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tylerbliss
Reviews
Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
pretense aside...
While '60s french thought and film is filled with silly hats and sunglasses, that is no reason to disregard the thought of the time. Reading most of these comments I think there needs to be a little explanation of structuralist/ deconstructionist/poststructuralist thought, so that people more in touch with analytical thought can get what is going on. Basically, it all comes out of Marxist/postmarxist Frankfurt School thought that says rationality is part of the states power and singular thought systems are mental walls of control. This works by making words concrete (think national languages) and connotation isn't allowed. While this is really really boiled down, it might help to those who are writing trite tripe comments etc. As a second note, this movie is very much like the matrix reloaded except while the matrix is nihilistic this film offers the artists own drum beat. Godard makes sure we are not ourselves in the matrix (at least while watching the film). For some reading to do with this movie see Baudrillard's procession of the simulacra, Debord/s Society of the Spectacle or Deleuze's Difference and Repetition. This movie is all about sticking it to the man.
Piñero (2001)
Good Movie, not in a hollywood kind of way, though.
This movie is a wonderful depiction of the artist. While I see how some could see him as a shallow a**hole, I think this actually gives his character more depth. While the hollywood frame work for great guys doesnt fit him, it does fit the more Kerouacesque model of post WWII existential fatalism. The shots were nice and the editting good in a pomo kind of way. While this movie isnt for anyone who saw titanic more than once, it is a wonderful retrospective of an artist and his face to face, 24/7 battle with death imbodied in love, for his people, his place, his friends, but unfortunatly not for his self.
Waking Life (2001)
I mean it isn't a masterpiece but...
I have read so many of these comments that seem to be written by stuff 45 year olds who are long past the years of education and exploring ideas with out prescribing to them. Too all of you, f*** off. I watch the movie with about 5 friends none of them the "Oh wow" high school crowd and the movie actually created a lively discussion. Isn't that what art is all about stimulating that spark in humanity. To compare it to the "sophistimicated" art all of the high and mighties of IMDb seem to be keen on, it seems to me to be for the post modern (I hate that term) what the raft of the medusa (Gericualt) was for the modern. We see in the movie the faults of all of this sophists and solipists but the charicter tries to cypher what is reality. I like to picture the kid flipping hamburgers while he is dreaming. The movie tries to look at the blur of hyper-realities (sorry for buzzword) and find his path. He doesn't give into nihilistic pathes though he knows they are there. He is treading water. One thing I didn't like was the eurocentric nature of the movie, though perhaps he led a eurocentric life. Anyway, I hope all of you old guys perhaps should rent "the man who wasn't there" for a movie that is more accepting of you protestent confrontation with a secular modern world. As for the young and the bold, we need to keep looking at multiplicity and how this world of nation-states quivering before the powers of the free market should be shaped and how we living it, as foucault (dirty name dropper am I) said, "create ourselves as works of art." So you guys can go back to having your wives get you beer and jerking off to the Sears yearbook. aight. (sorry for lack of capitals and spelling and such, using email grammar)