501

(199 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I guess you're right, but at this point (to me) it kind of feels like the 2012 stuff is just there to get character insight into dialogue. Is there much of a story going on that's been revealed? Other than the stuff with the killer, which at this point seems to just be the pretense to get Hart and Cohle into an interrogation about the 1995 case. But like you said, if they do move more exclusively to the 2012 story at some point, it's good to get all this stuff out there.

502

(199 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I'm catching up now. I like it. Beautiful cinematography, best I've seen on TV in a while. McConaughey is real good, but I actually like Harrelson's reactions to his pseudo-philosophical bullshit a lot more.

I'm not at all sold on the structure, though. At this point, I'm not sure how much the 2012 stuff adds to the story. I guess we'll see how they tie it together, though.

503

(11 replies, posted in Episodes)

Just finished the episode. Are you guys still doing something with those codes?

504

(11 replies, posted in Episodes)

Well done, guys, Five thousand dollars raised for a great cause and nearly 21 hours of fantastic audio content. You should all be super proud.

505

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Hm. Part of me thinks that this debate between pro- and anti-live-action is unresolvable so there's not much point in discussing it. Then again, I really really REALLY think that this movie would be lacking something if we didn't have that element.

I struggled a lot with the theme too, but I came to a conclusion that I think fits which I posted above. And even if they don't sync up perfectly, I think it's perfectly fine for a film to have more than one theme as long as they're semi-related through the plot, and I think The Lego Movie does that.

506

(135 replies, posted in Off Topic)

This isn't even an interesting meltdown anymore. It got boring some time after the third plagiarized apology, when it became clear that he was going to try and spin his blatant theft as some kind of "performance art." I don't give a shit if Shia "isn't famous anymore," because he never did anything artistically worthwhile when he was famous.

507

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Zarban wrote:
Doctor Submarine wrote:

Disagree with your different ending, as it completely ruins the theme of the movie.

This movie has no coherent theme. The stuff about being special is nonsense and is thrown away, then brought back at the last minute in a vain attempt to tie up the conflict. Lord Business doesn't care about who is or isn't special. There's no value in Emmet (or Son) telling him (or Dad) that he's special, yet that's what ends the Lego-world conflict. It's all storytelling sleight of hand. Emmet doesn't even have anything vested in his own specialness except that it gets him close to Lucy.

Thematically, if anyone should be telling anyone else that he's special, it's Dad telling Son. Kid clearly has issues.

No, it absolutely all comes together. At first it's about the dangers of conformity and how it makes people not want to be special. Then when we meet the Master Builders, we see the other side of the coin. They're all fiercely independent and original, which means they are incapable of working together as a team. Lucy is jealous of Emmet because she wanted to be the chosen one, and the scene where she admits that is the first time I've ever seen that aspect added to a monomyth-based film. Emmet teaches them to use their individual gifts to the benefit of everyone, and the film is ultimately about striking that balance. Which is exactly what Emmet says to President Business at the end. Everyone is incredibly special and important, because no one can do exactly what they can, but if you're not using those abilities to help others then there's no point in having them.

Emmet's speech to President Business isn't exactly what the kid said to his dad. Like every action in the movie, it's a translation of the real world into the Lego world.

508

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Zarban wrote:

The live action stuff pretty much breaks the story. It succeeds in being funny and heartwarming, but destroys the stakes and changes the conflict. It could have worked (better) tho if Dad decided to role play Lord Business WITH Son, and we dive back into the story, conflict intact. Then no silly "You're special, Lord Business" speech fom Emmet, and Lord Business is defeated fair and square, with over-the-top, defeated-maniac dialog from Farrell.

I don't think it does break it, unless you let it. Emmet's world IS real, just as real as the real world. Otherwise, Emmet's trip into the real world wouldn't mean anything.

Disagree with your different ending, as it completely ruins the theme of the movie.

509

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic)

People's Overt Religious Notions: Overseeing God Reviews Allegiance, "Pro-Heaven, You!"

This is actually pretty hard.

Next, AWESOME to describe a horrible tragedy.

510

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

To elaborate on my earlier point, the reason I liked Emmet moving is because it allowed for the live-action stuff to exist without compromising the stakes of the Lego stuff. It drives home that, no matter what, the story we've seen up to this point is real, and so is the jeopardy that the Lego characters are in. Maybe the voice-over alone would've accomplished that, though.

511

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Sam F wrote:

The only thing I didn't like so much was Emmet being able to move on his own in real life, throwing himself off the desk. I liked the idea of the entire story being in the kid's mind. That moment dragged the real father-son story into fantasy land.

This is something I'd actually like to discuss, because I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it.

Personally, I was so not on board with the live-action stuff when it first appeared. It felt like a slap in the face after getting so invested in the story to be told, "LOL fuck you it's all made-up and there are no real stakes!" That being said, it's obviously the metaphor that the entire film is operating on logic-wise, so it's pretty much the only way that the movie CAN end. So I liked Emmet having autonomy within the real world, even if I'm not sure exactly how it all works.

The literal workings of it don't bother me too much, because I'm willing to forgive a little inconsistency given how emotionally satisfying the ending is. My personal explanation is that the Lego world does literally exist, but it's brought about through the kid's (and his dad's) imagination. It's kind of a fascinating philosophical notion, actually. Their entire universe is invented by people in the real world, who can manipulate it via real world conduits. But the Lego people are still real people, with real lives, and they fill in the blank details when the kid and his dad aren't imagining them. They would have to, because the story is way too subversive thematically for that kid to come up with while playing. They can cross between them because magic.

But again, it's the only possible way to end this movie, and emotionally it works like gangbusters.

512

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

(Declaring this a spoiler-thread from here on out. STAY AWAY until you see it. Trust me, you want to go in knowing nothing.)

It occurs to me that this would make a great double-feature with The Incredibles. The message of The Incredibles is, as put by Syndrome, "When everyone's super, no one will be." The message of The Lego Movie is really similar, but less cynical. "No one is super, which means everyone can be."

513

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Zarban wrote:

This was a lot of fun, altho absolutely frenetic and a bit rambling. Will Ferrel is hilarious, but the whole cast does a great job.

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Well, considering what we find out in the third act, I have to imagine that this is intentional to a degree.

514

(23 replies, posted in Off Topic)

The only movie I've seen recently that I could call truly "perfect" is The Lego Movie.

515

(44 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Here's my review in full:

516

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

redxavier wrote:

That's a terrible Forrest Gump analogy, but maybe you were just trying to make a funny.

Doctor Submarine wrote:

The film is not at all about his friends.

You stopped reading too early here. It's about his friends engaging in the discussion with him. Essentially, the screenwriter is exploring the notion of immortality in the real world through different intellectual perspectives, which is why some of the characters aren't written too well or are a bit underdeveloped - they're there to be talking heads for their field.

But they barely bring any of that to the discussion anyway. The biologist makes a few remarks about biology and the Christian woman gets all upset at the religious stuff. They are both incredibly one-dimensional and completely undefined.

517

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

The film is not at all about his friends. They have no depth to their characters beyond their fields of study (and that one woman's religion) and they are only there to offer a wide range of reactions to the story. Oldman even says as much near the end. "I couldn't hope for a better panel of people to tell my story to. *lists off each of their one-sentence character bios*" They would have all believed him when they left if he didn't

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tell them he was lying at the end.

I get what you're saying about him being unremarkable, and I think that's what the filmmakers were going for. But it makes for a really boring film. All the wonders and marvels of human history and the best we get is a guy going, "Yeah, I guess that did happen." And it's not played off as a joke, everyone thinks his story is mind-blowing.

518

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

Dorkman wrote:

Great review. Though I thought your Twitter estimation of "hot garbage" equally to the point.

Yeah, that probably would've sufficed.

519

(373 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Here's the article. The stupidity on display is, quite frankly, astounding.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-02/enhanced/webdr03/5/0/enhanced-21214-1391576907-1.jpg

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-02/enhanced/webdr07/5/0/enhanced-14977-1391576919-1.jpg

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-02/enhanced/webdr05/5/0/enhanced-27763-1391576934-13.jpg

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2014-02/enhanced/webdr02/5/0/enhanced-15285-1391576908-9.jpg

Though I'm pretty confident that last one is a joke.

520

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

Well, I finished. Here's what I wrote on Letterboxd. Very interested to see what fans of the film have to say in its defense.

You know how some people complain about movies and they ask, "What was the point?" We all know that that's an unfair question, ultimately. Do stories need to have a point to be good stories? No, not necessarily. Star Wars doesn't have a "point," per se, but it's still engaging and well-told. Even if The Man From Earth was either of those things, it wouldn't matter. Because this isn't just a story, it's a film where we watch a man tell a story to a bunch of other people. With that kind of structure, you'd better hope to hell that it's a story worth telling. But this film seems to think that it's inherently interesting and doesn't have to do any more work in that area.

The real problem here is that none of the characters behave like human beings would in this situation. Imagine that one of your closest friends, a guy you've known for a decade, is moving away. On his last night in town, he invites you and some of your other friends over to tell you that he's actually 14,000 years old. The primary question is not, as the film thinks, "Would you believe him?" The question is, "Would you get emotionally involved in the story to the point where you're either sobbing or furious?" The answer, I'm guessing, is no. Because it's just a story. The film pretends that the other characters don't know whether or not to believe, but their insanely exaggerated reactions clearly indicate that they believe every word he's saying for some reason. This guy gives no evidence other than his word that anything he's saying is true. So why would any of the other people react to it as anything but a story told by their friend? There's no damning piece of evidence early on that keeps them interested. They literally say, "Let's just take him at his word for shits and giggles." The entire conceit of the film is poorly justified.

And then of course there's the laughably awful performances (especially from the biology professor guy), the lazy direction, and the production value. I get that it's a low-budget film and you can only do so much, but put some effort in, would you? I couldn't believe this was made in 2007. It looks at least a decade older. If the script was better, I wouldn't care.

Yeah. The script. When you watch this movie, you don't watch The Man From Earth. You watch The Man From Earth jerk off to its inflated sense of self-importance. And even that would be so bad if the story was the least bit interesting. It's like they came up with the premise and found it alone so fascinating that they didn't think it was worth expanding on. So, there's a guy that's 14,000 years old. Okay. So what? The movie consists of nothing but this guy telling his friends about moments in history. He doesn't give them any insight into those events, he just says, "Oh yeah, I was there. Moving on." Even worse, the movie goes out of its way to explain that this guy (whose name is - no shit - John Oldman) isn't extraordinary in any other way. He doesn't have superhuman abilities, he's not hyper-intelligent, he's just old. So why are they telling this story if he's so unexceptional? If he's just some guy, then there's no point to telling a story about him.

Right, back to that idea. "No point." This is a film that's nothing but dialogue between characters who are confined to a single location. I love stories like that. In this film, the dialogue is hackneyed and eye-roll-inducing, the characters are completely undercooked and portrayed by terrible actors, and the reason that they keep themselves confined to that location isn't rational. All you have left is the story, and nothing about it is the least bit compelling or provocative. The final scene is so hilariously contrived that it seems to come from an alternate-universe version of The Twilight Zone, a universe in which that show was horrible and dumb. Luckily, our universe has the good version of it. But for our sins, we have this movie as well.

521

(15 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I love that scene. My other favorite scene in that movie is the prison one. He and Phoenix are just killing it.

522

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

Alright, I'm gonna watch this thing today and get a more informed opinion on it. Maybe I'll end up agreeing with you. I'll do my absolute best to give it a fair shake.

523

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

Unless the movie is a comedy, the character naming himself "Oldman" is still dumb. And no matter what, the screenwriter gave it to him, so I'm not super clear on your point there.

524

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

johnpavlich wrote:

I wasn't specifically arguing that it's real, necessarily. My point was more that the name shouldn't really be an issue in the first place. I mean, what would YOU name a 14,000 year-old man with a sense of humor? Would you prefer, "Smith"?

EDITED TO ADD: Also, the screenwriter is dead, so.... smile

I would prefer a name that isn't so smarmy. But let's be honest, it's not worth arguing.

525

(364 replies, posted in Episodes)

johnpavlich wrote:

As for the name Oldman and its meaning, that's kind of how surnames started. Simple and usually pertaining to a person's characteristics or occupation. The name Schumacher simply means "shoe maker". In Django Unchained, once Django stops being a slave and teams up with Dr. Schultz, he is given the surname, Freeman as in "free man".

The issue isn't with whether or not the name could be real. The issue is that naming a character who is 14,000 years old "Oldman" makes me want to find the screenwriter and throttle him.