Dusk wrote:

Judas Maccabeus wrote:Ummm... I haven't grown tired of it either. Does that make me The Two?

No, that makes you Tim.

Holy crap, this made me laugh!

Ponder wrote:Excuse me while I whip this out.

WHERE DA WHITE WIMMIN AT?

Skimba wrote:Holy crap, this made me laugh!

Mission Accomplished.
I really need to watch Blazing Saddles again. I used to love the bit where Gene Wilder asks the other guy if he wants to have sex... that has never really worked out as a quote for me, though. Hang on.. was that even in the movie?

Watched Trainspotting. Good movie. Danny Boyle has directed some good films and some mediocre films from what I've seen.

EDIT: On IMDB it says that "for its American release, the first 20 minutes had to be re-dubbed to make the Scottish accents more intelligible." I wonder which version the Netflix one is.

Dusk wrote:I really need to watch Blazing Saddles again. I used to love the bit where Gene Wilder asks the other guy if he wants to have sex... that has never really worked out as a quote for me, though. Hang on.. was that even in the movie?

Sorta.

Not a "movie" so much as an hour long TV special, but Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas is on netflix now, so I watched it. If you remember it from when you were a kid or love muppet related things in general, it is adorable, although the River Bottom Nightmare Band is still the best thing about it. Also, if you don't love all things muppet related you are unamerican and/or work for fox news.

quetzalcoatlus wrote:Not a "movie" so much as an hour long TV special, but Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas is on netflix now, so I watched it. If you remember it from when you were a kid or love muppet related things in general, it is adorable, although the River Bottom Nightmare Band is still the best thing about it. Also, if you don't love all things muppet related you are unamerican and/or work for fox news.

This was a standard growing up for me. We had a copy of it on VHS for a long time...then it died. Three years ago I randomly found it on DVD and bought a copy for myself and a copy for my parents. They were almost as excited as I was about it....it was amazing (their reaction and the special).

PonderThis wrote:

Dusk wrote:I really need to watch Blazing Saddles again. I used to love the bit where Gene Wilder asks the other guy if he wants to have sex... that has never really worked out as a quote for me, though. Hang on.. was that even in the movie?

Sorta.

HAHAHA WHAT WAS I WATCHING THEN?

Hey look it's that time of year where I compare Sherlock Holmes 2 with Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes 2 - same as the previous one but more over the top. Essentially it's still a generic action film filled with ridiculous, over-the-top stuff and a bit of humour, but based around a detective who bears almost no resemblance to Sherlock Holmes. I go through a strange process of simultaneously enjoying it and disliking it. I was disappointed with Stephen Fry as Mycroft.

Sherlock - It wins hands down for me, quite honestly. Much more faithful to the books, despite the modern setting, and just much better all around. This is an extraordinarily crap review and I've sort of skipped to the conclusion of it because I'm tired. Anyway, there you have it.

Is the second series of Sherlock out yet?

EDIT
Never mind, I found the first episode online. If any fans of the show haven't already, you should check out The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson. I particularly liked the posts "The Speckled Blonde" and "The Six Thatchers" since they reference actual Sherlock Holmes stories. I can't watch the video in the most recent one because it's on BBC iPlayer.

Yay I finally got to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
It was very interesting. Werner's musings are hilarious and the nutjobs he talks to at the end are incredible.
I then had to watch Grizzly Man which I found much more sobering. I'm not too sure what to say about it, really. It certainly depressed me.. I like how Herzog presents his subject as: here's some stuff that happened.. and then later he tries to apply decidedly unpleasant philosophy to it, which you kind of dismiss, but at least it gets you thinking without having an opinion rammed down your throat.
My favourite line from Grizzly Man was Werner saying something along the lines of: "I don't see a secret world of bears.. this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

Dusk wrote:I then had to watch Grizzly Man which I found much more sobering. I'm not too sure what to say about it, really. It certainly depressed me.. I like how Herzog presents his subject as: here's some stuff that happened.. and then later he tries to apply decidedly unpleasant philosophy to it, which you kind of dismiss, but at least it gets you thinking without having an opinion rammed down your throat.
My favourite line from Grizzly Man was Werner saying something along the lines of: "I don't see a secret world of bears.. this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

When I was younger (thirteen, I think) I couldn't sleep one night and so started reading Reader's Digest. It had a story called "Grizzly Man" and bears are my favorite animal, so I started reading. I haven't seen the movie so I don't know what they included, but in the article they transcribed the tape recorder that had been left on when the bear came and started eating him. The creepiest thing was that after the bear dragged him off into the woods his girlfriend started making a call that a wounded infant deer makes if its mother has been killed so that the bear will come back and eat it too. It did not help me sleep.

Dusk wrote:Yay I finally got to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
It was very interesting. Werner's musings are hilarious and the nutjobs he talks to at the end are incredible.
I then had to watch Grizzly Man which I found much more sobering. I'm not too sure what to say about it, really. It certainly depressed me.. I like how Herzog presents his subject as: here's some stuff that happened.. and then later he tries to apply decidedly unpleasant philosophy to it, which you kind of dismiss, but at least it gets you thinking without having an opinion rammed down your throat.
My favourite line from Grizzly Man was Werner saying something along the lines of: "I don't see a secret world of bears.. this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food."

If you want to see something really funny from Herzog, find "Incident at Loch Ness." A very funny film in the "mockumentary" genre. And after watching it, listen to the commentary, it's equally hilarious but the whole thing really makes Zak Penn look like the most pathetic and terrible person on the world.

Did you see Cave of Forgotten Dreams in three dimensions? It was worth it. The interviews were standard 3D fare, which was a bit weird for interviews, but it was amazing to see how the paintings play across the cave walls.

I was really surprised by how expressive I found the paintings. I kind of assumed that really early art was very crude and mainly interesting on an intellectual level, but this is the oldest art we've yet found, and the next-oldest we know of was made at a time as close to the present day as it was to when the oldest Chauvet paintings were done, so those are extremely rickin'-frackin' old. And yet, while it was simple in medium and construction, I found its form very expressive and at times actually a little moving. It really was a very exciting film to watch.

Grizzly Man is, to me, a great subversion of this idea some people have of how wonderfully in tune with nature they are. I think that the closest you can be to nature is probably to know that it's dangerous and know how different it is than you. That's not to say that people can't be more or less nature-attuned, or that it's not a good thing to be towards the "more" end of that scale, but I think it's paradoxically quite an arrogant and human-chauvinistic idea that we can somehow live in the world of any other animal we choose, and understand them and know them. Their whole experiential world is different, and we can never have access to that. We can never know what it's like to be a bat. And even if we could, their lack of human morality and values would probably make involving ourselves that heavily with them quite an unpalatable proposition. But people like to romanticize nature, you know. Nature is beautiful and wonderful, but it's also brutal and ugly. And it will definitely eat you if it feels the need.

-----

I haven't seen Encounters at the End of the World, but apparently in that Herzog becomes fascinated with the idea of penguins going insane.

James wrote:Grizzly Man is, to me, a great subversion of this idea some people have of how wonderfully in tune with nature they are. I think that the closest you can be to nature is probably to know that it's dangerous and know how different it is than you. That's not to say that people can't be more or less nature-attuned, or that it's not a good thing to be towards the "more" end of that scale, but I think it's paradoxically quite an arrogant and human-chauvinistic idea that we can somehow live in the world of any other animal we choose, and understand them and know them. Their whole experiential world is different, and we can never have access to that. We can never know what it's like to be a bat. And even if we could, their lack of human morality and values would probably make involving ourselves that heavily with them quite an unpalatable proposition. But people like to romanticize nature, you know. Nature is beautiful and wonderful, but it's also brutal and ugly. And it will definitely eat you if it feels the need.

In the article I read it explained that the guy, whatever his name was, attempted to behave like the bears as much as possible in order to be accepted as one of them. Unfortunately, during times of food shortage grizzly bears will result to cannibalism. So his problem was being too in tune with nature, in a way.

I just watched "Real Steel" (the robot boxing movie). It was splendidly terrible.

jvcc wrote:The creepiest thing was that after the bear dragged him off into the woods his girlfriend started making a call that a wounded infant deer makes if its mother has been killed so that the bear will come back and eat it too. It did not help me sleep.

Whaaaaaat? Really? That changes everything. The coroner said she was with Timothy for 6 minutes while he was being devoured. Beating on it with a frying pan or something. That's a friggin long time.
::shudder::

Android Replica wrote:If you want to see something really funny from Herzog, find "Incident at Loch Ness." A very funny film in the "mockumentary" genre. And after watching it, listen to the commentary, it's equally hilarious but the whole thing really makes Zak Penn look like the most pathetic and terrible person on the world.

Cool thanks. I'll try to track it down.

James wrote:Did you see Cave of Forgotten Dreams in three dimensions? It was worth it. The interviews were standard 3D fare, which was a bit weird for interviews, but it was amazing to see how the paintings play across the cave walls.

No, but I really want to now.

James wrote:I was really surprised by how expressive I found the paintings. I kind of assumed that really early art was very crude and mainly interesting on an intellectual level, but this is the oldest art we've yet found, and the next-oldest we know of was made at a time as close to the present day as it was to when the oldest Chauvet paintings were done, so those are extremely rickin'-frackin' old. And yet, while it was simple in medium and construction, I found its form very expressive and at times actually a little moving. It really was a very exciting film to watch.

Isn't that amazing? Seriously messes with whatever ideas I had about that era.
And the bit with flamboyant bearded circus man sharing the story about the Australian aboriginals.. painting and repainting their dots and such.
It's amazing that the "artist/s" not only used shading, but had such a concrete concept of what these animals looked like that they could faithfully reproduce them, then add shading and extra lines for movement. Incredible.

James wrote:We can never know what it's like to be a bat.

Wow.
I imagine he wrote that after watching Batman Begins.

James wrote:I haven't seen Encounters at the End of the World, but apparently in that Herzog becomes fascinated with the idea of penguins going insane.

I flicked through it (a bad habit I have lately) and got stuck watching a few bits.. it looks good.
Might finish watching it this weekend.

jvcc wrote:In the article I read it explained that the guy, whatever his name was, attempted to behave like the bears as much as possible in order to be accepted as one of them. Unfortunately, during times of food shortage grizzly bears will result to cannibalism. So his problem was being too in tune with nature, in a way.

Yeah he finds the remains of a little cub eaten by it's father, I think.
The footage with the foxes was pretty amazing though. Worth it just for that..

jvcc wrote:In the article I read it explained that the guy, whatever his name was, attempted to behave like the bears as much as possible in order to be accepted as one of them. Unfortunately, during times of food shortage grizzly bears will result to cannibalism. So his problem was being too in tune with nature, in a way.

I don't know; I think my point still stands. To elaborate, he went to live among the bears because he respected them more than humans, with whom he had become disillusioned. But occasionally he's confronted with things incompatible with this view, such as adult males killing young (an event which caused him obvious distress). If you want to be consistent, you either have to afford the animals moral agency, in which case they have terrible acts to answer for just like humanity, or you consider them inherently innocent, in which case you can't really see them as this noble thing, as they're basically like a way more dangerous version of very small children.

I'd have to see the film again to properly present my case, but I think it's extremely unlikely that the bears saw him as another bear. I'm sure they saw him as more familiar than other people, and perhaps as some part of their lives or even their community, but they weren't attached to him in anything like the way that he was attached to them.

James wrote:I'd have to see the film again to properly present my case, but I think it's extremely unlikely that the bears saw him as another bear. I'm sure they saw him as more familiar than other people, and perhaps as some part of their lives or even their community, but they weren't attached to him in anything like the way that he was attached to them.

I don't know much about animal behavior, but don't dogs (granted, they are domesticated) view their human masters as part of their "pack"? So sayeth popular belief, anyway. I know that the animals weren't attached to him, but I also don't know how attached bears are to other bears. They're fairly solitary, especially the males.

I wonder where one could learn about grizzly pack behavior and their willingness to induct others species into their social order. Maybe I should go to Alaska to see for myself.

The man-dog relationship began because both parties benefited from each other (humans providing shelter, safety, and agriculture, and the dogs being pack animals as well as providing their acute senses for hunting or detecting intruders). So in that sense, work dogs and humans are very much in the same "pack." That's also why domesticated dogs are so easily trained: they basically live for rewarding work, whether the work is search and rescue or just entertaining their owner. I just don't think humans have that much to offer bears to encourage the same relationship (except polar bears, they could use a hand).

But if there's the chance for domesticated pack grizzlies in 15,000 years from now, I say go for it (and fire up the time machines, because I want to see it).

I'm not saying that bears can (or should) be domesticated, but that there's probably some sort of intermediate area between habituation and domestication in which bears might accept a human into their dominance hierarchy. This is only if the human mimics their behavior, of course.

Spoilers throughout, I think.

Chronicle was surprisingly terrible, given that it got good reviews (I have been told). The acting was pretty bad, they didn't develop the characters, and the special effects were not impressive.

The weirdest thing, and the reason I'm commenting on it, is that one of the main character's love interests was unequivocally an absolute bitch. His implied back story was that he had been friends with her when they were kids but once he entered high school he became concerned with popularity and was a jerk to her, but since we only see him being nice to her (relatively so, because none of the characters is particularly sympathetic) and her responding with absolute vehemence. He tries to talk to her about drought in Africa and she shoots back, "What, is this who you are now? Concerned about third world countries?" (or some equivalent) and when he's filming his cousin in a talent show she asks, "Are you pulling a prank on your cousin? That's mean!" It just...it didn't make any sense. She's in danger near the end of the movie, as woman are wont to be during perilous action scenes, and there was no tension because I wouldn't have cared if she died.

On a positive note, and I can't remember if I've talked about it yet, I saw Rosemary's Baby for the first time not too long ago. It is really one of the best-made films I've ever seen. So much is implied visually and it says a lot but does so subtly. My friend and I, after much debate, came to the conclusion that initially Rosemary is completely complicit with her prescribed role as a wife and a mother, but once it becomes clear that her husband is no longer fulfilling his role in their marriage she focuses solely on her unborn child. That's why the fact that she spends so little time outside of her apartment is so chilling: even before she's under a form of house arrest she was still trapped there because she can't escape the rigid gender roles which confine her and other women in society. It's also why she decides to (spoiler) stay with her baby at the end, even though it's the Anti-Christ. She has no identity outside of her role.

I'm explaining this poorly, but if you watch the opening scene you can see that Rosemary and her husband are on a more of less equal footing: they hold hands, they joke about the guy showing them the apartment together, etc. Then as the film progresses she becomes increasingly infantilized by wearing pigtails and little-girl dresses that are all the more unsettling because those looks were in style when the movie was made. It's all genius. I loved it.

John Carter of Mars was a bunch of fun!

Watched the better part of Rango on HB0 (I think) this afternoon - I enjoyed it. One of the all-around best-looking computer animated movies I've seen in a while, and I like that, while there is plenty of humor, the whole "western where all the characters are desert-dwelling animals" thing actually is taken more seriously than you'd expect.

Silent House was absolutely horrendous. And I am well aware that I can be quite critical of movies, but I think that this one borders on being objectively bad. It was a crowded theatre and about halfway through people started laughing at moments that were meant to be scary, and after it ended and the credits started rolling someone loudly exclaimed, "Horse poopcakes." So save your money if you were thinking about seeing it is the main point to take away from this post.