I felt so moved by how the movie showed time passing by, especially as the main character started to lose control of how quickly time went by. I visualized myself being in the same situation as the main character at the end of the movie -- his entire life having passed by, and this sensation of guilt and regret he must be feeling for not having spent his time in a meaningful way and for having missed things like the last conversation with his father. I imagined the despair the character must have felt at having wasted his life, and then the incredible relief he must have felt when he got a chance to do it over and do it right.
Ever since seeing that movie, I've made an extra effort to remain present in my life, prioritize my family and close friends, and always question whether the way I'm spending my time is meaningful, or if I'm doing things that I'll one day look back on and feel regret. This movie made me confront what it would feel like to look back on my life and evaluate my choices, and consequently it helped me see what's important to me in life.
Meanwhile actual horror movies rarely bother me. Go figure.
QUOTES:
"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time."
“Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need."
"You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."
"Getting fired is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we’d quit treading water and do something with our lives."
:)
But I can't believe how many people watch Fight Club and miss the real message: that Tyler Durden's philosophy is not one to live by, because it doesn't bring you any joy or fulfillment. Too many people watch the movie and see a tour de force of machismo and stick-it-to-the-man ideology, but the movie is really about the negatives of extreme, prolonged toxic masculinity. The Narrator conjures Tyler Durden out of a misplaced idea of what he's "missing" in life, and he suffers greatly for it. Durden is a false prophet, and shouldn't be idolized in the slightest. But tons of people watch the movie and come away wanting to start their own fight clubs, or otherwise emulate the masculine charisma of Durden without ever understanding what it was really all about.
Also ironic that the modern use of "snowflake" (at least in America) originated with Fight Club but has become completely divorced from its intended semantics.
Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the book the movie is based on would disagree with you. For one, he has said he doesn't believe in the term toxic masculinity. He has said that Fight Club is "about empowering the individual and allowing the individual to make what they see as the best choice" and "about the terror that you were going to live or die without understanding anything important about yourself".
He has also remarked about how few cultural narratives there are for young men today, "I feel a little frustrated that our culture hasn’t given these men a wider selection of narratives to choose from. Really, the only narratives they go to are The Matrix and Fight Club".
As for the snowflake term being co-opted, he says, "once that material passes on to an audience, the audience adopts it. It will become the child of the audience and will serve whatever purpose the audience has for it. It would be insane to think that the author could control every iteration or every interpretation of their work."
For me, Fight Club was a very nihilistic (Chuck Palahniuk admits to being somewhat of a nihilist) and also very hopeful book (and movie), which is a tough combination to pull off.
> Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the book the movie is based on would disagree with you.
Palahniuk: “Throughout childhood, people tell you to be less sensitive. Adulthood begins the moment someone tells you that you need to be more sensitive.”
> For one, he has said he doesn't believe in the term toxic masculinity.
He criticized the term, for being poorly defined, not the concept:
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/a-conversation-with-chuc...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fight-club-2-chuck-palahniuk_...
In your first link, he is asked, "We hear the term “toxic masculinity” a lot these days. As someone who writes a lot about manhood, what does it mean to you?". He answers, "Oh boy, I’m not sure if I really believe in it".
Sounds to me like he doesn't believe in the term toxic masculinity.
In your Huffington Post link, the interviewer claims "It’s a book about consumerism, and an expressive, violent response to the cold fact of it. It’s also a book about toxic masculinity, even if its author never deigns to expressly critique or uphold controlled violence". I don't know why we would consider the interviewer the authority on the text in question here. Here is Palahniuk's take in the same interview:
Q: Would you say Fight Club is more of a critique of violent masculinity, a celebration of it, or both?
A: Boy. I wouldn’t say it’s a critique. I think that because it’s consensual, it’s OK. It’s a mutually agreed-upon thing which people can discover their ability to sustain violence or survive violence as well as their ability to inflict it. So, in a way, it’s kind of a mutually agreed-upon therapy. I don’t see it as condoning violence ― because in the story it is consensual ― or as ridiculing it, because in this case it does have a use.
Thanks for the HuffPo link though, here is another quote where he gives what he thinks the message of Fight Club is that seems to be in agreement with the other ones I read, "The central message of Fight Club was always about the empowerment of the individual through small, escalating challenges". It also has this quote about killing the father, "In a way, it’s like everyone rebelling against dad, and discovering their own power by killing the father, as the Buddhists would say". I've seen interpretations of Fight Club as a Buddhist allegory (https://web.archive.org/web/20090423020258/http://www.unomah...), interesting to hear him bring that up.
>We hear the term “toxic masculinity” a lot these days. As someone who writes a lot about manhood, what does it mean to you? >Oh boy, I’m not sure if I really believe in it. >Why? >It seems like a label put on a certain type of behavior from the outside. It’s just such a vague term that it’s hard to address.
Two great quotes came from it:
"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life."
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
Most people see this movie as a very on-the-nose example of class struggle. But I see it as a commentary on how we humans build and interact with the very system that we collectively create to sustain ourselves as a species. The system always has its apologists, supporters and opposition, but deep down all but the most extreme zealots understand that the system has to change with time or fail, and the longer it takes for change to occur, the worse the inevitable failure will be. It ties in nicely with what Nassim Taleb says about fragility of rigid systems.
In the movie the system is represented by the train and its architect. All people on the train are grateful for what the train has provided them: safety from certain death outside. The poor at the back of the train are constantly threatened and preached to by the train loyalists how important it is for everything to stay as it is, that the train is eternal and will be there forever as long as they obey and believe. But as it becomes apparent that the loyalists are lying and things don't seem all that rosy with the train, the poor start to push forward, for information, and ultimately, change. As they go forward in the train they discover that the wealthy passengers have fallen into either hypernormalisation or a drug fueled apathy. They either believe so much in the train that they can't see how it could ever fail, or they know that it will inevitably fail but have given up hope to do anythin about it - perhaps facilitated by their own relative comfort (why jeopardize such comfort for an uncertain, risky change?).
After watching the movie, it struck me how we're perpetually living in an unsustainable system, but we avoid the abyss by constantly changing from one unsustainable system to another.
One word you mention though -- "Hypernormalisation" -- reminds me of a film that made me see the world differently. I don't know if you intentionally used that term, but the Adam Curtis film Hypernormalisation is, I believe, an absolute must watch, probing for some clarification on the logic of the last 40-50 years of history in our capitalist/neoliberal society.
Another alternative would be: 1 million people start a union, virtual nation, online commune - whatever you want to call it. They donate 5% of their income. That's used for rental property investments, until we have a decent monthly recurring income from rentals.
Then we invest in other things like members startup ideas (as long as they use a worker-coop business structure).
Eventually we pay healthcare costs for all members, and ubi. 100% of money coming back going back out to the people who created it.
We could eventually buy hospitals, drug companies etc and get a stronger hold on the medical costs as well. Flip the script so self-pay and union members get discounts, and insurance carriers pay higher premiums. Maybe we even startup our own insurance companies in all 50 states. All worker-coops. All with CEO capped pay of 10x worker average.
Essentially using a tactic called 'dual power' to wrest power away from the insurance cartel.
So by building some combination of crowdfund (for when we're under budget), along-side member sharing backed by recurring income, we create a more stable fund that uses 100% of it's money to reward members.
The idea is basically get single payer healthcare outside the government or alongside and force insurance carriers out of the market by coming up w/ something basically non-profit that gives all $$ pooled towards healthcare costs. While working to bring down costs in the industry where possible.
Properties we buy etc... Exec payrates, etc...
Bonus round: the wiener-modified Game of Thrones theme from an episode of South Park. Those guys are uniquely good at writing ear worms I wish I’d never heard.
Edit: The Lord Song "Push" on South Park [1] was also a real banger ya ya ya
The air’s as pure as a baked potato
I think you know precisely what I mean
When I say it’s a schpledoinkle day
Parker and Stone predicted the whole thing, that the 80's retro style with the requisite synth track would catch on. And this was back in 2004.
Before watching the movie I had this feeling of how impossible it could have been for so many normal people to be screwed over so royally. The crisis obviously happened, but I lacked the understanding of how something like that could have happened. After the movie it was clear to me how systemic issues can be institutionalized if everyone is willing to look the other way.
Also, if you watch that movie and start hating everyone working with finance I recommend watching "Margin Call" and you'll only hate some people working in finance.
I’d say Steve Carell’s character is the only protagonist in The Big Short.
p.s. but the parent poster is probably referring to the people who were duped into a floating rate mortgage, or the idea of paying nth mortgage with n+1th mortage (which is reasonable as long as rates decrease/stay low forever), or retail investors/small time investors who bought securities they were assured were high quality but were not. These people didn't get much screen time (beginning of movie bankers, line of side bets at the roulette table)
Both of them deserve a pretty strong warning--I guess the second one more of a true "trigger warning" and the first just a warning of how sad it is. You cannot get them out of your head after you have seen them.
I saw it as a teenager and thought it was very sad, though I don't remember a lot of details today.
In contrast, I must have watched "Spirited Away" at least 50 times and have gifted it as present to the young ones in my extended family. Not only is the animation compelling but so is the story, the characters and the soundtrack. It's a message about resilience and adaptability and encompasses the spiritual and the fantastical.
Nope. Saw it once, cried my eyes out and it sits cherished on my shelf, never watched a second time.
Slavoj Zizek did a great description of it in "Pervert's Guide to Ideology" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwKjGbz60k
I didn't understand the reason for the absurdly long fight sequence, but it finally clicked after hearing Zizek talk about it.
I was a somewhat lost teenager when I saw it, who saw no value in working hard for something and at the same time was terrified of living a life that was irrelevant in the big picture.
After watching it, it somehow all clicked for me. Both the pride and pleasure that can be taken out of perfecting a craft, and the idea that even the most apparently irrelevant aspect of life can be perfected and improved.
I am not exaggerating if I say that without watching it I might not have got my shit together in time to be who I am now.
That only ever struck me as extremely pretentious, to be perfectly honest.
The chef in question needing 10 years of experience before they would let him do the egg sushi strikes me as essentially the same harmful mentality the Japanese have toward productivity, thinking that clocking in as many hours as possible equals productivity (regardless of what you got done in said hours).
----
Walkabout
----
Koyaanisqatsi
A profound movie with no words except the chanting of a Hopi word, meaning "life out of balance", or "a way of life that calls for another way of life".
----
My Dinner With Andre
"We're bored. We're all bored now. But has it ever occurred to you, Wally, that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now, may very well be a self perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing created by a world totalitarian government based on money and that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks, and its not just a question of individual survival, Wally, but that somebody who's bored is asleep, and somebody who's asleep will not say no?"
----
The Third Man
(Long shot from Martins' eye line of the fairground far below and the people now on it.)
"Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped - would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man......free of income tax. It's the only way to save money nowadays."
If you frame 'Groundhog Day' as a story of a self-centered man learning how not to be self-centered, I see one framing of my own life's story.
It makes me a little sad that young people today will probably never see it on the big screen.
Slightly off topic, any recommendations on that area? I've never checked out any anime besides children shows and would like to see something good, preferably mature and recent, to see if I'm missing out on something cool.
It's short enough that you can watch it in an afternoon as an extremely long movie if you'd like (assuming you skip most of the intro and outro/credit sequences, which add a few minutes to each episode).
- Attack On Titan good and well known
Tell me what genres you like and i'll make you more recommendations.
There really is something for everyone if you look hard enough. There is a reason anime is so popular.
Try Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū, about rakugo, a Japanese style of storytelling.
I'm also a fan of psychological anime and:
Kaiba - Spot on Animation.
Welcome to the NHK - Explores the Hikkimori phenomena first hand.
Mononoke - Beautiful Done Japanese tales, psychological.
Higurashi no naku korno ni / Umineko no naku koro ni - long winded series, in the style of Agatha Christie murder mystery, to go into more would only ruin the fun. :D
- Spirited Away
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
- Psycho Pass (first season only)
- Tatami Galaxy
- Perfect Blue
- Paranoia Agent
- Serial Experiments Lain
- Eden of the East
Most of the others here are movies I love too, but I think A Silent Voice is a separate category. Many of the others are fantasy, this is a high school drama about a bullied deaf girl and relationships between people. When I heard that, I first thought it didn't really sound like something that would interest me, but it is just an amazing story.
A favorite that I keep returning to is Howl's Moving Castle
Only saw it once long ago, among many other masterpieces. It immediately and singularly became my deeply ingrained reference model for the mechanics of fateful changes in life, following your heart, the absolute happiness of meaningful sacrifice, cathartic paradigm shifts, and a host of other vital concepts that are otherwise difficult to visualize.
This is available on the Criterion streaming service which has many other good movies. If OP signs up try also Night on Earth by Jim Jarmusch, a look at transitional moments in life through taxi cab rides occurring simultaneously in five cities.
As to why, Roger Ebert said it best[1].
[1]https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/synecdoche-new-york-2008
It can be a hard watch, if you're not in the right headspace, but it's so totally worthwhile.
Little Big Man (1970) and Dance with wolves (1990) . I saw them many times when I was a kid. It made me understand early that the adult world would be tough. I was also amazed with the landscapes. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065988/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Un Prophète (2009 by J. Audiard). A weird gangster movie that makes you realize that even in the worst situation, even if you reached the bottom, there is a path to get out... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1235166/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Ghost Dog (1999). I was obsessed for months by the music and by the scene when Withaker steals the car... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
The boy in striped pyjamas too has a brutal ending
That really is a great movie. It doesn’t seem to get much attention, so I’m happy to see someone mentioning it here.
Loss is an integral part of life. Acquiring material goods fools us into thinking that as life goes on, we have more things. But if you make it into old age, you will lose everything. Things go broke, your friends and family die, your health and mind fade, and finally you will lose your life. Being aware of this will help you lead a happier life. It seems contradictory. But somehow it isn't.
12 Monkeys. Probably my favorite time travel movie, and the trouble with fate.
Grave of the Fireflies. Probably the saddest movie ever made, touching on so many aspects of human suffering.
Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run). It's been done so many times, but not as well as here.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Body". The show itself was basically mindless entertainment that I almost stopped watching, UNTIL this episode. I've never been thrown so much. If you're going to experience it, you MUST watch the entire series up to and including that episode to understand why it's so powerful, and you must not read anything about that episode beforehand.
Nexts on the list:
Moon
Ex Machina - I personally have no issue with nudity but I wish there were less of it in that movie because I know it turned a lot of people off
The Green Mile - not quite changed my view, but reinforced it
Westworld 3rd season (first 2 seasons revisit themes from above movies, they are good but not necessarily new themes)
Breaking Bad - I tend not to like series and this is a really long one, but it really does make you question things.
The first like 15 minutes have no dialog. The rest of the movie is a profound commentary on modern life told as a children’s story
The last time I watched it, I felt like there was a narrative disconnect about midway through the movie where the primary plot just changes. (One is Wall-E's relationship with EVE, the other is the saving of humanity.) It's not that I can't deal with both plots being in the movie, but it seemed to me that there was kind of an overt switch between them, and it really brought me out of my enjoyment.
Maybe I'll give it another go sometime, though. There's a lot of great stuff in there! I just wish it all flowed better for me.
Children of Men (2006)[1]: for the combination of cinematography and the dystopian atmosphere.
Departures / Okuribito (2008)[2]: the subtlety and elegance of the Japanese touch when brushing against Life and Death.
Persona (1966)[3]: I can and can't wrap my head around this movie. I think it left a trace on me in a way that my conscious self doesn't address but the subconscious plays with.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)[4]: there are few things that can put a person against their own mind more than the locked-in syndrome. There's a lot of confusion, humility and strength to find in such apparent helplessness and lack of control. I think of it when I encounter people with ALS or other neuro-degenerative illnesses, and I think of it when I explore my own journey throughout the depths of mental illness.
Amour (2012)[5]: when you go through certain inevitable journeys with people you love, there's so much to be found in the most essentially simple things.
I'm sure there are other impactful things out there but my memory is pretty spotty at times.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113247/
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/
[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060827/
It's about a young boy who is the son of a bell maker. Everybody in his town, bell maker included, has died. Some soldiers come around looking for a bell maker and the boy claims that he was taught by his father. He proceeds to make the bell.
I won't go any further, but the story is one of the greatest analogies for creation and creativity. Tarkovsky was likely talking about his own films and his process of creation, but I believe it applies to anything creative, whether that's a startup or a programming language.
Films that had a great impact on me, however:
1. Lord of the Rings – Lord of the Rings is, to me, the epitome of the epic. It is grand, sweeping, and larger than life. I inevitably compare all movies to the trilogy.
2. Hamilton - Its made me think a lot about ambition and legacy and, to a lesser extent, representation and sanitization of those that came before us.
3. Apollo 13 - I think few films come close to capturing how ingenious some people can be – as well as how many people it takes to get us off the world and back to it safely.
I agree, I also like The Martian and The Shawshank Redemption, which both have similar premise of human ingenuity solving difficult problems.
like all of the best wuxia, the fight scenes are dances that metaphorically relate interpersonal conflict and resolution. also, raw ambition and talent without vision and principle leads to (self-)destruction.
bonus edit: spirited away
a young girl comes of age by bridging the spirit world. a child apprehensive of change, an ethereal melancholy, ancestral and karmic deference for life. it’s a masterpiece.
you can take prostitution specifically out of it, and still see lots of instances of children being burdened with the idiosyncracies of ancestors and environment. a child overcoming an unspecified gluttony of parents and society, if you will.
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
The Reflecting Skin - I found the movie to be quite disturbing to the point that I felt mentally violated having watch it. While I would not say I was traumatized by it, in a strange way having the feeling of I wish I would have never seen that, has allowed me to empathize with people that have been truly traumatized. I guess you could say the move takes you right to that edge.
OfficeSpace - It was with this movie that I realized that most employers really don't care, you are just a cog in the machine and that many-times upward trajectories have nothing to do with performance.
Funny story I dated this girl off and on, and she went away to college. Well she caught her boyfriend over there cheating on her and she called me and asked me to come over for the weekend a few weeks later (I was a good rebound guy). Anyways, we go to rent movies, because one still rented them back then, and I see the reflecting skin so I was like oh lets get this, and I tell her it is really messed up. Well we get back, one thing leads to another and we never watch the movie, so I really never got to tell her how much the movie disturbed me, just really had a high level, this movie is crazy talk at the video store. Well the weekend comes and goes, I go home which is about 2 hours away and 3 days later I get a call from her, which can pretty much be boiled down to: "What the fuck is wrong with you! Loose my number". Maybe 5 years later, we cross paths in a bar in our hometown and we are talking and one of the first things she brings up is the movie and tells me, that about 5 of her girlfriends came over to hang out and they decided to watch it as she had not returned it yet. She said the most awkward part was her explaining to her friends that she had not selected the movie but this guy, that lives 2 hours away who she does this on again, off again thing with was over and picked it out. They pretty much convinced her that I was a serial killer for having selected that movie for viewing. At the bar, I did get to relay to her, my experience of first watching it, and that I had planned to explain to her that the movie was fucked up and had a profound impact on me, as I did not have a lot of empathy for people in my teens and 20's and I had kind of did her shitty after our first round of dating. Instead I got the cold hand due to the possibility that I could have been a serial killer. I figure it was Karma having her laugh, at my expense.
4 years of filming in locations from 25 countries using 70mm cameras. No narration, just spectacular captures of life. They say it's a form of guided meditation.
I can't really explain how it affects me in detail. Certainly in a very positive way though. I feel humble.
A great movie about an impressive commander. Key takeaways for me were:
1. Don't assume that because someone isn't very personable that they are bad at their job.
2. Have the courage to have a strong sense of duty.
3. Lead from the front.
4. Be willing to learn from people you dislike (Patton read Rommel's book on tank tactics, to his great advantage).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsC-buIkSE
(German intelligence found it literally incredible that Patton was relieved for slapping a couple of GIs for "malingering.")
The Germans learned mechanized warfare from an English book, the Americans learned stealth from a Russian paper, and the Stuka was copied from an American airplane.
The USA was blessed with some of the greatest military leaders of all time in WW2, natural-born killer OG's. The only incompetents I know of were Lieutenant General Mark Clark in Italy who killed over 10,000 GIs with 3 bungled amphibious landings, and the Mark 14 torpedo mgmt. (a decade of refusal to test.)
WW2 Battle of Anzio
And.. despite eventually discovering what Reggio is about, I have always taken the opposite view of the movie. To me it feels like a neutral view of how systematized our world is, how technology enables such systems, and how such systems are a fundamental and valuable part of moving forwards as a species. Humans = technology = systems.. but positivity for such things is my world view anyway, and Koy is a blank enough canvas to take this on.
The second sequel Naqoyqatsi felt like a more on the nose critique of the ills of technology and modern society to me, made up entirely of stock video set to a fragile but very human soundtrack, in contrast to Koy.
And maybe that was the artist's intent all along. From the title I doubt it but I read that originally the filmmaker wanted it released without any title.
There is a nice segment about industrialization in Planet of the Humans. I wouldn't mind if they made another full length movie out of it.
In the sketch, the Python gang presents a culture that values silly walks and their development and a government that sponsors their study and development. There's even a critical discussion of what constitutes an "interesting silly walk".
Mind blown.
It offered a fresh perspective where I thought, what if we look at music (ex: singing) as "silly talk". Pretty much the entire sketch would hold. I started taking art stuff less seriously which had a lightening effect on my life .. coming from a family of musicians.
I randomly saw it one night on PBS. I thought I had caught it in the middle of the movie, not realizing I turned it on the moment it started. I was pretty young and had no real interest in literature, the arts, whatever. But it looked neat "hey a dude in a castle" ... and I realized ... I kinda understood it. I couldn't explain it word for word in plain English, but I got the metaphors and the story enough hand was hooked. It opened up a world to me that I didn't think was within reach.
Certainly doesn't hurt that the film is absolutely packed with great actors.
Dead Poets Society (1989 film)
Bunch of kids find inspiration at a stuffy school from a special teacher and some poetry that they might have otherwise found to be stuffy and simply passed over had they not looked at it differently.
Good call. I saw that one so long ago that I'd almost forgotten about it, but it was very good. In fact, now that you have mentioned it, I think I'm going to go back and watch it again. Don't think I've seen it since I was in high-school.
Possibly Branagh's finest work delivering Sheakspeare's most rousing words.
I grew up in fundamentalist cults and lived in a rural area favored by the antisocial. This film was the indulgent catharsis of reactionary Luddism, anticulture, bigotry, and social paranoia I was immersed in. A naked display of antisocial fantasies. I couldn't have avoided watching it. Everyone I knew watched it over and over, feeding antisocial yearnings. I took away a sharp new perspective on my world which formed the tip of the wedge that separated me from those communities.
Rest in piece Spalding Gray.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_to_Cambodia [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding_Gray
"The Matrix director: I'm glad film recognised as trans metaphor"
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/06/the-matrix-dire...
And maybe the ridiculous Jesse Eisenberg movie I saw last night, _Vivarium_. It changed my opinion on how reasonably good actors can do horrible movies, obviously not for the money because there isn't going to be any.
1. Untouchable - must see
2. Gattaca - are we going there?
3. 1984 - must see
4. Idiocracy - initially looks like joke/stupid movie, but it's more real then we may want to agree
5. Life of others (made in Ge)
6. Amelie Poulain (made in Fr)
7. Turtles can fly (made in Ir)
8. Stalker - the russian original (3 parts) (made in Ru)
9. Metropolis
Other good movies:
Lost Horizon
The Bucket List
The Truman Show
Solaris 1972
Enemy at the Gates
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Tips for good movies in general: take countries one by one and search best ever movies from that country.
* Leviathan (Russia, 2014) - It's a minor miracle this film was made and saw the light of day, depicting as it does the banality of corruption and impunity in provincial Russia. Not especially obscure, it won a slew of awards including a Golden Globe but it's not nearly as well-known as it should be. This film isn't didactic and there really are no "good guys" - it's at least as much a tale of love and loss. I certainly understood local corruption at an intellectual level - I saw plenty of it growing up in the American "Deep South," but as a middle-class white boy it was never really aimed at me. This film helped me feel the weight of it at a visceral level in a way I hadn't before.
* Nobody Knows (Japan, 2004) - Sometimes what shapes us is only visible in retrospect. Most parents, in my experience, will acknowledge the profound shift in mindset and empathy that occurs when you have a kid. Half a decade before my first, I can trace the first experience of those feels to this film. Surely this has something to do with my (20s) age when I saw it, but it's a rare film that triggers such a re-programming of the psyche. I feel duty-bound to warn this isn't a comedy.
* Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989, Finland and America) - This IS a comedy. A band from (fictional) northern Russia unable to hit it big in the terminal-stage USSR (this film was released 8 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall) comes to America to seek fame. By Finland's (arguably) greatest director Aki Kaurismäki, the heart of the film is a journey through the forgotten routes and dives of the American South. The places are real. The extras are local. As a cinematographic document, it's the best road movie since Easy Rider. The band (by virtue of being visible outsiders) obliviously crosses all kinds of social boundaries, playing in redneck bars and juke joints alike. This film gave me an outsiders frame of reference to a part of the country where I grew up, and was an inspiration to me to get out and see the world. Inconsistently available, I've bought it on multiple physical formats over the years. For folks in the US, I guess HBO Max has a lot of Criterion-distributed films now so they might have it? But I can't tell because that service isn't available in the country where I now live.
Just the right movie at the right time with the right themes and tone.
Its sister movie 50 First Dates is pretty fundamental too to certain perspectives.
I show people Samsara to demonstrate how a movie can have an incredibly powerful message without saying a single word.
That film made me realize in a shocking and eye-opening way, how much more of a "fresh wound" race issues are in the US comparing with other places in the world with different history and timelines.
A complete tangent is this Kurzgesagt video on YouTube where they consider the possibility that you will be every human and live every life. I can’t stop thinking about it. https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica - just go in cold to this, one of my favorite movies. Featuring musical score from the incomparable Gorman Bregovic.
Enemy by Villeneuve (or literally anything from this director; also check out the compelling Incendies, and Sicario of course; Prisoners is also amazing)
Literally pick any movie from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. The Salesman is probably my favorite from him. Very impactful and each of his movies shows a compelling and unique slice of life.
"If you can't think on your feet, you should keep your mouth closed."
taking this into consideration I would recommend these parts of the movies, you can find them all on YouTube without watching whole movie:
Se7en - final John Doe monologue about innocence of his victims in back seat
Collateral - Vincent monologue on back seat about not doing anything with your life
Fight club - pretty much all movie, very influential, should be mandatory for teenagers
American beauty - less extreme version of fight club for older men that you can rebuild your life even in higher age
the big Lebowski - if you care about your clothing maybe it can help you to watch Lebowski
the beach - encouraged me to travel more, although wanted already before
Apparently it got such a frosty reception at Cannes after he was so lauded for SL&V that he added the amusing introduction that includes the lines "When I say this is the most important motion picture you will ever attend, my motivation is not financial gain, but a firm belief that the delicate fabric that holds all of us together will be ripped apart unless every man, woman and child in this country sees this film - and pays full ticket price, not some bargain matinée cut-rate deal. In the event that you find certain sequences or ideas confusing, please bear in mind that this is your fault, not ours. You will need to see the picture again and again until you understand everything.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU_na__nfSU
Also, Run Lola Run. It was the first movie I'd seen that showed how each seemingly small thing you do each day affects outcomes.
Network - It was made a long time ago, but it's really about Facebook. Watch it.
Requiem for a dream - I'll never forget this movie, ever. This will make you want to quit all your drugs.
Hearts of Darkness (A Filmmaker's Apocalypse) - This is the making of Apocalypse Now, and it's amazing. It's so much more than a documentary about how to make a movie, it's about life, movie making, and youtube, long before it existed.
Wargames - still relevant about how technology could destroy us. I feel like this is the Ferris Bueller's Day Off for Hackers.
And lastly, who could forget, Hackers.
I wonder why they never made any sequels
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/movies/ma...
2) Then, on the nature of competition, obsession and greatness The Prestige and There Will Be Blood
4) And then there are days where I still wonder to myself, what the heck happened in Primer ?
There’s also Man on Wire, for both the sheer joy of impossible achievement that it evokes, as well as the beautiful minimalist soundtrack. On reflection, maybe that’s one of the few films I’ve seen that had a different person leaving the theater. The mood of that film is imprinted in my personality.
I still like Wargames today, although I appreciate very different things about it. I also really like the library montage, which just so nicely captures the effort sometimes needed to solve a problem.
It shows whatever your stance on abortion that making it illegal doesn't stop it and is risky for women
The film also shows the hypocrisy of the well off woman who can still get an abortion. While the poor can't access this
Finally when the film was released it struggled in America as people expected Vera drake to get off, but she ends up in jail. As the director says this is how it works in real life
Lots of people will get them anyway, it is just more expensive and risky.
Same goes for euthanasia (while we have liberal abortion laws in France, for style reasons we still need to drive or fly to Belgium, Netherlands or Switzerland for euthanasia)
Lots of people will get away with rape and murder (including abortion), this does not justify society tolerating it.
Abortion is a matter of personal beliefs, one may be lucky to live in a place where this is left to the individual woman.
Euthanasia or suicide generally speaking is strictly individual. I am on charge of my life and nobody else should be able to dictate me what to do with it. Assisted suicide avoids trauma to others, such as when someone jumps in front of a train . Not allowing it is psychopathic torture (you force someone to suffer because of your own personal views)
"Lucky" if you're the woman in this scenario; not so lucky if you're the unborn child.
But this is obviously a discussion which will not lead to anything constructive. Like I said I am happy to have the freedom of choice thanks to Ms Veil and the women who fought for that.
Murder is always wrong. Killing is not.
> Abortion is a matter of personal beliefs, one may be lucky to live in a place where this is left to the individual woman.
No it's murder plain and simple. Dehumanizing the unborn child is the same tatica slave holders make to justify enslaving people.
> Euthanasia or suicide generally speaking is strictly individual.
Euthanasia is not individual. You are asking someone else to murder you. You cannot consent to be murdered or cannibalized.
Suffering is not objectively evil. I suffer the when the dentist gives me a filling. This is morally right because I have a duty to care for my body. Drilling my teeth to simply excite is wrong. Similarly with Euthanasia it is never right be cause you are asking someone to murder you which is always wrong.
That’s not an argument. Making homicide illegal does not stop serial killers, is this a good reason for legalizing homicide?
I am not taking a side on the dispute, but: are you in favor of abortion? Then just say openly that, according to your system of values, a fetus of N months can be rightfully killed, for some value of N.
Interstellar: I loved it the first time I watched. I recently watched with the perspective as a father to a daughter and it hit me differently. It emphasized the importance of the father/daughter relationship. One quote has stayed with me since: "Cooper: Parents are the ghosts of their children's future."
Watch it for the mesmerizing aerial footage of parts of the earth you’ve never seen before.
More importantly, watch it to hear people from around the world, of many nations, creeds and economic status share their stories, hopes and fears.
It will make you smile. It will bring you to tears. It will make you realize that we are all so much alike. I will make you want to embrace humanity.
The movie (for me) is such a reflection of globalisation, capitalism and the hard truths of the lives of the people at the bottom as well as the top. I really enjoyed its portrayal of class in our modern society and how we, as humans in this society, can be 'parasitic' towards each other. The poor want the riches of the top, and the rich use the poor to enable their high living lifestyles. It really changed my perspective.
"The Game Changers" - Shows that a change in diet allowed world record elite athletes, special ops soldiers, among others, to absolutely improve their performance and health. Available on Netflix.
"Earthlings" - Absolutely changed the way I see and interact with animal products. Available to watch online for free: http://www.nationearth.com/
[1] http://talesfromthescript.com/ [2] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tales_from_the_script [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045642/
Maybe [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film) but not for changing, but rather reinforcing my world views, altough much later after it premiered/ran. Between 2010 and 2015, actually.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/
The film solely depends on dialoge. If it works for you, then it is tough to describe what it does to your brain. Works best for the open minded and get lost in their own thoughts personalities.
- Gifted (2017):
Drama about a single man raising a genius girl. Some small bits of the film explore about the responsibility of extraordinary people vs their right to feel like normal human, but most of the film is about the human aspect of it.
- The Wind Rises (2013):
The Ghibli Studio film dramatizing the story of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of Mitsubishi A5M fighter aircraft and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. This is one of Ghibli film that is more grounded to reality than the others.
- Sorry to Bother You (2018):
Black Comedy Drama about a young black telemarketer who are really good at his jobs, gets involved in a huge corporate conspiracy where he must choose between profit and joining his activist friend.
- Don't fuck with cats (2019):
Documentary about people over the internet brings down the infamous murderer Luka Magnotta.
- The Great Hack (2019):
A great documentary for the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- Justice League (2017):
Please don't flag, I'm not joking! The film itself didn't change anything. It was a little under my expectation. What happens following the release of the film, though, is the gem. The snydercut movement is a very rare phenomenon where a significant amount of people actually take action against disappointment from a change in a film's direction. Long story short, fans investigate how it could be and uncovered a great deal of what they think a miss-handling of a film production. It opened a window where we can see how moviemakers and everyone involved has their own political agenda and some actually falls for what they do. The movement is actually successful considering it has the power for the film industry to react and the fans seems to get what they wanted.
Okuribito (2008) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/
The Master - this is emotional the churning water scenes in particular with the music great sound track
Her - mostly I enjoy the intro, I don't know maybe it's a part of being alone a lot up to where he meets the OS for the first time, something like this is interesting
Lost in Translation - somehow I found this movie and the social aspect is nice
Iron Man movies - for motivation
Blade Runner - I was obsessed with this movie in high school 10 years ago quoting it ha "I've seen things..."
2001 Space Odyssey - probably my most favorite humbling scene the bone becoming a space craft [1] it's just so emotional "exiting the system". It felt freeing briefly to think you can leave everything that exists and go to nothing, it was an idea of escape for me at the time. It makes me want to strive for that, but it's not a 1-man job and it takes a while eg. probably not in our life time... the whole 4 years to nearest star at light speed thing. And what is there anyway.
Jobs - probably get hate for this but there was something profound the idea of the chips becoming state/data on a screen.
Social Network - sorry to be basic but I used to watch that to get pumped trying to come up with something big(lol). It's funny when I first watched that movie I was not into software/web dev and later on I understood more and more of the basic stuff he was doing to make the girl comparison app and also mentioning Apache to host the initial The Facebook like "Ooh I know what that is".
I'm going to guess you're also an Elon Musk fan? I feel like he's the closest we have to a modern Howard Hughes.
But yeah I only really became aware of him because people kept comparing Tony Stark with Elon Musk haha... but at least Elon's stuff works... HH stuff worked too but seemed to be "impractical" or a one-off eg. the giant 88rpm helicopter.
Anyway, I watched the movie The Aviator over and over when I was younger, mostly the intro/mood. The color thing I think was well done indicating time... "Where are my god damn clouds!" haha. I was also super into aviation(models and trying to get into aero industry) until I ended up going to software instead.
I watched a bunch of those - Cosmos, The Universe, How the Universe Works, and a bunch of other PBS Nova and Discovery content.
Seriously, we don't know why we are here. Why we are so alone, and why we have so many problems in the world. Our lives are short, insignificant, and petty, yet we have so many problems from racism to hunger to wars and international affairs. To be frank, we're no special compared to the other animals around us. We just have the most powerful brain that gives us thinking capability, but it also comes with overflowing emotions all the time.
I keep pondering over these thoughts on why we exist, and that while we do, we need to make sure others around us are happy. Money is just a materialistic medium we introduced to make our lives way too complex.
I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the traditional religious god. But Devs presents a fascinating framework for what that could look like that passes the nerd/science test (with some obvious creative/technological liberties).
Apart from the fact that it completely ignores...
[spoiler]
... the uncertainty principle and stochastic processes so that a single computer can confidently model the past and future of the universe. This blew it for me.
[spoilers]
What I found fascinating: The conceptual model of a complete universe simulation, however computationally complex, with software that allows camera placement anywhere for "peeking" into the simulation, and the ability to pause/rewind/rewatch (even if forward-looking prediction doesn't make sense).
This is the closest "science" parallel to the classical idea of an all-seeing god (the operator who controls the software). Whether or not it's technically feasible, it's certainly technically plausible. This, compared to traditional religious which always tried to explain the theory of gods as "trust us" or "there is no explanation", clicked.
(That doesn't suddenly make me religious, btw, but it certainly presents a theory that isn't dismissible on its face.)
I know this isn't unique to Devs, and I presume anyone who's spent time thinking about any sort of Simulation Hypothesis has seen these parallels as well, but this was pretty mind-opening for me.
* Jiang Wen - Keep Cool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Cool_(film)
* Malle - My Dinner with Andre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Dinner_with_Andre
* Jarmusch - Coffe and Cigarettes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_Cigarettes
Heat - "You must've worked some dipshit crews"
Extreme professionalism: what it really looks like, how it mixes and intersects with street smarts, and that it can be applied to any enterprise - even "low" ones.
Makes you think about how we apply AI today that makes decisions that can affect human lives.
I have never questioned my free will, consciousness, evolution and what makes us human so much.
And there are some french and hindi films that changed my perspective about love and life
Those which make you question our society (not mentioned so far): The Platform; Snowpiercer
Others: OtherLife; The Origin; The Wave (it would have bigger impact if I watched it earlier in my life)
Survivors Guide To Prison - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_Guide_to_Prison
Invisible War - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_War
Growing up, I was always pro-death penalty and never thought much about it. My parents were pro-death penalty, after all, and I always assumed their political positions were well reasoned.
Dead Man Walking depicted the horrors of the death penalty, and how it can sentence an innocent man to an irreversible punishment. And, even if the man is guilty, it is barbaric for the state to put someone to death.
I never thought deeply about the death penalty before that movie. After watching it, I understood that the only real reason for the death penalty to be inflicted is vengeance, an instinct a just society should not indulge.
"What The Health" - motivated me successfully when I started to eat less meat
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
"Bourne Identity" - motivated me to get into self-defense
Great comedy, great film. The twist ending is also amazing.
It made me see that though 'the past' may be a foreign country, but we're all people just the same. The problems they had, and that we have, are the same problems. The good ol' days never existed. And we can learn from our forefathers, not as semi-divine laws and sayings, but as one would learn from a friend.
Wall-E
[0] https://www.nobelprize.org/peace-prize-documentary-films/ [1] https://youtu.be/UsqKz1hd_CY
I loved the multi-threaded story--a love affair with fishing, a coming-of-age story, and an ode to the beauty of Montana in a simpler time. The movie was better than the book. My son has lived the first of those threads on rivers like the Nooksack in Washington. For me the movie articulated the transience of human existence and the receding beauty of the natural world as time passes--a fading that grows within us as we age.
Edit: added last sentence
I found myself identifying with the boy, but also the soldiers who did the most horrible things ... and I realized I could be a monster under the right circumstances.
I have spent my life trying to make myself not be that kind of person no matter what my circumstances were.
Hector and the Search for Happiness
Ghost in the Shell (as someone else mentioned)
Quotes from Mr. Keating.
"Why do I stand up here? Anybody? I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way."
"Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Don't be resigned to that. Break out!"
Harold and Maude (1971), Taking Off (1971), Blade Runner (1982), Repo Man (1984), Brazil (1985), They Live (1988)
Tampopo (1985) is perhaps my favorite Japanese movie, all about the beauty of food. A noodle western of sorts that is immensely entertaining.
I made a letterboxd list with some of the movies mentioned here. https://letterboxd.com/whygodwhy/list/hn-films-that-made-you...
#2: Jeff Who Live At Home Slow moving (very), but worth it for the last 5 minutes of the movie.
Stalker - Andrei Tarkovsky
It’s a fairly recent, maybe two or three years old, romantic comedy. It’s light-hearted and funny but it really highlighted the absurdity of gender roles - for men and women - in a way I hadn’t ever stopped to consider before.
Back in the 80's they would show this on PBS and cable TV from time to time, no "trigger warnings" back then.
Memento
The Usual Suspects
Lawrence of ArabiaA Swedish Love Story (1970) - The innocence of youth vs. the cynical defeat of adulthood. Don't let the world corrupt your soul!
Apocalypse Now (1979) (must watch the Redux cut!) - The heart of man behind all the artifice and words.
In the Mood for Love (2000) - Dignity and beauty despite everything.
There’s a couple others I can’t for the life of me remember the name of but I can recall very vividly.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Auggie Wren christmas story still gives me goosebumbs and that movie singlehandedly god me into Tom Waits
But as far as what next, technocracy usually oversimplifies and fails to integrate an understanding of the successes of capitalism and some of the failures of socialism.
Because technocracy usually assumes a type of AI-based central planning and has little or no room for markets. But I believe that any realistic plan must have accomodations for some significant amount of competition and inequality as well as a strong emphasis on facilities to evolve the system and have types of local specialization.
So my belief is that we do need a more holistic view of information and more ways to track and regulate than is provided by the basic concept of assigning monolithic points (money) which is also a gross oversimplification, but there also needs to be some concept like that, just more sophisticated. Such as tracking points available for different categories of things or autotaxing different activities or just tracking resources per transaction.
So I think it will not work to get rid of money, but we need money to be much smarter and less one dimensional etc.
Fando Y Lis
The Decline Of Western Civilization
Not in any particular order and may repeat many of the fine recommendations already said....
1. The Five-Year Engagement https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1195478/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
2. The Trigger Effect https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117965/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
3. Sweet November https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230838/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
4. Les Miserables (1978) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077936/
5. The Vow (i got married to the music from The Nationals - England (instrumental) :) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606389/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
6. The Family Man (Nicolas Cage before he gone off the edge) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218967/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
7. Boyz n the Hood https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
8. Up (I'm a new dad and I did Big Brothers to 3 boys so Up means a lot to me) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
9. Ghost Town https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995039/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
10. People Like Us https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1716777/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
11. One Hour Photo (Reminding us how incredible Robin William...was ) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265459/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
WOW...few things..
1. I realize a little psych profiling can show how old you are ;-) [EDIT] I mean how old I am!! :)
2. I'm a sucker for romcom light hearted shows that gives me time to reflect.
man.. I realize I need to look into this list, grow it and rewatch.
Enjoy!
Fandango
City of the lost children.
Stalingrad