Movie/TV recommendations

[SuperBiasedMan]

Yeah I enjoyed Crimson peak as another movie by Del Toro where it's just a well made film. It doesn't do anything super unique or original but what he does do works quite well. In the same vein as Pacific Rim, but I guess by the books action movies seem to be received better for some reason.

[Patrick R]

I just got home from a 24 hour horror film festival. My message to you is this: Xtro is an insane, totally fucked up movie. But it is more insane and more fucked up if it is 6 AM, you have been awake for a day, and you are watching the only known 35mm print in existence. 

[syntheticgerbil]

Honestly I don't know why there aren't any legit Youtube like sites out there (that aren't porn) that create good competition as far as ad revenue.

 

There's like Dailymotion and that's it. The only time I'm on the awfully made website Dailymotion is to download some kind of thing that has been taken off of Youtube because of a copyright claim.

[TheLastBaron]

I feel like I watch a lot of stuff on Vimeo, but it's probably actually not that much.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I imagine it's to do with the facts that video sharing is a hard nut to crack and Internet services are rife with monopolies because a service being popular makes it far more attractive on the Internet than a new one does.

[marblize]

I burned through all of Teen Wolf last month. I'm in love. 

 

The mythology is deep and interesting and it's so refreshingly not-incredibly-white-straight-and-male.

 

<3 <3 <3

 

Also I enjoyed this write-up on Crimson Peak.

[melmer]

Warcraft trailer - movie look bad/boring

The real actors or humans look completely mis-cast, the King looks straight out of black adder and the hero is a poor mans Aragon

Hateful 8 trailer - did they just give away the twist at the end good damn it stop watching trailers, I should know better for films I know I'm going to go see

[Brett E]

I watched a few episodes of the new Aziz Ansari show Master of None on Netflix. Good so far, it's a similar sort of thing as Louie but not quite as 'out there'. If you like his stand up stuff then check it out, it has a lot of the same themes but in a light dramatised story format.

[Ben X]

Yeah, I'm currently watching and enjoying it. There's some ropey acting across the board, but I especially liked the extended and relatively high-budget 'thought process' sequences (I'm mainly thinking of the

parent life-stories

).

[marblize]

Hateful 8 trailer - did they just give away the twist at the end good damn it stop watching trailers, I should know better for films I know I'm going to go see

 

I've read the script and I don't think the new trailer gives anything particularly egregious away..? Lots of quick cuts though so I guess if you honed in and really noticed things then maybe.

[namman siggins]

Looks great

 

[Ninety-Three]

I am horribly, miserably sick, and I have so little energy that I spent ten minutes staring at the landing page of Minecraft not clicking "Start". I figure that means I'm going to be lying in bed watching a lot of movies until I get better. Does anyone have any recommendations for "quiet" movies that would be good to watch while in this low-energy state?

[TheLastBaron]

The first thing that comes to mind is The Quiet Earth (probably because it has the word 'quiet' in the title). It's quiet and easy to watch, I find it relaxing.

[BadHat]

Probably an obvious recommendation, but Lost in Translation fo shizzle.

[castorp]

The Man From Earth is a great 'guiet' movie. Station Agent is fantastic and funny and calm, there is some tragedy though. Another Earth might be a fit, In Your Eyes as well.

[BadHat]

Oh! If you're into reading subs, Adrift in Tokyo is really cozy watch. Maaan I really need to rewatch that.

[Bolegium]

Code 46 is the first movie I thought of, it has a hazy/dream-like quality to it at least. Or you could just listen to the soundtrack, which is ambient 'post-rock' bliss: 

 

I feel like something directed by Jim Jarmusch would be fitting too, maybe Coffee and Cigarettes, or Broken Flowers?

 

Departures (2008) might also be in/appropriate (depending on how severe your illness is). Stuff from Studio Ghibli is probably another obvious rec.

 

I really liked Monsters (2010) as well. Mostly dialogue, and another blissful soundtrack.

[Mawd]

How about 'Planet Earth' or one of the other Sir David Attenborough series?

Same for Cosmos.

Seeing as yer not much more than a sponge right now it might be a good time to sponge some pop science.

As for actual movies I'm not much of a buff anymore especially for quiet movies. But the BBC miniseries In The Flesh is spectacular and hopefully the righ amount of loud and quiet to see.

[Patrick R]

Uncle Boonme Recalls His Past Lives. Very relaxing movie. I can't do meditation, but watching this movie is the closest I ever got. It's just creepy enough to keep you interested, but ultimately too affable and pleasant to ever actually be scary.

 

[Gormongous]

A great synopsis of the biggest problem that I had with Spectre. Warning, there are major spoilers about the identity, history, and agenda of Christoph Waltz's character.

 

I wonder if there's more to be teased out about the current vogue of making motives for the villains of action movies be so "personal." Looking at it with my eyes crossed, I'd almost see the manifestation of a modern anxiety about you having done someone wrong in your past, without knowing it, and them having devoted their life to punishing you for it. The protagonist/antagonist relationships in Star Trek Into Darkness, Dark Knight Rises, and Spectre all remind me of this song:

 

[tberton]

Along with those ones, every Iron Man, every Spider-Man, X-Men 2, X-Men 3, X-Men: First Class, Thor, Thor 2, Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: the Winter Soldier and every Fantastic Four movie all have villains that have a personal connection to the heroes.

 

That said, it might just be an easy way to add layers to the stakes of a conflict. After all, the original Kahn also had a personal connection to Kirk; Vader was Luke's father; Hans' brother enacts revenge on John McClain in Die Hard with a Vengeance; and comic book movies feature a lot of those dynamics because comic books have too. 

[Gormongous]

That said, it might just be an easy way to add layers to the stakes of a conflict. After all, the original Kahn also had a personal connection to Kirk; Vader was Luke's father; Hans' brother enacts revenge on John McClain in Die Hard with a Vengeance; and comic book movies feature a lot of those dynamics because comic books have too. 

 

Reading you say that, I think that the real issue there is that a number of important pop-culture landmarks in decades past have used the surprise twist of a personal connection, making it an accepted part of the "kill the cat" scriptwriting philosophy even as its popularity gave it diminishing returns as a useful point on which to anchor the plot. It's so good that everyone uses it, which makes it suck.

[Ben X]

Speaking of which, a popular modern version of "save the cat" seems to be "punish the child pornographer".

[SecretAsianMan]

A villain who wants to take over the world is far too cartoonish to be taken seriously.  However everyone can get behind the idea of wanting revenge against someone who was once an asshole to you.  Saving the world is just a bonus.

[elmuerte]

Hans' brother enacts revenge on John McClain in Die Hard with a Vengeance; and comic book movies feature a lot of those dynamics because comic books have too. 

 

Except that Simon wasn't out to kill John, it was just a nice extra. The goal was the gold.