An open letter to Vin Diesel

yeah, who knows. i don't.ah well.

Yeah. If you wanted to get technical there's a fantasy subgenre called "contemporary urban fantasy."Damn, I really need to see that movie. Sounds awesome. Sure. Though again, there's a more appropriate subgenre, called wuxia (woo-sha).

I think it is sweet. It's completely tongue in cheek though, so a lot of people don't get it. Kurt Russel plays a sort of anti-hero.He's really the sidekick, but his character doesn't know it. If you liked Escape from NY or LA at all, you'll think this is funny.

I'm totally renting it ASAP.

You'll either love it, or you'll hate it.

I'll back you up on this. For some reason people love it, the rest hate it. I loved it.I think Prince of Darkness and Big Trouble are two of Carpenter's most underrated films.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, that was one of the creepiest movies I ever saw at the time. I was on ship once and my bunk was adjacent to the television for the entire berth and one weekend I was having this horrible nightmare. I woke up and pulled back the curtains to the bunk to see the scene where the chick is all covered in sores and about to go through the mirror.Couldn't sleep for 24 hours. I just finished watching a movie with one of the best action sequences of all time: Throne of Blood. The arrows they're shooting at Toshiro Mifune at the end are freaking real. They must shoot a couple hundred arrows at him.

I think Akira Kurasaw is the best director there has been. This does not mean all his movies beat all other movies and that there are no other great directors, but when I end up building some type of objective criteria he always lands on top. Throne of Blood was pretty cool and the incredible amount of arrows was pretty startling. This is what kind of a freak I am. The first time I saw that movie was with a bunch of friends at the last showing in one of the town's few theaters. We got out after midnight and everyone was acting edgy. My hairs were still tingling.Then I said for everyone to go back without me and walked back to the university alone. It was through a lonely rural setting with a thick but patchy fog rolling over and between the houses.When I got back they all thought I was nuts, but I loved it. I wondered if I liked it just because I had that memory attached to it, but I've seen it again and it has the same effect. It keeps haunting me.I guess I liked the blend of science and religion.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yeah, I agree. You start listing his 'great' movies and almost every one is a gem. The only director that I think can touch him for total number of 'great' movies is Kubrick.Three favorite directors are probably Kurasawa, Kubrick, and Sergio Leone (who I think is really underrated).

I think I'm falling in love.I also think Carpenter is a great director and underrated simply because of his genre of choice. The same could almost be said of Dario Argento, though he has a few failures to his name.Now let's see if you got some REAL depth. Perhaps before Sergio Leone, or increase the list to four I would put Zhang Yimou. His films are fucking brilliant to look at on top of understanding.He almost always uses this one actress (Gong Li if I remember right) that is hot hot hot as a woman trying to get justice within society (usually male domination issues).His latest appeared at Cannes this year and I wanted to shoot myself when I heard. I'll try and find the title but it was supercool, and from what I heard beat Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon every way but Sunday.It is also sword fantasy (kind of a departure for him as it was for Ang Lee) and also has a fight in the bamboo forests. Now get this, even though CTHD already had such a scene(so people should be jaded to such things) the people that saw Yimou's new film were blown away.I'm going to cry when it comes out here with dutch subtitles instead of english ones. It'll be worth just watching though.I also like the new Japanese director Miiki (sic?). He is hyperviolent, but has a style that is his own and to my mind brilliant.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

MIB comes to mind

Independence day was a TERRIBLE film. LAughably horrible.MIB, though, was pretty funny.

It's really a horror film, but what about 28 Days Later? Loved it.I also love anything by Miyazaki.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-01-2004 10:33 AM

quote:

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...Sergio Leone...

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Ooh. That's right! I always felt that the Clint Eastwood "spaghetti" Westerns had a ... surreal quality that I found rather bizarre. In a good way.

Actually, the only Zhang movie I have seen is Da hong deng long gao gao gua. But I've seen Gong Li in other films like The Emporer and the Assassin, which I liked. She's a cutie (hope contra doesn't find that remark too racist ).Carpenter is a great film maker. I own several of his flicks including Escape from NY, Big Trouble, and, one of my favorites, The Thing. Talk about great paranoia horror. His music on the other hand...I'll have to check out Miiki (Takashi right?) Any suggestions?