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Author Topic: Recommendations!  (Read 430559 times)

Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #400 on: 20 Apr 2008, 20:19 »

Undead or Alive, it's a zombie movie with CHRIS KATTAN.  'Nuff said.
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Shreazla

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #401 on: 22 Apr 2008, 12:33 »


There are one of three things going on here.  One, they're being sarcastic.  Two, they're not in the same school system as you are.  I never had to read either of those books for any of my english classes, although I have heard of them.  They were both 'summer reading' books and since Pride and Prejudice is one of the longer ones, barely anybody chose to read it the one summer it was on the list.  Three, Shreazla may still be in high school and possibly not realized how much of an impact Pride and Prejudice had since most of his classmates didn't read it.  I think option two is the most realistic.

Just take it easy, man.  Not everybody on these forums went to the same school.
Going to the same school has nothing to do with it.  I just used it as an example of how widely known those books are and how often they are used in High School Curriculums. If u went to ANY middle/high school in a english speaking country you would have heard of them.  And don't worry, I was taking it quite easy. All I did was introduce him to my friend Mr Sarcasm in the hopes that he would perhaps see the error in this ways.  If I hadnt been taking it easy I would have used my buddy Mr Insult and perhaps his wife Mrs Ethnic Slur.  I think I showed amazing personal fortitude refraining from such tactics in the face of such blatent stupidity.

Well spoken sir - I will admit to a definite need to clarify my basis for my statements here. First off, I am not in High School, nor do I have any idea what the 'normal/average' literature for a High School reading program is, as I have been in college for some time, and was homeschooled throughout most of my grade school years.  When I said that not many people had heard of them, I was drawing on my rural, apalachian background, which, being the redneck, backwoods area that it is, would make my statement true - I did not mean to imply that they were unheard of series everywhere.  I was full well aware of the fact that the books of L.M. Montgomery have reached a near cult-popularity in Japan, and are quite well known in Canada.  However, even among the intellectuals that I know, most people have not heard of the series.

As to Pride and Prejudice, I admit to being in full error.  I know that it is a well known book, and, as a result, deserved every bit of sarcasm which was directed towards me (I actually foundd it quite amusing, and, had I been readin anyone elses post, would have probably made the same comments to them).  However, once again, in my defence, while many people have HEARD of Pride and Prejudice, and may have even watched the movie, when compared to the amount of people who have actually READ the book, the number drops significantly.

Anyway, once again, my apologies for not clarifying what I truely meant to say - my prowess as a typist will most likely get me nowhere in the real world, as I tend to say what I'm thinking in my head without actually thinking through what I'm really typing, and, as a result, it doesn't make as much sense I as previously thought it should have, lol.

btw, the book version of the Princess Bride is a quite amusing sarcastic read, for those of you who like light, but humorous reading.

And, for those among you who like heavy reading, religion, technology, videogames, J.R.R. Tolkien, D&D history, history in general, theology, and random facts, the book "Techgnosis" is a Highly advised read of mine.
« Last Edit: 22 Apr 2008, 13:12 by Shreazla »
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mrjoegangles

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #402 on: 22 Apr 2008, 13:26 »

There you go.  I can agree with you on the Princess Bride.  As it is the greatest single satire since Swift.  The story within the story is what makes the book so much better then the movie could ever hope to be.

Not that the movie was cute and great in its own way.

P.S.  I was just joshing you when I wrote that reply.  I was writing a satirical response and thought a good joke could be had by all.
Never even imagined so many people would take it so seriously.  Honestly, its just some gentle ribbing, no need for everyone to blow it all out of proportion.

At least you have developed a sense of humor.
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Shreazla

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #403 on: 22 Apr 2008, 13:44 »

I full well agree with your first statement!  I personally have a fond spot in my heart for satire, and "A modest proposal" has to be one of the best works ever written...(btw, on a side note, if you ever take a speech/communications class, give your persuasive speech based upon the concepts in "Modest Propsal" - the people who have read it will love you, the people who haven't run out of the room screaming and crying, calling you a freak of nature, fights break out - In general, you'll have a lovely time; I know form experience, lol)

As far as humor goes, one needs a slightly developed sense of humor to maintain ones sanity when they go to college in WV, and live in the heart of the Bible belt ;)     

And, to keep on topic, I do have one last recommendation, that being "The Scarlet Pimpernell" - Yes, it's a classic, but I just finished re-reading it a week ago, and loved it just as much as the first time I read it.

Anyway, I digress, as my reccommendations for good literature have been exausted for the moment.
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littlelove

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #404 on: 22 Apr 2008, 19:17 »

I highly recommend, book-wise, and movie-wise, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
...I watched the movie first, then decided to read the book because the movie was so good, and reading the book only made it event better. I thought both of them were very fantastic, and I just finished the book on Sunday :)
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #405 on: 22 Apr 2008, 20:18 »

There you go.  I can agree with you on the Princess Bride.  As it is the greatest single satire since Swift.  The story within the story is what makes the book so much better then the movie could ever hope to be.

Not that the movie was cute and great in its own way.

P.S.  I was just joshing you when I wrote that reply.  I was writing a satirical response and thought a good joke could be had by all.
Never even imagined so many people would take it so seriously.  Honestly, its just some gentle ribbing, no need for everyone to blow it all out of proportion.

At least you have developed a sense of humor.

If there's one consistent law about the internet, it's that sarcasm doesn't carry well.  Something like that can easily be misconstrued.

And The Princess Bride is totally an awesome movie. 

To stay on topic, I finally got around to watching The Seven Samurai.  It's pretty damn good, and I can see how it influenced so many other movies.  If you've got 3 and a half hours, it's definitely time well spent.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #406 on: 23 Apr 2008, 03:45 »

I recently started watching Homicide: Life on the Street again. It's even better than I remember, and I remember it being fucking excellent. If you like cop shows, they've never been done better than this.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #407 on: 23 Apr 2008, 22:43 »

I don't know if I understand how the Princess Bride is satire (parody perhaps).  And wonderful though it is, I don't think that it can beat out Huckleberry Finn for the best satire since Swift.
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Shreazla

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #408 on: 24 Apr 2008, 14:14 »

I hope I'm not straying to far off-topic here by replying to this -

The Princess Bride is an overblown, out-of-proportion film (the book is even more satirical, but the satiric nature of the book did not translate as well to film) - The character cast is filled with overused stereo types -

The tall, dark, hansome protagonist is a man who dresses completely in Black.
There is a dairy-maid-turned-princess, who is helpless until the protaganist comes to save her
You have the hulking, but stupid fighter giant.
The diminutive, but intellectual Sicilian.
The villan with the memorable feature (the six fingered man)
A tale of "true love"

Blah, blah blah - Anyway, you get the idea - Goldman uses these archetypes to poke fun at traditional fairy tales and fantasy books, and continues even further in the book, and uses racial stereo-types to poke fun of society and people in general... there's a lot more to the book, and I didn't go into nearly as much depth as would be needed to describe the book or the films satirical elements completely, but oh well "c'est la vie".

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Aminal

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #409 on: 24 Apr 2008, 21:52 »

YOU FORGOT INIGO MONTOYA
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #410 on: 25 Apr 2008, 05:41 »

PREPARE TO DIE
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pinkpiche

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #411 on: 25 Apr 2008, 11:37 »

People should be checking out short story writers like Nick Ostdick, Amiee Bender (The Rememberer, especially), Ben Tanzer and Sumanth Prabhaker.

www.identitytheory.com, also!

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #412 on: 25 Apr 2008, 12:29 »

I did a forum search and I saw that no one had talken about "Joe Strummer - The Future Is Unwritten".

It's a biography of Joe Strummer using several voice snatches of his.
Not only do I think that the movie was well made, but I think his life story is pretty inspirational, and the movie tells it really well. It's definitly a movie everyone should watch, if all you get from it is a massive dose of 'gee, i want to do things with my life'
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #413 on: 05 May 2008, 21:42 »

While initially very pissed off that I was unable to convince my friends to see Iron Man on Saturday, I had forgotten about it altogether by the end of the first scene of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Absolutely hilarious movie, and definitely one of, if not the best (I still really love 40 year old virgin and superbad) to come from the Judd Apatow crew. Jason Segal is perfect for the role, and the supporting actors was well-cast too. Definitely recommended, although I imagine most of you'll end up spending your movie budget on iron man anyways.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #414 on: 06 May 2008, 09:40 »

What usually happen with situations like this is I go to the ones I've been invited too, and rent the other ones I meant to see later.  So far I've only been invited to see Iron Man.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #415 on: 07 May 2008, 17:51 »

I don't know if I understand how the Princess Bride is satire (parody perhaps).  And wonderful though it is, I don't think that it can beat out Huckleberry Finn for the best satire since Swift.

That's because you didn't read the book.  He spends almost half the book trying to convince you that he didn't write it, that Morgenstern really exists, Florin and Guilder are real places, and that he is just writing an abridged version of "Morgenstern's" classic Satire of European royalty's.

Its also in its own way a Satire of the folly of its own readers.  At one point Goldman talks about a reuinon scene that he wrote for the book and wanted to add to Mogerstern's Monstrosity, but was shut down by the editors.... But not to worry cause you can send him a letter and he will mail you a free copy of the chapter.  Instead countless fans got letters talking about he legal battle he and Mogenstern's estate went through and how he is not able to publish the reunion scene because of this.

Now, just for those of you that werent paying attention earlier....   Its his own book.  There is no Morgenstern.  Basically he just wanted to see how many fans were stupid enough to write a letter for a scene that he could have put in himself cause he's the actual author.  And his excuse is just another joke to play on those same hundreds of fans who can't understand that its all a joke.

He also used the same excuse for the delays in "adapting"  Buttercup's Baby, the second book which may never get released.... Or which may just be yet another prank he is pulling on his fans.

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rofflesaurusrex

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #416 on: 16 May 2008, 11:14 »

trainspotting was a gnarly movie. It showed a group of scottish kids struggle on an of heroin addictions. Overdosing, Freebasing, Buying, SelLiNg, InteNse baby DEaths. ITs a Must see
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Ikrik

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #417 on: 16 May 2008, 22:16 »

Trainspotting the novel was incredible.....and by that I mean it was incredibly hard to read.  But still an amazing book, highly rewarding to get through fourty or fifty pages.

I'm thinking of getting into some Grindhouse movies.....can anyone suggest some good (relatively) ones?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #418 on: 17 May 2008, 08:56 »

The novel is interesting b/c it's written with a Scottish dialect which does indeed make it hard to read/understand a lot of the slang but it's also really cool. For the literary theoreticians amongst you, allow me to suggest Franco Moretti's "Atlas of the European Novel." It's a great book, incredibly well written, which explores fictionalized geographies in 19th century literature (London according to Dickens, Paris according to Balzac) and also looks at novels of exploration/colonialism, the picaresque and Russian literature. The overall result is Moretti suggesting that physical space may well be the hero and main determinant of cultural history. This could be a subject approached with an air of tiresome academia but Moretti is a very funny, charming and insightful author, making this not only really interesting but something very enjoyable to read as well.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #419 on: 17 May 2008, 08:58 »

I'm still unsure as to what you mean by Grindhouse, so I'm just going to assume you mean bad horror movies of the 70's and 80's.  Bruno Mattei is a solid bet.  He had this one movie, Hell of the Living Dead (Virus here in the states), that had about 5 minutes comprised of just nature footage spliced with zombies because he figured he might as well use it since he paid for it.  They even borrowed Goblin and redid the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.
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Ikrik

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #420 on: 17 May 2008, 17:25 »

Yeah, I'm talking about the REALLY cheesy hardcore films from the 60's-80's or whenever the franchise kind of stopeed.  My friend recommended to me Assassin of Youth in which kids smoke pot and kill themselves and each other.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #421 on: 18 May 2008, 08:28 »

If anyone is into Spaghetti Westerns, I recommend watching Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. Because A Fistfull of Dollars is just Yojimbo transplanted from feudal Japan to Mexico. Same plot: nameless drifter shows up in a town being ruined by two rival gangs and plays the two sides off of each other. Even one of the scenes is identical in both movies, just just with swords instead of guns. Good stuff.
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Ikrik

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #422 on: 18 May 2008, 08:36 »

If anyone is into Spaghetti Westerns, I recommend watching Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. Because A Fistfull of Dollars is just Yojimbo transplanted from feudal Japan to Mexico. Same plot: nameless drifter shows up in a town being ruined by two rival gangs and plays the two sides off of each other. Even one of the scenes is identical in both movies, just just with swords instead of guns. Good stuff.

You forgot to mention that Toshiro Mifune is totally badass.
"The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three." -Akira Kurosawa
That quote is no exaggeration....and there's pretty much not a single better person for it to come from.  Mifune acted in over 170 movies in a course of approximately 40 years.  In Yojimbo he makes scratching himself into an interesting character trait....the guy is amazing. And Yojimbo was heavily inspired by a book called Red Harvest (so said by many critics) but Kurosawa stated that a movie called The Glass Key inspired and was basically adapted for Yojimbo.

And if you like Yojimbo......check out the rest of Kurosawa's work, he is truly the god of Japanese cinema.

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #423 on: 18 May 2008, 09:22 »

Incidentally, both Red Harvest and The Glass Key were books written in the 1930s by Dashiell Hammett, one of the original, not to mention one of the greatest, authors of hard-boiled detective fiction ever. He was also a Pinkerton for a while, which makes him kind of of a jerk probably but he's a great writer.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #424 on: 25 May 2008, 22:44 »

6 sick hipsters by Rayo Casablanca.  The characters are wonderfully fucked up and the plot is amazing.  take QC, add a decade and some very serious neuroses, a serial killer, stir well, and serve frothy.  I was glued to this book all weekend.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #425 on: 26 May 2008, 17:09 »

World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide, both by Max Brooks. They provide excellent and accurate advice regarding survival [though the disaster is fictional], and are written so matter-of-factly that one almost believes that zombies exist. The stories and accounts in WWZ are just amazing. They offer insight into how disasters affect people worldwide, and how people act accordingly. A definite must-read.
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Ikrik

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #426 on: 26 May 2008, 17:19 »

Zombie Survival Guide is in my room and it was honestly a let-down.  It takes itself WAY too seriously and the parts that should have been beefed up aren't.  The weapons section was too thin for my taste.  He also made up a whole bunch of "real zombie instances" which he throws in the back which weren't funny.  Seriously, just get a group of your friends together and start talking about how to prepare for a zombie invasion.....you'll have a MUCH better time.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #427 on: 30 May 2008, 10:17 »


And if you like Yojimbo......check out the rest of Kurosawa's work, he is truly the god of Japanese cinema.


And also Sukiyaki Western Django, by Takashi Miike.  It's a take-off on Django, which is a take-off on Fistful of Dollars, which was a take-off of Yojmbo.  So, essentially Yojimbo.  All the actors speak in English, which at first is jarring because of how bad their accents are, but eventually you kinda forget about it.  Quentin Tarantino's part in the first 5 minutes is probably the only part I didn't like.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #428 on: 30 May 2008, 10:48 »

Shoot 'Em Up.  I was expecting a comedy of violence and that's exactly what I got.  It's made of hilarious and awesome and win in equal parts.
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Ikrik

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #429 on: 30 May 2008, 17:08 »

The first, second, third, and fourth time I saw Shoot 'Em Up on the big screen I felt like I had just watched the single best movie in the world ever, ever.  Clive Owen is truly the new action star of our generation (I hope).  Did you guys remember when people were talking about how it was the battle between Vin Diesel and The Rock?  However, watching Shoot 'Em Up on the small screen is really dissapointing and the film just seems a lot slower.  I'd recommend Children of Men as something to watch over Shoot 'Em Up unless your TV is pretty huge.
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Surgoshan

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #430 on: 30 May 2008, 17:10 »

Hmm... this TV was pretty huge...
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #431 on: 05 Jun 2008, 11:40 »

I've gotten hooked on How I Met Your Mother, recently... like, hooked. As on crack. Honestly a really great TV series.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #432 on: 06 Jun 2008, 00:30 »

The problem with that show is that in the beginning it seemed to be just like any other sitcom, instantly disposable and easily replaceable with any of the other millions of variations on "bunch of twenty- or thirty-something friends hanging around obsessing about sex and relationships" comedies we're subjected to every year. By the time it becomes apparent to the casual or occasional viewer that the writers actually have the show's core concept really well figured and planned out, it's too late, because you haven't bothered watching more than half-a-dozen of the previous episodes.

I mean, I guess you could go back and watch them all on D.V.D., but you're not ready for that kind of commitment just yet.
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jimbunny

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #433 on: 06 Jun 2008, 16:55 »

You are when it's summer and they're your housemates' DVDs!

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #434 on: 09 Jun 2008, 00:49 »

HIMYM is so ridiculously good, the AV Club got me into it.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #435 on: 16 Jun 2008, 02:32 »

Oh. Love this post. Now when i'm searching for something to read/watch, I can just come here and check this out.

So, my recommendation?

The Saga of Darren Shan - books one to twelve.

It's a kids book, and therefore a little cliched and juvenile. Also, at times it can be a little bit predictible. But it's a nice, easy read, by a great writer who now also writes fantasy for adults too. It puts an interesting spin on the old, and sometimes tired, vampire mythology, adding new dimensions to the myths, while also exploring human nature and morality. It is an easy read, and was incredibly fun to go through, taking only a few days for a moderate speed reader like me. But it is also addictive. And I enjoyed it immensely.  Finally, I wouldn't go as far as openly recommending it upon a website instead of just to my friends, if it was not for the ending. The ending was a surprise for a children's book (though so was the amount of violence within the text) and was an extremely welcome change from the norm. Also, a brilliant commentary on the importance of literature in society.

Heh. I hope someone does read it and enjoys it as much as I did. Also, the movie of the first two books is due out next year - Cirque Du Freak.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #436 on: 21 Jun 2008, 23:50 »

While I was very briefly without work, I read a bunch of Allan Moore comics--The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top Ten.  The first needs little introduction, since it's basic premise (19th century pulp heroes as superheroe team ala the justice league working for Conan Doyle characters) is like the movie, only, you know, good.  Though the League is very good, I honestly prefer Top Ten, which is a police procedural set in a city where everyone has superpowers.  There were two trade paperback collections of that, plus a graphic novel prequel.  Neither Top Ten nor Gentlemen are as ambitious as Watchmen--mostly they are good stories well told, with solid characterization and everything else you'd expect from Allan Moore.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #437 on: 25 Jun 2008, 22:49 »

It might be a good time to go back and re-watch Twin Peaks.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #438 on: 26 Jun 2008, 11:13 »

Sang Sattawat (aka Syndrome and a Century).

I just watched this a couple days ago, and it's almost like a dream.  There's one plot that repeats itself twice, through the use of different scenes and camera angles.  The first half takes place in what looks like rural Thailand, while the second half seems to be in a much more modern area.  All the shots are beautifully composed, with special mention going to a scene near the end involving a haze-filled room of machines.  It's not very good in the pacing department, yet I feel it was intentional.  Looking up other reviews, it seems like most people walked out of the theatre in a reverie, including myself.  Watching it certainly seems to evoke a summery mood.  Inexplicably, I was smiling the entire time I was watching this film. 



That came off as a bit review-y.  Point is, if you're looking for an interesting movie, this is a pretty good bet.


Edit:  Here[\url] is the scene I was talking about.  If you never see this movie, at least watch this scene, as it's probably going to stick with you for a while.
« Last Edit: 27 Jun 2008, 09:37 by Dimmukane »
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #439 on: 29 Jun 2008, 23:48 »

So I've been watching a bunch of How I Met Your Mother, as per this thread. I just finished up season 1 and started the second, and it's not bad. It was pretty hard to get into at first, the first 6 episodes or so were pretty bad. I gotta say the hardest thing to get used to was the laugh track. After years of watching basically nothing but comedies like My Name is Earl, Arrested Development, Scrubs, etc, I came pretty close to giving up on the show altogether just because of that. But it's a lot better now, and I do like it. I'll keep watching, and we'll see how it turns out.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #440 on: 30 Jun 2008, 02:02 »

 There are too many pages to bother looking at, so sorry if theis have already been recommended.

 Paprika

 A really trippy and actually pretty awesome anime movie about, basically, a research psychologist that enters people's dreams. It goes much deeper than that, but that is the most basic way to describe it. It has all kinds of insane imagery and plays on really clever ideas. To me, it is a groundbreaking surreal-drama piece.

 Plus it was directed by Satoshi Kon, the creator of Paranoia Agent. I think that is enough reason to see it.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #441 on: 02 Jul 2008, 10:23 »

I would recommend Ishmael and, the sequel, My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.  I just finished these two books and I thought they were both terribly interesting. 
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #442 on: 03 Jul 2008, 01:45 »

I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend a book called The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall. It's a psychological shitstorm of a great book masquerading as a thrilling page-turner. Basically, a man wakes up in his own house with total amnesia and an apologetic note from himself with a few simple instructions on how to get started on his path to regain his memory. It might seem like it's just going to be one cliche after another, but I highly recommend it to any Readers who take pride in their status as Reader.

And while I'm here, I suppose I'll recommend a few more of my favorite titles.

Books:
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (One of the first stories of cyberspace, and probably the closest thing to great literature with a story about a video game)
American Gods and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (Dark fantasy in a modern setting)
Nearly any book by Stephen King - don't knock him if you haven't read him. He's amazingly popular, so he must be trash, right? Wrong. Firestarter's a good classic, Bag of Bones is a terrible title for a terrific story, and every one of his short story/novella collections is amazing - try his most recent, Everything's Eventual for some truly scary reading.

Movies:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Robert Downey Jr. (as in Iron Man) and Val Kilmer (as in Doc Holliday in Tombstone) are dark and funny.
Oldboy. A man is imprisoned for 15 years and suddenly released. He's given five days to find the man responsible, to discover his reasons, and to take his revenge. If you can deal with the fact that it's got English subtitles because it's a Korean film, and if you've got a strong stomach and an open mind for controversial subject matter, if not so much actual violence, SEE THIS MOVIE.
Leon: The Professional. Jean Reno's noble assassin versus Gary Oldman's psychotic dirty cop, both in the greatest roles of their careers, and for Oldman, that IS saying something.

TV Shows:
Dexter. A serial killer kills serial killers. Serially. Sounds like it might just be a morbid gorefest, and while it's morbid as hell, there's nearly zero gore. It's mostly about Dexter's carefully constructed life and relationships, and I could honestly recommend this to ANYONE.
Arrested Development. I heartily recommend this to people who enjoy laughing.

This is my first post on these forums, by the way.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #443 on: 03 Jul 2008, 04:48 »

Dexter . . . there's nearly zero gore.

You're . . . you're kidding, right? Do you, perhaps, work in an abattoir? Or some other situation which would lead you to regard excessively mutilated bodies, frequent scenes of on-site blood splatter analysis, not to mention, in one episode, a room covered ceiling-to-floor in blood, as "nearly zero gore"?
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #444 on: 03 Jul 2008, 06:18 »

Oldboy has already been mentioned several times.  By me.  If it hasn't gotten anyone to watch it by now, they're probably not going to watch it. 

Anyway, I just watched Solaris.  Solaris.  The only thing I didn't like was the pacing in the first half hour of the movie.  But the rest is fantastic.
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #445 on: 03 Jul 2008, 07:08 »

Tarkovsky or Soderbergh?
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #446 on: 03 Jul 2008, 07:30 »

Tarkovsky, correct.  I've read somewhere that the car ride scene was intentionally long because he wanted to justify going to Tokyo to film it.  I just think they could've lopped off half of it and it would've had the same effect.

I'm gonna watch Stalker either today or over the weekend...on the off chance you've seen it, is the pacing a little better?
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #447 on: 03 Jul 2008, 08:17 »

I thought the pacing was perfect throughout except for the end of the scenes at the cabin and the car scene.  Basically, I'm wondering if there are any scenes that perhaps drag on for very long periods of time with little or no dialog/angle changing, like the car scene.  Not that it'll detract from my overall opinion, I just would like to know ahead of time.
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Dimmukane

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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #448 on: 03 Jul 2008, 13:09 »

That's a bit better than Solaris.  The car scene must've taken at least 10 minutes.  I'll still probably love the hell out of it, anyway.

Alright, so I put off Stalker again.  If I don't watch it tonight, it'll probably be sometime over the weekend.  I can, however, recommend Zombies Anonymous (aka The Last Rites of the Dead).  It's shot with what looks like a cheap camcorder, but it looks like every penny went to special effects (blood).  Seriously.  There's some laughably bad acting, but it's actually pretty good.  It's kinda like American History X, only with zombies.  Of course, it helps I was a bit fried, but for a movie that was shot with a camera that bad, it's pretty good.

I also watched Brazil again.

Brazil
« Last Edit: 03 Jul 2008, 20:26 by Dimmukane »
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Re: Recommendations!
« Reply #449 on: 06 Jul 2008, 17:38 »


Life on a String

Here's the most in-depth English review I could find. It's an early film by Chinese directer Chen Kaige (see Farewell My Concubine).
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