Turn on a lightswitch…
I saw “Waking Life” the other night. Bear in mind that I fucking hate “Slacker” (though I realize its importance to indie film) and thought that “Dazed and Confused” was one of the more boring films around. That said, I recognize that I am not the desired definitive Gen-X demographic for those films. So he had a lot going against him. But I am a huge fan of animation, and found this whole rotoscoping technique to be very interesting.
But this will probably be the movie this year that I disliked the most.
Two main reasons: 1) Animation rotoscoping. Fantastic idea. Carried out very poorly. The sole reason I can find for having 8+ different objects in any given scene moving completely independently of each other is because it looks cool on drugs. And thats a stupid reason. I don’t get car sick, and I’ve always had a strong motion sickness immunity. But for the past two years, “Star Tours” at Disneyland has been messing with me. And it bugs. So anyways the film lurched my stomach forward instantly, but it stayed at a steadily upset, and never got out of hand. But it honestly seemed that he used this technique SOLELY to get peoples attention so that he could preach to them about reality for an hour and a half.
Which brings us to 2nd reason: the “story.” Did Mr. Linklater get help from Spaulding Gray on this one? What was the concept conversation like? “Hey, we *could* have people talk to each other, try to make it interesting and worthwhile, or we could have these ‘characters’ speak almost directly to the camera. About things that only that angry, bootwearing, hipster goth kid thinks is worthwhile!” I mean, I guess this film bugged because it touched directly on my general problems with most philosophy. While its great to contemplate whether or not life is real or not, whether we’re ants, or really just dead always, or any of that, it seems like most philosophy is a poor excuse for fucked up people to justify their socially irresponsible actions. “Hey, you can’t fuck me and just run out on me!” “But baby, you know that none of this happened, it ain’t real. Hey, lets do some crank!”
Basically, I don’t care whether or not you think you’re going to heaven, hell, be reincarnated, have nothing happen, or wake up from a dream, if you’re an ass *right now* in *this* life, then you should head to the next.
But most people should check out this pic, just to see what they think. While I barely enjoyed it (loved the dream stuff), and more people left the theatre than I have ever seen, I think it is a very ambitious film.
Can’t believe you said you “hate those people” who left the theatre, Kev. Harsh. Anyways, has anyone else seen this film? Flame on!
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6 Replies to “Turn on a lightswitch…”
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I was upset with them. Not sure if hate is the right word, but anyway. I truly enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t follow a few of the vignettes. I’ve always been able to lose myself in philosophical discussions and the animation made it even easier to do so. To lose myself. I felt like I was in a different world for a while, even after the movie ended, and that’s something I wasn’t expecting and was wholly open to. Yes, the film does demand a lot of the viewer, but damn. Go see ‘Bad to the Bones’ starring Snoop Dogg if you don’t want to think about what’s being presented.
And Spalding Gray is fucking cool. ‘Monster in a Box’ is the single most entertaining monologue I’ve ever seen.
youre coming off as harsh again. its not that i didn’t want to think about what was being presented. i gave every vignette its fair shake. i thoroughly enjoyed the lucid dream conversations. but cmon, how the hell do you bust out with “well, you know what Kierkegaard said right before he died…” and keep a straight face? i guess i’m jonesing for some microphilosophy; something that is true and relevant to my life. havent found it yet. glad you enjoyed it. christina hated it. i went in wanting to like it (loved the animation idea), and came out at 51%for49%against. a good split. come to think about it, i probably would have loved it 3 years ago. oh well.
just for the record: i voted “It was okay, but I got motion-sickness about 1 minute in.”
I was upset with them. Not sure if hate is the right word, but anyway. I truly enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t follow a few of the vignettes. I’ve always been able to lose myself in philosophical discussions and the animation made it even easier to do so. To lose myself. I felt like I was in a different world for a while, even after the movie ended, and that’s something I wasn’t expecting and was wholly open to. Yes, the film does demand a lot of the viewer, but damn. Go see ‘Bad to the Bones’ starring Snoop Dogg if you don’t want to think about what’s being presented.
And Spalding Gray is fucking cool. ‘Monster in a Box’ is the single most entertaining monologue I’ve ever seen.
youre coming off as harsh again. its not that i didn’t want to think about what was being presented. i gave every vignette its fair shake. i thoroughly enjoyed the lucid dream conversations. but cmon, how the hell do you bust out with “well, you know what Kierkegaard said right before he died…” and keep a straight face? i guess i’m jonesing for some microphilosophy; something that is true and relevant to my life. havent found it yet. glad you enjoyed it. christina hated it. i went in wanting to like it (loved the animation idea), and came out at 51%for49%against. a good split. come to think about it, i probably would have loved it 3 years ago. oh well.
just for the record: i voted “It was okay, but I got motion-sickness about 1 minute in.”