Movie/TV recommendations

[Nappi]

Inception was fantastic! I appreciated how it didn't assume the audience was completely dumb but at the same time didn't pretend to be overly smart itself either by hiding things from the viewers.

The bird eye view shots of various cities were really beautiful. I guess Nolan might have a thing for city architecture especially considering that

Mr and Mrs Cobb's Perfect Place™ was essentially an endless forest of skycrapers with little else.

My single favourite thing in the movie, however: the van falling in slow motion. Majestic! I was instantly reminded of the beginning of

video which I had enjoyed so much before. I'm not quite sure what is so fascinating to me about falling slow. Maybe it reminds me of life or something, I don't know.

There could have been a bit less action towards the end, though. That is pretty much my only complaint about the movie.

[Wrestlevania]

Anyways, it comes in at a nearly unreasonable 50 minutes but it seems like people have enjoyed it. Check it out.

Verily, I shall.

I enjoyed your podcast about Inception, particular the various theories and conjecture you all talked about.

Which got me thinking...

I think the film is as it appears to be, except for the final scene--the one where Cobb returns home to his children. My stupid little theory is that Cobb has been trapped in a new dream by Ariadne, immediately after completing his mission to corrupt Fisher for Saito--if he did, in fact, "complete" that at all.

Why? Simple: Cobb's father.

After seeing Dom tormented by the death of his wife for so long, he recommended Ariadne for the mission so she could trap Dom in a new dream, where he does finally win his freedom and sees his children again at last.

That's my twist on things anyway.

[ysbreker]

I just saw gasland. A documentary about the gas winning in America. And how (predictably) the big companies are fucking up. I highly recommend watching this. It will make you go though.

[toblix]

Just ordered three seasons of the 1995 hit television show The Outer Limits from Amazon.ca:

[Sleepdance]

There are 3 theories that I devoloped about Inception. One is that so to say dream worlds are never ending(so each time you die, you wake up one level higher in reality). Second and third are about the ending with the spiner thing spining endlesly. On one hand it just looks that director is just teasing(and probably didn't even decide for himself) you and that that spiner stops after some time, just that you don't see it. On the other hand, it is possible that Cobb never actually woke up and that is actually just his dream inside dream inside....

One thing that I especialy liked about the movie was that it made a good excuse for all the bad guys(you know, when in Bonds there are just hundreds of guys without names, that you fell should be more human, not just be shooting targets. In this movie they actually make sense).

[circadianwolf]

I feel like it's missing the point to ask whether all of Inception was a dream, because

of Cobb's speech to Mal at the end

, which was, for me, the only emotional moment that really hit.

In the end, you can always (eventually) recognize a dream because it can never be as detailed and as real as the real world (e.g. Saito's carpet). In order to live in a dream, as Mal did, you have to choose to forget. Cobb doesn't want to be in a dream, so he's not. Until the end, anyway.

Or, I don't think the movie's so much interested in philosophical questions of reality as it is in psychological problems of denial and willful ignorance. I also just don't think Nolan's really interested in those kind of head games--he likes complicated plots, obviously, but they're usually very meticulous and definite rather than being ambiguous Is he or isn't he? sort of things.

YMMV obv.

[elmuerte]

Just ordered three seasons of the 1995 hit television show The Outer Limits from Amazon.ca:

wtf!?

Do they ship from the outer limits?

[Lu]

Snail mail.

By Giant Snail. Wrong delivery too. [noparse]:\[/noparse]

[toblix]

[Wrestlevania]

More of this sort of thing, 'blix.

[toblix]

Could also be this:

Xm_zuQxOI5I

[tm_drummer]

nice beats, amazing amazon box.

[syntheticgerbil]

What just happened in this thread?! Fuck movies, more of this.

[Sombre]

Jeff Goldblum is on Top gear. And he's still fantastic. Very very quirky and weird, and he kept calling Stig a "Wizard". Who payed him off?

[tm_drummer]

(spoken with a wizardly british voice) Jeff GoldGateGoldFoldGoldblum, continuously uttering the all-sacred word "Wizard"? What a marvelous unification of memes.

[elmuerte]

d'oh .. forgot about Top Gear

[sobersiddhi]

I have no idea how this flew under my radar for ten years, but just in case anyone else has missed it...

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7N2Jz1en4w&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7N2Jz1en4w&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

[elmuerte]

Saw Inception a few hours ago. It was quite ok. Yes, "ok".

So apparently the movie is actually about Cobb's relation with his dead wife. The rest is just window dressing.

And who cares who those other people are, right? I sort of saw the ending coming, but was expecting something else.

Anyway... after watching this movie I'm seriously wondering why I would even go see movies in a theater. It's quite expensive (eur 9.10 for the ticket, and 6.50 for two bottles of beer (Grolsch beugels). And in return you get to see a movie projected with ancient technology onto an enormous screen. The end result: low quality picture with a lot of natural film grain effect, and the nice flickering effect of old 60Hz CRT displays. On top of that.. that sound was annoyingly loud. The seats are uncomfortable, and I'm even relatively small for the Dutch.

[Sleepdance]

9 for a ticket?! That is expensive by itself, not to count drinks.

[JonCole]

I've been watching Veronica Mars on Netflix Instant View... really an excellent, well-made show that's worth watching if you never did the first time around. It's amazing what they can do with what can be boiled down to a story about high school kids.

I've also been watching Justice League Unlimited on DVD... not a whole lot to report that you couldn't guess yourself, I just think it deserves to be mentioned as a legit, comic-based animated series in the league of Batman: Animated Series. There are plenty of jokes and themes clearly targeted to adults rather than kids, so you don't have to be too worried about being bogged down in silly stuff.

[elmuerte]

9 for a ticket?! That is expensive by itself, not to count drinks.

It can be even more expensive, IMAX adds about 2 euro, and 3D adds another 2.5. So the most expensive ticket is about 14 euros (depending on the method of ordering).

[syntheticgerbil]

My favorite thing to do is use my debit card in AMC machines for $6.50 children's tickets and then use them to see a Rated R movie.

No one cares enough about their job to read the ticket or say anything. I must have been doing this for the past 3-4 years now. No problems yet, but if someone were to ever say anything I imagine I would just say it's an accident and cough up the money for an adult ticket.

Movie prices are fucking ridiculous otherwise.

[miffy495]

ElMuerte, it makes me sad that (judging from your tone) you think that the "ancient" technology behind a traditional theater setup automatically makes it inferior. Granted, as a projectionist I'm horribly biased, but I gotta say I love 35mm film. Film damage is irritating, and sometimes we get prints that were damaged all to hell by previous theaters and I'm ashamed to project, but if you get a good print and your projectionist knows what they're doing, it's unequaled. There is practically no upper limit on image quality, which can't be said about digital, and the sound is just due to the people putting on the show bothering to find an appropriate sound level on a film-by-film basis. The main problem with movie theaters is that multiplexes often have only one projectionist working up to 17 screens, with a few kids backing them up who are trained to press the "start" button but have no clue what they're doing aside from that. As a result, the projectionist is overworked and unable to pay the attention that each screen deserves, and the backup kids damage the fuck out of a bunch of prints. If you go to a place with 2 or 3 screens, you will see the difference. I have no idea what is giving you the flicker from a 60Hz CRT display though. Our equipment uses a high-pressure Xenon bulb, and there isn't a single CRT in the booth apart from a tiny monitor that is only on when we're forced to use our digital projector. That part of the comment just left me puzzled.

[Roderick]

Nothing beats the cinema, especially a near-empty one. The most annoying thing about cinema is still unruly visitors who don't have the courtesy to stay quiet!

Fun cinema fact: during every single viewing of any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in theatres, there would always be one time when an empty bottle of beer was kicked over in the back and rolled all the way to the front. Coincidence, or the hand of Sauron? You decide.

[Nachimir]

Cinema is dead; let's all get the H-est D TVs we can, press our faces against the screens and wank ourselves raw

elmuerte, it sounds like you are talking about a cinema, rather than cinema.