Dark City and The Matrix? I don’t see the connection. No, I mean, I really, really don’t see it. There’s a loose aesthetic connection in the neo-Noir spins each film develops, but in terms of theme, plot, or even some kind of overarching message, I think the links are tenuous, to say the least. Maybe it’s an interpretive thing.
As to the concept being the same, a few thoughts on why I disagree, using my less than stellar intuition and analytical skills (that’s right, I’m not saying my theory is best, or that anyone has to agree, but I’m still putting this out there). The underlying mental provocation in Dark City seems to involve the sticky questions behind our humanity and the soul; you know, all the good metaphysical stuff. From my perspective, it’s a more intriguing proposition than The Matrix, simply because I believe the Wachowski brothers present a scenario that’s fairly easy to get your head around, which means, you’re not still trying to work it out once you leave the cinema. Most people rapidly make the “That could so happen…” connection between the premise on offer and their day-to-day experience.
Important questions posed by Dark City: “Who am I, really?”, “What makes me who I think I am?”, “What makes me human?”, “What is the soul?”
And by The Matrix: “How do we know what we think is real is actually real?”, as well as, “How does the Matrix know what Tasty Wheat tasted like?”, and, you know, stuff.
Dark City has ‘ghost in the machine’ undertones, whereas The Matrix follows more of a traditional ‘brain-in-a-vat’ scenario, sliced and diced together with bits of Monomyth. Once the denouement is reached, the core questions left by the filmmakers regard the self in terms of our perception of reality, and even more significantly, our perception of reality as a whole. It’s high school philosophy (the veil of perception and all that jazz), but it’s intriguing in the context of the film.
You can rail against the Hero’s Journey stuff at your own leisure, but if you’re like me, you’ll probably find Neo, Peter Parker and their ilk more empowering than overbearing in respect to the everyman they spring from. The twisted logic behind this follows a line of reasoning that moves past the idea of Neo being a savour figure and marches headlong into him acting as a cipher for the feats of greatness that ordinary people are capable of when they break the shackles of the reality they’ve created for themselves and start to believe in something better. This applies to everyone, so Neo (to me) is a respectable protagonist in the first film, where he remains more Spiderman than Superman…although, someone clearly didn’t think that was a good thing in the follow-up[s].
T’s conclusion is pretty damn relevant, but that particular writeup smacks to me a little too much of a practised, articulate, analytical eye operating on the basis of selective cynicism. With a sufficient dose of the aforementioned qualities, most people wouldn’t be too hard-pressed to train their sights on a film that they didn’t like and shred it a little bit but, in the same vein, you can go in the countervailing direction and give a film, in the critical sense, the benefit of the doubt. I’m not saying you should; I’m just admitting the principle I’m working on as I write this. I think The Matrix is a great film, with moderately lofty ambitions that don’t quite gel in the symposium of its various influences. As to the second and third films’ attempts to dovetail all of these influences and “EVERY COOL THING, LIKE, EVER!” (I’m certain someone said this in a production meeting. If not, they should have, because it explains a lot) into a cohesive post-Cyberpunk, representative realism, Dragonball-Z inspired extravaganza…well, these efforts were less successful. When I watch the first film these days I find it, of all things, very understated.
As to the original issue of anti-consumerism, I personally don’t see it, but maybe, like I said, that’s just an interpretive thing. It just one of those things where if it’s not an explicit theme, it’s almost certainly too ambiguous to make an issue out of. You can see anti-consumerism hard at work in Bambi if you look close enough, if you get my drift.
I’m not inclined to believe this kind of observation at all. I’m 21 and I know many people even younger than me who are as knowledgeable and cultured as you can expect anyone of a limited lifespan to be (and often moreso). I’ve lived all around the world, spoken to all kinds of people and the only thing I’ve learnt is that Theodore Sturgeon was insightful beyond words. If 90% of everything is crud, then you can refine that to a more human-orientated formula that specifies 90% of people are ignorant and/or stupid.
In more serious, less aphoristic way of putting it, a large fraction of any given demographic is always going to exhibit these kinds of aspects. And besides, we measure culture and knowledge in different ways. You might stumble across a music geek one day who doesn’t know who Godard is and go straight home and sound off about it on your favourite forum, then change your Facebook status to reflect your diminishing faith in the human race. Meanwhile, he goes home and blogs about some philistine he met who didn’t know who Verdi was and who thought “Bach and Son” referred to an accountancy firm.
It depresses me when Americans go on about how stupid everyone in their country is. Here’s a clue: the rest of the world is pretty stupid, too; we just don’t realise it because they’re being idiots in other languages.
Hell, why not? I’ll lay a few down. (you’ll have to forgive the reasoning involved…it’s not going to be objective)
Goodfellas
Scarface
Oldboy
Spirited Away
El Mariachi
I’m not big on gangster films. Maybe I was born without the right gene or something, but I don’t find gangsters cool. I find Arnie in Conan cooler than any given realistic portrayal of a gangster. If I can’t sympathise with Ray Liotta for the two and a half hours, then why am I going to feel anything other than mild discomfort watching a movie where every passing minute is spent thinking, “These guys are such pricks. I’m not even interested in seeing them receive any kind of comeuppance”? Because I have to be honest, that’s what was going through my head. I’d been made to feel like a bit of a cretin for not having already seen it, and as the credits roll my friends are going “Such a $%£&ing brilliant movie!” and I’m thinking, “Which movie did you watch?”
That said, I understand the difference between ‘fun’ and ‘good’. There are some good performances there in Goodfellas. Not the most exciting girl to take to the prom, but she’s got the right credentials. Verdict: Not terrible, not brilliant.
Scarface…Scarface, Scarface, Scarface. I don’t know why this has become such a cult phenomenon (or maybe I do, though I may not like it). Still…“Say hello to my little friend!” whilst maniacally weilding an M16? Surely any kind of credibility goes down the drain right there (excluding any ‘so-good-it’s-bad’ kudos earned)? Really, really didn’t like Scarface. Pshh. What do I know?
Oldboy! I watch a ton of tennis and have done for years. I understand many advanced theories relating to the sport. I regularly preempt commentators when watching with company (mostly ‘cos I stream a lot of tennis from China, so whose to say what the commentators are saying?) and have an uncanny ability to predict the precise moment many top professionals will pick to switch up their routine. My actual forays on court have shown me, despite knowing all this and being relatively fit, to be a pretty sucky tennis player. I’m familiar with suspension of disbelief, but I don’t buy into the basic premise behind his ‘mad skillz’.
Oldboy is also laden with melodrama. This film is sticky with it; it’s like syrup. Now, I loves me some asian cinema, and I know that’s pretty standard stuff. I spent a summer watching practically nothing but Korean romance films and series every night with a tub of Haagen Dazs and a box tissues to wipe away the tears. The whole reason I watch anime is almost certainly because of unnecessary melodrama. Oldboy— it befits you not.
And yet, I like Oldboy. It’s just not this retina-searing sensation that it was popularised as by certain parties. Many people also compare Bittersweet Life unfavourably to Oldboy, which I find bewildering (there’s a gangster movie I can watch! Smooth protagonist, slick cinematography and a satisfying if predictable conclusion). It’s entertaining, sure, but both the press and people I know listed Oldboy right up there with being ejaculated on by Zeus.
Spirited Away. I own it. I love it. But what is the plot? Well, I know what the plot is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many didn’t (upon first viewing, anyway) since good storytelling practice seems to have been lost amongst all the spectacle (but what spectacle!).
El Mariachi. Guilty confession: I haven’t actually seen El Mariachi. I’ve seen parts of it. I even bought it a few months ago, but couldn’t bring myself to watch more than the first ten minutes. It reminded me of those Lorenzo Lamas movies they used to play in the wee hours of the morning on the local channels in Cyprus (“TV Paphos, now broadcasting to eleven people! Can I get a ‘hell yeah’ from Giorgos Mavrikianou tuning in from Tala?”).
Yeah, I thought this was pretty slick. It’s not the most intelligent thing you’ll ever see, but the writing is still pleasing at times. I liked the performances from DiCaprio and Crowe and there is at least one really good scene (marred only by the presence of two really dubious scenes). Trouble was, nothing resonates emotionally. By the end, it’s painfully difficult to care about anything that has taken place in the whole film. Nothing stays with you. You don’t care what the characters have done or where they’re going. Complete and utter apathy. I give it a 5, for a well-accomplished non-entity. Man, I should probably give it a 6, just for it’s refreshingly unapologetic attitude. Someone’s got to have called this stuff xenophobic (they’re not right though).
Marq – I know what you mean (although, it’s more like 2-6 with me for Rodriguez. I liked Desperado and give Sin City and Planet Terror a half mark each, weighed a bit more towards Sin City’s side). Incredibly, though, I forgot to mention Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s success ratio for me peaks at zero.
Pulp Fiction sums up everything I don’t like about his films: every primary actor comes off like a mouthpiece for the man himself, voiding any purpose they have as actual characters, and all of the ‘groundbreaking’ techniques he uses can be directly associated to one of three words…homage, pastiche, reference. Like the use of rear projection during Vincent’s car journeys. It adds nothing to film but an aesthetic reference to an era when the technique was commonplace, which is neutralised by the fact that it looks so ugly in Pulp Fiction. I guess if you respond to his writing style he’s got a lot more to offer you, but it really does get to me. And could one black character not talk in that awful pseudo-jive? You like blaxploitation movies. We see. Now move on.
(I have a good feeling about Inglorious Basterds though, I have to say.)
“And to build on Star Wars with Brandon: in Episode III, at the battle between Obi Wan and soon to be Darth Vader, Obi Wan, in anger and frustration, yells something to the effect of “The Sith are evil!” Anakin comes back with “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!!!” The use of the prepositional phrase “From my point of view” is just terrible.”
Haha, that’s excellent.
I remember near the beginning of Episode II, Anakin jumps out of the speeder to pursue the assassin, and Obi-Wan delivers the most trite line imaginable: “I hate it when he does that.”
I hate it when he leaps out of speeders in crowded, futuristic city airways, engages in some aerial trickery to pursue an enemy of the Light Side??? What are you talking about? If he was performing a far more routine task, for example, refusing to apologise to someone for spilling their drink, or just starting a brawl for any ol’ reason, I’d understand, but the implicit suggestion that Anakin does that very same thing all the time is laughable.
The Matrix about 3 years ago
I had to chime in on this one.
Dark City and The Matrix? I don’t see the connection. No, I mean, I really, really don’t see it. There’s a loose aesthetic connection in the neo-Noir spins each film develops, but in terms of theme, plot, or even some kind of overarching message, I think the links are tenuous, to say the least. Maybe it’s an interpretive thing.
As to the concept being the same, a few thoughts on why I disagree, using my less than stellar intuition and analytical skills (that’s right, I’m not saying my theory is best, or that anyone has to agree, but I’m still putting this out there). The underlying mental provocation in Dark City seems to involve the sticky questions behind our humanity and the soul; you know, all the good metaphysical stuff. From my perspective, it’s a more intriguing proposition than The Matrix, simply because I believe the Wachowski brothers present a scenario that’s fairly easy to get your head around, which means, you’re not still trying to work it out once you leave the cinema. Most people rapidly make the “That could so happen…” connection between the premise on offer and their day-to-day experience.
Important questions posed by Dark City: “Who am I, really?”, “What makes me who I think I am?”, “What makes me human?”, “What is the soul?”
And by The Matrix: “How do we know what we think is real is actually real?”, as well as, “How does the Matrix know what Tasty Wheat tasted like?”, and, you know, stuff.
Dark City has ‘ghost in the machine’ undertones, whereas The Matrix follows more of a traditional ‘brain-in-a-vat’ scenario, sliced and diced together with bits of Monomyth. Once the denouement is reached, the core questions left by the filmmakers regard the self in terms of our perception of reality, and even more significantly, our perception of reality as a whole. It’s high school philosophy (the veil of perception and all that jazz), but it’s intriguing in the context of the film.
You can rail against the Hero’s Journey stuff at your own leisure, but if you’re like me, you’ll probably find Neo, Peter Parker and their ilk more empowering than overbearing in respect to the everyman they spring from. The twisted logic behind this follows a line of reasoning that moves past the idea of Neo being a savour figure and marches headlong into him acting as a cipher for the feats of greatness that ordinary people are capable of when they break the shackles of the reality they’ve created for themselves and start to believe in something better. This applies to everyone, so Neo (to me) is a respectable protagonist in the first film, where he remains more Spiderman than Superman…although, someone clearly didn’t think that was a good thing in the follow-up[s].
T’s conclusion is pretty damn relevant, but that particular writeup smacks to me a little too much of a practised, articulate, analytical eye operating on the basis of selective cynicism. With a sufficient dose of the aforementioned qualities, most people wouldn’t be too hard-pressed to train their sights on a film that they didn’t like and shred it a little bit but, in the same vein, you can go in the countervailing direction and give a film, in the critical sense, the benefit of the doubt. I’m not saying you should; I’m just admitting the principle I’m working on as I write this. I think The Matrix is a great film, with moderately lofty ambitions that don’t quite gel in the symposium of its various influences. As to the second and third films’ attempts to dovetail all of these influences and “EVERY COOL THING, LIKE, EVER!” (I’m certain someone said this in a production meeting. If not, they should have, because it explains a lot) into a cohesive post-Cyberpunk, representative realism, Dragonball-Z inspired extravaganza…well, these efforts were less successful. When I watch the first film these days I find it, of all things, very understated.
As to the original issue of anti-consumerism, I personally don’t see it, but maybe, like I said, that’s just an interpretive thing. It just one of those things where if it’s not an explicit theme, it’s almost certainly too ambiguous to make an issue out of. You can see anti-consumerism hard at work in Bambi if you look close enough, if you get my drift.
Anyways, kids,
Devil’s advocate, over and out.
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I have lost faith in the majority of the younger generation. about 3 years ago
I’m not inclined to believe this kind of observation at all. I’m 21 and I know many people even younger than me who are as knowledgeable and cultured as you can expect anyone of a limited lifespan to be (and often moreso). I’ve lived all around the world, spoken to all kinds of people and the only thing I’ve learnt is that Theodore Sturgeon was insightful beyond words. If 90% of everything is crud, then you can refine that to a more human-orientated formula that specifies 90% of people are ignorant and/or stupid.
In more serious, less aphoristic way of putting it, a large fraction of any given demographic is always going to exhibit these kinds of aspects. And besides, we measure culture and knowledge in different ways. You might stumble across a music geek one day who doesn’t know who Godard is and go straight home and sound off about it on your favourite forum, then change your Facebook status to reflect your diminishing faith in the human race. Meanwhile, he goes home and blogs about some philistine he met who didn’t know who Verdi was and who thought “Bach and Son” referred to an accountancy firm.
It depresses me when Americans go on about how stupid everyone in their country is. Here’s a clue: the rest of the world is pretty stupid, too; we just don’t realise it because they’re being idiots in other languages.
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I have lost faith in the majority of the younger generation. about 3 years ago
meh, double post.
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5 Films you saw that are considered masterpieces that you thought were overated,horrible or you just "didnt like" about 3 years ago
Hell, why not? I’ll lay a few down. (you’ll have to forgive the reasoning involved…it’s not going to be objective)
Goodfellas
Scarface
Oldboy
Spirited Away
El Mariachi
I’m not big on gangster films. Maybe I was born without the right gene or something, but I don’t find gangsters cool. I find Arnie in Conan cooler than any given realistic portrayal of a gangster. If I can’t sympathise with Ray Liotta for the two and a half hours, then why am I going to feel anything other than mild discomfort watching a movie where every passing minute is spent thinking, “These guys are such pricks. I’m not even interested in seeing them receive any kind of comeuppance”? Because I have to be honest, that’s what was going through my head. I’d been made to feel like a bit of a cretin for not having already seen it, and as the credits roll my friends are going “Such a $%£&ing brilliant movie!” and I’m thinking, “Which movie did you watch?”
That said, I understand the difference between ‘fun’ and ‘good’. There are some good performances there in Goodfellas. Not the most exciting girl to take to the prom, but she’s got the right credentials. Verdict: Not terrible, not brilliant.
Scarface…Scarface, Scarface, Scarface. I don’t know why this has become such a cult phenomenon (or maybe I do, though I may not like it). Still…“Say hello to my little friend!” whilst maniacally weilding an M16? Surely any kind of credibility goes down the drain right there (excluding any ‘so-good-it’s-bad’ kudos earned)? Really, really didn’t like Scarface. Pshh. What do I know?
Oldboy! I watch a ton of tennis and have done for years. I understand many advanced theories relating to the sport. I regularly preempt commentators when watching with company (mostly ‘cos I stream a lot of tennis from China, so whose to say what the commentators are saying?) and have an uncanny ability to predict the precise moment many top professionals will pick to switch up their routine. My actual forays on court have shown me, despite knowing all this and being relatively fit, to be a pretty sucky tennis player. I’m familiar with suspension of disbelief, but I don’t buy into the basic premise behind his ‘mad skillz’.
Oldboy is also laden with melodrama. This film is sticky with it; it’s like syrup. Now, I loves me some asian cinema, and I know that’s pretty standard stuff. I spent a summer watching practically nothing but Korean romance films and series every night with a tub of Haagen Dazs and a box tissues to wipe away the tears. The whole reason I watch anime is almost certainly because of unnecessary melodrama. Oldboy— it befits you not.
And yet, I like Oldboy. It’s just not this retina-searing sensation that it was popularised as by certain parties. Many people also compare Bittersweet Life unfavourably to Oldboy, which I find bewildering (there’s a gangster movie I can watch! Smooth protagonist, slick cinematography and a satisfying if predictable conclusion). It’s entertaining, sure, but both the press and people I know listed Oldboy right up there with being ejaculated on by Zeus.
Spirited Away. I own it. I love it. But what is the plot? Well, I know what the plot is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if many didn’t (upon first viewing, anyway) since good storytelling practice seems to have been lost amongst all the spectacle (but what spectacle!).
El Mariachi. Guilty confession: I haven’t actually seen El Mariachi. I’ve seen parts of it. I even bought it a few months ago, but couldn’t bring myself to watch more than the first ten minutes. It reminded me of those Lorenzo Lamas movies they used to play in the wee hours of the morning on the local channels in Cyprus (“TV Paphos, now broadcasting to eleven people! Can I get a ‘hell yeah’ from Giorgos Mavrikianou tuning in from Tala?”).
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Last movie you saw and rate it about 3 years ago
Body of Lies — 5/10
Yeah, I thought this was pretty slick. It’s not the most intelligent thing you’ll ever see, but the writing is still pleasing at times. I liked the performances from DiCaprio and Crowe and there is at least one really good scene (marred only by the presence of two really dubious scenes). Trouble was, nothing resonates emotionally. By the end, it’s painfully difficult to care about anything that has taken place in the whole film. Nothing stays with you. You don’t care what the characters have done or where they’re going. Complete and utter apathy. I give it a 5, for a well-accomplished non-entity. Man, I should probably give it a 6, just for it’s refreshingly unapologetic attitude. Someone’s got to have called this stuff xenophobic (they’re not right though).
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5 Films you saw that are considered masterpieces that you thought were overated,horrible or you just "didnt like" about 3 years ago
Marq – I know what you mean (although, it’s more like 2-6 with me for Rodriguez. I liked Desperado and give Sin City and Planet Terror a half mark each, weighed a bit more towards Sin City’s side). Incredibly, though, I forgot to mention Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s success ratio for me peaks at zero.
Pulp Fiction sums up everything I don’t like about his films: every primary actor comes off like a mouthpiece for the man himself, voiding any purpose they have as actual characters, and all of the ‘groundbreaking’ techniques he uses can be directly associated to one of three words…homage, pastiche, reference. Like the use of rear projection during Vincent’s car journeys. It adds nothing to film but an aesthetic reference to an era when the technique was commonplace, which is neutralised by the fact that it looks so ugly in Pulp Fiction. I guess if you respond to his writing style he’s got a lot more to offer you, but it really does get to me. And could one black character not talk in that awful pseudo-jive? You like blaxploitation movies. We see. Now move on.
(I have a good feeling about Inglorious Basterds though, I have to say.)
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stupidest things ever said in a movie about 3 years ago
“And to build on Star Wars with Brandon: in Episode III, at the battle between Obi Wan and soon to be Darth Vader, Obi Wan, in anger and frustration, yells something to the effect of “The Sith are evil!” Anakin comes back with “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!!!” The use of the prepositional phrase “From my point of view” is just terrible.”
Haha, that’s excellent.
I remember near the beginning of Episode II, Anakin jumps out of the speeder to pursue the assassin, and Obi-Wan delivers the most trite line imaginable: “I hate it when he does that.”
I hate it when he leaps out of speeders in crowded, futuristic city airways, engages in some aerial trickery to pursue an enemy of the Light Side??? What are you talking about? If he was performing a far more routine task, for example, refusing to apologise to someone for spilling their drink, or just starting a brawl for any ol’ reason, I’d understand, but the implicit suggestion that Anakin does that very same thing all the time is laughable.
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If you had to pick ONE film as your favorite... about 3 years ago
Blade Runner, in terms of it being my favourite film (but not necessarily my favourite film to watch over, and over, and over again, if you get me).
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