algroth

I don't see it as one, but I can see how I could be wrong. To me though, the kind of humour in it, however plentiful, is much more reminiscent of its same use in blockbuster fare by and large and not in comedy specifically. I see Guardians as a superhero/space opera hybrid primarily and I think it works best when it's either of these things.

Just created a list of my 200 all-time favorite albums: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/algroth_89/top-200-albums/

I saw Guardians Vol. 2 yesterday. I thought it was alright. I liked the fact that they are willing to throw so much at the screen and generallly enjoyed the visual aesthetic of it, but it's with the overwhelming frequency of jokes and nods where I felt it let me down the most: it's fine to have some levity here and there, a bit of comic relief to break the tension and play with some cliché or other; problem is, Guardians is not a comedy, and the jokes may arise the occasional smirk but for the most part they are simply not funny. They don't just cut the mood of a scene, they bloody cleave it with a butcher-knife. And it's all too often, all too forced too. There are whole five-minute sequences that are designed specifically to throw jabs at one another, and it just makes me groan. The stuff with the "Taserface" dude was the absolute worst. And do we really need FIVE post-credit scenes? As with the first one the jukebox soundtrack doesn't always work either. These matters aside, fun enough romp.

I think injurai mentioned it earlier, but I also am in agreement that a gender-neutral "they" is more than enough to use in reference two people not in either end of the gender spectrum, and that *enforcing* a specific pronoun to refer to one will likely make them look more like an asshat than aid in anything.

I think I only heard Th1rt3en from him... I was not a big fan of it. All the same, R.I.P. Also, Mary Tsoni, star of Dogtooth died a couple of days ago at the age of 30.

I'm inclined to agree... I'm getting a bit of a Ghost in the Shell remake vibe from it. Regardless, if Arrival (or the rest of his films for that matter) is any indication, Villeneuve does seem the type to rein the action in in favour of ideas, so I wouldn't be too worried just yet. That could be just one action set piece near the end. You know, like in the original. I knew instantly that Ghost was going to be mediocre action, not sure about this one. Yeah, I would agree and it's what I'm expecting myself. I just think it's one of those The Road/Valhalla Rising-type situations where the trailer is attempting to sell the film as something it isn't... And the impression that it leaves of the film suffers for it in turn.

such stuff might make sense save for the brutal amazon training every ww has endured. if the movie shows gadot sleep-walking her way through her themyscira amazonian training, w/o the traditional obligatory sweat and toil and struggle, then we could accept a plausibly rail-thin ww who were able to similar magic her way past monsters and mayhem rather than muscling her way to victory. The argument goes if Superman's powers provide him strength, what on earth can he train with on earth that would actually give him heroic musculature? Similarly if Diana's strength is supernatural and the Amazons are not (they have and haven't been in DC comics) how can training with them ever be rigorous enough to create a heavily muscled body. Again this isn't necessarily an argument I agree with, merely presenting it as it could be a rationale they're using to create a less muscled version of Diana. Perhaps, but if so I'm not sure the argument would hold much water considering every other superhero is buff beyond belief, as par with Snyder's style. To be honest I'd probably view such a justification pretty critically myself, as it would seem like an extremely cynical move to try and "excuse" the fact that women superheroes are made to look like supermodels despite the overwhelming amount of muscle on their male counterparts. Now, I don't mind there being female heroines with supermodel proportions, but if so at least reserve that appearance for heroines who don't count on superstrength as one of their primary sources of power (I am not much of a DC connoisseur, but I guess Zatanna would fill that part?). That aside I do think all of this is mostly overthinking it. My main issue is to do with aesthetics, really: I do like my heroic proportions on both men and women, and in the latter case especially I do find it very unconvincing when the actress in question is a third of the size of her opponent and throws her punches like she's never done so before in her life (which is, unfortunately, all too often). If the character is supposed to possess super-strength I'd rather buy the actress in that part from a physique du rol perspective as well. There's also the fact that in an action film this is perhaps *the* most important aspect when casting your actors and/or stuntmen - acting in action films is all about the physical performance, and to cast someone who is unconvincing at performing the required feats is the same as casting first-time dancers in a musical.

I'm inclined to agree... I'm getting a bit of a Ghost in the Shell remake vibe from it. Regardless, if Arrival (or the rest of his films for that matter) is any indication, Villeneuve does seem the type to rein the action in in favour of ideas, so I wouldn't be too worried just yet.

I think Gina Carano could have made an interesting Wonder Woman myself. And yes, I do agree that Gal Gadot looks way too frail for the role.

I've been a fan of Nacho Vigalondo for a while now, he's very witty and inventive. Looking forward to it! Thought I didn't know him, but apparently he made my favourite short film of all time, 7:35 In The Morning. Yup, that is great. His short films are generally all quality. Timecrimes is also very good.

Good. Not ideal, but a far better alternative to the National Front.

I've been a fan of Nacho Vigalondo for a while now, he's very witty and inventive. Looking forward to it!

Yeah, taking my cat to the vet is quite the odyssey... I'm still unsure if what he fears is the car trip or the vet, but either way he'll squirm and eventually resign to sinking his claws really deeply into whoever is holding him through the duration of the trip and visit.

Do I detect some Samuel Barber in the background?

Hubert Robert

Cornelis van Dalem (some in collaboration with Jan van Wechelen)

Some very nice stuff there, Ben. Malevich is probably my favorite Soviet artist of that time alongside Naum Gabo. Here's another for you, by Aleksandr Gerasimov: Also, Ilya Repin

And, of course, used for this song by Joan Manuel Serrat: The whole album, Dedicado a Antonio Machado, Poeta, is superb and well worth tracking down.

Oh, I didn't notice Akiva Goldsman penned the screenplay for that. Well... That explains some things.

I initially didn't mind the Hand, but with Iron Fist turning it into essentially a glorified drug cartel, I think it's lost much, or even all, of its initial intrigue. It had me really doubting whether the writers knew what they wanted of the Hand or what it should be in the first place.

Well to be fair to the author, even if she'd included his caveat from the interview (that he'd explained the scene to the actress, including what he planned to do) and the inference (that she'd agreed to it), it still raises a couple of questions - ie as he was in a position of authority over her, did she really have the ability to disagree with what he did; did her reaction indicate that what he did and what he explained not the same, and did any of it happen at all since AFAIK we only have Jodorowsky's statements on it - and we know that he wants to provoke people and shake the establishment and again AFAIK wouldn't be above doing it in an interview. The important thing would be to have the actress' view of it, but its not there leaving what happened legitimately open for debate I think. I find it distracting that the author seems to mistakenly attributes the scene to Fando y Lis (it wasn't) and that they question El Topo as an early midnight movie (it was), but that doesn't invalidate her argument which, honestly, is a fair position. Not everyone is going to try to figure out whether Jordorowsky's statements are performance or real, or what he might mean when he uses loaded language. I do agree with this, of course, though I am inclined to think that, if it did happen as Jodorowsky tells it, he had by that time developed a name and standing within the world of performance art and film where more extreme methods of his craft were already assumed by those he worked with. In a similar way you wouldn't cast Klaus Kinski in a film expecting him to be nice and agreeable to work with (just to make sure, I'm not saying a woman would expect to be raped by Jodorowsky if she were to work with him, I'm just saying she'd expect to take part in a style of filmmaking that is deeply involved with performance art and may thus assume a more physical and 'real' approach to performance and production, and would probably have been in the same page when working on these films - of course, if this wasn't the case then I can also see how it would be problematic). Regardless I am also inclined to think that Jodorowsky was being deliberately provocative here. With regards to her argument my problem is that I don't think she follows the kind of code and language Jodorowsky works with at all, and is assuming the things he says at face value. Jodorowsky's philosophy, practices and art has long been influenced by many hermetic and esoteric disciplines and by consequence the literal interpretation to his words is a dicey thing to deal with when one wants to extract actual meaning from them. Jodorowsky is no stranger to this either and certainly loves to play up this disparity between the "aurum nostrum" and "aurum vulgi", to paraphrase the classic alchemist saying (The Jodorowsky Constellation is a good watch in this regard too), and I think that the article doesn't seem too aware of this. Moreover I do think it derrails its points of interest somewhat with the stabs at gender politics, all of which reminds me a tad too much of the usual Oscar season articles that accuse the nominees of following dicey or discriminatory ideologies all for the sake of sparking up more controversy.

Looking forward to both, but neither of these trailers convinced me.

That felt very pedestrian, yeah.

This article is committing the mistake of running along with a provocateur's take on his own art and methods. The "rape" scene described by Jodorowsky wasn't a rape since it was, after all, consensual, no matter how aggressive it was according to his (questionable, I'll add) anecdote (also the bit of a female character accepting the "male sex" is much more related to hermaphroditism, the chemical wedding and other forms of Jung's confrontation with the animus than one of "male dominance" as understood in a contemporary gender identity-type sense). El topo was made at the height of the Panic Movement and as is expected with the genre, mixed surrealism with shock tactics and performance art to deliberately provoke extreme emotions and reactions on its audience, and was partly made in protest to surrealism's entry into the mainstream. In other interviews Jodorowsky has mentioned how to him the sublime in cinema was reached by creating an image that would burn into your mind so as to become truly unforgettable, and used Takashi Miike - Visitor Q as a more specific film of his - as an example of what he referred to. Mind that I'm not that big a fan of Jodorowsky and I disagree with many aspects of his vision (also have many qualms with his notions of psicomagia and his reading of Tarot), but I do think the above article sins the way many pop readings into the works of the more esoteric auteurs do in that they do not take the time to understand the context or the intention behind what they speak of, and take the statement or expression in its most literal form, often to the point of misinterpretation or, as is the case with Jodorowsky above, playing right into their hands by feeding their desire for controversy. I'll also add that regardless of whether Dune would become a great film or not, I would have loved to see it get made. One point I do agree on with Jodorowsky: an adaptation in any source that is only made to be "faithful" to its source is bound to be a lesser version of its original; I'd much rather see Jodorowsky "rape" Herbert and make Dune as he envisions it than see it adapted into a rigorously exact version for purism's sake, as at least the latter has a *chance* (if no guarantee) to be a masterpiece in its own right.

It's not nostalgia, it's just aesthetics. The 3D portraits for Tyranny were very jarring, the poses exaggerated and unnatural, applied to every character in the same manner regardless of their personality or position; moreover, the renders just seemed very primitive and of poor quality. Traditional portraits worked much better in the first Pillars by comparison, and also fit the overall tone and design of the Renaissance-based isometric setting than the more artificial renders would. Really though, people ought to stop chalking everything up to "nostalgia". By this definition the only reason why anyone would have a preference for a game aesthetic that isn't that of a AAA FPS/TPS is because of "nostalgia". Especially in the realms of art and aesthetics, new isn't always better.