The last film you saw

[Daxis]

Oz was alright.
There were a lot of reasons to like it. There was a LOT of scenery/3d porn, though, particularly in the beginning. Also, coupled with its sequel/sister film, the ending leaves a bad taste in my mouth, particularly in how the symbolism is never actually achieved in the real world (although I guess it would thusly be more of a character inner growth story, I guess :\)

Spoiler: Why the ending felt weird to me

So, uh, as far as I can remember, in dorothy's oz adventure we had an old guy pretend to be the wizard cause he couldn't get home/didn't want to. So then dorothy goes lol go home with me, and then they just go. Coupled with what we know what happened here... It's like, damn, everyone you know is dead, dude, that's just sad.
Also, I really woulda liked it if he came back to the real world and solve all the SYMBOLISM that his oz adventure made, rather than just hah my life is awesome. The world of Oz takes a distinctly REAL turn with this development, which wasn't my cup of tea - I'd have preferred a symbolic adventure in the style of dorothy. Also, if it's real, the whole resolution that Oz made with the witches is rather.... petty. He doesn't have any actual powers so anything the wicked witch tries to do, she'd get away scot free. But I'm looking too deeply into this.

 

[Ellie]

Last night I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I say I watched it, that shit is long, I left halfway through, made myself some dinner, came back, it was still going. I managed to eat my dinner before it finished.
Tip, you should set aside a whole day if you are thinking of watching it.
Although it is a very good film xD

My local exhibition centre has a room they've called the Toot Suite.

 

[moog]

django was funny as fuck

didnt feel like a tarantino film but yeahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa it was pretty cool. Im downloading the new dbz movie as we speak and the new miyazaki film

 

[JD_Slasha]

Just saw Iron man 3. Fun. :D

 

[Jason]

Lol JD, just come back from seeing it like 10 minutes ago...

It was... meh.

 

[Ellie]

Didn't watch the film, but put the Gone with the Wind DVD on, and thought it was broken. Turns out the first five or ten minutes is literally just really, really slow music with the word OVERTURE on the screen. Pretentious or what?

 

[Jason]

Eww, lol.

 

[Venetia]

iron man 3 was okay. better than 2 but not as good as 1. the "wtf? what how is that logical" moments were rather plentiful.

 

[Byron]

I watched Grave of the Fireflies last night. That shit is sad, but I don't get why everyone is all like "OMGEEE TOTES SADDEST FILM EVAR! DON'T WATCH IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CRY." Watched it, didn't cry. It did make me sad, but not to the point of breaking down into tears and having an existential crisis like most of the people who watch it.
But yeh. Watch it. It offers a great insight on japan in that time and is generally a cute film.

Spoiler: This WILL ruin the plot for you. Only look at it if you have seen the film.

I hated the aunt. I think everyone hated the aunt. She was a bitch. Constantly going on about how her husband and daughter serve the country, what the fuck does she do? Lives cooks and cleans in a house her husband most likely pays for. That's not helping the country, thats helping yourself.
Also, I think the reason I didn't find it as sad as most other people is because I was more looking into the relationship of the siblings and not the fact that he kinda let his sister die. It was more, his need for his sisters company was so great, with his mom dead and his dad "away" at war, he needed his sibling company and whenever she would present him with evidence that she was sick or dying he would delude himself into thinking it wasn't true, or try to pass it off as just a bug or something. I might be looking into it too much, but that is what I got from it. To be honest, I would have swallowed my pride a long time before any of that transpired and said sorry to the aunt. At least it would provide them with clean lodging and food. That way they could have also looked into their relatives in Tokyo and tried to contact them...
Once again, looking into it too much. It was a beautiful film.

 

[Ellie]

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Cute. Actually not a bad film, the book sounds good. At first I was a bit annoyed by Ewan McGregor's attempt at a Scottish accent until I realised er, he's Scottish, that's his accent.

 

[Jason]

... Dumbass.

Anyways, I watched Solomon Kane when I got in from my nightshift... and by watch I mean I fell asleep after 20 minutes because I was so fucking tired... yeah.

 

[dadevvtsvre]

saw "Punch-Drunk Love" by Paul Thomas Anderson the other night. probably the only Adam Sandler movie I've ever truly enjoyed. Anderson casts Sandler as almost a parody of the kind of character he usually plays. his tendency for violent outbursts is portrayed as a serious flaw rather than for laughs, and Sandler comes off as a truly broken, self-hating human being. the use of bold, solid colours as symbolism was simple but remarkably effective to underline the movie's major characters. the entire film has this off-kilter, sideways feel to it, like no other movie i've seen before. Jon Brion's soundtrack does a wonderful job emphasizing the inconsistency of the protagonist's life. i'm really curious about Anderson's other movies now (this is the first of his that i've seen) so i'm gonna try and watch either The Master or Magnolia next.

 

[moog]

Didn't he do fantastic mr fox??

 

[dadevvtsvre]

you're probably thinking of Wes Anderson, not Paul Thomas Anderson.

 

[moog]

who's the one who does those horrendously bad action movies

he is the best of them all

 

[moog]

oh god boogie nights! that was paul t. anderson!

 

[Jason]

Watched Captain America in 3D with my dad earlier, it's my favourite film in the Avengers... series? and in a close second place is the original Iron Man, god that film is SO MUCH BETTER than the sequels.

 

[Venetia]

I watched Grave of the Fireflies last night. That shit is sad, but I don't get why everyone is all like "OMGEEE TOTES SADDEST FILM EVAR! DON'T WATCH IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CRY." Watched it, didn't cry. It did make me sad, but not to the point of breaking down into tears and having an existential crisis like most of the people who watch it.
But yeh. Watch it. It offers a great insight on japan in that time and is generally a cute film.

Spoiler: This WILL ruin the plot for you. Only look at it if you have seen the film.

I hated the aunt. I think everyone hated the aunt. She was a bitch. Constantly going on about how her husband and daughter serve the country, what the fuck does she do? Lives cooks and cleans in a house her husband most likely pays for. That's not helping the country, thats helping yourself.
Also, I think the reason I didn't find it as sad as most other people is because I was more looking into the relationship of the siblings and not the fact that he kinda let his sister die. It was more, his need for his sisters company was so great, with his mom dead and his dad "away" at war, he needed his sibling company and whenever she would present him with evidence that she was sick or dying he would delude himself into thinking it wasn't true, or try to pass it off as just a bug or something. I might be looking into it too much, but that is what I got from it. To be honest, I would have swallowed my pride a long time before any of that transpired and said sorry to the aunt. At least it would provide them with clean lodging and food. That way they could have also looked into their relatives in Tokyo and tried to contact them...
Once again, looking into it too much. It was a beautiful film.

I generally don't cry at movies, but GotF had me bawling. Red-eyed, snot-nosed, making weeping noises. I still consider it the saddest movie ever made. I have seen it twice, and I never want to see it again, because I don't think I ever want to re-visit that level of unholy sadness.

Spoiler: i'm spoilering the rest of this but only to forgo bitching ... the movie is years old and if you haven't seen it YET, stop being ig'nant

I think, Hiccup, you were looking at the main character as you would yourself. You were frustrated he didn't make the choices you would have, but -- Well, have you ever been in even close to that kind of situation?

Because, yes, Seita SHOULD have swallowed his pride eventually, and just went back to their aunt. With any luck, she would have atleast taken Setsuko in, and though she wouldn't have had a fun or nice life, but she would have been alive (probably).

But what you're missing is that he's a kid. A 14-year-old kid. And not just any 14-year-old kid, but one living in 1940's Japan, who is riddled head-to-toe in PTSD, who has just watched his mother die [HORRIFICALLY], and everything he knew in life has been destroyed forever.

Under those circumstances, it is 100% understandable that Seita would make bad decisions.

Let me illustrate some of the finer details a bit.

In 1940's Japan, the country's people were quite literally giving everything to the war effort. Food was becoming a scarce commodity. Joining the military for men was mandatory. Because of this, the women and children and elderly did all the work. During the span from about 1930-1955-ish, Japan's society became INCREDIBLY "dog-eat-dog". If you couldn't lift your own weight and work, you were worthless. And the shame of being worthless was immense. The culture was already shame-heavy, but this timeframe took to to ridiculous extremes.

Now when the kids were living with their aunt, she was only receiving teeny rations. She was fed up with this, and Seita, feeling immense guilt -- Guilt and shame for being a burden, and for not being able to provide for his sister -- Led him to run away with her.

It is nice to believe that the aunt would have continued to help. Or that someone else would have seen what was happening, and took them in. But, realistically, in this time period, people were generally uninterested in giving alms. Families were struggling just to eat -- 2 more mouths to feed was nearly a death-sentence for themselves. It is still quite possible that their aunt would have eventually turned them out (or, Seita atleast) eventually, anyway.


What's more: Kids make bad decisions. Kids with SEVERE SEVERE emotional trauma make MUCH WORSE decisions.


Seita's decision to not seek help was supposed to be an allegory for the condition of Japan's social disposition at the time. That the war had caused the country's people to eat away at themselves. That war can cause the worst case scenario happen in even the hearts and minds of the people.

There was a scene when Seita stole an ear of corn, and the farmer flipped out.

If you saw a dirty, starving child stealing 2 ears of corn, would you chew him out for it?
Hopefully you answered no! But the war, and its effects, forced the country into such desperation that a man could turn up his nose at something so incredibly pitiable.

The movie did not even get into ideologies behind war at all. None of it mattered. What mattered were the tragedies that were created by it. It was supposed to make you sick, and make you sad, to think that we could let this sort of thing happen in the world.


Setsuko's death was a metaphor for the slow, grasping death of all the helpless people caught up in war. Seita was a symbol for the loss of innocence that war forces.


And that's why it's gut-wrenchingly sad.

For me, anyway

 

[Frizzlefratz]

The last film I saw was Beyond the Black Rainbow.
Visually, it was probably one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. I felt like I was in a trance while watching.
And the music was nothing short of incredible.

Trailer:
http://youtu.be/Q1ertVYn750

 

[Sauk]

Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior

Holy shit this movie was so bad I can't believe I wasted 2 hours of my life on this film. The fight scenes were the same moves over and over again, they went CRAZY with the instant replay effect (in a chase scene they replayed almost every single slow motion flip and there were at least 200), the story was non-existent (I get that it's a MA movie but come on), the soundtrack was like 3 different songs being randomly chosen each scene, there was no character progression or anything; This was prob the worst movie I've ever watched.

I feel like my balls were kicked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdF5ZP4rJw
^ 0:31 - 0:41 was my exact reaction to the conclusion of the film.