http://www.devastatingexplosions.com/

A bonus video:

I’ll let this general subject stand, and comment below with hope to hear some of you chime in, if you’ve seen the new move or not.

Click on the bearded one to view:

Hope you all have the opportunity to see it soon if you haven’t already.

Aligned Intentions | On Look Films from Scott F. Busch on Vimeo.

You may recognize the interview location as a place dear to us all.

Even though I don’t want to set up any expectations, the first one reminded me of what might happen if Per Petterson took a stab at the vampire genre.  I watched Let the Right One In and that’s the thought that kept running through my head.  The vampire story is almost secondary, and I’m interested if you guys would describe the primary theme in the same way I would.  There is still quite a bit of blood, but the movie doesn’t contain any of your typical “shocks” that Hollywood seems so fond of.  Thank goodness this isn’t Hollywood.

The other movie is Moon, which I can’t really even describe to you without giving things away.  Let’s just say, it has to do with the moon.

Anyone up for discussing these if you’ve seen them?  Or watching, then discussing?

The title says it all.  What are your favorites from the 2000’s?

Peter and the Wolf

Avatar Trailer.

Peters may remember a friend of mine by the name of Jason Neulander, then Artistic Director of Salvage Vanguard Theater.  For the last decade or so he has been working on-again-off-again on The Intergalactic Nemesis.   It started as a radio show, then live performance, then comic book, and now live performance/comic book/online serial?

The Intergalactic Nemesis is obviously pulpy but I think you all will find it interesting.  And I think that more meaningful work could be (and probably has been) done in this cross media format.  Anyway I’m looking forward to the live performance.

Check it out if you have time.

Watch and discuss.

I did miss Voldemort as Voldemort (and Ralph Fiennes’ incarnation of him), and the movie is rushed (though not nearly so much as the last one), but overall it produced the eerie feeling I was hoping for, given the dark lake sequence where Harry must feed Dumbledore the weakening potion, the lake’s undead beings, and then the rush to the end and Dumbledore’s death. But it wasn’t so eerie or dark that you couldn’t enjoy the adventure of it, which was perhaps some of the problem with the movie of The Order of the Phoenix.

I thought the great addition was Jim Broadbent as Slughorn, and the memory sequences with the younger and teenaged Tom Riddle (I wish these could have been lingered on). I wanted more of the Order involved throughout, and I wanted more Snape in the movie, but I take those wantings more to be sign that I liked what was there.

The third movie remains clearly the best in the series, and given that I didn’t think the seventh book was as strong and Warner Bros.’ decision to make it into two installments, I am assuming that will remain the case. Still, I admit I enjoyed getting back into the Harry Potter world more than I thought I would.

Ned, thanks for telling me about your thoughts on Persepolis and Sweetland.  I had heard about Persepolis (and have been meaning to check out the graphic novel it’s based on), but hadn’t heard anything about Sweetland.  It’s amazing to me the sheer amount of great movies that fly under the radar nowadays.  Quantity of Hollywood drowns the quality?

Speaking of quality, Steph and I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly a week ago.  In Steph’s words, we “couldn’t look away” from Julian Schnabel’s direction, along with Janusz Kaminski’s gorgeous cinematography.  A gorgeous movie that is wonderfully sad, effecting, and surprisingly human…surprising in the fact that I’ve gotten used to the lack of human-”ness” in FX-laden movies. It takes the all of the glory and the shame in human existence and creates a portrait that lacks the usual Hollywood gloss, but has more character packed into it than all the summer blockbuster movies combined.

Maybe my surprise has to do with my tendency towards escapism in my movie choice.   It’s a little embarrassing to admit … but I feel as if I’ve gone soft and taken an easy route post-college.  I’ve only recently started to feel as if I need some more meat in my diet of cultural intake.  I just don’t find myself thinking critically as much anymore.  I think once I finished college, I was weary of the over-analytical stance I took towards most art and literature and abandoned it for the most part.  I think I’m ready for a homecoming.

One of the most amazing components about this film, (Steph and I spoke about this afterwards, in length) it allows the viewer to assume Jean-Dominique Bauby’s persepctive in the first third of the movie.  It’s almost as if we were sharing the same Diving Bell with Bauby, and later too, the Butterfly.  I think we’re still carrying a bit of the butterfly with us. 

Has anyone else seen the film?  I’d be curious as to thoughts and reactions from the rest of our group….