Erkki

Does anyone know ways to legitimately (or non-) gain access to less known Asian movies with English subs? I was looking for movies from countries which's films I haven't seen yet, like Pakistan and Bangladesh for example, but it seems it's not that easy to find them. I did find some torrents but they didn't have English subs and were basically recorded from TV with horrible audio and huge logos in corners.

For some reason I had put off seeing Porco Rosso, when I was watching a lot of Ghibli movies and other anime some years ago. I watched all other Miyazaki movies that he directed solo. But I finally saw it now and it really is one of the best. For some reason in this film more than in any of the others, I really noticed the incredible craftsmanship and how cinematic it feels. Maybe because it had less supernatural elements than most of the others. Also The Wind Rises has been growing on me more and more, although I still think it is a bit too long. But now I think I might pick Porco Rosso instead of The Wind Rises if it came down to picking one of them. But my favourite Miyazaki films are probably still the fantastical ones, like Nausicaä, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service and Totoro.

+1 to Jenna being a trendsetter, also to The Good Place, which I've now binged through. This has been a really refreshing series.

I used to think that allegorical prejudice was handled quite well in The Witcher books and games, but I haven't thought about it lately, and I was probably wrong.

Where were all these The Good Place recommendations before jennegatron recommended it? J/K, started watching and starting to like it after 2nd episode.

I played the original and the HD one, I don't think they had a huge difference, but that may be just that I remember the original looking better than it did. I want to get this and tons of other games for PS4 Pro, if only the device played 4K blu-rays I would buy it.

I wonder if we should have a nonrecommendations thread as well? Basically I want to say that even though The Cloverfield Paradox has a lot of hype now thanks to it's clever marketing campaign, there's no reason to actually see it. Others might not be as harsh, but I gave it 1/5. There are a few leagues between this and the other Cloverfields.

Here's Tarantino, defending Polanski in 2017 : https://jezebel.com/heres-audio-of-quentin-tarantino-defending-roman-polans-1822745916?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Saw two great movies today: Faces Places by Agnes Varda and JR (whom I don't really know) is a warm documentary about nothing in particular. Well maybe faces, and places. It's really well made aside from some camera focusing issues and kind of a feelgood film. Also a bit sad occasionally. God's Own Country is a good movie about a young man working in his father's small farm who falls for a farm-hand they hire for a week, who is really good with sheep. It starts out feeling rather bleak, but develops a better outlook during the film.

I don't know, I think I would rather even see cinemas refusing to show his movies and critics not reviewing them. [edit] But then again... I think an individual can base their decisions without concerning the presumption of innocence. But a business like a cinema could need more than an accusation that was not proved in court, depending on the shareholders etc.

I think in the past I have somehow forgotten some of these things. Like I remember reading about Polanski's case in the past, but I don't remember that I had that in mind when I was seeing the films such as Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion and The Tenant, and even a new one Venus in Furs. When I saw Chinatown I think I didn't even know the director. But I've now removed The Pianist from my watchlist. I also recently did see some old Woody Allen movies even in the cinema, but I don't remember if I had already read about the accusiations against him. Anyway I have already decided not to see his latest movies, and it bothers me that they get such wide positive treatment, not only from the persons who work with him, but cinemas and industry, and critics. But I'm not a person who keeps up with celebrity and I don't read the criminal news either. Actually there have been periods when I have not read any news at all and I felt like that was a happier time in some ways. Keeping track of all of this seems to almost require following the news cycle and even tabloid-level stuff, which is not something that I think should be considered a requirement for being a good person. I'm actually planning to get off following the news cycle again, as I'm pretty disappointed in the state of the news media anywhere. On the other hand now that I spent a couple of days thinking about this stuff, I should at least not forget any of it, including Hitchcock's abuse of Tippi Hedren. And these things at least do get covered in pretty big news media sites nowadays, not only tabloids. I don't think I will remember the whole list of 50 "directors that can fuck off" and I haven't read that deeply into each case, but I think in the future I'll just consider these things more than before. For now I've removed any Polanski, Allen and Weinstein movies from my watchlist and removed Pulp Fiction from my list of personal favourites.

Hmm... actually you are right, it was a while since I played it and I forgot how easily that would allow bypassing things.

Overall it was quite fun and educational, in terms of how many things you can build with simple physics-based mechanics. Here's what I said in the Recently Completed Games thread: "I think the game slightly errs on the side of not respecting the player's time occasionally, since the drunken GIRP-like feel to it means you will mess up a lot. Maybe you'll mess up with a controller more than a mouse and keyboard, at least I did. You could also be stuck attempting some amazing feats of GIRPness, but the solution is something else. Thankfully this didn't happen to me a lot, but it did a few times. Anyway, most of the time it's not bad - the entire game took me 7 hours to complete and I missed some optional stuff. I think generally each level is about an hour, with the earlier levels taking less than that and the later ones more." I remember looking at a walkthrough for an achievement, don't remember if I had to use it to beat the game. But I definitely remember a few things that I was bummed out by, where it just seemed impossible to proceed in a normal way, like the boat with oar. But overall it's just amazing, I wish GIRPing up a wall was easier, though. It's always very frustrating when you know that something is possible but it just won't happen because you have to do some weirdly precise movement that is very difficult to pull off.

Yeah, agree about Griffith. I personally would also have a really hard time boycotting Hitchcock, being a big fan. He is dead while Tippi Hedren is still alive. There's also a question whether such bad conduct, even if dangerous and potentially illegal, at one point in life should invalidate an entire career. I don't think there are any other allegations against him, but then again how can we know if there was something else or not? I think I'm getting more confused... now I also read that David Bowie had sex with a 14 year old...

BTW Somebody already created the service I was imagining, where it tells you reasons for avoiding seeing some movies: https://therottenappl.es/

According to this list, there are about 50 directors at least who we might want to boycott, including Hitchcock for his sexual assault of Tippi Hedren and putting her in danger while shooting The Birds. https://letterboxd.com/kibeth/list/directors-who-can-fck-off/detail/

So I crossed it with my watchlist and these came up... I dunno, it lists non-american films and other films which can't have had anything to do with Weinstein originally (as the purpose of the list is to show the extent of his involvement in cinema, not be a grounds for a boycott). I do wish now that there actually was a list for "Weinstein films to boycott"

I found this list on Letterboxd with 715 films "that Harvey Weinstein produced, distributed, or made cuts to". The author of the list explicitly says it's not meant to be a list of films to boycott, and I think keeping track of so many films to NOT WATCH could be difficult indeed. Maybe there should be a service where you could search for a title and it would tell you the reasons not to watch it... :/

Some would probably also raise the question of whether to base decisions in reaction to what one person says. When it's just about hearing people's stories, it's easier to assume everyone who says they were assaulted or abused is telling the truth. But courts can't take just that, and a huge number of people (especially men?) have been conditioned to think that the presumption of innocence should apply to the media and everyday life as well, not just the courts. I was also pretty convinced of that even a few years ago, I think. Many could argue that just when Dushku says she was assaulted, doesn't mean we should take a decision to boycott anything. I've personally started to be inclined to think that let's believe the victim until proven to be lying. Unless this kind of voluntary boycott process would become widely abused for sabotage, there'd be no real concern that outdoes the concern of people in the industry still getting assaulted and abused. I'm starting to think that a systematic boycott would be good, actually. But we're mainly talking about Hollywood, which is very visible. What about people like me who watch a lot of films from different countries, including some movies which are so unknown that you can't even find much info about them online. I guess taking them in good faith is the best course, and I certainly can't fathom doing background checks for the main crew roles of every movie I watch. Following the money thoroughly might require investigative journalism. And what do you guys think about watching those movies on platforms where there's no money going directly* to the makers or no money going to them at all. Is that just cheating yourself? I don't know, in the US and UK you may have more scruples about piracy, but I still probably pirate at least 1/3 of the movies I see (especially older ones), although I haven't done statistics. * and I don't actually know, how money goes to rights holders when a movie is watched on Netflix, FilmStruck or other streaming service.

I decided to delve into this thread finally. First of all, I will say that I've already seen a lot of recommendations which I might follow, and a lot that I would recommend have already been mentioned. I'll only echo three movies, which are my favourites among Asian cinema so far: Chungking Express, High and Low, Harakiri. These are just brilliant, maybe in my top 10, if I had a real one. So I'll focus on the movies that haven't been mentioned yet, and that are maybe not top 10 or even top 100 movies necessarily. Also I might join the effort to see more Asian movies, but my focus should be on seeing movies from new countries. Already done: Thailand, Japan, China, Taiwan, Iran, South Korea, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, India, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Afghanistan. But now, some recommendations from movies I've seen in the past 2-3 years: Onibaba (Kaneto Shindō). This is a brilliant horror movie, and one of the series of Japanes movies that takes place in a really weird setting - people living in a huge field of reeds, stealing gear from fallen soldiers. Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindō). Also pretty weird and well done horror, but this is more like a normal Japanese ghost story. Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita). A visual masterpiece, but a rather simple revenge story. Inspiration for Kill Bill AFAIK. Skip the sequel unless you really like the visuals. Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi). Several Japanese ghost stories in one technically masterful movie. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami). A Japanese film by an Iranian director. That itself is notable, while the quality of the film is debatable. Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara) is another Japanese film in a super weird setting. The setting is a beach with huge sand holes with houses in them, where the protagonist becomes trapped. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray). I think this is the strongest of the Apu Trilogy films and you should definitely watch at least one. The others are Apur Sankar and Aparajito. The Big City is also good. Wolf Children (Mamoru Hosoda) is the most moving anime I've seen. I'd also recommend other movies by this director, like Summer Wars, The Boy and the Beast, The Girl Who Leapt through Time and a One Piece movie. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami). A man trying to find someone to assist with his suicide. Close-Up is also very good. Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou). About the difficulties of a fourth (I think) wife of a noble in China. Also Hero is quite ok. Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee) a really good film about a Taiwanese chef and his family. Once Upon a Time in Anatolya (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) - in case Turkey already counts as Asia, this is a good one. Clouds of May is also a good one, about an old man confused about change in land ownership laws. A Quiet Dream (Zhang Lu) is basically a lot like a Jim Jarmusch movie. I liked it because of this, others might not. Oldboy probably needs no mention. Children of Heaven (Majid Majidi). More good stuff from Iran. Style is similar to Italian neorealism. The Housemaid (1960, Kim, Ki-young) is a great horror film. Unfortunately, it's only partially restored, at least the copy I saw. 'Til Madness Do Us Part (Wang Bing) is a rather long documentary filmed in a mental asylum in China. Worth seeing, I think. The Extremists' Opera (Junko Emoto) is about a Japanese experimental theater troupe led by a lesbian and her relationship difficulties in said troupe. Empire of Passion (Nagisa Ōshima) another Japanese ghost story. Also by the same director: Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence with David Bowie, about war prisoners and Japanese culture. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) Don't remember much about it. There was some tension in family relations and I remember it was quite good. Project A (Jackie Chan). Some cool physical stunts. Antiporno (Sion Sono) A visually pretty drama with twists.

I can sympathize with both points. Denying money and not caring about it - in the end we want them punished according to the law, not necessarily to control their finances. What about Weinstein in particular, though? Are people prepared to boycott Tarantino movies, LOTR and many others from which Weinstein continues to make money AFAIK.

Oops I think you’re right, that was a blooper

I got into an argument on a local feminist forum about separating the author from their work after some article about Polanski was posted. The article paints quite a dark picture of the entire Hollywood coming in defense of a child rapist https://www.google.ee/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/30/hollywood-reverence-child-rapist-roman-polanski-convicted-40-years-on-run What I said was that for me even with all this it’s quite difficult to say that this should mean boycotting his work as I’m somewhat interested in film history and some of his are top quality films. I realized that it might be easy for most people to boycott movies of Polanski as they don’t have much interest in those particular movies anyway, but try boycotting the movies that Weinstein produced and you’ll have a real difficult dilemma if you want to equate the beneficiaries of a work with the work for moral purposes. What do people here think? Is there any good philosophical writing on this besides “Death of the Author” (I haven’t yet read that, though).

I saw The Post and I, Tonya. I think they were slightly better than Darkest Hour, well made movies, but ultimately all of these 3 movies are forgettable. The reason I bring them out together is that I saw them in cinemas within a week. Maybe some Oscars for acting are deserved here. The Post actually held the tension pretty well, though.

I saw Darkest Hour. I'm not particularly thrilled about the movie, but I think Gary Oldman's performance is unforgettable. I don't know what Winston Churchill was like for real, but somewhere in the second half of the movie, I had forgotten that I was watching an actor performing a role, I thought I was watching Winston Churchill. And of course the makeup and hair is great too. But then again, this might be unfair to actors who are not playing historic figures. I probably forget that I'm watching actors for many movies about regular people. And this time I just noticed because it was one of the most known figures of history.