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Kam
11-03-2005, 07:46 AM
So had an interesting mix last couple of days. It was the Good, the bad, the better than i thought, and the phenomenal. (beware some major kam-ranting below).

Coach Carter - (the better than i thought) sam jackson plays the tough love coach who teaches the punk kid high schoolers going nowhere how to play basketball, and how to survive in this world. way better than i thought it was going to be, but i came in with low expectations, so that might have had something to do with it. has some typical cliches, but, what can ya do? good fun movie.

Assassination Tango - (the bad) couldn't even finish it. don't rent at all. i tried twice to watch it and both times was highly unwatchable. duvall plays an assassin who gets sent on this hit down to south america and tangos ensue. he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in it. while i really loved The Apostle (which he did all the same in) he is hitting 50% here, cuz this one is a stinker.

Samurai Assassin - (the good) definitely reccomend this one. about a group of ronin who decide to assassinate the shogun. dont want to give away too much in case anyone sees it, because i personally like to go in to movies not knowing anything, and then seeing how good/bad it is (a test most movies nowadays would fail since they, and you, know practically everything going in to it from the trailers, side note: try walking into or watching a movie you know absolutely NOTHING about and see how it unfolds versus a movie you basically already know the plot too. when you do know the plot, the film can be far weaker than it should be, because you are already connecting the dots since you know what's going on. when you don't, and the film has to stand entirely on its own without any prompting of additional outside input from yourself, then THAT'S a successful film). this is a classic japanese movie with the great mifune (kurasawa's favorite actor). you see the different motivations of each ronin and why they want to join in this nefarious plot and what honor means to each and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to see the plot to its end.

Now....

Primer - (the phenomenal) ok, HIGHLY reccomended, but with a caveat. if you're sick of the schlop that's been coming out for the past few years really, and want a refreshing change... look no further. the jury award winner at sundance in 2004 was shot for $7,000. On film. that alone is incredible, let alone the complexity and yet simplicity of the storyline. Again, definitely don't want to give anything away on this one, but all you need to know is the basic premise and tagline. It's about time travel and the tagline is: If you always want what you can't have, what do you want when you can have anything?
This movie is not dumbed down at all, quite the opposites. There are no special effects in this movie at all. its not about the technology, its not about the effects, its about the story and ALL about the story. Probably the best time travel movie i've seen. and definitely the most well thought out time travel story. this is a sci-fi movie without a single visual "special effect" because the entire movie is the special effect of thought. something lacking in nearly every sci-movie since the terminator. (although i did love serenity, that's not a thinking sci-fi movie, that's a character sci-fi movie with great characters).

When a group of engineer friends are sitting around discussing their projects, they dont stop to explain what they're saying to the audience, because people don't do that. always a pet peeve of mine when the writer/directors/ etc all dumb down the scripts so that the 'common man' can understand what's going on. that concept itself is idiotic to me. Yes, i have absolutely NO idea what the semiconductor and argon and copper wiring and freon discussions they were having meant one single bit. But that's not the point, everything they said sure sounded authentic to me, and that's the only thing that is crucial to the story. i am immediately taken out of any storyline when the idiot factor is put in and is used almost everywhere, and COULD have been used here but brilliantly wasn't. (generally what i mean is when two people know something or have 'higher order' knowledge, a third person is the idiot who asks what is going on and the smarter characters explain it to him and therefore to the audience). the two engineers when they discover this time travel explain it to each other and do so at a level that THEY would comprehend easily, not US. We aren't here to comprehend time travel, we're here for the emotional truth of that story, and that WE (or at least I) comprehended in spades. here one of the engineers has a wife. they very easily could have explained their higher order discussions to her, but they don't. its inconsequential and very rarely have i ever seen it happen in the real world. when i talk shop with my buddies around sig others, we dont stop, pull ourselves out of the conversation, pause, explain in detail the intricacies of up-rezing hd to 35mm in layman's jargon. does it happen? sure, at times, everything happens, but its not interesting when it does. this movie does a great job of telling a very interesting story, and then also showing how this reality truly would exist. this is not a mass market movie, which can be seen by its extremely limited release in only ny and la. but now it's on dvd. and its available to all. if you're up for an interesting challenge, definitely rent this. if you don't like "indie" movies, you're not a fan of thinking, and prefer your movies with a healthy portion of crud, stay away. (btw, not ripping on all movies like that, because i enjoy the good dumb action flick and so-bad-its-good type movies like tremors as much as the next guy, but i prefer, and am happily refreshed, when finding gems like Primer).

peace
k2
:D
go 'canes!

dean_martin
11-03-2005, 02:36 PM
Kam,

Thanks for being the point man for the obscure. I'll definitely check out Primer.

BTW, I searched out and found Y Tu Mama Tambien based on your mentioning it here and I believe we may have discussed it before. However, the more I thought about the conduct of the characters, particularly the female, the more I began to think the narrator could not be trusted. This is a clever device often used in literature in which the person telling the story is either intentionally distorting the truth or is telling only one side. I think the female character played/manipulated those young guys to the hilt, but I didn't come to that conclusion until a couple of days after watching the film because while watching it the narrator tries to convince you (with an objective-sounding tone, no less) that everything she does is with the guys' best interest in mind. Then again, I don't speak Spanish so something could have been lost between the spoken word and the subtitles.

Kam
11-04-2005, 07:09 AM
Kam,

Thanks for being the point man for the obscure. I'll definitely check out Primer.

BTW, I searched out and found Y Tu Mama Tambien based on your mentioning it here and I believe we may have discussed it before. However, the more I thought about the conduct of the characters, particularly the female, the more I began to think the narrator could not be trusted. This is a clever device often used in literature in which the person telling the story is either intentionally distorting the truth or is telling only one side. I think the female character played/manipulated those young guys to the hilt, but I didn't come to that conclusion until a couple of days after watching the film because while watching it the narrator tries to convince you (with an objective-sounding tone, no less) that everything she does is with the guys' best interest in mind. Then again, I don't speak Spanish so something could have been lost between the spoken word and the subtitles.

gonna pull this down off the shelf and check it out again along with Amores Perros and have a double feature with them.

but the untrustworthy/lieing narrator, i think, is one of the best story telling devices around, and when it's executed makes for the best movies. the first time i ever came across it, and loved it, was the original The Jungle Book with sabu and it's own lil trick ending. I was blown away by that simple little twist. other, more recent classics would be Memento, The Usual Suspects, anything by lynch because you never can get a grasp from who's pov the story is being told, and Fight Club. of course when its done wrong, you never remember the movie again.

noddin0ff
11-21-2005, 07:58 AM
Just rented Primer last night. What a great movie. Thanks for the recommendation! I can’t believe the shoestring this was made on. I can’t think of a single way a bigger budget could have improved this movie (exept for taking it from 2.0 to 5.1, heh, heh).

I thought one of the more ironic parts about renting Primer was that I wanted to keep going back in time to figure it out. The movie was only 85 minutes but I think I watched it for just over 2 hours with all the rewinding. I'm not really sure I figured it out, but I don’t care. I’m still thinking. I’m still thinking of watching it again. I think that's how you're supposed to feel with a paradox. Suffice it to say, you can’t watch this movie without paying attention.

I read some reviews that made comparisons to Momento and Donnie Darko. Toward the end of my viewing, my thought was that the closest philosophical comparison might be to Groundhog Day. Bill Murray got to leave when he got it right. But, what if there was no 'right' and do-overs were your choice?

noddin0ff
11-21-2005, 09:00 AM
Did anyone notice the names of the characters, Aaron and Abe, could be for for A>A and A>B?

Kam
11-21-2005, 10:15 AM
that's a good catch! the a/a, a/b thing, didnt even notice that. if you want, i can post this review/recap i read where they outlined exactly what happenned and broke down what/how he did what he did. it might not be the definitive answer, but it made sense as to what was going on and which 'aaron' (i get them confused, maybe abe, the darkhaired one) is the one that got on the plane and we see working in the hangar making a giant version of the machine in the end. that's the part i thought was fascinating, because it wasn't the aaron i thought it was. if you remember the one scene where he's removing all the other aarons, one of them fights back, and that's where i got confused as to which aaron continued from that point on.

very fascinating movie. and that budget, it is unbelievable, but what's more ridiculous, is they shot a nearly 1:1 ratio. that is, what you see, is EVERYTHING they shot.

noddin0ff
11-21-2005, 11:33 AM
Yes, I'd be interested in reading more. I'm content with my conclusions, but now that I've obsessed over figuring it out, I might as well follow to the logical end! The 1:1 is amazing. Leave it to an engineer. I suppose everyone must have been playing to type anyway. I know I felt like I was back in college listening to my ME, EE friends pondering the possibilities and limitations.

I'd like to know what the plans for the BIG box are/were.

Kam
11-21-2005, 11:42 AM
So for anyone who hasnt seen it, please do NOT read the below, this is spoiled in great detail. I found this from IMDB, where a guy there posted in and is a great explanation as to everything that happenned (from his pov at least) in the movie and i pretty much agreed with it.
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Abe (light-hair guy) and Aaron (dark-hair guy) and their two friends have a small business running out of Aaron’s garage, constructing specialized PC cards (for connecting external devices to check them for errors through a home computer). They work at that when not busy with their day jobs as engineers. The corporation was set up with some kind of agreement to do Abe and Aaron’s idea first (the PC cards, I assume) and when that was off the ground to go to whatever the other two guys wanted to do.

During the time of developing the cards, however, Abe has come up with an idea he wants to work on. This idea would have real value… a room-temperature superconductor. Rather than knocking out resistance of a ceramic plate with large and expensive cooling apparatus, Abe thinks he can reduce resistance with an enveloping magnetic field [don’t ask me to explain how that was supposed to work…]. So Abe and Aaron, not wanting the other two in on this project too much, and especially not wanting all the equipment in the garage being used for the other two’s project instead, try to manipulate their business partners into relinquishing the right to their ‘turn’ (this is what the whole kitchen discussion at Christmas is about).

Abe and Aaron get their way through being childishly immature, and proceed with their brilliant design. Phillip and Robert are allowed in on some aspects, but are kept largely in the dark. Once the machine is principally constructed, they do a test run. With some of the magnetic interference on they drop paper dots over the machine, which proceed to fall just short of levitation, which falls in line with a near-superconductor. So, they proceed to put on full power, so to speak, by surrounding the plates with a metal box, through which will be routed an electromagnetic field to eliminate resistance in the plates, via Abe’s theory. One catch, with the box on they have no way of seeing inside, until Abe puts Aaron’s camcorder inside (with some kind of consumer night-vision) promising to pay him back if, say, the electromagnetic field fries all its circuits (think EMP bomb, maybe).

Keeping an eye on the weeble inside the box by way of a cheapie monitor on Aaron’s ping-pong table, Abe and Aaron power up the plate inside their argon filled box. They don’t see the weeble do a lift-off, but the scale that has been placed inside (with it’s LED display wired in but on the outside world) shows grams start disappearing. Ahh, the levitation of superconductivity!!! For the full effect, they proceed to power up the box itself, AND--something blows out (to do with one of the car batteries, I assume).

Skip to several months later (March, I believe?). Aaron has managed to stabilize the box, by feeding with electricity slowly, then shutting it off before the box goes berserk. Doing this, the box continues to use power, power that the batteries are no longer supplying, as both are disconnected. So, is this just a glorified, slow-release capacitor, or is something much much more?

Abe continues working with the box to prove his theories, until he discovers a year’s worth of mold activity is going on inside the box in a single day. Weird and toxic. Without letting Aaron in immediately, Abe investigates. Some strange incubator for mold? No…
Rather, time inside the box is different than on the outside. Time proceeds forward normally while the box is powered on, but when it is turned off time starts going backwards to the moment the machine was activated. At this point is goes forward again, then back, then forward , then-- You get the picture. It does this about 1300 times, at which point time (or perhaps just the weeble?) jumps its way out of the loop through some mathematical probability. So, the tiny little mold spores that made their inside the box have experienced over 1300 minutes (all of them the same minute, in a way) whereas we on the outside have experienced only one. How’s that for a dissertation, eh?

Before approaching Aaron with this wacked out theory, he wants to be able to prove it to both of them. So he constructs a coffin-shaped frame out of PVC pipe, surrounds it with plastic sheeting, and fills it with argon. He puts powerful electromagnets on the box at set intervals, so that their combined magnetic fields leave no gaps around the box. He turns the box on (with a timer, so he is not present when it actually kicks into action) in the morning, sits in a motel room all day, and gets in the box (at the UHAUL place) in the evening, taking with him an oxygen supply and something to help him sleep. In this way he travels back to the moment the box activated. At this point he jumps out of the box now that time is flowing the same direction as the outside world and, well, he gets dressed. He goes and finds his buddy Aaron and explains his whole theory to him. Aaron is a tad incredulous at first, wandering between jubilant belief and distraught un. Then Abe and he eat fast food sitting on Aaron’s truck outside the UHAUL facility. Abe hands a pair of binoculars to Aaron and indicates that he should look closely at the blond guy entering the storage area. It is, of course, Abe who has just come from the motel room he spent his entire day in. A hypothesis/theory is thus confirmed.

Now, time for Abe and Aaron to cash in, so to speak. The word for today is “stocks.” In the morning they set timers on two machines, then, leaving a car for them to use in ,well, a minute or two, drive off. They check in at the hotel, throw a ball around all day, then log in at a library to see what mid-cap stocks have risen just enough to net a considerable profit with no risk of drawing attention. This done they get in the boxes, breath through their oxygen masks, wait for the timer, and get out. Foolish Aaron gets out while time is still moving backwards (so to us he gets out considerably after Abe does) and feels pretty bad for a bit. After Aaron has gotten his progressive-time-feet back again, they exit and get into the car that they left for themselves either three minutes ago or a number of hours ago (“depending on your point of reference,” as Aaron would say). Out in the world now, they buy stocks online and cash in at the end of the day. Can you say “rich”?

So, they follow this same basic program for three or four days, quickly getting bored with the time stuck in hotel rooms and exhausted with the hours they have added to their days. They generally get more careless about which stocks they buy into, looking only for the highest percentage rise. They leave the TV plugged in and, of course, Aaron leaves his cellphone on in both places as he experiences the same day over, causing panic from Abe over how the network works.

After only a few days trading, these two have more money than they can start spending without drawing all kinds of attention--Aaron particularly doesn’t know how to explain his sudden wealth to his wife (Abe thinks he should just tell her the truth). So, they become bored.

Boredom finds what is seen as a solution when Aaron decides he wants to use the machine to see what it would be like to break his boss’s nose. Abe, good friend that he is, thinks he has found a way, since he has developed a habit of leaving the machines on for extended periods of time. When a kid messing around triggers all the car alarms on his block it wakes him up and he heads over to Aaron’s to wake him up. They can drive over to the boss man’s house, punch him out, then hop in the machines and scare the kid off before he sets off the alarms. That way, the alarms never wake Abe up, Abe never wakes Aaron up, and (they think) Aaron never socks the man. Fun all around.
But on the way to do the aforementioned slugging, Aaron notices a friend (a rich guy he’d been trying to get invested in the business) sitting in a car outside his (Aaron’s) house. That doesn’t sit right, especially when he realizes that he’s seen the man hours before with a lot less five o’clock shadow.
Just to make sure, Abe uses his cell to call his ex-girlfriend, the rich guy’s daughter Rachel. He asks for her dad’s cell number. He calls it, gets the guy, and he’s not talking to the guy in the car. Apparently, Abe and Aaron aren’t the only time-split duplicates on the planet.

Outraged, Aaron jumps out of the car and runs at the copy in question. Foot chase ensues, and the other guy ends up out cold on the lawn. Comatose is the term used, I believe.
Since there couldn’t be a duplicate of this guy without the machine, and since Abe and Aaron think he could only learn of its existence from one of them, they begin to argue over who squealed (and why). It is clear that things cannot be the same ever again from this point, so Abe decides to undo everything. He goes to “the failsafe machine.” Through this machine, which has been running from before Abe sent himself back in time on the first try, he sends himself back to see that Aaron never learns of the machine’s time-travel abilities. He drugs the still-sleeping original Abe and takes his place.

This should have been the end of it, in Abe’s mind, but it was not. Because Aaron undid the Abe’s undo. “How?” He builds time up inside itself by turning machine on inside machine. In this way he is able to travel back before any of the machines were even built. In this way he attempts to prevent any harm from coming to his unimaginable power of time travel. He proceeds to put the alternate Aaron’s that exist in those time periods out of his way by drugging them and placing them in the attic. And on his first run back through past events (you might say his second time through these points in time) he records on audio tape every word that is spoken between himself and any other person. In this way he can remain referenced on his next--his third--time through (and any other times through that may prove necessary) and make tiny changes in what he says to manipulate those around him to do exactly what he wants.

A new problem automatically arises from this however, or at least from the drugging of the alternate selves. Before, when he would get out at the moment the machine was turned on, he would exist in the same time period as another Aaron, but then that Aaron would get in the box (just as he had in his “past” or his memory, as that simultaneous occurrence was his “past”) and cease to move forward in time. In this way, only for that one day would more than Aaron exist. Once Aaron begins to go back and prevent the alternate self from proceeding, but rather proceeds in his place, that drugged alternate will now never get the box disappearing from forward-flowing time. A permanent “copy” has just been created. Messy, ain’t it?

Aaron is now ready, tapes in hand, to go back through for the second time (or through for the third time) Aaron is affecting time in another way. He has already averted having the secret of time control ripped from his hands, and now he is addicted to the added power of controlling time beyond times that were prepared for in advance (times when the machine was turned on already to enable that particular trip to that particular time) and is planning to do something bigger and more personal with it.

The new plan arises from something his wife said, I believe. When she hears him refer to wishing he could knock his boss silly, she says “Finally, my hero.” Meaning she has apparently always found him a wuss who was unwilling to stand up for himself. Aaron cottons to this macho perception. So, being richer than he can actually admit safely right now, he goes after something perhaps more desired than money. He decides to achieve a reputation.
To do this he sees to it that one of Rachel’s ex-boyfriends, a bit of a maniac, shows up at a party. The ex will proceed to scare everyone with a shotgun, then leave without hurting anyone. Aaron’s plan is to take the shotgun from him in a show of force and become, well, a hero. Without getting killed, of course.

Well, that end takes a few more times through than he anticipated. Every little thing… has… to be… just… right. Somewhere in one these, one of his doubles gets the upper hand. Aaron (the one making all these trips back) is wearied by the journeys and slips up. He’s surprised by his double’s presence and isn’t quite able to take him in a fight, apparently. The power, and hints of power to come, have turned this back-tracking Aaron into something of a maniac, however, and the double who wouldn’t be content to be shoved in the attic decides to go on his way elsewhere.

Abe, in one frame of reference or another, realizes that his failsafe didn’t do the trick. Aaron has outsmarted him with the “box inside a box” scheme. And, seeing that his seemingly perfect solution to the nightmarish confusion surround his life has not worked, chooses to simply help Aaron become the hero he desires to be.

The hero scheme finally works perfectly. “It must have been beautiful,” Aaron-who-left says. At this point, Abe tells Aaron to get on a plane and leave. To never interfere again with the lives that he has wreaked so much havoc in. Abe will be watching things, he will go back utilizing box-within-box travel--back to a time when Abe and Aaron hadn’t even thought of a time travel application. He will sabotage his (alternate self’s) own superconductor device every step of the way, until Abe and Aaron entirely give up on the project. There will be no more duplicates, no more confusion. He hopes.

And then, just before the credits roll, we see Aaron--that first Aaron who left--trying to figure out how to duplicate his other selves’ time-travel device. Yes, somewhere, in some French-language country, this early Aaron is constructing a box the size of an airplane hangar. Beautiful.

GMichael
11-21-2005, 12:30 PM
Kam, are you trying to give me a headache?

How many doubles where there?
Did you ever find out who the "other" time splitter was?

Kam
11-21-2005, 01:12 PM
Kam, are you trying to give me a headache?

How many doubles where there?
Did you ever find out who the "other" time splitter was?

well i think there ended up being just one 'double' and thats the one that abe sent on the airplane away from everything so he doesnt run in to anyone they know and complicate things. this aaron#2 is the one that went back with the fail safe machine and is the one that started knocking out all the other aaron's and stopped them from doing things he didnt want them to do etc. but it all started to unravel when they saw the other time-splitter. because that meant one of their (the aaron and abe who were having that conversation) other doubles talked and told this guy about the time machine. but since it wasnt one of them (yet as it likely is) that told him, they dont know what their time-splitting doubles have done. now this then begins the unravelling of everything because this means they have future timesplit versions of themselves out there since they've doubled back in time over each other, that they've created the paradox of mutliple versions of themselves, and the unravelling (of the plot) is that they realize they dont know what their other self is doing. i think?

the post above also spawned a HUGE thread of discussion even more crazy than our lost thread on here haha.

but its very fascinating which abe and which aaron were doing what. i think one of the main keys is the ending voice over, which is the tape that aaron had been making, or the end of the conversation tapes that he sent back with himself to 'influence' people to say/do what they "should" do. it also brings on really fascinating issues of predestiny vs. free will.

great movie.

noddin0ff
11-21-2005, 01:12 PM
Wow, what a synopsis. That's would've taken me at least a dozen more viewings...

I figured the other time splitter was Abe or Aaron who on one iteration invited the potential investor to try the device, then the investor might have built his own...still don't know why he ended up comatose...but then again, maybe Aaron had been through this part a few times too. I thought is was interesting that they took different paths around the building in the chase; more of the AA/AB allusion.

GMichael
11-21-2005, 01:17 PM
Well, sense he was building a box big enough for a plane, my guess is he was trying to get his double back for some reason. Maybe before he lets the cat out of the bag.

Kam
11-21-2005, 01:17 PM
Wow, what a synopsis. That's would've taken me at least a dozen more viewings...

I figured the other time splitter was Abe or Aaron who on one iteration invited the potential investor to try the device, then the investor might have built his own...still don't know why he ended up comatose...but then again, maybe Aaron had been through this part a few times too. I thought is was interesting that they took different paths around the building in the chase; more of the AA/AB allusion.

now that i thought was because aaron (i think, which is the one the camera does not follow) actually did know what was going on and so wanted to get to that guy first and knock him out before abe did. but i have to see it again now, am trying to remember that scene and what they showed on subsequent 'flashbacks' with aaron#2 going around and knocking out the other aarons, if he also might have already been there to knock out this other time-splitter to ensure he doesnt talk and tell abe that aaron is the one who talked.

whew. my eyes are crossed now.