Schoolio's Movie Corner

[amyzzz]

I was floored when I saw that over 70 incidents of the prank call/strip search type scenario have been reported to police in the US.

[wmgaretjax]

Definitely gets the 2012 Catfish award for "these people can't be this naive, can they?!?"

That's precisely what is so compelling about this film. Far too many people in our culture are astonishingly hesitant to question (even unapparent) authority. These circumstances seem absurd from the outside in, but the fact that similar events were so widespread speaks to the type of complacency we've fostered. At its core, the film is a razor sharp indictment of a number of contributing factors.

[xuclarockerx]

Runaway Train kick ass movie

I saw that. It was alright.

[chairmenmeow47]

[FEELS]

there should be an "extremely helpful" option.

[alyssaf12]

Just watched The Imposter, such a crazy movie! And really well produced/filmed for a documentary. I'd definitely recommend it.

[TallGuyCM]

That's precisely what is so compelling about this film. Far too many people in our culture are astonishingly hesitant to question (even unapparent) authority. These circumstances seem absurd from the outside in, but the fact that similar events were so widespread speaks to the type of complacency we've fostered. At its core, the film is a razor sharp indictment of a number of contributing factors.

I agree with all of that.

And the issues I have with the film aren't that at all, but the way those ideas were put to use/the way the girl was sexualized. Have you ever seen a photo of the actual girl?

She looks like this:



Not this:



Having an actress that looked like the real girl would have been much more true to the story/effective. Sure, it would have been repulsive. But when you instead hire a good looking actress with nice tits, that sense of repulsion gets diluted because there's also a conflicting sense of eroticism that gets presented.

So yeah, I don't disagree with what you said about the film at all. I just have a really hard time with the way they went about it.

[ods..]

I just recently saw it to. My only question is in the beginning was there a cartoon skrillex cameo?

Yup, he did some soundtrack

[wmgaretjax]

Having an actress that looked like the real girl would have been much more true to the story/effective. Sure, it would have been repulsive. But when you instead hire a good looking actress with nice tits, that sense of repulsion gets diluted because there's also a conflicting sense of eroticism that gets presented.

So yeah, I don't disagree with what you said about the film at all. I just have a really hard time with the way they went about it.

curiously, that happens to be the least attractive picture of her I could find...

beyond that, how do you think her appearance changes the core themes? what role do you think that aspect of sexual relatability played in the story? one argument might be that it creates tension between stimulation and disgust? because I sure as hell wasn't stimulated... i'm not sure what you are getting at to be honest. the representation clearly wasn't authentic (in fact it is a compilation and mutation of a couple of the events, with one primary one strung along).

[schoolofruckus]

I like the idea of playing off the tension between stimulation and disgust (this is why I come down solidly in favor of the way Zero Dark Thirty portrays torture), but I don't think it adds much value to this particular movie.

[wmgaretjax]

this is why I come down solidly in favor of the way Zero Dark Thirty portrays torture

there might be potential here if the film had been in the hands of a completely different director (someone with some hanekeian sensibilities maybe... ha)... but zero dark thirty was essentially an american intelligence cheerleader film (all the torture shit aside).

[TallGuyCM]

beyond that, how do you think her appearance changes the core themes? what role do you think that aspect of sexual relatability played in the story? one argument might be that it creates tension between stimulation and disgust? because I sure as hell wasn't stimulated... i'm not sure what you are getting at to be honest.

I don't think her appearance really changed the core themes, to me it just added a teen horror element (the actress is a spitting image of Rose McGowan in the first Scream flick) that wasn't necessary at all.

If they had used an actress that more closely resembled the actual real life victim, core themes aside I think the tone and feeling of realism and authenticity would have been much different.

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

That's precisely what is so compelling about this film. Far too many people in our culture are astonishingly hesitant to question (even unapparent) authority. These circumstances seem absurd from the outside in, but the fact that similar events were so widespread speaks to the type of complacency we've fostered. At its core, the film is a razor sharp indictment of a number of contributing factors.

I just watched it. It was faptastic.

And this one was just as crazy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadamichi_Hirasawa

[xuclarockerx]

...faptastic?

[xanman86]

[bobert]

If they had used an actress that more closely resembled the actual real life victim, core themes aside I think the tone and feeling of realism and authenticity would have been much different.

The lead actress wasn't ugly? That is a strange criticism for this film. Did this thought occur to you while you were watching the movie or later after you'd researched the case? I thought Dreama Walker was excellent in the role, which as Jared pointed out is a composite of multiple victims. The fact that she's attractive is also relevant to the narrative - it helps fuel the resentment that her manager feels for her and it's an important factor in her interactions with all of the male characters.

You said you felt like this minimized the humiliation that this girl indures because you have a nice pair of tits to stare at but for me that had the opposite effect. The way the movie is constructed it's almost like the director forces the audience to be complicit in the villain's scheme. We're his eyes on the ground, if you will, and I admit to experiencing something of a shameful feeling watching parts of the movie because I was simultaneously gazing at this girls naked body while pitying her situation. During some of the key moments we're forced to share the perspective of one character in particular that makes this movie a tough sit. For the most part I thought these scenes were expertly constructed and I don't see how a homelier victim would have made them any stronger.

I admired this movie a lot, certainly didn't love it - its subject matter makes that nearly impossible. There's a certain cynicism embodied by the film's villain that I found very unsettling. It's easy to see why he chose fast food workers as his victims. It ensured that he'd almost always be the smartest guy on the phone and the corporate environment made them even easier marks. It's one of the more provocative films I've seen recently.

[xuclarockerx]

I haven't seen this movie but now I'm kind of intrigued and I read about the original case on Wikipedia. Kinda fucked up that the demented caller got acquitted yet one of the guys following his "orders" got jail time...

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

I haven't seen this movie but now I'm kind of intrigued and I read about the original case on Wikipedia. Kinda fucked up that the demented caller got acquitted yet one of the guys following his "orders" got jail time...

He could have done what the maintenance guy did and said "this is some fucked up shit, fuck you."

Americans are fucking stupid.

[schoolofruckus]

there might be potential here if the film had been in the hands of a completely different director (someone with some hanekeian sensibilities maybe... ha)... but zero dark thirty was essentially an american intelligence cheerleader film (all the torture shit aside).

The entire conversation around Zero Dark Thirty kind of weirds me out. I went in hyper-sensitive to flag-waving bullshit, because that was exactly what I hated about The Hurt Locker....yet I appear to have found less of that in ZDT than literally everyone else who has seen it. It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

[wmgaretjax]

it is probable that i'm much too sensitive to many of the events and issues (including the unmentioned ones) that the movie touches on. regardless, i thought the movie was poorly made (the editing in particular was exasperating the whole way through).

[TallGuyCM]

The entire conversation around Zero Dark Thirty kind of weirds me out. I went in hyper-sensitive to flag-waving bullshit, because that was exactly what I hated about The Hurt Locker....yet I appear to have found less of that in ZDT than literally everyone else who has seen it. It doesn't make any goddamn sense.

It was a weak year for mainstream cinema overall, but I definitely was pushing for ZDT to win awards over the ones that did. And especially Chastain to win over Lawrence. Seriously, what the fuck was that? (rhetorical, not trying to start an Oscars discussion. I know better.)

But yeah, I liked it far more than I thought it would. And I don't support the criticism that Bigelow "did nothing with her characters" or that Chastain had no character development. She was obsessed, one-track minded, and determined the entire time. Sure there was no character arc, but I doubt there was one with the real-life woman either. I thought she portrayed the role exactly as it should have been.

[schoolofruckus]

Anyone in LA who was piqued by my review of Phase IV:

But that reminds me....I saw a sci-fi movie last night that was actually great, and also, actually interested in science. Saul Bass is widely known as a title sequence designer, but he directed one feature in the mid-70's: Phase IV, an uncommonly heady account of two scientists facing off against a colony of destructive and rapidly-evolving ants. The human characters (of which there aren't many) are sometimes played flat and verging on ridiculous, but the ants are astoundingly expressive - wrangled, coached, and apparently even bred, in one of the great feats of cinematic animal handling, by Ken Middleham. Unlike Prometheus and most of what passes for science fiction in cinema, this film has the audacity to use its narrative to not only begin a conversation about provocative, big-picture ideas (the potential strength of an altruistic society, among others), but also to not resolve it with an action set-piece. Unfortunately, the way it is resolved (in the cut I saw last night) is a little incomplete; Bass' original ending was excised before the film's release, and thus the film progresses through Phases I-III but does not depict the fourth. Cinefamily showed Phase IV last Sunday with the original ending - which was recently discovered in the AMPAS archives as that previous screening was being prepared - and since then, the Bass estate has apparently put the kibosh on showing it further until they can determine how they want it to be presented. I hoped that last night's encore presentation wouldn't suffer from its absence, but while I thoroughly enjoyed the film as played, I do walk away feeling like I missed out on something. Here's hoping it gets a BluRay release in the near future.

You have another chance to see it as part of LACMA's dubiously-titled "Science Fiction After Kubrick" series.

If you have not seen Solyaris projected, make that a priority. I'm bummed that Stalker isn't included in the series, as that's the only one of Tarkovsky's six masterpieces that I haven't seen on a big screen (and also perhaps my favorite).

[schoolofruckus]

it is probable that i'm much too sensitive to many of the events and issues (including the unmentioned ones) that the movie touches on. regardless, i thought the movie was poorly made (the editing in particular was exasperating the whole way through).

Remind me how you came down on The Hurt Locker? I understand someone who hated that one killing ZDT for the same reasons, but when I heard people who loved Hurt Locker trashing ZDT, it felt more like an indictment of the actual events rather than anything pertaining to the movie. Which is valid in an overall conversational sense, but unfair to the movie, in my opinion. I actually liked the editing and photography a great deal. On the other hand...

It was a weak year for mainstream cinema overall, but I definitely was pushing for ZDT to win awards over the ones that did. And especially Chastain to win over Lawrence. Seriously, what the fuck was that? (rhetorical, not trying to start an Oscars discussion. I know better.)

But yeah, I liked it far more than I thought it would. And I don't support the criticism that Bigelow "did nothing with her characters" or that Chastain had no character development. She was obsessed, one-track minded, and determined the entire time. Sure there was no character arc, but I doubt there was one with the real-life woman either. I thought she portrayed the role exactly as it should have been.

I thought Chastain was an active weakness for much of the film. All of her "big" scenes (mostly the ones that involved shouting at her superiors) felt forced, to put it mildly. She did play the final act perfectly, though, which is the reason why her performance ultimately works. And yeah, I thought the film's characterization of Maya (separated from her performance) was pretty single-minded, but I agree that it's appropriate for this particular story.

If we're comparing her to Lawrence in SLP.....Lawrence's part was somehow even less of a full human being, in a film that needed it more, but I also thought she brought more to her non-character than Chastain brought to hers. It doesn't matter because A. whatever my feelings on Amour overall, Emmanuelle Riva's performance was easily best in show and B. fuck the Oscars.

[Jordanp]

No just general talking of the oscars - the show presentation was strange, they really emphasized on Chicago and other Oscar winning musicals. Its like the oscars were marketed to the gays or something.

I was really disappointed with Django as a Tarintino fan. It was just awful and for it to win best original screenplay just felt like a nod to Tarintino for snubbing him for the Kill Bills

Your a Tarentino fan and you liked the Kill Bills? Or just the screenplay? IMO reservoir dogs is by far his best screenplay. Hands down

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

The scene where she is told to turn around and bend over should have been more graphic.

[TallGuyCM]

Your a Tarentino fan and you liked the Kill Bills? Or just the screenplay? IMO reservoir dogs is by far his best screenplay. Hands down

I refuse to believe either of you are actually fans of his, since you can't even spell his last name correctly.

[RotationSlimWang]

There's nothing wrong with The Hurt Locker.

[mountmccabe]

You have another chance to see it as part of LACMA's dubiously-titled "Science Fiction After Kubrick" series.

If you have not seen Solyaris projected, make that a priority. I'm bummed that Stalker isn't included in the series, as that's the only one of Tarkovsky's six masterpieces that I haven't seen on a big screen (and also perhaps my favorite).

I would want to see so many of those films! I need to rewatch Solyaris, too.


Also, trailer for Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing because sometimes the only way to relax when on break from shooting a superhero movie is to shoot another movie.



Limited release in June.

[amyzzz]

Holy crap, I can't wait for that.

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

I refuse to believe either of you are actually fans of his, since you can't even spell his last name correctly.

Reservor Dogs last good movie