Watching another rDrama-recommended film, Taxi Driver, which I'm told is like Drive, which was shit

Sopranos is an enjoyable-one-time-see. That's it. The Wire is tired out cop versus robbers TV bullshit.

Breaking Bad is top 5 of American television. It's a fun ride.

The other four, I don't know because I hate tv shows.

I really enjoyed Fauda (fa-oo-da), an Israeli counter-intelligence show. The main guy, Lior Raz, is a beast. The camera shot is shaky but kinda gets better. I'm very particular about that shit, but I gave it a pass because it's such a fun show.

Much like how I very much identified with Travis Bickle, another one of the characters who I most identified with was the character of Thana from the 1981 Abel Ferrara film Ms. 45. In the film, Thana is a mute, obviously neurodivergent (although it's never explicitly stated), ice-cold loner in crime-infested New York City who, after being r*ped twice in the same day, starts killing men all over the city. The second guy who r*pes her gets his head bashed in (throughout the entire movie, she's chopping up his body and throwing pieces of him into garbage cans around the city) and, after that, she starts going out at night dressed up as a prostitute and killing any men who come near her with a .45-caliber pistol. The film culminates in her shooting up an office party before being shot dead by a woman and uttering her first and only spoken word: "sister". Director Ferrara does an impressive job in his portrayal of his twisted protagonist. Thana (named after the Greek goddess of wrath, Thanatos) is a cold-blooded, amoral, emotionless psychopath with absolutely no regard for anyone's life, yet you still sympathize with her to some extent because she is a highly troubled and vulnerable young woman in a truly dismal and squalid environment (in 1981, New York City was every bit as violent as how it's portrayed in this film; 1981 was the most violent year in the city's entire history). That's exactly the kind of protagonist that I would focus on the most if I were a director. Ms. 45 is, again, basically the female version of Taxi Driver: a relentlessly harsh, grim, brutal character study of a disturbed, friendless outcast in crime-ridden New York City who finally gets pushed too far and descends into complete violent nihilism. I can really relate to characters like that.

Abel Ferrara made 2 other films about a disturbed loner wreaking havoc on the streets of New York City: The Driller Killer in 1979 and Bad Lieutenant in 1992. The Driller Killer is totally inept splatter movie garbage, but Bad Lieutenant is easily Ferrara's best film. In that one, Harvey Keitel gives the greatest performance of his career as an ultra-corrupt junkie police lieutenant tasked with investigating the r*pe of a nun - a nun who won't tell him who r*ped her because she's forgiven her male feminist. The film is about the police lieutenant's redemption, and it's very well-done.

Yojimbo is my top 5 of samurai films. I am literally him (I wish). I've seen it at least once every two years over the past 20.

The director, Akira Kurosawa, is a groundbreaker in modern film. One of his best is Seven Samurai, which the Magnificent Seven (both of them) are built on but lack character development. That one is in my top 20. Quinten Tarantino and all sorts of Ameristrags have built their films around his.

But look, my negro. It's a 1960s black-and-white Japanese film. You grab some sake, sit down, and enjoy the film. No r-slurs allowed.

Seventh Seal is a classic, with that knight playing chess with death. It's Swedish, and it's old, so lower your expectations. It's a slow and amusing film by another excellent director.

Except for Syndedoche, the rest are okay.

!kino, fight me.

Other than Synochdeche New York and Suspiria 2018, these are all (with the possible exception of Kaili Blues, The Sound of My Voice and Shadow, which I've not seen) pretty good, if not great movies.

I'm a massive fan of the original Suspiria and thought the remake was too much pretentious nonsense and not enough creepiness & horror, tho I'll concede it has some of the best non-nude dance scenes I've ever seen.

Jan Svenkmejer's Alice is great. You have to watch it at least once when on drugs.

The only criticism I have of The Seventh Seal (one of my favourite films of all time) is the fact that there's not one but at least three breathtakingly beautiful women on screen for most of the movie, which tends to distract a bit from other elements of the film, so multiple viewings are essential.

!kino thoughts

Melancholia

Utterly irredeemable trash. The only good bit was right at the end when every miserable c*nt character in that wretched piece of shit garbage "film" was fricking obliterated.

Based on that list, I'll make a recommendation that I'm sure you haven't seen:

https://archive.org/details/yuke.yuke.nidome.no.shojo.aka.go.go.second.time.virgin.koji.wakamatsu.1969

One of my favorite movies (and one of the only ones that perfectly aligns with what you would expect me to like) is the 1969 Japanese arthouse classic Go Go Second Time Virgin, an ultra-bleak, ultra-artsy, and hyper-stylized tour de force about the doomed bond that forms between two sexually abused teenagers who live in a squalid, violent apartment complex. A film that perfectly embodies the aesthetics of the Japanese New Wave (my personal favorite of all the cinematic New Waves), it's the only film I've seen that manages to be relentlessly visceral, nihilistic, and misanthropic, yet tender, poignant, and humane at the same time. A one-of-a-kind, unforgettable, and genuinely moving mini-masterpiece of the sort that only a Japanese filmmaker could pull off. The film is exceptionally graphic even by today's standards (let alone by 1969 standards), but it never feels the slightest bit mean-spirited or exploitative, and director Koji Wakamatsu makes you genuinely care about the lost souls that he focuses on. Even when rubbing your face in all manner of ugliness and turpitude, the film is filled with genuine pathos and sympathy. Like the lives of its two protagonists, it is short and brutal, clocking in at just 65 minutes. The last scene - where our two tragic heroes join hands, smile at each other, and then jump off of the roof together (after going on a bloody killing rampage) - is one that really sticks with you. This film is certainly not for everyone (and it's certainly not for anyone who can't handle extremely graphic and prolonged depictions of sexual violence), but I would consider it to be one of the best movies I've ever seen.

I've never even heard of any of this except like fight club an maybe good bad the ugly neither of which I've watched

and I am a better person for it

youtube slop is just more compelling

Have you seen Nightcrawler?