Movies

[stardustpilgrim]

I saw Transcendence. It's OK, worth seeing. I had high expectations, I was disappointed. I'm going to try not to give any real spoilers. It obviously takes place sometime in the future, I don't recall a specific time indication (the Johnny Depp and wife team have a lot of quantum computer banks and an AI program called PINN, but without emotions PINN cannot tell right from wrong). We learn of several different programs around the country doing AI research. We learn early that a home terrorist group is against AI as it is man's attempt to supplant God. Events take an unexpected direction connecting two different lines of AI research, a giant leap is made. What develops directly concerning AI is quite impressive. That's about all I can say without giving too much away. If you are science/AI/SiFi film buff, go see it (but ATST, it is somewhat mushy....).

sdp

[laughter]

Saw "About Time" last night.



The existential question addressed is only raised indirectly (not as a question) and isn't presented in the script until the end of the film but it is one of the major modern spiritual cliches. What the film might lack by way of action, dialog and plot is made up by one great big open 'ole heart. It's incredibly gentle, wistful and lyric, and the point of the existential topic covered is embodied by the entire work as a whole.

[runstill]

Aug 2, 2014 15:35:40 GMT -5 laughter said:

Saw "About Time" last night.



The existential question addressed is only raised indirectly (not as a question) and isn't presented in the script until the end of the film but it is one of the major modern spiritual cliches. What the film might lack by way of action, dialog and plot is made up by one great big open 'ole heart. It's incredibly gentle, wistful and lyric, and the point of the existential topic covered is embodied by the entire work as a whole.

I checked out the link the movie looks like its worth a watch, thanks.I saw both Transcendence and Her enjoyed them both, Her was a more engaging movie though.

Seems to be a number of movies lately about human or artificial intelligence acquiring so much knowledge that they become god like. I wonder if knowledge isn't created but is already what is ?

[laughter]

Aug 2, 2014 19:53:02 GMT -5 runstill said:

Aug 2, 2014 15:35:40 GMT -5 laughter said:

Saw "About Time" last night.



The existential question addressed is only raised indirectly (not as a question) and isn't presented in the script until the end of the film but it is one of the major modern spiritual cliches. What the film might lack by way of action, dialog and plot is made up by one great big open 'ole heart. It's incredibly gentle, wistful and lyric, and the point of the existential topic covered is embodied by the entire work as a whole.

I checked out the link the movie looks like its worth a watch, thanks.I saw both Transcendence and Her enjoyed them both, Her was a more engaging movie though.

Seems to be a number of movies lately about human or artificial intelligence acquiring so much knowledge that they become god like. I wonder if knowledge isn't created but is already what is ?

Right. Newton and Einstein didn't invent gravity.

[laughter]

The Rover is a bleak and brutally violent fiction set in a post-societal collapse along the road in Australia.

I got the impression that the cinematic elite of that country decided they were going to redeem the nation for having been the back drop for "The Road Warrior".

Guy Pearce stars as the main anti-hero who's choices seem at first superficial and on 2nd glance inexplicable, until his motivations are revealed in several stages of the film. Perhaps only two of the characters with any significance (and one of these with no speaking lines), are free of the expression of some sort of villainy.

The violence is sometimes bloody but not gory, and anything but glorified, and several existential issues are covered, although the presentation is very subtle, including:

- the emptiness of causation
- the power of witnessing over fear
- questioning of what one knows
- the formation of and failure of human relationships, and the breakdown of the social contract

This is the role I was waiting to see Pearce in since Momento, in that this character is the one in his career that is most reminiscent of Lenny, and as in that film, the characters story is used to explore the sometimes surprisingly poignant nature of rage and the melancholy senselessness that results from deep deep unconsciousness.

Robert Pattinson is brilliant in a supporting role that bespeaks the following conversation with his agent: "get me something as different from Twilight as you possibly can...".

[Deleted]

So, I watched the above trailer when it first came out, and was like, "OK, that might be worth a watch, but it doesn't look interesting enough to go see in the theaters"

well I just watched it, and it was really quite good. one of the best movies I've seen in a while

[stardustpilgrim]

I went to see Hector and the Search for Happiness today. I could recommend it to anybody about 15 and up. A psychiatrist, played by Simon Pegg, gets in a whole-life-rut, feeling he has ceased to be able to help his patients and departs on a worldwide trip leaving his 10-year-live-in-girlfriend-partner to "research" a "book" on happiness. He doesn't know, so can't tell beautiful and successful girlfriend/partner (Rosamund Pike also the Gone Girl which started last week) how long he will be gone.

I almost can't say more without spoiling it........although......cool ending......we get to see the result of Hector's journey.............


................slight spoiler alert..............below............











































via an fMRI of his brain......

sdp

[Deleted]

Aug 2, 2014 15:35:40 GMT -5 laughter said:

omg .. this movie is nuts yo... I'm calling it a must see





edit to add: (watched it again) ummm, its better after a doob perhaps

[zendancer]

Carol and I went to see "Keep on keeping on" a few nights ago. It was a fantastic documentary that we can highly recommend. It chronicles the life of Clark Terry, a famous jazz trumpeter who played with the Duke Ellington Band for 10 years, the Count Basie band, and the Quincy Jones Band. He is an amazing human being who has mentored hundreds, if not thousands, of young musicians, and the documentary details his wonderful relationship with a young blind jazz pianist. Terry is now 93, and virtually every major jazz musician knows about him. He is famous for many reasons, including his humorous song "Mumbles," as well as being the first black musician to play in a major TV band (the Johnny Carson Show). The movie is rated 95% by critics and 95% by the public, and it is a real love story. It is successful both as a great story about a wonderful man, but also as a tribute to the jazz genre of music. If you go to see it, stay through the credits long enough to hear Terry sing "Mumbles" on stage when he was young. FWIW, several musicians came out of the movie and claimed that they cried all the way through it (because of the value and love they saw in the mentor/master/student relationship)--it is that good and that touching.

[stardustpilgrim]

I saw Birdman today. First of all, if you plan to see it, don't watch any previews or trailers. There is a central question which about three seconds of preview gives away. Besides that, in spite of that, I really liked the film. I had figured out what this central question would be before watching it. The opening scene asks the question.

Michael Keaton plays Reagan, an actor who played Birdman, a superhero in three films twenty years ago, big block-busters, very successful, he's still famous and popular with the public from playing Birdman. He has adapted a book by Raymond Carver as a play on Broadway (pretty existentially oriented). He also directs and is one of the four main actors. Rehearsals are not going well, next day is not the opening but first view, an unofficial opening with 1/2 priced tickets which is a first run-through, essentially a non-reviewed public rehearsal. Emma Stone plays his daughter, out of rehab, works at the theater for him as a go-for.

It's an extraordinarily out of the.....mold film. Sort-of vulgar in parts (just as a little warning). It takes place over about 4-5 days, mostly in the theater, on stage and otherwise and on the streets of NY and a local bar. Ed Norton and Naomi Watts, also in it as major characters. ......I couldn't recommend it to just anybody..........well.......yea, maybe I could. I almost can't say anything else so as not to spoil it.

[stardustpilgrim]

The Truman Show, Pleasantville

[Deleted]

My Dinner With Andre
Fitzcarraldo
Wings of Desire
The Cup
Being There
Man Facing Southeast

[Peter]

Nov 17, 2014 13:11:25 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Man Facing Southeast

Interesting, I will get hold of that. The premise reminded me of K-Pax (2001). Apparently the writer said he was unaware of the other film at the time - link

I'll add (and you'll see a heavy influence of distopian sci-fi here):

Dark City (1998)
The Fountain (2006)
What Dreams May Come (1998)
The Matrix (1999)
Avalon (2001)

Which "The Cup" was that you were referring to Max?

P

[laughter]

Apr 20, 2014 20:47:09 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

I saw Transcendence. It's OK, worth seeing. I had high expectations, I was disappointed. I'm going to try not to give any real spoilers. It obviously takes place sometime in the future, I don't recall a specific time indication (the Johnny Depp and wife team have a lot of quantum computer banks and an AI program called PINN, but without emotions PINN cannot tell right from wrong). We learn of several different programs around the country doing AI research. We learn early that a home terrorist group is against AI as it is man's attempt to supplant God. Events take an unexpected direction connecting two different lines of AI research, a giant leap is made. What develops directly concerning AI is quite impressive. That's about all I can say without giving too much away. If you are science/AI/SiFi film buff, go see it (but ATST, it is somewhat mushy....).

sdp

Found this to be applicable to the topic.

[justlikeyou]

Maleficent by Disney, a different take on Sleeping Beauty, was a surprising movie in that it portrayed
the redeeming quality of love in such a powerful way.