Filed under: Movies | Tags: Disney, Feminist Movement, May 68, Mulan, Smoking a Bong, Weed
As the sun set on the sad afternoon of June 23, 1968 it was evident that all the social upheaval of the month before was for naught. Georges Pompidou and the UDR, representing the fascist interests of Charles De Gaulle would win; and the CGC, which held the students on a tight leash to leverage their anger into an electoral victory, would lose; thus making it evident that the true enemy of social progress is not the authoritarian or the conservative, but rather the liberal in the ranks who’s just not radical enough. This truth holds its weight with Mulan, a movie that should be about empowering women, but really just holds them down. While Mulan grants the notion that a woman can overpower a man; it holds fast to the militaristic system in which she had to join in order to achieve this feat. It excuses that system by saying that women can participate too, when really the odds are stacked against them. Moreover, it buys into the patriarchal notions that initially kept Mulan oppressed. Simply put, she had to become a man in order to achieve what she did. A true feminist movie would have her stay as a woman, even in man’s clothing.
However, while the social implications of this movie are suspect, the content in terms of form is exuberant. Try to watch this movie and not sing to yourself afterwards, “Mister, I’ll make a man out of you!” Even though the messages of these songs stomp on the feminist nature of any woman watching the film, they still leave you satisfied. The story arc is amazing, and while it may seem a tad formulaic, at no point in the movie does that fact induce the type of nausea as it would in other films. The Walt Disney animators make amazing images, both in their portrayal of people and the color schemes that they use to create and sustain whatever mood they are looking for you to feel. At times they juxtapose these images quite drastically; but these parts are my favorite. Because instead of leaving you disoriented, these drastic juxtapositions show the stark differences in the film. In conclusion: this is an amazing film with amazing form that is beautiful and amazing to watch when you’re high; just don’t think it’ll empower you if you’re a woman, because it won’t.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Avant-Garde film, Ken Jacobs, Little Stabs at Happiness, Weed
I read an article in the New York Times today by Manohla Dargis about this filmmaker named Ken Jacobs, and after reading it I smoked a J and went to the library to see one of his films. The lady gave me a short film compilation called something to do with Avant-Garde art. So I saw this movie and it was the most enjoyable hour or so of watching cinema that I have ever had. By the way, the movie is only fifteen minutes long.
It’s a silent film, but three of the shorts in this short film (there are six total) have amazing music in the background, two others are completely silent and the last has Ken speaking over the scenes, with the express intent of trying to make us not want to talk to the people sitting next to us. I feel like he is a little bit overly self-conscious, because even though the movie is silent (and some of the shorts have musical tracks) it was the most exciting fifteen minutes of film I have ever seen. I don’t want to try to explain the movie to you, because I want you to see this movie without any predispositions. But it will be so enjoyable for you to watch, because it’s a truly incredible movie.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Adam McKay, Blunts, Chinese, John C. Reily, Step Brothers, Weed, Will Ferrell, Wings
As you can most probably garner from the title, this is a complete bro film. It’s the type of movie you watch on a big TV while passing around a blunt or two and eating some sort of take out or delivery food. I recommend wings, or maybe Chinese? Either way, careful dietary considerations have to be made while watching this film to get the right type of feel.
This movie is part of a hot streak for Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, and might even be a culmination of their amazing comedic careers, but I highly doubt it. You might remember Will Ferrell from movies such as Old School (which I actually haven’t seen in a while, and should), Anchorman, Zoolander, Melinda and Melinda and even Blades of Glory. Then there’s John C. Reily, who is nowhere near as prolific as a lead-man, but definitely as funny. He was in Talladega Nights, Walk Hard, and even Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny. Together with Adam McKay they create an awkward adversarial chemistry that toggles between animosity and childhood friendship.
I think this is one of those movies you have to realize is extremely funny before watching it. Because there are a lot of subtle jokes that you might miss if you don’t understand that you’re watching a piece of comedic genius. One of the gems of the film is the dinner scene when Will Ferrell’s younger brother comes to visit. I promise you, you’ll find yourself quoting this scene at least once, I know I have.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Film, Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali, Surrealism, Un Chien Andalou, Weed
This movie essentially got me into cinema and is one of my five favorite movies ever made. It’s a surrealist film made by the one and only; oh wait, it was actually made by two people, so let me rephrase: it’s a surrealist film made by the two and only Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. Even if you don’t know Luis Bunuel, I think you can infer from Dali’s reputation that this movie is one hell of a ride. If you don’t know Salvador Dali, don’t be sad, because all that means is that you can experience his art for the first time, which is always exciting (even though it only happens once).
This is one of the most influential films there are, with well known social commentators lining up and working to best each other by making an even larger statement about its impact. At the time it was a social outrage. Luis Bunuel apparently even carried rocks in his pocket during the first screening, just in case people decided to charge him. Why would people charge him? Because this movie is fundamentally unsettling; it challenges the way we try to marginalize our suppressed emotions by imbuing them into narratives, and thus taking out the teeth of our desires, so to speak. This movie doesn’t have a story, no scene is meant to correspond to another. Even when a woman looks out of her window and sees a man fall off his bicycle, you’re not supposed to think that she’s watching the man. So what is left? Their desires, their fantasies, their fetishes, put into symbolic form and placed out underneath a microscope for you to examine. In a way this is one of the truest movies ever made, even though everything going on is false.
This is another one of those movies that I would recommend to watch both sober and stoned, but you should still definitely watch it high. Why? Well, I think it’s much easier to pay attention to the movie when you’re high. It becomes a little more fascinating, the scenes become a little less unsettling and the music/film combination seems to make more sense. But let me stress that it doesn’t make more sense in the same way that reading Sparknotes can help you figure out Shakespeare; rather, you understand it more in the same way that you would when someone manages to use the right word to describe a concept.
I sort of forgot to mention that it’s a 15 minute long film, and you can watch it online. Here is one place http://www.zappinternet.com/video/danPvuMpaX/Un-chien-Andalou-1928
Filed under: Movies | Tags: Battleship Potemkin, Cinema, Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union, Weed
Did you ever wonder what a 1925 silent Soviet propaganda movie about a Russian naval mutiny would look like? Well, thank Sergei Eisenstein for showing us what that would look like. A film that was banned almost everywhere, even in the Soviet Union, which originally commissioned its production; it is unequivocally one of the most powerful and well-made pieces of cinema.
This movie starts out with soldiers in the Pacific complaining about poor rations. Officers order the rebellious soldiers to be shot, and right before the deed is done, one of the people ordered to death says, “Brothers, who are you shooting at?” and the revolution occurs. Potemkin has a mutiny and the people on shore send food to support their cause, right before being cut down by the Russian forces.
Many people made soundtracks to this silent film and I cannot stress how important it is to get the right one. I can’t really tell you what the right one is, so you should do some research. I just saw many different versions of it and the movie was not nearly as good with the shittier soundtracks.
The reason why the soundtrack is so important is because the movie has rhythm. Eisenstein doesn’t believe in the importance of the individual characters and never stays too long on one. Rather, he presents a montage of events, with brilliant juxtaposing cuts that stress the differences between the people and the Czarist soldiers; cuts that have an obvious political role, which they fulfill fantastically by making you hate the Czarists who kill a mother trying to protect her baby and accidentally kills it by giving it that fateful nudge when she falls down. The carriage rolls down the steps and makes one of the most famous moments in the film.
I think this movie is worth watching when you’re sober, but I think there are unique benefits to watching it high. This movie is all about the emotions it’s trying to make you feel through the scenes, cuts and score. And when you’re high and see this movie you sort of give yourself in to being manipulated and you start to really feel the revolutionary spirit that Eisenstein imbued into Battleship Potemkin.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: And Now For Something Completely Different, British Humor, Funny, John Cleese, Monty Python, Silly, Weed
“Now, I would just like to point out that this film is displaying a distinct tendency to be silly.”
I was sort of struggling with whether to categorize this as television or a movie, but I guess since I put Click under television, I guess I can put this under movie. To those that don’t know, the idea behind this movie is that Monty Python took the best 90 minutes of their hit TV show Flying Circus and made them into a loosely connected string of sketches. It starts out with a hilarious infomercial about how to hide properly, and goes through a series of transitions that include weird artwork and go into more funny sketches.
If you’re a fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you’ll most probably enjoy this too, mainly because the same people made this movie. But I think that in this movie they do their comedy a little bit better than Holy Grail does, mainly because in this show they don’t have any of the rather loose constrictions that Holy Grail put on them. Basically, they had to have the same characters and an overall plot.
They don’t take any of those things into account in this movie. The most absurd things happen here. There is a scene, that was quoted above, in which a general reprimands the movie for being silly, and then has an argument with the cameraman about the right time to cut to another scene. This is a conglomeration of hilarious sketches by true masters of comedy who took full advantage of the opportunity they were given to have free reign to do anything that they wanted on the show. And the result: a room full of milkmen and a joke so funny that it was used against the Germans in World War II because it caused the listener to die of laughter.
A Classic! I think most would say when you mention this movie. And it’s a natural response because, well, it is a classic. And it’s a classic for a reason. One of them is that this movie is fairly old (black and white). But I think the main reason why this is a classic is because it’s so good.
I think this movie was first conceived when Peter Sellers went on an ego trip, and Stanley Kubrik was listening in (maybe they were under the influence together). Peter Sellers was most probably complaining that he was better than all the other actors in every other movie that he made, and I think it was Kubrik who came up with the idea of casting Sellers thrice. That way, you didn’t have to spend as much time waiting for the lesser, shittier actors to get off the screen (or finish their lines) so that Sellers could steal the show, again and again. I’m not condoning this mentality, I just think that was sort of how it went down.
But even though Sellers’ attitude towards his other actors seem revolting (at least in the hypothetical sense, but I heard this depiction is actually true to his nature), it is in a way excusable because from it came an absolutely amazing movie. Mainly, it’s hilarious. With both large conceptual comedies, medium sized jokes with their setups and punch lines and even funny one-liners (“gentlemen, there’s no fighting in here, this is the war room” or something along those lines). This movie is guaranteed to keep you laughing the whole time (like the scene when the general frantically tries to cover all the screens and take all the maps when he learns that the Soviet guy is coming).
I am giving this movie a 69 mainly because it is deserved, the movie is great, Adam Sandler is funny and you are finished satisfied. Going off of that is the second reason why this movie got a 69; mainly that just as much as Adam Sandler would want to hear that he had someone finish satisfied, I think he would also appreciate such a sexually connotative rating. And I think that’s a lot of what is behind this movie, you laugh along because, well, you know that he’s having a lot of fun doing it, and as juvenile as it may seem sometimes, when you’re high it’s just hilarious.
This is one of those that just stay with you. It was a childhood staple, along with his other late 90’s works, such as Big Daddy or Billy Madison, and is now a, whatever you want to call me, staple. Because the humor goes along so well because you’re stoned and what you are watching is downright ridiculous. I mean comon, who can be that passionate about getting water, and then becoming a football player, and then he meets his dad at the end, the whole movie is just crazy and fun to watch.
Filed under: Movies
This movie is truly shitty. It’s one of those movies that I didn’t even notice came out, or was ever made, until I saw it on Netflix. There are so many elements of it seem so artificial and if I were to describe this movie as anything, it would be a terrifyingly pathetic beast, comprising of sown up bits from other animals. But unlike other movies of its type, it didn’t sow in ideas, or themes or styles of filmmaking; rather, it seems like a movie taken by compiling scenes from others movies and making them into one cinematic experience. Although it’s nice because most of those scenes have Rob Corddry in them and he’s fucking hilarious. Unlike other roles that I’ve seen him play, in which he had to limit his completely outrageous character; this movie not only invites him, but dares him to push him that extra step into being over the edge. But it also has Kyle Gas who, although not playing a substantial amount of the movie, is hilarious. And then there are the kids, who add that extra zest to the formula of this movie to make it even crazier and funnier.
And then there are all the aspects of this movie that make it just horrible. I think that comes mainly from Jason Biggs, although I don’t think he’s bad. It’s his interactions with Eva Longoria that just come out of nowhere. But those interactions, when you watch them while you’re high, make them seem just cute and laughable. And being high also makes the funny parts even funnier. It’s a cool movie to watch when you’re high if you just accept it for what it tries to be.
Filed under: Movies | Tags: From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney, Gore, Harvey Keital, Killing, Psychos, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Vampires
“Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don’t give a fuck how crazy they are.”
It’s true. And when you combine Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, you know you’re going to get much better than psychos. And if I can spoil an aspect of the movie, you get fucking vampires. But I don’t really think that it matters that much whether or not you know that you’re going see George Clooney killing the undead, because the movie is about how cool it is to watch that happen.
The movie starts out as a hostage type of movie. Or rather, it starts with a shootout in a liquor store (did I mention that Tarantino wrote the script). Then about halfway through you learn that beautiful Salma Hayek, who was just dancing with a snake in a bar called Titty Twister, is actually a vampire and so are all the other people who operate the bar. Most of who are women, and most of them are naked. From there, the rest of the movie becomes a different type of shootout, one with vampires.
Here is why this movie is great to watch while high. First of all, there is a lot of violence. But it’s not the violence that you get from the ultra-violent movies of today. It is an artistic violence. Violence that is done extremely well. With nice angles, you know? It’s interesting in how over the top it is. They don’t just kill people in this movie. There is art to it. The store clerk in the opening sequence doesn’t just get killed. He gets set on fire and then falls into a display while getting shot at. It’s over the top in an extremely cool way that will really appeal to you when you’re high, and make you just say, “what the mother fuck!”
It’s the style of the movie that makes it appealing. George Clooney and Harvey Keital play their parts excellently, and are part of the reason why this is so enjoyable to watch. Clooney’s character is sort of a cross between his role in “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” and “Michael Clayton.” Harvey Keital is just a sad former preacher whose wife passed away. And in their roles, they don’t try to be better than the movie. They realize that they’re in an action and gore film. And so does the film. It doesn’t try to be better than itself; rather, it tries to be the best that it can be, and it succeeds.
There really isn’t that much else to say about this movie other than it’s really fun to watch while you’re high because shit goes down.
