The Box

[MinM]

Speaking of good conspiracy films, I *finally* just saw The Parralax View. Aside from a few cheesey fight scenes and not the best score, I think this and the original Manchurian Candidate are some of the best para-political films of all time...

Rigorous Intuition (v. 2.0): The things that don't add up

Thursday, December 06, 2007

"Well what do you think they're going to say?"
Alex Cox introduces The Parallax View

Read more: http://rigint.blogspot.com/2007/12/thin ... dd-up.html

BTW the trailer seems to use a little KWH action off the first name of the star of the movie...

The Parallax View - Trailer (37241)

[nathan28]

I was wondering, WTF is this "The Box" thing, anyway? Then I remembered the trailer with Cameron "When Will My Career End?" Diaz and realized I read the short story this was based on. As a class assignment when I was eleven. Apparently Spoiler:the theatrical version features an alien invasion? WTF? I thought the story was just an old-fashioned morality tale, a fable with a moral? "You didn't really know your spouse." huh? this looks like it's gone in a completely different direction. Anyway the book was full of some material it seems doubtful that you'd include in a "young adult" reader--no stories about teen pregnancy, divorce, feeling left out etc., just a bunch of mindbending material from the '70s.

anyway i don't watch movies i can't see on netflix or library dvd anymore, what with that $12 price tag.

[stefano]

anyway i don't watch movies i can't see on netflix or library dvd anymore, what with that $12 price tag.

So get the torrent here. I just got uncapped broadband and am absolutely milking it.

[Cordelia]

Anybody ever seen The Spanish Prisoner?

I loved it; vintage David Mamet. Interesting casting of Steve Martin.

[justdrew]

great visual movie, lottsa good moments, but the end/explanation fully explains things... as the credit roll, it felt like any moment I'd hear...

"We now return control of your television set to you, until next week when the control voice will take you to... The Outer Limits."

worth seeing though

My sense was that was the original story and the explanation follows in the order that the protagonists discover it. And what's wrong with the Outer Limits?

nothing at all, but it does have weaker episodes, I just finished re-viewing all the OL eps actually (working through Night Gallery now). A weak Outer Limits is still better than most other TV, and the good ones are remarkably good. Ya know that indian head TV test pattern RI used to have as a logo is in the opening sequence of O.L. Just as the voice says, "do not attempt to change the picture". Anyway, didn't mean there was anything wrong with the box because of that, it's just very similar to the kind of story one might see if you took a OL ep and turned it into a modern movie.

[8bitagent]

Wanted to like it....really, really didn't. Gorgeous but empty.

Reminded me in a lot of ways of Inglorious Basterds, another high-level exercise in style without content.

Well, I'm gonna have to see this now and fully missed this thread when it was posted last November. This is what I say about all Tarantino films. Donnie Darko, I watched religiously when it came out. Literally, I watched it every night for awhile. There was some kind of undercurrent to that film. It hit me on so many levels. I would get stoned and would point out all kinds of shit to roommates and friends who hadn't heard of it. It had a lot to do with the times too and how it was called off from distribution after 9/11. How it catapulted Jake Gyllenhaal's career and also Maggies and also the connection to Heath Ledger playing the joker.

As I normally do, I try to find some kind of personal synch in just about everything so I can analyze it and put into some sort of Grand Unified Theory.

So a couple years ago, I'm walking down the street -- holy shit -- in Manhattan to boot. My GF at the time says, that's Maggie Gyllenhaal! Sure enough it was. Next day we fly back to Seattle and a few days after that Heath Ledger died. Apparently I was directly under the dude's apartment, loft, whatever it is rich fuckers live in in Manhattan. I don't remember them now, but there was some kind of synch. Donnie Darko fucked me up and made me more aware in so many ways. Maybe I shouldn't see The Box afterall. I'm scared. I've said, basically as a joke that seeing Maggie makes me one degree separated from Donnie Darko and The Joker.

God the music was good in that film, wasn't it?

For some reason Donnie Darko and The Box, as much as I kind of dug em, didnt really effect me or weigh on my mind at all after I saw each.

However...seeing Jacob's Ladder, various fucked up French and European dramas too traumatic for most to endure, Harmony Korine's "Gummo" and "Julian Donkey-Boy" and David Lynch's Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me...

[8bitagent]

Speaking of good conspiracy films, I *finally* just saw The Parralax View. Aside from a few cheesey fight scenes and not the best score, I think this and the original Manchurian Candidate are some of the best para-political films of all time. I also can see how David Fincher completely was inspired for this when he made "the Game"

I went on a filmed in Seattle only film junket awhile back. That's how I wound up seeing Parralax View. I wouldn't call it great, but I would say, damn NWA's fuckin' up the program. And fuck, is not The Game underrated as fuck? That, I think is the best film I have ever seen for surprise points alone. The Game is so haunting. It's otherworldly.

Yeah the Game is my second favorite David Fincher film right under Seven. Zodiac would be my third favorite of his. I was never entirely too big of a Fight Club fan, but I dare say David Fincher pretty much revolutionized the look of film in a lot of ways. I can pop in Seven and it doesnt seem at all like it was filmed in 1994.

But yeah the Game to me was visionary. I was totally surprised by the ending and I love the feel of the film. Very few R rated adult dramas transcend the genre for me, those movies that truly blow me away. I'd say films I consider flawless masterpieces that work me everytime would be stuff like The Game, Silence of the Lambs, In The Bedroom, The Pledge, Eyes Wide Shut, Mystic River, Dominic and Eugene, Basquiat, Zodiac, One Hour Photo, The Shining, 2001, and if only a few adjustments in the editing room had been made...M night's Signs.

[82_28]

Oh man. Jacob's Ladder. That is another one of the all time most haunting films of all time. One of my absolute faves. I don't like shit about serial killers, thus the fact that I didn't like Seven or Silence of the Lambs. In fact I had my very first panic attack, that felt like an acid flashback with my dad during Silence of the Lambs in the theater. Silence of the Lambs and having had a bad trip on acid a few weeks before is how I met my very first psychiatrist actually.

But Jacob's Ladder. Fuck do I love how that movie just spooks the living fuck out of me.

[82_28]

In fact, a quick story about Seven. I do happen to own it. My girlfriend was sick the other week and was feeling depressed and that nobody loved her. I went to the bed and she had pulled out Seven from the shelf and was gonna watch it. I told her, "that is not a movie, you in your frame of mind right now wants to watch." I left for work. When I got home she said I was right. She could only manage like 15 minutes of it before stopping it.

[8bitagent]

In fact, a quick story about Seven. I do happen to own it. My girlfriend was sick the other week and was feeling depressed and that nobody loved her. I went to the bed and she had pulled out Seven from the shelf and was gonna watch it. I told her, "that is not a movie, you in your frame of mind right now wants to watch." I left for work. When I got home she said I was right. She could only manage like 15 minutes of it before stopping it.

Well the reason I love Seven, Silence of the Lambs, The Cell and Zodiac is the photography and art direction, and the overall production and feel. Silence of the Lambs is one of the most not-a-hint-of-cheese realistic movies I've ever seen and just feels so jarring. I love the costumes and avant garde look of the Cell. I remember seeing Seven in theaters and just marveling at the look and feel and tone of it. It reminded me of that depressed hopelessness of Jacob's Ladder. I love Manhunter(Red Dragon), the Michale Mann 1986 prequel to Silence of the Lambs. And I love how David Fincher took HD digital camera techniques and made Zodiac look not just like film, but authentically late 60's.

But I *hate* serial killer discussion. I refuse to watch those Dateline specials on murder mysteries and it makes me sick to see specials on serial killers. I despise all those Friday the 13th type of slasher horror movies, or the Saw/Hostel type stuff.

When it comes to anxiety inducing cinema, I think it depends on one's mood and experiences. I found the film "Precious" to be one of the most jarring and depressing movies Ive ever seen, even though noone dies in the movie. European dramas are producing some of the most extreme and unflinchingly and horrifyingly graphic films ever portrayed on screen, such as the 2002 French film "Irreversible" and the upcoming "Serbian Film".

But I just love movies that evoke a certain mood, or is a total mind bender or has a real rich look. Like the 2003 Korean film "Old Boy".

[Twyla LaSarc]

Videodrome did a number on me in the day. Jacob's Ladder was another one...I've owned the video for years and haven't been able and go back to watch it.

There seems to be something weird about Silence Of the Lambs. I almost never dream about things I encounter in real life, much less about the day's events, but I had very strange dreams after having seen it, the death's head moth being prominent. When I talked to friends about it, they described similar experiences.

I love mind-bending movies, thanks for some fresh suggestions.

[The Hundredth Idiot]

This idiot saw 'The Box', found it overall kinda strange, with a lot of hidden gems. Some people appear to have gotten different things out of it, which is usually a sign that it's at least worth a watch.

SPOILER:


I don't recall it having anything to do with 'aliens' exactly, just a 'something' that had infiltrated the NSA-through LIGHTNING. (Lightning,[naturally occuring] and the intimate details as to the how's and why's of all of it's processes, is something that is still not entirely understood by science to this day)

There was a POSTER hanging up in the NASA place that said "The highest technologies are indistinguishable from magic"

The 'zombie' type people: "We're been tested, all of us" Creepy!

Also, loved ol' mates physical/virtual map thing, where the outcome of the 'box' experiments predicted outcomes and variables as to strategy and area of CENTCOM size over the MIDDLE EAST etc.

(Wondered if that had anything to do with current times, i.e. the 'level of war' relative to our collective 'level of acquisience'
to the pressing issues of our times.
Like everyone so concerned about 'making a living' (getting the 1million for lacking moral judgement) and not caring about large scale consequence-so long as we're still 'making a living'-we've collectively been 'bought-off'-forcefully-so these clowns can do what they want with the planet and us. And the LIGHTNING intelligence, whatever it was, not so much taking us over, but simply running it's own experiments as to why humans are so goddamn stupid.)

Maybe that was one underlying message from 'The Box', that the longer we turn the cheek, keep gettin that check no matter what, at the expense of everyone/ultimately ourselves-shit's just gonna get far far worse for all of us.

Also, off topic a bit here- but the movies 'CYPHER', 'CUBE', and 'CUBE 2- HYPERCUBE'(which has practically disappeared) strike me as some kinda shit made to entertain Darpa exec's. I mean, brilliant movies but whom the target audience? Those three flicks reek of someone saying "Look at what we can do..."

[JackRiddler]

More spoilerage for 100th Idiot (I like that name).

The "something" could be god or the devil playing the old game of Torture the Job, if you are so inclined. It is of course never shown except through the vessel of Arlington (aha) Steward (meaning, servant of Pentagon). But it's almost certainly not a force created by the deep state itself, but extraterrestrials or extradimensionals - something from without (beings fitting the usual religious conceptions of god and the devil would qualify as aliens to me). Steward refers to it in the plural, he speaks of They, "my Employers," and of course "my employees," the body-snatched. The Arthur C. Clarke line makes it clear that the underlying power is a developed technology of some kind, hence alien probe/advance guard is the most compatible explanation for a plot that, of course, is meant to leave it up to the viewer. I thought it was clear that the lightning was not coincidental, that it was a method of transport of the probe-being to its chosen human host. They don't know all about humans, but are using human social psychology experiments as compiled by the deep state to examine the humans, with the intent of passing a judgment. Hence the relation to "The Day the Earth Stood Still." A favorite part was where he reveals what he thinks the point of the experiment is and how to stop it, in a passing way, I'm paraphrasing - "When will they stop? I would guess that when enough people don't push the button."

[The Hundredth Idiot]

What, is the word 'spoiler' not enough to warn of a dissection of a now old movies contents!?

Does one need a silver spoon and a Harvard vernacular to post here?

Was simply dropping my own piece of intuition on the the movie 'The Box'.

That is all. Good day.

[JackRiddler]

What, is the word 'spoiler' not enough to warn of a dissection of a now old movies contents!?

Does one need a silver spoon and a Harvard vernacular to post here?

Was simply dropping my own piece of intuition on the the movie 'The Box'.

That is all. Good day.

Now what would prompt this? Seems you're looking for provocations. Be it known that my using white type for the second time was not in response to you, let alone an accusation against your not doing so. You said something, I said something, it's supposedly a discussion. A friendly one, I thought. As for the rules, silver spoons are not needed, in fact they are forbidden. Harvard vernacular is absolutely required, however, from anyone who mentions it as a non-sequitur. The penalty is that all of your posts henceforth must be in idiomatic Latin.