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Post by AllenSmithee on Apr 5, 2010 13:02:23 GMT -5
Awesome!  Honestly, it is something very interesting to me, how Japan is a society of polarity. Maybe I'm reading into it wrong, but I'll give it a shot. So, you've got this island, untouched by anyone but itself for a long time, so it has a very peculiar culture, unlike anything else. But then, after a series of events which we all know, it starts to become more like another culture, while it still wants to retain some of itself. Because of the events of the Second World War, Japan now tries to absolutely COPY another culture, in many ways, but it can't shake the way it is. So you've got this weird thing, where it is trying to Western but it really isn't. Another interesting bit is how weddings are Christian, and funerals are Buddhist. Hmm, to polarities, hmm? But what really strikes me as interesting is how upfront they are about things. Some things, I should say. Because with Japan, there is a lot of secrets, and many cans and cannots, so to speak. Say this to him, but only in the presence of -- and so on. So there is a lot of suppression-by-policy, which I guess there is everywhere it is just different in different places. I don't know many of the details about how it works in Japan, but in Canada it seems to be the opposite. While we try to be open about things on a vocal sense, anything physical be damned. Especially our own bodies. You will rarely see anything pornographic on the streets of Ottawa, but from what I know, the Japanese are very upfront about tons of that stuff. Someone once said to me, how in Western games, sexy characters are shown as sexy in a more subtle way. But in Japanese games, you get zooms and pans, and I'd probably call it fairly voyeuristic. So with them sex can be obvious, but I guess there is so much bureaucracy to the daily life that its a must. What do they say about that in Shogun? Oh yeah, this was it, from the Bath Scene: She says in Japan there is no privacy. If an individual wants privacy they must learn to go inside themselves in a land of internal mazes. She then advises Anjin not to be fooled by their bows and smiles. |
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DoubleD64
Wilewarer
"WHO ARE YOU CALLIN' A PIPSQUEAK?!"
Posts: 401
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Post by DoubleD64 on Apr 5, 2010 16:30:13 GMT -5
Someone has watched The Princess Bride, I see.  Never gets old dude. Speaking of which, just finished watching The Outsiders after........ gosh it's been a while!  |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Apr 8, 2010 16:22:03 GMT -5
Weeds seasons 1 and 2. Season 3 is rubbing me the wrong way. This show suddenly went from being a laid-back comedy to a heavy drama with lots of "OMG" and "WTF" mixed in. I also watched the whole first season of Happy Tree Friends. Brutal! Watership Down is on its way. I've also watched Year One (Funny as hell, but raunchy and full of religious humor.), Grilled (It was alright, could've been better. I enjoyed it for what it was.), and Paul Blart: Mall Cop (AWESOME, funny as hell! It's like Home Alone with an adult lead in a mall!) I'm also working on The A-Team, cause B.A. pity da foo'! I'm still boycotting the eventual movie, because I love the original cast; only Mr. T can be B.A., only Dwight can play H.M. Murdock, the most recent Templeton "Face" Peck, the most recent John "Hannibal" Smith, etc. -- to HELL with the replacement A-Team!  |
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Lenalia
Wilewarer
Awesome Custom Title
Posts: 456
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Post by Lenalia on Apr 14, 2010 22:07:40 GMT -5
How To Train Your Dragon.
I have a certain mental image of what Dreamworks' animated movies are "supposed" to be like -- the Shrek movies, the Madagascar movies, Bee Movie... They all share a certain sense of humor and general style of filmmaking. They're not bad movies -- they're pretty amusing -- but for the most part, they're not really my thing. Honestly, when I saw the promos for Dragon, my reaction was that I wanted to see it, but also that I expected to be disappointed -- and part of that was because what I wanted it to be was different from what I'm used to Dreamworks' animation division making.
Fortunately, though, it didn't "feel like" a Dreamworks animated movie, not really -- it was just a really good animated movie that happened to be made by them. The few attempts there were to interject their brand of humor largely came off as corny, but it's a minor detraction to an otherwise all-around great movie. The other comments I've seen on it echo my opinion pretty well, so I won't ramble further...
...Except to mention: This may mostly be my personal tastes in music talking, but while I don't normally buy movie soundtracks, I'm definitely tempted to pick this one up.
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Post by AllenSmithee on Apr 16, 2010 22:30:13 GMT -5
Yo, thanks for letting me know, I was waiting to see how it turned out If I like this I'll totally whack up the comics. |
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Post by Ashurei on Apr 26, 2010 12:51:53 GMT -5
Kick-Ass was very much worth seeing, and having not read the comics, I'm actually glad that a couple pre-conceived notions I had developed had proven wrong by the film's end.
I have to parrot wyrdy - Hit girl was the star of the movie, no questions asked. Kickass was a good lead, and the humor centered around him was actually surprisingly good; Red Mist was about as much as I'd come to expect from Mintz-Plasse - kid's a good actor, no denying that; and Nicholas Cage was indeed awesome as Adam West 2.0. But no, every action scene involving hit girl was brilliantly choreographed and flat-out awesome incarnate.
Speaking of (Mintz-Plasse), I need to go see How to Train Your Dragon before that leaves theaters. heard nothing but good stuff about it.
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Apr 26, 2010 13:42:42 GMT -5
I totally agree!!! |
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Post by sushi on Apr 26, 2010 13:55:40 GMT -5
Kick-Ass was very much worth seeing, and having not read the comics, I'm actually glad that a couple pre-conceived notions I had developed had proven wrong by the film's end. I have to parrot wyrdy - Hit girl was the star of the movie, no questions asked. Kickass was a good lead, and the humor centered around him was actually surprisingly good; Red Mist was about as much as I'd come to expect from Mintz-Plasse - kid's a good actor, no denying that; and Nicholas Cage was indeed awesome as Adam West 2.0. But no, every action scene involving hit girl was brilliantly choreographed and flat-out awesome incarnate. Speaking of (Mintz-Plasse), I need to go see How to Train Your Dragon before that leaves theaters. heard nothing but good stuff about it. If you cool dudes like it so much I guess I'll choose Kick Ass over all the other movies when I go in a few days. xD Also, recently sought out a couple of unseen classics and saw Groundhog Day and Lost In Translation. Both starring Colin Mochrie, to my surprise! |
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Post by sushi on Apr 26, 2010 15:43:06 GMT -5
He was growing to like it though. Seemed to be having much more fun with the place after a while. He wanted Japanese food when he got home, for example. A generalisation of the phases of culture shock, maybe.
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Post by Ashurei on Apr 26, 2010 16:18:46 GMT -5
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. How could you?! D: |
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Post by sushi on Apr 26, 2010 16:22:43 GMT -5
And if I don't like the main characters of a movie, I hate that movie FFVIII much? same thing happened with Fight Club, for me. sushi's best friend: "Blasphemy!" |
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Post by Ashurei on Apr 26, 2010 16:27:48 GMT -5
Of course you can't relate to his situation! I used that same argument on you with The Hangover, sir, and that didn't fly.  (I kid, I kid) I think the best way I'd describe what I liked about it as a whole is how charismatic it was... which might not make sense, but to me it does. I just really liked the aesthetic of the film as a whole. The presentation, the narration style. Not to mention Pitt and Norton are among some of my favorite actors. Loved the mindfuck ending, too. That *may* have been elevated by the fact that the first time I watched it it was awfully late and I missed all of the single-frame hallucinations at the start of the film, though. But still. I loves it. One of my favorite movies ever. |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Apr 26, 2010 16:44:38 GMT -5
But you're okay with an emo with a gigantic sword which OMG must be compensating for something -- which is probably WHY he's emo, who travels with an unrealistic ethnic hero with a machine gun prosthetic limb, in a universe where racism simply doesn't exist, emo's unrealistic Hollywood/cosmo magazine standard big tits on a stick girlfriend that can't honestly support her own weight evenly, his churchy flower-girl mistress that he cheats on her with before killing her under the possession of an ill-informed psychotic momma's boy's puppet -- who convinces our emo hero to trot right over and hand over the typical world-ending plot-device that all RPGs must have in order to convince the player that their quest is somehow worth a damn, and they all go to Disneyland with their wounded puppy and air-pilot/rocket-scientist who can't seem to get over losing his wife in the war -- I mean, in the accident that was all his fault.  ...Just demonstrating how easy it is to write a hateful-sounding review of FFVII when I love it and everything about it -- even though I can't relate to ANYTHING about it!  |
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Post by sushi on Apr 28, 2010 15:26:17 GMT -5
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Post by Justin on Apr 30, 2010 3:48:23 GMT -5
I watched a shitload of John Candy stuff last night. I was up till 4 am!
Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, and The Great Outdoors.
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Post by Mutagene on Apr 30, 2010 7:51:16 GMT -5
Uncle Buck is a classic. I miss John Candy. :/
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Post by winterfury on Apr 30, 2010 11:34:47 GMT -5
The movie I see last?
Agora by alejandro amenabar, a spanish movie.
I saw the original version recorded in english.
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Post by Justin on Apr 30, 2010 19:28:56 GMT -5
Uncle Buck is a classic. I miss John Candy. :/ Dude, so do I! I did sort of a "thanks" post today that goes live on Scatterbrain around noon tomorrow. Check it out. |
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Post by lailmith on May 2, 2010 13:03:29 GMT -5
Today watched Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon movie from TV Don't know about you, but I find it quite interesting and good movie, very rewarding at the end. |
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Post by AllenSmithee on May 2, 2010 13:13:15 GMT -5
Agreed to the max.
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