Stuff you LOVE, baby

[Ramsus]

I love that moment of genius where the perfect solution to the problem you've been thinking about suddenly jumps out at you, and it's nothing like your original approach.

[Mr Bekkler]

I love that moment of genius where the perfect solution to the problem you've been thinking about suddenly jumps out at you, and it's nothing like your original approach.

That IS a good feeling!

[FaustWolf]

Just saw Inception. Yeah, I'm fashionably late to that party -- but I'm immensely glad I stuck with it until the end. Consuming a piece of media that challenges the viewer as much as Inception does did wonders for loosening my mind. I don't think I've seen a movie ending that so exquisitely combines catharsis with a sense of unease.

...At least, if you interpret the movie in a certain way. In that sense, it captures some of the subjective magic that made Satoshi Kon's animes so compelling.

[utunnels]

Watched too much of the Ju-on series last night and became too excited to sleep.

Just because I heard someone's translating the psx play novel Otogiriso and so I searched for related stuff in curiosity. >_>

[Ramsus]

I went ahead and ordered Cubase 5. With an education discount that brings it down to under $300, which is cheaper than upgrading from my copy of Cubase Essential 5. I'm pretty excited, since it has some really handy recording features that essential doesn't have, like stacked recording mode, plus it has its own convolution reverb plugin and melodyne-style pitch alteration built into the audio sample editor. The timewarp and audiowarp features also makes it easy to match up the tempo of your project to an audio track and then layer MIDI on top of that without having to worry about timing yourself to a click track, which is also handy for doing remixes.

I considered getting Ableton Live instead, since I like the session workflow it provides and how easy it is to fix timing errors in recordings with its sample editor. Looper looks pretty awesome too, and the suite version comes with some nice tools and instruments for electronic styles of music, but Cubase handles changing tempos better. Also, buying a convolution reverb plugin and melodyne for Ableton would've made it a lot more expensive, and I already know how to use Cubase now.

Music software these days is really amazing stuff though. I love it.

Just saw Inception. Yeah, I'm fashionably late to that party -- but I'm immensely glad I stuck with it until the end. Consuming a piece of media that challenges the viewer as much as Inception does did wonders for loosening my mind. I don't think I've seen a movie ending that so exquisitely combines catharsis with a sense of unease.

...At least, if you interpret the movie in a certain way. In that sense, it captures some of the subjective magic that made Satoshi Kon's animes so compelling.

I just watched it a few weeks ago myself. I didn't even know what it was -- just that everyone I knew was talking about it when it came out.

What's the anime by Satoshi Kon that you mention?

[FaustWolf]

Oh man, I don't know if I could take an Eastern horror flick -- aren't they way more psychological than Western horror? At least that's what I've heard.

What's the anime by Satoshi Kon that you mention?

Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue are both pretty subjective in relying on the viewer's interpretation of events. I don't remember Paprika well enough, but it dealt with dreams in a way somewhat similar to what Inception did.    

[Sajainta]

I saw Inception just a few days ago as well.  I think I'm in the minority about how I liked the film.  It was entertaining, but I didn't find it as amazing or intellectual as everyone else I know did.  The special effects were great, though.

[Mr Bekkler]

I saw Inception just a few days ago as well.  I think I'm in the minority about how I liked the film.  It was entertaining, but I didn't find it as amazing or intellectual as everyone else I know did.  The special effects were great, though.

Yeah, I wouldn't call it intellectual, entertaining was defiinitely the right word. I loved it, but I wouldn't say it made me think.

[FaustWolf]

***Possible spoilers for Inception***

I was never really a fan of Christopher Nolan's movies, but what I found so beautiful about Inception is that the premise itself completely excused all the complaints I might have made against it. If the motivations of the DiCaprio character's employer - not to mention those of some of his companions - seem completely nonsensical and serendipitous, it only leads me to theorize that nothing in the movie was, in fact, real. I think there's some genius in that, whether Nolan intended this interpretation or not.

That interpretation is, in itself, an inception within me as the viewer: the script leads us to trust the accuracy of the DiCaprio character's totem at first, but the fact that his wife didn't trust the very same totem planted within my mind the idea that, perhaps, the totem should not be trusted.

...Okay, after writing that sentence and realizing I'm having a difficult time re-reading it, I'm just gonna stop.    Maybe Nolan planted a series of subliminal messages in this one: "...do not pan my movie, do not pan my movie..."

[Mr Bekkler]

It's a literary device called an unreliable narrator, in which said narrator is usually a character who seems honest and knowledgeable from the beginning of the story, but is actually (and always has been) dishonest or just plain wrong. It's usually used when the "hero" is actually a villain, or when the "hero" doesn't live through the whole movie but continues to narrate through his/her death, or in situations like 'Memento' where the plot device is basically the entire film. It gets rid of the need to hide things from your audience so the beginning can be rich with detail or action but the story still has somewhere to go later, by correcting the "wrong" information. It's one of my favorite literary devices because no matter how many times I see it used, I still never expect the next one.
...And also because of the sweet tension and "oh shit" moments it creates.
It's right up there with Chekov's gun on my list of cliches I actually wish I saw more often!

[Shee]

What caught me was the fact that since the wife used the totem first, wouldn't that make it not work at all for Leo?  Regardless, I thought it was a sweet movie.

Inching closer to health again...

[tushantin]

Godspeed, Shee. 

Speakin of Inception...

...not sure about the world, but art/animation lovers like me just LOVE this shit. This is an imaginative short-film about dreams. It's right up the SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH'S alley, yo!

[Shee]

MY GAWD!  MY GAWD THAT'S SHEE'S MUSIC!  THAT'S SHEE'S MUSIC!  THROUGH HELL FIRE AND BRIMSTOOOONE!  RING THE DAMN BELL!  RING THE DAMN BELL THIS MATCH IS OVER!!!!

Just booked the lead for stage play of Clue, which happens to be my favorite movie!  Hollywood Swingin!!!!



GET FIRED UP!!!







DO IIIIITTTTTTTT

[Manly Man]

I love Henry Weinhard's vanilla cream soda. The stuff is terrible for you, just like any other soda, but I would rather drink one of those than be given an ice cream cake. Serious business right there.

[Lord J Esq]

They make my favorite root beer, too.