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I saw this donkeys ago with roommates, and felt abashed at having liked it when they mocked the hell out of the corny dialog afterwards. I must be growing cynical in my old age, because revisiting it last night I laughed out loud at the scene at the beginning of the young boy witnessing his father's death. Still, once I get absorbed in a movie, I have a pretty high tolerance for stuff like "Look at him, that's my brother goddammit!"

OK, one more from Letterboxded, in honor of the upcoming sci-fi list, then I'm done. Re: High Life:

This is the spaceship where they collected all the cum to put in the androids in Alien.

furbicide wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 1:46 am Oh, here’s a good one (courtesy of the Time Out Film Guide!)

Apparently conceived as a socialist response to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky’s film offers only the flabbiest kind of sentimental humanism by way of a riposte to Kubrick. It starts out promising both poetry (of the Dovzhenko Ukrainian school) and dialectics (of the Marxist school?), and proceeds to squander both on kindergarten psychology and inane melodrama. Its hero journeys into space only as a metaphor for a journey inward; after 2 hours, he’s got no further than the lap of his father, which he rejected ten years earlier. Watching Tarkovsky render the sci-fi mechanics of his own movie redundant as he goes along is a genuinely brain-freezing experience.

In case anyone's interested in seeing the author of this review elaborate on these claims, I was digging through UC Berkeley's Cinefiles database and came across a review by Tony Rayns from the June 1973 Monthly Film Bulletin that leaves no room for doubt that he also wrote the Time Out capsule: https://cinefiles.bampfa.berkeley.edu/catalog/678 (The Time Out website used to credit the authors of these reviews by their initials, but for some reason they abandoned that practice sometime within the last few years; in any case the review currently on their site is a much more favorable one.)

didn't see it. don't need to see it to know it's awful. why would you make a movie about a Black hero and create a fictional ahistorical white savior?
trash.

There is no white savior character in the movie which is Harriet for the curious.

furbicide wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 9:01 am I love the book too – and very much for, not despite, its occasionally left-field takes – but I feel like the author took one look at the country of origin and got on the phone to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

(Also, perhaps I just don't get it, but what does "poetry of the Dovzhenko Ukrainian school" even mean, and how on earth does it relate to Solaris? And WTF do Tarkovsky's distinctly Russian Orthodox sensibilities have to do with Marxist dialectics!?)

If anything the dialectics are more Hegelian than Marxist. This does seem to be a bizarre (sub-)strain of criticism where 2001 and Solaris seem to be sited together as an extension / cultural manifestation of the cold war, when really Tarkovsky's criticisms of Kubrick's film are far more from his personal (non-Marxist) philosophical point of view. It does seem that Solaris seems to be used (now and again) as a straw man for an attack on Eastern Block culture of that time when really the film (and Tarkovsky's work as a whole) can only really be tangentially (at best) seen as representative of Soviet state philosophy.

I should add on that last point that I'm not that aware of how the film was marketed internationally - ie. whether the Soviet state placed any particular political weight on the film (other than being a 'product' of the state).

In an otherwise positive review of Black Girl by a user on Letterboxd.

I did not love that most of the audio seemed to be voiceover.. but it was 1966 what’re you gonna do.

If by that the reviewer means "dubbed," then they're probably not really wrong

No, the lead character's thoughts are expressed in VO. Every one else speaks in person, and not dubbed in post either.

Garden State + Inception + the “deep” tweenage thoughts you’re still embarrassed about from time to time

accompanied by a half star out of five rating. I like this hateful Letterboxd zinger almost as much as I admire the film itself.

I can't find that via Google, what is it?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I thought "Garden State + Inception" was a perfect zing, as far as these X + Y comments go.

So it's too much like two movies that came out after it? Sounds exactly like a typical Letterboxd zinger then

I don't think the commenter was accusing ESotSM of being derivative of either of those films, which would indeed be very dumb. I think it's just a description. And if you had to describe the movie in only three words, could you do better than 'Inception meets Garden State'? I just find that amusingly apt and succinct, as much as I disagree with the sentiment behind it.

bottled spider wrote: Sun Aug 02, 2020 7:05 pm And if you had to describe the movie in only three words, could you do better than 'Inception meets Garden State'?

I hate you.

bottled spider wrote: Sun Aug 02, 2020 7:48 pm I hate you.

Now that’s three words!

Somebody on Kanopy is an expert at spelling out the point while missing it.

There's nothing "venerable" about this xenophobe. He is a disgrace to the robes he wears.

Went on IMDB recently to check out user reactions to a certain sci-fi movie and found quite a few reviews all honing in on the same hot-button issue:

It may be a "visual masterpiece," as per the reviews, but that is a reference to the sweet skinny body of the man's maid/girlfriend. Nothing more. Just fast forward to the scenes with her legs and hair in it.

Could someone explain? This is a post apocalyptic world. It is a hellhole. It is a dystopia. Then one can eat food in abundance on the street and a beautiful blonde hooker approaches you (actually several pretty girls), there is miniskirted fantasy awaiting at home and cooking for you and obviously there is more than enough space for everybody. What the heck??

Beautiful! I am referring to the thin eye candies. The girlfriend and hooker were positively femininely beautiful and worth the price, but this is not a good movie. Outside the slender and flaunting body of the eye candies it quickly descends to boredom. I just kept rewinding to check out the actresses. Otherwise, zzzz

What was the point of this film? It was not entertaining, it was slow and it was sleep-inducing so there must be a plot or morality instead, right? Wrong. They are retiring peaceful and oppressed replicants while at the same time making even more. Confused yet?

Yup

Let me give you the reason why they needed this film. Hollywood needs sequels like Donald Trump needs porn stars with STD. Period. It is a disease and addiction for the weak.

PS: I asked my wife if she is into a menage a trois for us and said said no, but I know she was watching with interest so at least this film gave us an opening.

Another unneeded inferior sequel, but at least this wasn't anti-woman and anti-female and the women were hot and thin. They could have easily done a modern film where all the women are in baggy jump suits and obese and expect us to love it but at least they didn't hate on slender and attractive women. That's something these days.

Of course it was a sequel and it was stupid and made little sense. I also have to say it is time for Ford to retire.

There Were Only Three Things In This Film I Was interested In: The dog, The girlfriend's body, Having a hooker that is so thin and pretty. Otherwise, this.film.is.boring. Hello hollywood, what is with these silly sequels?

Good: hot girlfriend who has no ink, has a sweet body (image!) and is kind. The tech is cool and the dystopian city is impressive.

Bad: slow film and ultimately nothing happens. They want to sell a sequel.

I assume that is the Blade Runner sequel?

I really wanted it to be Cocoon 2...

Came across a few unusual reviews.

Two from a famous critic.

For Singles Only (1968)

Certainly not for those who like good movies. Two girls move into a singles apartment where
(Milton) Berle is social director; result is a rape, an attempted suicide, and several songs.

Death Ship (1980)

Luxury liner collides with "death ship." Survivors board "death ship." "Death ship" tries to
murder survivors. Forget it.

The Last Vampire on Earth (2010). This is the plot summary on imdb, and apparently has been
there for quite a while.

A second-hand report of a man vomiting after eating chicken leads a preacher to believe a
vampire is afoot. Luckily for the guy, his girlfriend has AIDS which allows him to be spared.

Dr Amicus wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 9:00 am I really wanted it to be Cocoon 2...

Or Beethoven's 2nd!

The Last Vampire On Earth is much more wild than that description would suggest. Here's the heroine's climatic speech, which rivals anything in the Twilight films!

Oh no, and now I have found out that Vitaly Versace has created a new film, Aladdin: The Christian Story!

I love this:

Certainly not for those who like good movies.

Why not just write "A bad movie" and be done with it? Leonard must have been a bit over his job that day.

I like good movies. That didn’t stop me being first in the queue for a big-screen showing of Turkish Star Wars a couple of years ago.

(And I’d have gone to that even if the cinema had been allowed to charge admission.)