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Duff-e

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Posts posted by Duff-e

  5. What have you purchased recently?

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    After 7 years I finally managed to break my HD570's. I pushed on the inside of the left headset for no reason and it popped out. It still works but now the piece is floating around in there.

    RIP HD570 for enduring being sat on about 100 times and having me chew on your wire requiring 3 replacements.

  11. Post your favourite movie scenes ever!

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    I've heard many people make the same argument about Citizen Kane...that it completely changed the format of motion picture and introduced new techniques but that at this point to anyone who has been to the movies all their life it can only be boring and cliche. I can understand that. It makes you wonder how much of history is "right place, right time" vs inevitable technical advancement. Or if even such a distinction can be made or is worth making.

  12. Post your favourite movie scenes ever!

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Well why does high production value = not cheap looking? Like I said, it could be a plate of beans type thing where you have the director moving a slider 1 inch to the left and 1 inch the the right on all the settings for 10 days only to set it back to default and hear him scream out "PERFECT!!!!!"

    Sorry to be a dick I'm just playing devils advocate :D

    Just as an example, maybe you saw chunking express? That's a pretty critically acclaimed foreign film. I think it's ugly, slow and boring. It looks like it was shot by someone who got a camcorder for christmas. You could say "but that's the genius! It's so raw!" in the same sense that you could say Kubrick made the lights artifical (which in normal practice would probably be the opposite of what a director would go for). My argument is that just doing something different doesn't warrant acclaim, it needs to work with the medium and the story, not the directors vanity.

  13. Post your favourite movie scenes ever!

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Steppenwolf, just because Kubrick had a concept he was going after with clearly defined techniques doesn't necessarily mean the finished product is an automatic success. I personally think the lighting is fine and if the reason for it was extensive planning then so be it but someone else who doesn't like it could easily say it's a case of over-thinking a plate of beans.

    I believe in any art medium it's on the artist to make sure the viewer sees his creative genius. Art is a failure if it requires anything beyond the expectations of the basic senses. If an artist does his job you shouldn't have to sit through a film putting yourself in the position of the editor, director, cinematographer, lighting engineer, and so on to appreciate it fully. The same goes for art that requires obscure knowledge of a historical period or creative "shout outs" that are supposed to be appreciated instead of the merits of the art on its own. What I think IS an acceptable suggestion for Eyes Wide Shut is that it was a personal film for Kubrick and Kubrick enthusiasts. It wasn't meant to be appreciated on a wide scale. At least with this explanation you can understand the acclaim within the context of his oeuvre and the disinterest from the general public. It's condescending to just imply "you don't GET it."

    edit - I just wanted to add that you might say "well, say the director does appeal to the basic senses, it will be cheesy and hackneyed and obvious like a transformers film for example." That's not true. What makes a great director is taking 30 people into a room to watch a film and trying to get an emotion from as many of them as possible. Don't ask me how this is done, if I knew that I'd start making films tomorrow, but that's the point, that's the skill. Off the top of my head a good example might be Jaws when it first opened. Beyond that it's not even about getting the same reaction from everyone...the BEST OF THE BEST can create an emotional experience that means something completely different to every individual person in the audience.

  16. Post your favourite movie scenes ever!

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    eyes wide shut is good for a couple things

    1. the ritual scenes in the temple thing are pretty boss (also, yay bewbs)

    2. nicole kidman getting high with tom cruise wearing a slip

    I find something irresistibly attractive about Nicole Kidman that I can't describe. She's such a woman that I would feel inferior being near her without 2 years of bodybuilding and a shoulder length blonde wig (think Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall). Australian actresses are always so confident and it makes them ridiculously sexy.

    Also: If you watch the following video at least half way you will automatically become an American citizen.

    (high volume is recommended but required for Steppenwolf)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHGLBy2CdjI

    I hear in Paris they have a theater that plays Easy Rider all year round. A fine choice.

  22. Reading Language

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Oh Steppenwolf I know that Faust is worthy of all the merits it's given. I don't claim to understand them all but I've read about the philosophy behind it and everything beyond that. What I was trying to say is that in the conversations where "Faust" or "Faustian" came up it was clearly just a stand in for the expression "making a deal with the devil." From my experience this is the extent to which your average person in the U.S. comprehends Faust. I'm not implying that we're stupid, I'm just agreeing with you that a lot of the subtlety that makes it a classic for native German speakers is lost on others.

  23. Reading Language

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    Well Faust is on my list of things to read and I can't read German so I'll let you know when I get there :D

    When people speak about the german literature you mentioned above it usually is in some kind of metaphorical abstraction. For example the entire play or book will be condensed into a single theme and that theme is what you're referring to when you say something like "Faustian." Of course it varies but for your normal college educated layman this is what I most often see.

    Do people in Germany read translated works of Shakespeare? To me that sounds as ridiculous as translating Goethe sounds to you. But then in that same respect the Italians probably think we're wasting our time reading a translated version of Dante's Inferno.

  25. Reading Language

    in Off-Topic

    Posted

    What makes an author talented and a book exceptional is GETTING "emulation of thought through a semantic." I've heard many great authors say that the novel in their head is much better than the one they manage to get down on paper. For better or worse, language is how we communicate. I could say that in my head I have devised the greatest story ever created, but that doesn't do anyone much good. For this reason new technology is being created all the time the enhances the way we communicate (music, film, video games).

    It's similar to why a program might be written in C instead of binary. You sacrifice some efficiency (requiring better hardware) for the ability to express yourself (not taking 2 days to write a program that converts Fahrenheit to Celsius).

    Being inspired by a translated novel is a testament to the greatness of the work, especially if it's translated by someone other than the original author. It's like breaking down Michelangelo's David into fist sized rocks, sweeping them into a pile and having people still look at them in awe.

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