Well. My child is that age and I very much relate to the protagonist. Was not expecting a gut-punch this afternoon.
A few recommendations for various reasons, some known and some less-so:
Romance:
- What Dreams May Come - Robin Williams in a kind of version of Dante's Inferno. Deals a lot with death and a non-religious afterlife. I'm a stoic 6'4 dude and weep openly every time I watch this.
- Love Never Dies - Did you know there's a real official sequel to the musical Phantom of the Opera? There is. It's okay, not great, but pretty fascinating more as a cultural artifact. I think I remember a decent song, but nothing like the first. It would have been better to make it straight up fucking weird like Starlight Express.
- The Fountain - This is one of the most artistically-sound and crushing love beyond time movies I've ever seen. I've watched it about a dozen times and swear there's at least three movies in here once you understand it. Amazing visuals, and great performances and one of my favourite films of all time period.
Thriller / Horror:
- Dave Made a Maze - So a guy makes a spatially-impossible cardboard structure in his house. It's... fun. There are minotaurs. Also made of cardboard.
- Cigarette Burns - From the series Masters of Horror. It's 1 hour long, but is extremely well-done and handles dread amazingly with a great pay off.
- 1408 - The best version of a "haunted room" movie I've ever seen, actually creepy in many places, and one of Sam Jackson's all-time best "MOTHERFUCKER" moments.
- Dog Soldiers - This one is a tad more common, but it's the best werewolf movie I've found and gets the monsters 100% correct. Low-budget, but astounding creature effects for werewolves. A lot of Alien vibes.
- Drag Me To Hell - Another common one, but it's one of the best things Sam Raimi has done outside the Evil Dead series, and definitely the closest he's come to Army of Darkness since. If you're even a casual fan of Evil Dead or horror-comedy, and haven't seen it, what are you even doing?
Comedy:
- The Birdcage - Was big at the time, but I haven't seen anyone mention it in ages. One of the great Robin Williams performances for both comedy and drama. He runs a drag club with Nathan Lane.
Action:
- Equilibrium - Came out roughly the same time as The Matrix and got completely buried. Excellent action scenes. Christian Bale does a 1984 / F451.
- Batman: Assault on Arkham - One of the best DC Animated movies ever. Yes I know that Mask of the Phantasm is better, but this is still really good and legitimately funny.
"Bad" Movies That Aren't At All Bad:
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Nick Cage does basically a Pirates of the Caribbean and it's a shitload of fun.
- Drive Angry - More Nick Cage. It's needlessly badass in the dumbest way possible and is hilarious.
Just as an FYI, I'm a mod of the sub !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca
Based on our interaction, I've made our new Weekly Thread. You may be able to snag a few more converts... Your post was great and you could always repost it in the thread if you'd care to!
Full Report: Acquired the movie right after we messaged.
My wife was working on our book and about ten minutes in wound up putting it down and watching it with me. This is notable because I haven't been able to convince her to watch known great movies with me. She will not watch Lord of the Rings and hasn't found the time to watch Edge of Tomorrow with me since release. She gives no fucks about any Godzilla or King Kong movies. This? Well... the moment the gorilla flipped off The Rock, we were in.
She had a hard out at 11 PM due to work, but requested I stop and watch the rest with her tomorrow. What the fuck kind of magic shit is this?
I don't know how to describe it. Maybe it's a bad movie very well told and sold by everyone involved? Everyone was likeable and seemed to be having fun. There were a bunch of solid actors in it we both knew from other things, and (most surprising of all) the comedy actually worked. I'd actually say it was probably one of the best 3 video game movies ever, and I've seen all but 2. I know that may not seem like a lot, but... 14 year old me loved Mortal Kombat at the time, so it's some kind of praise.
The Nick Cage movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (and maybe also Drive Angry) is one of the only other movies in my collection that I consider in this camp. It's not great cinema, but it's a really awesome ride.
You sold it 100% accurately, and I really appreciate it!
I... Am kinda taken aback here and legit don't know what you're referring to. I could delete my posts if it would help?
I'm sorry if I pushed buttons I should not have, but I genuinely do not grasp the friction here and would very much like to. I was enjoying the discussion and was happy that a thread actually took off for us for once.
If this is a touchy subject that you would rather move on from, then we will.
Definitely. When I did all of my forestry work, we were warned about brown bears extensively. Don't get on their territory. If you have to, don't take chances. Don't fuck with them.
I don't know where the idea comes from that these things will just leave you alone. They will not.
I wanted to make sure I came back to this when I had the time in real life. For what I state, you should know that I was an extremely meek child and hardly a troublemaker.
- When I lived in Saudi Arabia as a white 14-year old male. I was held at assault rifle point multiple times and robbed.
- When I lived in Thailand at 15, I was sexually assaulted by a trans-woman.
- When I lived in Cincinnati at 16, I was beaten by a group of African American kids I went to school with.
- When I lived near Edmonton at 17, I was beaten by a teacher for missing my homework.
- When I lived in Medicine Hat at 10, I was punched in the face by a teacher for sitting in the wrong spot.
None of these are made up or exaggerated experiences. Cruelty wasn't the point of any of these. The point was (in order) robbery, sexual gratification, power, power, and power.
Misassigning motive is harmful because it stops you from addressing the issues presented and assumes that people are "lost causes." I don't believe that to be the case. You can't fix something where the point is cruelty, because people can't get a fix of cruelty in other ways. You can try to repair other issues however.
We want the same outcome, but I want to find out how to get there without pushing people out of the solution.
Why were they acquitted? I have no idea as I was too young at the time to be following trials, but it doesn't mean anything about my previous statement was incorrect.
People can be cruel, but the goal is not often cruelty. In this instance, the goal for the officers was most likely to regain a feeling of power in my best estimation - a "how dare you not do what I say" attitude and they used cruelty to get it.
Again, their motivation doesn't explain why they got off, however. I disagree with that decision wholeheartedly.
I could very much see how, by not being able to understand certain situations, someone might assume that cruelty was the point, but it dismisses the reasons a person or group might attempt something. Cruelty is rarely the point.
The only way we can stop abuses is by doing away with simplistic "chant"-like phrasing and finding the real issues behind things.
To use your example, policing. It's a complex one, but I can assure you that in no police training ever tells the trainees to be massive dicks and injure every minority they see. The point can be power. The point can be maintaining the letter of the law, and at their sole discretion. The point can be self-preservation out of fear for themselves. We can't know all of them, and they change in the moment depending on the situation.
If cruelty was the point, then we could just appoint non-cruel people to be officers and the problem is solved, but that isn't the case. We have to address the underlying issues which are different for every officer. That's why it's complex. We can start with systemic corrections such as de-escalation policies being the default, choosing different response teams for different issues, removal of lethal weapons, and harsher punishments for missteps. Those have been found to be effective. But simply hand-waving away things as "cruelty is the point" doesn't help fix the situation, it dismisses it. We must come at bad situations with ways to stop them, not simply be angry at them.
Human teeth also have sharp peaks and deeper valleys within them which is the case for the overwhelming majority of omnivorous creatures. Most obligate herbivores have flatter teeth or will regrow them unless they have teeth explicitly for a particular use case.
Source: You can check out scads of scientific resources on herbivores versus omnivore versus carnivore teeth. I assume you know how a search engine works, but here's a solid article on differences.
Also my sister has been one of the veterinary bigwigs at several zoos through her lifetime and we've had multiple discussions on it.