Entries tagged 'cat:Films'

The fucked up films that I like Entry created on 2025-12-03 (edited 2026-01-04) Authors: steeph (364) Categories: Drama (1) Films (21) Trageties (1)

There are many different films that I like. But among those I value the most and left impressions in my life are noticably many of a sort I struggled to describe in the past. Since I write about Films here almost as much as I talk about them I thought an attempt at a description of what films I enjoy might be relevant to the blog.

I don't know why - and I'm not interested in analysing why - but I enjoy watching heavy family dramas. I mean real dramas, not just films that are less comedy than drama. Films that manipulate the tear glands right. It doesn't have to be about a whole family either. The absence of one or a dysfunctioning family works as well. Story components that often work well for the sort of drama that I mean are injustice, unfair treatment, underdogs that don't get theit wishes fulfilled, life circumstances outside of someone's reach, tragedies. Child characters are easy to write into several of these circumstances. And it's easier to provoke strong empathy for them. Similarly, sad things that happen to them are usually more sad. For example a child of a heroin-addicted single mom doesn't choose its life circumstances. It's unfair, it's sad and circumstances are more likely to lead to another tragic event on top of the difficulties inherent the child's fateful situation. Love stories can also create strong feelings and evoke tears. But the best ones still use tragic story elements to get there. ("Oh, would they only know...") Sickness, death, child abuse, mental illness and accitents are resourceful and, in my opinion complementary and seldom extreme enough, story elements for dramas.

It might sound weird to enjoy watching other (fictional characters') misery as entertainment because crying feels good. And it sounds just as weird to me when I say it like that. But when it comes down to it, that's what it is that puts a film on my list of relevant, good dramas. Tragic situations with tragic developments and tragic outcomes. Scenes specifically written to pull at your heartstrings. My heartstrings let themseves be pulled by such scenes, even when the story seems excessively sad or annecessarily tragic to some. A film where you're not surprised that it doesn't have a happy ending is the sort of dramna that I enjoy. A film where you're not surprised by the fact that it doesn't have a happy ending but by how suprprisingly tragic it is has a good chance to maske it on my list of favourite films.

It's not that I enjoy seeing the misfortune or pain of others. It hurts to watch some movies. And when I learn that the movie was actually based on a true story it can hit even harder. But in some weird way, the distress caused by a tragic drama, making me not touch dramas at all for weeks or months or making me have bad dreams, and the excitement from watching a tragic drama, making me want to watch more, are the same feeling. The difference lies in my (current) ability to cope with the feelings.

This post is some sort of confession. I don't always feel comfortable explaining what sort of drama stories I'm looking for most. I put this reluctance aside for a few moments for writing this post. Maybe this will help me in the future to explain better what I'm looking for or what I like to watch. And if not, at least now you know and can recommend relevant media when the opportuunity comes.

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Mr. Robot Entry created on 2025-10-1 (edited 2025-10-20) Authors: steeph (364) Categories: Child Abuse (4) Delusion (1) Economics (1) Fight Club (1) Films (21) Hacking (1) Mental Health (2) Psychopathy (1) Schizophrenia (1) Split Personality (1) Topics: Films (15)

I must admit I enjoyed watching Mr. Robot. I don't know exactly why I think that it is something that Ihave to admit to. Maybe because I suspect that there are plenty of critical reviews and opinions on it out there. I didn't check. I'm writing this without looking up what others think about it, what fans of it talk about and what connections and references I didn't get.

Mr. Robot is a series of 45 ~45 minute episodes in four seasons. The first one was released in 2015. It's about mental illnesses and neurodivercity, coorporate and world politics, hacking and the a world conspiracy.

Season 1

The first season has a lot of similarities with the book and movie Fight Club. I go so far to say it is a reinterpretation/rewrite of the Fight Club story but with a continuation. It is that heavily inspired by the story and the movie's unique narrative style. Watching it for the first time was as gripping and exciting as watching Fight Club for the first time. Some story elements from Fight Club are not in it but additional parts of the story make for a little bit more complex story. Watching it for the second time years later was like watching Fight Club for the second time: Highly entertaining and I knew the story so I could pay attention to more details. The main story element it has compared to Fight Club is all the hacking. A typical American action movie take on social engineering, IT security and vulnarability exploitation _but_ with the surprising feature of being realistic and not embarrassing. There's always enough being shown and explained to let the viewer know that Sam Esmail knew what he was writing about. Yes, maybe it's not realisitic in the way conversations always contain the right amount of keywords and explanations to enable a bystander (the viewer) to easily look up more information. Yes, the main character seems to have a memory, knowledge and hacking skills ptobably not many on this planet have and he is quick suspiciously quick in gaining access or information he requires at any point of the story. But it is way better than in almost any other movie while containing way more hacks and related jargon than almost any other movie and it is being acknowledged by the narrator that some things take more time than he is given.

Season 2

Season two contiunes the story to a great extend. The narrative style is refined to its own Mr. Robot way of talking to the viewer in different ways and tones through different characters or personalities. One character seems to have changed a bit as decisions were made to take the story into a certain direction. It is a worthy continuation, stays true to the character and, as I know now, prepares the story for more than the viewer would expect, without leaving gaps to fill or unknowns to answer by what's going to happen in futures seasons, with is also an achievement. In the second season the first hints to an upcoming shift in the story are placed. At that point they only cause confusion or create questions, which is very much in the spirit of the rest of the show so far.

Season 3

There is a lot in Season three to make you find yourself in a completely different place at the end and not recognise what was important in the first two seasons. That is how fast the story develops. It all makes sense though. Well, it's fiction, but it's consistent and logical. Even though the character of the show doesn't change during the season, there is technically a change of genre in season three. The viewer might not be aware of it, yet, or might not realise what certain statements mean, but the shift from hacking drama to science fiction has begun.

Season 4

Season four feels a bit different with several new characters and several old characters, whose stories had already finished, coming back with new stories. Sex and violence are upped for the last season. Hacking scenes do not occur as often.. The show becomes more like other American crime thrillers. But it does still feel like Mr. Robot. That is not the shift in genre I meant that makes this season special. I call it science fiction. Somebody else calls it paranormal. The project that, through connections with all substories of the show, caused everything that happened in season two and later, is very slowly being reveiled to the viewer. Not to spoil too much, just in case. But then everything turns out to be otherwise again, which is exactly the way you could have ecpected after knowing what you know about Elliot, and the last episode resembles an homage to Mr. Nobody more than one to Fight Club.

Camera Angles

The unusual camera angles that often introduce a new scene or change in scenery deserve a shout-out. I don't know how how this works in film, who decides on these shots. But whoever is responsible should be proud of them. They often highlight shapes or peaces of architecture by placing the camera vewry close to them, leaving only little space in the frame for the actual to take place in. But because those close objects and shapes are out of focus and not moving, you naturally view the small part of the frame where people are having a conversation. One scene dtarts by showing just a grey wall with a grey rubber knub, Then a door opens from out of frame and a women steps in. We don't see her face, but can recognise her from her coat and the long hair that reaches into the frame. She steps around something that is also no in frame, then sits on it. (It was a chair.) Now her face is placed perfectly in the frame in profile. Then after a seconds it cuts to the other person sitting at the other side of the table. We knew the roomm, who's in there and who's about to enter it. That makes the interesting composition all the more estimable. (I've never heard the word estimable. But dict.cc says it's a good fit. Whatever.)

Music

This is the first time I feel that way. But this sound track must be worth listening to on its own on any day. More than a few times a scene started with a song that fades into the background as the scene starts to have other sounds to be heard, like a conversation, and I wanted to continue to listen to the song. I'll have to check out some of those songs.

Transgender Character

By mentioning it here I might be breaking this excellent handling of the matter of a transgender character in the show being embedded in the story without ever mentioning it or making it the topic of any scene. But considering how bad the topic was handled in TV shows over the last decades, it is worth mentioning how matter-of-factly this subsidiary matter is included. She is shown presenting herself as a male and as a female in different contexts. And the first times she is referenced she is attributed the pronoun he simply because she is part of an anonymous hacker personality and people tend to assume they are male. As people learn more about her more and more people start to use "she". In a way the show includes her transition in the eyes of, well, not the public, exactly, but a the group of people we follow throughout the show.

Overall

I praise this show for various different things. Among it: Unique characters, good to very good actors (including a strong crying scene), a non-judgemental depiction of mental illness, a realistic amount of sex and romance for a story not about romance or sex (at least until the last season), recreating and adding to the cinematic style and story of Fight Club and more. The main thing for which I like the show though is its unique approach of using a coporate director's fraudulent decision, various mental health challanges of more than one character, a family drama, a disruptive revolution/economic crash, world politics, a worldwide conspiracy tale and lots of IT security substories to very elaborately introduce a science-fiction plot that in itself wouldn't have been new or very exciting/entertaining for long. That is what I like to see in it. What it is affter all and most of all is a portrait of a mentally ill IT security worker and his issues. A real review of the show should contain a lot of sentences about the dillusions, illusions, different personalities, drug habit, coping strategies, challenges, memory gaps and mental blanks of Elliot. I feel like many of these things are portrayed in a way one with similar problem could relate to. The topic of mental illness is certainly portrayed in a way I havent seen before. But I don't know enough to analise those aspects of the series.

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Film: Baby Invasion Entry created on 2025-09-24 Authors: steeph (364) Categories: AI Art (1) Art (2) Films (21) Gaming (1) Murder (1) Video Games (4) Violence (1) Topics: Films (15)

How do I pick the movies I write about here? I never thought about it but I think it's when 1) I have something to say after watching it and 2) I still have to get it out when I find the time and energy to write it down. It's this or I want to share or recommend a film. This is not a case of the latter. I don't think anybody has to watch that movie, which is why I was thinking about why I want to write about it. Anyway, I don't have to be able to explain why. I just have to accept that of all the films I had something to say about, it's this weird one I find myself acually writing about. Maybe I should write more often about movies to balance this one out with more positive things.

Baby Invasion is the latest film by Harmony Korine. I found some of his earlier films intriguing. Some just didn't give me anything. Some made me think. Some entertained me. He has done some things in his films that feel unique, experimental and new. Artsy, but in a way that I feel is not 100 % over my head. Art that I can get something out of. This is why I watched the new one. I can't say I was disappointed because I didn't know what to expect from it. I just knew it wouldn't be how I would expect a film with the same storyline to be if somebody else had written and directed it. But I can't say I like the film either.

What is it about? I'm asking because I don't really know for sure. It's about a video game that was made with the goal of blend reality and the game. Supposedly a trend formed online of people living out the narrative of the game by raiding rich people's mansions and killing everybody inside. The film consists of such a live stream, whereas the viewer is not informet whether it is a live stream of a game, an out-of-game raid or whether there is a difference between the two. I think it is at least implied that what we are seeing is not in game, but an actual raid. But that opens the question of why there are visual effects and game overlays then.

I don't dislike it. But I didn't enjoy watching it. It is a strain on my patience. I skipped some bits the first time because nothing (new) was happening. And I still didn't finish it in one day. After I finished it I made sure I didn't miss anything from skipping the most boring bits. Maybe it's not boring to people who watch video game streams or their recordings. I can't say.

The overall visual impression, especially the visual effects, which are plentiful and obtrusively extensive, look out of place and purposless. They remind of an 1980s art clip by somebody who just found access to video effects and filters and wants to use them all, but with modern AI effects. It is these effects and the constant trance music from some generic trance playlist that create the overall feeling of the film. The content feels second nature. Maybe it was intentional to create more of a distance between the actions of the "players" and the viewer's emotions than a movie already has. Throughout the movie video game-like overlays appear, often without an obvious reason or purpose. A chat/shout box accomponies the 90 minute long live stream. Like the colour changes and other visual effects the overlays become more over time. If it wouldn't have been for all the blinking and first person shooter-like camera movement, the violent content would have been the only thing preventing me from letting the music and colours suck me into a light meditative state. I think it was mostly the violence (repeated murder) and blood that deterred me.

The visual effects shouldn't have surprised me. Harmony Korine used some of them in AGGRO DR1FT, his previous film. But I hadn't seen this before I've watched Baby Invasion. With either of those films I think he has crossed the line of artsy films into a genre I call "I guess it must be art", which I use for films where it really isn't clear to me what they are trying to do, what they are saying, whether there is a story that's being told or what I can take away from watching them. Of course I could try and analyse anything and I would find something to read into this or that and I would find something for me to think about. And that's often all that art is to me or has to be. But I don't feel like I'm part of the target audience of such works and posting even a little bit about what the film is for me has the potential to become embarrassing because I didn't really understand anything and therefore might have missed some connections or messages that are very important to the film.

But here is my take anyway. Is it a video game/shooter critique à la eXistenZ (1999)? I think yes but more. It doesn't tell a story to entertain the viewer. It shows the game/crimes in real time for the viewer to react to but with enough visual and auditory game effects to make any interpretation of how "real" the shown actions are valid. It poses some questions more directly than eXistenZ does: How real are these actions (and customs and habits) to the brain of the player? What of the conventions applied in game break their way through to other parts of the players life? How much of the experiences stays after the game session? I don't know anything about the motivations of Harmonie Korine to create this film. But I do read it as game-skeptic take on shooters like eXistenZ. I compare it with that film because it also seems to ignorantly ask those quartions as if there are no solid answers about them. Yes, it is a controversial debate. But even though it is usually not a fact-based one, there are more than a few scientific papers on the topic now, and have been for 15 years. It is paying tribute to a bogus debate, which doesn't have any value to me. But that's just what I've read into it. When you take the same questions and apply them to a gamers everday life, on a smaller frame, they seem much more valid to me. But that is something I don't have any personal experience with or interest in.

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Creator's Audio Comments on Movies Entry created on 2025-04-19 (edited 2025-07-16) Authors: steeph (364) Categories: Films (21) Languages used: en (251)

I like watching movies that I liked or found interesting again with audio comments. As directors keep mentioning, they wonder who listens to them, or whether anybody seriously wants them at all. But I don't understand this scepticism. They often are genuinly interesting. When you're really into a movie or franchise, DVD bonus material (or online videos that could have been DVD bonus material) are great to feed a fan's longing for more input. And an audio commentary to a movie is like 90 minutes of extra bonus material. This is why, when buying DVDs, I often make my decision dependable on whether there is audio commentary included or not. Recently I've watched more movies' audio commentary in a short amount of time than usual. That's why they're on my mind.

In my mind, there are a couple of types of audio commentary.

Director's Fan Service

This is the most common kind of audio commentary found on movie DVDs. The director talks about the scenes currently seen on screen, gives background information, tells an interesting anecdote from the set, explains the idea behind a scene, talks about difficulties on the way to the final scene, indroduces an actor, comments on a camerapersons creativity, mentions cut scenes, alternative story paths or differences between the original script and the result, thanks somebody for creative input, and so on. There is often some of this in the other types of commentaries, which is good because it's what I'm mostly interested in. Directors usually have more than enough to say to fill a movie's length with more or less constant comments. If not it can be like the following kind of audio commentary.

Director's Mandatory Overtime

If the director doesn't feel like doing the commentary, can't be bothered or for some other reason can't think of interesting things to say it can seem like they were made to record the commentary. Some comments every other scene, some renark inbetween two scenes but half the movie is still playing without any commentary. This can be disappointing and maybe even boring. But it's still so much more than no commentary at all. Sometimes in these cases the commenting person resort to describing what's seen on screen because nothing else comes to mind.

Director's Film Industry Lecture

A solution to not having anything interesting to say about what's playing can be to just talk about whatever the directo feels like talking about. Whose (of their colleagues) work is underrated, what people don't understand about certain classic movies, what they would like to work on in the future, who acts well with whome, practical tipps for other directors and so on. Not what I expect from a movie's audio commentary. But it can be interesting, too.

Director and Actor's Dialogue

My favourite audio commentaries are of this kind. If two to four people come together and watch a movie they have made together, there's certainly enough to talk about. It can be chaotic, harmonic, mostly one-sided or evenly distributed. Because of the extra dynamic those tend to be the most cheerful. They can also leave me wondering what each of the people would have had to tell if they each had had the entire movie's time alone.

Individual Commentaries for Different Departments

When much more than three people are to record audio commentary it makes sense to separate them into two or more commentary tracks. Sometimes teams are separated into departments. For example actors, camera and lighting or costume and set designers record their own commentary. This format is probably especially interesting for people who work in film or are aspecially interested in some part of the production process.

Edited Compilation of Comments

While it is true that producing an audio commentary is an easy way to add long playing bonus material to a DVD compared to producting other types of material, that doesn't mean that no work is put into producing them. Sometimes various people record their comments individually and the most interesting comments are chosen for the commentary track.

Interrupting the Playback

One of the features with which Video DVD was promoted as more useful than VHS and DV was the ability to change the order or selection of video content depending on the viewer's choice. This sadly rarely used feature means a DVD can contain several different cuts of a movie or let the viewer decide how a story continues. Only once I saw a DVD that contained the setting to interrupt the movie with clips of the director commenting on the current scene. I forgot which movie that was.

Visual Commentary

Not audio commentary. But it can go along with an audio commentary track. These are DVD dubpictures (little drawings, diagrams, text, handwriting, arrows) that may contain additional information, funny remarks, etc. They are overlayed just like subtitles. But often positioned outside of the movies' imagery, meaning one has to use the player's settings to create black bars and hope that it still renders the additional pictures, which software DVD players don't do.

Fan's Reaction Videos

These might not be belong in this list. But I think they're not fundamentally diffeerent and some audio commentary tracks come close to fan commentary in that some people who were involved in making a movie can be fan of a franchise or looking up to a director or actors. Quality of video commentary varies widely. But there are interesting commentary tracks out there that add something to the experience if you're going to re-watch a film for the 8th time anyway.

Here are some movie's DVD audio commentaries that I found special or otherwise worth mentioning.

The eXistenZ' third audio commentary track featuring two enthusiastic special effects artists that manage to talk about a few dozen other movies as well as the one they're watching and commenting on. Thus it is making for an interesting podcast episode.

Too much time has passed since I've decided to list some special examples. It's been too long since I've listened to them and now I can't remember which they were. I'll leave it at that for now.

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Film: Everything Everywhere All at Once Entry created on 2024-11-14 Authors: steeph (364) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Fighting (1) Films (21) Matrix (1) Multiverse (1) Rocks (1) Science Fiction (2) Taxes (1) Languages used: en (251) Topics: Films (15)

When I first saw that movie I felt like I had just watched a work in movie history that marks a bifurcation: Before and after the existance of this film. Similarly to Matrix. There's before and after. Before being a world in which such a film does not exist and after a world in which anything produced will be compared to it. On the top of the list of reasons for why I felt that way is probably how unique and unseen many of the ideas of this film have been (to me).

Because of my inability to describe stories of films accurately in few or single sentences, I'll just quote Letterboxd here: "An aging Chinese immigrant is swept up in an insane adventure, where she alone can save what's important to her by connecting with the lives she could have led in other universes."

I still like to see the film as this unique piece of movie history. And I will always praise it for some uncommon and daring choices, well-chosen portrayals of chaos, carelessly genius storytelling and its ability to surprise and entertain me more than any move in years, which now, after decades of watching all movies that sound interesting, itself is an achievement. I don't know what additional impression it has on Asian-Americans. (Apparently some details are easy to relate to for sombody who has grown up as an American with Chinese parents.) I also can't view it from the angle of an immigrant parent. I recognise that there are things to say about this part of the story. I can't with my experience though. But as a science fiction action film alone it has made my day, week and more when I saw it. The contrast between everyday life and science fiction action life probably plays a big role in making the impression of something that I haven't seen before. It is an overall good film. Even the fighting scenes are creative and worth watching. I often either skip parts of fighting scenes or with I has skipped them because it's enough to see who one/how many are down/whether somebody is injured or dead at the end of the scene. Most movie fighting coreography is the same moves in a new order with marginally creative new elements. This is an exception, as Matrix was, and contains some really creative stuff. (Maybe the first fighting scene is still the best in this regard though.) So many things especially the main character experiences and does are unexpected; can't be expected because this multiverse family story has never been told before.

I'm sure for most people the film will go down in history as just another science fiction film. The fact that I got the DVD a few weeks after it's cinema release for 6 €, which is as low as new DVD prices go, I think, suggests that it's not seen as an especially successful movie. I intentionally didn't look up how well it did and what most people think of it. For me it's a genius film for many reasons. And I'm not even a person looking back at my life and thinking about what could have been if I had made different choices. How good must the film be if you can relate to any of it's topics? I feel confirmed in my impression that this film is unlike any other before by the titles listed under "Similar Films" on Letterboxd: Free Guy, Guardians of the Galaxy, Barbie, Matrix

Some may think the crazy travelling-between-worlds stull was too much, because it goes on and on. But I like that. It has enough crazy ideas to not make it boring. One scene that ends in switching between worlds each frame for seconds, made a special impression with me, because it went on for longer than it has to, and then still went on for longer than I thought it might. A few seconds for which you nee 30 new ideas/images/worlds for each second, it was quite long. When looking at the individual frames I noticed that many are repeated multiple times and others are almost identical (from the same world, so to speak). I'll attach here all the different images from that scene that were shown too short to appreciate them.

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Deutsche Untertitel für A Brony Tale Entry created on 2024-07-18 Authors: steeph (364) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Bronies (2) Documentary (1) Fandom (1) Films (21) My Little Pony (10) Subtitles (1) Languages used: de (88)

Es gibt da eine weniger bekannte Dokumentation über Bronies, als die Bronies-Doku. Auch über die bekannte von John de Lancie gäbe es etwas zu schreiben. Aber egal. Einfach vergessen. Die muss nicht gekauft werden. Interessanter (auch weil weniger bekannt) ist die Doku mit dem Titel A Brony Tale.

A Brony Tale von Brent Hodge gibt einen Einblick in das Fandom von My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic indem die Frage "Was sind Bronys" langsam und aus der Sicht von Ashleigh Ball beantwortert, während sie entscheidet, ihre erste Brony-Convention zu besuchen und Fans ihrer Voice-Arbeit trifft. Ashleigh Ball kennt ein Publikum von Fans bisher nur von Konzerten ihrer Band. Als Sprecherin zweier Hauptcharaktere in der Animationsserie (im englischsprachigen Original) wurde sie aber auch unter Bronys ein Name und häufig zu Panel auf Fan-Conventions eingeladen. Es gibt auch Einschätzungen anderer zu dem Fandom, aber keine wirklich kritische Beurteilung oder negative Betrachtungsweise. Ein guter Film für jemanden, den die Frage oder das Thema interessiert. Aber keiner, der weit ins Detail geht oder viel Wissen über die Subkultur vermitteln will. Die Bewertungen haben recht viele Ausreißer nach oben und untern, liegen aber größtenteils im unteren Mittelfeld. Also, nichts besonders Tolles, aber als Teil des Fandoms fand ich ihn sehr gut.

Nachdem der Film veröffentlicht wurde gab es wohl auch mal Pläne, ihn im deutschen TV zu zeigen. Jedenfalls hatte mir Brend Hodge derzeit glaubhaft gemacht, dass es Interesse eines Senders gegeben hätte und quasi nur noch ein Termin gefunden werden musste. Ich hatte damals meistens Zeit und Kopfkapazitäten frei und habe gerne und viel an Gemeinschaftsprojekten mitgearbeitet oder bei Crowd-Sourcing-Aktionen mitgemacht. Mein Angebot, dass ich die deutschen Untertitel für den Film schreibe, um eine Entscheidung für die Ausstrahlung im deutschen Fernsehen wahrscheinlich zu machen, nahm er dankend an. So habe ich gelernt, Untertitel zu schreiben. Praktischerweise gibt es gute freie Software, die die Arbeit erleichtert. Als professionell ist das Ergebnis sicherlich nicht anzusehen. Die Zeilen sind viel zu verbos und bestimmt hier und da zu direkt übersetzt. Aber ich halte das Ergebnis für benutzbar und frei von Fehlern. Aus der Ausstrahlung ist wohl nichts geworden. Vielleicht war es auch ein Missverständnis, weshalb ich danach nie wieder von ihm gehört/gelesen habe.

Aber die Untertiteldatei wollte ich dann doch mal irgendwo veröffentlichen, weil sich das mit brauchbarer Software so gehört. SRT und XML (SubtitleEdit-Datei, nicht TTML) sind im Anhang verlinkt. Der eigentliche Film nicht, weil ich das bestimmt nicht darf. Schade. Naja. Keine Ahnung wie brauchbar die Untertitel heute noch sind, bei den ganzen Tools, die die Untertitel-Arbeit mehr als nur vereinfachen.

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The Best Movies Ever Entry created on 2024-07-10 Authors: steeph (364) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Films (21) Languages used: en (251)

I like to recommend movies. Because I like to discover movies that serve me as a source of a good mystery, an emotional journey, or fun. But it's not easy to recommend some film to somebody with a different taste than me, which is everybody that I know. But I think it is pretty likely that you will like this recommendation - if you take the time to follow it.

Something like three years ago I've started to watch the titles on the then current IMDb Top 250 Movies list. The way I do it is to keep the next 8 to 16 titles with me, ready to watch when I like to. When I'm not in the mood for a movie, find it booring or for other reasons not worth following through, I skip to the next one but keep the skipped movie to give it at least another two chances. That way I always have at least some very good movies with me, ready to be watched, even when I'm travelling or have no access to the internet. I started this because there are some very well known and very popular movies that I had never watched and I didn't know if that's because of a preonception or not. I'm slowly going through the classics of all genres. Even the horror movies I at least watch for a while. Although I say that horror is not for me, there are some very good ones that I enjoyed in a way. I've watched Casablanca and North By Northwest and get those references now and I know that I don't need to watch them again. I get to see some Chinese and Indian movies that I would have never had the idea to check out. I've seen 12 Years a Slave and To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time and now their relevance now. So many other great movies that I had missed out on for a long time for various reasons. I've eaven discovered some movies that really are for me but I've never heard of before, like Paris, Texas and Jagten. Again, all the classics people from different generations expect others to know, like The Shawshank Redemption" and Psycho, are in the reportoir of comparisons I can make now. From some I learned pieces of history, like from Hotel Rwanda and Gandhi . Some Anime like Hotaru no haka and Kimi no na wa., I would probably have never watched if they weren't rated that highly. ANd in between all of that, I get to watch many of my favourite movies as well as very good movies that I haven't seen since I was much younger.

I don't watch all of them, by far. And that is where I'll stop naming titles in pairs, or at all. I just don't like some movie styles and others are too boring or too far outside of my reality (without any element that keeps my interest up otherwise) and so I abandon them after a couple of attempts to make me interested. I'm not through yet. There are still many classics coming up. And even now there are new titles on the current list, like Oppenheimer and Joker, that I know I'd like to watch. So either when I will be through my list, I'll look at the then current one and see if I want to catch up or start anew. Because many of these movies are worth wathing again after five years.

In my experience, watching one after one of these movies has been a great way to discover new movies of very high quality, rediscover old gems, get to know classics and re-watch favourites because it is a relatively broad list. Not one that is confined to genres, a time period or a culture that I'm familiar with and that I already know has movies that I like.

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Film: Womb (2010) Entry created on 2023-02-05 Authors: steeph (364) Categories: Death (7) Films (21) Incest (1) Languages used: en (251)

What three words come to your mind first that describe the film?

Soft, Love, Incest. Well, to be honest, those are the first three. I wish the third one would have been a different word. The forth one would have been Sci-Fi. More keywords are: cloning, childhood, ostracization, ocean, death, depression

How does the film end?

The scene that is shown first in the film is chronologically the last scene in the story. So, that's how the story ends. The rest of the film creates the meaning of what is seen and what she sais in that first scene.

Which two movies is this one a mix of?

Kind of Birth (2004) and Be Right Back (2014, Black Mirror epispde). It's not the same story as Birth. But if you've seen it you will notice the similarities, about which I don't want to tell too much here. Maybe even more so for Be Right Back.

How does that melody go?

DING DING DING DING. ding DING DING DING DING. ding DING DING DING DING DING ding. DING DING DING DING ding. ding ding DING DING DING DING … It's a mostly slow movie. This slow melody sets or accompanies the mood during moments where nothing happens, like during scenery shots. I can't forget that melody. Actually, the melody doesn't reaccur after the beginning of the story. (The instrument does, though.) But still, I can't forget that melody.

Why is Doctor Who there?

Matt Smith is the name of the actor. I see hom so rarely in roles other than The Doctor. This is an entirely different sort of science fition. He still did good.

What open questions remain at the end of the movie?

Why is the new Thomas physically atracted to Rebecca when he only knows her as his mother? How will the new Thomas's life be like after he knows?

Would you watch it again two weeks later because it's a good movie and can be enjoyed twice?

Yes. And I Have.

What's the overall mood of the movie?

I'd say: peaceful. Not every scene and everything that happens is peaceful. But most of the time that's the prevelant mood that I got from it.

You said love is one of the themes of the film. What sort of love story is it?

Well, I didn't use those words. But alright. Was it true love, love at first sight, first love and the love of her life all at the same time? If so then I'm counting it as an achievement that the film told the story without getting cheesy. The following relationships are adressed: childhood friendship, young love, son - mother, mother - son (erotic). Shown but not really addressed much are those: one-night stand, grandfather - granddoughter parents - dead son.

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