ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Just watched Rosemary's Baby, which was great. It was a much easier film to watch than Repulsion, probably because it was a little less "artsy" and more like the capitalist Hollywood trash I'm used to consuming.

I dunno about that. The promise and premise of the movie, i.e.

Rosemary gets impregnated by the devil and gives birth to a demon child, is never really played for the obvious reasons (evil people want to bring about the end of the world because they are evil and hate goodness) and in the obvious ways (she gets saved by her paladin in the last moment and the monster child has been defeated... or has it?! PA-RA-PA-PAA! Cue night sky with lightning, hand poking through a grave, etc). The movie was more about a meek woman's abuse at the hands of her husband and the society she fell into. The whole devil baby business is really a MacGuffin.

It is kindof ironic that it is a Polanski movie. Or maybe not, I can't tell. You would expect a creepyish pedophile to not have as much capacity for empathy with a young woman being coerced and abused by stronger people.

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Just watched Repulsion. That's one crazy girl. Hadn't seen any Polanski films before, but now I'm looking forward to Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant, which I've also got lined up.

Those other two are good, but not as good as Repulsion. Also...how about the soundtrack in Repulsion? Great huh?

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The whole devil baby business is really a MacGuffin.

Yeah, but it really sweetens the pill for the low-brow moviegoer, as that's a more instantly watchable narrative or whatever.

It is kindof ironic that it is a Polanski movie. Or maybe not, I can't tell. You would expect a creepyish pedophile to not have as much capacity for empathy with a young woman being coerced and abused by stronger people.

That's a very interesting perspective. I've sort of tried not to think much about and research the guy and his dealings for the purposes my enjoyment of his films, but maybe I should do the complete opposite...
Those other two are good, but not as good as Repulsion. Also...how about the soundtrack in Repulsion? Great huh?

Oh God yes. I forgot to mention that, but it was fantastic. Very intense! The music in Rosemary's Baby, especially the lalala one, was also sufficiently haunting and depressing.

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Micmacs

Even though it's quite heavy on the orange and teal, it is quite an awesome movie. It's by the same guy that made The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen.

It has been quite a long time since I saw a movie as entertaining as this one.

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What did you make of Greenberg, Ben? It left a peculiar taste in my mouth. I can certainly understand some people hating it (and I did initially -- the guy was such a twat), but I ended up liking it a day later.

I'm sure I'll be up for some Prince Charles at some point. That day was just a weird one for me, otherwise I probably would have joined you.

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Micmacs

Even though it's quite heavy on the orange and teal, it is quite an awesome movie. It's by the same guy that made The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen.

It has been quite a long time since I saw a movie as entertaining as this one.

Oh yeah, I saw that too last Saturday evening. I haven't had that enjoyable of a time in a theatre for a while. It was very inventive. I loved all the silent comedy bits as well, nice to see that kind of throwback.

The only thing was I found the movie very hard to follow in terms of just understanding all the intricacies of everything going on, just because everything constantly kept happening so fast. I was at a movie tavern, so literally a blink or a quick look away at my food was causing me to miss stuff. That's fine though, it just means it's a moving begging for repeat viewings.

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My schedule today:

Greenberg at the Cineworld Haymarket, 12:30

Brothers Bloom at PCC 15:40

Bad Lieutenant New Orleans at PCC 1830

Anyone fancy any of that? (You will have to hate sun and football.)

I was out of town for the weekend. Sounds like a good day, though, did you have fun?

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So, Greenberg was quite good. Lots of good performances, but it was all just rather understated and inconsequential. A bit like About Schmidt. Lead actress is really good, and HOT in a completely normal-looking, natural way. Very refreshing, that.

Brothers Bloom was fun, not quite as powerful as Brick. Very meandering for a con flick. Kind of unraveled in the second half, but enjoyable all the way through.

Bad Lieutenant was hilariously batshit crazy. Deffo the one I'd recommend of the three.

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The old Bad Lieutenant from 1993 - the one with Harvey Keitel - is an excellent movie. Not because of the way it was shot (which I remember was decent), but because of the performances and the goddamn story. One of the most fitting endings in movie history.

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I guess between overloading on too many Beany and Cecil cartoons, I got The Maxx cartoon on DVD recently from Amazon.com's special DVD-R program. Well worth the money.

743519-maxx044_super.jpg

Besides being almost amazingly true to the comic, which is rare for an American TV cartoon show based on something, it also manages to wrap up the story short as the comic went on well after the cartoon was done (although not that well).

Some of the animation is choppy or weirdly off model in some places, and not in the intentional offmodel way that Sam Kieth employs in all his comics, but the way where someone maybe inexperienced or unfamiliar with the characters was given a scene to quickly finish. This all probably stems from the outsourcing done. Other than that, I love the character performances and almost all of the animation tended to be top notch for something moving around gritty pen and ink characters.

The tone and atmosphere in this show is still amazing from when I had last seen it over a decade ago. I'm sad not much has come out this experimental in terms of animation TV shows then. It's suprising how the animation makes the comic story much easier to follow. Also I like how since it's so close to the comic, it also does well on detailing Sam Kieth's start on a offbeat superhero comic for the then up and coming Image but devolving into something completely different from the Image line, with the whole 70s underground comics life stories and Vaughn Bode style weirdness mixed in. This probably completely led to the comics end and Sam Kieth's weird method of disappearing or delivering his work extremely late, to the point that everyone forgot he had something to deliver, but I always have time for the guy. The comics meant a lot as a younger teenager.

Anyway, there's my plug or whatever. I don't have much to critique, I love it. I guess next up is listening to the full series commentary on the DVD.

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Oh man, I used to love watching the Maxx on TV. Does this mean that I missed a legit DVD release? Has there been one for The Head as well?

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I started rewatching Angel a few days ago. I feel completely justified in saying it is my favourite long running TV programme again

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I started rewatching Angel a few days ago. I feel completely justified in saying it is my favourite long running TV programme again

What a great, and often underrated series :tup:

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I'm going to call in the POWER OF THUMB to help me find this movie that's probably from the 80s or early 90s. I can't find it, so maybe one of you knows.

It's about lunatics going on leave for a trip to the city. One of them ends up in a church and naked. The protagonist is also a loony, but at the end gets the girl, I think. There's probably some contrived action plot going on too, but it's a comedy. It's probably bad. But I need to know :)

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I'm going to call in the POWER OF THUMB to help me find this movie that's probably from the 80s or early 90s. I can't find it, so maybe one of you knows.

It's about lunatics going on leave for a trip to the city. One of them ends up in a church and naked. The protagonist is also a loony, but at the end gets the girl, I think. There's probably some contrived action plot going on too, but it's a comedy. It's probably bad. But I need to know :)

American movie? British? Dutch? Where is it set?

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Oh man, I used to love watching the Maxx on TV. Does this mean that I missed a legit DVD release? Has there been one for The Head as well?

Yeah I guess it's legit enough because it has legitmate extras, it's somewhat barebones but it does have the full commentary and the picture quality is sharp.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Maxx-Complete-Series/dp/B002WJHDJI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1278272475&sr=8-1

And it appears the complete series of The Head came out this way as well, cool!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Head-Complete-Series/dp/B002WJHDIO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1278272475&sr=8-3

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American movie? British? Dutch? Where is it set?

Oh, it's a typical Hollywood comedy, set in probably New York or a New Yorkish city.

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Rodi, that's The Dream Team, starring Michael Keaton and Christopher Lloyd. Peter Boyle ends up naked in a church.

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Anyone else excited for Toy Story 3? Interesting idea came to me during rewatching old ones: The reason that kids are the ones who most enjoe cartoons is the fact that when every living thing on earth is born, the one and most important thing it has to do is to learn everything that it can for easier survival. Here come cartoons handy, since every one of the represents new world. So the easiest way for children to learn about life is simply to watch the screen where magical things appear. Got it?

Probably not.

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I saw Toy Story 3 in THREEEE-DEEE actually. It was an awesome Pixar film, AGAIN. I really don't want to spoil, but it had some very powerful moments. Great piece of storytelling.

I like how they don't treat their target audience like complete morons, like some other CG/cartoon creators do. I saw the American CG movie of Astro Boy and it was terrible in that regard.

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I'm going to un-recommend "Cop Out"... seriously... this was a Kevin Smith movie?! I'd rather watch Shadow And Colossus: Back in Action, it's much better as a buddy cop movie.

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Rodi, that's The Dream Team, starring Michael Keaton and Christopher Lloyd. Peter Boyle ends up naked in a church.

Yes! Well done. I remember the bit where they're singing "Hit the Road Jack" in the car.

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