts)
Victor Gischler, author the awesome-pulp-novel-things like Gun Monkeys and Shotgun Opera is letting people dapt his short stories! For a contest! Here's the information!
(as always, Pitch the LAMB)
Title: ReVamp
Synopsis: Jake, Max, and Brandon (played by three up-and-coming young actors, most likely from Gossip Girl) are best friends and improbably successful film students at NYU. For their first feature-length movie, a slasher, they and their girlfriends Jennifer, Rachel, and Emily (three budding actresses from some sort of Disney label) drive out to Max's father's cabin in Pennsylvania. There, they prepare for a few weeks of sex, drugs, and red food coloring.
That is, until they wander into the cabin basement. There, they find a mysterious coffin, welded shut and bolted down with silver. Being curious little punks, and hoping to find some props for their movie, the six yank that sucker open--and find a corpse suspiciously lively.
They turn their backs for five minutes, and it up and starts picking off these pretty young thangs one by one.
People, stop complaining. Day after day, all I hear is criticisms of the lack of originality in today's cinematic market. Sure, I may well be guilty of such rants, and yes, it's perfectly justified, but if you really don't like it, do something about it.
Think about it, people. We are movie bloggers. That means, we spend the majority of out time analyzing the fuck out of films. If you locked ten different movie critics with a Blogger account inside a room with a laptop and everything with a Criterion stamp, chances are, they'd manage to fart out a halfway-decent script. So why don't you all just team up and write the best damn movie ever, and show the world your superiority over Michael Bay is justified!
In fact, I'll get ya'll started. In one sentence, describe a movie you can guarantee will win an Oscar. Go, people.
On My Own Private Idaho
Henry IV dialogue? Really?
Also, shut up, Keanu Reeve. Shut up and leave River Phoenix to it.
On Zatoichi (2003)
I can't tell if this is good or bad. Language barrier? The only thing I can really say, is the blood effects are shit.
It just goes to show, you slap somebody enough, you learn all kinds of shit.
(yes, another Kick-Ass review, tough shit)
Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is an ordinary teenager, obsessed with girls and comic books. One day, after he and his friend are mugged for the umpteenth time, he orders a scuba suit from Amazon, arms himself with what looks like a cricket bat, and dubs himself Kick-Ass. His first outing as a real-like superhero, however, lands him a beating, a knife to the gut, and a trip to the hospital. In the ambulance, he asks the medic to say he was found naked, leading to rumors that he is gay (which is an interesting conclusion to jump to, frankly), and the attention of his crush Katie (Lyndsey Fonseca), who longs for a gay BFF. Okay?
After a successful rescue of some guy from a bunch of dudes in a parking lot, he becomes a Youtube sensation, and spawns a dozen impersonators and fellow costume-wearing heroes. The best, and most psychotic of them, is the father-daughter team of Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage, at his Adam West-iest) and Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz, aka the annoyingly wise younger sister from (500) Days of Summer). Also on the bandwagon is Red Mist (McLovin, because I can't spell his real name), son of the most ruthless crime boss in the city, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, who seems to be the go-to bad guy for comic book movies these days), under the guise of a superhero to get in good with Kick-Ass, so his father can get revenge on his supposed killing of his men (actually the work of Big Daddy and Hit Girl).
Okay, the thing is, I don't throw around the term 'morals' often. I'm not that guy. I don't give a flying fuck if kids see cartoon violence on a daily basis, because if anything, it will help them during the inevitable zombie apocalypse. If you don't want your kid, specifically your kid, to watch that shit, don't let them watch it. But I don't care, and I don't like those "Oh, won't SOMEbody think of the CHILDREN!" types. So, you see, I'm not a detractor of movies based on moral dilemma.
But there's always a line, even for us amoral movie goer populace. And this movie is toeing mine. See, because there has to be something just a little bit off about an eleven-year-old girl in Japanese-anime costume killing dozens, maybe a hundred, guys with guns, knives, and whatever. If not that, then there has to be something wrong with her not thinking twice about it.
I get it. This is a comic-book movie. And it's a good one, I think. Matthew Vaughn is not doing anything wrong, at least. The action and violence of heavily stylized, the plot and pacing is good, it's very entertaining, and he never lets you forget that these characters are not real superheroes, they are not invincible, and they do, in fact, bleed blood that they probably need. Hit Girl might even be my new hero. But come on, there's a point when it stops being kid/girl power, and starts being the shameless exploitation of the fact that she's eleven for shock value. Would it have been as funny hearing an adult saying 'cunt'?
Other than that, this is a pretty damn okay movie. I like, basically, how it doesn't try to rewrite the superhero movie, just affectionately rip on. Because, despite the first half, which is deeply rooted in the realism of so-called caped vigilantism, and how that hit would go down in the real world, it still loves it's capes (in retrospect, a highly impractical costume accessory. See: The Incredibles), it's gadgets, it's triumphant one-liners and improbable defeat of the bad guys. It does, though, deconstruct the superhero genre in some places with some good old fashioned genre-savvy.
For instance, there are no real daddy issues. In fact, father-child relationships are the deciding factor. The most apparent, of course, is Big Daddy and Hit Girl, aka Damon and Mindy Macready. A disgraced cop framed for drug possession by Frank D'Amico, Damon spent a bit in jail, and his pregnant wife killed herself, but little Mindy managed to tough that shit out. When he got out, he trained his little honey bunches of oats to be a fucking war machine. Their mission, of course, is to avenge Mindy's mother's death, by taking down D'Amico. There is nothing but genuine affection between these two. When he has her wear a kevlar vest, so that she can feel what it's like to be shot, there's negotiation for the bowling alley and ice cream for two more shots. He alternatively calles her "Baby Doll" and "Child". He never sugercoats the violence they committ, but he always says it like he's reading her a betime story, no harshness or tough love.
Frank D'Amico and his son Chris, aka Red Mist, also have a somewhat loving relationship. This I found especially surprising, seeing as how you'd expect this to be Harry Osbourne-ish, him being who he is. At the very least, neglectful, disappointed, richandpowerful dad. But no.
Even Dave and his dad got it good, one of those quiet widowers who worries for his son, but just doesn't know what to do about it. I gotta say, it's refreshing to not have any angstin' over their daddy issues, as so many superhero movies do.
Oh, what else...the soundtrack is pretty awesome. Especially the music surrounding Hit Girl, undoubtedly the breakout character of this movie. The stuff you hear in the trailers is exactly what goes to the scene.
The action scenes, to me, were pretty standard, nothing very spectacular. I mean, they're pretty cool, but nothing new. One scene, an end scene, constitutes as among the coolest movie deaths ever. It'd be spoilerific if I said what it was, but let's just say it involves a bazooka.
The performances, Aaron Johnson gets the awkward teen shit down pat (considering the minor bit of Dawson casting), supported by Young Guy from Hot Tub Time Machine and some other guy I think was on Phil of the Future, as his equally nerdy, depracating best friends. Nicholas Cage is very Adam West-impersonates-Elvis-impersonates-Adam West. Chloe Moretz, of course, bleeds maturity, or at least worldliness, if that makes sense. McLovin plays a slight, maybe more serious (only a bit) variation of his usual wheezy nerdiness. Everybody is great in those regards.
Overall, the movie jumps from funny to sad to serious to shitjustgotreal to exciting to awesome, and it never lags, you gotta give it that. It's certainly not everyone'ss cup of tea, but it could've been worse.
Sorry Kirsten Dunst, we hope your demise isn't too horrible in Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia'.
Bruce Lee's 'The Silent Flute' getting made. Evidentally, it'll be epic.
Eva Longoria Parker is in a horror flick called Tenement...so, yeah. Whatever.
Vera Farmiga, on a quest to be awesome, has joined the indie western 'A Thousand Guns'. She'll play a woman seeking revenge for her child's murder, while being bothered by a gypsy woman and a 'demonic gun'. It sounds very...Lynchian? Sam Raimi(an)? I don't know.
Jim Morrison is getting the Last Days treatment by Robert Saitzyk. In the late seventies, a famous musician named 'Jay Douglas', goes to Paris, 'negotiating complicated relationships with his California soulmate Valerie Eason' (ahem, Pamela Courson) 'and glamourous French countess, Clemence'. It will be called 'The Last Beat'.
Mighty Mouse getting remade by not-Andy-Kaufman-so-who-cares?
Sufjan Stevens' experimental short debut Destroy Those Irritating Memories.
Destroy Those Irritating Memories
Uploaded by nosnah227. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.
The Playlist has news regarding Vincent Gallo's new flick premiering at Cannes (this sounds...familiar), and a link to an interview he did where he, seriously, rips on everyone.
Zhang Yimou's adaption of period drama Hawthorn Tree Forever, as well as Thirteen Girls (which sounds a bit like the Chinese Inglourious Basterds), Tom Hanks, Cruise, and Brad Pitt are being eyed for supporting roles.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. might be getting a movie again.
Greek film Dogtooth might actually be released. Which is good.
No One Knows About The Persian Cats
Very late, yes, but Zac Efron up for the remake of Swedish (they do seem to be hot property lately, don't they?) flick Snabba Cash, or Easy Money. He'll play a taxi driver/drug smuggler, one of three interconnected stories. I gotta say, ever since I found out he played young Simon in that one episode of Firefly, I'm a lot more interested in what he does. Bravo, sir.
Viola Davis joins Emma Stone in the 1960s Mississippi drama 'The Help'.
Have a nice Saturday, I'm going to see Kick-Ass.
This guy at Dear Jesus (a Wordpress) has made a meme where you list ten movie facts about yourself, than force-tag some other people to do it. So, yeah. Sorry, folk.
1) I kind of hate John Hughes movies, except for Ferris Bueller.
2) The first movie I ever saw was Pinocchio, when I was four. And, yes, it scared the living shit out of my toddler self.
3) In between writing this, I am currently watching Chinatown.
4) I shake my fist at romantic comedies of this era that don't have Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Zooey Deschanel in them
5) I am an unapologetic Southland Tales sympathiser.
6) My entirre attitude on life is directly affected by the last movie I saw. For instance, the other day I was watching Cache, the Michael Hanake disturbance. I spiralled into a severe lack of faith in humanity.
7) I wish someone would make a jukebox movie-musical featuring the music of The Libertines, The Doors, and The Sounds.
8) I just got Breakfast on Pluto from someplace. Biding my time, people.
9) At the library, I have a double-disk set of Zatoichi and Sonatine. Because that's my reward for still having a library card.
10) My door is lined with scrap paper listing all the movies I want to see. Because that's the only other thing I can think of.
Alright:
Meaghan at Wild Celtic
Mike at You Talking To Me?
Scare Sarah at Scare Sarah (...)
Robert at His Eyes Were Watching Movies
EDIT: Sister at Opinionated? Me?
...
But then, if you want to do it, I'm not stopping you. Plenty of meme to go around! It's not even mine...
(rules at top link)
(Okay, I'm not going to start in on the stereotypes of hysterical, feinting dames in blonde wigs)
Women were, back in the days, only as good as the one next to them, I think. For every strong, badass chick, there was a screaming, emotional wreck of a baby basket. For every wisened wife, there was an immature mistress. For every lawyer, there was a crying defendent. That's shit, yeah? But it was there. Might as well get it out of the way.
(forgive the shaughty formatting)
Adam's Rib
Here, we are presented with two principle women. There's, of course, Katherine Hepburn as Amanda Bonner, the smart, saracastic lawyer, wife of city prosecuter Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy). She is presented with the case of a woman, Doris Attinger, played by Judy Holliday, who has shot her abusive, neglectful, and unfaithful husband upon finding him with his mistress. Doris, with a quivering, child-like voice and poised back, appears to be the perfect wife and mother, completely dedicated to her children and husband. That, naturally, makes her husband, Rom Ewell's Warren, seem that more lecherous, oafish, and disgusting.
Hepburn's character, an equal to her husband in every way, wears pantsuits, has a huge paycheck, and never loses a case. Imagine how controversial this might've been in 1949, not just due to attitudes towards women, but for Hepburn's rising reputation as a (ahem) transgressive actress. Holliday (a role considered her audition for her Oscar film, Born Yesterday), might've been made in the atypical fashion of women in the period, but was still a bold decision, as she (well, the lovely screenwriter Ruth Gordon and husband) used the gender politics that has held her back--her 'female hysteria'--and turned it into a defense. She wasn't out to kill her husband, she was out to protect her home. Yet, only do we get a real breakthough when Amanda begs the audience to look at the three in the center of the case--Doris, Warren, and Warren's trashy girlfriend Beryl Caighn (Jean Hagen)--and picture their genders reversed. Here is the example of tough tomboy and conservative housewife on the same side.
Bonnie & Clyde 
Here's a different story entirely. Bonnie Parker, played by Faye Dunaway (duh), is the mac to Clyde's cheese (ahem). Without her, he wouldn't be the legend he is, and he damn well knows it. She, being the surprisingly quick-witted farmgirl, he being the ex-convict, they rule the Great Depression with (...) handguns at their hips. Then comes Clyde's brother, Buck (Gene Hackman) and his new wife, Blanche, played by Estelle Parsons.
For Dunaways cool, seductive composure, there's Parson, who is openly the film's comic relief. Here, Blanche is a fairly old, uptight, shrill, hysterical, and stiff churchlady without the church. Though you do get humanization for her in some choice scenes--the drive home with CW (Michael J. Pollard), where she smokes and talks of how she used to be, her traumatized recanting of the whole gory affair after a shootout with police leaves her blind and her husband dead--she remains, first, a crying buffoon who contributes nothing to the gang but pouting and waiting in the car.
Citizen Kane
Charles Foster Kane, to start, arrives home from vacation with a mustache and a fiancee, Emily, a relatively bit part played by Ruth Warrick. They marry, and as time goes on (an artful montage featuring the descent of their breakfast conversations), you see Emily, daughter of a president, make the subtle changes into weary middle-age, the price that comes with being the wife of the increasingly curt, moody, and controlling Kane. She has his child, but gets little to no affection from him.
This will soon be contrasted with the arrival of Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore), a character who's demeaner is similar to Doris of Adam's Rib--young, blonde, the shaky voice of a teenage girl, but younger, more immature. She's a teenager, really. When he gets splashed with water by a speeding car on the sidewalk, she starts giggling, prompting his furious confrontation, and her invitation to come to her apartment and dry off. There is no apparent sexay-times, but then, that shit wouldn't go down back then, would it?
Anyway, the differences between these two women are most apparent during their confrontation. It is the end of Kane's big presidential-candidate speech, and after sending their ten-year-old son home, she gets into a car, telling Kane she is going to an address she found, and he can come if he wants. It's pretty fucking obvious she knows, and is giving Kane the option to defend himself when she goes to confirm. So, the two of them arrive at Alexander's apartment, where Kane's rival Getty is already shaking her down. The ultimate result, with Kane and Alexander screaming at Getty and Emily, or rather, Kane and Getty screaming while Alexander scuttles around nervously, yelling every so often, and Emily calmly says her piece, before she and Getty leave. It is highlighted, Alexander's immaturity and childishness (...) versus Emily's rationalness, the maturity of a woman long since used to dealing with Kane, and is at her silent breaking point.
Emily Kane and her son Charles Jr., or course, get an unceremonious, car accident demise, as mentioned briefly in the intro summary of Kane's life. Susan, meanwhile, goes the opposite direction of her predecessor, becoming a shrill, bratty wife who, too, grows sick of Kane's distance, isolation, and selfishness. Nobody gets to be happy around this guy, honestly.
Okay. So, that's it. Carry on.
What is the plot of this film? Jack shit if I know. A kid, played by Dazed & Confused's Wiley Wiggins, gets off an airport, goes to meet at a friend's house, gets a ride from a Mysterious Stranger, and some other dude picked up. He is driven to some random destination, where he gets hit by a car. He proceeds to shuffle around a dream he can't get out of, talking to various people (both actors and non-actors) on philosophy, reality, free will, and the meaning of life. It is filmed live-action, but then rotoscoped--drawn over, in some of the trippiest animation this side of Sylvain Chomet.
Rotoscope, I think, is a fantastic filmmaking style. Used in it's 2D form primarily by Richard Linklater, in this and his Philip K. Dick adaption, A Scanner Darkly, as well as Year of the Fish and the excellent documentary-type thing Waltz With Bashir (as well as director Ari Folman's followup, 'The Congress'). Here, it is used to it's full extent, a perfect illustration of it's subject matter. Everything is forever vibrant, literally, skin moves, heads sometimes detach from bodies, one thing morphs into another, or to another. Sidebar examples of the current topic will pop up in speech bubbles, inside the head, or just hanging in the air.
This film is not the type to see with anything other than a clear head, a basic undertsanding of philosophy, and an infinite amount of patience. Because, as mentioned, there really is no plot. Half of the characters aren't actors, just experts in various fields that Linklater called in to give lectures, then rotoscoped over. It's almost a documentary (not like Bashir, but you know), featuring animated interviews. The main topic is, pushing aside all else, what is reality.
Do we, as in you, as in everyone you know, maybe, really exist? If we do, is what you are immediately doing really happening, or is it a waking dream? Can you turn the lights on and off? Do you find yourself roped into conversations with people you don't know, about things you don't care about, and then find yourself completely engrossed? Do you hopelessly try to wake up if you are, in fact, in a dream, only to faze and unfaze away, wake up in a bed, to start the process over? Will you eventually float away?
Our main character, a perpetually unnamed young man with long hair and no discernable personality traits--because, I guess, he's purposely not a character, but an avatar for us--wanders his dream world like the dogged hero he is. He's not good, he's not bad, but his new friends will certainly speculate for either side.
Reprising their roles in Before Sunrise/Sunset are Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, discussing reincarantion. The acting here, like everyone else, can be mistaken for fantastic, completely spirited and natural (though, for them, I guess it is).
Linkalter could've easily turned his script into a vaguely-plotted book, and gotten the ectoplasmic accolades of Hunter S. Thompsan and Jack Kerouac. Instead, he went with his suits and made a movie so metaphysical, so surreal, so thought-provoking (and not in the Oh-gee-it-really-makes-ya-think Holocaust-flick type), and so confusingly awesome, it disappeared into the oblivion of flea markets and Amazon wishlists.
Here's some quotes, if your interested.
Am I wrong to think to myself that this might be a comment on the straightforwardness of movies...how everyone somehow knows everything in a given film?
Because, in this, nobody ever knows the whole story. Shoshanna knows nothing about the Basterds, the Basterds don't know of Shoshanna--in fact, nobody knows of Shoshanna. Nobody ever really lives to tell the tale of the basement bar, besides a passing reference to a fateful hand gesture. How Hitler and his crew went down. Even we, the audience, don't know the full story...because we never find out how Shoshanna ended up as she did, what happened to the remaining Basterds...
In fact, the only character who seems to be in the know (almost), is Hans Landa. He is the connection between the storylines, the common denominator. Therefore, he will know more than anyone else...but does he know who Shoshanna is, what her plot is? Why did he let her go? Why, really, did he do anything he did?
The most burning question: What the hell happened to the vet?
As we all know, Dario Argento's the Master of Horror, the Big Bloody Cheese, the most awesome thing to happen to cinema since Hitchcock (ahem).
Behind the Couch has an interview. An exclusive one. As in, he gave the interview. That lucky bastard.
So, yeah, I wanna be a writer, but everything I puke out is either painfully contrived, has no plot, makes no fucking sense, is a bad idea, or is just bad. The movie industry is so in the tanks i'd be lucky to get a job printing out the spare scripts' cover pages. I despise high school with the burning intensity of a supernovae (that's a Big fucking Deal, alright?), I'm too lazy to even find a movie-related sad face, so I just found a panda I had on my computer for some reason, I can't find a job that doesn't involve tuna subs, my go-to music downloading site stopped working, Community's out of season, my computer won't stop blitzing out, I can't get goddamn Ke$ha out of my head, I have a three tests tomorrow, nobody in my house will shut up, and I am now almost fifty percent positive I have a personality disorder. That is, of course, besides the fact that I'm at that tender age when everybody in my fucking school is an asshole, girls won't shut up about prom or whatever, I just found out cracking your knuckles as I do causes arthritis, and The Libertines might be getting back together, but only if Pete Doherty doesn't OD at the last minute (seriously, that guy's a rock n' roll martyr without the late-twenties).
Will somebody please confirm for me that Go Ask Alice is not, in fact, a real diary?
Hey, ya'll ladies and gents. In case you don't realize my agony, here's the just-announced films of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.
Opening film
Ridley Scott – ROBIN HOOD (Out of Competition)
In Competition
Mathieu Amalric – TOURNÉE
Xavier Beauvois – DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX
Rachid Bouchareb – HORS LA LOI
Alejandro González Iñárritu – BIUTIFUL
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun – UN HOMME QUI CRIE (A Screaming Man)
IM Sangsoo – HOUSEMAID
Abbas Kiarostami – COPIE CONFORME
Takeshi Kitano – OUTRAGE
Lee Chang-dong – POETRY
Mike Leigh – ANOTHER YEAR
Doug Liman – FAIR GAME
Sergei Loznitsa – YOU. MY JOY
Daniele Luchetti – LA NOSTRA VITA
Nikita Mikhalkov – UTOMLYONNYE SOLNTSEM 2
Bertrand Tavernier – LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER
Apichatpong Weerasethakul – LOONG BOONMEE RALEUK CHAAT
(Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives)
Un Certain Regard
Derek Cianfrance – BLUE VALENTINE (1st film)
Manoel De Oliveira – O ESTRANHO CASO DE ANGÉLICA (Angelica)
Xavier Dolan – LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES (Heartbeats)
Ivan Fund, Santiago Loza – LOS LABIOS
Fabrice Gobert – SIMON WERNER A DISPARU… (1st film)
Jean-Luc Godard – FILM SOCIALISME
Christoph Hochhäusler – UNTER DIR DIE STADT (The City Below)
Lodge Kerrigan – REBECCA H. (RETURN TO THE DOGS)
Ágnes Kocsis – PÁL ADRIENN (Adrienn Pál)
Vikramaditya Motwane – UDAAN (1st film)
Radu Muntean – MARTI, DUPA CRACIUN (Tuesday, After Christmas)
Hideo Nakata – CHATROOM
Cristi Puiu – AURORA (Aurora)
Hong Sangsoo – HA HA HA
Oliver Schmitz – LIFE ABOVE ALL
Daniel Vega – OCTUBRE (1st film)
David Verbeek – R U THERE
Xiaoshuai Wang – RIZHAO CHONGQING (Chongqing Blues)
Out of Competition
Woody Allen – YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER
Stephen Frears – TAMARA DREWE
Oliver Stone – WALL STREET - MONEY NEVER SLEEPS
Midnight Screenings
Gregg Araki – KABOOM
Gilles Marchand – L'AUTRE MONDE (Blackhole)
Special Screenings
Charles Ferguson – INSIDE JOB
Sophie Fiennes – OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW
Patricio Guzman – NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ (Nostalgia For The Light)
Sabina Guzzanti – DRAQUILA – L'ITALIA CHE TREMA
Otar Iosseliani – CHANTRAPAS
Diego Luna – ABEL (1st film)
(via)
Show of hands...who wishes they were in the South of fucking France right now?
(concept, naturally, bogarted from All About My Movies)
1) What do you think of South Park/Ugly Americans?
2) Rachel Weisz as Jackie Kennedy. Discuss.
3) What movie would you save from a burning Blockbuster?
4) What was the last book you read?
5) How are you?
6) Zombies. Chainsaw. No fuel. Jason hockey mask. Go.
Recently, at Wild Celtic, me and her started a minor discussion on free will in the comments. I think I mentioned this yesterday, but because I'm a repetitive asshole, and because she did a follow-up post on the thing, I figure, I might as well. So.
See, I am not of the opinion that everything we do is predetermined, as in, written in a book, set in stone, etc. There are choices. There are always choices. What I'm saying, is that all actions have consequences. Not one, but many. There are variables, it's like middle school math, the tree thing. Five red marbles times six blue marbles times three yellow marbles, how many combinations can you? That.
See, because every action influences your way of thinking, your opinions, your personality. This will affect your handling of future situations, going back to the first influencing action of your life, that you remember, or not. When you came home from the hospital, did your parents stay with you, or did they get their parents to watch you while they went out? Were you born on the fifth or the sixth? Did you ever swallow a bug while riding your bike? This is the shit that, though innocuous now, will make you weary of repeats in the future, or not.
Your thoughts, therefore, are also somewhat pre-determined. The actions will influence the point of view, will influence future thoughts, will influence actions, et cetera. You are, in a way, trapped by your own memory.
Okay. Carry on.
Fridge brilliance, for those not familiar with the archives of TV Tropes, is when an occurence in a movie, TV show, or whatever medium, seems innocuous or doesn't make sense, looks like a loophole, perhaps...and then you do some research, or think about too long, and then it not only makes sense, it's brilliant.
Let's take, for example, Oldboy. The scene at the beginning with the teenagers pushing Dae-su around? He's stuttering, and neither party seems to be making any sense of each other? You initially dismiss it as shellshock/mean-spiritedness. But then, looking into it a bit, you'll discover that, in the fifteen years Dae-su was imprisoned, the Korean language shifted significantly. Dae-su literally couldn't understand what the fuck they were saying (hence, my new catchphrase, 'dickshit'). Imagine living in Elizabethan England, then getting shot over to present day, or better yet, Sex Pistols, '77. You'd be goddamn confused too.
Really, I love Fridge Brilliance. So, here's a bit.
Over at Scare Sarah, our eponymous Host speaks of a contest, regarding the Exorcist. Winners of said contest get this thing:
Details, as always, elsewhere.
(the link up there)
(it has been a slow week thus far. Here's link)
Stale Popcorn does the countdown thing, amazingly awesome, dudes.
The Beat gives you X-ed Out.
The Movie Snob does some casting for Batman 3, You Talking To Me? does some more.
Appleplectic reviews.
I get into a discussion with Wild Celtic here, and she follows up here. I, too, will follow up eventually. If the whole thing doesn't blow over in an hour, anyway.
Melanie's Randomness asks you to ask her a question.
Antagony & Ecstasy talks Body Snatchers.
Film Studies for Free has a lovely article on Michael Gondry.
The Blue Vial on Day 14 of a Godard Marathon. King Lear!
The Bloggess does...something.
Cracked, ladies and gentlemen.
(more later, when my computer stops fucking with me)
EDIT:
dark eye socket talks about Pick Up on South Street.
Random Thoughts on a Crazy Liberal kicks off Sexual Assault Awareness Month with some outrage.
Trailer for adorable-looking Jeff Daniels/Ryan Reynolds/Emma Stone indie Paper Man, Emile Hirsch joins alien invasion flick, Seth MacFarland making a movie, oh fuck, Chris Rock writing remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (he's actually a foreign film buff, which I am not shy to admit surprises the fuck out of me), Kevin Bacon fucks Steve Carell's wife in an untitled comedy, NEW INCEPTION PICTURES!, Todd Phillips, Hangover Guy (it's on his tax return and everything) has a superfuckingsecret new comedy fermenting, Last House on the Left director up for (...) Keanu Reeves-starring Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adaption, and Sam Mendes drops out of 'Preacher'.
Did, gentle sirs, I miss anything?
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