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Movies you've seen lately
IainB:
The Hunter (IV) (2011)
15 | 102 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller | 6 July 2012 (UK)
Ratings: 6.8/10 from 28,035 users Metascore: 63/100
Reviews: 80 user | 152 critic | 15 from Metacritic.com
Martin, a mercenary, is sent from Europe by a mysterious biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a hunt for the last Tasmanian tiger.
Storyline
The independent and lonely hunter Martin David is hired by the powerful biotech company Red Leaf to hunt down the last Tasmanian tiger. Red Leaf is interested in the DNA of the animal and Martin travels to Tasmania alone. He poses as a researcher from a university and lodges in the house of Lucy Armstrong. Martin learns that Lucy's husband has been missing for a long time and he befriends her children, Sass and Bike. When Martin goes to the village, he has a hostile reception from the locals. Along the days, Martin spends his days in the Tasmanian wilderness chasing the Tiger and becomes closer and closer to the Armstrong family. But Red Leaf wants results no matter the costs. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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I watched this on DVD on my laptop last night. I would recommend this film as it is actually quite a thought-provoking film that operates seamlessly on several levels.
On the surface, it's simply about this "hard" guy (Martin David) and his mission and its consequences - he has accepted a potentially difficult but highly-paid contract (if he succeeds) from a bio-tech firm called RedLeaf, to retrieve certain body parts from what is the last reported Tasmanian Tiger sighted in Tasmania (an island off the SSE of Australia). Basically hired to kill the last of a rare species, he goes there under a cover story that he is conducting research into the Tasmanian Devil.
On another level, Martin has to confront the ethical opposite of what he is doing, when he lodges at a house deep in the bush which is owned and occupied by "Greenies" - a distraught mother with a PhD who cannot cope with the loss of her husband, who had never returned from a trip into the bush looking for the Tasmanian Tiger, intending to protect it from logging companies bent on destroying its habitat. The woman's 2 children - a girl and a boy - are smart kids, and the boy is autistic and a savant. All 3 are seeking love from the missing father, and adopt Martin as a surrogate, (due to his cover story).
On yet another level, Martin has to contend with the almost tangible hostility of the men of the local community, whose sole employment is logging, and who believe him to be a "Greenie" (his cover story).
On a deeper level, the story is very much about ethics - especially our personal ethical conflicts - and our search for love and for salvation/redemption from the continued failures of the Europeans in their colonisation - in this case, of Australia and Tasmania. The story is focused as a case in point on one of the many failures - the one that led to the moronic extinction of another species, the Tasmanian Tiger. The social justice and animal justice warriors who could probably have saved the Tasmanian Tiger and its habitat didn't exist until after the extermination had occurred. You could extend this sin of the European colonists to, for example, the inhuman treatment meted out to the Australian Aborigines - e.g., the film "Rabbit Proof Fence" (2002) - or the attempts to expunge the American aboriginals, the Indians, as captured so heroically in the old Cowboy versus Indian movies.
Perhaps at its deepest level, the film reflects that one may be able to seek and find love and redemption, becoming transformed through experiencing solitude, meditation, loss, hardship and deprivation.
Renegade:
^ Sounds interesting. Those kinds of movies with a bit more "meat" are more along the lines of what I enjoy watching. I have a hard time watching a lot of the kinds of movies that I used to enjoy, e.g. action/thriller movies like James Bond flicks.
Renegade:
-panzer (October 14, 2015, 02:34 AM)
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I enjoyed that one. Bill Still does some great work and some of his documentaries are pretty much classics.
@panzer: Thanks for posting about those films - always happy to have my comfort zones stretched a bit.
My take:
* SEPTEMBER CLUES 9/11 - YouTube: I hadn't seen that "911 conspiracy theory" video before, and it seemed a quite well-made and well-researched amateur film, and it definitely had something to say. From experience, and given the catalogue of what look rather like tell-tale warning lights, during and post-911, particularly regarding the "911 Commission", and including, for example, the treatment of conflicting eyewitness reports, the preferential appointment of key personnel, the funding constraints, deliberate procrastination, prevarication, redaction (actually hiding some of the truth), lack of FOI, and a seemingly inconclusive outcome with suspect "truth", one might be forgiven for assuming that Americans were a somewhat gullible lot if they all swallowed it wholesale, as directed. But they aren't, and they didn't, and the production of 911 conspiracy theory videos/films illustrates that and was arguably a predictable outcome under the circumstances.-IainB (October 20, 2015, 10:04 PM)
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I rather enjoy a lot of them. Some are crap, others are good, and some are just really interesting.
I watched the first 10 minutes of this one, and it's certainly interesting. Not sure if I buy it, but hey - interesting is good. :Thmbsup:
If anyone has seen any 9/11 videos about aliens, and it's half-way decent, I'd be interested. Aliens are always fun!~ ;D
The point was missed in all of the text that was thrown at the ill perceived problem. That stuff is in general basement worthy. That's my point. I really don't care about what is posted... just the fact that it was shoehorned in.
-wraith808 (October 20, 2015, 11:25 PM)
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I think I'm with Panzer on this. He just posted some videos that he saw. There are no IMDB entries for a lot of amateur or alternative films, and often the best link is just the YouTube link itself. It's not like he's posting news programs or talk shows -- they're feature length films/documentaries.
It's not like anyone is starting any fights over any movies or films in this thread.
Anyone like Gary Cooper?
I just saw a 1949 film with him in it. The Fountainhead.
It wears its message on its sleeve. But I don't see any reason to not talk about films that have a message -- they're some of the most interesting/entertaining.
The dystopian world or dystopian future genres are again filled with some of the best films of all time. And they're more often than not entirely political.
Heck, Star Wars is set in a dystopian galaxy and the political imagery is in your face -- the Empire's uniforms were modeled after Nazi uniforms. Luke Skywalker is radicalised by a religious priest (Jedi knight - Ben Kenobi) and goes from being a farmer to being a terrorist.
* A Clockwork Orange
* Atlas Shrugged
* Blade Runner
* Brazil
* Cherry 2000
* Elysium
* Equilibrium
* Escape from New York
* Fahrenheit 451
* Gattaca
* Idiocracy
* Mad Max
* Metropolis
* Nineteen Eighty-Four
* Planet of the Apes
* Serenity
* Soylent Green
* The Hunger Games
* The Matrix
* The Terminator
* They Live
* THX 1138
* Total Recall
* V for Vendetta
* Waterworld
* Zardoz
And so many more.
Some of the best films ever made are in that short list above, and they're all making political or social statements. The degree of controversy behind those statements varies by the film, but I don't see anyone getting all political or SJW or preachy or anything about any of the films people have posted.
Cherry 2000 is about technology, human sexuality, freewill, and companionship. Lots for people to lose their minds over in that film. But nobody is losing their minds and freaking out in this thread.
Nobody is forcing anyone to watch any of these either. Though when my general tastes line up with someone else's, I am more inclined to go out and watch a film if they recommend it, and more inclined not to watch one if they recommend against it. I think that's one of the great things about this thread --- I can go through it and pick out films that I've not seen, then decide based on a few factors, including WHO posted it and their thoughts on it.
But. That's just my .
panzer:
Harakiri (1962)
tomos:
Just watched Locke with Tom Hardy,
one hour and twenty minutes in a car with a man and his telephone - amazing how powerful a movie this actually is....
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