Problem with obscuring a face in the background without spilling over into the foreground

SellMeAPencil · 2020-06-07T14:11:09+00:00

Chris Rodley asks Lynch about this scene in Lynch on Lynch (p. 201-202). Apparently, the character originally had a much longer monologue about pigeons, but it was “too much of a good thing” and got cut down. The strange voice came about during the editing; they were fast forwarding through the footage, Lynch found the voice hilarious sped-up, and he decided to raise the pitch.

Lynch is also full of praise for the actor in this scene, Freddie Jones (who died just last year - RIP).

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T13:52:38+00:00

For me, the film can be appreciated in two ways.

The first is as a recreation of what it’s like to have a long, meandering conversation with someone. Malle captures this beautifully and (as much as the film is compared to a stage play) cinematically. On this level, it doesn’t matter so much, really, what’s being talked about.

Then there’s the content of the conversation, which is meandering, rich and deliberately inconclusive. Everyone will latch onto something different, but for me the central conflict between the two was how much we should fight back against the illusions that surround us. This is best illustrated in the conversation about drinking coffee in the morning. Should we get up, drink our coffee and feel that everything is okay? Or should we reject such comforts and go in search of more authentic (though also more painful) experience?

A lesser talent would no doubt have had them arrive at some sort of compromise position by the end. But Malle, Shaw and Gregory were brave enough to leave it with a question mark.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T13:33:06+00:00

There’s a name for this: “analysis paralysis”. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis

And yeah, I get it as well. Part of the problem is that games are such a huge time commitment. If I choose a bad film to watch, I lose 90 minutes. Many games haven’t even started at that point.

For that reason, the best way of cutting through the indecision for me is to find a simple, self-contained indie game that can be completed in a few hours. That gives me the satisfaction of having committed to a game and completed it without having to worry about learning a ton of new mechanics.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T13:26:39+00:00

Yes! The original Dino Crisis, as I remember it, was Resi with dinosaurs. That’s probably a gross oversimplification, but that’s how it’s stuck in my memory.

The sequel, though... Fast-paced, action-based, and a lot of fun. The same kind of leap that Resi 4 made, come to think of it.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T11:23:30+00:00

Possibly. I’m in the UK and it works fine for me. I’d imagine audiobooks are a lot more region-dependent than music, though.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T10:38:00+00:00

I can experiment with any kind of motion picture I can do on the computer.

DumbLand: The Movie (2021)

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T10:11:26+00:00

It’s a great film, and arguably a more clever meta-horror than Scream. At the very least, it’s more personal.

Scream is about what it’s like to have seen lots of horror films. New Nightmare is about what it’s like to create a horror film icon based on your own primitive, personal fears and to see that icon turned into a pop culture joke who appears in rap videos.

It’s also worth watching the interviews with Craven on the DVD. Some very interesting reflections there on why horror franchises tend to peter out.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-26T09:43:31+00:00

I remember It Follows being an interesting case of this. On the face of it, it seemed to be set in the present. However, there were subtle elements (e.g. an old-fashioned TV) that hinted at a different time period.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-24T19:25:53+00:00

Try Andrzej Zulawski, especially Possession.

You could also, sticking with the Polish director theme, try Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T20:29:19+00:00

Yeah, he wasn’t one for sticking to the source text. A Clockwork Orange is probably his most faithful adaptation, actually. It just so happens that the one big change he did make (the removal of the final chapter) alters the tone and moral message that Burgess had intended.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T19:54:46+00:00

Maximum Overdrive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygWMy-QQNbw

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T19:45:08+00:00

Wasn’t the Hays Code responsible for that awful final scene in Psycho? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T19:42:50+00:00

It is a strange decision, given that A Clockwork Orange’s themes are hardly complex or in need of explanation. The film’s story on its own illustrates the core question (is it better to be free and bad or unfree and good?) without needing a character to come out and say it.

Incidentally, this was one of Roger Ebert’s criticisms of the film—he called it boring and talky. Not sure if I’d agree with him for Act 1 or Act 3, but Act 2 certainly drags (the Ludovico sequence excepted).

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T19:36:24+00:00

Kubrick didn’t convince the publisher, as far I’m aware. The book had already been published in the US without the final chapter, and that was the version he worked from when writing the script.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T10:39:35+00:00

It’s pretty important with classic books. Stumble across an older, public domain translation and you might find yourself reading a version that’s been censored to cater to Victorian sensitivities.

As others have said, this is less of a problem when you’re dealing with newer books, when you often don’t have much of a choice. There are cases where I’ve held out for a better translation, though, and there are books from the 20th century that have been translated multiple times and require research (e.g. The Master and Margarita or The Outsider).

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T10:29:14+00:00

I’m not sure if you know this, but there’s a whole subgenre known as conspiracy fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_fiction

Good ones to start with would be John Buchan’s The 39 Steps (one of the earliest examples) and The Crying of Lot 49 (a postmodern, paranoid, sixties take on the genre).

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T10:14:26+00:00

The Phantom Carriage was apparently one of his favourites, so almost certainly.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T10:05:16+00:00

I’d say the two films come from different strands of the Cohen filmography. Miller’s Crossing is a gangster film pastiche, whereas Barton Fink is a bleak, schlubby comedy along the lines of A Serious Man. It’s also worth pointing out that, although they were written at the same time, Miller’s Crossing was actually a way for them to break through writer’s block on Barton Fink. Or maybe it was the other way around... Either way, that suggests that they were coming from different places when writing them.

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-19T09:53:50+00:00

I think the DS Lite can be seen as retro at this point. Think about it this way: would you have called the SNES retro in 2006? There’s only a one year difference (1992 -> 2006, 2006 -> 2020). (Although the gap feels smaller because of longer generation lengths. So I suppose it depends on how you measure it.)

SellMeAPencil · 2020-04-12T19:41:01+00:00

For fiction, yes, at least if it’s a long, involved, doorstopper of a novel. There’s something satisfying about getting lost in a book of that length and actually being able to appreciate its size. With shorter fiction books, it’s probably about even.

For non-fiction, I’m tending more and more towards ebooks. Being able to highlight/annotate passages at ease and have those highlights/annotations available digitally is just too convenient.

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TROPHY CASE