ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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This was posted quite a while back:

I got to watch it over Christmas, and enjoyed it hugely. The reviews are very mixed, but I thought it struck a nice balance of po faced and occasionally silly. It's a very aesthetic film, and kind of like 2001 and an 80's slasher flick mixed together.

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I watched it yesterday. Not sure what to think. It's weird in a way I don't fully understand, but somehow the song that plays during the end credits made the movie better ("Anonymous" by SSQM; also I now discovered SSQ, 30 years too late).

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The reason you enjoy that trailer is because it's enigmatic and aesthetically bold. Contrast this with the trailers for most films, which, regardless of the quality of the film, follow one of a handful of templates and half the time show you most of the major plot points in the film. I much prefer trailers that set a mood than those that give me a summary of the story I'm going to be told, to the tune of those bassy booms and discordantly escalating string crescendos that get people pumped up about action films, or the sad song/happy song switch they use for comedies, or the happy song/sad song switch they use for films where it starts out chirpy but then it all goes a bit shit and it's about people struggling through the shit and eventually managing to be happy again.

It's not even that I dislike the films. I'm generally pretty easy-going when it comes to the films themselves. It's the incessant repetition in the trailers that drives me mad. There must be so many other ways to get people interested. I guess it's a result of having absolutely loads of trailers to make on limited budgets, but it still strikes me as extremely lazy.

Anyway, I've not seen Beyond the Black Rainbow, so I obviously have no idea whether it's any good or not, but that trailer certainly caught my attention. That, at least, is excellent.

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The trailer plucks scenes from a surprising amount of the film, but I suppose that's because it is a very slow, almost ambient film. It doesn't give away important plot points or the finale though.

I enjoyed it because I'm a sucker for anything involving cults, feral/desocialised children, and the insane feelgood hippy institutes that sprang up in California and ended up ultimately harming people. All of which Beyond The Black Rainbow touches on.

I think a lot of people are disappointed by the ending, but I really loved how trivial Barry's downfall is. Also, that's he's called Barry, and the effort they put into making fake brands like Noriega Fine Custom Leather.

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The trailer plucks scenes from a surprising amount of the film, but I suppose that's because it is a very slow, almost ambient film. It doesn't give away important plot points or the finale though.

Well that's kind of the point: it doesn't matter how much material you use, but how you use it. I can tell you that without having seen the film, everything in that trailer means very little to me in terms of plot. There's an organisation offering making grand claims for its mind-meddling programme, a protagonist who seems to be some sort of test subject, and some shots of what look like they might be an escape attempt. Furthermore, what it does show is very fractured, and it doesn't hammer you over the head with what's happening. It seems far more concerned with aesthetics and mood.

I don't know, perhaps I'm being an idiot and I'm just distracted by the cool music, visuals and sound design, but I thought this was way more imaginative and engaging than pretty much every trailer I see at the cinema.

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No, you're absolutely right, and I agree. The film itself is also very concerned aesthetics and mood though, I wish more filmmakers could make the jump from their film to a trailer that does that :)

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So I guess G4 is out of the video games/tech business, and thinking back it struck me. The only time I've ever really seen all out gaming on G4 (XPlay is more of a showcase hour) was back in maybe '06, the very first time I watched the channel and they were having a UT2004 tournament. Never again have I seen a bunch of people just play a video game on G4.

Oh well.

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I'm not sure what Idle Forums general consensus regarding Tron is, but I've been more or less keeping up to date with the animated spin-off meant to bridge the gap between the two movies, Tron Uprising. It's easily the best thing to come out of the entire Tron concept, but it follows the usual pattern of shows that I enjoy, which is that it's constantly hampered by delays and schedule reworkings and it's not really clear when or where new episodes will arrive.

It also happens to be one of the best-looking shows on TV.

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I don't really agree. There's so much wrong with Tron: Uprising, I don't know where to start.

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the villain will be anyone associated with screwattack.com, depicted wearing an enormous gold chain emblazoned with the phrase "CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS." their trash talk will be in the form of a top ten list

90% chance it will still use Atari 2600 Pac-Man noises

I don't really agree. There's so much wrong with Tron: Uprising, I don't know where to start.

Okay, now I'm curious. I wasn't sold on the series at first (the first two episodes or so are kind of a mess and it took me a long time to get accustomed to how odd the lanky character models look when they're not in a fight scene), but I've really come to appreciate the series and this is the first time I've heard someone disagree.

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That snowball scene was uncomfortable. Was it supposed to reference something? It felt very much like a horrible massacre scene, only with snowballs.

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That snowball scene was uncomfortable. Was it supposed to reference something? It felt very much like a horrible massacre scene, only with snowballs.

Yeah, I thought that for a moment (when he burst into the house), although I don't recall feeling that when I first saw it a few years back. Probably all this talk of massacres at the moment making us sensitive?

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I got dragged into seeing Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and wasn't looking forward to it until I learned it was made by the Clone High guys. I ended up loving it, even though I never would have thought that they could make a kids' movie using the exact same style of humour.

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Absolutely one of my favourite movies. Didn't know they were making a sequel. I had to resist the temptation to pick up the phone at one in the morning and wake up my girlfriend to share the news. I guess that can wait until morning...

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Cloudy is great, and one of the few films to have done 3D well, too.

I recently saw Gangster Squad, Frankenweenie (2D), Life Of Pi (3D - also well done), Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained, and enjoyed them all very much.

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You felt it was fine if ultimately unremarkable, and that the combination of found footage shots with a documentary aesthetic for the non-diegetic camera work was initially confusing and intellectually distracting -- whilst it by no means ruined the film for you, you feel they should have just picked on or the other and stuck to their guns.

Disclaimer: The above thoughts might not actually be Orv's.

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