Top Twenty Films

[Wisp]

Cats have humans sussed, the look is condescension. Have you seen the recent pics of Alex, he looks like a red neck biker! I'm not sure what these shots are called, but they're incredibly effective. (still my top twenty, it changes daily!) Shark Jumping!!

Looks like a camera attached to a moving object maybe. I wanted to say steadicam but it probably isn't.

I like Alex's new look. I think he's spent too much time around Josh Homme... Swagger of that magnitude has got to rub off on you.

[ricardo shillyshally]

It seems to be called 'dolly zoom' shot. Camera moves, and focus changes to keep subject constant. To me it has a psychological effect!

[ricardo shillyshally]

An interesting and diverse range of films. I've seen 16 of them, and they are certainly among the most intriguing! http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-gre...ur-time/2/

[ricardo shillyshally]

Sheldon 'Trouble' Lee Cooper outwits Wil. And whatever AFF says is irrelevant!

[ricardo shillyshally]

They are running a history of Gothic on BBC4. First they showed Mark Gatiss's wonderful Horror Europa, where he sees European horror films as a metaphor for the carnage of the twentieth century. Including such delights as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari featuring Conrad Veidt. And yesterday in The Art of Gothic, they showed how Gothic became a sort of subconscious containing everything The Age of Enlightenment suppressed. It seems by the eighteen century William Shakespeare's work had almost been forgotten. They revived it, as a link to our medieval past.

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I love the passion of this woman!

[SpaceAnJL]

...what? Dammit, I need to start keeping up with the tv schedules again. I loved Waldemar Januszczak's series he did on the Rococo and the Gothic Revival.

All the German emigres taking their weird psychological imaginings to Hollywood gave us some fabulous stuff. Gatiss knows his stuff, I really wish they'd let him loose with a genuine Victorian 'penny dreadful' series, he'd make a brilliant job of it.

[Louise]

OMG, one movie that I wouldn't necessarily describe as "great" or "favorite", but definitely re-watchable and tons of fun, is Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks." So funny, so quotable! It's def. light and fluffy, it's not "Crimes and Misdemeanors", but that is part of what makes it soooo endlessly re-watchable, plus it has Tracey Ulman, Michael Rappaport, Jon Lovitz, etc.

"Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is another super-fun and relatively recent Woody film. The use of music as an integral part of the plot is great, in that one. There's a particular scene in that movie which I'd re-watch again and again just to hear the music. I don't think I like it *quite* as much as Small Time Crooks; Woody is looking so elderly by that point that it's kinda awkward to see him in the lead role, but it's still super-fun and has Dan Akroyd.

Remember the part(s) with this song? Madagascar! Constantinople! Is this song not great???

[ricardo shillyshally]

You know I mentioned different levels, well this could be seen as a clever sexual reference, but of course they're only quoting Shakespeare: 'Priya: I took acting classes when I was at Cambridge. I loved it. We did Taming of the Shrew.
Leonard: Oh, wow. I love Taming of the Shrew. I did a paper on it in high school. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Priya: In his tongue.
Leonard: Whose tongue?
Priya: Yours, if you talk of tails, and so farewell.
Leonard: What, with my tongue in your tail?' But I'm not sure the show should call such references 'dirty', there seems to be a hypocrisy on American TV (which we also suffer from, I think we invented it!), and CL has constant battles with the censors(I find his Vanity cards an insight). ie: you're not supposed to mention activities that everyone does, and actually without some of which,none of us would be here. And like I said I don't have any problem with it as long as it's subtle /clever/funny!

[ricardo shillyshally]

I'd say Woody Allen is definetly part of the Jewish humour trail that led to TBBT. I enjoyed most of his middle period films. Side Effects is a great book(full of clever ideas, often mocking the intelligensia). TBBT writers have said they appreciate English humour(and sitcoms), and both humours have a darker, fatalistic side. Which I think was peoples' way of dealing with dark times, laughing at it took away it's power. They both also have a self-deprecating element. Sex, death, illness and relationships(intermarriage incl.) are standard jewish humour material. Situations are made so absurd that they become humourous. They even like to use cliches about themselves as humour. >' A Buddhist monk goes to a barber to have his head shaved. "What should I pay you?" the monk asks. "No price, for a holy man such as yourself," the barber replies. And what do you know, the next day the barber comes to open his shop, and finds on his doorstep a dozen gemstones.
That day, a priest comes in to have his hair cut. "What shall I pay you, my son?" "No price, for a man of the cloth such as yourself." And what do you know, the next day the barber comes to open his shop, and finds on his doorstep a dozen roses.
That day, Rabbi Finklestein comes in to get his payoss [sideburns] trimmed. "What do you want I should pay you?" "Nothing, for a man of God such as yourself." And the next morning, what do you know? The barber finds on his doorstep — a dozen rabbis!' from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_humour

[Toad]

I watched Pi today, about a chronically introverted mathematics genius being driven bonkers by crippling headaches as well as the search for proof of his hypothesis - that the universe is ordered by a mathematical/numerical scheme.

It's definitely not for all tastes, shot on the low, low budget of $60,000, with a mostly no-name cast and jittery black and white cinematography. More money though and the director might not have been quite as effective at conjuring up such an alienating, distorted and claustrophobic environment.

Plus the protagonist/narrator is unreliable, prone to hallucinations and blackouts, soooo, ambiguity rears its irksome head. AND it's dotted with nightmarish, Lynchian imagery. But once you get past all that, there are themes here - Obsession with a capital 'O', the dual-sided coin of genius and madness, and the moral quagmire that presents itself when you attempt, so to speak, to look at the face of God. Not to mention the psychological and physical toll it extracts.