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Question about a film discussed in "The Idle Thumbs Podcast"

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I'm curious if someone can tell me the actual name of a film Chris Remo talked about back during "The Idle Thumbs Podcast." I think it was episode 10 or 11.

I believe it was in discussing the difference between Just Cause 2 and GTA IV, and Chris said that one reason he liked JC2 was his love of nature photography, and he mentioned a film called:

Kynas Gattsee(?)

I have no idea how to spell it, or look for it. But I was curious what it was, and what it was actually called.

Thanks guys.

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I didn't know it was a film, I figured it was just some weird Philip Glass piece, because all I had seen of it before was this clip:

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"Koi and his Goatse" - by Philip Glass.

In all seriousness, I've only ever seen Powaqatsi when I was forced to watch it in 9th grade by an English teacher, so I was definitely in a not-conducive-to-watching-that-movie frame of mind. I'm interested in checking the trilogy out now that I'm an honest to god adult, so that blu ray pack sounds awesome. Thanks for the heads up.

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Koyaanisqatsi is really remarkable for its photography and its Philip Glass score. The rest of director Godfrey Reggio's work doesn't quite add up in my opinion, and Koyaanisqatsi director of photography Ron Fricke's solo work (Baraka, Samsara) is also kind of light although still impressive from a purely photographic point of view. I think Koyaanisqatsi's the best of both of their work, probably due to a lucky confluence of three talents working together.

I wrote a paragraph using the word "Koyaanisqatsi" three times!

That said, if you're not averse to abstract poetic documentaries, Powaqqatsi and Baraka are also well worth watching. Naqoyqatsi uses a lot of CGI and therefore takes away a lot of the power of the first two. There are 70mm Baraka prints in circulation though so if you live in a town with a repertory theater equipped with 70mm projectors you have a good chance of being able to see it in a spectacular format. Haven't seen Samsara yet.

All the "qatsi" words are native american and describe what the film is about but I don't remember what any of them mean. Something like "life out of balance, life in technology, and life in conflict.

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I'd like to talk about a game discussed in the Idle Thumbs podcast, but the only thing I caught was

"vaark rye too"

Also, does anyone know about this game called Grim Fandango? It's by a company called Lucasarts and from 1998.

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I've seen Baraka, but unfortunately not on 70mm. I actually was the only full time projectionist at Calgary's only reputable repertory for about 3 years before it unfortunately fell under new management and became mostly a second-run theatre that stopped being interesting. We were not set up for 70mm though, so the print I ran for our screening was a restored 35mm. That was awesome though. Didn't know it was the same director. I should definitely check out the -qatsis.

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To make it clear, the -qatsi films all have the same director, but only the first has Ron Fricke doing the photography. Fricke has also directed some unrelated movies.

Imo only Koyaanisqatsi and Fricke's stuff is worth seeing.

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if you like Fricke's work in Koyaanisqatsi you might also want to check out Chronos.

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I'm curious if someone can tell me the actual name of a film Chris Remo talked about back during "The Idle Thumbs Podcast."

Say no more, the film was "Jurrassic Park".

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Can I just say, with the risk of offending some people, that I didn't really get what was so great about Buckaroo Banzai? I understand the gist of the film, but it was just so incredibly poor en boring, even with the inclusion of Gone Goldblum.

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I once wrote a recommendation of it so I'll just copy + paste that and edit it a bit because I can't help but tinker with things:

There are so many things to like about Buckaroo Banzai. It's a fun '80s comedy/science fiction movie that gets half of its laughs from crazy performances and one-liners and the other half from sheer ridiculousness played straight, but part of its brilliance is in just how straight it plays things. Rather than simply spoof the craziness of science fiction, it goes one step further and riffs on the mythology of the overstuffed universes that science fiction loves to build for itself. From the very first scene, all the way to the end of the film, which promises that Buckaroo Banzai will return in "Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League," the movie assumes a familiarity with a sci-fi universe that doesn't exist. The disparity between the characters in the film, who have all heard of the famous Buckaroo Banzai, and the viewer, who can't even figure out what he does, starts out massive and keeps growing, and it serves as a wonderful launchpad for the over-the-top performances from John Lithgow and Christopher Lloyd, while simultaneously making (for example) Jeff Goldbum's comparatively understated performance as a fellow neurosurgeon who spends the movie wearing a bright red cowboy outfit into a fun running joke that is funnier because the characters think they're in on it. But they can't be in on it: they've bought in to the movie's central premise (or, really, the movie's many central premises) because in their universe it all somehow has to fit together, but for us it's simply a smörgåsbord of absurdity. What's amazing about the movie is how sustained it all is, so no example or set of examples will ever suffice, nor could I pick a favorite, but:

And of course he doesn't tell him later.

The movie's full of action, Rastafarian aliens, a love story that makes no sense, ridiculous gadgets, and a stupendously fun end credits sequence, but it is above all a beautiful exercise in perfectly walking the fine tightrope between ridiculous parody and simple ridiculousness. Buckaroo Banzai is one of the rare class of cult movies that tried very hard to be the sort of movie that gains a cult following, and succeeded in spades.

And you can't tell me the ending credits didn't make you feel amazing.

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The end credits are furiously fun and the thing that drew me to watching Buckaroo Banzai in the first place. I understand everything you're saying, but experientially I was just never enjoying the film. I hesitate to give it another go because I've burned myself once on this already. I want to understand why this has a following, I want to feel what you're writing about. But it certainly didn't happen the first time.

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I think much of the minute to minute enjoyment of Buckaroo Banzai has to come from the performances (great actors doing crazy things!), trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and just marveling at the weirdness of the aliens and the science fiction gadgets. It's also sometimes an action movie, so if you can enjoy an action film as an action film, there's that. But the sense of humor suffused through the whole thing is pretty crucial and if it doesn't click with you it will probably be pretty tedious a lot of the time. If Jeff Goldblum as neurosurgeon showing up in a cowboy getup or the exploits of the Blue Blaze Irregulars or the fact that the test vehicle Banzai drives is a Ford pickup truck don't make you laugh then it'll be hard to wring joy from the film.

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I love Buckaroo Banzai, but it's simply badly paced and suffes for it a lot. It's a great shame.

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