you're not missing anything with Darko.

I fucking HATED Darko when I first saw it. Hated it even more when I rewatched it. fucking pathetic stupid wanna-be deep movie

Very decent interpretation of the infamous film production of an equally infamous movie. It perfectly portrayed why Greg would stick around, Tommy being a polarizing character and all. The performances were pretty damn good. But I just couldn't help but feel it played a bit loose with how things went down. It completely failed to mention that there had initially been another actress that had played the part of Lisa for instance. And I don't think the initial reaction to the premiere was as pronounced as it was portrayed in the movie. The whole "Oh, he treated us like shit on the set, but oh, it's an unintentionally hilarious piece that will surely one day become a massive cult phenomenon, so all is well, I guess." ending seemed somewhat tacky. Still, a well-made movie.

Too much hatin' on Darko here. That movie's all about the atmosphere. Moves in its own, distinct way - almost like a dream. And the score is goddamn stellar. Like to pop it in every now and then, a classic in my book.

I hate pointless films. Throw in most of David Lynch's BULLSHIT in that mix too.

Movies about atmosphere means that NO story, NO plot, NO characterization, NO entertainment.

there’s this thing called “emotion” you might have heard of.... :D

anyway, saw “no blade of grass” (1970) last night on criterion, part of a 70s sci-fi program they put together



ham-handed, poorly acted, now obsolete in various ways, but both convincing (for me anyway) and schlockily entertaining, yeah. loved the way they dealt with technical limitations via freeze frames, montages, and color effects. sometimes a bit too gory (because pictures of actual starving children are truly disturbing. but they had a point. but it’s still fucked up.)

it’s the walking dead before the walking dead. well, night of the living dead was made before this, but storywise this is more of an aftermath, sort of. more like mad max maybe? but mad max is in the program later.

decent-terrible b movie. good for late night and lols.



https://trailersfromhell.com/no-blade-of-grass/

After the Fox is a great Sellers movie. Victor Manure is superb in it, plus a very funny intro. One of my all time favorites!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viJipACkwBw

emotion comes from characterization, plotting, spacing, and structure. confusion is NOT an emotion. It is a state of mind, and shit movies think this is enough.

that’s not true. you can get emotion from an abstract painting with no characters or plot. you not like rothko?

you can get emotion from nature. zero plot in our great bitch mother.

music has no characters or plot (lyrics do, but music... ok program music migh have it, e.g. peter and the wolf. but still...) and you can feel shit from it.

anyway don’t know what you mean by “spacing”.

admittedly, an atmospheric film is harder to pull off than a narrative one.

a shit narrative (eg see above the stuff i watched last night) can be more appealing than a genius atmosphere (eg see some terrence malick stuff, i fall asleep always).

but just because it’s hard it doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

i prefer my atmospheric films short though. can’t see there for 3 hours.

e.g. there’s this little greek movie called “washingtonia” that’s just a beauty. what is it about? who the fuck knows? gorgeous 24 minutes though. KONSTANTINA KOTZAMANI is the director’s name.

i watched that darko business a million years ago and liked it. i wasn’t like “oooooooo must watch daily” but it was nice. haunted by a demon rabbit alternate dimension or something i fucking forget.

i don’t remember much from it except for a darkened room and eerie music and the demon bunnyhead or whatever. then... a plane falls on him? there was a plot—impending airline disaster and bunny demon haunting. no?

who cares though? i got my money’s worth back then. not asking for it back.

i think the real problem was too many emo kids went “ooooh, that’s just like my life!” and overrated it and ruined its reputation.

this thread is about MOVIES, images displayed quickly to create the illusion of motion.

paintings are another beast.

Music is similar to film in that almost all music has a beginning, middle, end structure, even the most avant-garde. The worst most boring "music" I ever heard is shit like Earth and their ilk which is really just background noise. That shit did not bring up any emotions in me.

Think of all the horrible horrible HORRIBLE Andy Warhol "films" with no structure, so you just make up whatever you fucking want, which is the exact opposite of communication through art.

i just read the plot of donnie darko on wikipedia and remembered

there’s a long convoluted fucking plot!

it’s sorta like a negative groundhog day and favors self-annihilation which is probably why you hated it. but it has a plot! and it was a good plot.

but who says that art is/has to be about “communication”?

that’s a very limited theory of art

almost stalinist

The movie's got a lot to offer in terms of characterization. At heart, it's a movie about societal dysfunctions in middle class America at the end of the 80s and about a youth that felt disenfranchised from the mindless exploits of an increasingly neoliberal/conservative system - the strictly religious high-school being an obvious analogy + the phony self-help and televangelist craze that also manifested itself at that time (eg. Patrick Swayze's character and his shallow doctrine).

Then there's the helplessness of Donnie's parents in the face of his possible mental illness (from their point of view), a general air of apathy that is even mentioned by Drew Barrymore's character (paraphrasing here: "We're losing them to apathy...". Granted, the whole time-travel/multidinsional stuff can be a tad confusing and might be a sign of Kelly losing himself a bit too much in his weird mythology, but there's so much more than that to the movie.

And as a mystery it works nonetheless, it's got the perfect look and feel to it, the performances (especially Jake Gyllenhaal's) are intriguing and it moves with a certain uneasy tranquility that I found to be quite unique.

I always enjoyed it as both a character study and a mood piece. And on that it delivered in spades. And I never thought the whole dimensional stuff took center stage, there's just too much other stuff that was quite compelling about it. If I didn't care about the journey of the characters, I would of course not have enjoyed the atmosphere as much as I did. That is quite an accomplishment.

antagon wins by k.o. :D

I'm currently reading Kirk Douglas' autobiography* whilst going through some of his films. I'd seen this one already but totally forgotten about it. Such a great film. Next up is Lust For Life

*So much of the first half is him talking about who he shagged "then I saw the most beautiful woman" "she was a beautiful woman" and so on. Alright, old man lets stick to the movies.

Also, Donnie Darko was a great film. When I saw it aged 15 (welp) it blew my young mind away.

Darko can still go suck a dicko

when you watch near anything at age 15 it should blow your mind away.

Unless you are preternaturally wise beyond your years! which you may have been!!