What Movie(s) Did You Watch Today?

[jomari]

Via Netflix streaming...

Drug wars
(a movie by Johnnie to)

this ones mostly in mandarin, but shows some hk influence in it via Luis Koo. Story is good (not the best but tolerable), but I have to say is original. something fresh off er... yup. you get it.

a bit complicated, a little rewind here and there. good movie overall.

Maze Runner

I imagined another dystopic Mockingjay movie, but this one was pretty decent. the start went well, and wobbled towards the ending a bit. the guy reminds me of paul walker during his early years. the sound quality tho, DEFINITELY a great showstopper. some subtle hints in the surrounds, but very effective (7.1), and of course, moving walls - great LFE...

good rental.

Mockingjay part 1...

sad to see Seymour in it, wasn't sure if there were digital stuff done, but I was pleasantly surprised. good movie, rental in my book. im sure the books are all better than these movies.

 

[PaulyT]

Ok so I finally got around to watching Whiplash. Good movie. Well acted and a good story. But I have some opinions... :eusa-whistle: The method of "teaching" as portrayed in this movie is pure bullshit. Ok maybe somewhere in history somebody was pushed to excellence by this sort of commando military performance "training" - but probably not many. This movie treats music performance like it's all about playing fast and hard and keeping tempo. Ok maybe those things are a component of it, but where's the artistry? Where's the contribution of an individual's own artistic vision? (Maybe there was a little of this in the very final scene of the movie, I admit.) Music is not an endurance sport or a military campaign. I think people too often confuse drive and determination with artistic merit. They're both important, but they are very far from synonymous. I don't like this movie's portrayal of music as a soulless physical endeavor.

Ok I've said my piece.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Ok so I finally got around to watching Whiplash. Good movie. Well acted and a good story. But I have some opinions... :eusa-whistle: The method of "teaching" as portrayed in this movie is pure bullshit. Ok maybe somewhere in history somebody was pushed to excellence by this sort of commando military performance "training" - but probably not many. This movie treats music performance like it's all about playing fast and hard and keeping tempo. Ok maybe those things are a component of it, but where's the artistry? Where's the contribution of an individual's own artistic vision? (Maybe there was a little of this in the very final scene of the movie, I admit.) Music is not an endurance sport or a military campaign. I think people too often confuse drive and determination with artistic merit. They're both important, but they are very far from synonymous. I don't like this movie's portrayal of music as a soulless physical endeavor.

Ok I've said my piece.

As a young boy I was "taught" piano by a sado-masochistic psychotically-repressed 80 year old nun who would whip your fingers and back mercilessly with her pointer if you did not get it "just right." The only redemption that was piano lessons, was that they happened after school, so I was not available to be an altar boy at afternoon mass, and therefore was out of reach of the pedophilic priests of the parish at that time.

So yeah, I personally equate music lessons with abuse and the deprecation of soul. But that's just me.

Jeff

ps. Imagine how much worse it coulda been had I come out of the closet as a since-birth atheist when I was a kid, rather than a teen, by which time piano lessons were a distant nightmare of the past!

 

[PaulyT]

Jeff, I'm truly sorry. That's neither what music nor Christianity should be about. From some of what Zing told me at one point, it sounds like his lessons in classical music were similar in philosophy. That it was just about getting the right notes in the right rhythm. This depresses me to no end, because that so much *NOT* what (in my opinion and especially my more recent experience) music is, either classical or otherwise. Like so many things in the world, certain groups of people get it in their mind that some endeavor must proceed according to their own rigid set of rules, and it ruins it for the majority of people who experience it that way and believe that that's the only way it is, and it's just not right.

 

[Batman]

I certainly wouldn't want to learn that way either Pauly....I was however, highly entertained. I gotta wonder though if that's really what the movie is trying to say about music as an art and how it's learned. I thought the filmmaker focused pretty much on Jazz in regards to tempo, speed, etc. If the movie focused on the daily ongoings of a typical music school it'd just be your run of the mill documentary.

 

[Batman]

SPOILERS!

Also I thought the movie made it clear that the instructors behavior wasn't acceptable, illustrated by the lawsuit and being let go from his position and the school. It also reminds that there coaches in sports out there that behave this very way, one was outed last year after a video was released of him physically and verbally abusing most of his college basketball roster. (The coaches name escapes me)

 

[PaulyT]

Yeah I suppose there's a fair bit of room for interpretation as to whether the methods of the main character/teacher (Fletcher) were ultimately vindicated. The last scene seemed to me to imply that the student (Andrew) was successful partly in spite of, but partly because of, the rigor of Fletcher's "teaching." (Which IMHO had absolutely nothing at all to do with actual musical education, at least as portrayed here.) I guess my main complaint is that not a single word was said about how music is more than just a technical and physical performance. Maybe it was implied... maybe. I'm not sure; again, some room here for interpretation. I admit, my own reaction to this is very personal and subjective.

But the movie's still wrong.

 

[PaulyT]

Well, I should say, this movie has inspired me to order some (more) Buddy Rich recordings, so I guess it has at least some redeeming value. :mrgreen:

 

[Zing]

Paul - I understand where you're coming from and I also agree (to a point) but I think you're overlooking something. What you describe is perfectly acceptable to me but only after a person has learned their instrument. When they're first being taught, they need structure and foundation. You need to learn the rules first before breaking them in the name of artistic merit.

It's not totally unlike grammar. You need to be first taught that it's "should have" before you start using "should've". Later, when you're going for a specific effect, you can get away with "shoulda". Otherwise you end up being one of those who say "should of".

 

[PaulyT]

Ah. Now, see, I disagree with the notion that one has to learn the instrument technically (and I think by extension, from what you're saying, basic music theory and rhythm) first, before learning to express musicality. Why should these be two distinct stages? Why should one learn to play robotically first, and then only later on, learn to make music? (Sorry, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, and I'm exaggerating a bit here.) Maybe it's somewhat different, too, between the drummer who is the keeper of the rhythm/beat in a larger band, vs. a solo classical pianist. Granted; and obviously my perspective is of the latter. But I think the technicality, the attention to rhythmic and structural detail, should serve the musical expression, not the other way around; and so one may well learn musicality from the very beginning, even while learning the instrument and the basics of musical theory. They are not mutually exclusive, even for beginners.

Much of this is influenced by what I see in my daughters' early musical education, especially my youngest. She's been taking piano for less than a year, but is already being taught (by the same teacher I'm taking lessons with) how to be expressive, in ways beyond what is notated in the musical score. Granted she's only 8 years old so the full depth of this is yet to come, but I can already see (or at least hope to from the HIGHLY subjective POV of a father) the beginnings of a potential real musician in her. I'm very glad she's not being taught to play with a metronome all the time. But she can do it when instructed to, so it's not like she's completely neglecting or abandoning the fundamentals.

Sorry, I'm being a snob, so I'll stop.

 

[Towen7]

Also I thought the movie made it clear that the instructors behavior wasn't acceptable, illustrated by the lawsuit and being let go from his position and the school.

Whoa ...

How about a "spoiler alert" there buddy?

 

[Batman]

^^ Oops, it's Pauly's fault he had me fired up... :eusa-whistle:

 

[PaulyT]

bscene-buttred:

 

[MatthewB]

Pauly I had a teacher in fifth grade who reveled in beating her students. This is a time when parents signed permission slips giving the staff permission to go cart Blanche on your ass. Anyway this teacher would beat you for a wrong answer, passing notes, back talk was a good Ol beating. I recall one day she had us all line up and our feet had to be behind a line anyway there was this curly red headed girl who had her toe on the line and the teacher told her to put her feet behind the line the student looked down and just said, "my feet are behind the line" it was at this point the teacher straight up smacked this girl upside her head and proceeded to drag the girl by her hair out of the class down the hall across the campus to the principals office for discipline.

Needless to say the parents found out and the teacher was immediately fired. One of the best days of my life. Man she was a ruthless bitch. I recall one day she cracked a wooden ruler across my knuckles and it wasn't one of those flimsy wooden rulers but one of those thick ones with the metal bar along the bottom for support that jutted out beyond the woods edge. I think I murmered something under my breath as she was walking by and like a sharp shooter BAM that ruler was across my hand and she hit with such force the ruler actually broke in half across my hand.

Went home told my folks and they said, "next time don't murmer under your breath".

 

[PaulyT]

Yikes... different times indeed.

 

[jomari]

i thought i wrote a quick review on this one, apparently not.

no tears for the dead...

it came from the director of the man from nowhere...

i loved the main character, and grown to like his older material, my favorite is FRIEND, an old korean high school coming of age flick.

some interesting stuff, great action scenes.

i KNEW that when i bought it it would be streamed via netflix.

go figure, saw it today.

you can stream this via netflix.

 

[Haywood]

Watched Taken 3 tonight. It was alright, but not in the same class as the first two.

 

[MatthewB]

Haywood the first two? The second one was so bad I could barely sit thru the entire thing. Granted the 3rd was slightly better than the 2nd one but not by much. The first was awesome but the 2nd sucked and by the 3rd one I was hoping his entire family would be killed as this was just getting stupid at this point.

 

[Haywood]

Haywood the first two? The second one was so bad I could barely sit thru the entire thing. Granted the 3rd was slightly better than the 2nd one but not by much. The first was awesome but the 2nd sucked and by the 3rd one I was hoping his entire family would be killed as this was just getting stupid at this point.

That's interesting, because I thought the first was excellent and the second was decent, but the third was just okay.

 

[MatthewB]

I liked the third because they were starting to kill off that stupid family. Seriously after the second one if I were Liam I'd be like, "this family is just too stupid to live so they deserve whatever they get".