way of the gun 4k: finally looks like a film and not a vhs
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A couple months ago in yet another dying media store (Dorama) I picked up some movies. So tonight with Lady Rude I watched Popoya (The Railroad Man) .
It turned out to be Lady Rude’s favorite genre of movie: a movie where nothing happens. She kept commenting on how handsome Ken-chan was. This movie also has a separate Ken-chan, of Kato and Ken Chan in his only feature length appearance.
The movie is about a man at an remote Hokkaido station reminiscing about his life. the shots of the train station and the trains are beautiful. It features some Hitchcock level atrocious blue screen. Including one shot in the train where they super-imposed two separate actors.
Without English or Japanese subtitles I understood maybe 20% of the dialog and 70% of the plot (such that there was.)
Cultural moment: they visit the main character’s family grave and his buddy wipes away the snow to see the MC’s name. Lady Rude informed me this meant he had no intention of retiring and moving to the swank hotel job away from this tiny village and meant to stay and die. “What they can’t bring back his body or ashes after he dies?” “They can but…”
I had a relatively good time with it but it featured my second least favorite thing in cinema (after SA and bullying) When the ghost of his dead daughter comes and talks to him and tells him he was a good dad. It almost, almost gets away with this. I think that is the hack move in writing. The dead stay dead. What we, humanity, live with is that we will never get to talk to the dead again and get the answers we want. And it is almost always self-satisfying.
Good enough movie for Father’s Day.
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finally caught the new final destination since it turned up online. I’ve decided that this and riverdale are the only shows that are actually intentionally set in Vancouver
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Finished Proxy War, I probably shoulda watched the first 2 first, I didn’t realize it was a 5 parter, I thought they’d be self contained stories. Proxy War ends with the other gang being real real mean. Kinda want to watch 4 and 5 just to see where it goes instead of catching up with 1 and 2.
If I remember right, 3 and 4 are basically two halves of the one story, and the others are somewhat more self contained, although I’d say it’s beneficial to watch them first so that you know who the characters and organisations are. The second movie in particular feels like more of a side story.
Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
This reminds me so much of the flash era early 2000’s. An amalgamation of CGI and vector graphics animation. An album cover come to life. Art. Five bags of popcorn and a can of Catty&Co soup.
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I just finished watching that Pee-wee Herman documentary. I’d been looking forward to seeing it and I wasn’t disappointed.
I have a hard time imagining something equivalent to Pee-wee emerging in today’s culture. Maybe I’m just falling into the trap of thinking that things were better in my formative years and modern entertainment pales in comparison. I try not to do that, though, because I know it’s not the case at least for music.
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also really adored this (and agree that pee wee’s playhouse feels like a kind of civilizational peak in my mind, though you should watch at home with amy sedaris if you haven’t already)
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Pee-wee’s Facebook account was one of the few things on that site I’ve ever bothered following. And of course I later learned that he had been posting fun little things there as he was nearing the end of his life while keeping his cancer a secret.
Also, a friend of mine who used to call Pee-wee his hero would have loved this documentary, but that friend died a few months before Pee-wee did.
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I still can’t believe The Keep got a real 4K scan after all this time, it looks incredible
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I liked Friendship but did wish it got as surreal as I Think You Should Leave routinely does. Still, very nervewracking and very funny. I really enjoyed Conner O’Malley’s cameo, especially the way he ended his speech. Shout out also to the shocked “Can he say that??” face Kate Mara briefly makes when Paul Rudd’s band plays a very lightly anti-mayor song followed by a quick glance around to check everyone else’s reaction and see that they’re smiling, followed by a big smile herself. Tells you everything you need to know about her character right then and there.
Later that night I watched a Farscape episode where a guy hallucinates his wife’s presence while wandering in a big alien tunnel system and then un-hallucinates her, so somehow I managed to watch two things in one night where a guy loses his wife in the sewer.
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Kate Mara is cast so well in that, the scene when she tells him she had an orgasm in the sewer is unbelievably funny because it’s like they’re both nervously looking at one another for disapproval
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I also loved the frog tripping scene. It’s funny on its surface but I also thought it was a pretty interesting character beat. Even in his deepest psychedelic fantasies, his ideal social interaction is ordering a Subway sandwich from an employee who recognizes you and is in a somewhat good mood. He just wants everything to have a rigid, predictable script, he wants it to be transactional, and he wants his interlocutor to be in a position where they are required to be pleasant to him. I think in a very real way a huge number of suburban Americans basically share this ideal.
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does anybody remember the skit from an episode of the comedy bang bang tv show called “soap or nope?” it’s hidden camera footage of a public restroom sink and the narrators yell “soap” or “nope” based on whether the person washes their hands and then one guy kinda fake pantomime washes his hands? this along with those three pictures of cuthbert that we were all gifted with earlier today and will cherish in our memories forever are funnier than anything in the wide release hollywood motion picture friendship i promise not to talk shit about friendship any more after this
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Escape From LA
“it’s your last chance plisskin”
“for what?”
“for freedom, in America”
“that died a long time ago”
HOLY SHIT how did J Carpenter nail 2025 american fascism so well? Deportations. Moral Crimes. this shit was probably really funny 20 years ago and now it’s…terrifying. IDK why more game designers don’t watch Escape from LA, this shit is pure Kojima. Is that…Tori Amos’ Professional Widow? Calling the president’s daughter “Utopia” and then the president uttering “Utopia is lost” is inspired.
Steve Buscemi!
This is probably how everyone imagines LA. Every shot has rubble and a very LA looking landmark. Like a hotel or a sign. Plastic Surgery cults. Running guns with golf carts.
“Ill read your future”
“The future’s right now”
“That’s Plisskin”
“This town loves a winner”
I love the surfer dude who’s Snake’s biggest fan. he just hands the guy a surfboard and they surf a tsunami.
This fucking rips
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this movie got a lot of hate back in the day and the critics were all wrong, it rocks
welcome to the human race
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20 years ago george “god told me to end the tyranny in iraq” w bush was president
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I saw it in theaters with my Mom. good memory
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i’m pretty sure all of the same people are in charge, they’re just 30 years older
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The ‘Interior Design’ of Tokyo!, Michel Gondry really get the sense of Tokyo.
Shame on Wim Wenders btw.
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