Films and TV - What are you watching?

lady_toast

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Recent arrival: in my unceasing campaign to get a little culture and stop being such an ignorant boor, I finally got my hands on:
FIST OF THE NORTH STAR

I'm about 10 episodes in (of 152!!) and this really has a surprising amount of charm - which is not exactly what you'd expect to say about an anime where the guy spends half his time exploding people's heads. But charm is the right word nevertheless, if you ask me.

Isn't Gackt a fan of the show? Lol

I'm currently watching Rupaul's Drag Race Season 12, really like this new format so far. I feel like I get to know the contestants much better with the fashion show and song/rap format, as opposed to throwing them into a competitive format right away.
 

flowersofnight

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Isn't Gackt a fan of the show? Lol
I think every man his age was XD

I finished up with the first "chapter" and it seems like the quality is dropping off, but I'll stick with it and see if it's just my imagination. There's not much opinion out there on the interweb, at least not in English.
 

Hampo

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Never watched Fist of the North Star myself, but I did read the whole Riki-Oh manga.
All that time I'm never getting back...
 

Hampo

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It's almost laughable that out of all comic book adaptations, that movie is extremely accurate to the original. Especially when you consider how wild and strange it truly is.
Honestly, as far as I remember, you could possibly pick up the manga from the point where that film ends and you wouldn't miss anything, except a little bit of backstory for the main character. However, that prison part is the best part of the manga, so no point in reading any further.

Apparently, a sequel film also exists, but they had to change all the character names for legal reasons. Never seen that one, though.
 

heutre

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So what are y'all's top 3 movies ? I wanna watch new stuff, I like touching narratives, science-fiction, weird concepts and action sequences lol. Bonus points if they're from the 60's/70's or if they had a low budget lol :)
 

Hampo

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Wasn't the 60's and 70's more or less the worst time for (US made) films? The late 50's and early 60's they were able to get away with a lot more, but then new regulations or something hit Hollywood and American films got dull as a result.
 

heutre

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Wasn't the 60's and 70's more or less the worst time for (US made) films? The late 50's and early 60's they were able to get away with a lot more, but then new regulations or something hit Hollywood and American films got dull as a result.
I disagree, a lot of my favorite movies are from that era (Night of the Living Dead, The Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby, The Birds, The Twilight Zone series and Repulsion) The horror movies weren't very explicit in material but that's what made them more effective in my opinion.. Like there's a tension/suspense atmosphere that's built that I haven't really seen from recent movies. The aesthetic is nice as well. Really depends on taste at the end of the day :).

Edit : I also really like the sociopolitical commentary that's made but in a covert manner, it doesn't feel as patronizing as recent flicks, but at the same time it really depends on what movies you pick lol, there's always been propaganda everywhere lol

Edit 2 : The 70's were full of s*ploitation flicks with gratuitous nudity and of cinema of "bad taste" (John Waters and Divine) so I don't really see it the same way you do ahah
 
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Hampo

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Well, those exploitation films (and Night of the Living Dead for that matter) are not exactly what you would call "Hollywood" cinema in the sense I meant.

I also prefer older horror films when it comes to the US made stuff. The sound design alone ruins most recent horror films. The use of generic stingers and "stock-tense-suspense-string.wav" is getting out of hand.
 

sanctum

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Well why, old man, why? XD
I watched it in the 90s, it was a different time. I can't remember much of it but things like the urban design and the way everything, cars, guns, clothing, building, technology etc. looked and the music. I can't remember much about the characters, but I do remember really liking Linna and Nene.

I think there was a sequel too, called Bubblegum Crash or something similar, I think I liked the first half, but something felt off about the latter half.

I'll have to re-watch it all again sometime.
 

flowersofnight

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the way everything, cars, guns, clothing, building, technology etc. looked
Oh yes, you could tell they put a lot of love into the machinery and guns. I do suspect this was supposed to be a "special effects spectacular" to some degree, which doesn't quite impress the same way 30 years of CGI technology later.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of this preview I saw on one of my instructional videos, it was just called "Babes with Guns" (or something like that) and the entire preview was nothing but some bikini model endlessly firing off automatic weapons at a range ::meev:: Like, that's all it needed to be I guess XD
 

sanctum

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Like, that's all it needed to be I guess XD
It really depends if she was a babe or not.

Oh yes, you could tell they put a lot of love into the machinery and guns.
I remember my mind being blown by the scene where one of the motorcycles transforms and equips on top of the character's suit, I'd never seen anything like that before at the time. The closest thing I can think of is the robots in Power Rangers or Voltron combing to to make a bigger robot, but that isn't quite the same thing.
 

Hampo

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I watched Hereditary recently. Everyone's been hyping this film up as the most original, most disturbing horror film of the decades and this generation's Exorcist!

It wasn't original at all, in fact it was a hackjob of all the paranormal horror clichès and it wasn't even that disturbing. All the "twists" that everyone kept on talking about weren't even really twists.

What am I missing here?
 

sanctum

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What, it doesn't live up to the movie? ::meev::
Is that movie any good? I've watched a couple of YouTube commentary videos regarding it and they left me with the impression that the film is more fun with someone riffing on it.

I watched Taken again recently, it always gives me a giggle when Taken goes back home with his daughter as if the entire events of the movie hadn't taken place.
 

sanctum

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The new Matrix trailer has been excreted onto the World Wide Web, has anyone else seen it?

The 'future' scenes look really cool, but we already saw those in the original movies. Everything else just seems so... flavourless. The original movie(s) rocked the 90's cyber goth/industrial underground BDSM club/counter-culture 'vibe', whereas the new characters are bland and look like they've been lifted straight from Tumblr.
 

flowersofnight

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The new Matrix trailer has been excreted onto the World Wide Web, has anyone else seen it?
I have no interest, Matrix 2 and 3 were lousy of course and I can't imagine 4 would be any better. We seem to be entering a new cycle of remakes/sequels to vintage properties, but so far I haven't seen any that improve or add anything meaningful over the originals. (Or the previous round of remakes, as it may be)

In the case of "The Matrix" specifically, I'd rather go read "The Invisibles" and see if I believe the stories about Matrix 1 being ripped off from it.

As for me, here's a good movie I saw recently: Blood and Sand starring Rudolph Valentino.
This Grapevine Video outfit seems to produce a lot of restorations of old and lesser-known movies. I've picked up a few and mostly not been disappointed.
 
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