TV/Movies Megathread

[Savonarola]

Under the Sun (2015)

Youthful Zin-mi learns true meaning of socialism as she joins heroic Children's Union during glorious Day of Shining Star!  Onward to victory!  Juche for all!

At least that's the film North Korea wanted made.  They assigned a series of handlers to, as the opening credits say:

The script of this film was assigned to us by the North Korean SOE. They also kindly provided us with an around the clock escort service, chose our filming locations and looked over all the footage we shot to make sure that we did not make any mistakes in showing the life of a perfectly ordinary family in the best country in the world, with a daughter preparing to join the Children's Union - her first step on the way to becoming a part of the system dreamed by the Great Kim Il-Sung.

In fact they kept the cameras rolling at all times and smuggled out the footage to create this film.  We see the handlers orchestrate everything, and we catch some glimpses of the realities of life in North Korea; including people digging through the trash, and passengers having to push a broken down bus to a garage.  It's a little like being given a back stage pass to "Triumph of the Will."

The director, Vitaliy Manskiy, wanted to make the film to help him understand Stalinism.  He thought the North Korean system was actually worse because the only arts are enormous spectacle while the Soviet Union retained, at least some of, its artistic life.

[The Brain]

Yes it's the predicament of the arts that comes to mind when we think about the negatives of the North Korean system.

Were any North Koreans imprisoned/worse for letting them get away with filming and smuggling out unauthorized footage?

[Savonarola]

Yes it's the predicament of the arts that comes to mind when we think about the negatives of the North Korean system.

Keep in mind that this is relative to Stalinism.

Were any North Koreans imprisoned/worse for letting them get away with filming and smuggling out unauthorized footage?

No one outside North Korea knows for sure.  Vitaliy Manskiy thought that some of his handlers were going to be in danger.

[The Brain]

Were any North Koreans imprisoned/worse for letting them get away with filming and smuggling out unauthorized footage?

No one outside North Korea knows for sure.  Vitaliy Manskiy thought that some of his handlers were going to be in danger.

He sounds like a great guy.

[garbon]

Starting to watch Trek now. One thing I realized is that virtually every Federation scene has had Burnham in it. I wonder if we'll ever diverge from focus on the one character like we typically do.

[HVC]

I was thinking they could tell stories about some of the other crew, but when your driving force is space fungus that might be hard to do. They might do some cool section 31 stuff though

[garbon]

Btw, I love that the main gay guy is very annoying...

Hopefully the gay doc will be less so.

[Eddie Teach]

Btw, I love that the main gay guy is very annoying...

[garbon]

Also, I think AV Club's take on the episode was pretty accurate. [spoiler]Onward and upward?[/spoiler]

[celedhring]

I'm liking Star Trek quite a bit, particularly what they did with the klingon storyline in this episode. I'm really having trouble with the whole teleporting fungi bit though, sounds a bit too silly 

[HVC]

Animal torture* and rainn Wilson, they might be going off the tracks?

* did they nipple clamp the tardigrade?

[KRonn]

Under the Sun (2015)

The director, Vitaliy Manskiy, wanted to make the film to help him understand Stalinism.  He thought the North Korean system was actually worse because the only arts are enormous spectacle while the Soviet Union retained, at least some of, its artistic life.

I guess this film won't be getting released in N. Korea.

[FunkMonk]

So the new Star Wars Last Jedi trailer just came out and it was cool and all, but honestly anything with TIE Fighters zooming by and lightsabers clashing is cool to me so my opinion shouldn't really carry much weight.

I have to say, I feel like they might be giving away a lot in the trailer, though. If you don't want spoilers I advise you don't see it.

[Habbaku]

Yeah, I deliberately skipped the trailer today for worry over potential spoilers. I'm going to go in pretty blind to the movie, if possible.

[CountDeMoney]

It's just going to be a repeat of Empire Strikes Back, but without the better writing and directing.