TV/Movies Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

I think one thing that would have improved 12 Years is if they had highlighted more of the internal development of the main character: I've landed in this totally shit life and my chances of getting out are slim, so what do I do with myself.  That would have elevated the movie from documentary status to after school special at least.

[Sheilbh]

The show was called 'Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloody­mindedness: Concrete Poetry'.

One reviewer pointed out that Meades' confidence in Brutalism is so strong that he spent the first episode mainly listing the problems with it: ugly, cold, totalitarian. He even spent a good amount insulting the first evangelist of British Brutalism, a man 'trampled over his grandmother to snuggle up to a passing trend'.

And of course in terms of legacy Nazi bunkers have proved far more influential than Speer.

Edit:

I think one thing that would have improved 12 Years is if they had highlighted more of the internal development of the main character: I've landed in this totally shit life and my chances of getting out are slim, so what do I do with myself.  That would have elevated the movie from documentary status to after school special at least.

But isn't there the same problem there that I mentioned to Viking?

[Viking]

Plot matters in some films.

For me I don't think 12 Years A Slave needed 'plot' and I think it would've kind of been a lie, given the subject of the film.

Well, in that case, is this a movie that needed to be made? Perhaps Pudd'nhead Wilson would have worked better? At least it has a plot and a character arc.

[Viking]

I think one thing that would have improved 12 Years is if they had highlighted more of the internal development of the main character: I've landed in this totally shit life and my chances of getting out are slim, so what do I do with myself.  That would have elevated the movie from documentary status to after school special at least.

But isn't there the same problem there that I mentioned to Viking?

No, you seemed to claim that it worked fine without a plot or character development.

[Malthus]

The show was called 'Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloody­mindedness: Concrete Poetry'.

One reviewer pointed out that Meades' confidence in Brutalism is so strong that he spent the first episode mainly listing the problems with it: ugly, cold, totalitarian. He even spent a good amount insulting the first evangelist of British Brutalism, a man 'trampled over his grandmother to snuggle up to a passing trend'.

And of course in terms of legacy Nazi bunkers have proved far more influential than Speer.

Heh, I had the misfortune of spending my undergraduate years looking up books in a "masterpiece" of Brutalism right here in Toronto: Robarts Library.

The place was designed to treat students with the contempt they so obviously deserve.  Why else would a rational person deliberately make a reference library set on a triangular floor-plan, thus making looking up books as confusing as possible? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robarts_Library

I loved these two notes:

Robarts Library is thought to be the model for the secret library in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Eco spent much of the time writing the novel at the University of Toronto, and the stairwell of the secret library bears a particularly strong resemblance to that in Robarts Library.[4]

Robarts was used for exterior shots of the prison setting in Resident Evil: Afterlife. The entire building is visible numerous times, having been digitally edited and transplanted from its downtown Toronto location to Los Angeles. In the film, it has been surrounded by a prison wall and hundreds of thousands of zombies.

[Sheilbh]

Well, in that case, is this a movie that needed to be made?

That's a rubbish limit for any art. Purposiveness without purpose and all that.

No, you seemed to claim that it worked fine without a plot or character development.

It made the film better. Although admittedly my view is that it's almost perfect. The film's about this man's life as a slave and it presents slavery more fully, I feel, than similar movies I've seen. The views of slaveholders are represented, but so's the sound of cotton-picking and the physical lives of slaves.

I think once you get into plot or character development you're putting that at risk. At best I think it would clutter the film. At worst I think it would contradict what the film seems to be trying to do, by creating a story and a meaning. We do that enough anyway because it's an individual memoir, so we know Northrup leaves. I don't think it needs more than that.

[Sheilbh]

Heh, I had the misfortune of spending my undergraduate years looking up books in a "masterpiece" of Brutalism right here in Toronto: Robarts Library.

There's a couple of Brutalist classics in Quebec too:
http://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1970/loewshotel.html
http://inhabitat.com/habitat-67-montreals-prefab-pixel-city/

The place was designed to treat students with the contempt they so obviously deserve.  Why else would a rational person deliberately make a reference library set on a triangular floor-plan, thus making looking up books as confusing as possible? 

There was a great line in the second episode. Roughly that 'Brutalism demanded an audience and then proceeded to assault them'

The Eco fact's really wonderful though. That man's an absolute magpie.

[viper37]

There's a couple of Brutalist classics in Quebec too:
http://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1970/loewshotel.html

Sadly, no longer an hotel, and no more restaurant at the top of it
But it was recognized as emblematic of Quebec city, just as much as the Château Frontenac.

http://inhabitat.com/habitat-67-montreals-prefab-pixel-city/

that's just plain ugly.

[garbon]

http://inhabitat.com/habitat-67-montreals-prefab-pixel-city/

that's just plain ugly.

Yes, I was remarking on how hideous it is on my last trip.

[jimmy olsen]

12 Years a Slave - like every real life story doesn't have a narrative character arc, but is merely a sequence of events (in this case all shitty events) in a life.

I don't think that's true for every life story.

How about Oskar Schindler, he had a character arc.

[Sophie Scholl]

True Detective's opening remade for Seedy and Ed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yszT9gkE4s

[CountDeMoney]

Is it: Call of Cathulhu?

[Ed Anger]

I've never watched True Detective. Or get HBO.

[Grey Fox]

I've never watched True Detective. Or get HBO.

Don't like Boobs?

[Ed Anger]

I've never watched True Detective. Or get HBO.

Don't like Boobs?

You sound lumpen proletariat.