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Jeff Nichols recommended Dreams (1990) in Movies (curated)

 
Dreams (1990)
Dreams (1990)
1990 | International, Drama, Sci-Fi
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Let’s tall about Kurosawa‘s Dreams. When Bravo first came on television, they were figuring out who they were as a cable network and would just play random foreign films. This was before the travesty of reality television permeated their station. I was at home alone in high school, I think I was a junior in high school and Dreams comes on by Kurosawa. I could not separate myself from it. I didn’t know who Kurosawa was — I didn’t care. I was just a kid absorbing things that flashed on the screen in front of him. I was immediately captivated by this thing that was at once beautiful — obviously surreal — but at the same time palpable enough to actually hit home emotionally. I think not many people would probably describe scenes in my movies as surreal, but there are some. Kind of this magical realism that exists in that film. Also it feels ancient; it feels like when this boy comes home having witnessed the wedding of foxes and his mother’s there and says he can’t enter the home because he spied on the foxes and then presents a dagger to him and says, “They want you to kill yourself. Run. Run and ask for forgiveness.” It feels like an ancient story, it feels like something — I’m not sure what. It feels like something that kind of bubbled up from our beginning. I was fascinated by that. Just go watch it. It’s all skits, it’s basically short films strewn together. Get’s real weird by the end, but the first three are three of the greatest films I’ve ever seen."

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40x40

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Identity (2003) in Movies

Sep 22, 2020 (Updated Nov 26, 2020)  
Identity (2003)
Identity (2003)
2003 | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
"𝘈 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘪𝘦?! 𝘈 𝘉𝘢𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘪𝘦!"
*or*
"𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦, 𝘥𝘶𝘥𝘦, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥-𝘶𝘱, 𝘸𝘦𝘵, 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘢𝘺."

True "What the fuck is going on? Huh? What..? Who?? ... wait what the fuck is that I- um, did they just? What the hell, but...where? Why? Uh, how?" cinema. This sort of exasperatingly looney, balls-planted-firmly-to-the-wall thriller with like 60 twists is sort of played these days - but I'd imagine that in its day it was quite revelatory. This was honestly a hoot and a holler but sadly its greatness is sunk by James Mangold - for the most part - being a hack who has no clue how to dramatize, have any definable mark as a director, or make inherently compelling things at all very compelling unless the studio has a firm grip on the project. His films mostly look like flat TV movies and play like no one behind the camera has much of a clue on what they're doing beyond maybe an introductory film guide on the back of a cereal box. This one isn't all that different either, but material with *this* low of a regard for any sense of subtlety or earthly realism and with a gleeful eagerness to throw all of its cards violently onto the table any chance it gets has a pass from me - especially when it's acted by a banging troupe of crackerjack character actors and reliable leads like this one. Really, really fun and sincerely manic - Agatha Christie meets a line of coke at a gas station bathroom. Plus the uninterrupted, heaping downpour is a helluva gimmick and it works where Mangold doesn't.
  
    Infinite Tanks

    Infinite Tanks

    Games

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    Infinite Tanks features exactly what the name suggests – huge content - never ending lines of...

    Can Knockdown 3

    Can Knockdown 3

    Games and Entertainment

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    Be accurate! Be smart! Be quick! Challenge your aim, hone your precision, and push your...

The Portrait of Mr W.H.
The Portrait of Mr W.H.
Oscar Wilde | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Quick read. Great insight into the Victorian fin de siecle . Great suspence. (0 more)
Too quick. I wanted more. (0 more)
. As a paradox to the realism and ethics of the period, decadent writers, artists, and poets challenged a society that strove for a standard in public discourse.
First published in 1889, Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Mr W.H., is a short story about the efforts of three characters trying to discover the identity of Shakespeare’s Mr W.H. ; the dedicatee of his many sonnets. Wilde’s novel is a prime example of decadent literature and aestheticism, which, as a result, challenges the Victorian ideals of moral decency and public rectitude. The author uses paradox in the novel to present a theory that contradicts the conservative critics of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Wilde presents a subjective interpretation of Shakespeare’s sonnets that portrays homoerotic sexual desire as the force for creative inspiration. Foremost, through the character Cyril Graham, the author demonstrates that art is ‘an attempt to realise one’s own personality on some imaginative plane out of reach of the trammelling accidents and limitations of real life’, (Wilde, p.111).
Taking from a hypothesis in the previous century by Edmund Malone and Thomas Tyrwhitt, the character of Cyril forms a theory in which Mr W.H. is a young actor named Willie Hughes, employed by Shakespeare and who is the muse to which the sonnets are devoted. Cyril investigates each poem and pieces together a theory he believes to be true.

On the surface, Cyril’s theory derives from feeling and beauty rather than logic and instruction.
The withholding of facts in Shakespeare’s sonnets energises Cyril. He scours the poems to find a clue that harmonise with his own feelings. Cyril believes that Shakespeare influences his readers by guiding them to Willie Hughes.

Cyril, spurned by the moralistic interpretations of previous critics, becomes enthralled by Shakespeare’s muse.
  
TR
The Reapers are the Angels (Reapers, #1)
Alden Bell | 2010
6
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
If you're going into this book thinking you'll find an action-packed, zombie-mauling good-time, you're in for a surprise. THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS is literary zombie fiction (yes, you read that right), although it's not too literary it feels pretentious and stuffy, but it's not a totally light read either. There's violence chock full of blood and gore, a semi-solitary road trip, and God. Does it work? Yeah, in a way. The book was serious but there wasn't much depth and it didn't impact me as much as it probably should have. The plot is basically an odyssey, in which many diverse characters appear and we see how the main character, Temple, relates with them. One of these struck me as odd and took me out of the story. Before, the book showed realism and grit, then it came to giant mutants and turned into a sci-fi horror show. Frankly, it was just weird and didn't correlate with the rest of the story. Temple was an interesting character who told the tale well but was a contradiction; she's illiterate but knows words that few people do. Since she's always lived with "meatskins" and has never known the world before, her background doesn't support this and I found it didn't fit with her character at all. I got her but didn't care about her.

Honestly, I don't have much feeling for this book, I liked it but that's all, and while it's a good read, it's not great. If you like a thinking zombie story with philosophy and a stream of Christianity running through it, although it's not too deep, than you just might enjoy this book.