The last movie I saw was The Last Movie.
Dennis Hopper proved he had no idea of what to shoot and how to edit a movie. Too bad, the idea beneath the film was interesting.

:D :D :D

i just started watching SLEEPING BEAUTY.

looks good in spite of the creepy subject. but it got late and we saved it for the day.

It's definitely just pure economics at this point. The money that franchise makes is mind-boggling. I'm sure everyone involved reckons it needs to die but they're just making too much money keeping it alive.

maybe it's because fast cars are the last mythical vehicle of our time and any show of them people will be like

UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I heard Jason Statham and Dwight Johnson are making a spin-off or something? Like, in retaliation to the actual franchise, presumably doing something they didn't like? I actually don't think either of those actors are in any of the movies, but who the fuck can tell anymore?

I think 99.9 percent of franchise films just totally and epically suck. Not counting trilogies, of which there have been some goddamn good ones like Evil Dead, Dark Knight, the "Dollars" trilogy (aka The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and predecessors), The Godfather, Polanski's Apartment trilogy — but once you get past 3, you're pretty much guaranteeing either commercial or critical failure and humiliation.

The exceptions are, I guess,
- Harry Potter, in the sense that all of the movies are fun to watch and hit their mark
- Stars Wars, if you exclude the prequels
- Star Trek if you exclude everything from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home to the 2009 reboot
- and Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies. Yeah, they might look like separate interconnected series and trilogies, but let's be honest... they're all just one big circle-jerk, from Iron Man to Doctor Strange. But they hit their mark and none of them eat total shit, so that's a success story baby!

That's all I can think of. What's that you say? James Bond? I challenge you to watch those movies as an adult and tell me that more than three of them are actually good films.

What the fuck was I talking about when I started this? Oh, Fast and Furious. Yeah. Never seen a goddamn one of them. Caught a few minutes on Tv once and learned all I needed to know.

Wait, what? What movie are you talking about specifically?

They were both in Furious 7 and Dwayne Johnson was also in the 5th one. But yeah, I've heard about a spin-off too.

Re franchises. I suppose trilogies have a certain cultural credibility, given their origin in Greek drama, but past 3 is hard to justify on any creative grounds, except for the rare exceptions you mention.

I defend the James Bond franchise on its own terms for its apparently unique ability to evolve while somehow staying true to its basic idea (Bond, mega-villain, Bond-girl, car, gadgets, Q, exotic locations). If ever there's an example of how a franchise can work both commercially and creatively it's that, regardless of if you happen to like the films or not.

an australian one, distributed by ifc, with some redheaded girl that looks kinda russian to me (emily browning), and parts of the movie are a bit salò-like. i went in with low expectations, then liked it, then i didn't "get" the end, but i still liked it

eta: this one:

Serenity was on TV the other day. It's a weird one, parts of it were very good, other parts not so. The spaceships looked very fake to me, like they came of a very low budget SciFi Channel movie.
Perhaps I missed too much though, I kept channel hopping during the commercial breaks and then forgot to switch back...

why do all of the 20+ channels always have commercial breaks at exactly the same time ??

Pulp Fiction

I'd run out of new DVDs to watch so returned to this and, maybe because I expected it to annoy the shit out of me, I loved it. The dialogue doesn't feel half as irritating as I'd remembered. I've come to the conclusion that he writes in a very hard-boiled style which works fine in hard-boiled films like this. The problem is every film he's made after Jackie Brown hasn't been in that style, which may be why they've jarred so much for me. Anyway, not wanting to re-open the whole Tarantino debate, just saying.

PS. I'd completely forgotten how good Bruce Willis is in it. Samuel Jackson made a career off the back of his role but BW totally steals the film for me.

It's a great fucking movie. All can agree on that. Fucking great.

Coillusion. Radio stations do it too. It is pre-arranged by the station owners so that the audience is frustrated if it tries to channel/station switch during commercial breaks.

same reason all gas stations near each other change their prices simultaneously, and keep their prices within one cent of each other.

USA claims it follows free enterprise but what actually happens is that choice is severely limited by the corporation that owns the businesses in question. There are dozens of car manufacturers in the world that are not allowed to sell their cars in USA, for example. limit the customer's choices. free enterprise is a crock of shit.

well it's not a crock of shit-- it's desirable as your post implies

the claim that we have a perfect free enterprise system is what's the crock of shit though.

but the convergence towards schedules/price points doesn't require collusion-- just competition

i.e. gas station that prices a dime higher will lose-- is forced to match

tv channel that plays commercials at a different time will be tuned out

it's easier to imitate than to coordinate en-masse

herd behavior is common in nature for a reason

tell that to the better business bureau, a completely made up association of car dealerships who were sued in the 70's for price fixing and collusion and who created the BBB as a way to do "self-governance." Now the BBB (always a bullshit organization) is being sued because they strongarm businesses into giving them donations in exchange for good BBB ratings. IT IS ALL A CROCK OF SHIT.

i never said that collusion doesn't exist! i only said that the examples you quoted do not require collusion, just natural, spontaneous, safety-in-numbers, herd behavior.

i also said that free enterprise is desirable per your post-- if collusion is bad, then free enterprise (and being able to buy whatever car you want from any manufacturer, etc) is good, and therefore not bullshit.

as to "all" being a crock of shit. ah ha ha hahaha! come on! YES! the universe is an absurd joke. enjoy it while you can.

Well, coordinating en masse, or true collusion between gas companies, would lap free enterprise and become straight up price-fixing. Imitation is the only legal course of action here.

I see gas prices fluctuate by 5-10 cents in rural gas stations that are in the same general area. But I think it works a little differently here than it did in the city. Folks care deeply about whose gas is the most pure, which station's pumps are less likely to contain more than a certain percentage of water, etc. Rural America is fucked in a lot of ways, but small town folks still kind of police commerce in a way. I see Facebook posts like, "Hey everyone, so-and-so is up 5, steee clear," and then 150 people like and share.

It's weird.

This is not my natural environment. Sometimes I feel like my adventures trying to navigate this bizarro-land are being narrated by David Attenborough and screened for aliens somewhere.

my survival mantra in strange anthropological situations, like being trapped in a mall, or visiting a girlfriend's ultranormal family, has been reliably for years: "national geographic... national geographic... national geographic..."