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Author Topic: Top 100 Club: smirnoff  (Read 27412 times)

Bondo

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #130 on: January 24, 2021, 09:18:28 PM »
Narc

A film that does not hold up to the change in cultural mores. Not that we've done away with stories that at least somewhat lionize rogue police officers, those who don't abide those feckless bureaucrats and their rules that keep cops from doing their jobs. And even if the story allows for the cop to be an antihero in a way, it generally finds a way to make them right in the end. It's like 24's embrace of torture, the ends justify the means in popular macho conservative cinema/television. This film opens on a reckless cop leaving collateral damage in his wake. His retirement (at a young age) is ended when he's called to look into the death of another cop and right back into the fray. I kind of want to go Roger Ebert on this film and show it scene at a time, only instead of analyzing it, just ask both police officers and ordinary Americans whether what they just saw seems acceptable. I fear how many would say yes. How many might find a redemption in the end, instead of leave ready to defend the police, at best, and somewhat celebrating the film's cop deaths, at worst.

I just read Ebert's review and he liked it, ugh. He talks about a virtuoso handheld sequence, which stood out to me...as awful. Just a motion-inducing shaky ride that makes all the action indecipherable.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #131 on: January 25, 2021, 10:57:28 AM »
How many humans have done a thing? I'm a typical human... so in theory I should posses the basic requirements to also do the thing. Not the best version of a thing perhaps. If I wanted to make a wedding cake I would not imagine it will be the highest level, but could I achieve 85%? I have hands, and eyes and if I spend some money I would have the tools. If I watched a few hours of things on youtube I would have the knowledge. Could I manage a cake that would be respectable? I imagine so.

This mindset is incredibly empowering. I wish I was taught it as a child, instead of being told to look to others as the authority (church, school, life).

Quote
Sometimes things seem like art, and then you see tools that were used to create the thing and it's like, oh well... I could probably do that. :))

But what about the person who invented the tool?! Impressive!

I just spent more time on that subreddit than "anyone else might reasonably expect." :)) Amazing ingenuity.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #132 on: January 25, 2021, 11:24:19 AM »
Some art critics were "sour grapes" about what Tim did and what his experiment illuminated, but they missed the point entirely. Using newly understood science to enhance art doesn't make one less genius, it makes one more impressive.

Especially when you take it in the context of the time that Vermeer lived. It takes a genius to discover what he did about light and the use of the camera obscura. I mean, no one else in art history discovered this "trick". While I thought the documentary slogged a bit, I was still fascinated by what Vermeer did. He's always been one of my and my wife's favorite artists. No other artist captured light and color so well.

True. And finding out how he did it, doesn't detract from my appreciation of his art either.

Sandy

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #133 on: January 27, 2021, 04:12:03 PM »
Touching the Void



"When you don't know what to do, just do whatever comes next and go from there." - Miss Prothero, Moonraker's Bride

Such a simple concept; almost too simple and easily overlooked. And yet, when the magnitude is too great, this basic idea becomes everything. Underneath Joe's excruciating pain and gigantic fear, a dispassionate voice, ignoring all of the competing inputs, says, "Move." And after a brief pause, "Now, move again." The voice isn't just matter of fact, it's a matter of life and death. Of all the grand vistas and great ambitions, it all comes down to the smallest of actions - A survival technic coming from the core. Chuck Noland (Cast Away) arrives at this place as well,  "I had power over nothing. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow, I had to keep breathing, even though there was no reason to hope..."

Never underestimate simple.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #134 on: January 28, 2021, 06:53:48 AM »
Contagion (2011 Steven Soderbergh)

Well this film was ahead of the game. It got some things correct and others not. Shyster(s) profiting and not caring about the damage or deaths they cause, check. US citys/states going into hard lockdown with military border controls, nope. OTT levels of looting and lawlessness, nope. They also cranked up the vaccine creation time and release, one person jabbing themselves does not a phase 3 trial make.

Great cast and it was not shy about who it killed off, definitely a plus. I also like that it did not contrive a way to get all the different stories to interconnect and for the key characters to meet.

I liked how it did not go the Hollywood climatic rush at the last second to save the day route.

Was this an enjoyable movie, yes. Despite the topic I was drawn in and wanted to see where it went. People were good, people were bad, people were flawed, people made poor decisions, believable ones not ridiculous ones.

Rating: 78 / 100

jdc

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #135 on: January 28, 2021, 07:31:45 AM »
Contagion (2011 Steven Soderbergh)US citys/states going into hard lockdown with military border controls, nope. OTT levels of looting and lawlessness, nope.
Rating: 78 / 100

To be fair, Covid is probably like a runny nose to what was happening in Contagion on how quickly it progresses’

"The death toll in the United States is believed to have reached 2.5 million." And around day 35, another announcer states: "[The virus] so far has taken over 26 million lives worldwide."


https://bedford.io/blog/contagion/

Though the site wants to kill that being realistic given the final toll. 

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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #136 on: January 28, 2021, 08:00:00 AM »
True COVID is not as bad, but the looting and lawlessness was over the top, and there is no way, no matter how deadly a disease is that the FDA or any other regulator is going to clear a vaccine for use after 1 person tests it on themselves.

jdc

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #137 on: January 28, 2021, 05:28:23 PM »
I never felt the looting was over the top, quite likely the supply would have ground to a halt if the virus was progressing that quickly.  I agree that the vaccine wouldn’t have been approved after 1 person testing but it would have been approved quickly. At least this guys mathematics estimates over 1 billion would have died and not the 70 million estimated from the movie (he seems to quote that but I can’t recall if that is mentioned).
"Beer. Now there's a temporary solution."  Homer S.
“The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations” - David Friedman

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #138 on: January 28, 2021, 06:30:19 PM »
The article was good, although in the movie's defense I think they were only talking about US deaths

smirnoff

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Re: Top 100 Club: smirnoff
« Reply #139 on: February 01, 2021, 02:02:34 PM »
Narc

A film that does not hold up to the change in cultural mores. Not that we've done away with stories that at least somewhat lionize rogue police officers, those who don't abide those feckless bureaucrats and their rules that keep cops from doing their jobs. And even if the story allows for the cop to be an antihero in a way, it generally finds a way to make them right in the end. It's like 24's embrace of torture, the ends justify the means in popular macho conservative cinema/television. This film opens on a reckless cop leaving collateral damage in his wake. His retirement (at a young age) is ended when he's called to look into the death of another cop and right back into the fray. I kind of want to go Roger Ebert on this film and show it scene at a time, only instead of analyzing it, just ask both police officers and ordinary Americans whether what they just saw seems acceptable. I fear how many would say yes. How many might find a redemption in the end, instead of leave ready to defend the police, at best, and somewhat celebrating the film's cop deaths, at worst.

I just read Ebert's review and he liked it, ugh. He talks about a virtuoso handheld sequence, which stood out to me...as awful. Just a motion-inducing shaky ride that makes all the action indecipherable.

Sounds like a bad fit all around.

It's a sordid story, but imo it's hardly an example of the systemic problems people are up in arms over today. For me the scope of the story is too narrow to make any kind of point in that direction. It's just a bloody gritty cop drama with a few players. If anything the film is a refreshing example of the kind of consequences cops don't seem to face. A shot ricochets off a pole and hits a women in the leg, killing her. A cop is fired. A remarkable result.

I still find it refreshing. The pace, the performances, the music, the rawness. None of the languid filmmaking I find so frequently in indie-ish productions.

Still, glad you gave it a fair shake. I wish it had struck a different cord, but I totally understand and appreciate your giving it a try!

 

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