Rate the latest movie you've seen.

[Hydra009]

So they can conjure flames and light candles from it and balls of light, yeah, well humans have invented powerful torches that shine up a room far better then any candle light can. Wizards have dragons and flying cars, well humans have stealth bombers and missiles. Wizards have spells that can one shot kill you, well humans have guns that can kill you in one shot. Wizards have magical healing potions and spells, well humans have things like Chemotherapy. they have owls.. we have the bloody internet.

Agreed. Technology is the real magic, though wizards have the advantage of being able to work their magic with ease and with little/no cost - their broomsticks don't need fuel, they can effect repairs without specialized tools, chores can be accomplished with the twirl of a wand, etc.

And despite the obsolesce of much of wizard spells/artifacts, they still possess some abilities that normal humans don't - polymorph, luck, immortality, and time travel.  The famous time-turner by itself would be an endgame-level technology since its master could alter the course of history to his/her benefit.  Even with its limitation of 5 hours, it could be used to undo world-changing events...or set them in motion.

[drunkenshoe]

I loved the movie a hell of a lot. Okay, the kid in it was awful, but having known kids, how they can stretch any sane person to their limits, the role the kid presented was how I would often think kids as doing, and really, Essie Davis' role in the movie was one of the most chilling roles I've seen in horror in a long time, as the mother who slowly losing her mind.

(spoilers)

And I think that is what I loved about the movie, you are never sure what it real, her slowly losing her sanity, matched against the kids imagination, him believing whats happening, against her struggle, made me rewatch the film, is mr babadook real, or just the imagination of a child seeing a monster when his own mother is slowly losing her sanity and lashing out at the thing she hates, what she blames for the death of her husband, her own son.

This movie made me love Essie Davis as an actress, and whatever else, should go down as her most emotional and passionate roles.

[spoiler]She was good. I think I was so sure what was to come it wasn't a surprise for me. Kid acting too super, recovering from the dog's death like in minutes was a bit not realistic in the movie. I think it would be better, if it ended bad. If it had been real, it would have ended bad.

Basically they combined a very traditonal horror idea with with a daily make up and a real pain of life. That is the good idea.

But if you look at it from a basic point Conjuring has the same idea, but it is religious. Mom getting possessed to kill her own children. And in both scenarios it is about a dead person/people. [/spoiler]

[drunkenshoe]

On another subject, having been watching harry potter films again, and seeing Chris Stuckmann's review of them, it made me think of something I thought of a while ago from the movies, and still find it funny to think of today.

One of the themes in the harry potter universe, in the wizarding world he lives in, is how good or bad, the wizards and magic users in the wizarding world regard 'muggles', or humans, how the most elite look down on half blood wizards for having 'muggle blood',  or mud bloods, and how even the nicer wizards regard humans as being lesser then they are.
This I've always found funny about the harry potter universe, because you can really look at the world they live in, and regard what humans can do.

So they can conjure flames and light candles from it and balls of light, yeah, well humans have invented powerful torches that shine up a room far better then any candle light can. Wizards have dragons and flying cars, well humans have stealth bombers and missiles. Wizards have spells that can one shot kill you, well humans have guns that can kill you in one shot. Wizards have magical healing potions and spells, well humans have things like Chemotherapy. they have owls.. we have the bloody internet.

Its just funny with how the wizards regard humans with lower class vitriol, even showing most humans in the movies/books as dumb creatures like the dursleys or the old graveyard keeper, and yet if humans dropped a nuclear bomb on hogwarts, I doubt any magical barrier could protect against it.

Hmm. I think we need to look for what Rowling gives us between lines and use our imagination here. Movies cannot do that, with books you can live in a fantasy world, not just watch it.

Rowling's main premise in Harry Potter is about xenophobia, racism and discrimination. How one culture is repulsed by the other. She found a perfect way; a new way to tell the oldest story to children AND to adults. I wish more adults would read it honestly.

From magic people's point, muggles have invented a crowded, big and dirty world because they cannot do magic. So for the most of magic people, Muggle technology is not a result of some sort of a talent or intelligence, but results from the very fact that they cannot do magic and lack the inherent power to begin with. It's the compensation for not being magical.

Think about muggle weapons. A hand gun is a dangerous and a deadly thing by itself even without  someone having the intention to kill a person. A muggle gun doesn't work because you concentrate enough to channel magical power through it to kill a specific person you aim it to. You just pull the tirgger and it would work for anything and anyone. Also a person can survive shots even when you had the full intention to kill them when you use a muggle weapon.

But in magic world, to kill someone you need to use a specific killing curse which is an unforgivable spell because you NEED to have the full intention and desire to kill someone to cast that curse successfully. AND nobody can survive it. (Except Harry and just once.)  While there are many deaths and fatal accidents in that world, you can be sure someone wanted to kill a specific person if they are dead. And even if they are under the influence of imperius curse -whish is another unforgivable spell- the logic doesn't change. And they can also detect which wand cast what spell or curse if they want to.

It's almost like it is 'evil' just to learn to cast unforgivable spells. And it is a hell of a job to learn them. Only adults or people reached a certain maturity could cast those spells and they need to learn it especially, by trying which is the biggest crime in that world and a certain way to end up one of the worst prisons ever imagined in literature. A child or even an adult cannot accidentally cast Avada Kedavra and kill a family member at home. They are not taught; the are strictly dark magic. Magic people learn to block the unfriendly, harmful and even deadly spells to protect themselves which are purely defensive, while muggles use their weappons offensively all the time even in defence killing needlessly.

[Harry has a difficult time learning to cast Avada Kedavra, because he is basically a decent human being. (In one ocassion he tries out of momentray despair and rage, but can't do it of course.) And goes for a long time just throwing expelliarmus -which is a disarming spell- and death eaters come to recognise him by that reflex even when he is disgusied. Eventually when things get deadly at some point he is warned that he should use to learn to cast Avada Kedavra because trying disarm a dozen death eaters attacking you with it is a stupid idea. And in war time; in Nazi Germany obviously people shoudl learn it, even youngsters, to survive.]

As magic comes from nature and works within the balance of nature; as a product of it, muggle culture comes as an intervention, abuse and the outcome is an abomination for magic people. Like abusing natural laws.

But of course there are wizards and witches who perfectly understand that muggles just simply produced a culture to cope with nature within their circumstances, some even agree that they have brilliant and very clever solutions. And they respect muggles and their culture. There are also wizards and witches who collect muggle artifacts and constantly trying to learn about muggle culture.

Avada Kedavra is one example. We can produce others and some may not perfectly fit, but that is the general idea. When you can Disapparate and Apparate why would you invent big metal machines going on roads and in air to travel that would cause extra death and damage by the pure mistake of another; like a drunk driver or some speeding maniac, a terrorist. Sure you can 'splinter' yourself in process of an Apparition spell, but the harm would be your own mistake, not some jerk with zero responsibility or an accident caused by another. Also it is not something you have to learn, while in muggle culture in some cases and places you HAVE to learn to drive or you have to use a plane t travel. But in magic world not all wizards and witches learn to use Apparition spells it, you don't have to. There are port keys and other safe means to teleport.

Health and medicine is the same. They can mend bones, tissue, hemorrage. While it is not perfect, inits own logic it is consistent. They do not need the medical technology muggles do. They just need witches and wizards who got to be experts on healing spells.

And also as a small community only living on their own, they lack the economy built on the technology and various industries muggles do; so the classes muggles have. Their sociology is completely different YET the same. What Rowling is telling all about racism and xenophobia and it is brilliant.

So why would they respect a species who are purely dependent on each other and some mindless cold machines, accidents, on someone else's will and talents? While removing those basics she provided a good space for other fantasy elements to work for the fairy tale she is telling.

In short, Rowling's magic world is thought out very good. It is full of genius premises built-related on the main one. And very fitting into the human narrative in reality, despite of all its fantasy; ugliness and irrationality of racism AND how it is a learned behaviour too. Not just that many other things. And as she created a consistent world with certain rules, even the little things you'd think just put there as simply as with ornamental appearance actually has a function.


Movies cannot convey any of this. It's understandable. I am not blaming anyone. There will never be a better 'technology' than our own brains; imagination, because first its our own, it is unique to every one of us and just because of that it has no limits or very limited depends on how you look at it. While a movie is a projection of someone else's imagination, a book, doesn't matter if good or bad, or sometimes perfect will never be beaten by that in terms of entertainment and inspiration.

[Munch]

[spoiler]She was good. I think I was so sure what was to come it wasn't a surprise for me. Kid acting too super, recovering from the dog's death like in minutes was a bit not realistic in the movie. I think it would be better, if it ended bad. If it had been real, it would have ended bad.

Basically they combined a very traditonal horror idea with with a daily make up and a real pain of life. That is the good idea.

But if you look at it from a basic point Conjuring has the same idea, but it is religious. Mom getting possessed to kill her own children. And in both scenarios it is about a dead person/people. [/spoiler]

its true yeah that it had a similar aspect from the conjuring. though while the conjuring was in its story about a possession, an evil spirit, with the babadook, its one of those thinhs where you could easily look at it from both real or fictional, was she possessed by mr babadook, or was she just driven insane by the grief she suffered. One of the unrevealed parts of the movie which is in notes, was that she created the book at the start of the movie, the one she read to her son, as she was a writer of childrens books, so she created mr babadook herself and used it to scare her son into submission. The result of this may have made the kids imagination run wild, and when she lost her mind, what we see is a combination of a fractures mental state from her, coupled with a childs hyper imagination from him.
I put it down that mr babdook was only real in the sense that both the son believed him to be, and she saw him as being a part of her she had to keep in check.

[Munch]

Agreed. Technology is the real magic, though wizards have the advantage of being able to work their magic with ease and with little/no cost - their broomsticks don't need fuel, they can effect repairs without specialized tools, chores can be accomplished with the twirl of a wand, etc.

And despite the obsolesce of much of wizard spells/artifacts, they still possess some abilities that normal humans don't - polymorph, luck, immortality, and time travel.  The famous time-turner by itself would be an endgame-level technology since its master could alter the course of history to his/her benefit.  Even with its limitation of 5 hours, it could be used to undo world-changing events...or set them in motion.

That bloody time turner is the potterverses own deus ex machina, like eagles in lotr, but one never used properly. The most powerful magical object, that could reverse time and save the lives of people killed, or even stop tom riddle before he because the dark lord, and yet all they do it let boffin hermione use it for school work.

[drunkenshoe]

That bloody time turner is the potterverses own deus ex machina, like eagles in lotr, but one never used properly. The most powerful magical object, that could reverse time and save the lives of people killed, or even stop tom riddle before he because the dark lord, and yet all they do it let boffin hermione use it for school work.

Oh come on. It's strictly prohibited to use a timeturner in the real life. It's a serious crime, because in the past they actually tried what you suggest and consequences were catastrophic. Dumbledore lets them exploit it because, contrary to the serious, reliable Dumbledore portrayed in the movies, besides being a genius he is actually a madman who makes dangeous decisions in expesne of human life. And he then thinks it will make a difference to save Sirius. Yeah may be if he lived. But he makes a bad mistake about Sirius and his death is Dumbledore's fault. And he died knowing that.

Do you really think if we had a time machine in real life, they would use it to save human life?! PFFFT.

Munch, usually you say to people that they should use their imagination when you like a universe for the simplest things. Don't be such a Sarkeesian, use your imagination please.

[drunkenshoe]

its true yeah that it had a similar aspect from the conjuring. though while the conjuring was in its story about a possession, an evil spirit, with the babadook, its one of those thinhs where you could easily look at it from both real or fictional, was she possessed by mr babadook, or was she just driven insane by the grief she suffered. One of the unrevealed parts of the movie which is in notes, was that she created the book at the start of the movie, the one she read to her son, as she was a writer of childrens books, so she created mr babadook herself and used it to scare her son into submission. The result of this may have made the kids imagination run wild, and when she lost her mind, what we see is a combination of a fractures mental state from her, coupled with a childs hyper imagination from him.
I put it down that mr babdook was only real in the sense that both the son believed him to be, and she saw him as being a part of her she had to keep in check.

Yes I see that. I don't put the movie in the same place with others. It requires imagination to enjoy it and I did. :) E: it could have been executed better, imo.

[SGOS]

You can light candles with a propane torch, or with any of several technological breakthroughs, but doing it through a  wave of the hand and a brief flutter of the air has great appeal.  Even more so to the mind of a 10 year old.  Imagine you are in charge of a birthday party for 10 year olds, and with great theatrical flair, you take out a propane torch and light it with a metallic striker, and proceed to light the candles on some kid's cake.  I doubt you'll get more than a look of puzzlement.  But light it in wizard fashion, and the room will be filled with oos and aahs.  You will be appreciated as an adult who understands what's really important.

[drunkenshoe]

You can light candles with a propane torch, or with any of several technological breakthroughs, but doing it through a  wave of the hand and a brief flutter of the air has great appeal.  Even more so to the mind of a 10 year old.  Imagine you are in charge of a birthday party for 10 year olds, and with great theatrical flair, you take out a propane torch and light it with a metallic striker, and proceed to light the candles on some kid's cake.  I doubt you'll get more than a look of puzzlement.  But light it in wizard fashion, and the room will be filled with oos and aahs.  You will be appreciated as an adult who understands what's really important.

Yeah...but his is just about throwing backlash at a story he hasn't even read, through Holywood movies as usual. But he gets pissed off to people who doesn't like the universes he loves, because they lack imagination so can not enjoy them. (I remember him saying smt like that concerning the game Witcher with anger some time ago.)

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I don't get the never ending fascination with blood and gore movies. As long as the graphics make it appear that enough people are being slaughtered people seem to think it's great story telling. It's not. As long as you can be somewhat convinced that there's some badass dude who can kick every single person's ass non-stop forever it must be great story telling.. IT'S SHIT! FFS, if you really want blood and gore watch a documentary about cattle slaughter houses. The fucks who work in slaughter houses are often so doped up they forget their own humanity.
I'm sticking with actual story telling where there's an actual plot that isn't given away in a half paragraph preview on Netflix.. I have no use for slow motion blood scenes.. It's fucking fake, so fake in fact that if it were even close to the truth it would require 3/4s of the human population to be killed every week..

[drunkenshoe]

I don't get the never ending fascination with blood and gore movies. As long as the graphics make it appear that enough people are being slaughtered people seem to think it's great story telling. It's not. As long as you can be somewhat convinced that there's some badass dude who can kick every single person's ass non-stop forever it must be great story telling.. IT'S SHIT! FFS, if you really want blood and gore watch a documentary about cattle slaughter houses. The fucks who work in slaughter houses are often so doped up they forget their own humanity.
I'm sticking with actual story telling where there's an actual plot that isn't given away in a half paragraph preview on Netflix.. I have no use for slow motion blood scenes.. It's fucking fake, so fake in fact that if it were even close to the truth it would require 3/4s of the human population to be killed every week..

I agree with you. But the the horror movies I posted above are not gore at all. Actually there isn't even blood in them. The Orpahange and Babadook are OK dramas the most.

Conjuring is more like a comedy. It's not gore at all. I'll watch the second one, I hear that one is funny too.

[SGOS]

While people were killed in traditional horror movies, there wasn't a lot of time devoted to a graphic depiction of the means of death until 30 or 40 years ago when the slasher genre came into its own.  In my mind, I've always separated the two types of films as distinct categories, although somewhat distantly related.  Traditional horror relied on fantasy, the occult, and the unseen.  The monsters didn't often show up until the last 30 minutes of the movie.  Slasher movies replace fantasy and the unseen with a graphic dose of reality.  Fear takes a back seat to revulsion as a means of pulling on the viewers emotional chain.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I don't really watch much horror..I find just waking up in the morning frightening enough most days.. I tend to gravitate towards movies that are actually plausible. If you want a really scary movie wait for the one about the night of November 8, 2016.
Lately I've gone back to watching old spy movies of the 40s and 50s.. There's plenty of them on YouTube.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Fear takes a back seat to revulsion as a means of pulling on the viewers emotional chain

Hence the night of November 8, 2016. Revultion beat out fear. Perhaps people thought electing a president equals watching a slasher flick..

[SGOS]

I've been debating about going to Hacksaw Ridge, but I'm a bit hesitant.  Mel Gibson has a tendency to glorify death in unrealistic ways, much like we did as kids playing soldier.  Here's a user review I found at IMDb.  I would agree that Vince Vaughn doesn't seem like he should be in a war movie, but the part about the Bible is real barf bag material, again typical of Gibson.

Acting was corny, Vince Vaughn is terrible at being a drill sergeant,... the whole "I need my bible" part with the soldier just being like "alright son...I'll go get it for you even though there are tons of bullets whizzing past my head" - cmon.  The action was really the only thing I enjoyed about it and that's not really saying much.

"I kneeeed my Bible...,"  brings to mind another Gibson war movie, where a gut shot soldier, with entrails dragging on the ground, grasps his buddy's arm and says, "I'm so happy I could die for my country." 

Yuck!  Gimmie that barf bag for a minute.