Nov 16, 2016

Second the Hanks love. His recent trilogy of decent average Joe's being put in extraordinary circumstances has been rly interesting. How can a two time Oscar winner be underrated?

Yeah, I mean Arrival is just so slowly paced- and relies so much on Amy Adams' internal performance - that it's hard to rly connect. People are loving the Nolan twist though.

 

Nov 16, 2016

Hank's best role was Trump Supporter on Black Jeopardy

 

Nov 17, 2016

The Club delivered. i haven't watched Spotlight, but it's probably more raw and poignant than Calvary. It gives me hope for Jackie considering a historical piece like that could so easily be average Oscar bait. I also caught Blood of my Blood (2015) which also turned out to deal with some of the ills of the Catholic church. I've never seen a picture from Marco Bellocchio before, but they've got to be better than that one. It jumps the shark after about 45 minutes and turns into a mouthpiece for an old fart to muse on modern society. Ick.

In response to the current topic, are there people who don't like Tom Hanks? He's the quintessential American. So comfy.

 

Nov 17, 2016

20th Century Women has great acting, and a lot of great moments, but I don't think it quite lands. I love films about messy humanism, but I'm not sure this one quite comes together. Feels like the film keeps searching amongst its sem-interesting characters, waiting for something to gel. It never rly does -- lots of stop/starts. (disclaimer: wasn't huge on Beginners either?)

 

Nov 17, 2016

Who wanna help my film blow up?

 

Nov 17, 2016

where is the Silence trailer :S

 

Nov 17, 2016

Gonna screen tomorrow with Allied.

 

Nov 17, 2016

That's good news but isn't Allied out next week?

 

Nov 17, 2016

Oh yeah u right

 

Nov 18, 2016

I still don't get the extent of the James Gray praise...

 

Nov 18, 2016

 

Nov 18, 2016

I'm going to rewatch Two Lovers at some point, not sure I could really appreciate it back when I first saw it, but I've yet to be blown away by any of his pictures. I like [redacted cuz I'm dumb] We Own The Night, but I've yet to feel the urge to compare him to classical music or s---t a load on his filmography. Neither have I read a compelling argument as to why I should.

 

Nov 18, 2016

Have u seen The Immigrant?

 

Nov 18, 2016

Yep.

 

Nov 19, 2016

Manchester by the Sea is pretty terrific. Tears were shed.

 

Nov 19, 2016

ARRIVAL: On Intuition, Language, and A Great Film’s Greatest Failure

Published at Aesthetics of the Mind:
bit.ly/2g991Fa

In spite of dropping the inimitable Roger Deakins (Prisoners–a masterpiece–, Sicario), Canada’s leading Studio director, Denis Villeneuve, has crafted a film of bracing visual detail and innovation, using primarily push ins, pull outs, and overexposure in producing haunting images of the supernatural. In regards to its cinematography, Arrival is 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Under The Skin.

It’s cinematographic feats already lend much to be admired, but what is much more admirable is Villeneuve’s respect for audience intelligence. Rather than pander to audiences, such as science fiction epics Interstellar and The Martian before it, Arrival challenges scientific theories openly and intellectually. What might be called its ‘twist’ is anything but; it is a reveal which simultaneously gives the audience narrative information while commenting on the predisposition of viewers in being governed by hollywood formula. Villeneuve doesn’t aim to mislead audiences; audiences mislead themselves by believing in cinematic conventions.

This idea parallels the key theme of the film in that it portrays humans as if living within a box. Because a mother-daughter scene is inter-cut with affecting shots of the mother’s face, we believe she must be remembering the past. This is a common convention in cinema which we take for granted. There are many narrative conventions purported by the studio system which have indoctrinated our way of following a movie. The reveal is all the more shocking in that it challenged the conventions we have become accustomed to. It shows us that something can exist outside of the box.

In the film’s plot, what is outside this box is a life form which exists outside of time and who communicates through immediate thought. They share images with one another in order to communicate in a form akin to the act of thinking. Arrival suggests that humans could not only be capable of this, but that this ability is already within us, waiting to be tapped into.

Language leads a person astray from true connection with the world and spirit. Language takes time, but a thought is immediate and apparent. Ancient Indian Vedanta claims that the only true knowledge is that of sensory experience. This is because sensory experience is immediate and felt. It is intuitive; as with all true thought, it is immediate and apparent. A statement, however, originates as an intuition but does not reveal the intuition itself. A statement is a thought that is converted into language in order to be conveyed. The initial thought is thus manipulated into a form which exists within time. While the thought occurred immediately, its form as language exists within the dimension of time, a dimension which perhaps does not exist in the way we have become accustomed to believing. We believe in the passing of time because we spend more time thinking in language than thinking via intuition… this is the greatest flaw of humankind, and an illusion which we steadfastly believe in spite of the suffering it begets us. Buddhism and Indian philosophy teach us to dispense with the veil of maya (illusion of time) and see things as they truly are: eternal. The aliens in Arrival are Buddhas.

In ordinary human life we have several means of recognizing the experience of eternity. Music, for example, communicates through form alone, and is thus immediate. We cannot convert the sound of A minor from a guitar into language, the sound must be heard, and once heard it immediately generates the same thought in its beholder as it once originated from its player. From a different player or a different guitar it takes on a different form; so even its title as A-minor has tenuous bearing. Music, like all true art, is immediate communication and exists outside of time. Form, such as sound, movement, shape, is immediate, and aesthetics is the appreciation of form as art. Our interaction with art allows perhaps the fleeting experience of eternity, but first it must conjure a shift in one’s thinking… to move from thinking by language to thinking by intuition.

Where Arrival falters, however, is the narrow scope to which it applies this understanding. We are not told what the humans must learn in order to help the heptapods 3000 years later, just that they must learn it. Instead, we see the admirably humanist tale of a woman who raises a daughter knowing she will one day be killed by an incurable disease.

I don’t want to sound insensitive or suggest that a single life has little significance, but a daughter’s death seems relatively banal considering this woman has been given such an extraordinary gift of being able to emancipate from the shackles of time. It seems that Villeneuve’s focus on the meaning of this gift is squandered on family drama in the attempt to capture our hearts with a moving tale. But this woman has a gift which will can allow a change to all human life, which can allow human activity on Earth to ascend to an enlightened stage. That Villeneuve glosses over this revelation which he so brilliantly conveys is by far the film’s greatest failure.

84/100 – Great.

 

Nov 20, 2016

@FilmAndWhisky Interesting stuff as always...I'm probably more down on the film than you, but I agree completely with your critique at the end. After such an earth-shattering revelation with immense implications on the notions of time and free will, the film leaves little to contemplate as it rushes towards a more conventional conclusion.

 

Nov 20, 2016

What's up with that Eden Lake score?

 

Nov 20, 2016

It tried to maintain that theme of parentless children running amok and evil begetting evil while also being laughably over the top violence wise. Idk, the tone felt like a mess to me. Like it wanted to be extremely brutal and horrifying while also to be taken seriously as social critique. The Reefer Madness type of public service announcement film. I enjoyed it. I just found it pretty flawed. A little more restraint could've went a long way.

I thought it was just some B movie that Fassbender was in before becoming a lead man. Didn't realize what I was in for right away.

 

Nov 20, 2016

d--- u for living in nyc - i missed the screening here bc i was on my honeymoon ughhhhhh

moonlight was cool also enjoyed cafe society

@FilmAndWhisky arrival was kind of pretentious and crappy tho rite