I watched The Hateful Eight in 70mm

It cost me ~TWENTY DOLLARS~ to see it in 70mm.  I saw it that way because I missed out on seeing Interstellar in 70mm.  I also at least wanted to know the last film I saw on film.  I saw a showing of 1989 Batman at the Alamo Drafthouse and I'm almost certain that was just playing a Bluray.  Maybe it was 2001, but also I feel that might have been a Bluray.

I got my favorite seat for a theater experience like this.  2nd row from the back of the front section.  I want a screen to envelope me.  I want to have to pan my head to see the left and right of the screen.

I don't really like Tarantino films.  I love Jackie Brown.  I watch it at least once a year.  I always feel afterwards he's too indulgent and too obsessed with the nature of cinema.  But his obsession with cinema gives him sole leeway to be too indulgent.  The other film of his that I actually liked the first time I saw it was Deathproof.  A film that is almost entirely him being indulgent.  It is filled with these long monologues he loves.  It just actors (and himself) being mouthpieces for his monologues.  Then it has two terrific and terrifying chase sequences.  The chase sequences will always be great, the monologues on repeat are not-watchable.  Once the monologues become an issue Tarantino is lost to you.

Then his obession with cinema.  How he loves cinema.  He drops old scores into his films.  He has references all over the place in his films.  I'd rather be friends with the guy than watch his films.  After I saw Inglorious Bastards I felt like I should just give up seeing his films.  So I never saw Django Unchained.  I heard it was Tarantino being Tarantino.

Then let me say The Hateful Eight is also Tarantino being Tarantino.  He collects a great cast.  He gives them these monologues to say.  He's seen so much cinema that it just bleeds into every frame.  he doesn't need to try and reference anything, he does it naturally.  He gets Enrio Morricone to do the soundtrack.  Then he has a weird pop-song interlude in the film that stopped me.

From the start of the film I was thinking about westerns.  I was thinking about the font he was using.  I was thinking about how great westerns are frequently about weird fashion.  Yes that was a good font he chose.  Yes everyone's outfits are perfect to give them more character.  I was thinking if I was going to remember Morricone's score after the film ended (I didn't.)

I was thinking how the actors all have great stage presence and other films they had been in.  I was thinking about what I was going to write about the film.  I didn't go into it thinking I would write words about it.  I saw 100 films last year, most of them did not inspire multple paragraphs in me.  Before the intermission I was thinking about writing this post.

And I felt Tarantino's hands all over it.  Being indulgent.  I will put this here.  I will use this actor.  Micheal Madson doesn't have to say anything to know that he's a bastard, and yet you want to like him.  I wanted to call it a mystery or suspense but I didn't care about the actual mystery or the suspense.  My mind was wandering all over the film except about the events happening on the screen.

Which is what happens when I watch Tarantino.  I'm thinking about everything about the film except the actual film.  I have no stake in any of the characters.  The reveals are just another point in the movie.  Tarantino sure does love Title Cards and I'm not sure why they are here outside of a convenient break scene.

Huh the Weinstein's Executive Produced this and didn't real him in?  Isn't that what they are notorious for doing?  They are known to butcher cut films down.  Yet here is their name on an almost 3 hour film.  That's strange.  But if anyone gets to be indulgent it's Tarantino.  He loves cinema.

I did not love this film.  It was not worth TWENTY DOLLARS.  But I do have a last film I saw on film story.

Further Suffering

Why the honk do I keep watching these terrible films?  Why do I keep forcing myself to consume these (mostly Japanese films) in which I can predict the plot almost entirely, I don't like any of the characters, and I'm just waiting for the rape-scene to happen.

Maybe because I want some sort of self-righteousness that I saw these films, and I know how bad they are.  How they disregard women.  Then even further any English description or review or critique passes over any sexual assault that happens.

I'm yelling at myself here.  There is definitely great stuff on Hulu's Criterion Collection.  I've seen stuff recently I enjoyed every second of.  Maybe writing about my lack of will will give me the will I need to will.  Let's get on with some reviews of stuff I've seen recently. If I got screencaps from twitter, that will be the links to follow each.

World on a Wire
This is great.  It's almost 3 and a half hours of people talking, but I loved it.  It's proto-Matrix from 1973!  It's orange and teal by design and beautiful.  In my ever approaching list of 10 Criterion movies to watch on hulu this is on it.  I loved it. 1 2

Double Suicide
Myself elsewhere:"Then my now favorite J-director Shinoda (Our Marriage, One Way Ticket to Love, A Flame at the Pier (watch AFatP already) did Double Suicide which opens with stage hands setting up a puppet show while ?the director? talks on the phone about where the double suicide takes places. It is kind of a basic J-story, but it has lots of neat artifice to it that I like." 1

Japanese Summer Double Suicide
Also great.  Weird stagey.  A man that wants to die and no one will kill him.  A woman that wants sex and cannot find it. A boy that wants to kill but is never given the chance.  The world might as well as ended.  Or they exist outside it.  This film feels like it says more about 60s postwar Japan than a lot of the films I watch. 1 2 3 4

Everything Goes Wrong
Not to be confused with Daly's Gone Wrong.  Maybe this film was never on my good side, as it stars a guy I've seen twice already as a sociopathic rapist.  In this film he's just a sociopath shitty asshole teen.  Terrible things happen. 1 2 

Death Shadows
I honestly can't remember much of this film.  But revisiting my twitter, it sure does have some cool visuals. 1 2 3 4

Love New and Old
That's just it's Hulu title, the original is Shamisen and Motorcycle.  Which why would you go away from that title? Like Our Marriage it is a pretty basic story but it's filled with these live human beings. The women characters are complete people. That's sadly still rare today and more amazing for 1960. Towards the end it captures what loss is, and I was bawling. I'm still teary eyed now. Less the film, and more that it cut open wounds from my own life in a way I appreciated. Then it had about 30 seconds of unnecessary film. I continue to find in Shinoda what I guess everyone else gets from Kurosawa or Ozu. early Shinoda has real humanity to it. I find something like Ozu's Tokyo Story a gentle bulldozer. The human drama Kurosawas' I've seen I'm just staring at them bored. . 1 2

Let's talk why that shot is neat though.  The camera stays on the room.  It is only when asked about the time that the characters look up and the camera moves up to show the clock, and then they continue their conversation and the clock moves back down.

Youth in Fury
Shinoda again (watch a Flame at the Pier).  His messiest film I've seen, it just kind of ends even with a bunch of stuff slammed together.  It could have easily lasted another 30 minutes.  It has an asshole protagonist.  My problem with those usually, is they are just shitty petty jerks going WHATEVERMAN.  Here the world is reacting to him not belonging in it.  Instead of just saying the Youth of post-reconstruction Japan are fucked, it gives them dimensions and motivations.  They are still fucked, but maybe there is a reason for it.

 History is Made At Night
This film was old and boring I just wanted to link this again.

Safety Last!
Harold Lloyd silent film.  So I enjoy the craft more than actually enjoying the film.  The subplots for the comedy made me groan.  The final climbing the building sequence is worth watching.  1

Gates of Hell
I watched this thinking it was going to be horror.  Then it wasn't.  instead it ended a Tragedy For Everyone Involved.  Everyone wears a mountain of color.  It won the Academy Award for that.  Skip through it just to enjoy all the costumes.

The Fire Within
confirms I hate French Films. They are all just two people frozen mid-coitus while an omnipotent narrator says some bullshit.

Mahler 
was kind of cool, but you could use a highlight reel for the same effect.

Getting Old and Wasting Time

After every movie I watch on Hulu I go back to my queue and count it.  It's currently at 96.  When I got the urge to update this blog, I was trying to write reviews of what I had seen on it.  That fell off.  When I first got the subscription I screamed at the amount of Criterion films on there.  I've now seen a whole bunch of Criterion films and still have a bunch more I intend to see.  I think.

But one day I'm going to die.  I'm going to die and have wasted a whole lot of time on dumb media.  That's what you get for being an introvert who doesn't drink and just wants to move to the other side of the world already.  Until then, a bunch of video games and movies and not enough books.  Not to say books are a better way to spend your time.  I hate that I read all 1000 pages of 1Q84.  I respect that I read all of Lord of the Rings and declare that the movies are definitely better.  I read all of Anna Karenina and feel like I learned something.  I didn't love it.  I question if it didn't have any cultural baggage would I have dropped it.

Cultural Baggage caused me to finish two films recently.  They both had acclaim for reasons.  Neither of them were particularly long. Y tu mama tambien ended up being a decent film in the end.  I was happy I watched it.  The ?actual? sex at the beginning and marijuana usage made me fear it was going to be about shitty asshole teens doing shitty asshole stuff.  There are a lot of those.  I had just seen Spainish language film about that Deprisa, Deprisa.  Outside of a man staring into a fire and seeing truth I got nothing out of it.  I hate shitty assholes be shitty assholes films.  There are a lot of them.  Their rebellion is so small and self-centered and only about themselves being crap-containers. 

Y Tu Mama Tambien had a decent movie in it.  Near the end, they play a jukebox number B-13.  I used that as a randomizer and on my queue B-13 ended up being Gimme Shelter.  The Rolling Stones documentary.  Not a Rolling Stones fan (sorry!) the music didn't give me much.  The eventual chaos was smaller scale than I thought.  I did want a bit more journalism in it.  Or any journalism.  Which wasn't the point.  The point was a whole lot of people were on a whole lot of drugs.

So back to the queue.  What's at the top? A Legend or Was it? ideallic farmside in the opening.  Something feels off in my head.  I pull open reviews.  They don't say specifics but they keep mentioning it gets dark.  I decide the film is going to be a bad time. I close out and remove it from my queue.  I feel..guilt? about not finishing the film.  I didn't get my full experience?  I could have given it more time.  It still nags me days later.  There's not even a friend or a website yelling at me about the film.  Just silent tug at my brain that you need to do a thing.  And I know the answer is no.  There are infinite films that will instantly grab my attention and enjoyment.  Or films I can re-visit that I know I enjoy.  I could on Hulu re-watch I Hate But Love, Kill!, A Flame At the Pier.  Or see films I am actually intersted in.  Or watch Parks and Recreation?  Or a classic sitcom just to see if it is any good. or ALL OF SEINFELD.  But no I should waste this time on this film.  My brain is telling me to.

So I'm fighting that impluse but then in video games I will get sucked into doing complete bullshit.  Or against my better judgement go after trophies because ???  There was a quiz recently that showed my "gamer type" or whatever.

That chart is pretty much true.  It doesn't go into how I will try for achievements and completions against my rational judgement.  I know I get nothing outside of running towards the day I will die.  I should at 30 be focused on learning or enjoyment.  I get nothing out of doing side crap.  Or even beating a game I don't enjoy.  Better to play a shooter or Bloodborne.  I've got Destiny now, and I hate the crap out of it.  Then a friend convinced me to get both expansions.  Now no one i know is palying it and I'm out 20 bucks.  I have absolute apathy towards Destiny.  I just want to at least get something of my twenty dollars I wasted in enjoyment.  or time towards my ultimate demise.

I hate acheivements and checklists.  I keep thinking about trying to see 100 movies before the year is over.  That's a terrible idea.  Towards that goal I was suffer though something I hate or worse completely apathetic about.  Oh great 2 hours of nothing.  Or a game 8 hours of nothing.  killallgames.exe

Maybe this is a side effect of that I keep a list of media I consume.  I've got lists for years.  I'm happy because it helps my faulty memory about the ways I spend my leisure time.  That energy should be put towards a diary to keep my thoughts down. 

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Let's go back to that chart.  It does help define my game habits..to a point.  I love playing games with friends.  I definitely prefer hard action to turn based or numbers.  I want action and reaction and control.  I want to play well and be rewarded and punished in my performance.  This probably means I should play fighting games, but I cant' get the focus to spend enough time on them.

Video Game stories are trash garbage for people that only know video games.  I can get behind an environment and just being in a place though.  The creativity % is misleading.  It could be assume that I want to build or design.  I hate those aspects of games.  I do try and push the game and see what it can and cannot do.  Go backwards where-ever possible.  There's probably a bobble there that needs to be picked up and I need that TROPH.

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Hopefully in writing this, tomorrow I will make better decisions on my media and I will look at the media as I play it and go "one day I am going to die."  I will then smile and continue to enjoy the media.  Or I will quit and do something else.  Like spend 4 hours tonight just refreshing facebook and twitter.

Vita Games

I need to get some Vita game impressions down on some words before they slip away as transitively as they are.

Murasaki Baby is by Massimo Guarini the director of Shadows of the Damned.  He's decided to get away from Grasshopper and make something independent.  His product is a cute-scary scary-cute game about making the player try to manipulate the Vita to do some simple puzzles. 

There is also Escape Plan which is about making the player try to manipulate the Vita to do some simple puzzles.

In Metrico, the developers have the player manipulate the Vita to do some simple puzzles.

None of these games use language to explain their features.  That's a tiny bit clever.  There is almost the same escalation of feature reveal. I never felt clever in my experience with each game.  It was always a mild frustation at having to figure out how they wanted me to manipulate the Vita and how many of these manipulations would I have to do at the same time.  Sometimes you're pinching the Vita.  Sometimes you're using buttons.  Sometimes you're re-wiring your brain to understand what it wants you to do. 

It never made me feel smart or ah-ha!  Which should be a sign I should delete all 3 games off my console.  Murasaki Baby is the one I found most engaging, that might be because of who made it and in the credits discovered the Akira Yamanoaka sounding soundtrack was Akira Yamanoaka.  I got it because of Playstation Plus.

Also because of Playstation Plus? Well. I can't find it on my Vita.  Fennick and something?  I was going to say it was a 2D platformer controlled by Worms (the game).  In the running theme of this entire system, it was asking me to grope the controls to have me do numbing activities.

I guess the Vita is pretty good if you want to play an anime game.

Jeff Rosenstock - We Cool?

I was/am a huge huge Bomb The Music Industry! fan.  Vacation is already a classic album.  BTMI! ended with an almost perfect album.

So now the head guy of BTMI! has a new project that features some parts of that band but is called a solo project.  I always thought of Jeff as the heard and soul of Bomb but there is maybe more distinction there than I think.  Or maybe it is just doing the thing where they do not have to play old songs because this is a different band.  They keep referring to it as a different thing and as a solo project.  But it does still feature a full band.

Here is an album that reminds me of myself.  If I kept thinking about death after I turned 21.  I sure did think about death a lot as a teen and college student.  Not in a goth way (I was a ska fan for bonglord's sake.)  Just a lot about what it would mean if I died.  For Jeff I don't think that ever stopped.  It has been a theme in his lyrics.  That and the depression I've never had.

This is how you think about death when you're 30.  When you've had the people close to you die and then see how people change the first time a close person to them dies.  With that death you keep being alive.  And you keep thinking about what would happen if you died.  I'm glad I stopped having these conversations with myself.  Though Jeff keeps having them and has had them for a lot longer than I have.

And I wouldn't call this a dour or depressing album.  It is just fighting with that personal conversation the whole time.  It's putting on an earnest smile while thinking about death.

It is an album that frequently makes me go "Yeah I know what you mean."  This is strongest on "I'm Serious, I'm Sorry."

I really don't like "Hey Allison."  I read a review about "has there ever been a song with "hey [name]" as the title?"  hmm.

I like the album outside of this.  As this is 2015.  Make up your mind since the album is FREE.  And streaming.  As always the role of music reviews in 2015 is curation and analysis less than IS IT GOOD?

Twin Peaks The Pilot

Fun for all ages, a man watches a TV Show that is 25 years old for the first time. 

It was kind of boring. 

That's my honest feeling.  Everyone is angry with me now.  Or agreeing with me.  I can't tell I'm writing this now.  I liked that it was paced like The Wire.  It was paced like chapter 1 of a novel.  It didn't have a TV show arc.  What happened in the pacing over 90 minutes was a bit dull though.

I liked that it was season 3 of a drama with a murder dropped into it.  All the characters had history and relations like a long running drama.  There just happened to be a murder involved.  So you get FBI Agent Dale Cooper.

The music was fantastic though. 

And I guess I will watch episode 2 I mean it is there on Hulu+.  So in that way it was successful.  I will spend some of the limited time before I die with the series again.  I'll probably decide if I'm going to watch anymore based on that second episode.  So Twin Peaks you're on thin ice because being on thin ice is the only way to treat any media in 2015.  There's too much media that you will absolutely enjoy to waste time with stuff you are indifferent to.  I could watch season 4 of Archer.  I haven't seen that yet.  Will probably love it!

Or I could waste a thousand more hours on the internet doing jack shit.  That will probably be what happens.

One Way Ticket to Love (1959) - Hulu Plus

Criterion had a 50% off sale.  I took that as an opportunity to finally try Hulu Plus since they have a lot of Criterion films on there.  I could sample the first 20 minutes of films I might find worth buying.  I will maybe come back to this neglected blog to talk about them.  But I have this trial and I did queue up in just the Criterion films: 159 films.  That's a lot of movies.  It's certainly longer than just a 2 week trial.  I'll go ahead and pay for one month, why not?  I'm certainly getting my money's worth. 

Hulu doesn't really advertise that they have Criterion and Janus films on there.  They do in abundance.  The best I've experienced so far is One Way Ticket To Love.  I wish I could read the Japanese title, but I can't.

I'm going to try and not spoil it.  But if I fail at that stop at this paragraph.  It is a Japanese film from 1959.  It is something of a love story.  It is something of a marketing tool for the same title single.  In 2014 it is a fantastic B-movie experience.  In the context of 1959 it is astounding it exists.  All the characters have more depth then you expect.  It is above all a tragedy.

Now I'm going to try and talk about the actual film without spoiling it.  The main theme throughout is Japanese culture's guilt duty.  Very good sociological term I made there.  Because of being given an opportunity a character is required to do one thing.  Because of the social bubble they have entered into they are now part of that social bubble.  That social bubble requires they do another.  Each character also has a life outside of that social bubble.

I said it was a love story.  It's a love story in the same way that Romeo and Juliet is a love story. So it's a lust story. Yes, Rudie, I guess you could say that. The various loves in the story line up with the guilt duty into making a Wire style poster board of allegiences and debts. 

Each character feels like a stereotype seen in various films of the time.  They rise above it to become people that you believe in their actions.  While you could say that almost every problem in the film is solved by just walking away most of them can't and by J-society they definitely can't. 

NOW ANOTHER LAYER OF SPOILING BUT NOT

A gun will eventually makes its appearance.  It will begin to change hands.  The predicted target of the gun will continue to change.  Eventually the gun goes off.  And then the film ends.  The ending shot is heartbreaking. 

I'm having such a good time thinking about this film.  I'm going to have to get a copy somehow.  It's only on HuluPlus.  If this is the best film I get out of the experience that's okay.  It is a fantastic film.  I want other people to see it so I can talk to them about it.