I have the two Vengeance movies on my Netflix streaming queue, Vonnie. Would you recommend against seeing them? The person I saw Oldboy with swears it has a happy ending. I think it's horrible beyond all words, but I don't regret having seen it.
Willow: Were there dolphins? Tara: Yes. Many dolphins at the pound. Willow: Was there a camel? Tara: There was the front of a camel. A half-camel.
'Selfless'
Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai
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§ ita § - Nov 23, 2009 9:43:38 am PST #5142 of 30000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Vonnie K - Nov 23, 2009 10:09:11 am PST #5143 of 30000
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.
I dunno, ita. Appreciation of horror is such a subjective thing. I think one can appreciate Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance as one might enjoy a Jacobean revenge tragedy, but I found the level of violence -- and the almost aesthetic revelling in the detail of the violence and torture in the film -- very difficult to stomach. I mean, I usually have no trouble with bleakness or unhappy endings and I've known to enjoy psychological horror, but I have to have *something* to balance it with, y'know? Some catharsis or operatic grandeur, or a tiny flicker of hope. I recall the movie looked beautiful, but mostly I remember slooooooow moments depicting unending despair and hopeless of human condition interspersed with bouts of unbearable violence and torture. Gah.
That said, I think you probably have stronger stomach for violence than I do (I am such a wuss, I couldn't even finish watching A Clockwork Orange.)
§ ita § - Nov 23, 2009 10:21:08 am PST #5144 of 30000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Yeah, A Clockwork Orange is one of my favourite movies. I'm squeamish in odd places. In the end, it wasn't the violence of Oldboy that did me in, just the...the choices.
Laga - Nov 23, 2009 10:40:24 am PST #5145 of 30000
You should know I'm a big deal in the Resistance.
Polter-Cow, have you seen the Be Kind Rewind youtube channel? The sweded trailer is... well I'm not quite sure but I love it.
Polter-Cow - Nov 23, 2009 10:43:51 am PST #5146 of 30000
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Oh, yeah, I saw the Sweded trailer when it came out. I loved it too.
Fiona - Nov 23, 2009 9:55:43 pm PST #5147 of 30000
One of the things about genre studies is the difficulty of defining your less obvious genres because of the degree of subjectivity. I'd say that horror definitely needs a touch of that great German word, "unheimlich", which translates as something like eerie, sinister, uncanny.
To an extent, "The Arrival of the Train..." would have qualified for contemporary audiences, but it's still a smart-alec choice.
People's reaction to the film was already being parodied just a couple of years later, so I guess that makes "The Countryman and the Cinematograph" the 1900s equivalent of "Scary Movie":
bon bon - Nov 25, 2009 12:23:26 pm PST #5148 of 30000
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
Bob and I went to Twilight last night with a theatre full of girls and their moms and long-suffering boyfriends and we both enjoyed the experience. The movie is not terrible, and the audience made it fun -- there was an audible sound of one girl hitting puberty when Tyler Lautner took off his shirt for the first time -- like a strangled shriek. (The whole audience tittered in appreciative relief when she did that.) But I can't really complain about the ridiculousness of having Lautner unnecessarily shirtless throughout the movie.
Polter-Cow - Nov 25, 2009 3:54:50 pm PST #5149 of 30000
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
I just saw Edward Scissorhands for the first time (I know, I know). I loved it.
Burrell - Nov 26, 2009 7:53:26 pm PST #5150 of 30000
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!
But I can't really complain about the ridiculousness of having Lautner unnecessarily shirtless throughout the movie.
IIRC he's unnecessarily shirtless through much of the book as well.
Jessica - Nov 28, 2009 4:25:39 am PST #5151 of 30000
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
Finally got around to Men Who Stare At Goats last night - what a giant steaming pile of horseshit.
I tried my best to separate it from the book, but turning the journalist into a believer at the end? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, MOVIE???!?!!!! I can't believe Jon Ronson is being so polite about this film in interviews. It's just so fucking insulting.
My in-laws who hadn't read any of Ronson's stuff were also not impressed, but they weren't actively angry at it like I was.
[edit: Jon Ronson, not Ron Jonson.]