Re: Suggest an Intermission!

LA Confidential has a moment like that and I remember thinking that it was an awesome movie. Years later I watched it again and surprised myself by just having a meh reaction to the whole film.

And a lot of Korean films manage to shock, and not always in that 'twist' way that you see favoured in most Western movies. Which is probably why I enjoy watching Korean films so much.

Leading me to suggest an intermission topic in the future could be on the key differences between American films and those from the rest of the world, e.g., British, European, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, Korean and Japanese, and why Americans usually aren't enamoured with foreign films.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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102

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I would like to see an intermission on sequels.

When is it OK to actually do one? Talking about good ones and bad ones.....Why is the Trilogy structure normally the way it's done in media nowadays?

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Re: Suggest an Intermission!

Gibson wrote:

I would like to hear about moments in film or TV that totally shocked you. I mean, un-spoilered, real time surprised you.

The end of seasons one and two of Battlestar Galactica. Especially season two.

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

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104

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Gibson wrote:

I would like to hear about moments in film or TV that totally shocked you. I mean, un-spoilered, real time surprised you.


Define...shock.

Because I have a story that is a total fucking downer and I will probably never be able to talk about in live recording, so...here we go.

To this day, the only piece of filmed entertainment in any medium that I have ever had to walk out on (and I've seen A Serbian Film, mind you) was the episode of Soprano's where Dr. Melfi is raped.  I've seen rape in cinema plenty of times before and since, but in that moment where i watched it, I literally got up, walked out of the room, and sobbed heavily for about an hour.....

...because 3 days prior I had found out that my friend from high school Roberta Happe had been carjacked, abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered. 

In the scene, Dr. Melfi is walking to her car alone, and right then I knew where this was going.  I not only braced myself, I gave myself a little pep talk about how this is the world of the show, not my real life, and that I could stomach this because it undoubtedly served the story somehow.  Once it starts and Lorraine Bracco shouts out "I HAVE MONEY!" that was it for me.  I later watched the rest of the episode, and it was indeed good, and unlike too many depictions of rape, this one had a point to the larger story.  But to this day I cannot even hit select on the DVD menu for that episode.

**edit for clarity, I should note that neither I nor Roberta were in High School when this happened.  I was finishing college and she was working in Loz Feliz at the time.  We hadn't talked in a couple years, and this was before social networking, really.

Last edited by Eddie (2012-02-16 17:36:50)

Eddie Doty

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105

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Teague wrote:

I remember the ER moment. I was shocked.

That. And mostly every episode of 24. The most shocking being the first 5 minutes of season 5.

And while not shocking, the episode 3 Stories in House made me go, "oooh." Once I understood what it was doing.

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106

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Breaking Bad. If you can do one for Terra Nova, you can do one for something on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. I wanna hear you guys take apart and behold this masterpiece of television.

Re: Suggest an Intermission!

Anything Ark.

Maybe some Ark.

What about Ark?

Ark.

Have I mentioned Ark?

tongue

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Am I the only weirdo in the room who just can't get next to Breaking Bad? I gave it a fair shake, watched the whole first season on Netflix and a bit of the second, but I just wasn't hooked. I didn't enjoy the time I was spending with any of those characters.

Shrug.

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Laylla wrote:

Anything Ark.

Maybe some Ark.

What about Ark?

Ark.

Have I mentioned Ark?

tongue

Like this? http://www.downinfront.net/intermission/index.php?id=22

"Most people don't even know what sysadmins do, but trust me, if they all took a lunch break at the same time they wouldn't make it to the deli before you ran out of bullets protecting your canned goods from roving bands of mutants."

-- http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

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Jeffery Harrell wrote:

Am I the only weirdo in the room who just can't get next to Breaking Bad? I gave it a fair shake, watched the whole first season on Netflix and a bit of the second, but I just wasn't hooked. I didn't enjoy the time I was spending with any of those characters.

Shrug.

It's weird, I freaking loooove the show, but I HAAAATE most of the characters. And it's because it's designed that way. Theonly character I even remotely like (For the first couple seasons) is Walt. Everyone else is just there to get in his way, and ultimately drive him to the life of crime, because they are soooo annoying/infuriating or otherwise just aggravating. Every episode I was just begging Walt to shoot them all and embrace the criminal inside. Of course in the later seasons that all gets thrown on it's head and suddenly they all become characters that you sort of care about/ actually sorta help Walt in their own twisted way.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Suggest an Intermission!

I'm no stranger to shows with unlikable characters. Deadwood is way up near the top of my list of all-time favorites. But I never saw anything in Breaking Bad that made me like any of the characters the way I liked Calamity Jane or Al Swearengen. Or Johnny, or Dan. Or Doc Cochran. Or Trixie. Especially Trixie.

BRB, watching Deadwood a lot.

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I usually have to like characters in a show to like the show, but Breaking Bad is a definite exception.

Though I guess I mostly like Jesse.

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I'm halfway through season three of Breaking Bad on Netflix. I like it, it's a good show, well above average... But coming off all the hype I find myself underwhelmed. My primary complaint is that it seems to rely an awful lot on coincidences to drive their plots. There are just plenty of shows on TV I'd rather watch than Breaking Bad.

Also, fxguide totally ruined a season four character death for me, so I feel a little bit of anger every time they're on screen, which is not the show's fault at all.

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Holden wrote:
Laylla wrote:

Anything Ark.

Maybe some Ark.

What about Ark?

Ark.

Have I mentioned Ark?

tongue

Like this? http://www.downinfront.net/intermission/index.php?id=22

I knew that was there. I was just.....um..testing you...yeah....   
.>.>

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An intermission about endings. There are great movies and lame movies, but most popular mainstream movies fall into the bell-curve middle of 'okay' movies. From these, it's almost always the final act that lets them down. The premise and opening is the easiest to make interesting. The second act is character development and setbacks and raising stakes. But Hollywood movies are like a metaphorical funnel where, no matter how they started, have to end the same way e.g. race against time, chase, one-on-one goody v baddy confrontation, villain dies, loose ends are resolved, etc.

Is it the studios (and test screenings) that insist that the final act conform to some template, like a tablet from the Mount?

I often only see the first two-thirds of a movie (as they're usually the best) and as soon as the final act starts , I switch off as that's where the movie is on metaphorical railroad tracks.

not long to go now...

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So, now that we got Trey's Ark story, how about Ryan's Lucasarts story?

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vidina wrote:

So, now that we got Trey's Ark story, how about Ryan's Lucasarts story?

This would be good. I liked the bits on the Episode 3 commentary. Personally, I would still like to hear a fight choreography commentary and not just lightsabers and what not. Actual discussion of what makes it good, what makes it bad and the panelists preferred styles.

Also, I thought it would be cool to have stories of celebrities that the DiF crew has met or wants to meet.

God loves you!

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Here's one ",How to make an Indie Feature" and have Julian Higgins & Chad Peter on that panel.

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Grant wrote:

Here's one ",How to make an Indie Feature" and have Julian Higgins & Chad Peter on that panel.


This.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Suggest an Intermission!

How about an Intermission on movie cliches. What are your favorites and which ones make you sick? Why some work and some don't.

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DOCTOR WHO. *randomnoncapitalizedletter*

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How about an episode covering gear?

I feel that a lot of users here are aspiring filmmakers looking to get a foot in the industry, (if they don't already.) With all the new digital cinema cameras hitting the market, maybe the DiF crew can discuss what trends they are seeing in what gear is being used prevelently. What are their opinions on the different options out there. Red, Canon or Nikon HDSLR, Canon or Sony cinema cameras? Strengths vs weaknesses. I'm curious where you guys think the digital cinema camera formats will settle? Will they converge to a common format/sensor size/codec or will certain formats be dominant in certain media fields, (ie features leaning towards the likes of the Red and TV shows leaning toward HDSLR or something else?) What would be a wise investment for someone who's looking to buy some entry level cinema gear for indie films?

You know, basically a show for gear-heads.

(I know that Story is King and a good story doesn't care what camera it is shot on, but good gear certainly makes telling the story easier.)

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How about an intermission on time travel in movies, and whether you guys think it can ever be pulled off effectively or not. I was talking to a friend recently about Looper and I told him that the time travel aspect could ruin it for me very quickly. I think the main problem with time travel is that it either makes the movie too complicated too quickly, or it leaves the plot full of holes. In Looper I told my friend that sending someone back in time is actually much more risky than just disposing of the body in the current time frame. This is basically because if the looper did not manage to kill someone, or even if the looper decided to betray the organization, he could simply kill all of the current members while they were kids. Then you get into the whole "impact of the past on the future" thing where you don't know whether time is one line that can be changed (i.e doing something in the past will get rid of the current future and replace it with a new one) or whether changing the past creates a series of parallel universes. Either way the story gets complicated quickly. It's because of something like this that I don't think time travel should ever be used as a gimmick in movies, as it seems to ruin many movies and t.v shows (Heroes most notably for me).

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Re: Suggest an Intermission!

I'm rather partial to the Doctors explanation.

ZangrethorDigital.ca