DCist: Popcorn & Candy: This is the Modern World

monkeyrotica

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:56:21 -0500

You forgot the Raisinets, the nachos, and the huge log you leave in the crappier.

js adams

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:22:21 -0500

Indeed, one cannot comprehend the magnitude of the sheer horror of fin du ciecle ennui unless it's projected on a three-story screen. ... and loaded down with Milkduds, a large soda and popcorn!

monkeyrotica

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:00:36 -0500

Indeed, one cannot comprehend the magnitude of the sheer horror of fin du ciecle ennui unless it's projected on a three-story screen. Like someone said about television being "infinite boredom in a tiny room," one really must sit through this stuff on the big screen at least once. Like watching 2001: A Space Odyssey while baked out of your gourd, it must be done, if anything to appreciate the colossal failure of Episode I: The Phantom Menace from a narrative, dialogic, and aesthetic perspective. Mssr. Lucas can learn a lot from Antonioni and Visconti on how to bore the hell out of people without having to resort to rapid jumpcuts and CGI.

js adams

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:43:52 -0500

Zabriskie Point is one of those rare films that can be immesurably improved by simply turning off the video and listening to the soundtrack while you fold your laundry. Quite true. Jarman's Blue effortlessly works to that effect, but one does need to return to the video for Zabriskie Point's finale. Me thinks the best part about catching AFI Silver or National Gallery screenings is having the opportunity to catch films like these on the big screen (for the first time or again).

Politburo

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:30:00 -0500

"comes to believe he may have evidence of a murder on his hands, though his image, when blown up, is indistinct." I never knew the source of that High Anxiety reference.. until today.

Ian Buckwalter

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:17:31 -0500

Ah, nothing brings on the grousing and cries of pretension like Antonioni. Somewhere, deep in the ground, Pauline Kael is smiling a deeply satisfied smile. I really should have written up Godard's Weekend when the AFI played it a while back. That would have made some heads explode.

monkeyrotica

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:15:43 -0500

Zabriskie Point is one of those rare films that can be immesurably improved by simply turning off the video and listening to the soundtrack while you fold your laundry. Tommy falls into this category as well.

js adams

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:06:25 -0500

Blow-Up does offer a nice Beck-Page Yardbirds performance albeit a tad staged. Okay ... horridly scripted and complete with scary sixties fashion ... but no mimes! Zabriskie Point has the whole Pink Floyd completist-fan boy soundtrack working in its favour. Come in Number 51...

monkeyrotica

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:34:45 -0500

The only way Antonioni could possibly make it more pretentious would be to have everyone in Renaissance garb and riding mopeds.

IMGoph

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:24:15 -0500

thanks, monkey. i'm still not clear what kind of movement you're talking about. maybe you could clear things up a bit...

KrazyKat

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:18:26 -0500

I wonder if they will have mimes playing tennis at the after party. Mimes are essential to pretension. At least that is what the movie told me.

monkeyrotica

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:24:14 -0500

Oh, neo realism was a movement alright. I'll give you three guesses as to what kind of movement it was. Hint: Antonioni's ouevre could benefit from a higher moral FIBER intake as his HALF-DIGESTIVE narrative suffers from the sort of intellectual BLOCKAGE usually reserved for auteurs who are so completely filled with S**T that they need to BLOW IT OUT THEIR ASSES, which would probably make a smashing sequel to Blow Up.

boondoggle

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:42:40 -0500

A Blow Up screening + after party = levels of pretentiousness that can only be measured by the CERN super-collider.

IMGoph

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:06:13 -0500

i'll give you yet another topic: the italian neorealist movement in film was neither italian nor neo nor particuarly a movement. discuss.

monkeyrotica

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:01:21 -0500

The fundamental problem with Italian neorealist cinema is its move from concerns about society in post war Europe and the impact of Capitalism (Open City, Bicycle Thieves), to more inward concerns about the individual and their alienation from society (Blow Up, Zabriskie Point). It's a lot easier to care about a starving worker driven to steal a bike to make a living than it is about a bunch of narcissist assholes in the desert. Or David Hemmings doing Jimmy Stewart.

KrazyKat

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:23:00 -0500

I don't understand why they make such a fuss over Blow Up. I saw it and hated it. I understood where he was going with the movie, but I just didn't like anything about the movie. It is one of those movies where I wished everyone would just die. Kind of like Transformers.