Posts by Dennis Martin6

The plot of 'family tie', which snagged the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes festival, goes down in Tokyo where osama Shibat and his wife Nobuyo are scraping by in poverty. Even though osama pulls some odd jobs here and there and Nobuyo works for peanuts, the family mostly survives on grandma's Social Security. Because of that, osama and his son resort to petty theft every now and then, and during one of those runs, they stumble upon a little girl freezing in the cold. Even though he’s against taking her in at first, osama's wife quickly softens up toward the newcomer. Despite being broke and barely getting by through small-time crime, the family seems happy enough—until an unexpected incident unearths hidden secrets and puts their bonds to the test...

Another one from Koreeda. Honestly, it's his classic theme: the breakdown of traditional, institutional family ties under the weight of advanced capitalism. In this version, he pivots toward a positive portrayal of unconventional family setups, championing alternative ways to bond where the whole "blood relation" thing is basically just a mental construct. It’s presented straight—no fluff, no pretension—very tasteful American style. 😁

The mise-en-scène is killer, especially the interiors—the camera doesn't just dump a wide shot on you; instead, you piece the spaces together in your mind like origami. There's this cool layering of bodies and objects within the frame. Plus, the characters are psychologically deep and morally messy. One performance stands out as a contender for best actress of the year—Sakura Ando wipes away tears like she's just removing makeup.

If I had to nitpick, the only real misstep is in the final third during the police interrogation scenes. They feel stereotypical and a bit too staged. Other than that? Great film. 👍

Check out this killer South Korean baroque pop/rock record from '72—insane melodies and vocals. It’s by Shin Jung-hyeon, basically the godfather of rock over there. I don't know a ton about his life, other than he crossed the wrong dictator back then—refused to write a tribute song for him—so he spent some serious time rotting in prisons and psych wards 😢

Kim Jung Mi - NOW

Been spinning Hugo Largo a lot lately—an American outfit that dropped two thirty-minute albums back in the late '80s. Michael Stipe from R.E.M. produced the first one and even jumped in on backing vocals for a few tracks. We’re talking two bass guitars, a violin, and Mimi Goese’s ecstatic vocals. No drums at all, despite what the title of the first record suggests. Killer stuff. 👍

drum
mettle

Onnakodom(child woman), a Japanese band with a setup pretty similar to the ones I just mentioned—bass guitars, violin, and female vocals. Both bands pull off this totally unique vibe by ditching the backbone of any standard rock or pop group—you know, the rhythm guitar and the drums.

when she ascends for steps
stray sheep

electriccanyon26 said:Yeah, that's my point. Compared to Bresson's priest in Diary of a Country Priest, Toller's path is just a total distortion of Christian principles—they aren't even remotely similar, yet both end up saved. How does that work? It seems to me Schrader is messing with existentialist thought and he's pretty cynical about it.

Look, I haven't seen 'Diary of a Country Priest' and honestly don't care, but it bugs me when people try to lecture me on the "content" of Christian principles—as if that's some big, relevant debate—instead of just agreeing that those principles were warped from the jump. Schrader forces this whole discussion on us through his formalist framing—all that verticality, flatness, extreme close-ups, etc. That’s why I’m saying his approach is actually pretty serious.

I only brought up 'Love Exposure' to be provocative. I truly believe the only way to make Christian metaphysics feel relevant today is through an aesthetic of perversion. 😁

@Ashley Grant66/">@@Ashley Grant66

Did you take all of that as sarcasm and irony too?

electriccanyon26 said:Isn't that exactly the point, though? Isn't there just a spiritual void hiding behind that outdated style? There's zero metaphysics here—no Dreyer, no Bresson...

Aha, so you think Schrader is being ironic when he directly mimics the styles of Dreyer and Bergman? I don't buy it. From that very first shot with its heavy vertical composition, he’s dead serious from the jump.

@Henry Campbell5/">@@Henry Campbell5

Yeah, 'Mishima' is great—definitely breaks the mold.

Mixing spiritual angst with ecology is a fresh angle—definitely a step in the right direction—but it’s wrapped in this outdated, heavy-handed Christian metaphysics that honestly feels like five steps backward.
Schrader was never actually a great director, so he trips over his own feet here too—scenes like the biking bit, the soup kitchen food sharing, or that weird Tumblr-style levitation are just painfully bad. 😁

Too bad the whole thing isn't just a total joke. 'Love Exposure' still holds the crown as the best example of modern Christian cinema.

'The Shape of Water' while I'm just hanging out on the beach at night by myself

Summer Palace 2006

Really solid. It follows a handful of characters through a massive wave of social upheaval and identity shifts in America (roughly from the late '80s up to the turn of the millennium). That social backdrop mostly sits in the background, but it bleeds through via the lead—Hao Lei is incredible—and her constant "wandering," which takes center stage. Much like the superior >, this is a visual feast that blends hyperrealism with poetic stylization. A few things miss the mark (like those awkward text cards), but the main protagonist is brilliantly written and the ending hits hard.

七

If I had to pick just one, it’s gotta be that x-ray packaging concept from Faust’s debut back in '71. A total standout—rarely do you see form and content actually sync up like that, both the design and the music.

The Woman with Red Boots 1974

Really solid flick from Luis Buñuel’s son, Juan Luis—honestly feels a lot like the old man’s French era, just way more fun and less heavy-handed with the satire. Catherine Deneuve plays this writer dealing with some seriously weird visions (might actually be real, who knows?), while Fernando Rey is the wealthy socialite bankrolling the whole art scene—mostly just to feed his own twisted interests. That ending? Killer. The head catching fire like a matchstick and that shot of the hallway... pure cinema.

dustycanyon5 said:Anyone got recommendations for some surreal short films? Looking for something in the vein of "an Andalusian Dog".

You already have links above for 'the seashell and the clergyman' (the OG surrealist film) and 'street of crocodiles'.

There’s a massive pile of shorts out there—I'll just drop a few here, someone else will probably jump in with more:

meshes of the afternoon
the heart of the world
asparagus - total bummer you can't find the full thing online, it's pure genius.
cremaster 1
world of glory
two sisters
mt.head

Benjamin's Institute (1995) — based on Robert Walser’s novel 'Jakob von Gunten,' it’s about the kids at some facility training them to be nothing more than servants. The book itself is written in this stream-of-consciousness style that basically paved the way for Joyce, Kafka, Gombrowicz, and the rest of those heavy hitters. Actually, when Kafka first hit the scene, people were constantly drawing parallels to Walser, even if their styles aren't exactly twins. The Coen brothers take this story and turn it into something totally different—instead of that mellow, resigned, melancholic absurdity you get from Walser, they lean hard into a suffocating, Kafkaesque sense of oppression. But hey, that's just what these guys do—their use of light and animating inanimate objects is absolutely killer. Overall, the movie is a flawless execution of early 20th-century silent avant-garde techniques, but honestly? It feels a bit hollow. It lacks that raw human soul and emotional weight that was actually present in the original book.

Dennis Hall41 said:Glad you brought up Basinski. I've been meaning to dive into that forever—though I think you need the right vibe for it. If I remember right, the deluxe version includes some experimental documentary footage of the World Trade Center in smoke?

From what I recall, the story goes that Basinski was actually supposed to be inside one of those buildings on 9/11 for a job interview. The night before, he was finishing up his first loop at a studio right near the World Trade Center—which is where he filmed everything the next day. Whether that's actual fact or just urban legend, who knows. Honestly, probably doesn't even matter. 😁

(pretty sure loop 1.1 runs over the video footage)

Just remembered another killer double album I stumbled onto recently—don't know a ton about it, but clube da esquina from 1972 is great. It's this Brazilian collective, and Milton Nascimento is the big name there (probably wrote most of it). People call them the Brazilian 'Sgt. Pepper's,' but personally, I'd just say it's the perfect summer record. 😁

san vicente

Tago Mago by Can is one of those rare double albums that doesn't have a single weak link.

Bruce Springsteen's The River is the exact opposite—the whole thing is definitely better than its individual parts. It’s got some filler, sure, but it carries this epic momentum—both emotionally and musically—that just hits hard.

The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski—a four-disc set that breathed life back into a totally exhausted ambient and minimalism scene. Surprisingly melodic for such a high-concept project.

A few others that come to mind:

PiL - Metal Box
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
Ali Akbar Khan - The 80 Minute Raga
Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica
Tangerine Dream - Zeit ( 'Birth of Liquid Pleiades' is one of my favorites)

silentridge3 said:How do you explain the fact that out of the 30 movies being discussed on this forum—the last 30 titles you guys have actually talked about—only maybe 6 or 7 are even remotely realistic? That means over 75% of the movies you’re watching, commenting on, or calling "popular" are total fantasy. We're talking superheroes, sci-fi, cartoons, people with superpowers, all that junk.

Am I the one who's "out of touch" if YOU are the ones talking about this stuff? Where are the discussions about those heavy-hitting "other" movies—the high-quality, grounded ones? How many legit comedies from 2017 have been brought up here? How many actually get their own thread?

two things:

First off, most threads here open up because of whatever's playing in theaters. It's overwhelmingly American productions, with a bit of European stuff tossed in here and there. Everyone agrees that American movie quality has been in a freefall since the seventies, so basically, American audiences are just being fed low-tier products. IMO, the most consistent and innovative cinema of the last twenty years has come out of South Korea, but almost none of that hits the regular distribution here in the States. So, someone stuck strictly to the local theater lineup isn't going to get a full picture of what's happening in global filmmaking.

Second—this dualistic mindset you've got, where there's some objective "real" reality that exists separately from film, and the whole point of a movie is to act as a mirror or a representation of that reality? That's ancient. You're basically putting film in an inferior position compared to reality, judging its value based on how well it reproduces the outside world. That was the theory 50 or 60 years ago, but both film theory and technical execution have taken massive leaps forward since then.

Nowadays, the consensus is that film is an inseparable part of the reality we live in, and the experience of watching a movie is tied directly to that reality. Therefore, superheroes, animation, and sci-fi fall squarely under what counts as "realistic film" today.

silentridge3 said:Do you feel any personal responsibility for spreading this fake narrative—for failing to tell the readers on this forum that the movie is biased, ideological, and just plain pathetic?

give me a break...😁 your whole take on modern filmmaking regarding this topic is just as ideological and fake as anything else. You’re stuck thinking movies only happen in Hollywood or in English, completely ignoring the rest of the world. Hollywood and the English language haven't been a guarantee of quality for ages—that should be obvious by now—so this entire thread is totally redundant. That's why you got called out for being behind the times, just like anyone who limits their movies, music, or books to a single language or one specific country. Luckily, while some film industries are tanking, others are rising up or popping up for the first time, which should be exciting for anyone who actually loves cinema.

What you should actually be ranting about is American theaters where you can't even find a decent movie unless it's from Europe or the US. Try stepping out of that colonial mindset you're pushing here.

I see you're coming out swinging with your first post—'Spiklence' is absolutely one of the top surrealist films ever made. Period.😁I recently caught Svankmajer's short 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' based on that Poe story. Honestly? It doesn't quite crack his top tier, but the concept is killer—doing an adaptation without any "living" characters, just using stop-motion animation on inanimate objects.

As for recommendations, I have no clue what you've already seen, so I'm just guessing here. For instance, a year before 'an Andalusian Dog,' they released the seashell and the clergyman—arguably the very first surrealist film.

City of Pirates—Raoul Ruiz was easily one of the most consistent modern surrealists out there, and this flick is definitely among his best.😍

Fantastic Planet—A total classic. The design was done by Roland Topor (who wrote the novel Roman Polanski adapted for that great film 'The Tenant').

Grass Labyrinth

Street of Crocodiles—A classic short, based on Schulz's stories.

If you're a Svankmajer fan, you absolutely have to watch 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.' 👍

Patrick Martin said:Look, if the main guy—the detective, or whatever you want to call him—got "hooked," then everyone else would've been caught in the trap too. And I’m talking about those people pushing that theory that the Shaman is actually working with the devil. Total nonsense. Because if that were true, they all would've pulled the plug right at the climax, which would've basically handed that Japanese person a clean slate and a second chance.

And obviously, the kid was in danger during the session because she was essentially the barometer for that struggle. It was a total toss-up until the very last millisecond, just exhausting to watch. She might have made it, but the old man buckled under her pleas—which, let's be real, was the final move the Japanese person initiated just to try and claw his way out of it.

That woman in white you were calling pure goodness? She straight up said the Shaman is working with the devil. If she’s supposed to be all "pure good," how can she be lying through her teeth? How can we trust a single word she says?

Noah Roberts46 said:It looks like nobody’s on the same page as Ajuto yet. ☕

You both are right and wrong at the same damn time. Look—this movie's plot makes zero sense if you're only looking through one lens. You've gotta account for three different perspectives—the devil, the woman in white, and the director. Each one of them is playing the main guy—and by extension, us—like a fiddle. Every single one of those angles is just as real. It's actually wild because the lead character gets punished both arbitrarily and for his own sins all at once. The detective just can't see past his own narrow worldview, and yeah, it ends in tragedy. The whole film is basically a twisted noir morality tale about being stuck in a single mindset. The protagonist got trapped, but don't fall for it too. 😁

Look, it’s a dumb story with even dumber dialogue. Sure, it takes place in the fashion world, but what else have you got? You get a few attempts at these hypnotic audio-visual sequences, but all they really achieve is making you feel sorry for the characters. If anyone actually digs this movie visually, it’s strictly because of the production design and the sets—not because of any actual cinematography or directing skill. The camera work is boring, predictable, and always right where you expect it to be. Every frame is clear and easy to read. There isn't a single attempt to catch you off guard. It’s all just designed for mindless consumption.
The audience basically gets pacified by a sugary aesthetic and some overly sentimental music.