Only very basic Korean, in addition to my native English. I have studied four languages (Mandarin Chinese, Italian, German and Spanish) but I’ve forgotten pretty much all of it because I haven’t been able to use it in the real world like I can with Korean. I don’t think I’ll ever bother with learning another language. Getting my Korean up to a proper conversational level would be a big achievement so I’ll aim for that instead.

And I get it, the internet is fueled by clicks and engagement which are fueled by anger

You could’ve just stopped there, to be honest. The entertainment industry has always been guilty of manufacturing outrage for interaction. My unsolicited advice for everyone is to just get back to enjoying your hobbies, whether they be film, video games, music or anything else, and stop caring about the associated noise online. There is a fake controversy about everything these days and so many people seem to get emotionally manipulated into actually thinking any of it is real or relevant and end up spending more of their time absorbed in the fake drama than they do actually enjoying the original hobby.

Here’s a non-AI generated version of this story back from 2010 when it was actually news.

I watched the ‘Melchior the Apothecary’ trilogy over three nights. I was surprised at how great the sets, costumes and sound design were. It seems like they shot these films within a relatively short period and on a reasonably low budget, but I thought they looked and sounded great and that helped connect me to the world and the characters which, again somewhat surprisingly, really paid off in the final film. All three are around the 90 minute mark, but don’t feel rushed (although I think they all could have benefitted from a slight extension to the runtime). The mysteries are passable but nothing special - actually I’d say they’re probably one of the weaker aspects of the films. However, if you enjoy historical dramas or medieval settings then I think you’d really enjoy these three films like I did. I’d like to read the novels they are based on, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem like many have been translated from the original Estonian to English.

And I’d call it creepy rather than scary.

I found the first portion of the film set in Transylvania very scary. Honestly I think it peaked around then and the rest of the film, although still good, never got close to reaching those heights.

I don’t tolerate it at all, to be honest. I think it’s a complete joke how acceptable blatant phone addiction has become in society; a third of my sessions at the cinema have people using phones during the film now. There is no such thing as “watching in the background” - you’re either watching it or you’re not watching it. You can put a film on in the background but don’t tell me you watched it, because you didn’t. It’s such a widespread problem now that there has even been debate about whether some modern writers are instructed to dumb down their dialogue so that people who refuse to look up from their dopanime injector can follow the basic plot.

if you watch it, don’t doomscroll at the same time.

It’s sad that you actually felt the need to tell people this in a movies community. What a time we live in.

I guess I will need to rewatch 2049 again (I’ve only seen it once, in the cinema at release). I’ve watched the original quite a few times since though and I’m increasingly of the opinion that it’s quite overrated and gets heavily carried by the visuals and the soundtrack, so I could see a case being made for the sequel being better.

I made it a bit further but also gave up. I guess I wasn’t particularly interested in a Nolan biographical feature to begin with (I feel he is better suited to fiction), but it definitely felt like one of his most self-fellating efforts yet. Sort of just confrationally different for the sake of being different. I bet his fanboys ate it up, though.

I’ve watched Simon Roper’s YouTube channel for many years, so the idea of cinema in a language I don’t fully understand isn’t as intimidating to me as maybe it is to others. It’s an interesting challenge that I’d definitely be up for, as I have an underlying interest in linguistics and old languages. The great thing about working in the horror genre is that you generally don’t need to rely on a scipt to tell your audience. It’s a genre that relies heavily on visual storytelling.

western people with vague ties

???

Besides a few people that lived most of their lives in the Middle East, not China, there are no witnesses or ‘victims’.

Families in Uyghur communities around the world have referenced the camps with regards to their missing friends and relatives. Here are some from my city. It’s intellectually dishonest to suggest there are no witnesses or evidence.

What did you think of it? I’ve been planning to watch it for ages based purely on the hype, but it’s not the type of genre I’d usually go for so I’m not sure whether I’ll enjoy it.

How did you feel about the opening 45 minutes or whatever it was? The constant time skips, loud music in every scene, etc?

Totally agree with you in relation to groupthink and it’s the main reason I have them disabled too. I don’t like my opinion of a comment to be influenced by others before I’ve even finished reading it.

Okay, that first paragraph makes a bit more sense to me if I combine it with your first reply. Your primary critique here is of Eggers and his creative process and the potential effects on the quality of the film, rather than marketing and financial results. I think when you added that stuff it sent me off in the wrong direction, because it sounded like you were arguing that the language choice was a corporate decision and that it was a bad one because the average person is not capable of following medieval dialogue and therefore won’t be interested in seeing the film. I guess I enjoy the fact that Eggers is doing something different to his contemporaries and that overrides any concern I might have about creative quirks feeling forced. And selfishly, I feel pretty confident in my ability to follow older dialogue or subtitles so it doesn’t concern me if that confuses other viewers. You can’t please everyone and compromising on your creative choices in an effort to do so can be just as destructive to the final product.

I guess if you are arguing that it’s targeted marketing to a specific audience, then I can see your point. But that’s not the impression I got when you mentioned “any audience” in your previous reply. Regardless, I believe this is an artistic choice he makes and insists upon as opposed to a gimmick pushed by studios to hype up his films. His most recent film did not include this supposed gimmick, so I’m not sure how that applies to your “doubling down” theory.

I’m confused by your argument. It’s a marketing gimmick…that won’t work because modern audiences don’t tolerate period authentic dialogue? That doesn’t sound like a marketing gimmick.

Avatar 3 to be co-written by ChatGPT?

Spoilers for those who haven’t seen it:

I am not a big fan of the horror genre but I absolutely love what directors like Eggers and Flanagan are doing with it. Sort of making films and series about other things, that just happen to have a horror twist to them.