What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

Watchmen is also my favorite superhero movie, apart from The Matrix - which is arguably also a superhero movie.

I think the concept of superheroes is kinda silly, and I struggle to maintain any interest in it - but I do like the occasional movie, when it does something new or interesting.

I thought Batman Begins was quite excellent, but I didn't care for the following two from Nolan.
 
Water Diviner 5/10

I thought the direction was pretty uneven and mostly downright awkward, but the acting was decent - and I particularly liked the character of Major Hasan. I have no idea why it's getting such high scores on IMDB, but I lost faith in that site years ago.
 
I think we can forgive Nolan for being involved in Batman movie. I watched it only because everyone is praising it to the heavens(pressure of society). But what I saw was a film far from good. What I really liked is the character of The Joker. A true villain, a sociopath with a plan, or no plan, should I say. Heath Ledger did a perfect acting.
So, I forgive Nolan, he did make good movies and Batman trilogy is not one of those imho.
I like the Batman parody on College Humor much more.
BADMAN: The Movie - Starring Pete Holmes

Oh, almost forgot to mention. "Kick-Ass", is my other favorite "superhero" movie. :)
Oh and Scott Pilgrim! :D No contest with these two.
 
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I think Nolan is overrated, personally, but he does have talent - there's no doubt about that.

As for The Joker, I think it was an awful character in Dark Knight. The movie went with a "realistic" take on the superhero genre, but failed utterly to create a background or motivation for The Joker. As such, he retains a comic book personality that just wants to "watch the world burn" without providing sufficient underpinning. That makes for an extremely implausible villain given the "serious" setting, and the result was a movie I couldn't take seriously at all.

The overall preachy nature of the film - and the godawful acting of Eckhart with his incredibly weak transformation from hero to villain just helped to drive the whole mess home as pretentious Hollywood crap.

Of course, the masses loved it - which just confirms my point :)
 
Yes, maybe he is kind of overrated.
For me the Joker simply was an interesting, the only interesting character in The Dark Knight. Simply because he brought with him chaos wherever he went. Which is a true nature of a psychopath. The one who destroys lives of others.
Now, I don't watch movies for mere entertainment. Almost every movie has a message of a deeper meaning. And The Joker over here was presented as a good example of a psychopathic and destructive personality that is strong in today's society all over the globe. Psychopaths don't need a motive they think in a very different way than lets say a average normal person.
And of course you will not see crazy people with makeup running around, the true psychopaths are the man in suits, politicians, CEO's , so called leaders and preachers of all kind and the list goes on. "American Psycho" for example shows that side of a nice and good looking successful man, but the guy is nuts.
You know Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a monster in all of us. Just depends how much one feeds that monster.

Did I go of track? Sorry, got a little carried away.
 
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Yes, maybe he is kind of overrated.
For me the Joker simply was an interesting, the only interesting character in The Dark Knight. Simply because he brought with him chaos wherever he went. Which is a true nature of a psychopath. The one who destroys lives of others.
Now, I don't watch movies for mere entertainment. Almost every movie has a message of a deeper meaning. And The Joker over here was presented as a good example of a psychopathic and destructive personality that is strong in today's society all over the globe. Psychopaths don't need a motive they think in a very different way than lets say a average normal person.
And of course you will not see crazy people with makeup running around, the true psychopaths are the man in suits, politicians, CEO's , so called leaders and preachers of all kind and the list goes on. "American Psycho" for example shows that side of a nice and good looking successful man, but the guy is nuts.
You know Mr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a monster in all of us. Just depends how much one feeds that monster.

Did I go of track? Sorry, got a little carried away.

I don't agree at all that the true nature of psychopaths is chaos. That's a profound misconception.

The nature of psychopaths is that they lack empathy, which means they'll act without consideration for the feelings of other people, because they simply don't have that capacity.

Ironically, that makes psychopaths LESS chaotic. They tend to act out of a very deliberate and carefully arranged personality and motivation, because they're not as burdened by social inhibitions as most people are.

The downside is, obviously, that they have a hard time forming true connections with other people - and they tend to act in a very selfish way, simply because they're not feeling the impact of their actions like the rest of us do.

However, we all act a bit like psychopaths - because while we're capable of feeling empathy as "normal people" - we need to be in close contact with others or to be a witness to actually get that sensation. This means that we're fully capable of extremely selfish acts - just as long as we don't have to witness the results.

This is largely why so many people fully support the extremely uneven division of resources in the world, and the reason so many people are suffering - while others have a thousand times the resources that they need.

Not because they're evil - but because they're willfully ignorant - and they don't (truly) witness the consequences.
 
I also think Nolan is highly overrated. I thought the third Batman film was terrible.

Heath Ledger's Joker I thought was very interesting. I thought it was quite original to withhold his "origin story", and present the idea that he simply wanted to watch the world burn. I liked the way they played with this, by having him offer several different wild accounts of how he got his smile scars, sometimes almost playing for sympathy.

It's often thought that sadistic psychopaths were made that way by trauma or abuse, but it's understood that in many cases this is not true. They almost always make claims of such a background when caught, but they are highly manipulative, and these claims are often found to be false. Very often, the motivation is simply the pleasure of the sensation of power they gain by hurting people.

I thought the Joker was quite a shrewd study of psychopathy and narcissism.
 
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Ironically, that makes psychopaths LESS chaotic. They tend to act out of a very deliberate and carefully arranged personality and motivation, because they're not as burdened by social inhibitions as most people are.

This is not true. Psychopaths very often have extremely chaotic lives, because in addition to their lack of empathy, they usually lack impulse control, and they tend to quite recklessly seek gratification. This often leaves a trail of destruction, and a very messy life.

The calm, calculating psycho killer is just a fictional trope, rarely found in reality.
 
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I don't agree at all that the true nature of psychopaths is chaos. That's a profound misconception.

The nature of psychopaths is that they lack empathy, which means they'll act without consideration for the feelings of other people, because they simply don't have that capacity.

Ironically, that makes psychopaths LESS chaotic. They tend to act out of a very deliberate and carefully arranged personality and motivation, because they're not as burdened by social inhibitions as most people are.

The downside is, obviously, that they have a hard time forming true connections with other people - and they tend to act in a very selfish way, simply because they're not feeling the impact of their actions like the rest of us do.

However, we all act a bit like psychopaths - because while we're capable of feeling empathy as "normal people" - we need to be in close contact with others or to be a witness to actually get that sensation. This means that we're fully capable of extremely selfish acts - just as long as we don't have to witness the results.

This is largely why so many people fully support the extremely uneven division of resources in the world, and the reason so many people are suffering - while others have a thousand times the resources that they need.

Not because they're evil - but because they're willfully ignorant - and they don't (truly) witness the consequences.

I absolutely agree that psychopaths lack empathy. Very accurate. But it's a bit more complicated than that.
They don't have a sense of self, or the self. They did not develop, let's say normally (whatever normality is), better to say they did not develop themselves in a healthy way. The reasons can be a few, but let's say the very lack of love and proper care towards them(often abused, mentally or psychically), makes them into what they latter become. Not all, everybody is different.
So, they chaotic life indeed makes them mentally and spiritually distable and distorted. They inner world is pure chaos, so the true nature for them is chaos. No misconception here.
They actually suffer a lot, they suffer indefinitely and they simply need to project that inner insanity to the outer world.

We are not all psychopaths, but we are all neurotic. Someone more, someone less, how ever one copes with reality.

Being WILLFULLY ignorant is TO BE EVIL. It is however different if someone is ignorant and doesn't know it, but that is actually called being nescient (nescience).
So actually we can say that ignorance is an act of evil.

And we are all selfish. Nothing wrong with that. If we weren't, we would probably die as a species a long time ago. The very act of that we breathe is selfish. Said Alan Watts.
 
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I absolutely agree that psychopaths lack empathy. Very accurate. But it's a bit more complicated than that.
They don't have a sense of self, or the self. They did not develop, let's say normally (whatever normality is), better to say they did not develop themselves in a healthy way. The reasons can be a few, but let's say the very lack of love and proper care towards them(often abused, mentally or psychically), makes them into what they latter become. Not all, everybody is different.
So, they chaotic life indeed makes them mentally and spiritually distable and distorted. They inner world is pure chaos, so the true nature for them is chaos. No misconception here.
They actually suffer a lot, they suffer indefinitely and they simply need to project that inner insanity to the outer world.

I don't know where you got all that from, but it sounds like you have a vivid imagination :)

There's nothing to suggest all psychopaths have a chaotic inner world at all - though I'm sure it's the case for some of them, who have trouble correlating their nature with the norms of the outside.

Others are much less concerned with norms, and though they probably struggle for stimuli - I don't think chaos is a fair universal description of their inner selves.

Being WILLFULLY ignorant is TO BE EVIL. It is however different if someone is ignorant and doesn't know it, but that is actually called being nescient (nescience).
So actually we can say that ignorance is an act of evil.

There's no such thing as an evil person, so I can't agree. Being willfully ignorant is something we all are, because there's not a single person in this world who's capable or willing to learn everything about everything - so we can't help it. Every day, each and every one of us chooses a lot of things we don't feel like learning about - and so we're ignorant by choice.

And we are all selfish. Nothing wrong with that. If we weren't, we would probably die as a species a long time ago. The very act of that we breathe is selfish. Said Alan Watts.

There's not much point in being literal about concepts that aren't meant for it. If we're all selfish, the word is meaningless to distinguish people from each other.

So, when we use the word - we should be talking about being selfish to a degree that's outside the norm, or what we perceive as the norm.

I like to think of it in another way, though. I like to think that we all have needs and desires, but we don't all take the needs and desires of others into account in such a way that we neglect to satisfy our own in some cases.
 
Dartagnan, as much as I have enjoyed our discussion and exchange of thought, I am not going to go any further. Or at least not on this thread. On other threads yes or PM for sure.
We all have our views, which makes it interesting to live on this pale blue dot. :)
Just to add...we only have one life to live and infinite things to know. So one can not know all,it's impossible,but it does not make anyone ignorant this way. It is a whole other story in itself.
So, thanks! Pillars Of Eternity is nigh so enjoy it and all the little things in life. :)
 
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Seventh Son was a fun flick. Setting was great and Jeff Bridges was unexpectedly fantastic in this one. If you go in expecting little you may be pleasantly surprised. About on par with Clash & Wrath of the Titans in terms of entertainment value.

Just watched it on the weekend. Like you said it was a good movie, nothing ground breaking but a lot of fun. I did think it was a little better then Clash but that could because I think Mrs. Moore is one sexy lady.
 
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Our older son *finally* got all of us together to watch Birdman on Blu-Ray last night. It was really a very good movie with some decent characters, solid acting and cool symbolism. We all enjoyed it (ok, so both my boys had seen it a couple of times at least, but for wife and I it was first view).

As a Pat Metheny fan, I have been totally enjoying the drumming of Antonio Sanchez for years now, and to have his drum-soundtrack an effective 'character' of the movie ... well, I just loved it!
 
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So my partner bought Hobbit part 3 on pay per view yesterday for 48 hours, and I suppose I'll be watching it tonight. If it's really bad, I can play PoE instead but will get negative marks for social skills. ;)
 
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I was in the mood for comedy and finally saw The Interview.

It was surprisingly enjoyable! It had its dumb moments of course, but it was different enough from typical comedies that I didn't care. It's a shame there was so much drama over its launch - I think it could have done really well as a theater release.

7.5
 
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Anyone seen Predestination? It's a wild mind-fuck of a movie and I like these sorts of movies. Recommended.
Just watched it. Yeah. Mind fucked.

It's based on a short story by Robert A. Heinlein. Good stuff.
 
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Furious 7

A fairly popcorny film with lots of action and continuing the trend of the latter films in not having much in the way of actual racing. Overall, kind of generic and humdrum; lots of bullets and explosions, no blood anywhere that I recall, etc.

But the ending was very poignant: a tribute to Paul Walker. I was never a fanatical fan of the franchise, but I did see each of the films as they got released. So, being shown a young Paul Walker in snapshots from the early films from just a few years ago really touched a nerve in just how fleeting life can be.
 
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Just watched Enough Said, which was done shortly before James Gandolfini died. It was actually very enjoyable despite probably falling into "Chick Flick" categories. I didn't care because Julia Louise Dreyfuss is absolutely hawt. Good cast, compelling film, it was nice to see James Gandolfini as someone other than Tony Soprano. B+
 
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Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Hah. Hilarious and over-the-top gruesome take on the "cabin in the woods" theme. Should be something for Sam and other slasher fans here. ;)
 
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Watched a couple of movies this week:

"The Wedding ringer" 8-10

Rated it for what it is a funny movie better than I expected and better then most comedies. If you are looking for something just to watch and have a good laugh this is a good movie to do that to.

"The Last Knight" 3.5-10

Cast was unbelievable for this sort of movie. The action was boring at best, the story was even worst, it was so bad it didn't even put me to sleep last night.
 
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