Movies

So what are they, some kinda Fantastic Four?

Recent vid covering Hollywood's unwavering support for war propaganda.

Wow! What a movie. Spoilers included (duh).

So we start off Kubrick’s classic Vietnam War film with the dehumanizing act of shaving the heads of the new recruits. These “maggots” will soon be shaped into Killing Machines, property of the USA. The Drill Sergeant makes an effort to put these young men through HELL because ultimately that’s what war is. Kubrick, having a problem with authority figures in the Western World, makes an equal effort to depict the “good guys” (from a western perspective) as bloodthirsty monsters or at the very least, willing to comply with orders they understand are heinous and inhumane. The first 30-50 min of the movie are vastly different from the second part. Private Pyle being beaten and broken down and eventually murdering the Drill Sergeant (and himself) represents the soul-crushing feeling of being denied your own agency, a common Kubrick theme. But at the same time it represents a sort of impotence of rules and etiquette that the military tries to instill in its soldiers. The main soldier Joker is never in danger technically in the first part. But when they get to Vietnam, they see real innocent Vietnamese people getting murdered for no reason other than the fact that they were born in the incorrect country according to the US. One soldier brags about his kill count, many of them being innocent farmers. The main character joins Stars and Stripes Journalism (military propaganda) They lie about war reports in news papers, they film mass killings and wonder why the locals don’t like them, the whole time, racial and ethnic slurs are tossed around. They depict the Tet offensive as cowardly while they shoot women, children and animals from the safety of a helicopter. Kubrick does a spectacular job of capturing the duality of the military. They want prim and proper young men that are ready to murder innocents in cold blood. I highly suggest anyone watch it. It is a great Anti-War film that was important to be made at the time it came out.

A censored film released in the 1970’s.

The premise is that political prisoners are given the option of carrying out their sentence, or to participate in an asymmetric game to reach the end, at which point they are given the promise of freedom.

Actors are chosen for their political beliefs, including both reactionaries and progressives. So, a lot of scenes aren’t scripted, but rather it’s really how they would behave.

See interview with Peter Watkins here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxb0ed9izis

I watched this movie earlier today and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. We start in Baltimore 1914, with the Patriarch of the Jewish-Pole Krichinsky family, Sam, arriving in Baltimore on July 4th, the spectacle all around him encapsulates his excitement for new life and opportunity. We see his life as a wallpaper presser in his newfound home in America. Over time, the years pass by, into the 1940s and 50s and eventually to the early 70s at the end of the film. He marries and has a large family. His son and nephew go into business together, he helps to raise his grandson, he battles verbally with his wife and his brother and deals with old age and with loss in its many different forms, biological, financial or otherwise. I don’t want to give spoilers but oddly enough, even if I did, it wouldn’t fundamentally change much of your viewing. The movie isn’t about a huge plot-twist, or a gigantic action scene that kills multiple characters or anything. I would describe it as a Slice of Life, and the pain-staking detail that Barry Levinson-Gould went through in directing this movie to be accurate to the times is more than admirable. Every car and piece of furniture is spectacularly curated. The scenes that are supposed to feel happy and exciting look bright and vibrant, kinetic in a way. The scenes of dispair, of agony in some sort, feel so slow and dark that you feel like you yourself are there, begging for the moment to pass. (in a good way, not saying the scenes are boring and drag on too long) There are also many small comedic moments, nothing that will get you flying off your seat, dying laughing, but small little cultural/linguistic things, like the difference between “Can I?” and “May I?” or how they pronounce Turkey or Furnace (Toykey, Foynace). I really loved this movie, if you have a chance to stream it or check it out from your local library I would highly suggest it. It was a great movie and I feel like (as cringe as it sounds to say) I lived through a period of the 50s watching this movie. My big caveat is that it sorta puts Rose-Tinted glasses on and drifts past issues of racism or abuse by only focusing on this one particular Jewish family. Besides that, I really liked this movie, I related to it on a very personal level (except I’m not Jewish) with some of their plot points and characters that appear, it really touched me at certain points. I would probably put this in my top 30 movies, watch it if possible. That’s all Folks!

I’ve been a cinephile for a while now, I have tons of movies on my watchlist, and they are all very different in their own way. I’m basically asking: what movies would yall be interested to hear about? Only movies I refuse to review are most RomComs, (few exceptions) tiny-budget movies that are tough to find, (I don’t doubt some of those are great films, I just don’t wanna search thru 30 websites of pure malware to find a 1hr 27 min 70s Dutch Crime Thriller) history documentaries (I would consider those educational films rather than cinema to be reviewed) and maybe stuff that’s too overtly grotesque (I ain’t watching Saw movies or anything similar, all other horror is still on the table). Besides that, I would love to watch basically any film people are interested in, Old Soviet films, Cringe-inducing Right-wing movies, Liberal Utopias, hell, even classic films that could really use a lefty perspective on it like Forrest Gump or Full Metal Jacket. Any movie suggestions are not only welcome but appreciated. Thanks in advance everybody, I look forward to watching these movies and subsequently reviewing them for you all to read.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2698521

Los Angeles, Nov 15 (Prensa Latina) The innovative animated film made in China and titled Deep Sea will be released in North American theaters later this month, according to Hollywood today.

It is a cutting-edge Chinese animation work that has already been presented in the international festival circuit throughout this year.

The film is directed by Tian Xiaopeng (“Monkey King: Hero is Back”) and produced by YI Qiao (“Nezha”) through October Pictures and Coloroom, according to Variety.

Tian and his team developed a particle-based CG technique, creating 3D images from abstract Chinese ink paintings.

Theatrical rights were acquired by Viva Films from Netherlands-China sales company Fortissimo Films, and plans a Nov. 24 release with versions dubbed in Chinese and English.

Deep Sea is a fantasy adventure that tells the story of Shenxiu, a girl who has felt deep sadness since she was abandoned by her mother.

During a family cruise, she falls into the sea and breaks into the Deep Sea restaurant, where she meets the inventive underwater chef Nanhe and embarks on a journey between dreams and reality.

The film premiered commercially in China last January was then played at the Berlin Film Festival and had other festival dates in Neuchatel, Melbourne, and London.

I saw Vice (2018) a few nights ago and it was a very entertaining movie. It’s about Dick Cheney’s life story made by Adam McKay, he also made great comedy movies in the past. I just finished watching Misery (1990) today and it was easily one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Great suspense and kinda funny at times, that’s to be expected from the director of the film, Rob Reiner. What have yall been watching lately?

Yes, I have to start with the obligatory: the first time I watched the movie I was disappointed, but upon rewatch I realized how deep the rabbit hole goes, and after tens of hours of studying this movie, I can finally see what a masterpiece it is.

After having spent tens of hours with this movie, I've finally sorted out most of the major questions and have a pretty good idea of what's actually going on. The movie is so hard to wrap your head around though because you basically have to think in four dimensions, and you have to build a mental model for a crystallized universe and keep track of all the actors at all times, and their motivations. Our brains are not made to comprehend stuff like this, so it's understandable that people were frustrated with the movie. However, I think I reduced my odds of developing Alzheimers by 95% during the process of studying this thing and the process itself was very gratifying. Still though, I'm not done building more intuition for the movie so I will definitely be spending even more time grasping the details. I highly recommend committing yourself to the process 👍

It's without a doubt my favorite movie of all time.

come at me brah (or just throw me some questions idk)

Try to be specific if possible. Like horror could mean many things, a fan of classic Dracula films may not like Green Room. An action fan who loves Rocky and Raging Bull may not like The Raid or Inglorious Basterds. That being said, which genres/sub-genres of movies are generally your favorites? I’ve always been a fan of gross-out humor and dumb humor like Jackass and Stepbrothers. I also really love a few movies that are political like Wag The Dog (which Benjamin Norton recommended in a Multipolarista episode) and Мать (1926) I highly recommend that one, it was made in the USSR about the 1905 Revolution

Discussion questions:

What TV shows or films have you watched recently?

What subscription services are you subscribed to, if any?

Question of the week:

What TV shows of 2023 are you currently enjoying?

Watched it last night, incredibly hilarious and based 10/10

Discussion questions:

What TV shows or films have you watched recently?

What subscription services are you subscribed to, if any?

Question of the week:

What movies are you anticipating in 2023?

Question of the week is the same as last time since 2023 has barely started.

Communist Twitter seems to be alternating between love and hate for it as usual.

I haven't watched these series of movies. Should I?

I actually really liked The Batman (yeah, yeah, I know it had copaganda, but I honestly liked it much better than the overrated Christopher Nolan films).

I saw this last night and it didn't disappoint. I didn't even know they were making a second one until I was looking for a horror film to watch on Halloween weekend. I loved the first one so I jumped on it immediately. Wow was it ever good.

The eerie, dreamlike atmosphere of pure horror from the first film is gone, which is one of the things I liked to much about it, but the direction they took with it worked so much better. The film had so much more substance to it. It had thought-provoking themes of anti-capitalism, mental illness, and Halloween culture. David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera knocked it out of the park with their performances as well. Highly recommended.

I'm not gonna spoil but anyone else was disappointed with the killing blow to the predator? (I mean, you know he's gonna die at the end, that's how these movies go). It was really stupid of the predator lol.

Anyone else kinda wanted it to be without the predator and just Comanches vs. settlers? Seeing their war tactics against a real opponent, which would also leave screen time to show their culture and tribe life. The struggle of resisting never ending waves of colonisation, and the realisation that you cannot resist forever. The losses, the wins, the factual story that does not need a space hunter alien to be interesting to audiences.

I'd love to see that movie. Not this exploitation flick.

The exploitation genre is not necessarily a pejorative. Blacksploitation put afro-americans into the roles of main characters at a time where they were relegated to being side characters whose existence was to be useful to the main (white) characters.

But where blacksploitation was a letter of love to afro-american culture, with movies made by black directors, Prey was directed by the whitest guy you could ever conceive -- just look him up lol.

Look. At no point did the Comanches speak their language, except to give some immersion with simple words here and there. So it's especially weird they could talk with the French foreigners in English.

Ultimately you could have picked Comanches, you could have picked Genghis Khan's Mongolia, you could have picked Charlemagne's France, you could have made this movie with any culture or time period you wanted. The Comanches were not central to the story at all.

So there's a contradiction in that movie, which somehow seems generalised in the exploitation subgenres. On the one hand they want to make an ode to cultures that were exploited (not in the good way this time) by Hollywood and the settler-colonial United States. On the other hand, they still made a Hollywood movie.

Also it's weird they barely used bows when Comanches were very fierce bow warriors. It is said (and has been tested) that they could get 7 arrows in the air before the first one even hit you. They could use their bows with both hands, on horseback (using the horse as a shield), on the move, in any situation really. That's partly why settlers had so much trouble against the Comanches early on -- their flintlock rifles were not fast enough against their high speed and guerilla tactics.

The best moments of the movie, to me, were not the Predator's screen time. This is boring (and I say this despite liking the idea of the Predator). There's nothing here we haven't seen in the 1987 movie. The best moments were when you could get the rare glimpse into what it was like to be a Comanche people in the year 1719.

I wanted to talk about this for a long time...

So Marvel fans... I'm so fucking tired of them(note I'm not talking about og Spider-Man, I'm talking about MCU exclusively): They are so annoying with their superhero movie worship, they are talking about those movies like they are the movies of all time, masterpieces with masterfully written script and galaxy brain stories, like they are Nolan films in terms of storytelling... And the thing is, these are not just idiots on the internet, even in TV channels where they talk about movies, they are literally, I'm not shitting you, putting MARVEL MOVIES and directors in the same rang with Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, George Lucas, Ridley Scott and Nolan!!!

They think that their B superhero good guy vs bad guy, good guy beats bad guy after power-up movies are in the same rangs as: GODFATHER, INDIANA JONES, JURASSIC PARK, SCHINDLER'S LIST, E.T., JAWS, STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES, TITANIC, GLADIATOR, INCEPTION, ALIEN etc... And that Marvel movies absolutely deserve to take half of top 10 box office movies(with Endgame being 1st one time) list overtaking timeless masterpieces...

I haven't watched anything lately, but I plan to watch a movie from 1948 about racism and Jim Crow in the USA military while fighting fascism in Germany and all that stuff.

The movie was recommended by scholar Gerald Horne and can be found on Monthly Review.