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Hell yes, what a fun line-up. STAC, I will also be watching Carne along with I Stand Alone. I also really love Under The Skin. I bought the blu ray and haven’t rewatched it since, so that’s gonna rule. The rest, including The Happening, are all new-to-me.
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Jan 8, 2021 18:30
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Shrecknet posted:yes this is what films are No. Those are the films you like. You do not like tonal films. That doesn’t mean they aren’t films. There is a difference and we are politely trying to remind you of this while acknowledging a difference in taste, and you’re rather insultingly ignoring us. You also are ignoring a lot of plot even in scenes you dislike or write off as masturbatory. Under the Skin is about a predator who becomes prey at the hands of their prey. The character arc is watching that transformation. This is a creature so alien from us, and we are its food source. In its pursuit of its prey, which is no different than a hunter getting a deer to take back to their family, it realizes that there is an entire culture and depth to the thing it has only thought of as something to eat. And it sees this, and can’t actually fully relate to it, although it seems, by the end, to really want to. The conversation with the disfigured man is one of the most fascinating and emotionally complex scenes in sci-fi in the last few years, because there is so much going on in the alien’s inner world. It also shifts the alien towards being a victim. It doesn’t understand that it can also be murdered because of emotional disturbances, or that it could be sexually assaulted, or that there is more, to humanity, than it just being livestock. And in the end, it’s empathy, or understanding that it could feel empathy, is what leads to the film’s climax. It’s a polarizing film! You aren’t the first person to dislike it, or find its approach to storytelling off-putting, because you rather have more situational story-telling and not a quiet character study where the character is literally inhuman. That’s cool that you feel that way. The problem is, you’re really being off-putting in your way of addressing your issues with the film, and our disagreeing with you, in this, a thread based on discussion of films where we talk about what we like about them.
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Jan 8, 2021 22:30
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MacheteZombie posted:you're lucky im not a mod I put in a ban and the admins told me to “gently caress off, Part 3 is better”???
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Jan 8, 2021 22:46
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TrixRabbi posted:Still gotta say it, even if you hate everything else Noe has done, Climax is legit great even if not entirely free of his problematic poo poo. But there's no animal slaughter. My favorite story about Climax is that Noe was ready for a bunch of controversy, but it was universally liked and enjoyed, so he spent a lot of the premiere disappointed that no one was upset or offended.
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Jan 11, 2021 16:25
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STAC Goat posted:For sure. As much as I dislike Noe's philosophy and what I perceive his intentions to be Climax is a pretty remarkable achievement of film that was utterly captivating and mesmerizing to me. It messed me up but I Stand Alone didn't because I Stand Alone was incapable of every making me care or invest. Climax is both technically wonderful and felt worth watching on that alone but also engaged me enough to hurt when Noe's nihilism took affect. He may be an edgelord troll, but he's one with real filmmaking skill. I don't know for sure, but I feel like Noe would be a pretty interesting guy to talk with? I read an interview with him, and he was saying something like "I make movies that I find fascinating. I just don't think about censoring myself, or my ideas. I just tend to be fascinated with dark, controversial ideas." He then went to say "I can make other movies. I'd love to make a G or PG kids movie. I'd love to make all sorts of movies. My favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey, I'd love to do a sci-fi movie like that. But for now, the projects that I do that get made happen to be darker ideas." I don't think he made Climax to be controversial or anything. I just think he expects to offend people just because his name is on the project, and he was just surprised, and a little dismayed, that Climax didn't get any controversy. The crowd got it when he was expecting it not to be. I think he's a fascinating guy.
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Jan 11, 2021 17:52
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STAC Goat posted:I've never actually seen a Von Trier film besides the first 10 minutes. He's just guilty by association. The Bjork stuff is inexcusable, but I am firmly in the camp that "Melancholia", while an excellent portrayal of depression and the finality of life, is actually just a dark comedy for most of it's runtime. The movie (after the tone poem intro) begins with a dick joke! edit: Dogville and Anti-Christ are actually just straight up depressing, though.
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Jan 11, 2021 23:34
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:Maybe that's the push I need to finally watch Anti-Christ, if someone showed me Possession or Audition on a first date they'd definitely come away with some hot hand-holding action, maybe I'd even show them my ankle While I understand where this is coming from, Anti-Christ is on a darker level than both of those. I'd say it's closer to something like Salo, but I find it more bleak than Salo, probably because all the gore effects look so real. Possession feels allegorical in it's surrealism, Audition feels like a cautionary tale, but it's pretty grounded until the finale. Anti-Christ's surrealism feels like a Fairy Tale, but from a pitch-black imagination. edit: My first Von Trier was Dogville, which I did like, but haven't seen since the first time, and then it's been Anti-Christ, Nymphomaniac, and Melancholia. I'd recommend Melancholia first. I think it's a really empathetic portrayal of depression, instead of the abrasive portrayals of the other two. I really should watch The Kingdom or one of his comedies. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 16:14
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TrixRabbi posted:The thing about Antichrist is that it is at least a legit good film with great performances. Like, I don't think it'd be talked about in nearly the same way if it didn't have substance. However, it's been closing in on a decade since I watched it so I may need to refresh myself at some point. Agreed on all points. I see it's Criterion edition on every sale and think "Should I??" And then I don't because I dread rewatching it. That's why I picked him! Von Trier is admittedly a controversial and lovely dude. But he also collaborates with a lot of our greatest actors and artists in film, he makes movies worth talking about, and he is, unquestionably, one of the most interesting and influential directors in the horror canon right now. And I always dread watching one of his movies. Not because I can't handle them--I do every time-- but because I'm worried about what he's going to show me about humanity and how it'll sit with me for a while. Noe's in the same camp, which is why they're a team. For better or worse, I can't think of a better reason to put someone in a horror tournament. But I also understand why people avoid him/them, for his films or his personality and crimes against fellow artists.
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Jan 12, 2021 16:42
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TrixRabbi posted:There's a tendency to want to dismiss them as primitive provocateurs but they're both very talented artists who succeed in making you feel like poo poo because they actually are hitting at dark truths about humanity and life. But also, both can be incredibly funny at the same time. I'd argue a good number of Von Trier's films in particular are comedies. Yeah, like I said, Melancholia is really really funny. And it's not "you're just a weirdo with a dark sense of humor" laughing. I was in a theater, with friends, and the whole audience picked up on the sense of humor!
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Jan 12, 2021 17:10
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This also feels appropriate, and will be a nice reference point for if/when we get to him: Lars von Trier: The Burden from Donald Duck an hour-ish interview from a few weeks ago.
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Jan 12, 2021 17:32
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Debbie Does Dagon posted:To narrow in on a few previously mentioned issues, hopefully without labouring them too much, I would like to address the two major criticisms of both films. Firstly, that UtS is boring, I did not find this to be the case at all, whatsoever. UtS is easily the most engaging film not only of the week but of the tournament so far. While it is absolutely true that the film allows events to occur at a pace that is perhaps sub-break-neck speed, I feel like this is an absolutely justified creative choice due to the nature of Scarlet Johanson's character. She plays a character who is specifically designed for one function, and that is as a predator, and all of the first act choices engage with this stalking behaviour in a natural and yet uncanny, and often deeply disturbing way. Her then slow pivot to embracing a humanity that she cannot fully grasp is masterfully depicted in small moments, like, yes, eating cake. The point however is not to be mundane for the sake of mundanity, but to actually dig into the granular difficulties of adjusting to a life that is not meant for us. For me, it was rich, it has texture, it was compelling, it was nuanced, and it broke me in ways no other film has so far in the tournament, with the possible exception of... It also opens up a lot of interesting questions to a viewer that's willing to sit and think about what they're seeing. When the alien is eating the cake, I get lost in the thought of "What are they tasting??". Humans have 3 color receptors in our eyes, which grant us the ability to see about 10 million variations in colors. Mantis Shrimp have 16 color receptors, meaning they see more than 50 million color variations that we can't even fathom. Dogs and cats have taste buds humans haven't developed, meaning they taste whole nuances to water that humans can't, and never will. So using this logic, this completely alien being in a human suit may be eating the same piece of cake as a human, like a human, but that doesn't mean they are experiencing the same piece of cake as us. Very rarely does a movie make me get into the sensory headspace of a character, which is kind of ironic, since we are sensory creatures. Our memories and our emotions are triggered more by smell than any other sense. Taste is an extension of smell. There's also interesting tactile things in the movie to trigger physical responses. It's a very cold film, with lots of snow, visible breath. When the characters are in the space ship void it triggers the memory of bare feet on smooth texture, like glass or steel, and yet it's an alien material. Is it warm? Is it cold? And the floor turning to liquid or goo triggers that sense memory. If you've ever had a fear of drowning, or a dream where you are sinking, that scene can itch a weird part of the lizard brain. That it does all this with an alien is fascinating. Also it has one of the best soundtracks of that decade. And also also I genuinely appreciate that the movie does candid camera on people and then incorporates the non-actors into the film to the point of intimacy that they're showing their dicks. That's filmmaking. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jan 13, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 14:25
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STAC Goat posted:11 hours or so left to vote (depending on my bedtime). We had 18 votes last week and we have 16 so far this week. If you've been holding out make sure to get your vote in. With 3 ways and single digit divides of votes every vote counts. I've been holding out because I've been so busy and stressed this week, I haven't watched a single movie, except to treat for myself with Promising Young Woman, which I can't vote for. I was hoping I'd be able to watch them tonight or tomorrow, but that's not gonna happen. With my written defenses, I'm obviously going with Under The Skin, but I really wanted to watch the giallo competing against it, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. I wanted to watch Noe's Carne and I Stand Alone, but with as stressed and tired as I've been, and not really knowing if it'd be as abrasive as other Noe films, I tried BB instead. I watched 20 minutes of Bloodstained Butterfly and had to turn it off because I just couldn't pay attention to it at all. It's not fair, but knowing Noe as a filmmaker from three other films, I feel confident voting for him for that reason. So, my votes'll be Under The Skin and I Stand Alone, which I still plan to watch tomorrow, along with The Red Queen and The Happening and maybe BB.
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Jan 14, 2021 22:16
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So far I've watched Bones and Butterfly Kisses. I haven't seen War of the Worlds, so maybe that'll secretly be a movie I like despite the criticisms against it, but so far Bones is taking it on that bracket. Spoilers follow because it's too much information to hide behind black bars, and we're all supposed to be watching these and discussing them. Bones A haunted house film where the vengeful ghost is Snoop Dogg. I saw the box art for this film at the video rental store all the time. It's an evocative cover! But "a horror movie with Snoop Dogg can't be good", a reputation this movie will always be hard-pressed to shake. But it's good! I really don't have much to add that Basebf555 hasn't already said. There's a lot of interesting themes in Bones. A black vengeful ghost story rules, especially when it deals with the old school gangster that is wiped out by the next generation that ushered in crack. There's a pointed line where Snoop Dogg--er, Bones--says that what he does is illegal, but it also protects the community and helps the community in ways, whereas the younger gangsters want to turn the community into parasites for drugs and profit off of the damages, while a white cop oversees it. There's also an interesting through-line about the dangers of older generations not teaching younger generations, because they are ashamed of their struggles and mistakes. An interesting theme, since the two timeframes are Nixon's America and Bush's America. I will say, the film's flaws are even charming! The soundtrack, the clothes and the CGI are a little dated, but it feels more like a timecapsule of a bygone era than an embarrassment of choices. Butterfly Kisses I wrote, with both sarcasm and sincerity, that this is the F For Fake of found footage films about a cryptid. Usually these suck, like Incident at Loch Ness, or the interesting-but-never-needs-to-be-revisited Willow Creek. Well, sometimes they're good, like Grave Encounters! There's nothing wrong with "found footage movie about found footage movies" if you've got a compelling cast of characters and you deliver the goods on spooky moments without relying on jump scares. I think this film's greatest strengths are when it's poking holes into it's own premise, and questioning the credulity of all of the characters involved. It all kinda falls flat by the end, where we get pretty objective information that everything's real. This also falls victimhood to an issue with a lot of Found Footage films. Filmmakers, if you want to made a FF movie, watch some actual documentaries first. The reason Christopher Guest movies work so well is because he understands that documentaries are very often character studies of insane/ridiculous/interesting people with strong personalities. Grey Gardens, American Movie, all of Errol Morris's films, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Cropsey, The Act of Killing...The list goes on an on! Low budget FF films cast unknown actors to help sell the film, but this film doesn't deliver on the unique personalities that are inherent to the documentary genre. Which is a bit of a problem with Butterfly Kisses, because it is so directly related to one of the plots that the characters even discuss it. Gavin York, the main character for the majority of the focus, a wedding videographer who wants to be a filmmaker and is Finding the Footage, is a boring guy. I specifically mean the character and not the actor, who I think did fine. The final act of the film really tries to dig into how his passion for the project has ruined his life without providing a compelling end for himself, his project, or the filmmakers making the movie about him. They even ask the filmmaker, Erik Myers, the actual actual filmmaker who plays himself, "Why are you doing this?" And he answers "Because he's an interesting guy." Where is that characterization in the film? Here's an example for those who have seen American Movie, which is a documentary about a loveable loser defying common sense and the odds stacked against him to make a horror movie. Mark of American movie is, to put it rather bluntly, not the best father. His kids aren't his priority, but he loves them, and when he remembers he's a father, he does an okay job at it. There is a scene where Mark reads through his bills, explaining his massive debts, only to find out he's been approved for a new credit card, which he considers a triumph. He talks to his kids and plays with them, and then leaves them, explaining how their mom would like to be with him, but he can't be with her or his kids because he has to make his movie. This plays out completely naturally, fly-on-the-wall. There is a scene later where Mark decides he can spend time with his kids while editing his film. They sit in an editing booth and he has them help him a little, he talks them through the process of editing a movie, he shows them film reels and the splicing machine. When they get tired, they get in their sleeping bags and all sleep on the floor together in the editing booth. It's like a sleepover with dad at work. In Butterfly Kisses, Gavin is supposed to be characterized like Mark, as a deadbeat dad. There is a scene where he tries to talk to his son, but his son is too afraid to talk in front of the camera. Gavin insists the cameras have to be there because it's documenting such an important project. We never see his son again. Gavin's wife calls him into the kitchen and she cajoles him for bringing the camera crew to the house. Again he defends his narcissism. The scene ends abruptly. Later we find out that Gavin's wife left him over the project and terrible financial risks Gavin has inflicted on the family for his failed project. There is a scene where he cries and the filmmaker, Erik, gives him a hug. It is the most problematic scene in the film, because absolutely none of it rings true. Again, not because of the acting (which, admittedly, isn't great; Gavin's crying doesn't feel sincere), but because Gavin isn't real. Not in the context of a person who is "interesting" enough to have a documentary about him. If you say, well, maybe it's an issue with run-time? Butterfly Kisses is a tight 91 minute film with three separate plots about three separate filmmakers: Sophia & Feldman, Gavin, and then Erik Myers. American Movie, about Mark and the various people trying to help him make his movie, is 107 minutes. It's an incredibly tight movie, despite being 15 minutes longer, because that 15 minutes is characterization about Mark and his friends and his family. I know nothing about Sophia & Feldman other than they want to be successful filmmakers enough that they would compromise the truth. Gavin is the most fleshed out, and his inability to be taken seriously and called a fake despite truly believing that the legend of Peeping Tom is real is genuinely good and interesting, but Gavin himself doesn't feel fleshed out. Erik Myers is the worst of it, because he only really becomes a character near the end of the film, in the final act. My fix for this? Erik needs to break the 4th wall earlier in Act 1, and his plot of trying to get a good movie out of Gavin's project needs to be emphasized more. The ending feels flat because Erik is flat. If you don't have budget, you gotta give your actors room to grow the characters. You gotta have characters! That's what we're here for! I do think the central mystery of Peeping Tom is good and spooky. It could be a little better, a little scarier, not as spelled out. Weirder, maybe. I think that this is a perfectly fine FF movie, but it's got so much potential and so little substance to give it life outside of it's premises.
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Jan 19, 2021 00:02
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Is Grave Encounters on any team? Cuz Butterfly Kisses just made me really want to watch Grave Encounters again.
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Jan 19, 2021 14:54
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STAC Goat posted:It was on my Digital Interference team but they didn't make the cut. drat. At least my favorite FF movie is still in play, with Harmony Korine's "Trash Humpers" on Team Rule Breaker.
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Jan 19, 2021 20:51
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And I still haven't voted. I'm probably always going to wait until Thursday evening to put in my votes, unless I know for sure I've seen every move in contention.
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Jan 21, 2021 16:49
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Y'all are making me feel real dumb for buying the 4k UHD of Zombi for $35 to watch it for this challenge. I mean, I'm still gonna watch it.
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Jan 25, 2021 16:42
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NUMBER 1 FULCI FAN posted:If you like cheesy Italian horror, it's still worth a watch. I mean, it's not GOOD, but I still think it's fun. I've seen it before, but as a teenager. It's been at least a dozen years since watching it. It was my first Fulci, before I knew who Fulci was. I grabbed the 4K for my rewatch. And it does have TONS of special features.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:05
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Basebf555 posted:There's something great about owning these kind of down and dirty cult films on UHD. As someone who grew up with cable t.v. and VHS I just never imagined we'd be seeing stuff like Fulci or even Carpenter treated with this level of respect. Like, last week when I watched They Live it was a surreal experience seeing that Piper/Keith David brawl in 4k/HDR. It's cool to see those kind of important cinema moments preserved at this level of quality in a way that I can own at home. I have The New York Ripper's 4k, too, but haven't rewatched it. I own House by the Cemetary on blu ray, so I haven't grabbed the 4k yet (maybe if it goes on sale), but I'm bummed they haven't done The Beyond on 4k UHD, which is easily my favorite Fulci.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:31
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NUMBER 1 FULCI FAN posted:New York Ripper is hands down my favorite Fulci. I've easily rewatched New York Ripper the most, but The Beyond is everything I like about Italian horror. Having seen it in theaters with the score performed live by Fabio Frizzi and getting to meet him pretty much seals the deal for Favorite.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:40
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Singapore Sling "When I was shooting Singapore Sling, I was under the impression that I was making a comedy with elements taken from Ancient Greek Tragedy... Later, when some European and American critics characterized it as 'one of the most disturbing films of all times,' I started to feel that something was wrong with me. Then, when British censors banned its release in England, I finally realized that something is wrong with all of us." -Nikos Nikolaidis quote:Greek filmmaker’s Nikos Nikolaidis pastiche Singapore Sling (1990) and See You in Hell, My Darling (1999) use elements from four classic films – the first from Laura (O. Preminger, 1944), and Sunset Boulevard (B. Wilder, 1950), and the latter from Les Diaboliques (H. Clouzot, 1955) and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (R. Aldrich, 1964) – recreating in this way the atmosphere of the original films and perpetuating the monstrous and/or schizophrenic nature of their female protagonists. In Singapore Sling, a mother and a daughter, after the death of the father, keep a man as a captive in order to use him as a sexual tool and as a toy for their gratification, and in See You in Hell, My Darling, two women are in love with each other and with the dead husband of the one of them who, however, comes back from the dead, and they try to get each other and the man out of the way. In both cases, although the women are portrayed as conventionally attractive women, who could be the object of the male gaze in any other film, they are presented as evil, schizophrenic, abject and monstrous, denying, in this way, objectification. Reflecting on film noir and on classic femme fatales, it can be said that these women articulate the repressed sexuality of the latter. The women in both films have agency and they refuse to depend on men, thus reversing the passive-female, active-male binary dyad. Furthermore, they ridicule the males, subvert patriarchy and become themselves the bearers of the active gaze. quote:Nikolaidis for each of these films uses elements from two classic films and from the genres the latter films belong to, especially from film noir, and hence he renders genres as ‘repositories of situations, styles and iconographies that can be used and combined, to set one another off, to highlight, pastiche-fashion, what is characteristic, interesting or suggestive about them’. Nikolaidis’s two new pieces of work stand independently, and the spectators can follow them regardless of having seen the source films or not. In the process of recreating the idea of the original films, Nikolaidis imitates and perpetuates the monstrous and/or schizophrenic nature of their female protagonists. These women can be compared to the upgraded version of the classic femme fatales, the femme fatales of the 1990s films, which are categorised under the ‘phenomenon of “noirness” and “retro-noir”’. Hence, Nikolaidis’s female protagonists can be characterised as ‘fatal femmes’, a term coined by Julianne Pidduck to describe the incarnation of femme fatales of the classic noirs quote:For much of his life he worked in advertising and he managed to direct two hundred television advertisements within twenty years. He studied filmmaking at the Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos [el] and acquired scenic design skills at the Vakalo College of Art and Design, a highly regarded specialized private art school, both located in Athens, Greece. [...] The characters in his films are usually people constrained by limitations or found in absurd and extreme situations while playing with their fate. The themes that one often encounters in his films include the 1950s and film noir, the relationship between sex and death, companionship and love, as well as the struggle against all sorts of powers and ghosts from the past. Nikolaidis filmed much of his work in black and white, a few of his films contained a certain similarity to so-called "trash films," and he categorized the majority of his films into trilogies. [...] The work of Nikos Nikolaidis has had a significant influence on the subsequent generation of Greek filmmakers some of which were inspired by the stylistics of his films and the unusual artistic images containing complex allegories and symbols. His films' protagonists are usually outcasts and nonconformists or the cynics and the marginalized people of society with mental and sexual disorders. The main feature of Nikolaidis' directorial approach was the predominance of form over content. At home, he was seen as an innovator looking for unusual ways to use film language, as well as someone who created a unique aesthetic combining beauty and ugliness. Abroad, Nikolaidis earned a reputation as an eccentric and controversial director. [...] In November 2005, after the completion of his last film The Zero Years, a tale of perversion and sexual dominance which failed to replicate the earlier success of Singapore Sling (1990), Nikolaidis declared his intention to stop making movies to concentrate on music full-time. This morning, as I was waking up and doing my morning routine, I was thinking about Singapore Sling. My addled mind, as it does, jumped back to a little documentary I saw years ago, when I was 18 or 19 years old, called 30 Century Man, which is about one of my favorite singers and performers, Scott Walker, and his journey from pop sensation with The Walker Brothers to Baroque Pop maestro, to mysterious, reclusive songwriter that only came out of decades of hiding to record and release experimental albums. The songs from this era of his career, from albums like Tilt, The Drift, Bish Bosch and Soused, are, to say the very least, avant-garde and cryptic. This documentary was produced by David Bowie, who is interviewed throughout, and he absolutely can't hide his adoration for Scott Walker. There is a moment where they talk about the lyrics of Scott Walker's experimental albums, and David Bowie says (approximately), "I love them. I can't say what they're about. I don't know what they're about. I don't really want to know what they're about. They're beautiful, and I think that something is lost with knowing." That moment really defined how I experience all forms of art from that point forward. David Bowie, genius that he is, can admit that he doesn't know the meaning behind something he loves. He listens to it and gets to have his own experience with it. He can tell you what he thinks while listening, and he could listen to what you think while listening, but the beauty is in the experience and the listening, not any grounding interpretation or defining artistic intention. As wild, macabre, unhinged and vulgar Singapore Sling is, never once did I question what it was doing. There was clearly, within the first few shots, methods to the madness. It feels anarchic and formless, until it reveals that there's been structure the entire time. It is unabashedly indulgent, and that seems to be the point. This is a disturbing portrayal of what it means to be human--eating, loving, killing. Every bodily function besides scat is shown. The characters create and play games that are insular, ostracizing to the audience. It looks like lunacy, but if you were to eavesdrop on life-long friends having a conversation of only inside jokes, their laughing their heads off would feel equally alienating. And if they are fascinating people, you might keep listening, to see if maybe you can understand the joke, or even be let in on some of them. This is what it feels like to spend time with the Daughter and Mother of Singapore Sling, and it is the experience Nikos is giving the audience. Because, like a noir, the film centers around a mystery. The grasp on 'reality' for the Daughter, Mother and Singapore Sling is mercurial, and yet they are all three our narrators. The question of "What's real?" should quickly go out of the window as soon as Mother starts loving Daughter with a strap-on, which is part of a fantasy game they play, inspired by a murder they committed, or watched Father commit. We hear about Father a lot, with implications that his madness spread to Mother and Daughter, but we only see him once, as a Mummy, being ridden by Daughter, who narrates a bit of family history. This scene, like many in this film, is objectively played for comedy, but I won't blame anyone for not laughing at the disturbing absurdity of it all. My greatest takeaway, and really what held my hand through the film, is recognizing that, without question, Nikolaidis loves and understands film. I foolishly didn't see the connection to Sunset Boulevard, which is so obvious, until I started reading about Nikolaidis. I did see, however, Grey Gardens, Werner Herzog, Richard Kern, Věra Chytilová's Daisies, Spider Baby, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and other Albee plays, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (especially the Ship of Anubis sections), Marquis De Sade, Pier Paolo Pasolini (who made an adaptation of Oedipus Rex), Billy Wilder (obviously), F.W. Murnau, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Carl Theodor Dreyer and of course David Lynch and John Waters. And I see Nikolaidis in Harmony Korine, Emiliano Rocha Minter and Yorgos Lanthimos (who hired Michele Valley to play a Mother for his own film, Dogtooth). I'm happy that I found articles and even quotes from Nikos himself, that mentioned the Greek Tragedies. In the discord, during the film, different takes on "shock for shocks sake" or different opinions on what was disturbing and what wasn't, the thought occurred to me, "Really, this isn't much more disturbing than Sophocles's Oedipus cycle. There's a lot of Antigone in this." This being a Greek film, though, it felt stupid, maybe even inappropriate?, to say. Nikolaidis is not content with hobbling together a narrative from disparate inspirations. There is a clear intention to push narrative conventions of film, and to push an audiences expectations so far out of their norm that, by the time Singapore Sling is chasing Daughter with a knife erection, we have sat mesmerized, and our suspension of disbelief seems infinite. There is an intelligence and a lot of thought put into the choices that went into this film, and there's also a disregard of self-censorship, not just with Nikolaidis, but in each of the performances. Even with scenes of characters eating absolutely disgusting foods, there is so much care in the sound design, the camera is methodical, the performances are staged perfectly, the actors mannerisms are disturbing and sometimes hilarious. There are moments where the actors look like they might break character and devolve into laughter. These moments are subtle, but they are there. And it made me think about the Lynch quote, when discussing how he runs a production, "We're supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging." And it provided a comforting thought about films like Singapore Sling. As vulgar as it is, and as disturbing as its themes and imagery are, the entire film is playful. And it seems that the production was playful too. How much fun must it be, for an actor who's game, to be allowed complete anarchy? To be allowed a freedom to be a hosed up human--because, again, all of this is so very human--in the safety of fiction. And for a viewer who is willing to be tantalized, freaked out, and sensually bombarded, how wonderful is it that it can be delivered, with beauty, with electric performances, with so much thought or care? Indulgence is not a detractor, for me. Film is an indulgence. Not every film is for every audience. A sign of great art is a polarized audience. Those who don't want it or get it aren't wrong, but the ones that do want it or share it's wavelength get another rewarding experience to keep them alive. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jan 26, 2021 |
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Jan 26, 2021 14:27
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How many horses have died in movies so far for this challenge? Three, if we count Carne? Or just two?
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Jan 27, 2021 18:40
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Basebf555 posted:If Fulci loses in the first round I'm gonna tell Kvlt! on you all. It's their fault for not voting. 
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Jan 27, 2021 20:43
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My take-away from my first time watching Trouble Every Day, which may or may not change on my rewatch, is that Shane and Coré represent something closer to Incubus and Succubus, respectively. Their interactions with normal people are supernatural. The climactic sexual assault that Shane commits against Cristelle, she seems hypnotized until he starts eating her. Coré seems to hypnotize her victims as well. There is an unspoken control their gazes carry. Shane's such a weird character because he's repressing this shark-like predatory nature of his. To compare the two characters, Coré seems to fully accept her urges and does not care for the destruction. Shane seems to be more like a struggling addict. He's going to assault and kill, but he does seem reticent to it, and his marrying June seems like an attempt at combating his urges and to be "normal". This is no ways justifies him or his actions--he is truly reprehensible and evil--but I do appreciate the haunting awareness he has of his own actions. Like he watches himself do these things, but can no way stop them. That's why he's trying to find the doctor. He wants to know if he can be "cured" or if he will always be what he is. And he seems to be losing more and more control. The film is covering the last few days/weeks of his life before he probably becomes what Coré is. I think that's an interesting take on an emotionally destructive, manipulative, crumbling relationship. I agree that the movie could be so much better without Gallo. But I don't think it's a bad movie. It's methodical to the point of being slow, for sure, and I don't think it's a very good social movie at all. The end goal is detachment, and melancholic disgust. For me, it's kinda like if the alien from Into The Skin was in a lovely relationship that it was trying to convince itself is healthy. Or maybe like if Romero's Martin actually concentrated on his relationship with his neighbor. And for a lot of reasons it succeeds, in other reasons it fails, but it's a fascinating movie nonetheless. This post is based on thoughts from when I watched it two years ago. I plan to rewatch it tonight or tomorrow, and hope to add more thoughts to it. Really great write-up Tarnop. I agree with your feelings on GB2 and Trouble Every Day. Tarnop posted:I think there are some clever things going on with the camera work here too. For much of the film, the camera is static, dispassionate and distanced. This changes dramatically during scenes of sex and of violence. The lens is so close that it can be difficult to tell what body part we are seeing. An occasional nipple or navel orients us in space only for the camera to veer off searching hungrily for more flesh. This is the human body both as alluring geometry and as hot meat, intoxicating and all-encompassing. I think this is one of the most interesting things the film does. It films human bodies in such a foreign way. It's disorienting, it's beautiful, it's gross, it's engrossing. edit: I originally watched Trouble Every Day because it was on Slant's Top 100 Horror Films, at #75, beating out a lot of amazing films. There's a good review they wrote about the film and it's themes. It probably won't retroactively make anyone give the movie 5 stars, but maybe it'll inspire the possibility of a rewatch, or soften their distaste for it? edit 2: Unrelated, but this is a pretty cool cover: 
Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 3, 2021 |
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Feb 3, 2021 13:55
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I voted Trouble Every Day and The Faculty. The Faculty's gender politics and sexual politics have aged poorly. Some of it I can forgive, others are just blatantly problematic. I'm a little softer on the Stokes lesbian/straight switch. In high school, I knew girls who were bullied for being gay, when they were actually straight, or not yet openly bisexual, and just more tomboy-ish or masculine or didn't dress well. Her kissing Stan, while played as a triumphant moment that does imply homosexual erasure, or superiority, felt like a riff on The Breakfast Club, with how Allison and Andrew (the "basketcase" and "jock") are romantically paired at the end. Clea DuVall's an actual lesbian actress, so I'd like to think that she understood what this moment meant, but it was her break-out role, so it makes the whole thing muddier. The women getting hotter while the men just become more aggressive. There is a female teacher / male student angle that is fulfilling the male Hot For Teacher fantasy. These three issues are all distinctly Male Gaze issues with the script. To fuel and contradict this, though, there are feminist examinations of the film! Film scholars Katherine Farrimond and Sharon Packer MD & Jody Pennington have written and edited books that explore The Faculty in a greater context. Excerpts: The image on the screen is dual: we see the beautiful, young, naked Marybeth strolling around looking for Casey, and the shadow of the monstrous form in the walls. Marybeth delivers a speech which ties the elements of the movie together. It is about the "world" she came from and its promises of "paradise" for lost and lonely humans, trapped in high-school "hell". [...] Her role as a threatening, castrating agent is underlined by the sharp teeth of her species, which evoke a vagina dentata, and their association to water, the archaic, womb-like female element. As the monstrous mother of her race, she offers the heroes a symbolic return to the womb.[...] The character of Miss Burke precedes Marybeth in the same line, revealing her hidden sexuality only after being infected and turned into a monster. The scene of her detached, tentacled head in particular echoes the Freudian Medusa head. The monstrous feminine is therefore used in the film to reflect the teenage characters entering adult world, where they are forced to "come to terms with female sexuality and overcome their fear of its 'monstrous' aspects in order to become fully functioning adults. - From "A History of Evil in Popular Culture: Chapter 15: The Monstrous Feminine: Reimaging Aliens In American Horror Films" edited by Sharon Packer (MD) & Jody Pennington and "The Contemporary Femme Fatale: Gender, Genre and American Cinema" by Katherine Farrimond Both of which are textbooks I wasn't able to get access to to read further. Farrimond's sounds especially interesting, because it devotes a whole section just to Bisexuality through Women in Film, although Packer & Pennington's book is the more approachable text. The casting is great. The 90's look and soundtrack felt more like a cultural time-capsule than an embarrassment. I think the themes of alienation, being stuck in societal roles that you can't control, the fear of conformity and selling-out, the paranoia of adults, all of that feels like high school and what was going on in 90's America. It's also an interesting riff by Rodriguez on Carpenter's The Thing and They Live. While it doesn't exactly meet those two's evergreen qualities, it at least puts them in the universal understanding that high school is emotional and psychological hell for a lot of people. The pacing is great. I think it's balancing of it's large cast is masterful. There is never an issue with switching from the teachers and principal to Zeke, to Stan, to Marybeth, to Casey, to Stokes. It never feels uneven. I can appreciate a big swing that is only hampered by the half-life of it's cultural age. What I can't appreciate is a lazy unnecessary dour sequel. Ghostbusters 2 follows-up a story where blue collar underdogs have defeated both bureaucracy and transdimensional demonic gods with intelligence, bravery, friendship and hard-headed stupidity and fulfilled the American dream, with a story where the blue collar underdogs have been defeated by bureaucracy and lawsuits, aren't really friends anymore, and exist in a world without ghosts. The Ghostbusters reputation is now reserved for birthday parties where they dance to a diegetic Ghostbusters theme on a boombox. Venkman has learned nothing from the first movie's experiences and is now a television fraud profiting off of psychics (ignoring actual examples of psychic phenomenon). Egon's still doing Egon, which I guess is the best the movie manages to do, but it reminded me of the response to the next Ghostbusters movie with Finn Wolfhard, "Who are these Ghostbusters fans that love Egon?" He's the most alienating, inhuman of the gang. He has found funding to do sociopathic experiments to get negative emotional responses from torturing arguing couples and giving/taking away puppies from children. This, uh, relates directly to the rest of the movie, where a pink ooze responds to emotional stimuli and allows ghosts to manifest into corporeal forms to wreak havoc on the world. "The world's getting angrier, more cynical," the movie posits. "They need hope." The most depressing aspect in the whole film is Dana, played by a returning Sigourney Weaver. Do you remember Dana in GB1? She's a cellist for a NYC orchestra, showing she's talented, intelligent and a hard-worker. She is independent, doesn't need a man. She confidently turns down flirtations from neighbors and co-workers. She only turns to help when demons are in her fridge. When she does so, one of the experts inappropriately and aggressively tries to go out with her. His dogged attempts and weird charm eventually get her to give him a chance (ladies, you know I don't have to tell you, but don't do this), but this also makes him act more earnest and sincere? At the end of the film, he's relented some on his assholery, in the wake of surviving and defeating an apocalypse, and Dana seems to be happy with him! Now, years later, she's left that unhealthy relationship. She met someone else, whom she loved and had a child with. She's a single mom, because her and her partner split amicably over career opportunities he had. She's got a great job working in the restoration department of an NYC art museum, and she has an offer to return to the orchestra in the very near future, once she works out a babysitting situation for her son, Oscar, who is seemingly the best baby in the world. Then enters Venkman, ready to gently caress up her life yet again. All of the backstory for Dana is good. I like that she met someone new and had a life and family way from Venkman. That all makes sense and works. What I don't like is how she is treated like a commodity and has a lot of this story undermined by her choices. Her boss, Janosz Poha, oversteps his boundary as her supervisor and employer to try and date her a lot. Eventually the major focus of the plot is two things: Vigo wants to enslave her as a mother figure by possessing her son Oscar, and Janosz is to be rewarded for his servitude by Dana being enslaved as his wife and lover. The strong independent (now single mom) woman is half of the MacGuffen, and her punishment is roles women have been stuck in for years. Not the worst, but definitely a downgrade from "wrong place, wrong time" victim that performs a sexual rite to summon a demonic god because she has a good apartment. What makes it worse is that, outside of this, Dana backslides into a romance with Peter, again, a man who has not grown from the first film. It is revealed that she wanted to marry Peter and have a family with him, but he selfishly couldn't commit. She was willing to stand by him despite the legal issues and losing his career, but he decided to pursue a career in televising supernatural pseudoscience. She moved on, but didn't actually move on. Ugh. Sigourney, you are known for your no-bullshit approach to characters. Why did you think this was a good arc for Dana? To just willingly take back a lovely selfish ex who wasn't great to begin with? (I know Bill Murray is charming and funny as hell. Not really in this movie, but in general. Nonetheless, you wouldn't want to be around Peter Venkman for longer than 5 minutes if you had to.) In the end, the two characters that have stayed true enough to their characters is Winston and Egon. And Winston's original deal was "I'm here to work, but I'm working for a paycheck." I don't know why his character decided that doing birthday parties for kids was worth his time and money. Loyalty seems a bit strange, but Winston seems like a good guy, so *shrug*. I think all of the physical effects are good except for the ghosts. The actual ghost puppets seem to be an improvement, and the design work on a few of them, like the two electric chair ghost brothers (Scoleri bros) in the courtroom scene, is good, but the actual ghostification--transparency and glow--look worse.     There's just a lot more care taken with the color, the design, and the framing. GB2 is closer to "Halloweentown" territory. That's kinda shameful! Even Slimer looks better in the original. Also this:  is a downgrade from this:  And this:  is a downgrade from this:  Oh, and the absurdity of this:  is a better idea than the NYC iconographic masturbation of this:  I like the Statue of Liberty puppet gag, but it's clearly just a re-tread of the original's structure, and that's still a frustrating experience. "Remember the first movie? Well here's that again, sorta!" is such a fine line to walk, and GB2 just doesn't do enough to justify it or win me over. I will say, I love the river of slime, the idea of an evil ooze that brings about ghosts, and all the special effects that go into those segments. I actually don't think you need any of the Vigo plot! I would be happy with the movie just being about the ooze. Original Ghostbusters cleverly mentions Zuul in the first act, but Gozer isn't even mentioned until near the end of the 2nd act or beginning of the 3rd act. We build to Gozer. So much of GB1 is the journey of the Ghostbusters formation and growing into a recognizable brand and then legitimate heroes, that when it's revealed this has all been a culmination of a god rising, it's a legitimately awesome reveal. We still quote the Twinkie line! And Twinkies are extinct! In GB2, Vigo's mentioned and shown with everyone else being introduced in the first act. You know he's gonna be our bad-guy. Hopefully he does something cool! I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my last gripe. All of previous points are problems, but they don't instill anger or anything with me. It just feels lazy, lackluster, and pointless. "Meh," is about all they're worth. However, I got genuinely frustrated by Louis Tully blasting the ooze at the end. It just seems unnecessary, and kind of a cruel joke on a character I like? "I'm a ghostbuster! I defeated the ooze!" No you didn't Louis. You just wasted time and kinda pissed me off. I don't know why this moment is so frustrating to me, but I got genuinely agitated by it. Just spend time with Janine, who's looking cute as hell in her new Edith Head look. I'm glad I revisited Ghostbusters 2. It made me wanna buy Ghostbusters in 4k. Its depressing knowing that GB1 is a fluke, than Ivan Reitman isn't a good director; it's like finding out Santa isn't real. You're disappointed, it kills a lot of magic, but it also makes you kind of appreciate the work that went into the magic in the first place. GB1 is a classic, despite many reasons why it shouldn't be. GB2 is kind of a waste of time, waste of potential, and a waste of a good cast being lazy. edit: Oh! Ghostbusters is supposed to be funny. This is for the "Funny" team. Ghosbusters 2 is not funny. I like the joke where Egon hosed the slime. I've laughed more at Hubie's Halloween than I did GB2. They forgot the humor. edit 2: Another realization I had. If you care about the Bechdel test, The Faculty passes and GB2 fails. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 15:06
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STAC Goat posted:I will say this, I think Louis actually does have purpose. We establish the whole film that positive energy has an effect on the slime. The Ghostbuster can only get into the museum with the crowd's positive energy. So I've always felt like the timing of Louis blasting at the exact time the Ghostbusters take their last shot wasn't a joke on Louis, it was him rallying the crowd's positive energy one last time. I really do think Louis helped save the day there, albeit it not in the way he thought. That’s a sweet and cute interpretation I hadn’t really considered.
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Feb 4, 2021 21:07
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Basebf555 posted:I don't see why it even matters, Louis thinks he helped and the crowd thinks he helped. Louis is a character who seems to never get a break except for that one time when he turned into a dog and the guys helped him, and finally here's a moment where he feels like he can finally repay them and even be one of them! It's a feelgood moment for him, who cares if he really made a difference or not. He didn't gently caress it up, he didn't make it worse, he didn't lock himself out or step on a rake or anything that his character would normally do. He put the gear on and got the gently caress over there and tried his best to help. A true Ghostbuster. I don't know why it gave me such a strong negative reaction. Maybe because he could have actually helped? It just seems like a lot of effort to put into a joke, and the punchline is "None of this matters, but he thinks it does." Which could be good. The Coen Bros love that kind of set-up and delivery. But something about it just really frustrated me. Maybe that's the encapsulation of the whole thing. Louis could have an effect. He could help. The Ghostbusters could be hosed, Vigo could be winning, but then Louis actually helps out and saves them. It'd be a nice change from him being one of the dog keys from the first movie, and would be a nice punctuation to his character arc. Instead, the joke is "nothing happened", which feels like a lame duck. Kinda like so much of the movie's potential. Wish I had a stronger inclination for why it affected me so much. I feel like I should clarify: I like Louis a lot. He's a great character in the first movie, and I like that he asks out Janine and that it kinda works out. And I like that he tries to politely let Dana know that he's into Janine now, and that he doesn't want it to affect his friendship with Dana (although he assumes Dana's into him). It just seems like a weird joke. It would be better if Louis is paraded like a hero while the Ghostbusters just walk home in tired obscurity. Something with weight! As of now, it's just empty feeling. edit: I'm also gonna push back against Louis being Incel, cuz that doesn't have a positive connotation. Louis is a Confident Nerd. He's socially awkward, and a dweeb, and ridiculous, but he's nice and charismatic to a fault. GB1 he's throwing a really nice successful party for all of his co-workers, and his attractive co-worker happily dances with him. Janine likes him too! It's just that Dana and the GhostBusters team are Cool and Jaded, and don't care about confident normies like Louis. Debbie Does Dagon posted:My real gripe though is with the fact that Janine is sacrificed to build up his character, when the film is already such a childish male fantasy. If you literally just switched Janine and Louis' roles in the film, it would be a thousand times more enjoyable imho I would also like to see Janine do more. There's an episode of the Ghostbusters cartoon where she's fed up from being railroaded all the time, I think, and actually goes into why she's an important character. I only vaguely remember it, but Lurdiak has shown it on Scream Stream at least once. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 22:40
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If you told me the most divisive match-up that upset people was The Faculty vs Ghostbusters 2, I’d have laughed. I’d believe it, but I’d laugh.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:00
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Basebf555 posted:I voted for Re-Animator and Ms. 45 because I'm 99% sure that's the way I want to vote and I'm scared of forgetting like I did last week. It's pretty easy to break up Salo into three separate viewings if you'd like. It has clear demarcations between Chapters. Circle of Mania, Circle of poo poo, Circle of Blood. I recommend, if you can, watch it all in one sitting. There are other movies that we've watched already in this tournament that I think are harder to watch. I personally got a little queasy in Part 2, Circle of poo poo, so that, in my opinion, is the worst part. That one's gonna be a hard one for me. I love Ms. 45, and I do think it's fun and subversive after it's shocking opening sequences. I think Salo is more than just shocking. It's thoughtful, it's fascinating, and we don't get many movies like it. I pretty much disagree entirely with Shrecknet's reading of the film, and I think it's tale a world that is corrupted, degraded and destroyed by a minority of insane affluent monsters still resonates hardcore in today's climate. I watched it while Epstein was arrested and murdered, and so having things like the Lolita Express on my mind while watching similar events unfold in a (safe, fictional) story was incredibly troubling. I also watched Ms. 45 at the height of the #MeToo movement, and with Promising Young Woman currently making people consider Rape Revenge films and the role they play in culture in a new light, it's a little hard to downplay it's position as one of the best--and probably the most fun, if that's not too weird a compliment--examples of the genre. Here's what'll probably determine my vote: if/when Ms. 45 gets a 4k UHD, I'm pre-ordering that movie Day One. Whereas I don't have any want to own Salo. It's not a movie I'd loan to anyone, it's not a movie I'm going to throw on for funsies. I do think the Criterion blu ray cover is amazing, though.
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Feb 15, 2021 16:45
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Basebf555 posted:Deb's stream is really the only way I'm gonna see Salo this week so I'm gonna try my best to be there and stick with it to the end. I wouldn't tap out due to the content or anything it's just tough sometimes on weeknights to stay up and engaged that late in the evening depending on how tired I am. If you can't make it, I'm sure Deb or someone can help you with borrowing a copy. Just hop into the discord and ask. I'm also most definitely voting for Re-animator, cuz it's loving Re-animator. But I like Lucky McKee as an artist and as a person, and I actually heard a little bit about the production of The Woods in Don Coscarelli's memoir True Indie*, and it made me interested in checking it out. *Coscarelli was doing a grassroots distribution for Bubba Ho-Tep with screenings with Q&As, meet-n-greets, etc. Bruce Campbell did most of them, but couldn't make it to one of the most important showings because he was filming The Woods with Lucky McKee.
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Feb 15, 2021 16:57
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STAC Goat posted:I will say I scoffed at Deb calling Ms 45 "fun" but I watched it last night and it really was actually kind of fun. It was something else entirely from what I had built it up in my mind. Do you know anything about Marquis de Sade, his ideas and approach to literature, and the context of his writing the novel and it's publication? Salo's not really a movie you can spoil, cuz the description of the movie is the plot, and I thinking knowing some of that stuff before watching how Pasolini approached filming it and using it as a critique on Fascism and Class Disparity might give you an added appreciation for why it's "important". A fun fact I have yet to look further into is apparently The 120 Days of Sodom isn't even his most vulgar book. His novels "Justine" and "Juliette", I'm told, are way more disturbing. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Feb 15, 2021 |
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Feb 15, 2021 18:58
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"Spoilers" for Salò: 120 Days of Sodom follow, so come back after you watch it if you want something to read. I grabbed these moreso as an introduction to the film, things to think about while you watch, but some of the context may be confusing without seeing the film first.STAC Goat posted:Yeah, I think I'm familiar enough with the themes. I know the basic idea of Marquis de Sade and have seen many version of his story, and I'm familiar with the Sodom reference and its Biblical origins. I have a vague sense of what Salo is going to say based on those things. But I think I find this kind of thing overly "performative." If the film can't be spoiled and its themes are ones present in lots of work then what purpose does its extreme imagery serve except to draw attention to itself? Is it getting across these ideas better as a result or is it just burying them other something else more visceral that much of its audience focuses on and enjoys? It uses the hedonistic philosophy of Sadism and Libertine lifestyle and Marquis de Sade's novel as the framework for those critiques, and to illustrate the philosophy of the evil people in control. Like, there is something absolutely fascinating to choose a novel from 1785 by a known sexual deviant and lunatic who was born a nobleman, was well-educated, was politically involved in post-Revolution France, who's influence on writing and philosophy is still studied and criticized today, to illustrate the Fascism of the Republic of Salò in the mid-1940s (and, vicariously, Nazi Germany), only 30 years later in a mid-1970's film. All of that is too specific just to write off as extreme imagery for the point of novelty or navel-gazing. quote:“In the trilogy (Trilogy of Life films: The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and Arabian Nights), I evoked the ghosts of characters from my earlier, realist films. Not to denounce them, obviously, but out of such a violent love for ‘lost time’ that it came out not as a condemnation of one particular human condition but of everything in the present day . . . We are now irreversibly inside that present; we have adapted to it.” quote:De Sade saw his work, about the epic 120-day debauch of four pillars of French society, as a revolutionary act, designed to bring down the old order so that a new one might be established. As he described the debauch, though, he also indulged his own fantasies that passed through more or less commonplace sexual perversions to coprophilia, necrophilia and explicit torture of the young women and young men who had been kidnapped to share the hosts' pleasures.Mr. Pasolini has made a very significant change in updating this work, however. The four hosts—the duke, the president, the magistrate and the bishop—are now Fascists, expressing their ultimate desires as the world is crumbling around them in the last days of the fascist regime. They are no longer rebelling against God. They are demonstrating the evil of the human spirit, which is something else entirely, though I can't help but feel that de Sade and Mr. Pasolini share a peculiar delight in speculating about the specific details of this evil.For all of Mr. Pasolini's desire to make "Salo" an abstract statement, one cannot look at images of people being scalped, whipped, gouged, slashed, covered with excrement and sometimes eating it and react abstractedly unless one shares the director's obsessions. quote:“Salò” is ostensibly set in a real time and place, a short-lived fascist “republic” created by Benito Mussolini under German occupation. This was a controversial choice (fascist rule was well within living memory) and may seem like a distracting one, given that most of the film takes place in the enclosed, fairy-tale world of a villa taken over by the fascists. The rhetoric of the public officials (The Duke, The Bishop, The Magistrate and The President) who control the action moves freely between actual fascist slogans and rules taken from the Marquis de Sade’s writings. The film claims a kinship between real and imagined deaths; this, in fact, is its central philosophical claim, that political and pornographic dehumanization are the same kind of fantasy. Marquis De Sade's novel isn't only literature or philosophy explored in the film. The film is also structured similarly to The Divine Comedy, there are Nietzschean discussions inspired by "The Geneology of Morality", and ideas from Proust. The film isn't just "Fascism is bad, here is horrible visuals to sell that idea". The film tries to explore why Fascists pursue and crave power and control, the disturbing line between pleasure and pain, how people can be corrupted (as you'll see, some of the prisoners are happy to become torturers themselves if it gets them out of being tortured), the human capacity for survival; there's critiques on authoritarianism, nihilism, capitalism, morality, etc. The film is looking at actual significant literature (the Marquis de Sade's writings have been hugely influential to studies about human sexuality and perversion) and historical events and asking "Why does this happen? What does this say about humanity's capacity for evil? How do people derive such pleasure from someone else's pain?" quote:Back in 1975, Salò could easily be written off as the perverted imaginings of a twisted creative mind. Our 2018 world, by contrast, is one in which casual threats of sexual sadism are a fact of life for any female, queer, or trans YouTuber, virtually every fetish imaginable is up for grabs on digital media, and the world’s most powerful man is a fascist libertine with a well-attested appetite for inflicting cruelty. quote:While the victims in the film are shells of human beings with little for the viewer to latch onto emotionally, the four libertines doing the abusing are fascinating paradoxes — at once terrifying exemplars of the corrosive nature of absolute power but also mundanely human figures who spend most of the film appearing bored and dissatisfied. (Arthur Schopenhauer’s famous quote about the two enemies of human happiness being “pain and boredom” seems particularly à propos in this film.) For men who enjoy absolute power over their human prey, the libertines never appear to be enjoying themselves — their infliction of cruelty more akin to the angry urges of an addict in withdrawal than of a person partaking in forbidden pleasures. Fun — even of a pathological sort — is completely absent in Salò, even among those who can quite literally do anything they want at any time. quote:The main takeaway from Salò is that all of us possess the capacity to victimize. The collaborators, soldiers, and even some of the child victims themselves are walking testaments to the results of the Milgram experiment and other similar tests, as well as books like Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, which have demonstrated how frighteningly brittle the human conscience is in circumstances that promote cruel and inhumane behaviour. quote:When we compare the source with the film, we find that being “faithful to the story” is a subtle stratagem designed to betray its substance. For example, Sade’s libertines are supermen, while in Pasolini’s hands they are impotent and have to resort to a thousand different tricks to become aroused. Sodomy is their sexual predilection, but passively. One of the most significant differences, however, concerns the crucial role Pasolini gives to the perverse pedagogical function exercised by the four monsters in dealing with their victims. quote:Indeed, Salò tells a story that remains hidden until the last narrative sequence, one that lurks quietly behind the flagrant horrors and acts of violence. It is the story of choosing a group of young people, at first from among the victims, and then atrociously eliminating those who do not, or cannot, submit to the codes stipulated in the regulations, that is to say, to the “laws that shall rule your life in here,” the ones read out loud by the duke during the first collective ritual in the film (the march in front of the entrance to the villa). These laws (taken from Sade) are paradoxical: normal codes of conduct (filial love, religious devotion, heterosexual Eros) are negated and condemned and replaced by practices that transgress social conventions (incest, sodomy, adultery). Once these norms are codified and imposed as law, they cease being what they were and become instead the norms of a new and sinister conformity that assimilates and wipes out any variation. Pasolini intended to depict what he described as an "anarchy of power," in which sex acts and physical abuse functioned as metaphor for the relationship between power and its subjects. Aside from this theme, Pasolini also described the film as being about the "nonexistence of history" as it is seen from Western culture and Marxism. It's also really important to remember that the torture and pain isn't the subject of the film. It is not pornographic, it is not titillating, and it is surprisingly reserved for what it depicts. This isn't "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" or "The Wizard of Gore", where the special effects and ludicrious perversity is the selling point. It is a byproduct of the themes of the film. quote:In “Salò,” spectatorship is domination, and the viewer is a complicit spectator. Many scenes are framed by doorways and windows; the shots often place the action at the exact center of the frame but far away, calling maximum attention to the camera eye. But the film resists the audience’s desire to see and linger. Pasolini does us the great kindness of making the film unpleasant to watch. (You can tell it is not pornographic because nobody enjoys it!) Physical violations are typically filmed from afar and with the victims’ bodies obscured. “Salò” offers a lesson in how to depict cruelty without re-enacting it—a lesson few filmmakers even want to learn. Nor do we get to know the victims as people. To give them personalities might imply that these personal characteristics are what make their suffering horrific. In “Salò,” it is simply the fact of their humanity that makes their degradation wrong. quote:The overwhelming emotion of “Salò” is dread. (The second time I watched it I was startled at the brevity of many of its most searing scenes.) The storytelling exists to provoke anticipation in both officials and audience—and dread in both victims and the audience. Dread is torture that takes place in the imagination; and “Salò” is, above all, an attack on the imagination. The essence of torture is not violence or physical pain but the dehumanization that necessarily precedes any cruelty. Torture requires a story in which the victims deserve it, do not matter, are objects, are fungible and available for consumption. The film is also heavily interested in storytelling in itself. So much of the story, especially some of it's most disturbing moments, is actually just a person telling a story to a room full of people. quote:Each movement of horror and domination is preceded by storytelling. The storytellers, all women dolled up in gowns and furs, describe their adventures in prostitution. They play up how much they loved the degradations they recount, and these stories excite the officials to enact various cruelties on the youths. The storytellers’ own helplessness emerges only in glimpses, as when one of them conspires with the silent piano player to rescue a girl from execution by performing a bizarre comedy routine. Pasolini was incredibly disturbed by the possibility of television, and how it could make people complicit with or numbed to their surroundings. quote:Among the many cruel and brutal rituals we see in the film, there is one that is repeated in obsessive variation right up until the end. It is the domestic scene of the three narrators, who, each in turn, tell stories and episodes from their own experiences to suggest new ideas with which to “entertain,” and above all arouse, the masters. The orgy room, dominated by the presence of the long table ominously placed at its center and thronged with spectators on both sides, is the space for a ritual that alludes to another. The audience there listening is the mass of corrupted and deformed TV viewers, the passive consumers of an indoctrination against which they cannot, or do not want to, rebel. This mode of pedagogy affects behavior (the narrators’ winks and gestures recall those of television anchors) and speech (the shock jargon used by the narrators and the four monsters). Every act of cruelty of the powerful four finds in this spectacle its main source of inspiration. It is where the idea of a contest for the “most beautiful rear end” is born (organized, not accidentally, by Signora Maggi herself, one of the narrators). The scene mirrors those televised contests in which a person’s dignity becomes the material for a squalid spectacle. This is a pretty nice closing argument: quote:Why, then, would anybody willingly sit down to watch this shabby little shocker of a film? Salò is ultimately a morality play, a cartoon-caricature depiction of what fascism (or any form of totalitarianism) does to everyone involved, from its innocent victims to the powerful people at the top of the totem pole. The four libertines are not unlike most if not all authoritarian leaders in history in that their tyrannical impulses becoming increasingly untethered over time, starting out as moderate firm handedness and culminating in unmitigated cruelty. Of the 20th century’s most notorious despots — Hitler, Mao, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe etc. — all became increasingly paranoid and tyrannical as time went by, while benefitting a steady supply of willing torturers and executioners. As such, Salò is the perfect microcosm for every despotic regime that has ever existed, or is likely to exist in the future. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Feb 15, 2021 |
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Feb 15, 2021 20:23
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Salo is one of those movies that makes me wish I were smarter. It's a powerful movie to watch, because the atrocities are, at it's core, human. We all bleed. We all poo poo. We probably all have a kink that's maybe too embarrassing to share. We've all hurt someone. We've all been hurt. So on a basic human level, the movie works. It has a strange tone, like a fairy tale or a fantasy, which should immediately show you that the events are all allegorical or philosophical. No doubt, it is a movie that could be written about endlessly. I find it really enigmatic, and when, days after my first viewing, I'm still thinking about the movie--not about it's most gruesome moments, mind you, or the feelings it gave me--but about what it said upon it's release and what it said now, I get hungry for more information about it. It's also a strange film because the director was murdered three weeks before the film premiered. So, we don't get a director's commentary. There aren't any Q&As, post-premiere interviews, or supplements from the director. We don't get to hear the filmmaker's retrospective thoughts on the film. Kinda like Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, the film itself--by fans and scholars--is declared the final statement of the filmmaker. And when that film is puzzling, challenging, visceral, and weird, it just makes the drive to understand it even stronger (for me, at least). I absolutely believe this was the first film in a new trilogy by Pasolini--maybe the Trilogy of Death to counteract his Trilogy of Life, as some suppose, because it also feels like he only started digging into something greater.
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Feb 15, 2021 21:28
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ulex minor posted:Is The Blob a good movie? The Blob ('88) rules, but yeah, you need to ask in the Horror thread. Watch Salo: 120 Days of Sodom and come back and join us.
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Feb 18, 2021 13:17
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I also voted Re-animator and Ms. 45. I had started writing about Ms. 45, got pretty far into it, and then a power-outage took it away. Lost momentum to continue writing about it, unfortunately. Thankfully, Debbie succinctly summarized my first few paragraphs with this: Debbie Does Dagon posted:When we first encounter Thana she's already unable to engage with the world around her, she is mute, completely silent, able only to communicate through snatches of words scrawled on discarded paper. She is surrounded by baying men, who seem eager to rope her into their awful fantasies, and she is unable to respond, unable to speak out, unable to scream, or cry for help. Thana is then viciously raped twice, and whilst she manages to lethally fend off one of her attackers, a masked assailant, played by director Abel Ferrara, remains at large, his last words haunting her "I'll see you again, I'll be back". Thus beginning a never-ending tirade of revenge to quieten the image of this unknown figure, who she now sees in every man around her. There are two rapes at the start of the movie. The first one is a blunt act of aggression, power, control and cruelty on Thana. There is more time spent on her getting up and walking home than there is with the assault. The second rape is long. The camera leers on the rapist, who is taking his time and experiencing pleasure. It's quite gruesome, even if it consists of the rapist's face, the rapist's hands with a gun, Thana's face, Thana's hand on a glass apple. The glass apple feels like a play on the tale of the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from the book of Genesis. By taking the fruit and using it, she is propelled into a new world. It saves her from the destruction at the hands of a man, but begins her path of self-destruction. It's a harrowing scene, partially because it is disgusting seeing the rapist experience pleasure, partially because the Hitchcockian intercut between Thana's apple in hand and her gaining strength to strike and the rapist losing his guard, and partially because the scene feels so long. Each time I've watched the scene, I've said "Hit him already!", but the scene goes longer. It feels like Ferrara's response to the infamous rape in Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, a ghastly scene, one I do not care to rewatch, that lingers on the suffering of the woman and refuses the character or the viewer any closure. The previous paragraph is maybe rough to read, and it's uncomfortable to write, but it's one of several specific reasons why the film works so well, and honestly, is why the rest of the film is enthralling and exciting. "If you can get through the first 6 minutes of Ms. 45, you're in for a hell of a time" seems like an unnecessary sell, an off-color justification, but its the truth. The next scene propels the film off on a wild, unexpected direction: Thana does not call the cops. She chops up the body for distribution around NYC. She takes her rapist's gun--the titular .45--and keeps it in her purse for now on. The phallic weapon that was held against her as she was victimized is now hers to wield and use on other men. The portrayal of men in this film is hysterical (in the traditional use). They are lecherous, disgusting, aggressive, annoying, and entitled. Not a single one is deserving of sympathy. They are caricatures of the worst interactions men can force onto women: cat callers, the artist who tries to seduce with compliments and opportunity, the incel "nice guy" who stalks women because they "just wanna talk", the employer who justifies hitting on his employees because he thinks he's different or ignores the power play it involves, to whole gangs of men intending to rob and assault. All men are pigs in this film. This could feel ridiculous, but instead it alters the viewer's reality towards Thana's worldview. After Thana's rape, we are forced to see the phantasms of her masked assailant, with moments appropriated from Polanski's Repulsion. The film allows the viewer a lot of room in their relationship to Thana: we can empathize with her, we understand how she has resolved to murder men she feels are predatory, but we can also logically maintain that her murder spree is making her more unhinged and has moved beyond protection to antagonism. We can watch Thana murder men while knowing she is now a villain or anti-hero without feeling guilt. It is impressive filmmaking, and it is incredible that this is done through a character that never speaks in the entire film. Another glorious moment of Hitchcockian suspense is an act of subterfuge by Ferrara with this relationship between the viewer and Thana. Thana meets a sad-sack drunk man at a bar. He uses Thana, but not like the other men of the film. He bombards her with a constant flow of complaints against his ex. He waffles between hating women, being disappointed with women, and being scorned by women, ultimately telling a story of catching his ex in an affair with another woman. Thana is hungry to find any justification to kill this man, once she's got him alone. He doesn't really seem too interested in having sex with Thana, because he doesn't seem interested in Thana at all. He does not ask her questions, he does not try to learn about her; the conversation is about HIM. He is forcing himself on Thana, but as an selfish emotional burden, equally narcissistic and full of self-loathing. We listen to him go on and on, waiting for him to say something to criminalize him to Thana's. Finally she does, but the gun jams. An impotent shot aimed at a man mired by feelings of inadequacy. He is confused, then offended, but then, curiously enough, takes her gun, points it as his own head, and successfully kills himself. Of Thana's victims (minus party guests in the film's climax), this man is arguably the least deserving of murder, because Thana is stretching her definitions for who she kills, but irony allows him to take his own life. Ferrara draws inspiration directly from rape imagery from other well-known films, and has given the victim a gun and the ability to command their own destiny. He does not linger on Thana's suffering, and instead focuses 80 minutes of the film's 86 minute run-time on Thana's journey as a vigilante. Compare the structure of Ms. 45 to I Spit On Your Grave, where an hour of it's 101 run-time is spent on Camille Keaton's character Jennifer suffering rape after rape before empowering her. And even when she is empowered, most of her revenge involves offering herself sexually to her rapists to disarm them before she kills them. There is some value to allowing a character to control and use their sexuality for revenge--Jack Hill's Coffey is a great example of this--but after all of the suffering in I Spit On Your Grave, it doesn't give catharsis. It just feels exhausting. Ms. 45 escapes these trappings because it does not sexualize Thana. There are no leering shots of her, the assaults are never titillating. The one shot that gets close to nudity--Thana looking at her body--is weighted in complex emotions for the character, sadness for the viewer, and becomes a jump scare, one of the most effective moments in the film. Thana reclaims her identity and grows empowered through embracing icons of Femininity--make-up and better clothes--and weaponizes them to entrap men so she can penetrate them with bullets. Ms. 45 seems to defy the idea that Rape Revenge movies shouldn't/can't be enthralling, or entertaining. When, really, what makes me respect the movie so much is how much of a power fantasy it is for a rape victim. The entire film is cathartic in a refreshing way. There is a lot of discussion, as of late, with films like The Nightingale and Promising Young Woman, on how Rape Revenge films should tackle it's story, and where their proper place is in genre fiction and film. Ms. 45 is a shining example of the genre. It empowers the victim. It explores the devastating affect rape has on an individual, the people around them, and how they interact with the world after. It shows the inherent flaw with any type of revenge. It does all this without compromising the character, the themes, the genre, or the audience's interest in entertainment. The concept of Rape and Rape Revenge is too heavy, too nuanced for one film to ever be a definitive statement. Victims of sexual assault deal with it in their own ways. I can fully understand a person that does not think that such a serious subject should be given an entertaining perspective. I feel, however, that there is room for such a thing, that entertaining an audience while also sharing serious ideas and themes without compromising said ideas and themes, is a triumph of a creative endeavor. That's for the individual to draw their own distinction of Good Taste or Bad Taste. For me, Ms. 45 is one of Ferrara's best films, and a fascinating film to have available. This is long as hell. And I could continue to talk about this movie! I didn't even discuss things, like how the film compliments the Apple that begins Thana's journey as a vigilante with her dressing up as a nun at the costume party where her journey ends. There are plenty of specifics and fun details, like the trumpet song at the end of the film reflects the siren-like music cues that accompany Thana's panic attacks. There's just so much good stuff in this. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 16:32
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Here's a fun link between two competing movies: Ms. 45's director, Abel Ferrara, has directed a film about the director of Salo: 120 Days of Sodom, Pasolini, called "Pasolini", with Willem Dafoe as Pasolini. The original vision for the film was to have Zoë Lund, star of Ms. 45, play Pasolini: "...one time in the 90s, we were going to try to do Pasolini's story but only with Zoe as Pasolini; a female director living the life that Pasolini lived." Lund and Ferrara were collaborators, and wrote a film together called New Rose Motel, and she was going to write the Pasolini film with him as well. Sadly, her death by overdose ended that iteration of the film, which was shelved for 14 years. Zoë Lund also showed up last tournament, in the Larry Cohen film Special Effects, which didn't do too well.
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Feb 18, 2021 17:25
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STAC Goat posted:3. (Irony or Death’s Team David) David Lynch’s Eraserhead vs. 14. Don Coscarelli’s John Dies At The End Wow! What matches! David Lynch is my favorite director, and Eraserhead's been one of my favorite films for half of my life. Last time I saw it was at a midnight screening as part of a film festival. This time I'll be watching it on the Criterion blu-ray. I just finished Don Coscarelli's John Dies At The End, so I know everything about that movie's production, but I haven't seen it yet. I also haven't read the book. I love Don, so I'll give him a fair chance, but he's fighting a losing battle. I saw 3 From Hell in theaters when it was premiering everywhere for a limited run. I had a really good time with it! It's lighter than The Devil's Rejects, feels a lot like Rob Zombie channeling his interest in westerns, and the cast has great chemistry. It should feel redundant, but it has enough of it's own identity to justify itself as a third entry to an interesting trilogy. I've only seen The Incredible Shrinking Man as an MST3k episode, and I don't remember much. I will be watching this without the bots. Which movie will I write about the most? Will it be Eraserhead, a movie I can probably talk about endlessly? We'll see!
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Feb 19, 2021 15:08
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Basebf555 posted:Now that Fran is no longer a mod I can admit that I don't love Eraserhead. It's value as a work of surreal art and as an important moment in a great filmmakers career is obvious, but as a movie that I would want to sit down and watch, no for me it's not on the same level as a lot of Lynch's other work. Et tu, Basebf555? I had enough fun with John Dies At The End. It's impressive how much it puts into the story, and free it is when adapting the source material--mixing live-action with animation, using both voice-over narration and flash-backs and other narrative devices to keep things going. The cast is good. I really liked Clancy Brown. I don't think it's very funny, though. It's quirkiness and inventiveness are fun, but I didn't laugh once. I haven't rewatched Eraserhead yet, but that's a 5 star movie in my book, so it's gonna win my vote.
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Feb 24, 2021 16:00
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I'm leaning Lifeforce, but I've only seen it and Daughters of Dracula all-the-way through once each. I'd like to do a rewatch and see what I think now. I loved Possessor, but I gotta watch Otto to see where I lean.
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Mar 3, 2021 15:39
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Servoret posted:What does Possessor have to say? Asking because it didn’t really connect with me. (I was also an Otto voter.) Uncle Boogeyman posted:Work sucks. This is a big one. Tasya is told multiple times by Girder that she is their best assassin. Her reward for this is to continue being an assassin. You can infer that she is paid well, but you can also infer that the money goes directly to her husband and child. That's about the best thing that comes from her work as an assassin. Our first moment with Tasya is her memory test, where she opens a box of memorabilia. Some of them directly relate to her memories, some of them are false icons. We don't get to know which results are correct, we only hear what Girder says is correct. From the memory test in the beginning the memory test at the end of the film, the answers change. More memories have died, calling into question, "How many memories of Tasya has died?" This first scene with Tasya's memory box reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's Rules of Writing, where #5 is "Start as close to the end as possible." With the very first scene, when Tasya is inhabiting the body of a server at the party, she chooses to stab the target to death. Her control over her bloodlust is waning, and she is becoming more desensitized to the violence she commits (and becomes more violent because of it) while also being inundated by violent imagery in her day-to-day life, further alienating her from human connection. This directly leads to her failing her mission, when she is more interested in torturing her target, Parse, than killing him. By the end of the film, in the final memory interview, she no longer expresses guilt for killing the butterfly. Her human capability for empathy, sympathy and pity has withered away with the murder of her family. A fascinating moment in the film is Tasya, in Tate's body, actually making love to Tate's girlfriend Ava. Tasya's rushed her preparation and isn't able to fully act like Tate, which makes Ava suspicious. And yet they seem to have a genuine connection when Tasya and her are having sex. Tasya wasn't able to connect with her (ex)husband Michael, and seems to gently caress him out of an attempt to feel normal again (and to get rid of their dinner guests, whom Michael enjoys talking with while Tasya can't say anything), but instead just has visions of the yonic neck wound she stabbed into her previous target. Tasya's moments alone are all moments of rehearsal for when she has to be around normal people, and it's a great irony that the one time we see her connecting with someone, Ava, is in an act of physical connection, non-verbal, and one that can be used for great intimacy. Except this moment is ultimately a rape for Ava, because she is consenting to her lover, and is instead loving someone in her lover's skin. The moment also rocks Tasya's sense of self, with her identity blurring with Tate as he possibly fights to come back into control. The ultimate deciding factors on all of the major plot beats happen over wealth and power. Tasya is just a pawn in several greater corporate games. Even though she is an assassin, ultimately this is a game about climbing corporate ladders, both for Tasya and Colin Tate. The company Tasya works for is hired to kill CEO John Parse, with an awesomely high financial reward in addition to granting the company huge stakes in Parse's company. Money and power. Girder is able to convince Tasya to take on the contract, partially through psychologically conditioning her to acknowledge her alienation from her family and human connections, partially through complimenting her as the best employee, and partially through hinting at a promotion. The real reason for the contract--money and power--won't benefit Tasya in the slightest. Colin Tate is dating the boss's daughter. She is incredibly attractive and affluent. While it does not seem possible that Tate will marry his way up the corporate ladder, as Parse is an arrogant sociopath, he is still benefiting from the affluence Ava affords him. Tasya's possessing him and using him as a pawn in a greater game (in which she is also a pawn) puts them in direct competition over contradictory goals. Once the murder of Michael Parse and Ava is completed/botched, the struggle between Tasya and Tate begins in their one body. Tasya has taken everything from Tate and made him a murderer. If Tate can't find a way to maintain his control over his identity and body, he will at least try and destroy everything Tasya has. Another great irony is that Tate doesn't have much to take; Tasya's identity, life, and connection to the world has long been systematically destroyed by her career. The finale leaves the paranoid conclusion that Tate may have been a pawn in a greater war over Tasya than Tasya realized. There is room to believe Tate's neural transplant was compromised from the beginning. Tasya's son received a neural transplant surgery, which we know takes planning and preparation, meaning Girder's controlling him to kill Tate was not a last-minute decision, but had been a part of the scheme in the beginning. Whether or not Girder is acting on her own interests in keeping her most valuable employee her asset, or for the greater company, it is obvious she has been planning on eliminating Tasya's family. So, in conclusion: -Tasya and Tate are expendable cogs in a system that only benefits those in charge. You can take this theme and compare it to the corporate world driven by capitalist interests, and/or you could consider Tasya a soldier of sorts, fighting a war that benefits powers above her at the cost of her innocence and humanity -One of the most valuable pieces of humanity is our individual identity, which is becoming more fragile and threatened with the advancement of technology, and the capabilities of weaponizing individuals against their will -The only targets we see assassinated are CEOs and business men, implying that most of the jobs Tasya's company is hired for is corporate espionage, not military, not political, and certainly not overtly criminal (like a kingpin of a drug trafficking ring or a sex-slave trafficking ring). It's just a new wrinkle of capitalism brought about by new capabilities of technology. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Mar 8, 2021 |
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Mar 8, 2021 14:46
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