i had unpleasantly severe writer's block this evening so i watching john carpenter's starman and a made-for-tv movie called the day after

i'm kinda bothered that i enjoyed starman, as it's oppressively idiotic and cliche, and has this unnerving subtext where you realize OH JESUS CHRIST THIS IS STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, but there's something so naively pleasant about this movie, without too much in the way of real motive outside of just making something generally kinda fun and heartwarming i guess. i think jeff bridges, karen allen, and charles martin smith are the sort of performers that could sell you your own shit though, so this probably has something to do with it. the movie is worth watching just to see jeff bridges.

i'm not sure why but i'm guilty of really liking many of john carpenter's movies, and i guess i worry that it's partially some sick repressed 80s nostalgia, as he's usually kinda sufficiently vacant in the way a lot of other filmmakers are that i dislike passionately. i could probably follow this logic to identify why i give him a big free pass, but i don't care. i guess i'm not that big of an ogre.

anyway, also watched this movie the day after, which i had never heard of but was actually something of a big deal around thirty years ago as this super-realistic portrayal of post-apocalyptic life. i took something of the philistine approach to it and skipped the early parts involving character exposition and just watched the chaos that happens in the middle sections until the end, i guess in large part because i didn't think i'd find the movie engaging enough to watch it through to the end and kinda wanted to see john lithgow and steve guttenberg in a post-apocalyptic setting. regardless, for a tv movie, it's really interesting stuff. i mean, i think we've had sufficient media saturation regarding nuclear disasters that we know what to generally expect if something like that happened, so while this was probably kinda vaguely informative to people who watched it in 1983, i don't think you can really learn an awful lot from it now. what i think this movie does do interesting however, is take a really profoundly sombre perspective of the idea of a nuclear holocaust, not sugar-coating anything whatsoever. what is probably the most useful about this is the really strenuous reminder that happy endings do not exist in this scenario. there's no place for really hopeful optimism when it comes to the thought of nuclear disaster not being averted. that's a game over scenario, which should still give us the occasional wake-up-screaming nightmare.

independent of that, however, is how much i appreciated the tone of this movie. i think even in quality movies you learn to expect something at least vaguely satisfying in the ultimate conclusion of the story, but that just didn't happen here, even to the point where the ending of the movie literally was a small blurb of text saying PS IF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED IT WOULD BE SO MUCH WORSE BTW TRY HAVING A NICE DAY NOW YOU CUNT. i think i always kinda blame this idiotic naivety on just HOLLYWOOD FILMS, but the more i think about it the more i really feel like even in the most downer of films there is usually some degree of hope or satisfaction in the general lexicon, to the point where you expect SOMETHING to go right AT SOME POINT. i guess i'm probably overthinking this, as even films that endeavor to have some sort of positive message are not usually benefited by putting this large dominant exclamation point on the hopelessness featured in the work. still, it's really interesting seeing a film that goes out of its way to completely disregard what you want to see as the viewer. the movie endeavors to truly shake you(and rumor has it president reagan and other relevant politicians found it influentially upsetting), and there's something useful in that, even if you don't find it a pleasant or useful experience. kinda refreshes my perspective on the notion of optimism in creative expression, but that's just my lame-o side talking.

by the way, the movie is actually here in its entirety if this intrigues you at all. outside of being rather rudely realistic i don't really know if i'd call this a particularly great accomplishment in film or anything. it's just a tv movie meant to upset sedentary housewives, but a rather vivid one all things considered. the cast is rather good in it, though they didn't use john lithgow as much as they should have(though he was an unknown at this point). it was nice to see them give john cullum a lot to do, though. very cool actor. nobody else in the main cast really drops the ball outside of some of the child actors and idiotic side-characters that they apparently just cast with whoever showed up to the casting session with the most pronounced mental illness. the production quality was really surprisingly good too. you rarely really feel like you're just watching people on a set. so yeah, pretty good for a made for tv movie, but only watch it if you're already having a bad day.

The Man Who Fell To Earth
Being a massive Bowie fan, I'm suprised it took me this long to watch it. I really enjoyed it, and he's brilliant as this weird creepy guy. Some parts were a bit confusing just interms of it takes a minute to adjust to the sudden changes in time/pace, and it makes it feel kinda like Citizen Kane in that we see the major bits and pieces of the story with no fluff or non important parts to pad out. It's pretty cool how it shows human vices like Gin(gin is not a vice! It is a potion!) take their toll on him over a prolonged period of time, rather than the usual cinema trick of one drink suddenly turning the character into Mr. Hyde.

go. watch merry christmas, mr lawrence. immediately.

go. watch merry christmas, mr lawrence. immediately.

i still have this downloaded and need to watch it aaaaa i forgot

.

The man who fell to earth, I'm guessing that's the story that "Meet dave" ripped off. As for me it was... I don't rem... no wait I do, It was nadesco prince of darkness, a film that made NO sense when you take into acount the story of the series, incidently I think this was one of those rare ocasions that I feel the Dub is better then the Sub, the voice actors actually have emotion and fit there on screen characters which more often then not they don't, not even having the correct energy for the character at that moment.

I watched The Last Supper which I found to be surprisingly good (it has Cameron Diaz in it so I automatically expected the movie to suck). I personally would have liked to have seen the movie end 10 seconds before it did to leave the end a little more ambiguous, but it still generates debate which is nice. Basically, the movie is about this group of liberal-minded friends living in the same house, who invite a guest over for dinner and kill them if they believe that in doing so it will be for the betterment of society.

uTorrent activate!

I watched Chungking Express the last night. Split into two halves, we follow two policemen from hong kong dealing with the breakup of a relationship and observe how their mental states have been affected(collecting cans of tin pineapple with the expiry that is specifically within a month, talking to household items).

The movie is quite sweet and optimistic, showing us that better things may be around the corner if you're willing to notice. This is especially present in the second story, which is my preferred of the two. The cinematography is stunning. It reminds me of a real world blade runner with its focus on convenient stores and fast food corners heavily lit in strong neon colours. And even though I have never been to hong kong, I get a real sense of culture and society of 90s hong kong. I've read that it was made cheaply and quickly, so it makes sense that a lot of the extras could be real people going about their business (I can't confirm that this true).

There is a lot more to be said about the film, but this is all I can think of saying right now.

The Campaign, pretty funny.

GUYS WHAT IS THE MOST BORING MOVIE YOU CAN THINK OF!? I'LL ANSWER FIRST: THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMIE BY WHO CAAAAARREES

i might go see dredd. i don't expect it to be any good but i want to see it anyway.

been watching a lot of cowboy movies recently, lots of clint eastwood.

First time i saw fistful of dollars, and i am totally in love with that film now.

Also rewatched scott pilgrim today, and i really enjoyed it (again)

Fistful of dollars is essential watching.   have you watched the remake of 3:10 to yuma?

I watched Slacker. I didn't really like it. I think it would have really been a better short film that a feature. It was an interesting experiment in narrative and whatnot but I didn't feel like it really focused on any sort of real theme or purpose, which could have unified it a bit. I really enjoyed parts of it, but as a whole I don't think it really worked.

I also watched Flirting With Disaster, which I enjoyed more. For the most part, I'm a fan of David O. Russel's work (not huge on Huckabees, but I've liked everything else I've seen) and while this is by no means his best movie I think it did what it was trying to do well. I'm not a huge fan of the "Generic and Neurotic Ben Stiller Character" Ben Stiller played, but I thought the other characters and story were neat.

yo how is dredd

you know what i'm just gonna see it today