From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #139 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, May 10 2009 Volume 17 : Number 139 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) [lep ] Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) [lep ] Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) [lep ] Re: feg film faves [James Dignan ] Speaking of movies [Jeremy Osner ] Re: movies you love to hate [Eleanore Adams ] Re: movies you love to hate [lep ] Re: movies you love to hate [Miles Goosens ] Re: movies you love to hate [lep ] Re: movies you love to hate [kevin studyvin ] REAP [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: movies you love to hate [djini@voicenet.com] Re: Movies [Rex ] Re: movies you love to hate [Rex ] Re: Movies [Tom Clark ] Re: movies you love to hate [2fs ] Re: Movies [2fs ] Re: Movies [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Movies [lep ] Re: movies you love to hate [Laura Dean Golias ] Re: movies you love to hate [lep ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 18:12:24 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) 2fs says: > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 8:04 AM, lep wrote: > >> (no *real* spoilers, but jeff 2fs should go away anyway) >> > > People say that a lot... i think i say it like twice a month. partly because i like repetition, and partly because i've felt the wrath of a spoiled jeff 2fs. as ever, lauren - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 18:16:48 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) kevin says: > Speaking of Amy Acker heaven, the last season of Angel is in reruns at the > moment & it's been way too much fun watching Illyria again. Now there's a > character I miss. And Lorne too. i'd have to think about it, but i'm pretty sure illyria is my favourite whedon character. now, i adored fred - i love whedon's skinny-crazy-genius-girl prototype, but illyria made up for her absence. illyria is so beautiful, and so ridiculous. *and* she eats petri dishes - what could possibly be cooler than that? xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 18:26:27 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: topher, yay! (100% dollhouse) Sebastian says: > Spoiler alert! > For me it was more the bit where Whiskey discovers that Topher programed Dr. > Saunders to hate him. The episode was Amy Acker heaven! First the bad girl > outfit, then the self-aware doll ... wow. it was great seeing ms. acker getting to cut loose a bit. and with all due respect to craigie*, she makes a way better bad girl than faith does. (and is it me, or does ms. dushku play basically the same character every time she gets an imprint? it's kind of a shame. the guy who plays victor is terrific with his character's imprints - he was great when he was made dominic(sp?) (the NSA guy), and even surprisingly convincing just as, e.g., the horse / stables guy.) > I don't believe there will be > another season, but I'm looking forward to the DVD set (I might even spring > for the BluRay edition), just to see the extra episode that Fox won't show. i hadn't heard about the extra episode. where does it fit in the series? i must not understand something about television politics because even if fox drops the show, it makes no sense to me than sci-fi wouldn't pick it up. it's got to at least as good as much of whatever they show, and has a pre-established fan base. not to mention joss whedon, the boy wonder. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 11:23:58 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: feg film faves >so will I. In no set order: > >2001: A space odyssey [...] > >There are many more... > >James Indeed there are. How could I forget Metropolis and L.A.Confidential? > ooo. Added to the "must see" list, I think... James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 22:30:28 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Speaking of movies Anybody include "The Wild Bunch" among their list? I am just watching that for the first time tonight and it's seeming like it could be on a list of that nature. After more times of viewing it at any rate. J If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the essential words. -- Josi Saramago http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 20:57:28 -0700 From: Eleanore Adams Subject: Re: movies you love to hate I, too am a horror movie buff, so my fav movie list has to not include horror. Right now The Darjeeling Limited is in high rotation, cause I just bought it, and it mirrors my siblings and I. (I am the Owen Wilson character, planning family vacations, high on pain killers, after multiple injuries, and my brothers are sooo the other brothers.) Then its got to be Zoolander, cause we all need orange mocha frappachinos. Then maybe Chinatown. Then Laurence of Arabia. Then I always go back to the oldies and goodies, such as Werner Herzog, and Coppela, and anything with Eastwood. the iPod has the Lebowski and Lord of the Rings on it, and any movie staring Jet Li.... eleanore On May 8, 2009, at 7:34 PM, Laura Dean Golias wrote: > I'm a bit of a horror movie buff, but there are so many others I > like as > well. > Here are some of my favorites: > > An Angel At My Table > Trust > Cat People (original b/w version) > Marnie > The Bad Seed (original b/w) > To Kill A Mockingbird > The Snapper > Wish You Were Here > Hope And Glory > The Black Stallion > A Clockwork Orange > Lolita (original and remake) > > That's all I can think of right now. > These days, I'm more of a reader than a movie-watcher. > > Laura Dean Golias > ldgolias1@verizon.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 00:15:52 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: movies you love to hate Eleanore says: > I, too am a horror movie buff, so my fav movie list has to not include > horror. is this like some honor code among horror movie fans? plus, how do you argue with your fellow horror movie fans if everyone keeps them a secret? > Right now The Darjeeling Limited is in high rotation, cause I just bought > it, and it mirrors my siblings and I. (I am the Owen Wilson character, > planning family vacations, high on pain killers, after multiple injuries, > and my brothers are sooo the other brothers.) i liked "the darjeeling limited", but i'm such a sucker for "the royal tennanbaums"(sp?) that nothing else anderson's really makes a dent in me. except that i totally fell for the 20-minute short that goes before "the darjeeling limited". i love the stilted conversation, and the lovely shot of the paris hotel at twilight, and that song that's both so ridiculous and sweet (which sometimes gets stuck in my head for days.) xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 05:04:52 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: movies you love to hate On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 4:19 PM, lep wrote: > also, i found it interesting and kind of surprising that *just* "red" > from the three colours was on there. i like "red" by far the best, > then "blue" next by a lot, then "white". for some (likely > self-absorbed) reason, it never occurred to me that, in general, most > people might have a fairly strong preference for one or the other > (probably in some way i feel like i'm being a poor viewer for not > taking the trilogy as some sort of monolith, or something; i likely > assume others to be more sophisticated, hence the surprise.) They're very different films from each other, and each stands completely on its own, so it's not weird to me that folks (including me) would separate the three films. To me, BLUE is by far the best one, with somewhat diminishing returns with each of the subsequent two. Seriously, one of the million "I wouldn't know anyone thought this if I wasn't on the internet" that I'd never guess if I lived only in my own little Unabomber shack was that most people think RED is the masterpiece. later, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 10:57:08 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: movies you love to hate Jeremy says: > This thread of conversation is reminding me to ask whether you people (And > especially You Softboy Girl!) have seen The Pervert's Guide to Cinema by > Slavoj Zizek. A lot of fun, it is. no, i hadn't heard of this. but now i have to see it! here's some of his analysis of "lost highway": http://www.thepervertsguide.com/trailers_pguidept2.html this guy is a pistol. i mean, this is beautiful: "it forces him into a space of ontological confusion." i mean (1) who the hell says things like "a space of ontological confusion" and (2) it's a spot on description for that moment in the film (films plural i guess, since, as mentions, "mulholland drive" is the same movie.) and: "flowers are something inherently disgusting...basically it's an open invitation to all the insects and bees: 'come and screw me.' " he's almost as fun as camille paglia. > Me: Not that interested in horror movies as such, though I frequently like > thrillers -- is there some overlap between the genres? I guess when I hear > "horror" I think "gory thriller", not sure if that is a valid translation of > categories. i think there's an overlap -- i believe these are what they end up calling "psychological thrillers." i love psychological thrillers - even fairly mediocre ones (the mediocre ones are pretty well-represented by "shattered".) i would put a lot of lynch's stuff in this category. > My favorite (Sir Alfred) Hitchcocks are the psychological ones -- I love, > love "Lifeboat" and "Rear Window" but only love "Vertigo". "The Birds" and > "Psycho" didn't really do much for me but I'm sure I'll give them another > try. "North by Northwest" is sort of in its own category -- Hitchcock > parodied himself a lot but never (I think) as overtly as here. i think "vertigo" is actually one of his most psychological - that's why i love it so much. i especially love the doubling in it - or whatever you call in how events and people repeat themselves in variations. plus, it's just cool to watch stewart play such a dark character. and "north by northwest" i love because it's just so much fun (you're dead on about its being in its own category.) > Here are a couple of movies that I only saw once and have pretty dim > memories of but seem to recall liking a whole lot and think I would enjoy > watching them again: > Naked Lunch (I remember being mystified and amazed that the filmmaker was > able to make a movie out of this book) i think i would have been more mystified had been anyone other than cronenberg (i haven't read anything but small bits of ballard, but i recall people have a similar reaction when "crash" came out (i.e. ballard is not exactly the first guy you'd think of when you want to make a movie.) i haven't seen cronenerg's more gory movies. but i do love "exitenz" and especially "dead ringers". "naked lunch" not so much, but i should watch it again. > Mulholland Drive talk about doubling. and this movie definitely needs repeated viewings (it's a circle anyway, so just hit the "repeat" button.) xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 08:22:05 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: movies you love to hate > > Naked Lunch (I remember being mystified and amazed that the filmmaker was > > able to make a movie out of this book) > > i think i would have been more mystified had been anyone other than > cronenberg (i haven't read anything but small bits of ballard, but i > recall people have a similar reaction when "crash" came out (i.e. > ballard is not exactly the first guy you'd think of when you want to > make a movie.) Might be for me. With the CGI tech available today even the severely visionary texts like The Crystal World wouldn't be beyond possibility. Cronenberg's Crash is the movie that made me fall in love with Holly Hunter. In another reality, this week's New Yorker has a short JGB story called "The Autobiography Of J.G. Ballard" that's a perfect epitaph. Hail and farewell. Somebody should organize an art exhibition of demolished cars in his memory... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 12:05:45 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: REAP http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090508&content_id= 580704&vkey=news_t533&fext=.jsp&sid=t533 my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 11:51:43 -0400 (EDT) From: djini@voicenet.com Subject: Re: movies you love to hate About this subject line - and this post won't make any sense to people who were not fans of this magazine - : I was just thinking the other day about the heyday of Movieline. I still have tons of them from about 1991-97, lots without covers (I was an underpaid bookstore clerk, and those magazines were headed for a landfill anyway). I have lugged them through 9 moves. Then I discovered that Movieline is getting an online resuscitation. I wonder how that'll go. It could not be worse than the dreadful This Hollywood Life. Also, I found this great little post (quoted below) on a blog called Hollywood Elsewhere. I always wondered who wrote the "Christopher Hunt" pieces... Looks pretty likely that it was Joshua Mooney: http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/03/oh_come_on.php "The "original" Movieline's glory days were approx. '90 to '97 -- or around the time Christopher Hunt sold his quake-damaged Neutra at the top of Wonderland Ave. and fled back to Pennsylvania. Not that the two were related. I actually ran into Hunt yesterday at MOMA -- says he's writing a "monograph" on Eve Babitz's chess games with Duchamp. I told him the news, and he flipped out, started screaming about how Anne Volokh still owes him money, slashing his Unbreakable Umbrella in the direction of the Giacomettis, so I hustled him out of there and placated him with cheeseburgers and Mai Tais at J.G. Melon's. The cat's in sorry shape, to be sure, but I reminded him of something Andrew McCarthy once said: "You have to keep your eye on the real ball, not the ball that's in your head." " cheers, Jeanne Oh and, off the top of my head, in no particular order: Pandora's Box Lulu Trust (yeah, me too) Blazing Saddles Princess Mononoke Exotica Crash (Croenenberg) Blue Velvet Charade The Cuckoo (anyone else seen this? Lapp reindeer herder sheltering two soldiers, none of them speaking the same language?) Madam Satan (for the blimp. I love this movie so much.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 11:20:32 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Movies On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:03 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > To those of you who have Netflix: what plan do you have? Is 1 DVD at a > time > > enough or should I go for 2? > We do to at a time, which is usually sufficient, but every once in a while leaves us at loose ends if we plow through two discs of a miniseries/series at a time. I think it's totally a lifestyle thing and you have to "find your own level" and be ready to change your plan a couple times before nailing it down. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 12:20:01 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: movies you love to hate On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:22 PM, lep wrote: > > BTW, there's a nice little series of books on individual films by the > BFI, and the one on "the birds" is written by camille paglia (now, i > know she's not so popular on feglist, but whatever, she rules and is > one of my personal heroes.) Paglia's one of those people that you're supposed to either love or hate but I don't feel too strongly either way. With that class of celebrities, I'm pretty much very glad they exist, and also glad that I'm not exposed to them too often. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 11:36:22 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Movies On May 9, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > To those of you who have Netflix: what plan do you have? Is 1 DVD at > a time enough or should I go for 2? We have four, but are grandfathered in at the three-at-a-time price because we were early adopters. Back a few years ago before they went public all their distribution was done in San Jose (their HQ is about two miles away from us), and we could get next day turnaround on rentals. Now it's two or three days so having the four pack means there's always something laying around. Granted sometimes I get tired of having something laying around for months so I rip it and send the DVD back. Of course I dutifully erase it after viewing... Speaking of favorite films, I was chosen at random to suggest an old film for the filmspotting guys to review on their next "After Hours" special. I suggested either "Colossus: The Forbin Project", "Repo Man", or "Storefront Hitchcock". The chose Colossus. I'll let yins know when it's scheduled. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 15:16:21 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: movies you love to hate On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 9:57 AM, lep wrote: > Jeremy says: > > This thread of conversation is reminding me to ask whether you people > (And > > especially You Softboy Girl!) have seen The Pervert's Guide to Cinema by > > Slavoj Zizek. A lot of fun, it is. > > no, i hadn't heard of this. but now i have to see it! > > here's some of his analysis of "lost highway": > http://www.thepervertsguide.com/trailers_pguidept2.html > > this guy is a pistol. i mean, this is beautiful: "it forces him into a > space of ontological confusion." i mean (1) who the hell says things > like "a space of ontological confusion" and (2) it's a spot on > description for that moment in the film (films plural i guess, since, > as mentions, "mulholland drive" is the same movie.) > > and: "flowers are something inherently disgusting...basically it's an > open invitation to all the insects and bees: 'come and screw me.' " > > he's almost as fun as camille paglia. Less annoying, though - and (for me) less evocative of having an enormous invisible neon sign overhead, pointing downward and flashing LOOK AT ME I'M SO FUCKING CLEVER AND SUBVERSIVE OF THE DOMINANT PARADIGM! (Actually, that'd be a cool sign to have made up and mounted...behind a bar or something?) Paglia can be amusingly provocative - but she's kinda like Lou Reed in that I get the definite impression she thinks she's a whole lot smarter than she really is. She's impatient with analysis, and if someone disagrees her tendency seems to be to outshout them rather than take into account whatever that disagreement is. She'd be a fantastic cultural commentator on Fox News (except that her ideology is rather less neanderthal: I mean, I may not like Paglia, but she's not a total loss!). Back to Zizek: there's something sorta reductive about this excerpt. I mean, yeah: one way to read that whole aspect of LH is as a sort of withdrawal into a fantasy space (and the film excerpts chosen make that quite clear) but I think the movie loses a lot if that's *all* you see it as. I think one reason Lynch is better in practice than in many descriptions is that in description, his movies can sound like shoot-by-numbers surrealism*, but in practice, there's always some more *more* there that refuses to be reduced to anything literal or symbolic...yet it doesn't seem arbitrary or gratuitous, just unexplainable although powerfully resonant and apt. (That's Lynch at his best, anyway - when he's not, the more there instantly deflates to the symbolic *and* somehow is also both arbitrary and gratuitous...and is as resonant as a fart in an anechoic chamber.) * I just realized that although I meant to sub in "shoot" for "paint" because it's film, the phrase conveniently resonates with Andri Breton's notorious definition of the "purest Surrealistic act": firing a loaded pistol into a crowd. > > > > Me: Not that interested in horror movies as such, though I frequently > like > > thrillers -- is there some overlap between the genres? I guess when I > hear > > "horror" I think "gory thriller", not sure if that is a valid translation > of > > categories. > > i think there's an overlap -- i believe these are what they end up > calling "psychological thrillers." i love psychological thrillers - > even fairly mediocre ones (the mediocre ones are pretty > well-represented by "shattered".) i would put a lot of lynch's stuff > in this category. Someday I should try to write up, in detail, a tendency I see in movies over the last, oh, twenty-thirty years - which is a misplaced belief in the power of realism. You can see this in the ever-more "realistic" (or even beyond-realistic) gore in horror films, in the overreliance on CGI, and in the weirdly unquestioned mini-trend toward actual sex in non-porn art films - - all of which seem to believe that the best representation of something is the thing itself or something visually indistinguishable from that thing. Hitchcock (the other one) was smarter than that: he knew that what we could be compelled to imagine is far more powerful than anything we could merely see. (Even in porn: if you have a setup that's somehow psychologically compelling for the viewer, it's more arousing than just, uh, jumping right in.) I'm not at all a fan of "gory thrillers" - although as I think I've said here before, I always think I'll be more put off by film violence than I usually am. But I think it's rare that gore can overwhelm the viewer in a way that's productive for the film - either it's overwhelming in the sense that the viewer can't think or feel anything else (and may have to leave), or the viewer retreats to the sort of protective ironism that I remember a friend of ours back in college experienced: whenever things got too violent onscreen for her, she'd laugh - and not in a sort of knowing way, or even quasi-sadistically, but involuntarily: it was her way of dealing with the too-much. I think I'm trying to define "over the top" here, actually: it's when something gets so intense that it ceases to be dealable with as real or represented-real and instead foregrounds its own dramatic, theatrical quality: in other words, it thoroughly takes us out of the story. That can be fine if that's the point...but I often get the feeling it's not, that filmmakers think it *involves* viewers (and maybe it does involve some) rather than, in fact, dis-involving them, placing them outside the story, making them consider (say) how did they do that effect, etc. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 15:22:32 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Movies On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Tom Clark wrote: > On May 9, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > > To those of you who have Netflix: what plan do you have? Is 1 DVD at a >> time enough or should I go for 2? >> > > We have four, but are grandfathered in at the three-at-a-time price because > we were early adopters. Back a few years ago before they went public all > their distribution was done in San Jose (their HQ is about two miles away > from us), and we could get next day turnaround on rentals. Now it's two or > three days I forget the exact details of our plan - I think it's three at a time, either with no monthly limit or some number we've never actually hit (we're pretty slow with them). Our schedules are such that we go through Netflix films rather like Woody Allen trying to drive that Cadillac in whatever movie that was - short bursts of too-fast alternating with near-complete stall-outs. One thing that's helped smooth that out is that we tend to mix in TV episodes with actual movies - it's easier to watch a 40-minute TV episode than a 90-120 minute movie (and I hate breaking up movies over two nights, so we don't do that), so we go through those more quickly while movies sit around for a couple of weeks sometimes. Also, re the distribution timing: that's weird, because it seems like they've multiplied their distribution points such that it usually takes 1-3 days for things to arrive for us. It's just odd that it would longer living so near the HQ: maybe you should just drive by and pick them up instead ;-) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 13:45:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: Movies 2fs wrote: > Tom Clark wrote: > > Back a few years ago before they went public all > > their distribution was done in San Jose (their HQ is > > about two miles away from us), and we could get next > > day turnaround on rentals. Now it's two or > > three days > > Also, re the distribution timing: that's weird, because it > seems like they've multiplied their distribution points such > that it usually takes 1-3 days for things to arrive for us. > It's just odd that it would longer living > so near the HQ: maybe you should just drive by and pick > them up instead ;-) In Redwood City (15-20 miles away), it frequently takes 2 days to return if I mail from home BUT if I drop them in a mailbox when I'm out in Redwood City or San Carlos, they always get there the next day. For that matter, there are some mailboxes if I drop them in SF going to work where they arrive at the dist center in San Jose the next day, but a different post office box three blocks CLOSER to the post office at Embarcadero, it takes 2-3 days. So, I'm thinking the 2-3 day thing is on the relevent postal carrier than NetFlix. "I love how (coffee) makes me feel. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain!" -- Kenneth Parcell ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 17:39:18 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: Movies 2fs says: > Our schedules are such that we go through Netflix films rather like Woody > Allen trying to drive that Cadillac in whatever movie that was - short > bursts of too-fast alternating with near-complete stall-outs. One thing > that's helped smooth that out is that we tend to mix in TV episodes with > actual movies - it's easier to watch a 40-minute TV episode than a 90-120 > minute movie definitely. i tend to like drama, but, man -- having netflix send me two bergman movies on the same day? talk about a fucking buzzkill. i don't watch that many t.v. series, so if not one of those, i tend to at least try to get a documentary or something somewhat lighter than one of my usual existential dramas. > Also, re the distribution timing: that's weird, because it seems like > they've multiplied their distribution points such that it usually takes 1-3 > days for things to arrive for us. It's just odd that it would longer living > so near the HQ: maybe you should just drive by and pick them up instead ;-) FWIW, my mailman picks them up when he delivers around 3pm, netflix gets them early the next day, and i usually have a new one on the day after that. i kind of attribute the quick turnaround to my being near southeastern post office, which is the mailing address on my netflix envelopes. xo - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 15:49:07 -0500 (CDT) From: Laura Dean Golias Subject: Re: movies you love to hate If y'all are truly interested in knowing my favorite horror movies, I'd be happy to reveal them. Y'all will probably think I'm a big dork, but I'm willing to take that chance. Lauren, about A Clockwork Orange and how it changed me; it's hard to explain without going into certain details that I'm really not ready to share. Let's just say I became very open-minded and became an individual instead of a sheeple. I probably would never have discovered Robyn if it weren't for A Clockwork Orange (if that makes any sense at all). I also stopped caring what other people thought about me. If anyone else is into horror movies, I'd love to know which ones you like. You can pelt me with bananas and tomatos if you don't want to. : D Laura Dean Golias ldgolias1@verizon.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 17:57:27 -0400 From: lep Subject: Re: movies you love to hate 2fs says: > Less annoying, though - and (for me) less evocative of having an enormous > invisible neon sign overhead, pointing downward and flashing LOOK AT ME I'M > SO FUCKING CLEVER AND SUBVERSIVE OF THE DOMINANT PARADIGM! (Actually, that'd > be a cool sign to have made up and mounted...behind a bar or something?) oh, camille's a complete egoist - i agree. btw, i love that your sign is invisible. > Paglia can be amusingly provocative - but she's kinda like Lou Reed in that > I get the definite impression she thinks she's a whole lot smarter than she > really is. She's impatient with analysis, and if someone disagrees her > tendency seems to be to outshout them rather than take into account whatever > that disagreement is. She'd be a fantastic cultural commentator on Fox News > (except that her ideology is rather less neanderthal: I mean, I may not like > Paglia, but she's not a total loss!). i personally think she's brilliant. but, more importantly, i think she's a riot. i would guess that i'd find her a lot less bearable if i didn't think she was so funny. > Back to Zizek: there's something sorta reductive about this excerpt. I mean, > yeah: one way to read that whole aspect of LH is as a sort of withdrawal > into a fantasy space (and the film excerpts chosen make that quite clear) > but I think the movie loses a lot if that's *all* you see it as. I think one > reason Lynch is better in practice than in many descriptions is that in > description, his movies can sound like shoot-by-numbers surrealism*, but in > practice, there's always some more *more* there that refuses to be reduced > to anything literal or symbolic...yet it doesn't seem arbitrary or > gratuitous, just unexplainable although powerfully resonant and apt. (That's > Lynch at his best, anyway - when he's not, the more there instantly deflates > to the symbolic *and* somehow is also both arbitrary and gratuitous...and is > as resonant as a fart in an anechoic chamber.) this is very well put. FWIW, i would never recommend taking any analysis of lynch as much more than entertainment - i mean, more than any director i can think of, watching his movies is an experience. you have to actually go through it, and all the better if it's in a dark theatre with the big screen. > Someday I should try to write up, in detail, a tendency I see in movies over > the last, oh, twenty-thirty years - which is a misplaced belief in the power > of realism. You can see this in the ever-more "realistic" (or even > beyond-realistic) gore in horror films, in the overreliance on CGI, and in > the weirdly unquestioned mini-trend toward actual sex in non-porn art films > - all of which seem to believe that the best representation of something is > the thing itself or something visually indistinguishable from that thing. > > Hitchcock (the other one) was smarter than that: he knew that what we could > be compelled to imagine is far more powerful than anything we could merely > see. (Even in porn: if you have a setup that's somehow psychologically > compelling for the viewer, it's more arousing than just, uh, jumping right > in.) i once read the line: "it's amazing how much of life takes place inside our own minds." so i'll quote it right here. > I'm not at all a fan of "gory thrillers" - although as I think I've said > here before, I always think I'll be more put off by film violence than I > usually am. But I think it's rare that gore can overwhelm the viewer in a > way that's productive for the film - either it's overwhelming in the sense > that the viewer can't think or feel anything else (and may have to leave), > or the viewer retreats to the sort of protective ironism that I remember a > friend of ours back in college experienced: whenever things got too violent > onscreen for her, she'd laugh - and not in a sort of knowing way, or even > quasi-sadistically, but involuntarily: it was her way of dealing with the > too-much. I think I'm trying to define "over the top" here, actually: it's > when something gets so intense that it ceases to be dealable with as real or > represented-real and instead foregrounds its own dramatic, theatrical > quality: in other words, it thoroughly takes us out of the story. > > That can be fine if that's the point...but I often get the feeling it's not, > that filmmakers think it *involves* viewers (and maybe it does involve some) > rather than, in fact, dis-involving them, placing them outside the story, > making them consider (say) how did they do that effect, etc. again, this is well put. personally, i tend to shut down with certain imagery, and that can't be a much of good thing as far as viewer involvement. then again, some people tend to shut down with certain ideas, so i guess it all depends on what you're looking for. what you wrote is actually a better description than i could have given for my problem with "requiem for a dream." it's like aronofsky's just bitch-slapping the viewer instead of giving him the space to think or imagine. not much of a way to tell the story, IMO. as ever, lauren - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #139 ********************************