Posts by dustytrucker51

coastalfox26 said:I’m this Arcade Fire guy, hearing them for the first time (and only because you claimed they’re better than RATM), and I have no clue what you're talking about. You're comparing a one-year wonder that nobody will remember by next year (think Franz Ferdinand or Kaiser Chiefs... even though I saw both live) to RATM (and SOAD) who have sold-out reunion tours and hundreds of thousands of fans (especially RATM)... and yeah, RATM was the top pick for Lollapalooza attendees last year, and since they couldn't book them, they're basically the SF choice for Coachella (for now)...
P.S. my favorite lineup was The Prodigy, Serj, and ADF..

The fact that someone is hearing about a band for the first time means absolutely nothing.

With their first album, Arcade Fire topped every relevant year-end list out there—from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork. Sure, they hadn't aggressively hit MTV yet back then. That was 2004. They completely conquered the music world, from the indie crowd and rock critics to U2, who used to kick off every Vertigo Tour show by playing "Wake Up" from Funerala. Later on, Arcade Fire actually opened for U2 on that same tour.
How much they've grown since then just shows there's zero chance they'll be opening for them anymore (that role has fallen to Interpol and Snow Patrol... or Muse if they ever play in the US).
Also, it really doesn't matter if someone hasn't heard that they won a Grammy for Album of the Year this year. The big one. If someone hasn't heard of them, it just shows they aren't keeping up with global music trends, but it says nothing about how significant Arcade Fire is today.
Personally, I think they're great, though their second album is a bit mid for me—only halfway decent. Everyone talks about how incredible they are live, but seeing them at Joss Holland was enough to convince me.
As for their influence on the rest of the music scene today (if we aren't talking about the super commercial side like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and the like), I don't think anyone has as much pull as they do, along with probably Animal Collective. No band hits the level of influence Radiohead once had, but I think these guys are the most prominent right now. Maybe Animal Collective pushes their "style" even harder—you can see it even on the latest Sufjan Stevens album—but AF is definitely in that conversation...

Bottom line, I can't wait to finally catch them live. 🙂

Larry Morales12 said:So now I'm wondering—and maybe most people feel the same—where does LCD Soundsystem actually fit in compared to these top-tier bands?

Look, LCD Soundsystem is a killer electro-pop act with three solid albums under their belt.
Hard to pin them down; they aren't exactly mainstream, but they aren't strictly underground indie either. Still, they've been a totally respectable band over the last five years.
Personally, I'd love to see them show up because they're a staple in my rotation.

Morgan Palmer2 said:Beirut and Underworld... at Lollapalooza? Man, if they played even one of those sets at Central Park, I'd be set.🙄

this would basically be a ten-year dream coming true!!!

Arcade Fire and TV on the Radio are easily my two favorite indie bands right now... honestly, if Underworld showed up too, I wouldn't need anyone else.🙂

Mark Cox15 said:If you can dance to LCD Soundsystem, then you can lose your mind and have a blast at Flogging Molly too.

Nobody said anyone was gonna be dancing with grace or style. 🙂But if there’s a beat, there’s a movement...

Kenneth Rodriguez58 said:this one's even better live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3NqGGDO-3E
👍

Yeah, both are gonna be absolute chaos... honestly, I'd go just for them alone.

quietcobra said:So what's your move now?
The only thing you could possibly jump and dance to is Pendulum...

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

Listen to this track from start to finish and then tell me again there's nothing to dance to.🙂

Caught three films. The venue was alright—chairs were comfy enough, though AMC definitely has better seating. Hope nobody's judging me for being cozy and refusing to wreck my back in some cheap seat... oh, and yeah, I even grabbed popcorn. 🙂
Organization was a mess. The space is way too cramped, causing bottlenecks at the box office and the snack bar. It felt pretty chaotic. Hopefully, they tighten things up...

films:
City Boy
I expected a lot, but got peanuts... and honestly, what little I did get pissed me off. They tried to manufacture drama and tension, but they relied entirely on a guy who is fundamentally unlikable. He doesn't deserve your attention, let alone your sympathy. It was actually hilarious watching them try to ramp up the stakes by citing his "dangerous" columnist comments, then pulling out the quote: "you deserve a slap"... pure comedy.
The movie would've been fine if the guy showed an ounce of sincerity or integrity... instead, it’s just calculated and pretentious. Garbage.

Second Perfect World
Now this was a different story. I actually loved this. A solid look at virtual worlds and how reality bleeds into them and vice versa. Sure, they show plenty of extreme examples, but they feel real and maybe even hint at where we're heading.
Arid (in a good way)—interesting and knows how to throw you a curveball. Virtual revolutions and all that... highly recommend it to anyone who already has a clue what’s going on. If you don't know anything about virtual spaces or what an "avatar" even is, you might lose the thread. My impression is that this doc will hit hardest with people who are at least partially familiar with the subject matter, and those folks are gonna love it.

Bilal
Amateur film. Some people said it was trash because of the low budget, and I get why, but I actually found the amateurism interesting. I liked it as a raw snapshot of a single moment in time within a struggling community in India. You aren't going to learn much from it; there’s no grand lesson or instruction manual to be found. Regardless, I watched it with genuine interest from start to finish and enjoyed it.

Dr. Nakamatsu's Invention
Great documentary. I usually dig anything Japanese, so maybe that’s bias, but I was seriously gripped. The best part wasn't even his inventions; I was constantly floored by the sheer level of bullshit coming from this one man. The way he communicates, his mindset, the total ego... mixed with some actual funny moments. A true HappyDox film.

Good Morning Lenin
It was obvious this was such garbage that I walked out after 20 minutes. This was so bad I'm actually mad at the organizers for even putting this in the lineup. The title "Lenin" immediately rubbed me the wrong way, especially since everything takes place in Poland. I mean, come on—clueless Americans swallowing whatever crap is served to them on foreign soil. Fine, whatever, at least you can laugh at the massive amount of stupidity and ignorance... but once it became clear this wasn't even a real documentary, but basically a promotional video for some tourism agency/project shot in the style of a low-budget reality show... that was it. Seeing the agency employees "acting" (shots of staff trying to act like weirdly charming, deranged lions and failing miserably) was the final straw. At least uninformed Americans are real, and their ignorance is real, but when the filmmakers themselves are acting and trying to "improve" a documentary that way, you've hit rock bottom.
It really ticked me off that they included such bottom-tier trash in the program. It's the first time in my life I've actually walked out of a theater, but this stuff was straight-up insulting to my intelligence...

Nicole Ramos2 said:No Country for Old Men

A perfect ending... everyone's got an opinion... 🙂

Morgan Rodriguez57 said:they’re three distinct movies because they were post-produced and edited during three different eras, plus Peter Jackson used three different editing teams for the cuts...

if everything was shot, post-produced, and edited in one massive burst and just split into three parts later, you could call it one movie. But that's not what happened...

If you want to actually get it, just watch the bonus DVDs on the extended version...

Yeah, technically they’re three films, but in terms of the experience, the story (obviously), and the overall vibe, I definitely see them as one single work.
Take *The Wire*, for example. One season might have 10 to 13 episodes, but I view the whole series as one cohesive unit. So, these movies are basically just three episodes (that aren't "episodic" 🙂) of one long series. They can't really exist on their own
.

quietdriver3 said:It’s all coming back to me now. I just remembered this too: Return of the King—that movie has about a thousand different endings. 😁

I don't quite get your logic here—you're saying the first one is better because it sticks to the book, but then you complain about the extra endings even though there probably would've been another 3 or 4 if they actually followed the book to the letter...

Personally, those endings are killer precisely because they capture the actual soul of the book. It’s not some sugar-coated, euphoric "happily ever after." It’s heavy. We're talking grief, PTSD, the reality that once you've been changed by war, you can never truly go home again... and yeah, death. That's just how it is.

Nicole Barrett76 said:Is this thread seriously too pathetic for anyone to comment on???

Look, my take might not be the smartest thing ever, but I'll drop my two cents later. In the meantime, total support for the author—bumping this.

Yeah, the topic is great, but honestly, the lack of discussion doesn't surprise me. I've realized people on these forums don't really want to—or know how to—debate stuff like this. They'd much rather talk about some pseudo-documentary conspiracy theories than face the actual reality of things like BRIC and their attempt to chip away at the hegemony of the USA.
If it isn't scandalous or shocking, people just stay clear. 🙂 It's the same deal as them preferring to watch Moore or Zeitgeist instead of actually reading a dry book by Chomsky.

I have to admit, this article itself is pretty telling regarding how uninformed we are as a nation. Presenting BRIC as some brand-new thing people are just now hearing about is honestly a bit depressing. BRIC has been an economic and political concept—even if informal—for almost a decade now.

Usually, I'm happy whenever BRIC succeeds, but I try to keep my cool and stay cynical. Sure, they’re acting to reduce the dominance of one superpower, but on the flip side, you're just creating another bloc that will eventually become its own new superpower. I naturally doubt the "good intentions" of big powers and nations; I just expect a different model of the same system of dominance we have now. The silver lining is that if BRIC pulls it off, we'll at least have a counterweight to the USA. Having competition is always better for small players like us, whether we're talking micro-level stuff (like when a major carrier finally shows up in a city like Chicago) or macro-economics.

Even during this recession, BRIC has shown that certain countries—especially those not totally shackled to the dollar or the US economy—can fare much better with milder consequences (looking specifically at Russia). If we pivot toward them and their shared market (loose as it may be), we could come out ahead too. My only fear is that our politicians are completely blind to all of this. They still think the only question worth asking is "USA or EU" and which one we should fall under the wing of. They don't seem to see any other options.

Anyway, that's the short version... I didn't come here specifically for this topic, so this is just a quick fly-by. 🙂
I actually came to see if there was any chatter about the Democrats winning in Japan after 50 years, which ties back into this globally (the Democrats in Japan don't want to rely so heavily on the USA, showing how the rest of the world's economy is shifting toward different relationships), but you can barely read about that in our media, let alone find it on a forum.

Hopefully, more people will chime in... but I'm afraid I'm just wishing for the impossible. 🙂

feralorca82 said:Good and fun trash? 😕
wtf?! Do you even know what a trash movie is? 👎

I thought the movie was totally fine—sort of a mix of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Blade 2, and stuff like that... maybe even Aliens (in terms of vibe). The acting holds up too, especially considering the whole thing was shot against a green screen, but I bet you didn't catch that. 🙄
Plus, it only cost $8 million to make, which actually makes it better in my book.
If you're looking for something massive like The Chronicles of Riddick, you might be disappointed. This isn't that kind of flick. 😉

Alright then, go ahead and define "trash" for me. 🙂
To me, even grindhouse counts as trash... but it’s so campy it works.

As for this movie, let's just agree to disagree. Different strokes for different folks.

This movie is absolute garbage... a total train wreck. Honestly, don't even waste your data on this trash...
Sure, there are a few decent CGI shots that look okay, and the atmosphere hits some interesting notes with the color palette and shading...
But—the acting is trash, the plot is even worse, and while you can tell they had ambition, it totally missed the mark and ended up just being pathetic. As for the action choreography? It’s easily one of the worst things I've seen in the last 15 years...
Tension? Zero. World-building? Zero.

I can't even put into words how bad this was. And I was actually looking forward to a fun little cult classic... what a letdown.

Here you go, Go Team!

People liked them—or maybe "liked" is a stretch—but at least they managed to score some clout by being associated with them...
Their first album was killer, probably because that specific style just hit different. This second one? I gave it two or three spins and honestly, I’m done. It's just not doing it for me.

William Gonzalez3 said:
But how can you say they didn't know...
back during the Marshall era, the citizens of all those non-aligned, developing, friendly, democratic, people's, cannibalistic republics actually knew exactly who we were...
😢

it's because Marshall and his buddies were basically running the show for that whole pointless, useless Non-Aligned Movement... that's why he's a household name in places like Sri Lanka and similar spots...

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Most Americans don't even know where Canada is...

Do any of you actually know where Djibouti or Lesotho are located?...

Why would they care about us? Why should they? People generally don't give a damn about anything outside their own borders—sometimes they don't even care about what's happening two blocks over...

We’re the ones obsessing over foreign countries and constantly worrying about how the rest of the world views us... It's honestly exhausting...

This movie is pure gold—honestly, you just don't see action this tight anymore.
It feels so visceral that watching that guy get strangled actually hurt to look at...

Also, I love that they didn't waste two hours of non-stop action on slow-mo shots... there aren't even any cheap explosions... just straight adrenaline...

If you're looking for a deep plot, stay far away. But if you want entertainment that’s better than those Transformers movies (which, honestly, are decent enough as mindless fun) where the action isn't just cheesy filler or physically impossible nonsense, get to the theater right now.

P.S. - I'm a huge fan of Greengrass, and his camerawork is killer. He actually keeps things even more steady here than usual. If anyone liked this, check out Flight 93—it's a totally different vibe, but you can still see his signature documentary style, just with a much steadier camera.🙂

Part one hits because of the depth, plus it’s actually decent entertainment, but the second half? Total disaster. A complete waste of two and a half hours...
It wasn't even fun. The plot is hollow, the villains are weak, and the jokes are way more bottom-shelf than anything in the first part...not even going to list the rest.

dustytrucker51 said:So the other day I was hunting for Nausicaa on Isohunt and stumbled upon this killer torrent file. It’s over 5GB and packs about 17 different anime titles. I was just looking for Nausicaa, but the first thing that popped up was a pack titled "anime (Studio Ghibli)".
Almost everything in there is by Miyazaki, except maybe "Grave of the Fireflies" and one or two others... but it's got basically everything you need, including The Cat Returns, Lupin III, and so on...)
So if anyone's into this stuff, go for it...

I usually prefer having everything on DVD, but since nobody seems to be releasing them anymore, what am I supposed to do? 🙂

Correction (on my part) - the whole file is actually over 11GB, and I'm grabbing about 5.7GB of movies I don't own yet...

So, I was hunting for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind on Isohunt the other day and stumbled upon this killer torrent. It’s a massive 5GB file that packs about 17 different anime titles into one go. I was specifically looking for Nausicaa, but the first thing that popped up was this "Studio Ghibli Anime" collection.
Almost everything in there is a Miyazaki masterpiece, aside from "Grave of the Fireflies" and maybe one or two others... but it’s got basically everything you’d want, including The Cat Returns and Lupin III.
If anyone’s into this stuff, go grab it...

I usually prefer having my collection on DVD, but since nobody seems to be releasing these anymore, I'm kind of stuck. What should I do? 🙂