Drive
It is very strange to me that this is the first time I review anything by Nicolas Winding Refn here. I love this director and his style a lot. The movie Drive is perhaps the best introduction to him that you could ever get. It is his fastest paced movie ( apart from maybe Bronson ). He likes to be very slow. Drive is paced more or less like a normal film. That is why, if you want to start getting yourself into Nicolas Winging Refn I would recommend starting from Drive.
Minority Report
I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.
Wrong Hate
Wrong Hate is a movie project that I was trying to do when I was 16-17 years old. The story revolves around a future war where huge building-size robots fight to death. But unlike similar movies where the focus of the action is on the robots. In this film, the focus is on the family that is trying to survive the mayhem.
Julian Assange vs Josiah Mizukami
Imagine being locked up in prison for something that's legal. And not even merely legal. For something that is a human right. There is this very small human right, I don't know if you know about it, it's called the Freedom Of Speech. An ability to express your opinion without being persecuted for it. And it's more than essential. It's the cornerstone of things like Freedom in general. Sometimes though bad people that are trying to persecute you for this anyway - are smart. And they will look for any other way of shutting you up if this one is not available for them. Good example is Julian Assange. Not so good example could potentially be Josiah Mizukami.
Censorship
Sometimes a programmer might implement a feature designed to undermine the Freedom Of Speech of various people. This Censorship is a malicious feature.
Something Evil
Conceptually the film is very much like Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning". It deals with a parent going slowly insane and becoming a threat to the children. Both movies suggest a possibility of a supernatural explanation of the insanity. But the movies are made in such a smart way where there is enough doubt in those supernatural occurrences that you can read it as psychological deterioration only. Which is a very interesting challenge to a filmmaker. And young Spielberg pulled it off.
Coercion
Sometimes a program might give you impossible choices were it is impossible to say no to something terrible. This kind of Coercion is a malicious functionality.
Interference
Sometimes the developers just include into their software something that is there not the user's sake. Which ends up Interfering with user's needs. And it's just plain annoying.
Why Morias Race Flopped So Fucking Hard
As you maybe already know ( but actually how would you, nobody reads my articles anyway ) Moria's Race, the movie I've been making for 3 and half years is a worthless piece of shit that nobody wants to see. I could blame people for not wanting to see it. And would be a worthless piece of shit myself doing so, but instead I think I should unleash my deepest fears onto this god forgotten page, so if there is a poor sole actually reading my ramblings, this poor sole could learn how terrible the situation truly is. But to be frank, I am writing it as a form of psychological coping mechanism.
I Have Finished Animating Moria's Race
Jewish tradition has a prayer ceremony every morning called "Shaharit". Basically you sit ( sometimes stand ) for about 2 hours, reading a bunch of text in Hebrew from a book. Once a big Rabbi was asked "Why, if god loves us, we should suffer through this immense boredom every morning?". His answers was "It's true that it tends to be boring. And it's long. And you feel like suffering the entire time. But what a good feeling you get right when it's over.".
The Inherent Instability Of Euphemisms
Often it is required of a storyteller to say less in order to say more. Steven Spielberg had to censor the most gruesome parts of the holocaust in order to make a movie that was actually watchable, and his intuition was arguably right. The movie ended up being a hit, exposing millions upon millions of people to the the holocaust. But it wasn't the horror. It was a watered down version, made so people would not be too upset watching it. The reality of the situation was so much worse that Spielberg didn't even think a movie showing the actual truth was possible. Nobody would be brave or masochistic enough, he thought, to actually see it. A similar story happened to Dunkirk, another World War II movie, this time by Christopher Nolan, who deliberately avoided the worst aspects of a war film to make a film which the audience could watch without taking their eyes from the screen, and as a result, a film that is arguably scarier because of that. Nolan's masterful management of tension is so good that the movie doesn't need violence and blood to be visceral. And yet, to some extent the movie is a watered down version of what war supposed to be. And some argue it is a lesser film because of it.
Kimi
In some way the movie actually is very similar in concept to Beau Is Afraid. The main character has anxieties about leaving home. And in both films the main character has to go outside on the journey. And in both films the worst type of things happen to them. But while Beau Is Afraid is more about bad situations just being unlucky. In this movie, it is as if the film was written by Richard Stallman and it's a compilation of fears somebody in the Free Software community might feel.
Chocolate
Asian cinema is different from American cinema. When in America filmmakers are often armed with enormous budgets, Asian cinema is trying to survive with what it has while still delivering the same, if not more, entertainment value. It's not that hard when dealing with dramas. There most of the time the story is about a few people in few locations, talking and crying with one another. Which is not expensive. But it's an entirely different challenge when you are trying to compete within the action-film market.
Schrodinger's Exhibitionism
In Germany by law you have designated areas where people can go Nude. Some areas where people can't, by law, wear any clothes. But other areas where people can't go without clothes. But that will be only a very minor crime. And only if somebody was offended, but people rarely do. In 2016 in Italy a 69 year old man ( nice ) masturbated himself in front of a female student in University of Catania in Sicily. The judge gave him a small fine and ruled the case in his favor. Technically legalizing public masturbation in Italy. Giving rise to a few Italian based exhibitionist porn channels. On the other hand a career of comedian Luis CK was nearly brought to an end when it's been shared that he was masturbating in-front of people too. The Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment to explain quantum superposition. Where you put a can into a box with a bomb that has 50% chance of blowing up. Until you open the box, the cat is either dead or alive. He is in a superposition. Let's talk about the Schrodinger's Exhibitionism. Or Exhibitionism in moral superposition.
Copyright Made People Do Useless Work
Oh the copyright! The system that many believe is there to "protect" artists from exploitation. But the system that is quite clearly one big exploitation in and of it self. I hope that my readers here have a job. Since I want to draw a very interesting parallel. Would you work if there was no contract? Would you do anything if the person that supposed pay you, would not pay you if he didn't want to? Or you would first sign a contract and then do the job? In the world of copyright, there is no contract to sign. There is no boss that will pay you. You have to risk everything to do something that might or might not interest other people in the first place. And no copyright will save you if you did something so utterly uninteresting that nobody will even pay you for it. Let's explore this!
Addiction
Inducing Addiction into people, so they would continue using the same program is a form of a Malicious feature.
The Nightmare Of Paying Online
Cryptocurrency should have been the savior of the world from over-reaching control of governments and banks. But while on paper it could have worked. The reality is way worse. There was a store next to where I live that until a few years ago advertised that they can be paid with Bitcoin. The notice is now removed, probably due to the bursting of the crypto bubble, which lead to a rapid decrease of value of many cryptocurrencies.
School Shootings: More Or Less Guns
It seems like United States of America has a unique problem related to guns. I certainly don't remember being taught at school in Israel or earlier in Ukraine about how to survive a potential gun shooting by a rouge student or other kind of terrible person. Here in Israel they do point us to the direction of a bomb shelter. So we would know where to run when a siren is heard. But that's about it.
The Real Steven Spielberg
Yesterday I went to buy myself a hamburger that I allow my fat ass only about once a month or so. When it was time to take the finished package ( since I prefer to eat at home ) the cashier lady called me "Steven". I blushed and felt both amazing and embarrassing. No, she doesn't know that I do movies and that soon a movie of mine comes out. She has no actual idea who I am. That was the first time I ever saw her. It's just when you order something, their machine asks you to write a name, so they could call you when it's ready. Writing my own name would be a horrible privacy problem. So instead I write names of celebrities. And this time I wrote "Steven Spielberg".
