Frances Ha was very good.

damn i should've bought an LED. i wish i knew more about this kind of stuff. when i get rich i'm going to buy a ridiculously technologically advanced television (probably virtual reality hologram projectors by then.)

Really doesn't cost that much for a great TV nowadays. Both of my TVs probably would cost at max half of their current price today. Plus you can get a lot of life out of a TV.

With a lot of tech, particularly TVs, it's often worth waiting until they're relatively common rather than paying through the nose for something that's then state-of-the-art. Technology advances so rapidly, with bugs and faults surrounding certain systems taking a while to get ironed out, that you're better off waiting a few years and picking up something more reliable for cheap. I still shake my head at my dad spending almost two grand on a wide-screen CRT when, within a few years, you could buy a bigger flat-screen for substantially less.

your counterpoints make me feel better

I didn't think Identity Thief would be the best written movie, but I enjoy both Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman and hoped they could elevate the movie beyond what I assumed to be its modest potential, but they didn't. Really awful movie. I'm not sure it had even a single laugh-out-loud moment for me.

Wreck-It Ralph
8.2/10

Brave
8/10

The Incredibles
9/10

Up
8.5/10

Toy Story 3
9.2/10

WALL·E
10/10

Sounds about right.

I've watched a few cool documentaries recently, the result of me trawling r/Documentaries for anything that takes my fancy.

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)

The film follows Okuzaki Kenzo, a veteran of the Imperial Japanese Army, as he travels around Japan in a messianic quest to right perceived wrongs his regiment experienced during the Pacific War in New Guinea. At the start of the film, he strikes a rather endearing, if not eccentric, character. In one scene, with tears in his eyes, he tells the widow of one of his brothers in arms the fate that befell her late husband, offering to pay for her to take a trip to the island on which he died. Another, far more amusing, scene shows him addressing a large gathering, demonstrating his commitment to his cause by referencing the time he spent over a year in prison for distributing pornographic images of Emperor Hirohito. This devil-may-care attitude manifests itself in an increasingly unpleasant fashion as the film progresses however. The bulk of the film is given to him acting on behalf of the siblings of two men executed by his regiment several days after the armistice. One starts to become fullly aware of his fanaticism when the siblings decided that they're satisfied with the answers they've been given, but Kenzo decides that they were too weak to see things through to the end, so he enlists his wife and an old Anarchist friend to pose as the siblings of the deceased. What follows is Kenzo repeatedly bursting into the homes of elderly veterans, demanding that they atone for crimes he's convinced they've committed, frequently resorting to physically assaulting them when they refuse to give him the answers he wants to hear. What is revealed in the epilogue would be more shocking had this film been what I had originally expected, that is a look at the lingering effects of war on those touched by it, rather than a case study in fanatical lunacy.

With all that said it's still an interesting, gripping film, even as it is frequently discomforting.


Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)

Individuals wrongly accused of serious crimes seems to be a fairly common topic amongst documentary film makers, particularly after the success of a number of films looking at the West Memphis 3 case. What set's this one apart from all the others I've seen, though, is the focus placed on the defence team as opposed to the suspect or other investigating party. This film watched more like a training manual in how to be a good public defender than it did an in depth look at all aspects of the particular case. Plenty of weight is given to facts as exculpatory evidence, while much less is given to the thoughts and feelings of the accused and his family than is typical for this kind of film. This might have been a little dry were it not for the charisma of the two defence attorneys. They explain their way of operating clearly, and occasionally with some humour. For example the male attorney talks about how he likes to rattle prosecution witnesses and goes on to describe a run-in with a police officer witness outside the courthouse while he's smoking a cigarette before heading back into the courtroom. "Sucking down another cancer stick" says the officer. "I always like a smoke before sex" replies the attorney.

All in all I really enjoyed the different angle this documentary took as it gave great insight into how (competent) defence attorney's do their job.

I know this isn't the thread for this, but it gets the most traffic. For a game we're playing, I'm supposed to watch a movie in a foreign language I don't understand without subtitles or dubs. My first instinct is to watch City of God or 2046 (since I've seen those), but I was wondering if anyone has any suggestion of something that might be fun without understanding the dialogue.

I feel like Tarr's The Turin Horse would be pretty comprehensible even without understanding the dialogue.

Any Jacques Tati film but especially Playtime is probably better without the subtitles.

That sounds intriguing.

And it's true, too.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors or The Colour of Pomegranates maybe too?

Stalker, and playtime is also good, like what drew said. Princess mononoke. Or an action movie like the killer or the raid: redemption.