Cheers, Bucks. Wasnāt aware of that coming out. Looks right up my street.
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But is it as good & as scary/horrific as Cowboys v Aliens Bucks?
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There was Oscar beef between that movie and Fight Club, which imo, is 100x better than that movie. When I saw your post, I googled American Beauty vs Fight Club, and found even more. This is an article which compares four films from the same year, the two Iāve already mentioned, Office Space and The Matrix, and finds common ground.
There was the Best Picture winner at the Oscars, American Beauty. There was the groundbreaking action/science-fiction franchise-maker, The Matrix. There was the dorm-room cult classic Fight Club and the endlessly quotable Mike Judge magnum opus Office Space. And all these films had as their protagonist a white male middle-class guy whose primary motivation is disliking the fact that he is gainfully employed at a stable, well-paying, boring office job.
Certainly in real life most of us would probably rate āboring office jobā as a better life choice than āfast-food worker,ā āpedophile,ā āanarchist domestic terrorist,ā or āguerrilla freedom fighter in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.ā And yet Lester Burnham and Fight Clubās Narrator seem to get a spring in their step and a lightness in their heart from being liberated from making a decent paycheck and being able to afford groceries and mortgage payments. Hell, Neo throwing away material comfort in return for, essentially, living on a decrepit submarine comes with the reward of being able to stop bullets with his mind and fly.
What we have, in other words, in all of these films is a Hollywoodized Buddhist message that material comfort isnāt everything and that freeing ourselves from attachments to material things like jobs and mortgages is the key to true enlightenment and happiness.
ā¦ I know, right? If I have any millennial-aged friends around who care at all about movies, ripping into the 1999 Iām Employed, Boo-Hoo Tetralogy is a ritual. Going around in a circle talking about why we want to punch Lester Burnham in the face is classic generational bonding for us millennial film buffs at our social gatherings in our parentsā basements, as is waxing poetic about how much weād like to escape into the Matrix, the simulated reality where the Machines keep us enslaved by giving us steady paychecks and nice apartments.
Brilliant.
Saw the new Michael Moore earlier this week. Moore normally annoys me - his films strike me as pretty much propaganda pieces which play to the anti-American sentiment. But watching it the States with some very left wing friends put a different context on it - they are genuinely horrified by some of the things their country does, and the āany tactic to wake a country up to how things could be differentā approach made more sense. Momentarily.
You sound like a borderline communist Lou, with your lefty friends
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Michael Moore is a brilliant man, never afraid to show the truth, watching the Martian tonight.
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I saw that the other day and really enjoyed it. I didnāt notice Michael Moore in it though.
Ha Ha Iām yet to see him as well.
Totally. First Tory I ever met in my life was Chertsey.
Communism is great until you get to the hierarchy bitā¦
Iām crap at watching movies in any sort of time, but Iāve finally seen all of Django Unchained. Itās a dizzying experience, and probably the best movie Iāve seen from Tarantino, Hateful Eight included, probably because itās so satisfying and managed to tickle my brain while I was watching it.
Donāt get me wrong; in most senses, itās your typical Tarantino film, but the time period allows him to play with some pretty big themes, such as the value of education and the evil that emerges when humans are the property of others. Maybe Iām looking too much into it, the education thing is particularly relevant. Django is probably a gun-savant, but his education allows him to speak the same language that would use his lack of it to classify, or subjugate him.
Loved Foxx in this movie; Christoph Waltz was also excellent, as were De Caprio and Samuel L. One of my pals refers to this as Mr Jacksonās best performance, perhaps because it was so small. Itās a lot better than turning up in an eyepatch at the end of a Marvel film, thatās for sure. Most of all though, I donāt think a Tarantino film has ever had worthier characters than this one.
Most of his movies, the latest included, are usually filled with complete bastards. Even though the Inglorious Bastards were fighting the Germans, they were still bastards. The clue is in the name - just happened to be fighting on the right side. Django is on a worthy mission, and itās almost impossible not to feel thrilled as he tears up a world that says he has no rightful place in it.
We have very different tastes in film, you & I, pap.
Risk of sounding a bit poncy but enjoyed Force Majeure. Swedish subtitled but interesting about what happens when husband and father acts cowardly. On Netflix - well US library definitely.
also really enjoyed Big Short but may have been discussed already.
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As he sees it, with slight emebllishments to make it more sensational
Good popcorn flick
Yeah, reading Paps thing comparing 4 films, if youāre stuck in an office job, paticulalrly IT related then you must watch Office Space, we all know a Milton
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Office Space is my fucking life.
Loads of bosses? Check!
Onerous paperwork? Check!
āCan you just go ahead andā¦ā (aaaargh!) Check!
Iām also about as credible on rap and hip hop as Michael Bolton.
Birdman. At turns minimal, pretentious, emotive and artsy. So right up my street, basically. A solid 8/10.
Unfortunately it loses 8 marks for featuring a scene in which Edward Norton (visibly aging - at bloody last) gets off with Emma Stone. No justice in this world.
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Woah. Watched this last night. Bucksā review is pretty much spot on. Excellent film - loved it.
That scene wil stay with me for a while.
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Top man. Having read the brilliant reviews after watching it, I was fascinated to learn how the director fought to get funding for years. He resisted giving the big studios artistic control (they wanted to cut 30 minutes and make lots of other changes).
It could well become a cult film and I am planning to watch it again soon (though not that scene 
).
Me and the Mrs started to watch Year One last night, the ācomedyā with jack black and Michael cera from 2009. It was awful. Genuinely one of the worst things I have ever seen. We turned it off after half an hour and stared and the carpet instead, which was infinitely more amusing and entertaining.
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