Lestat De Lioncourt
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

TV Show/Movie Recommendations?!

2 posters

Go down

TV Show/Movie Recommendations?! Empty TV Show/Movie Recommendations?!

Post by Ali Harper Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:40 am

I have a few show recommendations of my own, but seriously - I want to know what some of y'all's favorite TV shows/movies are, if you've got any. What things really caught your attention and brought you into "binge-watching" territory, or what's one of your favorite movies and why?

I'll tell you about a few of mine and then you guys should tell me about some of your favorites. Eh? EH???

SHOW NUMBER ONE:
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Okay so, I'll be honest. I don't really watch anime much. At all. But this is easily one of my favorite series of all time (the original FMA is good too but I prefer Brotherhood for a lot of reasons). This show honestly has something for everybody - It's dark, emotional, there's some really interesting philosophy regarding human life and just morality in general, and some of the scenes are either downright gut-wrenching or hilarious (because comic relief - I live for Ed making fun of Colonel Mustang).



Our protagonists here are a couple of talented "boy-genius" brothers - Edward and Alphonse Elric. For those of you who DON'T know this show, I'll try to keep this summary informative (and relatively short) but spoiler-free.

One of the major key points of Alchemy (the science of deconstructing matter to its most basic elements and using those elements to create something new) is the law of Equivalent Exchange: Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be given or lost. 6 years after the Elric brothers (Edward and Alphonse) tragically lose their beloved mother Trisha, they attempt to bring her back to life through the use of Human Transmutation. However, they greatly underestimated and misunderstood the sacrifices needed to fulfill Equivalent Exchange, as you cannot really put a price on a single human soul. Alphonse lost his entire body, and Edward lost his left leg from the thigh down. To save Alphonse's life, Edward gave up his right arm and used his own blood to create a seal on an empty suit of armor that bound Al's soul to the suit of armor (which is really not ideal for Alphonse because while yes he is TECHNICALLY alive, it's really no way to live - imagine not being able to feel physical pain, coldness, or warmth, on top of not being able to eat, drink, sleep, or dream.) The brothers were contacted by the Amestrian State Military and a year later Edward became the youngest State Alchemist at age 12. He was given the title "Fullmetal" or "The Fullmetal Alchemist". The entire series basically consists of Edward researching the "Philosopher's Stone", because he believes that the Stone could help him restore Alphonse's body, and was determined to get it by whatever means necessary. He doesn't care about his leg or his arm coming back - he just wants to fix what he did to his brother.

SHOW NUMBER TWO:
The Good Doctor

So this is another show with important ties to brotherhood/siblings but while it's a major factor in the show, it's not really the center topic, either. The Good Doctor (on ABC Family) is heavily based off a Korean medical drama with the same name (Good Doctor, in English) - but the American storyline somewhat deviates from the original K-Drama. The show is MAINLY about Dr. Shaun Murphy (Dr. Park Shi On in the K-Drama), a medical savant on the autism spectrum. Coming from someone that's #actuallyautistic, yeah that's a bit cliche because we really aren't all savants/geniuses by any means but it doesn't take away from the fact that this show is EXCELLENT for representation in the media (Atypical on Netflix was horrendous).

Honestly though just watch this trailer because I don't really know how to not make a novel out of how much I love this show. (Though if you want to hear me rant/rave about it, inbox me but consider this a fair warning - I'll talk your ears off about it.)




SHOW NUMBER THREE:
Disorganized Crime (Movie, 1989)

This movie is just a few years older than me and shot in what I could BASICALLY consider my home town. I grew up in Darby, Montana (SUPER small town, seriously, everybody rags on Darby but if you grew up there you probably lowkey still love it) but this movie was filmed in Hamilton, MT - which is where I was born (and is around/less than 20 minutes away from Darby on a good weather day).

The movie itself has a cast list featuring Fred Gwynne, Ed O'Neill, Daniel Roebuck, Corbin Bernsen, and Lou Diamond Phillips. It's a comedy/crime flick, rated R mostly for language. My mom let me watch this (no, ENCOURAGED ME to watch it) when I was like 14 years old and it's been one of my favorite movies ever since. Basically these five crooks want to rob a bank in Hamilton but their leader gets picked up in Hamilton by these two cops from New Jersey in the beginning. He escapes them en route to Missoula and eventually loses them in the "rural wilds" of the Bitterroot but the whole time he's running around with nary a clue as to where he is, his crook buddies are orchestrating his heist plan but the NJ cops think it's the leader stringing them along like the fools they (really, truly) are.

But really the only reason you need to check out this movie is Fred Gwynne. Because Fred Gwynne is a goddamn LEGEND. (mic drop)

HIT ME WITH SOME RECOMMENDATIONS, Y'ALL.
Ali Harper
Ali Harper

Posts : 48
Join date : 2015-05-02
Age : 31

Back to top Go down

TV Show/Movie Recommendations?! Empty Re: TV Show/Movie Recommendations?!

Post by Lestat Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:57 am

The Truman Show.

In this movie, Jim Carrey is Truman, a man whose life is a fake one... The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular tv-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is exploited. Until one day... he finds out everything. Will he react?



There are a number of powerful images in Peter Weir's end of the millennium masterpiece but one that really sticks in the mind, capturing as it does the central theme of The Truman Show, occurs only for a brief moment in the middle of a montage as "creator" Cristof describes Truman's development. We see a toddler in a playpen gazing upwards, apparently fascinated by a children's mobile. Fluffy shapes spin around to a tinkling nursery rhyme. But at the centre of the toy dangles the menacing shape of a camera lens and it's to this that the child's curious, slightly worried expression is directed. If one of the many themes of The Truman Show is betrayal then it is this shot that sums it up more eloquently than any other.

It's one of the ironies of science fiction movies that while they concern themselves with either the future or at least technology that doesn't yet exist, they generally have more to say about what's going on in the present than any of the other genres. By the end of the 90s, media saturation, anxiety over privacy, encroaching media power and, with virtual reality, the increasingly unreliable nature of the real world were the prevalent preoccupations. Peter Weir's film was not alone in broaching these themes. The Matrix took a different approach for a different audience. But it is Weir's film, which is certainly science fiction in that the technology required to create a whole artificial world for its protagonist is not (yet) possible, which caught the public's imagination, partly because of the sheer relevancy of the idea but also because of another element unusual in sci-fi, a performance of incredible warmth and vulnerability from Jim Carrey.

The conceit is pretty much summed up in a screaming voice-over at the beginning of the Tru Talk segment of the show itself. "One-point-seven-million were there for his birth... 220 countries tuned in for his first step... An entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras broadcast live and unedited 24 hours a day, seven days a week to an audience around the world!" Truman himself is only aware that he lives in Sea~haven, an impossibly sun~drenched, pastel-dappled island town which, owing to a carefully implanted fear of water, Truman cannot leave. (In fact the screenplay originally had Truman in a Seven-style, grim rain-sodden city which Weir rejected, opting instead to shoot in a Florida retirement village.)

Starting quite literally with a falling star — a studio lamp marked Sirius 9 tumbles from the "sky" — Truman begins to suspect that he is at the centre of a conspiracy. His wife insists on shouting product endorsements at the most inopportune moments, an elevator has no back walls revealing what looks suspiciously like a caterings service table surrounded by bored extras. Finally making a run for reality Truman is nearly killed by show creator Cristof before opting for the real uncertainties of the world outside the TV studio instead of the his ersatz existence.

Newspaper headlines like "Who needs Europe?" rub shoulders with posters showing lightning striking planes ("It could happen to you!" reads the slogan) and hokey TV sitcoms which announce that "You don't have to leave home to discover what the world's all about" all conspiring to counteract Burbank's curiosity. There's also tremendous fun to be had reading interpretations onto the movie. There's the "Garden Of Eden in reverse" take in which Truman is Man fighting his way out of paradise, stopped by a terrified "creator". There's the anti-Capraesque angle, in which American small town life is not the very essence of perfection but stifling, repressive and false. There's even the fact that the whole premise is contained within its central character's moniker: the True Man's second name is Burbank, the LA suburb where the studios reside.

In Truman he creates a true hero for the times whose humanity shines even as he realizes the extent to which he has been manipulated.
It's easy to poke holes in the film. The show itself would in reality be deadly dull. The audience is as complicit in Truman's plight as Cristof, yet they are presented sympathetically. And why does Cristof attempt to make Truman stay once he has rumbled the game? But then, The Truman Show is best seen as a modern day fable (and no-one nit-picks the Hare And The Tortoise). It's a cautionary tale about the invasive, corrupting nature of a society that believes it has the right to watch everything. And it's a point that gets more, not less, prescient as we edge into the second millennium. With real life shows like Castaway 2000 and Big Brother defining millennial TV and communications technology advancing with increasing rapidity, a real Truman Show becomes ever more likely. The events of Terry Gilliam's Brazil famously take place 20 minutes into the future. The Truman Show may be a lot closer than that.

I had to say all that, to simply make a point... The Truman Show, is a movie, with wit as well as ideas, it's an all out attack on the media's need to control, package and present real life, which may explain Carrey's disgraceful Oscar snub.

To view the whole movie, please, Click >>HERE<<
Lestat
Lestat

Posts : 543
Join date : 2014-05-12
Location : Closer than you think.

https://lestat.forumotion.co.uk

Back to top Go down

TV Show/Movie Recommendations?! Empty Re: TV Show/Movie Recommendations?!

Post by Ali Harper Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:55 pm

Lestat, I've actually seen the Truman Show and it was a very good movie! I apologize in advance but I can't offer much of a drawn-out response to your reply because it's been so long, but I will probably end up re-watching it! I might have watched The Truman Show in a 7th grade English class when I was in school, and if not seventh grade, definitely my freshman year in High School. I had a really cool English teacher, honestly. We used to watch all sorts of movies and such in Mr. D's class - including Benchwarmers when I was in eighth grade. That was a 'reward' day more than a learning day, though. He really tried to make his classes engaging and at least a little bit fun, given he knew some of us came classes that might be perceived as tough/boring to some of his students. A little break from all the day-to-day drag, y'know?

Of course, that being said - I absolutely adore Jim Carrey. He's been a long-time favorite actor/comedian of mine. Plus, he just seems really down-to-earth and like he's got a good head on his shoulders. I bet he'd be a blast to hang out with.
Ali Harper
Ali Harper

Posts : 48
Join date : 2015-05-02
Age : 31

Back to top Go down

TV Show/Movie Recommendations?! Empty Re: TV Show/Movie Recommendations?!

Post by Sponsored content


Sponsored content


Back to top Go down

Back to top

- Similar topics

 
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum