stee

Everyone says this movie is accessible. It is boring as fuck. Devin mentions the TV-Movie quality of the production design as if it is in any way something that is worth appreciating. It looks dark and cheap. They argued for the cultural impact of Star Trek the TV series: great points that don't apply to this movie, which has had almost no cultural impact. If the best point you can make is a Kill Bill title card you are not convincing anyone. People love Star Trek because they think it has anything interesting to say about humanity etc. It doesn't, but this movie doesn't really try for that either. Instead you get old people fretting about their lives and then skyping with another older man and that is the whole movie. Devin refers to submarine thrillers and Master and Commander as movies that similarly have tense "action" sequences comparable to what goes on at the end of Wrath of Khan. It's super fucking boring. It was very clear from the conversation that this movie is well-loved by fans of the TV show, but as a movie on its own it doesn't have much going for it. I would argue that the conversation itself bears this out. Also just because the story is trying to comment on contemporary society does not make it particularly special, since there are plenty of movies that attempt that including basically all science fiction. Star Trek is not unique at all in this regard. Commenting on the duality of life and death is also not provocative or groundbreaking, even for the genre.

I loved that Devin mentioned the fine line Boogie Nights walks between laughing at its characters and taking them seriously, it seems like so often it is doing both! The scene where Dirk's mother is attacking him for being a moron read as comic to me, at the same time that I saw it as a portrayal of a really abusive relationship. That scene, as well as a huge chunk of the Wahlberg/John C. Reilly bro-ey-ness felt like a prototype of the kinds of jokes you see in current Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly movies, things like Walk Hard or Step Brothers. I was wondering if anyone else noticed that or if I was projecting. I chose There Will Be Blood over Boogie Nights because it is so alien. Amy mentioned the way in which it can come across as self-important, or at least is so purposefully a big deal movie, and I completely agree with that to a point. I remember a guy I knew in high school who went through a phase of quoting all of Daniel Plainview's quirky lines. He wears a lot of vintage clothing now. I can see that there is a crowd of people, maybe in the same way as Fight Club, who love the hardscrabble unshaven macho of Daniel Day Lewis without seeing his critique of it. But watching this movie again, I think that it is its own unique thing to a greater extent than can be said for Boogie Nights. It is more focused, and (arguably) less cinematically referential.

I think La ley del deseo would be a great pick, and I second the motion for La piel que habito, I think it came out right before trans issues hit the mainstream and it would be super interesting to hear peoples' opinions on it in 2016!

Definitely no. I really loved Amy's arguments this week. There were certainly funny moments in this movie but overall the parts that Devin argued gave the movie deeper meaning seemed more like a bad morality play to me.