Not sure I wanted to watch home movies of Cobain and Love rolling around in a drugged stupor.

Kinda cliche but in that fun, enjoyable way.

Animavore wrote:
Not sure I wanted to watch home movies of Cobain and Love rolling around in a drugged stupor.

You shouldn't watch other people's home movies no matter what state you're in.

Still out there, is it?

Mac_Guffin wrote:

Kinda cliche but in that fun, enjoyable way.

Ah yes, E.T. the Extraterrestrial for grown-ups! There was one memorable part:
The ending scene presented a challenge for the visual effects crew in those "pre-digital" days...
The script called for a spaceship in the form of a metallic sphere. Because of the blue-screen process used to superimpose the spaceship on the Arizona landscape, it wasn't possible to film an actual chrome-plated sphere... the reflected areas of blue would've "erased" most of the shape. The solution was to use a white-painted sphere and to project a slide of the desert scene onto it. Composited with the filmed background, it gave the illusion of a highly reflective orb. Clever!

I just finished watching The Birth of a Nation, which is hands-down the most racist movie I've ever seen. And somehow it's listed as one of the greatest movies of all time.

It was released in 1915, so it's silent. There are some cool things about films from that era though. The costumes, the landscape, the houses and furniture. I guess just the historical aspect makes it worth watching. The film itself is about the American Civil War and the rise of the KKK, but it grossly distorts historical events and sympathizes with the KKK. It was actually kind of creepy.

NamelessFaceless wrote:I just finished watching The Birth of a Nation, which is hands-down the most racist movie I've ever seen. And somehow it's listed as one of the greatest movies of all time.

It was released in 1915, so it's silent. There are some cool things about films from that era though. The costumes, the landscape, the houses and furniture. I guess just the historical aspect makes it worth watching. The film itself is about the American Civil War and the rise of the KKK, but it grossly distorts historical events and sympathizes with the KKK. It was actually kind of creepy.

The movie as horrible as its message is, invented or codified many of the movie tropes, for example the moving camera and rapid cuts, that are so commonplace now, you don't even notice them.

NamelessFaceless wrote:I just finished watching The Birth of a Nation, which is hands-down the most racist movie I've ever seen. And somehow it's listed as one of the greatest movies of all time.

It was released in 1915, so it's silent. There are some cool things about films from that era though. The costumes, the landscape, the houses and furniture. I guess just the historical aspect makes it worth watching. The film itself is about the American Civil War and the rise of the KKK, but it grossly distorts historical events and sympathizes with the KKK. It was actually kind of creepy.

It wasn't so much racist more like portraying the feelings of many southerners during the aftermath of the civil war.

My name is William Forrest Huddleston and my great, great, great grandfather was a poor, white farmer in Tennesee during the outbreak of the civil war. Too poor to own slaves, yet loyal to his state; his farmstead was in the direct path of a union army, until my great-grandfather's childhood friend Nathan Bedford Forrest saved his life and the farm.

Now Forrest was a brilliant cavalry general, but also one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan....so was my great, great, great grandfather and I have a journal of my grandfather which states his disagreements with KKK leaders about violence towards freed slaves, etc and how they should focus more so on rebuilding the devastated south (which a dumb ass bastard named Sherman decided to torch to the ground).

Now I am not saying this to show sympathy for the KKK. The organization is a piece of shit organization that needs to cease to exist. But to white wash it as evil or ignore the fact that many members simply wanted to restore the South and assist those affected by the outcome of the Civil War is to take a skewed view of history. History is written by the winners, and I know from personal family accounts that a lot of history is left unsaid in regards to Reconstruction from a Southern point of view. Taxation nearly forced my dad's family into perpetual poverty and competition from carpert baggers drove any ambitions of furthering the farm out of my family's reach.

My family owed a debt to Forrest and one of those debts is the tradition of naming all first male child's with the middle name Forrest. So I have had a vested interest in studying my families history and racism was not one of things we stressed. My family were abolitionist in nature, despite being democrats, and my great, great, great grandmother has some sunday school lessons penned on why "negroes are God's children too."

Yet my family was a part of the original Klan. Honor, loyalty, and respect are three virtues in the blood of all Huddlestons and we obligate debts and friendships, even if we disagree. Nathan Bedford Forrest dissolved the Klan because it had turned violent.

Back on topic: The film is as Scott says an innovator for a lot of cinematography, but I find its views of the Klan not to be heroic in nature, but Southern in nature.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

willhud9 wrote: Nathan Bedford Forrest dissolved the Klan because it had turned violent.

Yes, I've heard this too, and also that this was before the movie was even released. The original intent of the white sheets was to pose as the ghosts of dead Confederate soldiers and scare the blacks and carpetbaggers. Membership at that time was only open to the more elite Southerners. But it eventually started leading to violence and the original organizers distanced itself from the Klan and it all but died out. But once the movie was released, it became a catalyst to re-form the Klan and give it new life. It was even used as promotional propaganda for recruiting members. That's when it became the really violent organization in the 20s and 30s.

Birth of a Nation was considered racist even by 1915 standards.

Heffalump Man. Most excellent movie, superb acting, horribly sad.

Great film on BBC2 right now, and one of my fav books - Perfume: story of a murderer

The Quiet Earth (1985). Picked it up on a whim a week ago, vaguely remembering hearing something positive about it. Intriguing, different movie which I'll probably rewatch some day.

Fallible wrote:

Muirhouse. Another slow burner, which is shot in a real supposed haunted house and is said to contain real supposed paranormal activity. I did find it very suspenseful, but it came to a rather abrupt end, and certainly at the very beginning it took the found footage thing to the nth degree and there was an awful lot of dead wood. Good though.

I'm watching this right now, but I missed a bit. When he first ran out of the house after hearing that womanish scream, what did he see? I missed seeing what he saw.

Did he see something? I thought he just ran out because of the scream.

Oh good, then I didn't miss anything. I might visit this house.

Ah yes, it's in your neck of the woods, isn't it.