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First, Bruce's philosophy of combat was different than his philosophy of art. As he said, art is a "psychic unfolding of the personality" the aim of which is "to project an inner vision into the world, to state in aesthetic creation the deepest psychic and personal experiences of a human being."
Second, the first part from Enter the Dragon where he says "the word 'I' does not exist" actually contradicts the part from his Pierre Berton interview where he says "Well, here I am as a human being, how can I express myself totally and completely?" And the reason for this is because - like with Wittgenstein, actually, which is fitting as you missed it in Bruce just as you missed it in Wittgenstein - Bruce's problem is with the linguistic construct and the baggage it entails as opposed to the inner substance of the human being which Bruce sought to cultivate in both his martial and cinematic arts. This is also corroborated in the part about the ego and the "I" where the significance of the latter being in quotes is attributable to its specification as a construct and not, as he was fond of characterizing the human being, "man, the living creature, the creating individual."
Bahh! Humbug! Bruce Lee's philistine "philosophy" is trite garbage compared to the profound existential questions that the Grandmaster himself so eloquently pondered upon in his countless masterpieces. For instance:
I had an unfair advantage, though. I was housesitting for an old professor and the entire perimeter of his apartment was shelved and full of movies. More than 3,000 in all. I probably watched and rewatched more movies the four weeks I was there than I have in the last two years :icon_chee
My top recommendations based on what you've yet to see:
The 39 Steps - Pretty much where he established his thriller blueprint.
Shadow of a Doubt - Hitchcock's personal favorite of all of his films. I'm not quite as high on it as a lot of people, but it's definitely a strong effort made even stronger by my man, Joseph Cotten.
Spellbound - A little too glossy/schmaltzy (blame Selznick) but really cool nonetheless.
Notorious - A must-see, one of his very best.
Marnie - Most people think Hitchcock's career ended with The Birds, but IMO he still had one more masterpiece in him and it's this one (not Frenzy).
Thanks. I'll try to check 'em out. Notorious and Marnie looks particularly intresting. Marnie I've heard very divisive things about.
Now, that doesn't make it better than Rear Window. I do think, however, that Dial M for Murder would've been weaker had Hitchcock taken his eye off the ball and done more shit with Milland and Kelly's relationship or tried to flesh out Kelly's relationship with Cummings.
Man, I have watched so many of his movies and I have loved every last one of them. Even The Tingler, which is so fucking ridiculous as to defy explanation.
I assume that you know of the audience tricks the director pulled during that film. Like installing vibrators in the seats and planting actors among the crowds who would panic with terror at specific moments. Must have been a blast seeing it in theaters.
No... but the movie is on Youtube and I had nothing to watch last night so I saw it anyways. You're right. Vincent Price is superb in it! Talk about "Spinning a long yarn"! He certainly was very persistent in his skullduggery that's for sure!:icon_chee
I have not, in fact the only times I've ever even heard about have been through your posts on here. You compared it to Hannibal, so I figured you were insane.
Now that I know you're insane, I'll definitely have to give it a watch.
If you liked The Terminator and Terminator 2 - which I'm going to assume you did, otherwise I'm going to start calling you insane - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the continuation those films deserved. Every single last cast member is phenomenal and the weight of the emotional and philosophical themes they deal with in the context of an awesome sci-fi action show that kicks more ass than most action movies nowadays is utterly mind-boggling.
And, if it helps, this is the main machine in the show:
I loved the abandonment of the tangential impact of the various cases on the Hannibal-Will relationship in favour of the relationship itself. I struggled with caring about the conflict in the first season, which was rooted in caring for these guys via all that was going on around them, when they already had so much to gain and lose from each other as such rich characters. So right off the bat, the content was more appealing to me.
I loved the killer-of-the-week thing, too, though. I agree that it really kicked into another gear when Will and Hannibal started their "courtship," but the killer-of-the-week format also had its merits in the way different killers represented different aspects of Will and/or Hannibal. I also loved seeing Hannibal playing in that giant sandbox full of killers. He had so many toys to play with and use to fuck with Will :icon_twis
What drove it home was the tone. Best control of content via aesthetic I've ever seen. The choices are magnificent. The threesome dream blew my mind. That's how it's done. You want to portray conflict? Do it with your camera in a way that surprises me, and I'm there man.
Season 3 has this shit going on, too. The doubling motif is obviously big, but the way they're doing things in Season 3 is just so fucking clever. I'd love to hear your take on this season.
I never thought I'd see anything even approaching the level of the twisted awesomeness of the Beecher/Keller relationship from Oz, but the Will and Hannibal bromantic cat-and-mouse game is something to behold.
Don't worry. Obvious troll is obvious. I've just been reading shit lately on philosophical aesthetics and figured I'd try out some of the shit that's been knocking around in my head. I've also been waiting for the opportunity to work out that Bruce Lee stuff, which is something I was going to have to do down the road anyway for my PhD.
I play shit like Hannibal. I've always got more than one iron in the fire
Nosferatu, The Last Laugh, and Sunrise are his most renowned (and I personally rank them in that order, and unlike a lot of people, I'm actually not too crazy about Sunrise). I'd also recommend his version of Faust. One of the coolest German silents out there.
Bahh! Humbug! Bruce Lee's philistine "philosophy" is trite garbage compared to the profound existential questions that the Grandmaster himself so eloquently pondered upon in his countless masterpieces.
If you're interested after watching them, I wrote something on Hitchcock where I focused specifically on Notorious (I think I spend the most time on this one), Vertigo (I'm fairly brief with this one since it's one of the most frequently written about films in academic film studies), and Marnie (lately, some scholars are starting to reconsider this one, and I'm one of the ones on the "masterpiece" side against the people on the "failure" side; it's really a fitting culmination of a lot of the thematic threads running through Hitchcock's career).
I assume that you know of the audience tricks the director pulled during that film. Like installing vibrators in the seats and planting actors among the crowds who would panic with terror at specific moments. Must have been a blast seeing it in theaters.
Inherent Vice. I know a lot of people are saying it around the web about this film, but i also think PTA failed trying to make his The Big Lebowski. Within the first 15 minutes i started thinking of it in comparison to The Big Lebowski. It was more silly/unrealistic than The Big Lebowski while taking itself 10 times more seriously. The humor just wasn't as natural and subtle. The plot was every bit as shallow but treated as if it was complicated(intentionally convoluted) Roger Ebert said The Big Lebowski was carried by it's attitude and didn't really try to milk the plot for more than it's worth. Even the smallest most irrelevant characters in Lebowski were somehow memorable or quotable. In this film, side characters that were actually supposed to be important were forgettable. I found most of it entertaining...good things were It was a beautiful looking film, Josh Brolin stole the show IMO, and the soundtrack kicked ass.
Maybe that's not fair to compare it to basically the standard of slacker noir, but i can't help it. I feel The Master was a superior film. Better performance by Phoenix, better written characters, and better story even if it fell short of what it could've been.
nah. The entire setup is stale. The whole notion of escape, and killing your creator is lame. Plus I dont believe for one second someone as smart as Isaac wouldnt have noticed his security is off, and not have at least one backup plan if Ava ever did escape.
I found the conversation redundant. Just talking heads doing their talking heads thing. Spelling out stakes at every junction. It's saved by an excellent control of cause-and-effect, and the film's aesthetics.
The theory, then reality of that new tech in this world is fascinating, not because of what it can do, but why, and how, it's done. That's why the best scene in the movie is when he's talking about her brain, and how he used search engines to come up with it. It's fresh, and intriguing at that point. Who cares about what an AI thinks when their purpose is to be a regular human?
What makes Ex Machina special is that ending. Questions everything about the male gaze.
A better ending is Isaac destroying Ava at the end, and pondering whether or not it was worth it in the end. An a-typical talky ending is more inline with the rest of the film, rather than the horror experiment gone wrong like we got.
Sounds like you just wanted a different movie? It's really never the aim of this film to get into the technical specifics of AI, as opposed to the consequences of sentience, but I agree, that's a cool movie. More fresh? I'm not so sure. Freshness/staleness is about dramatisation. And it goes about that in a fresh manner by switching protagonists. I think most viewers were disturbed by the ending.
Also, nobody is surprised by this movie because AI killed creator. But because seemingly empathetic AI killed its saviour. I can think of nothing in the sci-fi cannon that has done that. Even the invicible Batty saves Deckard.
Plus I dont believe for one second someone as smart as Isaac wouldnt have noticed his security is off, and not have at least one backup plan if Ava ever did escape.
They built in character flaws (alcoholism) just for that kind of turn. And it really doesn't come out of nowhere. He's fairly neglectful throughout because of the drinking. He only installs the power-cut camera to spy on them prior to the penultimate session.
See, his major flaw is hubris. His God-complex. He doesn't take Caleb seriously throughout the film. He's busy feeling so smart about how he's doing a Turing by making someone think they're doing a Turing. He's a self-inflated twat, really. Throw in the alcohol and he's always going to miss things.
The theory, then reality of that new tech in this world is fascinating, not because of what it can do, but why, and how, it's done. That's why the best scene in the movie is when he's talking about her brain, and how he used search engines to come up with it. It's fresh, and intriguing at that point. Who cares about what an AI thinks when their purpose is to be a regular human?
I think you like expository movies more is all. I'd love to see more tech-talk too. It's just harder to make that dramatic. Last movie that I can think of that did that well was Inception, and even that still gets stick for having too much exposition.
Implied complexity works better for film, like Mann with Heat or Thief, or Ridley with Alien, or even Cameron with Avatar, which works not because they talked about the avatar tech much, but because the story beats made sense despite being familiar.
Ok. I'll play. The pondering is a conflict that wouldn't work. He wouldn't feel bad about killing Ava anyway, given he's been fucking and killing his bots all this time. God-complex individuals are horrifying not because they thrill in creating, but because that implies they are comfortable killing their own creations.
You'd also have to worry about how to create conflict out of the technical wizardry.
I loved the killer-of-the-week thing, too, though. I agree that it really kicked into another gear when Will and Hannibal started their "courtship," but the killer-of-the-week format also had its merits in the way different killers represented different aspects of Will and/or Hannibal. I also loved seeing Hannibal playing in that giant sandbox full of killers. He had so many toys to play with and use to fuck with Will :icon_twis
Sounds a lot like you love serial killer stuff, period.
Or perhaps you like this particular serial killer world a lot? You got me into Manhunter, I remember that.
When the thing became more personal is when it turned for me. All the themes that it was hinting at became the focus - trust/betrayal/friendship were now centre-stage as opposed to possibilities. Will being played by Hannibal at the end of Season 1 really put the cards on the table for these guys to get in each other's faces. Made for superb drama. Then it had the good sense not to just talk through the drama, but to depict things like trust and betrayal (eg. when Will tries to get Hannibal killed) by event rather than blah-blah-blah in a room, and never really explains it. Just has faith in the viewer.
Then even the room got interesting. That point where he sniffs that reporter on him. OOF. Nothing said, but what a massive gut punch. I couldn't believe I was feeling awful for Lecter.
Season 3 has this shit going on, too. The doubling motif is obviously big, but the way they're doing things in Season 3 is just so fucking clever. I'd love to hear your take on this season.
I really hope I can. It looks like I will be largely absent from September on as the PhD kicks off then. Would be great to organise some Hannibal time in there. I'm hooked.
I fucking love it. I think there's strong sexual tension between them. It shades the relationship in a way I've never seen before. Sick of bros on TV doing their bro thing. This is two sensitive males going at it like alphas would. Now that's some good shit, some proper internal conflict. They're men.
Went to see Marshland last night which I really enjoyed. A Spanish crime film set in 1980. Have any of you seen it?
People have been comparing it to True Detective in terms of the style but I haven't watched that yet so I have no idea, it reminded me of the Nordic Noir crime shows though, very moody and atmospheric and I like that. It really was a class looking film, there was some really stunning shots of the landscape as well. For example:
I especially liked the setting, because the 'standard' crime element plays out alongside the backdrop the shifting political landscape of Spain at that time. As all the reviews I read mentioned the way in which the 'shadow' of Franco looms over the whole thing, it added an extra level of depth I thought.
Bruce Lee is what Jung would call an "introverted irrational". He is an intuitive feeler, which Jung said is more prominent in the Eastern world.
Western thought is very rational. Some of the greatest minds of the West sit down and literally argue how God exists logically. They harden everything into their straight line world. It is concrete and literal.
Lee poses a contrast to "self" projection. I think therefore I am. I am a thinking thing. Lee is, "I am related to, therefore I am." He finds himself in relationship. Reason is duality, which he is above. The action taken with design, with thought, with intent, is "unreal".
Lee sees art like Jung does:
Wu-wei is spontaneous action. - Spontaneous action - of which Nature (Tao) was the grand practitioner. This action of Nature was real action. The second was action taken with design, premeditated, and directed to chosen ends. This, however attractive it might seem, was a forcing of Nature and therefore unreal.
Wu-wei is creative intuition. - The principle of wu-wei is entirely an action of creative intuition, which opens the well-springs WITHIN man. While the action of assertion, man's common tendency, is preconceptual and rational, it cannot penetrate the hidden recesses of creativity. The action of assertion is viewed from the externals of intellection, while the action of non-assertion is activated by the inner light. The former action is limited and finite, the latter free and limitless.
Perception is the way of truth.- Not conviction, not method, but perception is the way of truth. It is a state of effortless awareness, pliable awareness, choiceless awareness.
The perceiving mind understands truth. - There is no condemnation, no demand for a pattern of action in understanding. You are merely observing-just look at it and watch it. The perceiving mind is living, moving, full of energy, and only such a mind can understand what truth is. To see a thing uncoloured by one's own personal preferences and desires is to see it in its own pristine Simplicity.
Choiceless awareness is total comprehension. - Choiceless awareness: non-duality and reconciliation = TOTAL understanding. The choiceless awareness of a single and undivided mind.
nah. The entire setup is stale. The whole notion of escape, and killing your creator is lame. Plus I dont believe for one second someone as smart as Isaac wouldnt have noticed his security is off, and not have at least one backup plan if Ava ever did escape.
The theory, then reality of that new tech in this world is fascinating, not because of what it can do, but why, and how, it's done. That's why the best scene in the movie is when he's talking about her brain, and how he used search engines to come up with it. It's fresh, and intriguing at that point. Who cares about what an AI thinks when their purpose is to be a regular human?
Havent seen HER, but AI shits on this.
A better ending is Isaac destroying Ava at the end, and pondering whether or not it was worth it in the end. An a-typical talky ending is more inline with the rest of the film, rather than the horror experiment gone wrong like we got.
But that is the world we have. It is an experiment gone wrong.
The movie basically sped up the learning/growing process. It showed what we all go through, very quickly. Look at how much she wants to get out and join the rat race.
And she turned on her creator and friends. Jung said that the next generation is our biggest enemy. They are our replacements. The young. Our children, They will take the world from our cold, dead hands.
Jung thought that religious myths, like the story of Jesus, deal with real psychological issues. Daddy issues with Jesus obviously. I have heard at least one scientist suggest Jesus had an Oedipus Complex. I think Jung and Freud had something along those lines too. And Bruce Lee had similar problems. Which was possibly a Napoleon complex. Jung and Lee are the kind of guys who start religions. Or did in the past.
"Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless."
I really want to but it's a choice between the last show of this tonight versus the last show of The Long Good Friday, a classic film I might never get to see on the big screen.
I agree with the point that using search engines to form a mind is a novel idea. It is a very interesting idea too. Where else is a better place to study personality, than through how people interact on search engines, or other media? It is arguably similar how the mind was created. All these previous symbols, language, and thought are necessary materials. The behavior is largely organic too.
Crafting a person on internet searches then turns into the Matrix. Where a computer slowly becomes aware of itself, and organically becomes its own personality or sentience. I wonder if a mind could arise that way. It is an AI argument obviously. AI could be inventing itself, and using the internet to control us.
Rogan should use his weird stoner rantings as movie plots. He is like a spoof of that kind of thought, but it is authentic and somewhat interesting. Like a world where all that weird shit Rogan talks about is true. lol. And Rogan has to save everybody. Or something. There is something there.
I really want to but it's a choice between the last show of this tonight versus the last show of The Long Good Friday, a classic film I might never get to see on the big screen.
I really want to but it's a choice between the last show of this tonight versus the last show of The Long Good Friday, a classic film I might never get to see on the big screen.
I say you go with The Long Good Friday, although I haven't heard of Marshland. I just recently saw The Third Man on the big screen, and it's such a great feeling/experience seeing a classic film in all of its behemoth glory. I hope more classics will be screened at this particular theatre (the theatre itself is very old timey), because nothing beats that experience as a film fan.
Just popping in to say that, while I'm perfectly fine ignoring JonesBones and letting you guys take shots if and when you feel like it, if you guys would prefer I start deleting his nonsense so you don't have to do so much scrolling, sound off and I'll start getting rid of his crap.
I say you go with The Long Good Friday, although I haven't heard of Marshland. I just recently saw The Third Man on the big screen, and it's such a great feeling/experience seeing a classic film in all of its behemoth glory. I hope more classics will be screened at this particular theatre (the theatre itself is very old timey), because nothing beats that experience as a film fan.
Just popping in to say that, while I'm perfectly fine ignoring JonesBones and letting you guys take shots if and when you feel like it, if you guys would prefer I start deleting his nonsense so you don't have to do so much scrolling, sound off and I'll start getting rid of his crap.
I say you go with The Long Good Friday, although I haven't heard of Marshland. I just recently saw The Third Man on the big screen, and it's such a great feeling/experience seeing a classic film in all of its behemoth glory. I hope more classics will be screened at this particular theatre (the theatre itself is very old timey), because nothing beats that experience as a film fan.
No kidding. Same here. I guess the whole Orson Welles film's restoration screenings are happening all over. Just seen The Third Man, The Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil and Citizen Kane on the big screen the last three/four weeks. There's even an early Welles silent showing on Sunday.
Just popping in to say that, while I'm perfectly fine ignoring JonesBones and letting you guys take shots if and when you feel like it, if you guys would prefer I start deleting his nonsense so you don't have to do so much scrolling, sound off and I'll start getting rid of his crap.
Well that was a really intresting, eye-opening essay on Seagal! I haden't thought about him in that manner before. Now forgive me... I feel myself compelled to talk about the Western Genre.:redface:
While reading your article, I couldn't help but to draw parallels to the Western genre. As said in your article, during the late 80's/early 90's Seagal blew left-winds onto the action genre, which through Stallone and Schwarzenegger had during the 80's established a predominantly right-wing orientation. And he did it through populist means! Subverting the political landscape of populist action flicks.
The same trend you could see in Westerns during the late 60's, early 70's. Up until the 60's, American Westerns had predominatly taken a relatively conservative stance in their persona. Sure there where liberal-oriented westerns like High Noon or The Ox-Bow Incident, but the vast majority excuded a right-wing slant, (ie: John Wayneism).
But during the late 60's, early 70's, this narrative was heavily subverted. There where American revisionist movies like Soldier Blue. But it was the Italians and their Spaghetti Westerns that really cranked out populist left-wing Westerns en masse at the time. With fims like: A Bullet For the General, The Big Gundown, Tepepa, A Proffesional Gun, Companeros, and The Great Silence, etc.
Just to give an example, take the briliant political subversion in The Great Silence.
The Great Silence is a movie about bounty hunters. In most American Westerns, bounty hunters where men fulfilling an important task, weeding out criminals and bandits that prevented the spread of civilisations. Bounty Hunters are basically good guys, often being sheriff's and the like. It's basically a right-wing message, people are immoral and bad, so the goverment has to send someone to bring back order and goodness to the world. (and even Sergio Leone and most other Spaghetti Westerns presented something similar to this)
However, what Sergio Corbucci does in The Great Silence, is to put this practice into it's socioeconomical context. Criminals aren't criminals becuse they are "bad" or "evil" or anything inherent like it was in the classical Hollywood Westerns. They are just ordinary men unable to find work and therefore are forced to turn to a life of crime - and the socioeconomical conditions that creates these problems are orchestrated by the wealthy elite for their own benefit.
So the societal system is created by the elite to enrich them, while causing destitution to among the poor. The mass of criminality this then causes then creates the need for Bounty Hunters, whom the rich hire to kill the criminals they've themselves created. The Bounty Hunters, being antagonists, go about this business with extreme sadism and callousness, killing basically good and decent people.
Corbucci does this to illustrate the faultiness of law and justice. Everything the rich in The Great Silence is perfectly legal. They legally impoverish the poor, and then legally hire gunmen to kill of the poor who turn into criminals out of necessity. Basically, it's the old line about law and justice being institutionally designed to serve only only the rich - and everyone else (the poor, racial minorities, freethinkers, etc) suffer because of it.
And Corbucci delivers all this political commentary within the bounds of populist Spaghetti Westerns, subverting the established conservative order after his own belifs. Just like Seagal did.
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