Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

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edkrak
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by edkrak »

Horrors of Malformed Men has butoh, weird costumes and violence to satisfy everyone's needs.

paulofilmo
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by paulofilmo »

paulofilmo wrote:
sebby wrote:
paulofilmo wrote:There was a time when I looked up to admirers of classics. Then a time when I was a confidant admirer myself, free from aspiration. Then an especially arrogant time when I felt above even connoisseurs for their poor taste in certain acclaimed films. But before all of that, a time when I just enjoyed film, unsullied by anything.


When I first got into film (in my teens), I ignored the classics, knowing that for whatever reason I would find them boring, predictable, melodramatic, etc. I could appreciate unseen cult films like Roger Dodger or Kicking and Screaming, but watching something like Casablanca bored me to tears. I, too, felt I had the greatest taste in the world and couldn't be bothered with the crap other people foolishly thought was part of the cinematic pantheon. It's taken me more than 10 years of intense film-viewing to reach the point where I can gleefully seek out, unabashedly enjoy, and critically admire films like Treasure of the Sierra Madre or North by Northwest. It's sort of exhilarating, if somewhat predictable and boring as well.


I remember when I first found MetaFilter, I jumped to the most popular posts ever and soaked up the most favorited of favorited FFPs and AskMes. I then went to the real-time popular posts but was disappointed by the volume, noise of nerdery, posturing, quasi-oration. But there was enough there to entertain, and after a while I could understand the in-jokes and generally grokked the culture of the place. So then I had cliquey inclusion, entertainment, and habit. And now I'm a bit bored of it and I'm not sure if I ever found anything that bested that original wisdom. I guess that's a stretchy analogy to my film-viewing. I want the secret and I think I've been looking in the wrong place.

TheDenizen wrote:
paulofilmo wrote:Is there a blog that posts yt vids where I can sample the smorgasbord of crap? the veritable whores doovries of the weird and the awful?

I wish. There are, however, several excellent websites which specialize in bad/cult/underground movie reviews.

Here's a handful if you're interested. :D
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/
http://www.monstersatplay.com/index.php
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/
http://tarstarkas.net/
http://www.wtfcinema.com/

I'm sorry. That's not. Monster Costumes and violence aren't my cup. Sorry and thank you. I'm trying to figure out what the hell I was asking for. Moving poetry that I'm not ashamed to watch on my laptop. Frenetic surrealism. Short films by undiscovered genii. A beautiful girl in deck shoes running away from something unknown. Stealing flowers at night. Smoking in the shower. A forty-eight second psychosexual nightmare. Ephemera about coal miner shovel instruction.


Leos Carax is doing it for me. These nocturnal films about obsession set somewhere between dreams and nightmares.

The cinema is an anti-universe where reality is born out of a sum of unrealities.
Jean Epstein


I've seen three films in three months. Feels unsullied again. no arbitrary comparisons, numbers. just pleasure and flow.

ribcage
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by ribcage »

paulofilmo wrote:I've seen three films in three months.


just reading that makes me tremble! im a certifiable junkie, i try to watch a movie every single day. i even got into a work schedule where i was only seeing about 1 movie a week and got withdrawals! i was anxious and irritable and depressed and panicky -- until my wife suggested waking up earlier to watch a movie, and even with 90 minutes less sleep i felt amazing.

i tend towards, if not always "crap" films(which i do love and yes there's tons and tons of them that i watch) then certainly not ones of any recognition. i don't notice that in my compulsive watching that i become any more or less critical of films, but i do also try to scatter the types of films i'm watching, avoiding watching too many in a row from any particular decade or country. i think that's what keeps the magic strong for me. i never stay in one place long enough for a comparative critical eye to start manifesting. if i watch 1 or 2 70s thrillers in a row and then jump to 2000s japanese splattter... well i'm forced to enjoy those films on their own merits because i certainly can't judge Tokyo Gore Police based on the work done on The Parallax View

paulofilmo
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by paulofilmo »

I remember how a good film buoyed my spirits, which was necessary while sinking. Look back at myself struggling in the water and think, "you fucking idiot."

I've found having a good enough job took away the need for escapism. I'm unsure of the stoic angle on this.

monclivie
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by monclivie »

I can't really overdose. Sometimes i watch one or two every week, sometimes four to eight one day. Everything less than that makes me feel like I am wasting my life for less important things like studying, spending time with friends or other bullshit. I even fantasize about certain types of scenes i miss (casino scene or big final game or someone talking to bartender etc.) just like any other hungry person could think about the taste of big juicy burger, pancakes or whatever.

rklenseth
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by rklenseth »

The problem I run into is that there are so many movies to watch that I find it hard to choose at times. In the past year I've been going by the Netflix recommendations for whatever is in My List and picking off the movie at the top. Or at the end of the month choosing from the movies that Netflix is dumping. Otherwise, I could spend an hour or more just browsing the on demand channels on cable or the streaming sites for something that I feel like watching. I almost feel like just going back to Netflix's DVD by mail only (I still have it but I generally end up sitting on the film) so that I won't have much of a choice. Sometimes the days before I had cable or streaming even existed were convenient in that sense. But nowadays you would have to subscribe to 8 DVDs at a time with Netflix in order to make sure you have a DVD at hand considering that Netflix is only open for DVDs Monday through Thursday where I live. If I put a DVD in the mail on Thursday I won't see a new one until Tuesday which stinks. So much for 1 day delivery anymore. Plus I believe that Netflix will be dropping their DVD by mail service in the near future probably in the next 2 years. The overhead is way too expensive and there aren't many subscribers left.

Sometimes, though, if I feel too overwhelmed or just can't find anything I feel like watching at that particular moment I'll just go to the Blu-ray collection and pick a good, old comfort film that I've probably seen a dozen times before.

In terms of rating movies, I find that whatever mood I'm in can affect the movies more toward the middle ground. No matter what mood I'm in I can recognize the great and crap movies but in terms of the movies that I consider average I might rate higher than I should or lower. Sometimes I'll look through my ratings and wonder why I gave that movie that rating but considering the first time I viewed them I considered them average I don't believe they're worth the re-watch.

ShogunRua
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by ShogunRua »

rklenseth wrote:Or at the end of the month choosing from the movies that Netflix is dumping.


This is one of the main ways I "decide" upon which Netflix movies to watch, too. Unfortunately, they only announce which films will expire a week before the first of the month, which creates a problem when there are 20+ of them.

Shame that they're getting rid of physical DVDs; their streaming selection is decent, but missing a great many films. I imagine that after I work through the queue in a year or two, there won't be much left to see, especially since newer movies rarely interest me.

rklenseth
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by rklenseth »

I find a lot of the movies are on a six month rotation so if they do get removed they'll usually be back in six months. They use to announce months in advance as to when movies would be leaving their service a few years ago but they changed their policy for some reason. There are sites like www.instantwatcher.com that helps give a little bit more notice as to when movies will be leaving.

The DVD going away is just my personal prediction. I think part of it is fueled by the distribution companies wanting to go digital only. Fox is planning on doing away all physical distribution (DVD/Blu-ray) by 2017 and I think others will follow suit not long after. It will be a shame that the only ways to own a copy of a film will be through digital distribution which can be taken from you at any time if the distributor feels like it.

mattorama12
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by mattorama12 »

rklenseth wrote:The DVD going away is just my personal prediction. I think part of it is fueled by the distribution companies wanting to go digital only. Fox is planning on doing away all physical distribution (DVD/Blu-ray) by 2017 and I think others will follow suit not long after. It will be a shame that the only ways to own a copy of a film will be through digital distribution which can be taken from you at any time if the distributor feels like it.


By 2017?!?! Goddamn, that's terrible. I'm a fan of digital, but I love having DVDs for a few reasons. The problem with digital is, unless you have it on your own hard drive, it's not guaranteed to last. The worst thing is my fear that the George Lucasi of the world will decide to make changes to movies and those changes will be pushed to your digital collection. How terrible would that be? The other annoying problem with a cloud/digital collection is fragmentation. I don't want to have to remember if a movie was Paramount or Fox to figure out which site I have to log in to to watch it.

A big reason for my love of DVDs is the special features, though. When I first got a DVD player back in 1999 (The Spy Who Shagged Me was the first DVD I personally bought), my absolute favorite thing was that the DVDs had all kinds of extra features, particularly the director's commentary. I pretty much credit my deep love of movies to my introduction to the director's commentary. Anyway, with digital distribution, you don't really get that. I'm sure as we move away from DVDs, they'll start to make "extra features" available through streaming/renting/purchasing sites, but I also assume that will always be separately paid for. I worry that not enough people will separately pay for it to make those types of things commercially viable. Anyway, this long rant is really just me holding on to the hope that I'll be able to find director's commentary for movies made in 2024, and not just the ones that make it into the Criterion Collection (or will that disappear too?!)

paulofilmo
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Re: Great Movie-Watching Runs (And What They Do to You)

Post by paulofilmo »

i remembered how it would feel when a satyajit ray film was just starting. my mind being taken somewhere else.

i get it a bit with kaurismaki, but otherwise haven't felt it so much.

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