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Post by CaptAdam on Sept 13, 2005 20:02:38 GMT -5
I just got to see this movie about 2 weeks ago, yes I know I'm way behind, but hey.
I really liked it, it was very reminisent of the first Dark knight mini series that Frank Miller did on batman.
What do the rest of you think of this movie??
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Post by Tyler on Sept 14, 2005 12:44:36 GMT -5
I thought it was amazing. It's one of those movies that I spend the next few weeks afterward playing over in my head to get a better feel for the characters. If there were an 'old town' in real life, I'd never leave.
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Post by Jeff on Sept 15, 2005 9:58:46 GMT -5
Adam,
Jenn buys lots of movies and so do the girls. But I buy 3 or less a year for myself. I bought this one for me. It is incredibly violent, stupidly violent, even. It is without significant moral message, unless that message would be, "Don't fuck with Marv." But its style and vision were so unique and interesting that the images just stick in my brain. When I think of the movie, I have a hard time remembering what was comic book cgi and what was live action. It just is itself in some pure kind of way. I've watched it 4 times in the last month. Always, the kids have been asleep or on the other room playing video games. I don't want to scar them for life, after all.
Hey, Marv reminded me of a gladiator version of Jagar. Is the attitude close, do you think? The only difference would be that one of them was insane...and the other managed his condition with pills.
Jeff
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Post by Guest Justin on Sept 15, 2005 11:12:01 GMT -5
Jeff,
I'm so surprised you liked this movie. For some reason, I was under the impression that you hated Kill Bill, Vol. I, which I'd consider to be similarly original in its stylistic treatment of extreme violence. I don't know which of the two (KBvI or SC) I liked better, but I loved them both, and they seem to occupy the same place in my memory. I did feel that Sin City dragged a bit in the Clive Owen segment, but I wouldn't really complain about it. By the way, I think it's head and shoulders above Sky Captain in its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink CGI approach.
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Post by Jeff on Sept 15, 2005 11:48:34 GMT -5
The reason I didn't like Kill Bill was that although its violence was similarly stylized, it wasn't similarly cool. I don't know how else to say it: KB1&2 were just not very cool films. Their attitude was too much tongue in cheek. Where SC had a gritty gallows humor; KB had a prankster 12 year old humor: "Tee hee, tee hee 'pussy wagon!'" I liked Miho better than the Bride.
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Post by CaptAdam on Sept 18, 2005 20:03:53 GMT -5
Yes, I think Marv comes pretty close to the attude and personality of Ja'Gar, but hey we can't all be perfect.
I also really liked the cop that Bruce played, I feel that way my self sometimes. "Come on old man get up people are depending on you." along with many other great comments.
The show to me had some of the old Dirty Harry movie feel to me, in the fine line between Justice and Vengence. In the end the little justice there was was very hard core.
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Post by chris on Nov 4, 2005 12:03:04 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Nov 4, 2005 12:46:04 GMT -5
Chris,
Your blog is great! I try to get over there every week.
I have a question...with a preamble.
David Hume proposed as a criterion for meaningfulness that every idea must be founded in some sense perception. By the time the 20th century rolled around, his principle had become known as verificationism, the problem with which is that verificationism itself cannot be verified. The idea that we should have a criterion of meaningfulness is not itself self-evidently meaningful on its own terms.
If we take your aesthetic "so what?" as a challenge that all art must answer, can't we raise the same kind of problem? That is, “so what” is meant to separate the acceptable from unacceptable art, as such it represents a value, concerning which I could legitimately ask, “Why is the value ‘so what’ represents worthy?”
I raise this point because I think “so what” leads us in certain aesthetic directions, e.g., toward irony and skepticism, and possibly relativism and nihilism. Of course, I’d have to argue for this. But is it so strange to think that “so what” itself makes significant aesthetic assumptions?
Jeff
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Post by chris on Nov 4, 2005 13:20:52 GMT -5
Your point is well-taken, Jeff. On first glance, to ask "So what?" is purely utilitarian, eschewing aesthetics altogether in exchange for real-world impact that extends beyond the medium itself.
But of course, as you indicate, that real-world impact would have to come from some aesthetic basis. Let's take the flawed example of the essay film, "Bowling for Columbine." The object of this movie was to convince, or at the very least preach to the choir, about the inanity of American gun laws. But it was in the aesthetic choices that Michael Moore made, not in the message itself, that determined its effectiveness.
However, there still seems to be a (admittedly subjective) basis of importance that is independent of aesthetics. It seems to draw a line between aesthetic quality (quality as art itself) and moral or political quality.
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Post by Jeff on Nov 4, 2005 13:22:55 GMT -5
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Post by chris on Nov 5, 2005 12:29:23 GMT -5
Very interesting... I'm still digesting the stuff on the other "Importance" post... I had to educate myself a little bit on verificationism on Wikipedia (god bless it). After that, I have one question: I can understand the lack of verifiability of verificiationism, but what I read hinted at an analytical proof. What do you think about that?
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Post by Jeff on Nov 5, 2005 14:25:50 GMT -5
Nice conversations today, guys. I am giddy sometimes just to know you!
Anyway....Chris:
I wrote two useless and highly jargonized pages before stopping with the idea that I should just ask you to which analytic proof you refer. Is it a proof that aims to support verification analytically? Or do you mean that maybe we can appeal to a concept like analyticity to justify simultaneously groups of fundamental notions, i.e., as a means of escape from the verificationist’s challenge? I am skeptical of the first project, but I’ve done a little work on the second.
Or maybe the idea is something else entirely? Always a possibility… thank goodness!
My own thought is that there is something to verificationism: We should make sure that our theoretical concepts are based in reality. So, I deploy the empirical ideas of applicability and adequacy to capture what’s worth saving in verificationism. What I like about these concepts is that they don’t judge inapplicable and/or inadequate ideas as meaningless. Such ideas are often metaphorical, hence the gateway to art and other kinds of symbolic thought.
There may be “levels,” as you say on your blog, of applicability and adequacy. In fact, my answer to your question over there is that great experience couples generality of perspective to intensity of personal affect; great art is both adequate and applicable (and consistent and coherent—my rationalistic desiderata) to some great experience. (The problem with my view is that it makes every work of art into something like a theory of experience...but is this so wrong?)
The levels of art would roughly correspond to levels of experience, in fact, judgments about the superficiality and depth of certain forms of experience. Since I think that there is almost nothing more fundamental than art—excepting perhaps religious ecstasy—it may be that art is our attempt to articulate the nature of kinds of experience. It is the subsequent job of the critic and philosopher to incorporate artistic insights into the fabric of contemporary thought.
(All a bit idealistic I know…)
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