ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I just watched the original Oldboy, and for a ridiculously convoluted revenge story it was incredibly entertaining throughout. Something about casual everyday violence with hammers and sticks instead of MP5s and M4s is really personal and striking.

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Halfway through the first season of The X-Files...

 

It's amazing how Scully is conveniently absent for every single incident that would prove SOMETHING WACKY is happenin', and even when she is present for something weird, she continues to insist there's a reasonable explanation. I actually really enjoy the Mulder/Scully dynamic, or I'd probably be ready to quit soon. Will it get old to me, though? Does she ever "believe"? She has to! There's nine seasons! AND TWO MOVIES! Dang how did they go for that long.

 

I wonder how The X-Files would feel if it were made today. A lot of this is stuff I'd absolutely have bought into when I was younger. Was it ever a big hit among adults at the time? Or was it just a product of its time, and a new X-Files with more modern myths and legends would feel to adults today as X-Files of yesteryear felt then? As it is, most of this stuff is just weird and cheesey and not really even remotely believable. Which is fine. I'm okay with that.

 

I enjoy thinking about all of these things for the first time even though I'm sure it's been discussed and dissected to death among older fans.

 

I was totally thinking about this the other day. I'm also re-watching The X-Files and a lot of it seems so cheesy and implausible now. Have I just gotten more knowledgeable / skeptical or has society in general? Conspiracy theories seem a lot harder to buy when they can be easily debunked on Wikipedia within a few minutes. Also, after the 9/11 attacks, it's a lot harder for me to believe that the US Government has the competence to cover up the existence of aliens.

 

Ultimately, I think it's best when you approach the same way you might approach Lovecraft story or some other piece of classic sci-fi. You have to just allow yourself to adjust your brain into the mode of the time and take it for what it is. Also part of the draw for me is it walks my memory back to being a teenager in the 90's.

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I'm not re-watching. I'm just watching.

 

I could totally buy into a conspiracy thing in a contemporary setting. It wouldn't have to be "the government" as we know it. It could be some arbitrary "secret organization" that most of the government doesn't know about. I mean, that's how it's always done these days. No different from the original, really, except maybe taken to the next level. Suspension of disbelief is an easy thing when it comes to dumb stuff like that. What I wouldn't be able to buy into is the Scully as a skeptic thing. I'm already having a hard enough time here... With cameras in our shoes these days there's no way Mulder wouldn't have a vast database of visual proof, instead of the stereotypical blurry photos he's got in the existing X-Files. Can't just rip out the film and expose it to light to ruin it, these days. No one uses film! Today's conspiracy nut would have auto backups from his phone's camera to some secure location etc whatever.

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Another thing I like about The X-Files is that not everything is some wacky shit. Some of it actually DOES have a reasonable* explanation, even if it at first appears to be some wacky shit.

 

*For varying levels of reasonable.

 

EDIT: I say that and then I finish up the last  three minutes of this episode - "Fire" - and whoops it's now implied he actually is pyrokinetic. WELP.

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I'm watching a K-drama with a X-files dynamic; she can see dead people, he is a no-nonsense business man. It has a much different tone than X-files and the first couple of episode are very Quantum Leapy, but the forced pairing of someone who believes and someone who does not is fun. The way the writer sets it in modern day is just by giving one of the characters a sixth sense that allows her to see things that can later be confirmed.

http://www.viki.com/videos/1008739v-masters-sun-episode-1

They made the X-files just in time because there is something really cool about having a document of a pre-internet, TimeLife-Mysteries world. I often become nostalgic for the ignorant times, when a man named Ripley could travel the world after receiving letters which told him of amazing things that he had to see to believe; and the resulting newspaper comic-strip would surprise and inspire me more than the front page of Reddit.

A new version of the X-files would probably be in the style of cops and would include as much snuff-film footage as is legally possible. Gross.

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Fringe basically was new x files, though it eventually gave into lore mystery bs because hey it's jj abrams and co. Enjoyed the first few seasons though, plus john noble was great.

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Yeah, the first season of Fringe was kind a grim x-files rip with half the spirit, but it found it's place and eventually went to some really neat places. Anna Torv and John Noble are great. She starts off pretty wooden, but by the time she's playing two different versions of herself she gets nicely nuanced. I was kind of bummed that she seemed to be half written out during the final season.

 

Also, I love that they actually made a Violet Sedan Chair lp and hid copies in used record stores around the country. 

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MORE ON X-FILES: This episode ("E.B.E.") followed our friends Mulder and Scully visiting a bunch of paranoid motherfuckers worried the government is listening in on their every conversation. Totally implausible, of course!

 

Hello NSA! I'm friendly!

 

In other words, a modern X-Files, I think, would be impossible. Because a lot of it is about government conspiracy (as established) which includes paranoia that we're all being watched. Which is... so much more true, now. Or at least known to be true. Where's the conspiracy when we've got it all written out for us by the government itself!

 

Stay tuned for tomorrow when I have a completely different opinion again.

 

 

A new version of the X-files would probably be in the style of cops and would include as much snuff-film footage as is legally possible. Gross.

I don't get the joke. U:

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I don't get the joke. U:

Since I think of X-files as a pulp procedural with thriller-leanings, I assume its modern day equivalent would be C.S.I. I haven't seen much C.S.I., but when I did I was disgusted by how the show serves short, gruesome clips of violent sex-crime dramatizations as if it was a reward during conditioning. I thought it was gross.

And the Cops part was that everything has to have a reality-tv edge these days.

As you can tell, I'm unfairly cynical about american television.

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Watched Charlie Brooker's 2013 Wipe last night, and was surprised to find myself bored for large parts of it. I wonder if there's been to many big easy targets this year for a satirical news show like this to really tell any jokes I haven't already heard a thousand times.

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I just finished watching that too. It's an entertaining watch but yeah it never feels as cutting or clever as it used to be.

Although I'm very pleased to see that weekly wipe is back on starting 9th Jan, I've got the TiVo set.

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The Wolf of Wallstreet

 

Go watch this, now. Even if you don't usually watch movies. It's hilarious and depraved and amazing and Leo will finally get his Best Actor Oscar, if not for the rest of his great performance then just for one scene that... have you ever seen, or heard, the stories of people trying pot brownies for the first time? You eat one, twenty minutes later you've got nothing, so you eat another, and ten minutes later nothing so you eat another, and then finally at 45+ minutes in it hits and...

 

Now imagine that, but with this hallucinagenic drug called a lude, and... yeah he's going to win. But then this entire movie is awesome, it's Goodfellas but comedy about white collar crime instead of a drama about blue collar. It's Scorsese at his best and most depraved. It's 3 hours of awesome that flies by like nobodies business.

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I'm looking forward to this. Only heard about it about a week ago, and read the synopsis, but reading what you said makes me all the more excited. Jan 17th in the UK!

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Yeah Wolf of Wallstreet was pretty fucking great. If you don't enjoy Scorsese (first, re-examine your life, because you're doing it wrong) than maybe don't see it; it is one hell of a Scorsese ass film.

 

Also, just watched Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind and Haywire. I recommend both, but each very conditionally. Spotless Mind is one of the most Mature movies about relationships and who we choose to trust/spend time with. That in mind, it isn't a love story in the way Nicolas Spark has made famous. As someone who HATES optimism (I do, especially in film) for generally being chessy and shoehorned in I felt the last 3 minutes were the most real and mature i've ever seen in what essentially is a romantic comedy (granted, one that's insanely dark and twisted). Haywire, on the other hand, simply appeals to me as a film nerd. If you don't know what it is, then it's worth watching the opening 20 minutes or so, but keep in mind, it's a slow ass movie, and will only be enjoyed by people looking for more of an interesting experience, than one of action or story. My one issue with it was that the music felt composed for something of a Bond-like and clashed heavily with the slow pacing and generally just blared brass at me for 10 minutes while the protagonist chased through alley after alley. 

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I've seen that linked many times on twitter. I don't know.. it just looks like shit to me. Unwatchable shit. I know that's the whole point.. but it just feels like instead of parodying the awful 80s shit it just is.. shit.

I did really like the Viking appearing in the lake, though. That looked well-made, but thoroughly ridiculous, which felt like a much better homage to wacky 80s stuff than the rest of the trailer..

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I like that trailer. However, I doubt there's much more to enjoy in that project. Jokes like that don't keep for an hour and a half. Or ten minutes.

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Yesterday I watched Tron, and then Tron: Legacy.

Man the sequel sucks :(

The worst part of the sequel is that the creators declare Tron 2.0 (the Video game) non-canon. Maybe they should have fixed the dumb movie script to include Tron 2.0, because it was a good game and a great continuation of the Tron story (unlike Tron: Legacy and Tron: Uprising).

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I think I've never recommended an Estonian movie, but this Estonian-Georgian one "Mandariinid" is pretty good. If it was more violent and set in Africa instead of Georgia, it could be the Far Cry 2 of cinema.

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