The Thin Man wrote: or the end of Friday the Thirteenth where Jason's body is lying on the ground but when they cut back it has suudenly disappeared...
Coldfire24 wrote:The Thing is a masterpiece. That movie is one of the main reasons I became a geek. That movie ages like a fine wine. If you haven't seen it you need to.
TheButcher wrote:A prequel to The Thing is in development.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060908k.php
Agent Alonzo wrote:On top of everything else it has such a damn fine script, beautifully crafted, with some superb dialogue.
Chairman Kaga wrote: finding The Thing, thawing it and the havoc that ensues etc etc
The Vicar wrote:For its "genre", it had likely the best cast evar.
And those sweet lines....
"I don't know what it is, but its weird and pissed off..."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me....."
"Shit Doc, I'll give you a lift - no problem..."
"Forget about Palmer"
"Thanks for thinking about it though..."
Damn.
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:Meanwhile, what do you guys think happened at the end of the 25th Hour?
SPOILERS.
Yes we see Ed Norty bot being driven to jail by his dad who tells a whole story about how his life could turn out if he decided to turn off the freeway and just drive him somewhere and let him do a runner and it goes into this brilliant montage and voice over of Brian Cox narrating all of Ed Norton's new life, all the way to him growing older.
Then the film ends.
So, did this actually happen? Or did he decide to go to jail still? Did Brian Cox turn off the freeway or carry on to the jail? What do you think happened, people?! Also be sure to add spoilers in when talking about it in EACH post if you do. This is obviously the most IMPORTANT part of the film.
I really like that ending by the way. Someone's life being told to them. The ultimate escape. Looking back I find this extremely moving. That we are always free, no matter what we think life dictates to us. As long as you don't literally put yourself in bloody jail that is.
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:SPOILERS TO THE 25TH HOUR CONTINUING.....
Yeah, I can see it from that POV too. I think Spike Lee was a bit bored with an ending that could have gone one way or the other and decided for something more clever but ultimately more contemplative than physically definite. See, the dreamer and optimist in me likes to think that the filmmakers went to all that trouble to do that 5 odd minute sequence as they were trying to indicate that THIS IS what actually happened and that there is so much hope in one's freedom to escape and redeem oneself, that this is what the human spirit is capable of, but let's give it this vague ambiguous look by making it possibly a dream state as it's too much of a happy and even immoral ending to insult the audience's intelligence. Part of me likes to think that. The other part of me just doesn't wanna imagine the guy going to prison and instead embarking on a life of Hell, but to be honest, I'm partially with you too Ribbons. I think that he also could own up to his crimes and gets on with the jail term, and that the dream scene is something for him to aim for. The light that he wishes to reach for, to make him a better man from his now pit of an seemingly unreturnable dark hole, something that he can't climb back from. I mean, that's it, he's reached that point of no return, nothing can he can do can make him make him good again. But he's given something that he needs to believe in, and if he can do this, then it's something that he can reach for and help him survive. The ultimate escape, to go and find a decent and good happy life.
So presented with this hypathetical life, what does he do? Go to jail and be honest and try to earn it (making his jail term more endurable)? Or simply say 'fuck it. All I did was deal drugs, I didn't hurt anyone. I'm sorry already. Don't send me to HELL for it. Let's use some poetic justice here. Let's RUUUNN!!!!'
I'm always gonna be 50-50 on this one at the end of the day I think. I'm too hopeful I s'pose.
Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:FANNY AND ALEXANDER
SPOILERISH
What do people who've seen this film, make of Alex's visions? Seeing dead people all the time, etc. Do you find that this is part of his own imagination or that they really are ghosts for real? Or is it a bit of both?
I sorta hope a little bit for the sake of the drama of the film that they are real and that I'm not being conned by it just being a 'dream' as I couldn't believe how genuinely and real personally terrifying these 'ghosts' were. I hadn't been scared by anything in film on that level since God knows when. Something about them really got to you right deep inside, like it hit upon your real personal senses.
SPOILERS AGAIN.
Especailly the scene at the end where after Alex thought he was free when his Preacher Stepfather had been burnt to death, he actually turned up at the end and said that he would be always haunting Alex forever and would always be right there with him. I find that realistically scary.
seppukudkurosawa wrote:Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:FANNY AND ALEXANDER
SPOILERISH
What do people who've seen this film, make of Alex's visions? Seeing dead people all the time, etc. Do you find that this is part of his own imagination or that they really are ghosts for real? Or is it a bit of both?
I sorta hope a little bit for the sake of the drama of the film that they are real and that I'm not being conned by it just being a 'dream' as I couldn't believe how genuinely and real personally terrifying these 'ghosts' were. I hadn't been scared by anything in film on that level since God knows when. Something about them really got to you right deep inside, like it hit upon your real personal senses.
SPOILERS AGAIN.
Especailly the scene at the end where after Alex thought he was free when his Preacher Stepfather had been burnt to death, he actually turned up at the end and said that he would be always haunting Alex forever and would always be right there with him. I find that realistically scary.
I know I'm gonna sound lost up my own arse with this response, so just consider yourself duly warned. I think Xander's visions are initially representative of those chimeras you see at the corner of your vision; the things that have haunted man for centuries: fairies, aliens, giant man-eating sharks. The thing is, Xander, being a child, and a child on a limb- displaced by reality and the grounding, heartrending vicissitudes therein- pursues these visions, as to him they offer a recourse that the real world could never supply. Initially he's fearful of them, but, just as in the Jew's home, he finds out that once he pursues these chimeras and stops running from them, they become something joyful and enlightening. I guess if everyone turns around and actually looks at the demon chasing them, they'll see that this demon is reflective of themselves in all their virtues and faults, and it's not even a demon at all.
In my opinion, his talking to his dead dad near the end of the film was the last gasp of his childhood; after that he'll be an adult, who has lost his sense of humour, but "gained" a sense of irony in return. Whether or not he'll have an easy life, I'm not sure. Imaginative people can go one of two ways: they can carve out the devices of their own torture, or they can transcend to something else.
I think that cinematically speaking, the ghosts in Fanny & Alexander were Bergman's way of saying that for a child's fresh eyes, the world is something of limitless possibilites.
Keepcoolbutcare wrote:the ending of 12 Monkeys.
rented the DVD for Gilliam's commentary, and all he did was laugh at the concept, saying how it's better that it remains ambiguous.
edit: damn you Tony. Beat me to post-modernism as well. gentleman.
instant_karma wrote:I never really found this to be ambiguous. When the woman from the future says 'I'm in insurance.' I took that to mean that she was there as a back up to stop the guy if Cole failed.
Keepcoolbutcare wrote:instant_karma wrote:I never really found this to be ambiguous. When the woman from the future says 'I'm in insurance.' I took that to mean that she was there as a back up to stop the guy if Cole failed.
but fail he did, and stop it she didn't.
now, if she says "I'm an insurance", then that could mean she was there to ensure he completed his task of going around the world with the plague.
Gilliam's commentary makes it explicit that the ending was intentionally ambiguous...
TonyWilson wrote:Well it's either that or a great joke about the characters are all so shallow whatever he thinks will be completely worthless.
Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Well it's either that or a great joke about the characters are all so shallow whatever he thinks will be completely worthless.
Heh, that could be. I love the scene in the film where Ian Somerhalder's character is thinking "I love you, Sean Bateman!" and Sean Bateman is thinking "I'm hungry."
Ha, yeh that's awesome. What did you think about the suicide? It was such a blindside and the only emotionally real bit in the film, but then even the way it was done was such a depressed teenager kinds of cliche thing, it was really interesting that ambivalence about it.
TonyWilson wrote:Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Well it's either that or a great joke about the characters are all so shallow whatever he thinks will be completely worthless.
Heh, that could be. I love the scene in the film where Ian Somerhalder's character is thinking "I love you, Sean Bateman!" and Sean Bateman is thinking "I'm hungry."
Ha, yeh that's awesome. What did you think about the suicide? It was such a blindside and the only emotionally real bit in the film, but then even the way it was done was such a depressed teenager kinds of cliche thing, it was really interesting that ambivalence about it.
Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Well it's either that or a great joke about the characters are all so shallow whatever he thinks will be completely worthless.
Heh, that could be. I love the scene in the film where Ian Somerhalder's character is thinking "I love you, Sean Bateman!" and Sean Bateman is thinking "I'm hungry."
Ha, yeh that's awesome. What did you think about the suicide? It was such a blindside and the only emotionally real bit in the film, but then even the way it was done was such a depressed teenager kinds of cliche thing, it was really interesting that ambivalence about it.
That's a good question. I remember thinking it was interesting that Avary didn't show any of the bloodletting until after she was already dead, but I'm not sure if that was like an aesthetic thing or if he was trying to make some kind of a point.
I didn't really think it was out of place the first time I saw the movie, but for some reason it did seem to jar with the cynical tone when I watched it again. Maybe that tonal shift served some storytelling purpose, or maybe it was just a by-product of suicide itself being heavy subject matter. But it was another example of a character wanting an idealized version of another character, and then that other character's insensitivity to or ignorance of their feelings, so it does fit in some ways.
Leckomaniac wrote:Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:What did you think about the suicide? It was such a blindside and the only emotionally real bit in the film, but then even the way it was done was such a depressed teenager kinds of cliche thing, it was really interesting that ambivalence about it.
That's a good question. I remember thinking it was interesting that Avary didn't show any of the bloodletting until after she was already dead, but I'm not sure if that was like an aesthetic thing or if he was trying to make some kind of a point.
I didn't really think it was out of place the first time I saw the movie, but for some reason it did seem to jar with the cynical tone when I watched it again. Maybe that tonal shift served some storytelling purpose, or maybe it was just a by-product of suicide itself being heavy subject matter. But it was another example of a character wanting an idealized version of another character, and then that other character's insensitivity to or ignorance of their feelings, so it does fit in some ways.
And then contrast that with Sean's faux suicide attempt. When you trace it back: the girl kills herself because she can't have Sean who then goes and fakes a suicide attempt trying desperately to get Lauren who happens to be the one who discovered the girl.
Sean makes light of a suicide that he was partly responsible for causing...although unknowingly.
Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Ribbons wrote:TonyWilson wrote:Well it's either that or a great joke about the characters are all so shallow whatever he thinks will be completely worthless.
Heh, that could be. I love the scene in the film where Ian Somerhalder's character is thinking "I love you, Sean Bateman!" and Sean Bateman is thinking "I'm hungry."
Ha, yeh that's awesome. What did you think about the suicide? It was such a blindside and the only emotionally real bit in the film, but then even the way it was done was such a depressed teenager kinds of cliche thing, it was really interesting that ambivalence about it.
That's a good question. I remember thinking it was interesting that Avary didn't show any of the bloodletting until after she was already dead, but I'm not sure if that was like an aesthetic thing or if he was trying to make some kind of a point.
I didn't really think it was out of place the first time I saw the movie, but for some reason it did seem to jar with the cynical tone when I watched it again. Maybe that tonal shift served some storytelling purpose, or maybe it was just a by-product of suicide itself being heavy subject matter. But it was another example of a character wanting an idealized version of another character, and then that other character's insensitivity to or ignorance of their feelings, so it does fit in some ways.
EDIT: this is going out on a bit of a limb here, but the girl who killed herself in the movie was the only character who wasn't looking for sex. Maybe the tragedy of the event (besides for the event itself) was that she fell for all the sweet, flowery concepts of romance that young kids in lust conjure up to get each other into bed (consciously or subconsciously). It's a dangerous game to play when the means seem more attractive than the end, because your entire relationship with the rest of the world is built on a lie, and you're the only one who doesn't know it. And also that might help explain (to myself, I guess) what I was driving at earlier, with the aesthetic remark, because the wrist-cutting is the closest thing to a sexual relationship with Sean that the girl will ever have.
TonyWilson wrote:Ribbons wrote:EDIT: this is going out on a bit of a limb here, but the girl who killed herself in the movie was the only character who wasn't looking for sex. Maybe the tragedy of the event (besides for the event itself) was that she fell for all the sweet, flowery concepts of romance that young kids in lust conjure up to get each other into bed (consciously or subconsciously). It's a dangerous game to play when the means seem more attractive than the end, because your entire relationship with the rest of the world is built on a lie, and you're the only one who doesn't know it. And also that might help explain (to myself, I guess) what I was driving at earlier, with the aesthetic remark, because the wrist-cutting is the closest thing to a sexual relationship with Sean that the girl will ever have.
That is such a great interpretation of the film, Ribbons. I agree with some of your points. But I think she's just as deluded as the rest of them with ideas about love and lust and ultimately she expresses it in a way that's just as romanticized and obsessed over and cliched as love or sex is. It's like she's just as stuck as everyone else in a shallow media-fed view of the world. The tragedy is she isn't pretty enough to achieve in that media saturated popularity contest world.
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