ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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Sorry for the double post but I just saw another great movie :)

black_snake_moan.jpg

Black Snake Moan

This movie is directed and written by the same guy who did the excellent hustle and flow. This time the story takes place in rural America where a farmer who just broke up with his wife finds an unconscious girl on the road in front of his house. He takes her in and nurses her back to health. The girl appears to be rather a nymphomaniac and the man decides to cure her from that by chaining her up.

This might sound like some cheesy B movie horror plot. But in reality the movie has a lot of depth and meaning to it. It's a must see. Especially for the stellar acting of Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci. You even get to see Sam play some excellent blues guitar and sing too!

Go see this movie!

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Mrs V. and I watched The Fountain [2006] this weekend (when I managed to crawl out of my death bed for a couple of hours).

The basic story is about the love between Hugh Jackman's and Rachel Weisz's characters, through three distinct ages; Middleages Spain, modern day and far-flung future (which is incredibly disorientating the first few times you see it). The purpose of the film is to explore whether man can truly influence destiny, or whether everything is already written and we are just acting out the parts.

It's an odd film, not very accessible and something you need to watch very intently to follow with any success. You also need to be able to fill in a lot of gaps and fit what few pieces you're given together, too.

My wife initally described it as "very religeous" upon it ending, but I'd say it's much more about spirituality. The overall story arch is touching and meaningful, as is the accompanying theme of the film. But you certainly have to work hard to get to the end. For example, there were perhaps a half-dozen occasions in the first 45mins where we repeatedly asked each other if it was just rubbish and we should switch it off.

Definitely a rental, but only if you want something to completely absorb yourself in.

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I just watched the first episode of Dexter and I'm hooked already. I was told that Dexter is super-intelligent but no-one told me that he is also, well, a psychopath. It's a pretty brave thing to do in a tv show and what gives it that extra edge. Looking forward to the rest now.

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Dexter is fantastic. Wait till you get to the final scene of the first season, after the main plotline has been solved. It's hilarious.

And don't believe Wrestlevania, The Fountain is fantastic as well. I ordered the DVD straight away when I was reminded to do that by Wrestle's post.

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I don't know anyone who has hated the Fountain. Opinions seem to be divided between :eek: and :clap:. One friend of mine, for example, saw it 5 times in the theater alone. He has the DVD now, I'm not sure how many times he's watched it, but I'm guessing quite a few. The flip side is a bunch of people who were just puzzled. Didn't hate it, just wondered what was so special. I'd suggest seeing it just to see where you fall on the matter.

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Yesterday I saw Apt Pupil for the first time. That's something you don't see every day: apparently fascism is a virus that you can contract and that makes you Evil? Behind its 'edgy intelligent' facade was a very shallow movie. Bit of a disappointment, but it had its strong points.

After that came the colourful French comedy/drama/musical 8 Femmes. Why are good movies like that aired only after midnight and not getting the attention they deserve?

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I've just seen Primer. It's a relly interesting take on... well, on something, and what it is may be considered a spoiler, so just jump right to Amazon, buy the film and don't look at reviews ;)

It speaks volumes about how stupid I am that I had no idea what's going on thorough the entire movie, but the beautiful thing is that it all makes sense. Every piece falls into place during rewatching and rethinking, but at first it's just this major kick in the gray matter.

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Primer is awesome. Also very, very confusing :)

After binge watching season three of Lost this weekend, my opinion has reset from a season 2 "oh fuck this" to "Lost is okay". At least it has some evident structure and development now. Still not sure if it will stretch its newfound credibility budget through three more seasons though.

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why couldn't Peter fly into the air himself without Nathan's help?

Don't forget that Peter's absorbing Sylar's powers and he's having trouble controlling it all.

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By the way TDL is the first Anderson movie NOT to feature Bill Murray in some role.

Not true actually. Bottle Rocket didn't have Bill Murray in it aswell.

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Ahh, yes. I totally forgot that one as it's the only Anderson movie I haven't seen.

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Saw that trailer for the first time earlier tonight. Came into the theater to start my shift and discovered that someone had added it to the front of Danny Boyle's Sunshine over the weekend without checking with me. Once I saw what it was, all was forgiven of course.

My theater's program planner has actually lined up a pretty decent summer for us, which is rare for an art house. Most of our business usually comes 'round Oscar season. This summer though, after Sunshine (great, btw) we get King of Kong, Paprika, and The Darjeeling Limited. I'm really pumped for the summer/fall movies for the first time in years. We also had Eagle vs Shark for a while last month, which drew a lot of unfair comparrisons to Napoleon Dynamite but in reality was a far, far better movie. If it's still running where you are (or already on DVD) I highly reccommend checking it out.

Finally, it's worth noting that in North America, The Host came out on DVD on Tuesday. Buy it. For the love of god, buy it.

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I watched Paprika whilst laid up in bed with a virus last week.

It's superb and some of the best anime I've ever seen - not that I'm any sort of connoisseur of such things nowadays... :shifty:

The soundtrack is also brilliant.

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I want to see that one. I really like Satoshi Kon's last movie too: Millennium Actress. A nicely underplayed, subtle feel-good drama. Everything your parents think Anime wasn't.

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There was another Kon's Movie after the brilliant Millenium Actress : its title is Tokyo Godfather and it's worth checking it out. Mind you, it's really different from the other movies, but it's pretty good anyway. Then, there was Paranoia Agent, which is one of my favorite anime series (13 episodes) of all time : mind blowing in every sense.

After watching all this stuff (plus the early movies), Paprika felt a bit of a step back in Kon's filmography : it's a bit simplistic, makes great mysteries of obvious plot elements, doesn't really built to any kind of point. a bit vain even though still esthetically gorgeous.

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You have a point; it does strike me as quite a self-indulgent film when I think about it. But it's definitely more about the sensory experience (and disorientation) than any great command of narrative or story-telling.

Paprika tickles the synapses and I liked it.

Going by your brief description, Paranoia Agent sounds like it's worth tracking down. I'll make a point of doing this.

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Holy Crap! I just saw that Tales of Earthsea is out today! It may have got mixed reviews (mixed as in "awesome, but not as awsome as papa Miyazaki's") but it combines two things I love: Ghibli Studios and LeGuin's Earthsea series. Anyone else going to see this?

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Are you sure brkl? I know that she was majorly pissed off with the Sci-Fi Channel's two-part adaptation (and so was I; it was abysmal and bore only the faintest relation to the source material). Maybe you're thinking of that. I'll have a look and see if she's published a reaction to this new one.

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