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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.28.63
Posted on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - 11:25 am:   

Went to the cinema for the first time since March. Very quiet. Posters on the walls for that month now look ancient. It felt strange and sad. We saw the new Bill and Ted in which they meet their old selves on their death beds. It wasn't rubbed in but the effect was still incredibly profound.
Not many films on show. In fact two old films were being shown, Empire Strikes Back and Jurassic Park, and seeing them up on the listings screen also affected me. Their endings, as I recall, summing up our flux riddled, confusing times.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.76.90
Posted on Saturday, September 26, 2020 - 12:53 am:   

Hmm. It should have just been awful fluff, but I watched Cobra Kai on Netflix and found the '80s tone and references natural and relevant, unlike something like Stranger Things and countless others which seem to only be interested in the superficial. In this, instead of the present mining the past, it felt like the past had something to say to the future. My favourite scene in Cobra Kai the enemies just go and have a drink together and chat and bond for a bit.

I think that's the same problem with adapting Lovecraft into another medium - the adaptations tend to take the superficial aspects of the work and leave being the ideas.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.76.90
Posted on Saturday, September 26, 2020 - 12:53 am:   

leave behind
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.28.63
Posted on Monday, September 28, 2020 - 12:13 am:   

Watched the I am Legend with the alternative ending- paper masks, hand sanitizer, quarantine, race, loneliness... it was a pretty good film when it came out 13 years ago (vampires aside) but now it feels much deeper. It's like they reshot it to make it more powerful and relevant.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.28.63
Posted on Monday, September 28, 2020 - 12:10 pm:   

*
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.25.112
Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - 10:45 pm:   

Vue has been showing old movies so today I persuaded my wife to finally see Alien. She does not like horror. Five minutes in she said "This is already the best thing I've seen in about ten years."
It has been the best time I have ever seen it. I think it became my favourite film. It's a film about cosiness becoming claustrophobic, an almost Ken Loachian film about the workplace, it is woke and feminist without even really trying. But more now it's time has come because it is the ultimate virus film; "You broke quarantine!" "The only way we'll defeat this is if we stick together!", "It's the perfect organism. Your chances are small. You have my sympathies."

It has become my favourite film at last, after all these years.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.25.112
Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - 11:34 pm:   

And we noticed something; the ship and the alien feel related, evolutionarily not far removed. The ship is this almost sentient, organic, nurturing thing, the alien almost metallic, and, we hear at one point, largely silicone. They blend in often, seem even comfortable together. It's like the people who uilt the ship weren't far from MAKING an alien.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.25.112
Posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 - 11:38 pm:   

Built
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.30.194
Posted on Friday, November 06, 2020 - 07:03 pm:   

Went to see Hocus Pocus at the cinema because it was old. No phones in the film, no tablets or glaring "issues". The end, where the dead kid meets thw ghost of his dead sister, made me cry, though maybe because the film was over more than what was happening.
My son notices that many 90s films end with two characters walking off into sunsets, into the horizon, talking progressively more unintelligible just as they become indistinct themselves. It strikes me it's the way all films could end, and it would be appropriate every time.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.79.247
Posted on Friday, November 06, 2020 - 07:34 pm:   

"It has become my favourite film at last, after all these years."

Jesus. I just had this exact same thought today.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.30.194
Posted on Saturday, November 07, 2020 - 12:23 am:   

Feel free to talk about it!
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.74.214
Posted on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 10:40 am:   

There's so much in there that it's perennial. The music, the production design, the world. So many artists at the top of their game that like many great films it's a collection of art in different media that can be appreciated separately but come together to make something even greater.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.30.194
Posted on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 07:02 pm:   

Something happens with great films... they change. I saw a moment in it that had never caught my attention before at all; the Yaphet Kotto character telling Ian Holm (I forget the names) to get out of his favourite seat and treat him like shit. If the film came out now there'd be something said about it, in good ways or bad. I just found it so effortlessly (bordering on unconciously) done it felt natural, not point making.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.73.130
Posted on Sunday, November 08, 2020 - 10:08 pm:   

That's coming from the actors I suppose. There's also another one, just after Dallas tells them his plan to go into the air vents and Ash is teamed up with Ripley. Ash prods Ripley's arm with his finger. It's so odd. The Alien Minute podcast pointed that one out to me, and also spoke about the unresolved zooms that occur throughout the film.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 172.112.29.83
Posted on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - 03:48 am:   

One of my all-time favorites, too. Along with the many things you've mentioned and that can be mentioned - probably the closest film to a specific kind of Lovecraft: not the body horror, where you have The Thing to contend with. Rather, that Lovecraftian flavor of the horror of deepest space, of far flung galaxies, of endless nothings... and then, the something. Space is so vast in Alien, despite the claustrophobia - and the claustrophobia, despite the ship being IMMENSE. The ironies/paradoxes, work in its favor. A brilliant movie. We won't see this kind again, I fear.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 172.112.29.83
Posted on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - 03:59 am:   

I went back and watched a not-recent film, The House of the Devil (2009). Effective little chiller, done as a blatant homage to those old "Movies of the Week" that were popular (and quite superior!) in the late 70's/early 80's on American TV. Set in the 1980's, it's a very slow build, but an effective - a masterful one. The payoff is quick, not too surprising, rather standard - but that's the point of those old TV movies. I was comparing it in my mind to another... well, similar in tone, say, and maybe very distantly vaguely storyline; I dunno, but there's something that feels quite of the same genre/type, this and Hereditary from a couple years back. Why does House feel so much more mature? It is, for one - Ti West isn't a novice at this point. But though the characters are "flatter" - they barely speak, they're barely "developed" - yet, these feel more real, that they have more depth, with the lead a marvelous actress who breathes real life into her slight part; and though the story's far less complex, it felt more sinister, more foreboding. The style's less flamboyant, but far more menacing. It felt like a competent master making House, and indeed, a novice making Hereditary. Some things can't be precisely quantified in/with words - experiencing them, makes it clear.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.72.24
Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020 - 01:48 am:   

It's been many years since I've seen HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, but I remember enjoying it and being very shocked by an event in it mid-way through. I have to say that watching Hereditary alone in the dark made me feel scared - something that no film has done in years, which is its own achievement. But I feel there are other films I'd prefer return to for repeat viewings.

I don't know if Ti West was a master as his later film THE INNKEEPERS was enjoyable but had pacing issues that felt (to me) more novice.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.29.158.3
Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020 - 10:11 am:   

No, you are right. It also goes back to that Smiths video of them talking to those kids. A sense of an almost unconscious disdain for an audience, as if it's an exercise in "what can we do to get you". The audience I saw Hereditary laughed at it, started by a bunch of kids who came in halfway through. I was annoyed at the time but think their honest reaction might have been right. Honesty...that is what House of the Dead had over it. It's what outshines half level skill, or rather empty skill. I always go back to fairy tales, the simplicity of those, the automatic writing sense where the critical faculty is switched off to let in deeper stuff. I think we are all pretty accomplished now, able to say what is right or wrong about a piece, and think that is enough of a tool with which to construct things. But it's not. Critics aren't craftsmen.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.29.158.3
Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020 - 10:14 am:   

I also think irony broke things. Again, our invention. It worked on comedy but kind of kills everything it touches.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.249
Posted on Saturday, December 26, 2020 - 01:34 am:   

Yes Tony.
The new Clooney on Netflix might be among the year's dullest. I can't remember the last new good film I saw.
Merry Christmas.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.249
Posted on Sunday, December 27, 2020 - 01:51 am:   

Peter Jackson's King Kong. Always makes me so sad. Maybe more than anything else does.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.249
Posted on Thursday, December 31, 2020 - 11:09 am:   

Aliens - it's still great but not as magic as the first.
Minority Report - forgettable. Filmed in an odd blue-grey that doesn't register on the mind.
Galaxy Quest - gets better and more moving as it goea along, but is oddly less fun or witty as a regular TNG episode.
Am trying to watch new horror films but they don't affect me. I have switched some off after one second.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.102.7.51
Posted on Sunday, February 07, 2021 - 01:24 pm:   

Got the projector up again for the first tine in ages, and it's done wonders. Skull Island is GREAT on a big screen, we forget the importance of size in an image. Also, for the first time in a while, Jeepers Creepers, which is even better now than it was, if that is possible. A film almost forneverybidy because all the types of horror it does it does well. It even throws in a few doses of wonder. And yes, siblings, not a couple, it still strikes me as genius.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.11.24.6
Posted on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 08:42 am:   

You are not alone...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.54
Posted on Monday, February 15, 2021 - 02:34 pm:   

Ramsey! Was a router glitch at my end, so to speak.
But other than your comment I think you'll find I am!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.167
Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 01:18 am:   

In Fabric on the projector, or rather half of it. I just find this style of film a bit faux, like a book cover made to look old and scuffed, a case of style bleeding away heart.
Much better was Avatar, a simplistic film to be sure, but with real honesty and earneatness. No irony, no geeky touches or knowing winks or quotes from other movies, all things that can rob a work of reality.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.167
Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 01:21 am:   

In Fabric on the projector, or rather half of it. I just find this style of film a bit faux, like a book cover made to look old and scuffed, a case of style bleeding away heart.
Much better was Avatar, a simplistic film to be sure, but with real honesty and earneatness. No irony, no geeky touches or knowing winks or quotes from other movies, all things that can rob a work of reality.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.167
Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 06:20 pm:   

I don't like Tarantino. I tried. Odd, but I found his movie about Manson one dimensional. The Manson family were - horrifyingly - human beings too, and needed considering in a larger way. They weren't Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers.
I've come to think civilisations and cultures die when they finally have everything. When that happens they are unable to stave off threats, or even just get along. Not that we have *everything* of course... maybe the stuff that IS missing is enough to cause tension.
We projected Avatar. You know, it's quite an innocent, straightforward fìlm, almost golden age sf, it's not nerdy or geeky and doesn't pay lip service to either, it's almost a western in that way, and it's not trying to be "cool" or smart. Every time i have watched it has been more enjoyable and more thought provoking than the last, and this time was no exception. It was so thrilling I almost wanted it to be over, it was like an endurance test, but in a good way - I was involved.
A friend says no one is excited about the sequel, that it hadn't clicked with audiences. I think it might have been because it didn't massage egos, it tried to stretch you. I don't know, I might be wrong about all that, but i did love it, and my son kept saying again and again "i feel like a child again!", how muxh he loved that, and it has only struck me as I write this what a key thing he was saying, how important - feeling like a child means you are experiencing a new thing, a new possible future. The "waking up" thing. All the best films have that, like Close Encounters, Alien, Star Wars, stuff like Barbarella. You feel "new" and with that you want to BE new. Even Jeepers Creepers had a touch of that.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.11.24.167
Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2021 - 06:29 pm:   

(The above repeated from a peraonal message)

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