I worked with people who used the DVX-100 and HVX-200 and both seemed pretty great digital cameras for their price. Really, the images I've seen recorded on the HVX in HD looked basically like anything I've seen in the movie theaters. The DVX is pretty wonderful too, the 24 progressive really helps the film look. I've always felt that if I was to invest in a professional camcorder I'd probably put my money on the DVX, since HVX HD footage takes a really good computer to edit and lots of space to store.

Lots of people are putting on 35mm adapters on their HVX and DVX camcorders which produce some really bad ass looking footage. It gives the cameras this super film like depth of field, which is pretty nice and looks loads more professional that you would think it would.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=12
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=57

Both those forums have test footage from various people using their DVXs and HVXs. Check it out and you can see the footage that these two cameras can make.

edit: HUH so it turns out The Fling is L'Avventura's english name.  I always figured it would be THE ADVENTURE but I guess that would have been too easy huh.

Way to easy. But w/e I looked it up and essentially the "avventura" can mean an adventure or an affair. In the context of the movie I guess it could mean both things really. The Passenger is a simular title which a lot of people derived lots of different meanings from in the context of the movie, as the main character rides passenger with the women he is with, or he could be a passenger to the mans life he lives, etc, insert pretensious interpretation bla bla bla. :P

But anyway this topic is now about those mimes in Blow Up, what can they symbolize??? Oh no!!!!

Woah Jumar posted

Yoooooooooooooooo!
Idea: we should all start the rap circle again......

To be honest I haven't seen to many Michelangelo Antonioni films, but the two I have seen made me very interested to see more. There's this triology which is considered his "important work" that begins with The Fling, continues with The Night, and ends with The Eclipse. I haven't seen any of them, but mostly because I haven't had the chance. I know the plot for The Fling sounds really interesting, and I've always heard about this amazing beach scene were one of the main characters goes missing, which, so I hear, is really suspenseful. The others I haven't heard to much about.

The two I have seen are Blow Up, which is really interesting. It seemed like a critique on this whole London hipster culture going on at the time. It's the famous film one everyone knows about from him. It's definitely worth renting, and has a really great scenes in film where the main character is looking at his photos trying to determine if he had captured a murder with his camera or not. It's just done by cutting through photos but it was insanely suspenseful (for me, at least), because you as the audience are observing and trying to figure out whats in the photos along with the character. It's pretty cool.

The other one I saw was this film called The Passenger, which I think I liked more. It's about a journalist who's hotel neighbor suddenly dies, and the journalist decides to take his place and attend his meetings and appointments. It's a really good mystery film, Jack Nicholson is the main character, it has this great single shot ending which I'm pretty sure was influential to at least a few more modern directors. It's worth poking around for also.

From I can tell, his movies have this distinctive style. Lots of long shots, very distanced, not a lot of music, but great use of sound. Both Blow Up and The Passenger were worthwhile experiences. As for whether you should take the class, I personally find classes like that a cinch because I'm into movies. You'll probably get stuck doing a style analysis essay or something from the sounds of it, so I don't know. It's really up to how much you're into art films, because neither Blow Up or The Passanger are really mainstream affair.

I guess I meet the requirements.

I can't believe I still lurk around, though. 

If anyone can find it, I'd HIGHLY recommend watching Dekalog (Or The Decalogue as it is called in English). It's a Polish film series released in 1989, originally made as a television miniseries. It consists of ten one-hour films, each of which represents one of the Ten Commandments and explores possible meanings of the commandment—often ambiguous or contradictory—within a fictional story set in modern Poland. The order in which you watch the 10 films has no relevance - although certain prominent characters in one film will often show up as characters in the background of the other films. Each film leaves you with a profound sense of meaning... it's just amazing.

(I do own a box DVD set of the films... if anyone is interested in them I could rip them and put them up on the Zoo).

I put them on my netflix list and I'm pretty excited to watch them. I've only seen the movie versions, A Short Film on Killing and A Short Film on Love, but Krystof Kiewswolski is really one of my favourite filmmakers.

If you enjoyed the Decalogue I'd recommend some of his other stuff, because he deals with very simular themes in all his films. Of chance and meaning in life, pretentious stuff, etc.

What was your favourite from the Decalogue?

It's kind of hard to come by on DVD, but there is a melodramatic silent film by F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu guy for most) called Sunrise (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018455/) which I think is a particularly powerful little movie.

The story is both horrifying and inspiring at the same time, it revolves around a man and wife who've drifted out of love. The husband has a mistress from the city who convinces him to murder his wife and marry her, and so the first half of the film follows the husband as he plans to murder his wife, and it builds up to one of the most suspenseful scenes I think I've ever seen. The second half is one of the most inspiring things ever as the husband and wife fall back in love after the husbands failed murder attempt.

The film is really amazing, particularly the second half when that expressionistic touch really kicks in and shows what I guess could be called the feeling of being in love just personified on the screen. There is a shot where the couple walks through the city and it dissolves into this surreal landscape, sort of showing you what it feels like for the couple, then back to the city where they've caused this traffic jam because they're so oblivious to anything around them.

It's just great. I'd recommend maybe trying to get it on Netflix, if they have it.

Like everyone has already said, the show has a pretty terrific first, at least I personally thought so. In fact I was pretty into it until Laura's killer is revealed. Then I slowly stopped watching. I feel that I should pick up the last few discs and finish it entirely but it feels like a chore. Oh well.

I'm not totally sure what you expected Impeal, but Twin Peaks was a more classical kind of Lynch, like Blue Velvet or Wild At Heart. I feel the show wasn't meant to be taken very seriously, it seemed to me very much like a satire on day time television. The fake soap opera kind of cements this idea. I always felt that the show was very simular to Blue Velvet, in that a seemingly quiet and all to perfect town falls apart and reveals its true nature due to an event. I found the show pretty interesting in how involved all the characters who at face had no relation to Laura slowly began to reveal their ties. Sure it becomes kind of a ridiculous, but I become totally involved piecing together the mystery.

But anyway Dale Cooper was super funny until he stopped wearing the FBI suit. And Audrey Horne was really, really hot. And the music was good. I think there's a lot to like about the show really.

If anyone had the chance to see the Funny Games remake (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808279/)  last Friday, then you'd know why I'm posting in this thread.

Essentially, because of my pretentiousness/artsy-ness, I'll say that watching this movie makes you the villain as well. But the two kids play their parts pretty well as sociopathic, but polite, deliquints. Their a lot more likable and funny, in my opinion, in the remake than they were in the German original. Whether that took away from the film is kinda debatable, because I felt pretty shitty laughing at a lot of there jokes.

David Gorden Green... please make another All The Real Girls....

However, this looks pretty funny, so I'll probably be looking forward to it.

I saw the sneak preview of There Will Be Blood a couple nights ago, and it was really the best thing PTA has made. A real surprise in terms of style, and it's a great character study.

It's supposed to have a wide release mid January... so I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

The Dark Knight will be the shit too. That's another movie I'm really excited about.

Not enough essential cinema in here for my tastessss....

1) Federico Fellini, I prefer his earlier work more than his later. I have a thing for neo realism.
2) Akira Kurosawa, and I enjoy his contemparary Japan stuff more than his feudal.
3) Jean Renoir. Renoir is the shit.
4) John Cassavettes. I don't know what to say. Watch Faces it's great.
5) Louis Malle, because he's the only guy who can make a kid have sex with his mom seem like love and not incest. The pervert....

Libraries are the best place to borrow movies.

http://penumbra-overture.com/media.htm
http://penumbra-overture.com/media/overture_generator.jpg

Someone else can take me turn however.

Anyways, my list is mostly been posted here (put To Kill a Mockingbird at the top though because I love that movie), and other than the Apu Trilogy which no one here will ever watch, I have nothing to contribute so far.

What's the Apu Trilogy about? Is it really good? Because I've always seen it in my library, and I remember thinking it looked really interesting, but whenever I go I almost never put in the effort to rent it for some reason. Maybe it's the ugly dvd covers or something. I don't know. :X

Garden State is a really beautiful film. I rented it out a while back and I really enjoyed it. (It was a very moving piece.) It definitely belongs up there in the top 10 list somewhere but being as I don't have room I still reccommend anyone go see it if they can.

Ick. I always felt Garden State was such a disgustingly overrated movie. It was insanely pretentious, horrible written, cliche, melodramatic. The plot took a back seat to all of Braffs "oh look how clever and surreal I am" scenes. The film treated the audience like morons, like we didn't need to see enough of Braffs badly acted poker face in order to understand he feels nothing, we have to see him in an empty white room (blatant symbolism for "my emptiness," of course), staring the ceiling. It was really bad. I couldn't understand why people were telling me the movie was amazing.

But I also heard this film was a bit of a love/hate kind of thing. So you know, to each his own really I guess.

1.  The Trial
2.  Asphalt Jungle
3.  Der Himmel über Berlin
4.  Rashomon
5.  Citizen Kane
6.  The Third Man
7.  Being There
8.  Treasure of Sierra Madre
9.  Brazil
10.To Kill a Mockingbird

I'm also pretty amazed that someone had Wings of Desire on their list. That movie is a sign of taste. Brazil was brilliant too. I've always loved some of Gilliams stuff, although personally I've never exactly been a fan of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is probably his most popular film.  I've only seen The Third Man once, but never really saw what was so great about it in that viewing, other than Orson Welles being super fun to watch. I was thinking of maybe renting it again, as my opinion on movies tends to vary quite a bit as I grow older.

4. All About Lily Chou-Chou

Starring: Hayato Ichihara - Shûgo Oshinari - Ayumi Ito - Takao Osawa - Miwako Ichikawa - Izumi Inamori - Yû Aoi -    Kazusa Matsuda
Director(s): Shunji Iwai

Synopsis
Life isn't easy for a group of high school kids growing up absurd in Japan's pervasive pop/cyber culture. As they negotiate teen badlands- school bullies, parents from another planet, lurid snapshots of sex and death- these everyday rebels without a cause seek sanctuary, even salvation, through pop star savior Lily Chou-Chou, embracing her sad, dreamy songs and sharing their fears and secrets in Lilyholic chat rooms. Immersed in the speed of everyday troubles, their lives inevitably climax in a fatal collision between real and virtual identities, a final logging-off from innocence.

Now, this is the hardest film to describe. It's a teenage-drama, just filled with suicide, murder, rape and so on. I think the only word to describe this film is traumatic. It's not sad, it's really difficult to watch. The rape scene is really difficult to watch. But there's some dark beauty behind this, possibly from the mellow piano playing over most of the scenes. But this film is an experience, and definately a good one.

Awwww. I always felt this movie was a bit of a secret for most film fans. I would seriously recommend it in a heartbeat. Very emotionally instense and suspenseful. The cinematography is simply amazing, especially for digital. The vacation sequence was insanely original, and the ending was very moving, in my opinion.

I'm kind of surprised I didn't find any films by Lars von Trier on some of your lists. Albeit it, some of his films can surpass a tasteful level of pretension, most are heart wrecking dramas. You would have to have a stone heart to finish one of his movies and not be emotionally drained.

I would recommend

Dancer in the Dark
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168629/
Dogville
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276919/

Both are very unusual, yet still accomplish the most fundamental goal of film: They make you feel and empathize with the characters in ways you never would normally.

I'd also recommend a few films by Krzysztof Kieslowski, another master of emotional dramas. Some particularly amazing films by him are

A Short Film About Love
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095467/

A Short Film About Killing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095468/

Although his Three Color Trilogy is what Kieslowski is most remembered for, I always personally found these two films better. Then again, I really haven't seen Blue, White, or Red in a long while, so my opinion might change later. In A Short Film About Love I found myself particularly able to empathize with the main character, creating such an emotional impact during certain scenes I was on the verge of crying, which doesn't happen to often.

.... also, sorry for the long post, I tend to carried away sometimes. :/

I think it's Odium.

Cybermercs

Yep. Your turn.

Icarus and this game right here were both bundled together when I bought them a long time ago.

Icarus no?

I kind of liked that game when I was maybe 12 or something?

EDIT:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/g/pc_games/icarus_sanctuary_of_the_gods/gallery.php?page=4

Yep. I was right.

Probably too easy... <_<